Australians have become increasingly anxious about national security – even before the outbreak of the recent US-Israel war with Iran, according to a new report.
The Australian National University’s National Security College surveyed more than 20,000 Australians in November 2024, July 2025 and February 2026. The surveys took in last December’s Bondi terror attack, but predated the current Middle East war.
Non-military threats, such as AI-enabled attacks and disruption to critical supplies, were seen as the most likely threats in the next five years. Fewer than one in five participants felt Australia was “very” or “fully” prepared for any of the 15 security risks in the survey.
Yet a foreign military attack on Australian soil was seen as the most “catastrophic” looming threat. Almost half (45%) of people saw it as a risk within the next five years.
One of the report’s key authors and head of the ANU’s National Security College, Professor Rory Medcalf, joined us on the podcast.
The report found national security worries had “racheted up with each survey”, from 42% of respondents in November 2024 to 64% by February 2026. Medcalf said that finding was “disturbing”.
On some specific issues and particularly terrorism – and of course the atrocity of the Bondi terrorist attack is what punctuated that narrative – we saw very high rises in concern, including among younger Australians, who went from something like a 22% concern about terrorism as a serious security risk, through to 55% from July last year until February this year.
‘Inevitable’ climate risks
While other threats have been getting more attention, Medcalf said Australians remain live to the dangers of climate change and natural disasters.
[Climate change and natural disasters] registered consistently as high concerns as in [at] that the higher end – not the very top, but the higher end of concerns across the community […] There was a very clear difference between younger and older Australians on that issue. Younger Australians were more concerned.
On the other hand, when you looked at the question of the likelihood of shocks, the climate issue actually probably rated highest in terms of inevitability.
The Trump factor
While the Middle East war broke out only after the final survey, Medcalf said the “Trump factor” was apparent even before then.
It’s clear that the Trump factor has had a real impact here. So we took our first of three surveys in November 2024, second [in] July 2025, the third in February 26. And we’ve seen a ratchet of anxiety across that time.
We’ve also seen issues like, for example, the failure of the international rules-based order becoming of great concern.
[…] I hesitate to draw a verified line of causation between [US President] Donald Trump and Australian security anxieties. But there’s so much, I guess, there’s so much by way of evidence that suggests that’s the way people feel.
The researchers also conducted focus groups and individual interviews. Madcalf said those interviews gave a clear sense the US-Australia alliance “is not what it used to be”.
Rays of hope
Despite Australians’ increasing anxieties about national security, Medcalf said there remained some “green shoots”.
The last point that I took some hope from going forward was the response to a question we posed specifically in the aftermath of the Bondi terrorist attack, which was to say that in the aftermath of that anti-semitic atrocity: ‘Do all Australians have a responsibility to help keep our communities peaceful and safe?’ We got a 71% yes to that question; 32% of respondents agreed strongly with that proposition. Only 8% disagreed.
So I think there are some foundations there to work harder towards a coherent national security response that respects the differences in Australian society, but […] brings the community into the conversation and perhaps adapts our priorities as we go on that journey.
With social cohesion badly fraying and One Nation’s surge reinforcing the threat it is under, politicians desperately need to find the rhetoric to help glue our multiculturalism back together.
Obviously it will take much more than words but, as is often said, words matter.
So does linking change with continuity, relating today’s Australia to the country of yesterday.
Also important is making the national symbols and values the instruments of unity, claiming them back from the culture warriors.
In his Saturday night victory speech, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas gave a masterclass in how to tackle the task. On Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s comments on the subject were direct and blunt.
In a targeted response to One Nation, Malinauskas personalised diversity with a contemporary anecdote. He rooted the imperative for tolerance in the distant past by invoking an Australian literary icon. He brought a degree of subtlety that spoke to his ability as a communicator.
“I lined up today as I’ve done at each election, at the Woodville Gardens polling booth in my electorate. It’s home to one of the more diverse communities in our state,” the premier told the excited crowd at the Labor function.
“And I got chatting to the gentleman in front of me, who I had met before, and he was Vietnamese, a man small in stature, but tough as nails. He was a boat person.
“He came out here from Vietnam, fleeing communism, looking for the same thing that my grandparents did, an opportunity. An opportunity to live in a peaceful country where he knew he could work hard, provide for his family, put a roof over his head, and then in turn, give back.
“And as he was queuing up to vote today, he said to me, rather quietly, ‘I like elections’.
“It sort of struck me as being a clear signal of what patriotism can look like.
“I couldn’t help but go back to a poem that was written by one of Australia’s greatest authors, if not greatest writer, in Henry Lawson.”
Malinauskas then read at length from Lawson’s The Duty of Australians.
‘Tis the duty of Australians, in the bush and in the town,
To forever praise their country, but to run no other down.
When a man or nation visits, in the heyday of its pride,
‘Tis the duty of Australians to be kind but dignified…
‘Tis our duty to the stranger – landed may be but an hour —
To give all the information and assistance in our power.
To give audience to the new chum and to let the old chums wait,
Lest his memory be embittered by his first days in the State.
‘Tis our duty, when he’s foreign, and his English very young,
To find out and take him somewhere where he’ll hear his native tongue.
To give him our last spare moment, and our pleasure to defer—
He’ll be father of Australians, as our foreign fathers were!“
“Lawson was onto something,” Malinauskas said.
“That has remained true to this day in our island continent that we call home. And it’s why Australians should be patriotic and can be proud of what our nation stands for.
“Because it is distinct. Australians’ version of patriotism is a little different to our northern hemisphere friends. We are famous for being just a little bit more laid back.
“That is to say, less brash and boastful, and more dogged and determined. We can and we should wave our flag with pride, knowing that Aussie patriotism sometimes means sitting with a stranger and having a cuppa or a frothy and arguing about the footy. Not our faith,” he said.
“It’s been a hot summer in Australia. So maybe we should all look forward to the temperature coming down just a little bit.
“So that when we sing the national anthem with pride, we don’t forget there is a second verse which reminds us. It reminds us that when we all combine, we can achieve anything.
“When we work together, diversity has always been our greatest strength.”
Malinauskas’s homily was a targeted response to the divisiveness and prejudice that One Nation – which had polled strongly in that day’s election – has fed on and fanned.
Using the touchstones of the past, poetry and patriotism, Malinauskas linked modernity and nostalgia. Of course critics might point to the romanticisation and blanking out of the negatives – Australia in Lawson’s time had racial exclusion as its official policy.
Contrast Albanese’s more confrontational messaging at the weekend when he highlighted the difference between the old and new Australia.
Speaking at a Vietnamese function he also drew on history, referring to the ending of the White Australia policy by the Whitlam Government just before the arrival of Vietnamese refugees.
“We need to be vigilant,” he said, in lines directed as much to the Labor base and progressives as to the people in the room.
“There are some, including some in political life, who want to turn back the clock to an Australia that is no longer who we are.
“And we need to call out those people.
“And we need to continue to cherish our diversity as a strength for our nation, which it is.”
Albanese is often inclined to berate people critical of modern Australia, by saying, in effect, get used to the new reality. Malinauskas sought to find common threads between the old and new orders.
Albanese risks alienating voters who hanker after former times. The words of Malinauskas are aimed at giving them food for thought.
Democrats in Congress have sounded the alarm over US President Donald Trump pledging to commit more war crimes in Iran after he traded threats to energy infrastructure with the Iranian government, with the Republican declaring Saturday that he would take out the country’s power plants unless it reopened the Strait of Hormuz to all traffic.
Just a day after Trump claimed that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran,” in a post that remains pinned to the top of his Truth Social profile, the president took to the platform with a clear threat on Saturday night.
“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump said.
Trump’s post came after Ali Mousavi, the Iranian representative to the International Maritime Organisation, told the Chinese news agency Xinhua on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that is a key shipping route, including for fossil fuels — remains open to all vessels not linked to “Iran’s enemies.”
It also followed the Israeli military — which is bombing Iran alongside the United States — suggesting that the US was responsible for a Saturday attack on Iran’s uranium enrichment complex in Natanz.
According to The Associated Press, with his new threat, Trump “may have meant the Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran’s biggest, which was already hit last week, or Damavand, a natural gas plant near Tehran, Iran’s capital.”
Responding to Trump’s Saturday post, US Representative Don Beyer (D-Va.) said: “It’s important not to shy away from candidly discussing the president’s increasingly erratic behaviour. His worsening instability is a clear and growing threat, not only to the American people but to the world.”
Trump has no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so he is threatening to attack Iran’s civil power plants. This would be an attack on civilians. This is what Putin is doing in Ukraine. This would be a war crime. End this war in Iran.
Hell-bent on destruction Representative Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) was similarly critical over Trump’s pledge “From ‘help is on the way’ for Iranian protestors to threatening war crimes against an entire population. The United States is being run by a maniacal tyrant hell-bent on destroying this country and the world along with it.”
Other critics also pointed out that Article 56 of the Geneva Convention states in part that “works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes, and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.”
The AP reported that after that strike on the Natanz complex, “Iranian missiles struck two communities in southern Israel late Saturday, leaving buildings shattered and dozens injured in dual attacks not far from Israel’s main nuclear research center.”
“Israel’s military said it was not able to intercept missiles that hit the southern cities of Dimona and Arad, the largest near the centre in Israel’s sparsely populated Negev desert,” according to the news agency. “It was the first time Iranian missiles penetrated Israel’s air defence systems in the area around the nuclear site.”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, said on X on Saturday that “if the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle… Israel’s skies are defenseless.”
After Trump’s threat, the Speaker added on Sunday that “immediately after the power plants and infrastructure in our country are targeted, the critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed, and the price of oil will remain high for a long time.”
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. This article is republished under Creative Commons.
“Cashback” apps make an enticing promise. You download an app or click on a web browser extension. You go about your online shopping as usual, spend money, but then get some cash back. It sounds simple, right?
In recent years, cashback programs have made a serious splash with online shoppers.
And it’s competing in a crowded market, alongside companies such as Freecash, Honey, Kickback, Boost your Super and Grow My Money.
