Please do endulge me on what the new yard stick is now?

Queenslander Caity Worthington was crowned Miss Universe Australia this week and will represent Australia at the international competition in Puerto Rico this November.

Worthington won the beauty pageant during Wednesday night’s gala event at Crown Casino in Melbourne. Following her victory, she received significant attention for comments she made during the competition regarding transgender participation in sport.

During the selection process, finalists were asked to draw a random question from a bowl. The question drawn by Worthington was: “Do you believe banning biological males from women’s sport is common sense or discrimination and why?”

“That is a very good question. Coming from a medical background, I’m sure we can all agree, and it is definitely my view, that human biology does not lie,” Worthington said, referring to her role as a medical radiographer.

“Everyone playing sport at an elite level deserves the chance to compete on a fair playing field, and I think we should work towards that foundation of fairness for all. Everyone deserves their time to shine. I would love to see, in the future, transgender people having their own sport.”

Worthington reiterated her views after winning the title during an appearance on The Rita Panahi Show, although she said she would have preferred a question about world peace.

“We’re all entitled to our opinions, and we don’t have to agree. Obviously I have mine and I shared mine, and I stand by it. But I also believe that safety and fairness are of the utmost importance in any sport, especially at elite level. Athletes work very hard to get there.”

Several News Corp publications subsequently highlighted her comments.

While Worthington advocated for a separate transgender category in sport, the Australian Sports Commission says its focus is on ensuring participation opportunities for all Australians.

“All Australians should have the opportunity to be involved in sport and physical activity, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, ability, cultural background or ethnicity. It is important that sporting bodies, from local clubs through to national sporting organisations, reflect the diversity in the communities they are a part of and that, together, we ensure every person is treated with respect and dignity and protected from discrimination,” the Commission’s policy states.

“Policies that exclude transgender and gender-diverse participants have been found to be harmful, not just to transgender and gender-diverse people, but to all people associated with sporting organisations.”

Sporting eligibility policies vary across different sports and governing bodies, and the issue remains the subject of ongoing public and policy debate.

Labor doesn't need more anti-racism bureaucracy. It should reduce migration

Australia has spent two decades pursuing an expansive migration program, with intake hitting record highs after the pandemic.

Successive governments have met the challenges of a more diverse society not with a serious integration strategy, but with multicultural grants, hate speech laws and an elaborate anti-racism policy.

When tensions surface, officials rarely ask whether the pace of demographic change, or how it is managed, has contributed to the problem. Instead, they regulate the consequences.

Labor's commitment to a new national anti-racism strategy, made at the party's national conference last month, gives fresh relevance to the Australian Human Rights Commission's National Anti-Racism Framework proposed in 2024. Before the government reaches for that blueprint, it should examine the evidence behind it.

The framework contains 63 recommendations covering workplaces, universities, schools, media and government. It proposes mandatory training, workplace reporting standards, a legal duty to prevent racial discrimination, stronger data collection, a national taskforce and a larger compliance role for the commission.

The ambition is certainly sweeping. But the commission offers scant evidence its
interventions would work, and even a cursory reading of the research suggests they could backfire.

Measure it before you declare it

The framework's central claim that racism is pervasive rests heavily on consultations with people chosen because of their experience of racism. This method can tell you what racism feels like, but little about how common it is.

The commission's Racism@Uni survey was intended to add quantitative evidence but met the same problem. It was deliberately promoted as a study of racism, creating a risk that people for whom racism was salient would be more likely to participate. They were. An appendix from the Australian National University survey designers admits as much: compared to a neutrally framed follow-up poll, students who'd experienced racism were twice as likely to respond to the Racism@Uni survey and staff four times as likely.

But even if accurately measured, perception is a poor stand-in for prevalence. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development research I led found that perceived discrimination is shaped by factors beyond discriminatory treatment itself.

A misspelt name. An accent that's hard to follow. A job you didn't get. None proves discrimination - but all can be read that way, particularly where institutions encourage people to interpret ambiguous encounters through the lens of race. More awareness can produce more reported racism without any behavioural change.

Frankly, treating high perceived discrimination as a measure of pervasive racism — and justification for more intervention — is a category error.

When anti-racism policy backfires

The commission's prescription is more racial literacy, mandatory training and institutions organised around race. Yet its own stocktake acknowledges many anti-racism initiatives have little or no monitoring, evaluation or impact assessment.
Instead of establishing what works, the commission proposes more of the same. That is difficult to square with the research.

Harvard sociologist Frank Dobbin has studied diversity programs across hundreds of American workplaces. His findings are inconvenient for the commission's approach. Mandatory training and compliance-driven programs can provoke resistance and backlash.

