A personal view of Australian and International Politics
Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Paul Dalley is successfully growing Sturt's desert pea in his Mid North Coast nursery. (ABC Rural: Lauren Bohane)
Nestled
within the lush green bushland of the NSW Mid North Coast, Paul
Dalley's flower farm is the last place a crop of Sturt's desert pea
would be expected to thrive.
The
floral emblem of South Australia normally grows in the outback, in arid
conditions and sandy soil, but Mr Dalley is growing the flower in a
greenhouse in Kempsey, where dozens of the native desert flowers are in
full bloom.
Before Mr Dalley attempted to grow the flower last year, he had only seen it once, at Melbourne's botanic gardens.
"We just like growing things that are beautiful and different, and nobody else is growing," he said.
"They're beautiful, they're unique, a lot of people have seen pictures but have never seen them for real."
Paul Dalley loves the challenge of unique Australian blooms. (ABC Rural: Lauren Bohane)
Mr Dalley had about 40 plants in this year's crop, each sporting several flowers.
"We're
doing much better than last year when most of the plants died off, and
we only got about half a dozen flowers from 10 plants," he said.
But he said the challenge was what drew him to unusual flowers.
Paul Dalley plans to collect seeds from this year's crop of Sturt's desert pea. (ABC News: Lauren Bohane)
"Some of our crops are more on the mainstream side, and some are more far out, and some of them fail altogether," he said.
"It's a bit like gambling, but I don't gamble, so I buy exotic plants and seeds."
Mr Dalley said there had been massive interest in the flowers, but he planned to save most of this year's crop for seeds.
In
South Australia, Sturt's desert pea is considered a protected flora,
meaning flowers and plants cannot be collected from private or Crown
land without permission.
Growing interest in natives
Further
south, on the NSW Central Coast, East Coast Wildflowers' Jonathan
Lidbetter has been growing Sturt's desert pea for eight years.
"It
normally grows in areas of rainfall of about 250-500 millimetres a
year, and we routinely get over 1,100mm, so we must be mad," Mr
Lidbetter said.
"We've had various quality issues with seed and haven't made it a huge focus until the last couple of years.
"In
the last couple of years, we've really tried hard to grow it better, to
make it more commercial and to make the product desirable for the
customer."
Jonathan Lidbetter has been growing Sturt's desert pea for eight years. (Supplied: Jonathan Lidbetter)
The blooms were sold at Sydney Flower Markets, where Mr Lidbetter said there was growing interest in native flowers.
"There's a move to more interesting, delicate flowers that have not really been available before," he said.
"COVID partly brought in a little bit of interest in locally-grown native flowers [with] short flower miles."
Sturt's desert pea is notoriously difficult to grow outside of its native habitat. (ABC News: Lauren Bohane)
Mr Lidbetter said limited availability kept florists coming back to see what was in season.
"Seasonality
keeps the florists interested in the market area because they're always
coming in to see what's new, what's hitting the floor.
"A lot of their traditional flowers that they're used to, they're able to get 12 months a year, and they can just order them.
"A lot of the things that are now coming along in the native market line are very restricted supplies and often quite unusual."
Natives not always Australian-grown
The
peak body for Australian flower growers and florists credited the rise
in popularity of native flowers to Australians' growing desire to buy
local.
"A lot of people in
Australia relate them to being Australian-grown products, and there's a
real trend towards wanting to buy and support Australian-grown flowers
and Aussie businesses," Flower Industry Australia secretary Anna Jabour
said.
Anna Jabour says native flowers are becoming more popular. (Supplied: Flower Industry Australia)
However, Ms Jabour warned Australian native did not always equate to Australian-grown when it came to flowers.
"I've
seen kangaroo paw [and] some eucalyptus be imported, and that's why
it's really important to ask where your flowers are from."
She said the flower industry had been advocating for mandated country-of-origin labelling for the past two decades.
"If
there's no labelling telling people where flowers are from, a lot of
the Australian public think that the flowers are just grown here," she
said.
"Twenty-five years ago,
that assumption would be correct; around 90 per cent or more of our
flowers were grown here, but today it's only around 50 per cent."
The reddish-orange moon is captured from South Perth. (ABC News: Andrew O'Connor)
Stargazers
came out in droves on Tuesday night to see the Moon tinged with a
reddish-orange hue in their last chance to see a total lunar eclipse for
almost three years.
Perth and southern Western Australia were among the best spots in the country to see the blood moon.
The
eclipse was in totality for about an hour from 7pm in WA, transforming
the Moon from its normal neutral colour to a warm reddish-orange.
