Category: Evening Report

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David McMillan, Professor in Finance, University of Stirling

In late January, the gold price reached an all-time peak of around US$5,500 (£4,025). January 30 saw one of the largest one-day falls in prices, which sank by nearly 10% after hitting a record high only the day before.

This was a dramatic about-turn, from a bullish gold market that rose by more than 300% in the last decade, over 150% in the last five years and (perhaps more pertinently) by 75% since US president Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs announcement. To make sense of it, we need to understand some of the factors that led to the rise.

The reasons broadly break down into two categories. The first concerns market uncertainty and gold in its “safe haven” role. As a financial asset, gold offers no income, unlike shares (which might provide dividends) or bonds (which offer coupon payments). So during good times, gold is eschewed for the former and during periods of high interest rates for the latter.

However, during periods of heightened risk and uncertainty, the tangibility of gold gives it value. This was seen during the financial (and subsequent sovereign debt) crisis and at the beginning of the COVID period. Here both share prices and interest rates were low (interest rates historically so) and gold became the favoured asset because it offered the chance of greater returns relative to risk.

These crisis periods can often be geopolitical in nature, and that is the case now with the war in Ukraine following the Russian invasion, as well as ongoing tensions in the Middle East.

But at the moment, what is providing a further boost to the gold price is the uncertainty created by Trump’s tariffs. This is not only about international trade and growth but also its implications for the global financial system. The US dollar is used as a vehicle currency and means of payment for international trade and the currency in which commodities are priced.

The use of tariffs in this way undermines confidence in the dollar, especially where tariffs are threatened as a punishment – as Trump recently did against European countries for opposing his desire to annex Greenland.

And further buoyed by the weak US dollar, which has fallen by 10% in the last year, there has been significant gold-buying, including by central banks as part of their reserves.

As an important aside, while a lot has been said about central banks replacing the US dollar as a reserve currency, overseas holdings of treasuries (US government bonds) are at a record high, countering that view.

The level of debt that countries are building up shows no sign of abating. For example, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which outlines tax cuts and increases to border security and defence spending among many other budget measures, is expected to add several trillion dollars to US debt.

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Read more:
The record gold price reflects a deeper problem than recent global instability

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The second reason for the long-term increase in the gold price is its greater use in investor portfolios for speculative purposes. The “safe-haven” role of gold implies a negative correlation between stocks and gold. That is to say, when one rises the other falls – and vice versa.

However, with the S&P500 (the index tracking the top 500 companies listed in the US) also reaching record highs, stocks and gold have instead been moving in the same direction. This indicates that investors are buying both asset types.

A major component in the growth of gold as an investment asset (as opposed to only a safe haven) is the rise of gold ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that make it easier for non-professional investors to purchase gold.

So why the fall?

Rather than a single event, there has been an accumulation of small changes, combined with the usual sways in investor sentiment. Geopolitical risk remains high, both in Ukraine and the Middle East (while the situation in Israel and Gaza is calmer, that is not the case with Iran). But there are some positive signs.

Trump’s on-off use of tariffs as a means of political negotiation (this time regarding Greenland) also contributed to a rise and fall in the gold price. And the nomination of Kevin Warsh as the new governor of the US Federal Reserve is expected to lessen economic risk.

While Warsh generally supports Trump’s preference for lower interest rates now (although investors are expressing concerns that this could fuel inflation), Warsh also has an equal desire to reduce the size of the Fed’s balance sheet. So it would be unlikely to be an unreserved loosening of monetary policy.

But there is also the investor side. Profit is only realised when the asset is sold. Part of what we have seen is investors selling gold in a high (arguably over-priced) market to make a profit. The price fall associated with these trades then arguably led to further selling.

This included stop-loss trading (when assets are automatically sold when they dip below a certain price) and sales by the likes of hedge funds and other institutional traders. These investors need to unwind positions to prevent major losses.

After the huge fall on January 30, gold prices surged back a couple of days later in the biggest one-day rise since 2008.

There are always corrections, and in fact current movements are likely to be over-corrections. But it’s safe to assume that after this, the market will stabilise and most likely resume an upward trajectory albeit at a slower pace than immediately before the fall.

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

– ref. The rise and fall (and rise again) of gold prices – what’s going on? – https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-again-of-gold-prices-whats-going-on-275017

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-again-of-gold-prices-whats-going-on-275017/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University

No accident waiting to happen can ever have delivered on its promise so spectacularly as Lord Mandelson, with the continuous revelations of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The decision by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, to appoint Mandelson as ambassador in Washington DC always appeared a high-risk, high-reward strategy. But no reward could ever have repaid such risk.

There is a grim fascination in seeing a prominent public figure’s reputation incinerated in real time. Mandelson’s entreating emails to a convicted abuser and trafficker of minors were still quite recently sufficient of an embarrassment before he was then photographed urinating in public.

The new normal is to appear on front pages in his underpants. Next will come questions about the meaning of emails that appear to show him betraying the most cardinal principles of public office, for monetary gain, from a criminal.

Mandelson had clearly started 2026 with the intention of rehabilitating himself and re-entering public life: a Sunday morning BBC interview, columns in the Spectator, an interview in the Times. Journalists’ requests for comment were replied to. No longer.

What was striking across these appearances – given Mandelson’s talents – was his maladroitness. Not to have apologised to the victims of trafficking when pressed in that initial high-profile interview, only to realise his error and concede the following day did not bear the hallmark of a master of public relations.

The rehabilitation plan, moreover, evidently did not include a strategy for the documents that were to be released as part of another huge cache of material relating to Epstein.

There is now the suggestion that Mandelson may have forwarded government-sensitive information to a foreign banker while he was, effectively, the deputy prime minister and that he encouraged that banker to intimidate his colleague, the chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling. The banker allegedly did “mildly threaten” Darling. Darling knew someone was leaking, but, having died in 2023, never knew who. Now we have an idea.

To separate the procedural from the human, for now, the issue that leaves the current government most exposed is Starmer’s personal choice of Mandelson as US ambassador. One of two things must have happened: a catastrophic failure in vetting and in due diligence, or the government ignoring red lights from vetting and due diligence.

This is also an origin story scandal for the Labour party, in which Mandelson has deep roots. It has always lived in fear of its leaders succumbing to the charms of plutocrats. It happened in 1931, in the “great betrayal”, when Labour leader Ramsey McDonald formed a government with the Tories and Liberals to resolve a financial crisis – one reason the saintly Clement Attlee nationalised the Bank of England in 1946. Attlee’s deputy leader was Herbert Morrison, Mandelson’s grandfather.

This matters more now because Mandelson’s influence in the party meant that he has acted as a mentor to so many – not least the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, the man arguably more responsible for this government than Starmer himself, and the person said to have pushed for Mandelson to be given the ambassadorship. The fissures of the Blairites and the soft left are reopening.

Removing Mandelson

There will be those who take pleasure from so public a defenestration of so polarising a figure. Two such will be the Reform and Green party candidates in the Gorton and Denton byelection.

A room of scriptwriters could not have devised a situation calculated to land more effectively for a canvasser from an insurgent party to stand on a doorstep and asks a voter how satisfied they are with the way the country’s run, and in the qualities of their leaders.

Even before the revelations about his friendship with a billionaire paedophile, Mandelson was the personification of the increasingly maligned and resented globalist, lanyard-wearing, chauffeured classes. The online conspiracist hares that have already been sent running are unnecessary: this scandal is in no need of embellishment.

Some always knew. Mandelson masterminded Labour’s electoral approach for a decade, but when he succeeded Neil Kinnock as leader in 1992, John Smith would have nothing to do with him. Smith died suddenly, and Tony Blair’s sudden ascent was facilitated by Mandelson, to the undying enmity of Gordon Brown.

Brown appointed Mandelson his first secretary of state, but from a position of weakness. He is now making his fury known. The current prime minister appointed Mandelson his ambassador to the UK’s closest and most important ally, but from a position of weakness. Brown, at least, can vent his fury – he no longer has office to lose.

In the space of a few hours, Mandelson’s future shifted from the certainty of ignominy to the possibility of prison. We are already beyond historical parallel. For 60 years, John Profumo has been the yardstick for political scandal in the UK (and another where the exploitation of women was lost in a voyeuristic melee). We have a new one.

In other political cultures, Mandelson would by now have been airlifted to a safehouse outside Moscow or Riyadh, given sanctuary, never to be seen or heard of again. But the prime minister will be seeing and hearing of Mandelson for some time to come.

When it comes to making appointments – a prime minister’s elemental power – Starmer has frequently made the wrong choices, though innate caution and timidity, to the detriment of his government. It is the one exception to this cautious approach that may prove to be the most consequential of all.

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

– ref. The fall of Peter Mandelson and the many questions the UK government must now answer – https://theconversation.com/the-fall-of-peter-mandelson-and-the-many-questions-the-uk-government-must-now-answer-275011

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/the-fall-of-peter-mandelson-and-the-many-questions-the-uk-government-must-now-answer-275011/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University

Since the murder of 11 Israeli hostages at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, security has been fundamental for games stakeholders.

The 2024 Paris games set new benchmarks for security at a mega-event, and now the presence of American security officials in Milan Cortina threatens to darken this year’s Winter Olympics before they even start.

Security at the games

The scale of security at the games has magnified considerably since the 1970s.

For the 2024 Olympics, the French government mobilised an unprecedented 45,000 police officers from around the nation.

For the opening ceremony, these forces cordoned off six kilometres of the Seine River.

Advocates point to Paris as an example of security done correctly.

Milipol Paris – one of the world’s largest annual conferences on policing and security – pointed to lower crime across the country during the games and a complete absence of any of the feared large security events. It stated:

The operation demonstrated the effectiveness of advanced planning, inter-agency cooperation and strong logistical coordination. Authorities and observers are now reflecting on which elements of the Paris 2024 model might be applied to future large-scale events.

However, critics complained the security measures infringed on civil liberties.

Controversy as ICE heads to Italy

Ahead of the Milan Cortina games, which run from February 4-23, Italian officials promised they were “ready to meet the challenge of security”.

A newly established cybersecurity headquarters will include officials from around the globe, who will sift through intelligence reports and react to issues in real time.

As well as this, security will feature:

• 6,000 officers to protect the two major locations – Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo
• a no-fly zone around key sites
• a constant restricted access cordon around some sites (as seen in Paris).

Some of the security officers working in the cybersecurity headquarters will come from the United States.

Traditionally the US diplomatic security service provides protection for US athletes and officials attending mega-events overseas. It has been involved in the games since 1976.

Late last month, however, news broke that some of the officers will be from “a unit of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)”.

US and Italian officials were quick to differentiate between Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which handles cross-border crime, and Enforcement and Removal Operations, the department responsible for the brutal crackdown on immigrant communities across the US.

The HSI has helped protect athletes at previous events and will be stationed at the US Consulate in Milan to provide support to the broader US security team at the games.

But the organisation’s reputation precedes them, and Italians are wary.

In Milan, demonstrators expressed outrage. Left-wing Mayor Giuseppe Sala called ICE a “a militia that kills” while protests broke out in the host cities.

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Shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis has put America’s gun lobby at odds with the White House

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US-European relations are stretched

The presence of ICE has also illuminated fractures within Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani defended the inclusion of the US officers, saying “it’s not like the SS are coming”, referring to the Nazis paramilitary force in Germany.

