Catherine McAuley College: St Mary's Home

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s promise to power Australia with nuclear energy has been described by experts as a costly “mirage” that risks postponing the clean energy transition.

Beyond this, however, the Coalition’s nuclear policy has, for many First Nations peoples, raised the spectre of the last time the atomic industry came to Australia.

Indigenous peoples across Oceania share memories of violent histories of nuclear bomb testing, uranium mining and waste dumping – all of which disproportionately affected them and/or their ancestors.

Two sides of the same coin

While it may be tempting to separate them, the links between military and civilian nuclear industries – that is, between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy plants – are well established. According to a 2021 paper by energy economists Lars Sorge and Anne Neumann: “In part, the global civilian nuclear industry was established to legitimatise the development of nuclear weapons.”

The causative links between military and civilian uses of nuclear power flow in both directions.

As Sorge and Neumann write, many technologies and skills developed for use in nuclear bombs and submarines end up being used in nuclear power generation. Another expert analysis suggests countries that receive peaceful nuclear assistance, in the form of nuclear technology, materials or skills, are more likely to initiate nuclear weapons programs.

Since the first atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, Indigenous peoples across the Pacific have been singing, writing and talking about nuclear colonialism. Some were told the sacrifice of their lands and lifeways was “for the good of mankind”.

Today, they continue to use their bodies and voices to push back against the promise of a benevolent nuclear future – a vision that has often been used justify their and their ancestors’ suffering and displacement.

Black mist and brittle landscapes

In 2023, Bangarra Dance Company produced Yuldea. This performance centres on the Yooldil Kapi, a permanent desert waterhole.

For millennia, this water source sustained the Aṉangu and Nunga peoples and a multitude of other plant and animal life across the Great Victorian Desert and far-west South Australia.

In 1933, Yuldea became the site of the Ooldea Mission. Then, in 1953, when the British began testing nuclear bombs at nearby Emu Field (1953) and Maralinga (1956–57), the local Aṉangu Pila Nguru were displaced from their land to the mission.

Directed by Wirangu and Mirning woman Frances Rings, Yuldea tells the story of this Country in four acts: act one, Supernova; act two, Kapi (Water); act three, Empire; and act four, Ooldea Spirit.

The impacts of nuclear testing are directly confronted in a section titled Black Mist (in act three, Empire). Dancers’ bodies twist and spasm as a black mist falls from the sky, representing the fog of radioactive particles that resulted from weapons testing. In reality, this fog could cause lifelong injuries when inhaled or ingested, including blindness.

But Yuldea is more than just a story of destruction. By exploring Aṉangu and Nunga relationships with Country before and after nuclear testing, it affirms their enduring presence in the region. This is captured in the opening prose:

We are memory.
Glimpsed through shimmering light on water.
A story place where black oaks stand watch.
Carved into trees and painted on rocks.
North - South - East - West.
A brittle landscape of life and loss.

To acknowledge is to remember

The podcast Nu/clear Stories (2023-), created by Mā'ohi (Tahitian) women Mililani Ganivet and Marie-Hélène Villierme, uses storytelling to grapple with the consequences of colonial nuclear testing.

Ganivet and Villierme address the memories of French nuclear testing on the islands of Moruroa and Fangataufa in Mā’ohi Nui (French Polynesia) from 1963 to 1996.

Rather than using a linear understanding of time, which keeps the past in the past and idealises a future of “progress”, Nu/clear Stories draws on Indigenous philosophies of cyclical or spiral time to insist that by turning to the past, we can understand how history shapes the present and future.

As Ganivet says when introducing the first episode, Silences and Questions:

We are part of a long genealogy of people who found the courage to speak before us. […] To acknowledge them here is to remember that without them we would not be able to speak today. And so today, we stand on their shoulders, with the face firmly turned towards the past, but with our eyes gazing deep into the future.

Stories in the Tomb

In her 2018 poem video Anointed, Part III of the series Dome, Marshall Islander woman Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner pays homage to Runit Island. This island in the Enewetak Atoll was transformed into a dumping site for waste from US nuclear bomb tests between 1946 and 1958.

A huge concrete dome was built on Runit Island in the 1970s to cover about 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. The island became known as “the Tomb” to the Enewetak people – a tomb that still leaks nuclear radiation into the ocean today.

