Lace monitor an inspiring symbol of recovery five years after Black Summer bushfires

Robert Miller is pleased to see wildlife returning to his farm after the Black Summer fires. (Supplied: Robert Miller)

By Justin Huntsdale

Before 70 per cent of his New South Wales dairy farm burnt in the devastating bushfires of 2019–20, Robert Miller's property was teeming with wildlife.

"We saw lots of big lizards, lace monitors, goannas, blue tongues, snakes, and birds," he said.

"We have a billabong on the farm plus rainforest, so we have a pretty good setting for native wildlife."

The Currowan fire that hit his property in Milton five years ago burnt nearly 500,000 hectares across the state's south east.

"After the fires, the place was silent," Mr Miller said.

"The lack of insects was the big thing."

Since then he has been nursing his farm back to health, planting trees to replace the ones he lost, and hoping to see signs of fauna returning

'Like it's the boss'

Mr Miller was driving on the farm recently when he saw what he estimated to be a 1.8-metre-long lace monitor strolling along the road.

The reptile, sometimes called a tree goanna, can grow up to 2m in length.

"It was such a shock because it's six feet long and we haven't seen them on the property since before the fires," Mr Miller said.

He said it gave him hope that animal populations on the property were recovering.

R                         Robert Miller says it's reassuring to see the land return to its previous state. (Supplied: Robert Miller)

"It shows the bush is regenerated and the animal life has come back," he said.

"It's a pleasure to know that things get back to normal."

Mr Miller said he had seen the lace monitor every day since the first sighting.

Whether the lizard was born on the property or travelled there, it has happily set up residence near the property's billabong.

"It's just living there on the trees, you see it wandering around, it walks up the road as if it owns the place — it's like it's the boss," Mr Miller said.

'A very fat reptile'

Years of consistent rain have turned Mr Miller's billabong into a rich ecosystem with a variety of food for the lace monitor to feast on.

"We've got a billabong full of frogs and insects, so the habitat is there for it to have a great feed," he said.

"When you look at the pictures of it, it's a very fat reptile, so it's doing its job and it's enjoying itself."

Mr Miller said consistent years of La Niña weather patterns had brought welcome rain to his property, nourishing the soil and his young trees.

"Everything is starting to flourish again — the bird life is great and is probably brought back by the insects, and now we have these big lizards," he said.

"Humans have been through the trauma and the animal world has been through the same thing.

"Everything returns to normal after time."

'Hard to describe'

At Kevin Clampsom and Lorita Baumann's property at East Lynne, south of Milton, burnt trees that were hollowed out in the fires still come crashing down in high winds.

The WIRES volunteers rebuilt a wildlife rehabilitation enclosure that was destroyed and, like Mr Miller, did not see much wildlife for years after the bushfires.

But animals are slowly re-establishing themselves here too.

"It's encouraging and inspiring to hear Robert's story about wildlife returning," Mr Clampson said.

"We are surrounded by bushland rather than pasture, but it still took two to three years before wildlife began returning in any significant numbers."

NBA star Patty Mills visited the East Lynne property with supporters after the Black Summer fires. 
(Supplied: Kevin Clampsom and Lorita Baumann)

Mr Clampson said even the smell of smoke causes concern and prompts them to call neighbours and other WIRES members.

"It's hard to describe the feeling of seeing green growth return to the trees and the land," he said.

"But the trauma of living through such a formidable event will never leave us."

First published at ABC News, February 4, 2025

Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh on his new film Presence, starring Lucy Liu

Steven Soderbergh has directed 33 feature films and eight TV programs. (Supplied)

By Stephen A Russell

While he wouldn't describe himself as a believer in the supernatural, per se, director Steven Soderbergh is less spooked than most by the idea of what might be there in the shadows.

Chatting in London, where he has just shot spy thriller Black Bag with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, Soderbergh tells me his mum, Mary Ann, was a parapsychologist. Growing up in Charlottesville, Virginia, he was used to a steady stream of strangers discussing paranormal scenarios.

"When you're young and one of your parents is up to something kind of fringy, you know, I wasn't bragging about that to people at school," chuckles the director of Ocean's 11, Magic Mike and Behind the Candelabra. "I was kind of neutral about it. I didn't think it was ridiculous, but it didn't attract me at all."