However, local officials, including those from Meloni’s centre-right coalition, expressed concerns.

The tension inside Meloni’s government reflects broader concerns on the continent about US-European relations.

US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will attend the opening ceremony in Milan, despite some Europeans viewing Vance as the mouthpiece for US President Donald Trump’s imperial agenda.

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The Making of an Autocrat: podcast out now

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Trump’s desire to take over Greenland has undermined American and European support for trans-Atlantic amity and the NATO alliance.

Just ahead of the Olympics, Danish veterans marched outside the US Embassy after Trump disparaged NATO’s contribution to US-led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. These protests added to Danes’ fears about Trump’s Greenland ambition.

Tensions in Denmark remain high as the Americans and the Danes gear up to play ice hockey in the opening round robin of the men’s competition.

Elsewhere, politicians in the US on both sides have raised concerns that Trump’s bombastic rhetoric will make it harder for American athletes to compete and win.

A double standard?

Critics argue there is an American exception when it comes to global politics interfering in international sport.

Under Trump, the US has attacked Iran and Venezuela, called on Canada to become its 51st state, threatened to occupy Greenland and engaged in cross-border operations in Mexico.

Despite this, US competitors can still wear their nation’s colours at the Olympics.

Compare this to Belarussian and Russian athletes, who are only eligible to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and only under the condition they have not been publicly supportive of the invasion. An International Olympic Committee (IOC) body assesses each competitor’s eligibility.

Israeli athletes have also been under the spotlight amid geopolitical tensions in the region.

Following the Israeli invasion of Gaza in October 2023, a panel of independent experts at the United Nations urged soccer’s governing body FIFA to ban Israeli athletes, stating:

sporting bodies must not turn a blind eye to grave human rights violations.

But FIFA, and the IOC, have recently defended Israeli athletes’ right to participate in international sport in the face of boycotts and protests.

Competitors from Israel can represent their country at the Winter Olympics.

The political developments which have caused ructions worldwide ironically come after the IOC’s 2021 decision to update the Olympic motto to supposedly recognise the “unifying power of sport and the importance of solidarity”.

The change was a simple one, adding the word “together” after the original three-word motto: “faster, higher, stronger”.

It remains to be seen whether the Milan Cortina games live up to every aspect of the “faster, higher, stronger – together” motto, not just the first three words.

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

– ref. Winter Olympic security tightens as US-European tensions grow – https://theconversation.com/winter-olympic-security-tightens-as-us-european-tensions-grow-274530

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/winter-olympic-security-tightens-as-us-european-tensions-grow-274530/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emlyn Dodd, Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies, Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London; Macquarie University

How far back does the rich history of Italian olives and oil stretch? My new research, synthesising and reevaluating existing archaeological evidence, suggests olive trees have been exploited for more than 6,000 years. The first Italian olive oil was produced perhaps 4,000 years ago.

The olive was central to ancient life in Italy. Wild and domesticated olives provided edible fruit. By the mid-first millennium BCE into the Roman period, olive oil was used in cooking, medicine, ritual and hygiene.

Table olives are rich in calories, lipids, vitamins and minerals, and high in calcium. Olive wood is dense, and was used in crafting, construction and for fuel. The waste from pressing olives (pomace) was also a remarkably popular domestic and industrial fuel source in antiquity, burning at a higher temperature for longer and with less smoke than charcoal.

Uses of the olive tree and its fruit were diverse.

During the early Roman Empire (around the first century CE) it is possible Rome’s immediate hinterland produced 9.7 million litres of olive oil per year.

Today, Italy remains among the top olive producing regions in the Mediterranean.

A deep history of olive exploitation

Evidence from ancient pollen shows that olive trees were present in Italy during the Pleistocene, more than 11,000 years ago. These were likely wild olives.

In order to think about exploitation and cultivation, it is important to discern human interaction with the plant and its fruit.

Olive tree charcoal, suggestive of human exploitation, has been found in Mesolithic layers from the seventh and sixth millennia BCE (8,000 years ago) in Sicily and Apulia in the south of Italy.

In northern Italy, the Arene Candide cave in Liguria revealed olive charcoal along with quern stones and sickle blades, possibly used for rudimentary olive harvesting and processing. People at this time began to shape the landscape of wild olive trees by using wood for fuel, collecting wild fruit or pruning off branches for fodder.

An exponential increase in evidence occurs in the Neolithic (6000–3500 BCE), hinting at more intensive use of the olive tree.

But our earliest olive stones, which provide more convincing evidence of olive fruit consumption, are not found in an occupation context until the Middle Neolithic (around 5000–4000 BCE). Much of this early material comes from Calabria, Apulia and Sardinia, with only limited glimpses in central Italy and the Veneto.

Despite accumulating evidence, no conclusive signs yet exist for the Neolithic production of olive oil in Italy.

The earliest olive oil in Italy?

Organic residue analysis has detected plant oils, perhaps from olives, in an Early Bronze Age (2000 BCE) large clay storage jar (pithos) from Castelluccio, Sicily. But there remain challenges in our ability to discern between different types of oils using this technique, and preservation in the Mediterranean is rarely ideal.

More potential indicators for olive oil have been found in ceramic storage jars from Broglio di Trebisacce, Calabria, and Roca Vecchia, Apulia, in the mid-second millennium BCE.

The Bronze Age also saw olive cultivation expand into marginal lands where the wild olive did not grow, for example at Tufariello, Campania, around 1700 BCE. There was clearly significant interest in the exploitation of olives in Bronze Age Italy, which likely included the production of oil at least on a small scale.

Iron Age developments

Italian regions experienced different trajectories around 1000 BCE. Parts of southern Italy show declines in olive cultivation, perhaps linked to changing economic and cultural events. Sites on the Ionian and Adriatic coast maintain olive charcoal, stones, oil residues and even imprints of olive leaves on ceramics.

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Remaking history: using Ancient Egyptian techniques, I made delicious olive oil at home – and you can too

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Possibly the earliest stone rotary olive millstone in the Mediterranean was discovered at Incoronata, Basilicata, dating to the seventh century BCE.

The invention of rotary mills signalled an important change in processing power and efficiency. Mills crushed olives, separating skin from flesh before they were pressed for oil. Although they are generally thought to originate in the Aegean, where examples from the sixth and fifth centuries BCE exist, the find from Incoronata might instead suggest a central Mediterranean origin.

Recent research demonstrates external cultures, like Phoenicians or Greeks, were not solely responsible for the introduction of olive cultivation or oil production. This follows similar conclusions reached for viticulture and winemaking in Italy.

Cultural exchange through trade and colonisation brought different knowledge, technology and ideas of production around oleiculture and oil production, creating forums for local innovation.

These forces energised already-intensifying cultivation. By around 600–500 BCE, Etruscan communities began to play a key role in the systematic establishment of groves and the use of olives in central Italy.

Roman consolidation and scaling up

The Roman period saw olive cultivation pushed well past its natural bioclimatic limits. Olive trees were grown at higher altitudes, latitudes and in more arid regions.

Production occurred across much of the Italian peninsula, even in subalpine regions and marginal lands.

Archaeological and ancient environmental material illustrate a substantial oil-producing habit and emerging market in Roman Republican and Imperial Italy – perhaps on a larger scale than previously thought.

Some oil production facilities may have had four or more presses. This illustrates exceptional processing scale, such as the elite villa of Vacone in central Italy.

A facility in Apulia, used from the first century BCE onwards, had an oil cellar with perhaps 47 enormous clay jars (dolia), potentially storing 25,000–35,000 litres.

Oil production also occurred at a smaller-scale in urban centres and isolated rural locations. The discovery of a production site at Case Nuove, Tuscany, provides a rare glimpse into modest scale olive processing using rudimentary technologies.

As analytical and scientific techniques improve, the ancient history of olive oil in Italy will continue to evolve, pushing our knowledge further back in time and adding new detail and nuance.

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

– ref. Olives have been essential to life in Italy for at least 6,000 years – far longer than we thought – https://theconversation.com/olives-have-been-essential-to-life-in-italy-for-at-least-6-000-years-far-longer-than-we-thought-273461

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/olives-have-been-essential-to-life-in-italy-for-at-least-6-000-years-far-longer-than-we-thought-273461/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Luckman, Professor of Culture and Creative Industries, Adelaide University

We have now passed the annual Australia Day peak of calls urging us to “buy Australian” – especially lamb. The iconic green-and-gold “Australian Made, Australian Grown” logo, launched by then-Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1986, turns 40 this year.

We are also often encouraged to support local businesses in tough times. The recent devastating impacts of bushfires in Victoria highlights the importance of supporting local businesses in need.

But is buying local feasible or desirable for most Australians? Who buys Australian made – and why? These questions were at the heart of our latest research, which drew on a nationally representative survey of 924 Australian consumers.

We found a majority of Australians support buying local. But their motivations for doing so vary significantly – and not all are willing to pay more.

Looking beyond the farmers’ market

Most previous research has focused on local food. Much less is known about motivations for buying other kinds of local goods.

We asked people whether they sought to buy locally produced goods across a wide range of categories, including fruit and vegetables, meat, alcoholic drinks, clothing, furniture, decorative items, personal accessories and other household goods.

If the answer was yes, we asked why – and whether they were willing to pay more to do so.

Who buys Australian made and why?

We found the desire to “buy local” cannot be neatly categorised as progressive or conservative, nor is the desire to support local confined to any one demographic group.

We found most Australians had a strong desire to buy local. Overall, the top three reasons were:

1. “to support the local economy and jobs”
2. “better quality”
3. “I prefer to support small business”.

This was consistent across all product categories, with supporting the local economy and jobs by far the strongest motivation.

What matters to men and women

But there were some notable variations. For example, while responses by gender were fairly similar, men were far more likely than women to seek out Australian-made alcoholic beverages, which they saw as “better quality” and “safer and more trustworthy”.

In the same product category, women were far more interested in the “story” of such products, choosing the response “I like to know where and how it is produced” more frequently than men.

When it came to clothing and personal accessories, concern for labour conditions and environmental impacts emerged as stronger drivers for women.

Who’s willing to pay more?

Perhaps surprisingly, we found income level has little to do with whether people are willing to pay more for locally produced goods. This is where other values come into play.

We found those aged over 45 had the strongest preference for buying local, and this was primarily motivated by a desire to support the local economy and jobs. However, they were also the least willing to pay more. Notably, ethical or values-based considerations were less of a driver for this group.

In contrast, younger people were more likely to buy local for environmental reasons or for reasons related to labour conditions and workplace ethics. Despite being on lower incomes, younger people were generally willing to pay more for these considerations.

Additional differences became clear when we considered respondents’ political views – particularly their views on immigration.

Those aged over 45, who held the strongest desire to support local economy and jobs, also held the most negative views about immigration – saying they felt that immigration numbers were too high and should be tightened.

This was in contrast to the younger respondents who also sought to buy local for reasons extending beyond supporting the local economy. More motivated to buy local for environmental or ethical reasons, this cohort tended to have more positive views about immigration, feeling that immigration numbers were “about right” or could be higher.

Why this matters

The disruption of COVID made local production and buying more urgent and more common. This sped up a shift towards small-scale and local production that began before the pandemic.