However, like the creators behind Yuldea and Nu/clear Stories, Jetn̄il-Kijiner refuses to remember Runit Island as only a nuclear graveyard. Instead, she approaches it like a long-lost family member or ancestor who she hopes will be full of stories.

Jetn̄il-Kijiner speaks to the island through her poem, drawing a devastating contrast between what it once was and what it is now:

You were a whole island, once. You were breadfruit trees heavy with green globes of fruit whispering promises of massive canoes. Crabs dusted with white sand scuttled through pandanus roots. Beneath looming coconut trees beds of ripe watermelon slept still, swollen with juice. And you were protected by powerful irooj, chiefs birthed from women who could swim pregnant for miles beneath a full moon.

Then you became testing ground. Nine nuclear weapons consumed you, one by one by one, engulfed in an inferno of blazing heat. You became crater, an empty belly. Plutonium ground into a concrete slurry filled your hollow cavern. You became tomb. You became concrete shell. You became solidified history, immoveable, unforgettable.

While Jetn̄il-Kijiner describes herself as “a crater empty of stories”, she continues to find stories in the Tomb: namely, the legend of Letao, the son of a turtle goddess who turned himself into fire and, in the hands of a small boy, nearly burned a village to the ground.

Juxtaposing this fire with the US’s nuclear bombs, she ends her poem with “questions, hard as concrete”:

Who gave them this power?
Who anointed them with the power to burn?

The link between past and future

In their book Living in a nuclear world: From Fukushima to Hiroshima (2022), Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and others explore how “nuclear actors” frame nuclear technology as “indispensable”, “mundane” and “safe” by neatly severing nuclear energy from nuclear history.

This framing helps nuclear actors avoid answering concrete questions. It also helps to hides the colonial history of nuclear technologies – histories which leak into the present. But not everyone accepts this framing.

Indigenous artists remind us the nuclear past must be front-of-mind as we look to shape the future.

During her PhD thesis – funded by the Australian Government Research Training Program – Josephine worked on photographic works by Marie-Hélène Villierme. She has also interviewed Villierme in the past, and worked with her collaboratively on a book chapter on her work (published in Francophone Oceania Today (2024)).

Following the end of native logging in Victoria on January 1 2024, the state’s majestic forests might be expected to regenerate and recover naturally. But our new research shows that’s not always the case.

We quantified the extent of regeneration following logging in the eucalypt forests of southeastern Australia between 1980 and 2019. This included nearly 42,000 hectares of logged mountain ash forest in Victoria’s Central Highlands.

We analysed satellite data, logging records, on-ground surveys and drone photography, and discovered that nearly 20% of logged areas failed to regenerate. This represents more than 8,000 hectares of forest lost. All that remains in these areas are grassy clearings, dense shrublands or bare soils.

We also found the rate of regeneration failure has increased over the past decade. While failure was rare in the 1980s, it became much more common over time – affecting more than 80% of logged sites by 2019.

These regeneration failures weren’t random. They were found mostly in close proximity to each other, on areas with steep slopes, relatively low elevation, and where the area of clear-felled forest was long and narrow.

Our research shows more needs to be done to restore Victoria’s forest after logging.

Restoring majestic forests and their vital services

Victoria is home to some of the most spectacular forests on the planet. They include extensive stands of mountain ash, the tallest flowering plant on Earth, which can grow to almost 100 metres in height. Alpine ash, another giant, can grow up to 60m tall.

These forests have great cultural significance to Indigenous people and support many recreational and tourism activities.

Healthy forest ecosystems also deliver clean water and carbon storage services. In fact, mountain ash forests contain more carbon per hectare than most other forests around the world.

But Victoria’s forests have long been logged for timber and pulp. The main method of logging – clearfelling – scars the landscape, leaving large areas devoid of trees if natural tree regeneration fails.

Mountain ash is especially vulnerable

Our research revealed 19.2% of areas logged between 1980 and 2019 in our study area (8,030ha out of 41,819ha cut) failed to regenerate naturally.

We also found strong evidence of a significant increase in the extent of failed regeneration over 40 years, increasing from less than two hectares per cutblock in 1980 (about 7.5%) to more than nine hectares per cutblock in 2019 (about 85%), on average.

We found regeneration failure was more likely in mountain ash forests compared with other forest types.

This adds to the case for listing the mountain ash forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria as a threatened ecological community.

