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As cases of community transmission (acquired from an unknown source in the same area) of Covid 19 rise in Melbourne and in some areas of Sydney state Governments are bringing in increasingly strict rules around social distancing, mask wearing and the reasons to leave your home in an attempt to 'flatten the curve' of this second wave of cases. At what point are the freedoms of individuals too limited for the 'greater good'? Do punishments such as fines and jail-time actually help to improve behaviour?

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As understanding of mental health issues has improved in recent decades there has been increasing pressure from some groups to consider more factors in sentencing (deciding the consequences/punishment for a crime). While some people believe that mental health is being used an excuse for racist, sexist, selfish, or violent beliefs and behaviour.

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Point of View Speech - Begin your planning and writing process by reading this Spark.

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Point of View Speech - Begin your planning and writing process by reading this Spark.

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Research and plan your speech and hand in your Speech Proposal (due Friday 24th of July)

Draft your written speech for feedback (due Friday 31st of July)

Apply feedback, edit, rehearse and film your persuasive speech (1st-6th of August).

Upload your filmed speech  to flip-grid or an alternative platform as instructed by your teacher (due by Friday the 7th of August).

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Last October Year 10 and 11 students from St. Kevin’s College, a private boys school in Melbourne, were filmed singing a sexist chant on a Melbourne tram. The sexist 16-line chant originated in the military as one of many marching songs that details explicit and degrading sexual acts men want to perform on women. Following the tram incident, Year 12 students from St. Kevin’s were caught on camera singing the chant outside a pub in Richmond. The incidents prompted investigation and debate into school culture, privilege, sexism and the way we are educating our young people.

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By Chris Middleton

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The publicity that engulfed St Kevin's College last year and that was revisited on Four Corners last week is a reminder to us all about the need to continue to work at shaping school culture, and the ongoing challenges around gender relations for young people today.

There is no doubt that sexist language, jokes and the like, as evidenced in an extreme form in the now infamous chant (on a tram before an athletics carnival), can be found in any school. But the difference is that, as one St Kevin's old boy wrote, only boys from private, single-sex schools "would have the ignorant pride to sing about it in the street, because private, single-sex schools are one of the few places where that kind of entitlement survives". It is a hard statement, and perhaps not entirely fair, but it needs to be faced.

At a boys' school work needs to be done in inculcating a greater awareness of the issues involved in gender and sexuality. We must look beyond easy condemnations or blame games. We need to challenge entrenched attitudes, language and practices that demean girls among boys. We need to challenge stereotypes on both sides, including the one that boys don't have feelings or can't be hurt in the relational game. We need to reflect on how we all model relationships.

At Xavier College we are very aware of the challenges in this area, and some important initiatives have been taken. There has been a pattern in recent years to invite Year 12 girls, or recent young female graduates, or, last year, one of the senior's mothers, to address a Rector's assembly on how they see gender relations, and then for one of the boys to respond. Our student leaders have also discussed holding an evening forum around masculinity, an initiative which hopefully will take place later this year.

We need to be careful to avoid the simple negative stereotyping of young men.

In all this we need to be careful to avoid the simple negative stereotyping of young men. The wisdom of St Ignatius, to look to the good first, applies fully to the way we speak about being a young male today. This was articulated recently by the experienced educationalist and outgoing Head of The Shore School, Dr Tim Wright. He rightly cautions about undue negativity and a narrative that only highlights "toxic masculinity".

There are undoubted benefits to educating boys in a single-sex environment. There are arguments around that strong sense of mateship and brotherhood, about spirit, about peer mentoring, about the sporting programmes and academics, about boys feeling happy to be involved in public speaking and debating, in the arts and in music.

Moreover, any sense of entitlement is challenged by the boys' experience of service, not simply by helping out, but by having real contact with people in need, from which they can learn lessons for life. The importance of Ignatian (community) service in the culture is about helping, and about justice, but it also serves to provide boys perspective and to touch their hearts. Through student reflections at retreats and similar spiritual experiences, they are able to share at a deep and personal level around wellbeing, family, identity, faith and tragedy.

St Kevin's College in Toorak. Credit:Erik Anderson

During retreats they are encouraged to speak honestly and to listen respectfully. There is often warmth and even gentleness reflected in their interactions with each other. We should take hope that this is a generation which is much more able to express their feelings than those who have gone before them; a generation that is more committed to treat all equally and respectfully, irrespective of gender, race, sexual preference or views; a generation that knows relationships are central to happiness, and that good spirituality and good psychology walk together.
Chris Middleton is Rector of Xavier College.

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Boys' schools must challenge entrenched attitudes

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By Chris Middleton Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The publicity that engulfed St Kevin's College last year and that was revisited on Four Corners last week is a reminder to us all about the need to continue to work at shaping school culture, and the ongoing challenges around gender relations for young people today.

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A man and woman compare running at night Buzzfeed 2018

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A man and woman compare running at night Buzzfeed 2018

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A Man And A Woman Compare Running Alone At Night

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A Man And A Woman Compare Running Alone At Night

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Persuasive Techniques Handout - you must include some of these in your speech for effect. 

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Persuasive Techniques Handout - you must include some of these in your speech for effect. 

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Boys Club: Private school privilege and a culture of cover up | Four Corners

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A majority of the year's highest earners passed the test, but the real story is in the details: who these characters are, what they talk about, and what has to change.

Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film - past, present, and future.
The Bechdel Test is not perfect - even the creator of said test, prolific author and cartoonist Alison Bechdel agrees, and when I spoke to her in 2014 on the occasion of her winning a MacArthur Genius Grant, she was open about the test and its limitations. "I'm not a stickler about the Test - if I were, I wouldn't see many movies," she said at the time. She even ticked off a handful of films she had recently enjoyed that didn't pass her own metrics ("Jackie Brown," "About Time," and "The Grand Budapest Hotel," for those interested).

There are only three requirements for passing the test, which aims to determine how active and present women are in a film: It must feature at least two women in speaking roles, who have names, and who talk to each other about something - anything - other than a man. It has inspired other tests, too, including the Mako Mori Test, the DuVernay Test, and a slew of others that were recently unveiled by FiveThirtyEight.

No, it's not perfect, and its application isn't always essential to determine the value of a film, but tests like the Bechdel ask audiences to more closely consider what they're watching, how it's crafted, and what it's trying to say. More often than not, that's a message delivered by things that aren't said, especially between two women. Many of this year's highest-grossing films have featured women in prominent roles, but just because they appear on-screen doesn't necessarily mean that they're as active and present as the Bechdel Test asks them to be (and it's a very, very small ask).

Here's how 2017's top domestic earners did when put, literally, to the test.

1. "Beauty and the Beast"

The year's top-earner - a live-action rejiggering of the beloved Disney fairy tale, itself a new spin on the classic Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve story - may focus on a tale as old as time (read: a love story between a comely country girl and the literal beast who tries to kill her father and then softens up to her feminine wiles), but it also has a number of scenes that put Belle's (Emma Watson) agency into sharp relief. Sure, some of the "passing" moments do involve her speaking to a piece of furniture (Madame de Garderobe, voiced by Audra McDonald), but that piece of furniture is also a human woman underneath all that wood. One of their most memorable chats even centers on Belle refuting any mention of being a "princess." She's her own woman, even when she's telling a large chest of drawers so.

Belle also interacts with other members of the cursed household, including Plumette and Mrs. Potts, to talk about the Beast and other concerns, including, "hey, why are we all cursed?" And while we never learn the name of the young village girl Belle teaches to read early on in the film, it's an essential sequence that highlights a number of Belle's core values, from literacy to helping others. It's a prime example of what happens when the Bechdel's aims are honestly met: character insight, told in a way that folds believably into a story.

2. "Wonder Woman"

The first act of Patty Jenkins' blockbuster superhero story is an almost entirely female affair, and while Diana (Gal Gadot) and her family of Amazons do spend some time talking about male gods and mankind itself (their creators and the reason for their eventual exile, incidentally), they also lead lives largely devoid of idle chat, the sort that so often falls into patter about relationships with the opposite sex. Instead, they're busy interacting with each other, teaching other, governing each other, and attempting to negotiate the politics of their unique existence. The introduction of a man is understandably revolutionary - though Chris Pine's Steve Trevor is certainly not the only man many of the Amazons have ever met, they've done some living - but Jenkins continues to keep her focus on the women at the center of the story and how their bonds are tested by the interloper, instead of automatically moving the focus of the film to Diana and Steve's blossoming interest (there will be time for that later).

Once Diana leaves the hidden island of Themyscira, the Bechdel continues to prove out: She forms a quick bond with Steve's secretary Etta Candy (a divine Lucy Davis), and the pair talk about fashion, function, and just where the hell a warrior lady can stick her most important weapons while still dressing appropriately for a chilly London. Diana's eventual band of rogue fighters may be decidedly male-dominated, but she's already proven herself to be the kind of hero who can bond with just about anyone over anything, including other similarly compelling female characters.

3. "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"

There's a scene about halfway through Rian Johnson's first foray into the "Star Wars" universe that's both revolutionary and dead simple: a circle of women, soldiers and warriors all, circled around a dazed Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), handily discussing how they're going to tackle their latest military offensive. While "Star Wars" has always featured strong women - Carrie Fisher's princess-turned-general Leia is the obvious prototype - Johnson's film integrates them into all aspects of the story, particularly when it comes to making sure they're fully present in both the Resistance and the First Order (look around those starships, women are everywhere). The rebels boast female fighters like Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), her sister Paige, pilot Tallie Lintra, and Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern), and the film hinges on a changing of the guard between Leia and Amilyn, the Resistance's two top-ranking soldiers.

4. "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2"

James Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" is a family affair, building its action around an unexpected reunion between Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and his outsized father, Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell), but the superhero feature also makes room for another fraught familial relationship: the estranged bond between Nebula (Karen Gillan), the purple-skinned, half-cyborg and her green-skinned sister Gamora (Zoe Saldana). The sisters' thorny relationship was framed with some large-scale action in Gunn's 2014 Marvel Cinematic Universe entry. The new film casts it in a different light, one that doesn't hinge on the two of them kicking the crap out of each other in skintight suits (though that happens, too). The pair reunite early in the film, and as the narrative winds on, they are required to be more open and honest with each other - mainly about why Nebula hates Gamora so much, and what kind of future bond the pair could ever hope to have, if any.

5. "Spider-Man: Homecoming"

Chuck Zlotnick

Although Jon Watts' superhero film features a pair of the comic book's most beloved female stars, with Marisa Tomei taking over as Aunt May and Zendaya unleashing a brand new M.J., they don't ever interact, a missed opportunity that will hopefully be rectified in later entries in the web-slinging franchise. The film just barely passes the Bechdel, if only because of a handful of seemingly tossed off interactions, including a brief goodbye between Liz (Laura Harrier) and her mother, and later, Liz and her friend Betty (Angourie Rice) during a truncated farewell in their high school's hallway. It's the barest of minimums.

6. "It"

Brooke Palmer

Here's a conundrum: The blockbuster Stephen King adaptation notoriously follows a group of tweens that includes just a single girl (a breakout Sophia Lillis as Beverly), but does that necessarily keep her from ever interacting with another woman? Incidentally, she does, but depending on your understanding of the scene - an early one that sees a hiding Beverly being bullied by resident mean girl Gretta (Megan Charpentier) - "It" may not pass the Bechdel. We first meet Beverly on the last day of school, sequestered in a bathroom stall, seemingly expecting a daily bullying session care of the vicious Gretta, who is mostly interested in literally trashing her and calling her a slut. The problem, though, is that any rumors about Beverly's supposed promiscuity are just that, rumors, and Gretta might know that. Their interaction is certainly not a positive one, but depending on whether or not the audience thinks that Gretta believes what she's saying, the conversation is either about a man (or boys, or men), or about whatever other issues Gretta might have with Beverly, far outside those she is actually voicing.

7. "Thor: Ragnarok"

Taika Waititi's first big superhero film unspools a pair of wholly new, unexpected, and interesting female characters in the form of Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie and Cate Blanchett's Hela, though they never speak to each other. They also never speak to any other woman in the film, partially due to story constraints (Hela is mostly doing her own thing, Valkyrie has purposely ostracized herself from her normal life, after a tragedy that involved the destruction of the all-lady band of warriors she was part of), partially due to the relatively narrow group of characters that populate the film. It's a prime example of where the Bechdel doesn't tell the full story - these are complex female characters that enhance the film they're in immeasurably - but it's also one that makes us wonder: How hard can it be to find even a brief moment for women to talk to each other? Especially in a movie where plenty of men talk to each other?

8. "Despicable Me 3"

The highest-earning animated film of the year includes a delightful - and unexpectedly heartwarming - subplot about the struggle to be a good stepparent, one that culminates in a number of conversations between earnest stepmom Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig) and her trio of cute stepdaughters. Bonus: the girls also talk a lot about the procurement of a unicorn, which may or may not be male, but ultimately doesn't matter, because it's really a discussion about the power of dreams and imagination. Not so hard, right?

9. "Logan"

Ben Rothstein

Much like "Thor: Ragnarok," the James Mangold film hinges on a compelling female character (Dafne Keen as X-23, AKA Laura) who dominates the action of the film, but like "Spider-Man: Homecoming," gives her the absolute bare minimum of interactions with other women. In scattered scenes, two female employees of the outfit that created Laura speak about an escape plan, and final act sequences unveil more mutants like Laura (including girls), though their conversations are limited and mostly revolve around escaping the clutches of a man (baddie Boyd Holbrook). Although Logan (Hugh Jackman) first discovers Laura because of her self-appointed protector Gabriela Lopez (Elizabeth Rodriguez), the pair never actually speak (one pickle: Laura is mostly mute), and Gabriela is gone long before they can genuinely converse with each other.

Still, Laura is the center of "Logan," a breakout force bundled inside a satisfying narrative, an origin story about the rise of one of the X-Men's most unique superheroines. That's a worthy story for anyone.

10. "The Fate of the Furious"
Ramsey: Tell me we're going to be okay! Letty: We got this!
It's the "Spider-Man: Homecoming" conundrum all over again. Despite having a number of female characters amongst its high-powered ranks, including Charlize Theron as the central villain, the latest "Furious" movie barely gives its women any space to talk to each other about, well, anything. The sole example of named female characters speaking to each other about something that's not a man? Brace yourself.
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It's no surprise that such short shrift treatment of women pushed star Michelle Rodriguez to issue a call to action on her Instagram, where she wrote earlier this year: "I hope they decide to show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one. Or I just might have to say goodbye to a loved franchise. It's been a good ride & Im grateful for the opportunity the fans & studio have provided over the years... One Love."

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Bechdel Test 2017 Breakdown: Which Blockbusters Passed, Failed, and What Needs to Happen Next

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A majority of the year's highest earners passed the test, but the real story is in the details: who these characters are, what they talk about, and what has to change. Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film - past, present, and future.

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All students are required to submit an Oral Proposal by Friday the 24th of July.

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YR10ENG Persuasive Oral Presentation Proposal

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Below is a link to the Plain Speaking Awards for you to have a look at and 3 Youtube clips of powerful persuasive speeches

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An incident that occurred on Melbourne trams over the weekend has triggered an avalanche of backlash across social media and National news.

A group of male students from the independent Catholic boys school St Kevin's College, in the affluent inner suburb of Melbourne were filmed performing an extremely disturbing chant on a tram, that included the lines:

"I wish that all the ladies
Were holes in the road
And if I was a dump truck
I'd fill them with my load"

"I wish that all the ladies
were wives in the ocean
And I was a slipper
And ride them with my motion."

The students were on their way to a Saturday sports event.

On Monday afternoon, the principal of the college released a public statement, saying "I apologise unreservedly for the offensive and inconvenience caused by this group of students."

But while the Principal's swift condemnation is welcome, it must be stressed that this isn't typical teenage behaviour. It's a toxic culture propped up by some of the country's wealthiest, elite male private schools.

The same sort of culture that exists and emboldens men like Donald Trump. A culture which enables a US President to brush off criminal behaviour as 'locker room talk.'

Like I said last year in The Guardian's Op Ed page , there is a link between the particular sort of gendered confidence that is exclusively pertinent in boys' private schools and the men who end up in positions of great power in our society.

There seems to be two very different systems of valuing conduct in our society. One that breeds respect, mutual consent and equality to all humans, regardless of gender. And the one that performs a rigorous adherence to the belief that a woman and her body is a thing that is available, accessible and takeable .

On Twitter, commenters called the Melbourne tram incident "obnoxious", "disgusting", "staggering", "vile."

The principal also said in his five sentence apology statement, "Students upset by the behaviour have already come to me and we have been following through in both a disciplinary and pastoral manner today. We have always and will continue to challenge such poor behaviour and misogynistic attitudes through programs at school and with the co-operation of parents."

But to me, the incident wasn't merely 'obnoxious'. It was violent.

Disgraceful behaviour. It's much more than a sexist chant. https://t.co/O2nJHNlVyW

- Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) October 21, 2019

Let us use that word in its full, broad capacity - the intentional use of power, threatened or actual, against another person, or group.

Patty Kinnersly, the chief executive of domestic violence charity Our Watch "This disturbing behaviour also emphasises the need for respectful relationships education in schools, giving children and young people the skills to reject aggressive behaviour and discrimination, challenge stereotypes and learn about respect.

I am dismayed to learn that even today, the politics of male supremacy continues to be rooted in female sexual objectification.

It's easy to brush away the incident as mere adolescent cruelty. But this cruelty leads to our frightening statistics of gendered domestic violence . It's a cruelty that has a trajectory.

I thought about Jia Tolentino's piece in The New Yorker last year about how men perform for other men in a bid for peer approval. This is a prime example.

When I watched the video of the tram incident, I thought of Lili Loofbourow's words ; "Woman being mistreated exists in a room where the men are performing for each other-using the woman to firm up their own bond."

It's what she calls, 'the cruelty of male bonding', or more precisely, a vigorous performance of heterosexuality.

It concerns me that when boys perform intimacy and solidarity with each other, it seems to often necessitate the degradation of women. This may seem like a harmless chant, but there's a link here to the fact that 90% of the most-viewed pornography videos involve a woman being violently treated.

Dominance and coercion begin with the use of language, and we saw the seeds of violence in this video.

"In high schools, in colleges, at law schools, men perform for one another and ascend to positions of power," Tolentino writes.

Let's hope this incident doesn't simply dissolve amidst the commotion of the daily news cycle but that it instead, reminds us to be wary of the different worlds we operate within, and to protect the version of society that respects all human beings.

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Why the conduct of Melbourne tram boys is more sinister than 'obnoxious'

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An incident that occurred on Melbourne trams over the weekend has triggered an avalanche of backlash across social media and National news.

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Sample speeches

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TOXIC CULTURE

(17:13) Finn McCredie asked: I'm a Year 12 student at an independent boys school where I've witnessed firsthand how a dangerous culture of sexism and misogyny can be promoted. Are boys at single-sex schools being prepared enough for the real world after Year 12, and what can I be doing as a student to be a better ally for women?

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Tonight, from confronting coronavirus to raising standards and securing funding, there are huge challenges facing our schools. Teachers are under pressure, students are underperforming, screens are taking over, and now there are even problem parents to deal with. You've got the questions, now let's get you some answers. Welcome to Q+A.

Hi, there. Good evening. Joining us tonight: she left a top Melbourne grammar school to finish her studies in the public system - Year 12 student Vy Tran; his career spans five decades, and he doesn't mind putting parents back in their box - school principal John Collier; he's been called the Kim Kardashian of maths teaching, yeah, apparently he travelled here on the bus with his students tonight - it's Eddie Woo; dux of her school and a self-described nerd, Shadow Minister for Education, Tanya Plibersek; and he's gone from handing out funding to schools as a Nationals Minister to advising how it should be spent - director of the Gonski Institute, Adrian Piccoli. Please make them all feel welcome.

