Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Munro, Professor, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University

One of the most influential phenomena in education over the last two decades has been that of the “growth mindset”. This refers to the beliefs a student has about various capacities such as their intelligence, their ability in areas such as maths, their personality and creative ability.

Proponents of the growth mindset believe these capacities can be developed or “grown” through learning and effort. The alternative perspective is the “fixed mindset”. This assumes these capacities are fixed and unable to be changed.

The theory of the growth versus fixed mindset was first proposed in 1998 by American psychologist Carol Dweck and paediatric surgeon Claudia Mueller. It grew out of studies they led, in which primary school children were engaged in a task, and then praised either for their existing capacities, such as intelligence, or the effort they invested in the task.

Researchers monitored how the students felt, thought and behaved in subsequent more difficult tasks.

The students who were praised for their effort were more likely to persist with finding a solution to the task. They were also more likely to seek feedback about how to improve. Those praised for their intelligence were less likely to persist with the more difficult tasks and to seek feedback on how their peers did on the task.

These findings led to the inference that a fixed mindset was less conducive to learning than a growth mindset. This notion has a lot of support in cognitive and behavioural science.

What’s the evidence?

Psychologists have been researching the notion of a mindset – a set of assumptions or methods people have, and how these influence motivations or behaviour – for over a century.

The growth mindset has its roots in Stanford University psychologist Alan Bandura’s 1970s social learning theory of a positive self-efficacy. This is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in specific situations or to accomplish a task.

Read more: Protecting your kids from failure isn’t helpful. Here’s how to build their resilience

The growth mindset is also a re-branding of the 1980-90s study of achievement orientation. Here, people can adopt either a “mastery orientation” (with the goal of learning more) or a “performance orientation” (with the goal of showing what they know) to achieve an outcome.

The idea of the growth mindset is consistent with theories of brain plasiticity (the brain’s ability to change due to experience) and task-positive and task-negative brain network activity (brain networks that are activated during goal-orientated tasks).

The growth versus fixed mindset theory is supported by evidence too – both for its predictions of outcomes and its impact in interventions. Studies show students’ mindsets influence their maths and science outcomes, their academic ability and their ability to cope with exams.

People with growth mindsets are more likely to cope emotionally, while those who don’t view themselves as having the ability to learn and grow are more prone to psychological distress.

But the theory has not received universal support. A 2016 study showed academic achievements of university students were not associated with their growth mindset. This could, in part be due to the way it is understood.

People can show different mindsets at different times – a growth or fixed – towards a specific subject or task. According to Dweck

Everyone is actually a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, and that mixture continually evolves with experience.

This suggests the fixed and growth mindsets distinction lies on on a continuum. It also suggests the mindset a person adopts at any one time is dynamic and depends on the context.

What about teaching a growth mindset?

The theory has been evaluated in a range of teaching programs. A 2018 analysis reviewed a number of studies that explored whether interventions that enhanced students’ growth mindsets affected their academic achievements. It found teaching a growth mindset had minimal influence on student outcomes.

But in some cases, teaching a growth mindset was effective for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds or those academically at risk.

A 2017 study found teaching a growth mindset had no effect on student outcomes. In fact, the study found students with a fixed mindset showed higher outcomes. Given the complexity of human understanding and learning processes, the negative findings are not surprising. Dweck and colleagues have noted that a school’s context and culture can be responsible for whether the gains made from a growth mindset intervention are sustained.

Read more: Growth mindset interventions yield impressive results

Studies show the mindsets of both teachers and parents influence students’ outcomes too. Secondary science students whose teachers had a growth mindset showed higher outcomes than those whose teachers who had a fixed mindset.

And a 2010 study showed the perceptions primary students had of their potential for improvement were associated with what their teachers’ thought of the children’s academic ability. In another study, children whose parents were taught to have a growth mindset about their children’s literacy skills, and to act accordingly, had improved outcomes.

It exists on a spectrum

Mindset theory seems to conflate two separate phenomena, both of which need to be considered in teaching: a person’s actual capacity such as intelligence, and how they think about it.

Students should be aware of what they know at any time and value it. They also need to know this may be insufficient, that it can be extended and how to do that. Educators and parents need to ensure their dialogue with their children does not imply the capacity is fixed. The focus of the talk should be on: what you will know more about in five minutes?

When I teach, in both schools and university, I encourage students at the end of a teaching session to identify what they know now that they didn’t know earlier. I ask them to explain how their knowledge has changed and the questions they can answer now.

In the early stages of a teaching session, I encourage them to infer questions they might expect to be able to answer having learnt the content. These types of activities encourage students to see their knowledge as dynamic and able to be enhanced.

– ref. You can do it! A ‘growth mindset’ helps us learn – https://theconversation.com/you-can-do-it-a-growth-mindset-helps-us-learn-127710

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Maund, Research Affiliate, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle

With more than 3,500 homes destroyed by disastrous bushfires, the willingness of government and community to work together to find ways to house people has been heartwarming. Australians showed great concern for people who were unable to return home. Responses to help find housing while they rebuild their lives and homes, which might take years in some cases, have been fast and innovative.

But what about the many more people who were homeless before the bushfires? On the 2016 Census night, 116,427 were homeless. If the same government and community effort went into helping people who are homeless for reasons other than bushfires, some innovative solutions might be found.

Read more: Homelessness soars in our biggest cities, driven by rising inequality since 2001

The desire to help people who lost their homes to the fires was evident in the breadth of collaboration and range of housing options made available. These ranged from emergency accommodation and rental housing assistance to initiatives such as open homes, spare caravans and vacant holiday houses.

Planning can adapt rapidly in a crisis

Town planning processes, and changes to these processes, are generally slow. However, the acceptance of options outside “typical” planning practice to house bushfire-affected people was impressively fast.

The New South Wales government rapidly eased planning controls. These changes allowed people to stay in a caravan park or camping ground or install a movable dwelling, such as a caravan, on land for up to two years without requiring council approval.

