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Nature loss directly threatens half the global economy. The rapid destruction of biodiversity should alarm the many Australian businesses dependent on nature, such as those in agriculture, tourism, construction and food manufacturing. Yet nature considerations are often ignored in business decision-making.

At the Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney this week, scientists, politicians, conservationists and business leaders have gathered to discuss ways to help nature in Australia – not just by protecting it from damage, but improving it. Getting more businesses interested in – and taking positive action on – nature conservation is key to the talks.

Reducing the environmental impact of a business first requires measuring that impact. It might seem an impossibly difficult task. Nature is a diverse and intricate web of connections. How can we capture that in a number?

Nature is indeed complex – but measuring how a business intersects with it need not be.

Many Australian industries, such as tourism, depend on nature.
Dean Lewins/AAP

Uncovering impacts on nature

The fishing industry depends directly on stocks of wild fish. And a housing developer has a direct impact on nature if they clear natural vegetation to build a new suburb.

Businesses interactions with nature can be indirect, too – for example, a margarine producer who uses canola oil from a grower who depends on bees for pollination. Builders might indirectly harm rainforests in Indonesia by buying timber grown there. A superannuation company investing in that developer is also having an indirect negative impact.

From next year, Australian companies will be required to measure and report their climate impacts. While businesses are not yet required to disclose their impacts on nature more broadly, many are moving in that direction – both in Australia and globally.

For example in 2022, more than 400 of the world’s largest corporations called for mandatory disclosure of nature impacts. They included Nestlé, Rio Tinto, L’Oréal, Sony and Volvo. And many early-adopter businesses have begun voluntary disclosures.

Guidelines are available to help businesses understand and measure their impacts, however progress is slow. This is partly due to a perception from business that the task is too complex.

Nature assessment is challenging. Unlike identifying a company’s contributions to climate change – by measuring tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – there is no agreed single measure of impacts on nature.

What’s more, different people ascribe different values to aspects of nature. Rightly or wrongly, for instance, most people would probably value a koala over a mosquito.

What do you value more – a koala or a mosquito?
Shutterstock

Drawing on the expertise of ecologists

Despite the difficulties, gauging the extent to which a business affects the environment can be done. Essentially, it involves three steps:

understanding how a business broadly intersects with nature
evaluating how specific business activities intersect with and put pressure on nature
measuring and reporting the degree to which specific activities are impacting on the condition of nature. In other words, is the state of animals, plants and ecosystems improving or worsening?

Online tools such as ENCORE can get businesses started on the first step – understanding a business’ broad impacts and dependency on nature.

Many businesses are moving to the second stage – evaluating the specific business activities that put pressure on the environment, and determining the extent to which businesses depend on particular services ecosystems provide.

The pressure a business places on nature can be measured via specific metrics, such as the amount of water consumed, air pollutants emitted, waste generated or area of land changed. Again, a suite of online tools and metrics can help with this.

The next step is more complicated, yet essential. It requires businesses directly measuring their impacts on specific animals, plants and ecosystems. For this, we can turn to the expertise of ecologists.

Individuals of a species can be hard to count, and extinction risk can be hard to measure. So ecologists often describe and monitor a species’ habitat – the environments in which a species can survive and reproduce – as a proxy for the fate of the species itself.

Ecosystems – such as a rainforest, wetland or desert – can be described as being in good or poor condition. The rating depends on whether all the ecosystem’s plants, animals and other components are present, or whether unwanted components, such as weeds or invasive species, are found there.

A graphic showing how ecologists measure the state of nature.
TNFD

In addition, maps, showing ecosystem condition and extent are available for much of Australia.

Habitat mapping is also available for most threatened animals and plants, and thousands of other species. And mapping exists for World Heritage areas, important wetlands, national parks, Indigenous Protected Areas and other environment types.

These resources are not difficult or expensive to access, and people and organisations with the skills to interpret and use such data are becoming more common.

Some businesses are attempting these measurements. For example, plantation forestry company Forico last year prepared a natural capital report on a range of nature metrics, including the extent of species habitats, and assessment of vegetation condition.

But many businesses are not yet grappling with this deeper nature analysis.

This map, from ecosystem research organisation TERN, is one of many freely available to businesses seeking nature data.
TERN

Looking ahead

We have the information and metrics to help businesses measure their impact on nature.

Collaboration is urgently needed between business and nature experts, so the data available can be tailored to the needs of businesses, and presented in a form they can use.

Governments can support this – for example by establishing accessible and practical online data platforms, and funding training for more nature experts who understand business.

A new federal government agency, Environment Information Australia, will also hopefully become an important hub for data and information.

By measuring what might seem immeasurable, businesses can become part of the solution to the nature crisis. There is cause for optimism – but no time to waste. Läs mer…

Australia’s housing crisis is dramatically reshaping the lives and hopes of young people, highlighted in a new report launched today in Canberra as part of World Homeless Day.

The research, developed by Swinburne University of Technology and funded by YWCA Australia, provided a platform for young women and gender diverse people from around Australia to share their housing experiences and aspirations.

Our research found many young people are frustrated about the affordability, quality and security of housing in Australia.

These housing barriers are changing the traditional life course that many of these young people expected to follow, undermining their sense of what it means to be an “adult”.

Louise, 26, told us, as part of our research:

I don’t feel like an adult sometimes because of my living circumstances … I thought I’d be like ‘Sex and the City’, having my own apartment and going out for drinks with my friends. But none of us have time to do that.

The report highlights how such housing barriers and frustrations are severely impacting young people’s relationships, health and wellbeing, education, employment, and ability to plan for the future.

Housing dreams are ratcheted down

Home ownership is still “the great Australian dream” for many. However, numerous young people feel buying a home is out of reach or impossible.

Erin, a young woman in her late 20s, states:

It feels like you have to buy a house to be in the game, but to get there it just feels completely out of our grasp. And that’s quite scary.

For many, buying or even renting is seen as unattainable without a partner. This has gendered implications where young women need to depend financially on a partner, potentially leading to disadvantage in the future.

Amy, 30, articulates:

It’s very hard to get a rental as a single female […] the uncertainty of not getting another place keeps me here.

Participants with hopes of having children express anxiety when their housing circumstances are unpredictable and/or unaffordable.

Jamie, a non-binary person in their mid-20s, says:

The biggest negative impact of being stuck on the lowest end of the rental market is that it severely limits my ability to plan to start a family. My partner and I both want a child but are terrified of the idea of not being able to afford rent with a new baby and limited family support.