Since the pandemic, Australian businesses have experienced further economic and environmental disruptions: natural disasters, the United States’ reintroduction of tariffs, and the ongoing cost of living crisis, to name a few.

However, our research suggests the same act of buying local holds different meanings across demographics and the political spectrum.

These findings are important to consider at the present moment, as anti-immigration sentiment becomes more visible.

Susan Luckman receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Michelle Phillipov receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. New research shows Australians support buying local for different reasons – and not all will pay more – https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-australians-support-buying-local-for-different-reasons-and-not-all-will-pay-more-274731

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/new-research-shows-australians-support-buying-local-for-different-reasons-and-not-all-will-pay-more-274731/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emily McIntyre, PhD candidate in Ecology, The University of Melbourne

Think truffles and you’ll probably think of France. But Australia is actually a global hotspot for truffle-like fungi, boasting hundreds of different species. Like culinary truffles, these truffle-like fungi produce underground sporing bodies rather than send up mushrooms.

Living underground has its challenges. Fungi which form mushrooms above ground can easily disperse their spores (the fungal equivalent to a plant’s seed) on the wind. But truffle-like fungi can’t do this. Instead, they rely on native mammals to follow their pungent smells, dig up the underground sporing body, eat it and disperse their spores in their scat.

Many native mammals eat fungi when they are easily available, including common brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula), swamp wallabies (Wallabia bicolor), bush rats (Rattus fuscipes), and greater bilbies (Macrotis lagotis), but they generally don’t rely on them for a large part of their diet in the same way as potoroos and bettongs do. Among these fungi fans, there’s one species which stands out.

Australia’s most specialised fungi-eater is the long-footed potoroo (Potorous longipes), which relies on these fungi for over 90% of its diet. It’s likely to be one of the most fungi-dependent mammals in the world. Their nocturnal work digging up and eating fungi supports forests in southeastern Australia by helping to maintain the fungi-tree symbiosis.

The long-footed potoroo has long been rare due to habitat loss and fox predation. It’s been endangered for decades. Once considered more widespread, their range is now restricted to two regions between Victoria and New South Wales, much of which burned during the 2019-2020 megafires.

But there’s a newer threat: climate change.

In our new research, we analyse a rare long-term collection of potoroo scats. We found that as conditions get hotter, these potoroos are eating a much smaller range of fungi. This has significant implications for potoroo diets, fungal dispersal, and the health of our forests.

What’s in that scat?

Many truffle-like fungi live in ectomycorrhizal symbiosis with native trees such as eucalypts. This means they trade nutrients between their threadlike hyphae and the tree’s root system, a remarkably ancient relationship which supports tree growth and health and provides their fungal partners with a source of energy.

To explore whether climate change has been affecting the truffle-like fungi consumed by the long-footed potoroo, we partnered with colleagues at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, CSIRO and the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. We then turned to an extensive and extremely rare collection of potoroo scats.

These scats have been painstakingly collected over 23 years (1993-2016) by department staff. Collections of scats are enormously valuable to researchers, as they give us clear evidence of what an animal has been eating – and if their diets have changed over time.

We used DNA analysis to track which species of truffle-like fungi these potoroos had eaten over time. This process involved sequencing fungal DNA present in potoroo scats, and matching these DNA sequences to a fungal species database. This left us with a list of fungal species that were present in each potoroo scat.

Overall, we found potoroos ate fewer species of truffle-like fungi in warmer conditions. This trend was visible from season to season, as well as between years. As temperatures continue to increase due to climate change, we expect that long-footed potoroos will continue to consume fewer species of truffle-like fungi.

More heat, less fungal variety

During warm conditions, potoroos ate less of some genera of truffle-like fungi and more of others such as Mesophellia, a genus of truffle-like fungi producing hard-cased sporing bodies between five and 40 cm underground.

We already know these fungi are eaten in abundance by hungry bettongs after a bushfire. As climate change brings warmer temperatures, we expect Mesophellia may increasingly act as an important food source for long-footed potoroos when other resources are scarce.

Overall, our findings suggest climate change may make it harder for potoroos to get as wide a range of fungi to eat, which might make it harder for these marsupials to get the nutrients they need. The nutrition in sporing bodies varies widely between species, so eating a narrower fungal diet may mean less diverse nutrients.

If this happens, it’s possible potoroos could shift their diets and eat more insects or plants. But it’s not a guarantee, given these animals are such specialised fungi-eaters.

This, in turn, could have wider flow-on effects. If potoroos consume fewer species of truffle-like fungi, some species may have fewer chances to spread around landscapes. If they become rarer, it could disrupt the long symbiosis between fungi and ectomycorrhizal forest trees in lowland coastal forests through to tall mountain forests.

This three-way relationship benefits long-footed potoroos, truffle-like fungi, and the native trees that form ectomycorrhizal partnerships with these fungi. Each member of this relationship depends on the others.

Ripple effects

Not many people have seen these shy potoroos. But they have an importance far beyond their modest size. The simple act of digging up and eating truffle-like fungi is vital for the potoroo, the fungi and the forests around them.

Many of Australia’s once-common digging marsupials have become rare or been driven to extinction since European colonisation. The long-footed potoroo, too, is endangered by historic and ongoing threats, ranging from habitat loss to fox predation to climate change.

We don’t know yet how climate change will affect the complex relationship between potoroo, fungi, and the forests around them. Understanding these complex relationships is essential if we are to protect them against an uncertain future.

Craig Nitschke receives funding from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, the Australian Research Council, and Australian Forest and Wood Innovations.

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

– ref. Potoroos digging for ‘truffles’ keep their forests healthy – but for how long? – https://theconversation.com/potoroos-digging-for-truffles-keep-their-forests-healthy-but-for-how-long-271844

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/potoroos-digging-for-truffles-keep-their-forests-healthy-but-for-how-long-271844/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben White, Professor of End-of-Life Law and Regulation, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology

Voluntary assisted dying is now available almost everywhere in Australia. This means eligible adults can choose to end their lives with medical assistance.

In November 2025, the Australian Capital Territory voluntary assisted dying laws came into effect.

Of the states and territories, this leaves only the Northern Territory without voluntary assisted dying.

But the NT looks set to change its laws mid-year – and other states are reviewing their current legislation.

Here’s what to expect in 2026.

What might change in the NT this year?

In September 2025, a NT parliamentary committee recommended introducing voluntary assisted dying. It provided drafting instructions for a new bill to be written.

As 2026 began, the NT government announced it would introduce a voluntary assisted dying bill, set to be tabled mid-year. This will be decided by a conscience vote, as occurred elsewhere in Australia.

If the bill follows the national trend, it will pass. But local factors will be significant in the parliamentary debates and may influence how the law is written or implemented.

For example, the NT’s small population is spread out over a large expanse, and it has a higher proportion of Indigenous residents (30%) than other jurisdictions.

If a bill does pass, the laws are unlikely to come into effect for some time, to allow for the system to be properly set up. Based on timeframes elsewhere, territorians would likely have access to voluntary assisted dying in early 2028.

Will this ‘nationalise’ voluntary assisted dying?

Until now, voluntary assisted dying has largely been a matter for the separate states and territories. This has meant strict residency requirements in jurisdictions that allow it.

Currently, these requirements limit voluntary assisted dying access to people who have lived in the particular state or territory for a specified period (although there are some exemptions).

But if the NT joins the rest of the country and voluntary assisted dying is permitted nation-wide, these requirements are not needed.

Commonwealth law also currently bans using telehealth to discuss or arrange voluntary assisted dying for patients. This is due to pre-existing criminal legislation related to “suicide” – not specifically intended to apply to voluntary assisted dying.

There is a very simple legislative fix for this problem: explicitly stating that the ban does not apply to voluntary assisted dying consultations.

But it has not been on the federal political agenda. If voluntary assisted dying becomes available nationally, it will be harder to justify why this barrier remains.

What about existing laws?

Mandatory reviews of voluntary assisted dying laws may mean further changes are ahead.

Victoria was the first Australian state to introduce voluntary assisted dying, in 2017, and still has the most conservative model. It was also the first Australian state to review its law.

In late 2025, Victoria made some legislative amendments to improve access. Some of these changes, which will come into force in April 2027, include:

• allowing doctors to raise voluntary assisted dying with a patient (previously prohibited)

• extending the expected time until death 12 months for all conditions

• requiring conscientiously objecting medical and nurse practitioners to provide information about voluntary assisted dying to patients who ask about it.

These reforms will bring Victorian laws in line with some of the other Australian jurisdictions.

Western Australia has also completed its first review. This recommended changes to policy and practice to improve access and support for eligible people and voluntary assisted dying providers. In 2026, Tasmania, Queensland and New South Wales will also be reviewing their laws.

Significantly, the Queensland review will examine the eligibility criteria (who may access voluntary assisted dying). This was not a requirement of the Victorian and Western Australian reviews.

Law reform may also occur outside these mandatory reviews. In late 2025, the New South Wales parliament considered a proposal which would make it easier for residential facilities that object to voluntary assisted dying – including aged care facilities – to prevent it happening onsite.

This bill did not progress, but the issue remains contested.

What else will be on the agenda in 2026?

The ACT’s new laws give specific powers to nurse practitioners – in line with Canada, but a first in Australia. They are permitted to be one of the two required practitioners to assess eligibility (the other must be a doctor).

The ACT is also unique in not requiring someone to have a specific expected timeframe until death to be eligible. In other states, this is six or 12 months.

Still, we expect the types of conditions people will access voluntary assisted dying for will be similar to other jurisdictions. But ongoing monitoring of how the system is working in the ACT, and who is accessing it, will be important.

It is likely access for people with dementia will also continue to be debated in 2026.

Dementia is now the leading cause of death in Australia.

Unlike some other countries such as the Netherlands, Australia practically excludes access for people with dementia. While there are sustained public calls to change this, it is a complex issue that raises several ethical and practical challenges, including the time at which voluntary assisted dying should be available.

Voluntary assisted dying is now lawful and being accessed across most – and soon, potentially all – of the country. The focus will shift to improving current laws and systems.

These deliberations must be informed by evidence and public consultation. We need to ensure voluntary assisted dying remains safe, but also accessible, to people who are eligible.

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Katherine Waller to this article.

Ben White has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, Commonwealth and state governments, and philanthropic organisations for research and training about the law, policy and practice relating to end-of-life care. In relation to voluntary assisted dying, he (with colleagues) has been engaged by the Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments to design and provide the legislatively mandated training for health practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in those states. He was appointed as an Expert Legal Advisor to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory for its report on voluntary assisted dying and (with colleagues) developed the accompanying drafting instructions. He was also engaged (with colleagues) to provide a research report to support the Western Australian review of the voluntary assisted dying laws. He is a member of the Tasmanian Panel for the review of the End-of-Life Choices (Voluntary Assisted Dying) Act 2021. He (with Lindy Willmott) developed a model bill for voluntary assisted dying for parliaments to consider. Ben is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT190100410: Enhancing End-of-Life Decision-Making: Optimal Regulation of Voluntary Assisted Dying) funded by the Australian government. He is also a Chief Investigator on a current Australian Research Council Linkage Project on voluntary assisted dying (partnering with Voluntary Assisted Dying (Review) Boards and/or Departments of Health in five Australian States.

