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It looks as if many people are “seeing red” when it comes to the first official portrait of King Charles III. Reactions to Jonathan’s Yeo’s monumental portrait have certainly been mixed.

Fundamentally, this is the most traditional of images. It’s a portrait painted in oil on a monumental scale (it measures nearly 7 feet by 9 feet) of the the monarch.

Charles wears the red coat of the Welsh Guards, the regiment for which he was made regimental colonel in 1975. A lot of attention has been lavished on his uniform, displaying a range of medals including the striking chain of the Order of the Garter. The colour palette of the painting plays with the rich red hues of that coat.

There are no royal insignia, because this is not the image of a King, this is the image of the patron of The Most Worshipful Company of Drapers, a guild with medieval origins. The portrait was commissioned to mark Charles’s associated with the guild for over 50 years.

Charles’s portrait will join that of his mother, the Late Queen Elizabeth II, by the Russian painter Sergei Pavlenko in Draper’s Hall. She had been a Draper since 1947 and the Company commissioned her image on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee.

As the first painted image of the King to be revealed since his Coronation a year ago, this is the first time that we get a glimpse of the emerging fashioning of the image of King Charles III and, as such, it puts down a marker for how the King wishes to create his own visual legacy.

It’s worth putting this into the context of “self-fashioning” in portraiture, succinctly described by the literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt in 1980 as a process where identity is constructed as a pastiche of carefully selected details. In other words, you don’t get to see the “real” image of a person, what you get to see is an ideal projection of a carefully curated identity, highlighting the aspects they want you to see.

The portrait of the queen was completed in 2000 and conveys a steady and reliable reign.
PA Images/Alamy

The late queen’s image depicts her in her official uniform for portraiture, the ubiquitous long white gown, worn with a blue sash and the striking blue velvet cloak of the Order of the Garter. Elizabeth’s image is familiar and safe and speaks of constancy and long service.

Like her image, the King’s image keeps firmly within tradition. It does so by following the long-established convention of showing male monarchs in uniform – in this case, in the striking red coat of the Welsh Guards – leaning on the hilt of a ceremonial sword held in front of him.

What is less traditional is the inclusion of a butterfly fluttering above the King’s right shoulder. This butterfly and the King’s face and hands are the only parts of the image that aren’t in shades of reds, oranges and pinks. According to Yeo, the inclusion of that butterfly was Charles’s suggestion, placed on his shoulder as an “attribute” and conversation starter.

There is a long history in portraiture with regards to placing objects as key interpretative markers for the sitter’s personality. A book becomes a symbol for learnedness and wisdom; a dog signifies fidelity and trust; pearls are associated with chastity and virginity – the list goes on.

Every object can be and is imbued with symbolic meaning, and the fewer there are in an image, the more attention the sitter wants to be placed on that stand-out feature. According to the most authoritative compendium on symbolism in art, James Hall’s Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art (1974), the butterfly is a symbol for spirituality, for renewal, for new beginnings, for a rebirth.

In selecting it, Charles could be signalling that he wants his legacy to be that of the monarch who renews and protects, clearly foregrounding his long-established environmental agenda. In his fiery, red image which contrasts so starkly with his mother’s cool and serene one, he offers a first glimpse into how he understands his role in the years of his reign to come.

There are challenges and there is movement, but the focus is on the fragility of the world we live in. The butterfly, delicate and beautiful, the symbol of renewal and longevity is certainly an unexpected attribute for a King, but after 50 years in waiting, Charles has had a long time to think about how to pitch his image. Läs mer…

“She’s no oil painting”.

Those were the unkind words of a colleague commenting on the subject of Vincent Namatjira’s acrylic painting, Gina. Every one of the prominent Australians and cultural heroes in Namatjira’s ensemble Australia in Colour (2021) is subject to his trademark distortions.

When the painter gets to work interpreting the press photographs that his main source, resemblance is always stretched. No one comes out unscathed: Tony Abbott looks just as scary as Angus Young from AC/DC; a grimacing Queen Elizabeth as grisly as a roaring Cathy Freeman. Indeed, in the 2023 volume on Namatjira there are no fewer than four paintings of Gina Rinehart – and they look like four different people.

Do we expect a portrait to be a moral physiognomy, the ancient pseudoscience that assumes the way someone has lived their life shapes their features and appearance?

Roman emperors were shown to be ideal types: the heroic portrait. Who knows what these men actually looked like? In the case of King Charles III, whose new portrait by Jonathon Yeo was unveiled this week, we can compare his likeness to the myriad photographic and filmic images.

Newspaper caricature, popular since the 1700s, works hard to point out imperfections, posit animal likenesses, and exaggerate specific facial features to satirise public figures.

Namatjira brushes with caricature even when depicting himself.

Every one of the prominent Australians in Namatjira’s Australia in Colour is subject to his trademark distortions.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Can you control your image?

I think Rinehart should be flattered to be one of Namatjira’s favourites. The wits in the twittersphere have in the past 24 hours shown several more of his Ginas, and it turns out there are also at least half a dozen colour portraits of her by other artists.

They range from Scottie Marsh’s mural on a Sydney wall of a matronly Rinehart giving the breast to infant Barnaby Joyce (with apologies to Raphael), to Xavier Ghazi’s demonic hard-hatted Gina giving Australians the finger – it’s in newspaper caricature mode, his entry in the Bald Archies competition for 2023.

Although Rinehart has reportedly called for Namatjira’s painting to be taken down, the initiative apparently comes from members of the Australian swimming team and their former coach (Rinehart is that sport’s major private sponsor).