You can stream us on iview and YouTube, and join in on Facebook, Twitter and the Gram. #QandA is the hashtag. Please wash your hands before you touch any devices. Our first question tonight comes from Harry Sedha.
HARRY SEDHA
Recently we've seen a number of schools shut down for a day in response to the coronavirus threat, allowing time for a containment strategy to come into place. In the coming weeks, if the situation worsens, do you think our high schools are prepared with the knowledge and resources to facilitate online learning for as long as this epidemic lasts? And how might this affect Year 12 students down the line during trials if physical exams at the time are out of the question?
HAMISH MACDONALD
Eddie Woo, are your students panicking yet?
EDDIE WOO, HIGH SCHOOL MATHS TEACHER
I wouldn't say panicking. We're really grateful to have fantastic support around us that means... Even though we know this is in some ways, for this generation of students, quite unprecedented. Harry, it wasn't that long ago that you were in Cherrybrook Technology High School and, you know, thankfully, we have a lot of great support underneath any student who is away, even, you know, coronavirus aside - when they're representing the school, when they're engaged in different excursions. That's one of the great reasons why technology's powerful to help that.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Are you telling students that are in their final year they have to be realistic - maybe things will be disrupted?
EDDIE WOO
Disruption has already begun. I don't live that far from Epping Boys, which, of course, was closed for a short amount of time. So we know that there's real disruption, of course. And, to be fair, this is something which is not new - just the scale of it is a little bit different. When I was going through my HSC, my mum was going through her final year of life, fighting with lung cancer - that was pretty disruptive too. What's really important is that for each of the different cohorts, for each student, we're providing things like technology to support the learning that's happening. And what's really important for every HSC student here to remember is that while, of course, there are really important stakes, this is one milestone among many, and that continued learning, more so than what happens in one particular final exam, that's the part that matters.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Vy, are you worried? Are your friends worried?
VY TRAN, YEAR 12 STUDENT, MAC.ROBERTSON GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL
Personally, I think that we should be putting students' health at first, obviously. But I am a bit worried with, obviously, how is it going to logistically happen? And if schools don't actually have the technology or the funding to actually fund online learning, then what's going to happen to those schools? And we definitely need to consider different ways to actually support them.
HAMISH MACDONALD
John, I know you said to me that there's a range of views within your school about how acutely this needs to be dealt with.
JOHN COLLIER, PRINCIPAL, ST ANDREW'S CATHEDRAL SCHOOL
There is a range. Some people are quite concerned. Some aren't concerned at all. Schools like mine, and I'm sure all schools, are trying to be responsible, to keep up to date with the health warnings, to be agile, but not to overreact. So, in my school, we have a crisis team. We're actually meeting again tomorrow morning. And we're testing our IT systems, because we expect we may need to do online delivery. And if that happens, I think that curriculum authorities will need to look at what latitude they can give to actually put the interests of students first. Because that's what schools are about - we're about looking after our students. So we will get through this, but there may be some disruption along the way, and schools will deal with that as best as they can while looking after their students.
HAMISH MACDONALD
The Chief Medical Officer says they're looking at this 14-day isolation period. Does that duration present schools particularly with a problem? It is a long period of time, and no clear indication of whether it's actually the right length.
JOHN COLLIER
Yes, there's no indication. And because coronavirus is, obviously, a novel virus - it's new - we're responding to the medical situation as that develops. We had a paediatrician in today speaking to our senior students, and the medical profession too is trying to cope with this, to learn as it goes along. So I think it's important to be agile and to support our students as best we can.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Alright. Our next question tonight is a video question from Emma Ritchie in Clayton, Victoria.
EMMA RITCHIE, CLAYTON, VIC
Hi. My name is Emma. I am a teacher, and I and many others I know have been threatened and abused by students and parents. I have read repeatedly in the media that it is the teachers' fault for lower student outcomes, while we stay up late marking and preparing engaging lessons for the kids. We also regularly have people demean our job, and teachers are leaving the profession in large numbers. Do you think that teachers will function better and students will achieve better outcomes if teachers feel safe, supported and respected at work?
HAMISH MACDONALD
John Collier?
JOHN COLLIER
There can only be one answer to that question, and it is that if teachers are supported and valued of course they'll do better, because they're human beings. And this is true in all occupations. And so we need to change the narrative about schools in our society. We actually have world-class schools in Australia. They're called government schools. They're called Catholic schools. They're called independent schools. They're schools in other systems. We know we have world-class schools because our best education academics tell us so - and I'm talking about people like John Hattie, our best-known international education academic. And it doesn't do any good for the media and sometimes politicians to lash schools and pretend that schools are the reason for all of society's ills. Teachers...teachers who...
HAMISH MACDONALD
John, I just want to pick up on the point, though, that Emma made about the abuse that teachers receive, because you sent a newsletter to your school community in 2018, and this is what you said. You said that you're "having to interact with too many parents who have verbally abused, physically threatened or shouted at a staff member." You went on to say, "I am aware some parents, because they are paying fees, see the relationship with teachers as a master/servant relationship, such that they are entitled to make extravagant demands." Why did you do that?
JOHN COLLIER
I did that, ironically, because at St Andrew's Cathedral School there's hardly any problem at all with parents. And I wanted to keep it that way, and so I got onto the front foot. And to my astonishment, my newsletter to these six to eight parents only in my school who were troublesome, after one month, went viral internationally. So it seemed to strike a chord, not just with schools and not just with independent schools, but with government school principals, with local council staff, with health workers, who gave me lots of feedback about the disappearance of much of the civility in society. And I take that to mean that we have a society which has stress, and where people think it's satisfactory to lash out at others. And I was, in effect, standing against that, and I got thanks from France, Brazil, New Zealand. So it seems to be an international issue, particularly across the western world, where people are responding in this way. And I want to say quite clearly that teachers should not be the target. I've been teaching for 48 years. I've been a principal for 30. The number of teachers in any school - government or independent - that I've seen, that aren't trying their hardest, over nearly 50 years, I can count on the fingers of one hand.
HAMISH MACDONALD
OK.
JOHN COLLIER
It is not satisfactory to attack teachers, because the failings are societal - they're not essentially educational.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Tanya Plibersek, problem parents - have you seen them? ARE you one?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION
Well, you'd have to ask my kids' teachers whether I am one. No, I'll answer in two ways. As a parent, I think it's really important to back teachers. And I've got three kids. They're all very different. And I do occasionally get a note home about the behaviour of one or more of my children. And I don't ring the teacher and say, "You're so wrong. You don't understand my child's brilliance." I speak...
HAMISH MACDONALD
But you know there are parents who do do that?
TANYA PLIBERSEK
I know, and it's complete... I think that's wrong. I think you should be reinforcing the standards that the school sets for behaviour at school at home with your kids. But what your questioner was asking about was even one step beyond that - people who are verbally and physically abusive. Never on, never OK. Absolutely 100% not.

But I think it goes to another question as well. A lot of teachers, particularly at the beginning of their careers, say they don't feel well prepared for dealing with kids with behavioural issues in their classroom, or kids with special learning needs in their classroom. And I think making sure that our initial teacher training is strong in that area and that early-career teachers have a lot of support if they've got kids with behavioural issues in their classrooms is so important as well. It's important for the kid's learning, and it's important for the teacher and keeping those teachers in the classroom.
HAMISH MACDONALD
I want...
JOHN COLLIER
Can I come in on the same issue, if I may?
HAMISH MACDONALD
John, if you wouldn't mind just waiting a moment. I want to bring in Dorothy Hoddinott here, because she was the principal of Holroyd High School for 23 years, I think.
DOROTHY HODDINOTT
Yes.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Dorothy, what do you make, having run a school, of John Collier's approach - telling the parents, "Right, this is too much, get back in the box"?
DOROTHY HODDINOTT
I don't think that was an issue in a school like Holroyd, which was a disadvantaged school, where a lot of the parents didn't have any agency anyway in society or in their children's education. A lot of our parents couldn't speak English. And a lot of our parents, because they were refugees, didn't have very much education themselves. That's a...a basic issue for a lot of schools that your parents can't really engage in a powerful way with their children's education because they may have had little education themselves. And they're also quite fearful and respectful of the school in one sense.
HAMISH MACDONALD
So, where does this sense of entitlement about how the school behaves come from?
DOROTHY HODDINOTT
Well, I...I don't know. You'd have... Which school are you talking about?
HAMISH MACDONALD
Well...
DOROTHY HODDINOTT
I think it depends very much. I... There were times when I was very glad that we didn't have many middle-class parents in the school.
HAMISH MACDONALD
(LAUGHS) I think we all caught that look. That's the look of a school principal of 23 years. Vy, I want to hear your take on this, because you and your family have a particular view of how Australia treats teachers.
VY TRAN
Yeah, so, both my parents are Vietnamese refugees, and especially my father, he came when he was my age, which was 17, 18. And he went through life-and-death situations to actually get to Australia.
HAMISH MACDONALD
He came on a boat.
VY TRAN
Yeah, he was a boat refugee. And he and my mother grew up with poverty, especially in Vietnam and especially just learning in Australia first go. And so they understood that education was a way to actually move past socioeconomic disparities and actually build yourself up from poverty. So, I've really grown up with a respect for education, because I know that in a lot of countries in the world, and especially developing countries, they don't have the same opportunities that we do in Australia. And we need to stop taking it for granted, and actually start realising that, yes, there are flaws and we need to reform it, and it has the potential to be a great world-class system. But I think that it really does have to come down to how students view teachers, how teachers themselves view themselves, and also how society views teachers. I do think that students do need to respect the education system. I think that if you don't respect them and you don't engage with the system, then you're not actually learning from it.

And we're so lucky to be in a country like Australia in which we are offered education. And obviously, it's not perfect, but at least we are offered education and an opportunity to go to university. There's a lot of... Like, my parents in Vietnam, you don't... There's only so many people that actually get into university. And it's a tough competition there, and in a lot of countries. And I think, also, teachers also need to be able to see, are they engaged and are they passionate, and are they respecting also the student, and not...and encouraging them to potentially participate in discussions or raise questions, and obviously, not push them to the side and say, "You're just a kid, you don't know anything." Because maybe they have something valuable to actually say. And I think we just need to work on respect in the education system, not just from one demographic, but as a whole in society.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Adrian Piccoli, is that something that, through policy, you can change?
ADRIAN PICCOLI, DIRECTOR OF GONSKI INSTITUTE, UNSW
Human behaviour is very difficult to change through government policy, but what we're seeing...but what we're seeing really in schools is a reflection of what's happening in the other parts of the community.
HAMISH MACDONALD
But come on. We talk about this every week on Q+A. People come and turn up, young people particularly, and say, "Look at what our politicians do in parliament. Look at the way...look at the way they shout at each other."
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Go to weekend sport and have a look at how the referees are talked to. Listen to talkback radio. Listen to the way they talk to people...
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Read Twitter.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
...hundreds of thousands... I...I've turned it off.
HAMISH MACDONALD
(LAUGHS) Or don't. Yeah, don't. Yeah.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
I've turned it off, right, because, I mean, you know, this is a social ill. This is not a school ill. There's no class for being a jerk in school. I mean, kids and parents are bringing this into the school, and they're learning it outside the school. And think it's right - no way should teachers have to put up with that. No-one should put up with that in the workplace, for a start. And I'd...and I'd say, if I was still the Minister for Education, I'd say, you know, when it's appropriate, call the cops.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Mm.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Get the police involved, 'cause no-one in the workplace, no-one actually ever deserves to put up with that kind of behaviour, and there should be absolutely zero tolerance to it. But part of this is the hyper-competitiveness now in schools, right? You know, "My kid needs this in order to get that edge in Year 12," or whatever it is. This hyper-competitiveness throughout our society and our culture. School's an example. Sport's another example.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Do parents expect too much of the school? I know you have an issue with the amount of screen time kids have, and the impact that has on them in the classroom. Is your message in part to parents, "You've actually got to do more"?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yeah. I mean, as a parent of a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old, you know, I'm afraid of what consequences there are for my children and screens. And we're pretty strict. My kids are not great fans of me because we're really strict.
JOHN COLLIER
Good for you.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
I mean, you know, I'm worried about it. I think we have the same knowledge about the impact of screens as we had about cigarette smoking in the '30s. You know, are we going to look back in 50 years' time and say, "Hey, you know what? There were three-year-olds sitting in prams with screens - imagine doing that," the same way we look back at our attitudes towards smoking. You know, Marlboro Man was cool, today Apple is cool. Are we going to...are we going to say in a few decades' time, "Look at the mental health consequences"? I mean, they are significant.

We're doing work at UNSW through the Gonski Institute around screen time and the impact that's having, with some Canadian and researchers from Harvard about the correlation between all these mental health consequences and social consequences, and the rise in screen use, and I've got to say, you know, more work needs to be done, but, you know, it's not looking good. We don't know the ramifications it's having. It's having... You know, it's changing children's minds. It's changing the way their brains operate. And I think the consequences are really serious, and a lot more work needs to be done.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Alright, our next question tonight comes from Finn McBride.
FINN McCREDIE
Hi. I'm a Year 12 student at an independent boys' school. I've witnessed firsthand how a dangerous culture of sexism and misogyny can easily be promoted amongst students. Are boys at same-sex schools being prepared enough for the world outside Year 12, and what can I be doing as a student to be a better ally for women?
HAMISH MACDONALD
Finn McCredie with that question. I made up the surname. Vy, what's your view on that? Is there this sort of toxic masculinity that we hear about, that we've seen in the news?
VY TRAN
Yeah, I definitely think that there is a culture of toxic masculinity, and I think one of the problems we have is that we give them this justification of, "Oh, boys will be boys," you know. Like, "That's just how they are." But we have to understand that the actions that arise are not acceptable. And it's not just about your gender, but it's about actually sometimes the crimes that they commit. So, I'm so tired of hearing, you know, "Oh, it's just like... Just let them be, they'll grow up." But if we don't teach them now that what they're doing is wrong, then we can't actually tackle the problem when they all go out into the workplace and possibly contribute to workplace harassment.

I know, you know, in the news that we see, obviously, in the recent case with the tram chants, that these, usually private school boys, they feel like they have the confidence and that they feel they have the courage... Well, that's a positive word. But they have this audacity to say such things in public. And then we see numerous incidences of sexual assault and sexual harassment of schoolboys showing, you know, their friends nudes without the girl's actual consent, or that they're taking pictures up girls' skirts. And we have to understand that it's not OK.

And I know that I'm lucky ..lucky to have not faced that direct sexual harassment or assault, but there shouldn't be a lucky one. There shouldn't be a fortunate person. A woman shouldn't have to feel like they're unsafe in their own school environment, and I shouldn't have to sit in a class or sit with my peers and think, "There is a girl here that has been sexually harassed or even assaulted."

And we need to start holding these students accountable, and also we need to stop thinking that what we're doing currently is enough, because we see after incident and after incident that what we're doing isn't enough. I think suspensions, personally... You know, on paper, to the school, it might look like a serious consequence, but actually try and think it back to the victim or to the perpetrator. To the perpetrator, potentially a few days off school is, you know, "Hooray, I got school off...days off school, and, you know, I'll just move on from that and I'll just live my life and not actually learn my lesson." And then the victim is sitting there, you know, being traumatised, and is going to impact their entire life. And they're thinking, "How can...how can they just get away with it?" And we need to start holding not only schools but also students accountable for the actions and consequences that they impact upon students.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Adrian, there is a great deal of accountability for public schools, but you want greater accountability for the private schools which receive public funding. Explain.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yeah. Look, I think, you know, there's this whole argument about funding and...
HAMISH MACDONALD
We're going to get to that.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yeah. (CHUCKLES) But I do think that public schools are held...are treated differently to non-government schools, particularly around the issue of accountability. I mean, public schools have to record critical incidents. Non-government schools record them, but they're not necessarily made...made public, whereas in public schools they...they certainly are. And I think, in exchange for public funding, any school that gets public funding - whether they be a public school, a Catholic school, or an independent school - should be under those same rules of accountability and transparency, including how the money should be spent, how the money is allocated, even to non-government schools, particularly within non-government-school systems.
JOHN COLLIER
I'll just come in on that one, Hamish.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Sure, but I just want to pick up on that, because I noted you had mentioned the paperwork that the Catholic school system had to comply with in order to get $800 million worth of funding from your state when you were the education minister. How much paperwork did they have to do?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
That was... It was one page. The page... What I saw, when I asked the department for a brief, was one page. Now, for a $600 million cheque, that's not enough. If you apply for a $30,000 grant for Scouts, you have to do a lot more than that! So, it wasn't about accusing anybody of doing the wrong thing, but the accountability and the transparency needs to be equal. That way, you don't see the incidents...well, less chance of seeing the incidents like we saw in Melbourne where things can happen in some schools, but there's no transparency around... Unless police get involved or somebody finds out about it.
HAMISH MACDONALD
John Collier?
JOHN COLLIER
I don't think it's true that there's a lack of accountability in independent schools. In fact, we are overwhelmed with accountability. We're tied up in red tape and compliance, and I spend much of my time, as do my finance people in an independent school, acquitting reports to government. They're about a whole raft of things - student welfare, curriculum, examinations, funding. We report to NESA in New South Wales. We report to the state government. We report to the federal government. It's simply not the case that we are unaccountable. We are massively accountable.

And I have no problem with accountability. My issue is whether all of the raft of paperwork, which takes teachers away from their primary task of teaching, is actually necessary and justified. And this is a broader issue than what we're discussing right now, because the accountability and compliance requirements affect teachers in all sectors and actually take them away from the front-line tasks of teaching and pastoring students. So, I'm not sure that the benefit from that is proportional to the amount of time spent.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Hamish, do you mind if we go back to Finn's question just for a second? Because he asked two things. "What can we do to change this culture?" And I think we have had some really effective Respectful Relationships programs in schools. I don't think they're widespread enough. It's now in the curriculum, but I reckon, if there's young people in the audience, how many of you feel like you've had effective Respectful Relationships education so far at school? Yeah, like, not a hand's going up in the studio, for those viewers at home. And so I do think, from a very early age, there are great models that teach people about, you know, age-appropriate, how to negotiate respectful relationships, how to have healthy friendships. As time goes on, how to have healthy sexual relationships as well. We need to do better.

I know that the teachers will say, "Oh, God! One more thing in the curriculum." I get that. But this is so fundamental. If it's only being taught at home...at school, and what you're seeing at home is completely contrary to that, then what happens at school isn't going to counteract that. So, we have to go well beyond what's happening in schools to what's happening in families, society, community. Adrian was talking about, before, sporting organisations. Politicians have to lead as well to say that violence and sexism are never OK - not ever, not in any context ever.

But you said...you also said, what can you do to be a better ally? I think the fact you've asked the question has kind of answered that - you obviously already are. But I do have a message for young men. Like, quite often, you will be in a group and things could go one way or the other. You know, someone's vulnerable. Someone's on their own. Someone's about to be bullied. Someone's about to be assaulted, harassed. You have to be the leader in that group. And it's hard, it's embarrassing. People will think you're, you know, straighty 180. Whatever. Be that leader. And that culture change that you do amongst your peers is so much more powerful than me talking about it on television, or your teachers, or your parents even. So, be the leader in your peer group.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Alright, our next question tonight comes from Jim Alchin.
JIM ALCHIN
Culture and tradition are key aspects of St Joseph's College, the school that I attend. How do we ensure that strong traditions stay intact without a backwards culture developing in our schools?
HAMISH MACDONALD
OK, Eddie Woo, I want to put this to you, 'cause you work in the public system, but you are of Christian faith - strongly of Christian faith. What do you think is the value of tradition and faith in the education system?
EDDIE WOO
Mm. Tradition and faith have immense value, and I think it's a wonderful thing that we have diversity within the Australian school system. I think it's one of the great things that we can prize and that we can treasure. You spoke before about the sort of worry about being backwards whilst prizing tradition, and I think it's...while it's not easy to do, it's easy to identify how to avoid that problem, and that's to say, why did these traditions come about? Why does my faith, which is ancient, centuries old...what does it actually stand for, as opposed to things that we say, things that we follow, patterns and rituals that we kind of have lost the meaning of?

I mean, there are modern examples of this as well. I'm delighted, for example, that now, as opposed to when I was at school, it's a standard practice in a New South Wales public school to have an acknowledgement of country, when you can't have a welcome to country. And that's fantastic. We've been far too long in waiting to bring that about. But at the same time - and I've seen it dozens, scores of times - that that itself, even though it is a newer, recognised thing, simply becomes a script that we read off. And even though it's not old within our schools, it's become that same backward-looking... Doesn't have a sense of the meaning of why it's important that we recognise the traditional custodians of the land. So, I think it's about fastening on the meaning of the things that we do. And sometimes that means you have to shatter something old that has lost that meaning, 'cause culture and society are moving in that way. And it takes courage to ask those questions like you did.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Eddie, some of the problems that have been described by both Adrian and Tanya are to do with society as a whole drifting away from principles. I mean, is that something, in your view, that faith can play a role in within the education system?
EDDIE WOO
This is a really interesting question to pose to me, because, as a public school teacher, the mantra of public education is it is free, compulsory and secular. But at the same time, one of the great things about its secularity is that it makes room for people of all faiths, of all belief systems, of all convictions. So, one of the things that I think really matters is that we look at all those different individuals, all the different cultures that make Australia a beautiful place, and we can't deny that.