Many councils made large public spaces – such as showgrounds – available as “primitive” camping grounds or emergency evacuation centres. The planning rule amendments gave councils flexibility to modify the usual conditions if necessary to house people who’d lost their homes.

These actions were not controversial or disputed by most because the urgent need to house displaced people was clear.

Government and community involvement in housing bushfire-affected people has been wide-ranging, led to innovative ideas and allowed for rapid changes to approval pathways and planning controls. This “helping people in a crisis” thinking has created an environment of seeking and accepting new housing options.

Read more: ‘I didn’t want to be homeless with a baby’: young women share their stories of homelessness

Room for innovation in housing the homeless

The number of dwellings available is only one aspect of homelessness. However, increasing affordable housing options would surely help a great many people. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 2.1 million adults were classified in 2010 as having been homeless at some time in their lives.

Of course, not all housing options for bushfire-affected people would suit or be relevant to Australians who are homeless. But we can certainly learn from the bushfire examples of innovation in planning to solve a crisis. This sort of thinking across government and community could have impacts on the supply of housing options and on overall rates and perceptions of homelessness.

Read more: Carelessly linking crime to being homeless adds to the harmful stigma

Previously proposed planning options to increase the supply of affordable housing include subsidies and planning bonuses for developments that include affordable housing, as well as mandated targets. However, to ensure success, planning approaches to housing need to be coupled with local community engagement.

Community plays a key role

Community involvement and acceptance are particularly important when we are talking about innovative housing options. Without community support such ideas would likely not be accepted and could lead to conflict.

The Planning Institute of Australia stresses the need for community consultation:

A surer bet would be affordable housing targets developed in consultation with the community … As well as boosting supply, housing targets backed by good design standards would improve the quality of our built environments and help alleviate the twin problems of diminished social capital and growing economic inequality.

Community involvement and local context have been identified as essential elements of successful innovation in planning. Canada provides one example of a successful community-led initiative to reduce homelessness through collaboration between community, agencies and government.

This article does not provide solutions; it highlights what can be achieved if we work together. Many people in need of housing have very limited means. They struggle to meet their housing needs by themselves, incrementally and often informally.

If governments, community members and academics work together to develop policies that match the realities of the crisis of homelessness, then significant innovation in planning is possible. If we accept homelessness and the overall need for affordable housing as a crisis, and are willing to adapt our collective thinking to solve urgent problems – as we have for bushfire-affected communities – then imagine what we could achieve.

Read more: 5,800 defence veterans homeless in Australia – that’s more than we thought

– ref. We’re innovative when housing bushfire victims. Why not all the homeless? – https://theconversation.com/were-innovative-when-housing-bushfire-victims-why-not-all-the-homeless-132268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raja Junankar, Honorary Professor, Industrial Relations Research Centre, UNSW

The world economy is teetering on a knife edge: the Chinese and Indian economies were slowing even before the COVID-19 Coronavirus, and as Australia was recovering from one of its worst bushfires.

Share markets around the world collapsed at the end of February and haven’t recovered. Business and consumer confidence has been shattered.

The national accounts for the December quarter tell us that business investment was falling throughout 2019, at a time when budget forecasts said it would climb.

Last week Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy said the coronavirus would take “at least half a percentage point” off economic growth in the present March quarter, on top of a loss of the best part of 0.2% as a result of the bushfires.

Read more: Economic growth near an end as Treasury talks of prolonged coronavirus downturn

Given that the most recent growth figure (for the December quarter) was 0.5%, that’s likely to mean negative growth – less being produced and earned than the quarter before, which is literally a going backwards, a recession.

Global ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has identified Australia as one of six Asia-Pacific countries along with Japan and Korea that are about to “enter or flirt with recession”.

What is a recession?

In Australia a recession is usually defined as what happens when there are at least two quarters of negative economic growth in a row.

The United States does it differently. There, the National Bureau of Economic Research assembles a committee that makes a judgement about whether or not the US is in recession based on a number of cretiria including worsening incomes, worsening employment, worsening production and wholesale retail sales.

The usual Australian definition would suggest we haven’t had one for 29 years.

The American definition would suggest that given what happened to unemployment (and especially long-term unemployment) during the global financial crisis we probably had one then.

Once a recession starts, it can feed on itself with unemployment rising rapidly, which is why it’s important to stop it straight away.

How do we avoid one?

The traditional (Keynesian, and also post-Keynesian) economic prescription when an economy is facing a downturn or recession is to massively boost public investment, cut taxes for low income earners (who have a higher propensity to consume) and boost social security benefits.

It’s what Labor did during the global financial crisis, except that it delivered cheques to low and middle earners after taking advice that payments would be more effective than tax cuts, and less costly long-term.

Even though interest rates are at historic lows, the business sector is understandably scared of investing.

Read more: Support package gains shape as GDP turning point swamped

Uncertainty about government policies on energy and climate change, the US-China tariff war, and disrupted and uncertain supply chains because of the coronavirus have frozen its “animal spirits”.

The Coalition hopes to get around this by offering incentives for businesses to invest, on the theory the incentives will work where low interest rates have failed.

I’m not so sure. Here’s what I propose, which has the added benefit of fixing a number of problems that need to be fixed anyway.

A 10-point plan:

• invest in low-cost housing for low-income and homeless families

• invest in public sector aged care homes

• invest in better medical facilities in remote areas for indigenous people

• make an immediate cash payment of A$2,000 to everyone on Newstart and related allowances

• make an immediate cash payment of A$2,000 to all volunteer firefighters who worked during the bushfire emergency

• increase the minimum wage from $19.49 per hour to, say, $20.65 ($785 per week)

• increase Newstart and linked allowances from $279.50 per week to at least $375, and index them to climb in line with wages afterwards

• increase the wages of public sector auxiliary hospital staff, teachers in child-care centres and staff in aged care homes

The prime minister says his plan will be “scalable”. It’ll need to be. Australia is facing its most serious economic crisis for twelve years, if not three decades. The consequences of not acting quickly or strongly enough will last for a long time.