(L-R) Chris Sullivan, Julia Fox, Lucy Liu, Steven Soderbergh, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland at the Presence New York premiere. (Photo by John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images)

That said, he could feel how viscerally the visitors felt their encounters. "You can tell by their physicality, as they describe these things, that they're still affected."

Penned by Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, Presence, the latest film from the Oscar-winning director draws on his mum's uncanny milieu, pulling back the veil between worlds to create an intriguing take on the haunted-house genre that up-ends expectations.

Charlie's Angels lead Lucy Liu plays Rebekah, a no-nonsense businesswoman who snaps up the sprawling suburban house — within which the entire film plays out — for a bargain price.

The new home seems ideal when Rebekah moves in with her husband, Chris (Chris Sullivan), adored teenage son Tyler (Eddy Maday) and more distant daughter Chloe (Callina Liang). But even before we meet the clan, we're privy to an unusual phenomenon, perceiving the house's darkened nooks and crannies from the sweeping camera's point of view, as if we are the unseen presence lurking here. Is it well-meaning or malignant?

Soderbergh had hoped to work with Liu for ages. When he handed the screenplay for Presence to casting director Carmen Cuba, she knew it was time.

"She goes, 'Oh, is this the one for Lucy?' And I go, 'Yeah, I think it is'."

What's in a name?

Soderbergh's teenage bedroom was "a total boy cave of cinema", inspired by his movie-buff dad, Peter, an academic.

"That was moving along the surface of my life until the summer of 1975 when I was 12, and I saw Jaws. I wanted to know what 'directed by' meant and who Steven Spielberg was."

His previous obsession for baseball went out the window and a life focused on making movies began, with Soderbergh's first feature — the provocatively named Sex, Lies and Videotape, starring Andie MacDowell and James Spader — debuting at the Sundance Film Festival in 1989.

"I think about titles a lot because they make the difference between sparking somebody's interest and creating a completely neutral or, in some cases, negative reaction," Soderbergh says.

"My first film went through a real title debate, and I ended up calling it that as a last-ditch effort to describe the film in stark, almost glib terms."

Sex, Lies and Videotape won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and Soderbergh was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Naming was a big deal for Presence, too.

Famous Soderbergh Films

Soderbergh has directed more than 30 feature films. Here are some of his most well-known: 

• Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
• King of the Hill (1993)
• Out of Sight (1998)
• Erin Brockovich (2000)
• Ocean's 11 (2001) and all the other Ocean's films
• The Informant! (2009)
• Contagion (2011)
• Magic Mike (2012) 
• Behind the Candelabra (2013)
• Logan Lucky (2017)

"It seemed, again, to be the simplest way to describe it without giving anything away, which is critical in a situation like this."

Chloe's bedroom, in Presence, is adorned with teenage passions, just as Soderbergh's once was.

"April Lasky, the production designer, and I talked a lot about the room," Soderbergh says.

"A teenaged bedroom's aesthetics evolve organically, but sometimes not completely linear. Kids go through phases of being obsessed with things, and then they tear those down. Your loyalties are shifting all the time."

And sometimes those posters — or a wardrobe shelf — come down unexpectedly, sending a shiver up your spine.

"It happened here the other night, in the middle of the night," Soderbergh says. "There was a noise that woke up me and my wife and you go right back to that primitive state trying to figure it out as your amygdala is blinking."

Something strange

Soderbergh says the concept behind Presence is "probably the simplest idea" he's had.

"But simple ideas can have real power. They're primal."

Zack Ryan's score helps set the scene.

"Very quickly, you pick up on two things: That this whatever-it-is was a person, and that there's something sad about it," Soderbergh says. "It's searching the house, trying to find somebody or something. Because obviously, the big question on the table that isn't answered until the last shot is, 'Who is this?'"

A reluctant woman with second sight is brought in by Chris to hopefully answer the question, much to Rebekah's annoyance.

"That was the only scene I asked David to go back and adjust," Soderbergh reveals.

