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Megan Evans

@megcevans.bsky.social

2K followers 510 following 140 posts

environmental policy, governance, finance • Senior Lecturer UNSW Canberra, Australia 🦘 • she/her • likes dogs • often grumpy, mostly about climate change, biodiversity loss and injustice 🇵🇸 https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/megan-evans

www.unsw.edu.au

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Megan Evans @megcevans.bsky.social · Feb 18

💡Our new preprint is online: "Trends in biodiversity finance terminology, actors and networks over two decades" 🧵 #naturefinance osf.io/preprints/so...

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Megan Evans @megcevans.bsky.social · 18h

Welcome!

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 3d

The Israeli government denies mistreating Greta Thunberg. Then Police Min Itamar Ben Gvir goes on TV to gleefully announcing that she was indeed tortured. He says he's proud of the fact. It's a great demonstration of how the Israeli government under Netanyahu works, unable to coordinate its lies

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Senator David Shoebridge @davidshoebridge.bsky.social · 3d

BREAKING: Labor is actively hiding the truth of Australia’s genocidal supply of F35 fighter parts to Israel.

My office uncovered via FOI the Defence Department quietly deleted its webpage celebrating Australian companies pumping weapons parts to Israel to keep F35 jets flying.

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Tom Studans @maximumwelfare.bsky.social · 4d

#BREAKING 🚨 Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report into mutual obligations issues.

Fake quotes from Federal Court case that ended Robodebt deleted from new report in Friday DEWR dump.

📰 AFR

✍️ @paulkarp.bsky.social

✍️ @edmundtadros.bsky.social

🗣️ @chrisrudge.bsky.social

HEADLINE: Deloitte to refund government, admits AI errors in $440k report

Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement.

A new version of the report for the Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR) was quietly uploaded to the department’s website on Friday, ahead of a long weekend across much of Australia. It features more than a dozen deletions of nonexistent references and footnotes, a rewritten reference list, and corrections to multiple typographic errors.

(photo of Deloitte Australia HQ) Deloitte Australia has made almost $25 million worth of deals with the Department of Workplace Relations since 2021. Photographer Dion Georgopoulos

The first version of the report, about the IT system used to automate penalties in the welfare system such as pauses on the dole, was published in July. Less than a month later, Deloitte was forced to investigate the report after University of Sydney academic Dr Christopher Rudge highlighted multiple errors in the document.

At the time, Rudge speculated that the errors may have been caused by what is known as “hallucinations” by generative AI. This is where the technology responds to user queries by inventing references and quotes. Deloitte declined to comment.

The incident is embarrassing for Deloitte as it earns a growing part of its $US70.5 billion ($107 billion) in annual global revenue by providing advice and training clients and executives about AI. The firm also boasts about its widespread use of the technology within its global operations, while emphasising the need to always have humans review any output of AI.

SUBHEADING: Deleted references, footnotes

The revised report has deleted a dozen references to two nonexistent reports by Professor Lisa Burton Crawford, a law professor at the University of Sydney, that were included in the first version. Two references to a nonexistent report by Professor Björn Regnell, of Lund University in Sweden, were also deleted in the new report.

Also deleted was a made up reference to a court decision in a leading robo-debt case, Deanna Amato v Commonwealth.

The new report has also deleted a reference to “Justice Davis” (a misspelling of Justice Jennifer Davies) and the made-up quote from the nonexistent paragraphs 25 and 26 in the judgement: “The burden rests on the decision-maker to be satisfied on the evidence that the debt is owed. A person’s statutory entitlements cannot lawfully be reduced based on an assumption unsupported by evidence.”

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الكسندرا ميراي @lexialex.bsky.social · 5d

Soon you can have your sushi delivered by the same drones that shot toddlers in the head while they were scraping spilled flour off the ground

PARTNERS WITH FLYTREX, AN ISRAELI DRONE COPMANY, ALL WHILE ISRAEL USES DRONES TO KILL CHILDREN

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David Milner @davemilbo.bsky.social · 4d

Six heroic Aussies are inside a notorious Israeli prison, the same hellhole where Greta Thunberg was dragged by her hair and made to kiss the Israeli flag. Reports DFAT is scolding ppl on the phone that have called in. Your government is complicit. Free Palestine, Melbourne/Naarm

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Monica Marks @monicamarks.bsky.social · 4d

Greta Thunberg is held prisoner by Israel at a jail in the Negev. Read what Sweden’s embassy in Israel reports are the conditions of her detention ⬇️

Now just imagine: if Israel treats a world-famous Swedish activist this way, how badly are its prisons abusing Palestinians?

1/

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Larissa Waters @larissawaters.bsky.social · 5d

DFAT has now confirmed Australians and others have been abused by Israeli authorities after their abduction from the flotilla.

Assaulted and injured. Deprived of sleep and medication. Still illegally detained.

The PM and Foreign Minister must urgently demand their safe release.

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NTEU @nteunion.bsky.social · 7d

📰BREAKING📰

SafeWork NSW has stepped in to force Macquarie University to make work health and safety improvements to their consultation on proposed workplace changes.

Thanks to NTEU members at MQ who spoke out about the harm of workplace changes to staff mental health and wellbeing.

