Since April 15, Victoria has been operating without meaningful political finance laws. As the days have passed, candidates have received unregulated political donations that would once have exceeded donation caps. Foreign and anonymous donations have been allowed.

For the first time in years, Victorians have had no reliable way of knowing who is funding political campaigns.

That vacuum is a serious threat to the integrity of Victoria’s democratic system. The unregulated and undisclosed flow of money into politics raises concerns about corruption, undue influence, and the creation of an unfair playing field between the political candidates who have access to wealth, and those who do not.

So it’s a welcome development this week that the Allan government appears to have finally secured a pathway to restoring some key political finance safeguards.

Just as importantly as the short-term fix, secured through the political negotiations with the cross-bench, the proposed legislation also includes a comprehensive independent post-election review of Victoria’s political finance framework.

The wild west for political donations

The current predicament began with the collapse of the previous laws, held in April to be unconstitutional by the High Court. The court found the laws fell foul of the Constitution’s implied freedom of political communication because of the preferential treatment of bodies known as “nominated entities”.

Nominated entities were organisations associated with the major political parties that could receive unregulated donations separately from those parties.

Following the High Court’s decision, the state government appeared to have been caught flat-footed. The weeks of urgent political negotiation that followed had, until now, failed to produce a replacement.

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Read more: High Court takes an axe to Victoria’s political donations laws - and it will make federal MPs nervous

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What’s in the new laws?

The bill that has finally been introduced into parliament restores some essential guardrails.

It reintroduces the previous 21-day disclosure obligations for donations over $1,250. There are again prohibitions on donations from foreign and anonymous donors.

The bill reinstates donation caps, but at a higher level than the previous $4,970. It is effectively $10,000 for the upcoming 2026 election. After that, it will be set at $7,500.

In an attempt to offset the advantage of incumbents, this is doubled for “new entrants”.

The bill also restores public funding. Administrative funding has been increased, with parties receiving $300,000 for the first MP elected, $100,00 for the second MP, and $55,000 for the 3rd to 45th MP.

Victoria appears to have learnt at least the immediate lesson, because the new bill removes the nominated entity arrangements that lay at the heart of the High Court’s decision. It also includes provisions requiring the major parties to pay back donations received from nominated entities.

That key elements of the regulatory vacuum have been filled – and particularly the disclosure scheme – should be welcomed.

But it’s not perfect

However, the rushed and politically driven nature of the process that has led to this bill, which allocates significant new public funding to political parties and restricts political activity, makes the legislation more of an emergency repair job than a comprehensive redesign.

Indeed, several weaknesses from the previous regime remain. Notably, the legislation still does not provide for expenditure caps, which are essential for a level playing field.

It does not resolve longstanding ambiguity about the treatment of fundraising events. It continues to allow wealthy people to spend large amounts financing their own political participation.

It doesn’t address the exceptions carved out for affiliation fees from associated entities, including organisations such as unions, think tanks and businesses. These are payments made by organisations to political parties to maintain formal relationships, such as participation and representation rights.

And on policy development funding, the bill retains distinctions between political parties and independents that raise concerns about unfair treatment.

It also introduces some new features that raise questions. There is a new provision allowing for wealthy individuals and entities to spend unrestricted amounts for the benefit of others.

There are concerns the significant expanding of public funding for administrative expenses that benefit political parties creates a potentially unconstitutional preferential treatment.

There is a newly introduced ability to set disclosure thresholds and donation caps into the future through regulation, and without full parliamentary review. The application of donation caps and bans to transactions that have already occurred raises concerns about fairness, legal certainty, and whether the rules can actually be implemented in practice.

A path forward

Political finance regulation is inherently difficult to get right. It requires elected representatives to make decisions about rules that affect their own electoral interests.

The Centre for Public Integrity has long argued that a holistic political finance framework should incorporate evidence-informed donation and expenditure caps, robust disclosure requirements and fair public funding arrangements.

However, donation and spending caps and public funding at the right level takes time. It requires looking holistically, informed by evidence about the cost of running campaigns, at a range of issues. These include how disclosure requirements, donations and spending caps, and public funding work together.

For instance, before South Australia introduced its landmark “donations ban”, the state government engaged an expert panel to inquire into these matters.

Previously, too, Victoria has recognised these challenges through independent review processes that have produced important evidence and recommendations. Some of these were relied on in the High Court challenge.

The bill’s current review clause requires a three-person expert panel to be created after the November 2026 election to examine the operation of the new laws. It says the panel cannot be dominated by politicians. It would be required to consult with stakeholders and the public, and to consider options for a comprehensive and enduring political finance framework for Victoria.

In the meantime, the Victorian government has managed to plug the worst of the gaping hole left by the High Court’s decision. Most importantly, it has restored disclosure requirements.

Other aspects of its short-term solution are questionable. But encouragingly, the government has also committed to the kind of robust independent review that longer-term reform requires.

Correction: in the table above, a zero was missing from the administrative expenditure figure in the new bill, this has now been added.

Gabrielle Appleby works as the Research Director for the Centre for Public Integrity. She has received funding from The Australian Research Council.

Joo-Cheong Tham has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, European Trade Union Institute, International IDEA, the New South Wales Electoral Commission, the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Victorian Electoral Commission. He is a Director of the Centre for Public Integrity; Expert Network Member of Climate Integrity; a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia; and the Victorian Division Assistant Secretary (Academic Staff) of the National Tertiary Education Union.

As Aboriginal nations mounted a series of coordinated and strategic campaigns to defend Country against invading settlers, the smallpox epidemic spread across the southeast from 1830 to 1832.

It disproportionately affected Aboriginal people, killing large numbers of First Nations people exposed to it. Historical research so far has looked at the origins of the epidemic, mortality and the culpability of the settlers.

Yet Aboriginal warfare in the late 1830s suggests many communities survived the earlier epidemic. So how did Aboriginal people respond and survive in the face of a new and deadly disease?

With access to a lesser-known medical report from 1831 by army doctor John Mair, our newly-published research offers an alternative account of Wiradjuri, Gomeroi and Wailwan peoples of the plains and river country (of what is now western and northwestern New South Wales). This gave us an insight into their experience of what they named “Boulol” on the northwestern plains and “Thunna Thunna” in the Lachlan and Wellington Valleys.

Our research unearthed three distinct responses that are reminiscent of leading disease control measures across the globe and that continue today.

Efforts to isolate and separate

The 1830s epidemic probably was not the first time the peoples of the plains and rivers experienced smallpox. Old men at one cattle station told the station manager in 1831 they had experienced the disease when they were very young, and they had the distinctive scars to prove it.

It’s likely these men had previously caught smallpox in 1789 or 1790, after the disease had first broken out around the colonisers’ camp at Sydney Cove and moved west over the ranges. These men – and other plains country old people – would have understood the disease from the vast networks of trade and communication that linked the coast to the plains country.

It should come as no surprise, then, that they had well thought out strategies to respond to the epidemic, such as the movement of people away from the disease and population centres.

At that same station, the manager observed one smaller group isolating away from a larger group that had the disease. What the stockman interpreted as enmity could instead have been strictly observed isolation. This could have been similar to the sometimes violent quarantine practices of English-speaking societies.

