Category: Evening Report

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer E. Cheng, Researcher and Lecturer in Sociology, Western Sydney University

Bathhouses are making a wave in Australia and overseas. And it’s not an isolated trend; it reflects the broader advancement of the global wellness economy, which some reports suggest is outpacing even IT and sport in growth.

The Australian wellness sector, too, is booming. According to a report from the Global Wellness Institute, Australia has one of the world’s fastest-growing wellness economies, growing at an annual rate of 7.5% from 2019 to 2023 – with bathhouses, thermal springs, ice baths and saunas playing a key role.

Bathing together for leisure

Despite consumers’ recent heightened interest in saunas and bathhouses, these activities have a long history.

In Finland, sauna bathing – where water is thrown on hot stones to release steam – is a ritual believed to date back as far as 7000 BC.

One of the first known saunas took the form of a pit dug into the ground. In this “pit sauna”, a pile of stones at the bottom was heated with a campfire.

Sweat houses from the Bronze Age have also been found in Britain and Ireland, as well as ancient Islamic civilisations, and among Indigenous groups in Mexico and North America.

The practice of onsen (hot spring) bathing in Japan also has a history dating back more than 2,000 years.

In Australia, First Nations peoples have bathed in rock pools, waterholes, and billabongs for millennia, viewing fresh and salt water alike as vital cultural, spiritual and agricultural resources.

These ancient bathing practices stand in stark contrast to the modern bathing culture taking over our cities.

The Australian context: indecency and necessity

Sea bathing had become popular in Europe by the 18th century, prior to Australia’s colonisation. In England, Queen Victoria (1819–1901) further popularised the activity by bathing regularly on the Isle of Wight, getting changed in a wooden cart called a “bathing machine” to preserve modesty.

It was also in Britain during Queen Victoria’s lifetime that swimming for sport – as opposed to relaxation, military training or survival – became common practice. Bathing for leisure and hygiene has a much longer history than swimming for sport.

In 1810, New South Wales governor Lachlan Macquarie prohibited the “indecent and improper custom […] of soldiers, sailors and inhabitants of the town” bathing at the government wharf and dock yard in Sydney.

Subsequently, Ralph Darling, NSW governor from 1825 to 1831, had one of the country’s first private bathing houses constructed by Woolloomooloo Bay. Successive governors’ families are thought to have made regular use of the bathing house in the summers.

Melbourne City Baths opened in 1860 and remains operational today. The complex’s original purpose was to discourage people from bathing in the polluted Yarra River, which was believed to have caused an epidemic of typhoid fever. Alongside the “swimming” baths, facilities at the site originally included slipper baths (freestanding tubs) and later included Jewish mikvah (ritual) baths and Turkish baths.

Municipal baths were a key feature of daily life in early Melbourne, as many houses had little provision for private bathing. As of 1943, hot-water systems were installed in just 2% of homes in inner Melbourne, while more than a quarter of residents were still boiling water on stove tops for bathing.

From the late 1940s, however, many homes began installing gas or electric hot-water systems. And by the early 1960s the majority of Australian households had access to running hot water for washing and bathing. This contributed to the decline of public baths.

Historically, access to public baths wasn’t equal for all. Women’s access to the Melbourne City Baths was restricted to just a few hours a day until a major redevelopment in 1904.

The facility was also initially gender-segregated and had “second-class” (working class) patrons relegated to the basement, with first class amenities on the floor above. Mixed-gender bathing was introduced in 1947.

Bathing gets a glow up

Today’s urban bathhouses are sites where water, architecture and shared experience intersect. They typically feature heated pools, cold pools, spas and steam rooms, with purported health benefits for attendees.

The efficacy of using spa-based therapy as a form of treatment is increasingly being studied in various contexts, including for post-operative recovery. Recent research has shown it to be promising, demonstrating potential in reducing inflammation, alleviating pain and promoting motor recovery.

In one study of about 500 sauna users, reduced stress, reduced muscle pain and improved sleep and social connection were among the key therapeutic benefits cited by respondents.

More research is needed to establish the full potential therapeutic uses of spa-based therapies.

From connection to capitalism

The current bathhouse culture taking hold in Australia and New Zealand has emerged in part, as an antidote to pandemic isolation.

Many bespoke spa facilities market themselves as spaces for reconnection – and are proving to be popular (and healthier) alternatives to pubs, bars and nightclubs.

But developing these spaces demands significant investment. Industry experts report construction costs of about A$5–6 million for bathhouses, and $3–4 million for sauna clubs. They are also expensive to operate, manage and clean – and visitors can often expect to pay hefty entry prices.

Something we already have

Despite the desirability of contemporary bathhouses, these spaces are hardly egalitarian. Their focus is turning a profit.

One could instead visit one of the existing 1,300 public aquatic centres in Australia, many of which have spa, sauna and steam room facilities. A casual visit to most of these costs A$10–$20. So why are so people forking out more than twice the amount for a luxury bathhouse?

In 2016, writer and translator Jamie Mackay suggested bringing back public bathhouses could help combat the isolation many city dwellers face by creating spaces for people to come together. He saw bathhouses as truly public places — affordable, flexible and open to all — unlike today’s upscale spa and wellness centres.

Dalva Lamminmäki, a doctoral researcher of sauna culture at the University of Eastern Finland, observes that the resurgence of saunas sometimes neglects a core element of what makes the sauna experience meaningful: that the “sauna is a place of equality”.

Luxury bathouses, meanwhile, could be viewed as yet another case of neoliberal commercialism.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Communal bathing was a public good. Then it got hijacked by wellness culture – https://theconversation.com/communal-bathing-was-a-public-good-then-it-got-hijacked-by-wellness-culture-272264

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/communal-bathing-was-a-public-good-then-it-got-hijacked-by-wellness-culture-272264/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Hatfield-Dodds, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University

In less than ten years, Australia has to cut its emissions 62–75% below 2005 levels. Given reductions in emissions over the past 20 years, that translates to cutting emissions 47–65% below current levels. As of last year, that’s about 440 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Under current climate policies, official projections indicate annual emissions will fall 32% by 2035, leaving a sizeable 70–150Mt gap. That’s big. Australia’s cars, trucks and other road vehicles emitted a total of 82Mt last year, for instance.

In a new report, we show Australia will need new policies that provide clearer signals and stronger incentives to stand a chance of reaching its goal.

Policies strong and weak

Economists have long seen a broad-based price on carbon as the most efficient way to drive down emissions.

But Australia’s decades-long climate wars and the repeal of the so-called carbon tax in 2014 has effectively taken this option off the table.

Instead, we have a suite of different policy approaches in three broad groups:

Strong policies

Around 64% of Australia’s net emissions are covered by strong regulation and incentives. In electricity (34% of emissions), clear policy direction coupled with investor momentum is replacing coal and gas generation with renewables and storage. This is already driving lower prices. Emissions are projected to fall 86% by 2035. In industry (30% of emissions), the Safeguard Mechanism covering the 200 largest industrial emitters is projected to cut emissions around 40% by 2035.

Weak or missing incentives

Policies for transport (19% of emissions) and smaller industrial facilities (13%) are falling short. Compared with most advanced nations, the vast majority of transport emissions in Australia are unregulated. The government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard gives car buyers more low- or zero-emission options, but lacks incentives to reduce day-to-day emissions. Industrial emissions for smaller facilities are not subject to incentives or constraints.

Opt-in opportunities

The remaining 4% of net emissions come from agriculture, waste and land use. Here, carbon stored in growing vegetation (74Mt) effectively offsets most of the emissions from agriculture (82Mt) and waste (14Mt). Most agricultural operations are export-oriented and have few low-cost ways to cut emissions. The immediate goal is to work towards a future where importers of emissions-intensive food bear the costs of quality credits used to offset these emissions.

Bridging the emissions gap

Here are six new ways to accelerate emissions cuts.

1: Fix electricity

Despite progress, there’s unfinished business in electricity policy. Current policies guide new investment but not how power generators are operated. As a result, coal and gas plant operators don’t have incentives to cut emissions.

The solution, as Grattan Institute experts have argued, is to expand the Safeguard Mechanism to cover electricity by creating a limit for total electricity sector emissions which would reduce over time.

2. Wind back fossil fuel subsidies

Incredibly, governments are still doling out fuel tax credits to make it cheaper for heavy freight to burn diesel. Removing these subsidies would boost government coffers by $4 billion a year and motivate fleet owners to shift to more efficient and lower-emission trucks. Next, policymakers could remove tax incentives encouraging Australians to buy bigger utes and light commercial vehicles.

3. Expand the Safeguard Mechanism

The Safeguard Mechanism requires Australia’s largest emitters to progressively cut emissions, either directly or by buying Australian Carbon Credit Units as offsets to meet their emissions obligations.

A well-regulated carbon credit system reduces the cost of complying with the mechanism by more than 60%. This enables Australia to impose more stringent obligations on industry than other nations, including in sectors such as steel and air transport that currently lack cost-effective options to cut emissions.

Expanding the Safeguard Mechanism to cover smaller industrial facilities would drive uptake of low-cost emission reductions, according to the Productivity Commission. Our research shows lowering the threshold from 100,000 to 25,000 tonnes would drive greater cuts in on-site emissions, boost demand for carbon credits, and increase long-term credit prices.

4: Tackle carbon credit price malaise

Carbon credits act as a visible carbon price. If their value goes up, businesses have an incentive to reduce their direct emissions and rely less on credits. But this logic only stacks up if investors are confident in policy settings – and expect the carbon price to rise over time.

Reaching net zero will require a rising carbon price. We project credit prices will be flat or falling over the next three years, at around $35 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, before growing to around $70 per tonne by 2035. But we cannot rule out the chance of prices staying low. If this happens, it will suppress business investment in directly reducing emissions.

Governments should reduce this risk by transparently intervening if prices are too low, such as by stepping in to buy credits. As maximum prices are already set through the cost containment measure, this would effectively create a price corridor similar to the Reserve Bank’s target range for inflation.

We find higher prices could lead to an extra 80Mt in cuts by big industrial facilities over ten years, with less reliance on credits.

5. Remove handbrakes on investment

In 2023, the Safeguard Mechanism underwent reform. But these reforms aren’t yet leading to investment in low-emissions facilities and equipment due to weak carbon credit prices, policy uncertainty and a slow start to obligations.

The government could bring forward the next review of the mechanism to this year to align it with the carbon credits review and make policy announcements possible earlier. This would give investors the certainty they need to invest.

6. Expand carbon credits to include nature

Linking carbon credits to promoting nature outcomes could boost the value proposition. Moving from the current carbon focus to “nature positive carbon credits” would reward landholders for using their land to store carbon and restore habitat and put upward pressure on credit prices.

No time to waste

Australia is already living through the consequences of climate change.

To do its part in preventing climate change from worsening, Australian policymakers need to design and introduce more policies to reach its new emissions target.

Reform is never easy. But most Australians know full well that the costs of doing nothing will be far greater than the costs of sensible policy action.

Steve Hatfield-Dodds advises not-for-profits, businesses, and national, state and territory governments on climate and sustainability strategy. He was a member of the Chubb Review of arrangements for Australian Carbon Credit Units in a personal capacity in 2022.

– ref. Australia can’t reach its ambitious climate targets with current policies. Here are 6 things we can try – https://theconversation.com/australia-cant-reach-its-ambitious-climate-targets-with-current-policies-here-are-6-things-we-can-try-275088

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/australia-cant-reach-its-ambitious-climate-targets-with-current-policies-here-are-6-things-we-can-try-275088/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, La Trobe University

Recent polling has delivered a spike for the anti-immigration party One Nation, triggering media speculation that Australian politics is on the cusp of a populist realignment.