– ref. This is more than a health crisis: here’s a 10-point plan for avoiding recession – https://theconversation.com/this-is-more-than-a-health-crisis-heres-a-10-point-plan-for-avoiding-recession-133073

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University

Who deserves our compassion and medical care? Does a person who has used drugs deserve a liver transplant … and then a second? What if she’s 24 years old and a mother of small children? What if she had been prescribed the drugs initially for a mental health condition? What if she started showing mental-health symptoms after she was sexually assaulted and then mercilessly bullied? Would she be more deserving then?

These are some of the questions raised by Wild butterfly, the story of Claire Murray, who died in 2010 at just 24 years old after complications from a failed liver transplant. Her search for a second liver was the subject of scathing media coverage. “They had a poll on her life,” Claire’s mother says in the documentary. “[It asked] ‘Do you think she deserves to live or die?’”

The documentary also raises questions about how she was treated by some health professionals and the general public on social media, treatment that was underpinned by prejudice about people who use drugs and a lack of understanding about problematic use and relapse.

More broadly, it’s also a story of stigma and discrimination and a reminder of what can happen when the media mine trauma and drug use for clickbait.

More to the story

Claire was subjected to trial by media, portrayed as an ungrateful “junkie” who wantonly wasted her first transplant opportunity. Reports from the time said Claire “admitted taking drugs after the first transplant” and was prevented from returning to the transplant waiting list by rules “that forbid persistent substance abusers from being eligible for donor organs”. In fact, the film tells us she had a rare clotting disorder that led to the rejection of her first liver.

The film describes how she was sexually assaulted at 12 years old while on a camp, and then subjected to unrelenting bullying and stalking, which led her down a path of drug use.

Exposure to trauma in childhood is linked to a range of psychological, social, developmental and medical problems right through to adulthood.

We now know neglect and abuse in childhood permanently rewires the developing brain. Emotional dysregulation is the primary feature among people who have experienced trauma, and many people turn to alcohol or other drugs to help regulate these negative, often unbearable, emotions.

A large percentage of people who have experienced physical, sexual or other abuse as children or adults use alcohol and other drugs to try to dampen the constant feelings of fear, anxiety and depression; and a large proportion of people in treatment for alcohol or other drug problems have a history of abuse.

We can never know someone’s circumstances or their motivations. Wild Butterfly is a sad reminder of how much additional damage can be done by people making assumptions and judging those who use drugs.

Blame culture

This film balances the sensitive and nuanced issues without doing further harm. It explains the issues of drug use and trauma, without laying blame on people who use drugs or their families – and it does it with humanity. In my view, this sense of empathy and humanity is too often absent from mainstream reporting on people who experience problems with alcohol and other drugs.

Wild Butterfly tells the story of Claire largely from her parents’ point of view. It was her dying wish to set the record straight. You can feel their pain and it’s heartbreaking. What if it was your child? What would you do to ensure they had a chance at recovery? The parents’ story also demonstrates that families of people with alcohol and other drug problems need support.

It’s the people who judge others on their drug use who really need to watch this film and, sadly, they probably won’t. The film is a reminder that there’s more to people and their circumstances than meets the eye.

There are opportunities for reflection on the part of the media, the health profession and the general community. There are media guidelines on reporting on drug and mental health issues available from AOD Media Watch and Mindframe.

We have come a long way in our understanding about other common mental-health disorders, like depression and anxiety, but we still have a long way to go when it comes to empathy and compassion for people who use alcohol and other drugs.

If you need information or support, contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015.

Wild Butterly is screening in cinemas nationally.

– ref. Wild Butterfly film review: Claire Murray’s story gives a human face to trauma, drug use and blame culture – https://theconversation.com/wild-butterfly-film-review-claire-murrays-story-gives-a-human-face-to-trauma-drug-use-and-blame-culture-132596

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Scott Morrison will urge big businesses to display “patriotism” as Australia grapples with the coronavirus crisis, which he warns could hit the economy harder than the global financial crisis.

Addressing a business audience in the run up to this week’s stimulus package, Morrison will say large companies have “a huge role to play”, telling them to hang onto staff, and support workers including casuals with paid leave when they need time off because of the virus. They should also pay small business suppliers ahead of time in coming months.

Describing the crisis as “one of those national interest moments”, in which we confront a “hydra-headed and rapidly evolving challenge”, Morrison will spell out seven principles underpinning the stimulus package.

Speculated to be worth about $10 billion, it will be directed particularly to keeping people in work and maintaining the cash flow of small and medium-sized businesses.

Measures canvassed include subsidising wages and training, an investment incentive, and support for the beleaguered tourist industry. Changing the deeming rate for the pension is being considered, which would help some retirees. Cabinet will discuss the package on Tuesday.

Attorney-General Christian Porter meets employer and union representatives on Tuesday to discuss workplace issues and measures. The ACTU is especially concerned about casuals without sick leave entitlements.

The government, already facing the prospect of a negative March quarter – with the virus and the bushfires taking an estimated 0.7% off growth – is desperate to avoid the economy going into recession. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth.

Read more: Morrison government pledges funds to help states with health burden of COVID-19

Westpac on Monday forecast that before taking into account the stimulus package the economy was likely to contract by 0.3% in the June quarter.

Meanwhile the Australian stock market plunged on Monday, driven by an oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia and the COVID-19 crisis.

The difficulty for the government is to get stimulus money spent quickly, without resorting to the “cash splash” approach it has previously criticised.

If more stimulus is needed there will be a second opportunity in the May budget. But this would be too late for the June quarter.

In his speech to the Australian Financial Review’s business summit, released ahead of Tuesday’s delivery, Morrison says the COVID-19 crisis is different from the GFC – “a biological contagion not a financial one” – and “in our response we must be careful to solve this problem, not the last one”, including avoiding mistakes made then, especially in terms of having “a clear fiscal exit strategy”.

But while COVID-19 is a global health crisis “it will also have very real and very significant economic impacts, potentially greater than the global financial crisis for Australia,” he says.