I know there's been a big conversation around multiculturalism. When I was, you know, at school, when I was your age, this is a conversation which I felt very ill-equipped to actually have, compared to today. We need to be able to make space for that conversation to happen. And this comes back to Finn's question before. Sexism, racism - like I faced when I was younger - this is something which is at the heart of every single human being. It's not new and it's not something which we've moved on from. Every generation needs to learn afresh how to give respect to those with different cultures, those with different identities.
HAMISH MACDONALD
John Collier, this clearly is something that Australia as a whole doesn't have an answer to. And perhaps the themes that he's talking about are playing out more broadly - the contest between tradition and adapting culturally.
JOHN COLLIER
I think the best schools have a respect for tradition, but present an eclectic mix of time-honoured educational success and the best of current research, and that seems to me to be the way to go. And I could be talking about an independent school the way Eddie's just talked about the government sector - that is to say, most independent schools are not enclaves. They represent the same microcosm of society with the same diversity, and even though they may have a particular faith commitment, they show a respect for other commitments and no faith commitment. That's certainly a description of my school, where it is multicultural. And one of the best things that was said to me last year by a departing Year 12 student, as he came across the stage, he said, "Thank you so very much for making me, a Muslim, welcome for these six years in this Anglican school." And I was delighted to hear that, because that's the kind of inclusive approach we need in a multicultural, multi-faith society where we express respect.
HAMISH MACDONALD
How important is discipline?
JOHN COLLIER
Discipline's very important, because, without discipline, we can't have order. And without order, we can't have proper focus on teaching and learning. And that's what teachers do, and that's what school's essentially about, so it matters.
VY TRAN
I think that, yes, there should be a respect towards, you know, the system and discipline, but I also think that that can have potential to be abused, and I think that it's... Sometimes, you have to think, "OK, a teacher might be right, but they're still human and they might be wrong." And we have seen cases where teachers have abused students or, you know, administration has not listened to students. So I think that, while we do have a respect for discipline and we do have to respect kind of order and hierarchy in institutions like schools, that we still engage and listen with the students, because they are ultimately the ones who are impacted the most by this discipline and by rules. And perhaps they have something to give to the table and that they actually have a genuine experience that might impact the way that you look to discipline students.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Can I go to this question? You're on the verge of adulthood, right? And a big part of your education till now has been to teach you to tell the difference between right and wrong - your education at home and your education at school. And I think...I think you could answer your own question when you're confronted with a problem. We see some very positive traditions that bind groups together in a way that is inclusive and healthy, and we see some very negative ones. You only need to look at the hazing rituals at some of the colleges at universities that leave people drunk or in hospital or sexually assaulted or whatever else, to know that that's a tradition, but it's not one that anyone should be continuing. I think equipping people to make their own decisions about what are positive rituals or values in an organisation and what you should be fighting to change, is a really important part of education.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Alright. Our next question tonight comes from Jing Shang.
JING SHANG
My question is for Mr Eddie Woo. When my children moved to Sydney from Shanghai in January 2019, they were disappointed to find out that class math was one or two years behind what they learned in Shanghai. So what do you think needs to be done in Australia to improve the standard of math teaching?
HAMISH MACDONALD
Eddie Woo, that chimes pretty neatly with the PISA result findings - the Programme for International School Assessment - which showed Australian students are now more than 3.5 years behind their Chinese peers when it comes to maths.
EDDIE WOO
Hm. How much time do you have, Jing Shang? There are so many differences between, obviously, the Australian education system as a whole and what's happening in Shanghai. And, you know, we all reference the PISA results Hamish is also telling, because this has been something which we've tracked year on year on year. Every, you know, three or four years, when this comes out. We've seen a fairly consistent trend, and it's absolutely concerning. Action has to be taken.

It's really important to note that there's a huge difference - this is going to the conversation we had before - about the culture of schools and the place of education in Australia, as opposed to a place like Shanghai. For example, when I go to school and when I teach, the number of hours that I actually spend face-to-face with my students versus the number of hours that a teacher from Shanghai spends face-to-face with their students, focused on teaching and learning - vastly different.

And there's also a huge difference in...when we have a look at the numbers on who is actually standing in front of classrooms. I got a mathematics degree when I went to train to become a teacher, and that makes me really fortunate to have had the opportunity, like Vy was talking about, as someone whose parents came to this country so I could have that opportunity.

But it's pretty clear - the data doesn't make any sort of illusion about this - that not every student around Australia gets that same experience. When we have a look in high schools, where we need specialist teachers, as opposed to in primary, where we have generalists, on average, we actually have only about 60% of our students from Year 7 to 10, with a teacher who has a maths degree, who is qualified and has more than just a willingness to teach that subject, someone who has trained to become a maths teacher, over their time there. Now, 60% sounds like a pretty low number. It is, but it actually gets worse than that, because that's over four years.

So I'm eyeballing this - you know, let's say about 200 people here in this room. So you're Year 7 tonight. Of you, 120 of you - putting the line about here - everyone to this side, 120 of you get the maths teacher in Year 7. Good for you. That's nice for Year 7. But that happens again in Year 8, only 60% of that group. And then by Year 9, 60% of that group. By the end of Year 10, after four years, there's only going to be - oh, I'm doing numbers live on air, that's a bad idea - there's only going to be about 27 students in the room, who had a maths teacher all the way through those four years. Why are we surprised that by the time students hit 15, which is when they're assessed on PISA, they're right in the thick of experiencing either fantastic mathematics teaching all that way, or an interrupted experience of that? That accounts for a lot of the differences that we see within the systems.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Adrian Piccoli, over a decade and a half, it's clear the trajectory is down, when it comes to maths specifically. At the same time, we've had all of these reforms - the Gonski reforms, both versions. What have we done wrong?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Well, I think it's important to say that we still have a very good education system in Australia. I mean, we do... It's right to focus on what needs to be improved, but I think it's always important to say the things that we do right. We know how to deliver a world-class education to students in Australia, and we do, just not...as Eddie said, not to every student, and that's the problem. You could drive...
HAMISH MACDONALD
But the line goes directly down.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yeah.
HAMISH MACDONALD
And it's been going down for about 16 years...
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yep.
HAMISH MACDONALD
...according to the PISA results. At the same time as all of these reforms that are supposed to make the system better...
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yeah.
HAMISH MACDONALD
...and which have brought about more funding than ever before.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Well, let's talk about that!
ADRIAN PICCOLI
But the interesting trend also is that it's...every state is trending the same way. Every sector - government, Catholic, independent - are trending the same way. Across just about every demographic. I mean, high-performing students are performing worse. Low performing students are performing worse. I mean, the trend is uniform. When you look at those PISA results in detail, the trend is uniform, which actually says to me there is something more cultural, national, going on here in terms of our performance. Because different states do different things. Different sectors do different things. You might actually think that the trend would be a little bit different - one would be going up, one would be going down. They're all trending in the same direction.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Can I ask you, though, 'cause when you were the Education Minister in New South Wales, you made some really significant cuts, I think it was 2012. $1.7 billion worth of cuts. A total of 1,800 jobs were cut. Do you look at that decision now and think, "Well, yeah, that's why we've ended up with these sorts of results"?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
(LAUGHS) Oh, look, you know, nice try, Hamish!
HAMISH MACDONALD
Seriously, I mean, you must reflect on some of those decisions and ask if part of that is causing this.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Oh, look, not at all. I mean, we made the decisions we had to make at the time. And, actually, we then had the opportunity to actually put it all back, plus more, when we invested, or when we co-invested with the Commonwealth, in Gonski funding. So, New South Wales schools, all sectors - government, independent and Catholic - are far better off funding-wise now than they were eight years ago when all of this happened. So...
HAMISH MACDONALD
But if you take $200 million out of public schooling, as you did...
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Well, we didn't, Hamish.
HAMISH MACDONALD
...it has impacts.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
We didn't. It's all... None of it was inside the school gate, right? None of it was inside the school gate. But then what we were able to do, as a result of the things that we did around, you know, reducing the bureaucracy, etc, we were actually able to co-invest with the Commonwealth, on a two-thirds, one-third basis. We put in a third, Commonwealth put in two-thirds. And all school sectors in New South Wales now are substantially better off than they were eight years ago. Now, had we not done that, we wouldn't have been able to afford to do...make those kinds of investments. But all parts of the New South Wales government at the time made those savings so that we actually could invest it in education, which is what we did.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Can I jump in on the funding question? New South Wales was the first state to sign up to the Gonski reforms. And what happened after that in...
HAMISH MACDONALD
You're talking about the original way...
TANYA PLIBERSEK
The original one.
HAMISH MACDONALD
...introduced by Labor?
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Back in the good old days. Yeah. What happened in 2014, in that first horror budget of Tony Abbott's and Joe Hockey's, was that the signed agreements that all of the...well, most of the states and territories had with the Commonwealth, were thrown out the window, and $30 billion of future funding was taken out of education. So, it's...you know, by all means give Adrian a hard time tonight, but it is telling that the federal Education Minister isn't here tonight to answer the same question about the massive federal government cuts to education.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Can we be clear, though, what you mean by federal government cuts? Because you've been picked up on it a number of times. You went to the last election claiming $14 billion worth of cuts made by this government. But that was actually in comparison to what you were promising.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Yeah. (LAUGHS) No, it's in comparison to what the states and territories signed up for, what they were promised. What... Not... I don't care about the government being promised it, I care about kids being promised it. Schools were expecting this extra funding...
HAMISH MACDONALD
But it wasn't a cut by this government on their own policy. It was a cut as opposed to what you would have introduced.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
So, it was... The first cut in 2014 was $30 billion. And that was the difference over 10 years between what the Liberals funded schools and what they would have got under the signed agreements and arrangements that were already in place under the former Labor government.
HAMISH MACDONALD
John Collier.
JOHN COLLIER
I want to agree with Eddie that there are problems with appropriate teacher supply, and I want to partially agree with Adrian and Tanya. And what I want to say...
HAMISH MACDONALD
You know they're from different sides of politics?
JOHN COLLIER
I do! I do! I want to talk about PISA for a moment, and say that the results in PISA are very stratified, and a simplistic analysis will not cut the mustard. For instance, in PISA, the independent schools in New South Wales were respectively third in the world in the OECD literacy tests, fourth in science, and eighth in mathematics. Now, where's the problem? The problem that we have in Australia is essentially an equity problem. That is to say that students who need support, whether they be in government schools or the poorer Catholic or independent schools, are not getting the government support that they need. And so, funding...funding needs to be targeted, just...not just looked at at a quantum. Further, I'd say we're asking the wrong question about PISA. If people are saying education is failing because there are some PISA score problems, I'm saying you can't measure education by a small sample test of Year 9 students which doesn't actually test the Australian curriculum.
HAMISH MACDONALD
John, I'm just going to interrupt you there because you...you've raised the question of equity, and we've actually got a ton of questions on equity tonight from various students in our audience. We're going to meet a couple of them just now. Ruby, you're in Year 7, I think, at Randwick Girls' High. You look very small sitting down, so do you want to stand up? That'll make this easier. You've seen your own school, but you've also seen other schools, some private schools.
RUBY GREY
Yeah.
HAMISH MACDONALD
How do they compare?
RUBY GREY
Well, the...my school, it's amazing, but there's, like, a lot of cosmetic issues. There's... The whole school is made of concrete, and it's just bare, exposed concrete. There's... A lot of the classrooms are ill-equipped for modern learning, and barely any of them have aircon. But I went to SCEGGS and... Sorry, I wasn't meant to say SCEGGS, but... Anyway...
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Another school.
HAMISH MACDONALD
This is a private school.
RUBY GREY
Yes.
HAMISH MACDONALD
You went to have a look there. How did it compare?
RUBY GREY
It was incredible. Like, the grounds were huge, and It was so beautiful and everything was shiny. They even had, like, a life-size skeleton with, like, organs and everything. And I couldn't understand why schools like that are getting funding over schools like mine.
HAMISH MACDONALD
OK. And you were... Before I leave you, what do you want to be when you grow up?
RUBY GREY
I want to be the prime minister of Australia.
HAMISH MACDONALD
There we go. Emily, would you like to stand up as well? You have moved to Sydney from Griffith in regional New South Wales.
EMILY ADAMSON
I have.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Compare the schooling experience there with the big smoke.
EMILY ADAMSON
What stands out in particular about the comparison in private school schooling here and public school schooling in rural New South Wales is that there is a clear disparity between the resources, the facilities and the outside-of-school educational opportunities. So, for myself, I was unable to access debating competitions because of the area I lived in and because of my location. And so, for me, that raised the question of, not, why did I want to go to a private school, but rather, how can I further my educational opportunities? And it's things like being here tonight and being able to be part of the discussion and debate which prove that rural students are not able to access these things, and despite what's being done in terms of Gonski and Aurora College, which I know was Adrian's initiative, there's still no other rural students here, and I would like to see in the future so many more who are able to attend and able to have these educational opportunities.
HAMISH MACDONALD
OK. And Eloise, do you want to jump up? Obviously, a huge number of questions on this tonight. You're the school captain at Cheltenham.
ELOISE AIKEN
That's right.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Eloise, what's your question?
ELOISE AIKEN
So, I go to a public school, and I see many non-government schools that have Olympic-sized indoor swimming pools and world-class theatres and Baronial-style libraries, and I see that they...they don't need public funding, but I still see them getting a lot of resources and funding from the government. And at the same time, I see schools and public schools like my own that are sometimes not able to give basic learning resources like textbooks because we simply do not have enough. How is this fair? And why are we funding privilege, not educational outcomes?
HAMISH MACDONALD
OK. Adrian Piccoli, I'm going to put this to you. Is this what the Gonski reforms were all about?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Well, the Gonski reports were actually about...were about needs-based funding. So, you know, schools resourcing standard, you know, it's quite technical, but every student gets funded based on...on need. And then, if you had a particular characteristic, a particular disadvantage, characteristic, that...there would be extra funding and then, that funding would go...whichever school you went to. So needs-based funding delivers funding to students who need it. Now, there are existing disparities around this school resourcing standard - who's above it, who's below it - and there are all these transition periods. So, you know, it's... it's complicated.
HAMISH MACDONALD
But...
ADRIAN PICCOLI
So the system has gotten better. It's not fixed.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Before you go on, though... Because the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority says, actually, that over the past decade, public funding to private schools has risen nearly twice as fast as public funding to public schools.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Mm-hm.
HAMISH MACDONALD
That's not quite what you're saying.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Well, I mean, I'm not here to defend the Commonwealth government, either the current one or the previous one. Right? That's not my job here. The New South Wales government that I was a part of, we certainly did increase the amount of money that we spent on public schools. And the reason we signed up to Gonski particularly is because when I saw the numbers, as minister, about which schools would benefit the most, the ones who benefited the most were country schools, regional and remote schools - huge beneficiaries.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Small schools.
ADRIAN PICCOLI
The second-biggest beneficiaries were western and south-western Sydney, and the ones who benefited the least were the ones you would expect to benefit the least. That's why we signed up for it. That's why we took the measures we took - to make sure that we could invest in it. And I think there... Look, funding is not fixed, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is much better than it was 10 years ago. And I've got to say, Simon...Simon Birmingham and Malcolm Turnbull fixed it again, a little bit, by reducing some of the overfunded non-government schools.
HAMISH MACDONALD
This so-called Gonski 2.0? Is that what...?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yeah, they reduced the funding that was going...the overfunding that was going to some non-government schools. So, you know, I've got to give them credit as well. It's far from fixed, but it is an improvement on what it was.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Can I just jump in here for...?
HAMISH MACDONALD
I think Eddie Woo wanted to jump in here.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
It's just about the formula, though. Can I just add something to the formula super quickly?
HAMISH MACDONALD
Sure.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
So, Adrian's described the schooling resource standard, blah, blah, blah. Let's just call that a school's fair funding level, OK? What the Commonwealth government has now done is said that every non-government school, by 2023, will get to 100% or more of their fair funding level, but public schools will only ever get to 95% of their fair funding level. That's in the formula. That's baked in. That...that inequality is now baked in, based on the arrangements that the Commonwealth government's made with the states and territories. That...that's at the heart of the unfairness.
HAMISH MACDONALD
So, to be specific, how would you fix it? How would you change it in government?
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Well, all schools should get to 100% of their fair funding level over time.
HAMISH MACDONALD
And how would you...? Where would you find the money from?
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Well, you have to do these things over time. You have to... At the moment, by 2023, every non-government school will be at 100% or more and no public school will ever get there. No, sorry, 99% of public schools will never get there under this funding model.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Would you change the process through which independent schools are adjusted, because...?
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Well, I'm not going to...I'm not going to make up a funding model on TV on your show tonight.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Sure, but you'd be...but you'd be familiar with the arguments about doing it based on postcodes versus the actual income of the parents?
TANYA PLIBERSEK
But, no... That, actually, is irrelevant to this. I think that's a fairer measure, taking a parent's actual income is a fairer measure, but that's not the question here. The question is, do we get all schools to their fair funding level, or is it that OK public schools never get there under this model?
HAMISH MACDONALD
So... I can't give you a free pass on this. Will you have a policy for fixing that by the next election?
TANYA PLIBERSEK
Well, we've got two years till the next election, and last...our last education policy had $14 billion extra for public schools.
HAMISH MACDONALD
OK. Eddie Woo?
EDDIE WOO
Really briefly, I just think it needs to be added on to this conversation. Because I think that we often get sort of caught in the morass of funding and numbers and just, from that classroom-teacher perspective again... And Adrian knows this - he's from...he's from Griffith. And when I get the opportunity, which is really a privilege for me, to work with teachers in regional, rural and remote areas, it really needs to be said that money on its own doesn't fix the problem, that every school's resource allocation model, which... It's true - for very small schools, and for ones with socio-educational disadvantage, get this extra loading. But when you go out to Griffith, to those teachers who get given lots of money for professional learning, they still can't access it, for at least two reasons.

Number one - they need to get on a plane to come to Sydney or another metropolitan centre, stay there for a night, then come back. So, actually, ironically, we...we have seen this issue with toilet paper recently. For someone like me, who lives in the metro area, it is, when you can get it, so much cheaper to actually access those kinds of resources in the teaching space for professional learning, than someone in a regional area. And then there's the second part, which is that three-day round trip. There isn't a teacher in Griffith to replace that person. So it just needs to be recognised, there's a far more complex picture than just throwing money in different directions. We need to actually knuckle down and see how we're going to address these issues at a personal level.
HAMISH MACDONALD
John?
JOHN COLLIER
I'm very sympathetic to the point of view from the student from Randwick and the student from Cheltenham. I'm a working-class boy by background, I went to government schools as a student, I worked in public sector for 25 years, I was a government school principal, my grandchildren go to government schools, my son-in-law teaches in a government school. My answer to this is that funding needs to be sector-blind, needs-based. That's what Gonski was supposed to be. The problem...the problem is that Gonski has been politicised.

Tanya blames the Abbott government. I'm happy with that, but...but I also...I also blame the Gillard government, because, you see, I was there at the original Gonski release when Gonski asked for $5 billion and the Prime Minister said there's no more money. And so, Gonski was a forlorn figure from the beginning, with his legs cut from under him. And Gonski didn't recognise what Gonski became.

There's a lot of misunderstanding about funding in federalism, which is part of our problem with the buck-passing between states and federal. The federal government basically funds non-government schools and the state government basically funds government schools. That's confusing. If we can actually have needs-based funding without special deals for interest groups, we will be a lot better off in this society.
HAMISH MACDONALD
What do you mean by that?
JOHN COLLIER
I mean that various lobby groups from within education from particular sectors can threaten governments that they will campaign in marginal electorates, and this can influence government policy.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Can you give us an example of that?
JOHN COLLIER
Well, we all know the example, because it's in the public domain. There was a great deal of politicking by Catholic education in Victoria before the last federal election. And the Catholic sector is, perhaps, not as starved of funds as they might have otherwise been. And I think that's in the public domain. And we need to actually fund on the basis of need, and not on the basis of politics.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Vy, what do you make of the...the reasons, the explanations, for this funding disparity?
VY TRAN
I think we're talking quite big, so we're talking about policies and legislations. But we have to listen to students, and the students here have definitely made a great point. And I've witnessed it myself. Mac.Rob is not a private school, we are a government school, and we don't have ovals, we don't have swimming pools. And we have collapsing ceilings. And it's not fair when I go to a debating competition in a really affluent school that has all of these big ovals to the point where they have a separate campus for their sports facilities. And then I look at... Definitely, there's other public schools that are worse off than Mac.Rob, where they don't...they go in mobile classrooms with no air conditioning, with no heating, they're cramped, they don't...can't even run certain subjects because of the amount of funding.

So, why is there still funding going to schools with Olympic-sized, moving decks, or they still have all of these campuses, when they don't need funding, and there's so many other schools, especially the students that have raised their concerns, they actually need the funding? So it's not about, you know, the big... Obviously, it's a big picture, but we have to look at, you know, the certain schools that are actually impacted and what students are saying. It's not enough to say, "Oh, yeah, we're doing enough," when evidently now it's not enough. That there are schools who are suffering, there are schools that are obviously doing well because of how much funding they're getting. And you see it in everywhere.