I suspect their discomfort comes from reading Namatjira’s Gina as a moral portrait; that is, ugliness of appearance projects an ugly spirit (whereas for them she is the epitome of generosity).

It’s an interesting idea that the fresh-faced teenage daughter of Lang Hancock in old news photos has changed not just because times takes beauty away (as we all know), but because of the impact of things she inherited from her father: not just the extreme wealth and the jawline, but the conservative views, and the ways she has used her money and power.

Her control of vast tracts of (unceded) grazing land across western and central Australia give reason to reflect on what Western Aranda man Namatjira might think of her.

Namatjira with his Archibald Prize winning portrait of himself with footballer Adam Goodes.
AAP Image/Supplied by Iwantja Arts, Art Gallery of NSW

And yet what about commissions?

When can a sitter control their portrait image? Only when they commission the work. Art history has plenty of cases in which a sitter has rejected their portrait. Monet in the 1860s painted his brother Leon, who so disliked the canvas he locked it in an attic, from which it emerged 150 years later.

Portrait paintings have had to be altered, payment refused, or be paid for then destroyed. The commissioned portrait, it’s assumed, must flatter the sitter or at least offer a fair and non-judgemental likeness.

The British royal family has historically been very forgiving about portraits, and has the sophistication to know it is futile to protest a likeness. Doing so invokes the perverse “Streisand effect”, as we see happening with Namatjira’s Gina.

There are dozens of depictions of Elizabeth II and Charles III in Namatjira’s pantheon – including one of the late queen alongside Rinehart in Australia in Colour. Namatjira has a family link to Elizabeth and Prince Philip, who met Albert Namatjira (the painter’s great grandfather) on their 1954 tour of Australia.

But no one is asking for Queen Bess to be removed from the National Gallery of Australia.

Namatjira with his artwork with Charles on Country in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), 2022.
AAP Image/Supplied by Jesse Lizotte, Iwantja Arts and Yavuz Gallery

As a mark of noblesse oblige, King Charles has accepted the newly unveiled commissioned portrait of himself by Jonathon Yeo. It is an absolute shocker, and he should have sent it back.

The King, de-aged by 20 years, looks pleasantly out at us from a floor-to-ceiling fog of strawberry- and cerise-coloured paint that covers his dress uniform. The joke, of course, is that the red colouration can be read as a reference to “tampongate”, the product of an infamous case of tabloid phone-hacking in 1993.

It’s a case of a portrait generating an unintended consequence – just as Namatjira surely did not expect to provoke international headlines today with his Gina, whom he’s been depicting for years.

Artist Jonathan Yeo and King Charles III at the unveiling of Yeo’s portrait of the King.
Aaron Chown/Pool Photo via AP

Fittingly, wise heads have rejected calls for the gallery to remove the canvas, starting with director Nick Mitzevich’s measured statement, seconded by the National Association for the Visual Arts whose press release insists on freedom of expression.

Finally, late yesterday, Namatjira, resisting myriad calls for interviews, issued a statement in the pithy mode of his book texts. Let him have the last word:

I paint people who are wealthy, powerful, or significant – people who have had an influence on this country, and on me personally, whether directly or indirectly, whether for good or for bad. Some people might not like it, other people might find it funny, but I hope people look beneath the surface and see the serious side too. Läs mer…

Our government has great aspirations. It has committed to end extinctions and expand our protected areas to cover 30% of every Australian ecosystem by 2030. This is part of its Nature Positive Plan, aligned with the 2022 Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity pact. The goal is not just to conserve nature but to restore what is being lost.

But how can these goals be reconciled with a budget that allocated more public money to carbon capture and storage than biodiversity?

This week’s federal budget was a new low point for investment in nature. Environmental groups roundly criticised the “bad budget for nature”, which delivered next-to-no money to protect and recover Australia’s unique and threatened biodiversity.

Research has shown Australians want at least 2% of the federal budget spent on nature. Instead, less than 0.1% of the budget spend will support biodiversity in some way. Over the past decade, biodiversity funding has gone down 25% relative to GDP.

Let’s say the government decided it was finally time to roll up the sleeves and do something. How would they go about it? What would it take to actually reverse the decline, as the government says it wants to in its Nature Positive approach?

Our threatened species populations have been declining by about 2-3% a year over the past 20 years. The first step is to stop the fall. Then the challenge is to restore dwindling species and ecosystems.

Populations of endangered species have been falling steadily since 2000.
Agami Photo Agency/Shutterstock

The Dow Jones for threatened species goes down, down, down

Australia now has a Threatened Species Index. Think of it like the Dow Jones for wildlife. It uses trend data from bird, mammal and plant species collected from over 10,000 sites to measure progress for nature in Australia.

Last year, Treasurer Jim Chalmers talked up the index as part of the first national “wellbeing budget”, which aimed to measure Australia’s progress across a range of social, health and sustainability indicators.

What does the index tell us? You can see for yourself. The health of our threatened species has fallen by about 2-3% a year since the turn of the century.

If, as is likely, the trend continues, it will lead to the extinction of many more of our unique native animals and plant species. It will signal the failure of the government’s Nature Positive policy and a global biodiversity tragedy.

Given we have had decades of successive decline, what would be needed to reach the goal of nature positive?

Nature positive actually has a very specific meaning. It would:

halt and reverse nature loss measured from a baseline of 2020, through increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations and ecosystems so that by 2030 nature is visibly and measurably on the path of recovery.

This definition gives us a clear, measurable timeline for action, often described as nature’s answer to net zero.

To reach nature positive means halting biodiversity loss by 2030 so that in the future there is much more biodiversity, relative to a 2020 baseline.