Health and wellbeing are undermined

Young people describe feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, trapped and crushed by their housing situations. For some, this stems from the daily challenge of simply making ends meet.

Celia, a woman in her late 20s, describes:

The constant cycle of living in a place for a year, getting a massive rent increase, having to find a new place and move again is exhausting, financially unsustainable and demoralising. It feels pretty hopeless because I’m stuck in this cycle and I’ll never save for a house deposit because I’m losing it all on exorbitant rent.

For other participants, the health and wellbeing impact stems from their less-than-ideal dynamics at home, with many living with family as adults to save on rent.

As Zoe, a woman in her late 20s, describes:

It’s like you don’t pay with money to live with family […] but you pay with your mental health.

Relationships and safety are affected

Compromised safety is a concern among young women and gender diverse people we spoke with – whether it be escaping family and domestic violence, living in housing that is physically safe (such as with working locks on doors and windows), or sharing with others comfortably.

Our research found gender has a material impact on housing experiences, and shaped young women’s and gender diverse people’s perceptions of safety.

Julia, a woman in her early 20s, highlighted safety concerns:

My family home was filled with a lot of domestic violence. And so when I left and now I have my own place, I feel very, very safe there in comparison. And also no one in my family knows where I live. So that makes me feel very safe.

Some of the challenges of living with family were summarised by Ryde, a non-binary person in their early 20s:

Even now I’m like learning how to like be my own person while still being under my parents’ roof […] like still living at home is a bit emotionally kind of weird.

So what needs to change?

Participants involved in the research provide a number of solutions for addressing their housing barriers, including:

Beth told us:

I feel like our education totally failed us. I always think there needs to be some kind of unit in Year 11 or 12, like a compulsory unit where it’s like just life skills. So taxes, superannuation, getting your first job, buying your first house, getting into the rental market. If we have the skills or knowledge from that education, we might be able to make more informed choices.

Finally, young people urgently need a seat at the table when it comes to decisions about housing. They know what is needed and what politicians need to hear.

In the words of Taylor, a 24-year-old woman:

I think one thing that the politicians struggle to understand is that we’re not asking for, you know, four bedroom, three bathrooms at $400.00 a week. We’re asking for houses with working locks. No mould. And you know, we’re asking for very basic secure housing at affordable prices, it’s not a matter of us being picky. It’s a matter of health and safety.

(All participants’ names have been changed). Läs mer…

One of the world’s most anticipated earthquakes is the next major surface rupture of the Alpine Fault in the South Island of New Zealand.

With a 75% chance of it happening within the next 50 years, there is justified interest in the likely magnitude, extent and intensity of ground shaking and impacts on the landscape, infrastructure and buildings.

A key – and so far unanswered – question is which direction the fault rupture will take.

Our new research reveals for the first time that the Alpine Fault ruptured from south to north in the great magnitude 8+ earthquake of 1717.

We developed our technique to determine rupture direction based on the Kekerengu Fault after the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. But our method is globally applicable for use in realistic earthquake scenarios and thus can contribute to better societal preparedness.

In an Alpine Fault earthquake, there’s no direction that’s good news for the West Coast of the South Island. But a north-to-south rupture would send excess seismic energy into the relatively unpopulated region of Fiordland and the Tasman Sea.

A south-to-north rupture on the other hand is forecast to cause higher intensity shaking in the populated regions of Canterbury, Marlborough, Tasman and the northern West Coast.

A simulation of the shaking of a south-to-north earthquake along the Alpine Fault. Credit: Brendon Bradley, University of Canterbury.

In the Kaikōura earthquake, Wellingtonians experienced this influence of rupture direction on shaking intensity. The south-to-north rupture meant more seismic energy was focused towards the capital city than, for example, Christchurch.

So, while rupture direction has been observed to make a big difference in modern earthquakes, it is not something geologists have been able to directly determine for past earthquakes.

Markings in the rock face

The Kaikōura earthquake was well documented by seismographs. We know it started near Waiau in the south and travelled northwards to Cook Strait over a period of two minutes.

We observed markings that were scratched onto the fault plane. Like coarse sandpaper against wood, these scratches, or “slickenlines”, record movement as rock faces slipped past each other during the earthquake. Some of these markings were curved, and our method can tell us the direction the earthquake rupture was travelling.

Slickenlines from the Kekerengu Fault, taken days after the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake.
Kate Clark, CC BY-SA

Using computer models to simulate how the earthquake unfolded moment by moment, we were able to replicate the curved slickenlines observed in the field and relate them to rupture direction. This gave us the framework we needed to investigate rupture direction for past earthquakes on the Alpine Fault.

The Alpine Fault hasn’t had a major surface rupture since 1717. During field work, we visited three sites along the fault and examined natural outcrops, carefully exposing the fault plane using hand tools. We found 146 slickenlines, 30 of which were curved.

Geologist Tim Little measuring slickenlines on the Alpine Fault.
Nic Barth, CC BY-SA

The curved geometry of slickenlines from the Alpine Fault’s most recent earthquake indicated it had travelled from the south towards the north. We also found evidence for rupturing in the opposite direction, suggesting that earthquakes can start both north and south.

On one outcrop, we found evidence of slickenlines from multiple earthquakes – a rare and tantalising find suggesting development of a longer history of rupture direction may be possible.

The technique we’ve applied is a novel, on-fault observational method for determining past rupture directions. Its full potential is yet to be tested, but already it’s applicable to faults worldwide.

Our research shows that the last Alpine Fault rupture was from the south, and that both directions are possible. New information about past earthquakes like this helps the scientific community produce realistic scenarios for the next major earthquake.

We now have direct evidence from the fault itself that we need to prepare for the scenario of very strong to severe shaking for the northern West Coast, Tasman, Marlborough and Canterbury regions in the next major Alpine Fault earthquake. Läs mer…

The autumn has arrived and northeastern North America’s forests will soon grace us with a breathtaking palette of reds, yellows and golds. These vivid colours will then fade, giving way to bare branches, as the fallen leaves blanket the forest floor, thereby returning their nutrients to the soil. The spectacle is not as impressive a few degrees farther north, where deciduous trees give way to conifers, which keep their dark green needles through the winter.