So, for example, in debating, in DAV, we see a lot of the top, kind of, private all-boys' schools really dominating the rankings, and a lot of the time it's because they can afford these adjudicators and these coaches that can train them and give them resources, and their schools can supply actual classrooms to debate in. And then public schools are actually left without any of that. And th...
HAMISH MACDONALD
Have they come up against you yet, Vy?
VY TRAN
Well... (LAUGHS) But it's just unfair to see, just, schools doing well because they were lucky enough to be born in an affluent family. And the government needs to take care of students actually going to public schools - which is the majority - and see how we can help them instead of just prioritising the rich minority.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Alright.
JOHN COLLIER
Can I have a quick disclaimer?
HAMISH MACDONALD
A quick disclaimer?
JOHN COLLIER
A quick disclaimer. I would love in my independent school - St Andrew's Cathedral School - to have a swimming pool or an oval. We don't have those things. We don't have a tree-lined drive. We don't have a drive. We don't have a tree. So just bear in mind that the average independent school in Australia is not a wealthy school. Most independent schools in Australia have an SES of 103 or less, and so the schools that we're talking about are the top 1% of independent schools. And I understand the point Vy is making, but do not think that's the whole sector, it's certainly not.
HAMISH MACDONALD
John, can I ask you, though, if Australia's four richest schools spent more on new facilities and renovations than the poorest 1,800...
JOHN COLLIER
Yes.
HAMISH MACDONALD
...does that tell you that something about the way public funds are allocated to independent schools is wrong?
JOHN COLLIER
It actually tells you, in essence, how much money those schools can raise. I've looked up the figures, and 1/30 th of the capital works in independent schools are actually funded by government. 1/30 th. The rest is actually raised by parent contributions and by bank loans. So, bear in mind that the schools that we're talking about - the elite schools - get very little government funding. People don't understand there's a sliding scale, and the greater the wealth of the parent community, the less funds schools get. And so some independent schools get very little funds. In my own school, which is, as I say, not a top-tier school, 85% of the funds to run the budget are from parents' fees.
HAMISH MACDONALD
OK.
JOHN COLLIER
And the rest of it is the rest. There's government funds in there, certainly, there's also donations, there's fundraising, there's all kinds of things. So it's not a straightforward picture, as sometimes simplistic media coverage might make us think.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Well, we've given it an hour tonight. I think that's a fair amount. Louise Kuchel has our next question.
LOUISE KUCHEL
Hi. If Australia truly cares to lift education standards and results, focus must be given to all students, not just those who are easy to teach. Students with disabilities represent at least 10% of the student population, and yet they are pushed out of schools via suspensions, bullying, and exclusion, being sent to behaviour schools. Why don't these students matter? Why are they treated this way? And when will this discrimination stop?
HAMISH MACDONALD
And, Louise, can you just share with the panel your experience?
LOUISE KUCHEL
Well, I represent a group of students with ADHD, which is a disability. 7% of the student population have ADHD, and they are experiencing all of these exclusions, suspensions, at alarming rates, and not accessing their education at the same rate as their peers, which is discrimination in education.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Adrian Piccoli?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
Yeah, it's a...it's a really tricky question. Because I think everybody involved in education - teachers, administration - are really focused on...on trying to deliver the best education for all students, and particularly students with disabilities. It's not always easy. Some schools do it better than others - looking at alternative ways to deal with some of the challenges with students with disabilities. I mean, suspension is never really a good solution for any student because, as somebody said before, I mean, just excluding students from school doesn't actually serve their purpose. It gives the school, for whatever reason the suspension occurred, separation from the student. But it's not in the student's best interest.
HAMISH MACDONALD
You've been looking at models all over the world for solving problems right across education systems. Have you seen anywhere that is doing this, getting this particular component of the education system right?
ADRIAN PICCOLI
I think all systems keep working at it. Doesn't matter how good they are. Because it's the nature of people involved in education. They actually are the most caring comm...caring group of people in our community. People don't get into education for the money, they get in it 'cause they love it.
EDDIE WOO
That's definitely true.
JOHN COLLIER
They love children.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Eddie, when you hear an account like that, I mean, do ideas spring to your mind about how this can be done better?
EDDIE WOO
Before ideas spring up, emotions spring up. I mean, it's just...it's heartbreaking to hear, Louise. And I know that Cherrybrook Technology High School - where I teach - it includes so many students with a wide variety of disabilities, and that's really challenging. As Adrian points out, a lot of the teachers who are trying their best still have a long way to go. But, in many ways, you know, we're kind of in the situation of making bricks without straw, a little bit.

I think it's fantastic. We have so much more access now. Even compared to... Like, it was, you know, in the grand scheme of things, a very short amount of time ago - 12 years ago - when I started teaching. We have so much better access to information and relevant details to individual students' learning. And yet, when we think about the 150 students that a regular high school teacher is going to teach, and many actually teach several more than that, it's an enormous challenge, and very little support is often given.

At a school like Cherrybrook, we're really fortunate to have a great learning support team, and student learning support officers who often come into our classes and provide us with that very focused, "Here's what this particular student can really benefit from." But I know that's a benefit that comes largely from scale, and so many schools out there, that particular student learning support officer or learning support teacher, they share with a lot of different schools. That's situation normal across New South Wales. So we have a long way to go in providing that additional support to teachers, who want to, absolutely, do the very best for every student, and just need the knowledge and the time to implement what actually helps.
LOUISE KUCHEL
I can tell you it's not happening. It's not happening in the broader school education community. One in four children with ADHD are suspended from school, on average, four times each. 40% of those are aged 4 to 7 years old. They're tiny children. They're treated like naughty children that no-one wants. The teachers are not equipped. They're not trained, they're not provided with... There is no training for teachers. They're not trained when they're at university.

And so these students are starting school, and the message to them is, "You're bad, you're naughty, you're out." And they're being suspended multiple times. They're going to these behaviour schools, and they're being sent there. And it's not a solution. It's not working.

There are countries where inclusive education does work, and is happening - Canada, Italy. And those students there with autism, ADHD, these, sort of, neurological conditions where they have these behaviours, are able to access an inclusive education where they are wanted, adjusted for, and allowed to access their education without being shunned and pushed out.
HAMISH MACDONALD
We really appreciate your time tonight, Louise.
LOUISE KUCHEL
Thank you.
HAMISH MACDONALD
Thank you very much. Well, that is all we have time for tonight. Would you please thank our wonderful panel: Vy Tran, John Collier, Eddie Woo, Tanya Plibersek, and Adrian Piccoli. And thanks to all of you for turning up so late on a school night.

Next week, we're live in Melbourne, talking about the corona challenge. Is Australia ready to deal with another crisis and its impact on all of us? Join us then.

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Panellists: Tanya Plibersek, Shadow Minister for Education; Adrian Piccoli, Director of Gonski Institute, UNSW and former NSW Education Minister; Eddie Woo, High School Maths Teacher and Internet Sensation; John Collier, Principal, St Andrew's Cathedral School; and Vy Tran, Year 12 student from Mac.Robertson Girls' High School.

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ABC News Australia Talks: Nearly half of Aussie women don't feel safe at night 

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ABC News Australia Talks: Nearly half of Aussie women don't feel safe at night 

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Australia Talks: Nearly half of Aussie women don't feel safe at night | ABC News

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It is easy to blame parents when their teenage sons are caught making derogatory remarks about women, or taking photographs up girls' skirts. But if students attend a school where most of their peers behave in the same way, largely permitted by the school culture, it is not as simple as pointing the finger at mum and dad.

Four Corners exposed in detail last week the "incredibly sexist environment" at St Kevin's College in Melbourne, where students have reportedly chanted sexist limericks on public transport, rapped about "f---ing" the "bitches" at a sister school and engaged in upskirting. Interviewed for the program, old boy Finley Tobin called for better education for students about respecting women, saying of the sexist chants and toxic culture: "I feel that we should have been given the education to know that that's not OK, and to call it out when it happens."

Students from St Kevin's College were filmed singing a sexist song on a tram.

We cannot ask individual young people and their families to entirely shoulder the responsibility for widespread cultural change. To relegate these issues to the purview of the home essentially reflects the situation we have now, with no, or limited, relationships and sex education - and clearly this model is not working.

The kind of education Tobin was calling for is focused on encouraging young people to come together and consider and interrogate the cultures of their communities. It then equips them with the skills to stand up those cultures if they are rotten. Giving young people these tools should form part of any relationships and sex education program. Such programs must go beyond puberty and condoms on bananas and interrogate the very cultural foundations upon which our rates of sexual violence are built.

There is a community interest in protecting the wellbeing of all young people. This is a systemic issue that demands a systemic response. And we have a duty to act.

Using the school as the chief site for delivery makes sense: it is the easiest way to reach most young people, but it is also easier to ensure consistency, to train those delivering the education and to evaluate it. However, school leadership, administration, policies and corridor culture must embody these lessons too.

Mobilising schools in this intervention is not to silo responsibility there. What I have described so far - teaching children and equipping teachers - are two points on a triangle. The third point is the engagement of parents and care givers. This is the approach taken by the municipal preventative health care organisation in Leiden, Holland, in their implementation of an internationally renowned relationships and sex education program.

Countries like Britain, Ireland and Germany have also drawn together school and home through parent information evenings, the production of resources and materials, and even parent involvement in designing relationships and sex education curricula. Moreover, these initiatives tend to go beyond school and home and mobilise youth groups, sports clubs, online media and the entertainment sector, for a community-wide response to this issue.

Instead of asking who is to blame for this culture, let us ask who is responsible for change. The answer: we all are.
Katrina Marson is a criminal lawyer in the ACT and completed a Churchill Fellowship researching the implementation of relationships and sex education in Europe and North America. Twitter: @katrinaellen_zm

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More to sex education than condoms on bananas

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It is easy to blame parents when their teenage sons are caught making derogatory remarks about women, or taking photographs up girls' skirts. But if students attend a school where most of their peers behave in the same way, largely permitted by the school culture, it is not as simple as pointing the finger at mum and dad.

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The long-held "bro code" - the idea that male loyalty is more important than healthy relationships with girls and women - is now being questioned by many teenage boys.

Some are realising that the tight bond between secondary school boys can become a social straitjacket that brings out the worst in them.

John-Paul Tran, a VCE student at Braybrook College, says there is pressure on boys to adhere to masculine stereotypes. Credit:Joe Armao

While schools increasingly promote equality between genders, the belief that "boys will be boys" is these days more likely to be pushed by parents.

Melbourne students and their teachers have been tackling "toxic masculinity" in the weeks since a group of St Kevin's College boys were filmed making a misogynist chant on a crowded tram last month, generating community outrage and a lot of soul-searching among leaders of private boys' schools.

Illustration: Matt Golding Credit:

And while all the male students The Sunday Age spoke to condemned the St Kevin's boys' actions, they also said challenging the sexist attitudes the story exposed was much harder than identifying them.

John-Paul Tran, a year 11 student at Braybrook College, said he was disappointed when he saw the footage. He wondered what the school had been teaching its boys about gender equality.

"We are a generation that are the leaders of tomorrow and it reflects badly on young people," he said.

But as much as he believes the boys shamed themselves, John-Paul, an executive of Victoria's student representative council, said he could also relate to the social forces that drove the boys to act that way.

"I think one of the causes of why sexism even occurs is the pressure that is put on boys to adhere to masculine stereotypes," he said.

The tight bond between boys also makes it hard to challenge sexist behaviour, for fear of being cast out of the circle of friends.

"I think it's definitely harder for boys or young men to call each other out; it's viewed as weak," John-Paul said.

"If I called someone out for sexism it's kind of like, 'Oh woah, he just dogged his friend out' or, 'he just put his friend under the bus'."

The tight bond between teenage boys can bring out the worst in them, another boy said.

"A lot of the boys in it probably got caught up in that mob mentality of, 'if they're doing it, it's OK for me to be doing it'," said Michael, a year 11 student at Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee, and an incoming member of the SRC executive.

Michael said his school covered the incident in his English class, including analysing news articles about it.

He said he couldn't relate to the "disgusting" behaviour he saw and was taken aback by how many boys were involved.

"It was kind of insane. What happened at this school, that it got to the point where they are basically shouting a tribal chant?" he said.

I think it's definitely harder for boys or young men to call each other out; it's viewed as weak.
John-Paul Tran, VCE student, Braybrook Secondary College

Michael said that by the time they were chanting they would have been so consumed by the desire to be "part of the gang, part of the boys" they would have forgotten about the people around them.

The theme was taken up by Tim Bowden, the headmaster of Trinity Grammar School in Sydney, in an address to year 12 boys several weeks ago that he later published in a recent school newsletter.

Mr Bowden acknowledged the story had raised questions about what students learn at "schools like ours".

"It gave the haters all the ammunition they could possibly need to condemn schools like ours. And it caused lots of people who are not haters - including me - to wonder 'Could that be our school? Could our boys do that?'" Mr Bowden said in his address.

He concluded that it could happen at his school, or any other, unless the boys present showed the courage and leadership to shut it down.

"It would not have been an easy thing to do, I get that," he said. "It is not easy to stand apart from your peers. It is not easy to face mockery and scorn. It is not easy to do, but it is possible."

Mitchell, a year 11 student at Melbourne's Overnewton Anglican Community College, also discussed the issue in his English class, and said he was confident students at his school would challenge such sexist behaviour.

"I questioned what would happen if I said something along these lines and the instant response from my peers was that they would call me out on this and they would take it as far as they can because this behaviour is not OK," he said.

Respect between males and females has been taught in all Victorian schools since 2016, as part of the mandatory Respectful Relationships program, and John-Paul said it was helping to change attitudes, but could be taken further.

"It should be taught from kindergarten, not just in high school," he said.

Adam Carey is Education Editor. He joined The Age in 2007 and has previously covered state politics, transport, general news, the arts and food.

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Schoolboys have their say on putting an end to toxic masculinity

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The long-held "bro code" - the idea that male loyalty is more important than healthy relationships with girls and women - is now being questioned by many teenage boys. Some are realising that the tight bond between secondary school boys can become a social straitjacket that brings out the worst in them.

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I wish that all the ladies
Were holes in the road
And if I were a dump truck
I'd fill them with my load

This little rhyme has been playing itself over and over again in my head these last few days. The video of the St Kevin's boys has everyone talking, with discussion ranging from white male privilege and the culture of private schools, to the demise of Aussie larrikinism.

The only thing I can think about is how poorly timed the boys were. If they had waited a few more years until they were in college at uni, they would have gotten away scot free.

The song, while out of place on a tram, would have felt right at home in our university residencies, a place I'm certain many of those boys will find themselves in a few years. On the campuses where our country's future leaders are finding their feet, they'll find a space where finally, boys are allowed to be boys.

I can speak to this culture first hand. As a previous president of the Macquarie Women's Collective, I received more disclosures of violence and assault than I could count. During the last weeks I spent at my college, I was unable to go to the dining room because there were perpetrators at every table. At one point during my time there, I spoke out about the culture of casual gendered violence and one male student's response scared me so much that I locked myself in my room for a day. Until the day I left, I was always scared of something happening because he knew where I lived.

But don't just take my word for it. Nina Funnell and Anna Hush of End Rape on Campus put together The Red Zone Report at the beginning of last year, detailing instances of sexual violence in colleges and residencies all around Australia.

The 211 page report is filled to the brim with stories of boys only a little older than the ones from St Kevin's.

Boys who masturbate into containers of shampoo or body wash left by girls in bathrooms so that female students will later wash themselves with a mixture of the product and their semen, boys who create Facebook groups called "define statutory: pro-rape, anti-consent", boys who discuss details of a student's rape over the PA system for the college to hear.

If you think the St Kevin's song and these incidents are unrelated, think again. Violence and discrimination exists in a pyramid, with things like "locker room talk" and casual sexism at the bottom, providing the foundations for more violent acts, like cat calling and revenge porn. This in turn supports violence further up the pyramid, like rape and murder. These incidents and the video of the St Kevin's boys bloomed from the same culture, one that demeans women, protects rapists, and ensures that boys and men are always prioritised, no matter what.

Universities and colleges were built on the foundations of colonialism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and ableism, and were created to benefit largely rich, white, able-bodied men. It's these values that are instilled within our country and learnt through our education systems, presenting themselves in our justice systems, boards, offices, and parliaments. It's why we have at least one woman a week dying at the hands of violence, usually by domestic violence.

Over two years ago, the Australian Human Rights Commission released the first report into sexual harassment and sexual assault on Australian university campuses, finding that 1 in 5 students had been sexually harassed at university or a university affiliated event in 2016 alone, while 1.6% of students had been sexually assaulted in the same year. Of those statistics, 87% of those who had been sexually assaulted and 71% of those who had been sexually harassed reported that the perpetrator was male.

If we're truly going to change the violent, sexist culture of Australia, our universities and schools are where we should be looking.

They might be 20-something year old students now, but they'll be the ones making our laws in the decades to come.

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The Chanting St Kevin's Boys Are Australia's Next Leaders, So We Need To Take Notice

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Ever since social media platforms were invented people have debated the risk of their privacy concerns, versus the reward of easily contacting friends and new acquaintances from all over the world. With the rise in social media 'influencers' of apps such as Instagram and Ticktock the line between advertising the entertainment has been increasingly blurred. After the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Scandal in 2018, where it was revealed the data of millions of Facebook users data was illegally harvested for political advertising, many experts around the world have cautioned that social media platforms have too much access to people's private online data. In 2020 a debate about the Chinese government's access to the data of Tiktok users has lead some people to argue it should be banned altogether in Australia.

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TikTok is under scrutiny in Australia for its ties to China, with some of the country's top cyber and national security minds warning the app could potentially be used by Beijing authorities to influence and monitor millions of Australian users.

There are concerns that Chinese-owned app TikTok could be used to monitor users

TikTok has 500 million users worldwide, mostly children and teens

MP Andrew Hastie says TikTok's potential ties to the Chinese Government pose a security risk

The wildly popular app, which boasts half a billion users, is the first Chinese-owned social media platform to seriously crack the western world.

Fergus Ryan, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), warned parents of young users not to be fooled by TikTok's similarities to US-owned platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

"The amount of data that all these apps collect on their users is very concerning," he told 7.30.

"But the key difference between Facebook and Instagram and TikTok is that there really isn't much of a firewall between Chinese tech companies and the Chinese state."

China could use data for 'nefarious purposes'

Like most social media apps, TikTok collects a huge amount of personal information about its users by demanding accessto their phone's camera, microphone, contact list and location using GPS tracking.

Federal MP and chairman of parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, Andrew Hastie, fears that TikTok could be sharing that private information with authorities in Beijing.

"China's National Intelligence Law of 2017 means the Chinese Government can compel businesses to share information with them," he told 7.30.

"So, I doubt if our information is secure when it's owned by Chinese companies."

He believes TikTok poses a potential national security threat to Australia, even though at this stage the app is mostly used by teenagers.

What is TikTok?

The hugely popular social media app you might not have heard of if you're not Gen Z.

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"TikTok is largely used by teenagers but they're our future leaders," Mr Hastie said.

"They're our future political, economic, cultural and military leaders and we need to protect their information long term.

"I certainly don't want my children's data going to a foreign country who might use it for nefarious purposes."

Mr Hastie's warning is backed by Labor MP Tim Watts, who sounded the alarm over TikTok's alleged censorship in a speech to Parliament in December.

Cyber-security experts have told 7.30 the concerns are legitimate and more needs to be done to find out exactly where Australian data is ending up, and what it is being used for.

TikTok users in the dark

Carrie Hobday allowed her 14-year-old daughter Ellen to sign up to TikTok last year.

"I could hear Ellen in her room jumping around and dancing around and I went in and that's what she was doing," she told 7.30.

"I think for her she likes doing acting, so I think it's a creative outlet for her."

The Sydney mother has also downloaded the app to better understand how it works.

But like most parents, Ms Hobday's main concern about TikTok has been who is viewing Ellen's videos, not who owns the app or what it does with her daughter's data.

"It's a concern for me that any of that information would be in anyone's hands, to be honest with you," she said.

"But I didn't know TikTok was a Chinese company, so I guess I hadn't had those thoughts before I found that out."

Chinese ownership not something teens think about

Olivia Plant is one of Australia's most popular TikTokers.

She spends hours a day sharing lip-syncing videos with her 1.4 million followers.

"You can make any videos you want," she told 7.30.

"It can go up to 60 seconds but people usually keep it to 15 seconds.

"You can post comedy videos, relatable videos, cooking videos, anything. And it might do well, it might not, you never really know with TikTok."

Ms Plant said she knew the app was Chinese-owned but that doesn't affect her love of using TikTok.

"It's not something I really think about on there," she told 7.30.

"I don't think anybody, especially around my age group, thinks about it."

Australian Defence Force bans app

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Concerns around the extent of TikTok's artificial intelligence capabilities, including facial recognition, may have contributed to a recent decision by the Australian Defence Force barring the app from use on work devices.

It follows a similar ban by US military forces.

But Mr Hastie is urging the ADF to go even further.

"I think it's a very prudent and wise move that the ADF has banned TikTok," he said.

"And I would go as far as to say, not just work phones or devices but also personal devices.

"The world that we live in now is so much different to what it was during the Cold War.

"Espionage can be conducted on social media platforms. We have to be far more cautious about all these tech platforms."

Not all Australian politicians share the same concerns.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is a regular user of TikTok and has posted videos of both his work and private life.

A spokesman for the Premier said he was unconcerned about his personal data potentially being accessed by a company with possible ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

"We see TikTok as a way of making the work of government more accessible to all Victorians," the statement said.

"Telecommunications security is rightly a matter for the Federal Government and its agencies.

"We have no concerns."

'I wouldn't call it content moderation, I'd call it censorship'

As an expert in Chinese social media, Fergus Ryan has embarked on a year-long study of TikTok and another Chinese-owned app called WeChat, looking into both platforms as potential tools for censorship and surveillance by Beijing authorities.

He is concerned TikTok is restricting, and even deleting, material Beijing doesn't like.

"We've actually had the content moderation guidelines used in TikTok leaked to the media and what those content moderation guidelines show is that TikTok's approach to content moderation is more like what you and I would think is censorship," he said.

Among topics deemed sensitive are the "three Ts": Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan.

"Censorship and propaganda don't have to be done in a very obvious way," Mr Ryan said.

"For example, you don't have to have a video completely deleted for censorship to take place. Instead, they could use something called 'shadow-banning'.