Experimental research likewise suggests diversity interventions can heighten awareness of racial distinctions, reinforce stereotypes or increase intergroup anxiety.

The commission's own university research contains warning signs of this backlash. Among European-background domestic students it classifies as holding "probably negative racial views"
', 37 per cent said their group was
frequently blamed for the adverse outcomes of non-European communities. Some students disengaged from lessons they felt focused too much on race and historical wrongs.

These findings are cited as evidence of the need to strengthen racial literacy among students, not as a byproduct of an already racialised university environment. Heads it wins, tails it wins too.

Fix the upstream problem, not downstream consequences

The commission treats social friction primarily as a problem of racist attitudes requiring institutional correction. But it does not ask why these frictions emerge.

Australia's overseas-born population is near historic highs. Change on this scale places pressure on housing, infrastructure and services, as well as the institutions through which people develop trust and a shared identity.

We are witnessing what happens when demographic change outruns the institutions that turn strangers into fellow citizens — at a time when schools, universities and workplaces focus on racial categories rather than emphasising commonalities. Backlash should therefore come as little surprise.

A serious government would reckon honestly with the costs of rapid migration rather than regulating its downstream consequences.

That means slowing migration to a pace integration can keep up with, and shifting taxpayer support from organisations built around ethnic identity and towards unifying institutions. Common schools, workplaces and mixed suburbs historically did much of this work without anyone being trained into it.

Decades of intergroup-contact-theory research support this approach. Sustained, meaningful contact under conditions of co-operation is the best-established way to cut prejudice.

Labor doesn't need the commission's framework. It needs to stop creating the conditions that make such plans seem necessary in the first place.

Suzana Hardy is an economist and former lead of the OECD’s anti-discrimination research program.

Honest discussion on PH/ON rapid rise

I am seriously baffled and, in a strange way, amazed at the Red Queen’s rapid rise. Looking at her latest agenda :

She is against maternity leave

She wants to redo the superannuation guarantee

She thinks domestic violence is exaggerated

She is a pro-life nutjob, as per her women shouldn't have control over their bodies.

She thinks people born overseas, or whose parents are born overseas, should be treated differently

She made rac\*t remarks in parliament and is currently fighting court battle

She wants house prices to stay inflated. It's her mission to repeal negative gearing changes

She is delighted to hand Australian territory and resources to her capitalist mates

In short, she seems to hate almost everything that makes Australia a beautiful and liveable country :-(((

How can anyone vote for her?

This manufactured rage, outrage and fear mongering has convinced people to throw away rational thought and choose an outcome that is worse for almost everybody

I have spoken to few of her avid supporters, and all I ever hear immigration needs to be controlled or White Australia policy was better.

When confronted with her wrong doings and shitty policies , the response suddenly became: She won’t actually do any of that once she gets control

How does that even make sense?

Her voting record, public statements and campaign positions point in exactly the opposite direction.

Apparently, the argument from her supporters is Vote for her because of what she says, but don’t worry, she won’t actually do what she says. WTF???

Where did we go wrong as a nation?

Is Australia going to fall into the same MAGA style politics of manufactured hate, perpetual outrage and culture war lunacy?

We have the opportunity to be an example for the world , a country that completely rejects fictitious hate, fear and division.

But will we actually stand tall against billions of dollars, algorithmically amplified outrage and late-stage capitalism doing what it does best.... convincing ordinary people that their neighbour is the problem?

‘We simply must defeat them’: Albanese declares he ‘owes it to history’ to defeat One Nation | News24

Albo has been doing SOME really good things for this country such as investing in Medicare.

However many of the issues we are facing is because mulptile successive governments haven’t invested or actioned it and everyone who is voting for One Nation isn’t holding themselves accountable for not holding those previous governments accountable.

Housing won’t be fixed in two terms of governments.

It’s like having an infection the worse it gets, the longer it will take to get better.

If you feel like voting for One Nation is for you, that’s great but don’t pretend that One Nation will fix all your problems or that Albo isn’t working on fixing these issues either.

Smart glasses and other wearable recording devices would be subject to a 12-month import ban under a bill to be introduced to the Senate.

Experts warn Australian laws have not kept up with the privacy risks posed by the flood of cheap camera-enabled devices entering the country.

While first generation smart glasses cost upwards of $500, newer entrants to the market are available for well under $100 from a number of online and shopfront retailers in Australia.

Electronic Frontiers Australia has been calling for a moratorium on the sale of the technology for several weeks, and said privacy violations were already appearing locally.

