Between 1924 and 1939, over 100 immigrants were deported from Western Australian mental hospitals. These deported ‘lunatics’ fell within the 3‐year (and later 5‐year) window between arrival and becoming ‘a charge on the state’. This meant that they could be deported by the Australian Commonwealth government under Section 8a of the amended Immigration Restriction Act. So who were these lunatic migrants? Were they already unwell and deliberately encouraged to migrate to Australia by unscrupulous foreign governments? Were they simply people for whom the pressures of life in an unfamiliar culture, in the middle of a global economic depression, became too much? By examining these deportees in more detail, and looking at factors such as their ethnic background and diagnosis, some underlying reasons as to why these individuals were targeted for deportation become apparent.

Researching examples of historical hospital-based training can provide some measure of the improvements in mental health nursing education which have taken place over time. Claremont Hospital for the Insane was the only major stand-alone psychiatric institution in Western Australia, and recent research into its mental health nursing training program between 1903 and 1958 provides an example of how nursing training could suffer in the hospital setting. There is much to learn from Claremont's experience: Not just to measure how far mental health nursing has progressed since that time, but also as a reminder of why and how accountability, supervision, and independent auditing all help to ensure quality delivery of training.

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In 2020, many places of worship closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, raising questions about rates of return to worship after COVID-19. This survey-based study of 806 Australian churchgoing Catholics explores relationships between a range of variables and the rate of return to Mass attendance after church closures. Pre-closure Mass attendance rate strongly and significantly predicted real-life worship during church closures and higher rates of return to Mass attendance after churches reopened. Real-life worship during COVID-19 also strongly predicted return to Mass attendance, and positively mediated the relationship between pre- and post-closure Mass attendance rates. Virtual worship engagement did not significantly predict return to Mass attendance, but positively mediated the relationship between pre- and post-closure Mass attendance rates, with a smaller effect size.