These contrasting landscapes are familiar to all of us but have you ever wondered why some tree species shed their leaves in autumn, whereas others don’t, remaining green throughout the year? Why do these two leaf habits co-exist? Do they reflect an adaptation to their environment? These questions have intrigued ecologists for a long time, but it’s only in the past decades that a clear conceptual and theoretical framework has emerged allowing a better understanding of the ecological significance of this trait.

Temperate forests dominated by deciduous trees such as maples and aspens offer beautiful autumn colours before their leaves die and fall to the ground.
(Courtesy Carbone boréal), Author provided (no reuse)

Farther north, the forests are dominated by conifers, which keep their needles over winter.
(Courtesy of Carbone boréal), Author provided (no reuse)

I am a forest ecologist working at Carbone boréal, a research project of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi in Canada. Our team studies the role of the boreal forest in the global carbon cycle and the best management practices to mitigate climate change.

This article is part of La Conversation Canada’s series The boreal forest: A thousand secrets, a thousand dangers. La Conversation Canada invites you to take a virtual walk in the heart of the boreal forest. In this series, our experts focus on management and sustainable development issues, natural disturbances, the ecology of terrestrial wildlife and aquatic ecosystems, northern agriculture and the cultural and economic importance of the boreal forest for Indigenous peoples. We hope you have a pleasant — and informative — walk through the forest!

Different leaf habits for different habitats

Evergreen tree species are those bearing leaves throughout the year. In Canada, the most common evergreen trees are pines, firs and spruces. In contrast, deciduous tree species like maples, aspens and birches have a bare canopy for a period of the year.

At our latitudes, deciduous trees shed their leaves in the fall to avoid the cold winter, but in other regions of the world, such as in the Mediterranean biome, some deciduous species shed their leaves at the beginning of the summer, a way to avoid water stress. Typically, leaf longevity of deciduous species is only a few months whereas that of evergreen species is longer than a year, which allows the coexistence on the canopy of several cohorts. Black spruce’s needles can for instance remain on branches for more than 20 years.

Read more:
Can the boreal forest be used to concretely fight climate change?

It is thought that the first plants that colonized lands about 400 million years ago were evergreens, and that leaf abscission evolved later under the influence of seasonal and biotic factors, especially in regions characterized by a strong seasonality. Today, evergreen trees are the most abundant in the tropics where there is little seasonality, and in the boreal forest, where, in contrast, the seasons are highly pronounced.

Isn’t it paradoxical?

The explanation for this bimodal distribution of “evergreenness” can be understood through an economical perspective, in which carbon is the main currency.

Boreal forest in winter in northern Québec. The needle-like leaves of the black spruce withstand extreme winter conditions and can live up to 20 years. The presence of several cohorts of needles in the canopy enables the spruce to begin photosynthesis early in the spring.
(Courtesy of Carbone boréal), Author provided (no reuse)

The carbon economics of plants

All trees, whether deciduous or evergreen, rely on leaves to capture carbon in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. As carbon is required in large amounts for growth and reproduction, leaves play a major role in plant survival in their respective habitats.

Therefore, trees have evolved leaves of different shapes and structures for capturing carbon as efficiently as possible according to local conditions. For instance, conifers have thick needle-shape leaves whereas deciduous trees like maples have thin and flat leaves.

The cost of building leaves varies widely depending on the type of leaves. For a given surface, let’s say 1 cm2, thick leaves are heavier and thus more “expensive” to build than thin leaves. Consequently, thick leaves need to live longer to “pay back” the carbon invested for their construction. In contrast, thinner — and therefore “cheaper” — leaves can capture enough carbon during the growing season to pay back the initial investment, and be free to fall.

This carbon economy paradigm is supported by the strong observed correlation worldwide between the leaf mass per area and leaf longevity. One question comes to mind though. While it is totally sensical that thick leaves must live longer to payback their high carbon cost, why don’t thin leaves live longer to maximize CO2 acquisition?

The short answer is that thin leaves are more vulnerable to damage from herbivores, frost, drought, and wind. Thicker, more durable leaves are better protected against these hazards, but they cost more carbon to produce.

Plant strategies behind leaf habits

In the past decades, scientists have found that leaf longevity is the cornerstone of two distinct strategies for plants: slow-return on investment strategy (or conservative strategy) versus fast-return on investment strategy (or acquisitive strategy).

Evergreen and deciduous species are the extreme ends of a leaf economic spectrum. The leaves of evergreen species acquire carbon over the long term and improve nutrient conservation, whereas short-lived leaves favour rapid carbon acquisition.

These two strategies are the results of trade-offs, whereby two or more traits or functions cannot be optimized simultaneously. Maximizing one function comes at the expense of another.

The distribution of leaf habits

The distribution of evergreen and deciduous species across the globe can be explained by the success of these two strategies depending on the environmental conditions.

In environments where resources like sunlight, water, and nutrients are plentiful, deciduous species generally outcompete evergreen species. Building thin leaves offers the advantage of creating a larger surface area for a given amount of biomass, which can collect a larger amount of solar energy, a resource that is necessary for carbon absorption. In these conditions, deciduous trees thrive, growing quickly and shedding their leaves once the growing season ends.

Deciduous tree leaves are large and thin. Their senescence reveals pigments that change their colour. The parts of the leaf that die last are located around the veins, so as to export nutrients towards the perennial parts of the tree.
(Courtesy of Charles Marty)

Read more:
Québec’s hardwood trees could move north. Here’s how that could affect the boreal forest landscape

In harsher environments, where nutrients are scarce and the growing season is short, being evergreen provides several advantages.

First, shedding leaves every year is costly both in carbon and in nutrients. Keeping leaves longer reduces nutrient annual losses to the soil and increases the mean residence time of these nutrients in the plant.

Black spruce branches bear several generations of needles (three in this photo), all of which contribute to the absorption of CO₂ during the growing season.
(Courtesy of Charles Marty)

Second, their strategy of keeping leaves longer also allows them to capture carbon early in the spring as soon as conditions are favorable. Meanwhile deciduous trees need time to grow new leaves, which will be able to absorb carbon only after a few weeks, putting them at a disadvantage.

While the carbon economy of plants can alone explain the dominance of evergreens in both the equatorial and the boreal zones, evergreens and deciduous often coexist in various ecosystems because both strategies are efficient enough to ensure the survival of the populations.

Mixed forest in October in Québec’s Laurentian Park. While the leaves of the aspens and birches prepare to die, the spruce trees will remain green all winter long.
(Courtesy of Carbone boréal), Author provided (no reuse)

In ecology, as always, nothing is straightforward; plant communities are shaped by a multitude of known and hidden variables interacting with one another, making it a challenging task to explain or predict their composition. Läs mer…

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is an essential tool for climate decision-making around the world. SCC is essentially a large cost-benefit calculation that helps policymakers compare the benefits of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the society-wide costs of continued use.

