November 11, 2024

UOW expert commentary (11 November)

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

---

ABS Labour Force statistics (Thursday 14 November)

Associate Professor Martin O’Brien can discuss the next ABS Labour Force Statistics which will be released on Thursday 14 November. He can discuss employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked in October 2024 from the monthly Labour Force Survey. Associate Professor O’Brien is an economist and the Director of the Centre for Human and Social Capital Research.

---

World Diabetes Day (Thursday 14 November)

Associate Professor Kelly Lambert can talk about World Diabetes Day (Thursday 14 November). Associate Professor Lambert has more than two decades of clinical experience as a specialist kidney dietitian. Her research and interests focus on supporting people with kidney disease to live better lives, improving patient education by health professionals and educating future dietitians. Associate Professor Lambert is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian in the School of Medical, Indigenous and Health Sciences.

---

Social media ban

Honorary Professor Katina Michael can provide expert commentary on plans to ban children from using social media in Australia. Honorary Professor Michael says age verification technology is not foolproof and not necessarily the path the government should take. She says we should be framing this issue in legislative terms and a greater duty of care is required by commercial providers of social media.

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.

---

The power of Latino and Hispanic voters in the US election

Dr Luis Gomez Romero can discuss why so many Latino and Hispanic voters supported Donald Trump. Dr Gomez Romero says while it may seem illogical that that Trump strengthened his backing among Latino and Hispanic voters, emotion and narrative play a role in politics too. In an article for The Conversation, he writes:

Trump’s surge among Latino and Hispanic voters can be traced back to nightmares and dreams never far from voters’ minds. Many of these voters left the nightmare of poverty behind in their countries of origin. Their dreams are rooted in traditional (mainly masculine) stories about prosperity in the “land of the free”.

Dr Gomez Romero is a Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory in the School of Law.

---

What will happen to Trump’s court cases?

Professor Markus Wagner can provide expert commentary on present and future legal battles that involve Donald Trump. Now that he has been re-elected as president, Professor Wagner says many of Donald Trump’s legal cases are likely to disappear, or at least be postponed until his term is over. In an article for The Conversation, he writes:

Until election day, the then-former president faced the possibility of spending decades behind bars. The two federal indictments against Trump will disappear either before or shortly after his inauguration. While Trump cannot wave a magic wand over the two cases before state courts, his chances of having to govern from prison are slim.

Professor Wagner is an internationally recognised expert in global economic law and governance, international peace and security, as well as US and Australian constitutional law. He is the Director of the Transnational Law and Policy Centre at the University of Wollongong.

---

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.