The latest Newspoll had Labor on 33%, One Nation on 27% and the Coalition on just 18% of primary votes, which constituted both an historic high for One Nation and an all-time low for the Coalition.

Headlines tell us Pauline Hanson’s party is “soaring”, with some analysts asking if she could lead the country or emerge as opposition leader amid a populist uprising.

Yet, the evidence for either of those happening is thin. For a start, it relies on mid-term polling following a landslide victory for Labor in the 2025 election – in other words, is shows one in four Australians would currently vote for One Nation.

A 27% primary vote is certainly a notable boost for Hanson’s party. But framing it as a pathway to One Nation leadership misreads what is fundamentally a Coalition-induced problem. Here are several reasons why One Nation’s support is likely to hit a ceiling.

Historically, One Nation’s limited electoral success has been mostly in Queensland (22.7% first preference in the 1998 state election) and upper houses, where it currently holds four Senate seats out of 76.

Even then, the two One Nation senators contesting the 2025 election were well below quota on primary votes and relied heavily on Coalition preference flows to leapfrog rivals in the WA and NSW count. It was as much about a Coalition preference deal as a One Nation success story.

Australian prime ministers emerge from the lower house (the brief exception was John Gorton), where One Nation has virtually no presence beyond the defection of former National party leader, Barnaby Joyce. Turning a poll spike into a One Nation government would require Hanson (or Joyce) to contest a lower house seat, sustained national support across diverse issues, and a leap from niche anti-immigration messaging to broad policy appeal.

Mid-term polls, especially those not counting undecided voters, often reflect protest sentiment rather than durable electoral momentum. Excluding undecided voters fails to show the degree of voter volatility, especially this far out from a full-term election due in 2028.

Labor’s primary vote has also softened, taking on heavy criticism for its response to the Bondi massacre, and with interest rates rising again and renewed mortgage pain, it too is not immune to a mid-poll protest vote.

Governments (and opposition parties) can suffer mid-term slumps without translating into election losses. Only a year ago, polling pointed to a one-term Labor government and a Coalition victory. Five months later, Labor secured an unprecedented 94-seat win and Liberal leader Peter Dutton lost his own seat.

As former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, once quipped: “A week can be a long time in politics”, so too with early polling and the final ballot.

One Nation’s recent boost is framed as a rise in right-wing populism tapping into a wave of global anti-immigration sentiment.

But there’s no denying voter frustration with Liberal–National infighting. Sussan Ley’s weakened leadership, with Angus Taylor openly canvassing for her job, has created openings for protest from disaffected Coalition supporters. A quarter of voters at the last election had already moved away from the major parties leading to the rising tide of the independents, particularly the teals, at the expense of former (moderate) liberal heartland seats like Kooyong in Victoria.

Twice in nine months, the Coalition partnership has imploded. It has been patched back together again now, but few see this as a solid arrangement, and most expect an imminent leadership spill in the Liberal Party.

While dismayed National voters could switch to One Nation and follow Joyce, it would put a handful of National seats in play at best. This is especially so given the Queensland version of the party, the Liberal National Party, remains a united single entity against the federal Labor government.

Further, the likelihood of moderate Liberals agreeing to a One Nation–Liberal Coalition replacing the Nationals, is fanciful. Liberal member for Flinders Zoe McKenzie dismissed this notion last week.

Geography and candidate quality further limit Hanson’s prospects. Australia’s population is concentrated on the east coast, where One Nation’s support is uneven, and weak in major cities. Some commentators suggest current polling and high profile recruits such as Cory Bernardi could see upcoming state elections produce lower house One Nation representatives. Even so, state voting patterns are not good predictors of federal election outcomes. Queensland is a good example of that.

One Nation has long struggled to recruit candidates capable of surviving media scrutiny and upholding parliamentary responsibilities. Since the party’s inception until 2023, out of 36 One Nation representatives at state and federal level, only seven have lasted long enough to face re-election. The party’s history of candidate controversies – think of Hanson’s falling-outs with Mark Latham, Fraser Anning and David Oldfield – have been a drag on the party.

Structural factors reinforce these limits. Preferential and compulsory voting systems favour parties with broad public appeal, making it hard for niche-issue parties like One Nation to translate short-term polling attention into seats.

Hanson’s decades-long focus on immigration, cultural threat, and elite betrayal grabs media attention. She is a shrewd political communicator whose polling narratives and immigration rhetoric reinforce one another, driving visibility and public engagement. For example, a Sky News clip of Hanson headlined “Polling higher than the Liberals” currently has 272,000 views. Another segment on immigration, framed around claims that migrants “don’t want to assimilate”, has drawn 180,000 views.

Yet, the party’s message amplification should not be confused with persuasion. These are the same anti-migration themes Hanson has promoted since the 1990s, with limited success in expanding her electoral base. They ignore immigrants’ vital roles in Australia’s health and regional workforces, and in Australian society more generally.

While anti-immigrant sentiment has risen in the wake of the horrific Bondi terror attack, issue salience fluctuates. The most important issues closer to polling day are typically broader, such as cost-of-living pressures, housing affordability, health and aged care. And the next election is still two years away.

For now, the polls tell us more about voter frustration, volatility and media incentives than about who will govern Australia in 2028.

Andrea Carson receives funding with colleagues from the Australian Research Council to study political trust.

Finley Watson receives funding through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

– ref. Yes, One Nation’s poll numbers are climbing. But major party status – let alone government – is still a long way off – https://theconversation.com/yes-one-nations-poll-numbers-are-climbing-but-major-party-status-let-alone-government-is-still-a-long-way-off-275086

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/yes-one-nations-poll-numbers-are-climbing-but-major-party-status-let-alone-government-is-still-a-long-way-off-275086/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer in International Studies in the School of Society and Culture, Adelaide University

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has delivered her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections she called shortly after taking office.

Now that she has consolidated her power in Japan’s legislature (called the Diet), the big question is what she will do with it.

Since her ascent to the prime ministership in a parliamentary vote in October, the ultra conservative Takaichi has upended the normally staid Japanese political system.

She has connected with younger voters like no other Japanese leader in recent history with her savvy social media presence, iconic fashion sense and diplomatic flair. (In a literal rock-star moment, she showed off her drumming skills in a jam session with South Korea’s leader.)

Takaichi has cannily taken advantage of the honeymoon phase of her leadership by calling a snap election to gain more power in the Diet before there’s a dip in her popularity.

However, voters will now expect to see a return on their investment, and Takaichi faces the much more daunting task of delivering on her promises. Improving living standards in a country with a rapidly shrinking workforce and ageing population without mass immigration will test her political skills much more than winning an election.

An unlikely election victory

Although Takaichi’s LDP has been in government for most of Japan’s post-war history, it has recently experienced a string of poor election results.

In 2024, it lost the lower house majority it held with its then-coalition partner, Komeito, after a series of corruption scandals. Then, last year, the coalition lost its majority in the upper house, leaving the government hanging by a thread.

The party began its remarkable turnaround following then-Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s resignation in September in the wake of those electoral setbacks.

Many pre-election polls predicted a sizeable victory for the LDP and its new coalition partner, Nippon Ishin (the Japan Innovation Party). Takaichi also received a boost with an endorsement from US President Donald Trump. Although the Japanese public views Trump unfavourably, they also know the US is their ultimate security guarantor against China, in addition to Japan’s largest export destination.

Nevertheless, there were some doubts about whether Takaichi’s popularity, particularly among younger voters, would translate into votes.

In the end, her electoral gold dust rubbed off on the rest of her party. Despite freezing temperatures and record snow in places, the LDP has been comfortably returned to office with a vastly increased majority in the lower house. The coalition now has a two-thirds super-majority, which means she can override the upper house to push through her legislative agenda.

A more assertive posture on China?

Since becoming prime minister, the hawkish Takaichi has taken an assertive position towards China.

In November, she angered Beijing by saying Japan could intervene militarily to help protect Taiwan in the face of a potential Chinese invasion. This resulted in vicious Chinese attacks on Takaichi that continued into the new year.

While the Japanese public is divided over whether to come to Taiwan’s aid in any conflict with China, there is now strong support for Takaichi’s pledge to increase the defence budget to 2% of GDP by this March, two years ahead of schedule.

In December, the Cabinet approved a 9.4% increase in defence spending to achieve this objective, focusing on domestic production and advanced capabilities (cyber, space, long-range strikes).

In response to rising threats from China, North Korea and Russia, Takaichi’s government also plans to revise Japan’s core security and defence strategies this year.

Economic woes front and centre

As much as defence matters, Takaichi will ultimately be judged by the public when it comes to economic policy.

The public is increasingly concerned about rising inflation and stagnant wages leading to falling living standards.

A vivid illustration of this: the price of rice has doubled since 2024, hitting a new high last month. Public anger over rising rice prices even brought down the farm minister last year.

Inflation has been above the Bank of Japan’s 2% target for 45 straight months. And though nominal wages have recently picked up, real incomes have been decreasing for the last four years.

Takaichi has made tackling the cost of living a priority. She has vowed to suspend Japan’s 8% food tax for two years. And last year, her government announced a massive US$135 billion (A$192 billion) stimulus package, including subsidies for electricity and gas bills.

However, these policies will increase the government’s budget deficit, adding to the country’s already sky-high public debt levels.

And last month, Japanese government bond prices collapsed after Takaichi called the election, with the markets predicting a LDP win would result in looser fiscal policy and higher government debt.

The Bank of Japan is unlikely to intervene to support the bond market in any future crisis, which will leave the government with higher borrowing costs, further increasing public debt.

Japan also faces enormous challenges related to its shrinking population and workforce.

It is too early to know whether Takaichi has the answers to these challenges. But she now has the power, authority and freedom to boldly pursue her policy agenda. Now she will need to deliver the kind of change the electorate expects.

Adam Simpson 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.

– ref. Japan’s rock star leader now has the political backing to push a bold agenda. Will she deliver? – https://theconversation.com/japans-rock-star-leader-now-has-the-political-backing-to-push-a-bold-agenda-will-she-deliver-274015

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/japans-rock-star-leader-now-has-the-political-backing-to-push-a-bold-agenda-will-she-deliver-274015/

ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 9, 2026.

Forget grand plans. These small tweaks can add meaning to your life
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Rebuilding after a disaster is a long road. Lismore’s businesses offer hope for others
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‘I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up’: even passive suicidal thoughts are a worry. Here’s how to respond
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Outcry on Saipan after ‘Free Palestine’ mural vandalised – arrest made
By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent More than 11,000 km separate the Northern Mariana Islands from Gaza and Israel. But the conflict has landed sharply on Saipan after the vandalism of a “Free Palestine” mural has sparked community anger, an arrest, and a wider debate over free speech, protest, and

Why are new tea towels worse at drying dishes than older ones?
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Landslides are NZ’s deadliest natural hazard. Why does it still tolerate the risk?
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One Nation surges to new high as Coalition slumps to record low in latest Newspoll
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More Australians are international sports fans, especially the NFL. Are local leagues threatened?
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Is Australia’s terrorism definition still fit for purpose?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keiran Hardy, Associate Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University With the alleged attempted bombing at Perth’s Invasion Day protest now declared a terrorist act, the release of coronial findings into the Bondi Westfield stabbing, and ever-growing fears around hate crime and extremism, there’s a difficult question to

Why scrapping a key health promotion agency makes little economic sense
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Big bills, ‘fur babies’ and administering a good death: reflecting on ethics in veterinary medicine
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Worried AI means you won’t get a job when you graduate? Here’s what the research says
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How cutting the capital gains tax discount could help rebalance the housing market
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jago Dodson, Professor of Urban Policy and Director, Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University Capital gains tax is once again the subject of parliamentary debate, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers declining to rule out options for reform. Along with negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount has

How watching videos of ICE violence affects our mental health
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa Hjorth, Professor of Mobile Media and Games., RMIT University The recent murders of Minneapolis residents Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good are drawing renewed attention to the activities of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. While they are not the only people to have

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View from The Hill: will disastrous Newspoll trigger Taylor challenge to Ley, despite Coalition patch-up?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Sussan Ley and David Littleproud on Sunday announced an 11th hour patch up of the federal Coalition that the Liberal leader hopes will hold off an early challenge from Angus Taylor. But on Sunday night it was doubtful whether re-forming

Herzog’s visit to Australia builds conflict not social cohesion
By Wendy Bacon On the eve of his Australian tour, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog faces huge opposition to his visit. In a “National Day of Protest”, hundreds of thousands are expected to march in 30 cities around Australia, including every state capital city tomorrow evening. Herzog’s visit has been opposed by Green Party and several

ER Report: A Roundup of Significant Articles on EveningReport.nz for February 8, 2026
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 8, 2026.