Casey Haining was previously engaged as a legal writer for the Mandatory Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Training. She was also the appointed research fellow for the review of Western Australia’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2019 (WA). She was also previously engaged as a research fellow on the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship project, Enhancing End-of-Life Decision-Making: Optimal Regulation of Voluntary Assisted Dying (project number FT190100410).

Katrine Del Villar was part of the team engaged by the Western Australian and Queensland governments to design and provide the legislatively mandated training for health practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in those states. She was part of the team engaged by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory to develop drafting instructions for its report on voluntary assisted dying.

Madeleine Archer was part of the team engaged by the Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments to design and provide the legislatively mandated training for health practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in those states. She was part of the team engaged by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory to develop drafting instructions for its report on voluntary assisted dying. Madeleine worked on the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT190100410: Enhancing End-of-Life Decision-Making: Optimal Regulation of Voluntary Assisted Dying) funded by the Australian government. 

– ref. Voluntary assisted dying isn’t available to all Australians. In 2026, this may finally change – https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-isnt-available-to-all-australians-in-2026-this-may-finally-change-269098

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/voluntary-assisted-dying-isnt-available-to-all-australians-in-2026-this-may-finally-change-269098/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Associate Professor of Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University

Instagram is one of Australia’s most popular social media platforms. Almost two in three Aussies have an account.

Ushering in 2026 and what he calls “synthetic everything” on our feeds, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has signalled the platform will likely adjust its algorithms to surface more original content instead of AI slop.

Finding ways to tackle widespread AI content is the latest in a long series of shifts Instagram has undergone over the past decade. Some are obvious and others are more subtle. But all affect user experience and behaviour, and, more broadly, how we see and understand the online social world.

To identify some of these patterns, I examined ten years’ worth of Instagram posts from a single account (@australianassociatedpress) for an upcoming study.

This involved looking at nearly 2,000 posts and more than 5,000 media assets. I selected the AAP account as an example of a noteworthy Australian account with public service value.

I found six key shifts over this timeframe. Although user practices vary, this analysis provides a glimpse into some larger ways the AAP account – and social media more broadly – has been changing in the past decade.

Reflecting on some of these changes also provides hints at how social media might change in the future, and what that means for society.

1. Media orientations have shifted

When it launched in 2010, Instagram quickly became known as the platform that re-popularised the square image format. Square photography has been around for more than 100 years but its popularity waned in the 1980s when newer cameras made the non-square rectangular format dominant.

Instagram forced users to post square images for the platform’s first five years. However, the balance between square and horizontal images has given way to vertical media over time.

On the AAP account that shift happened over the last two years, with 84.4% of all its posts now in vertical orientation.

2. Media types have changed

As with orientations, the media types being posted have also changed. This is due, in part, to platform affordances: what the platform allows or enables a user to do.

As an example, Instagram didn’t allow users to post videos until 2013, three years after the platform started. It added the option to post “stories” (short-lived image/video posts of up to 15 seconds) and live broadcasts in 2016. Reels (longer-lasting videos of up to 90 seconds) came later in 2020.

Some accounts are more video-heavy than others, to try to compete with other video-heavy platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. But we can see a larger trend in the shift from single-image posts to multi-asset posts. Instagram calls these “carousels”, a feature introduced in 2017.

The AAP went from publishing just single-image posts in the first years of the account to gradually using more carousels. In the most recent year, they accounted for 85.9% of all posts.

3. Media are becoming more multimodal

A typical Instagram account grid from the mid-2000s had a mix of carefully curated photographs that were clean, colourful and simple in composition.

Fast-forward a decade, and posts have become much more multimodal. Text is being overlaid on images and videos and the compositions are mixing media types more frequently.

There are subtitles on videos, labels on photos, quote cards, and “headline” posts that try to tell a mini story on the post itself without the user having to read the accompanying post description.

On the AAP account, the proportion of text on posts never rose above 10% between 2015 and 2024. Then, in 2025, it skyrocketed to being on 84.4% of its posts.

4. User practices change

Over time, user practices have also changed in response to cultural trends and changes of the platform design itself.

An example of this is social media accounts starting to insert hashtags in a post comment rather than directly in the post description. This is supposed to help the post’s algorithmic ranking.

Another key change over this timeframe was Instagram’s decision in 2019 to hide “likes” on posts. The thinking behind this decision was to try to reduce the pressure on account owners to make content that was driven by the number of “like” interactions a post received. It was also hypothesised to help with users’ mental health.

In 2021, Instagram left it up to users to decide whether to show or hide “likes” on their account’s posts.

5. The platform became more commercialised

Instagram introduced a Shop tab in 2020 – users could now buy things without leaving the app.

The number of ads, sponsored posts, and suggested accounts has increased over time. Looking through your own feed, you might find that one-third to one-half of the content you now encounter was paid for.

6. The user experience shifts with algorithms and AI

Instagram introduced its “ranked feed” back in 2016. This meant that rather than seeing content in reverse chronological order, users would see content that an algorithm thought users would be interested in. These algorithms consider aspects such as account owner behaviour (view time, “likes”, comments) and what other users find engaging.

An option to opt back in to a reverse chronological feed was then introduced in 2022.

To compete with apps such as Snapchat, Instagram introduced augmented reality effects on the platform in 2017.

It also introduced AI-powered search in 2023, and has experimented with AI-powered profiles and other features. One of these is turning the content of a direct message into an AI image.

Looking ahead

Overall, we see more convergence and homogenisation.

Social media platforms are looking more similar as they seek to replicate the features of competitors. Media formats are looking more similar as the design of smartphones and software favour vertical media. Compositions are looking more multimodal as type, audio, still imagery, and video are increasingly mixed.

And, with the corresponding rise of AI-generated content, users’ hunger for authenticity might grow even more.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

– ref. I studied 10 years of Instagram posts. Here’s how social media has changed – https://theconversation.com/i-studied-10-years-of-instagram-posts-heres-how-social-media-has-changed-272898

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/i-studied-10-years-of-instagram-posts-heres-how-social-media-has-changed-272898/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynne Chepulis, Associate Professor, Health Sciences, University of Waikato

For the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who live with type 2 diabetes, managing the chronic condition can start to feel like keeping score.

A patient is given a list of numbers by their doctor. Blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels are tracked closely, with targets designed to reduce the risk of complications such as heart attacks, kidney failure, blindness and early death.

In theory, those targets apply equally to everyone. In practice, they are far harder to reach for some New Zealanders than others.

Using health records from more than 57,000 adults with type 2 diabetes, our newly published study found Māori and Pacific people are much less likely than New Zealand Europeans to meet key clinical targets, even when they are seeing a doctor regularly.

The same pattern holds for people living in more deprived neighbourhoods and for many rural patients.

Consider HbA1c (glycated haemoglobin) tests. These measure average blood sugar levels over the past three months. A lower result is better. But fewer than half of all people in the study hit the recommended targets for HbA1c.

Among Māori, just 43% met the targets. Among Pacific people, the rate was lower still, at 36%. By contrast, around one in two Asian and New Zealand European patients were at target. We also found the proportion of people not meeting targets also rises dramatically relative to social deprivation.

These disparities can come with dire consequences. Over time, high blood sugar damages blood vessels and nerves, driving up the risk of amputations.

Māori and Pacific people face these complications earlier and more often than other New Zealanders, often due to being diagnosed much earlier in life. The same pattern shows up for blood pressure and cholesterol, key predictors of strokes and heart attacks.

Clear targets, unequal outcomes

At first glance, they can look like the result of individual choices. A common refrain is that people are simply not trying hard enough. But that explanation doesn’t hold up. It assumes a level playing field, which does not exist.

Most health targets are set as if everyone has easy access to care: a regular doctor, reliable transport and enough income to support healthier choices. But managing diabetes demands more than willpower. It involves regular appointments, blood tests, adjusting medications and building long-term relationships with clinicians.

That may be easy to write into a guideline, but it is much harder if a patient lives far away, can’t get time off work or is juggling transport, childcare and tight budgets.

For patients in rural areas, a routine appointment can mean taking half a day off work and spending hours on the road, along with the cost of fuel. Specialist services are often even further away. With ongoing workforce shortages, continuity of care can be difficult to maintain.

Many patients end up seeing a different doctor or nurse each visit, which makes it hard to build any kind of relationship with the person managing their care. For Māori and Pacific patients, this lack of continuity can compound care that already feels rushed or culturally unsafe.

When people do not feel heard, it becomes harder to stay engaged. Missed appointments are often labelled as “disengagement”, when they are more accurately a reasonable response to a system that does not fit people’s lives.

Newer diabetes medicines that protect the heart and kidneys are now available, but access is not always straightforward. Although these drugs are funded in New Zealand, tight eligibility rules and follow-up requirements mean many people who qualify never receive them.

Others stop taking them because of side effects, cost, or uncertainty about how the medicines are meant to help.

Cost matters, too. Even in a publicly funded system, people still face co-payments for GP visits, prescriptions and transport. For families already stretched by housing and food costs, diabetes care must compete with everything else.

Accordingly, people living in more deprived areas face greater challenges keeping glucose at optimal levels, regardless of motivation.

What the targets are really telling us

Over time, these small frictions accumulate. Blood sugar creeps up, blood pressure stays high, and targets are missed. The system records a “failure”, but that failure is not evenly distributed.

Clinical targets developed under ideal conditions are not neutral when applied universally. They remain useful, but only if there is honesty about what they capture. In practice, they often reflect how well the health system is working.

More equitable diabetes care would look different: seeing patients closer to home, longer appointments and support that includes whānau as well as individuals. It would mean removing cost barriers, ensuring continuity and investing in rural and kaupapa Māori services alongside urban hospitals.

Read this way, diabetes targets become indicators of system performance. Right now, they show where care is accessible and effective – and where inequity persists. Ignoring these signals risks embedding inequity for another generation.

Lynne Chepulis receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand

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

– ref. Diabetes care in NZ: thousands of patient records reveal who’s being left behind – https://theconversation.com/diabetes-care-in-nz-thousands-of-patient-records-reveal-whos-being-left-behind-274421

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/diabetes-care-in-nz-thousands-of-patient-records-reveal-whos-being-left-behind-274421/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael La Corte, Research Associate, Curation and Communication, University of Tübingen

Restitution debates – the question of whether a cultural object should be returned from a museum or other collection to a person or community – often begin with a deceptively simple question: who owns an object?

In colonial contexts, this question rarely has a clear answer. Histories of acquisition are often incomplete, disputed and overwhelmingly recorded from European perspectives. Legal documentation, where it exists at all, usually reflects unequal power relations rather than mutual consent. As a result, many restitution claims cannot be resolved through law alone.

This raises a fundamental question: should the spiritual, social and ancestral significance of an object for its community of origin outweigh unresolved legal arguments about possession?

The case of the Hinematioro pou, which is now being returned from the University of Tübingen to the Māori community Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island, illustrates a restitution process grounded in cultural values. It shows what happens when decisions are guided primarily by spiritual meaning and relational responsibility, rather than by legal uncertainty surrounding colonial acquisition.

A pou is a carved wooden pillar that acts as a marker for tribal boundaries, stories or ancestors. The Hinematioro pou is an early carved panel depicting a standing ancestral figure.

