This Free Ugrade To The NBN Sounds Good. Let Us Know If It Helps!

 It all happens today!

Today, the NBN is getting a huge upgrade. Here’s what you need to know

By David Swan

September 14, 2025 — 7.00am

From today, the NBN is getting its biggest speed upgrade ever.

In changes that were first announced in March last year, NBN download and upload speeds are set to skyrocket for users on fixed-line connections. Many plans today will double or triple in speed at no extra cost to consumers, though the changes may take a few days to take effect as providers like Telstra and Optus work through the changes. Here’s what you need to know.

What are the changes?

The speed upgrades will automatically be applied to NBN customers with fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) connections, and on plans of download speeds of 100 megabits or faster. Under the changes, 100 megabit download plans are going up to 500; 250 megabit plans are going to 750; and 500 megabit plans are going to 1000, with upload speeds also ramping up.

Related Article

More than 2.1 million Australians are on those plans, according to the latest statistics from the competition and consumer watchdog. To check what technology your home is on now, enter your address into the NBN website.

Some providers such as Telstra, Optus, TPG and Aussie Broadband have confirmed they will start making the new speeds available immediately, while others such as Dodo and iPrimus say they won’t be available until October.

Do I need to do anything?

The short answer is no, at least for customers who are already on NBN’s Home Fast, Home Superfast or Home Ultrafast plans and have a router that’s not too old. Broadband providers such as Telstra and Optus are facilitating the upgrades behind the scenes, and no work at your property is required. Your internet will get faster automatically. You can check with your provider what speed you’re on by looking at your bill or your account details on your provider’s website. If you’re not on one of those plans you should consider upgrading, if you can afford to do so.

Before the election, the Albanese government pledged $3 billion worth of upgrades to “finish the NBN”. The speed upgrades are possible thanks to billions in funding from the federal government to upgrade the network from the previous Liberal government’s mixed technology model.

You do also need to make sure that your home broadband equipment can keep up. NBN recommends you update your modem about as often as you would your mobile phone, especially if it’s older than five years. Older routers with older technology, such as Wi-Fi 4, will be able to deliver speed of only about 100 megabits per second. If you want the best speeds, of up to 1000 megabits per second, consider upgrading to a router with Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 7.

If you have a larger home or areas with weak signal you should also consider using Wi-Fi extenders or mesh systems to help boost coverage. These tools – such as Eero, TP-Link DECO or Netgear Orbi – are now commonplace and could help eliminate dead zones and ensure a strong connection in every room.

How is it free?

Before the election, the Albanese government pledged $3 billion worth of upgrades to “finish the NBN”. The speed upgrades are possible thanks to billions of dollars in funding from the federal government to upgrade the network from the previous Liberal government’s mixed technology model. Former prime minister Tony Abbott once said 25 megabit NBN speeds would be “more than enough” for the average household: today, the download speeds possible will be 1000 megabits.

“Our existing investments in HFC and FTTP upgrades have laid a solid foundation for NBN to begin to unleash faster speeds and greater capacity, without NBN incurring or requiring any major additional capital investment,” an NBN Co spokesman previously said.

What are the benefits?

Users can expect far quicker downloads, more reliable Zoom calls, and streaming with less buffering.

For Australia as a whole, the nation can expect to quickly climb the global speed rankings, and to gain economic benefits associated with that.

Australia recently ranked a lowly 75 on Speedtest’s global speed rankings, one place above Uzbekistan and just below Oman, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Jamaica, with customers reporting an average of 88 megabits per second. Expect this number to jump as customers upgrade plans or automatically have their speeds bumped up.

Economic modelling from consulting giant Accenture, commissioned by NBN Co, found that for every 1 megabit per second in average broadband speed, Australia’s productivity-driven GDP rose by 0.04 per cent on average between 2012 and 2022, an uplift worth about $122 billion to the economy.

 Here is the link:

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/today-the-nbn-is-getting-a-huge-upgrade-here-s-what-you-need-to-know-20250912-p5mumb.html

 Let us know how you go at your place!

David.

 

I Am Taking An Enforced Break From Blogging....

 A jerk scammer got enough access to my systems to cause a significant amount of chaos and disruption on Friday.

Am having fun fixing the mess. AFAIK they wasted their time as they got no money or anything important but my system needs a careful review and a careful fix, which is underway. 

I will take a little blogging break while tidying it all up.

CU all in a week of two! 

David. 

BTW I had a professional come and check out my system and he said there is a lot of bad stuff happening - so be careful out there - as they say!!!! 

My experience was a lesson in just how sneaky and cunning they are! 

D. 

I Reckon These Rare Earths Are A Major Opportunity For Australia - And Vital in Clinical Imaging

This appeared a day or so ago

Rare Earth Fire Rages On

Rare earths continue to rise, with a lot more to come. Tim Treadgold explains why.