“The epicentre of this crisis is much closer to home.

“The GFC impacts were centred on the North Atlantic and back then China was in a position to cushion the blow.” In contrast, the first outbreak of COVID-19 was in China, where consumers stayed away from shops, many workers stayed away from work and manufacturing output fell sharply.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Can Scott Morrison match Kevin Rudd in keeping Australia out of recession in a global crisis?

Morrison says the possible economic outcomes in Australia of the coronavirus crisis “will depend on the spread, severity and duration of the health crisis and its interaction with demand-side and supply-side effects.

“That means, to fix the problem, our health response must be our primary response”. The financial and economic effects would be worsened if the virus significantly hit the health of the Australian workforce – “something that we are working very hard to prevent”.

The government’s fiscal response aimed “to keep people in jobs, keep businesses in business and ensure we bounce back stronger on the other side.

“It’s about supporting community confidence, employment and business continuity. This means boosting domestic consumption, reducing cash flow pressures for vulnerable businesses, and supporting new investments to lift productivity”.

The seven principles on which Morrison says the package is based are

• measures must be proportionate to the economic shock and the impact on the economy
• they need to be timely and scalable – that is, able to be adjusted as needed
• the response must be targeted to specific issues, support those most affected, and delivered where it will be most effectives
• the response has to be aligned with monetary policy and other governments’ responses (Morrison points out the government is working closely with the Reserve Bank, which cut interest rates last week)
• where possible, existing means of delivery should be used, rather than rushing out new programs as in the GFC
• measures must be temporary and have an exit strategy – not “baked into the bottom-line for years … keeping the budget under water”
• measures lifting productivity must be favoured, to promote stronger growth.

“By following these principles we will protect the structural integrity of the budget and maximise the impact of our measures to protect the livelihoods of Australians and our economy. … When the economy bounces back, our budget will also bounce back.”

In his forthright message to big business, Morrison says: “We need your perseverance, planning and enterprise. We need your common sense, calm and commitment. And we need your patriotism.

“We need you to support your workers, by keeping them employed. Hold onto your people, you will need them on the other side. Wherever possible, support them – whether full-time, part-time, or casual – including with paid leave if they need to take time off due to the virus.

“We need you to support your small business suppliers by paying them promptly. Pay your suppliers not just in time, but ahead of time, especially now, ” he says.

“If you are a large business, go back to the office today and pay your supplier invoices and commit to pay them even faster for the next six months.

“That is what sticking together looks like.

“How you support your customers, suppliers and employees during the next six months will say more about your company, your corporate values and the integrity of your brand than anything else you could possibly do otherwise.

“We also need your investment, looking ahead to the opportunities on the other side. Take the opportunity to invest in the skills of your workforce or the capital projects that will provide the pathway for a new season of growth,” he says.

“This is a Team Australia moment.”

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Read more: Economic growth near an end as Treasury talks of prolonged coronavirus downturn

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Morrison stresses both the strength of Australia’s health system, and the strength of its fiscal position, as it confronts the shock – although the earlier projected budget surplus for 2019-20 is generally considered to be unachievable.

– ref. Morrison tells big business to show ‘patriotism’ as COVID-19 threatens to hit harder than GFC – https://theconversation.com/morrison-tells-big-business-to-show-patriotism-as-covid-19-threatens-to-hit-harder-than-gfc-133255

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

Are we alone in the Universe? The expert opinion on that, it turns out, is surprisingly consistent.

“Is there other life in the Universe? I would say: probably,” Daniel Zucker, Associate Professor of astronomy at Macquarie University, tells astrophysics student and The Conversation’s editorial intern Antonio Tarquinio on today’s podcast episode.

“I think that we will discover life outside of Earth in my lifetime. If not that, then in your lifetime,” says his fellow Macquarie University colleague, Professor Orsola De Marco.

And Lee Spitler, a Senior Lecturer and astronomy researcher at the same institution, was similarly optimistic: “I think there’s a high likelihood that we are not alone in the Universe.”

The big question, however, is what that life might look like.

Read more: The Dish in Parkes is scanning the southern Milky Way, searching for alien signals

We’re also hearing from Danny C Price, project scientist for the Breakthrough Listen project scanning the southern skies for unusual patterns, on what the search for alien intelligence looks like in real life – and what it’s yielded so far.

Read more: ‘The size, the grandeur, the peacefulness of being in the dark’: what it’s like to study space at Siding Spring Observatory

New to podcasts?

Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is here.

Additional audio credits

Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks.

Lucky Stars by Podington Bear, from Free Music Archive

Illumination by Kai Engel, from Free Music Archive

Podcast episode recorded and edited by Antonio Tarquinio.

Lead image

Shutterstock

– ref. We asked astronomers: are we alone in the Universe? The answer was surprisingly consistent – https://theconversation.com/we-asked-astronomers-are-we-alone-in-the-universe-the-answer-was-surprisingly-consistent-132088

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Harvey-Smith, Professor and Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador, UNSW

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics, collectively known as STEM, are vitally important for keeping Australia competitive in a technology-driven world.

But despite STEM’s importance, we are not training enough people with skills in vital areas such as digital technologies and engineering to make the most of these business opportunities. In particular, there are extremely low numbers of women engaging in these fields.

Read more: Women in STEM need your support – and Australia needs women in STEM

The lack of women in essential STEM jobs exacerbates the national skills shortage and dampens Australia’s potential to lead the way in transforming our current industries and creating new ones. To compete on the world stage, we need a diverse and fully engaged workforce.

As the Australian government’s Women in STEM Ambassador, I work on a national level with all sectors to drive gender equity in STEM. My role is to catalyse systemic change that will make the STEM sector more inclusive, strong, diverse to support Australia’s economic growth and global competitiveness.

Are current efforts succeeding?

Organisations and individuals across the country have been trying to increase the participation of women and girls in STEM for years. The Australian Academy of Science has identified at least 331 separate initiatives across Australia designed to increase the participation of women and girls in STEM studies and careers. These include educational programs, work and industry experience, mentoring schemes, and many more.