In another example, this time from a station at Wallerawang (near present-day Lithgow), a group “convinced of the contagious nature of the disease” fled to Emu Plains, 100 kilometres southeast and on the opposite side of the mountains, in order to escape the epidemic.

Again, the Wallerawang station Wiradjuri people seem to have recognised how smallpox spread from person to person.

After the epidemic, they returned. We know this because a decade later the local pastoralist, James Walker, reported he was grateful for their return as he relied on their labour.

Devising treatments

The Aboriginal peoples of the plains and river country also responded to the smallpox epidemic with active treatment.

George Clarke was a bushranger known as “the Barber” who lived with the Gomeroi people for several years. He provided detailed descriptions of how Gomeroi doctors treated the disease.

Initially, treatment included immersion in cold water, but since deaths still occurred, this treatment was discontinued and other cures tried.

Head hair was removed by scorching close to the scalp. Further treatment included “pricking the pustules with a sharp pointed fish bone” and pressing out the fluid with a flat instrument.

John Mair, who interviewed Clarke, interpreted these treatments as being consistent with the best accepted medical interventions for smallpox then known in the world. Mair was highly trained, with a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh and training at leading British and French hospitals.

He found examples of head-shaving and pustule pricking in his textbook. He was comfortable with the idea that Aboriginal knowledge systems may have reduced mortality of the smallpox epidemic and mitigated symptoms.

Clarke’s bushranging itself pointed to the effectiveness of Gomeroi practices. “The Barber” was arrested twice in 1831, in April and October, before and after the epidemic. Gomeroi warriors were with him both times. Smallpox did not prevent them from fighting the invading squatters.

Getting vaccinated

Accepting vaccination was another way that Wiradjuri, Gomeroi and Wailwan peoples responded to the smallpox epidemic.

Smallpox was the first virus for which a vaccine was found. Yet in the 1830s, this technology was still only 30 years old, with significant limitations in its efficacy and safety.

Mair was committed to vaccination, offering it to settler children in Sydney. When he first heard rumours of the epidemic to the west, he sent vaccine packages and later performed vaccinations himself.

Mair was conscious that vaccination could only work if it was accepted by Aboriginal people. He soon found out Aboriginal people took up vaccination very readily, compared with the “little desire” he had seen in Sydney among the settlers.

Reading Mair’s views, we conclude these unnamed Wiradjuri people decided to trust Mair, even with limited evidence, to receive a procedure that they probably understood as an action intended to prevent the return of smallpox.

When vaccination was not possible, at least one group of colonisers offered a riskier alternative. Variolation involved controlled inoculation with smallpox pus, which supposedly caused a mild case of smallpox that prevented future infection.

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Read more: Eradicating smallpox: the global vaccination push that brought the world ‘arm-to-arm’

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It mostly worked, even if it could have up to a three in 100 fatality rate.

When vaccination failed during the epidemic, Arthur Ranken, a pastoralist on the Lachlan River, performed variolation on several Wiradjuri people and convinced his neighbours John and Jeremiah Grant to do the same. The Grants experimented with variolation in stages – first testing it on ten people from “Miles’ and Camberrang’s tribes”, then others from the community, and lastly, on Jeremiah Grant himself.

This procedure did offer protection, but it also came with more risk. The pastoralists may have been motivated to resort to variolation to secure their Aboriginal labour force. Variolation had become common on slave plantations in the Caribbean and Americas during the 18th century for this reason, and Ranken had brothers who were both doctors and slave owners.

Yet Ranken and the Grants appear to have omitted one crucial part of the variolation procedure – the strict quarantine of people who’d had the treatment. Without this step, the colonisers let the recovering patients spread smallpox to others, even while being protected themselves.

Aftermath

The smallpox epidemic of the early 1830s undoubtedly was a devastating event that caused many deaths and affected survivors for decades. Yet to focus only on this impact is to tell an incomplete history.

The Wiradjuri, Gomeroi and Wailwan peoples of the plains and river country actively responded to smallpox just as they responded to other forms of violence. They carefully deployed Traditional Knowledge, observation and intuition in the treatment and response to smallpox, in ways that drew on networks across vast distances with earlier experience of the disease.

Less than a decade after the epidemic, from 1838 to 1844, Gomeroi, Wiradjuri and Wailwan led an uprising that has been described as a high point of resistance to the colonisers, forcing them, in some places, to retreat. Smallpox did not destroy either culture or willingness to fight for country.

Heidi Norman receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Greater Sydney Parklands.

Nicholas Pitt receives funding from the Australian Research Council’s Australian Laureate Fellowship and the School of Humanities and Languages at UNSW Sydney.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is grappling with a rising Ebola epidemic, with almost 600 cases detected so far and more than 130 deaths.

Ebola is a rare virus that initially causes a fever, fatigue, muscle pain, then vomiting and diarrhoea. It can then progress to the hemorrhagic stage, with internal bleeding – which presents as blood in vomit and faeces – as well as bleeding as from parts of the body including the nose, gums, vagina and needle punctures.

Ebola primarily spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood, faeces and vomit. It can be contracted from contaminated surfaces or contact with bodies of those who have died, but can also spread by other routes including without contact.

This current outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, was first confirmed as Ebola on May 15. It was already estimated to have 246 cases at the time of this confirmation.

As surveillance efforts stepped up, it became clear the outbreak was more than double that size, with spread to Uganda.

So what are health authorities doing to get the virus under control and why is it such a challenge?

And what can health authorities in Africa, as well as the rest of the world, learn from previous outbreaks?

How did so many people get sick so quickly?

Ebola has a long incubation period of two to three weeks or longer. This means the number of infected people has likely been growing since at least March or April.

Our epidemic early warning system, Epiwatch, saw signals of unknown illness in the DRC on April 13, with reports of hemorrhagic fever noted even earlier on March 13.

The delay in diagnosing Ebola may have been due to initial testing targeting the more common Zaire strain of Ebola. Tests must be specific to Bundibugyo.

The DRC is also experiencing other serious outbreaks including mpox and measles, as well as malnutrition and chronic malaria.

These underlying factors can make epidemics more severe and harder to detect.

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Read more: WHO has declared mpox a global health emergency. What happens next?

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How big did previous outbreaks get?

The worst Ebola epidemic in history was over 28,000 cases in the 2014 West African epidemic. More than 11,000 people died from this Zaire strain, as vaccines were not yet available at the peak of the epidemic.

In the DRC, the last epidemic of 64 cases was in late 2025. The largest epidemic in the DRC was in 2018-2019 with more than 3,000 cases. These were both the Zaire strain.

There have only been two other Bundibugyo outbreaks. The first, in 2007 with 149 cases, was in the Bundibugyo District of western Uganda, near the DRC border. The second, in 2012, was in the DRC, with 57 cases. The current Bundibugyo epidemic is already the largest in history.

While Bundibugyo is not as lethal as the Zaire strain, it can kill 30–50% of infected people. The fatality rate in this epidemic appears close to 30%, with 139 deaths reported from almost 600 cases.

Unlike the Zaire strain, for which there are treatments and vaccines, there are no approved drugs or vaccines for the Bundibugyo strain.

However, the World Health Organization has sponsored clinical trials of a monoclonal antibody and the antiviral remdesivir, a drug which is also used for COVID.