What would that look like using the Threatened Species Index? To get on track with nature positive, we would have to stop the index declining, stabilise, and then increase from 2030 onwards.

Of course, strong environmental laws and aligned policies are needed to effectively prevent further loss of habitat.

But we also need to invest in restoring what has been lost. Scientists think this is possible with $2 billion a year to recover our most threatened native plants and animals, and another $2 billion annually to drive ecosystem restoration across Australia.

The budget is not nature positive

In the budget papers, the government uses the Threatened Species Index as a performance measure for its nature positive goal. It expects the trajectory of the index to be “maintained or improved” out to 2027-28.

But given our species and ecosystems are steadily declining, year after year, to maintain a trajectory is simply to embrace the decline. It’s not nature positive at all. The government could make minor improvements, slowing the collapse, and claim it was improving the lot of nature.

Imagine if our GDP growth was negative and the government’s goal was merely to slow its decline over the next five years – there would be national uproar.

If the government is serious about nature positive – which is an excellent goal – it would be setting more ambitious targets. For instance, the goal could be for the index to climb back up to 2020 levels by the end of the decade.

Instead, Labor is planning for biodiversity decline to continue, while describing it as “nature positive”.

Watching over the steady decline of our species and calling it nature positive makes about as much sense as opening up new gas fields and calling it net zero.

Greenwashing Nature Positive

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the government has engaged in nature positive greenwash.

In coming weeks, the government will introduce bills to parliament to establish two new agencies, Environment Information Australia and Environmental Protection Australia. But there will be one bill missing – the reformed federal environment laws, intended to give teeth to the nature positive push.

The laws were pushed back indefinitely, to the shock of scientists and environmental groups.

But let’s be generous and say these laws finally make it to parliament after the next election. Would they be enough to stop our species losses and put the Threatened Species Index onto a nature positive trajectory?

Australia’s reformed environmental laws are described as Nature Positive. Are they?
Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, CC BY-NC-ND

It’s unlikely.

The consultation documents show the government is aiming to deliver “net positive outcomes”, whereby development impacts to threatened species and ecosystems are more than compensated for.

But we don’t know the detail. How much improvement is the government aiming for? In the draft laws, this figure is listed simply as “at least X%”.

Time to aim higher

It is hard not to feel dispirited over the government’s backtracking on its promise to:

not shy away from difficult problems or accept environmental decline and extinction as inevitable.

But we cannot give up. As the plight of nature worsens, even iconic species such as the koala and platypus are now at risk. As ecosystems collapse, our food security, health and wellbeing, communities and businesses will suffer.

Perhaps one day we will have a government able to grasp the nettle and actually tackle the nature crisis – for the sake of all of us.

Read more:
Australia’s long-sought stronger environmental laws just got indefinitely deferred. It’s back to business as usual Läs mer…

This year the National Rugby League (NRL) opened its season in Las Vegas. It was an audacious move by the league’s ambitious head honcho Peter V’Landys to showcase the game in the United States – and perhaps to attract some gambling industry attention too.

While the NRL was stateside, the Australian Football League (AFL) opened its 2024 season in New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland – rugby league heartland.

The battle between the NRL and AFL for football supremacy has always been intriguing – where is the battle headed next?

A history of expansion

In terms of football participation and support, Australia is divided by a “Barassi line” between the north-east and south-west of the country.

Both codes have expanded over the years. It started in 1982 when the then-Victorian Football League sent the South Melbourne Swans to Sydney and the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) established the Canberra Raiders (making the ACT a rugby league stronghold rather than the predominantly Aussie rules city it originally was).

The NSWRL added teams in Newcastle, Illawarra, Brisbane, Melbourne and Gold Coast, and later Auckland and North Queensland. The AFL added sides from WA and SA, as well as Brisbane and Gold Coast and later, Greater Western Sydney. Tasmania will soon become the 19th club, and the AFL may ponder a 20th team – in Darwin, Canberra or perhaps a third club in WA or SA.

Read more:
Darwin Dingoes, Canberra Capitals, Cairns Crocodiles? Weighing up the options for the AFL’s 20th team

In 2023, the NRL expanded to 17 clubs with the addition of the Redcliffe Dolphins and the league is considering further expansion – V’Landy’s has stated he would like to see 20 teams by the end of the decade.

So where might future sides be based?

Resurrecting the Bears

The first option is the resurrection of the North Sydney Bears – but in a different location. The old Sydney club exited the NRL in 1999 after 90 years in the premier competition, but V’Landys has ruled they won’t be based at North Sydney as there are too many clubs in that city.

Some have therefore suggested the Bears relocate to the Central Coast, given that area is rugby league heartland and boasts a great stadium in Gosford where NRL fixtures regularly attract good crowds.

There’s also a proposal to bring back the club as the Perth Bears. WA did have the Western Reds in the mid-90s but the team was axed at the end of the Super League war in 1997.

But with the demise of the Western Force in rugby union in 2017, there’s room in the growing sports marketplace of Perth.

The Perth Bears would be a rare foray for the NRL on the other sides of the Barassi line, but they would have the advantage of an historic North Sydney connection – although Sydney fans would find it easier to see their side on the Central Coast, an hour or two away, than on the other side of the Nullarbor Plain.

Exploring New Zealand

The second option is New Zealand.

Given the popularity of the Auckland-based Warriors, there is a push for a second team, either in Wellington, as the Orcas, or Christchurch, to be known as the South Island Kea.

In New Zealand, rugby union talent is spread through the many local provincial sides and ultimately, the All Blacks. But rugby league talent flows through to only the Warriors. Given the growth in popularity of rugby league (particularly among Maori and Pacific youth) the Warriors may not be able to accommodate all the athletes who want to stay in NZ and still play at the highest level.