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/er-report-a-roundup-of-significant-articles-on-eveningreport-nz-for-february-9-2026/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor Mazzucchelli, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Curtin University

The start of the year often comes with attempts at big life changes that we’re hoping will make us feel more grounded, fulfilled or in control. Maybe you’ve decided it’s time to change careers, move overseas or run a marathon.

But lasting meaning rarely comes from dramatic reinvention. It’s shaped by what we do, consistently. Behavioural science tells us meaning is constructed one reinforcing action at a time.

In other words, meaning isn’t something you discover after a long search. It’s something you build, one small, worthwhile action after the other.

So how exactly does all this work? And what types of worthwhile actions are we talking about?

The meaning of meaning

In psychology, “meaning” refers to the sense that life is coherent, purposeful and connected to what you care about.

People who experience more meaning tend to report better wellbeing, lower stress and depression, and greater resilience when life becomes difficult.

When meaning is low, people can feel unanchored or adrift, even if nothing is going objectively “wrong”.

Life tends to feel meaningful when we spend time doing things that matter to us and that offer some sense of reward. This is not necessarily excitement, but a quiet feeling of “that was worth doing”. Helping a friend, learning something small, progressing a task, or sharing a moment of connection can all leave us more grounded and alive.

These experiences are examples of positive reinforcement – behaviours that give something back, such as energy, pride, satisfaction or connection. Over time, these small rewards strengthen the patterns that help life feel purposeful.

By contrast, when we mainly act to avoid discomfort – cancel plans, withdraw when anxious or overwhelmed, delay tasks that matter – we get a moment of relief, but lose access to the experiences that enrich life.

A more helpful pattern is to take small steps even when motivation is low. Sending the message, starting the job or stepping outside are small beginnings that often spark the satisfaction or hope we were waiting for.

Why one-off boosts don’t last

The hedonic treadmill helps explain why one-off, feel-good moments rarely create lasting meaning. Psychologists use this term to describe our tendency to quickly return to our usual emotional baseline after positive events.

We adapt quickly to pleasurable things and events: buying something new, ticking off a goal, going on a short holiday. A burnt-out worker might feel better after a weekend away, but the effect fades as soon as Monday returns.

Special moments are still valuable. They create memories and punctuate the year. But they don’t change our lives unless paired with small, consistent shifts in everyday routines, setting boundaries, and the ways we invest in our relationships.

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Read more:
What you do every day matters: The power of routines

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Meaning depends on diverse sources

Wellbeing is more stable when supported by a range of small, ongoing sources of reinforcement. If all your sense of purpose rests on work, one relationship, or a single pursuit – like sport – then stress in that single area can shake your wellbeing.

But when meaning draws on several domains – friendships, learning, creativity, physical activity, contribution, family, nature, spirituality – you have more points of stability.

The encouraging part is meaning doesn’t depend on perfect motivation or major life changes. It’s shaped by small behaviours you can start at any time.

So what actually works?

These three research-backed steps can help build more meaning into your life.

1. Look back before moving forward

Before setting goals, reflect on the previous year. Ask:

• what am I proud of or grateful for?

• what lifted my energy or sense of purpose?

• what drained it?

• what did I avoid that actually mattered?

This helps you recognise which behaviours, relationships and routines quietly sustained you, and where your portfolio may have become too narrow.

2. Pick two or three areas that matter to you

Meaningful change rarely comes from grand resolutions. A steadier approach is to choose two or three life areas that matter – improving health, deepening a relationship, learning something new, contributing to community life, or strengthening parenting routines – and identify one small, realistic action in each. The aim isn’t to overhaul everything, but to gently broaden your sources of reward.

Schedule only the first step: a short walk, reading a page, sending a message, writing a paragraph, practising for five minutes. Early on, the greatest achievement is simply starting, no matter how small.

Be kind to yourself. Illness, stress, fatigue and competing demands will disrupt your plans. What matters is returning, gently and repeatedly, to the behaviours that reflect who you want to be.

3. Arrange your environment so the right behaviours are easy

Use cues to help you start. Lay out walking clothes the night before, keep your journal on your pillow, put reminders where you’ll see them.

Reduce friction. Keep essentials in predictable places, move distractions out of sight and maintain a workable space. The goal is to make meaningful behaviour smooth and frustration-free.

Anchor new habits to old ones:

• read a page before your morning coffee

• stretch before checking emails

• journal for three minutes before brushing your teeth.

These pairings shift the burden from willpower onto routine.

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Read more:
Forming new habits can take longer than you think. Here are 8 tips to help you stick with them

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Trevor Mazzucchelli has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council, and is a member of the Parenting and Family Research Alliance. His perspective is informed by his academic work as a clinical psychologist and researcher specialising in behaviour change, wellbeing and parenting. He has no financial conflicts related to this article and does not endorse any specific program, product or organisation.

– ref. Forget grand plans. These small tweaks can add meaning to your life – https://theconversation.com/forget-grand-plans-these-small-tweaks-can-add-meaning-to-your-life-271616

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/forget-grand-plans-these-small-tweaks-can-add-meaning-to-your-life-271616/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Etheridge, Director, The Living Lab Northern Rivers, Office of Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Education Impact), Southern Cross University

“Right – flood’s on. Get ready.” That’s what Jody Cheetham has told her staff the last two times she’s watched the river rising, following after heavy rain in Lismore in northern New South Wales.

In February and March 2022, record rain and floods inundated Lismore, killing five people.

The floods caused major damage to 1,400 homes, 656 commercial and industrial properties, schools, sewer and water treatment facilities. Three out of four businesses were hit.

Cheetham is the chief executive of Multitask, a local disability services provider. Like so many in Lismore, home to 44,000 people, Multitask lost “absolutely everything” in those floods. But they and others in Lismore now have plans in place to stop that happening again.

As communities across Australia rebuild from a summer of fires, heatwaves and floods, we need more examples of how small businesses and communities can recover.

That’s why we spent the past year working on (Not) Business as Usual, a new report and video case studies being launched today. They capture how Lismore is preparing for the next time disaster strikes.

Trial and error over years

One of the lessons from our research is that recovering from a disaster isn’t perfect or fast. Even when you think you’re prepared, you have to learn through trial and error.

That’s been true for Cheetham and her team at Multitask, who have had two practice evacuations of their five buildings in the centre of town since 2022.

“The first one wasn’t that good. We didn’t have the equipment, didn’t have the boxes, so the trial runs have been really important,” Cheetham says.

Multitask has also looked at practical steps to make any future flood recovery faster, easier and cheaper.

For example, after having to deal with mud-caked, flood-damaged facilities in 2022, they’ve stripped back their building interiors to more easily cleanable materials, such as a stainless steel kitchen. They’ve also moved electrical power points above flood level.

Different versions of what Multitask has done can be seen as you walk around Lismore today, from the local library to a furniture business to the region’s music conservatorium. It’s rebuilt with fully waterproof walls and a new goods lift, so even its biggest instruments, such as pianos, can be moved to higher floors.

Rebuilding for the next flood

“We can’t eliminate the risk, but we can minimise the impact,” says Bruce Parry, Summerland Bank’s community and sustainability manager.

The bank was founded in 1964 in the Northern Rivers as a customer-owned bank. It made an early commitment to rebuild in Lismore. But it’s done so with the lessons of the 2022 floods in mind.

“You can’t hold the flood out, the water is going to get in. It’s what you do when that happens that is important,” Parry explains. “We’ve done a lot to make sure the materials we have used can either be removed, or can go under the water, under the flood, and then hosed out.”

Repeating past mistakes is costly

Beyond what businesses can do to recover on their own, our project also sought to find out what infrastructure improvements would minimise future flood impacts in Lismore.

After talking to around 40 business and service organisations, their number one priority was needing electricity to get back to work.

Damage to electricity networks hits communications, electronic payment systems, storage and distribution of perishables, water supply, sewerage, and transport.

Business leaders were frustrated it took six weeks in 2022 to get power restored to the central business district.

They were even more frustrated that the overhead poles and wires delivering electricity into their shops – all run from centralised power supplies, many of which were knocked out by flood debris further away – were rebuilt exactly the same way.

Their message to government and electricity providers is simple: with the power back on, we can get on with business. So why aren’t you making sure our power supply is more resilient than before?

But small businesses shouldn’t have to go it alone. Becoming more resilient to power outages during a disaster is best done at a community scale.

This challenge and other ideas we discussed – such as building storage and temporary business operations on higher ground – are resource intensive. It’s helped having Lismore City Council and NSW Reconstruction Authority staff at the table for these conversations, as those solutions would require government support.

Our report and video case studies will be released at a flood plan workshop hosted by Business Lismore today. Events such as this represent the latest incarnation of something we need more than ever: sharing local knowledge and experience for others to learn from.

Dan Etheridge receives funding from the NSW Reconstruction Authority to support projects through Living Lab Northern Rivers related to recovery and reconstruction from the 2022 floods and ongoing disaster adaptation. The work of LLNR explored in this article was funded by a private foundation.

Caitlin McGee receives funding from various governments for research projects related to climate resilience, and received a grant from the Energy Consumers Association in 2022 to develop an energy resilience toolkit for communities.

– ref. Rebuilding after a disaster is a long road. Lismore’s businesses offer hope for others – https://theconversation.com/rebuilding-after-a-disaster-is-a-long-road-lismores-businesses-offer-hope-for-others-271935

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/rebuilding-after-a-disaster-is-a-long-road-lismores-businesses-offer-hope-for-others-271935/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maddison Crethar, PhD Candidate, Youth Mental Health, University of the Sunshine Coast

Suicide is the leading cause of death among Australians aged 15 to 49. Approximately one in eight Australians have seriously considered suicide.

These numbers highlight why it’s crucial to understand the different ways suicidal thoughts – also known as suicidal ideation – can show up in everyday conversations.

Researchers once assumed people move along a single continuum from early thoughts to more concrete plans and actions. However, recent research suggests there are substages within this continuum, and people might flip-flop between different types of suicidal thoughts.

Suicidal thoughts can be active or passive. But what’s the difference, and how should we respond when we hear loved ones talking this way?

Passive versus active

Passive suicidal ideation involves thinking about death or not wanting to live, without intention to act and engage in suicidal behaviour.

These thoughts can sound like:

I don’t want to live, but I don’t want to die.

I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up.

My life is not worth living.

I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to be dead.

I wish I could just disappear.

Everyone would be better off if I wasn’t around.

Active thoughts, in contrast, include thoughts about ending one’s life with some degree of intent or planning. These thoughts can sound like:

I’m having thoughts about how I would end my life.