We may see higher fatality rates unless non-pharmaceutical measures ramp up.

How can it be stopped?

The epidemic can be stopped by coordinated surveillance and containment. This is by identifying cases, isolating them so they cannot infect others, tracing their contacts and quarantining them.

In 2014, these measures alone controlled the Ebola epidemic at a time when no treatments or vaccines were available. This means health system capacity is the key to epidemic control.

There were not enough beds for Ebola patients in the 2014 epidemic, so health authorities built tent hospitals to help bring the epidemic under control. This could be considered if hospitals are overwhelmed.

The DRC has limited capacity to diagnose Ebola, so it’s important to scale up surveillance and testing. A clinical case definition (such as “fever and bleeding means a probable case”) can be used if testing is not available.

Simple surveillance systems – such as open-source intelligence, where community chatter and local news reports can provide signals of epidemics – can help. So can providing incentives for communities to report suspected cases.

It’s also essential to communicate and work with communities and community leaders from the ground up. In the 2014 epidemic, locals murdered eight Ebola workers who provided health education, showing how important trust and community relationships are.

Health workers, close contacts and funeral attendants need extra precautions

Ebola is predominantly spread by contact with blood and bodily fluids. Those most at risk are close contacts of patients with Ebola, health workers and people attending funerals, which often involves touching the body.

At least four health workers have been infected, including one American missionary doctor.

Given the high fatality rate, health workers should be provided the highest level of personal protection.

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Read more: How are nurses becoming infected with Ebola?

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What can other countries do?

Ebola is a concern for all of us, because travel can result in infections occurring in any country. During the 2014 West African epidemic, cases also occurred outside the main affected countries, the largest number in Nigeria.

Failure to initially diagnose a case in Texas resulted in four other people becoming infected, including health workers.

Whether facing hantavirus or Ebola, emergency departments need tools to improve their awareness of and ability to prevent hospital outbreaks.

Busy staff in emergency triage may send someone with a fever back to the waiting room for hours, not realising they have travelled recently and may have a serious infectious disease. In South Korea, a person with the deadly Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus was in the emergency department for many hours, and a huge outbreak resulted.

One useful tool for hospitals is a decision-support system used during triage that prompts staff to ask for a patient’s travel history and provides data on disease outbreaks in the country of travel. This means patients with deadly infections may be isolated before they can infect others.

Another concern is that if the outbreak becomes much larger, there may be survivors who still harbour the virus for many months or longer after recovery. They could continue to infect others after this epidemic is over if they come into contact with bodily fluids such as semen, amniotic fluid or breast milk, as well as fluids from the placenta or eye.

The WHO declaring a public health emergency of international concern helps, as it activates a range of additional measures and resources for outbreak control.

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Read more: Ebola survivors struggle to return to normal lives: what I found out in Sierra Leone and Liberia

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C Raina MacIntyre is the founder of EPIWATCH Global Pty Ltd which tracks global epidemics. She receives funding from NHMRC Investigator Grant 2016907 and NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence GNT2006595.

Ashley Quigley, Mohana Priya Kunasekaran, and Noor Jahan Begum Bari do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The latest data on Australian schooling shows about 81.5% of Year 10 students go on to Year 12.

This is a modest rise of 1.6 percentage points on the previous year, but figures have been largely stable since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There has been decades of research on how to help students finish school.

Each student is of course different and will have different needs. But there are many things schools can do from Year 7 to support students to stay until Year 12.

Here are three of the most important ones.

Why it’s important to finish school

Completing Year 12 is associated with a range of positive longer-term outcomes.

These include better employment prospects, higher lifetime earnings, and stronger health and wellbeing.

It also keeps the widest range of post-school options open, from vocational training and apprenticeships to further study and direct entry into work.

Why do students leave?

The reasons students leave before Year 12 are varied and often complex.

For example, some students might be managing health challenges, navigating difficult life circumstances, or pursuing opportunities like an apprenticeship that fit their goals well.

For others, however, leaving early is shaped by experiences at school itself.

Somewhere along the way, they became disengaged, fell behind, or lost their connection to school. These are the experiences schools are best placed to influence.

Research shows there are three key areas schools can better develop now to help increase the retention numbers in the years ahead.

1. How teachers teach

It may sound obvious but one main way schools can keep students is through teaching approaches that help students learn effectively. This is because students need to feel they can succeed at school — and see themselves making progress — in order to stay engaged and connected to it.

When learning is consistently out of reach, students disengage. In contrast, when they can see themselves getting better at things, school feels worth their effort.

Our research shows effective teaching in Year 7 is connected all the way through to whether a student completes school six years later.

This type of teaching is also linked with students putting in greater effort at school and higher achievement.

What kind of teaching practices are we talking about?

One well-evidenced approach is explicit instruction where teachers clearly model new concepts and skills, guide students through examples, and gradually shift responsibility to students as they gain mastery.

As part of this, two strategies stand out.

First, reducing difficulty during initial learning. When a concept is new, break it into manageable steps and match the challenge to what students already know.

Second, give students well-organised opportunities to practise, paired with specific guidance on how to improve.

2. How the classroom works

Orderly, predictable and positive classrooms free up students to focus on learning rather than navigating disruption.

This is why classroom management is important. This is how teachers structure the classroom environment and the interactions within it so learning can happen.

In a recent study, we found students whose teachers provided strong classroom management were up to six times more likely to have high motivation, engagement, and resilience at school than students whose teachers did not.

Two strategies are particularly effective for classroom management.

First, establishing and consistently maintaining clear rules and routines is important, so students know what to expect.

Second, recognising and building on what students do well rather than only focusing on what goes wrong.

3. Student-teacher relationships

Research also tells us it’s important for teachers to build warm, respectful relationships with students.

It is not only important for retention in its own right — it also underpins the other two areas above. Strong teaching and good classroom management both depend on positive teacher-student relationships.

When students feel known and supported by their teachers, they are more willing to engage and stay connected to school.

Our research shows each relationship a student has with a teacher matters. The more positive relationships students have with their teachers — relative to negative ones — the greater their academic engagement.

Academic engagement in turn, is a key driver of school retention.

Research tells us every teacher can make a difference, and the relationships teachers build with their students could be what helps that student stay on and complete school. This is because the relationships add up — and for some students, the bond they build with one teacher in particular can be what tips the balance toward staying engaged with school.

So it is important to create conditions where every student has the chance to build genuine, positive connections with teachers. This means teachers getting to know students as individuals, showing interest in their lives beyond the classroom, and teaching in ways that feel personal and engaging.

Rebecca J. Collie receives funding from the Commonwealth Department of Education and the New South Wales Department of Education.

Andrew J. Martin receives funding from the Commonwealth Department of Education and the NSW Department of Education.

Following the recent announcement that Australia would acquire three submarines already in US service rather than two used submarines and one new one, AUKUS has again dominated headlines.

AUKUS is a defence capability agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Since it was announced in 2021, it’s rarely been out of the news.

But how much of what you have heard is true?

As a former Navy officer specialising in anti-submarine warfare, I am frequently asked the same questions about AUKUS. While I can’t address everything in one article, here are the details behind some of the most common claims.

Why is Australia buying used submarines?