"In the first draft, she felt much more like [Beatrice Straight as parapsychologist Martha Lesh] from Poltergeist, but I wanted to make her more ground-level because of my upbringing with my mother. There was nothing freaky about it. It was shockingly banal."

The film is captured by a fleet-footed Soderbergh himself, armed with a small handheld camera.

"I'm really in the scene with the cast," Soderbergh says. "If a take was ruined on this movie, it was because I made a mistake, so there was an extra level of performance anxiety. And the fear of falling on the stairs."

This was a very real risk.

"I was wearing these little slippers that had rubber grips on them, and I had to look at my feet, so I'm aiming based on rehearsals and muscle memory where I think the camera is, but sometimes I would cut somebody's head off."

It's a turn of phrase that immediately reminds me of that shocking scene near the start of Soderbergh's film, Contagion, where Gwyneth Paltrow's skull is cut wide open. It was a scene audiences recently got reacquainted with, after the film's uncomfortable renaissance during lockdowns.

"It's nice when people are watching the work," Soderbergh admits, "but that's not optimal, in the sense that the only scenario in which Contagion becomes a number one movie again is because an actual pandemic is happening."

Presence is in cinemas February 6.

First published at ABC News February 5, 2025

Whales have been given legal 'personhood' by Māori and Pacific leaders. So what's next?

Whales — known as tohorā in Māori — are believed to have helped guide Polynesian ancestors across Oceania.

By Mackenzie Smith and Dinah Lewis Boucher for Pacific Beat

Whales have been recognised as legal persons by traditional leaders of the Pacific after a landmark treaty was signed last month.

The treaty, or He Whakaputanga Moana, was signed in a ceremony attended by Tūheitia Potatau te Wherowhero VII — the Māori King, Tou Travel Ariki — the Kaumaiti Nui (president) of House of Ariki, along with elders from Tonga, Tahiti, Hawai'i and Rapanui. 

But what is the significance of such a treaty? And what does it actually mean?

What does it mean for a whale to be a 'legal person'?

Māori conservationist Mere Takoko leads Hinemoana Halo Ocean Initiative, the group behind the treaty, and said protecting whales "benefits everybody".

"The whale is an ancestor, so it's our role as ocean guardians to ensure they're protected," she told Pacific Beat.

"We, the descendants of those who first navigated these waters, hold a deep understanding of our local ecosystems ... By providing us with the resources and authority to manage our ancestral waters, we can become stronger protectors of the whales and the Moana as a whole.

"Essentially, what it will do, is enable protections that we currently don't see."

Under the treaty, whales will be recognised as a legal entity with rights and legal standing if harmed, something advocates hope will help ensure their legal protection.

Indigenous leaders from Aotearoa, Cook Islands, Tonga, Tahiti, Hawaii, and Rapanui signed the declaration. (Supplied: Linda Bercusson via Conservation International Pacific Islands)

Currently, ships and whales share the ocean. Their interactions, however, have been devastating for the whales as ship strikes have been a primary cause of whale fatalities.

"That will mean companies that are undertaking unsustainable practices will now have to change those practices," Ms Takoko said.

She said the declaration aimed to support a shared goal to ensure Indigenous communities have the authority to steward their ancestral waters, fostering stronger guardianship over whales and the ocean.

Why are whales important?

Protecting the oceans comes from a deep ancestral heritage.

Whales — known as tohorā in Māori — helped guide Polynesian ancestors across Oceania, Ms Takoko explained. They are considered taonga — sacred treasures of the ocean. 

"Across the Pacific, Indigenous peoples have always lived in harmony with the Moana," Ms Takoko wrote.

"It's not just a source of sustenance, but a living ancestor, a repository of knowledge passed down through generations. Mātauranga Māori, or Indigenous knowledge, guides us in understanding the delicate balance within the ecosystem.

"Whales aren't just resources to be exploited, but sentient beings and our ancestors. My whakapapa (genealogy) is intricately woven with the Moana; its mana (spiritual essence) flows through me."

Has something similar happened before?

Ms Takoko said conservationists have reason to believe their case will work. 

Aotearoa New Zealand passed a groundbreaking law that granted personhood status to the Whanganui River because of its sacred importance to Māori.