While rugby league is traditionally strongest on the north island, hence the push for Wellington, there is an opportunity to open up the South Island with a Christchurch team playing at the new covered multi-function stadium.

A bold new horizon up north

The third and most interesting option is Papua New Guinea.

Rugby league is the most popular sport in PNG and Prime Minister James Marape describes the sport as part of a national project to “unite the most diverse nation on the face of the planet.”

The sport is seen as a tool to help fight crime and inter-tribal tensions in the country, with Australia providing A$600 million over 10 years in technical assistance to the bid.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sees sport as an important part of the bilateral relationship between Australia and PNG. In a
speech to the PNG parliament last year he said:

I want to see a PNG-based team competing in the national rugby league competition.

The PNG bid is part of “soft diplomacy” or “sports diplomacy” in the Pacific in response to geo-political tensions in the region.

A rugby league team is regarded as something the Chinese Communist Party can’t give PNG, similar to the expansion of rugby union teams in Fiji and the rest of the Pacific.

The benefits are economic and diplomatic but there are risks too – there have been warnings that safety and security concerns in PNG could affect players, fans, officials and support staff.

There is also a view the NRL bid may crowd out other development assistance that’s of vital importance to PNG, although this ignores the economic and social flow-on benefits of sporting participation.

The NRL is considering a pitch for a team to be based in PNG.

A fourth option closer to home

Finally, there could be another team in Brisbane, based around the Ipswich area.

The Ipswich Jets only marginally lost out to the Redcliffe Dolphins in the race to become Brisbane’s second NRL club. The bid included a new stadium of 20,500 capacity.

Given the growth of Brisbane and South East Queensland, and the popularity of rugby league in the area, the Ipswich or Brisbane Jets may be a safe option. It would however be more of a consolidation than expansion option, as it would mean three teams in greater Brisbane and five in Queensland in total.

The NRL’s big decisions

The NRL currently has 17 clubs and like the AFL, wants to get to a 20-team competition.

The Central Coast Bears would be a safe option, along with a second team in NZ and another in Ipswich. That would be sticking safely to rugby league territory.

A more radical (but exciting) approach would be to bring the Bears back in Perth, go for a PNG club and a second New Zealand team.

It’s a big decision for the NRL but knowing the drive and political instincts of V’Landys, something is going to happen, and happen soon. Läs mer…

Bridgerton watchers started questioning the show’s historical authenticity (again) even before the third season landed. But does historical accuracy actually matter?

Based on the book series by Julia Quinn, Bridgerton is set around the eight Bridgerton siblings, each with their own romance. Romance is the powerhouse of the publishing industry: 19 million romance books were sold in 2022 – over 40% more than the previous year.

We surveyed almost 1,000 readers and writers of historical romance novels from around the world, in 2019 and again in 2023. We asked them what makes a historical romance novel authentic – and does accuracy matter?

Overall, writers were more concerned than readers about historical accuracy. On average, writers’ total scores for requiring accuracy were 4% higher than readers, whose range was wider. Many readers scored accuracy as low as 0 out of 5 as a requirement – but no writer scored accuracy lower than 3 out of 5.

Authors emphasised their own research. Their answers included “It has to be accurate, I research all of my historical knowledge” and “I do a lot of research to make that happen. Research is ongoing.”

‘Icing on the cake’

Readers’ requirements for accuracy were varied. Some said they require authors “to do a lot of research and make the story as authentic and real as possible”, while others said things like “I don’t think there is any responsibility for authors to write historically accurate romances.”

For a small but significant cohort of the readers we surveyed, accuracy was important for ensuring the authenticity of story. Here, readers echoed the writers, calling for “accurate portrayal of life during the era” based on “quality research by author”.

However, for many readers, historical accuracy came second to the romance. “The story comes first,” said one. “The details are just the icing on the cake.” For these readers, “a general broad attention to historical detail is enough”.

Others questioned the need for accuracy. As one reader stated, “if all these novels were historically accurate then these women would be dying of easily preventable diseases having never had orgasms.” The medical realities of the Regency period did in fact mean many women died in childbirth. Not exactly the happily-ever-after ending to which romance novels aspire.

For some readers, historical romances were “a sub-genre of fantasy”, where “the world the characters live in can be historically accurate and sexist AF, but I do not want my hero to be”.

These fantasy historical romances are often dismissed as “wallpaper” historicals: little more than “costume dramas” where “the characters dress up in clothes that more-or-less resemble clothing of the period” and the relationships reflect our contemporary society more than the era in which they are set.

Rejecting whitewashing, celebrating diversity

When considering accuracy, romance readers rejected some elements of history. One reader summed it up: “I am fine (and prefer) if they don’t display open racism/sexism/homophobia […] that would have been commonplace back then.”

Similarly, another reader called for authors “not to perpetuate harmful and untrue narratives of history”, particularly elements of whitewashing for which the historical romance genre and indeed the wider romance publishing industry have been criticised.

Diversity has recently grown within the genre. Favourite authors cited by readers interested in diverse storylines include Beverley Jenkins, who writes African American historical romance, Cat Sebastian and K.J. Charles, who writes queer historical romance, and Courtney Milan, who won a diversity award from the Romance Writers of America and is renowned for calling out racism. These stories offer different windows on the past.

However, readers were not uninterested in history. In fact, both surveys showed they were quite engaged with it – and sought knowledge about the past from a variety of fictional and nonfictional sources.

When reading historical romance, though, one respondent felt: “it’s a fictional work so I don’t hold it to the same standards as a textbook”.