A responsibility to restore

Under Victoria’s Code of Forest Practice for Timber Production, logged native forests must be properly regenerated within two to three years of harvest.

That’s because it is nearly impossible for the native forest to regenerate after three years without human intervention. The young trees face too much competition from grass and shrubs.

These degraded areas no longer hold the value they once did and they cannot provide the same level of ecosystem services such as carbon storage, water purification, or habitat for wildlife.

With no current government restoration plan, these landscapes will remain degraded indefinitely. The Victorian government retains legal responsibility to restore these degraded forests, but currently lacks any large-scale restoration strategy, making action urgently required.

A way forward: using green bonds to fund regeneration

Our research shows the regeneration of forests after logging is not guaranteed. Nature often needs a helping hand. But we need to find ways to fund these projects.

Globally, governments have used “green bonds” to lower the cost of borrowing tied explicitly to measurable environmental results.

Victoria already has green bonds “to finance new and existing projects that offer climate change and environmental benefits”. But funds are typically used to finance investments in transport, renewable energy, water and low carbon buildings.

As part of a coalition of researchers, environmental organisations, and finance sector partners we proposed a A$224 million green bond for forest regeneration. This proposal was put to the Victorian government via the Treasury Corporation of Victoria.

Green bond funding would help leverage co-investment from the Commonwealth government and philanthropic partners to improve monitoring and biodiversity outcomes in native forests.

As part of the proposed green bond, areas of logged forest where natural regeneration has failed would be restored.

Other investments under the green bond could include creating tourism ventures (and associated jobs), controlling feral animals such as deer, and biodiversity recovery – creating habitat for endangered species such as the southern greater glider and Leadbeater’s possum, for example.

The $224 million required for the ten years of the green bond — or around $22.4 million per year — is less than the substantial losses Victoria incurred on its investment in VicForests over the past decade.

Our research suggests leaving nature to its own devices would mean losing a fifth of the forests logged over the past 40 years. Bringing the trees back has multiple benefits and would be well worth the investment.

Maldwyn John Evans receives funding from the Australian Government.

David Lindenmayer receives funding from The Australian Government, the Australian Research Council and the Victorian Government. He is a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council and a Member of Birdlife Australia.

Chris Taylor 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.

So far in 2025 (as of May 1), 70 cases of measles have been notified in Australia, with all states and territories except Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory having recorded at least one case. Most infections have occurred in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.

We’ve already surpassed the total number of cases recorded in all of 2023 (26 cases) and 2024 (57 cases).

Measles outbreaks are currently occurring in every region of the world. Most Australian cases are diagnosed in travellers returning from overseas, including popular holiday destinations in Southeast Asia.

But although Australia eliminated local transmission of measles in 2014, recently we’ve seen measles infections once again in Australians who haven’t been overseas. In other words, the virus has been transmitted in the community.

So with measles health alerts and news reports popping up often, what do you need to know about measles? We’ve collated a list of commonly Googled questions about the virus and the vaccine.

1. What is measles?

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to affect humans. In fact, every person with measles can infect 12 to 18 others who are not immune. The measles virus can survive in the air for two hours, so people can inhale the virus even after an infected person has left the room.

Measles predominantly affects children and those with weaker immune systems. Up to four in ten people with measles will need to go to hospital, and up to three in 1,000 people who get measles will die.

In 2023, there were more than 100,000 deaths from measles around the world.

Read more: Travelling overseas? You could be at risk of measles. Here's how to ensure you're protected

2. What are the symptoms of measles?

The signs and symptoms of measles usually start 7–14 days after exposure to the virus, and include rash, fever, a runny nose, cough and conjunctivitis. The rash usually starts on the face or neck, and spreads over three days to eventually reach the hands and feet. On darker skin, the rash may be harder to see.

Complications from measles are common, and include ear infections, encephalitis (swelling of the brain), blindness and breathing problems or pneumonia. These complications are more likely in children.

Pregnant women are also at greater risk of serious complications, and measles can also cause preterm labour and stillbirth.

Even in people who recover from measles, a rare (and often fatal) brain condition can occur many years later, called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.

3. What’s the difference between measles and chickenpox?

Measles and chickenpox are caused by different viruses, although both commonly affect children, and vaccines can prevent both diseases. Chickenpox is caused by the varicella zoster virus, which is also transmitted through the air, and can cause fever, rash and rare (yet serious) complications.

