May 6, 2024

UOW expert commentary (6 May)

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

Placement poverty

Associate Professor Kelly Lambert and Dr Anne McMahon can talk about placement poverty and the government’s plans to introduce a placement payment in the upcoming budget. The researchers recently finished interviewing more 600 Australasian students and said the results were alarming, with food insecurity being experienced by 77 per cent of students during placement, with 29 per cent sating they regularly skipped meals and experienced hunger due to poverty. Associate Professor Lambert and Dr McMahon are both researchers in the School of Medical, Indigenous and Health Sciences.

Funding package for domestic violence

Dr Kelly Lewer is available for interviews about the NSW government’s $230 million funding package for the domestic violence sector. Dr Lewer’s research focuses on the impacts of domestic violence on health and wellbeing, and emphasises improving support responses across many settings. Dr Lewer says there needs to be more co-designed research undertaken in the area of domestic violence and says a whole of family approach is required. Dr Lewer is a researcher in the School of Nursing.

Interest rates

Dr Paul Mazzola can talk about the RBA’s interest rates decision which will be made tomorrow (Tuesday 7 May 2024). Dr Paul Mazzola says Tuesday’s cash rate announcement is particularly important in the RBA's attempt to put the inflation genie back in its bottle. Dr Mazzola is a Lecturer in banking and finance in the School of Business. He has more than 25 years’ banking and finance experience in the Australian, European and Asian Pacific markets. He is the author of Countdown to the Global Financial Crisis: A Story of Power and Greed.

Violence against women: what Australia can learn from Latin America

Dr Luis Gómez Romero can discuss violence against women and the Latin America experience. In an article he co-authored for The Conversation Dr Gómez Romero writes:

In Latin American countries, femicide is considered a hate crime that specifically requires a human rights based approach to enforcement.

In 2009, for example, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found Mexico in violation of women’s rights to life and non-discrimination for failing to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish femicides in Ciudad Juárez. The government was required not only to implement stronger measures to prevent similar crimes from occurring, but also to offer the victims reparations.

Dr Gomez Romero is an expert in human rights, international law and international relations. He is from the School of Law.

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.