Imagining a better past

Historical romance, however, allows readers to imagine a better past: one in which all members of society can be respected and loved. “I think it’s more important to show that as many people as possible deserve this type of happiness and dignity,” said one reader.

Historical romance like Bridgerton allows readers to imagine a better past. Pictured: Adjoa Andoh as Lady Agatha Danbury.
Liam Daniel/Netflix

Historical romance novels, like the Bridgerton series, provide a fantasy about the past that reimagines some elements (such as a more tolerant society) while ignoring others (the class structure and slavery that allowed wealth to flourish among the aristocracy). It provides an answer to the problem of women’s subjugation (true love with a progressive man) and reflects 21st-century ideals of equality and inclusivity.

This is more authentic to ideals likely to be held by the romance reader of today, even if historical depictions are less than completely accurate.

As Bridgerton’s Lady Danbury says:

I understand that you believe such subjects as love and devotion, affection and attachment, you find it all trite and frivolous. But have you any idea those very things are precisely what have allowed a new day to begin to dawn in this society? Läs mer…

Leading music organisations have praised the federal budget for its investment in the live music sector.

The budget includes A$8.6 million for a program called Revive Live:

to provide essential support to live music venues and festivals showcasing Australian bands and artists – to ensure the long-term sustainability of the live music sector.

This investment builds on the Revive national cultural policy introduced last year.

Music was clearly a priority for Revive, with the creation of Music Australia, a dedicated body inside Creative Australia, “to support and invest in the Australian contemporary music industry”.

The money included in this week’s budget shows the government has been paying attention to issues in the live music sector.

The House of Representatives is currently considering submissions to a parliamentary inquiry into the Australian live music industry. It comes hot on the heels of a call by a Senate inquiry into Revive for urgent funding for festivals and live music.

But will this new investment be enough to save an industry in crisis?

Australian live music industries in crisis

Multiple festivals have been cancelled over the last year, due to factors such as increased operational costs, sluggish ticket sales, risks from extreme weather, and changing audience behaviours.

Live music venues are in jeopardy. Beloved venues like Brisbane’s The Zoo have closed their doors. Others continue to be threatened by residential development.

The potential sale of Melbourne’s iconic Tote Hotel to developers last year was avoided only because music fans crowdfunded $3 million to save the venue. Other small venues have turned to crowdfunding for compulsory soundproofing or simply to continue operating.

Fans crowdfunded $3 million to save the Tote in Collingwood in Melbourne.
Diego Fedele/AAP Image

Musicians see little financial reward for their labour. Many are walking away from the sector.

Industry bodies are concerned skills shortages in live music production and touring crews, following pandemic-related departures, will lead to further cancellations.

In such a fragile environment, an extra $8.6 million could make a big difference on the ground. However, the budget documents have not outlined the specifics of how this money will be spent.

The documents dedicate this money in 2024–25 for:

support to live music venues and festivals showcasing Australian bands and artists, including to improve accessibility and inclusion at live music performances.

The question then becomes what strategies and initiatives will Revive Live prioritise?

How can the extra money help?

Bold thinking is required, for both how this money could be allocated and what legislative change could help the sector.

Targeted funding may help to ease the pressures of increasing insurance, property and maintenance costs for our struggling – but essential – small venues.

We can look internationally for new models of venue ownership. In the United Kingdom, Music Venue Properties is a charity that crowdsources funding to collectively buy small venues.

Revive Live could assist venues to buy their freeholds in collaboration with community groups and local councils. This would reduce overheads and bring in further community oversight and involvement. Programs like this offer alternative models for engaging with contemporary music that do not rely on alcohol sales.

Capping public liability insurance for promoters and venues would also ease pressures.

Funding for venues could be conditional on minimum pay for musicians.
James Ross/AAP Image

Funding could also be used to drive desired changes to the culture of the industry.

Music Victoria’s 10,000 Gigs initiative provides venues with up to $10,000 a year to cover artist fees, where each performer must be paid a minimum of $250 per performance. This ensures artists are paid, while supporting venues to program talent and attract audiences.

The budget’s intention to “improve accessibility and inclusion at live music performances” responds to urgent needs, including access for people with disabilities, and gender-based violence and harassment at events. New funding should be conditional upon reaching KPIs in these critical areas, ensuring diversity and inclusion – including, vitally, among performers on stage.

Other significant reforms could include levies on big-ticket events with revenue redistributed to grassroots music venues, laws guaranteeing international performers include an Australian artist among their opening acts, and local content or “bannerhead” quotas for streaming platforms to ensure they promote Australian artists to Australian audiences.

The live music sector contributes an estimated $5.7 billion to the Australian economy. Although the budget’s $8.6 million isn’t a lot when compared to the size of the industry, if accompanied by targeted structural reforms it could be the seed funding needed to begin a process of transition and renewal.

No doubt this process will be heavily informed by the current parliamentary inquiry. Its outcomes may have serious implications for the sector’s long-term viability.

Ultimately, the sustainability of the live music sector requires fundamental adaptations to the way business has been done in the past. Audience behaviours are changing and new technologies continue to disrupt the industry. Revive Live may be an important and positive step in the right direction if it is used effectively. Läs mer…

The 2024 federal budget contains A$110 million for Indigenous education. This includes funding for various different organisations to represent and help Indigenous people as well as scholarships in a bid to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous learning and achievement.

But what are these measures based on?

There is a strong body of evidence about what works in Indigenous education. But this year, as in other years, budget allocations seem to ignore research that says we need to listen to Indigenous people when it comes to making policies that will have an impact on their lives.

What is the context for Indigenous education in this budget?