"That means when content is sent out by a user, and they think that their followers have seen it, but in fact, it's not being shown to anyone at all."

There is also anecdotal evidence emerging online of users who have had their videos censored.

In November, TikTok was forced to apologise to a young American woman whose video about the detention of Uyghur Muslims in China went viral before her account was blocked by the app.

In a statement to 7.30, a TikTok spokesperson said it "does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China".

"Earlier this year, we added greater clarity to our Community Guidelines, giving users far more detail around how we define harmful or unsafe content that is not permitted on the platform," the statement said.

TikTok also claimed user data is stored in Singapore and the US, not China. But Mr Ryan said he believed Australian data still ends up in Beijing because that's where the app's engineers are based.

"The app needs to be updated. The app needs to evolve and get better," he said.

"And the people who do that are the engineers.

"It could very well be the case that data is being stored in the United States. But it's highly likely that same data is being accessed by Beijing-based engineers in order to improve the app."

When contacted for comment, the Chinese Embassy said: "As we understand, TikTok operates outside China, it should abide by the local laws."

TikTok to open Sydney office

TikTok is expected to be scrutinised by a new federal parliamentary inquiry later this year.

Proposed by Labor and backed by the Government, it will examine the risk posed to Australia's democracy by foreign interference through social media.

But TikTok and parent company Bytedance appear unperturbed, with plans to open a Sydney office in the near future.

"They're serious about the Australian market, and they really want to increase their business here," Mr Ryan said.

In recent weeks, the company has been advertising for a number of roles within the Sydney office.

One position posted online is for a role titled "Head of Public Policy", with responsibilities that include building and establishing relationships with "local and national policymakers, government authorities and advisors", as well as monitoring "political and social events in Australia".

Mr Ryan said it is not surprising the company is looking to hire what is essentially a lobbyist or government relations officer.

"TikTok has been facing a huge amount of regulatory pushback all around the world, from India to the United States," he said.

"It knows it needs to be able to knock on the right doors here in Canberra, to ensure that it has a viable business tomorrow."

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How much information about you is the Chinese Government accessing through your TikTok account?

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TikTok is under scrutiny in Australia for its ties to China, with some of the country's top cyber and national security minds warning the app could potentially be used by Beijing authorities to influence and monitor millions of Australian users.

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TikTok, WeChat, UC Browser and Shein are among 59 Chinese apps banned in India in response to serious concerns about data security.

"The Ministry of Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India," the Indian government said in a statement.

"The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures."

Both India and China said the other country had intruded on their territory in the Himalayas.

"You may have a local army commander who is a bit more aggressive than others. And then it is easier for tensions to rise."

Chinese app security fears

The ban was issued late last night.

"This move will safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users," the order issued by the Ministry of Information Technology read.

"This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace."

The move was welcomed by the Professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, Brahma Chellaney.

"Chinese mobile app firms and other tech firms are beholden to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) under Chinese law," he tweeted.

"As extensions of the Chinese state, they pose a national security risk."

He called for India to also ban Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE.

There are growing calls in India for a boycott of Chinese goods and investments.

TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms, especially among teenagers and young adults across the world.

The video-sharing platform was launched in Beijing as Douyin in 2012, but was renamed for its worldwide release several years ago.

The app has more than a billion users worldwide, including 200 million in India.

It is the most downloaded app in India at present, and particular TikTok celebrities in the country have tens of millions of followers.

TikTok specialises in making short dance videos.

While TikTok is not directly owned by the Chinese government, it does enforce strict controls on what can be shown on the app.

Content about human rights in China, the Hong Kong protests and Chinese concentration camps for religious minorities are blocked on the app.

TikTok also blocks LGBT-related content in many countries, including videos showing same-sex couples holding hands.

WeChat, another app also banned by India, is a social media platform popular in Australia, particularly among the Chinese-Australian community.

WeChat also has more than a billion active users, though most of them are in China.

Also banned was the popular mobile strategy game Clash of Kings, Weibo, Shareit and Helo.

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India bans TikTok in crackdown on Chinese-controlled social media

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TikTok, WeChat, UC Browser and Shein are among 59 Chinese apps banned in India in response to serious concerns about data security. "The Ministry of Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India," the Indian government said in a statement.

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In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Australia has introduced mandatory 14-day self-isolation for people arriving from overseas. But how will this be enforced?

New South Wales

Under the NSW Public Health Act, anyone who enters Australia from another country will be subject to a 14-day self-isolation quarantine, with fines of up to $11,000 or six months' prison if they do not comply.

"Obviously the NSW government - indeed all governments around the country - are not wanting to impose penalties on people," health minister Brad Hazzard said. "What we're looking for is cooperation."

The order banning mass gatherings of more than 500 people to stem the spread of coronavirus has also been made under the Public Health Act, with fines of up to $55,000 for corporations who breach that ban and $27,500 for each additional day the event continues.
Coronavirus: people not complying with new Australian self-isolation rules could face fines
The order explicitly excludes gatherings including the ordinary operation of a school, university, Tafe and educational college; the ordinary conduct of a court; public transport; and employees attending a workplace. It will remain in place until 14 June.

Victoria

The Victorian government enacted a four-week state of emergency under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008, extending from 12pm Monday to midnight 13 April unless extended.

The state of emergency declaration gives authorised officers, such as police, at the direction of the chief health officer, the power to detain people, restrict movement, prevent entry to premises or provide "any other direction an [authorised officer] considers reasonable to protect public health".

Under the directive signed by the chief health officer, it is an offence for a person arriving from overseas to fail to go into self-isolation for 14 days. People must not leave the premises where they are self-isolating except for the purpose of obtaining medical care or supplies; in any other emergency situation; or in circumstances where it is possible to avoid close contact with other persons. They also cannot allow visitors into their home.

The penalty for failing to comply is a fine of almost $20,000 for individuals and $100,000 for companies.

"We don't anticipate having to be fining people," Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said on Monday. "To this point people have been cooperative."

Flight attendants and citizens or permanent residents of a Pacific Island are exempt.

The same directive bans mass gatherings of more than 500 people, exempting schools, airports, public transport, markets, workplaces, courts, prisons and youth justice facilities, parliament and public places where people are moving through, such as Bourke Street Mall and Federation Square.

Andrews said the powers could be extended to include the lockdown of whole suburbs.

Queensland

People arriving in Queensland from overseas will be issued with a notice requesting them to voluntarily self-isolate for 14 days. If they breach that notice, the Queensland government says it will "initially work closely with the person to ensure they not only understand their obligations, but also the importance and seriousness of self-quarantine under the current global circumstances".

If that fails, the notice is enforceable under the Public Health Act 2005 with fines of up to $13,345.

Queensland has been in a state of emergency since late January and can use those powers to enforce compliance if necessary - but it has repeatedly stated that it is aiming for willing community cooperation.

Australian Capital Territory

The ACT declared a public health emergency on Monday in response to Covid-19, which gives the chief health officer powers to enforce quarantine provisions, to order the evacuations of public areas, to restrict access to an area, and even to force someone to undergo medical examination.

Under those powers, anyone who breaches the order for travellers to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival in Australia could face a $8,000 fine, under the Public Health Act 1997.

Mass gatherings will be policed under the same legislation.

Western Australia

Western Australian invoked powers under the Emergency Management Act at midnight on Sunday to enforce self-isolation requirements.

Under the act, travellers who breach the 14-day self-isolation order are liable for a $50,000 fine or possible jail time.

The ban against mass gatherings is enforced under the same legislation, with the same penalty to apply.

Northern Territory

Self-isolation requirements will be enforced under the Notifiable Diseases Act, which carries penalties of $1,256 or six months' prison for breaching a public health order.

Di Stevens, the acting chief health officer, said she expected the community would monitor and police each other to ensure isolation orders were followed.

Mass gatherings of more than 500 people have been banned under the Public and Environmental Health Act.

That does not include schools, universities, public transport or attending the Darwin markets, chief minister Michael Gunner said.

Travel to remote communities for everyone but essential services, supply runs and maintenance runs has also been banned. Gunner said people in remote communities were not being "left alone" during the coronavirus outbreak and would have everything they needed to be healthy and safe.

"To protect you, we are keeping nonessential people away from you," he said. "If you don't need to travel out of your community, then don't. Just like the rest of us you are safer in your home community."

Australian leaders consider ban on groups of more than 100 to try to halt coronavirus

South Australia

South Australia declared a public health emergency on Sunday. Premier Steven Marshall told AAP the declaration would allow public health officers to take "all the necessary actions required to keep the people of South Australia as safe as we possibly can".

The SA parliament this month passed new laws giving public health officers greater powers to order a person to self-isolate, be detained in a particular place or agree to medical testing.

Failure to comply with orders under the revised Public Health Act 2011 carries a maximum fine of $25,000.

Tasmania

Tasmania was the first state to ban cruise ships from coming into port, and introduced measures banning mass gatherings of more than 500 people, and requiring travellers to self-isolate for 14 days, from midnight on Sunday.

Under the Public Health Act in Tasmania, the maximum fine for breaching an order to self-isolate is $8,400.

The ban on mass gatherings does not include markets, like Hobart's Salamanca market, on the justification that those events involve people moving through and are therefore unlikely to result in someone having sustained close contact with a stranger. However school fetes and assemblies have been banned.
Topics

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How Australia will enforce coronavirus self-isolation rules for overseas arrivals

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In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Australia has introduced mandatory 14-day self-isolation for people arriving from overseas. But how will this be enforced? Under the NSW Public Health Act, anyone who enters Australia from another country will be subject to a 14-day self-isolation quarantine, with fines of up to $11,000 or six months' prison if they do not comply.

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Australian Human Rights Commission Covid 19 Website

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Australian Human Rights Commission Covid 19 Website

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Although the courts can exonerate people suffering from mental illness, they cannot always decipher the extent, the effects or even the validity of the defence. Are we excusing people too freely from criminal responsibility, or is the legal system failing those who need it most? Lynne Malcolm and Olivia Willis report.
For most Australians, it's hard to forget the tragic case of Darcey Freeman, the four-year-old girl thrown off the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne by her own father in 2009.

Australians were united in their grief over Darcey's senseless death, but also in their anger at her father, Arthur Freeman, who was quickly labelled a 'monstrous' and 'remorseless' killer, to whom the law should show no mercy.

A substantial part of Freeman's defence was that he was mentally ill at the time of the offense, but his plea was not accepted and he was sentenced to life in prison with a 32 year minimum sentence period.

Though Freeman's argument was unsuccessful, the case raised an interesting question: how could a completely sane person possibly throw their child off a bridge?

At the same time, publicity also elevated the public's demand for justice-the idea of somehow excusing Freeman because he may have been depressed was not well received by the public or the courts.

In Australia, the law of 'mental impairment' broadly states that to establish a defence on the grounds of insanity, it must be clearly proven that at the time of committing the act, the accused's state of mind meant that they did not know what they were doing, or if they did, that it was wrong.

'I was always interested in why we tend to associate mental disorders to extreme cases of violence and why we tend to explain them in disorders of the mind, rather than perhaps disorders of character,' says Meron Wondemaghan, a criminologist based in London with a research interest in how mental disorders can be used to mitigate culpability.

In her paper Depressed but not legally impaired Wondemaghan explores this distinction between psychotic disorders and symptoms of depression, and examines how these illnesses are viewed differently in the legal system- despite the fact that both are known to cause mental impairment.

The criminologist uses the case of Donna Fitchett to explore how depression influences guilt through the eyes of the law.

'Fitchett is a mother who killed her sons in 2005, having decided that she was going to commit suicide because she felt that she could no longer continue living,' says Wondemaghan.

'She decided to kill her sons first and then commit suicide, because in her mind, leaving the children with their father or extended family would mean they wouldn't be adequately cared for.'

As a nurse, Fitchett was able to obtain benzodiazepine sleeping pills to drug both her children. However, when the drugs didn't take effect in the way she had anticipated, Fitchett suffocated one child before strangling the other.

It later became clear that in the days leading up the killings, Fitchett had sent a letter to her psychologist, said goodbye to some friends, and cleaned out her children's closet, all of which indicated that she had carefully planned their murder.

The prosecution used the premeditated nature of the killings as evidence to argue spousal revenge-that Fitchett killed her sons to punish her husband for their unsatisfactory marriage-and that she should therefore be found guilty on two counts of murder.

'The defence, on the other hand, argued that even though Donna Fitchett planned to kill her children and knew she was killing [them], the problem [was] the reasoning behind her actions. She didn't know her conduct was wrong, because in her mind she was doing the right thing for the children,' says Wondemaghan.

'Fitchett explained her actions to emergency personnel as an act of love and a necessary act, to move the children to a safer, more peaceful place where no one could hurt them.'

The defence used these rationalisations to argue Fitchett's mental impairment on the basis of severe depression, but in the end the jury rejected the defence, and instead found that her depression did not negate her criminal responsibility.

'I think this and other cases show us that even though in theory one doesn't need to be diagnosed with a specific type of mental illness to employ the [mental impairment] defence successfully, in practice I would argue that the diagnostic label matters,' says Wondemaghan.

'[Depression] doesn't seem to fit the legal tests for mental impairment, and I also think it's less persuasive for jurors in terms of inducing a state such that one doesn't know the difference between right and wrong or one doesn't know what they are doing. So it's very problematic to use it to satisfy the criteria of the defence.'
Listen: Intellectually impaired behind bars
Here, Wondemaghan raises an important point. The interface between mental impairment and the legal system can become conflicted when psychiatric and legal constructs don't match up.

'From a psychiatric perspective, depression can be a debilitating condition and it can lead to disorganisation of thought and irrational thinking. From a legal perspective, it doesn't seem to meet the legal test for mental impairment.'

Gary Banks, a clinical psychologist and member of the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences, also faces contrasting paradigms when working in courts and the mental health system.

Banks provides clinical evaluations to assess if alleged offenders with possible mental impairment are fit to stand trial.

'I'm not there to determine guilt or innocence, I'm there to assist the judge be able to ensure that firstly the person is capable of understanding the process, so that natural justice is served,' he says.

Banks has found that the law treats his clinical assessments and its tests of moral reasoning too differently to achieve an accurate overall picture.

'There's actually no overlap of that moral reasoning capability. My argument and that of my colleague [is] that we, as clinicians, can actually provide a more robust assessment for the court that addresses both factors better.'

Banks has worked on developing an alternative framework for the evaluation of criminal responsibility in defendants with intellectual disabilities and cognitive impairment.

'It's simply marrying the critical elements out of both paradigms, if you like, such that the court can then reach for a better understanding of the defendant who is appearing before them,' says Banks.

However, just as thorough assessments must be afforded to those suffering mental impairment, the courts also need to provide vigorous analysis to ensure the legitimacy of a defendants' pleas.

Whilst it's important not to add to the stigma surrounding mental illness, suggestions are sometimes made that using a mental illness like depression as a defence can be seeing as trying for a 'free pass', or that symptoms can be made up or exaggerated.

Dr Jacqui Yoxall is a clinical psychologist and academic at Southern Cross University, and has a particular interest in detecting people who fake psychological disorders in the legal system.

'We've become increasingly skilled at using a range of different strategies to determine when it appears that we have a genuine presentation ... or when we think there is enough evidence that we can raise that question about the validity,' says Yoxall.

While Yoxall is forbidden from discussing the strategies people use to successfully feign mental illness for ethical reasons, she explains that most literature tends to focus on people simulating overt symptoms like psychosis or PTSD, rather than more common illnesses like depression.

'You could argue it's a different process to feign depression or anxiety than it would be to feign a psychotic illness. How often people feign depression versus other illnesses we are not particularly sure, but there's certainly a few good arguments as to why that could be... preferred, if you like.'

Yoxall says that it's possible to be coached to fake a mental illness, but whether coaching makes detection less likely is not clear.

She says their ability to detect people faking illness is 'pretty good', but that it's always challenging.

'The last thing I want to do is to perpetuate a stigma, either of people imagining things or it not being real,' says Yoxall. 'If we get better at knowing when it's there and when it's not, my hope is that that improves and clarifies that perspective that it is easy to fake depression.'

At the end of the day, if the defence of mental illness is successful in a legal case, the offender is not necessarily free of the system.

Dr Lorana Bartels, associate professor in the School of Law and Justice at the University of Canberra, explains that following a trial, people who successfully argue mental impairement become known as 'forensic patients'. Their situation is then reviewed by a tribunal that determines whether the person should be released into the community, and if so under what conditions.

'At one extreme, they might find that they are not a harm to themselves or others and they can be in the community, perhaps on the condition that they take, say, their antipsychotic medication,' says Bartels.

'But there might be some people who, because their mental illness is so profound and severe, cannot really be safely released, and they will be detained indefinitely in a forensic facility.'

Interestingly, Bartels says the possibility of indefinite detention prompts some lawyers to avoid using the so-called mental illness defence, and opting instead to have their client's mental illness simply taken into account as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

'There are many conditions that I believe can be safely managed, but there are some people who, if their mental illness is very serious, may be detained forever-even though they are actually found not guilty by law.'
If you or somebody you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Listen to the full episode of All in the Mind to hear more about mental impairment as a defence in the court of law.

An exploration of all things mental, All in the Mind is about the brain and behaviour, and the fascinating connections between them.

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A plea of insanity: mental illness and the criminal justice system

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Although the courts can exonerate people suffering from mental illness, they cannot always decipher the extent, the effects or even the validity of the defence. Are we excusing people too freely from criminal responsibility, or is the legal system failing those who need it most? Lynne Malcolm and Olivia Willis report.

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Social media users' concerns about their privacy have spiked in recent years. Incidents of data breaches have alarmed many users and forced them to rethink their relationships to social media and the security of their personal information. The dramatic story of the consulting agency Cambridge Analytica is a case in point. The firm exploited the private information of over 50 million Facebook users to influence the 2016 American presidential election. This example and others have steadily deteriorated public trust and resulted in many users wondering if they have lost control over their own data. According to a study conducted by the Pew Trust, 80 percent of social media users report being concerned about businesses and advertisers accessing and using their social media posts. These growing privacy concerns have prompted advocacy for tighter regulations. In addition, they have placed companies responsible for safeguarding personal data under greater scrutiny.

Given today's social media privacy issues and concerns, skilled cybersecurity professionals will play a vital role in protecting social media users' data and personal information. Those interested in gaining the expertise needed to launch a career in cybersecurity would do well to consider earning an advanced degree in cybersecurity management.

Learn More About a Master in Cybersecurity Management

Understanding Social Media Privacy Issues

What are social media users worried about? Are their concerns justified? Typically, these concerns stem from the ubiquitous presence of social media in people's lives. Forty-five percent of the world's population uses social networks. That means a staggering 3.48 billion people connect to some form of social media, according to data collected by Hootesuite. These connections can leave users vulnerable in several ways. When personal information falls into the wrong hands, the consequences can be damaging. According to the Pew Trust, 13 percent of Americans have had their social media accounts taken over by an unauthorized user. Such hacks can result in stolen information and forced shares that redirect followers to malware, among other things. In general, social media platforms, which collect and store huge amounts of personal information with limited governmental oversight, serve as attractive targets for bad actors seeking to use that data to perpetrate fraud and theft.

Another rising concern, exacerbated by Cambridge Analytica's breach of Facebook data, centers on how bad actors access private data from social media platforms and elsewhere and use it to manipulate opinions for the benefit of a few. For example, the Russian operation Internet Research Agency is accused of interfering in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 by using social media to spread disinformation that stirred up conflict and distrust.

Threats to Privacy on Social Media

Criminals are adept at tricking social media users into handing over sensitive information, stealing personal data, and gaining access to accounts users consider private. Following are typical social media threats.

Data Mining
Everyone leaves a data trail behind on the internet. Every time someone creates a new social media account, they provide personal information that can include their name, birthdate, geographic location, and personal interests. In addition, companies collect data on user behaviors: when, where, and how users interact with their platform. All of this data is stored and leveraged by companies to better target advertising to their users. Sometimes, companies share users' data with third-party entities, often without users' knowledge or consent.

Phishing Attempts
Phishing is one of the most common ways criminals attempt to gain access to sensitive personal information. Often in the form of an email, a text message, or a phone call, a phishing attack presents itself as a message from a legitimate organization. These messages trick people into sharing sensitive data, including passwords, banking information, or credit card details. Phishing attacks often pose as social media platforms. In August 2019, a massive phishing campaign targeted Instagram users by posing as a two-factor authentication system, prompting users to log in to a false Instagram page.

Malware Sharing
Malware (malicious software) is designed to gain access to computers and the data they contain. Once malware has infiltrated a user's computer, it can be used to steal sensitive information (spyware), extort money (ransomware), or profit from forced advertising (adware). Social media platforms are an ideal delivery system for malware distributors. Once an account has been compromised (often by obtaining passwords through a phishing attack), cybercriminals can take over that account to distribute malware to all of the user's friends or contacts.

Botnet Attacks
Social media bots are automated accounts that create posts or automatically follow new people whenever a certain term is mentioned. A large group of bots can form a network known as a botnet. Bots and botnets are prevalent on social media and are used to steal data, send spam, and launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that help cybercriminals gain access to people's devices and networks.