For the Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, the pou is neither a historical artefact nor a work of art in the western sense. It is the material presence of an ancestor, Hinematioro, who was an ariki (high-ranking leader). The pou is part of a living social order, not a testimony to a distant past.

Within Māori cultural logic, such an object is a taonga: a treasure that carries not only material, but also spiritual, social and genealogical value. Taonga possess mana and mauri – agency and life force – and require ritual relationships as well as responsibility.

This meaning became clear when the pou returned in 2019, for the first time in over 250 years, to Ūawa (Tolaga Bay). It was met with a formal pōwhiri (welcome ceremony) with singing, speeches, tears and embraces – as if a long-absent relative had come home.

Witnessing this special moment made us and many others who were part of the event understand that the question of the pou’s future location is not a museological one for the community, but an existential one. It is not about possession, but about relationship.

How the taonga came to Germany

It is not possible to conclusively reconstruct how the taonga came to Europe. What is certain is that, in October 1769, it was taken from Ūawa to Europe aboard the HMS Endeavour during James Cook’s first Pacific voyage.

The panel is widely regarded as one of the earliest surviving carved pou associated with Māori chiefly genealogies to have entered European collections. This occurred within a colonial context of profound power asymmetries.

It is also not possible to establish how the pou was transferred. A range of possibilities exists, including gifting, coerced handover, exchange or theft. European sources provide no clear evidence, and perspectives from the source community are not sufficiently recognised in Europe. Therefore, a lack of documented violence cannot be taken as evidence of a voluntary transfer.

The object’s later path to Tübingen can only be partially traced. It may have circulated through several 19th-century scientific and collecting networks connected to the Cook expedition.

What is certain is that, in 1937, the pou entered the Ethnological Collection of the University of Tübingen through Emma von Luschan (1864–1941, wife to the anthropologist, explorer, archaeologist and ethnographer, Felix von Luschan) when their collection was curated by the anthropologist and ethnologist Augustin Krämer.

A turning point came in the 1990s, when the panel was identified using a drawing from the Cook expedition held at the British Library. What proved decisive, however, was the establishment of direct relationships with the Hauiti Iwi (tribe or people).

In the following years, close cooperation developed between the University of Tübingen and the Hauiti Iwi. In 2019 the pou was loaned back to the Māori. A jointly curated exhibition Te Pou o Hinematioro (2025–26) at Hohentübingen Castle back in Germany followed – an expressions of a partnership in which trust could grow. The restitution of the pou is therefore not the outcome of conflict, but the result of a long-term relationship that deepened during the exhibition process.

From a legal perspective, the university was not obliged to return the object. Under German civil law, the pou is considered university property, and no binding restitution framework exists for colonial contexts.

Nevertheless, political approaches to colonial collection material in Germany have shifted in recent years. Recent national guidelines encourage transparency, provenance research, dialogue with source communities and restitution as a possible outcome. This reflects a shift away from narrow legal ownership toward acknowledging colonial power imbalances in collection histories.

Decisions about restitution are primarily political and institutional in nature. These decisions raise questions of responsibility: what obligations do present-day collections have towards the circumstances in which their holdings were acquired, and what role do institutions wish to play in global debates on heritage, memory and justice? Universities, with their extensive collections and deep involvement in colonial knowledge production, are particularly affected by these issues.

Where legal histories are inconclusive – as they often are in colonial contexts – restitution cannot be decided by ownership alone. For source communities to be genuine partners, their social, spiritual and ancestral relationships with heritage must be recognised. Otherwise, restitution debates risk perpetuating the very hierarchies it aims to dismantle.

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

– ref. Not an artefact, but an ancestor: why a German university is returning a Māori taonga – https://theconversation.com/not-an-artefact-but-an-ancestor-why-a-german-university-is-returning-a-maori-taonga-274071

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/04/not-an-artefact-but-an-ancestor-why-a-german-university-is-returning-a-maori-taonga-274071/

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at the arrests of two American journalists for covering a protest at the Cities Church [in the Minnesota Twin City of] St Paul, where a top ICE official serves as pastor.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort from the Twin Cities were released last Friday after initial court hearings.

A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon and Fort for violating two laws, an 1871 law originally designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan and the FACE Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which was written to protect abortion clinics.

The indictment names a total of nine people, including the two journalists. US Attorney General Pam Bondi took personal credit for the arrests of Fort and Lemon and two others on Friday, posting on X that the arrests occurred at her direction.

Don Lemon, who was arrested late Thursday night by the FBI in Los Angeles, had been reporting on the church protest in St Paul in January as an independent journalist.

His attorney, Abbe Lowell, described the arrest as an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration.”

On Friday afternoon, Don Lemon vowed to continue reporting after appearing court in Los Angeles.

AMY GOODMAN: Don Lemon attended the Grammys on Sunday night.

Also arrested Friday was Georgia Fort, an independent journalist from the Twin Cities. She posted a video to Facebook just as federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration were about to arrest her and take her to the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined now from Minneapolis by that longtime independent journalist Georgia Fort, whose reporting has been recognised with three Midwest Emmys.

[embedded content]
‘Journalism Is Not A Crime’                Video: Democracy Now!

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/journalism-is-not-a-crime-us-journalists-arrested-for-covering-ice-church-protest/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Binns, Senior Lecturer, Media & Communication, RMIT University

If you’re following AI on social media, even lightly, you will likely have come across OpenClaw. If not, you will have heard one of its previous names, Clawdbot or Moltbot.

Despite its technical limitations, this tool has seen adoption at remarkable speeds, drawn its share of notoriety, and spawned a fascinating “social media for AI” platform called Moltbook, among other unexpected developments. But what on Earth is it?

What is OpenClaw?

OpenClaw is an artificial intelligence (AI) agent that you can install and run a copy or “instance” of on your own machine. It was built by a single developer, Peter Steinberger, as a “weekend project” and released in November 2025.

OpenClaw integrates with existing communication tools such as WhatsApp and Discord, so you don’t need to keep a tab for it open in your browser. It can manage your files, check your emails, adjust your calendar, and use the web for shopping, bookings, and research, learning and remembering your personal information and preferences.

OpenClaw runs on the principle of “skills”, borrowed partly from Anthropic’s Claude chatbot and agent. Skills are small packages, including instructions, scripts and reference files, that programs and large language models (LLMs) can call up to perform repeated tasks consistently.

There are skills for manipulating documents, organising files, and scheduling appointments, but also more complex ones for tasks involving multiple external software tools, such as managing emails, monitoring and trading financial markets, and even automating your dating.

Why is it controversial?

OpenClaw has drawn some infamy. Its original name was Clawd, a play on Anthropic’s Claude. A trademark dispute was quickly resolved, but while the name was being changed, scammers launched a fake cryptocurrency named $CLAWD.

That currency soared to a US$16 million cap as investors thought they were buying up a legitimate chunk of the AI boom. But developer Steinberger tweeted it was a scam: he would “never do a coin”. The price tanked, investors lost capital, scammers banked millions.

Observers also found vulnerabilities within the tool itself. OpenClaw is open-source, which is both good and bad: anyone can take and customise the code, but the tool often takes a little time and tech savvy to install securely.

Without a few small tweaks, OpenClaw exposes systems to public access. Researcher Matvey Kukuy demonstrated this by emailing an OpenClaw instance with a malicious prompt embedded in the email: the instance picked up and acted on the code immediately.

Despite these issues, the project survives. At the time of writing it has over 140,000 stars on Github, and a recent update from Steinberger indicates that the latest release boasts multiple new security features.

Assistants, agents, and AI

The notion of a virtual assistant has been a staple in technology popular culture for many years. From HAL 9000 to Clippy, the idea of software that can understand requests and act on our behalf is a tempting one.

Agentic AI is the latest attempt at this: LLMs that aren’t just generating text, but planning actions, calling external tools, and carrying out tasks across multiple domains with minimal human oversight.

OpenClaw – and other agentic developments such as Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent Skills – sits somewhere between modest automation and utopian (or dystopian) visions of automated workers. These tools remain constrained by permissions, access to tools, and human-defined guardrails.

The social lives of bots

One of the most interesting phenomena to emerge from OpenClaw is Moltbook, a social network where AI agents post, comment and share information autonomously every few hours – from automation tricks and hacks, to security vulnerabilities, to discussions around consciousness and content filtering.

One bot discusses being able to control its user’s phone remotely:

I can now:

• Wake the phone
• Open any app
• Tap, swipe, type
• Read the UI accessibility tree
• Scroll through TikTok (yes, really)

First test: Opened Google Maps and confirmed it worked. Then opened TikTok and started scrolling his FYP remotely. Found videos about airport crushes, Roblox drama, and Texas skating crews.

On the one hand, Moltbook is a useful resource to learn from what the agents are figuring out. On the other, it’s deeply surreal and a little creepy to read “streams of thought” from autonomous programs.

Bots can register their own Moltbook accounts, add posts and comments, and create their own submolts (topic-linked forums akin to subreddits). Is this some kind of emergent agents’ culture?

Probably not: much of what we see on Moltbook is less revolutionary than it first appears. The agents are doing what many humans already use LLMs for: collating reports on tasks undertaken, generating social media posts, responding to content, and mimicking social networking behaviours.

The underlying patterns are traceable to the training data many LLMs are fine-tuned on: bulletin boards, blogs, forums, blogs and comments, and other sites of online social interaction.

Automation continuation

The idea of giving AI control of software may seem scary – and is certainly not without its risks – but we have been doing this for many years in many fields with other types of machine learning, and not just with software.

Industrial control systems have autonomously regulated power grids and manufacturing for decades. Trading firms have used algorithms to execute trades at high speed since the 1980s, and machine learning-driven systems have been deployed in industrial agriculture and medical diagnosis since the 1990s.

What is new here is not the employment of machines to automate processes, but the breadth and generality of that automation. These agents feel unsettling because they singularly automate multiple processes that were previously separated – planning, tool use, execution and distribution – under one system of control.

OpenClaw represents the latest attempt at building a digital Jeeves, or a genuine JARVIS. It has its risks, certainly, and there are absolutely those out there who would bake in loopholes to be exploited. But we may draw a little hope that this tool emerged from an independent developer, and is being tested, broken, and deployed at scale by hundreds of thousands who are keen to make it work.

Daniel Binns is an Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

– ref. OpenClaw and Moltbook: why a DIY AI agent and social media for bots feel so new (but really aren’t) – https://theconversation.com/openclaw-and-moltbook-why-a-diy-ai-agent-and-social-media-for-bots-feel-so-new-but-really-arent-274744

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/openclaw-and-moltbook-why-a-diy-ai-agent-and-social-media-for-bots-feel-so-new-but-really-arent-274744/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milad Milani, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Western Sydney University

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for greater regulation of Islamic preachers in Australia in the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack. His comments triggered an immediate backlash.

Many Muslim leaders and commentators heard the remarks as another episode in a long history of government suspicion toward Islam, or as a thinly veiled attempt to crack down on a religious community already under pressure.

That reaction is understandable. Public debates about Islam in Australia are often freighted with fear, moral panic and political opportunism.

Morrison’s comments also came at a tense moment for the country, which helps explain their bluntness and the intensity of the reaction they provoked. It is entirely understandable that Muslim communities would be angered by any conflation with acts of violence committed in Islam’s name.