The “right” SCC has long been an open debate, with several studies attempting to estimate it using a range of methods. In fact, there are more than 323 studies that provide varying SCC estimates in one form or another.

Most studies focus on the global level working with aggregate SCC values from countries around the world. This global value, however, hides an important nuance. When one looks at individual SCC values at the country level a clear picture emerges. Poorer countries have proportionally lower SCCs than richer ones.

Read more:
Don’t applaud the COP28 climate summit’s loss and damage fund deal just yet – here’s what’s missing

To put this in context, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends a global social cost of carbon at US$208 per ton of CO2 for 2024 (average of recent studies).

The Government of Canada uses the same EPA value after exchange rate. When this global estimate (i.e., the aggregate damages to the entire planet) is broken down to country-specific estimates (i.e., the damages to a particular country), it reveals SCCs of less than US$1 for poor countries.

Does this imply that poorer countries bear lower costs due to climate change impacts? Not at all, in fact the reality is quite the opposite. Studies reveal that the damages associated with climate change are proportionally higher for lower-income countries. These damages are often hidden in SCC values in ways that reveal much about the inequalities of our modern world.

Why is the social cost of carbon lower?

The answer is the modelling approach.

To estimate the social cost of carbon, a complicated model integrates multidisciplinary scientific evidence into a single framework to analyze climate change damages. These models incorporate “damage functions” that account for various pathways through which climate change impacts societies.

Pathways include some of the things that we can measure, such as reduced agricultural productivity, increased energy expenditures for space heating and cooling, flood-related property damages and premature death due to extreme temperatures and weather events.

Activists demonstrate for the loss and damage fund at the COP28 UN Climate Summit, in December 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Despite the comprehensive nature of these climate damage models, a critical disparity remains. The monetary value of damages is significantly smaller in poorer countries than in richer ones. Again, this does not mean the impacts are less severe; instead, it reflects the lower overall economic value of losses in these regions because of their lower overall income levels.

One of the three studies referenced by the U.S. EPA’s guidance on SCC finds climate-change-related agriculture damages and premature deaths account for 45 per cent and 49 per cent of the total global damages, respectively. In poorer countries these percentages are likely much lower given both a comparatively undervalued agricultural sector and lower ability to pay for life saving equipment.

Simply put, extreme global economic inequality hides the very real losses and damages experienced by many in poorer countries. This is because the comparative wealth gap between them and richer countries results in a lower relative SCC value.

What does this mean?

To a national policymaker, an almost zero SCC means that climate change-related projects will likely compete neck-and-neck with basic-needs projects (e.g., addressing malnutrition). From the global perspective, this leaves poorer countries with little incentive to allocate resources to the fight against climate change. Poor countries may even see their investments in such efforts as nothing more than donations to richer countries.

Indeed, from such a simple SCC-based perspective any CO2 emissions reduction step a poorer country takes could result in a higher SCC value in richer countries — a value which they are likely to receive very little of. What can be done to address this imbalance?

Read more:
How COP28 failed the world’s small islands

One proposed solution has been to use the differences in SCC values between poorer and richer countries to inform international climate negotiations on the implied historical responsibility and liability, commonly known as the loss and damage funds.

Additionally, international development assistance to climate adaptation funds should be more equitably aligned with SCC imbalances to ensure that richer countries — which will benefit more from emission reduction efforts — help bear the burden in supporting poorer countries’ adaptation and mitigation efforts.

While methods for estimating SCC values have become more sophisticated in recent years, addressing the global-versus-country-specific imbalance requires a combination of financial transfers and practical co-operation between richer and poorer nations. This will help ensure that the costs and benefits of global CO2 emissions reductions are shared more equally, accounting for both ethical and economic considerations. Läs mer…

Throughout our lives, we need to be able to manage our thoughts and behaviour. We need to do this to reach various goals and to get along with others – even if other distractions and impulses get in the way.

This is our ability to self-regulate, and it starts to develop between the ages of three and five.

My colleagues and I have been researching what parents can do to help children learn to self-regulate. What are the dos and don’ts?

Why is self-regulation important?

A child’s ability to self-regulate has a huge impact on shorter-term outcomes such as making and keeping friends, engaging in school and making academic progress.

Self-regulation allows children to keep going with a task or situation when things are tough, and to keep their emotions and behaviour focused on reaching the goal.

For example, when playing a game with friends, a child who can self-regulate can wait their turn, stay within the rules, and keep playing even when they are losing. A child with low levels of self-regulation may become easily upset and show frustration, and in some cases be dysregulated. This can include meltdowns.

But there can also be impacts later in life. Low levels of self-regulation at preschool age have been associated with a range of problems in adulthood, such as gambling, substance abuse, poor health, poor sleep and weight issues.

The capacity to self-regulate emerges from around three years of age, when the brain undergoes rapid physical growth. The period of peak growth is typically between three to five.

The capacity to self-regulate is not only influenced by genetics, but also by children’s environment and their experiences. This is where parents come in.

Self-regulation is important for children’s short and long-term development.
Artem Podrez/ Pexels, CC BY

Jumping in to ‘help’

Naturally, parents want to protect their children from difficulty. But sometimes this desire to protect and “help” kids can hamper their development.

Children experience challenges all the time – this may be opening a water bottle, trying to find a certain toy in their bedroom, or tying their shoelaces. As parents, we can often rush to fix the problem straight away.

But it is important for children’s brain development to experience and cope with challenges. When parents let children face a tricky task, they can learn to think flexibly, create solutions and persist toward the goal. It also teaches them they can handle things themselves.

Persistence when playing a game can translate to persistence when tying their shoelaces, and in time, fewer meltdowns.

What should parents do instead?

This is not to say you should ignore your child if they are very distressed and stuck up a tree, or have fallen and seriously hurt themselves.

But there are many other occasions when you can wait, or help in less obvious ways.

For example, if a child is struggling to find the right puzzle piece, parents should wait for the child to either ask for help or show visible signs of frustration.

If possible, start just by using guiding words to help, rather than taking a hands-on approach. You could try encouragement, questions, hints and suggestions to lead your child to a solution. For example, “have you tried all the pieces yet?”