Australia has Collins class submarines that entered service between 1996 and 2003. Work should already be underway to replace them, but decades of delays and underfunding have left us with an ageing fleet.

Though the Collins class submarines will each go through a multi-year maintenance period extending their life, they won’t last long enough. They will need to be decommissioned before Australia can co-design, build and produce submarines here under AUKUS.

A stopgap solution is required. The purchase of three Virginia class submarines in 2032, 2035 and 2038 will provide this, and also give Australia the ability to start operating nuclear-powered submarines.

Think of it as a “crawl, walk, run” approach. The Virginias are the walk phase before we start building our own nuclear-powered submarines.

Acquiring submarines already in service reduces risk and complexity, avoids the challenges of introducing a new submarine, and removes the need for initial certification trials.

Is Australia getting a less capable submarine?

Not in any meaningful sense, though the third Virginia will be an older version than planned, so its sensors will probably be slightly less capable.

Australia will now receive three Block IV Virginia class submarines. These remain among the most capable attack submarines in the world. They carry more than 20 torpedoes and 12 Tomahawk land strike missiles.

Much of the commentary this week has suggested Australia has lost additional missile capacity because the submarines we’re receiving won’t have the “Virginia Payload Module” – a new hull section that allows the submarines to carry more missiles.

But that commentary is incorrect.

The submarine Australia was expected to receive in 2038 was never intended to have that capability.

In conflict, Australia would predominantly use these submarines in an anti-submarine and anti-ship role. Land strike missiles are not used for this and so the extra capacity isn’t essential. It’s also capability the US has said it is not willing to provide.

The main difference is the third submarine will have fewer years of life remaining than a new boat. A Virginia class submarine off the production line would normally have a 33-year life.

At Senate estimates this week, the Australian Submarine Agency said each boat will have more than 20 years of life remaining when we receive them.

Claims these submarines would only have eight years of life do not withstand scrutiny. The kind of submarines Australia will receive only started entering service in 2020.

Are we paying $368 billion for three used submarines?

The figure most often quoted for AUKUS is $368 billion. While technically correct, this figure covers costs through to 2055 including infrastructure, workforce and maintenance costs over 31 years, plus the purchase of Virginia class submarines to Australia and building our own submarines.

Of the total, about $244 billion is the projected cost, while the remaining $122.9 billion is a 50% contingency on top. This is money set aside to cover risks, cost growth and unforeseen problems. Most defence projects carry 5–10% contingency.

The Department of Defence’s 2026 Integrated Investment Program states nuclear-powered submarines will cost between $71 billion and $96 billion over the next decade.

Against projected defence funding of about $887 billion over the same period, this equates to around 8–11% of defence spending.

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Read more: In view of Trump’s review of AUKUS, should Australia cancel the subs deal? We asked 5 experts

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Can the US build enough submarines for Australia?

This is one of the most legitimate points of debate in the discussion.

The US reduced its production rate of submarines after the Cold War. Since 2011 it has set a goal of increasing its build rate to two submarines a year. From 2016–19 it averaged 1.9 boats a year.

According to the US Congressional Research report on Virginia class submarines, this build rate dropped off due to workforce issues during COVID and challenges associated with moving to the build of the new Block V submarine, which is 2,000 tonnes larger than the Block IV Virginia. The US is investing billions of dollars into its submarine industrial base to address this issue.

In May, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle told Congress he expects Virginia production to reach two boats per year in around 2032. He previously said the US will need to get to a 2.3 production rate to get to its 2054 goal, including the sale of three Virginias to Australia. The US is presently building 1.3 a year.

The US submarine industrial base challenges are real, and will take significant effort to address. Has the US said it will not sell submarines to Australia if it doesn’t get there? No.

Is AUKUS risky?

Yes.

AUKUS is the most complex defence project in Australian history. There are risks in the US and UK industrial bases, workforce growth, infrastructure and funding. Anyone claiming otherwise is not engaging with reality.

But much has been achieved in less than five years.

Australia has established a submarine base near Perth, embedded personnel in US and UK submarine programs, commenced major infrastructure works, trained hundreds of personnel, and secured US congressional approval for the submarine transfers.

At the recent AUKUS Defence Ministers’ Meeting, all three countries stated the program remained on track. Based on the evidence available today, I agree.

This is a multi-decade program. There will be changes along the way. Not every adjustment is evidence of failure.

What happens if Australia abandons AUKUS?

Australia cannot simply walk away from AUKUS and pick another submarine off the shelf. Any alternative would require a new acquisition process, a new agreement and years of negotiation.

There is also no obvious replacement. France’s nuclear-powered submarines, for example, are built through a single shipyard and can take more than a decade to complete.

If Australia was to abandon a second submarine program in little more than a decade, this time with our closest ally, it would be hard to imagine another country lining up to partner with Australia on a future submarine project. After cancelling the French submarine program and significantly reducing other naval programs, our reputation for delivering in this area is already under pressure.

AUKUS should continue to be scrutinised. But that scrutiny should be anchored in facts. Any proposal to abandon it must also explain what replaces it and how Australia avoids a submarine capability gap.

Having spoken with officials in our partner nations, the concern raised most often is not the US or UK industrial base. It is Australian political will. As a nation, we should be mindful of that and measured in our debate.

Jennifer Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The abrupt resignation of the National Anti-Corruption Commissioner Paul Brereton is a pivotal moment for the federal watchdog. For years, questions over the commissioner’s leadership arising from concerns about his ability to manage conflicts of interest had undermined public confidence and trust in a key Australian integrity institution.

The government has committed to a “merit-based process” to appoint the next commissioner.

But can we trust the government to do that and rebuild trust in our national anti-corruption commission? Research finds governments often abuse their power to appoint, fund and oversee integrity agencies in order to avoid serious oversight.

How do we avoid this abuse and safeguard the independence of our integrity agencies? A new report from the Centre for Public Integrity outlines three key ways to ensure these agencies are truly independent.

These reforms should guide the appointment of a new national anti-corruption commissioner.

Fundamental tensions

To do their job, integrity agencies must be independent from the government. This means they must be able to investigate and criticise governments and public officials without fear of political retaliation.

But in practice there are a few problems with this idea.

Unlike the courts and parliament, these agencies are not protected in the Constitution. Instead, they are often created by the government through an act of parliament.

This creates a foundational tension: integrity agencies are designed by government, to hold the government to account.

The government has a vested interest in these institutions being weak. Governments have been accused of establishing weak watchdogs, or deliberately “clipping the wings” of these bodies by amending laws.

There are also operational tensions. Governments can weaken integrity agencies in more subtle ways.

One way is through political appointments. In Australia, we have seen such politicisation, for instance, in appointments to the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal, ultimately leading to its abolition.

Or they might be in the form of cutting funding. This happened most recently in the current budget, with a funding cut in real terms to the Australian National Audit Office. The office had previously said that with its current funding levels, it would not be able to meet its responsibilities for performance audits.

On budget day, the joint parliamentary committee on public accounts and audit expressed its ongoing concern about the operational capability of the office given its financial position.

A new report released by the Centre for Public Integrity outlines a number of ways the independence of these agencies must be protected across three key pillars: appointments, funding and oversight.