Even some of the big banks are getting in on the cashback trend. Westpac has partnered with Shopback, NAB has its own “NAB Goodies Program”, and Commonwealth Bank has “CommBank Yello”.
Of course, nothing is free. When a “middle man” cashback company is involved, either you or the retailer is paying somehow. Here’s how these programs work – and some of the risks you should be aware of.
Money for nothing?
Cashback programs entice shoppers with incentives such as cash, discounts and rewards when they make a purchase.
Some might be a free app, others a browser extension to use while online shopping. But they’re almost always designed to serve consumers with advertisements and collect consumer information.
The typical model is to track purchases using an app or browser, and then deal out “rewards” once certain conditions are met.
This could include:
meeting a minimum spend
purchasing particular products
waiting until your purchase is tracked and approved.
To avoid products being returned after rewards have been granted, wait times for cash back can be long and indefinite.
Where does the money come from?
There are a few different ways these companies make money.
One is by providing a simple advertising service. Cashback companies will often channel online traffic to retailers in return for a commission. They then use this commission to offer consumers rewards for their purchases (and keep some for themselves as profit).
But they also typically collect extensive data about their users’ online behaviour – including searches for products they’re interested in, shopping history and more.
Cashback apps may track your shopping history across different sites.Marques Thomas/Unsplash
Your data is valuable
When you download an app or use a web extension, you may need to enter information or “accept” that the software will collect your information.
However, even when you “consent” to disclose your personal information, you may not realise the extent of what you’re handing over, including your sensitive information.
Most data collection, use, storage and disclosure is difficult to detect and track. Sometimes consumers won’t know what privacy implications their app or web extension usage will have in future.
In the worst case scenario, a consumer’s identifying data may be sold and bought multiple times online without their knowledge. (However, some apps specifically state they don’t sell that data.)
Consumer data is valuable to companies who are trying to understand consumer behaviour, such as purchasing habits. This data also appeals to companies trying to market products, networks involves in identity thefts, and scams and criminals who take advantage of data breaches.
What the law says
Information privacy is protected by the Privacy Act and the 13 Australian Privacy Principles that restrict how an entity can handle a consumer’s personal information.
This includes strict rules about management, notification, use, cross-border disclosure and security of personal information.
Private information can be subject to a data breach if adequate data security systems are not in place. And even large, well known and trusted companies are not immune to this risk.
For example, in 2023, Singapore’s data privacy watchdog fined Shopback S$74,400 (A$83,300) over a 2020 data breach that impacted more than 1.4 million people.
Private, personal and sensitive information can cross borders without detection and this can lead to wider exposure of information that may be used to identify or impersonate an individual.
Buyer beware
So, while getting 5% back on your purchases, there are a few key things to be aware of.
Consumers need to be careful when disclosing information to these companies and this includes information that can identify them as an individual. For example, personal information might include names, a signature, an address, phone number, date of birth or a photograph.
Sensitive information might include ethnicity, gender, health data or beliefs.
Generally, sensitive information has a higher level of privacy protection than other personal information, and should be treated with an extra level of care.
Financial information is a special category of information and consumers should think carefully before disclosing financial details to a third party – even if there is an incentive offered.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Climate Science, ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, The University of Melbourne
It’s no secret our planet is heating up.
And here’s the evidence: we’ve just experienced the 11 hottest years on record, with 2025 being the second or third warmest in global history.
The annual State of the Climate report, published today by the World Meteorological Organization, suggests we’re still too reliant on fossil fuels. And that’s pushing us further from our goal to decarbonise.
So what is happening to our climate? And how should we respond?
The climate picture
Unfortunately, the most recent climate data makes for grim reading.
Let’s look back at 2025, through the lens of four climate change indicators.
Carbon dioxide
We now have a record amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, about 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. And we’re still emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide through our use of fossil fuels. In 2025, global emissions reached record high levels. The carbon dioxide we emit can stay in the atmosphere for a long time. So each year we keep emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide, the more concentrated it will be in our atmosphere.
Temperature
In 2025, the world experienced its second or third warmest year on record, depending on which dataset you use. The average temperature was about 1.43°C above the pre-industrial average.
This is particularly unusual given we observed slight La Niña conditions in the Pacific region. La Niña is a type of climate pattern characterised by temperature changes in the Pacific Ocean. It typically creates milder, wetter conditions in Australia and has a cooling effect on the global average temperature. But even with La Niña conditions, the planet stayed exceptionally hot.
Oceans and ice
In 2025, the heat held within the world’s oceans reached a record high. And as our oceans continue to warm, sea levels will also rise. Hotter oceans also speed up the process of acidification, where oceans absorb an increased amount of carbon dioxide with potentially devastating consequences for some marine animals.
The amount of Arctic and Antarctic ice is also well below average. This report shows sea ice extent, a measure of how much ocean is covered by at least some sea ice, is at or close to record low levels in the Arctic. Meanwhile, the amount of ice stored in glaciers has also significantly decreased.
Extreme weather
Research shows many of the most devastating extreme weather events of 2025 were exacerbated by human-driven climate change. The heatwaves in Central Asia, wildfires in East Asia and Hurricane Melissa in the Carribean are just three examples. Through attribution analysis, which is how scientists determine the causes of an extreme weather or climate event, this report highlights how our greenhouse gas emissions are making severe weather events more common and intense.
How does Australia stack up?
Compared to most other countries, Australia has a disproportionate impact on the global climate.
This is largely because our per capita carbon dioxide emissions are about three times the global average. That means on average, each of us emits more carbon dioxide than people in all European countries and the US.
Emissions matter because they exacerbate the greenhouse effect. That is the process by which greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat near Earth’s surface. So by emitting more greenhouse gases, we contribute to global warming. And research suggests Earth is warming twice as fast today, compared to previous decades.
However, Australia is also experiencing first-hand the adverse effects of human-induced climate change.
In 2025, we lived through our fourth-warmest year on record. The annual surface temperatures of the seas around Australia reached historic highs, beating the record temperatures set in 2024. And last March was the hottest March we’ve seen across the continent.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s annual summary highlights how Australia’s climate is changing.
So what can we do?
The 2025 State of the Climate Report shows how much, and how quickly, we are changing our climate. And it is worryingly similar to previous reports, highlighting the need for urgent action.
The priority should be decreasing our emissions. This would slow down global warming, which will only continue if we keep the status quo. Some countries are already decarbonising rapidly, in part through transitioning to renewable electricity supplies. Others, including Australia, need to move much faster to reduce emissions.
Crucially, we must also meet our net zero targets. In Australia, as in many other countries, we are aiming to reach net zero by 2050. The sooner we reach net zero, the more likely we are to avoid harmful climate change impacts in future. To achieve net zero, we need to significantly reduce our emissions while also increasing how much carbon we remove from the atmosphere.
Even if we meet our net zero targets, climate change will not magically disappear. However, by turning away from fossil fuels and cutting our greenhouse gas emissions now, we may spare future generations from its worst effects. That’s the least we can do.
Iran knows it is militarily much weaker than the United States. The US accounts for 37% of military spending worldwide, while Iran accounts for less than 1%. On paper, we’d expect the US to easily win a military confrontation with Iran.
But, as history shows, the US does not win wars against groups that use insurgent tactics. This was made clear in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The US did not “lose” these wars, but it also could not win them. In each instance, the US eventually withdrew and allowed its opponents to claim victory.
Iran knows this and is using four key insurgency tactics to force a US withdrawal from the war.
Provocation
By hitting critical infrastructure and military bases across the Persian Gulf, Iran is hoping to provoke the US into an escalated use of military force.
This accomplishes specific goals for the regime.
As the US bombing campaign intensifies, support for the war among opponents of the Islamic regime in Iran will begin to diminish. Already, more than 1,400 Iranians have been killed and more than 18,000 wounded in the fighting, according to Iran’s health ministry.
Meanwhile, support for the war will no doubt drop in the US as the cost of expending massive military force grows, without a decisive victory in sight. In one recent poll by Reuters and Ipsos, just 27% of Americans supported the war.
This will likely drive political pressure on President Donald Trump to withdraw.
But if the opposite happens – Iran succeeds in provoking the US into putting boots on the ground – this would enable it to shift to a full-scale insurgency that would cost the US even more lives. And this would be far more disastrous for Trump.
Spoiling
Iran is also hitting out at its Persian Gulf neighbours – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.
This may seem like a risky strategy, as Iran will need to live with these close neighbours after the war is over. But the regime has a purpose – it wants to spoil the increasingly close relationship between the Gulf states and the US.
Plumes of smoke rise after debris from an intercepted Iranian drone struck an oil facility in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, on March 14.AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
For decades, the Gulf countries have been reliant on the US as their ultimate security guarantor. The US exports billions of dollars worth of arms to these countries, and many host US military bases.
By attacking them now, Iran is creating pressure on Gulf leaders to distance themselves from the US.
Across the region, distrust and political antagonism toward the US remains high. Resentment is likely to build further, as economies continue to take a major hit from an American and Israeli military venture.
If Iran succeeds in spoiling the closeness between the US and Gulf countries, this could fundamentally change the security environment in the Middle East and increase its own power in a region where it has few friends.
It is doing this by employing fast-attack boats, naval mines and midget submarines – which are designed specifically to operate in the Gulf’s shallow, murky waters – to threaten attacks against large and cumbersome oil tankers.
This insurgency tactic has given Iran control over an important part of the global economy, restricting the flow of oil, critical minerals and liquified natural gas to the rest of the world.
Targeting civilian infrastructure
Lastly, Iran is targeting civilian infrastructure, such as airports, water desalination plants and energy facilities, across the Gulf.
It is now threatening to destroy this infrastructure completely if Trump follows through on his pledge to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants.
This is ramping up the pressure on Gulf countries by putting their critical economic and humanitarian assets at risk. It is also driving global economic disruption with the closure of international transport hubs in the UAE and Qatar.
