MIL-OSI Export

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Celina McEwen, Senior Researcher in Sociology of Work, University of Technology Sydney

Diversity programs are a favourite target of right-wing populists who claim they represent a radical left agenda that is politicising workplaces.

Our research shows something quite different. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) isn’t failing because it’s too political. It’s failing because it refuses to be political at all.

In a study just published in the academic journal Work, Employment and Society, we examined DEI practices in three organisations: a national sports organisation with around 100 staff, a technology services company with more than 500 employees, and a community liaison agency with 70 staff and DEI as its core mission.

They were selected because of their commitment to equality, being known and awarded for their best practice in DEI, and being presented as an inspiration to other organisations for how to do DEI well.

Across these very different workplaces, we found the same pattern. DEI programs created the appearance of progress, while leaving deeper inequalities untouched. As one participant put it:

We have the window dressing […] but behind the scenes, I can tell you, it’s nothing like that.

Australia is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, yet leadership positions remain overwhelmingly held by white men, and many workers from minority groups feel unsafe speaking up at work.

So why has DEI failed to deliver on equality?

Problem 1: DEI treats people as categories

DEI programs commonly focus on single labels. Diverse employees are categorised as, for example, “woman”, “Indigenous”, “LGBTQ+”, or “people with disability”. This oversimplifies people’s lived experiences and typically ignores class altogether.

In practice, identities overlap and affect each other in different ways for different people. But we found that managers tend to rely on superficial and apolitical understandings of diversity, leading them to avoid confronting the real experiences that shape people’s lives at work.

The result is that DEI can reinforce stereotypes rather than challenge them.

As the only Indigenous person in a leadership position at one organisation told us:

most of [my male peers] are smug arseholes who look down at me […] I don’t get treated with the same respect as my peers by some of them and partly it’s obviously I’m Black, partly it’s I’m a woman.

Problem 2: DEI has become a corporate product

DEI has become commodified. Organisations buy standardised training packages, hire consultants, and tick boxes to show they are doing the right thing. But these programs rarely change how power operates inside the organisation.

In our study, workers labelled as “diverse” reported feeling pressure to present themselves in ways that were acceptable to the dominant culture. As one participant explained, women were accepted in senior positions provided they acted like “one of the boys”.

DEI becomes something to be managed and reported, not a pathway to justice and equality.

Problem 3: DEI avoids talking about power

Our research confirmed that inequality is built into the everyday structures of workplaces. It shapes who gets promoted, whose voice is valued, and who is assumed can be a “leader”. Meanwhile, we found that organisations present themselves as tolerant while also limiting how much minority voices can challenge the status quo.

DEI can celebrate diversity while suppressing political demands to achieve real equality. When confronting the fact that all the senior women in her organisation were white, one person explained:

There’s been a lot of these things where I’ve spoken up [… but…] we’re seen as troublemakers.

But when DEI avoids talking about power, it creates a false sense of progress. This can be reinforced by management believing equality is improving simply because DEI activities exist.

What would a political version of DEI look like?

Right‑wing populists often claim DEI threatens traditional values or gives unfair advantages to minorities. But our research shows DEI rarely challenges anything. Instead, it protects existing hierarchies by avoiding the political questions equality requires.

Real equality demands confronting who holds power, who benefits from the current system, and who is excluded. DEI programs avoid these questions because they risk upsetting people in leadership. And those leaders are people who rarely come from marginalised backgrounds.

DEI fails when it offers the comfort of visible action while preventing the structural transformation genuine equality demands. If we want workplaces that are fair, we need DEI that can challenge the status quo, redistribute power and confront injustice head-on.

The real question isn’t whether DEI is too “woke”, but whether organisations are brave enough to pursue real change.

– ref. Diversity programs have become a tick-the-box exercise. They need to become more political, not less – https://theconversation.com/diversity-programs-have-become-a-tick-the-box-exercise-they-need-to-become-more-political-not-less-276164

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/20/diversity-programs-have-become-a-tick-the-box-exercise-they-need-to-become-more-political-not-less-276164/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Schofield, Professor and Associate Dean (Environment and Sustainability in Faculty of Science), The University of Melbourne

Space junk returning to the Earth is introducing metal pollution to the pristine upper atmosphere as it burns up on re-entry, a new study has found.

Published today in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, the study was led by Robin Wing from the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany. Using highly sensitive lasers, he and his team of international researchers observed a plume of lithium pollution, tracking it back to the uncontrolled re-entry of a discarded Space X Falcon 9 rocket upper stage.