You can’t choose your own watchdog

Our analysis shows that across the country, there is significant variation in how heads of integrity agencies are appointed. Many governments exercise broad and opaque discretion over who leads the core integrity agencies.

This creates obvious risks. If governments can appoint agency heads through opaque processes, there may be concerns — justified or not — about whether those leaders are suitably qualified or truly independent.

The controversy surrounding Brereton illustrates the stakes involved. Questions about conflicts of interest under his leadership have fuelled broader concerns about the lack of a transparent, merit-based appointment process for the role.

Our report recommends legally requiring open advertising of senior integrity positions, independent selection panels and greater parliamentary involvement in appointments.

There’s no need to wait. The government could implement such a process in the upcoming NACC appointment, instead of relying on vague platitudes of a “merit-based process”.

This proposal is similar to one that has been successfully adopted elsewhere, including for the reformed Administrative Review Tribunal.

We also recommend longer but non-renewable terms for agency heads to alleviate any pressure leaders may feel in seeking reappointment.

Handing over the purse strings

The second problem then is funding. Most Australian integrity agencies rely on governments to decide how much money they receive each year.

In practice, this means the government can place pressure on agencies by limiting their resources. Underfunded integrity agencies cannot properly investigate corruption, scrutinise spending or carry out oversight work.

Our report argues integrity agencies should have stronger protections around funding, again, drawing on models that have been successfully developed elsewhere, particularly in the ACT for their “Officers of Parliament”.

Our proposal includes separate parliamentary processes and independent funding panels that can publicly recommend appropriate funding levels. Governments would still make final budget decisions, but there would be greater transparency when they made decisions that cut agency funding.

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Read more: Australia’s anti-corruption commissioner has a trust problem. He needs to change course to fix it

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Genuinely independent oversight

Finally, independence does not mean integrity agencies should operate without accountability. These agencies exercise significant powers. Some can compel evidence, conduct hearings and make findings that seriously affect reputations and careers.

So oversight is essential – but that oversight must be independent. Oversight systems for integrity agencies are often poorly designed. In many jurisdictions, for instance, parliamentary oversight committees are dominated by government members.

A better system would involve parliamentary committees not dominated by government MPs, alongside independent inspectors for agencies exercising coercive powers.

The importance of such roles is underscored by the work of the NACC Inspector, in receiving and investigating complaints about the commission’s decision not to investigate Robodebt referrals.

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Read more: NACC belatedly to investigate whether six Robodebt referrals engaged in ‘corrupt conduct’

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Is real independence possible?

Australia has invested heavily in creating a set of core integrity agencies. Even if reluctantly, every jurisdiction across the country now has an anti-corruption agency, auditor-general and ombudsman office.

The next challenge is ensuring those institutions are sufficiently independent to do their job. Across the country, there are good designs that alleviate the operational pressures these agencies face. Adopting these designs will help secure better and more transparent funding, appointment, and oversight of core integrity agencies.

These more independent integrity agencies can in turn help safeguard the health of our democracy.

Gabrielle Appleby works as the Research Director for the Centre for Public Integrity. She has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

William Partlett is a Stephen Charles Fellow at the Centre for Public Integrity.

Public hearings are underway this week to highlight the impacts of the government’s new National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) bill to tighten eligibility and save costs.

Over the past two days, the Senate inquiry heard that if the bill passes in its current form, it risks entrenching gender inequities in the NDIS and further excluding women and girls.

We have long known the NDIS has a gender problem.

Women and girls only make up 38% of the scheme. Men outnumber women in every age category (except for 55 and over) and dominate nearly every disability type within the scheme.

From the age of 15, access requests from men are also approved at a higher rate than access requests for women.

Tighter eligibility

From January 1 2028, the bill will require scheme applicants to access all “appropriate” treatments (meaning known, evidence-based and available in Australia) likely to “materially” (meaning noticeably) improve or alleviate the impact of the impairment, before NDIS access is granted.

Applicants have always been asked to demonstrate they’ve tried other treatments before applying for the NDIS. But this new rule is likely to place an even higher burden on people with impairments that are difficult to diagnose and medically complex to treat.

Under the new permanency rules, people may have to try lots of potentially marginal treatments that might slightly improve functioning, even if their conditions are not understood, or the treatment is expensive or difficult to access.

Women are more likely than men to have medically unexplained or chronic conditions, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, which causes chronic pain.

These “pay to prove” dynamics also disproportionately affect those with fewer financial resources. Women with disability are more likely than men with disability to live on lower incomes. They also have higher expenses and lower earning capacity due to greater caring responsibilities.

Tightening access to the scheme in this way – without first addressing costly and difficult-to-access treatment pathways – risks excluding these women and girls from key supports.

Support can only be provided for approved conditions

If the bill passes, the NDIS will only fund supports for needs that directly relate to NDIS-recognised impairments.

This reverses changes to NDIS legislation introduced two years ago, which better recognised the complex way people actually experience impairments.

We have spoken to people in our current study about chronic pain who have explained that pain from one condition (for example, a connective tissue disorder) can affect the functional impacts of another impairment (for example, autism or a psychosocial disability, for which they receive NDIS support). For them, it’s impossible to distinguish between support needs “arising directly” from their NDIS-recognised impairment and support needs that are indirectly related to that impairment.

Women are also more likely than men to experience multiple chronic health conditions and disabilities, especially in age groups under the NDIS cut-off of 65.

Narrowing the lens of assessment and restricting access in this way also has gendered consequences.

Cuts to social participation funding

The bill gives the minister power to make cuts to entire categories of supports in the future, without introducing legislation or consultation.

We got a taste of what this could look when the government announced it would cut participants’ social and community participation budgets.

The 50% across-the-board cuts will shift these responsibilities back onto informal carers – largely women.

There are more than twice as many female primary carers as male primary carers. Of those providing primary care to children with disability, the overwhelming majority (84.7%) are women.

Some 43.8% of primary carers also have disability themselves. This means that when it comes to carers, we are often talking about women with disability who are the primary carers for children with disability.

These cuts will increase unpaid caring responsibilities. The bill’s explanatory memorandum acknowledges this:

Due to the gendered nature of caring, women are more likely to be impacted by changes to the supports available […].

These changes may lead carers to cut back on paid employment, deepening women’s socioeconomic exclusion.

Cuts to social and community participation funding are also likely to increase social isolation and reduce natural safeguards of community connection for people with disability.

Women with disability are disproportionately likely to experience violence, so cutting them off from vital community participation supports poses an unacceptable risk.

What needs to be done?

The bill’s explanatory memorandum says:

opportunities to increase gender equality will be considered as part of the design and evaluation of future market reforms to delivering social and community participation and capacity building activities.

However, no timeframes, benchmarks or accountability mechanisms are provided for when or how this work will occur.

The Australian government’s approach to gender-responsive budgeting requires new policy proposals to include gender analysis proportionate to the scale, scope and likely impact of the reform.

Given the scale and implications of the proposed NDIS reforms, we need a comprehensive and publicly available gender impact analysis before this bill is passed.

We also need more certainty on what can be done for those outside the scheme who need foundational supports. The Australian government has announced the Thriving Kids initiative. However, there is limited detail on planned foundational supports for other participant groups.