A FlyDubai plane is parked at Dubai International Airport as smoke rises in the background after a drone struck a fuel tank early morning, forcing the temporary suspension of flights.AP
Attacks on non-military targets unsettle the entire population. No one knows what might be hit next.
These pressures increase the likelihood that countries in the Gulf and around the world will push for a US withdrawal.
Iran can outlast the US
So, what does Iran’s use of insurgent tactics suggest about how this war will end?
Previous wars that involved a strong military power against a much weaker opponent have taught us a lesson.
The weak actor has to survive long enough for political and economic pressure to build on their adversary, compelling them to withdraw. Despite being severely degraded, the weaker actor can then claim victory.
So, the Iranian regime just has to survive longer than the US political will to fight.
To be sure, the regime has been greatly weakened. It could fall in the medium- to long-term. But it is only concerned with the immediate future right now, using these insurgency tactics to outlast the US in the short term.
How the US should pivot
If the US wants to win, it needs a fundamental pivot and adoption of a central counterinsurgency principle: damage the enemy, but win the hearts and minds of the people.
The US has a long history of attempting this strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and can learn lessons from these conflicts.
However, the Iran war, so far, has not shown this to be a priority.
Trump has made surface-level overtures to the Iranian people, encouraging them to rise up and reclaim their government. But he has not put actions behind these words.
There may not be a clear exit strategy for the US at this stage, but supporting a pathway for the long-term viability of Iran beyond this regime means ensuring that civilians are not decimated by this war.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on March 23, 2026.
Your smart home can be easily hacked. New safety standards will help, but stay vigilant Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yang Xiang, Professor, Computer Science, Swinburne University of Technology On a quiet suburban street, a modern Australian home wakes before its owners do. The lights turn on automatically, the thermostat adjusts to a comfortable temperature, and the coffee machine begins brewing. A doorbell camera watches the front
Wondering if you really need that dental treatment? Here’s what to ask and how to get a second opinion Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chanae Ihimaera, Senior Lecturer/Kaiwhakaako Oral Health, Auckland University of Technology If the dental bill has ever made you gulp, you’re far from alone. Around three in ten Australian adults say they avoid or delay dental care due to costs. In Aotearoa New Zealand, almost half of adults
Family violence protection orders can be a lifeline, but the system needs reforming Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heather Douglas, Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW), The University of Melbourne Every year across Australia, more than 100,000 people obtain a family violence protection order. For some victim-survivors, protection orders provide a much-needed
Child protection workers are under pressure in NZ. Can predictive modelling help? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dylan A Mordaunt, Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, Health, and Psychological Sciences, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Flinders University; The University of Melbourne Across child protection services, frontline staff are often making decisions in the hardest possible conditions: under time pressure, with incomplete information
Prime Minister Manele holds firm as opposition claims majority in Solomon Islands RNZ Pacific Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has doubled down on his decision not to convene Parliament as he hangs on to power leading a minority government, following mass defections from his Government of National Unity and Transformation (GNUT). Last week, 19 government MPs — more than half of them cabinet ministers — handed
From nuclear to climate crisis survivors: unfinished business in the Pacific COMMENTARY: By David Robie, author of Eyes of Fire Climate crisis concerns shouldn’t overshadow the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific, where there are lingering health and sociopolitical insecurities. For example, there are concerns in French Polynesia about the mysterious fate of a former anti-nuclear investigative journalist and editor of the now closed Les
Using your AI chatbot as a search engine? Be careful what you believe Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Veale, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University During the first world war, the British government was looking for ways to help people stretch their limited food supplies. It found pamphlets from a noted
Morgan le Fay was King Arthur’s sister – but also a healer, mathematician and murderer Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Kimball, Casual Academic, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle Morgan le Fay is one of the most infamous characters of Arthurian mythology. A powerful sorceress and, in later stories, King Arthur’s half-sister, Morgan was a healer, a mathematician, murderer, adulteress and
Some schools have stopped running camps as costs rise. What can we do instead? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Associate Professor of Education, Charles Sturt University School camps have long been a rite of passage for many Australian students in both primary and high school. Typically, camps begin in primary school and continue into the secondary years, ranging from a single overnight stay to
Do petrol retailers really ‘price-gouge’ during oil price spikes? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nikhil Datta, Assistant Professor, Economics, University of Warwick The US-Israel strikes on Iran in late February caused an immediate spike in oil prices, and volatility has only increased since then. It quickly led to fears among motorists of “price-gouging” – petrol retailers raising their prices to take
TVs keep getting more pixels – but we are approaching the limits of what our eyes can actually see Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Renee Goreham, Associate Professor, Physics, University of Newcastle I remember sitting very close to the television as a child and seeing the image was made up of tiny coloured dots, each of which broke down into miniature vertical strips of red, green and blue when I looked
Is it OK to drink in front of your kids? New research shows the age they’re most influenced Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sergey Alexeev, Senior research fellow, University of Sydney; UNSW Sydney It’s a Friday evening and you pour a glass of wine while your teenager sits at the kitchen bench scrolling their phone. They barely look up. But they notice more than you think. My new study found
How much do you really need to retire? It’s probably a lot less than $1 million Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Angel Zhong, Professor of Finance, RMIT University Every few months, someone in the superannuation industry declares that Australians now “need” around A$1 million to retire comfortably. It’s a big, scary number. But consumer advocates say most people can retire with far less. Independent estimates suggest something closer
In the next pandemic, NZ doesn’t need to choose between health and the economy Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paula Lorgelly, Professor of Health Economics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau This time six years ago, as officials prepared to move New Zealand into lockdown, the public was suddenly introduced to the complex and somewhat bewildering world of pandemic modelling. These highly mathematical models mapped out
Eugene Doyle: Trump celebrates Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle You can’t make this stuff up. The President of the United States, while sitting next to the Japanese Prime Minister in the Oval Office, just celebrated the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. When asked by a Japanese reporter on Friday why the US didn’t consult with allies before launching the surprise
No bigger hypocrisy in the world than Israel complaining about Iran’s ‘lawbreaking’ COMMENTARY: By Sarah Leah Whitson In recent days, Israel and the United States have expressed outrage over the deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of civilians and civilian residences and infrastructure in Israel and the Gulf by Iranian forces. They have cited the illegality of such attacks, urged global condemnation, and demanded that human rights organisations speak
If the dental bill has ever made you gulp, you’re far from alone. Around three in ten Australian adults say they avoid or delay dental care due to costs. In Aotearoa New Zealand, almost half of adults overall have unmet dental needs due to cost.
Dental pain or symptoms of infection can be clear signs you might need a dental restoration such as a filling. But like tyres on a car or paint on a house, fillings and crowns wear over time and will eventually need to be replaced.
Let’s look at how long dental restorations usually last, what to ask your oral health practitioner if they’ve recommended these treatments, and how to get a second opinion if you’re still unsure.
How long are fillings, crowns and implants supposed to last?
How long they last depends on the material, how big the repair is, your oral habits, and even how well you care for your mouth at home.
Composite fillings are the most common type used today. They are made from a strong mix of resin and fine glass particles and are designed to blend in with your teeth and bond closely to the layers of teeth (enamel and dentine). Composites typically last 5–15 years. Their lifespan depends on your risk of dental decay, the force of your bite and the size of the cavity. Fillings most often fail when there is new decay or cracks in the surrounding tooth structure.
Crowns are used when a tooth needs more support than a filling can provide, for example after a root canal or when a tooth has large cracks. Most crowns last 10–15 years. Many last longer with regular check-ups and careful home care.
Dental implants are often described as the closest thing to a natural tooth replacement and with good care, can last decades. But they are not a “fit and forget” solution. Implants require long follow-up, not just the first year or two. This should include routine professional cleaning, checks for gum inflammation and monitoring that the implant and screws stay secure.
So your oral health practitioner has recommended treatment? What to ask
If your oral health practitioner recommends treatment, especially if it’s expensive or invasive, consider asking the following questions to get a better sense of your options:
can you explain what the problem is in plain language?
what are my options, including the least invasive?
what happens if I wait or choose not to treat this right now?
are there lower-cost options that would still work well?
are there habits or risk factors that could shorten this option’s lifespan?
can you give me a written treatment plan with itemised fees?
is there anything else I should know before deciding?
Your oral health practitioner should talk through what the treatment involves, why they’re recommending it, the alternatives (including choosing to do nothing), likely outcomes, costs and give you space to ask questions.
Treatment shouldn’t go ahead until you understand everything and feel comfortable agreeing.
If you want to explore your options, seek a second opinion. This is not a sign of distrust – it’s good self-advocacy and ensures your treatment choices align with your values, budget and long-term wellbeing.
So how do you get a second opinion? What might change?
Getting a second opinion can be simple as booking in with a second oral health practitioner and let them know you’re seeking their advice. You can ask your usual clinic to email your notes or X-rays if you want to take them to a second provider.
A second opinion means asking another oral health practitioner for their view on your diagnosis or recommended treatment. People usually seek a second opinion when:
the issue is complex
the treatment is major or expensive
they want to explore less invasive or more cost-effective options
they want to clarify before committing.
This advice can make it easier to decide what course of action aligns with your values, such as whether you favour low intervention or would rather avoid the risks of delaying treatment.
While the evidence is limited in oral health, a study of medical care found 37% of patients received a different treatment recommendation when they sought a second opinion.
Second opinions in medicine often lead to meaningful changes in diagnosis or treatment. Individual studies found changes in as few as 10% or as many as 62% of second opinion cases.
Most patients across the study and review reported high satisfaction with the process.
Australian patients have the right to access their dental records under Australian privacylaws. Clinics must keep accurate information about the patient’s care and provide it when asked.
On a quiet suburban street, a modern Australian home wakes before its owners do.
The lights turn on automatically, the thermostat adjusts to a comfortable temperature, and the coffee machine begins brewing. A doorbell camera watches the front yard, a baby monitor streams live footage to a parent’s phone, and a smart speaker waits for its next command.
This is the promise of the smart home: convenience, efficiency and peace of mind.