The "blood moon" can be seen with the naked eye. (ABC News: Kenith Png)
While
taking place at the same time, the time difference meant it was a later
local viewing time for Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Hobart, with
totality — when the Moon is completely in the Earth's shadow — starting
just after 10pm.
For Adelaide, totality started just after 9:30pm, for Brisbane it was around 9pm and in Darwin it was just after 8:30pm.
The next blood moon is set to take place in about two years and 10 months. (ABC News: Christopher Lewis)
Since
the Moon rose from the east, people viewing the event from Australia's
east coast saw more of the partial eclipse in the lead-up to the Moon
turning red during totality.
And
in the west, it meant once the Moon was visible, it was in its full
reddish-orange glory, seen with the naked eye or camera lens.
The blood moon is captured in East Fremantle, Perth. (Supplied: Alison K Thorburn Photography/Facebook)
According
to astrophysicist Graham Jones, this event marked the end of a run of
lunar eclipses, and a turning point towards more solar eclipses over the
next few years.
"We see a
pattern in eclipses where for a couple of years we get a very nice run
of big lunar eclipses, and then the balance shifts and we have a few
years of very nice solar eclipses," he said.
What is a lunar eclipse?
A
lunar eclipse happens when the Earth passes directly between the Sun
and Moon, and Matt Woods from the Perth Observatory said it could only
occur during a full moon.
"The Moon goes into the shadow of the Earth and it turns blood orange,"
he said.
During a lunar eclipse, Earth's shadow passes across the Moon, creating a partial or total eclipse, depending on the location. (ABC: Julie Ramsden)
"Some
of the sunlight still passes through the atmosphere of the Earth, and
our atmosphere is blue because of the oxygen and nitrogen particles in
the atmosphere scattering the blue light of the sunlight, and then
what's left over is the yellow and red light and that continues and hits
the Moon.
"When you mix yellow and red, you get orange … the actual process is called Rayleigh scattering."
How rare is a lunar eclipse?
The last time a blood moon occurred was a few months ago in September 2025,
but stargazers in Perth were left disappointed as most of it happened
during cloud cover, with the total lunar eclipse before that taking
place in 2022.
Mr
Jones said only about half of the world could see a total lunar eclipse
at a time, but it was still more parts of the Earth than during a solar
eclipse.
"To see a lunar eclipse, you have a much better chance than seeing a solar eclipse," he said.
"A lunar eclipse is visible from anywhere on the night-time side of the globe."
Mr Woods said a lunar eclipse "can be quite rare", but it reminded stargazers it was easy to view.
Tonight's event marks the end of a run of lunar eclipses. (ABC News: Andrew O'Connor)
"The
great thing about total lunar eclipses is that you don't need any
specialised equipment. If you do want, you can use your telescope or
binoculars, but for this one you just need[ed] clear horizons to the
east," he said.
When is the next one?
The next blood moon is set to take place in about two years and 10 months.
Mr
Jones, who described lunar eclipses as "something really magical", said
it would be "a really cool date" starting late on New Year's Eve 2028
or early morning on New Year's Day 2029, depending on local time.
The reddish-orange moon lights up the Australian sky. (ABC News: Briana Shepherd)
It
will be a special viewing for Perth, since the eclipse itself will
start on December 31, 2028 and finish early on January 1, 2029.
For people on the east coast due to the time difference, it will already be 2029 when the lunar eclipse starts.
And
for the next total solar eclipse, July 22, 2028 is the big day where
parts of northern WA like Kununurra will be in the path of totality,
along with Sydney.
The Moon will darken from the bottom right side, and will continue across until there is just a sliver of light on the top.
The total eclipse begins once the Moon is completely encompassed by Earth's shadow, turning the entire Moon a shade of red.
"A deeper, longer total lunar eclipse will see the Moon go right through the centre of the shadow," Dr Hill says.
At about 58 minutes, tonight's total eclipse is the shortest since 2021.
As
the Moon leaves the umbra, it will go through another partial eclipse
and penumbral phase, before it returns to being a full moon.
Why does the Moon turn red?
The colour is due to Earth's atmosphere, which absorbs blue light (hence our blue sky), and allows red light to pass through.
As the red light passes through our atmosphere it is also bent, like a magnifying glass, into Earth's darkest shadow.
If
there is volcanic activity or smoke in the air at the time of a blood
moon, not a lot of light will reach the Moon, making it appear a lot
darker.
If the sky is clear, it appears lighter.
"It can be from a bright copper colour to a blood-red colour," Mr Woods says.
Dr
Hamacher says some people may be disappointed to see that the Moon does
not appear as red in real life as in some photos online.