I’m going to kill myself.

But the two categories are not always clear cut.

Researchers have tried to group related questions to reveal core themes of suicidal thinking but have struggled to articulate an exact distinction between passive and active ideation.

Research published in 2023 found some thoughts – such as “I wish I were dead” or “maybe I should kill myself” – may represent both active and passive ideation.

Passive and active thoughts often co-occur and each independently predicts suicide attempts.

Recognising the signs

These thoughts can be difficult to recognise – in yourself, or in a loved one.

People may not openly express them, or may not know how to put these thoughts into words and ask for help.

Regardless of whether thoughts are passive or active, certain patterns suggest increasing risk.

Warning signs include:

• thoughts becoming more frequent or intrusive
• increased hopelessness or despair
• creating plans to end one’s life or preparing to act, and
• engaging in risky behaviour.

There may also be behavioural changes, such as:

• shifts in sleep and eating habits
• withdrawing socially
• losing interest in hobbies
• irritability
• decreased academic or work performance, or
• a person putting their affairs in order.

More than two thirds of people who die by suicide do not engage with mental health professionals in the year prior to their death.

This underlines the crucial role of friends, family and peers.

What should I do if I hear someone talking this way?

First, thank the person for trusting you. Then get curious, listen more than you talk and identify patterns in what they are describing.

Ask about the frequency, intensity and controllability of their thoughts, and whether they are doing anything to prepare to act on them.

Asking about suicide does not put the idea in someone’s head.

Ask questions such as:

How long have you been having these thoughts?

When do these thoughts occur?

How would you rate the intensity of these thoughts?

Do you have a plan to act on these thoughts?

Importantly, passive thoughts are not “safer thoughts.”

They are often a warning sign the person is in significant distress and may move into more active planning if they do not receive support.

Talking about suicidal thoughts can reduce stigma and encourage people to get help.

The National Australian Suicide Prevention Strategy 2025–2035 recognises the importance of a whole-of-community response to suicide prevention, with specific emphasis on laypeople recognising and responding to suicidal distress.

The Black Dog Institute provides a four-step guide for suicide prevention that can help structure your response.

First, directly ask if they are having thoughts of suicide.

Second, listen and take what they are saying seriously, and check their safety to ensure there is nothing they can use to harm themselves.

Third, get help. If someone’s life is in immediate danger, call 000, call a helpline such as Lifeline (13 11 14), or take them to the emergency department; if they are not in immediate danger, help them make an appointment with a GP or psychologist or call a helpline.

Fourth, follow up and check on the person. Let them know you care about them and ask how often would be appropriate to check in with them.

Of course, suicide is complex. Warning signs are not always apparent in the moment. If you have lost someone to suicide, please know you are not responsible for their death. Their decision was shaped by many factors beyond just one person’s control.

No feeling is final

Crisis does eventually pass. While it may not feel possible in the moment, remind the person that things will not stay this way forever and that help is available.

Passive or active, thoughts of suicide are a sign of deep distress.

When we notice and respond with calm curiosity, compassion and practical support, we may help save a life.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Maddison Crethar reports financial support via an Australian government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Daniel Hermens receives funding from the Commonwealth government’s Prioritising Mental Health Initiative and the Queensland Mental Health Commission.

– ref. ‘I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up’: even passive suicidal thoughts are a worry. Here’s how to respond – https://theconversation.com/i-wish-i-could-fall-asleep-and-never-wake-up-even-passive-suicidal-thoughts-are-a-worry-heres-how-to-respond-274741

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/i-wish-i-could-fall-asleep-and-never-wake-up-even-passive-suicidal-thoughts-are-a-worry-heres-how-to-respond-274741/

By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent

More than 11,000 km separate the Northern Mariana Islands from Gaza and Israel.

But the conflict has landed sharply on Saipan after the vandalism of a “Free Palestine” mural has sparked community anger, an arrest, and a wider debate over free speech, protest, and safety in a small Pacific island community.

The mural, painted on private property in the village of San Jose and associated with the grassroots group Marianas for Palestine, was defaced last week.

Police intervened and arrested a 45-year-old man on charges of criminal mischief and criminal trespass.

The incident has triggered strong reactions locally, highlighting how global conflicts can reverberate even in remote Pacific communities.

Ponce Rasa, the property owner who spoke publicly following the incident, said the past week had been overwhelming but expressed confidence in the legal process.

“We’re doing fine,” Rasa said.

Community thanked
“I just want to thank the community, my friends and my family for the outreach of support. We’re just continuing to push through with the ordeal and hopefully the judicial system takes its course — and I have faith in that.”

The mural was created by Marianas for Palestine, a group that says the artwork is intended as a humanitarian appeal rather than a political provocation.

One of the group’s organisers said the message was rooted in concern for civilian suffering in Gaza.

“Strip away all the context, and at the very core, children are getting murdered every day. There is a genocide going on in Gaza,” said Marianas for Palestine’s Salam Castro Younis.

“And so the mural stands for a plea for humanity – that we should stand up against this and we shouldn’t live in a world that allows that to happen.”

He said the vandalism went beyond property damage and should concern the wider community.

“This individual’s actions – to trespass and vandalise that mural and to show his support for a genocidal apartheid state – speaks volumes,” said Younis, whose father was originally from Palestine.

Vandalism suspect booked
“We’re a small island community, so we should all be concerned.”

The vandalism occurred on private land, and community members assisted police in locating the suspect, who was later detained and booked. Authorities have said the case remains under investigation.

The mural’s organisers say its imagery – which includes local and regional symbols – was meant to highlight shared struggles and global interconnectedness, not to import conflict.

“It was really heartfelt to see all the responses online and the actions people took,” Younis said.

“It gives hope that even here, on a small island, people are seeing the truth.”

Rasa said the incident underscored the importance of respecting local laws and community norms.

‘Enjoy the culture’
“San Jose is a small village, and Saipan is a small community,” he said. “People come here to enjoy the culture and the history of the island.

“But to come here and do whatever seems to please you is not law-abiding.”

“That’s how we become a civil society,” he added. “We look out for one another.”

The man arrested in connection with the vandalism later issued a public statement defending his actions as an exercise of free speech and disputing the trespass and vandalism allegations.

Police, however, confirmed he was arrested on February 2 and charged with criminal mischief and criminal trespass.

He was detained at the Commonwealth’s Department of Corrections.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/outcry-on-saipan-after-free-palestine-mural-vandalised-arrest-made/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Robinson, Senior Lecturer Above the Bar, University of Canterbury

The recent deaths of eight people in two New Zealand landslides has left the public searching for answers. Some questions will be technical, about what failed and why.

But one should surely sit above the rest: why do we keep accepting the human and financial cost of this risk?

While it might be assumed that earthquakes or volcanic eruptions are Aotearoa’s deadliest natural hazards, landslides have claimed more than twice as many lives – approximately 1,800 – as both combined over the past 200 years.

They remain such an insidious and under-appreciated hazard because they cause deaths relatively frequently, but typically only in small numbers. Being one of the most fatal New Zealand landslides since 1846, last month’s tragedy at Mount Maunganui was a stark exception.

A useful analogy is our tolerance for car crashes versus aeroplane crashes. Road deaths in New Zealand kill hundreds of people each year, one by one, with little national reckoning. The 1979 Mount Erebus air disaster, in which 257 people were killed in one afternoon, forever changed aviation policy and remains part of the country’s collective memory.

In natural hazard terms, landslides are car crashes; earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are aeroplane crashes. Yet, with climate change driving heavier rainfall, it’s worth asking whether this is a danger we should be comfortable to continue living with – and paying for.

Since 2010, central government has incurred about NZ$19 billion in costs associated with natural hazards, but 97% of that has gone on response and recovery, with just 3% on reducing risk and building resilience. In practice, New Zealand keeps paying for disasters after they happen, rather than spending to stop them happening in the first place.

A hazard hiding in plain sight

The risk of landslides, specifically, is managed through a complex mix of laws, led by the Resource Management Act (RMA). It largely falls to territorial authorities, which can restrict new developments but, due to land use rights, are more constrained with existing buildings even if at high risk.

There have been some successful attempts to change land use rules, but they have been few and far between. It remains to be seen what effect the latest reforms to the RMA will have.

Recent disasters have also exposed gaps in how local councils, emergency services, central government agencies and insurers respond to events, with unclear responsibilities and slow information flows. This underscores the need for a more joined-up response to events such as floods and landslides, as a high-level inquiry recommended in 2024.

On top of all this is the need to gain a clearer national picture of the hazard. Past landslides indicate where failures are most likely: steep slopes, weak rock, wet soils and sparse vegetation, particularly where forestry was recently cleared. But outcomes also depend on subtler factors such as slope shape and aspect.

We also know landslides come in different shapes and sizes, which determines how far they travel and how much area they can threaten. In New Zealand, the most common type are shallow slides, typically one to two metres deep and involving only the top layer of soil.

Despite their size, these slides can be highly dangerous, carrying hundreds of tonnes of debris at high speed. Their paths are not always straightforward: wet landslide debris can behave like a liquid, following channels in the landscape and travelling for kilometres.

While scientists’ understanding of landslides has improved markedly over recent decades, important gaps remain. Because landslides are highly localised, they demand detailed local knowledge. But New Zealand’s inventories are still patchy, particularly in Northland and the Bay of Plenty, and existing local studies are often hard to access or compare.

This also makes it harder to understand precisely what climate change means for national landslide risk.

Although a warming climate is already driving more intense and frequent storms, emerging research suggests future landslides will mostly increase in areas already prone to them, rather than spread into entirely new regions. Even so, uncertainty in these projections remains high.

The cost of living with risk

To paraphrase New Zealand’s former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, if you want natural hazards, you’re in the right place in Aotearoa. Managing the ever-present threat from landslides, earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, tsunamis, liquefaction and wildfire is a daunting responsibility. But it’s a job we expect our authorities to do, all while running other services and keeping our rates and taxes as low as possible.

With the cost of landslides mounting, we might expect that when local authorities identify actions to reduce risk that could save money in the long run, these efforts would be welcomed by central government. Instead, they are often met with a phrase we have become too familiar with: we are in a “fiscally challenging environment”.

That may be. But it is also true that the costs associated with natural hazards are only likely to increase. The cheapest time to invest in resilience is now.

When it comes to landslides, we need to consider whether repeated fatalities from a known and worsening hazard are something we are prepared to tolerate. Aeroplane crashes have always been unacceptable to us, but the 2019 Ministry of Transport Road to Zero strategy suggested deaths in car crashes were becoming intolerable as well.

Perhaps now is the time to take a similar approach to landslides. With an election looming, political parties have a chance to put forward credible plans to reduce natural hazard risk or, better still, to agree on a non-partisan path that builds resilience for the long term.

Tom Robinson receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Natural Hazards Commission.

– ref. Landslides are NZ’s deadliest natural hazard. Why does it still tolerate the risk? – https://theconversation.com/landslides-are-nzs-deadliest-natural-hazard-why-does-it-still-tolerate-the-risk-275206

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/landslides-are-nzs-deadliest-natural-hazard-why-does-it-still-tolerate-the-risk-275206/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Van Amber, Senior Lecturer in Fashion & Textiles, RMIT University

There’s a peculiar ritual in many kitchens: reaching past the crisp, pristine tea towel hanging on the oven door to grab the threadbare, slightly greying one shoved in the drawer.

We all know that old faithful dries dishes better, even if we can’t quite explain why. It seems counter-intuitive – shouldn’t brand new towels, fresh from the packaging, outperform their worn-out predecessors?