Or if they are playing with Lego, parents may remind the child of their last success or ask them “what does the diagram show?”, they might give a hint such as “I sometimes need to go back some steps to find where I went wrong”, or maybe more directly, “how about we look through the steps together?”.

This type of guidance means the child is still the one solving the problem.

Parents start by just using verbal prompts or tips to their child.
eggegg/Shutterstock

Step up your approach

If the child is still stuck, parents can use their hands to offer more guidance.

When completing a section of a puzzle, a parent may move some pieces closer to the child to draw their attention to them.

If needed, a more direct approach would be to identify the piece the child is looking for, and hand it to the child so that they can put it in and remain active in completing the task.

The child may not have the piece the right way round, so the parent should revert to using verbal guidance for encouragement or suggest turning the piece to see if it fits.

Kids are still in charge

The key thing to remember is the child should be guiding your approach to helping them.

Don’t intervene without them asking you, and don’t offer full support straight away.

You can use encouragement, hints and suggestions, and then hands-on help. Keep offering your child the chance to work elements out for themselves. And know their way of solving the problem might be different from yours. Läs mer…

The In Vogue: The 90s series transports audiences back to the glamour and grandeur of a transformative decade for fashion. Set against the backdrop of New York, London and Paris, the series explores the rise of supermodels, designer powerhouses and fashion’s global influence. But the fashion scene in Australia – a country that was also enjoying a meteoric rise in international success at the time – does not crack a mention.

The 1990s marked a golden era for fashion. Supermodels like Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington became style icons. Designers like Tom Ford, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and John Galliano pushed the boundaries of fashion creating moments that defined the times and influenced everything from pop culture to politics.

Even though Australia may not have had the runway clout of Paris or New York, the nation was making significant strides in fashion during the same period. Australian designers’ and models’ distinct styles were impressive – giving fashion heavyweights a run for their money.

So, what went wrong?

The 90s turned the fashion industry upside down.

Australian designers, international success

In the 1990s, Australian designer houses such as Alannah Hill, Collette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa and Sass & Bide signified Australia’s “coming of age” in fashion, with each designer bringing a unique flair and Australian sensibility to the international market.

Alannah Hill created a whimsical aesthetic with an edgy twist. Her designs, worn by celebrities Nicole Kidman, Helena Christensen and Courtney Love, earned her a cult following. Business skyrocketed from her Chapel Street boutique in Melbourne to the department stores Selfridges and Browns in London and Bergdorf Goodman and Henri Bendel in Fifth Avenue, New York City.

In 1996, Collette Dinnigan gained worldwide acclaim as the first Australian designer to showcase her collection at Paris Fashion Week. Dinnigan’s delicate lace dresses and couture craftsmanship found a spotlight at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum’s Fashion in Motion exhibition. Striking while the iron was hot, Dinnigan secured a lingerie collaboration with Marks & Spencer.

Collette Dinnigan’s designs were celebrated in a 2015 retrospective exhibition.
4Susie/Shutterstock

Akira Isogawa, known for his blend of Japanese and Western aesthetics shared his first collection in 1994. He has presented subsequent collections in Paris bi-annually, a legacy sustained since 1998. Innovative from the jump, he turned early constraints to strengths. When the budget for his first big show didn’t stretch to shoes, he sent models down the runway in little red socks. The fashion statement helped him eventually secure more than 50 retail partners.

Sass & Bide, founded in 1999 by friends Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton, brought a youthful, urban energy from London’s Portobello Road Markets back to Australian shores. Their signature brand quickly gained popularity and was acquired by Myer in a A$42.3 million two-part deal. Australia was no longer a disconnected island but a wild card in the global fashion ecosystem.

Australian faces and Elaine George’s Vogue cover

Australian designers weren’t the only superstars gaining fashion fame.

By the time the supermodel phenomenon etched itself into the fashion zeitgeist, Australian model and businesswoman Elle Macpherson (known then as The Body) was already well known. Australian models Sarah Murdoch, Kristy Hinze, Kate Fisher and Alyssa Sutherland would follow.

Sarah Murdoch (nee O’Hare, pictured with Anneliese Seubert and Emma Balfour in 1996) graced Australian catwalks in the 90s.
Patrick Riviere/Getty

Magazine cover models throughout the 90s showed sun-kissed “girl next door” charm. The exception was Emma Balfour, often touted as Australia’s androgynous counterpart to Kate Moss’s grunge-bohemian look.

But 1993 produced a turning point in Australia’s beauty paradigm. It was the year Elaine George, Australia’s first Aboriginal fashion model, arrived on the cover of Vogue Australia magazine, making fashion history. Elaine’s presence highlighted the Australian fashion industry’s prioritisation of Eurocentric beauty ideals.

First Nations beauty and fashion talent urgently needed celebrating. But Vogue’s Australian readers had to wait until October 2000 until Torres Strait Islander singer-songwriter and actress Christine Anu was featured on the cover. The gap showed the stain of underrepresentation and inequity within Australian fashion’s reputation had remained.

The 2000s, when fashion got much faster

While the 1990s were a period of optimism and growth for Australian fashion, the momentum failed to continue into the 2000s. Several factors contributed to this decline.

One of the most significant changes was the rise of fast fashion in the early 2000s. Brands like Zara, H&M and Forever 21 began dominating the global market with affordable, quickly produced garments.

This shift left many independent designers, including those from Australia, struggling to compete. The slow, meticulous craftsmanship that had defined Australian designers in the 90s could not keep up with the fast-fashion cycle.

Another challenge was the lack of sustained support for the Australian fashion industry. Unlike New York, London or Paris, which had well-established fashion infrastructures, Australia’s fashion scene was still relatively young. There was no long-term strategy to nurture emerging talent or to promote Australian fashion on a global scale. Many designers either relocated abroad or found it difficult to maintain the same level of success they had achieved in the 90s.

A new Renaissance?

The story of Australian fashion in the 1990s is one of promise, yet ultimately missed opportunity. Today, Australia has a chance to enter a new renaissance fuelled by digital innovation and its unique cultures.

The rise of digital fashion enables Australian designers to break free from the constraints of traditional fashion markets. With virtual clothing (simulated for real wear or digital realms), AI-powered design tools and metaverse runways, Australian creatives can harness technology to showcase their work globally.

The championing of Indigenous models, designers and multicultural identity is essential. This inclusivity could position Australia as sustainable and ethical fashion innovator and present a compelling alternative to the fast-fashion giants.