The chickenpox rash is different to the rash seen in measles. It often starts on the chest or back, appearing first as separate red bumps that evolve into fluid-filled blisters, called vesicles. Chickenpox can also appear later in life as shingles.

4. Can you get measles twice?

The simple answer is no. If you contract measles, you should have lifelong immunity afterwards.

In Australia, people born before 1966 would have most likely been infected with measles, because the vaccine wasn’t available to them as children. They are therefore protected from future infection.

Measles infection however can reduce the immune system’s ability to recognise infections it has previously encountered, leaving people vulnerable to many of the infections to which they previously had immunity. Vaccination can protect against this.

5. What is the measles vaccine, and at what age do you get it?

The measles vaccine contains a live but weakened version of the measles virus. In Australia, measles vaccinations are given as part of a combination vaccine that contains the measles virus alongside the mumps and rubella viruses (the MMR vaccine), and the chickenpox virus (MMRV).

Under the national immunisation program, children in Australia receive measles vaccines at 12 months (MMR) and 18 months of age (MMRV). In other countries, the age of vaccination may vary – but at least two doses are always needed for optimal immunity.

Measles vaccines can be given earlier than 12 months, from as early as six months, to protect infants who may be at higher risk of exposure to the virus (such as those travelling overseas). Infants who receive an early dose of the measles vaccine still receive the usual two recommended doses at 12 and 18 months old.

Australians born between 1966 and 1994 (those aged roughly 20–60) are considered to be at greater risk of measles, as the second dose was only recommended from November 1992. Australia is seeing breakthrough measles infections in this age group.

An additional measles vaccine can be given to these adults at any time. It’s safe to get an extra dose even if you have been vaccinated before. If you are unsure if you need one, talk to your GP who may check your measles immunity (or immunisation record, if applicable) before vaccinating.

However, as the measles vaccine is a live vaccine, it’s not safe to give to people with weakened immune systems (due to certain medical conditions) or pregnant women. It’s therefore important that healthy, eligible people receive the measles vaccine to protect themselves and our vulnerable population.

6. How long does a measles vaccine last?

The measles vaccine is one of the most effective vaccines we have. After two doses, about 99% of people will be protected against measles for life.

And the measles vaccine not only protects you from disease. It also stops you from transmitting the virus to others.

Phoebe Williams receives research funding focused on reducing antimicrobial resistance and neonatal sepsis from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Gates Foundation.

Archana Koirala is the chair of the Vaccination Special Interest Group and a committee member of the Australian and New Zealand paediatric infectious diseases network with Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases. Her vaccine and seroprevalence research has been funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care and NSW Health.

The school curriculum has changed a lot from when many parents and grandparents were at school.

Alongside new approaches to learning maths and increasing attention on technology, there is a compulsory focus on social and emotional skills.

Children start developing these skills by watching and observing others as babies. But they also need to be taught about them more actively – think about parents telling kids to say “thank you” or making sure they take turns when playing with friends.

How do schools teach social and emotional skills? And why is it important? Our new research shows how these lessons can improve students’ wellbeing and lead to better academic results.

What do schools teach about social and emotional skills?

As the Productivity Commission noted in 2023, schools should support students’ social and emotional wellbeing to help them “cope with the various stresses of life”. It also found strong social and emotional skills support students’ ability to engage and learn at school.

Since 2010, social and emotional skills have been a compulsory part of the Australian Curriculum. This involves four key strands for students from the first year of school to Year 10:

1. self-awareness: understanding your strengths and limitations and having confidence you can achieve goals

2. self-management: identifying and managing your emotions, thoughts and behaviours in different situations. This includes managing stress and controlling impulses

3. social awareness: understanding other perspectives, empathising with others from different backgrounds and cultures and understanding social expectations for behaviour

4. relationship skills: forming and maintaining healthy relationships, communicating and cooperating. This also includes responsible decision-making and understanding morals and consequences.

How are these skills taught?

Teaching these skills can be done in two ways.

The first is by incorporating them into core academic subjects. For example, an English teacher might ask students to discuss the emotions, behaviours and relationships of characters in a novel. Teachers should also model the skills in their interactions with students.

To do this effectively, teachers need specific knowledge of how to teach these skills. Busy schools may not prioritise this professional development for teachers because, unlike academic knowledge, these skills are not assessed.