"[Photos] make it look like the Moon has heavy red paint on it. It gets red, but it doesn't get that red," he says.
How to photograph the eclipse
Professional
photos are often taken with massive camera lenses, but that doesn't
mean you can't take a nice picture with what you have.
Phones have a couple of tricks to help objects in photos appear sharper and clearer.
You
can often tap on an object you want to focus on in the camera app, and
adjust the brightness of the image to fit with it (making it appear
sharper and darker).
If the Moon looks too dark in your photos, most phone cameras will allow you to take a long exposure of a few seconds.
Taking
a long exposure on a steady surface will allow the phone to take in as
much light and data as possible, making the Moon appear sharper and
brighter.
As the Moon will
appear low in the sky for many, there will most likely be trees and
buildings to contrast its colour, potentially making it appear a bit
redder.
'Blood moon' and cultural meanings
The
lunar new year in China starts on the second new moon after the
northern winter solstice, and runs until the full moon 15 days later.
The last day of the festival is celebrated with rows of red paper lanterns signifying luck, joy and prosperity.
This year's Lantern Festival just happens to coincide with a total lunar eclipse aka 'blood moon'.
Astronomer Richard de Grijs from Macquarie University, says there isn't an explicit connection between the two events.
Lunar eclipses have been tracked by Chinese astronomers since ancient times.
Unlike the red lanterns, Dr de Grijs says a red moon is traditionally seen as a natural but "bad omen".
"A reddened moon might suggest an imbalance between yin and yang," he says.
It is a theme that is seen in other cultures.
Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures associate blood moons with death, Dr Hamacher says.
"It's usually something bad, it's usually death and it's usually blood," he says.
"Torres Strait Islanders have been predicting lunar eclipses for a long time."
Peoples
in the Western Torres Strait trained to be astronomers are called
Zugubau Mabaig: Zugubau meaning spiritual ancestor who became a
constellation, and Mabaig meaning man or person.
Part
of a Zugubau Mabaig's final stage of initiation was to predict when the
lunar eclipses would occur, so a ceremony could be prepared months in
advance.
Dr Hamacher says this
could be done about 19 years in advance of a total lunar eclipse using
skills and knowledge passed down for thousands of years.
"Nowhere
… have I seen anything anywhere, that talks about a culture that shares
knowledge orally, being able to predict an eclipse."
Eastern quolls have successfully bred on a western Victorian property protected from foxes. (Supplied: Albert Kang, iNaturalist CC BY-NC 4.0)
An
endangered "native cat" is making a celebrated comeback, with a
breeding population of eastern quolls making a new home for themselves
in a small pocket of south-east mainland Australia.
Conservationists
have trapped and re-released 27 eastern quolls in a protected pastoral
property near Dunkeld in western Victoria.
Recent surveys have confirmed that the species has successfully bred.
The
eastern quoll, once dubbed Australia's "native cat", was declared
extinct on mainland Australia in 1963 after being wiped out by the
introduction of the red fox in the late 19th century.
The species's only original wild population remains in Tasmania.
Repopulation
efforts in the Grampians/Gariwerd region are being led by the
South-West Eastern Quoll Hub, a partnership between conservation group
Nature Glenelg Trust and three local agricultural businesses.
Eastern quolls come in black and fawn colour variants. (Supplied: Brett Vercoe, iNaturalist CC BY-NC 4.0)
Kai
Dailey, who is a conservation manager with one of the businesses, said
12 male and seven female quolls captured during the most recent survey
were born in the wild.
"It's early stages, but it's fair to say it's a successful introduction, absolutely," he said.
Mr Dailey said the survey showed the repopulation program was working "incredibly well".
Three
pregnant females were released into a fenced 95-hectare free-range
enclosure at Dunkeld's Mt Sturgeon two years ago, with two males added
last May to increase biological diversity.
"We've maintained an almost 50-50 ratio between males and females,"
Mr Dailey said.
Predators abound
Previous efforts to reintroduce Tasmanian eastern quolls to the mainland were thwarted by foxes and other imported predators.
The
South-West Eastern Quoll Hub project traces its roots back to 2013 and a
program that revegetated pastoral land with native trees and protected
existing river red gums.
Construction of a predator-proof fence began in 2022, coinciding with an intensive effort to eliminate foxes from the area.
Melissa Herpich releases an eastern quoll during monitoring at a western Victorian site. (Supplied: Nature Glenelg Trust)
Nature
Glenelg Trust managing director Mark Bachmann said the common fox was
the key ingredient in the eastern quoll's catastrophic population
decline.
He said their removal was an essential step before the quolls could be released into an area.