We’re spending millions on initiatives, but are they having a positive impact?

The trouble is, we don’t know. That’s because most programs are not properly tested or evaluated.

Evaluation was one of the main recommendations of the Women in STEM Decadal Plan, released in April 2019. By using data and measuring outcomes, we can target our efforts and scale up programs that are effective and proven to work.

Read more: Gender diversity in science media still has a long way to go. Here’s a 5-step plan to move it along

To evaluate our actions effectively we need to engage scientific principles. We start by defining the outcomes we want. What does success look like, and how do we measure it? The key is to adopt a data-driven approach.

With that in mind, and to mark International Women’s Day, federal science minister Karen Andrews yesterday launched the Advancing Women in STEM 2020 Action Plan.

What’s the plan?

The new plan follows the priorities already outlined in the decadal plan, with a focus on the areas of data collection and analysis, evaluation, and changing institutional practices. It aims to ensure action on STEM gender equity is evidence-based and effectively targeted.

To help with this, my office is developing an evaluation framework to assist organisations in taking a more scientific approach to their STEM engagement programs. This will help the people who run programs designed to promote a more inclusive STEM environment.

We’ll pilot the evaluation guide with recipients of the federal government’s Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship grants program, before making it more widely available. This will help us learn which programs are making a difference and where we can upscale for even greater impact.

My office will also conduct an Australian peer-reviewed trial of anonymous assessment of research funding proposals. Removing names and gender pronouns from applications can work well to combat gender and cultural biases. NASA has tried a similar approach in allocating time using the Hubble Telescope, with successful results.

In NASA’s system, the names of reviewers and scientists were made known to each other only after the review was complete. For the first time in 18 years, proposals led by women had a slightly higher success rate than those led by men.

We are implementing this method in Australia in a structured scientific trial, removing names and pronouns from applications to use large Australian research facilities.

The trial will do two things. First, it will provide important data on the effectiveness of anonymised review and provide a strong evidence base for the STEM sector to take action on more equitable processes in future.

Second, if international experience is anything to go by, it will immediately reduce gendered and cultural biases that exist in such decision-making processes.

Measuring success

How will we know if all this work is making a difference?

To help answer that, the federal government has also launched a STEM Equity Monitor, an interactive portal that will collect and track data on a range of indicators including: girls’ attitudes to STEM in schools, engagement rates, qualifications and workforce participation, pay rates and working conditions.

It is free for anyone to use and will enable our community to measure progress towards a society that provides equal opportunity for people of all genders to learn, work and engage in STEM.

– ref. Australia has hundreds of programs to get women into science, but are they working? Time to find out – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-hundreds-of-programs-to-get-women-into-science-but-are-they-working-time-to-find-out-133061

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Signe Ravn, Senior lecturer in Sociology, University of Melbourne

Concern about the popularity of “sexting” – the sending and receiving of sexually explicit text messages and photographs – among young people has been a frequent point of discussion in recent years.

The media and some academic studies often draw attention to issues of risk, danger, and the often-gendered negative outcomes of sexting.

These include concerns sexting can lead to sexual harassment, such as receiving unwanted “dick pics” and pressures for women, in particular, to send their own nude images.

Read more: Bringing pleasure into the discussion about sexting among teens

Another frequently mentioned concern is the potential legal implications of possessing or circulating such images electronically.

Such negative consequences are serious and need our attention. However, this focus is often at the expense of a more nuanced understanding of sexting and how it is part of young people’s lives.

Young men value respect in sexting

Our own sociological research, drawing on ten focus groups of undergraduate male students in Melbourne, provides some important insights into this.

Our study differs from previous studies on sexting in a couple of ways.

First, our sample of participants was slightly older (aged 18-22) than those in other studies. Furthermore, all our participants were men, which may seem somewhat unusual. But this group is very rarely heard in research on this topic and we need to understand how young men view sexting if we are to address the negative consequences mentioned above.

As in other studies, one of our most important findings is that sexting is a normalised part of young people’s romantic and sexual lives.

Read more: ‘Sexting’ teens: decriminalising young people’s sexual practices

Among our participants, who all had some experience with romantic relationships, sexting is a way of flirting and forming new relationships, as well as developing an ongoing relationship with an existing partner.

Sexting was also clearly distinct from harassment, which for our participants was characterised by one-way communication and the crossing of boundaries. In contrast, sexting was almost uniformly understood as reliant on consent and mutuality.

As one participant said,

It is transactional in the sense of, I’ll give you this much, and they’ll give you this much, but you give them X, and they give you X plus one, and then you’ll give them X plus two. […] I think that’s where the mutuality comes into it, you both are getting a thrill out of, ‘Oh, what are they going to do next?‘

And in another focus group, a participant described why consent is important:

Well yeah, because [then] you know where the other person stands. Otherwise, you could definitely say that it’s harassment. I would genuinely class it as sexual harassment.

These are positive findings and suggest notions of respect and mutual engagement are paramount to young people who engage in sexting.

Not wanting to be seen as a ‘creep’

There are several more complex points to unpack, though. Our participants repeatedly mentioned the importance of not “crossing the line” when sexting. This means not transgressing the boundaries of the other person and making sure the sexting is an “escalating, mutual thing”, as another participant said.

However, participants also described an element of self-interest in moderating one’s behaviour while sexting. The following quote from a focus group discussion illustrates some of these complexities (names are pseudonyms):

Moderator: But why would you stop? If you feel the other person is uncomfortable?

Matt: You don’t want to be seen as weird.

Tim: You don’t want to creep them out.

Liam: Well, given that you’re trying to get some sort of sexual connection with this person, you wouldn’t want to compromise your chances further, by having them think that you’re some massive creep.

Karl: Or compromise your chances with other people.

Liam: Yeah, true, because they could pass on that information.

So, while making sure to not “cross the line” is partly based on respect for the other person, it would also be detrimental to building a “sexual connection” with that person, or with others in the future.