It has never been more important to look at what works because we are not seeing the progress we need in Indigenous education.

The 2023 Closing the Gap report showed key measures such as “students achieve their full learning potential” and “young people are engaged in employment or education” are improving but not on track.

At the same time, there is wide recognition within government about the need to put Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at the centre of planning and evaluating policies about the issues that affect us. As the Productivity Commission noted in 2020, “policies need to draw on [Indigenous] perspectives, priorities and knowledges”.

As our research has also shown, when policymakers and politicians are deciding what evidence matters, they inevitably do so with their own biases.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Education Minister Jason Clare visited Stuart Park Primary in Darwin in March.
Lukas Coch/AAP

What is in the budget for Indigenous education?

The education portfolio’s budget media release talks about “investing in First Nations education outcomes to Close the Gap”.

In total, there is A$110 million over four years to “accelerate action” on Closing the Gap in education. This includes $27.5 million over three years to extend an Indigenous education scholarship program and English language learning for Indigenous children.

But the largest single amount is $32.8 million over two years for the Clontarf Foundation to support “up to 12,500 First Nations boys and young men and their engagement in education in 2025”.

The Clontarf Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation founded by former footballer Gerard Neesham (who is not Indigenous). It uses sport to “attract [Indigenous boys] to school, and then keep them coming”.

The foundation’s website says it not a sporting program per se, but about “developing the values, skills and abilities that will assist the boys to transition into meaningful employment and achieve better life outcomes”.

What about Indigenous girls?

The Clontarf program has been going since 2000 and this is not the first time it has been funded in a budget. But there are several issues with this allocation. This is the single largest investment in Indigenous education in 2024, and yet it only services one gender and a relatively small number of young Indigenous people.

The then Labor education spokesperson Tanya Plibersek questioned funding for the Clontarf Foundation under the Morrison government in 2020, asking “why do Indigenous girls miss out?”.

There were also community concerns at the time. Djirribal woman and researcher Lee Sheppard said her research had found Clontarf’s model to be based on “Eurocentric and paternalistic values”.

Students need to be enrolled at a school to attend the Clontarf program, which includes mentoring “on a range of behavioural and lifestyle issues” and activities. As its website currently says,

[…] participants must continue to work at school and embrace the objectives of the Foundation.

What does the research say?

Studies on improving outcomes in Indigenous education say schools should be developing localised approaches in partnership with Indigenous communities and affirming students’ identities within their schools.

This means transforming schools into places where Indigenous students feel a sense of belonging and strength in their identities. It also means providing a wide range of role models that show Indigenous young people success across every field, not just sports.

The research does not emphasise funding external bodies to come into schools. Rather, it calls for investment to improve schools’ capacities to educate their Indigenous students.

When asked why the Clontarf Foundation was funded in the budget, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said:

The Clontarf Foundation’s program plays a pivotal role in engaging First Nations students through a combination of sports and education and is attributed to increased attendance, retention and overall academic performance.

Asked if this was based on any evidence of the program’s success, the spokesperson said:

There have been at least ten separate reviews or evaluations of the Clontarf Academy Program since it commenced in 2000. These evaluations and previous performance information has demonstrated that Clontarf Academies can have a positive impact on students.

A new First Nations education policy

The budget also contains $18.2 million over four years to develop a new First Nations education policy.

Information on the new policy so far talks about “forging new partnerships” and “close engagement” with “key First Nations stakeholders”. A further $29.1 million over four years was announced to support First Nations peak education bodies.

While this emphasis and funding is welcome, it needs to result in a change in the way governments listen to Indigenous peoples when making funding allocations.

This means new announcements need to be backed by research and supported by the relevant peak bodies. Where we don’t have the evidence, budgets should include provisions for independent, rigorous, Indigenous-led evaluation of new education programs. Läs mer…

Earlier this week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted as a step towards more natural engagement with AI. According to the demonstration video, it can have voice conversations with users in near real-time, exhibiting human-like personality and behaviour.

This emphasis on personality is likely to be a point of contention. In OpenAI’s demos, GPT-4o sounds friendly, empathetic and engaging. It tells “spontaneous” jokes, giggles, flirts and even sings. The AI system also shows it can respond to users’ body language and emotional tone.

Launched with a streamlined interface, OpenAI’s new version of the ChatGPT chatbot appears designed to increase user engagement and facilitate the creation of new apps based on its text, image and audio capabilities.

GPT-4o is another leap forward for AI development. However, the focus on engagement and personality raises important questions about whether it will truly serve the interests of users, and the ethical implications of creating AI that can simulate human emotions and behaviours.

The personality factor

OpenAI envisions GPT-4o as a more enjoyable and engaging conversational AI. In principle, this could make interactions more effective and increase user satisfaction.

Studies show users are more likely to trust and cooperate with chatbots exhibiting social intelligence and personality traits. This could prove relevant in fields such as education, where studies have indicated AI chatbots can boost learning outcomes and motivation.

However, some commentators worry users may become overly attached to AI systems with human-like personalities or emotionally harmed by the one-way nature of human-computer interaction.

The Her effect

GPT-4o immediately inspired comparisons – including from OpenAI boss Sam Altman – to the 2013 science-fiction movie Her, which paints a vivid picture of the potential pitfalls of human-AI interaction.

In the movie, the protagonist, Theodore, becomes deeply fascinated and attached to Samantha, an AI system with a sophisticated and witty personality. Their bond blurs the lines between the real and the virtual, raising questions about the nature of love and intimacy, and the value of human-AI connection.

While we should not seriously compare GPT-4o to Samantha, it raises similar concerns. AI companions are already here. As AI becomes more adept at mimicking human emotions and behaviours, the risk of users forming deep emotional attachments increases. This could lead to over-reliance, manipulation and even harm.