This is the first observational evidence that re-entering space debris leaves a detectable, human-caused chemical fingerprint in the upper atmosphere. This was also the first time a pollutant plume from a specific space junk re-entry event has been monitored from the ground.

With many more satellite launches planned for the future, this event won’t be the last. It highlights the urgent need for governments and the space industry to tackle this problem before it gets out of hand.

A part of the atmosphere we barely understand

The region that comprises the upper stratosphere, mesosphere, and lower thermosphere (around 80 to 120 kilometres above Earth) is one of the least studied parts of the Earth system. It’s too high for balloons, too low for satellites, and too harsh for aircraft.

Yet this region is crucial for radio and GPS communications, upper atmospheric weather patterns, and stratospheric ozone.

The upper atmosphere is largely unpolluted by humans. But the new space age is injecting growing quantities of metals and other pollutants from satellites, rocket bodies and space debris.

The impact this will have on the stratospheric ozone layer, which is crucial to protecting life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation, is as yet unquantified. But early findings are cause for concern.

For example, research from 2024 suggests aluminium and chlorine emissions related to rocket launches and re-entries may slow the ozone layer’s recovery.

Soot from rocket launches is also likely to cause warming in the upper atmosphere.

Finding lithium with lasers

For the new study, the researchers used a highly sensitive laser-based sensor to detect the fluorescence of trace metals in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. This is not an off-the-shelf and readily available observation system, but it could be.

On February 20 2025, they captured a clear, sudden enhancement in lithium ions from lithium batteries and human-made metal casings used in satellites. These are quite distinct from natural meteor material.

Using atmospheric trajectory modelling, they traced the timing and altitude of the lithium plume directly to the re-entry path of a discarded Falcon 9 rocket stage as it burnt up through the lower thermosphere into the mesosphere over the Atlantic Ocean, west of Ireland.

A rapidly escalating problem

The number of satellites in orbit has exploded from a few thousand a couple years ago to roughly 14,000 right now, driven largely by megaconstellations.

There are many more satellites planned. In fact, SpaceX has applied to launch a megaconstellation of up to one million satellites to power data centres in space. Every one of these satellites will eventually re-enter the atmosphere. So too will the rockets that launch them.

Current estimates suggest that by 2030, several tonnes of spacecraft material will burn up in the upper atmosphere every single day.

So far, there is no regulatory framework for these emissions, few monitoring options and limited scientific understanding of the likely impacts.

The new lithium detection demonstrates that pollutants from re-entry are measurable and can be traced back to individual re-entry events. This is an important step when it comes to holding companies involved in space accountable.

International regulatory bodies need to be set up to liaise with governments and scientists to establish monitoring networks and instruments to track changes to our atmosphere from this emerging threat.

As the space industry skyrockets, our efforts to understand, monitor and regulate upper-atmospheric emissions must keep pace.

– ref. SpaceX rocket left behind a plume of chemical pollution as it burnt up in the atmosphere – https://theconversation.com/spacex-rocket-left-behind-a-plume-of-chemical-pollution-as-it-burnt-up-in-the-atmosphere-276266

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/20/spacex-rocket-left-behind-a-plume-of-chemical-pollution-as-it-burnt-up-in-the-atmosphere-276266/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allen Cheng, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Monash University

Inappropriate antibiotic prescribing around the time of surgery and long-term prescribing in aged care are among a mixed bag of findings of a recent report into antibiotic use and resistance in Australia.

The report shows while fewer antibiotics are prescribed in the community than a decade ago, there is still room to improve antibiotic prescribing in hospitals.

We are both involved in antibiotic stewardship programs, primarily in hospitals, which aim to improve the use of antibiotics to improve patient care and reduce the potential for antimicrobial resistance.

Here’s why antibiotic resistance is so concerning and what the latest report tells us.

Why is antibiotic use and resistance important?

Factors driving antibiotic use tend to be different in hospitals and in the community.

In hospitals, there are more patients with infections, and these are also places where patients come to with resistant infections. Here, a common dilemma is making sure sick patients receive antibiotics quickly, balanced with not overusing them unnecessarily.

In the community, GPs often have to use careful clinical judgement to determine whether antibiotics are required, or if the patient will recover without them.

If we think of this issue at the level of individual patients, the risks may feel small. But at the population level, using the wrong antibiotic, or using it when it’s not needed, or for too long increases the risk of antibiotic resistance.

This is where bacteria become resistant to the usual treatment options, so infections may continue to progress despite treatment.