Why asking for consent can ‘ruin the vibe’

Our research also highlighted the gendered differences and double standards at play in sexting, as depicted from the perspectives of the young men.

Pictures of young women’s bodies and body parts (breasts, vaginas) were seen as having more value, and being in higher demand, than men’s body parts. But women were also seen to be exposed to greater risks than men when engaging in sexting, including the risk of “slut shaming”.

This is in line with what international studies have found.

While our participants were often aware of these gendered differences in terms of how “sexts” from men and women are perceived, this was seen as a problem at societal level and not something they could change.

As a result, it did not mean that they stopped sexting. In that sense, sexting can be seen as involving greater risks for women than men.

Read more: Sexting: technology is changing what young people share online

Our participants were generally aware of the need, and benefits, of asking for consent before sending a sext. But they also described how this was difficult, because explicitly asking for consent would either “ruin the vibe” or reveal their lack of expertise in sexting.

Indeed, our participants described an almost mythological belief that every young person knows how to sext, which they felt was far from their own reality. Learning how to sext was “learning by doing”, on your own and without advice from others.

Similarly, establishing consent had to happen in subtle ways. As a result, they mentioned feeling insecure and often nervous about sexting “well”.

What young people need to know and educators need to assist with

Sexting is a normalised part of contemporary young lives. Because of this, learning the “skills” of appropriate and respectful sexting is something that should be part of the sex education curriculum in schools.

Rather than trying to tell students to simply abstain from sexting, we should support them to do it in respectful ways.

Translating the findings of this research into tangible strategies in sex education is an important task for educators. By assisting young people to “sext” in appropriate ways, for instance by identifying alternative ways of establishing consent and avoiding “victim-blaming”, we can take one step towards destigmatising the practice.

– ref. Young men on sexting: it’s normal, but complicated – https://theconversation.com/young-men-on-sexting-its-normal-but-complicated-131759

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gerard Fitzgerald, Emeritus Professor, School of Public Health, Queensland University of Technology

The Western Australian health minister has announced “fever clinics” are to open this week for people who think they have coronavirus symptoms.

And in NSW, the chief health officer has advised hospitals set up “respiratory clinics” to deal with a potential spike in COVID-19 cases.

Other states are set to open their own versions, particularly if transmission of the virus from person to person becomes more established in the community.

So what are these clinics? And why are people being advised to use them rather than seeing their GP or going straight to the emergency department?

Read more: It’s now a matter of when, not if, for Australia. This is how we’re preparing for a jump in coronavirus cases

What are ‘fever clinics’?

Fever clinics are dedicated facilities to assess, test, treat and reassure people, and where necessary, to triage them through the healthcare system.

In the absence of substantial community transmission of the virus in Australia, it’s expected most people who’ll use these clinics will be:

• people worried they’re sick but aren’t showing symptoms (the “worried well”)

• people who think they may have been in contact with an infected person

• people with other illnesses who want reassurance.

The idea is to divert people concerned they may be infected away from emergency departments and general practices.

Not only does this reduce demand for these traditional services, it potentially limits the spread of disease among vulnerable populations, such as the sick and elderly.

Read more: How do we detect if coronavirus is spreading in the community?

General practices have open waiting rooms and while they can ramp up their infection control measures, not all practices can do this effectively.

Similarly, emergency departments are not well structured to isolate large numbers of potentially infectious patients.

By contrast, fever clinics can assess and treat potentially large numbers of people with appropriate levels of infection control. They’re also staffed by people dedicated to this one task. So expertise is concentrated in one location.

Fever clinics are part of a broader emergency health response to the coronavirus. And different states give them different names. For instance, in NSW their official name is “pandemic assessment centres”.

Where are these clinics?

Fever clinics may be set up in new facilities or by repurposing existing ones, such as community health centres or dedicated general practices.

They need to be somewhere with good public access (and parking), preferably away from existing crowded major health facilities to avoid congestion.

They may be possible in heavily populated areas but less so in rural areas as they require enough patient numbers (to make them viable) and access to enough staff.

Staff – such as doctors, nurses and laboratory staff – will generally come from the existing health service, potentially leaving these services short. And staffing may be an issue in rural and remote areas that are already under-resourced.

Read more: Worried about your child getting coronavirus? Here’s what you need to know

People who attend these fever clinics, who require higher levels of care, will need to be referred to specific health facilities. So arrangements for referral and safe transfer are needed.

Fever clinics are also only part of a broader health system response and can never replace other sources of care.

Severely ill patients will still call for an ambulance and need to be in hospital. Many patients will choose to see their regular GP.

So the broader health system needs to be supported if we are to mount an effective health response against the coronavirus.

Read more: There’s no evidence the new coronavirus spreads through the air – but it’s still possible

Do fever clinics work?

There is surprisingly little published research about people’s experience with fever clinics. Few outbreaks have had enough patient numbers to justify setting them up.

During the swine flu pandemic of 2009, Australians were keen to use one clinic when it was located within an emergency department. More than 1,000 people with flu-like symptoms attended in one month.

However, it is difficult to find any evaluation of how well fever clinics work across health systems, either in improving health outcomes or reducing costs.

What’s the take-home message?

People have a right to be concerned, but not unduly alarmed, about the outbreak of COVID-19.

Recent data suggest the disease is highly infectious although 80% of people have a mild-to-moderate disease, 20% a severe/critical illness and 2-3% die.

People who are at greater risk are those who are older or have other illnesses.

Read more: Why hand-washing really is as important as doctors say

The best thing people can do is to take reasonable precautions: avoid crowded places, wash your hands regularly and avoid touching your eyes and mouth.

Fever clinics may well have a role in providing a single source of assessment, advice and treatment. However, we still need enhanced infection control procedures across the healthcare system and to access other sources of medical care.

– ref. ‘Fever clinics’ are opening in Australia for people who think they’re infected with the coronavirus. Why? – https://theconversation.com/fever-clinics-are-opening-in-australia-for-people-who-think-theyre-infected-with-the-coronavirus-why-132599

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Helene Nolan, Postdoctoral research fellow, Western Sydney University

The drought in eastern Australia was a significant driver of this season’s unprecedented bushfires. But it also caused another, less well known environmental calamity this summer: entire hillsides of trees turned from green to brown.