The 2013 film Her is about a man who develops an emotional attachment to an AI system.
Warner Bros. Pictures via AP

While OpenAI demonstrates concern with ensuring its AI tools behave safely and are deployed in a responsible way, we have yet to learn the broader implications of unleashing charismatic AIs onto the world. Current AI systems are not explicitly designed to meet human psychological needs – a goal that is hard to define and measure.

GPT-4o’s impressive capabilities show how important it is that we have some system or framework for ensuring AI tools are developed and used in ways that are aligned with public values and priorities.

Expanding capabilities

GPT-4o can also work with video (of the user and their surrounds, via a device camera, or pre-recorded videos), and respond conversationally. In OpenAI’s demonstrations, GPT-4o comments on a user’s environment and clothes, recognises objects, animals and text, and reacts to facial expressions.

Google’s Project Astra AI assistant, unveiled just one day after GPT-4o, displays similar capabilities. It also appears to have visual memory: in one of Google’s promotional videos, it helps a user find her glasses in a busy office, even though they are not currently visible to the AI.

GPT-4o and Astra continue the trend towards more “multimodal” models that can work with text, images, audio and video. GPT-4o’s predecessor, GPT-4 Turbo, can process text and images together, but not audio and video. The original version of ChatGPT, released less than two years ago, was based only on text.

GPT-4o is also significantly faster than its predecessor.

The ability to work across audio, vision and text in real time is considered crucial to develop advanced AI systems that can understand the world and effectively achieve complex and meaningful goals.

But some critics argue that GPT-4o’s text capabilities are only incrementally better than GPT-4 Turbo and competitors such as Google’s Gemini Ultra and Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus.

Will major AI labs be able to sustain the recent rapid pace of improvement by continuing to built bigger and more sophisticated models? This is a hot topic of debate among experts, and the outcome will determine the impact of the technology over the coming years.

Wider access

A less flashy but significant aspect of GPT-4o’s launch is that, unlike its GPT-4 family precursors, the new AI system is available to all users in the free version of ChatGPT, subject to usage limits.

This means millions of users worldwide just got an upgrade from GPT-3.5 to a more powerful AI system with more features. GPT-4o is significantly more useful than GPT-3.5 for various purposes, such as work and education. The impact of this development will become more apparent over time.

What’s next?

OpenAI’s unveiling of GPT-4o disappointed enthusiasts for ever more powerful AI systems, who hoped GPT-5’s arrival was imminent after over a year since GPT-4’s launch.

Instead, this week’s unveiling of GPT-4o and Google’s latest AI announcements emphasise the features being incorporated into their products. These new developments point to possibilities such as more sophisticated virtual assistants capable of performing complex tasks on behalf of users, involving richer interaction and planning. Läs mer…

Australia’s unprecedented Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 created ideal conditions for misinformation to spread, from the insidious to the absurd.

It was within this context that a bizarre story went viral on social media.

This was a tale of heroic wombats herding other animals into their fireproof burrows to save them from the flames. At the time, we explained this story was largely inaccurate. But now we’ve investigated in more detail, and confirmed it may contain a kernel of truth.

The burrows of common wombats are deep and complex. They can be over 15 metres long with multiple entrances and chambers. So, even if wombats don’t shepherd wildlife into their homes, their burrows might act as “fire refuges” – providing vital shelter, food, and even drinking water during and after a bushfire.

Cameras reveal wombat burrows can be safe havens after fire (Charles Sturt University)

Wombat burrows are not just for wombats

We set up 56 cameras in forests north of Albury, New South Wales, which burned during the Black Summer bushfires. Some areas suffered more than others, so we were careful to select sites that varied in how severely they burned.

Half of the cameras were pointed at wombat burrows and the other half were set up nearby – in areas with the same types of plants, but no burrows. Then we monitored the burrows from June 2021 to April 2022 to see which animals used them, and how.

We found 56 animal species at wombat burrow sites (19 mammal species, 33
bird and four reptile).

Native species such as bush rats, agile antechinus, lace monitors and birds such as the painted button-quail, were more abundant in and around burrows than nearby control sites. Even a threatened species, the heath monitor, was seen emerging from a burrow.

Wombat expert Barbara Triggs, who literally wrote the book on wombats, had seen several of these species “scurrying away from burrow entrances” and emerging “from small crevices in the the walls” of wombat burrows. So our results are supported by her, and others’, observations.

Overall, burrows were hotspots of mammal activity, with more mammal species recorded at burrows than control sites. These tended to be smaller mammals, presumably because they can use the burrows without bothering the wombats.

Bigger animals such as kangaroos and wallabies tended to avoid the burrows. They may have been wary of a encountering a cantankerous wombat. Wombats are known to defend their territories.

Cameras captured a variety of animals interacting with the wombat burrows. Top row, L to R: red-necked wallaby, short-beaked echidna, lace monitor. Bottom row, L to R: grey shrike-thrush, superb lyrebird, swamp wallaby.
Grant Linley

We observed some fascinating behaviour at wombat burrows. In total, 31 species were found interacting with the burrows. This included 30 species inspecting the entrance, 11 foraging (feeding in or directly around the lip of the burrow), and ten entering or emerging from burrows.

We also saw animals drinking and even bathing in pools at burrow entrances that temporarily filled with water after rain.

While water was not scarce during our study period, this suggests wombat burrows are providing a valuable ecosystem function that might help other wildlife. It’s an
interesting observation that warrants further investigation.