By Tim Treadgold ·  27 Aug 2025

A perfect storm of strong demand and tight supply which started to blow through rare earth stocks last year is building to cyclone strength, delivering double-your-money investment returns.

The share price of Lynas Rare Earths, the Australian leader of the industry, has risen by 126% since the start of the year to $14.76 an impressive increase but modest alongside the U.S. rare earth leader, MP Materials, which is up 314% at US$67.88.

Both, along with the rest of the sector, could go a lot higher. A late June study by Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, included a Lynas price forecast of $28.35 in the year 2028 based on the MP Materials historic enterprise value and pre-tax earnings multiple of 31-times.

Stretched further into the future and Lynas could be trading at $46.15 in the year 2032 based on long-term commodity price assumptions and the 14-times historic earnings multiple of Lynas.

There is no guarantee that those future prices will be reached with the bank's analysis best seen as a guide to the direction of the rare earths industry.

Driving Lynas and MP is a potent mix of government activity (positive and negative) which is underpinning prices for rare earths, which are really metals, and likely to keep them high for years.

China, the dominant producer for the material which has a wide and growing mix of industrial and military applications, is limiting supply.

The U.S., Australia and other western governments, are investing heavily in the development of a non-Chinese supply chain, with evidence of a bifurcated (divided) market already evident in some of the more exotic rare earths such as dysprosium (used in permanent magnets) and terbium (used in electrical displays and naval sonar).

The Morgan Stanley study demonstrated that a mid-year Chinese squeeze on the supply of dysprosium oxide, drove the price in Europe up from around US$250 per kilogram to US$700/kg before it slipped back to US$500/kg — double the price in China which remained close to USD$250/kg.

It was a similar story with terbium oxide which rocketed in Europe from US$1000/kg to US$3000/kg before easing slightly, while the China price remained close to US$1000/kg.

Control of supply, which China has been working towards for the past 30 years, means it can use rare earths, with their essential uses in modern technology, as a potent negotiating tool, especially in its trade war with the U.S.

The front-line fighter jet of the U.S. Air Force, the F-35, needs 420kg of rare earths, a mid-sized warship needs 2.3 tonnes, and a Virginia-class submarine, which Australia has signed up for ahead of the delivery of AUKUS-class vessels, needs 4.2 tonnes of rare earths.

It's the overdue recognition by western governments that they are being held to ransom by China for the supply of metals critical to their industries and militaries which has sparked a panicked reaction and a flood of cash from western governments to build their own rare earth supply chains.

Last month, the U.S. Government became the biggest shareholder in MP by investing US$400 million in preferred stock and underwrote US$1 billion in funding from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to build a new rare earth magnet factory.

Perhaps more importantly for investors, the government, through the Defence Department, said it would buy all the unsold NdPr (a mix of neodymium and praseodymium) at a fixed price of US$110/kg, more than double the price at the time for NdPr of US$52/kg.

Australia is moving in the same direction as the U.S., with funding already provided for mineral sands miner Iluka Resources to build a rare earth processing plant at Eneabba, north of Perth, as well as funding a new mine being developed by Arafura Resources, a company which has iron ore billionaire Gina Rinehart as its major shareholder.

Iluka chief executive Tom O'Leary, said last week after the release of a lacklustre half year report which included a 31% fall in net profit, that developments continued to support the company's rare earth strategy, which is initially based on treating stockpiled monazite ore, which contains rare earths but for which there wasn't a market until recently.

He said the entire rare earth industry can expect higher prices after the U.S. Government deal with MP. "It is clear that a non-Chinese price for rare earths is emerging," O'Leary said.

Australia's Resources Minister Madeleine King said that plans by the Australian Government to create a critical metals stockpile (including rare earths) would help de-risk the industry and encourage private sector investment.

"Pricing certainty will mean that companies and investors are less exposed to markets that are opaque and subject to manipulation," King said.

Her unusually strong statement was a direct criticism of China's history of both squeezing supply to force prices up and then flooding the market to drive out competitors which is what it did to MP in 2016 and tried to do to Lynas which had to be rescued by a Japanese consortium in the same year.

Unusual price movements in rare earths are not solely a Chinese Government issue. Last week a small Australian rare earth company saw its share price explode for an unexplained reason.

Kaili Resources, which is exploring in a region adjacent to the Victorian and South Australian border rocketed from 4.8c to $3.18 on August 18 before crashing back to 21c and then rising to 82c before trading was suspended, sparking multiple investigations by market regulators.

Trading in Kaili, which has close Chinese connections, is warning that the rare earth sector is a red hot speculative playground of the sort seen in earlier Australian mineral boom, such as nickel in 1968, which ended in a spectacular bust.