But behind this smooth experience is a hidden risk: every connected device can also be a way for cyber attackers to get in.
The Australian government has responded by introducing minimum security standards for smart devices to better protect households in this increasingly connected world.
These standards recently took effect. So what’s in them? And are they sufficient to keep people safe?
Many smart devices are not designed with security as a priority. Manufacturers often focus on keeping costs low, releasing products quickly, and making them easy to use. Security is treated as an afterthought.
For example, many devices arrive with weak default passwords such as “admin” or “1234”, which users rarely change. This creates an easy opportunity for attackers to gain access.
The Mirai botnet attack in 2016 clearly demonstrated the risks. In this case, hundreds of thousands of insecure devices such as doorbell cameras were hijacked to launch massive “distributed denial-of-service” (DDoS) attacks. This is a type of cyber attack where many computers or devices are used together to overwhelm a website, server, or network with traffic, so it becomes slow or completely unavailable to legitimate users.
More recent research has shown smart home devices can be exploited not only to disrupt systems but also to spy on households. In some cases, strangers have accessed baby monitors, and poorly secured cameras have exposed private footage online.
Another major issue is the lack of regular software updates.
Many low-cost or older devices don’t receive ongoing security patches, which means known software vulnerabilities remain open indefinitely. Attackers actively scan the internet for such devices, exploiting weaknesses at a large scale. Cloud-connected and AI-enabled systems amplify risks.
The consequences of these weaknesses go beyond individual households. Compromised devices can be used as part of larger cyber attacks, forming botnets that target critical infrastructure or businesses.
In effect, an insecure smart lightbulb or camera can become a building block in global cyber crime operations.
What are the new standards?
In response to these growing threats, the Australian government has begun introducing mandatory minimum security standards for connected devices.
These standards took effect earlier this month. They aim to establish a baseline level of protection across all products entering the market.
While the details of these standards may evolve, the key ideas are clear.
First, devices must not use universal default passwords. Each device should either require users to create a unique password during setup or be shipped with a unique credential.
Second, manufacturers must provide a clear vulnerability disclosure policy, allowing security researchers to report issues responsibly.
Third, there must be transparency around how long a device will receive security updates, so consumers can make informed decisions.
These changes shift some responsibility from users to manufacturers. Instead of expecting consumers to fix security problems themselves, devices must be designed to be safer from the start.
In practice, this means fewer vulnerabilities and greater accountability across the industry.
Regulation alone isn’t enough
However, regulation alone is not enough. Household behaviour still plays a critical role in maintaining security. Fortunately, some of the most effective steps are simple.
Changing default passwords to strong, unique ones is one of the most important steps. A strong password should be long, complex and not reused across multiple devices or accounts.
Enabling multi-factor authentication wherever possible adds a second layer of defence, making it significantly harder for attackers to gain access.
Regularly updating device firmware, also known as “software for hardware”, is equally important. Firmware updates often include patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities, and delaying them leaves devices exposed.
Users should also consider their home network design. Placing smart devices on a separate network, such as a guest wifi, can help isolate them from more sensitive information on personal or work devices.
Finally, choosing reputable manufacturers matters. Companies with a strong track record of providing ongoing security updates and transparent policies are generally safer choices than unknown or low-cost alternatives.
Smart homes are becoming an integral part of everyday life, and their benefits continue to grow. But as intelligence and automation expand, convenience must not come at the expense of security and trust.
With stronger standards, better-designed devices and more informed users, it is possible to enjoy the benefits of smart homes without exposing ourselves to unnecessary cyber risks.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dylan A Mordaunt, Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, Health, and Psychological Sciences, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Flinders University; The University of Melbourne
Across child protection services, frontline staff are often making decisions in the hardest possible conditions: under time pressure, with incomplete information and high stakes on every side.
Get it wrong and the consequences are serious. A child may remain in danger. Or a family may be disrupted unnecessarily, with harms of its own.
There is also a triage problem. Some families need urgent intervention. Some need support. Some need monitoring. And some need less intrusion, not more.
In practice, those judgements already rely on reading signals from fragmented information and, in effect, making predictions about risk.
Predictive modelling aims to make that process more systematic. By analysing patterns in large administrative datasets, it can help identify which children may be most at risk of future harm.
With New Zealand’s social workers under more strain than ever, what are the opportunities of using these tools more actively – and what are the potential dangers?
NZ and predictive analytics
New Zealand is no stranger to predictive modelling, nor debate surrounding it.
More than a decade ago, it was among the first countries to seriously explore how predictive modelling could be applied to child protection.
Work led by Professor Rhema Vaithianathan and colleagues at the Auckland University of Technology showed that integrated administrative data could identify newborn children at elevated risk of later maltreatment.
Still, agencies have been deliberately cautious in framing how these models might be used.
The Ministry of Social Development has said they should enhance intake decisions, support rather than replace professional judgement and first be tested in a simulated setting. A Statistics New Zealand peer review echoed that point: a model should trigger closer assessment, not automatic intervention.
Steps to move from research to practice have nonetheless proved contentious.
A proposed 2015 observational study – which would have assigned risk scores to newborns and tracked outcomes – was ultimately halted amid concerns about privacy, bias and the role of the state.
While these concerns have not disappeared, neither has pressure on the system. Oranga Tamariki received more than 55,000 reports of concern in the second half of 2024 – a sharp increase on the previous year.
Recent internal surveys of the agency’s frontline staff meanwhile highlight how cases are becoming more complex and that decisions are being made under uncertain conditions.
Predictive modelling tools, however, are still not used by those workers. To date, testing of the technology has been carefully limited to historical, anonymised data – and carried out alongside extensive ethical, privacy and Māori-led reviews.
Promise and pitfalls
Where predictive modelling has been piloted in the United States, post evaluations have suggested it can help if used carefully.
In Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, for instance, one pilot programme resulted in fewer children being removed from their homes. In another in Los Angeles, cases where children suffered life-threatening harm was observed to fall by 23%.
This suggests that models can add more precision to interventions. But it hasn’t always been the case.
Authorities in Illinois abandoned one system after it produced too many alerts. It was also criticised for missing cases that resulted in tragedy, despite the children already known to child welfare agencies.
This demonstrated that if a model overwhelms workers with data it can simply add clutter instead of reducing harm.
Another risk facing frontline workers is what are called “false negatives”, such as missed cases, and “false positives”, such as wrongful accusations.
The former can mean a child remains unsafe. The latter can mean a child is removed unnecessarily, with serious and lasting consequences.
This challenges the logic of workers “erring on the side of caution” in their decision-making.
If caution means reflexive removal, it can create a different form of damage. Here, the case for predictive analytics is arguably strong.
Should ‘do nothing’ stay an option?
In New Zealand, there are obvious sociological factors that make this issue more complex. One is the risk that existing patterns of inequality are reproduced, because Māori are disproportionately represented in child protection pathways.
That pattern is not unique to Aotearoa: in Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are around 11 times as likely as non-Indigenous children to be in out-of-home care. That is why Indigenous data sovereignty cannot be an afterthought in any moves to use predictive modelling.
Nor is it enough to simply say a model is “evidence-based”. Agencies need to be clear about what data is being used, what it is trying to optimise, how decisions can be overridden, how bias is monitored and who can challenge it.
It may seem safer to reject these tools on perceived moral grounds. Often, it is simply the more familiar choice.
But doing so does not create a neutral system – it means relying on inconsistent judgements made under pressure, with uneven information and little ability to test whether decisions are improving.
Predictive analytics will not fix deeper system failures. But, if carefully governed, it can help prioritise urgency, target support and make decisions more transparent and informed.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heather Douglas, Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW), The University of Melbourne
Every year across Australia, more than 100,000 people obtain a family violence protection order.
For some victim-survivors, protection orders provide a much-needed safety net. They can help prevent further violence from occurring.
Protection orders are future looking. They aim to stop a specific person (the respondent) using family violence against the victim-survivor in the future.
While they can be helpful, the system is far from perfect. Here’s how these orders work and what could be done to improve them.
What is a protection order?
When a victim-survivor has experienced, or is experiencing family violence, they may apply for a protection order. Any adult, and in some places children, can apply.
Evidence shows most orders are made to protect women against their current or previous male intimate partner. In some places, it’s common for police to apply for the order to protect the victim-survivor.
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Generally, a magistrate can make a final protection order when they are satisfied the respondent has committed family violence against the victim-survivor and is likely to continue to do so, or to do so again.
A protection order includes conditions. These may include that the respondent must not commit family violence, that they stay a certain distance away from the victim-survivor’s home, work, or school or that they do not not contact the victim-survivor except in a specific way (such as through a lawyer).
Civil or criminal?
The protection order system is described as a hybrid civil/criminal system.
The process of obtaining a protection order is a civil process, and the magistrate must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the order is appropriate.
Police are expected to enforce protection orders. If a condition is breached, the respondent can be charged with a criminal offence of breaching the order.
If the magistrate is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that a condition has been breached, the respondent will be found guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt is a higher standard of proof than the civil standard of balance of probabilities.
Depending on the situation, a breach of a protection order can result in a prison sentence. The threat of criminal sanction provides an incentive to some respondents not to be violent.
A court quagmire
The protection order system in each state and territory is slightly different. The orders have different names, the definitions of family violence that underpin them is different, the orders made can have different durations from months to years, and they apply to different relationships.
Protection orders are part of state and territory law. The family law system is part of the federal law system. This state/federal divide can be a problem.
State and territory magistrates have the power to include children as protected people on protection orders across Australia. Magistrates can also vary family court orders, where they think people are unsafe.
However, victim-survivors report some magistrates are reluctant to include children on protection orders. It’s also rare for magistrates to vary orders coming from the family court. This may be because some magistrates see the family law system as responsible for making orders about children.
This state/federal divide often requires victim-survivors to navigate two separate court systems to seek protection and resolve parenting or property disputes.
The disconnect between systems also facilitates systems abuse with respondents playing off systems against each other, delaying legal cases, forcing ongoing contact and further abusing victim-survivors.
