Gemma Killen
@gemkillen.bsky.social
Queer, feminist, angry, etc. She/they 🏳️🌈 Views my own
New research from The Australia Institute finds that Australia is the most expensive developed country for families to send a child to high school. It costs Australian families $4,967 per year - almost four times the OECD average. Read more: theaus.in/4anjEAp
Why do we only operate a buyback scheme after an unspeakable tragedy? Why not before? Why not regularly, so that we might get more guns off the streets and prevent a thousand tragedies as women are murdered by their partners? Surely that would be a good use of government money.
This is the sort of thing that defines fascism more than most other aspects. The installation of secret police to monitor everyone for suspicion not of doing anything wrong, but of being the wrong kind of person.
Norm Charlatan@normcharlatan.bsky.social · 8mo agoI’m not sure people outside the Twin Cites realize the prevalence and the fear ICE is causing in Twin Cities. They are dining undercover pretending to be couples at restaurants, they are going to businesses and checking the license plates of cars to find employees. Every public place is compromised.
SUVs and big Utes "are 44 per cent more likely to kill an adult pedestrian or cyclist in a crash compared with a sedan, and 82 per cent more likely to kill a child" www.theage.com.au/national/vic...
Pedestrian fatalities reach 17-year-high. This trend could be why
Fifty-one pedestrians had been killed on the state’s roads this year as of Saturday – the most in any calendar year since 2008.
theage.com.au
Great to have the chance to talk about our research in this article for The Point! In it we emphasise the risks GenAI raises for Indigenous Education and what came from our recent study testing LLMs on Indigenous topics. 🦘🎓 #edusky #academicsky thepoint.com.au/opinions/251...
What teachers need to know before using AI for Indigenous education
If you ask ChatGPT to write a Welcome to Country, it might caution that only an elder can deliver a Welcome and instead offer you a template of an Acknowledgement of Country. There’s just one problem:...
thepoint.com.au
Former #ANU Vice-Chancellor, Genevieve Bell, will receive remuneration of more than half a million a year for the next five years - despite taking 12 months off. For context, that's more than ANU hoped to 'save' annually by disestablishing the School of Music. 🫠 @nteunion.bsky.social
Anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe spent close to $100,000 in one month on anti-abortion advertising on Meta, in the lead up to the anti-abortion bill debate in the SA Parliament. She outspent BHP! www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in...
SA anti-abortion lobbyist in top three national social media spenders - News | InDaily, Inside South Australia
Sarah Game’s controversial abortion bill lost in the upper house last night – as details emerged about big spends on Meta advertising.
indailysa.com.au
Thank goodness for advocates like @gemkillen.bsky.social speaking truth to those in positions of power www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
My son was stillborn in 2020. By allowing working parents time to grieve, Baby Priya’s bill will change lives | Gemma Killen
I can hardly imagine how hard it would have been to return to a workplace that had declared that I was not a parent – and that my baby didn’t really count
theguardian.com
This would have been very funny if it wasn't also a terrifying part of the complete eradication of democracy in the states. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...
Trump aide freezes on live TV after controversial claim about president
A Trump administration official faces criticism after allegedly claiming US President Donald Trump has "plenary authority" while on a live interview with CNN.
abc.net.au
At a time when some use the language of feminism to attack trans rights, it’s vital to see feminist activists and scholars counteract such attacks. Feminist Legal Studies is inviting papers for a special issue that will explore how feminist goals and trans liberation are connected. Check it out. ✊🏾🏳️⚧️
Feminist Legal Studies@flsjournal.bsky.social · 12mo ago📣🏳️⚧️ Call for Papers We are inviting papers for our special issue, “Feminist Responses to the Regression of Trans Rights: Strategies, Alliances, Hope.” The issue will be dedicated to trans-inclusive feminist legal analysis that addresses attacks on trans rights & lives. Details below. Please share.
I don't know how anyone is getting anything done while the world is the way it is. How to focus on writing my silly little policy briefs or my budget submission when SO MANY things are SO TERRIBLE.
Australian National University vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell has resigned from her position.