Other rare earth stocks riding high on strong demand for the metals include:

• Arafura, up 58% to 19c since the start of the year.
• Lindian Resources up 200% to 24c since the start of the year thanks to plans to ship ore from its Kangankunde project in Malawi to Iluka's refinery in WA.
• Viridis Mining, up 255% to $1.25 since the start of the year after declaring a maiden resource at its Colossus project in Brazil, and;
• Great Northern Minerals, up 300% last week to 7c after acquiring an exploration tenement in the Mojave desert of California, location of MP's Mountain Pass mine, a fine example of the imprecise science of "near-ology".

Rare earths are not a sector for faint-hearted investors, but unlike earlier mining boom,s this one has full-blooded backing of western governments determined to create a non-Chinese supply chain, a process which will take years.

Because there is so much riding on the rare earth race, especially defence industry demands, it is highly likely that governments will continue to build their own supply chains even if China performs its past trick of flooding the market to kill competition.

Despite the opaque nature of rare earth mining and markets, there seems little doubt that the U.S. Government's price of US$110/kg for NdPr is a floor, not a ceiling.

Morgan Stanley said earlier this year (and repeated earlier this month) that it sees a long-term NdPr price of US$239/kg driven by demand from existing commercial and military markets as well as from new technologies such as "humanoid" robots for industry and households.

The bifurcation of the rare earth market to create a western supply chain and the willingness of governments to create a floor price for the material has significantly enhanced the outlook for miners and refiners of rare earths.

If the Morgan Stanley price forecast of US$239/kg is correct, or just half right, then companies such as Lynas and MP might have only just begun their rise

 Here is the link:

https://www.intelligentinvestor.com.au/investment-news/rare-earth-fire-rages-on/154759

Australia is really lucky just how much of these we have in our soil!!! A wonderful gift for our children over the next 100 years or so!

David.

 

 

 

There Is Little Doubt That Iran Is A Very Bad Actor!

 This appeared a day of so ago:

 https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/iran-s-expulsion-from-australia-is-self-inflicted-damage-on-the-regime-20250826-p5mq26

Opinion

Iran’s expulsion from Australia is self-inflicted damage on the regime

The last time Australia expelled an ambassador was over 80 years ago, and the internal recriminations over the IRGC’s incompetence are only getting started.

Patrick Gibbons Corporate adviser

Aug 27, 2025 – 10.50am

Iran’s ambassador to Australia Ahmad Sadeghi has form. His tweets from last August calling for Israel’s destruction were a clear indication of what he thought. But his embassy’s role in the attacks on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and in Sydney took it to another level. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s extraordinary decision to expel Sadeghi should be welcomed.

The last time Australia expelled an ambassador was over 80 years ago, when Japan’s was kicked out after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour. Unlike then, when Australia was a belligerent, Australia has instead been targeted with the kind of activities the Iranian regime has long practised elsewhere via the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran’s ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi has been given 72 hours to leave Australia. Rohan Thomson

Many suspected Iran’s involvement in the attacks on the Addas Israel synagogue in Melbourne last December and those in Bondi. They had all the hallmarks of the regime’s MO of using local criminals to undertake attacks. As ASIO Director Mike Burgess made clear, there are likely more.

A regular feature in Europe, the UK, Canada and most recently in the US, where the regime was behind a plot to assassinate President Donald Trump, it remains the regime’s preferred way of murdering dissidents and exporting terror abroad.

In addition to regularly targeting Israeli diplomats and their families, the IRGC has a long history of attacking Jewish targets around the world. One of the worst was the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish cultural centre in Buenos Aires, where 85 people were killed and hundreds more injured. Though the regime denied involvement, the Argentinian government was clear – Iran was involved.

These attacks reflect the regime’s visceral hatred of and obsession with Israel that goes back to its founder Ayatollah Khomeini. His successor as supreme leader – Ayatollah Khamenei – is the same. The regular chants of “death to Israel” are no joke. It is one of the revolution’s consistent themes. Ambassador Sadeghi is part of this malevolent tradition.

For the most part, Australia has not been a significant target of Iran’s attention. While there had been reports of harassment and threats towards members of the Iranian diaspora, Hamas’ attack on Israel saw Iran’s activities in Australia ramp up. And controlling this has been the IRGC.

“It was no accident that pictures of Khamenei were prominently displayed at the pro-Palestinian march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.”

Formed in 1979 following the revolution, the IRGC’s original purpose was to safeguard the new Islamic Republic. It came to the fore during the eight-year war with Iraq, which only ended when Ayatollah Khomeini reluctantly accepted a ceasefire in 1988 as it became obvious the regime’s future was at stake.

Subsequently, the IRGC morphed into a powerful economic entity with interests in energy, telecommunications, resources and transport, using some of these to finance its international operations. It is intimately linked to current supreme leader Khamenei.

Central to the regime’s regional ambitions aimed at destroying Israel, the IRGC, under its former Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani, put in place the Ring of Fire strategy. Involving Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi forces in Yemen, and Shia militia in Iraq and Syria, the Ring of Fire was the IRGC’s grand plan to destroy Israel.