Burrow use by several native wildlife species was highest in areas that burned most severely. This supports the idea that wombat burrows act as a kind of refuge for native wildlife after fire.

Underground networks

Our results are just the tip of the iceberg. Globally, many burrowing species provide habitat for others. From the American badger to the giant armadillo, burrows provide shelter and resources for species across many ecosystems.

Closer to home, sand goanna burrows provide shelter for at least 28 animal species. And bilby burrows have been described as an “outback oasis” for their role in supporting birds, reptiles and mammals.

We’re not the first to find animal burrows offer refuge after fire. A US study published in 2018 found gopher tortoise burrows in burned areas had 8.5 times more wildlife species than burrows in nearby unburned areas.

Wombats are the largest burrowing marsupials in the world.
Grant Linley

Help wombats help others

The star of our research is the bare-nosed wombat. While not listed as threatened with extinction, their numbers have declined markedly since European colonisation.

Our research adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests protecting wombats will benefit various species across many Australian ecosystems.

As large and severe fires become more common in forests across southeastern Australia, our wildlife will need all the help they can get – including the humble wombat burrow. Läs mer…

Menopause is a natural biological process that marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years, typically between 45 and 55. As women approach or experience menopause, common “change of life” concerns include hot flushes, sweats and mood swings, brain fog and fatigue.

But many women may not be aware of the long-term effects of menopause on the heart and blood vessels that make up the cardiovascular system. Heart disease accounts for 35% of deaths in women each year – more than all cancers combined.

What should women – and their doctors – know about these risks?

Hormones protect hearts – until they don’t

As early as 1976, the Framingham Heart Study reported more than twice the rates of cardiovascular events in postmenopausal than pre-menopausal women of the same age. Early menopause (younger than age 40) also increases heart risk.

Before menopause, women tend to be protected by their circulating hormones: oestrogen, to a lesser extent progesterone and low levels of testosterone.

These sex hormones help to relax and dilate blood vessels, reduce inflammation and improve lipid (cholesterol) levels. From the mid-40s, a decline in these hormone levels can contribute to unfavourable changes in cholesterol levels, blood pressure and weight gain – all risk factors for heart disease.

4 ways hormone changes impact heart risk

1. Dyslipidaemia– Menopause often involves atherogenic changes – an unhealthy imbalance of lipids in the blood, with higher levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), dubbed the “bad” cholesterol. There are also reduced levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C) – the “good” cholesterol that helps remove LDL-C from blood. These changes are a major risk factor for heart attack or stroke.

2. Hypertension – Declines in oestrogen and progesterone levels during menopause contribute to narrowing of the large blood vessels on the heart’s surface, arterial stiffness and raise blood pressure.

3. Weight gain – Females are born with one to two million eggs, which develop in follicles. By the time they stop ovulating in midlife, fewer than 1,000 remain. This depletion progressively changes fat distribution and storage, from the hips to the waist and abdomen. Increased waist circumference (greater than 80–88 cm) has been reported to contribute to heart risk – though it is not the only factor to consider.

4. Comorbidities – Changes in body composition, sex hormone decline, increased food consumption, weight gain and sedentary lifestyles impair the body’s ability to effectively use insulin. This increases the risk of developing metabolic syndromes such as type 2 diabetes.

While risk factors apply to both genders, hypertension, smoking, obesity and type 2 diabetes confer a greater relative risk for heart disease in women.

So, what can women do?

Every woman has a different level of baseline cardiovascular and metabolic risk pre-menopause. This is based on their genetics and family history, diet, and lifestyle. But all women can reduce their post-menopause heart risk with:

regular moderate intensity exercise such as brisk walking, pushing a lawn mower, riding a bike or water aerobics for 30 minutes, four or five times every week
a healthy heart diet with smaller portion sizes (try using a smaller plate or bowl) and more low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods such as vegetables, fruit and whole grains
plant sterols (unrefined vegetable oil spreads, nuts, seeds and grains) each day. A review of 14 clinical trials found plant sterols, at doses of at least 2 grams a day, produced an average reduction in serum LDL-C (bad cholesterol) of about 9–14%. This could reduce the risk of heart disease by 25% in two years

less unhealthy (saturated or trans) fats and more low-fat protein sources (lean meat, poultry, fish – especially oily fish high in omega-3 fatty acids), legumes and low-fat dairy
less high-calorie, high-sodium foods such as processed or fast foods
a reduction or cessation of smoking (nicotine or cannabis) and alcohol
weight-gain management or prevention.

Exercise can reduce post-menopause heart disease risk.
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

What about hormone therapy medications?

Hormone therapy remains the most effective means of managing hot flushes and night sweats and is beneficial for slowing the loss of bone mineral density.

The decision to recommend oestrogen alone or a combination of oestrogen plus progesterone hormone therapy depends on whether a woman has had a hysterectomy or not. The choice also depends on whether the hormone therapy benefit outweighs the woman’s disease risks. Where symptoms are bothersome, hormone therapy has favourable or neutral effects on coronary heart disease risk and medication risks are low for healthy women younger than 60 or within ten years of menopause.

Depending on the level of stroke or heart risk and the response to lifestyle strategies, some women may also require medication management to control high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels. Up until the early 2000s, women were underrepresented in most outcome trials with lipid-lowering medicines.

The Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration analysed 27 clinical trials of statins (medications commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol) with a total of 174,000 participants, of whom 27% were women. Statins were about as effective in women and men who had similar risk of heart disease in preventing events such as stroke and heart attack.

Every woman approaching menopause should ask their GP for a 20-minute Heart Health Check to help better understand their risk of a heart attack or stroke and get tailored strategies to reduce it. Läs mer…