Business leaders feel good about the future

Editor's note

Australian businesses have just finished reporting their latest results to investors, including forecasting what's to come. Investors keenly follow the outlook statements in these reports, which detail the feeling about the future from the very top of the company.

In our new feature Face Value we analyse the sentiment in these statements from ASX top 100 companies. As Ben Hachey and Ross Guest find, this year it might seem like it's looking good, but there's also a high degree of opinion in among the facts.

Jenni Henderson

Editor, Business and Economy

Top story

Business heads in the retail sector are optimistic about the future, but they also scored high in opinion rather than evidence based language. Dan Himbretchs/AAP

Face Value: sentiment analysis shows business leaders are positive about the year ahead

Ross Guest, Griffith University; Ben Hachey, University of Sydney

Face Value analyses the sentiment of business leaders in ASX top 100 companies and for 2017 it seems positive, although sometimes highly opinionated.

Science + Technology

DNA reveals Aboriginal people had a long and settled connection to country

Alan Cooper, University of Adelaide; Ray Tobler, University of Adelaide; Wolfgang Haak, Max Planck Institute

Aboriginal people stayed settled in places across Australia for 50,000 years until Europeans arrived, showing a strong connection with the land.
WikiLeaks Vault 7 reveals staggering breadth of 'CIA hacking'

David Glance, University of Western Australia

WikiLeaks' latest release details what it claims is the CIA's hacking activities, including compromising phones, TVs, cars and becoming an NSA with less accountability.
Why we're marching for science in Australia

Stuart Khan, UNSW

March for Science rallies will take place in cities around Australia on Saturday 22 April. A volunteer organiser explains why he and others are participating.

Environment + Energy

Roe 8: Perth's environmental flashpoint in the WA election

Jane Chambers, Murdoch University; Philip Jennings, Murdoch University

With WA's election looming, Perth's battle over the Roe 8 highway extension brings other environmental issues to the fore.
Indonesia vows to tackle marine pollution

Thomas Wright, The University of Queensland

Marine plastic pollution is a global problem. Bali's beaches present prime examples and an opportunity to study the socio-economic effects this has on coastal communities.

Education
Selective schools increasingly cater to the most advantaged students Christina Ho, University of Technology Sydney Analysis of MySchool data shows that selective public schools are selecting fewer students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, thus worsening inequality in the school system.

Politics + Society

Banning orders won't solve alcohol-fuelled violence – but they can be part of the solution

Renee Zahnow, The University of Queensland; Dominique de Andrade, Queensland University of Technology; Jason Ferris, The University of Queensland; Kerri Coomber, Deakin University; Peter Miller, Deakin University

Banning orders can encourage personal responsibility and demonstrate that anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated.
Politics podcast: WA poll - Kim Beazley on One Nation

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

In our second podcast from the Western Australian election, we talk to Kim Beazley, especially about One Nation. Beazley was federal Labor leader during Pauline Hanson's first political phase.
Contested spaces: a user's guide to shared paths

Jerome N Rachele, Australian Catholic University

The golden rule of shared paths is that the person in the less vulnerable position should be mindful of the more vulnerable user.

Arts + Culture

Here's Looking at: Brook Andrew's Sexy and dangerous

Ted Snell, University of Western Australia

A 20th-century image of an anonymous 'Aboriginal Chief' becomes an investigation of power, colonialism and queer sexuality in the hands of Brook Andrew.
Warm for the human form, from Rodin's bronzes to stone slabs

James Moss, University of South Australia

The Art Gallery of South Australia has created something special with Versus Rodin. Works by 65 contemporary artists, surrounded by the gallery's Rodin collection, take on a wonderful glow.

Health + Medicine

Health Check: do men really sweat more than women?

Sean Notley, University of Ottawa; Nigel Taylor, University of Wollongong

They say 'men sweat, while women glow'. But new research shows gender is not the reason for different levels of sweating.
Here's how citizen power can drive mental health reform

Sebastian Rosenberg, University of Sydney

Citizens do not have enough say in how mental health services are planned, funded and run in Australia. Here's why that needs to change.

Business + Economy
Why 'digital gold' won't ever kill off the real thing Dirk Baur, University of Western Australia New financial innovations and products are constantly being touted as the safe haven of the future. But physical gold has properties that will cause it to stick around.

FactCheck
FactCheck Q&A: are there laws to protect against 'revenge porn' in Australia? Anastasia Powell, RMIT University; Asher Flynn, Monash University; Nicola Henry, La Trobe University On Q&A, panellist Faustina Agolley questioned whether there were laws protecting against revenge porn in Australia. As it turns out, it all depends on where you live.