Yet here we are, instinctively choosing the frayed over the fresh.

This isn’t just kitchen superstition. There’s genuine science behind why your tea towels actually improve with age, and understanding it might change how you think about all your household textiles.

The science of soaking it up

Tea towels are typically made from cotton or linen fibres, chosen specifically because these natural cellulose fibres are inherently hygroscopic, or water-loving.

But fibre type alone doesn’t determine how well your towel performs. A textile’s absorption is the result of a complex interplay between fibre, yarn, fabric structure, and any finishes applied during manufacturing.

Textiles absorb and hold water in two key places: within the fibre structure itself, and in the spaces between fibres and yarns. This is why fabric structure matters so much.

Think about bath towels – when was the last time you used a smooth, thin one? Bath towels are typically thick terry pile construction with lots of small loops on the surface. These loops dramatically increase surface area, allowing water to be easily wicked into the fabric.

Tea towels come in various constructions: plain weave, twill weave, waffle cloth, or terry. Plain weave towels – the kind you see with printed designs – require a smooth surface for clean, crisp screen printing.

Waffle cloth, which looks exactly as its name suggests, has a three-dimensional texture that makes it incredibly effective. Like with terry towels, this structure increases surface area and enhances water absorption.

Why old beats new

So what makes your battered old tea towel superior to its pristine replacement? Three key factors are at play.

Silicone finishes. Many brand-new textiles arrive coated in silicone softeners that provide softness and wrinkle resistance, making them appealing on store shelves.

But here’s the catch: these same finishes are often water resistant. Your brand new tea towel may literally have a water-repellent coating. The fix is simple – always wash new tea towels in hot water before first use.

The impact of laundering. Fabrics undergo significant changes during their first several washes – typically up to six cycles. During manufacturing, whether knitted or woven, fabrics are held under tension. Washing causes the yarns to relax in what’s called “relaxation shrinkage”, reverting to their natural, tension-free state. Industry typically tolerates up to 5% shrinkage.

Here’s where it gets interesting: while your tea towel’s dimensions may shrink slightly, its mass stays the same, meaning the fabric becomes thicker and denser. In waffle weave towels, this shrinkage can make the three-dimensional texture more pronounced, increasing surface geometry and absorption. This phenomenon has been documented in terry bath towels, as well.

Fabric ageing. Repeated washing and drying causes minor surface damage that actually improves performance. Small fibres gradually raise up from the fabric surface, creating a fluffier, “hairier” texture.

Really smooth tea towels aren’t very absorbent because water struggles to wet the surface – it can almost bead up due to the contact angle between water and the smooth fabric.

But as washing raises more fibres off the surface making a “rougher” textile, the contact angle decreases, making the fabric easier to wet. Waffle fabrics, with their irregular surfaces, are inherently more absorbent from the start due to favourable contact angles.

In short: washing leads to more surface texture, leading to better absorption.

Not just tea towels

The real revelation here isn’t just about tea towels – it’s about how we think about textiles in general.

That “worn in” feeling we associate with our favourite bath towels, tea towels and even bed linens isn’t just nostalgia. Many of our home textiles are genuinely performing better after repeated laundering, having shed their factory finishes and relaxed into their true structure.

So before you send your old tea towels off for recycling to replace with new ones, remember: those frayed edges and faded patterns represent months of your towel becoming exactly what it was meant to be.

And when you do buy new household textiles, wash them at least once before using to remove any residual finishes.

Rebecca Van Amber is a chartered member of The Textile Institute.

– ref. Why are new tea towels worse at drying dishes than older ones? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-new-tea-towels-worse-at-drying-dishes-than-older-ones-271852

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/why-are-new-tea-towels-worse-at-drying-dishes-than-older-ones-271852/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

Newspoll, Redbridge and Morgan polls all have One Nation second behind Labor, with the Coalition third. However, there are no Labor vs One Nation two-party estimates.

A national Newspoll, conducted February 5–8 from a sample of 1,234, gave Labor 33% of the primary vote (up one since the previous Newspoll three weeks ago), One Nation 27% (up five), the Coalition 18% (down three), the Greens 12% (steady) and all Others 10% (down three).

This is a record high for One Nation in any poll and a record low for the Coalition. But last week’s Redbridge and Morgan polls had One Nation leading the Coalition by seven and 4.5 points respectively. On current polls, One Nation is beating the Coalition into second place.

In a single-member electoral system like the House of Representatives, the consequences for a major party that falls to third would be brutal. On current polling, the Coalition would struggle to win ten of the 150 House seats.

As the Coalition is no longer second, no Labor vs Coalition two-party estimate was released by Newspoll. None of the three polls in this article have released a Labor vs One Nation two-party estimate. A late January YouGov poll gave Labor a 57–43 respondent-allocated preference lead over One Nation.

Analyst Kevin Bonham has Labor vs Coalition and Labor vs One Nation two-party aggregates using 2025 Senate preference flow data. He has Labor leading One Nation by 54.1–45.9 and the Coalition by 54.3–45.7. With the massive drop in the Coalition vote since the last election, this method may not be reliable.

Anthony Albanese’s net approval improved one point to -10, while Sussan Ley’s net approval slumped 11 points to a new low of -39, the worst for a major party leader in Newspoll since Labor’s Simon Crean in 2003. Albanese led Ley as better PM by 49–30 (51–31 previously).

This graph shows Albanese’s net approval in Newspoll since he became PM in 2022, with a smoothed line fitted.

Amid the Coalition’s turmoil, Labor will be relieved this poll was not worse for them after the Reserve Bank raised interest rates last Tuesday.

One Nation’s poll surge and a potential Labor vs One Nation contest

Before the December 14 Bondi terrorist attacks, One Nation had already surged from 6.4% at the last election to the high teens in polls. I believe this reflected frustration from right-wing voters with Labor’s landslide at the election and the perceived weakness of Ley’s leadership.

The Bondi attacks played into One Nation’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim themes, sending it into the 20s, just behind the Coalition. The Coalition split on January 22 has resulted in One Nation overtaking the Coalition on primary votes. The Coalition reformed yesterday, but the damage may already be done.

If One Nation replaces the Coalition as the main right-wing party at the next election, I believe Labor has advantages. While One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s net favourability surged 16 points to -3 in the Redbridge poll below, she hasn’t yet come under media and Labor scrutiny for her policies. If One Nation is seen as a potential government by the next election, they will receive far more scrutiny.

One Nation is further to the right than the Coalition. An important reason for Labor’s landslide was that the Coalition was perceived as too close to US President Donald Trump. With Trump at -51 net favourable with Australians in the Redbridge poll, it will be difficult for a pro-Trump party to win.

The next Australian federal election is due by May 2028, before the next US presidential election in November 2028.

Redbridge poll has One Nation seven points ahead of Coalition

A national Redbridge and Accent Research poll for The Financial Review, conducted January 22–29 from a sample of 1,003, gave Labor 34% of the primary vote (down one since the last Redbridge poll in December), One Nation 26% (up nine), the former Coalition parties 19% (down seven), the Greens 11% (down two) and all Others 10% (up one).

No Labor vs One Nation two-party estimate was provided, with Labor leading the Coalition by an unchanged 56–44 using 2025 election preference flows.

Albanese’s net favourability was down 11 points to -10, while Ley was down 12 to -32. Albanese led Ley as preferred PM by 37–9 with 34% for neither (41–12 previously).

While both Albanese and Ley slumped, Hanson’s net favourability surged 16 points to -3 and Barnaby Joyce’s net favourability was up eight points to -19.

Liberal leadership aspirants Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor were respectively at an even 16–16 and 17–13 unfavourable, while Nationals leader David Littleproud was at 27–13 unfavourable. Donald Trump was at 67–16 unfavourable.

Morgan poll: One Nation now leading Coalition

A national Morgan poll, conducted January 26 to February 1 from a sample of 1,401, gave Labor 30.5% of the primary vote (steady since the January 19–25 Morgan poll), One Nation 25% (up 2,5), the Coalition 20.5% (down two), the Greens 12.5% (down 0.5) and all Others 11.5% (steady).

There was no Labor vs One Nation two-party estimate. Labor led the Coalition by 56–44 using respondent preferences, a 0.5-point gain for the Coalition. By 2025 election flows, Labor led by an unchanged 54.5–45.5.

The four January Morgan polls have had One Nation and the Coalition going in opposite directions. One Nation was at 15% in the first poll, then 21%, 22.5% and 25%, while the Coalition began at 30.5%, then 24%, 22.5% and 20.5%.

Morgan also released demographic breakdowns from its four January polls. Compared with November to December, Labor led the Coalition in all states, regaining a 51–49 lead in Queensland. Labor’s biggest lead was in South Australia (61–39), which holds a state election on March 21.

Labor led by 56–44 with women and 52.5–47.5 with men. They led by 65.5–34.5 with those aged 18–34, 58–42 with those aged 35–49 and 51.5–48.5 with those aged 50–64. The Coalition led by 58–42 with those aged 65 and older.

One Nation’s support was highest in New South Wales at 25.5%, beating its traditional strongest state of Queensland (24%). Their support by age peaked with those aged 50–64 at 27%.

Adrian Beaumont 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.

– ref. One Nation surges to new high as Coalition slumps to record low in latest Newspoll – https://theconversation.com/one-nation-surges-to-new-high-as-coalition-slumps-to-record-low-in-latest-newspoll-274839

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/one-nation-surges-to-new-high-as-coalition-slumps-to-record-low-in-latest-newspoll-274839/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Karg, Professor, Deakin University

Australian sport fans have long shown interest in international leagues.

Australian fans watch and stream the United States’ National Basketball Association (NBA) games at one of the highest rates outside of North America.

When it comes to the US’ National Football League (NFL), Australians’ interest has historically been limited to major events like the Super Bowl. But an increased focus from the NFL’s head office suggests many Australians’ interest has grown from casual to committed, with the NFL challenging local leagues for fan interest.

Our research teams recently conducted a national survey quantifying Australians’ consumption of national and overseas leagues.

It reveals interest in the NFL now exceeds 1.7 million adult Australians. This is around 8% of Australians aged 18-80, almost 2% higher than three years ago, and now matches the number of Australian fans of the NBA.

The NFL and NBA sit second to only the English Premier League in Australian fan interest (3.5m) for international professional team leagues.

NFL is heating up Down Under

Drivers of the NFL’s growth in Australia are strategic and clear. Simply and most critically, the league has become more available.

To the envy of many other sports, it boasts visibility on free-to-air channels and multiple streaming services, alongside free and accessible highlights packages on streaming channels and non-match content from documentaries to social content.

Expansion outside of the United States has also been deliberate and prolific: in 2025, the NFL hosted games in Brazil, Mexico, England, Ireland, Spain and Germany.

Australia, as well as France, will be added to the rotation of international sites this year. The match at Melbourne’s MCG in September will be the first NFL game to be played in Australia.

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Read more:
It’s the most American of sports, so why is the NFL looking to Melbourne for international games?

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Based on recent years, Australia’s 1.7 million adult NFL fans will be among an expected non-US audience over of more than 60 million who tune into Monday’s Super Bowl, joining a further 120 million expected to watch within the US.

We found NFL interest is far more prominent in males and audiences in the 30-50 age brackets. Conversely, the NBA retains higher interest for audiences under the age of 30.

Of the 1.7 million NFL fans in Australia, we found:

• 72% support a team (San Francisco and New England lead the way)
• 62% watched games live or highlights at least fortnightly
• 29% follow non-game content on social media fortnightly
• 47% own merchandise of a team
• two-thirds have watched a documentary related to the sport
• one in six play fantasy sport aligned to the NFL
• one in five gamble on an NFL game monthly.