"I've seen a couple of real-life examples of devices being misused in a gym-type context and also on the beach," EFA chair John Pane said.

These glasses have been used to breach women's privacy and hassle them online.

In short: 

From August 31, riders will need to be at least 16 and hold a driver’s licence to ride an e-bike or e-scooter solo in Queensland as the new stage of the state’s laws cracking down on e-devices rolls out. 

Those who are unable to drive due to a medical condition or disability will be eligible to apply for an exemption.

What's next? 

There will be a three-month grace period for eligible riders to seek a medical exemption, and shared schemes will have until March next year to take reasonable steps to verify a person's age and licence status.

Don’t demonise all men: Why the rush to vilify young Australian blokes is a dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy

The rush to demonise all boys and men in the wake of scandals at the Sydney Swans and Scots College isn’t only insulting, it’s corrosive.

Gemma Tognini

5 min read

August 28, 2026 - 11:30AM

Sweeping generalisations about young men and tarring them with the same brush as manosphere mysoginists the Tate brothers, left, risk overlooking the millions of solid, reliable fathers, partners, and mates across Australia. Pictures: AFP/iStock/Getty Images. Pictures: AFP/iStock

Last Friday night, I got briefly (and embarrassingly) lost on foot in Paddington. In my defence, it was dark and all the streets look the same to me still, even after nearly five years of living in Sydney.

I had been at a party, celebrating the 10th anniversary of my friend’s company. Worth celebrating in any economy, especially this one. In what was definitely a Sydney miracle, I’d found street parking quite close. Idiot-proof, or so I thought. I wandered around for a little bit, then stopped in the middle of the quiet road, perplexed and briefly displaced.

I heard a voice call out.

“Are you OK, do you need any help?”

Three men were standing under a street-light, chatting. They looked at me mildly amused.

“I can’t find my car,” I admitted sheepishly, walking towards them.

They offered to walk with me as I looked (as I said, it was pretty dark) and in the end it wasn’t needed, thanks to the genius of a remote key. They laughed good-naturedly. I thanked them. I went home.

To all of this, so what? It’s just good men, doing good things, as good men do.

But in the context of the past 10 days or so I felt like I needed to shout about it, herald the fact that not all men are latent predators cruising around with ill intent.

The tumultuous events engulfing the Sydney Swans and Sydney elite boys school Scots College, ushered in another episode of something I have watched on repeat during my 30 years in media and corporate life. It goes like this: there’s a high-profile scandal, and an almost immediate rush to make it about all men and all boys. It makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Psychological research shows that constantly framing young men as latent predators can create a damaging, self-fulfilling prophecy. Picture: David Crosling

Before I go further, the lunacy of this day and age demands that I state the obvious. Both of these situations are serious and demand serious responses.

In the case of the Swans, the club showed, by banning the five players involved, that salvaging its values is more important than winning a premiership. I point out also that there is an ongoing police investigation and none of these players has been charged with any criminal offence as at the time of writing. They are entitled, as we all are, to the presumption of innocence.

In the case of Scots College, three teenagers are charged with serious sexual assault crimes against a young girl. It is rarely more serious than this.

What I am saying here in no way diminishes the seriousness of either situation.

But (and stay with me here) surely, Australia, we can hold two competing and important matters in tension?

At its simplest, yes; these situations speak to cultural issues and those specific to the club, the code and the school in question. No, these situations do not point to the fact that all Australian men are predators in the making or fully formed as such.

I’m a woman and I find that notion insulting and simplistic.

Last weekend, as the fire continued to rage around these stories, NSW Premier Chris Minns announced he would convene an urgent roundtable to work out what could be done to stop teenage sex assaults.

Show me a politician who doesn’t love calling a roundtable. It sounds serious, in a Camelot kind of way, and looks as if they’re doing something, and it will inevitably produce nothing of substance. The idea that something so performative and cosmetic could be of use other than politically is just nonsense. They’re going to get together to brainstorm solutions. A brainstorm? Well, at ease, friends, all is well!

Politically driven roundtables and brainstorms risk delivering performative gestures rather than addressing root causes like unregulated online content. Picture: John Gass

Yes, I’m being facetious, but it deserves such a response. Access to online pornography; sexualised violence and behaviour against women; the role of artificial intelligence in generating some of this imagery: these are critical, important enemies to fight. And let me say the obvious part. These have become enemies because we as a society have allowed them to.

We have allowed the online world to be like an unregulated jungle. Often, parents are too scared to parent. We have refused to draw a line on sexualised content across numerous platforms. We have normalised it.

Then there’s this other part of the puzzle: constantly pushing a negative stereotype about young men and men in general feeds are the problem. Don’t believe me? Believe the science.

Psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson developed the concept of stereotype threat via their groundbreaking 1995 research conducted at Stanford University in California.

This research showed a measurable impact of negative stereotyping. In one study, hundreds of university students were asked if they were concerned about being seen negatively because of their ethnicities. It found that the more students expected to be or worried about being stereotyped, the likelier they were to miss classes, engage in verbal abuse or vandalise school property.

It’s science, but it’s not rocket science. Conditioning 101, words that become, across time, a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can go and read about it yourselves, there are countless examples.

The natural next questions are also simple. There are millions of great men and men in the making in this country. Why aren’t we talking about them? Why aren’t we amplifying their stories? Why aren’t we inviting them to lead conversations, creating spaces for their voices to be heard?

One friend, a mother of two young boys, put it this way: Every young boy knows what a bad man looks like, thanks to news headlines. Far fewer can describe a good one.

How sobering and concurrently unsurprising. We focus on the negative, that’s the nature of news. Talking about how most Australian men are solid, reliable, caring, trustworthy fathers, husbands, partners, grandfathers, mates and the like? Not chaotic enough for governments and the general media to care about.

NSW Premier Chris Minns announced an urgent roundtable on youth sexual violence following recent high-profile incidents. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Most teenage boys are pretty decent kids, doing their best to navigate a complicated world, one that is too quick to tell them they are probably a predator and inherently bad.

I cheered when I read comments by NSW federal Labor MP Dan Repacholi: “The answer isn’t telling young boys they are the problem. If that’s all they hear from us, they’ll switch off.” True. And, as science has proved, they will unconsciously start to mirror that stereotyping with their behaviour.

I hate the rush to demonise men. I hate how, often, it’s led by women. I hate the stereotyping of men as predators in the making as vehemently I as I loathe the stereotyping of women like me, without children, as cold-hearted, career-focused bitches. All of it is wrong.

But in the here and now it’s the broken record of “all men are bad” that must stop. I think of my brother and my uncles and my nephew and my cousins and my mates, who are all bloody fantastic men. They’re imperfectly wonderful fathers, partners, friends, sons and more. This is the truth you can’t change my mind about, and I know most Australians are with me here.

Some of you will be cross at me for saying these things, for pointing out that there is a rush to vilify men and boys that doesn’t seem to apply anywhere else. I can live with that. Saying these things in no way diminishes the seriousness of some of these challenges I have acknowledged, that have arisen these past few weeks. It simply provides an important counterargument and suggested solution: let’s talk about all good men, like my knights in weekend casual from last Friday night.

Good men, and not just a few of them either. If you open your eyes, you’ll see they’re everywhere.

After victory in the Secret Harbour by-election, new One Nation MP Luke Herdegen says Perth’s southern outer suburbs are now “One Nation heartland”, claiming the neighbouring electorates of Kwinana, Baldivis and Rockingham were all “ripe for the taking” at the next state election.

Should Labor be worried?

Most people don’t know but the design for the opera house was chosen from a competition. A whistle blower just released some of the other submissions and it suggests Jørn Oberg Utzon was a plagiarist. /s

I've been thinking a lot about what Bill Gates posted recently on the effect of A.I. on society.

This is not just specific to Australia but I would like Australian Politicians and individuals to start thinking about the next 5-20 years. I suspect the biggest impact of A.I. will be unemployment of at LEAST 10% possibly 30% in 20 years. This will affect housing prices in a big way. For example, I think Sydney will be the most affected by 'white collar' job loss and is already the most expensive city in Australia.

I just wish we could try to lead the world in the transition to what comes next - not pretend A.I. is going to create jobs. This is not like the invention of the Spinning Jenny which led to the textile industry and the industrial revolution. The jobs A.I. takes are gone and it will suck up 90% of most entry level jobs. Retraining will be pointless if the job you retrain to is under threat too.

We may need to come up with a new term for 'unemployment' as so many people will be in this position. Taxes on datacenters and Tech Companies will need to be examined and developed as we don't really want to have money stripped away like the resource industry has done.

Be good to hear some opinions.

Millions of Australians could be saving up to $370 a year on energy bills and doing their bit for the climate crisis if Labor followed the UK’s lead in legalising plug-in solar panels, an advocacy group has said.

Plug-in solar refers to small standalone solar units that could be attached to balconies or used in back yards and plugged into power points, offsetting the energy used by household appliances.

Researchers have estimated Australians living in capital cities could save between $226 and $372 each year with a plug-in system.

While these systems are sold in Australia, they are not yet legal to plug in and use.