Breaking: Embattled ANU vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell resigns
Australian National University vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell has resigned from her position.
abc.net.au
“If the most prestigious university in Australia will not fund our most prestigious literary journal, then it makes you question whether or not universities actually care about Australian culture.” johnmenadue.com/post/2025/09...
Australian writers shocked and ‘disgusted’ by closure of 85-year-old literary journal Meanjin
After 85 years of continuous publication, Meanjin, Australia’s second-oldest literary journal, is closing.
johnmenadue.com
Here's fun. The Business Council of Australia put out a press release and new report about how to make healthcare more efficient. One of the big claims in the press release: "AI has the potential to free up 30 per cent of a clinician’s time, allowing them to spend more time with Australians"
To be clear, I feel strongly about safety in childcare, but it is understaffing and high turnover that creates signficant risk in ECEC, and CCTV - with no assurance for workers' or children's right to privacy - will make it worse.
Gemma Killen@gemkillen.bsky.social · last yr.Let's surveil the predominantly female workforce that is already underpaid and over-stretched and see what that does for staffing levels. Even where they mention privacy it's in relation to children, not the workers - who are ignored in the whole conversation. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...
Let's surveil the predominantly female workforce that is already underpaid and over-stretched and see what that does for staffing levels. Even where they mention privacy it's in relation to children, not the workers - who are ignored in the whole conversation. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...
CCTV trial for hundreds of childcare centres to be rolled out later this year
Education Minister Jason Clare says the new measures won't be a "silver bullet" but they will help improve the safety of children in childcare.
abc.net.au
Didn't you know it was ok to starve sick and disabled people?
Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · last yr.I’m kind of speechless with this one. I can’t imagine the kind of person who continues to make the argument that it doesn’t count as real starvation if the kids were already sick.
Of course, women work less hours than men in many jobs - but in most jobs, that doesn't explain the pay gap. @theguardian.com have made this helpful graph to show the difference btween the pay gap and the hours worked gap. Pathologists have a pay gap of 74% but an hours gap of only 12%.
I am nerding out over the data in Jobs and Skills Australia's Gender Equality Study. Did you know that female truck drivers work 10% more hours and get paid 5% less than male truck drivers? Female family day care workers work 28% more hours and get paid 22% less than male family day care workers!
Well done to Josh Taylor for sinking the boot into the Productivity Commission's risible report on AI. Rubbish like this suggests it's well past time to abolish the Productivity Commission altogether. Put the funding into actual research, not this nonsense www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Australia’s potential surrender of creative content to tech giants for free is shocking. Labor must decide where it stands | Josh Taylor
The Productivity Commission appears to have bought into tech companies’ brazen arguments – and caught the Australian government off-guard
theguardian.com
The Productivity Commission has floated an idea to expand the fair use provision, which would make the kind of scraping AI companies do to train ChatGPT et al legal. Authors and other creatives are rightly outraged. NB: this isn't the first time the PC has come for book publishing.
The Productivity Commission is floating AI copyright exemptions – with worrying implications for Australian authors and publishers
Exemptions to copyright legislation for AI would disadvantage Australian writers – and set a bad precedent.
theconversation.com
"If ANU is serious about preparing students to lead in the public interest as public servants, community organisers, researchers and analysts, it must retain an autonomous, standalone school of sociology." @nteunion.bsky.social stands against #ANU job cuts. www.canberratimes.com.au/story/902804...
The loss of the school of sociology undermines decades of intellectual investment
It would be a big loss for the ANU
canberratimes.com.au
A whopping 16% of the top THIRTY were women! Only FIVE songs! I don't think it's true that there aren't as many women in Australian music, I think it's just that many Australians don't think of the work of women as exemplary or iconic.
So far top 20 is all men (and Julia) - what's what about
The ABS have calculated the monetary value of unpaid care in Australia. In Sep 2024 quarter, unpaid care in Aus was valued at $308.4 billion! Women are responsible for two thirds of that value! Imagine, if we had actually been paid, we might have been able to buy a couple of hypothetical submarines!