"They're
in what we call the 'critical weight range' mammal group, which is a
category of mammals bigger than rats, but smaller than the smallest
wallabies that we've seen decimated in the last 100-150 years as a
result of the introduction of foxes and cats onto mainland Australia,"
he said.
"In
Tasmania, where for one reason or another, foxes never got going
despite attempts to establish them, quolls have continued to persist in
the places where there are cats."
Other
predator-proof sanctuaries are planned along the edge of the Grampians
National Park, Mr Bachmann said, including in the Cobboboonee National
Park around Mount Vandyke.
He said there was potential for the program to grow beyond regional Victoria.
"We're
all working towards a common goal and it would be valuable for us to be
able to get together, compare notes, and save reinventing the wheel,"
Mr Bachmann said.
"Because none
of our sites independently [are] big enough to do everything we might
want to do for the species in terms of managing its genetics.
"We
have the benefit that we can — once we've all got animals inside our
enclosure — work together to make sure that we're managing the viability
of the genetics of those populations across our four sites."
Disappearing act
Australian
newspapers and journals were once filled with tales of the so-called
"common variable native cat", an aggressive carnivore disparaged by
farmers as a menace to domestic poultry.
From the 1870s, the quoll began to disappear from public view, vanishing from the Australian mainland.
Within decades, the marsupial was wiped out by a far greater threat, the familiar fox.
A 1910 article in The Sydney Mail describes the decline of the "common native cat". (Supplied: Trove, NLA)
"Quolls have been almost lost from our collective memory on the mainland because they were lost so long ago," Mr Bachmann said.
"The eastern quoll in particular is not a species that anyone will be that familiar with."
Despite being commonly described as the eastern "native cat", they bear only the tiniest resemblance to a domestic cat.
The quoll is a small to medium-sized marsupial, generally smaller than an actual cat.
In
addition to their reintroduction in western Victoria, there are other
breeding programs in the Australian Capital Territory and in New South
Wales, with a view to further reintroductions on the mainland.
Quoll species
For those eager to learn more, there are six species of quoll: four occur in Australia, two in New Guinea.
They
are all carnivorous marsupials with a diet that includes insects,
reptiles, birds and other small animals, according to Mr Dailey.
Of the Australian varieties, the eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus), northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) and western quoll (Dasyurus geoffroii) each live in isolated pockets, although the significantly larger spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) has a wider home range which overlaps that of the eastern quoll in Tasmania.
Eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus)
An eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus) with a black morph. (Supplied: Ramit Singal, iNaturalist CC BY-NC 4.0)
Once
one of Australia's most abundant native predators, the eastern quoll's
home range is now limited to Tasmania and a few attempted reintroduction
sites on the mainland. It is categorised as endangered.
Formerly
known as the eastern native cat, there are two colour combinations (or
morphs): fawn with white spots and black with white spots. Both
combinations can occur in the same litter, although the fawn morph is
dominant. Neither have spots on their tails.
These quolls grow up to 65cm in total length, with adult males weighing up to 1.3kg and females up to 0.9kg.
Western quoll (Dasyurus geoffroii)
A western quoll (Dasyurus geoffroii). (Supplied: Georgina Steytler)
Reddish-brown
in colour, the western quoll is similar in size to the eastern quoll.
It occupies the south-west corner of Western Australia and is classified
as vulnerable.
Northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus)
A northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) sniffs the air. (Supplied: Wild Pacific Media)
The
smallest of the four Australian quoll species, the northern quoll
(previously known as the northern native cat) grows to about 65cm with
adult males weighing up to 1.1kg and females up to 0.7kg.
It
can be found in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of Western Australia,
as well as coastal Northern Territory and Queensland. It is classified
as endangered.
Spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus)
Spotted-tailed quolls (Dasyurus maculatus) are also known as tiger quolls. (Supplied: Lucia Griggi)
Also
known as the tiger quoll, males weigh up to 3.5kg, with females
weighing up to 1.8kg. The spotted-tailed quoll can be found along the
Australian east coast and into Tasmania, and has a conservation status
of near threatened.
A
photo of an injured pregnant woman being carried from a bombed
maternity hospital in Mariupol in 2022 became one of the war's most
widely seen images. (AP Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka)
The city remains under Russian occupation, and she has family who have been unable to leave.
With
the war reaching the four-year mark last week, the ABC reconnected with
Irina and other Ukrainians who fled their homes and feared they could
never return.
Graves of local residents who died during the fighting with Russia are seen behind homes in Mariupol. (AP: Alexei Alexandrov)
Sisters torn apart
Irina tries to speak to her sister in Mariupol every day.