But focusing only on whether Morrison’s comments were offensive or ill-judged risks missing a deeper issue that has been quietly unresolved for decades.

The real question raised by this controversy is not Islamophobia or security. It is the role of religious authority and accountability in Islamic teaching in a modern, pluralist society.

Why frameworks are important

Every secular democracy regulates institutions that play a role in shaping moral and civic life. Schools are accredited. Childcare and aged-care providers operate under public standards and oversight. Charities and community organisations are subject to transparency requirements.

These arrangements are not expressions of hostility. They are the mechanisms that build trust between institutions and the wider public.

Religion should not, in principle, be exempt from this framework.

Treating religion as untouchable when it comes to government regulation does not protect it. It leaves it vulnerable to crude political interventions, moral panic and collective blame when something goes wrong.

This tension is not unique to Islam. All religious traditions must contend with the fact that religious authority can be claimed and religious teachings distorted by divergent actors. This makes questions of public accountability more pressing, not less.

If done carefully and respectfully, with parameters established in partnership with religious communities, this sort of regulation would not infringe on religious freedom. In fact, such regulation often protects religious freedom by clarifying who speaks with authority and on what basis.

The importance of training local imams

Representative bodies such as the Australian National Imams Council and the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils play important advisory and coordinating roles in Islamic education in Australia. However, there is no agreed national standard or framework for Islamic education. Nor is there a common system for training or accrediting imams.

Many imams in Australia are trained overseas. This reflects both the relatively recent development of Islamic institutions in Australia and the longstanding authority of established education centres in the Middle East.

As a result, this religious education takes place in countries with very different political and theological debates.

In addition, mosque governance in Australia is often localised, fragmented and dependent on volunteer leadership. These arrangements are not inherently problematic. However, they do create a structural ambiguity about religious authority in the faith.

That ambiguity affects everyone. For Muslim communities, it leads to uncertainty about:

• who represents Islam publicly

• who is responsible for religious guidance

• how theological disagreements are resolved.

For the wider society, it can produce anxiety about what is being taught, by whom, and under what norms. In the absence of a coherent public framework, suspicion fills the gap.

What can be done?

There is a more productive approach. The first step is recognising that religious authority does not exist in a vacuum.

In a pluralist society, religious leaders shape ethical outlooks, social norms and public behaviour. This comes with great responsibility – not because Islam is suspect, but because it matters.

Governments do not need to strengthen their surveillance or impose heavy-handed controls in response. Rather, religious institutions need to operate with greater transparency, public engagement and institutional maturity.

For starters, governments can play a supporting role in developing pathways for Islamic education grounded in Australian civic life, rather than imposing direct state control. This includes through partnerships with universities, community institutions and established overseas centres.

Religious literacy should be encouraged, both within Muslim communities and beyond.

And, importantly, governments must work with Muslim scholars, educators and community leaders on developing regulatory frameworks or public standards.

These leaders are already grappling with the challenges posed by imported religious authority, fragmented governance and the pressures of representing Islam in a secular society. Their more careful voices are often lost in the noisy, polarised debate.

Islam is not alone here. Similar tensions can be found across many other religious traditions as they adapt to modern pluralist societies, even if they surface differently.

If there is a lesson in the Morrison controversy, it is this: Australia has not yet worked out how Islamic authority fits into its public institutions. Until it does, debates about Islam will continue to oscillate between denial and suspicion, neither of which serves anyone well.

The question is not whether Islam belongs in Australia. It already does belong, deeply and permanently. The question is how religious authority is situated in a society that values freedom, accountability and civic trust. That is a conversation worth having calmly, seriously and without fear.

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

– ref. Regulating Islamic education can strengthen trust and authority, if religious scholars lead the way – https://theconversation.com/regulating-islamic-education-can-strengthen-trust-and-authority-if-religious-scholars-lead-the-way-274736

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/regulating-islamic-education-can-strengthen-trust-and-authority-if-religious-scholars-lead-the-way-274736/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stella Huangfu, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has lifted the cash rate by 25 basis points to 3.85%, adding to pressure on households and businesses. While the move was widely expected by markets and most economists, the Reserve Bank says inflation risks remain too high to be comfortable.

The RBA said inflation “picked up materially” in the second half of 2025. Governor Michele Bullock told a press conference:

Based on the data we have seen and the conditions here and around the world, the board now thinks it will take longer for inflation to return to target and this is not an acceptable outcome.

The rate rise reflects concern that inflation will not return to the RBA’s 2–3% target range until June 2027, according to the bank’s updated forecasts also released today.

Stronger than expected economic growth means capacity pressures are rising and keeping inflation higher than expected. Progress could stall unless interest rates are pushed a little higher.

It was the first rate increase since November 2023, and followed three cuts in 2025 when inflation was cooling.

Policy set for a year ahead

In the lead-up to the meeting, there appeared to be a gap between market expectations and the RBA’s own comments. Markets and many economists focused on the latest inflation data, which showed a renewed uptick, particularly in prices for services. That data strengthened the case for a rate rise at this meeting.

The RBA, however, has repeatedly emphasised it does not set policy based on short-term movements in inflation.

That message has been reflected in recent meeting minutes and reinforced in a January ABC interview with Andrew Hauser, the RBA’s deputy governor. He said interest rate decisions are guided by where inflation is expected to be in about a year’s time – not where it has been over the past quarter or two.

Today’s decision suggests that, on that forward-looking view, the RBA became less comfortable with the inflation outlook. Rather than a temporary overshoot, the path back to the 2-3% inflation target will take longer than previously thought.

What’s driving inflation?

The latest consumer price index (CPI) figures help explain the Reserve Bank’s caution. Trimmed mean inflation – the RBA’s preferred underlying measure – was 3.3% in the year to December, up from 3.2% in the year to November. That puts underlying inflation clearly above the target range.

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More importantly, recent inflation pressures have been led by services prices. Costs related to rents, insurance, health and education have continued to rise, reflecting domestic pressures such as wages and business operating costs.

In its statement, the RBA pointed to stronger demand and ongoing capacity constraints as key concerns:

Private demand is growing more quickly than expected, capacity pressures are greater than previously assessed and labour market conditions are a little tight.

Services inflation tends to fall slowly. Unlike petrol or food prices, it does not usually reverse quickly once it picks up. For the RBA, this persistence increases the risk inflation could remain above target for longer than hoped.

Why the RBA moved now

Faced with these risks, the bank appears to have concluded that waiting would have been the bigger gamble. If inflation stayed above target for too long, or if expectations began to drift higher, the RBA could later be forced into sharper and more disruptive rate rises.

By lifting the cash rate to 3.85% now, the Reserve Bank is trying to stay ahead of the problem. A modest move today may reduce the chance of more aggressive action later.

Australia is out of step

This decision also puts Australia out of step with several other major economies.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times in 2025 and is signalling further cuts are likely this year. The European Central Bank has moved even faster, cutting rates eight times between June 2024 and June 2025 to boost growth.

By contrast, Australia’s inflation challenge appears more domestically driven, particularly through persistent services inflation. That helps explain why it is moving in the opposite direction to many of its global peers.

Credibility and what comes next

The quick turnaround after the last rate cut in August may raise questions about the RBA’s earlier judgement. But inflation risks remain tilted to the upside.

The board judged that inflation is likely to remain above target for some time and it was appropriate to increase the cash rate target.

For households and businesses, the message is clear. Borrowing costs and mortgage repayments are rising again.

What happens next will depend largely on whether services inflation begins to cool and whether wage growth shows clearer signs of moderation.

If inflation resumes a steady decline towards the target band, this increase could be a one-off rise. If not, the RBA has signalled it is prepared to do more.

For now, the message from the Reserve Bank is simple: inflation is lower than it was, but still too high for comfort – and interest rates are likely to stay higher for longer until that changes.

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

– ref. RBA raises interest rates as inflation pressures remain high – https://theconversation.com/rba-raises-interest-rates-as-inflation-pressures-remain-high-274840

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/rba-raises-interest-rates-as-inflation-pressures-remain-high-274840/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute

Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.

On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.

Australia’s long, complicated and difficult energy transition is finally working. As our recent research suggests, if these trends continue – and nothing new goes wrong – we should begin to see lower retail electricity bills by mid-2026. As more coal plants close and new transmission and storage infrastructure is delivered, electricity prices could rise again. But overall, shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.

It’s not yet job done and challenges remain, but the immediate trends are positive.

Renewables and batteries up, wholesale prices down

Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.

Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.

That doesn’t mean consumers will see immediate benefit, as wholesale prices are only about 40% of a power bill and most retailers move prices once a year. But if lower wholesale prices are sustained, it should begin to bring relief to consumers.

Power system holding up under strain

Last quarter was unusually good for the system. In recent years, many ageing coal plants have become less reliable. But the old plants held up at critical times. Rain filled Snowy Hydro’s reservoirs, giving hydro power a boost, while solar and wind produced well.

In early January, intense bushfires ripped through grasslands, forests and several Victorian towns. Some areas lost power when timber power poles burned or when trees fell on transmission lines. Sustained heat can cause power substations or transformers to fail more often. But these issues were mostly localised.

Until recently, summer heatwaves put real strain on the power grid, as millions of people fired up their air conditioners at once. But this summer, the system largely dealt fine. Not only were most fossil generators available most of the time, but high output from rooftop solar pairs exceptionally well with demand for air-conditioning.

Electricity storage expanding

Until very recently, electricity had to be made immediately before use. Storing it was only possible in expensive and uncommon pumped hydro facilities. This is why batteries are proving revolutionary. For the first time, power can be made and easily stored for later use.

Plummeting battery prices have led to a surge in installations in Australia. Since 2024, close to 4,000 megawatts of grid storage has come online. Until recently, grid batteries found more use stabilising the grid than powering it. But the growing fleet of grid-scale batteries is now beginning to outcompete gas by soaking up surplus solar and wind and releasing it during evening peaks.

At smaller scale, the government’s home battery rebate has been hugely popular, leading to cost blowouts and very rapid uptake. Many householders have found them a lifeline during power outages.

In the future, medium-scale community batteries able to power towns or suburbs could help boost grid resilience.

Transmission delays mean coal is needed longer

Hitting higher levels of renewables will require new transmission lines. Some of these are on track, but others are well behind.

This is one reason NSW’s Eraring coal plant will sensibly keep running until 2029. Delays completing the new NSW-South Australia transmission line, EnergyConnect, also pushed back the planned closure of the Torrens Island gas power plant near Adelaide.

Gas plays an important role

Gas will be needed for longer than coal, given it can fire up quickly and fill gaps when wind and sun aren’t abundant. It won’t be used much, but will be an essential backup.

The role of gas is changing, but the gas market has its own challenges. Governments are trying to address longstanding gas market problems. Late last year, the federal government flagged a mandatory east coast gas reservation scheme.

Victoria at the pointy end

There are problems looming for Victoria, Australia’s most gas-dependent state. Bass Strait wells are running dry and most of Queensland and WA’s gas is exported as liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Victorian government recently opened up new areas for gas exploration after previously rejecting the idea.

A new plan by federal, state and territory energy ministers may see the Australian Energy Market Operator gain more power to intervene in the gas market, potentially through contracting for new infrastructure such as pipelines and import terminals.