The Australian NFL fanbase, like other sport and non-sport brands across industries, remains dominated not by hardcore fanatics but by medium and light users.

Around 30% of Australian NFL fans would be classified as light fans (which means only half support a team and 65% only watch highlights) while 26% are highly committed fans (which means 96% follow a team and 86% watch games live at least every few weeks).

These segments and consumption patterns mirror those for EPL and NBA fans in Australia. Even the AFL, our leading local league, boasts large medium and light user segments which are critical for driving core revenues.

A threat to local leagues?

Interest in the NFL is growing among Australian adults and now exceeds interest in established local leagues including Super Rugby and Super Netball.

However, our evidence suggests major local leagues shouldn’t be too worried yet about losing fans.

On average, those who identify as Australian NFL fans follow five professional sport leagues. But Australian fans who are not NFL fans follow, on average, two or three leagues.

This pattern of increasingly shared or fluid fandom aligns with global shifts that see fans consuming more sports, in different ways.

The NFL is not replacing established Australian sports. However, it is part of an ongoing challenge to local leagues’ share of fan numbers, attention and spend.

Australian sports must understand and layer new features of sport consumption (such as ease of access, flexible viewing, highlights and storytelling beyond matchdays).

These aspects, combined with media and global strategies have allowed the NFL to build and now grow low and medium interest fan groups.

The question is no longer whether Australians care about US (and increasingly global) sports such as NFL but how local sport organisations adapt to their growing appetites.

Professor Adam Karg consults to and conducts research for a number of organisations across Australia and globally. His academic and consultancy research has received funding from organisations including the Australian Research Council, the Australian Sports Commission, Government bodies, national and state sport governing bodies and professional leagues and/or teams including those from the Australian Football League, National Rugby League, National Basketball League and the A-League.

– ref. More Australians are international sports fans, especially the NFL. Are local leagues threatened? – https://theconversation.com/more-australians-are-international-sports-fans-especially-the-nfl-are-local-leagues-threatened-274619

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/more-australians-are-international-sports-fans-especially-the-nfl-are-local-leagues-threatened-274619/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keiran Hardy, Associate Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

With the alleged attempted bombing at Perth’s Invasion Day protest now declared a terrorist act, the release of coronial findings into the Bondi Westfield stabbing, and ever-growing fears around hate crime and extremism, there’s a difficult question to grapple with: what is terrorism?.

An immediate answer is found in Australia’s legal definition. However, this was created back in 2002, and the global threat environment has since evolved many times over.

While organised terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State persist, the threat landscape is now variegated. There are neo-Nazis, incels, sovereign citizens and more on the horizon.

Lone actors are a particular challenge, as they do not always fit neatly into an ideological box. They can decide to act very quickly, and it can be difficult for agencies to know who they are and what level of risk they pose.

Violence can be driven in part by mental health crises. This is why contemporary threats are sometimes called “mixed, unstable or unclear”.

In response to this complex threat environment, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, Australia’s counter-terrorism law watchdog, is undertaking a landmark inquiry into Australia’s legal definition of terrorism. Is it still fit for purpose?

The current definition

Australia’s legal definition of terrorism is found in section 100.1 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code. It says conduct or a threat will qualify as a “terrorist act” if it satisfies these three requirements:

• it is done to coerce or influence a government by intimidation, or intimidate a section of the public (intention requirement)

• it is done for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause (motive requirement)

• it causes or relates to some specified harm, including death, serious bodily injury, serious property damage, or serious risks to health or safety (harm requirement).

There is an exemption for protest, advocacy, dissent or industrial action that is intended only to cause serious property damage.

This definition was created in 2002, following the September 11 attacks in the United States by al-Qaeda the previous year.

At that time, Australia did not have any national counter-terrorism laws. Countries around the world were scrambling to enact them in line with a resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council.

One country with laws already in place was the United Kingdom. Before September 11, the British Parliament enacted the Terrorism Act 2000, which was based on temporary and emergency powers used in Northern Ireland.

Australia and many other countries copied the UK’s definition in a rush. But we made some improvements, including the protest exemption.

More than two decades later, Australia’s definition of terrorism remains in its original form.

Why is the definition important?

Australia’s terrorism definition shapes a huge body of counter-terrorism laws. In fact, they are the world’s largest, with more than 100 statutes and 5,000 pages of legal rules.

The starting point is the offence of committing a terrorist act. However, most prosecutions relate to various offences for support and preparation, which are triggered much earlier.

Just one example is an offence for advocating terrorism, which can be prosecuted when someone promotes or encourages terrorism on social media.

This definition also triggers special powers for surveillance, questioning, control orders, and preventative and continuing detention.

It even triggers powers unrelated to investigations. For example, in response to the Bondi terrorist attack in December last year, the NSW parliament enacted controversial new laws that allow the NSW police commissioner to ban protests for up to three months after a declared terrorist act.

Given the number and scope of these offences and powers, it is crucial we have the best possible definition of terrorism on the statute books.

Is the definition fit for purpose?

The independent monitor’s inquiry will be extensive and detailed. At the heart of it will be questions about whether the motive requirement – that terrorism be done to “advance a political, religious or ideological cause” – appropriately captures current threats.

This requirement has long been controversial, mostly because it includes the word “religious”, which is said to fuel harmful discrimination linking Islam and terrorism.

If the government removed religious motive from the definition, this would send an important signal that mainstream religion does not cause terrorism.

At the same time, it is doubtful how much a change to the legal wording would fix underlying community prejudices. More would be achieved by targeting problematic media reporting and expanding community education.

Another argument against the motive requirement is that it doesn’t account well for mixed, unstable or unclear threats. New Zealand recently amended its definition to say terrorism could be done “for one or more purposes”.

Australia’s wording doesn’t preclude there being multiple or mixed motives. However, a change along those lines would acknowledge the current threat environment.

A bigger issue is that the definition does not account for mass killings where ideology is unclear or absent.

This is where legal and community answers to the question “what is terrorism?” often diverge. The multiple stabbing attack in 2024 at Westfield Bondi Junction, for example, was not considered terrorism, even though it was a public mass killing that caused widespread community fear.

For those experiencing or witnessing the crisis and the wider community, there is little reason to distinguish that attack from terrorism. It makes no difference that the offender did not follow an ideology.

Legally speaking, however, there is a big difference between someone causing terror and someone intending to cause terror. Intention is a cornerstone of criminal law because it helps to determine moral responsibility.

Terrorism is fundamentally a communicative and ideological act. If someone does not intend to communicate a message beyond the attack itself or seek change in line with a belief system, it is not terrorism.

For similar reasons, pure hate is difficult to fit within the terrorism laws. Even if it causes serious harm, hate crime is not always driven by an identifiable set of beliefs.

Removing the motive requirement altogether would mean mass killings that are purely hate-filled or where the ideology is unclear could be prosecuted more easily as terrorism.

However, this would drastically expand what currently counts as terrorism. It risks diluting the meaning of the word so it is even less clear.

For more than two decades, the motive requirement has distinguished terrorism from crimes that do not advance a belief system. Without it, there would be even greater overlap and confusion about what constitutes terrorism, murder, hate crime and many other offences.

We will know more later in the year about how the independent monitor approaches this key challenge for Australian law.

Keiran Hardy receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Project on conspiracy-fuelled extremism. He received consultancy funding from the office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor for a research report on definitions of terrorism for the inquiry mentioned in this article.

– ref. Is Australia’s terrorism definition still fit for purpose? – https://theconversation.com/is-australias-terrorism-definition-still-fit-for-purpose-275309

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/is-australias-terrorism-definition-still-fit-for-purpose-275309/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa Hjorth, Professor of Mobile Media and Games., RMIT University

The recent murders of Minneapolis residents Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good are drawing renewed attention to the activities of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

While they are not the only people to have been killed by ICE agents, first-hand videos of the events of their death have made us all witness to the extreme violence being carried out in the US.

Multiple versions of the footage went viral globally, capturing the world’s palpable sense of injustice. These videos demonstrate how mobile media is transforming each of us into a new kind of witness to suffering.

We need to find new ways to process such collective trauma and channel it toward meaningful action.

Why some deaths grip the world

Every day, we are exposed to loss, grief and death through our mobile phones. The distance between the participant and the observer – between the mourner and the witness – collapses. This is what scholars call “affective witnessing”. The rise of social media, body cam technology and surveillance media have all driven this phenomenon.

As we watch viral footage of tragic events, the boundaries between the emotions of the recording witness and our own merge. We feel their grief in our bodies, and become witnesses by extension.

All witnessing is “affective” – meaning it stays in our bodies, hearts and minds. But there is a particular intensity that comes with mobile media witnessing, since our phones live in our pockets, in an especially intimate space we can’t always distance ourselves from.

Cultural studies scholar Judith Butler notes that in the case of war and violence, grief is not just personal – it’s social, cultural and political. Butler argues that when grief goes public (such as through social media), inequalities are magnified. Some losses become more visible and “grievable” than others.

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Read more:
Images from Gaza have shocked the world – but the ‘spectacle of suffering’ is a double-edged sword

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In recent years, we have increasingly witnessed through social media what death researcher Darcy Harris calls “political grief”.

Political grief encompasses the collective loss and mourning felt by communities facing systemic injustice (including non-death related). It can take the form of emotional, psychological and spiritual distress arising from certain events, policies, and ideologies.

All of the violent ICE incidents reported in the US are deeply embedded in a sense of political grief being felt across the world. They prompt the lingering question: “Is this the future of the world?”

From text messages to TikTok

From its outset, mobile media has played an important role in making political grief visible and providing systems for collective action.

From its 2G beginnings, mobile media has been used in “people power” political revolutions. For instance in 2001, text messaging was used in the Philippines to mobilise protesters to demand the removal of then president Joseph Estrada.

More recently, footage of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police had global ramifications. As cultural studies scholars Andrew Brooks and Michael Richardson note, the affected body of the Floyd witness who filmed the video represents

both the intensity of the event and the embodied experience of the witness, establishing a relation between the two.

Brooks and Richardson call this “embodied affective witnessing”, whereby the victim, the first-hand witness and their online audience all become implicated.

At the same time, mobile media can be a weapon when used by a state as a form of surveillance technology.

What do we do with what we can’t unsee?

In a space where the distance between mourner and witness is vanishing, digital “grief literacy” is needed.

Psychologist Lauren Breen and colleagues describe this as finding ways to identify and normalise respectful conversations about grief, mourning and loss that connect to hope and social change.

In the context of distressing ICE footage, this could look like

• pausing before re-sharing graphic material, and considering who might be affected
• seeking out safe spaces for processing political grief
• channelling distress into tangible real-world action, such as contacting politicians, or supporting affected families.

We also need to understand that we all grieve differently. For two years, we have been investigating how everyday Australians explore grief, loss and mourning via mobile media.

Through interviews with mourners and field experts, we’ve encountered stories ranging from personal bereavement to collective non-death loss, such as ecological grief and political grief.

Many of the people we interviewed developed their own social media strategies to cope with loss on personal and collective scales.

Some chose not to share footage out of concern for their own wellbeing, respect for victims’ dignity, or due to scepticism over what positive real-world impact re-sharing would have.

Others engaged in thoughtful sharing to create spaces for understanding, hope and activism.

But sorting through these feelings shouldn’t fall entirely on individuals. Ultimately, we need better media grief literacy, and ways to hold complex public discussions that address how grief may be dealt with on both an individual and collective level.

Larissa Hjorth is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (The Mourning After: Grief, witnessing and mobile media practices, FT220100552).

This research is funded by Larissa Hjorth’s Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, The Mourning After. Katrin Gerber is a Research Fellow on this study.

