September 26, 2023

UOW expert commentary (26 September)

UOW academics provide expert commentary, opinion and analysis on a range of ongoing and breaking news stories

Exploitation of people living with disabilities by NDIS providers

Social welfare expert Dr Mona Nikidehaghani can discuss last night’s Four Corners program that revealed some National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) operators are luring people living with disabilities into rented accommodation and exploiting them for their NDIS funding. Dr Nikidehaghani is an expert in the relationship between accounting and public policies, with a particular interest in the NDIS. She is a Lecturer in the School of Business.

Passport-free travel

Singapore’s Changi Airport will introduce passport-free travel next year and Honorary Professor Katina Michael says passengers could be putting sensitive data at risk for the sake of convenience. Honorary Professor Michael doesn’t believe Australia should move away from physical passports entirely and says individuals should have the right to prove who they are through their identification documentation.

Honorary Professor Michael is from the School of Business and comments regularly on the social implications of emerging technologies with an emphasis on privacy and national security. She is also a Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University.

Bushfire preparedness

Associate Professor Owen Price can provide interviews about Australia’s upcoming bushfire season, with the National Bushfire Preparedness Summit currently underway at Parliament House in Canberra. Associate Professor Price is the Director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at UOW. His research focuses on bushfire risk and the impact on human health, houses and the environment.

Toxic chemicals in vapes seized from schools

Dr Jody Moller is available to talk about an extensive e-cigarette analysis her research team has undertaken for NSW Health that tested 750 vapes for nicotine – 428 samples were seized from retailers and 322 were devices that had been used by students in schools. Almost 98 per cent of the vapes provided by school students were found to contain nicotine, despite the chemical not being listed as an active ingredient. Dr Moller is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Bioscience and researches vaping and e-cigarettes.

Russia-Ukraine conflict

Dr Stephen Brown can provide expert commentary on recent developments in the Russia-Ukraine war. The Russian history expert says Putin has thrown out his own playbook with this conflict. Dr Brown is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry.

UOW academics exercise academic freedom by providing expert commentary, opinion and analysis on a range of ongoing social issues and current affairs. This expert commentary reflects the views of those individual academics and does not necessarily reflect the views or policy positions of the University of Wollongong.