The second approach is to use a structured program designed to develop these skills. These programs can particularly help teachers with less training in social and emotional teaching.

However, we know these programs are not always available or implemented adequately in schools. For example, in 2015 we surveyed 600 public, Catholic and independent NSW primary schools. Fewer than two-thirds (60%) taught social and emotional skills using formal programs. And of the programs used, one in three (34%) had either never been tested or showed no positive effects on students’ social-emotional skills.

Why is this important?

But research tells us formal programs can work. Our 2025 study looked at the social and emotional skills of 18,600 Year 6 students in NSW government and non-government primary schools. We also used data from their school leaders about the types of social and emotional skills programs they used – or did not use.

We found students who received structured, evidence-based programs (on average, over three to four years) had better social and emotional skills on our self-report survey than those who did not.

Students who received these programs had social and emotional skills that were 7-10 percentile points better than those who did not. That is, in a group of 100 students, they ranked 7-10 places higher.

But it showed there was only a benefit if programs were evidence-based – this means they had been formally tested to check they could be taught effectively by teachers in the classroom.

There are academic benefits as well

In another 2025 study, we followed students as they went to high school. We wanted to see how their social and emotional skills in primary school related to their later academic achievement.

We linked our survey data on NSW Year 6 students’ self-awareness and self-management skills with their NAPLAN reading and numeracy scores in Year 7. We could do this for almost 24,000 students who participated in our survey and in NAPLAN.

We found increases in these skills were linked to increases in NAPLAN scores. Standard gains ranged between 8–20 percentile points.

This fits with other research which shows students with strong self-awareness and self-management are more confident about achieving academic goals and more engaged and focused on their learning. This in turn helps them engage and persevere with challenges, so they achieve more academic learning.

What now?

Our research shows how programs teaching social and emotional skills can give young people fundamental skills to navigate learning and life beyond school. But implementation is patchy and not always based on evidence. School today involves more than reading, maths and facts. This means all schools need resources and access to effective programs to teach social and emotional skills.

Kristin R. Laurens received funding for this research from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Emma Carpendale received an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend scholarship and a Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Health Excellence Top-Up scholarship.

With US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s “proud” cancellation this week of the military’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) program, the “war on woke” has found its latest frontier – war itself.

Stemming from a United Nations Security Council resolution in 2000, the WPS initiative aimed to increase the participation of women in public institutions, including in the security sector and in peace-making roles.

The WPS agenda aims to better understand how women, men, boys and girls experience war, peace and security differently. It increases operational effectiveness and supports the underlying goal of gender equality, described by the UN as the “number one predictor of peace”.

In the military context, it emphasises the need to increase the participation of women and to better protect non-combatant women in war, particularly from the prevalence of conflict-related sexual violence.

The decision to end the program as part of a wider war on diversity, equity and inclusion seems to assume national security and military power are incompatible with the promotion of racial and gender equality.

In other words, it assumes certain types of people aren’t really cut out to be “warfighters”. And it asserts that anything other than basic skill (such as weapons handling) undermines readiness and ability in warfare.

History and the available evidence suggest both ideas are wrong.

The archetypal warrior envisaged by Hegseth and others is one who relies on very traditional concepts of what constitutes a warrior and who that might be: not female, definitely not transgender, ideally also not gay.

Recent bans on transgender personnel in the US military, the removal of mandatory mental resilience training, and the “disappearance” from US museums and memorials of the records of the military contribution of women and minorities, reinforce these ideas.

The ideal soldier, according to the new doctrine, is straight, white, physically fit, stoic and male. Yet people of all stripes have served their countries ably and with honour.

Hard-won progress in retreat

Military service is allocated a privileged kind of status in society, despite (or perhaps because of) the ultimate sacrifice it can entail. That status has long been the preserve of men, often of a particular class or ethnicity.

But women and minorities around the world have fought for the right to enter the military, often as part of broader campaigns for greater equality within society in general.

But there remains resistance to these “interlopers”. No matter their individual capabilities, women are painted as too physically weak, as a threat to combat unit cohesion, or a liability because of their particular health needs.

Women, in particular, are often perceived as being too emotional or lacking authority for military command. Minorities are seen as requiring distracting rules about cultural sensitivity, presenting language challenges, or are stereotyped as not cut out for leadership.

But problem solving – a key military requirement – is best tackled with a range of views and approaches. Research from the business world shows diverse teams are more successful, including delivering higher financial returns.