Social Media Privacy Issues in 2020

The attacks outlined above will continue to pose privacy threats in 2020. In fact, as the 2020 presidential election draws near, these attacks will likely increase. Earlier this year, Politico reported that wide-ranging disinformation campaigns aimed at Democratic candidates had already begun. Attackers employing the same tactics as the trolls from Internet Research Agency are now using social media data to wage a disinformation "war" designed to confuse and polarize Americans. The cyber-propaganda is often disseminated via bot accounts, which use mined data to target preferred audiences. The full impact of social media attacks on the 2020 state, federal, and presidential elections is hard to predict.

Become an Expert in Cybersecurity

The importance of comprehensively addressing social media privacy issues cannot be underestimated. The challenge calls for skilled experts. Going to the next level in cybersecurity management requires the right training from top professionals knowledgeable in the field. Learn more about how Tulane University's Online Master of Professional Studies in Cybersecurity Management prepares graduates to tackle today's serious cybersecurity challenges.

Sources:
Brennan Center for Justice, "Limiting Foreign Meddling in U.S. Campaigns"
Brennan Center for Justice, "Social Media Monitoring"
EO, "How Social Media Networks Facilitate Identity Theft and Fraud"
Forbes, "Instagram Security Warning: Millions at Risk From 'Believable' New Phishing Attack"
Hootsuite, 130+ Social Media Statistics That Matter to Marketers in 2019
The New York Times, "Big Tech Companies Meeting With U.S. Officials on 2020 Election Security"
The New York Times, "How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions"
Norton, What Is Malware and How Can We Prevent It?
Pew Research Center, "Americans and Cybersecurity"
Pocket-lint, "7 Biggest Privacy Threats Online"
Politico, "'Sustained and Ongoing' Disinformation Assault Targets Dem Presidential Candidates"
Tripwire, "What Happens to Hacked Social Media Accounts"
Webroot, "Social Media Malware Is Deviant, Destructive"

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Social Media Privacy Issues for 2020: Threats & Risks

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Social media users' concerns about their privacy have spiked in recent years. Incidents of data breaches have alarmed many users and forced them to rethink their relationships to social media and the security of their personal information. The dramatic story of the consulting agency Cambridge Analytica is a case in point.

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An Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is not the same as Mental Health concerns, however, it may provide another outlook on the topic.

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We recently made a submission to the Centre for Innovative Justice's Enabling Justice Project Consultation Paper: People living with an acquired brain injury (ABI) using their experiences of the criminal justice system to achieve systemic change.

The submission will help shape change for people with an acquired brain injury to ensure they do not become lost within the criminal justice system.

Currently, people with an acquired brain injury are within the top 1.2 per cent of high-contact users of our services and we support the development of innovative approaches to reduce the likelihood of them becoming involved in criminal offending.

Over a ten-year period (between 2003 and 2013), 11 per cent of our high-contact users identified as having an acquired brain injury, compared with five per cent of our other service users. Sixty-seven per cent of our high-contact users had their first contact with us for a criminal law matter.

In 2015-16, we provided over 3,000 legal services to over 960 unique clients who advised us that they had an acquired brain injury. This included over 930 grants of legal assistance for staff and private lawyers to conduct intensive legal casework. However, these numbers are conservative given many people do not disclose their acquired brain injury or are undiagnosed.

Read our submission

Read our submission to the Enabling Justice Project Consultation Paper.

About the project

The Centre for Innovative Justice at RMIT, together with Jesuit Social Services, have been undertaking a three-year project Enabling Justice. This collaboration is about exploring ways to reduce the over-incarceration of people with an acquired brain injury. People with an acquired brain injury, who have had direct experience of the criminal justice system and imprisonment, will be at the centre of the discussion.

How we can help

Find out how you can get help with criminal offences.

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Submission to protect people living with an acquired brain injury

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We recently made a submission to the Centre for Innovative Justice's Enabling Justice Project Consultation Paper: People living with an acquired brain injury (ABI) using their experiences of the criminal justice system to achieve systemic change. The submission will help shape change for people with an acquired brain injury to ensure they do not become lost within the criminal justice system.

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The Conversation - Mental Health Affecting Sentencing

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The Conversation - Mental Health Affecting Sentencing

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Just last week, the Victorian Court of Appeal significantly reduced the sentence given to Akon Guode, a mother who killed three of her children after driving her car into a lake in Melbourne. The main reason for the 8½ year sentence reduction was that the trial judge had not sufficiently taken Guode's major depression into account.

While the circumstances of this offence were unusual, it is common for offenders to have mental health problems. Surveys have shown that almost half of Australian prison entrants report being affected by a mental disorder. With that in mind, how are mental health issues taken into account during the criminal justice process?

In rare cases, people with mental health problems may be found unfit to stand trial, or not guilty due to their mental impairment. However, in most cases, people with mental health problems will stand trial (or plead guilty) in the ordinary way and if convicted, they will face the normal sentencing process.

Where this happens, the sentencing judge must decide whether to take the offender's mental health problems into account. There will be a sentencing hearing, in which evidence of the offender's mental health condition will be presented. The judge must consider this evidence, as well as the relevant sentencing principles, in reaching a verdict.

Around Australia, the sentencing principles in this area are known as the Verdins principles. These principles state that a mental impairment may affect a sentence in six ways:

1. It may reduce an offender's "moral culpability" or blameworthiness for the offence.

This will only be the case where there was a link between the mental health condition and the offence. For example, the condition may have impaired the offender's ability to think clearly about the offending behaviour. In such circumstances, there is less need to denounce the relevant conduct or to punish the perpetrator as harshly.

2. A mental impairment may affect the kind of sentence that is imposed or its conditions.

For example, it may provide a reason for suspending an offender's sentence, or for requiring an offender to get treatment.

3. The offender's mental health condition may make him or her an unsuitable vehicle for sending a deterrent message to the community.

One circumstance in which this may be the case is where the offender's condition is likely to attract community sympathy.

4. The offender's mental impairment may make it inappropriate to send him or her a deterrent message.

One example of this is where the offender has an impaired capacity to learn from the court's statements.

5. An offender's mental health condition may result in punishment weighing more heavily on him or her than it would on a person in normal health.

This provides a reason for reducing the level of punishment.

6. There may be a serious risk that imprisonment would cause a deterioration in the offender's mental health.

This also provides a basis for imposing a more lenient sanction.

While not included in the Verdins principles, mental health problems may also affect an offender's perceived prospects for rehabilitation. This will often depend on whether the relevant condition is considered treatable.

Each of these principles is mitigating - they point towards a more lenient sentence being given. However, it is also possible for a mental health condition to point towards the need for a more severe sentence. This will be the case where the community is seen to require protection from the offender due to that condition. For example, the offender's condition may be considered untreatable, and his or her criminal behaviour unlikely to change as a result.

It will sometimes be the case that an offender's mental health condition will provide reasons for both reducing and increasing an offender's sentence. In such cases, the judge will need to balance all of the conflicting considerations and determine the most appropriate sentence.

The Verdins principles applies to any kind of mental disorder or abnormality, and have been used for offenders suffering from many different conditions including schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder.

In some cases, there does not even need to be a diagnosed mental illness. What matters is how the condition affected the offender at the time of the offending, or is likely to affect him or her in the future. However, it is important to note that the principles do not apply to paedophilia or personality disorders.

Some concern has been expressed about how frequently the Verdins principles are raised in sentencing hearings. However, the courts have been careful to ensure the principles are only applied after careful scrutiny of the evidence.

Ultimately, if a person with mental health problems is sent to prison, there should be treatment available to them. All Australian jurisdictions have in-reach mental health services in their prisons that are similar to the government mental health services that exist in the community. There are also dedicated forensic mental health hospitals that acutely ill prisoners can be transferred into, such as the Thomas Embling Hospital in Victoria.

Courts have noted that sentencing offenders with mental health problems is inevitably difficult. Many different sentencing considerations must be taken into account, some of which pull in different directions. While perhaps not perfect, the Verdins principles currently provide the most nuanced approach to this complex issue that needs to be tackled fairly and with sensitivity.

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Explainer: How does mental illness affect sentencing?

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Just last week, the Victorian Court of Appeal significantly reduced the sentence given to Akon Guode, a mother who killed three of her children after driving her car into a lake in Melbourne. The main reason for the 8½ year sentence reduction was that the trial judge had not sufficiently taken Guode's major depression into account.

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TikTok has been booming in popularity, and brands are eager to get in front of its engaged audiences.

"In the past two months, there hasn't been a platform we've talked about more than TikTok," said Scott Harkey, founder and managing partner of advertising agency OH Partners. "It is clearly, I think, the most talked-about ad platform in the business."

However, some advertising agencies and brands are concerned its terms and conditions will allow it to share personal information with its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

Several agencies, who asked not to be named because of non-disclosure agreements and ongoing negotiations, said they are worried about data being passed along to ByteDance, and then potentially the Chinese government.

One agency, in particular, has flagged language in the "TikTok for Business" terms and conditions that allow personally identifiable information like email addresses or device IDs to be shared with not only the U.S.-based TikTok operations but ByteDance as well. Cheddar has seen some of the language in question and also has noted that any questions regarding policy must be sent to a Bytedance email address, not TikTok.

Other companies, including Microsoft, are not allowed to advertise on the platform because its lawyers are questioning the terms and conditions around the collection of personal data, according to a source with knowledge of the company's operations. Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.

"Protecting the privacy of our users' data is of the utmost importance to TikTok," a spokesperson for TikTok said in a statement. "Our security team is led out of the U.S. by our Chief Information Security Officer, Roland Cloutier, who has decades of industry and U.S. law enforcement experience. TikTok collects much less U.S. user information than many of the companies in our space and stores it in the U.S. and Singapore. We have not, and would not, give it to the Chinese government."

TikTok has never been asked to give U.S. or European Union data to the Chinese government, the spokesperson added. In addition, TikTok data is stored in U.S. servers located in Northern Virginia. Backups are kept in Singapore. All TikTok data collection practices are compliant with the legal jurisdictions they operate in, including Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Brands are allowed to use personal information collected from their own sites, like email logins, full names, and phone numbers, to target advertising. People give permission for their data to be used this way when they sign up for online accounts, especially through rewards programs. Companies can legally upload this data onto social media platforms, and use it to find specific people who have shown interest in their brands. They then show these people relevant ads.

Third-parties are also allowed to provide personal information, like credit card activity, to help companies discover customers online. However, this data is aggregated and anonymized so it is difficult to parse out individuals. But it does help brands find certain demographics that might be interested in their products, like women in their 30s who own homes.

The TikTok terms are looser than its competitors on how it, and who else, gets to use that data, some agency sources noted. Theoretically, this information could be used to track people, for example, by finding out more info on people by combining email addresses and combing through their social media profiles and photos combining device IDs and location data.

"We're definitely talking to a lot of clients on what the opportunities are there," said Rob Pearsall, senior vice president of social at media agency Havas.

With a lot of brands boycotting Facebook due to concerns over its content moderation policy, many are using this opportunity to rethink how to allocate budgets and are considering an "exploratory" shift to TikTok next year, he added.

"A lot are waiting to see how everything shakes out with Facebook throughout the course of the month here before we can say if there's going to be an actual shift for the duration of this year," Pearsall said. "[But] TikTok is setting itself for a larger consideration for 2021."

"We have identified a small number of Wells Fargo employees with corporate-owned devices who had installed the TikTok application on their device," Wells Fargo told Cheddar in a statement. "Due to concerns about TikTok's privacy and security controls and practices, and because corporate-owned devices should be used for company business only, we have directed those employees to remove the app from their devices."

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TikTok's Potential Entanglement With China's Government Has Ad Agencies Worried

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TikTok has been booming in popularity, and brands are eager to get in front of its engaged audiences. "In the past two months, there hasn't been a platform we've talked about more than TikTok," said Scott Harkey, founder and managing partner of advertising agency OH Partners.

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A Melbourne man was found not guilty this week of murdering a homeless man by reason of mental impairment. The man, Easton Woodhead, who suffers from schizophrenia, killed Morgan Perry, believing Perry had stolen his motorcycle. A Supreme Court jury acquitted Woodhead of murder on the basis of mental impairment.

This type of case frequently raises concerns about the validity of this defence. There is a preconception that the mental illness and related defences are seen in the public discourse as "get out of jail free" cards; illegitimate excuses - perhaps even fabricated or made up - allowing some individuals to "get off" criminal charges. According to this logic, successful mental illness defences are suspect.

But, contrary to this logic, we should be concerned about the low numbers of people charged with criminal offences who raise what is known in criminal law as the mental impairment or mental illness defence.

It's hard to be precise about numbers here, but we do know that very few individuals successfully raise defences such as insanity or mental illness. The NSW Law Reform Commission found just 32 successful defences in 2011-12.

Why is the defence so rarely used?

What's going on here? How does this square with what we know about the high numbers of individuals in prison with mental illnesses?

Part of the explanation is the difference between medical and legal definitions of "insanity". Only a selection of mental illnesses, as understood by psychiatrists and psychologists, qualify as mental illness for the criminal law.

For the insanity defence, mental illness must affect the individual in a particular way. It must affect his or her reasoning processes - his or her cognitive capacity - not "just" affect emotion or volition. This immediately rules out many genuine mental conditions that can seriously impact someone's life.

The difference between legal and medical definitions is part of the reason for the gap between numbers of prisoners with mental illness and the use of the mental illness defence. Another reason for this gap, and the injustice that results from it, is to do with the criminal law.

Here's the rub: in an attempt to respect people as autonomous individuals, the criminal law assumes everyone is sane and responsible for their actions, and makes the test for an insanity defence narrow and limited.

Assuming everyone charged with a criminal offence is sane, and responsible for their actions, entails assuming that individuals have particular capacities (of cognition, volition and morality). If an accused lacks the necessary capacities, he or she is not responsible and cannot be held to account for his or her actions in the context of a criminal trial and conviction.

Raising the insanity or mental illness defence involves making a claim of non-responsibility.

What is the legal test for 'insanity'?

NSW criminal law relies on the M'Naghten Rules to define the test for insanity. The M'Naghten Rules require that: (1) an individual suffers from a "defect of reason", which is (2) caused by a "disease of the mind", and, as a result, (3) he or she does not know the "nature and quality" of the act or that it was wrong.

This language sounds arcane, and it is. The M'Naghten decision dates from 1843. The effect of the decision is that it is really difficult to raise the mental illness defence successfully.

Like other states in Australia, Victoria, where Woodhead was tried, has a statutory insanity provision based on the M'Naghten Rules.

The limitations of this test are clear:

1. not all severe mental illness affects reasoning capacity;

2. no psychiatrists use the term "disease of the mind"; and

3. requiring people to be so profoundly affected that they don't know the nature and quality of their act or that it is wrong sets the bar too high.

The vast majority of people with serious mental illness would fail this test.

We need to bring the law up to date with current medical knowledge. We need a genuinely accessible insanity defence. This would help direct people who really need it into treatment.

Defence does not let people 'walk free'

In Australia and elsewhere, an accused found to be insane is exposed to special court powers of disposal. If an individual is not criminally responsible, he or she isn't free to walk away as if acquitted. Detention in a secure psychiatric unit in a prison can be just as long - or longer - than any prison term. Treatment rather than punishment is not a "get out of jail" card.

If a genuinely accessible insanity defence provides treatment for people who really need it, it's better for both the individual and society.

And, before we assume any option other than "proper" punishment is just too lenient, we must pause to think about what having an insanity defence that is genuinely accessible really means.

Exempting insane defendants from criminal responsibility is the flipside of holding people to account only when they are properly agents of their own actions. This means it is the "price" we pay for a system that treats us all as responsible unless proven otherwise.

Arlie Loughnan is an associate professor at Sydney Law School. This article was first published in The Conversation.

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How the insanity defence against a murder charge works

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A Melbourne man was found not guilty this week of murdering a homeless man by reason of mental impairment. The man, Easton Woodhead, who suffers from schizophrenia, killed Morgan Perry, believing Perry had stolen his motorcycle. A Supreme Court jury acquitted Woodhead of murder on the basis of mental impairment.

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In the age of surveillance capitalism, teenage social media influencers and online celebrities you've never heard of have unwittingly found themselves in the middle of geopolitical battles between world powers.

That's right, we're talking about TikTok.

The hugely popular video sharing app has come under increasing scrutiny amid growing suggestions the Australian government could move to block it due to concerns over intense data harvesting of users and political interference.

So what's all the fuss about?

A Herald Sun report last week quoted an unnamed federal MP who wanted to see TikTok banned in Australia for "hoovering" up data that's stored on servers accessible to the Chinese Communist Party.

Plans are reportedly underway to haul TikTok representatives in Australia before the Foreign Interference through Social Media senate inquiry.

It comes as India - where TikTok is hugely popular - banned the Chinese social media app following rising tensions between the two nations following border skirmishes which killed more than 20 Indian soldiers.

Meanwhile the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters last week the US was also "looking at" banning Chinese social media apps.

The reports prompted outcry from a number of prominent users on the app while Aussie users flooded the comments sections on Prime Minister Scott Morrison's social media accounts urging him not to ban the app.

While other Chinese apps such as WeChat have been popular among the Chinese diaspora in Australia, it has been the mainstream success of TikTok - with more than 1.6 million Australian users - which has brought these issues to the fore for Australian politicians.

"TikTok is the first big example of a second generation social media company in China and it is more adroit in its international strategy," says Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Fergus Ryan.

Does TikTok collect data on users?

Like all your favourite social media apps, Chinese owned TikTok collects huge amounts of information stored on your device.

But TikTok has been accused of collecting more than the likes of Facebook or Google, as it reportedly collects biometric information of users including facial features, how the phone is held and as well location data, browser activity and contacts.

"In many ways they are very similar, they all suck up a lot of data on their users which is integral to their business model. The key difference between Western and Chinese social media apps is they just fall under a different jurisdiction," Mr Ryan told Yahoo News Australia.

Some of the concern centres around the fact that a law in China compels companies to hand over data to the Chinese Communist Party when asked.

"Any company can be forced to take part in intelligence gathering work. And if they do, they are legally not allowed to talk about it," Mr Ryan explained.

His colleague, ASPI analyst Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, is among those to raise concerns about the level of data TikTok hoovers up on users.

"TikTok mines private data on a level that Facebook would only wish it dares to," she posted on Twitter this week.

"It's common in China that social media companies collect biometric data that is later used by the government for policing. It's also a really bad idea to let TikTok have young people's passwords when they're future politicians and scientists that Beijing may choose to target."

In March, a pair of iOS developers found TikTok was stealing information from users' clipboards on their iPhone (used to transfer data between apps) which included passwords and sensitive information.

Okay so TikTok is grabbing the contents of my clipboard every 1-3 keystrokes. iOS 14 is snitching on it with the new paste notification pic.twitter.com/OSXP43t5SZ
- Jeremy Burge (@jeremyburge) June 24, 2020

'China has a file on you'

Tech journalist Ben Thompson, whose Stratechery newsletter is widely followed by Silicon Valley elites, says TikTok finds itself at the centre of two debates: One about humans and the Internet, and the other about China and its authoritarian ideology.

"Needless to say, China is collecting data on basically everyone and they can and will use it against you, so that is a concern," he said on his podcast last week.

"Believe me, China has a file on you. They certainly do on me, I know that for sure."

He sees censorship of anti-China opinions and propaganda on the platform as arguably a more worrying issue than user surveillance. For example, if you searched for the Hong Kong protests while using the app, you were sure to come up empty handed.

While the company claims that data on foreign users is stored on servers outside China, the algorithms that underpin the app are undeniably under Chinese control.

"This cannot be overstated," Mr Thompson said.

"Even if TikTok were able to prove to everyone that the data is not in China, the algorithms are from China ... They get to basically decide what millions of people see or don't see.

"The Hong Kong one is a great example. You could not find a single video on TikTok which was supportive of the protests."

Could Australia really ban TikTok?

While he doesn't think it's likely, Mr Ryan says "it is conceivable" that Australia eventually looks to ban the app if it can't mitigate against the perceived risk it poses.

"I think in terms of policy, it needs to be an option on the table," he told Yahoo News Australia.

"I do think it should be a last resort."

Reported plans to haul Australian TikTok executives in front of a parliamentary committee would be more than just a chance for politicians to grandstand, Mr Ryan said.

"I think the main thing that would ultimately come out of that process is that it's an opportunity to educate the Australian citizens about what's at stake.

"So it's not just a sudden decision that is made."

One potentially acceptable result, he said, could see TikTok completely spun off from ByteDance and made to operate outside the auspices of the Chinese government.

TikTok urges Australian MPs to stop using app as 'political football'

This week, a number of MPs received a letter from the head of TikTok Australia, claiming the company was simply "caught in the middle" of rising tensions between China and Australia.

The letter from the company's Australian general manager, Lee Hunter, said TikTok is "independent, and not aligned with any government, political party or ideology", and user data is kept secure.

"The truth is, with tensions rising between some countries, TikTok has unfortunately been caught in the middle and is being used by some as a political football. I assure you - we're a social media platform for sharing videos - that's all."
Do you have a story tip? Email:

newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

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TikTok controversy explained: Could the app really be banned?