– ref. How watching videos of ICE violence affects our mental health – https://theconversation.com/how-watching-videos-of-ice-violence-affects-our-mental-health-275217

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/how-watching-videos-of-ice-violence-affects-our-mental-health-275217/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jago Dodson, Professor of Urban Policy and Director, Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University

Capital gains tax is once again the subject of parliamentary debate, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers declining to rule out options for reform.

Along with negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount has long been suggested as one cause of Australia’s housing affordability crisis.

The tax applies to the capital gain when an asset is held for more than a year, and it currently includes a “discount” of 50% on the total gain as a nominal offset for inflation.

These policies make speculative investment in housing more attractive, driving up prices and making it harder for first home buyers.

The true cost to the federal budget

Australia only introduced a capital gains tax in 1985, applying it to all gains made from investments. Importantly, the family home was not included, but investment properties were. Originally, the tax applied to the gain in value above inflation, known as the consumer price index (CPI) method.

In 1999 the Howard government, informed by the Ralph Inquiry, changed the way capital gains tax was calculated. A flat “discount” of 50% was applied to capital gains, rather than adjusting the price by inflation. This figure was an estimate given the limitations with the available data.

Each year, Treasury calculates the costs of tax policies. This data reveals that in 2024–25 the 50% discount cost the budget an estimated $19.7 billion. This is partly driven by increases in housing prices which have far outpaced inflation, as shown below.

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It is notable that between 1986 and 1999 housing prices were growing slightly faster than inflation, but since 1999 (the year the 50% discount was introduced) they have accelerated.

The benefits flow to the wealthy and people over 60

The benefits from the capital gains tax discount overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and older people.

The Treasury’s Tax Expenditure and Insight Statements show that in 2022–23 89% of the benefit went to the top 20% of income earners, with 86% flowing to those in the top 10%. On average, the highest income earners received a benefit of more than $86,000, while those in the bottom 60% received around $5,000.

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Similarly, older people benefit far more than younger people. People over 60 received 52% of the benefit, while those between 18 and 34 received 4%. That is despite both groups comprising around 29% of the adult population.

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Some options for reform

Current attention is centred on the prospect of the government reducing the capital gains tax concession for landlord investors in residential property. This reduction would have the combined effect of reducing the attractiveness of owning an investment property.

A further option is to retain this “gift” to landlords and investors, but to make it work much harder to improve housing outcomes, especially for households who are caught in the lower-quality end of the private rental market.

We have previously proposed to make negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions available only to investors who adhere to higher national dwelling and tenancy quality standards or who participate in social housing investment schemes. Landlords who did not want to operate according to these requirements would not receive either negative gearing or capital gains tax concessions.

How the housing system rewards wealth, not work

But a bigger problem lies beyond the investor segment of the residential housing market.

The total overall value of Australia’s residential stock is around $12 trillion. Of this, about $4.5 trillion is growth since 2020, spurred in part by very low interest rates over 2020–22. Around 65% of residential dwellings are owned by owner-occupiers, who are exempt from paying capital gains tax on their primary residence.

Growth in dwelling prices is due to many factors. Income growth and availability of credit are among the most important.

Since the deregulation of Australia’s financial sector in the 1990s, greater access to housing finance and relatively low interest rates have allowed households to leverage their incomes into tax-free capital gains in housing.

Wealthier households can gear their incomes and existing assets into even more valuable housing assets that they can also live in. This comes at the expense of households with lower incomes and assets, or those who are renters.

There is no sound economic reason why owner-occupied housing should be exempt from capital gains tax.

A more rational taxation system that supports home ownership but discourages asset speculation could provide greater financial support to first home buyers but also demand a greater tax share of the capital gains that their asset enjoys.

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Read more:
The government has asked for bold proposals. Maybe it’s time to consider taxing the family home

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The tax rate could be set to allow capital growth in line with inflation, wages or the economy (gross domestic product), but then apply to the gains beyond that.

Such an arrangement could also tax higher-value properties at a higher rate than cheaper properties – thus tilting the burden of taxation towards the wealthy whose properties see the greatest capital growth.

Is housing a human right or an asset?

Ultimately, there is a more fundamental question to be answered about role of housing in society.

While housing has always had a speculative dimension in addition to providing shelter and comfort, the past 30 years since financial deregulation has seen the balance shift in favour of the former.

The question facing the current government is to what extent it is prepared to reduce speculation in housing in favour of the social purpose of housing? Does it have the appetite for a structural reset that prioritises housing as a home, rather than as a debt-geared speculative asset?

Is this a government of nervous tweaks and twiddles, or might the dire times in housing embolden landmark transformation? Can the values that Labor espouses be translated into progressive policy?

RMIT currently recieves funding from the UN Habitat Program, Natural Hazards Research Australia, iMove CRC, and Ian Potter Foundation, to support Jago Dodson’s research.

Liam Davies has received funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. He is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia.

– ref. How cutting the capital gains tax discount could help rebalance the housing market – https://theconversation.com/how-cutting-the-capital-gains-tax-discount-could-help-rebalance-the-housing-market-275213

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/how-cutting-the-capital-gains-tax-discount-could-help-rebalance-the-housing-market-275213/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lukasz Swiatek, Lecturer, School of Arts and Media, UNSW Sydney

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, has warned young people will suffer the most as an AI “tsunami” wipes out many entry-level roles in coming years.

Tasks that are eliminated are usually what entry-level jobs do at present, so young people searching for jobs find it harder to get to a good placement.

Georgieva is not alone. Other economic and business experts have warned about AI taking entry-level jobs.

As young people prepare to start or continue their university studies, they may be feeling anxious about what AI means for their job prospects. What does the current research say? And how can you prepare for a post-AI workforce while studying?

The situation around the world

At the moment, the impact of AI is uneven and depends on the industry.

A 2025 report from US think tank the Brookings Institution suggests, in general, AI adoption has led to employment and firm growth. Most importantly, AI has not led to widespread job loss.

At the same time, consulting firm McKinsey notes many businesses are experimenting with AI and redesigning how they work. So, some organisations are seeking more technically skilled employees.

Crucially, AI is affecting each industry differently. So, we might see fewer entry-level jobs in some industries, but more in others, or growth in specialist roles.

For example, international researchers have noted agriculture has been a slow adopter of AI. By contrast, colleagues and I have found AI is being rapidly implemented in media and communications, already affecting jobs from advertising to the entertainment industries. Here we are seeing storyboard illustrators, copywriters and virtual effects artists (among others) increasingly being replaced by AI.

So, students need to look carefully at the specific data about their chosen industry (or industries) to understand the current situation and predicted trends.

To do this, you can look at academic research about AI’s impacts on industries around the world, as well as industry news portals and free industry newsletters.

Get ready while studying

Students can also obviously build their knowledge and skills about AI while they are studying.

Specifically, students should look to move from “AI literacy” to “AI fluency”. This means understanding not just how AI works in an industry, but also how it can be used innovatively in different contexts.

If these elements are not already offered by your course, you can look at online guides and specific courses offered by universities, TAFE or other providers.

Students who are already familiar with AI can keep expanding their knowledge and skills. These students can discover the latest research from the world’s key publishers and keep up to date with other AI research news.

For students who aren’t really interested in AI, it’s still important to start getting to grips with the technology. In my research, I’ve suggested getting curious initially about three key things: opportunities, concerns and questions. These three elements can be especially helpful for getting across industry developments: how AI is being used, what issues it’s raising, and which impacts still need to be explored.

Free (online) courses, such as AI For Everyone and the Elements of AI, can help familiarise virtually anyone with the technology.

Strengthening other skills

All students, no matter how familiar they are with AI, can also concentrate on developing general competencies that can apply across any industry. US researchers have pinpointed six key “durable skills” for the AI age:

• effective communication, to engage with others successfully

• good adaptability, to respond to workplace, industry and broader social changes

• strong emotional intelligence, to help everyone thrive in a workplace

• high-quality creativity, to work with AI in innovative ways

• sound leadership, to help navigate the challenges that AI creates

• robust critical thinking, to deal with AI-related problems.

So, look for opportunities to foster these skills in and out of class. This could include engaging in teamwork, joining a club or society, doing voluntary work, or getting paid work experience.

Don’t forget ethics

Finally, students need to consider the ethical issues this new technology creates. Research suggests AI is bringing about changes in ethics across industries and students need to know how to approach AI dilemmas.

For example, they need to feel confident tackling questions about when to use and not use AI, and whether the technology’s environmental impacts outweigh its benefits in different situations.

Students can do this through focused discussions with classmates, facilitated by teachers to tease out the issues. They can also do dedicated courses on AI ethics.

Lukasz Swiatek 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.

– ref. Worried AI means you won’t get a job when you graduate? Here’s what the research says – https://theconversation.com/worried-ai-means-you-wont-get-a-job-when-you-graduate-heres-what-the-research-says-274735

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/worried-ai-means-you-wont-get-a-job-when-you-graduate-heres-what-the-research-says-274735/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Coghlan, Senior Lecturer in Digital Ethics; Deputy Director, Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, The University of Melbourne

Vets are regularly accused of various failures: overcharging clients, neglecting patient care, and rushing pets and owners through appointments.

Criticism can also come from vets themselves. Contributors to a new edited book, Veterinary Controversies and Ethical Dilemmas: Provocative Reflections on Clinical Practice, raise several concerns about their profession.

Graduating vets may take an oath or pledge to ensure the health and welfare of animals.

Although the book has many authors with various viewpoints, a central critique is that vets do not always meet this standard. It raises important questions and encourages reflection on vet ethics.

Still, readers of this book may, at times, get the impression practitioners have all but lost their ethical way.

That may be true of some individual vets.

However, as a former vet who has spent years researching animal ethics in the context of veterinary medicine, I can tell you many vets care deeply about animals, and do well in putting their welfare first.

The question of overservicing

One criticism in Veterinary Controversies is that practitioners offer unnecessary services, both routine and more advanced or specialised, that can harm animals. The book highlights how, for instance, vets promoting routine pre-anaesthetic blood panels for all animal patients can result in problematic overdiagnosis.

Nonetheless, many tests and procedures offered by vets are supported by standards of good practice. Clients can, and do, have general confidence in veterinary services and recommendations.

Yes, veterinary medicine has become more specialised. As in medicine, there are now vet oncologists, neurosurgeons, and MRI machines. This book at times appears to suggest that much advanced or specialist treatment is excessive.

While it can sometimes be ill-judged or even overly experimental, much specialised treatment is both evidence-based and beneficial.

Some contributors think vets are prone to offer only “gold standard” treatment, even if that is too expensive for the client or is not best for the patient.

That can certainly be a problem. Still, the idea of a “spectrum of care” attuned to each patient’s needs is now generally taught in veterinary schools. If best treatment exceeds the client’s financial means, many vets will now offer less advanced and less expensive treatments that still benefit animal patients.

Are we anthropomorphising?

Another criticism in the book is that vets treat animals too much like humans.

For example, some contributors argue veterinarians often try too hard to treat very sick animals and extend their lives when euthanasia would be kinder. Like dressing “fur babies” in human clothes, this desire to prolong life may be excessively anthropomorphic.

Of course, vets should avoid pursuing futile, non-beneficial, and harmful treatment.

However, the criticism of vets who strive to extend the lives of unwell patients appears at times informed by a view – held by some animal welfare scientists – that killing cannot harm animals. As some contributors put it, “death is not a welfare issue”.

To outsiders this may sound confusing, so I will try to explain.