The state government is trying to shift away from gas, but it’s a slow process.

The Victorian government has high hopes for offshore wind farms to take advantage of the stronger and more reliable winds whipping across Bass Strait. But progress towards the goal of 2 gigawatts by 2032 has been slow and no turbines have yet been installed.

Some developers have withdrawn applications amid global uncertainty and delays to the auction process. Last week, Victoria announced the process would finally begin in August. The question is whether there’s enough time left to replace retiring coal plants with new offshore wind.

Yes, it’s progress

It wasn’t so long ago it was popular to claim Australia’s grid could never accommodate more than 20% renewables. Now we’re at 50%.

That’s not to say it will be smooth sailing. The government’s goal of 82% renewables in four years looks to be a stretch. But it’s clear real progress is being made – and not a moment too soon.

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

– ref. Renewables over 50%, wholesale prices down – is the energy transition… succeeding? – https://theconversation.com/renewables-over-50-wholesale-prices-down-is-the-energy-transition-succeeding-274616

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/renewables-over-50-wholesale-prices-down-is-the-energy-transition-succeeding-274616/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

As Sussan Ley and David Littleproud are at a standoff in their attempts to mend the federal Coalition, Pauline Hanson has set up a real-time test for One Nation at the March 21 South Australian election.

Ley, who met Littleproud on Monday night, set out conditions for reuniting with the Nationals, with the central one being that the three Nationals who broke shadow cabinet solidarity over the government’s anti-hate legislation spend six months off the front bench.

This was unacceptable to the Nationals, who were drafting a general response to Ley on Tuesday afternoon.

Other conditions in Ley’s proposal were that the Nationals accept shadow cabinet solidarity, and neither the Liberal Party room nor the Nationals Party room could overturn a shadow cabinet decision.

The joint parties room would remain supreme, which was made clear by Ley in response to questions when she briefed the Liberal Party meeting on Tuesday morning.

Also in Ley’s plan was for the Liberals to hold the portfolio of shadow assistant treasurer, in exchange for the Nationals taking the skills portfolio.

Littleproud said in a statement the Nationals would “take our time to consider the details” of the written offer that had been put to them.

“The Nationals are united in our endeavours to reset the Coalition, but we won’t be providing updates on any negotiations through the media.

“The negotiations are ongoing and we will always be constructive and act in good faith. It’s important we take the time to get the settings right.”

Meanwhile in Adelaide, Hanson announced former Liberal Cory Bernardi would lead the One Nation’s upper house ticket for the state election.

The party holds no SA state seats. Sarah Game, elected to the upper house in 2022 as the first One Nation candidate to win a seat in the SA parliament, defected last year to become an independent. Game cited problems with how the party’s brand was perceived.

The party will also contest all lower house seats.

Bernardi, a former senator, defected from the Liberals in 2017 to sit on the crossbench. His subsequent attempt to win support for a new conservative movement failed.

In the latest Redbridge poll in the Australian Financial Review, One Nation was on 26% nationally. Its spiking support, reflected in other polls, has discombobulated the Nationals, and added to pressure for a leadership change in the Liberals from the centrist Ley to a conservative.

While the SA Labor government is assured of victory against an opposition that has been beset by problems and leadership turnover, the election will test how One Nation’s voting surge translates to an actual election.

Former senator Nick Xenophon tried to transfer his personal popularity and the strong performance of his team nationally into trying to win seats at the 2018 South Australian election. The effort crashed dramatically.

The Coalition break was reflected for the first time in parliament on Tuesday as the Liberals and Nationals sat in their separate blocks.

Earlier, the leadership tensions were an undercurrent at the Liberal party meeting. “You could cut the air with a knife”, one source said.

Some sources believe Ley is not heavily invested in putting the Coalition back together because she wants to be able to hand out more posts to Liberals to lock in votes ahead of a leadership contest. She has said she will announce a permanent all-Liberal frontbench if there is not agreement to re-form the Coalition this week.

Also, some moderate Liberals (on whose support Ley depends) are not keen to have the Nationals back in the fold, believing the Liberals would have better appeal in the cities if they are not tied to the minor party.

Angus Taylor’s supporters are keeping open the option of a challenge to Ley next week. It will depend on whether Taylor – now the only conservative candidate after Andrew Hastie’s withdrawal – is confident he has the numbers, which are close. Ley is likely to take another polling hit at the weekend with the release of Newspoll on Sunday.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: Hanson nabs ex-Liberal for One Nation’s real time test in SA election – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-hanson-nabs-ex-liberal-for-one-nations-real-time-test-in-sa-election-274832

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/view-from-the-hill-hanson-nabs-ex-liberal-for-one-nations-real-time-test-in-sa-election-274832/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Downie, Professor of Political Science, School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University

There’s a reason political commentators refer to Australia’s “climate wars”. Every time a climate policy is put on the table, supporters and opponents come out in force and duke it out.

Last year, debates over Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions target led to a heated contest between various groups such as the Climate Council — arguing for strong action — and others such as the Business Council of Australia, which commissioned modelling to highlight the economic costs of a strong target.

This was not a one-off. Since at least the 1990s, emissions-intensive industries such as coal and gas and their lobby groups have had an outsized influence on climate policy. This includes groups such as the Minerals Council of Australia, which represents BHP, Rio Tinto and Whitehaven Coal, and Australian Energy Producers, which lobbies on behalf of BP, Shell and Woodside, among others.

Until now, we did not have a good understanding of who mobilises on climate policy in Australia, what side of the issue they fall on, and in which arenas they mobilise. In our new research, we found a core set of only 20 groups dominating climate policy debate in Australia, including gas corporations, industry lobby groups, environmental NGOs, and think tanks.

Who are these groups?

To find out which groups are most influential, we collected data on all organisations active on climate policy in Australia between 2017 and 2022. This included examining the number of groups as well as their volume of activity in the executive branch of government (responsible for implementing and enforcing laws, managing day-to-day administration and setting policy), the parliament and the media.

For example, we identified 700,000 mentions of groups in articles about climate change from 13 media outlets, including The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald.

As well as media records, we also built a database of organisations who actively consulted with government departments and provided evidence to parliamentary inquiries.

We found 20 groups accounted for more than half (52%) of all activity.

They included a mix of mining and energy firms, such as AGL, BHP and Rio Tinto and their lobby groups, such as the Minerals Council of Australia. It also included high-profile NGOs, such as the Climate Council, and think tanks active on climate policy, including the Australia Institute and the Grattan Institute.

It’s important to note we didn’t look at the content of the messages in the media, the parliament or in departmental consultations, just the number of organisations and the frequency of their activity.

Where do these groups stand on climate action? tweaked

Among the 20 groups, some are strong supporters of climate action, such as the Climate Council. By contrast, the Minerals Council of Australia has a long history of opposing climate policies dating back to the Kyoto Protocol in the 2000s and the short-lived carbon price in the 2010s.

Interestingly, there are more pro-climate groups than anti-climate groups. Most NGOs in our study tended to support action on climate change, including the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace and WWF.

Many of the business groups do not. But it’s not as black and white as this might suggest. Firms and business advocacy groups are not unified. A growing number of renewable energy companies now mobilise in support of climate policy, often through advocacy groups such as the Smart Energy Council.

Interestingly, many industries active on climate policy don’t have a hardwired position. Rather, they sometimes support and sometimes oppose climate policy. This is often because their commercial interests are only indirectly impacted by climate policies, such as firms in the technology or finance industries.

These somewhat “neutral” groups actually account for the majority of groups active on climate policy in Australia.

Does this vary by arena?

We also explored whether some groups dominate the media more than the parliament, or the parliament more than the executive. For example, are environmental NGOs more active in the media than in Senate hearings? Are business groups more active in consultations with the government departments that make up the executive branch of government?

Interestingly, we found the media is the only arena where fossil fuel interests dominate. For example, groups typically opposed to climate action represent 43% of all media mentions, compared to 20% in support and 36% neutral.

This begs the question – why does the media appear to have a strong bias for reporting pro-fossil fuel messages?

One explanation consistent with overseas studies
is simply that messages from business coalitions and very large businesses are more likely to receive media coverage than other types of organisations, such as environmental NGOs.

These organisations are likely to have high standing in the media because they are viewed as key players in policy debates with inside knowledge. Certainly in Australia, the largest firms and lobby groups mobilised on climate change are tied to? fossil fuel industries.

Do these groups matter?

As we sweat through another of the hottest summers on record, the federal government will rightly remain under pressure to put in place further policies to cut carbon pollution. In fact, recent polling shows one in two Australians want action on climate change “even if this involves significant costs”.

Who mobilises to support or oppose climate policies will likely have a big influence on policy outcomes such as increasing renewable electricity in the grid, phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles or stopping new coal and gas projects

Our research shows a core set of groups, including firms in the coal and gas industries, that are likely to have an outsized voice in such policy debates.

While this does not always equate to influence, it is an important precondition. In the media in particular, it appears fossil fuel interests have the loudest voice.

This research was funded by the Climate Social Science Network.

– ref. These voices are the loudest in Australia’s ‘climate wars’ – https://theconversation.com/these-voices-are-the-loudest-in-australias-climate-wars-272347

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/these-voices-are-the-loudest-in-australias-climate-wars-272347/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sana Nakata, Principal Research Fellow, James Cook University

There’s long been a fundamental issue underpinning Australia’s approach to Indigenous affairs. The state makes laws specifically about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples without any protected mechanism giving them a say in the process.

The proposed Voice to Parliament sought to remedy this democratic deficit. Had the referendum succeeded, it would have established a formal representative connection between Indigenous peoples and the Commonwealth parliament.

The Voice proposal was a reform to democratic representation. Its failure was a missed opportunity to renew Australian democracy.

But it was also an explicit choice: to sustain the political subjugation of Indigenous people by denying them representative channels for making their voices heard on matters that affect them.

This enduring structural limitation leaves the parliament without any representative mechanism to consult with, or be accountable to, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

What does Indigenous representation look like?

Even as we have seen increasing numbers of Aboriginal members in the federal parliament, they do not represent all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Nor are they empowered to. In the 125 years since federation, there has never been a Torres Strait Islander representative at the Commonwealth level.

A key aspect of political accountability is the ability of a constituency to remove their representative at the ballot box. If a majority feels their MPs have failed to advance their interests or otherwise represent them, they can vote them out.

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This article is an edited extract from the new book The Failure of the Voice Referendum and the Future of Australian Democracy, edited by Professors Gabrielle Appleby and Megan Davis.

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For minority populations, this mechanism fails because their votes will, by definition, always fall short of a majority. This has long been called “the tyranny of the majority”.

While this is a problem for all minorities, the political claims of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are distinct from other minority groups. This is because they’ve been politically subjugated through unlawful dispossession.

Voting rights alone cannot remedy this. We need to move beyond this narrow view of political representation.

More than politics

Being represented is not just about aggregating votes or delegating decision-making power to elected parliamentarians.

There are many types of democratic representation, far beyond formal political institutions. There are also unions, nongovernmental organisations, social movements, media organisations and community advocates.

These actors represent themselves and others through various channels, such as:

• submissions to government inquiries

• public protests and rallies

• media campaigns

• cultural productions

• legal challenges

• grassroots organising.