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In the age of surveillance capitalism, teenage social media influencers and online celebrities you've never heard of have unwittingly found themselves in the middle of geopolitical battles between world powers. That's right, we're talking about TikTok.

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The Guardian - KFC birthday party in Melbourne costs $26,000 July 2020

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The Guardian - KFC birthday party in Melbourne costs $26,000 July 2020

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A run for KFC in Melbourne has led to a $26,000 (£14,360) lockdown fine for a group of birthday partygoers.

The infringement of stay-at-home directions was discovered after two people ordered about 20 meals at a KFC store in Dandenong about 1.30am on Friday.

The large order raised suspicion among ambulance workers at the store, who notified police of their concern.

Police followed their car to a townhouse in the suburb where they found a group of people who then tried to hide in the backyard, garage and under beds.

The Victorian police commissioner, Shane Patton, on Friday said 16 fines for breaching coronavirus restrictions were issued at the party, as the state posted a record 288 new cases of Covid-19.

"That is absolutely ridiculous that type of behaviour, and it's a very expensive night," Patton said.

"That's $26,000 that birthday party is costing them. That's a heck of a birthday party to recall and they'll remember that one for a long time."

The fried chicken farce was among the 60 infringement notices issued to Melburnians since the new restrictions came in on Thursday.

Another four fines were given to sex workers while they were on a break from work, following police concern that "a large amount of men" were going in and out of an address.

Patton said most Victorians were doing the right thing, but he reminded them that every police vehicle was involved in Covid-19 enforcement.

Police had conducted almost 1,000 spot checks on people at homes, business and public places across the state in the past 24 hours, he said.

More than 5,000 vehicles were checked from 3pm on Thursday to 7am on Friday.

One couple from Docklands were attempting to visit their holiday house on Phillip Island at 1.30am when they were turned away at a vehicle checkpoint.

The couple were given a warning, but then attempted to leave the locked-down area through a second vehicle checkpoint, leading to a fine for the driver.

The premier, Daniel Andrews, warned that selfish behaviour could mean Melbourne was locked down for more than six weeks.

He appealed to Victorians to abide by the rules and stay at home to stabilise the daily coronavirus numbers.

"The four reasons are not an invitation to leave home, they are reasonable excuses," he said.

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KFC birthday party in Melbourne costs $26,000 in Covid-19 fines after police track order

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A run for KFC in Melbourne has led to a $26,000 (£14,360) lockdown fine for a group of birthday partygoers. The infringement of stay-at-home directions was discovered after two people ordered about 20 meals at a KFC store in Dandenong about 1.30am on Friday.

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Unusual times call for unusual heroes.

In strange and unexpected times, strange and unexpected heroes rise to the challenge. In this particular case, a medical fetish site has donated all of their scrubs to desperate health officials to help them get through the coronavirus pandemic.

MedFetUK is exactly what it sounds like. They sell doctors scrubs for people who have a certain affinity for doctor roleplaying (or whatever else you want to do with scrubs, this is a judgement free zone), but after being contacted by the National Health Service (NHS), they decided to donate all their stock to the healthcare workers.

Hospital systems all over the world have been dealing with major supply shortages as doctors and nurses battle COVID-19 on the front lines. In a Twitter thread, MedFetUK called it scandalous that they were even needing to be asked.

Today we donated our entire stock of disposable scrubs to an NHS hospital. It was just a few sets, because we don't carry large stocks, but they were desperate, so we sent them free of charge.
We don't usually do politics on Twitter, but here's a short thread. [1/5] pic.twitter.com/Z4ygmGr99M
- MedFetUK (@MedFet_UK) March 27, 2020

"When we, a tiny company set up to serve a small section of the kink community, find ourselves being sought out as a last-resort supplier to our National Health Service in a time of crisis, something is seriously wrong. In fact, it's scandalous."

"So when it's all over...and the doctors, nurses and other staff have done an amazing job (as they undoubtedly will despite the circumstances)...let's not forget, or forgive, the ones who sent the NHS into this battle with inadequate armour and one hand tied behind its back."

It's not often that you get to see a medical fetish site blast a major world government over the way that they've handled a global pandemic, but welcome to 2020 I guess. It's been a strange year.

So shoutout to MedFetUK and all the other places that have chipped in to help in any way they can. We won't be out of this mess for a while yet, but the fact that we're all pulling together is a sure sign that we'll get there eventually.

Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to on your favourite podcast app.

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You'll Face Huge Fines And Jail Time For Breaking COVID-19 Lockdown

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Unusual times call for unusual heroes. In strange and unexpected times, strange and unexpected heroes rise to the challenge. In this particular case, a medical fetish site has donated all of their scrubs to desperate health officials to help them get through the coronavirus pandemic. MedFetUK is exactly what it sounds like.

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People who test positive could get five years in jail if they break quarantine in Italy 

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People who test positive could get five years in jail if they break quarantine in Italy 

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People who test positive for coronavirus could get five years in jail if they break quarantine in Italy

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Country gets stricter sanctions for those ignoring measures to combat virus

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Misogyny in the media: A look at sexism in pop culture

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Misogyny in the media: A look at sexism in pop culture

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In 1985, Alison Bechdel published a segment of her comic strip entitled "The Rule." It showed two women discussing going to a movie, and one explaining that she will only see a film if it fulfills the following requirements: that the film contains at least two female characters who have a conversation, which is not about a man.

Over the past 30 years, "The Bechdel Test" has become famous as a measure of a film's gender representation, and for just how many films fail it. And, there are a lot more of those than you'd probably expect.

We won't get into exactly what does and doesn't pass (there's an in-depth website for this, in case you're interested - bechdeltest.com), but suffice it to say that this is still a major problem with popular media. However, when our parents were our age, it was even worse. Kasi Jackson, a professor of women's and gender studies at West Virginia University, said that as a kid, most movies - even ones she enjoyed - had few female characters, with few lines.

"Every time one appeared, I remember clinging to every word," Jackson said.

In media, a lot of people like having situations and characters to which they can relate, which is one of the hallmarks of a good story; however, that's hard to have happen when there's no one in popular media who looks like you. Jackson says that role models are incredibly significant, real and fictional, particularly to those at a young age. If someone who looks like you is portrayed in a certain light, it can affect the way you and others think. This is why media and advertising are so effective (and not always in a good way), and one reason why Jackson and others say that the Bechdel test is so effective. It's not enough just to be included, it needs to be in the right ways.

As a culture, we're used to seeing women in a very weak, soft position, generally used as subservient characters or just as eye candy. But we really shouldn't be.

It isn't only onscreen that the male dominates - as a workplace, Hollywood is incredibly sexist as well. According to a 2014 article by the Teen Leadership Council for Positive Sexual and Gender Representation, women in Hollywood generally earn anywhere between 75 and 90 percent of what men earn, depending on their age, and they get less job opportunities, too. There are far less female-led movies than male-led movies, and their race, age and physical appearance are judged much more harshly than men's during casting - a lot of higher earning female actors are all young, skinny and pretty, reinforcing the stereotypical gender roles we usually see.

There are fewer women behind the camera, directing and writing, too, said the council, and if this might explain some of the more misogynistic portrayals of women - men are likely just making more films that favor them.

Fortunately, there are plenty of films, shows, books, and games that challenge gender stereotyping and misogyny, particularly more recently. From "Star Trek" (a favorite of Jackson's to use in her classes), that has for decades contained strong female characters and even the first ever televised interracial kiss, to "The Hunger Games," which turned gender roles on its head, to the newer lineup of Disney princesses and superheroes. This is one of the major reasons that these sorts of works have met commercial and critical success. Why "Frozen" and "Moana" broke box office records. Why "Black Panther" was nominated for Best Picture. The media is a major tool and a major weapon, and we have begun to stop using it to create these sorts of stereotypes - but there's still a long way to go.

Many of these films have gotten major backlash from people who can't realize that things we used to do and say were wrong, and that it is time to fix it. Despite garnering a positive reception by fans, during its first week of release, "Captain Marvel" was being massively trashed and trolled online, in order to have it made to look bad and dissuade filmmakers from more "inappropriate" use of female characters. In order to take bigger steps toward equality and fairness, this needs to end. We need to do better than our parents and grandparents at this. We need to make sure that everyone has someone like them who they can look up to.

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Misogyny in the media: A look at sexism in pop culture (FlipSide)

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In 1985, Alison Bechdel published a segment of her comic strip entitled "The Rule." It showed two women discussing going to a movie, and one explaining that she will only see a film if it fulfills the following requirements: that the film contains at least two female characters who have a conversation, which is not about a man.

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BBC - Why politics is toxic for Australia's women

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BBC - Why politics is toxic for Australia's women

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A slew of allegations of sexist bullying and misogyny have emerged in recent years, while at the same time the country has steadily tumbled down the global rankings for female political representation.

Australia has tended to favour "larrikin" and "aggressor" MPs who thrive in the "rough-and-tumble" atmosphere of Canberra. But women MPs are increasingly saying that's a culture in dire need of change.

As the country prepares to go to the polls on Saturday, the BBC looks at what's come to be known as the "women problem" in Australian politics.

Sarah Hanson-Young was 25 when she won a seat in Australia's Senate in 2007, the youngest woman ever to do so.

The Greens member has always been a forthright voice on progressive issues and women's rights, but she has spoken extensively about how this was against a backdrop of mutterings from male opponents "about my dress, my body, and my supposed sex life".

She had largely ignored them, choosing the well-trodden path of rising above it all. But an exchange in parliament last year proved the final straw.

It happened during a debate on women's safety following a murder which shocked the nation. A young comedian walking home late at night had been killed by a stranger.

Ms Hanson-Young said women wouldn't need extra protection if men didn't rape them.

In response, an older male senator called out: "You should stop shagging men, Sarah."

Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm - known for revelling in his controversial remarks - refused to apologise when confronted by Ms Hanson-Young, who is divorced with a child. He instead repeated his comments and other explicit claims in TV and radio interviews.

He accused her of hypocrisy. She accused him of "slut-shaming" - where slurs about a women's alleged sexual activities are used to demean or silence her.

Ms Hanson-Young said her 11-year-old daughter was asked at school whether her mum had "lots of boyfriends".

"I decided at that moment I'd had enough of men in that place using sexism and sexist slurs, sexual innuendo as part of their intimidation and bullying on the floor of the parliament," the senator said in a later interview.

She is suing Mr Leyonhjelm for defamation, on the grounds that he had attacked her character by suggesting she was a hypocrite and a misandrist (man-hater), and by repeatedly accusing her of making the claim that all men were rapists. Mr Leyonhjelm has consistently denied defaming her.

Ms Hanson-Young says she took the action because she is in a powerful enough position to do so whereas many women who encounter such comments at work are not.

"If we can't clean it up in our nation's parliament, well, where can we do it?"

'Suffered in silence for too long'

Australian politics is known to be rambunctious, with plain speaking considered a national trait.

But female lawmakers say the comments and treatment they receive can often be explicitly gendered in nature, can border on abuse or intimidation and do not happen to their male counterparts.

When one woman sensationally quit the ruling Liberal-led government last year, she sparked something of a groundswell revolt.

Australia, a hotspot of political coups, had just witnessed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's ousting by party rivals. Julia Banks felt she had to act after experiencing the vicious infighting.

She pointed the finger at the "scourge of cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation" saying: "Women have suffered in silence for too long."

She was later backed up by other women in the government, including the party's deputy Julie Bishop who described "appalling" behaviour. One female senator threatened to name bullies, while the Minister for Women Kelly O'Dwyer confirmed allegations of bullying and intimidation.

The Liberal women have scotched suggestions that they're just not up to the "rough-and-tumble" of politics, as one of their male colleagues put it.

"The hallmark characteristics of the Australian woman... are resilience and a strong authentic independent spirit," blazed Ms Banks as she moved to the crossbench.

For her, it's proof that it's time for parliamentary culture to change. And that the only way to do that is "equal representation of men and women in this parliament".

Representation fight

When it comes to gender diversity, Australia's parliament is flagging.

Women - crucially, excluding indigenous Australians and most women of colour - first won the right to run in federal elections in 1902. But it took four decades - and 29 other countries do it first - before Australian women would actually win seats.

They have always won more in the Senate because, say experts, it uses proportional voting by state - whereas the lower house has distinct electorates.

The current parliament has reached an all-time high for percentage of women MPs.

But when it comes to its international standing, Australia has fallen behind. In the past 20 years it's slumped from 15th in the world to 50th for parliamentary gender diversity.

Overall, that's partly due to a lack of pressure on both parties, says Dr Jill Sheppard, a political scientist at the Australian National University.

A recent Australian Broadcasting Corporation survey found significant support among women - though not men - for measures to improve the deficit.

Labor has such a mechanism. It introduced an affirmative action quota in 1994 and is now close to 50% representation - about double the proportion of women in the government. At Saturday's election, women will contest 31% of its safe seats, according to election analyst Ben Raue.

The Liberal-National coalition may even see a dip in female representation, some analysts say. The coalition has put up women in only 16% of its safe seats, Mr Raue says.

"The Liberal Party is the drag here," says Dr Sheppard, when asked about the nation's fall in global diversity rankings.

She says the party tends to view its successful women "as almost unicorns - tremendous women who can't be replicated".

The party is seeking parity by 2025, but it is ideologically resistant to the idea of mandatory quotas and wants change to happen more organically.

"We don't want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse," said party leader and Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, in a speech on International Women's Day.

He drew considerable criticism for the remarks, which were seen as implying men shouldn't lose out to allow women to move up.

Targeted at the top

This is not a new issue for women in Canberra.

Natasha Stott Despoja joined parliament in 1995 at age 26, when women made up just 14% of the room.

In her 13 years as a senator, during which she became leader of the Australian Democrats, sexism was "endemic" in the political culture, she says.

"It ranged from male senators saying to me 'you really should wear skirts' to another senator referring to me only as 'mother' once I had children," she told the BBC.

After leaving parliament, she went on to be Australia's representative advancing women's rights around the world. She observed other nations' progress while watching the harassment continue at home.

"The single biggest disappointment for me has been the slow pace of change," she says.

Many thought Australia had turned a corner when Julia Gillard became the first female prime minister in 2010.

Ms Gillard achieved many reforms in a tough three years of minority government. But her seizure of the top job - ousting Kevin Rudd in a party coup - haunted her reputation and public legitimacy.

Opponents and some media regularly portrayed her as a Lady Macbeth figure - a characterisation that invokes latent fears about ambitious women. Debate over policies like a contentious carbon tax often degenerated into personal and gendered attacks.

She was "routinely demonised" for being unmarried and "childless" in office, say Associate Prof Cheryl Collier from the University of Windsor and Associate Prof Tracey Raney from Ryerson University, both in Canada.

Such terms "are rarely if ever used to describe male heads of state", they say in a 2018 report which compared the treatment of women MPs in Australia, UK and Canada.

Throughout her time in power the prime minister was called by her critics and opponents:

"a lying cow"

"a menopausal monster"

"deliberately barren"

a "bitch" and "Ju-liar"

The fixation with her appearance at times was unashamedly lewd - a Liberal party fundraising dinner included a "Julia Gillard" menu item with explicit references to parts of her body. It also descended into violent imagery - one TV commentator said Australians "ought to be out there kicking her to death". Another high-profile radio host said she should be "put into a chaff bag and thrown into the sea".

The academics suggest the vitriol was so intense because Ms Gillard challenged the Australian stereotype of a good leader.

"Even women who have reached the top of the political ladder are working within an institution that privileges masculinity," say Prof Collier and Prof Raney.

In 2012, Ms Gillard confronted the sexist, misogynistic attacks in a searing speech in parliament. It reverberated around the world, and to this day girls in Young Labor can quote it like a chant.

But in her final speech as prime minister, after she had been removed by her party, she was stoic about the impact her gender had had on her time in office.

"It doesn't explain everything, it doesn't explain nothing, it explains some things. And it is for the nation to think in a sophisticated way about those shades of grey."

Leadership ideals

So is the problem just how things are done in parliament, or is it a wider issue about Australian culture?

It's telling that the most senior female politicians in the past decade - Ms Gillard from Labor and Julie Bishop, a former Liberal deputy - do not have children.

In a country the size of Australia, parliamentary life for MPs based far from Canberra is especially taxing on families, a challenge which tends to be particularly hard for women to overcome.

In the past year, several MPs - including Ms O'Dwyer but also a male MP - left parliament saying the job was incompatible with family life.

But Dr Sonia Palmieri, a gender politics researcher at the 50/50 by 2030 Foundation - which wants to "achieve gender parity in leadership" - says unacknowledged bias remains the fundamental problem.

"Our system always seems to assume that our political actors are gender neutral - when in fact they revolve around standards which are masculine and of course that excludes and shuts out women," she says.

Dr Palmieri argues this is partly because of specific notions of good political leadership in Australia.

She suggests there are roughly two types of accepted leader styles.

The first is the idea of the "larrikin" politician, a unique Australian term for a boisterous person - usually a man - whose bad behaviour is excused as disregard for convention.

Larrikins are seen as endearing in Australian culture, argues Dr Palmieri. There remains a cultural fascination with leaders such Prime Minister Bob Hawke - who could famously down a beer in seconds, and joked that the nation's workers deserved a day off after a landmark sporting victory.

The second accepted leader is the aggressor - the acerbic politician revered for their ability to cut down the other side in parliamentary debate.

Prime ministers such as Paul Keating and Tony Abbott were noted for their attacking rhetoric in parliamentary debates although their styles widely differed.

Larrikins and aggro fit within the wider stereotypes of Australian identity, says political researcher Blair Williams from the Australian National University.

"We have these models of football players, surf lifesavers, that sort of blokey masculinity that someone like Tony Abbott definitely displayed. But it leaves women out."

Aggression and even ambition are seen as unbecoming in women, says Dr Palmieri.

She too points to Ms Gillard, who was not only attacked for how she attained power - despite previous male leaders having seized control that way - but then wasn't given the opportunity to show a different model of leadership to the public.

Some have also pointed out double standards in the treatment of Emma Husar, a Labor MP forced to resign last year after a news story made a salacious sexual harassment claim.

The report broke mistreatment claims, but focused on the MP's sex life.

Ms Husar, a single mother, later said the "slut-shaming smears" ended her career. Her party asked her to step down less than two days after the report, she said.

A subsequent Labor investigation found no evidence of sexual harassment, but said "complaints that staff were subjected to unreasonable management... have merit".

More on Australia's election:

How Australia is changing - in 11 charts

The vote that spans outback to Antarctica

The big climate call coming to Australia

Is cash king in Australia's elections?

Dr Sheppard says both major parties are held back by traditional assumptions about women.

Party organisers fast-track men to office while "throwing obstacles in the path of women candidates", she says.

"They're not doing it deliberately, rather they're acting on decades of ingrained behaviour and what they're used to." Men are just seen as the safer option.

However, her research shows that women are very electable. Her survey of more than 2,000 Australians in 2018 found that when other markers were equal, women candidates were actually more popular than men.

She refers to Scandinavian countries when she suggests that women in politics will become normalised once levels reach 30-40%. This is already the case for Labor, she says, while the Liberal party "has another 20 years to go".

"We're not there yet, but what we are seeing in Australia is quite rapid generational shift.

"I hope in 15 to 20 years, it won't even be talked about as an issue."

'You need to be a bit brave'

Does this give hope to young women aspiring to enter politics?

In her school years Megan Stevens, 19 harboured ambitions of a career in parliament and is now studying politics at the University of Melbourne.

But increasingly she feels that she would be "more comfortable" working behind the scenes as a political staffer.

"How they treated Julia Gillard really put me off," she says.

The same goes for Liliana Tai, the University of Sydney student union president and a debating champion who interned at parliament over the summer.

She says pursuing a career in "real" politics is an almost overwhelming prospect.

Ms Tai fears that the cultural change needed to allow someone like her, a young, Chinese-Australian woman, to become an elected representative "may not be achieved in our lifetime".

"People think of leaders as what they're familiar with and what they know and historically that's been predominantly male, predominantly Anglo people," she says.

She believes that both parties still cater towards stereotypes in selecting candidates.

"I think they fixate so much on electability that they prioritise what they think people want and that leads to a pernicious cycle of not having change."

"But you need to be a bit brave, and go out on a limb and give that new person a chance."

Last year, the failed leadership bid by the government's most powerful woman, Julie Bishop, proved to Ms Tai that merit isn't enough.

Ms Bishop was deputy to four successive male party leaders over 11 years. An MP for two decades, she also served as Australia's first female foreign minister.

But she resigned from the front bench last year after losing a leadership battle to Scott Morrison. Her prospects were dashed by colleagues who tactically voted to keep another man out.

The Australian Financial Review called her: "The female Prime Minister who never was".

On the day of her resignation, she wore scarlet heels.

Whatever the politics of the events, a photograph of the lavish shoes, amid a sea of brogues and dark suits, became an iconic image of a lone woman cut out of power.

Australia's Museum of Democracy later exhibited the shoes, along with the photo, which they said were "a bold statement and a symbol of solidarity and empowerment among Australian women".

Ms Tai says she also took some hope from Ms Bishop's departure.

She mentions her final parliamentary speech, where the outgoing MP said public office was "one of the highest callings".

"I really resonated with that because that's what I believe too," says Ms Tai.