Almost two years after the Hamas attack, the Ring of Fire strategy lies in tatters, and with it the IRGC’s reputation. With Israel able to attack Iran and its senior leadership with relative impunity, along with the US strikes on the nuclear facilities in June, the IRGC failed the critical test for which it was established – to protect the regime.

Given the role of the IRGC in putting down the protests that enveloped Iran in 2022 following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for not properly wearing hijab, it’s not surprising many Iranians see the loathed IRGC as little more than brutal enforcers for a discredited government.

The diplomatic expulsion of Iran’s diplomats from Canberra, along with the Albanese government’s announcement that it will join Canada and other Western countries in listing the IRGC as a terrorist entity, will contribute to the regime’s challenges, not least as another example of self-inflicted damage.

The internal recriminations over the IRGC’s incompetence are only getting started.

Already there are demands from reformists in the Iranian system to remove the IRGC from politics, to release political prisoners and lift censorship, along with Iran ceasing its nuclear enrichment activities. There is also open questioning as to why Iran has squandered billions of dollars pursuing strategies that have been dismantled in a matter of months.

With power blackouts a regular feature, water shortages widespread, and reports of meat shortages, the regime faces increasingly tough questions about where to from here, and the role of the IRGC.

By directly targeting Australia’s Jewish community and looking to fan the flames of antisemitism, the Iranian regime has directly interfered in Australia’s polity. It was no accident that pictures of Ayatollah Khamenei were prominently displayed at the pro-Palestinian march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3.

Kicking out Iran’s ambassador and proscribing the IRGC are the right things to do.

Here is the link:

 https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/iran-s-expulsion-from-australia-is-self-inflicted-damage-on-the-regime-20250826-p5mq26 

I have to agree we are better off without this lot in Australia!

David. 

A Little Food For Thought On Tests That May Be Worth Having

This appeared a day or so ago:

Health tests to think about now, and in the not-too-distant future

So what are the tests available now that could save your life, as well as the tests on the horizon that could revolutionise preventive healthcare? A doctor shares his suggestions.

Steve Robson

5:00 AM August 24, 2025

When it comes to our health, prevention is definitely better than cure. Fortunately modern medicine gives us the opportunity to find many diseases in their early stages, allowing treatment before we are affected seriously or permanently.

What, then, are the key health checks all of us should think about – and discuss with our doctors? I’d like to share my suggestions with you.

Australians already are fortunate to have a world-leading set of health screening tests freely available. Adults may participate in screening for bowel, breast, and cervical cancer, and all newborns are eligible for blood-spot and hearing screens.

These national screening programs have a specific aim – to detect common and serious conditions such as bowel cancer in their early stages. Yet there are many other important and common health conditions for which the government does not offer free screening programs, but for which early detection greatly improves the outlook.

While the national screening programs make economic sense – it is cheaper for governments to fund the screening programs than pay for treating the established disease – having other screening tests are much more individual decisions.

I want to share with you some tests available now that could save your life, as well as some tests on the horizon that could revolutionise preventive healthcare.

Deciding whether to have a screening test can be difficult and requires a careful discussion with your doctor. Each of us has different risk factors, life circumstances and needs. There is no single best decision. Screening tests also carry potential harms including the cost of having the test, or of finding something ambiguous that might lead to further tests or unnecessary treatment.

Tests available now

Bone density X-ray

Osteoporosis – thinning of the bones – is a potentially catastrophic condition that puts tens of thousands of people in hospital every year. Almost one in six Australians aged 70 or older is affected. Hip, wrist or spine fractures are not only traumatic but contribute to thousands of deaths every year.

Once osteoporosis is established it is almost impossible to reverse or even stop its progress, making it very difficult to protect against fractures. The good news is that osteoporosis may be prevented in many cases – but the diagnosis must be made years early for prevention to work.

Bone-density scans usually take less than half an hour to perform. An X-ray scanner passes over your body as you lie on a bench, taking images of your lower back and hip region. Like all X-rays the bone density test exposes you to radiation, but fortunately the dose is low. For most people, any risk from this X-ray exposure is greatly outweighed by the opportunity to prevent the complications of osteoporosis.

Who should think about bone-density screening? People with a family history of osteoporosis, especially in women, are at increased risk. Smoking and long-term alcohol consumption are also red flags, as well as conditions that lead to immobility such as arthritis especially if there is long-term treatment with steroids.

Some bone-density tests are covered by Medicare, but not all. The out-of-pocket may be close to $200 in many cases.

Dementia screening

More than 400,000 Australians live with dementia and it is the second most common cause of death in our country. It also is a major cause of debility and brings disruption and sadness to millions of family members and carers. Once established there is no known effective cure.

The absence of an effective cure, however, does not mean that identifying dementia in its early stages is not worthwhile. Indeed the opposite is true – there are many effective ways of improving the outlook for people when the diagnosis is suspected early.

A number of relatively simple tests, such as the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (ACE-R), have been shown to be effective in identifying the early signs.