This occurs due to “selection pressure”. This means the bacteria acquire changes that enable them to evade the effect of antibiotics, and these resistant strains continue to grow and spread.

Read more: The rise and fall of antibiotics. What would a post-antibiotic world look like?

Why are antibiotics used in surgery?

Antibiotics are mostly used around the time of surgery as one way to prevent, rather than treat, an infection.

They are generally needed only for procedures where there is a higher risk of infection and for a short period (mostly a single dose before surgery or for up to 24 hours afterwards).

This report shows that just under half (42.7%) of antibiotic use for surgical procedures was not appropriate. The main areas that we need to work on are:

• only using antibiotics for surgery where there is a high risk of infection

• the time we administer the antibiotic dose, ideally within an hour before the skin is cut

• the choice of antibiotic – sufficient to cover the organisms that could cause infection, but not unnecessarily broad that it may cause side effects or antibiotic resistance.

Inappropriate antibiotic use in surgery may have several consequences.

Giving the antibiotic at the wrong time (too early, or too late) reduces its effectiveness. Giving it for surgery where there is a low risk of infection, or for too long unnecessarily exposes patients to the risk of antibiotic side effects such as diarrhoea, as well as increasing the risk of antibiotic resistance.

How about aged-care facilities?

The report shows residents of aged-care homes receive high amounts of antibiotics.

Two striking statistics were that four in five residents (79.5%) received at least one antibiotic prescription each year. About one in three patients (34.7%) were given an antibiotic for more than six months.

Aged-care residents are at a higher risk of developing infections and it can sometimes be harder to spot the signs and symptoms of an infection.

So using antibiotics to prevent infection can sometimes be appropriate but should be a last resort. This is because infections that “break through” to cause infection despite preventative antibiotics are more likely to be resistant.

What else did the report find?

The report also included critical antimicrobial resistances. These microorganisms are a serious threat to some of our last-line antibiotics. These are very difficult to treat and require specialised antibiotics and medical care.

The reported number of these organisms more than doubled from 2022, to 3,389, or more than nine cases each day, in 2024.

The report also highlights that many of these organisms are acquired overseas, reinforcing the regional and global context of antibiotic resistance.

What can we do to reduce antibiotic resistance?

We’ve previously written about actions we can take to reduce antibiotic use. This latest report reinforces that we should:

• raise awareness that many infections will get better by themselves, and don’t necessarily need antibiotics

• for aged-care residents, regularly review medications, including antibiotics, and check if they are still needed

• use the antibiotics we have more appropriately and for as short a time as possible, supported by appropriate oversight in hospitals, and at state and national levels

• continue to monitor for infections due to resistant bacteria to inform control policies

• reduce cross-transmission of resistant organisms in hospitals and in the community

• prevent infections by other means, such as clean water, sanitation, hygiene and vaccines

• continue to develop new antibiotics and alternatives to antibiotics, and ensure the right incentives are in place to encourage a continuous pipeline of new antibiotics.

The wider context

This report is only one part of the picture of how and where antibiotics are used in Australia.

We have previously estimated that around 60% of antibiotics in Australia are used in animals.

This issue was highlighted by recent use of the antibiotic florfenicol in Tasmanian salmon farms. This is closely related to chloramphenicol, an antibiotic used in humans.

This reinforces the need to take a co-ordinated strategy across different sectors, an approach that has worked before in Australia.

There would also be benefits from responding to antibiotic resistance in a similar way to how we respond to other public health threats. So bringing the national response into the Australian Centre for Disease Control, which was launched officially at the start of 2026, should strengthen our efforts.

– ref. Almost half of antibiotic prescribing for surgery is inappropriate, new report shows – https://theconversation.com/almost-half-of-antibiotic-prescribing-for-surgery-is-inappropriate-new-report-shows-276156

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/20/almost-half-of-antibiotic-prescribing-for-surgery-is-inappropriate-new-report-shows-276156/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

Over the past decade, southern Australia has suffered numerous extreme weather and climate events, such as record-breaking heatwaves, bushfires, two major droughts and even flash flooding.

While Australia has always had these disasters, our research reveals these new extremes are the result of dramatic climate-driven changes in the upper atmosphere above Australia.

Eight to ten kilometres above the ground, the fast-flowing jet stream air currents have shifted further southwards, dragging rain-bearing winter weather systems away from Australia’s southern coastline.

This means southern Australia has experienced at least 25% less annual rainfall and is currently gripped by a continuing drought. Our findings should be a wake-up call for governments, primary producers and residents of some of Australia’s largest cities: the hotter, drier weather is here to stay.