Whanganui River became the first landmark in the world to be recognised as a living entity.

The Whanganui river is sacred to Māori.(Flickr: Kathrin and Stefan Marks)

Now the treaty is signed, what's next?

The treaty allows Ms Takoko's team to start talks with governments across the Pacific to help craft a legal framework to protect whales.

"We see this opportunity as a way to anchor the blue economy in the Pacific," she told Pacific Beat.

"And we are establishing a $100 million fund to assist Pacific governments to put enabling legislation in place.

"And there will be a whole other raft of benefits through the protection of the whale, which includes the restoration of our blue habitats."

Tou Travel Ariki — the Kaumaiti Nui (president) of House of Ariki.(Supplied: Josh Baker Films
via Conservation International Pacific Islands)

Ms Takoko said she hopes all the traditional leaders of the Pacific will join the cause, and she plans to engage with governments.

Two global firms have also joined.

"We will be looking to raise capital to assist Pacific nations to get into the blue economy space," she said.

"I think one of the things that's going to matter most is not just the protection of the whale but the convergence of Indigenous knowledge, ocean guardianship with modern science, and bringing a whole community together to anchor our future.”

First published at ABC News, April 10, 2024 and again February 5, 2025

Understanding the basics of AI is a must-have skill for Australian students and their teachers

Teachers play a vital role in preparing students for an AI-driven world, in which they'll need to know how to critically assess AI and spot any bias, misinformation and ethical challenges.(Adobe Stock)

By Natasha Banks, Lynn Gribble, Jake Renzella and Sasha Vassar

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C Clarke's words remind us that while AI might feel like magic — creating award-winning photography and outperforming humans in  English understanding — it's important for students and teachers to understand that there's no "magic" involved, just algorithms, data and patterns.

While these algorithms, data and patterns make AI possible, they also drive ethical concerns, including exacerbating the digital divide.

This is where educators play a pivotal role in preparing AI-literate students for an evolving, AI-powered future workforce.

Despite 69 percent of Australian students already using AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, almost half of these young people say they lack confidence in their AI skills — with girls less content than boys.

From practical teaching strategies to addressing the risks of bias and misinformation in AI, educators must guide our students in an increasingly AI-driven world.

AI is pervasive

AI predates tools like ChatGPT. Technologies like Google search, email spam filtering, real-time translation and your smartphone’s autocorrect are all the result of decades of quiet progress in AI.

By 2030, as many as 1.3 million workers  (9 percent of Australia’s workforce may need to transition to occupations that use AI technology. This is in addition to the 200,000 new jobs directly created by AI.

As AI becomes more powerful and pervasive, equipping the next generation of Australians with AI literacy is critical.

Internationally, governments are investing in building AI capability — in the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently announced a Google-backed AI campus to build AI capability in young people. 

AI technology will not just affect the tech sector. It will increasingly augment human capabilities, making it essential for workers to adapt to this technological landscape, whether they are in tech or non-tech roles.

Today’s students will be tomorrow's leaders in an AI-powered world. But they won’t get there on their own.

What Is AI literacy?

AI literacy is becoming a fundamental skill, akin to reading, writing and digital skills.

It goes beyond using AI tools. It requires a holistic understanding of how AI works, including its limitations and risks.

AI literacy equips students with the ability to evaluate AI outputs critically and make informed decisions, also helping to inform their own use of AI in their learning and everyday life.

At the heart of AI literacy is critical thinking. Students must be able to fact-check AI-generated content, recognise biases and understand when AI might be misleading or incorrect.

Students also need to grasp the ethical implications of AI, including data privacy and the social impacts on employment, creativity and concepts of intellectual property.

As more journalistsand media outlets use AI to produce content, errors or mistruths can spread rapidly and become amplified.

Teachers play a vital role in helping students distinguish fact from fiction and how to source credible information.

This is especially important given that AI systems, while designed to sound plausible, can sometimes hallucinate false information to satisfy user prompts.

Addressing AI's ethical challenges

Privacy laws currently lag behind AI's rapid development, burdening individual users to be aware of and manage what information they provide to AI companies when using the tools — and to educate themselves on how their data is used.