Non-medical treatments such as aerobic exercise and social activities may help to decrease the risk of dementia. Picture: Getty Images

Because dementia can be worsened by other conditions such as depression, cardiovascular disease, or the side effects of medications, the chance to act early to slow the course of the disease should not be missed. Even non-medical treatments such as aerobic exercise, mental stimulation, and social activities may help decrease the risk of cognitive decline.

CT heart calcium score

Heart disease is one of the most common and most serious chronic conditions and almost 60,000 Australians will experience a heart attack each year. If you have risk factors for heart disease – such as high cholesterol, being overweight, or smoking – then you should discuss the test with your doctor. Such a discussion should prompt further assessment of your risk and, if warranted, referral for screening with a CT heart calcium scan.

The test looks for a build-up of calcium in the coronary arteries – the vessels that supply the heart wall muscle. If these vessels become blocked the result is a heart attack. It is a non-invasive process and involves being passed through a CT scanner which takes images of the heart and the blood vessels that supply it, looking for the amount of calcium in the vessel walls.

The amount of calcium is given a score, and a high score likely will lead your doctor to recommend more detailed review and testing. Although the test is not perfect, the early detection of coronary artery disease can be lifesaving. The test is not covered by Medicare and typically will cost somewhere between $200 and $300.

Kidney function test

Some 2.7 million Australians are living with some form of kidney disease and almost 16000 people receive regular dialysis. Around 1000 kidney transplants are performed in Australia every year.

There are many causes of chronic kidney disease, with diabetes accounting for almost 40 per cent of all newly detected cases. High blood pressure is also linked to kidney conditions, as well as immune and genetic conditions. Like the other conditions I have discussed, kidney disease is very difficult to cure once established. Finding it early is the key to a good long-term outlook in most cases.

A urine test looking for blood or protein is one of three components of a kidney screening. Picture: Getty Images

Your doctor can arrange a standard kidney health check easily. The three components of a screening kidney health check are blood-pressure measurement, a urine test looking for blood or protein, and a blood test measuring chemicals such as creatinine that become elevated early in the course of kidney disease. A kidney health check is inexpensive and safe.

A dental check-up

Because routine dentistry isn’t covered by Medicare, many people see dental check-ups as something of a luxury. Nothing could be further from the truth. Untreated dental conditions not only threaten pain and the loss of teeth, but untreated gum disease is associated with heart disease, dementia, and even pregnancy complications.

Many dental conditions progress silently, causing pain or other symptoms only in their very late stages. For this reason each of us ideally should have a dental check once a year, and certainly no longer than two years. Your dentist will look for tooth decay, gum disease, and cancers of the mouth and tongue.

The cost of a check-up with a careful tooth clean will be about $200, a little more if X-rays are required. Looking after your teeth is a very good investment, though, and will pay off handsomely with age. Like all preventive measures, the earlier you can start the better the long-term benefits will be.

Tests for the future

I have covered screening tests that are available now and that are worth discussing with your doctor, but what screening tests are on the horizon? What might we be asking our doctors about in the near future?

DNA screen

The test that everyone is talking about is DNA screen, a simple saliva test that can predict our risk of developing a range of preventable cancers and heart disease. These are among the most common causes of premature death in Australia, and once they produce symptoms are very difficult to treat. Prevention of early heart attack or aggressive bowel or ovary cancer is the only known way to ensure a good outcome.

The technology of the DNA screen test has already been thoroughly assessed and established. Studies have found that one Australian in 50 carries the genes responsible for these formidable health conditions.

The good news is that preventative and risk-reducing measures are available for all of the serious conditions the test might detect. Indeed, so important is the opportunity for risk reduction that testing is best performed before the age of 40 years. Economic studies have shown that the cost of testing would save an enormous amount of money now spent treating cancer or heart disease.

The bad news? Even though this proven testing is available now there is no government funding for DNA screen yet. Hopefully this will change soon and all of us will have the chance to choose to check our risk at minimal cost in the near future.

Cell-free DNA cancer screening

When cancer cells divide their DNA is usually scrambled. This abnormal DNA may be released into the bloodstream once the cells it originated in break down and die. So-called cell-free DNA technology has been used routinely for testing in pregnancy for years now, but could be re-purposed to seek signs of very early cancer growth in the body. Finding abnormal DNA floating free in the bloodstream will allow early cancerous tumours to be found – long before development of symptoms or, indeed, before ultrasounds or other imaging tests show an abnormality.

Detecting abnormal DNA is now a relatively inexpensive technology and only a small amount of blood is needed. This is an exciting space to watch and hopefully will lead to early-stage cancer screening in the very near future.

Whole-body scans

Scanning the whole body with MRI has been offered as a potential way of detecting disease in its early stages, with some celebrities and influencers promoting it. Unfortunately it is way too early to recommend such screening at the moment – but this could be about to change.