Today, model Elaine George, pictured second from right, runs indigenous modelling workshops.
AAP Image/Liz Hobday Läs mer…

Clare Wright’s Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions – subtitled “how the people of Yirrkala changed the course of Australian democracy” – tells a story that is already well known.

In August 1963, Yolngu living at the Yirrkala Methodist Mission in Arnhem Land submitted two petitions to the Australian Parliament. Each combined paintings on bark with typed text, in both English and Gumatj. The painted images symbolised the petitioners’ ownership under customary law of certain lands, close to the mission, which were threatened by the Menzies government when it excised a portion, rich in bauxite, from the Arnhem Land Reserve.

The petitions asked parliament to appoint a committee to “hear the views of the Yirrkala people before permitting the excision of the land”. Some members had doubts whether the petition represented the community’s views, so Yolngu sent a second petition.

Parliament appointed a committee, which confirmed the government had not consulted Yolngu. The committee did not challenge the legality or fairness of the excision; it recommended measures it considered protective of Yolngu interests while mining went ahead.

Review: Näku Dhäruk, The Bark Petitions: How the people of Yirrkala changed the course of Australian democracy – Clare Wright (Text)

Wright suggests this encounter “changed the power dynamics of hunter and hunted, possessor and possessed”, because Yolngu were enacting their citizenship by speaking “truth to the power of the colonial (Commonwealth) authorities”. She likens the petitions to the Eureka Flag of the 1850s and the women’s suffrage banner from the 1890s. The flag, the banner and the bark “constitute the material heritage of Australian democracy”. They are emblems of the popular demand to be heard.

Heard did not mean heeded, as Wright points out. In 1971, the Northern Territory Supreme Court formally rejected Yirrkala residents’ claim that they held title to their land by customary law.

An alumina refinery commenced operations in 1972. In the town built to service the refinery – Nhulunbuy, population 5,000 in 1973 – alcohol was available. In 1974, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs documented changes, many destructive, with which Yolngu had been coping.

The bark petitions attracted much public sympathy for “land rights”, however, and the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act in 1976 gave all the First Nations of Arnhem Land Reserve freehold title. Both the Rirratjingu and Gumatj clans have taken advantage of their proximity (and customary entitlement) to the mine to develop enterprises servicing bauxite mining, including the refinery demolition and clean-up, now the ore has been exhausted.

Yirrkala has for many years hosted the annual Garma Festival, where Yolngu present themselves (and are credited in media reports) as the preeminent ambassadors of First Nations Australians.

Clare Wright before the decommissioned refinery at Melville Bay, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, July 2022.
Text Publishing

Right to territory

The Yolngu Bark Petitions were immediately recognised by many as emblems of the unshakeable confidence of Indigenous Australians in their right to their territory. The High Court eventually ruled, in the 1992 Mabo decision, that “native title” must be part of Australian law. Through the Native Title Act (1993), 65% of Australia will be subject to some legislated Indigenous interest by 2030. From little things, big things grow.

An Indigenous colleague recently told me that, as the bark petitions were not fully reciprocated, they remain “colonial trophies”. Displayed in a museum or archive they can be fetishised as tokens of Australians’ genius for “democracy” – like the flag and the banner.

Wright discourages such settler-colonial recuperation of their meaning when she writes that the bark petitions “demonstrated the political sophistication of a people engaging in acts of statesmanship between two nations by attempting to speak one language: the language of diplomacy”.

I understand the “people” in this sentence to refer to Yolngu. Wright persistently evokes their intense attachment to the land in dispute. She never lets the reader forget that the Yolngu worldview, glimpsed in the bark petitions, is richly poetic and deeply felt, and that, in 1963, it was beyond most Australians’ empathy.

One of the Yolngu Bark Petitions.
Text Publishing

But the bulk of this long narrative is not about Yolngu. It is about the non-Yolngu who responded first to the Yolngu plea, and then to each other’s responses. There was nothing “sophisticated” in these responses. Wright shows them to be discomfited and disunified – in their understanding of assimilation policy and government-mission relationships.

Some wondered whether, behind the bark petitions, communists were at work. Others, attuned to Yolngu, experienced a paradigm shift. Among the Methodists who oversaw the Mission, the divisions cost Edgar Wells his job as Yirrkala superintendent.

Others before Wright have written well of the profound divisions among those who, in 1963, understood themselves to be responsible for Yolngu wellbeing: Edgar Wells in Reward and Punishment in Arnhem Land 1962-63 (1982); John Harris in One Blood (1990); Bain Attwood in Rights for Aborigines (2003); Jennifer Clark in Aborigines and Activism (2008).

What distinguishes Wright’s account of the disorder among settler authorities is the length, detail and intimacy of her narration. Her “intimate storytelling” takes the reader inside the heads of the missionaries, legislators and public servants.

Wright’s sources enable her to do this. She draws on the diaries, notebooks, manuscripts, letters, photographs, slides, audio and film recordings, newspaper clippings, and art that comprise the privately held Edgar and Anne Wells collection. This material is “the nucleus of this book”, she states. “I am the first person outside the family to view it”.

Less significant, but important in her characterisation of Edgar Wells, are letters (now published) that the Yirrkala teacher Beth Graham wrote to her family, and an unpublished memoir by school principal Ron Croxford, part of the “Croxford Collection”.

Intimate storytelling

Wright’s storytelling achieves “intimacy” by making words, phrases and sentences drawn from Yirrkala mission sources, Hansard and government correspondence appear – italicised – within her own sentences. These quotations are not distinguished from her own words by quotation marks or indentation – the standard markers of quotation.

Clare Wright.
Bernard Wright/Text Publishing

Here is an example, from “inside” Edgar Wells. In this passage, Wright narrates Wells writing to his ally John Jago (Methodist Commission on Aboriginal Affairs) about the response of Cecil Gribble (General Secretary, Methodist Overseas Mission) to the excision and petitions:

“As for Gribble, well he had swallowed the propaganda of the politicians who did the job and is now feverishly justifying that position. It was sickening to see how Gribble had manipulated the meeting with the Yolngu men under the mission house after the church opening. He’d reported to anyone who would listen, Jago included, that the people themselves seem to me to welcome the prospect of being near this mining development. Far from objecting to industry’s advent in the region, Gribble said, they find their horizons expanding somewhat through it.”

There are at least two points of view about Yolngu’s interests in this passage. There is Wells’ critical account of Gribble’s position (the first italics). And there is Gribble’s position (in the second and third italics).