We’ve observed extensive canopy dieback from southeast Queensland down to Canberra. Reports of more dead and dying trees from other regions across Australia are flowing in through the citizen science project, the Dead Tree Detective.

Read more: Drought and climate change were the kindling, and now the east coast is ablaze

A few dead trees is not an unusual sight during a drought. But in some places, it is the first time in living memory so much canopy has died off.

Ecologists are now pondering the implications. There are warnings that some Australian tree species could disappear from large parts of their ranges as the climate changes. Could we be witnessing the start of ecosystem collapse?

Why are canopies dying now?

Much of eastern Australia has been in drought since the start of 2017. While this drought is not yet as long as the Millennium Drought, it appears to be more intense. Many areas have received the lowest rainfall on record, including long periods of time with no rainfall. This has been coupled with above-average temperatures and extreme heatwaves.

The higher the temperature, the greater the moisture loss from leaves. This is usually good for a tree because it cools the canopy. But if there is not enough water in the soil, the increased water loss can push trees over a threshold, causing extensive leaf “scorching”, or browning. The extensive canopy dieback we have observed this summer suggests that the soil had finally become too dry for many trees.

Are the trees dead?

Brown or bare trees are not necessarily dead. Many eucalypts can lose all their leaves but resprout after rain.

Many parts of eastern Australia are now flushed with green after rain. In these areas, it will be important to assess the extent of tree recovery. If trees are not showing signs of recovery after significant rainfall, they’re unlikely to survive. In some cases carbohydrate reserves – which trees need to resprout new leaves – may be too depleted for trees to recover.

The drought may also hinder post-fire recovery. Most eucalypt forests eventually recover from bushfires by resprouting new leaves. Some forests also recover when fire triggers seedlings to germinate.

But it’s likely that some forests now recovering from fire were already struggling with canopy dieback. So these two disturbances will test how resilient our forests are to back-to-back drought and bushfire.

Trees recovering from drought and/or fire may also enter the “dieback spiral”. The new flush of leaves following rain can make a particularly tasty meal for insects. Trees will then attempt to grow more foliage in response, but their ability to keep producing new leaves gradually declines as they deplete their carbohydrate reserves, and they can die.

Dieback spiral has led to extensive tree loss in the past, including in the New England area of NSW.

Should we be worried?

The capacity of eucalypts to resprout makes them naturally resilient to extended drought. There are some records of canopy dieback from severe droughts in the past, such as the Federation Drought. We assume (although we don’t know for sure) the forests recovered after these events. So they may bounce back after the current drought.

However, it’s hard not to be concerned. Climate change will bring increased drought, heatwaves and fires that could, over time, see extensive losses of trees across the landscape – as happened on the Monaro High Plain after the Millennium Drought.

Read more: Are more Aussie trees dying of drought? Scientists need your help spotting dead trees

Australian research in 2016 warned that due to climate change, the habitat of 90% of eucalypt species could decline and 16 species were expected to lose their home environments within 60 years.

Such a change would have huge consequences for how ecosystems function – reducing the capacity for ecosystem services such as carbon storage, altering catchment water resources and reducing habitat for native animals.

Where to from here?

Landholders can help bush on their property recover after drought, by protecting germinating seedlings from livestock and collecting local seed for later revegetation. Trees that appear dead should not be cut down as they may recover, and even if dead can provide valuable animal habitat.

Most importantly, however, we need to monitor trees carefully to see where they’ve died, and where they are recovering. A citizen science project, the Dead Tree Detective, is helping map the extent of tree die-off across Australia.

People send in photos of dead and dying trees – to date, over 267 records have been uploaded. These records can be used to target where to monitor forests during drought, including on-ground assessments of tree health and quantifying the physiological responses of trees to drought stress.

There is no ongoing forest health monitoring program in Australia, so this dataset is invaluable in helping us determine exactly how vulnerable Australia’s forests are to the double whammy of severe drought and bushfires.

– ref. Entire hillsides of trees turned brown this summer. Is it the start of ecosystem collapse? – https://theconversation.com/entire-hillsides-of-trees-turned-brown-this-summer-is-it-the-start-of-ecosystem-collapse-126107

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University

Australia has just experienced a summer of environmental extremes. Water has played a key role. This includes prolonged drought, dry soil and bushland contributing to bushfires, and widespread shortages of water for agriculture and drinking supplies. Thankfully, rain extinguished many bushfires that had burned for weeks and months.

The late summer heavy rain fell in some, but not all, regions. Australia’s capital city water supplies have had different fortunes this summer. The Bureau of Meteorology “water dashboard” provides daily data.

Read more: After a summer of extremes, here’s what to expect this autumn

Cities where storages are low

Five capital city water supplies dropped over summer by between 2.2% and 11.4% of their storage capacity.

Hobart has proportionally dropped the most, by 11.4 percentage points, to 59.8%. This reflects relatively small storages and the city’s dry summer with only 65mm of rain. That’s less than half the historic average.

The Adelaide storages fell by 8.4 points to 43.5%. Adelaide had a typical dry summer with 66mm. That’s close to the historic average, as the city has a Mediterranean climate with hot and dry summers.

Adelaide’s water storages provided only 10% of the city’s water supply in 2018-19, with 83% drawn from the Murray River. The Commonwealth is providing nearly A$100 million for Adelaide’s desalination plant. This aims to allow upstream irrigators to grow fodder with the river water that was destined for Adelaide.

Read more: Cities turn to desalination for water security, but at what cost?

Perth has had another dry summer. Its catchment rivers have supplied only 44.1 gigalitres (GL) of water since April 2019. This is much lower than the long-term pre-1975 average of 413GL over the same time period.

Perth water storages fell by 5.7 percentage points this summer to 39.5%, the lowest of all capital city supplies.