Using MRI scans to look for hidden conditions in a person who otherwise seems well and healthy is a recipe for harm as things stand. Such scans are much more likely to detect benign conditions rather than any disease posing serious health risks. When innocent changes are detected people are likely to undergo potentially dangerous testing or even surgery to further investigate the “abnormal findings”. More damage than benefit usually occurs.

Using MRI scans on a person who otherwise seems healthy is a recipe for harm. Picture: Getty Images

That could change and change soon. The use of AI techniques could well help sort out the findings to worry about and what changes could safely be ignored. Although MRI itself is very safe, the cost presently is high and resources are limited. The carbon footprint of such an extensive MRI is considerable too.

In the not-too-distant future, though, and with the help of rapidly advancing AI techniques and energy sustainability, it might well be possible to have a scan that looks for multiple important conditions at an early stage – a concept straight out of science fiction.

Steve Robson is professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Australian National University and former president of the Australian Medical Association. He is a board member of the National Health and Medical Research Council.

---

This column is published for information purposes only. It is not intended to be used as medical advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for independent professional advice about your personal health or a medical condition from your doctor or other qualified health professional.

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/health/medical/health-tests-to-think-about-now-and-in-the-nottoodistant-future/news-story/8c9d434443cd3920d1cdf68cabf4f4ca

A little list to consider if you have some time to get a few tests!

David.

T Think There Is A Pretty Easy Answer To The Question Regarding The Recent Electoral Failure Of The Liberals.

This appeared last week:

Chris Uhlmann

Why are the Liberals so bad at telling their own success story?

Australia owes its existence to liberal thinking and was built on the firm foundations of its creed: individual freedom, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, the family as the bedrock of society, equality of opportunity, enterprise, liberty and a fair go. Pictures: News Corp

10:00 PM August 22, 2025

Why are the Liberals so bad at telling their own story? This is not just a critique of incumbent MPs and senators; it has held true of the party for decades.

Stories and mythologies matter. They are the scaffolding of identity and meaning. We live in the stories we inherit, and for the better part of the past half-century the Liberals have allowed their opponents to shape the national tale. Labor casts itself as the party of progress and ideas, the architect of every great reform, while painting the Liberals as dull, reactionary administrators. That frame has become the shorthand of our history.

But history shows that when it came to shaping the nation itself, it was the liberals who laid the foundations. Australia was born of liberal ideals, yet the party that bears that name has rarely claimed its inheritance.

This is not to deny Labor its achievements. It has much to be proud of. But re-reading its history in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam underscores that Whitlam’s enduring achievement was not in reshaping the nation so much as remaking an ossified Labor Party.

Whitlam described himself as “the first of the middle-class radicals” and infuriated Labor’s old guard, none more so than Arthur Calwell. In 1966 Whitlam branded the ALP executive “the 12 witless men” and came close to expulsion. Two years later he briefly resigned the leadership after another clash, prompting Calwell to rage in a telegram: “You are not, and never were, a Labor man.”

Whitlam prevailed, liberalising Labor and recasting it as a party of the middle class.

With his 1972 triumph Whitlam began shaping the tale that progressivism consigned the Liberals to history’s margins. That myth, burnished over time, became a powerful weapon in Labor’s political armoury.

History also highlights another truth: Labor has been uneasy with the Constitution since 1901 because it had no hand in writing it. As former minister and historian David Kemp notes in A Free Country, the ideas that governed Australia at the turn of the previous century “were principally those of Britain’s liberal intellectual culture”.

The authors of the Constitution were classical liberals who valued the rule of law, parliamentary government, property rights and liberty.

Lessons of history

The defining moment in our history was the birth of a nation, and it was an entirely liberal project.

This should be the wellspring of the modern party’s identity, if only it could work out how to embrace it.

And here is something you won’t hear in Labor speeches: much of the labour movement opposed Federation.

In NSW those who supported it were expelled, while in Queensland some feared it might weaken the campaign against “coloured labour”.

In 1901 all parties supported the White Australia policy, but none more enthusiastically than Labor.

In his book I Remember, former NSW premier Jack Lang called it “Australia’s Magna Carta”, proudly noting that the “total exclusion of coloured and other undesirable races” was etched into Labor’s first federal platform in 1900.

He admitted it was about race, but also about wages: “From the start it was a simple bread-and-butter issue.

Australian workers were simply trying to defend their own living standards.”

That Labor would want to bury this history is understandable. That it continues to recast the past to accuse others of racism is unforgivable.

Yet when Foreign Minister Penny Wong delivered the 2022 Whitlam Oration she ignored Labor’s record and declared: “Gough described racism as the ‘common denominator’ of a whole range of Menzies-era foreign policies.”

The White Australia policy remained in Labor’s platform until 1967, and its old guard fought Whitlam and Don Dunstan to keep it.