Researchers and advocates have been calling for an NDIS gender strategy for years. The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) began work on this in early 2025, but by 2026 this work had been paused to prioritise broader scheme reforms. Advocates, such as Women with Disabilities Australia, continue to draw attention to the gendered issues of these reforms.

The likely consequences of these reforms show a gender strategy is needed more than ever.

Sophie Yates receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Molly Saunders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The world’s hottest years over the past decade have coincided with stagnant economic productivity, rising prices and geopolitical instability.

Is this just coincidence or has the current level of climate change been one of the drivers? Climate change is often framed as a problem for the future. But how much economic damage has today’s current level of ~1.35°C of warming already caused?

To answer that question, we analysed the effects of climate change to date on the New South Wales economy. The results were released today as part of a Net Zero Commission report.

We estimate climate change has already caused median losses of around 18% (probability range 4–33%) to the NSW economy, the biggest economic jurisdiction in the country. At a median 18% loss, that translates to about A$21,300 per person on average in yearly income.

We show that it’s not local bushfires or flooding that are driving the majority of damage, but changing global weather that in turn affects our cost of living.

Imagine a world without climate change

Studies typically project the global economic damage that climate change will do by 2050 or 2100.

Some influential estimates have suggested climate damage would be fairly small. But our recent research and work by others shows the economic damage coming down the pipeline could be more than four times larger than previously thought.

Our research question for this report was different: “What would the NSW economy look like today if historical emissions of greenhouse gases had not caused climate change?”

This requires a thought experiment: imagining a past where we burn fossil fuels at the historical rate, but the additional carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases do not cause changes to temperature or rainfall patterns.

Answering this question will allow us to understand the economic losses we have already endured from historical climate change.

How we did it

First, we collected data on historical economic growth and weather across the world over the past 70 years. We then modelled how weather changes (or shocks) impacted economic growth over this period. There is significant debate on how to do this, so we adopted a variety of approaches.

Then we had to plausibly guess at how the weather would have evolved in the past four decades without climate change. To create this hypothetical weather series, we simply removed any trend found in the weather data which we ascribe to human-caused climate change. This works because there is no evidence natural causes have contributed to the upward trend in temperatures.

Finally, we compared economic growth rates predicted by the models under the observed and under the hypothetical weather conditions. The contrast between the total economic production of the NSW economy in the two scenarios is the economic cost of historical climate change for a given year.

What we found

We estimate the median economic loss for NSW in 2024 was 18%. There is significant uncertainty in this figure, with the lower estimates around 4% and the higher around 33%.

The median loss figure of 18% translates into an average of $21,288 in losses per person in yearly income (in 2023–2024 dollar values). In other words, the model finds that if historical warming had not occurred then people living in NSW would each have $21,288 more dollars, on average, in their pockets every year. This amount is large enough to meaningfully improve the quality of life of the state’s average household.

The models suggest the primary mechanism through which this loss has occurred is the rise in the global average temperature. When people think about losses associated with climate change in NSW, they might consider how climate change exacerbated the bushfires of 2019–20, or the floods that followed. The damages they caused are, of course, real and significant.

However, the economic models suggest the majority of the damage has come from shifts in weather globally. Given the interconnectedness of modern economies through trade and global supply chains, it is reasonable to assume that climate shocks to supply chains affect the whole globe.

How we think about climate change

When pollsters ask Australian voters what issues they care about, “climate change” is often listed as one issue among many. Voters are asked to assess how important climate change is to them relative to the cost of living, public health, interest rates, secure employment, and other important things.

Presenting issues in this way reinforces a common misconception that they are independent, and that one can be prioritised over the other.

To the contrary, there is now good evidence that climate change is strongly related to economic outcomes, which in turn drive the cost of living, interest rates, investment in in health and education and the labour market.

It’s time to stop thinking of climate change as “merely” an environmental issue, which can be discarded when economic times are tough. Instead, we should recognise what it really is: a current and ongoing threat to our standard of living.

Timothy Neal receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Ben Newell receives funding from the Australian Research Council

A year has passed since conflict broke out between India and Pakistan, briefly raising fears of an all-out war between the two nuclear powers.

While violent conflict between the neighbours has been commonplace for the past 80 years, this latest round of fighting felt different.

Both sides used new weapons against one another, including cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles and drones. The level of mistrust and sharp rhetoric worsened considerably, significantly testing regional partnerships.

One year later, tensions remain high, with an underlying risk of further escalation.

What happened last year?

The war broke out last May following a terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in the Pahalgam area of Indian Kashmir on April 22.

Within days, Indian police claimed the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the attack. Pakistan vehemently denied any involvement.

Then, on May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor against alleged terrorist strongholds in Pakistan, which prompted a Pakistani retaliatory attack, Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos.

Dozens of people are believed to have been killed. As in any India-Pakistan conflict, the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons created further alarm.

The four-day conflict came to an end with a ceasefire on May 10. It was announced by the Trump administration, which claimed to have mediated the deal. This irritated India, but Pakistan nominated US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

India nonetheless claimed victory, boasting of its ability to deliver precise attacks far inside Pakistani territory, exposing weaknesses in its rival’s air defences. Pakistan, meanwhile, claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets (which India denies).

Political ramifications

In Pakistan, the Pakistani military returned to the political mainstream following the conflict. After leading Pakistan’s military response to India, the chief of army staff, Syed Asim Munir, was elevated to field marshal, and then to the post of the country’s first chief of defence forces.

Munir’s influence has only grown since. He has become very close to Trump and has been a key figure in the negotiations between the US and Iran to bring an end to their war.

In India, Operation Sindoor was seen as a win for the Modi government’s decisive foreign policy, and was a moment of rare political consensus in the country.

However, in Kashmir, the terror attack raised fresh questions about the government’s claims of normalcy in the region – and its push to boost tourism – following the controversial revocation of Kashmir’s statehood in 2019.

In the weeks that followed the attack, security operations in the Kashmir valley shut down several tourist sites. This led to a sharp decline in visitor numbers and severely affected local businesses. Security operations also targeted civilians, alarming human rights experts.

Shifting regional dynamics

Perhaps the most significant impact of the conflict has been the difference in diplomatic engagements of both countries.

The war highlighted Pakistan’s operational cooperation with both China and Turkey. The Pakistani military used Chinese-built fighter jets and missiles in its attacks, as well as Turkish-made drones. Its satellite-based intelligence was enabled by China, too.

After the war, Pakistan also signed a new deal with the Trump administration to develop Pakistan’s oil reserves, and a defence pact with Saudi Arabia, a staunch US ally.

India had pursued a decade-long push to isolate Pakistan diplomatically, which made Pakistan’s increasing bonhomie with the US and Gulf states particularly awkward.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s once-close relationship with Trump, meanwhile, began to deteriorate over US tariffs and India’s purchase of Russian oil.

Modi’s ill-timed visit to Israel and the visible lack of influence in the US–Iran war has also raised questions about India’s professed role as a regional leader. It has highlighted the limits to India’s strategy of balancing its strategic partnerships, especially during conflict.

India has tried to engage in proactive diplomacy, dispatching delegations of MPs and former diplomats to more than 30 countries over the past year. While India claims these visits were a success, they haven’t done much to convince the world that Pakistan was the aggressor in their conflict.

Where do things go from here?