But it is not clear whether the words that I am labelling as Gribble’s point of view are quotes from a document authored by Gribble or words chosen by Wells, in his letter to Jago, to state what he (Wells) understands Gribble’s views to be.

There is possibly a third point of view – Wright’s – in the sentence that follows this passage: “It was quite a thought, really: a people whose minds held an encyclopedic knowledge of every contour of the land, sea and sky having their perspective extended even further!”

In that sentence, is not Wright inviting the reader to laugh at Gribble’s point of view? If so, is she doing this from what she imagines to be the point of view of the Yolngu petitioners?

There is no endnote giving the sources of this passage. Putting aside, for the moment, the question of whether there should be, let us acknowledge the artfulness of a narrative technique that cascades and slides, in so few words, between two, three or four points of view. Well might one of the ten endorsers of the book refer to its “kaleidoscopic prose”. Wright performs this page after page.

Her “intimate storytelling” has its precedent in the novel – in particular, what literary theory calls “free indirect speech”. This is a means of representing the thought or speech of a character in the context of a narrator’s discourse. It is exemplified in the work of (among others) Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf.

In Australia’s historiography, Manning Clark was the foremost practitioner of “free indirect” narration. Mark McKenna (one of the ten endorsers of Näku Dhäruk) explains, in his admirable An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark (2011), that as early as 1940 Clark began to detest the ways that he was taught to write at Oxford. In his six-volume History of Australia, Clark sought to break with “the ‘positivistic spirit’ and ‘objective reality’ that characterised scholarly history”.

McKenna recalls that in his own youth he was unsure what to make of Clark’s history, in which primary sources “blended so seamlessly with his own prose that it was impossible to tell who was speaking”.

Manning Clark.
Goodreads

Wright, in this respect, is Clark’s successor. Perhaps one reason that her publisher has marshalled ten distinguished endorsers of Näku Dhäruk is to assure us that a narrative technique that scandalised “positivists” in 1962 could be welcomed in 2024 as “so much more than an historical account” and a “feat of scholarship and creativity”.

There are endnotes in this book – 459 references to sources of the kind we expect in scholarly histories: published books, interviews (archived or conducted by Wright), newspapers, government and church archives, library-deposited papers of politicians. But a huge proportion of the italicised words – that is, quoted utterances by named actors – are not sourced to any particular document. There are no endnotes to the evidentiary “nucleus”: the Wells archive.

Does this compromise the book’s “truth-telling”? That depends. In Näku Dhäruk, we find three kinds of intellectual authority that correspond, I suggest, to Max Weber’s three kinds of political authority: traditional, bureaucratic, charismatic.

Wright presents Yolngu knowledge, the “title deeds” asserted on bark as miny/tji (sacred designs), as having “traditional” authority. If we understand “bureaucracy” as rule-governed impersonality, then all text footnoted to a primary source that any researcher could examine possesses “bureaucratic” authority.

The credibility of passages that are not so sourced – the bulk of the “intimate storytelling” – rests on the reader’s belief in the author’s singular fitness to tell the story. Not only has Wright had unique access to the book’s “nucleus”, she assures us that Galarrwuy Yunupingu believed in her. In August 2021, he urged her to write a story that would hold some “crook people” responsible for the excision of the land, while crediting Yolngu for resisting it. The closing vignette climaxes Wright’s evocation of her own charismatic authority. Läs mer…

Women seeking publicly funded fertility treatment in New Zealand must have a body mass index (BMI) under 32, according to clinical priority assessment criteria for access to assisted reproductive technology.

But as our in-depth interviews and a growing body of evidence show, this approach is outdated and unethical.

One of our study participants described the system as “completely rigged if you’re a fat person”. Nina, a 37-year-old dance teacher, was denied public funding support to help her conceive because her BMI was above 32 – even though the cause of infertility was her husband’s sperm count.

Nina is not alone. Paratta, who moved to Aotearoa from Sri Lanka in 2009, was also denied because of her BMI. She raced to lose the required weight in spite of a medical condition, but was then denied again because she had reached 40, the age limit for access to public funding.

Both women’s experiences highlight New Zealand’s obsolete and discriminating BMI limit. The United Kingdom does not include BMI as a criterion for public funding, and international cutoffs are generally between 35 and 45.

We argue New Zealand’s BMI threshold must be scrapped to reflect impactful research and respond ethically to New Zealand’s diverse population.

BMI and fertility

One in six people worldwide are affected by infertility, according to the World Health Organization’s most recent estimate. They suffer severe social and psychological consequences.

There are numerous factors that can affect fertility, and obesity is certainly one of them, impacting 6% of women who have never been pregnant.

But the BMI is an outdated method of assessing this risk. It doesn’t measure body fat percentage, distribution or differences across populations.

Our study participants have raised concerns about the BMI limit. International and local studies concur with them. Research shows Polynesians are much leaner than Europeans at significantly higher BMIs, meaning Māori and Pacific women are disadvantaged before they even step into the clinic.

Quick weight loss unlikely to help

In New Zealand, people seeking public support are told that “making lifestyle changes like quitting smoking or losing weight” could help them become eligible. They are given a stand-down period wherein they must lose the requisite weight before referrals.

As in Paratta’s case, this can lead to a race to lose weight before the inflexible age limit of 40 is reached. Evidence-based research advises that fertility care should balance the risk of age-related fertility decline with weight-loss advice.

Nina rejected the advice to lose weight. She was concerned that quick weight loss would require unhealthy practices that could affect her success rate during the embryo transfer.

Lifestyle changes made within a short time before conception don’t improve outcomes.
Getty Images

At the Australia and New Zealand Fertility Association’s annual conference last month, US obstetrician Kurt Barnhart confirmed that lifestyle interventions made weeks or months before conception are unlikely to improve outcomes. They may even cause harm.

He discussed the FIT—PLESE randomised control study, which compared two groups of infertile women. One underwent a targeted weight-loss program and another exercised but did not lose weight. The results showed no statistically significant difference between the groups’ fertility and live-birth rates. These findings suggest the stand-down period should be revised.

Barnhart also highlighted that weight loss through lifestyle changes can be practically impossible given obesity is often linked to endocrine issues that have nothing to do with choice. He observed signals that the medical community is changing its views on obesity as a “lifestyle” choice – a welcome shift.

BMI, lifestyle and ethics

Social science research has long challenged a colonial and biomedical habit of imposing standards on women whose bodies do not conform to Western ideas of a healthy or ideal body.