The final vestiges were not erased until 1971. It was the governments of Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, John Gorton and William McMahon that progressively dismantled White Australia between 1958 and 1971. Labor under Whitlam followed; it did not lead.

Wong’s charge of Menzies’ foreign policy racism also jars with a remarkable wartime radio address by Menzies.

He condemned Curtin government propaganda that sought to stir racial hatred of the Japanese, calling it “fantastically foolish and dangerous”.

He said “hatred is the mark of a small man” and warned that if war bred only bitterness, then peace would be “merely the prelude to disaster and not an end of it”.

Wong also claimed Whitlam shifted Australia’s perspective of Asia.

Menzies made his mark

Yet it was Menzies who set about rebuilding relations with Japan in the shadow of the war. He backed the 1952 peace treaty and the reopening of embassies in Canberra and Tokyo, and in 1953 told Australians it was time to move on from the conflict.

Former Labor industry minister John Button had the grace to acknowledge the significance of this in his book Flying the Kite: “In the early 1950s prime minister Menzies invited a small delegation of Japanese industrialists to Australia. It was, in the post-war climate, a courageous and prescient invitation.”

Nippon Steel’s Eishiro Saito later described the visit as a seminal moment in the relationship. From that point, Australia’s exports of coal and iron ore to Japan began a steady climb until Japan became our largest trading partner.

It was Menzies who signed the 1957 Commerce Agreement in Tokyo, and who later hosted prime minister Nobusuke Kishi in Canberra. Australians knew Kishi’s past. He had been imprisoned as a suspected Class A war criminal until 1948 because of his role in Japan’s wartime government.

Think about that in context: many Australians still loathed Japan, and some in Menzies’ own government, such as Alexander Downer’s father, were former prisoners of war.

To invite Kishi and forge this partnership, at this time, required remarkable political courage. Union protests greeted the trade deal and Kishi’s 1957 visit, the ACTU warned of lost jobs and ex-servicemen’s groups condemned any reconciliation with Japan.

Yet it is Labor’s caricature of Menzies that endures, and the blame for that lies with the Liberal Party’s failure to tell its own story.

Wong’s speech also repeated the line that Whitlam “withdrew our troops from Vietnam”. But by the time he came to power in December 1972, all combat troops had already returned and only some advisers remained.

Vietnam is not the only case where Labor overreaches and Liberals undersell their record. Whitlam is routinely credited with the explosion of Australian arts in the 1970s, yet it was Liberal prime minister Gorton who created the Australian Council for the Arts in 1968 and launched the Australian Film Development Corporation in 1970, contributions that largely have been forgotten.

The Liberals cannot win a battle they do not fight. And in the history wars, they are scarcely in the ring. Some, such as Kemp, John Howard and Tony Abbott, have tried to rebalance the books. But it should be the work of every Liberal MP and senator to reclaim their heritage in our national story.

Since its birth this nation has had two great political traditions, and for 124 years they have served us well. Labor’s story is well told. The Liberal story must be retold, beginning with its intellectual roots. Australia owes its existence to liberal thinking and was built on the firm foundations of its creed: individual freedom, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, the family as the bedrock of society, equality of opportunity, enterprise, liberty and a fair go.

This tradition is timeless, and as vital now as ever. Unless the Liberal Party can tell that story to a new generation, it risks being written out of history.

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-are-the-liberals-so-bad-at-telling-their-own-success-story/news-story/5dd75f5d1a85cd7d44c897e1d59a2db6

To me the key issue is that the current Liberals are – in most States- - a disorganized rabble who are not actually electable! Australians seem happy with centrist to slightly left governments almost everywhere and until someone can make a strong case for change I suspect the status quo will prevail!

The Liberals have a lot of work to do pretty much everywhere, and until that is done the status quo is likely to persist!

Anyone have any suggestions for them?

David.

Many Are Wondering If We Are Pushing Too Hard To Centrally Regulate The Internet.

This appeared a day or so ago:

Jack the Insider

Australia’s online regulation overreach is coming to a screen near you

The Albanese government is cracking down on tech companies giving children unbridled access to explicit content online.

Updated 3:19 PM August 22, 2025

Age verification is coming to Australia’s internet users but our new net nanny systems will affect everyone, not just teenagers.

In June, the federal government introduced rules forcing big telcos like Google to check the ages of logged-in users, in an effort to limit children’s access to harmful content such as pornography. These rules become law by year’s end. Google searches undertaken by minors will have to exclude references to sexually explicit and violent material.

People who stream their television may have already experienced age verification interactions. In July, I was attempting to stream a show on Disney Plus only to be served up with a series of prompts requiring an email address, my age and my gender. Other streamers are doing the same or soon will.

Australians are being given a foretaste of the future. In the UK, the Online Safety Act obliged sites which show sexually explicit or violent material to ensure minors are excluded and introduced advanced age verification checks last month.