One year on, the political rhetoric on both sides is as charged as ever.

Both India and Pakistan have signalled a resolve for further escalation in future conflicts.

Despite a sliver of hope for secret backchannel talks, India continues to give stern warnings to Pakistan over its alleged support to terrorist groups.

India has also reiterated that a major water-sharing treaty between the countries would remain suspended until Pakistan takes steps to end its support for terrorism – leaving a major concern over water security unresolved.

In response, Pakistan has made clear any attempt to target Pakistan again would “trigger consequences” that would not be “geographically confined or strategically or politically palatable for India”.

The shifting geopolitics and heightened rhetoric have narrowed the space for any prospects of meaningful dialogue between the two. As a result, the alarmingly low levels of trust will remain.

The ceasefire holds for now, but the conflict continues unabated.

Stuti Bhatnagar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Everyone has a storm story – whether it’s that time you just escaped a downpour, or the hailstorm that wrote off your car. Even though hailstorms are relatively rare, they cause significant damages. Two new studies shed light on how hail might change as the world warms.

In our study, published today in Nature Climate Change, we show that hail conditions may move towards the poles with global warming and shift a bit from summer to winter. This could lead to more hailstorms in places such as northern Europe, Canada, southeastern Australia and New Zealand’s South Island.

Another new study led by Shiyi Zhang at Peking University shows that hail may also become more damaging.

Hailstorms are costly. In Australia in 2025, hail in New South Wales and Queensland caused A$1.9b in insurance claims, and in recent years severe storms have caused enormous losses globally.

Severe storm costs are increasing. Much of this increase is because people and assets are more exposed to storms as populations increase and cities expand.

But is climate change also playing a role?

How does hail form?

To get hail you need a thunderstorm, and to get a thunderstorm you need an updraught. Updraughts form when buoyant air rises in a localised area. They bring up water vapour, which condenses into clouds made of tiny water droplets.

Inside a storm those drops hit each other, and if it’s cold enough, liquid drops freeze onto ice particles, growing them into hailstones.

For hail to affect us at ground level, a strong updraught needs to keep hailstones aloft for long enough to grow, and the hailstones must then survive melting as they fall to Earth’s surface.

Wind shear, or shifts in wind with height, increases storm severity by moving falling rain and hail away from the updraught, so the updraught is not inhibited and can grow stronger.

Buoyancy and wind shear form the basic atmospheric “ingredients” required for hail.

How might climate change affect hailstorms?

Climate change is warming the atmosphere and adding moisture to it. Moisture is the fuel for storms, and a warmer atmosphere is more likely to make strong updraughts that can support larger hail.

A warmer atmosphere also melts falling hail faster, which might make hailstones shrink or melt away before they reach the ground. So, these two changes work against each other.

According to past research, the broad expectation of climate change’s impact on hail is that it will bring less frequent hail, but the hailstones will be larger when hail does happen. That’s because more melting would mean smaller hail reaches the ground less often, but stronger updraughts would enable larger hailstones.

However, these changes vary regionally, depending on variations in the delicate balance between hailstorm ingredient changes.

Global climate models generally can’t tell us about individual storms, let alone hailstones – think of a low-resolution image that only shows the broad picture but no details.

So, instead of looking at hail directly, our study examined how the ingredients for hailstorms change. Because the exact relationships between ingredients and hail risk remain unclear, we used several so-called “proxy” relationships, including one that we previously developed for Australia and the wide range of weather regimes here.

New global projections for hail frequency

We applied three proxies to outputs from eight climate models to look at a range of possible future warming scenarios.

First, the proxies and models agree that in the warming scenarios hail-prone conditions are shifting toward the poles – decreasing across mid-latitudes in the southern hemisphere, and increasing in mid-high latitudes, particularly in the northern hemisphere.

We project more frequent hail conditions in northern Europe, Canada and the northwestern US, southeastern Australia, and the South Island of New Zealand; and less frequent hail conditions in northern Australia, most of Africa, southern India and southeastern China.

Second, our results predict less frequent hail conditions in summer and more in winter. That means winter crops like wheat may see increasing risk, while risk may decrease for summer crops like maize. If climate change shifts arable regions closer to the poles, these crops may be subjected to increased hail frequency there.

Third, the different proxies don’t always agree, particularly in the tropics where some show increases and others decreases. These disagreements highlight the difficulties in estimating changes in hail environments and how that connects to whether hail happens.

Less frequent, but more damaging

What about the severity of hail when it occurs? Zhang and colleagues took a different approach to ours. They applied a model of hailstone growth and melting to climate simulations, to examine possible hail sizes and changes in potential damage they might cause.

Their new global simulations overall predict more large hailstones and fewer small ones. This result is in line with previous reasoning – a warmer atmosphere can melt smaller hailstones away but produce larger hail through stronger updraughts.

Like ours, their study shows regional differences in changes. Both studies show increasing hail risk with increased frequency and hail damage potential in the mid-high latitude northern hemisphere and southeastern South America.

In sub-tropical regions of Africa and northern South America, both studies show decreasing hail risk. In southeast US, mid-northern Africa, southern India, and northeastern Australia, we project decreasing frequency while Zhang and colleagues project increasing damage potential.

These two studies point to increasing risk from hail damage in a warming world, even though the details of where this will be experienced are still not clear. The more warming occurs, the more this risk will increase.

Quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the surest way to blunt the most damaging effects of climate change.

Timothy H. Raupach's role at UNSW receives funding from QBE Insurance, which had no role in the design of this study. He receives funding for other projects from the Australian Research Council, Guy Carpenter, and Aon Japan.

Steven Sherwood receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Minderoo Foundation.

The latest Ebola outbreak is showing no signs of slowing.

On April 24, the first suspected case of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola was detected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On May 17, the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”.

The current Ebola outbreak is the third-largest in world history, with 906 suspected cases and 223 deaths in the DRC alone as of 27 May.

And it may have spread to other continents. Health authorities are now investigating a suspected case in Italy, and two possible cases in Brazil. All three are believed to be travellers returning from either the DRC or Uganda. One American man who tested positive for Ebola is currently being treated in Germany.

As concerns grow, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations has committed more than A$86 million in funding to fast-track the development of three potential vaccines, targeting the Bundibugyo strain.

But in the meantime, could this outbreak spread further? And how concerned should we be?

A deadly virus

Ebola is a rare but potentially fatal virus that mainly spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids – such as blood, faeces and vomit – of an infected person.

Early symptoms of Ebola include sore throat, headaches, fever, fatigue and body pain. Severe Ebola cases can cause skin rashes, shortness of breath, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and seizures.

Ebola was first identified in humans in 1976. Since then, there have been more than 40 outbreaks around the world, with the majority occurring in African countries.

The current outbreak is the third ever to be caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain. The majority of past outbreaks were driven by the more deadly Zaire strain, which kills up to 90% of people compared to up to 34% for Bundibugyo.

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Read more: Ebola outbreak declared a global health emergency – what you need to know

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What is driving this latest outbreak?

The factors driving this latest outbreak also contributed to the devastating West African outbreak of 2014-16, where more than 11,000 people died.

In both outbreaks, the virus had been circulating for months before an outbreak was declared, and initial cases had non-specific symptoms.