More work to do
Despite these challenges, protection orders have been associated with reduced domestic violence. Research from the Australian Institute of Criminology found the orders seem to be more effective where the victim-survivor can be more independent and has fewer ties to the respondent.
In 2017 laws were changed so that a protection order made in one state or territory can be enforced by police in another state or territory. This ensures victim-survivors do not need to apply for a new protection order when they move interstate.
However, the presence of a protection order does not guarantee safety for victim-survivors. In 40% of cases where a woman was killed by a current or former partner, she had a protection order.
In some cases, police misidentify victim-survivors as the violent person and take out a protection order against the wrong party.
The institutions and services that are responsible for keeping victim-survivors safe – including police and courts – have more work to do. This includes better enforcement of breaches of orders and taking allegations of family violence seriously (including non-physical abuse).
Victim-survivors need better support to obtain protection orders through accessible information, trauma-informed practices and greater connections between the different systems.
Protection orders have the potential to improve safety for people experiencing family violence. But, the message from victim-survivors is clear: to save lives, these orders have to be policed properly and taken seriously.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has doubled down on his decision not to convene Parliament as he hangs on to power leading a minority government, following mass defections from his Government of National Unity and Transformation (GNUT).
Those who have jumped ship have joined the opposition group, which now claims to have 28 MPs on its side. This means Manele has been left with just 22 MPs in his camp.
The Solomon Islands opposition group claims to have 28 MPs on its side. Image: FB/Peter Kenilorea/RNZ
“I will call our Parliament as and when it is appropriate,” Manele told local reporters during a news conference on Sunday.
He said “the assumption” that his government does not have the numbers “is political and not constitutional”.
“Government decisions are not made based on speculation, on pressure, but on lawful processes and the national interest,” he said.
Manele also downplayed the move by the opposition and “those outside Parliament” petitioning the country’s Governor-General to convene Parliament and to consider a motion of no confidence against him.
‘A matter of political choice’ He branded the decision of those MPs who resigned from his coalition as “a matter of personal and political choice”.
“Your government remains in office under the Constitution and continues to discharge its full responsibilities,” he said.
“What we are witnessing is not a constitutional crisis. It is a normal democratic process provided for under our Constitution; leadership may change within certain portfolios, but the machinery of government does not falter.”
Public services continue, national operations remain stable and uninterrupted, he added.
Manele has been in power less than two years and has already faced two leadership challenges.
He said the confidence in a Prime Minister is tested and determined only through a motion of no confidence on the floor of Parliament.
“This means that unless and until Parliament meets and decides on such a motion, the elected prime minister remains duly in office. I reiterate that Parliament will be convened in accordance with the Constitution and the proper process will take its course.”
New ministers appointed Addressing concerns about MPs resigning from parliamentary standing committees, Manele said “these committees report to Parliament, not to the prime minister or the executive”.
Manele has also swiftly appointed new ministers to his government, including Manasseh Sogavare as his new deputy.
Sogavare was one of four ministers sworn in last Wednesday and has been handed the National Planning and Development portfolios.
Sogavare, who previously served as prime minister four times, was one of 11 ministers who resigned from government last April but failed to topple Manele.
Meanwhile, Peter Kenilorea Jnr, one of the 28 MPs in the opposition group, said Manele downplaying the situation was “truly disheartening”.
“So for me it’s clear, when a situation arises, like the mass resignation of GNUT MPs and those MPs joining those in the opposition and independents with a [numerical] strength of 28 it shows that the PM has lost the support he needs to be PM,” he said in a social media post.
“[Manele] is now in the minority. The honourable thing to do is either resign or test his support/numbers on the floor of Parliament.”
Another key figure in Manele’s coalition, Peter Shanel Agovaka, who was the Foreign Minister, told RNZ Pacific he left GNUT because he could not “work with some of the ministers” who were “trying to push their own agendas”.
He also confirmed that he had been offered the leadership by the opposition group which would see him become the Prime Minister should there be a change in government.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Climate crisis concerns shouldn’t overshadow the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific, where there are lingering health and sociopolitical insecurities. For example, there are concerns in French Polynesia about the mysterious fate of a former anti-nuclear investigative journalist and editor of the now closed Les Nouvelles de Tahiti newspaper.
Early in 2015, a judge upheld prosecution against three men accused of a kidnapping that led to the death of journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, known as “JK”, in Tahiti in 1997.
More than a decade earlier, JK’s family lodged an allegation of murder with the police following claims that he had been assassinated by a (now disbanded) local presidential militia. An investigating commission had alleged that three men, Rere Puputauki, Tino Mara and Tutu Manate, had abducted JK and dumped his body at sea.
Twenty two years later, the family are still waiting for justice, and fed up with France’s “investigation”. When the Rainbow Warrior bombing on 10 July 1985 is set against its broader political context in the Pacific, it can be seen that this event was much more than the dramatic, isolated episode against the Greenpeace flagship as portrayed by most New Zealand media.
An “Eyes of Fire” video project in 2015, which included more than 40 student journalists, also demonstrated the importance of a continuing interpretation of these events for the future of Aotearoa New Zealand and its citizens. The students looked back at the past, but were asking questions relevant to the present and future when they interrogated me and my Greenpeace colleagues involved in the Rongelap voyage.
My own baptism in French nuclear arrogance and perfidy was thanks to the late Swedish activist, researcher, and writer Bengt Danielsson, who was awarded the 1991 Right Livelihood Award for “exposing the tragic results… of French colonialism”. He and his wife Marie-Thérèse Danielsson wrote the classic and chilling books Moruroa, Mon Amour and Poisoned Reign.
In 2021, a French investigation team published a book and website that introduced new revelations about the nuclear testing programme and its health and environmental harm inflicted on Tahitians. The book, Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie, by Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, and the associated website Moruroa Files, were a forensic analysis of about 2,000 French government documents declassified in 2013.
Consistently lied about the tests According to former Auckland University of Technology scholar Ena Manuireva, who was born in Mangareva (an atoll near the French nuclear testing sites of Moruroa and Fangataufa), these publications confirmed what Tahitian people already knew: “That since 1966, the French government has consistently lied about and concealed the deadly consequences of their nuclear tests, which they now seem to acknowledge, to the health of the populations and their environment.”
Following the third test after French nuclear bombs began in the Pacific, on 7 September 1966, local Tahitian lawmaker John Teariki challenged then French president Charles de Gaulle by saying: “No government has ever had the honesty or the cynical frankness to admit that its nuclear tests might be dangerous. No government has ever hesitated to make other peoples — preferably small, defenseless ones — bear the burden.”
“May you, Mr President, take back your troops, your bombs, and your planes.”
De Gaulle ignored the advice. And it took another 30 years and 190 further tests before France stopped its ruthless nuclear pollution in the Pacific.
France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) was reported in early 2025 to have spent 90,000 euros in a big public relations campaign in a vain attempt to discredit the research in Toxique and the Moruroa Files, according to documents obtained by the investigative outlet Disclose.
The CEA published 5000 copies of its booklet, titled ‘Nuclear tests in French Polynesia: why, how and with what consequences’ and distributed them across Oceania.
The Rainbow Warrior bombing, with the death of photographer Fernando Pereira, was a terrible tragedy. But a greater tragedy remains in the horrendous legacy of Pacific nuclear testing for the people of Rongelap, the Marshall Islands and “French” Polynesia; associated military oppression in Kanaky New Caledonia; and lingering secrecy.
Nuclear powers have failed the Pacific More than eight decades on, the “Pacific” nuclear powers have still failed to take full responsibility for the region and adequately compensate victims and survivors for the injustices of the past.
The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), Melanesian Spearhead Group, other pan-Pacific agencies, and the Australian and New Zealand governments still have much work ahead. New Zealand and the PIF states should have vigorously supported the lawsuits of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the International Court of Justice and the United States Federal Court last year. This was an opportunity lost.
New Zealand and the PIF states should now require full investigation of nuclear testing in French Polynesia and seek a more robust compensation programme than currently exists. New Zealand and the PIF states also need to take a less ambiguous position on decolonisation in the Pacific, give greater priority to that issue and seek a “re-energising” of the activities of the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation.
This is especially important in relation to “French” Polynesia, Kanaky New Caledonia and the end of the Bougainville transitional political autonomy period with a unilateral declaration of independence slated for 1 September 2027.
Decolonisation is also a critical issue that has a bearing on New Zealand’s relations with Indonesia, particularly over the six Melanesian provinces that make up the region known in the Pacific as “West Papua” and Indonesia’s growing politically motivated role in the region over climate change aid.
A massive new transmigration programme under current President Prabowo Subianto is taking place at the same time as Jakarta’s “ecocidal” deforestation regime intensifies in the Melanesian region with the destruction of millions of hectares of tropical rainforest.
“The wealth of West Papua — gas from Bintuni Bay, copper and gold from the Grasberg mine. Palm oil from Merauke — has been sucked out of our land for six decades, while our people are replaced with Javanese settlers loyal to Jakarta,” says a West Papuan leader, Benny Wenda.
The Grey Lynn Library nuclear justice talk poster for 24 March 2026. Image: Grey Lynn Library
Taking the lead It is critically important that New Zealand and the PIF states take a lead from the Melanesian Spearhead Group — at least those states other than Fiji and Papua New Guinea, which have both been co-opted by Indonesian bribery through economic aid.
They should take a more pro-active stance on West Papuan human rights and socio-political development, with a view to encouraging a process of political self-determination and a new, more credible United Nations supervised vote replacing the 1968 “Act of No Choice”.
With regard to climate change issues, it is essential to address the lack of an officially recognised category for “climate refugee” under international law. It is also important to seek an international framework, convention, protocol and specific guidelines that can provide protection and assistance for people crossing international borders because of climate change.
The existing rights guaranteed refugees — specifically the right to international humanitarian assistance and the right of return — must be extended to “climate refugees” or climate migrants.