In a world where we seek to reduce inequalities, we must remember that since AI is trained on existing data, it can perpetuate historical biases and reinforce stereotypes unless the underlying datasets are carefully managed.

AI bias can be a result of the initial training data or the algorithm used to drive the prediction or output. Models trained on biased or discriminatory data (algorithmic discrimination) can extend and amplify existing inequalities for certain groups and individuals.

This is particularly concerning as the data currently used often reflects predominantly white, Western, male-centred norms, which has led to the persistence of outdated stereotypes, such as women being cast as homemakers and men as professionals.

Implications extend beyond stereotyping — for example, in a medical setting, a model trained on data that excludes a population group (e.g. Indigenous Australians), or that fails to include this group in its algorithm, may result in harmful treatment plans or inaccurate diagnoses. 

AI-powered automated insurance or lending decisions may perpetuate historically discriminatory practices and exclude some borrowers unfairly.

Similar risks have been identified in policing and criminal justice applications; image generation and editing; and recruitment.

It is critical that students and educators recognise that they must think critically about AI-generated content and recommendations, including the potential flaws and bias in the data used to train the underlying models, their algorithms and the generated output.

The digital divide in education

As AI becomes more prevalent, the digital divide risks widening, disproportionately affecting disadvantaged students who may have limited access to resources, including devices, connectivity and educational opportunities.

Some children also live in situations with limited or insufficient supervision, increasing the risk of exposure to harm.

Ensuring equitable access to AI-powered tools is a challenge that must be addressed. 

AI-powered educational tools offer exciting possibilities, but they also face significant limitations.

These include biased information and the potential to generate inaccurate output and dangerous or age-inappropriate content.

To build trust in AI as an educational tool, strong safeguards must be in place to ensure AI outputs align with educational standards and pedagogical theories.

Supporting teachers and students with AI literacy

AI literacy is multi-pronged. Curriculum design, teacher training, resource design, and student and teacher perspectives are equally important.

The design and development of one specific subject in schools to cover AI literacy is not reliable. AI literacy should instead take a more holistic approach by transferring AI knowledge and methods to core subjects.

For example, basic machine learning algorithms could be taught in mathematics. Or in history, students could compare historical images to those generated by AI, to learn how to discern accurate sources. The linguistic and contextual design of prompts could be an English module. Ethical implications can be covered in a social science subject. At the moment, learning about AI is limited to the Digital Technologies curriculum.

Meaningful learning requires collaborative and active teaching strategies, where real problem-solving is at the core of the learning process.

Programs like PopBots and Scratch help students learn programming and AI in a play-based environment, fostering computational thinking.

Hands-on activities, such as exploring dataset bias and assessing whether data is representative and fair, encourage critical thinking about AI and ethical reasoning — key skills in a world increasingly shaped by this technology.

Research had found project-based, human–computer collaborative play and game-based learning approaches are successful AI literacy education methods.

The future of AI tools in education will focus on personalised and inclusive learning experiences, while supporting teachers with routine administrative tasks, such as marking or lesson planning.

AI can analyse student data to identify learning gaps and suggest targeted interventions. This allows teachers to spend more time on meaningful student interactions, focusing on creativity, emotional intelligence and critical thinking — all while teaching students how to collaborate effectively with AI.

As AI continues to reshape our world, teachers are uniquely positioned to prepare students with the skills they need to succeed.

AI literacy is not just about understanding the technology; it’s about fostering critical thinking, ethical awareness and the ability to work alongside AI responsibly and effectively.

Day of AI Australia is a free classroom-based program that provides foundational AI literacy for students and teachers in Australian schools. Developed by AI and education experts, it is aligned with the Australian curriculum.

Natasha Banks is Program Director for Day of AI Australia. Associate Professor Lynn Gribble is an education-focused academic at UNSW’s School of Management & Governance and co-leads the AI Community of Practice. Dr Jake Renzella is Senior Lecturer, Director of Studies (Computer Science) and Co-Head of the Computing and Education research group in UNSW’s School of Computer Science Engineering. Dr Sasha Vassar is a senior lecturer and Nexus Fellow at UNSW’s School of Computer Science and Engineering.

First Published at ABC News, February 4, 2025