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Megan Evans @megcevans.bsky.social · 9d

Agree. One reviewer was happy after first revision though

Megan Evans @megcevans.bsky.social · 9d

Thank-you. It's been a poor experience, and the EIC responses (who took over from another editor recently) suggest a lack of understanding of qualitative research

Megan Evans @megcevans.bsky.social · 9d

It's fine that the paper isn't meeting their requirements, I'm just enraged by the goal post shifting at every turn and BS like "it is not clear... what is particularly unique in the case of ...Australia"

Megan Evans @megcevans.bsky.social · 9d

Absolute worst journal experience of my life with @environmentalpol.bsky.social
Two years, four revisions, now rejection.
One reason cited by EIC is "small number of interviews... limits the rigor of the empirical work". There were 26 interviews, it's qual work. Never raised by reviewers.

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Minnie’s mum @minniesmum.bsky.social · 11d

$348/464… who can help make up the last $US116 to evacuate single mum Maha and family out of Gaza City? ANYTHING HELPS.

Minnie’s mum @minniesmum.bsky.social · 12d

Just US$464 to go now folks. Please. Maha is terrified, surrounded by tanks and has no money to evacuate her and her family. We are her only hope. ANYTHING HELPS.

Minnie’s mum @minniesmum.bsky.social · 16d

I’ve raised US$440/2000 for Maha to be able to evacuate herself & family from Gaza city to the South. So the goal is $US1560. She really needs to leave asap… the bombing is relentless and it’s do dangerous. Can anyone help with a donation, or at least a share?

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Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · 13d

A mass walkout of the UN General Assembly as Netanyahu prepares to speak.

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John Delmenico @thebigjohnnyd.bsky.social · 16d

Reminder that Tony Burke went on Sky News and defended the officer’s actions

ANSW Police officer has been charged with assault over the arrest of Greens candidate
Hannah Thomas

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Amy Remeikis @amyremeikis.bsky.social · 16d

On disagreement
www.deepcutnews.com/p/from-charl...

From Charlie Kirk to Gaza, disagreement is treason

The escalating crackdown on dissenting thought and opinion is taking Australia down a dark road

www.deepcutnews.com

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DevinCow @devincow.bsky.social · 19d

Keep cancelling!

creators.yahoo.com/lifestyle/st...

Disney+ cancellation page crashes as customers rush to quit after Kimmel suspension

Thinking of canceling Disney+? You’re not alone—after Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, so many people rushed to quit that the cancellation page itself started crashing.

creators.yahoo.com

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 18d

I spoke with the wonderful @jessdavis.bsky.social about why fatalism makes me so intensely mad, and how most of it comes from the fossil fuel industry, or its lobbyists, defenders and acolytes

the whole piece on collapse is a great read -->>>>

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

It's a sentiment Joshi agrees with.

"In addition to being angry about the really grim and impactful future of climate change, I think that we should be angry about being told that it's mandatory, that we have no choice," Joshi says.

"And that message is not coming from well-meaning but despairing climate activists, it's coming from governments and companies."

For those working day in and day out on climate change, navigating the grey area between the reality of the climate future, without falling into despair, is a constant grind.

"It's such a weird and unusual thing to be advocating for," Joshi says.

"We're the ones standing up and saying, 'Yes, things are going to get worse … we don't know the degree to which they'll get worse.'

"But we have to mitigate how bad things get."

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Megan Evans @megcevans.bsky.social · 18d

I went to uni with Luke, can confirm he is a golden retriever

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Prof. Amanda Wise @amandawise.bsky.social · 19d

1/At Macquarie Uni we are losing 50% of our units in my faculty. This is on top of cuts in 2020. We estimate by next year my faculty will be teaching 80% fewer subjects than pre Covid. Disciplines being cut do not have declining enrolments. @jennaprice.bsky.social @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 19d

Good morning!!

Here's my latest for @crikey.com.au -> one of the reasons the CCA weakened its climate target suggestions is the possibility of uncontrolled data centre growth.

I found the lobbyists already working to sell them as 'climate solutions' in Aus ---->>>>>

How data centre lobbying is shaping Canberra's climate policy, right down to our timid emissions target

Hidden in the fine print on the Climate Change Authority's decision to pull back its emissions target? The role of artificial intelligence and data centres.

www.crikey.com.au

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Jon Piccini @jonpiccini.bsky.social · 20d

Australia's universities are blighted by a "culture of consequence-free, rotten failure", according to the former chair of a senate inquiry examining governance at public universities. ... "There's no other sector in the country where failure is rewarded so handsomely and with so little scrutiny."

'Rotten' Australian university culture lashed in long-running senate inquiry

Australia's universities are blighted by a "culture of consequence-free, rotten failure", a senate inquiry has found.

www.abc.net.au

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 20d

I have a few hot takes on the Aus 2035 target. Here is one of the least important of them but I had to rant: 'ranges' are shameless

when you have a target to stop killing people, why is there a maximum amount of stopping-killing-people

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Fahad Ali @fahad-s-ali.bsky.social · 20d

Doctors Without Borders reports that Israel fired upon a clearly marked MSF water truck. This was deliberate. How many times do we need to go through the same cycle: Israel targets humanitarian vehicles and aid workers, and then says: “Whoopsie! It was an accident, believe us!”

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