At a more granular level, we also know that minority groups have often outperformed other military units, as exemplified by the extraordinary feats of the New Zealand Māori Pioneer Battalion in World War I and the 28th Māori Battalion in World War II.

Women, too, have proved themselves many times over, most recently in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As well as matching the skills of their male counterparts, they also had different, useful approaches to roles such as intelligence gathering in conflict zones.

The ‘woke warrior’

The competence of military personnel is not determined by sex, gender, sexuality or ethnicity. Rather, competence is determined by a combination of learned skills, training, education, physical ability, mental agility, resilience, experience, interpersonal skills and leadership qualities.

Any suggestion that military units are best served by being made up of only heterosexual men with “alpha” tendencies is undermined by the evidence. In fact, a monocultural, hypermasculine military may increase the potential for harrassment, bullying or worse.

Modern military roles also involve a much wider range of skills than the traditional and stereotypically male infantry tasks of digging, walking with a pack, firing guns and killing an enemy.

In modern warfare, personnel may also need to engage in “hearts and minds” counterinsurgency, or in “grey zone” tactics, where specialisations in intelligence, cyber or drone piloting are more highly prized. Militaries are also much more likely to be deployed to non-warfighting roles, such as humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

This isn’t to say “controlled aggression” and other traditionally alpha-male attributes don’t have their place. But national military strategies increasingly stress the need to train ethical and compassionate soldiers to successfully carry out government objectives.

The evolution of war requires the evolution of the military forces that fight them. The cancellation of the Women, Peace and Security program in the US threatens to put a stop to this process, at least in that country.

Despite Pete Hegseth’s claim to be increasing “warfighting” capability, then, there is a real chance the move will decrease operational effectiveness, situational awareness and problem solving in conflict situations.

Far from being peripheral, the Women, Peace and Security program is central to the future of all military activity, and to developing conceptions of war, peace and security. Hegseth’s “proud moment” looks less like winning a “war on woke” and more like a retreat from an understanding of the value a diverse military has created.

Bethan Greener 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.

Latest poll shows Albanese on track for minority government. Follow today’s news live

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Campaign trail chuckles

And who said the last five weeks hasn’t been fun? Provided you didn’t watch the television debates, writes Caitlin Cassidy, there has been enough to keep us amused – from the Coalition leaders getting lost in Melbourne to Albo’s tumble to the Coalition rap described as “Kendrick Lamar meeting question time”.

The Australian Institute for Progress’s ‘Can you afford the Greens?’ ads claim minor party’s housing policies would lead to increased rents

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A Liberal-aligned thinktank running last-minute anti-Greens advertisements targeting young voters received more than $600,000 from the coal industry during last year’s Queensland election, disclosures show.

On Monday evening, the Australian Institute for Progress released a “Can you afford the Greens?” video advertisement pushing claims, based on its own commissioned research, that the Greens’ housing policies would lead to increased rents.

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Close-up shows recent chats with cabinet colleagues Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Tulsy Gabbard

• Trump’s national security adviser to leave post

The Trump administration is seeking to strip collective bargaining rights from large swaths of federal employees in a test case union leaders argue is part of a broader attack on US labor unions that could land before the US Supreme Court.

A Trump win would deliver a severe blow to labor unions in the US. Some 29.9% of all federal workers were represented by labor unions in 2024 compared to 11.1% for all US workers.

On 13 April 2024, two shots ended Sydney’s worst mass murder in more than a decade. As an inquest into the Bondi Junction stabbings continues, the question remains: what more could have been done?

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When police inspector Amy Scott entered a Sydney shopping centre in pursuit of a man who was stabbing people with a large knife, she did so without a partner or a bullet-proof vest. Fear, she said, made way for nausea.

“Because, in my head, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was probably going to die”, she told the New South Wales coroner’s court on Tuesday.

Ahead of federal election, parties have also reported arson threats and alleged attempts to intimidate diaspora communities

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New South Wales police have launched multiple investigations in the last week into alleged violence, intimidation, harassment and antisocial behaviour related to the election, including the smearing of poo across a truck carrying an ad for the Liberal party.

Political parties have also reported arson threats against campaign offices and alleged attempts to intimidate diaspora communities into voting for their candidate by referencing historical figures linked in crimes against humanity in Afghanistan.

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