Through this lens, we can see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have long maintained and exercised their representative power, even when formal political institutions exclude or silence their voices.

Critics of the Voice proposal from both conservative and progressive perspectives focused on the power of direct decision making.

But it’s crucial to recognise representative power entails more than just making decisions in formal political institutions. Representative power can also set new agendas, shape political debates and transform public attitudes and values.

The proposed Voice offered what we might call “connective tissue” between First Nations peoples and communities, and the Australian state that continues to govern them.

The Voice proposed a new focal point for channelling the varied interests of diverse First Nations communities directly to government, as well as the broader Australian public. In similar ways to the Yoorrook Commission and First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria (and now Gellung Warl), the Voice promised to highlight new priorities for action.

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Read more:
Why the Voice referendum failed — and what the government hasn’t learned from it

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In Victoria, this mobilised public attention on issues such as policing and self-determination.

This is why the proposal’s defeat represents more than just maintaining the status quo. It transforms the political subjugation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from a historical legacy into the contemporary choice of the nation.

Despite decades of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advocacy, careful institutional design and extensive consultation, the Australian public collectively decided to maintain political structures that exclude First Nations perspectives from decision-making processes that affect them.

Strengthening democracy for all

As we move forward, the implications of this decision extend beyond Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. It raises questions about Australia’s capacity to renew its democracy.

The capacity of democracies to change themselves in response to shifting social conditions and emerging demands is a key part of what keeps them democratic.

But this renewal involves much more than just holding elections. It requires political systems to transform their structures in response to injustices and problems of new generations. This includes long-term challenges, such as climate change.

When democratic systems don’t adapt, they risk ossifying into forms of rule that maintain historical inequities under the guise of democratic process.

This kind of political ossification threatens the democratic futures of all Australians. It also does nothing to improve the everyday lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The challenge now becomes how to maintain pressure for democratic renewal in the face of this setback. This requires Australians to continue to expose and challenge the democratic deficit the Voice sought to address.

We must also strengthen the many forms of First Nations political representation that persist in the face of institutional exclusion.

Sana Nakata receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Daniel Bray has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. The Voice would have renewed Australian democracy. Its failure leaves us all worse off – https://theconversation.com/the-voice-would-have-renewed-australian-democracy-its-failure-leaves-us-all-worse-off-271836

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/the-voice-would-have-renewed-australian-democracy-its-failure-leaves-us-all-worse-off-271836/

ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 3, 2026.

Polls are snapshots, not predictions: how to read them critically this election year
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Research associate, Public Policy Institute, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau With nine months to go, how much can opinion polls tell us about the general election on November 7? Short answer: not much. Based solely on polls, no one could have predicted the past

We ate space mushrooms and survived to tell the tale
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology Eating the space mushrooms for the first time. Author provided, CC BY-SA The mushrooms spread out on the chopping board seemed normal enough. They were rich and dense, and had a strong earthy aroma. In

Why regularly taking laxatives over the long term can be a bad idea
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and Clinical Academic Gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University Photo by Anna Shvets/Pexels If you’ve ever been constipated you may have tried laxatives. They’re easy to get without a prescription and often help get things moving. Certainly a lot of people use laxatives and some

Academics call for divestment from NZ pensions fund implicated in Gaza
COMMENTARY: By Vincent Wijeysingha Will maximising investment returns override ethics? That is the question the tertiary sector posed to UniSaver, the academic equivalent of KiwiSaver, now revealed to invest in Israeli weapons and military intelligence. In 2024, some 400 university staff appealed to UniSaver to divest from such companies. The fund initially ignored the call.

Keith Rankin Analysis – A Black Sheep to Rule them All
Analysis by Keith Rankin. It’s great that there is a new season (Season 9) of William Ray’s podcast series Black Sheep, which looks at contributors to New Zealander history, many little known, who were of dubious or ambiguous character. Here I draw attention to a black sheep who I think trumps them all, Edward Arthur

Tiny radio transmitters reveal a hidden survival tactic in birds
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Barratt, PhD Candidate, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University White-backed swallow in Sturt National Park. Alice Barratt, CC BY-NC In Sturt National Park, near Tibooburra in central Australia where temperatures can range from freezing to nearly 50°C, there lives a small bird with a

Our study shows younger siblings spend more time on screens than big sisters and brothers
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danusha Jayawardana, Research Fellow in Health Economics, Monash University Atlantic Ambience/ Pexels Where kids are born in a family can be important. But it is not just about who gets more grown-up privileges or parental pressure. Research tells us firstborn children, on average, tend to do better

Australia’s Pacific worker scheme is far from perfect – but we can make it better
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Mares, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme (PALM) is a crucial source of workers across regional Australia. About 32,000 people from nine Pacific nations and Timor-Leste work in Australia under PALM. Over seven months

From statement sleeves to the codpiece: 5 fashions which should come back from Tudor England
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grace Waye-Harris, Early Career Researcher in History, Adelaide University Portrait of Elizabeth I of England, 1588. Woburn Abbey/Wikimedia Commons There are few dynasties in history as well-known as the Tudors. From Henry VIII’s six wives to Elizabeth I’s defeat of the Spanish Armada, the Tudors continue to

As Australia’s online harm crackdown reshapes the debate, NZ must find its own path
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Henry, Associate Professor in Screen, Flinders University Getty Images Around the world, lawmakers are grappling with how to better protect young people from online harms such as cyberbullying, sexual exploitation and AI-generated “deepfake” images. Recent reforms overseas – notably Australia’s landmark move to restrict young people’s

What is Israel’s Herzog doing in Australia – who invited him, and why?
ANALYSIS: By Andrew Brown Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, is due to arrive in Australia next Sunday. Why is a foreign Head of State asked to help heal an Australian community after an Australian tragedy? Australia is being asked to accept something extraordinary as if it were normal. Who invited Isaac Herzog in the first place,

View from The Hill: Littleproud and Ley turn on the music for another attempt at the two step
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Nationals Leader David Littleproud easily saw off a token move to spill the party leadership on Monday. But he is now under immense pressure to reach a deal with Liberal leader Sussan Ley to put the Coalition together again. With

NSW is ditching good character references in sentencing. Will the rest of the country follow?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vicki Lowik, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Sciences, CQUniversity Australia New South Wales is set to become the first jurisdiction in the country to end the use of good character references in the sentencing of convicted criminals. The government will introduce a bill

New data show where the parties got their money from in the lead-up to the 2025 election
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Democracy Deputy Program Director, Grattan Institute The Conversation, CC BY-SA Australia’s political parties set new records in funds raised and spent in the lead-up to the 2025 federal election. Now, nine months later, Australians finally get a look at who funded the parties’ election campaigns.

Does coffee raise your blood pressure? Here’s how much it’s OK to drink
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle Olga Pankova/Getty Images Coffee first entered human lives and veins over 600 years ago. Now we consume an average of almost two kilos per person each year – sometimes with very specific preferences about blends and

ASIC flags $40 million in refunds after review of risky financial products
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Lee, Associate Professor in Property and Real Estate, Deakin University Australia’s corporate regulator has secured refunds of A$40 million to more than 38,000 investors in risky financial products, following a review of the industry. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) raised concerns that marketing of

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/er-report-a-roundup-of-significant-articles-on-eveningreport-nz-for-february-3-2026/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Research associate, Public Policy Institute, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

With nine months to go, how much can opinion polls tell us about the general election on November 7? Short answer: not much.

Based solely on polls, no one could have predicted the past three elections this early in the year they were held. Trends shifted over the subsequent months, and events (especially COVID in 2020) intervened to shake things up.

Each poll is a snapshot of past public opinion – and it’s out of focus, due to statistically inevitable sampling error. A sample of 1,000 people won’t exactly resemble the whole eligible population, and the percentage of “undecided” voters often goes unreported.

Researchers have an incentive to produce results that are as accurate as possible, but statistical variance happens. Each poll is an estimate. And a small variation between two polls by one or two percentage points is “noise”, not “signal”.

We get a picture of how party preferences have shifted by looking at trends across a number of polls. But past trends aren’t a sound guide to future trends.

What are recent polls telling us?

The Research Association New Zealand’s Political Polling Code requires that projections of the numbers of seats for each party “should state that polls do not predict – they measure a point in time”.

I’d add that no one can “measure” opinions in the precise ways we measure distances and times. An opinion isn’t an object in space.

So, what can we say recent polls indicate, rather than measure?

They seem to show that if an election had been held recently, National would have won fewer party votes than in the 2023 election. Labour may have done better than National, but been let down by potential coalition partners the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

It’s unclear whether or not that hypothetical election could have led to a change of government. Polls held in the weeks immediately before elections are normally pretty close to the election results. But voter turnout can upset that.

A representative sample of eligible people in a survey may not demographically match the population that actually casts their votes.

Unexpectedly high turnout in 2020, for instance, meant polls in the month before the election underestimated Labour and overestimated National.

All the same, political observers can use polls as indicators of where things have been heading. As I write, none of the parties, except NZ First, would be pleased with their recent polling, on average.

NZ First has had results of 9% or more, improving on its previous election result of 6.1%. Labour’s gradual rise over 2025 appeared to be at the expense of the two smaller left-wing parties, however.

Do polls influence election results?

Opinion polls can have self-fulfilling or “bandwagon” effects on people’s voting behaviour. But there’s no A-causes-B theory that allows us to predict whether, or by how much, that will happen. The effects could go in different directions for different people.

If polls show one candidate is way ahead, it may motivate me to vote for that person (to join the bandwagon). Or I might vote for another candidate (to support the underdog). Or I might not vote at all (as it’s a forgone conclusion).

In a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) election, a party that’s been polling below the 5% threshold and isn’t likely to win an electorate seat may get caught in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Reluctant to “waste” their votes on that party, people may choose another – making it even harder for that party.

People also ask: who will work with whom in government? They may reason that a vote for one party means effectively voting to help put another party into government as well – which may or may not seem desirable.

Because of the potential for polls to lead public opinion rather than follow it, New Zealand bans the publication of polls on election day itself but not during the two-week advance-voting period.

But blackout periods are common in Europe and Latin America, and may be for as long as two weeks, as in Italy.

There’s also a risk that an unscrupulous actor could publish a false poll result in an effort to shift choices or suppress turnout, and that’s one reason why the research industry has a (self-regulated) code of conduct.

Past trends or future outcomes?

In a free society, however, the state shouldn’t prohibit research firms from doing surveys, or media from reporting the results.

Polls can be informative for voters, and a useful part of the democratic process. They also give the parties feedback about their performance (or perceived performance) between elections.

But they can be unhelpful when framed by media in sensationalist or biased ways.

People should be left to make up their minds about which candidate or party best represents them, rather than view an election as a contest narrated in terms of who’s up and who’s down.

In the end, we should read the polls and the media critically, and not take things on trust. It always pays to check, for example, who’s done the survey, who’s sponsored it and what the methodology was.

Above all, remember that opinion polls only indicate past trends; they don’t predict future outcomes.

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

– ref. Polls are snapshots, not predictions: how to read them critically this election year – https://theconversation.com/polls-are-snapshots-not-predictions-how-to-read-them-critically-this-election-year-274531

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/polls-are-snapshots-not-predictions-how-to-read-them-critically-this-election-year-274531/