This issue should be acted on systematically and with a practical vision by the PIF with the Australian and New Zealand governments. Australia and New Zealand need to respond to Pacific Island States’ (PIS) concerns over climate change and global warming with a greater sense of urgency and resolve.
Regional and country specific climate change plans and policies are needed to deal with large numbers of Pacific refugees or climate-forced migrants, in the event of worsening climate-change scenarios in the future.
This is especially important for New Zealand, as a country with a significant Pacific population (442,632 — 8.9 percent, 2023 NZ Census) with island communities well integrated into the national infrastructure and as a country that is well placed to welcome more Pacific Islanders.
In April 2025, the New Zealand government announced plans to double defence spending as a share of GDP over the next eight years under its long-awaited Defence Capability Plan.
Trump-inspired global arms race However, the priority appeared to be New Zealand joining a new Donald Trump-inspired global arms race while the country faced no threat, at the expense of the climate crisis, nuclear free and Pacific peace-making capacity that have forged the country’s global reputation.
Speculation was also rife about the possibility of New Zealand joining a second tier of the controversial AUKUS security pact between Australia, the UK and the US, which would raise geopolitical tensions with little benefit for the Pacific region.
However, the relocation of the islanders four decades ago has revealed that the legacy of nuclear tests remains unfinished business.
“In the current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament,” says former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark.
“New Zealanders were clear — we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.”
“On the fateful last voyage,” reflects Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman, “the crew of the Rainbow Warrior, look at us in black and white through the lens of time, and lay down the wero — the challenge. They faced down a nuclear threat to the habitability of the Pacific.
“Do we have the courage and wits to face down the biodiversity and climate crises facing humanity, crises that threaten the habitability of planet Earth?’
To Ngāti Kura kaumatua Dover Samuels, the Rainbow Warrior was “probably the biggest battleship that ever traversed the oceans of the world. But she wasn’t armed with guns, she was armed with peace”.
An edited extract from the final chapter of New Zealand journalist Dr David Robie’s recent bookEyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warriormarking the 40th anniversary of the bombing. He sailed with the Greenpeace crew to Rongelap Atoll for the evacuation of the nuclear health-damaged community and remained on board for 11 weeks. This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Veale, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
During the first world war, the British government was looking for ways to help people stretch their limited food supplies. It found pamphlets from a noted 19th-century herbalist who said rhubarb leaves could be used as a vegetable along with the stalks.
The government duly printed its own pamphlets advising people to eat rhubarb leaves as a salad rather than throwing them out. There was one problem: rhubarb leaves can be poisonous. People reportedly died or became ill.
The advice was corrected and the pamphlets pulled from circulation. But during the second world war, the government was again looking for ways to stretch food supplies.
It found a stockpile of old resources from the previous war that explained unorthodox sources of food, including rhubarb leaves. Reusing the pamphlets seemed an efficient thing to do, so they were sent out to the public. Once again, people reportedly died or became ill.
Those pamphlets were misinformation, but the public had no reason to suspect them either time. They were official resources developed by the government – why wouldn’t they be safe?
That is how misinformation can cause problems even after the initial error is corrected. And the moral of the story still reverberates in the age of generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Chatbots are not search engines
Generative AI is used to generate text and images (and other forms of data) based on original information it has ingested. But it can also be an engine for churning out misinformation faster than people can produce safe information, let alone fact-check and correct it.
And as the rhubarb story illustrates, corrections can’t always properly remove the original contamination.
AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude don’t work like a conventional search engine. But people use them as one because they seem to summarise complex topics quickly and require fewer clicks than conventional internet searches.
Search engines rely on articles and text about a given topic, and then weigh how reliable those articles are. Generative AI instead relies on huge bodies of text, from which it measures the odds of words appearing next to each other.
These “large language models” are purely looking to generate reasonable-looking sentences, rather than accurate ones.
For example, if “green eggs and ham” appeared frequently enough in its huge pile of words, it is more likely to describe “eggs and ham” as green if someone asks.
‘Plausible yet incorrect’
OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, has admitted (based on its own study) there’s no way to stop false information being presented as truth due to the way generative AI works. Explaining why large language models “hallucinate”, the researchers wrote:
Like students facing hard exam questions, large language models sometimes guess when uncertain, producing plausible yet incorrect statements instead of admitting uncertainty.
This can have real-world consequences. One recent study showed ChatGPT failed to recognise a medical emergency in more than half of cases. This can be exacerbated by already existing errors in medical records, which a UK inquiry in 2025 found affected up to one in four patients.
While a doctor might order more tests to confirm a diagnosis, one researcher explained that generative AI “delivers the wrong answer with the exact same confidence as the right one”.
The problem, as another scientist noted, is that generative AI “finds and mimics patterns of words”. Being right or wrong is not really the point: “It was supposed to make a sentence and it did.”
It’s easy to make fun of generative AI when it advises people to eat rocks or hold toppings on a pizza base with glue.
But other examples aren’t so amusing – such as the supermarket meal planner that suggested a recipe that would produce chlorine gas, or the dietary advice that left someone with chronic toxic exposure to bromide.
Look for older information
Education and establishing good rules around the appropriate and cautious use of generative AI will be essential, especially as it makes inroads into governments, bureaucracies and complex organisations.
One safeguard is to try to source more reliable information produced before AI-contaminated text and imagery infiltrated the internet.
There are even tools available to help simplify that process, including one created by Australian artist Tega Brain “that will only return content created before ChatGPT’s first public release on November 30 2022”.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Kimball, Casual Academic, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle
Morgan le Fay is one of the most infamous characters of Arthurian mythology. A powerful sorceress and, in later stories, King Arthur’s half-sister, Morgan was a healer, a mathematician, murderer, adulteress and queen.
In later versions of the legends, Morgan is shown most often as the lover or enemy – and sometimes both – of many of Arthur’s closest allies, including Sir Lancelot and the powerful wizard Merlin.
Her surname, le Fay, is thought to be a combination of the French and Gaelic words for fairy, and refers to her fantastical powers.
Modern versions of Arthur’s story, such as the BBC program Merlin (2008–12) or the Irish/Canadian series Camelot (2011), continue this trend. They pair Morgan with Mordred, the knight who kills Arthur, pitting the two of them against the king and his knights in epic battles of good and evil.
Off screen, however, Morgan’s story starts completely differently.
A healer and mathematician
We first see her in approximately 1150 as part of an epic poem called Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin), by Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth.
She appears when Merlin brings the mortally wounded Arthur to Avalon (an island of magic) in the hope Morgan can heal him.
Curiously, this journey to Avalon is the only part of Morgan’s story consistent to nearly every version of Morgan that we see in later texts.
Unlike later versions, Morgan’s earliest form in the Vita Merlini is entirely positive.
The queen of Avalon, she rules alongside her eight sisters, of whom she is the most beautiful.
As a healer, she is an expert in herbology. She is also a shape-shifter, allowing her to visit cities famous for being centres of learning in medieval Europe.
Geoffrey also tells us Morgan teaches mathematics to her sisters. In 12th-century terms, this means she was probably trained in maths, finance and astronomy. While nearly every noblewoman of this time would have known enough maths to run her castle, Morgan’s education is definitely outside the norm.
The powers Geoffrey of Monmouth gave her reflected the early forms of natural philosophy, the earliest form of the scientific process. Natural philosophy was about seeking to understand nature and the world around you through reasoning, rather than religion.
Morgan’s powers fall under two key branches of natural philosophy: the science of medicine, and the science of necromancy according to physics.
The science of medicine is pretty much as it sounds. The science of necromancy according to physics, however, was not about bringing people back from the dead – it was the study of what was and was not possible.
In a period before biology and physics, many of the simplest processes – such as the creation of frogs from frog spawn – were considered occult.
The ability to manipulate these processes was considered the educated (and thus proper) practice of magic.
This early version of Morgan, although not herself a real person, was partly based on a very powerful medieval woman who was actually real – the Empress Mathilda, daughter of King Henry I.
Geoffrey was a supporter of the empress and this likely influenced his decision to depict Morgan as positive and chaste.
A personality change
As Arthurian legends were adapted by the French chivalric romances (a 12th–15th century literary genre), Morgan began to change.
She is still a fantastic healer, but is no longer queen of Avalon.
Instead, she has become Arthur’s half-sister (same mother, different fathers).
In the slightly later texts, she becomes vindictive, jealous and cruel, and begins to use her magic selfishly. Instead of healing, she becomes a master of illusion and enchantment, often using her magic to trap Arthur’s knights (particularly Lancelot).
Furious, Morgan creates the Valley of No Return (or the Valley of False Lovers). No man who has been unfaithful to his lover, even just in thinking, can leave the valley. The spell lasts for decades, until it’s broken by Lancelot and the men are freed.
We also see sleeping enchantments in texts from this time, which Morgan uses to kidnap Lancelot.
In later texts, things get much darker. Morgan enchants a mantle, a type of cloak, so it will burn its wearer to death. She sends it to Arthur as a gift.
He is stopped from putting it on by the Lady of the Lake, who suggests the messenger puts it on instead. Morgan’s assassination attempt is foiled.
This shift in Morgan’s character happened, among other reasons, because of increasingly complicated beliefs about what it meant to be a witch in medieval Europe.
Powerful, independent and vindictive
Finally, the nature of chivalric romance also had some influence.
This type of storytelling operated by strict rules in which a knight and his lover faced various obstacles in their attempt to be together.
Morgan, as a very independent figure even when she is married, helps fill the role of the obstacle for the knight – the bad guy.
Even so, Morgan le Fay is a much-loved character of the Arthurian legends.
Powerful, independent and vindictive, Morgan set the standard for witchy women.
Her influence appears today in everything from fairy tales to comic books – think of the wicked fairy from Sleeping Beauty, the White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia and as herself in both DC and Marvel comics – making her possibly the most famous medieval witch we have.
School camps have long been a rite of passage for many Australian students in both primary and high school.
Typically, camps begin in primary school and continue into the secondary years, ranging from a single overnight stay to several days away.