A data analytics firm in the UK which studied online access to pornography reported a 47 per cent decline in traffic to the UK’s most popular pornography site, PornHub, a similar slump in viewers at another pornography site, XVideos with the subscription service OnlyFans down 10 per cent in the first weeks of August compared to a period in the previous month prior to the implementation of age checks.

This is the sort of outcome that policy makers would hail as proof of the stunning success of their interventions but it is a long way from reducing social harms. In fact, all the Online Safety Act may have done in the UK is push traffic to less regulated sites. The same data revealed that traffic had increased in sites that refuse to play ball with the legislators. It almost goes without saying that these sites are likely to contain prohibited content, including sexually violent material, incest and bestiality.

A day after the new rules came into force in the UK, two ethical hackers appeared on Britain’s Sky News and bypassed the age verification checks within a few minutes. Multiple viewers contacted the network to confirm the ease in which they were able to get around the age verification checks with one boasting he had done so “in under 30 seconds.”

The UK’s media regulator, OfCom, has recommended content providers choose one of seven age verification checks. The first is called facial age recognition where a face is shown by photo or video and technology determines the age. This raises a serious question: what’s the difference between a 17-year-old face and an 18-year-old face?

While social media restrictions are similarly sidestepped by tech savvy kids, there is almost universal support for them.

Other methods are, perhaps less fallible but far more intrusive. These include banking or telco account checks, sharing of digital ID and email based age estimation where an email address is offered to the provider who uses technology to ascertain the age of the person by examining the duration of other accounts, like electricity and gas bills.

All of these methods are being trialled in Australia.

The other salient point is that data from age verification checks will be stored somehow or other. In the UK, regulators have been quick to point out that users’ activities on porn sites will not be stored. They say the data which may include digital ID, and images taken from passports or driver’s licenses will be encrypted but the best means of preventing hacking into databases is to have no database at all.

Australians will not relish these intrusions and the murmurs now of privacy concerns are likely to become a roar by December when age verification becomes law.

In an attempt to diminish the impact of social harms from kids watching pornography, the Australian government has determined that everyone has to engage in the exercise. Anyone who uses a Google search engine – and that is 90 per cent of Australia’s internet users, or Microsoft Bing searches, pretty much the remaining 10 per cent – will be obliged to verify their age by whatever means the telcos determine.

Google and Microsoft have been told that from December 27 they will have to use some form of age-assurance technology on users when they sign in, or face fines of just under $50 million for every breach.

It may well be that these telco giants already hold sufficient data on their users to determine their age and make the shift seamlessly for most users but given the sheer size of the fines, they will be keen to make sure.

Google threatened to sue Australian government over social media ban proposal

Google is threatening to sue the Australian government if YouTube is included in its social media ban. There are no... more

It’s important to remember that these new rules are distinct from the social media restrictions for those under the age of 16. While those laws are similarly sidestepped by tech savvy kids, there is almost universal support for them. I am one of the standouts, not just because I think the restrictions are ineffective but as they stand, the rules are an abrogation of parental responsibilities. Parents have decided not to have valuable interactions with their children, handpassing the exercise on to the government.

I know, too, the great harms that come from the internet. I have written previously of child exploitation networks, like 764, operating on platforms as banal as Roblox, targeting children and shifting to anonymous platforms like Discourse where nihilistic violent extremists, often children themselves, have been found to extort and exploit other children including urging them to commit acts of self harm.

What can I say? The online world is a dark place for many. However, what we know about prohibition – the banning of or over-regulation by government – is that it will necessarily lead to a dark underbelly where appalling practices continue largely out of reach of regulators and law enforcement.

In the not-so-distant past, governments would have turned to public interest campaigns, advertising and messaging to prevent social harms. Now, it’s an all-in exercise, a legislative sledgehammer to smash a rotten egg.

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/australias-online-regulation-overreach-is-coming-to-a-screen-near-you/news-story/34c0dd4a4d36c76cb40a9e5d4c14ad8b

I have to say I wonder just how any campaign to restrict internet access for adolescents given just how tech literate they mostly are and how easily they will by-pass any restrictions that will still permit normal adult access to adult material!

Overseas experience would suggest effective adolescent blocks would catch many innocent adults – who struggle with using the tech!

As always the answer is parental guidance and supervision of the young – but most adults seem to struggle with actually doing that.

My guess is that control of adolescent access to the internet is pretty much always going to wind up in the too hard basket! The article above is excellent and shows just hard all this can becone!

What do you think?

David.

AusHealthIT Poll Number 808 – Results – 24 August 2025.

Here are the results of the recent poll.

Do You Think Vladimir Putin Outfoxed Donald Trump At The Recent Alaska Summit?

Yes                                                                       14 (88%)

No                                                                          1 (6%)

I Have No Idea                                                      1 (6%)

Total No. Of Votes: 14

A very clear vote with Putin doing the Donald over!

Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!

Poor voter turnout – question must have been useless. 

1 of 16 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!

Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted! 

David.