Both outbreaks also rapidly spread in urban areas. Transmission in health-care settings is another common factor.

Political instability and social unrest also contributed to both outbreaks. Most recently in the DRC, crowds have set fire to hospital tents, prompting some patients to flee isolation wards.

And certain cultural practices – including traditional burial rituals that often involve handling dead bodies – may have accelerated the spread of both outbreaks.

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Read more: Health authorities are racing to contain Ebola in the DRC and Uganda. Here’s what’s making it so challenging

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How it crossed continents

Similar to the West African outbreak, this latest Ebola outbreak has spread to other continents through travel.

Nine cases and one death have already been reported in Uganda, which shares a border with the DRC.

An American man who tested positive for Ebola while working in the DRC, is in a stable condition after being treated in Germany.

In Italy, authorities are monitoring a traveller who recently returned from the DRC to the city of Cagliari.

According to some reports, Brazilian authorities are investigating two suspected Ebola cases. They are believed to be two travellers, one who returned from the DRC to São Paulo and the other from Uganda to Rio de Janeiro.

Importantly, both suspected cases have been diagnosed with other illnesses. The São Paulo patient presented with fever and was later diagnosed with severe meningitis. The Rio de Janeiro patient tested positive for malaria after developing a cough, chills and diarrhoea, but has since tested negative for Ebola.

So for now, no Ebola cases have been confirmed in Brazil. But these suspected cases have prompted the country to activate its Ebola safety protocols, including patient isolation, laboratory testing, and epidemiological investigations.

Meanwhile, several countries have imposed travel restrictions to prevent Ebola from reaching their shores.

Both the United States and Canada are temporarily restricting entry for travellers from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan. The US and other countries such as India and Mexico are also strengthening public health screening and disease monitoring measures, particularly at airports. Some countries have mandated a 21-day quarantine period for their citizens returning from the DRC.

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Read more: Ebola outbreak in the DRC: four reasons it will be hard to contain

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Could it spread further, including to Australia?

At this stage, the risk of Ebola reaching Australia is very low.

Australia has not put in place any travel or quarantine requirements for affected countries, but federal health minister Mark Butler says authorities are still monitoring the outbreak “very closely”.

Based on lessons from past outbreaks, there are three main ways the current Central African outbreak could play out.

Without effective control measures, cases may surge in the coming months. Some models suggest that by mid-May, up to 1,000 cases had already occurred in the DRC, compared to official figures of about 900 cases. So the actual number of Ebola cases may be much higher than authorities realise.

In a more favorable scenario, a strengthened public health response could bring this latest outbreak under control. This would be possible with continued support from the international community, the rapid development of vaccines and community engagement.

However, the most realistic outcome is cases will continue to rise before authorities successfully contain the current outbreak.

Nevertheless, the international community responded much more swiftly to this outbreak, particularly compared to the devastating 2014-16 West African outbreak. That alone may protect us from an outbreak of the same catastrophic scale and cost.

Holly Seale receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and NSW Health. She has previously received funding from Pfizer to present at international conferences.

Abrar Ahmad Chughtai and Md Saiful Islam do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

After another spell of wet weather along Australia’s east coast, with storms, heavy rain and flash flooding across Sydney and parts of New South Wales, it is natural to ask whether our cities are shaping the rainfall that descends upon them.

This matters because most people now live in cities. If urbanisation changes rainfall, even slightly, the effects can reach large populations through flooding, stormwater design, water supply and infrastructure planning.

Satellite data have consistently shown that many cities experience more rain events than the countryside around them. The usual explanation is that cities themselves are involved: urban heat, rougher surfaces, aerosols and changed land cover can all affect how storms develop and where rain falls.

Our new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, asks a related question: how much of this data reflects real changes in rainfall, and how much depends on how we observe it?

Why we need satellites

Understanding rainfall over cities is hard.

Rain gauges accurately measure rainfall at a specific location, but are irregularly distributed and cannot fully capture how rain varies across a large city. Climate models can simulate urban weather in detail, but kilometre-scale simulations across many cities and decades remain computationally expensive.

Satellite observations help fill this gap.

NASA’s Integrated Multi satellite Retrievals for GPM, known as IMERG, provides near-global rainfall estimates at high resolution, and is now widely used for studying rainfall over cities.

What the satellite data shows

We examined IMERG rainfall data across 15 of the world’s largest cities, including Sydney and Melbourne. The cities span different climates and geographic settings, including both coastal and inland regions.

A clear pattern emerged. Rain events occurred more often over urban areas than over nearby rural ones. The strongest signal was not that every storm became stronger, but that satellites counted more hours in which it was raining over cities. Individual events over urban centres often dropped less water than those in surrounding areas.

In other words, the main urban signal in IMERG is more frequent rain, not heavier rain.

Different sensors, different stories

Modern satellite rainfall data combines both infrared and microwave observations.

Infrared sensors estimate rainfall indirectly from the temperature at the top of clouds. They provide broad coverage, but can miss light, shallow or warm rain because these can occur even when the tops of the clouds are not very cold.

Microwave satellites fly in low orbit and detect signals more directly linked to raindrops and ice inside clouds, making them particularly useful for identifying whether rain is actually occurring.

When we separated the IMERG data by observation type, the urban signal mainly came from microwave observations, while infrared estimates showed no urban pattern.

This does not mean the microwave signal is wrong, but it raises a potential problem for long-term studies: microwave observations have changed over time. New satellites have been launched and older ones retired, and across the cities we studied, microwave sampling frequency happened almost twice as often by 2023 as it had in 2001.

This matters because the more often a microwave sensor passes overhead, the more rain events it can detect. A light shower missed in 2002 could now be caught by one of several satellites passing within the hour.

Testing the artefact

To test whether this changing sampling affects observed rainfall trends, we compared the microwave and non-microwave with long-term averages. This meant we could separate out the result of changing satellite sampling from the actual changes in weather.

Changes in microwave sampling explained up to about 20% of the long-term rainfall trends across the 15 cities. For rainfall frequency, cities such as Lagos, London, Melbourne, Beijing, Berlin, Mexico City and Paris showed areas where more than 40% of the apparent trend could be linked to the changing observing system.

The satellites did not create the whole urban rainfall pattern. After accounting for sampling effects, the urban signal remained, but the long-term trend became smaller. So we think it really is raining more often over cities, but perhaps not as much as we thought.

Moving forward

For Sydney, we also compared IMERG with CMORPH, another satellite product, and with Bureau of Meteorology rain gauges. CMORPH showed a similar urban pattern, though the two products are not fully independent because they use overlapping microwave observations.

The gauges are a more independent check, but with too few stations outside the urban core, in Sydney and most cities, the true magnitude cannot yet be confirmed on the ground.

Satellite rainfall data is now used everywhere, in climate science, flood risk, agriculture, insurance and water planning. In many regions it is the only consistent rainfall record over large areas. Our results are a caution: part of an apparent trend can come from the changing observing system rather than real change.

As for why cities get more frequent rain, the likeliest explanations are familiar: urban heat that lifts air, rougher surfaces that nudge winds upward, and aerosols that alter cloud droplets. The signal is real. The task now is measuring it properly.

Shankar Sharma receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Andy Pitman receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jason Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council.