But the school is camp is under threat. Some schools have stopped running them due to the costs and the need to compensate teachers for extra work hours. As the Herald Sun reports, some schools are cancelling camps altogether or reducing the time away.
Why are camps important? If we can’t afford the traditional version, what can schools do instead?
This might include travelling away from their local area, looking after their own belongings, and taking part in activities such as bushwalking, canoeing, camp cooking, ropes courses or team problem-solving tasks.
A 2021 review of the research found outdoor education programs can help build confidence and self-belief, including students’ sense that they can successfully deal with challenges.
In primary school, camp can often be the first time a child is away from their family for the night.
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Different dynamics
Outdoor environments tend to change the social dynamics of school life. Students may need to rely on and connect with one another more than they might during a normal school day. This can strengthen friendships, and help students see different sides of their classmates.
Camps give different students an opportunity to shine. For example, students who may not usually stand out in academic tests or competitive sport can sometimes shine in a team challenge, bushwalk or navigation activity.
The research is not perfectly uniform, however. Camp outcomes depend on how programs are designed and supported.
What schools could do instead?
So, what happens if schools can no longer manage traditional multi-day camps?
The key question may be less about preserving the exact camp format and more about preserving the ingredients that make camps valuable. The research suggests these are time outdoors, challenges, teamwork, independence and learning in unfamiliar settings.
Evidence shows these benefits are not limited to one-off camps and can also emerge through regular outdoor experiences built into the school year.
There are several ways schools might try to keep some of these benefits while reducing costs.
Local outdoor learning
Schools can organise days in nearby parks, bushland or environmental centres rather than travelling long distances. Research on nature-based learning suggests these settings can still support wellbeing, engagement and collaboration.
Spread outdoor learning across the year
Another approach is to spread outdoor learning across the year, replacing one expensive camp with several smaller experiences that still involve challenge, teamwork and shared responsibility. For example, this could include a day program at a local ropes course, environmental centre or outdoor education site.
Shorter programs
Schools might also experiment with shorter camp-style formats, such as one-night local camps or extended outdoor programs run on school grounds, where students might take part in activities such as team challenges, outdoor cooking, navigation tasks or evening reflection sessions.
Can governments do more?
Some governments also provide targeted support to help families access camps and excursions. For example, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has pledged free Year 7 camps for public schools.
But the bigger issue may not be whether schools can preserve camps exactly as they once ran them. It is whether students still get the kinds of experiences camps provide: opportunities for challenge, independence, friendship and growth when they step outside their everyday routines.
It’s a Friday evening and you pour a glass of wine while your teenager sits at the kitchen bench scrolling their phone. They barely look up. But they notice more than you think.
My new study found the drinking habits parents model at home carry over to their children.
The influence is strongest during a specific window: when children are aged 15 to 17. This is the stage when teens begin navigating social situations with alcohol and start deciding what “normal” drinking looks like.
It doesn’t mean you have to give up alcohol altogether. But there are behaviours you can tweak to improve the chance your children will have a healthy relationship with alcohol as they grow up.
Tracking influence over 23 years
My study used 23 years of nationally representative Australian data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. This tracked more than 6,600 people over time, drawing on more than 43,000 observations.
To estimate parental influence, I linked each person’s drinking at a given age to their mother’s and father’s average drinking when that person was aged 12–18. I then compared how strongly those links showed up at different stages of life.
I found parental influence is strongest when children are aged 15–17, declines through the twenties, and rebounds at 28–37 for those who have become parents.
The effect runs mostly along same-sex lines. Mothers influence daughters most clearly, and fathers influence sons. There is no detectable father-to-daughter effect.
There is some crossover from mothers to sons, particularly during adolescence and again in the late twenties and thirties.
When adult children become parents themselves, they appear to revisit the drinking habits they grew up with. Daughters draw on their mothers’ examples; sons who become fathers begin to follow paternal patterns they had not previously adopted.
Genetics vs household norms
The evidence points more toward household norms than genetics. When I compared birth parents with non-birth parents – a broad category that includes step, adoptive, foster and other non-biological caregivers – the mother-to-daughter link held firm regardless of biological connection.
That suggests daughters are learning behaviour, not inheriting a fixed trait. For sons, the picture is more mixed, but the overall message is the same: what children observe matters.
None of this means a single glass of wine in front of your teen will do damage. The study measures repeated patterns of drinking over years, not one-off moments.
What appears to matter is the background signal: how often alcohol appears, how much, and what role it seems to play in everyday life. Is it the centrepiece of every celebration? The first response to a bad day? Or something that shows up occasionally, without fanfare?
How teens’ ideas about alcohol are shaped
My findings fit with broader evidence on how parents shape children’s drinking. A review of long-term (longitudinal) studies found parental modelling, limiting adolescents’ access to alcohol, monitoring, relationship quality and clear communication were all linked to lower levels of drinking in adulthood.
Another Australian study found parents’ heavy drinking episodes were associated with a higher likelihood teenagers had drunk alcohol. Children seem to learn not just whether adults drink, but what place alcohol has in ordinary family life.
Australian longitudinal research has also found parental supply of alcohol to teenagers – even with good intentions – is linked to heavier drinking and more alcohol-related problems down the track, rather than teaching children to drink responsibly.
The good news is broader trends are moving in the right direction. Far fewer Australian teens drink now than two decades ago. In 2001, about 70% of 14-to-17-year-olds had drunk alcohol in the previous year. By 2022–23, that figure was around 30%.
Similar declines have been documented across many high-income countries. The possible reasons include changing cultural attitudes, better education about risk and, as my study suggests, shifts in parental behaviour that flow down through families.
So what can parents actually do?
The practical goal is not perfection. It’s harm minimisation – shaping household norms so that alcohol is less central, less emotionally loaded and less available.
The evidence supports:
keeping your own drinking moderate and low-key. Australian guidelines recommend no more than ten standard drinks a week for adults, and not drinking at all is the safest option for under-18s
not supplying alcohol to teenagers, even with good intentions. Australian research suggests parental supply is linked to heavier drinking and more alcohol-related problems later on
setting clear rules and having calm, consistent conversations about alcohol. In one longitudinal study, teens drank least when strict rules were paired with good-quality, regular communication
being especially deliberate with your alcohol choices when your children are 15 to 17, because that is when family influence appears to bite hardest.
If your children are already adults, your example may still matter. My study found parental influence re-emerges when adult children start families of their own — particularly for daughters. The habits you modelled years ago can resurface when your grown-up children are deciding what kind of household they want to run.
Parents don’t control everything. Friends, stress and the broader social environment matter too. But what parents can shape is the background – the slow, steady signal about what alcohol is for and how much of it is normal.
I remember sitting very close to the television as a child and seeing the image was made up of tiny coloured dots, each of which broke down into miniature vertical strips of red, green and blue when I looked even closer.
Back then, a television was a bulky box that sat on its own stand. Today, screens are so thin they hang flat on the wall.
At the same time, picture quality seems to improve every few years. Manufacturers promise sharper resolution, brighter images and richer colours, with labels such as HD, 4K, 8K, OLED and QLED.
But can television images really keep improving forever? Or are we approaching the limits of what our eyes can actually see?
From bulky boxes to ultra-thin screens
Early televisions used cathode ray tube (CRT) technology. Inside the screen, beams of electrons swept rapidly across a phosphor coating, lighting up tiny points that formed the image.
The process happened so quickly that our eyes perceived a continuous picture. These televisions were bulky and deep, but for decades they were the standard way of watching TV.
In the early 2000s, flat-panel displays began replacing bulky CRT televisions. Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) allowed screens to become much thinner and lighter, and they made higher-resolution displays easier to produce. However, early LCD TVs often struggled with contrast, particularly when trying to display deep blacks.
A major step forward came with the development of efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that produced blue light, a breakthrough recognised with the 2014 Nobel prize in physics.
Blue LEDs made it possible to create bright white LED light sources – by combining red, green and blue LEDs – which are used widely to backlight liquid LCDs. This allows more control of the amount of light passing through each pixel.
More recently, technologies such as OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) have improved picture quality further.
Unlike LCD screens, where a backlight shines through liquid crystals to create the image, OLED displays allow each pixel to produce its own light. Because individual pixels can be switched off completely, OLED screens can achieve deeper blacks, higher contrast and more vivid images.
The race for more pixels
Much of the marketing around televisions focuses on resolution or the number of pixels that make up the image. Standard definition television contained only a few hundred lines of pixels.
High definition (HD) increased this dramatically. Then came 4K, which contains roughly four times as many pixels as HD.
Now manufacturers are promoting 8K displays with even more detail. But resolution alone does not determine how good a picture looks.
At typical viewing distances in a living room, human eyesight limits our ability to distinguish individual pixels. For many of us, the difference between a 4K and 8K television may be difficult (or even impossible) to notice unless the screen is extremely large or viewed very closely.
Instead, other factors such as contrast, brightness, colour accuracy and motion handling often have a bigger impact on how realistic an image appears.
Tiny particles, better colours
Some of the biggest improvements in modern displays come from advances in materials science.
One example is quantum dots: tiny semiconductor particles only a few nanometres across. When light hits them, they emit very specific colours that depend on their size.
Smaller dots produce bluer light, while larger dots produce redder light. This size-dependent behaviour allows the colours to be tuned very precisely, improving the brightness and colour range of modern televisions.
Interestingly, the same materials are also used in scientific research. In my own work, we use quantum dots not to improve televisions, but to help detect biological targets.
Because these nanoparticles emit very bright and precise colours, they can act as tiny fluorescent labels that highlight disease markers or pathogens. The same nanoscale properties that make TV colours more vibrant can also help scientists see biological processes more clearly.
Containers with quantum dots in the lab.Shiana Malhotra, CC BY
Are there limits to how good screens can get?
Even with these advances, displays cannot improve indefinitely. Human vision places some limits. Our eyes can only perceive a certain range of colours and brightness levels and only resolve a certain level of detail at a given distance.
One study found the average human eye can distinguish 94 pixels per degree of the visual field. In practice, that means you need to be less than two metres away from a 65-inch TV to detect any difference between a 4K screen and an 8K one.