"She
often tells me, 'I'd like to hug you. I'd like to see you in person,'"
Irina said, speaking on a video call from her apartment in Ireland.
"I try to change the focus because she starts crying a little bit."
Irina, in a photo taken before the war, loved strolling along the beach and visiting Mariupol's parks. (Supplied)
An estimated 350,000 residents fled Mariupol to escape Russian occupation.
Those who stayed were forced to get Russian passports in order to "have any rights there", Irina said.
Her sister needed to become Russian to access the pension.
Needing to be careful about what they discuss, it is one of the few details they have shared about life in Mariupol.
Residents can face intense surveillance and often have their phones checked by Russia's occupying authorities.
A mural on the side of a Mariupol apartment building is dedicated to the Russian forces that took control of the city. (Reuters: Alexander Ermochenko)
Thousands
of buildings were destroyed across the city in what Human Rights Watch
called one of Russia's "worst chapters of their full-scale invasion of
Ukraine".
Irina's sister and brother-in-law's house was among only 10 buildings in the district still standing after the 85-day siege.
"All the others were totally ruined," Irina said.
"When I ask her to take photos for me from her window, she says, 'You don't need it, you don't need it.'
"She is trying to protect me from these things."
Parts of Mariupol were severely damaged at the time Russia claimed control of the city in May 2022. (Reuters: Alexander Ermochenko)
Irina is still traumatised by those early days in the conflict, becoming startled by the sound of fireworks or planes overhead.
When she fled
Mariupol with her then 14-year-old son, they drove through land-mined
roads and saw cars still burning after coming under Russian fire.
They
made it to Budapest in central Hungary before eventually resettling in
Ireland under the government's temporary protection program.
"We could live in Ireland and we were accommodated in a hotel in a small town 80 kilometres from Dublin," Irina said.
"I
didn't really understand what was happening to us, but the most
important thing was that there were no explosions or aircraft noise
above us."
Irina made a lot of new Ukrainian friends in Ireland as the country opened its doors to refugees. (Supplied)
The first year was difficult; her son missed his home and friends.
Irina's self-confidence plummeted as she struggled with English and tried to adapt to her new situation.
"In English, I can't express my emotions as well as I can in Ukrainian,"
she said.
Irina says she is happy in Ireland and is thankful for the opportunities the country has given her and her son. (Supplied)
These days, Irina says, life has improved.
Her
son will soon finish school, and Irina — who was a lawyer in Ukraine —
graduated from a course in employment law and has made many new
Ukrainian friends.
But she admits sometimes she wants to "hide from the world" and tries to avoid news of the horrors that continue in Ukraine.
The grief of being apart from her family is an "everyday challenge".
"We have not returned to Mariupol and have not even been to Ukraine during this period of time," Irina said.
"I'm still afraid of war."
A whole new life
When
the ABC last spoke to Dasha in March 2022, she was sheltering anxiously
at home with her two children, hoping to evacuate their
Russian-controlled city.
The
UN Development Programme said the dam's collapse impacted more than
100,000 people and submerged 620 square kilometres of territory.
The flooding aftermath of the Nova Kakhovka dam disaster.
"I miss my hometown, my city, and its streets very much. The children miss it too," Dasha said.
"I am very sad that I cannot see my friends who stayed in Nova Kakhovka.
"I am sad that I cannot see my father. It hurts to think that I would not be able to help him if something happened."
Dasha said it was also difficult to communicate with her family and friends with the city under occupation.
"Their messages are checked. Many topics are forbidden,"
she said.
Buildings damaged in Nova Kakhovka in October, 2022. (Reuters: Alexander Ermochenko)
Even if the war ends, Dasha worries that returning to Nova Kakhovka may not be possible.
"I think it will be dangerous to live there even after the war ends. There may still be mines and unexploded shells," she said.
"It is painful that we were uprooted from our lives.
"Now we are here under temporary protection, and we do not know what tomorrow will bring."
A massive dam in Russian-occupied Ukraine has been destroyed.
An uncertain future
About
4.4 million refugees have returned to Ukraine since the start of the
war, but 3.7 million people continued to be internally displaced,
according to the UN International Organization for Migration.
Another 5.9 million Ukrainian refugees were still living in other parts of the world.
Irina has a protection visa to live in Ireland until 2027, but says it is impossible to think about the future.
"My mood is up and down, up and down, but I try to keep focus on daily life and my duties," she said.
"I'm happy enough to have friends here, and Ireland is a very beautiful country.
"For now, we try to do our best, to work hard, to think in a positive way to protect our mental health, and then we'll see."