Drought in the south, wet in the east

Southern Australia comprises the coastal and adjacent areas in the south of the continent, stretching about 4,000 kilometres from Perth to east of Melbourne. This region is home to ten million people, or about 35% of Australia’s population.

The two most recent droughts in southern Australia were the Tinderbox drought, from 2017 to 2019, and the present drought, which has not been named. It began in 2023 and is continuing into February 2026.

Drought is primarily a meteorological, or weather-related, phenomenon. It is defined by intense rainfall deficiencies over three months or longer, which severely impact agricultural production, water supplies and ecosystems.

Notably, six of the past ten years were dry, tipping much of southern Australia into drought. In marked contrast, eastern Australia, including Sydney and Brisbane, experienced moderate to extreme wet conditions, including flash flooding. The map below shows drought in southern Australia in 2023–25.

The meteorological factors that drive drought in southern Australia, and the shift from dry to wet conditions in eastern Australia, can be explained by shifts in the upper atmospheric jet streams. These are fast-flowing, narrow air currents high in the atmosphere, about 8–10km above Earth.

Major changes to the jet streams

Our research reveals dramatic changes to the jet streams in the Australian region, particularly in the past decade. Put simply, jet streams are fast-moving belts of westerly winds in the upper atmosphere. They steer cold fronts and low-pressure systems across southern Australia, from west to east, determining rainfall and temperature patterns.

In the Australian region there is a subtropical jetstream over northern Australia and a polar jet stream in the mid-latitude westerly winds south of Australia. Historically, the jetstreams have steered the rain-bearing systems over southern Australia.

We discovered the subtropical jet stream, which brings rainy weather systems, has shifted about 10 degrees of latitude (roughly 1,000km) southwards towards the pole, since 2015.

This shift has caused traditional rain-producing weather systems to track south of the continent, completely missing southern Australia. Our previous research comparing 1965 to 1992, and 1993 to 2020, also showed the jet streams had shifted towards Antarctica.

This shift is due to climate change from increased greenhouse gas emissions that continues to warm the oceans and atmosphere. As the world keeps warming, the jet streams will be pushed further poleward.

Hence the jet stream changes are responsible for both the current drought, and the Tinderbox Drought (2017–19). Each drought was caused by below-average winter rainfall from April to October. And the greatest relocation of Australian region jet streams occurred in the past decade.

Where were the droughts?

Between 2023 and 2025, almost all of southern Australia experienced a serious to extreme lack of rain, causing severe to exceptional drought conditions. Drought has affected Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, straining existing water supplies.

Brief winter rainfall in July 2025 provided some local relief, however, the impact was short-lived. Recently, the summer months from December 2025 to February 2026 brought extreme heat and record low rainfall. Consequently, drought continues into January and February 2026. In striking contrast, parts of eastern and northern Australia received record rainfall and flash floods.

In southern Australian, coastal and inland areas, river systems and dams are experiencing greatly reduced water supplies. This reflects the continuing long-term impacts of global warming.

In Adelaide, three extremely dry years have reduced water inflows to reservoirs. The city’s single desalination plant quadrupled its output from January last year, to meet demand. Perth has experienced a long-term rainfall decline since 1970. It has two desalination plants and is building a third.

After briefly recovering during the La Niña years from 2021 to 2023, Melbourne’s dams are at their lowest levels since the Tinderbox Drought. Melbourne received well below average rainfall through to October 2025. Its desal plant was activated briefly in 2022, and was reactivated in April 2025. A second Melbourne plant is planned, but will take almost a decade to complete.

Primed to burn

Droughts and low winter rainfall means southern Australia is very susceptible to bushfire. Heatwaves and dry vegetation at the beginning of this summer brought catastrophic bushfire conditions, bolstered by dry, westerly wind changes. This caused catastrophic bushfires in southern Australia. More than 430,000 hectares have been burned in Victoria.

These conditions should be a jolting wakeup call. A possible El Niño, or warming climate pattern, later in 2026 is likely to worsen existing drought conditions in southern Australia. Melbourne’s water storage is at 70% capacity and is in danger of falling much lower. Southern Australia needs to ready itself for a hot, dry year.

– ref. Dramatic changes in upper atmosphere are responsible for recent droughts and bushfires: new research – https://theconversation.com/dramatic-changes-in-upper-atmosphere-are-responsible-for-recent-droughts-and-bushfires-new-research-275792

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/20/dramatic-changes-in-upper-atmosphere-are-responsible-for-recent-droughts-and-bushfires-new-research-275792/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hebert-Losier, Associate Professor in Sports Biomechanics, University of Waikato

Universities play a crucial role in achieving gender equality, but persistent disparities in leadership, pay and research opportunities continue to shape women’s careers in academia.