Roughly, the idea is that while animals are alive, they can have good or bad experiences, and thus a welfare. But when they are dead, they cannot experience anything, and so the notion of welfare disappears. Also, animals lack a concept of death, and their death can be painless; a “good death”.

This is why some vets don’t regard euthanising an otherwise healthy animal to be harming them.

Yet I would argue that death may very much be regarded as a harm. At the very least, death can often deprive animals of valuable experiences.

A patient-centred vet may provide euthanasia when it benefits a suffering animal with very poor prospects.

But they will, I would suggest, not only seek to protect animals from “convenience” euthanasia, but also sometimes try to save or extend the lives of even very sick patients, to help them experience worthwhile lives.

Ethical leaders on animal welfare?

Compellingly, one contributor argues national veterinary associations don’t always show moral leadership on major animal welfare issues in society.

While veterinary professional associations are improving in their animal advocacy, the contributor argues, they could be bolder in opposing cruel activities.

Consider an example. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) was criticised for not opposing barbaric methods of “depopulating” farmed pigs and chickens during COVID when meatpacking plants shut down. It shocked people, including many vets, that the association could accept mass killing by overheating animals to death.

Other industries, like intensive factory farming, live animal export, and greyhound and horse racing also elicit growing public concern.

As well as promoting welfare improvements – which they often do well – I agree national veterinary associations could take a more abolitionist stance towards unethical animal uses.

Trust in vets and the way forward

Sometimes criticism of vets is unfair – and harmful. Being unjustly attacked by clients and the media is extremely distressing for many veterinarians who live their oath to serve animals. It may even contribute to the disturbingly high suicide rate among vets.

Large vet bills, I would argue, are not necessarily due to callous profit-seeking. Good medicine is sometimes expensive. And vets are paid much less than doctors and dentists.

Unlike human medicine, veterinary medicine is not publicly subsidised. A scheme like Veticare might help.

Nonetheless, as Veterinary Controversies illustrates, no profession is beyond criticism.

Ultimately, moral trust in veterinarians as practitioners and animal welfare leaders in society requires an ethically reflective professional culture. In my view, more substantial education of vets in philosophical ethics may help to promote such a culture.

Simon Coghlan is a former veterinarian and his partner works in a veterinary emergency centre.

– ref. Big bills, ‘fur babies’ and administering a good death: reflecting on ethics in veterinary medicine – https://theconversation.com/big-bills-fur-babies-and-administering-a-good-death-reflecting-on-ethics-in-veterinary-medicine-270966

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/big-bills-fur-babies-and-administering-a-good-death-reflecting-on-ethics-in-veterinary-medicine-270966/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jaithri Ananthapavan, Associate Professor in Health Economics, Deakin University

News the world’s first independent health promotion agency – Australia’s own VicHealth – is to be abolished has been called “incomprehensible” and “a disaster” that places democracy at risk.

VicHealth is the agency that’s been behind successful quit smoking and skin cancer campaigns, among others.

Then came the push – including from experts in public health, and political parties – to save the almost-40 year-old agency.

The Victorian government has said absorbing VicHealth into the state’s health department is needed to help repair the budget. But, from an economic perspective, this looks like a bad call.

We receive funding from VicHealth, or have done so in the past.

Here’s why health promotion is worth more than every dollar invested.

Prevention is better than cure

Health promotion involves empowering people and communities to make healthier choices and create supportive environments. It aims to address the broad drivers of health, reduce inequities and improve overall wellbeing. One key aim is to prevent disease from arising in the first place.

In Australia, more than one-third of our total disease burden is preventable. Modifiable risk factors such as overweight and obesity, tobacco use and poor diets cost the health system A$38 billion dollars each year.

Preventable chronic (long-term) illness also reduces workforce productivity. This creates a substantial economic burden well beyond health.

Given these health and economic costs, there’s a strong case for governments to invest more in preventing disease.

This is already recognised in the National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030, which recommends increasing spending on health promotion and disease prevention to 5% of the health budget. Currently it accounts for less than 2%.

There is clear evidence prevention can deliver a strong return on investment.

For example, we analysed 16 obesity prevention initiatives and found 11 policies would likely deliver substantial health gains while also saving long-term health-care costs.

Such policies include sugary drink taxes and restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods.

Broader research shows health promotion initiatives demonstrate returns of around $2.20 for every dollar spent.

Back to VicHealth

VicHealth was initially funded through tobacco tax revenue. It started out with a focus on reducing smoking rates, and famously bought out tobacco sponsorship in sports and the arts.

Over the years, the agency has funded landmark prevention efforts such as Quit and SunSmart. More recently, it has partnered with communities and organisations to also address unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and alcohol use.

Today, VicHealth takes a broader perspective to health promotion. This approach recognises that individual risk factors are shaped by the commercial and economic systems in which we live. The focus is on health and equity being prioritised alongside economic prosperity.

Evaluations of programs that were initially supported by VicHealth clearly demonstrate the agency’s value. For example, Quitline in Victoria produces a return of $1.24 for every dollar spent (calculated from values in this economic evaluation).

Victorian investment in SunSmart has achieved a return of $2.22 per dollar. When productivity was taken into account, the SunSmart program was estimated to prevent $713 million in productivity losses in 1988–2011.

The scale of the potential benefits of VicHealth supported initiatives outweighs its relatively modest annual budget of about $47 million.

It can take time for prevention efforts to pay off

Despite the great potential for prevention initiatives to improve health and save money, Australian governments have consistently under-invested in them.

One big reason comes down to timing of costs and benefits. Prevention requires upfront investment while the benefits may only be realised many years later.

One study estimated an initial investment of $1.2 billion (inflated to 2024 values) and total spending of $7.6 billion would be required to implement 23 of the most cost-effective prevention initiatives.

These initiatives included a wide range of measures such as cancer screening programs, vaccinations and education campaigns.

Importantly, the study showed these interventions could avoid over $19 billion (in 2024 values) in health-care spending.

Short-term budget cycles can make it hard for government to commit to these high-value interventions.

This is a key reason why independent health promotion agencies, such as VicHealth, are typically better placed to ensure sustained and stable funding for programs and initiatives that deliver longer-term health and economic returns.

Disease prevention is political, and goes beyond health

Australian governments have previously made bold attempts at investing in prevention.

The Australian National Preventive Health Agency was established to oversee an $872 million investment to address modifiable risk factors for disease. However, a change in government more than a decade ago resulted in the withdrawal of this funding and dismantling of the agency.

So we need an independent body that operates at arms length to government if we are to focus on best practice prevention initiatives, without the impact of changes in governments and their shifting priorities.

The Victorian government has proposed to integrate VicHealth’s prevention activities within the state’s health department. But many prevention initiatives operate outside the health sector.

For example, school-based initiatives and community-led campaigns typically include involvement from multiple government departments, local councils, as well as community and commercial organisations.

So an independent health promotion agency, such as VicHealth, is ideally placed to lead these collaborations across sectors.

The urgent need to focus on prevention

Australia’s spending on health and aged care is set to soar, rising from 6.2% of GDP in 2022–23 to 10.8% by 2062–63.

The Productivity Commission has flagged the fiscal pressures this will create. Among its recommendations are supporting disease prevention and early intervention, with an independent advisory board and a dedicated prevention fund.

At a time when independent, well-funded prevention efforts are being recommended, disinvesting a world-leading health promotion agency makes little economic sense.

Jaithri Ananthapavan has received funding from VicHealth. She has also received funding from National Health and Medical Research (NHMRC), Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), Australian Department of Health, Disability and Aging, Preventive Health SA, World Health Organization (WHO), Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, Cancer Council Western Australia, Victorian Government Department of Health, Northern Sydney Local Health District

Gary Sacks receives funding from VicHealth. He has also received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Heart Foundation of Australia, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.

Vicki Brown has received funding from VicHealth. She has also received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Preventive Health SA, YMCA Victoria, Western Public Health Unit.

– ref. Why scrapping a key health promotion agency makes little economic sense – https://theconversation.com/why-scrapping-a-key-health-promotion-agency-makes-little-economic-sense-274978

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/why-scrapping-a-key-health-promotion-agency-makes-little-economic-sense-274978/

COMMENTARY: By Jim Sanday

When peace is being designed, Fiji is not invited into the room.

When peace needs enforcing, Fiji is asked to send soldiers.

That uncomfortable reality is exposed by the emergence of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza.

While New Zealand was formally invited to join the Board — and chose to decline — Fiji was not invited at all.

Yet Fiji has reportedly been asked to contribute troops to a proposed “stabilisation force” linked to Gaza.

The contrast is revealing. It highlights how global security is increasingly organised — and where Fiji is positioned within that order.

The Board of Peace is reportedly structured as an exclusive body with a joining fee of around US$2 billion.

That cost alone places participation far beyond the reach of most developing countries.

For Fiji, whose entire national budget is only a fraction of that amount, membership is not simply impractical; it is structurally impossible.

In this model, peace is something designed by those who can afford entry — a “pay to play” arrangement.

Yet although Fiji cannot afford to “play”, its military presence is required.

The peacekeeping paradox: Respected soldiers, limited voice

For decades, Fijian soldiers have served with distinction in peacekeeping missions under the United Nations flag. Their professionalism, discipline and reliability are widely recognised.

But that reputation now risks confining Fiji to a familiar role: valued for its manpower but excluded from decision-making.

This is not partnership. It is subcontracting.

Fiji should not carry the risks of other people’s decisions without having a voice in them.

New Zealand had a choice. Fiji did not.
New Zealand’s refusal to join Trump’s Board of Peace, underscores the imbalance.

Wellington cited concerns about mandate clarity and alignment with international norms.

New Zealand had the opportunity to make that choice.

Fiji did not.

One country was offered a seat at the table; the other was offered boots on the ground.

For Fiji, this raises serious foreign policy questions.

The issue is not opposition to peacekeeping. The issue is peacekeeping without political voice — being asked to assume risk in missions shaped by others and detached from established multilateral oversight.

Alignment with existing policy
These concerns align closely with Fiji’s National Security and Defence Review (NSDR), which recognises that national security includes the adherence to international law, and the maintenance of trust in Fiji’s external engagements.

Central to the NSDR is the requirement that security commitments be legitimate, transparent and accountable, supported by clear civilian oversight.

Being asked to deploy troops into a stabilisation force designed outside the UN system, while being excluded from the political body determining its mandate, sits way outside those espoused principles.

The moral burden on soldiers and the families
Fiji will bear the operational and political risk but has little influence over strategic direction. Fiji will carry the risks without shaping the outcome.

This puts RFMF soldiers in an unclear and fraught position. They — and their families — are the ones who will carry the risk in this venture. It is a morally and ethically unfair burden for the government to place upon them.

This moment therefore calls for clarity and restraint by the decision makers in Fiji’s Parliament and Cabinet.

The question is not whether Fiji can contribute troops — history shows that it can and has done so with honour.

The question is whether such contributions serve Fiji’s national interest and upholds international legitimacy.

Honouring our legacy
Fiji’s peacekeeping legacy should not be used to justify accepting deployments where authority, accountability and purpose are unclear.

Peacekeeping without representation is not partnership.

Fiji has earned international respect as a contributor to global peace. It should not accept a future in which it is always invited to serve but never invited to decide.

No soldier should be sent into harm’s way without clear purpose, lawful authority, and their nation’s voice at the table.

Jim Sanday was a commissioned military officer in the pre-coup Royal Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) and commanded Fijian peacekeeping battalions in Lebanon and Sinai. In 2025, he led the National Security and Defence Review (NSDR) and co-authored the National Security Strategy that was approved by Cabinet in June 2025. This article was first pubished by the Fiji Sun and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/09/troops-without-a-seat-the-gaza-board-of-peace-and-fiji/