Historically, the emphasis on weight as a criterion for reproductive health echoes harmful eugenicist beliefs. As US science historian Arleen Tuchman writes, the discovery of insulin prompted some groups to recommended banning marriages for people with diabetes to prevent the “unfit” from reproducing. New Zealand’s BMI criteria similarly suggest only those who fit specific physical standards deserve access to fertility care.

The idea that lifestyle and health are straightforward individual choices is also challenged by research in epigenetics and philosophy. Obesity is often linked with poverty, which in turn is linked to broader social and living environments, including access and income.

The high economic burden of obesity has led biomedical experts to recommended obese people should be considered for particular support, given the prohibitive cost of assisted reproductive technologies.

Nina exercises more than eight hours a week and Paratta leads an active lifestyle. For both women, behavioural advice – and the stigma and assumptions it underscores – is offensive.

Weight-loss advice can be particularly culturally offensive for Māori and Pacific peoples, who may be stigmatised in clinic settings for being too “fat” but considered “skinny” in their communities if they lose the required weight.

New Zealand’s assessment criteria for publicly funded fertility treatment have not been updated in 27 years. While infertility and health risks associated with obesity during pregnancy and at birth should not be ignored, research shows these risks can be managed effectively and with empathy through a transdisciplinary approach.

The Australian state of Victoria now offers two free cycles of fertility treatment to any Medicare-holding woman, regardless of BMI, up to the age of 42. The program deliberately reaches out to specific groups whose ethnicity, sexuality and environment limit their access. It has been highly successful and should inspire New Zealand to approach fertility funding with fresh perspectives. Läs mer…

It’s been more than five years since the banking royal commission, but its findings continue to have an impact on the financial services sector.

Law firm Maurice Blackburn recently announced it had settled with ANZ in a class action over allegedly unlawful “flex commissions” built into car loans made by Esanda between 2011 and 2016.

ANZ agreed to settle the proceedings for $85 million on a “no admission of liability” basis. However, two further flex commission class actions – against Westpac & St George and Macquarie Leasing – remain on foot and will be heard this month.

Class actions are a growing trend in the ways consumers seek to access justice. Many cases are simply too small to be pursued individually.

On top of this, a recent High Court ruling could see organisations come under greater scrutiny over the systems they put in place. Could all of this mean consumers are getting a stronger voice?

What are flex commissions?

Many car dealers offer to provide financing for prospective car buyers as an alternative to getting a loan directly from a bank. But dealers typically don’t have their own huge reserves of funds to lend out.

This financing usually comes from a finance company or bank lender through what is sometimes called a “white label” product.

Many car dealers offer financing arrangements directly to customers.
Tikhomirov Sergey/Shutterstock

Dealers will usually be paid a commission on the loans they arrange by the lender. Prior to 2018, some lenders offered these car dealers arranging loans what is called a “flex commission”.

Flex commissions allowed car dealers to set the interest rate on car loans above an agreed base rate.

Higher interest rates meant a greater commission for the car dealer, but were not always in the interests of the borrower.

Banned and heavily criticised

Flex commissions were formally banned by Australia’s corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), in November 2018.

ASIC had been concerned that borrowers were paying excessively high interest rates on dealer-arranged car loans, and that the commissions were not fair or transparent.

The watchdog’s own research found about 15% of customers were being charged an interest rate that was 7% or more above the base rate.

Their main concern was that many car dealers weren’t increasing rates in line with actual credit risk, but rather opportunistically to target inexperienced or vulnerable consumers.

Shortly after the ban, the final report of the banking royal commission didn’t mince words. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne noted a lack of transparency and a misplaced trust:

Many borrowers knew nothing of these arrangements. Lenders did not publicise them; dealers did not reveal them. […] To the borrower, the dealer might have appeared to be acting for the borrower by submitting a loan proposal on behalf of the borrower. The borrower was given no indication that in fact the dealer was looking after its own interests.

Class actions against car loan ‘flex commissions’ followed heavy criticism of the lending practice in the banking royal commission’s final report.
David Geraghty/AAP

Why were class actions needed?

Neither ASIC’s ban nor the criticisms of the banking royal commission guaranteed any redress for borrowers subject to loans with flex commissions.

ASIC suggested flex commissions may have contravened the National Consumer Credit Protection Act by being unfair, or the ASIC Act by being misleading. But it is difficult and expensive for individuals to pursue such claims themselves in court.

ASIC itself can seek compensation on behalf of borrowers, or require redress to be paid as part of other enforcement action. The watchdog has already gone down this road in some of the especially egregious instances of misconduct identified by the royal commission, such as fees for no service.

Where individual action is too hard or regulator action lacking, consumers’ best option for redress may lie in a class action – taken on a no-win, no-fee basis. The likelihood of a good result may be increased in instances where the class action “piggybacks” on an adverse report from the regulator.

Corporations may face increasing scrutiny

It’s reasonable to ask why upstream lenders are being targeted in “flex commission” class actions when it is the car dealers who allegedly wronged borrowers.

The ongoing class actions do not allege the lenders themselves misled borrowers or treated them unfairly. However, in this context that may not matter.

In each of the class actions, Maurice Blackburn has argued the car dealers were acting as the representatives of the lenders, which they say makes the lenders responsible for the car dealers’ alleged misconduct.

A recent High Court ruling may mean corporations have to take greater responsibility for the systems they oversee.
Shutterstock

Moreover, in these and similar cases, a recent High Court ruling that centred on “systemic unconscionable conduct” could make it harder for such upstream entities to argue their distance from alleged wrongdoing in systems they put in place.

Better access to justice

There has been a rise in consumer protection class actions in recent years, supported by changes in rules of procedure in several jurisdictions.

Justice Bernard Murphy of the Federal Court of Australia has argued these changes promote the important value of access to justice:

The important thing to remember is that class actions are critical in ensuring that people can obtain redress for mass civil wrongs. Laws which are not, in fact, readily capable of enforcement by ordinary Australians are little more than an illusion.

This trend is important. Dishonest or unfair conduct has long been prohibited in the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, but this hasn’t been used much to date.

Given the current flex commission actions closely follow the findings of ASIC, we should watch the regulator closely for hints of any future actions in other areas. Many could spark discussions that ultimately lead to stronger protection for consumers.

But when they are successful, we also need to keep an eye on the actual payout to borrowers and hope it takes place without undue delay. Läs mer…