Physics also plays a role. Screens cannot become infinitely bright without becoming uncomfortable, perhaps even unsafe, to watch.
And reproducing every colour the human eye can perceive is an enormous technical challenge. This means that while television technology will continue to improve, the most noticeable gains may no longer come from simply adding more pixels.
Instead, future advances may focus on better contrast, wider colour ranges, improved motion, and more immersive viewing experiences.
The future of television
Television displays have come a long way from the bulky CRT sets some of us remember. Advances in materials, nanotechnology and electronics have transformed how images are produced. But as screens approach the limits of what human vision can perceive, the race for ever-higher resolution may begin to slow.
The next big improvements in television may not come from adding more pixels, but from making the ones we already have look even more lifelike. After all, most of us no longer sit close enough to the screen to see those tiny red, green and blue lines anymore.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Wars are rarely lost first on the battlefield. They are lost in leaders’ minds − when leaders misread what they and their adversaries can do, when their confidence substitutes for comprehension, and when the last war is mistaken for the next one.
The Trump administration’s miscalculation of Iran is not an anomaly. It is the latest entry in one of the oldest and most lethal traditions in international politics: the catastrophic gap between what leaders believe going in and what war actually delivers.
I’m a scholar of international security, civil wars and U.S. foreign policy, and author of the book “Dying by the Sword,” which examines why the United States repeatedly reaches for military solutions and why such interventions rarely produce durable peace. The deeper problem with the U.S. war in Iran, as I see it, was overconfidence bred by recent success.
What followed was significant: Iranian-aimed missile and drone barrages against U.S. bases, Arab capitals and Israeli population centers. Then Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes daily − not with a naval blockade, not with mines or massed anti-ship missiles, but with cheap drones.
President Donald Trump expressed anger on March 17, 2026, at allies who did not agree to help the U.S. force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has since vowed to keep the strait closed. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, reported after a closed-door briefing that the administration had no plan for the strait and did not know how to get it safely back open.
The war has since reached the Indian Ocean, where a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian frigate 2,000 miles from the theater of war, off the coast of Sri Lanka – just days after the ship had participated in Indian navy exercises alongside 74 nations, including the U.S.
The swift military intervention by the U.S. in Venezuela in January 2026 produced rapid results with minimal blowback − appearing to validate the administration’s faith in coercive action.
But clean victories are dangerous teachers.
They inflate what I call in my teaching the “hubris/humility index” − the more a leadership overestimates its own abilities, underestimates the adversary’s and dismisses uncertainty, the higher the score and the more likely disaster will ensue. Clean victories inflate the index precisely when skepticism is most needed, because they suggest the next adversary will be as manageable as the last.
Political scientist Robert Jervis demonstrated decades ago that misperceptions in international relations are not random but follow patterns. Leaders tend to project their own cost-benefit logic onto opponents who do not share it. They also fall into “availability bias,” allowing the most recent operation to stand in for the next.
The higher the hubris/humility index, the less likely there is to be the kind of strategic empathy that might ask: How does Tehran see this? What does a regime that believes its survival is at stake actually do? History shows that such a regime escalates, improvises and takes risks that appear irrational from an outside perspective but are entirely rational from within.
Recent cases reveal this unmistakable pattern.
Communist Party of India members in Hyderabad, India, on March 14, 2026, protest the Iran war-caused shortage of gas used for cooking and demand that India cancels a trade deal with the United States.AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.
The United States in Vietnam, 1965–1968
American war planners believed material superiority would force the communists in Hanoi to surrender.
It didn’t.
American firepower alone didn’t lead to military defeat, much less political control. The Tet Offensive in 1968 – when North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched coordinated attacks across South Vietnam – shattered the official U.S. narrative that the war was nearly won and that there was “light at the end of the tunnel.”
Athough the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces ultimately repelled the attacks, their scale and surprise caused the public not to trust official statements, accelerating the erosion of public trust and decisively turning American opinion against the war.
In this April 29, 1975, file photo, a helicopter lifts off from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, during a last-minute evacuation of authorized personnel and civilians.AP Photo.
The U.S. failure was conceptual and cultural, not informational. American analysts simply couldn’t picture the war from their opponent’s perspective.
In both cases, great powers believed their abilities would outweigh local complexities. In both cases, the war evolved faster − and lasted far longer − than their strategies could adapt.
Russia, Ukraine and the Strait of Hormuz
This is the case that should most haunt Washington.
Ukraine demonstrated that a materially weaker defender can impose huge costs on a stronger attacker through battlefield innovation: cheap drones, decentralized adaptation, real-time intelligence, and the creative use of terrain and chokepoints to find asymmetrical advantages. The U.S. watched it all unfold in real time for four years and helped pay for it.
Iran was also watching − and the Strait of Hormuz is the proof.
Washington, which had underwritten much of that playbook in Ukraine, apparently never asked the obvious question: What happens when the other side has been taking notes? That is not a failure of U.S. intelligence. It is a failure of strategic imagination − exactly what the hubris/humility index is designed to highlight.
Iran does not need to defeat the U.S. conventionally. It needs only to raise costs, exploit chokepoints and wait for a fracture among U.S. allies and domestic political opposition to force a fake U.S. declaration of victory or a genuine U.S. withdrawal.
Notably, Iran has kept the strait selectively open to Turkish, Indian and Saudi vessels, rewarding neutral countries and punishing U.S. allies, driving wedges through the coalition.
Historian Geoffrey Blainey famously argued that wars start when both sides hold incompatible beliefs about power and only end when reality forces those beliefs to align.
That alignment is now happening, at great cost, in the Persian Gulf and beyond. The Trump administration scored high on the hubris index at exactly the moment when it most needed humility.
The US-Israel strikes on Iran in late February caused an immediate spike in oil prices, and volatility has only increased since then. It quickly led to fears among motorists of “price-gouging” – petrol retailers raising their prices to take advantage of consumer panic.
In the UK, Chancellor Rachel Reeves asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to remain on “high alert” for profiteering by petrol retailers. Trade body the Petrol Retailers Association quickly hit back, saying her language was “incorrect and inflammatory”.
But what does the economic evidence suggest about retailers’ behaviour at times when oil prices are fluctuating wildly? As part of our yet-to-be-published research into UK petrol retailers and large oil price shocks, we examined Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The invasion led to a large and sudden increase in global oil prices, providing a valuable context in which to determine how shocks to crude oil supply filter through to prices at the pump.
The first striking pattern we found was that wholesale unleaded and diesel price changes closely tracked crude oil price changes. When oil prices rose, wholesale fuel prices increased almost immediately. Our estimates suggest that roughly 80% of changes in oil prices are reflected in wholesale fuel prices within a few days.
Retail prices, however, react quite differently. Prices at the pump adjusted more slowly and were considerably smoother than wholesale prices. In periods where wholesale prices increased sharply, retail prices typically rose by less and with a delay.
At the immediate peak of the shock in the weeks following the invasion, wholesale diesel prices rose by about 39 pence per litre, while pump prices increased by only about 16 pence per litre.
The implication is that retailer margins compressed during price spikes as the gap between retail and wholesale prices narrowed temporarily. In other words, although consumers experienced higher petrol prices, the evidence does not suggest that retailers increased their markups during these periods.
But why would retailers reduce their margins when prices spike? One explanation is that consumers become more aware of petrol prices at these times. Using data from price comparison site PetrolPrices.com, we found that when average petrol prices rose above £1.50 per litre during 2022, search activity increased dramatically. The growing number of daily searches indicated that consumers were actively seeking out cheaper filling stations when prices increased.
Consumers get serious about comparing fuel prices when the £1.50/litre threshold is breached.PetrolPrices.com; Experian; authors’ own calculations., Author provided (no reuse)
The crossing of the £1.50 threshold also attracted media attention, increasing people’s awareness and encouraging consumers to compare prices. By using geographically granular data on search activity, combined with daily petrol price data from nearly all petrol stations in the UK, we can causally link this increase in consumer attention with intensifying price competition.
As prices began to stabilise, we found that search intensity on the price comparison site dropped. Search activity itself did not return to pre-shock levels, but instead dropped and plateaued at a higher level than before, consistent with predictions from well-established economic models.
Correspondingly, price impacts narrow over time. At the peak of increased search activity following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a 10 percentage point increase in search activity was associated with roughly a 2% reduction in local area petrol prices. We then found that this was driven primarily by stations that already had higher prices in January 2022. These higher-priced petrol stations cut their prices the most as consumers became more price-sensitive.
The research suggests that when oil prices increase and there is lots of media attention, consumers make more effort to search for better prices. Competition then increases and this puts downward pressure on retail prices. So retailers may actually experience falling margins when oil prices spike.
Rockets and feathers
It seems that it is not the level of prices that drives consumer attention, but whether those prices are rising rapidly. As price increases slow or reverse, consumers search price-comparison sites less intensively, reducing the sense of competition between petrol stations.
But then a clear asymmetry emerges: retail prices rise more quickly following cost increases than they fall following cost decreases. This pattern is known as the “rockets and feathers” effect: prices rise like rockets but fall like feathers.
In our study, we examined the transmission from wholesale to retail prices over a period of more than ten years. As expected, when wholesale costs fell, pump prices dropped more slowly. This temporarily increased the gap between wholesale and retail prices – meaning retailers’ profits grew.
This pattern means if wholesale prices go up by ten pence per litre and then come back down, over the entire adjustment time motorists end up paying about a penny more per litre than they would if prices adjusted evenly.
But this varied across petrol stations. For some, there was very little additional cost to consumers. For others, it was up to five times larger, meaning that the same increase and subsequent decrease would cost consumers up to five pence per litre more.
Taken together, our findings point to a clear conclusion. Petrol retailers do not appear to profiteer during periods when oil prices are rising rapidly. If anything, their margins tend to be squeezed. If concerns about excess profits are warranted, the evidence suggests that it is more likely to occur when oil prices are falling than when they’re spiking.