"Being in parliament is still the best way to represent people and bring about change."
Edited by Jay Savage and Anna Jones

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Why politics is toxic for Australia's women

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A slew of allegations of sexist bullying and misogyny have emerged in recent years, while at the same time the country has steadily tumbled down the global rankings for female political representation. Australia has tended to favour "larrikin" and "aggressor" MPs who thrive in the "rough-and-tumble" atmosphere of Canberra.

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What Girl Gamers REALLY Have To Deal With | OMG a Girl Series [1]

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We still have a problem with female authority (American article)

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We still have a problem with female authority (American article)

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"Gender in this race?" Senator Elizabeth Warren said outside her home on Thursday. "You know that is the trap question for every woman. If you say, 'Yeah! There was sexism in this race,' everyone says, 'Whiner!' And if you say, 'No, there was no sexism, about a bazillion women think, 'What planet do you live on?'"

She added: "I promise you this. I will have a lot more to say on that subject later on."

Warren had just exited the race for US president, leaving the Democratic field with only one female candidate: Tulsi Gabbard, the congresswoman from Hawaii who, with only one delegate toward the nomination, is in effect out of contention.

There have been female leaders all over the world, including two British prime ministers, the current German chancellor and the current prime minister of New Zealand. But America's glass ceiling, far from being cracked or smashed, appears to have been reinforced with double glazing.

It is a distressing turn for the Democratic party, which nominated Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, harnessed women's political energy to regain the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, and began the 2020 election with the most diverse field of presidential candidates in history.

The New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, California senator Kamala Harris and author Marianne Williamson all came and went before the Super Tuesday primaries. Warren's poor showing that night, including a third-place finish in her home state of Massachusetts, sealed her fate.

Now Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, two septuagenarian white men, will slug it out for the right to take on Donald Trump - another septuagenarian white man.

Bonnie Morris, a history lecturer at University of California, Berkeley, and author of books including The Feminist Revolution, said she was "flabbergasted" to wake up on Thursday and discover that Warren, for whom she voted in the California primary two days earlier, was out of the race.

Elizabeth Warren makes a pinky promise with Ming'Le Planter, six, at Bertha's Kitchen in North Charleston, South Carolina, last month. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP

"I believe we still have a problem in the United States with female authority," Morris said. "I think in the same way that some people resented the obvious competence of Hillary Clinton because they ascribed to her a schoolteacher or maternal tone, people have applied these kind of terms to Elizabeth Warren. They do not ascribe them to men.

"A lot of people are really threatened by super-smart women. If a woman is trying to make her point by speaking slowly and forcefully, there's always going to be a cohort of men who regard that as being scolded by a mother figure."

Morris agreed with Warren's description of sexism. "I believe women are stuck," she said. "They'll always be subject to comments about their appearance, fashion, tone of voice, style of hair. They're always asked if they align themselves with women's issues. If they don't, they're not seen as 'sisterly'. And if they use a word like 'sisterly', they're seen as an extreme feminist."

Warren was also subject to "ideological purity tests" that her fellow progressive Sanders was not, Morris argues. "Bernie is able to appeal to a lot of people as the cranky, radical Jewish grandfather," said the academic, who is herself Jewish. "The cranky Puritanical grandmother is not seen as attractive to young people."

"It's devastating and it's going to be frightening for a lot of women to see how, yet again, it was impossible for a woman to emerge in leadership."

Elizabeth Warren: key moments from her 2020 presidential campaign

America is currently marking the centenary of the 19th amendment to the constitution, which gave women the right to vote, although African American women were denied equal access. Representation has come in fits and starts. Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic nominee for vice-president in 1984 but the presidential candidate Walter Mondale lost to President Ronald Reagan in a landslide.

As recently as 2007, a Washington Post fashion article began: "There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton." When Clinton first ran for president in 2008, losing a bruising primary to Barack Obama, she told disappointed supporters: "Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it's got about 18 million cracks in it."

Eight years later, Clinton made history as the first female nominee of a major party and won the popular vote, only to be thwarted by Trump, who had boasted about grabbing women's genitals, in the electoral college. She said: "I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now."

The huge women's march a day after Trump's inauguration suggested an uprising. Politically galvanised suburban women, dubbed "resistance moms", were crucial to Democrats' sweeping success in the 2018 midterms and elected a record number of female candidates. When several women ran for president it seemed the momentum for an antidote to Trump's misogyny was unstoppable.

But the dreaded word "likability" quickly emerged in public discourse. Gillibrand, the candidate who most explicitly focused on gender equality - Trump's "kryptonite is definitely a mother of young children who stands up for herself", she told the Guardian - was the first to flame out.

Warren was often the best debater, skewering Bloomberg as "a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians", yet it was not enough. Many find fault in media coverage. Shaunna Thomas, a co-founder of UltraViolet Action, a progressive women's group, tweeted on Thursday: "Voters want Trump out. That's clear. What's also clear is that there is a glass ceiling held firmly in place for women by a media who relentlessly shape voters' perceptions of who is electable through a deeply sexist lens."

Warren and Amy Klobuchar greet people before marching in the annual Bloody Sunday March across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on 1 March. Photograph: Joshua Lott/AFP via Getty Images

Comparisons between Warren and Sanders are particularly instructive given their alignment on numerous issues. They were once running neck-and-neck amid fears they would split the progressive vote. In early debates, they joined forces to defend policies such as Medicare for All, which would extend a government-run health insurance programme to all Americans. But in the end, the 78-year-old Vermont senator surged to early primary victories as Warren, 70, fell away.

Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress thinktank in Washington and a longtime Clinton ally, argues there were double standards at work.

"We have two candidates that embrace Medicare for All and only one candidate who was hounded for details about how her plan would be paid for. The other is a male candidate who's run before and has never been hounded by the press around that set of issues.

"I can't even come up with an explanation. He's a frontrunner for the race. There's only two people left and yet he's never been asked detail. He was just asked the last week on 60 Minutes and didn't have a good answer. I find the coverage relatively dumbfounding."

But just as in 2018, women continue to have a crucial say as primary voters, Tanden noted. "What happened throughout this race so far is in South Carolina and Super Tuesday, in Texas and Virginia and Massachusetts and Minnesota, you saw a real surge of suburban voters, a majority of whom are women. They are powering the primaries. It's just at this point a majority of women didn't vote for a woman. I mean, that is a sad fact."

The endless debate over women and "electability" appears to have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The sense of national emergency represented by the need to beat Trump, and the trauma of Clinton's defeat in 2016, may have convinced some voters that nominating a woman or person of colour would be a "gamble".

Tanden said: "I think Trump is a unique candidate and so he creates extra layers of fear among Democrats over who should go up against him and who's the most electable. But if a Democrat beats him, then maybe America can reset and hopefully women will be a strong part of a new administration - and the next nominee will be a woman."

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'We still have a problem with female authority': how politics sets a trap for American women

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Elizabeth Warren's departure shines light on a system that is rife with sexism but rejects candidates who address it

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Before we get too hung up on blaming the state govt, or the federal govt, or China for our covid situation let’s review some facts:

1. We had to bring in mandatory quarantining in hotels, because we couldn’t trust people to stay home after returning from overseas.
2. We then had to bring in security, because we couldn’t trust people to stay in those hotels.
3. We then had to bring in ADF, because we couldn’t trust the security guards not to have sex with those in quarantine in the hotels.
4. We had to get police to door knock and check up on people, because we couldn't trust those who were meant to be self-isolating to actually stay at home.
5. We also have to have police and ADF reinforce the metropolitan Melbourne zone and state borders, because we can’t trust people to follow the restrictions.
6. We are now being asked to use masks, because we cannot trust people to social distance when they are in public.
7. Through it all, our supermarkets have had to introduce shopping restrictions because we couldn’t trust people to not to take more than what they needed.

So we can get as mad as we want at politicians or health officials for imposing restrictions, or the country where the virus originated ..... but essentially it’s our own fault that we find ourselves here.

Too many people aren’t willing to think of others rather than just themselves. Selfishness and lack of empathy seems to be as much of a disease as covid itself.

Copy and paste if you agree!

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SBS: Police Officer who assaulted a teenager was "having a bad day"

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SBS: Police Officer who assaulted a teenager was "having a bad day"

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The sister of an Indigenous NSW teenager who had his legs kicked out from beneath him while being arrested says children shouldn't be mistreated because they're being "lippy".

Police are investigating after the 17-year-old was taken to hospital with minor injuries following his arrest on Monday at a Surry Hills park in inner Sydney.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller on Wednesday admitted there were "other ways" the officer could have dealt with the matter, rather than performing a leg sweep.

He said the officer in question had worked in the force for three-and-a-half years and had no record of complaints, and likely regretted the way he arrested the teen.

"The fact that this officer doesn't have a chequered history and he has been in (the police force) for three and a half years, if the complaint is sustained against him, you would have to say he has had a bad day," Mr Fuller said.

The teenager allegedly told a male police officer "I'll crack you in the f***ing jaw, bro" before he was swept to the ground. The teen was subsequently released without charge.

"This is a case of two things - is it reasonable for someone to swear and threaten a police officer? And then, is the force the officer used reasonable?" Mr Fuller told 2GB radio.

"I don't know what happened before in terms of the lead-up but there was probably other ways the officer could have dealt with that matter, no doubt.

"I totally accept that officers need to show restraint."

Footage of the arrest was captured on a mobile phone and posted on social media.

After being threatened, the officer can be seen telling the teenager to turn around and put his hands behind his back. He then kicks the young man's legs out from beneath him and handcuffs him while pinning him to the ground.

A bystander can be heard yelling: "You just slammed him on his face. He's in pain."

Sore and distraught

The teenager's sister Ali Mongta-Finn told the ABC's triple j Hack program on Tuesday her brother was distraught and his teeth were chipped.

"When he came back home later that night, he was shaken up," Ms Mongta-Finn said.

"He was very sore this morning and he was distraught.

"Teenagers, they're lippy, but you don't just abuse children because they're lippy."

The teenager's parents and other relatives will speak about the incident in a press conference at NSW parliament on Wednesday alongside Greens MP David Shoebridge.

NSW Police on Tuesday said the professional standards command was investigating and the constable involved had been placed on restricted duties.

Redfern Legal Centre has also referred the matter to the independent police watchdog.

Police Minister David Elliott on Wednesday said Sydney "was not Minnesota", referencing the death of George Floyd in US police hands in Minneapolis on May 25.

"I understand (the teen) is active in the PCYC so I'd be very keen to see what professional standards come back with, and I think the important thing here is to make sure the police and the young fellow, their relationship is reinstated," Mr Elliott told reporters.

"I was just as disturbed about the threat from a young person to physically assault a police officer as I was with the response from the police officer."

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Officer who slammed Indigenous teen to the ground during arrest 'had a bad day', NSW police chief says

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The sister of an Indigenous NSW teenager who had his legs kicked out from beneath him while being arrested says children shouldn't be mistreated because they're being "lippy". Police are investigating after the 17-year-old was taken to hospital with minor injuries following his arrest on Monday at a Surry Hills park in inner Sydney.

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What it means to be insane according to the law.

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What it means to be insane according to the law.

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A horrific murder occurs. The defendant is caught and pleads not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). If the plea is successful, is someone getting away with murder without legal consequences? Well, not exactly.

An insanity defense is based on the theory that the majority of individuals can choose to follow the law or not. A few individuals cannot be held accountable because mental illness or defect deprives them of making a rational and voluntary choice. Because of this deficit, they are given special treatment as opposed to prison.

NGRI is a legal defense. It addresses mental status at the time of the alleged crime. Competency to stand trial has to do with a person's present mental status at the time that person returns to court.

Anyone who commits a crime can meet the standard of mental illness (following state law). Not everyone meets the standard of NGRI just because they have a mental illness.

Why then are we so fascinated by mental illness and crime? Well, for one, we are fascinated by the court system. Watch TV-we are inundated by courtroom shows like CSI, Law and Order, Criminal Minds. We are bombarded by information about courts, some accurate, some not. There is intense coverage on legal cases where the insanity defense was successful-John Hinckley and Andrea Yates are two famous cases. Newsworthy coverage suggests NGRI can be counted on as a highly successful defense strategy. This presumption is not correct.

In fact, the insanity defense is used in only 1 percent of all criminal proceedings, and its success rate is only 25 percent of that 1 percent. Therefore, less than 1 in 400 defendants are found not guilty by reason of insanity in this country. A small sample for such intensive coverage that leads us to believe NGRI is used often as a defense. Based on current statistics, it is not and when used is rarely successful.

In general, every crime involves three elements: actus reus, the act or conduct; mens rea, the individual's mental state at the time of the act, and third, there has to be a connection between the act and the effect.

With most offenses, a person is only not guilty of a crime if he or she actually didn't intend to commit the crime. If a driver accidentally hits someone with their car they are not guilty of vehicular homicide. However, if the driver had the intention to harm the person, the action is the same, but the intention is different. Mental illness can alter a person's perception of reality so that he or she does not realize the criminal nature of his or her actions or has no choice but to commit the crime. When this is the case, certain courts believe the person lacks this element of intention necessary for criminal guilt.

States rely on four different ways of determining a defendant is legally insane: M'Naghten test, Durham Rule, the Irresistible Impulse Test, and the Model Penal Code.

Using the parameters of the M'Naghten test, a defendant is unable to distinguish between right and wrong or otherwise didn't understand what they did because of a "disease of the mind." The burden is on the defendant. Florida, Texas, Iowa, and Louisiana use this standard, to name a few.

The Durham rule, product test or product defect rule, is a rule in a criminal case by which a jury may determine a defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity because a criminal act was the product of a mental disease.

Using the Irresistible Impulse test, the law defines an insane defendant as unable to control their impulses leading to the commission of a criminal act. Those who use this test, the defense is known as a defense by excuse, some sort of insanity, in which the defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for their actions that broke the law, because they could not control those actions, even if they knew them to be wrong. New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia use this test for insanity

Under the Model Penal Code definition of irresistible impulse, a person may be found not guilty by reason of insanity if, at the time of the offense, he or she lacked "substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of [the] conduct or to conform [the] conduct to the requirements of law."

On the surface, the collection of the information necessary to use an insanity defense appears to be straight forward, but in fact, this kind of defense has been controversial.

In 2005, four years after Andrea Yates faced the death penalty for the drowning deaths of her five children, a second jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity. In the second trial, jurors deliberated for 13 hours before finding that Yates did not know her crime was wrong because of her long history of mental illness.

Prior to the murders, Yates had endured multiple psychiatric hospitalizations and two suicide attempts before she drowned her children. She was later diagnosed with postpartum depression with psychotic features and schizophrenia. One of the forensic psychiatrists testified that Yates did not know that killing her children was wrong because she believed she was saving them from hell. Yates was delusional and believed her children would grow up to be criminals because she had ruined them, as their mother. She was returning them from earth to heaven.

After John Hinckley was found NGRI for the shooting of President Regan in 1982, the public response was outrage. To convict Hinckley, the prosecution had to prove the defendant was either not mentally ill, or if he was, that he could still appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions and conform to the law.

Members of the House and Senate held hearings on the use of the insanity defense within a month of the verdict. First, the burden of proving insanity shifted to the defendant. In virtually every criminal case, the prosecution must prove that the defendant had a particular intent, acknowledging that he or she committed the alleged act but arguing that it appeared to be necessary in order to defend themselves from harm.

In addition to shifting the burden in insanity cases, Congress also significantly narrowed the defense. Federal legislation passed in 1984 required the defendant to prove a "severe" mental disease and eliminated the "volitional" or "control" aspect of the insanity defense. After 1984, a federal defendant had to prove that the "severe" mental disease made him "unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts." This is known as an affirmative defense. It is equivalent to the self-defense.

James Holmes killed 12 people and wounded 58 when he opened fire during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, a Batman movie, in the Denver suburb of Aurora on July 20, 2012. Twelve other people were injured in the scramble to escape.

Holmes was mentally ill at the time of the killings-diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia. Despite this illness, Holmes knew his elaborately planned ambush was illegal and morally wrong, but he could still form criminal intent, which meant under state law he was sane. His planning, choice of time, location, weaponry, and execution were meticulously placed in motion.

In the case of Holmes, as he initially pleaded not guilty, the only defense that was available to him was NGRI-an acknowledgment that the person committed the alleged act but arguing that it appeared to be necessary in order to defend oneself from harm because of mental illness. He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus 3,318 years without parole.

It is important to remember that NGRI is simply a legal term and not a diagnosis.

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A horrific murder occurs. The defendant is caught and pleads not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). If the plea is successful, is someone getting away with murder without legal consequences? Well, not exactly. An insanity defense is based on the theory that the majority of individuals can choose to follow the law or not.

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A run for KFC in Melbourne has led to a $26,000 (£14,360) lockdown fine for a group of birthday partygoers.

The infringement of stay-at-home directions was discovered after two people ordered about 20 meals at a KFC store in Dandenong about 1.30am on Friday.

The large order raised suspicion among ambulance workers at the store, who notified police of their concern.

Police followed their car to a townhouse in the suburb where they found a group of people who then tried to hide in the backyard, garage and under beds.

The Victorian police commissioner, Shane Patton, on Friday said 16 fines for breaching coronavirus restrictions were issued at the party, as the state posted a record 288 new cases of Covid-19.

"That is absolutely ridiculous that type of behaviour, and it's a very expensive night," Patton said.

"That's $26,000 that birthday party is costing them. That's a heck of a birthday party to recall and they'll remember that one for a long time."

The fried chicken farce was among the 60 infringement notices issued to Melburnians since the new restrictions came in on Thursday.

Another four fines were given to sex workers while they were on a break from work, following police concern that "a large amount of men" were going in and out of an address.

Patton said most Victorians were doing the right thing, but he reminded them that every police vehicle was involved in Covid-19 enforcement.

Police had conducted almost 1,000 spot checks on people at homes, business and public places across the state in the past 24 hours, he said.

More than 5,000 vehicles were checked from 3pm on Thursday to 7am on Friday.

One couple from Docklands were attempting to visit their holiday house on Phillip Island at 1.30am when they were turned away at a vehicle checkpoint.

The couple were given a warning, but then attempted to leave the locked-down area through a second vehicle checkpoint, leading to a fine for the driver.

The premier, Daniel Andrews, warned that selfish behaviour could mean Melbourne was locked down for more than six weeks.

He appealed to Victorians to abide by the rules and stay at home to stabilise the daily coronavirus numbers.

"The four reasons are not an invitation to leave home, they are reasonable excuses," he said.

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KFC birthday party in Melbourne costs $26,000 in Covid-19 fines after police track order

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A run for KFC in Melbourne has led to a $26,000 (£14,360) lockdown fine for a group of birthday partygoers. The infringement of stay-at-home directions was discovered after two people ordered about 20 meals at a KFC store in Dandenong about 1.30am on Friday.

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People who test positive for coronavirus could get five years in jail if they break quarantine in Italy

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Country gets stricter sanctions for those ignoring measures to combat virus

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Unusual times call for unusual heroes.

In strange and unexpected times, strange and unexpected heroes rise to the challenge. In this particular case, a medical fetish site has donated all of their scrubs to desperate health officials to help them get through the coronavirus pandemic.

MedFetUK is exactly what it sounds like. They sell doctors scrubs for people who have a certain affinity for doctor roleplaying (or whatever else you want to do with scrubs, this is a judgement free zone), but after being contacted by the National Health Service (NHS), they decided to donate all their stock to the healthcare workers.

Hospital systems all over the world have been dealing with major supply shortages as doctors and nurses battle COVID-19 on the front lines. In a Twitter thread, MedFetUK called it scandalous that they were even needing to be asked.

Today we donated our entire stock of disposable scrubs to an NHS hospital. It was just a few sets, because we don't carry large stocks, but they were desperate, so we sent them free of charge.
We don't usually do politics on Twitter, but here's a short thread. [1/5] pic.twitter.com/Z4ygmGr99M
- MedFetUK (@MedFet_UK) March 27, 2020

"When we, a tiny company set up to serve a small section of the kink community, find ourselves being sought out as a last-resort supplier to our National Health Service in a time of crisis, something is seriously wrong. In fact, it's scandalous."

"So when it's all over...and the doctors, nurses and other staff have done an amazing job (as they undoubtedly will despite the circumstances)...let's not forget, or forgive, the ones who sent the NHS into this battle with inadequate armour and one hand tied behind its back."

It's not often that you get to see a medical fetish site blast a major world government over the way that they've handled a global pandemic, but welcome to 2020 I guess. It's been a strange year.

So shoutout to MedFetUK and all the other places that have chipped in to help in any way they can. We won't be out of this mess for a while yet, but the fact that we're all pulling together is a sure sign that we'll get there eventually.

Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to on your favourite podcast app.

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You'll Face Huge Fines And Jail Time For Breaking COVID-19 Lockdown

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Unusual times call for unusual heroes. In strange and unexpected times, strange and unexpected heroes rise to the challenge. In this particular case, a medical fetish site has donated all of their scrubs to desperate health officials to help them get through the coronavirus pandemic. MedFetUK is exactly what it sounds like.

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Australia Talks: Nearly half of Aussie women don't feel safe at night | ABC News