Globally, only 36% of senior academics are women.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, research revealed striking gender imbalances in both pay and leadership appointments across all eight universities during the period between 2002 and 2017.

All universities have since worked to address the issue and now have equity frameworks. As a group of women working at five different universities, we analysed publicly available data to assess progress.

We found universities are closing the pay gap, slowly. But men are still more likely to fill senior leadership roles in the highest pay brackets.

Academic pay gap shrinking, slowly

Research published in 2020, looking at data from the early 2000s, found women at New Zealand universities experienced a lifetime gender pay gap of an estimated NZ$400,000.

The odds of women reaching senior (associate or full professor) ranks were less than half those of men. In senior roles, only 37% of heads of department and 25% of deans were women.

Since then, the national median pay gap across all sectors has dropped from 9.4% in favour of men in 2017 to 8.2% in 2024 and 5.2% in 2025, although the most recent drop could be largely due to the recession driving low-paid women out of work.

How do universities compare? As of February 2026, only three of eight universities (Otago, AUT, Auckland) have released recent pay gap reports. The median pay gap ranged between 9.8% and 11.9% in 2024.

However, a closer look reveals the data are skewed by differences between professional and academic staff. For academics, the gap ranged from 14.1% (Auckland) to 18% (Otago) in 2024, and widened at Otago in 2025, to 20%.

Historical data are not available for most institutions, but the median academic pay gap appears to be narrowing slowly, from more than 25% in 2017 to 20% in 2025 (at the University of Otago).

Despite this improvement, men still dominate at the highest pay brackets, with three to six times more men than women earning above $210,000 at one university, unequal pay in favour of men among professors and more men than women at associate professor or professor levels at others.

But there are visible signs of progress, including the rise in the proportion of female professors from 25% in 2019 to 34% in 2024 at one institution (Waikato).

Equity requires support

We wondered if women have become bolder and less risk averse than they were a decade ago.

We often hear of women in academia being discouraged to apply for promotion. A review of research reinforces that women are less likely to take up leadership positions after becoming mothers, internalising barriers and hence sacrificing career aspirations.

Women’s career progression is surely hindered by the relatively weak support for new parents at universities in New Zealand, which offer only six to 12 weeks of paid parental leave at full pay.

This is well below the minimum 14 weeks (recommended at least 18 weeks) of parental leave defined by the World Health Organization and mandated by the International Labour Organization.

In contrast, the Group of Eight universities in Australia offer at least 26 weeks of full-pay equivalent; in many cases, they also provide funding for return-to-work support schemes.

Promisingly, the scales have recently tipped in favour of women in senior leadership teams at New Zealand universities, with 56.3% of vice chancellors, deputy vice chancellors, provosts, pro vice chancellors and executive deans now being women.

However, we observed some disparities between roles, with over-representation of women in senior leadership in academic (83.3%), Māori (71.4%) and health (66.7%) roles, and under-representation in the top vice chancellor role (37.5%). None of the heads of science divisions are currently women.

Impact of changing funding priorities

The research funding context in New Zealand is evolving. The 2025 budget emphasised science and innovation, with a near exclusive focus on research that has direct economic impact.

In 2024, women were principal investigators for 47.8% of projects funded by the Marsden Fund, which supports fundamental research. But this plunged to 34.2% in 2025 following government reform. We speculate this could be linked to the disestablishment of funding for social science and humanities.

Disciplines with higher female representation – including education, anthropology, sociology and criminology – already experience lower funding success rates, for both women and men.

We are concerned the shift in government research priorities will disproportionately affect women’s opportunities for leading research in New Zealand, their chance for research career awards and their academic progression. Success in securing major grants is a key criterion for professorial appointments, but the playing field is not level.

Diversity in leadership is critical for institutional success. Women often show high levels of organisation, resilience, relationship building, boundary setting, flexible approaches and conflict resolution with equitable outcomes for all parties.

We welcome the positive steps universities in Aotearoa New Zealand are taking, but more needs to happen to create an equitable playing field.

– ref. More women are professors, but gender gaps continue to plague NZ universities – https://theconversation.com/more-women-are-professors-but-gender-gaps-continue-to-plague-nz-universities-275656

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/20/more-women-are-professors-but-gender-gaps-continue-to-plague-nz-universities-275656/