Temperament has important impacts on on-farm profitability through its impact on other production traits like reproduction, production and meat quality in addition to its direct impact on the welfare of farm staff. The Southern Multibreed project to date has recorded over 9,800 flight time (FT) and crush score (CS) phenotypes to create a multibreed reference population for cattle temperament. This paper also examines the impact animal handling due to extensive trait recording has on the quality of temperament measures using genetic parameters. The heritabilities for FT were moderate in steers (0.27-0.31) and low to moderate in heifers (0.15-0.25). The heritabilities for CS were moderate for both steers (0.24-0.25) and heifers (0.29-0.36). The phenotypic variance for FT decreased between the weaning and yearling stages in steers but increased in heifers. The phenotypic variance for CS increased between the weaning and yearling stages in steers but decreased in heifers. The genetic correlation between FT measures at weaning and yearling stages was 0.95 in steers and 0.69 in heifers. The correlations between weaning and yearling stages for CS were 0.72 and 0.59 in steers and heifers, respectively. The correlations between steer and heifer FT and CS at the weaning stage were 0.95 and 0.87, respectively. At the yearling stage these correlations were 0.69 and 0.84. These results suggest that the heifers assimilated to the crush environment as time progressed due to extensive phenotypic recording while the steers displayed their inherent behaviour when they were exposed to the stress associated with the new environment when entering the feedlot. These outcomes indicate it is important that animals are in an environment where learnt behaviours don’t impact the expression of inherent behaviour when temperament traits are recorded.

Yet more allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia’s early childhood education and care services have surfaced. ABC’s Four Corners investigative journalists, led by Adele Ferguson, uncovered more shocking allegations after previous charges were laid against several educators. While we all want these stories to go away (because that would mean our children are safe), nobody wants them to disappear more than the perpetrators. That’s because child abuse thrives in environments where people are naïve, secrets are kept, and ignorance and neglect are built into our systems. ABC’s Four Corners team discovered that the rate of abuse in early education is increasing. In the last 10 years, almost 150 educators were convicted, charged, or had accusations levelled against them for inappropriate conduct or child sexual abuse. Forty-two people have been convicted, with half of those in the last five years. Another 14 are involved in current court cases. How did we get here? We have an early learning system that costs taxpayers $22 billion a year. So, how have we built a system that is a fertile playground for perpetrators, where three reports of child abuse occurs each working day?

It is well known that early education and care lay the foundation for learning and wellbeing; however, resources available to support children with different life experiences can vary. For example, resources available to support early childhood educators working with young children from military families are particularly lacking. This is of concern, given that these children face a range of stressors in their daily lives. To address this gap, our interdisciplinary team used a co-creation framework to build a suite of free, online, psychosocial resources for the children and their parents, educators and support workers. To test the usability of the resources, we conducted an online survey with 83 Australian participants (parents, educators, and support workers) about their knowledge, skills and confidence in supporting these children and the children’s wellbeing. After the study, the participants were given access to the psychosocial resources for 6 to 12 months. Following this, an adapted survey was administered online (post-intervention) with 15 participants who had remained in the study during the COVID-19 pandemic. Quantitative data was analysed using cross-tabulation and descriptive statistics. Qualitative data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis. In our pre-intervention studies, 61% of parents and almost 26% of educators were only partially confident in understanding children’s responses to military-specific stressors. In contrast, in the current study, this number had fallen to under 7% (combined participant group), with perceived improvements noted in their views on the children’s wellbeing. These exploratory findings with a small sample size highlight the potential benefit of targeted programmes, professional development, and accessible resources for parents, educators, and support workers who assist children from military families.

Methods such as Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and Bayesian genomic prediction (BayesR) are commonly employed to enhance understanding of the genetic architecture of complex traits, identify genetic variants associated with these traits, and assist in breeding decisions and market allocation. This study aims to uncover genes harbouring variants influencing eating quality traits, including tenderness, juiciness, flavour, overall liking, and meat quality score (MQ4) in a large and diverse population of Bos taurus indicus cattle from Australia, the USA, and Ireland. The analysis involved 7,380 young males and females with phenotypic data and genotypes imputed up to 709,768 SNP (Illumina HD array). The BayesR approach was applied with a chain length of 40,000 iterations and a burn-in of 5,000 iterations. Notably, the findings highlight 324 SNPs with exceptionally high posterior inclusion probabilities (PIP > 0.9999 quantile for each trait), linked to 100 candidate genes. Among these, shared genetic signals across most of the traits within or close to genes such as CAPN1, CAST, bta-mir-2407, and CCDC171 underscore their pivotal roles in meat quality across diverse populations. These insights contribute significantly to the global effort to enhance meat quality through genomics-driven cattle breeding programs.