Canberra lost 4.6% of its water supply. The end-of-summer level of 46.5% continues a rapid decline from 100% in October 2016.

Despite the falling reserves, Canberra’s Icon Water has not imposed water restrictions. It advises that the Cotter Dam was enlarged in 2013. Icon Water can also draw “top-up” water from the Murrumbidgee River.

Melbourne’s supplies fell 2.2 percentage points to 61.6%.

Cities where storages rose

Three capital cities recorded water storage increases this summer.

Darwin’s supply was close to full as recently as April 2018. Since then it has been on a downward trend. A modest 6.4% gain over this summer’s wet season took it to 60.3%.

Darwin appears to be having its second poor wet season in a row. The city had 675mm of rain (Darwin Airport) this summer. That’s about 67% of its historic summer average of just over 1,000mm.

Options canvassed for increasing Darwin water supply include using Manton Dam, which was built in the 1940s but is now used for recreation.

Brisbane’s southeast Queensland storages increased by 8.6 percentage points to 69.6%.

Sydney’s storages increased the most, by 35.7 points to 81.4%.

Sydney was distressed by its dwindling water supplies as summer approached. Storages were at 45.7% at the start of December. Level 2 water restrictions were imposed from December 10.

These were the toughest summer water restrictions for an Australian capital city. All use of hoses for gardens and washing cars was banned. Many Sydneysiders struggled to keep their gardens alive, lugging around buckets and watering cans. A catchcry across Sydney was “let your lawn die”.

On February 6 2020, heavy rains started falling in coastal southeastern Australia, including Sydney and its water catchments.

Read more: Heavy rains are great news for Sydney’s dams, but they come with a big caveat

The automatic weather station at Mount Boyce, near Blackheath on the edge of the Warragamba Dam catchment, recorded 415mm in four days. From February 6-27 Sydney’s water storages nearly doubled, from 41.7% to nearly 82%. This added more than 1 million megalitres (ML), equivalent to more than 1.5 years’ demand.

On February 6, parched catchments were adding 10ML a day to Warragamba Dam. A week later the catchment rivers had risen and many were in minor flood, adding 65,000ML a day on February 13.

At the end of summer Sydney Water announced it was dropping level 2 restrictions.

Some parts missed out

The February rains were patchy, however. Many water-stressed parts of New South Wales were not so lucky.

Orange in the state’s Central West remained on level 5 water restrictions all summer. Orange Council pleaded with residents to curb water use to less than 160 litres per person per day. Residents responded by using even less, averaging 126 litres a day in February.

Nearby Bathurst declared “extreme” water restrictions from February 24. Its main storage, Chifley Dam, is just under 30% and also had a blue-green algae alert.

Chaffey Dam provides drinking water to the Tamworth area and sits at just 14.3%. Over summer it received over 800ML but has to balance this inflow with environmental releases. Tamworth remains on level 5 restrictions. If Chaffey Dam drops below 10% a daily target of 100 litres per person looms.

A cause for concern is that many large NSW irrigation dams across the Murray-Darling River system remain very low for the start of autumn. For example, Burrendong Dam near Dubbo was at 4.5% at the end of summer. This dam supplies water to the city via the Macquarie River.

The Macquarie River also supplies other settlements, irrigators and industry, such as the mines at Cobar.

Flooding rains in inland Queensland are returning healthy flows to dry inland rivers such as the Barwon and the Darling. On February 25, Bourke Shire Council announced happy news that “strong flows in the Darling River” allowed the lifting of water restrictions. Bourke residents had endured water restrictions for more than 550 days.

– ref. A city-by-city guide to how water supplies fared in Australia’s summer of extremes – https://theconversation.com/a-city-by-city-guide-to-how-water-supplies-fared-in-australias-summer-of-extremes-132669

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debbie Wills, Lecturer in Accounting, University of Tasmania

As Australia burned over summer, many of us gave generously, donating an extraordinary A$500 million by mid-January.

Charities had to scramble, as did organisations directing us to charities. For its new year’s eve fundraiser the ABC chose the Red Cross.

Weeks later, the New South Wales state MP for Bega, Andrew Constance, a local whose electorate was in the heart of the fires, attacked the Red Cross, and also the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul, arguing not all of the money was getting through:

The money is needed now, not sitting in a Red Cross bank account earning interest so they can map out their next three years and do their marketing.

The Red Cross responded, conceding it was using 10% of donations for administration but noting that it was handing out A$1 million every day.

The confusion and negativity continued, with comedian Celeste Barber seeking legal advice over the fate of A$50 million she raised for the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Read more: Celebrity concern about bushfires could do more harm than good. To help they need to put boots on the ground

It was too much for the fire service to spend quickly on running expenses and buying and maintaining equipment. And it was prevented by its trust deed from passing it on to other charities.

The fallout suggests we want to be sure our money is being used to help, but we’re not sure that it is.

What can charities and donors do?

My research into the role played by reputation in donations indicates that it is important for charities to define their role clearly.

This includes stating plainly how they are meeting the reporting and other requirements imposed on them by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and educating the public about those requirements.

We need to do our research, think carefully before donating, and watch out for scammers.

It is important to be comfortable with each charity’s mission and objectives. They cannot act outside them without running the risk of being deregistered.

We can search for information on all charities using the commission’s charity search tool www.acnc.gov.au/charity, or for smaller sets of charities using charity ranking sites such as:

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission already does a lot, but given the power, there’s more it could do.

What can Australia’s regulator do?

It could require funds raised for emergencies to be kept in trust, and reported on in more detail at regular intervals through a running statement of distribution of funds.

It could require further standardised reporting, although this would be expensive and charities are already heavily criticised for the percentage of funds used for administration.

It could also set up a one-stop shop for disaster relief.

The department of foreign affairs set up one for foreign disasters that was first used for the Bangladesh-Myanmar appeal in 2017, bringing together eight Australian charities to create a single website and a single phone number that could be used to direct calls to each individual charity.

There are understandable calls to do the same thing for domestic disasters.

Some charities might not welcome combined appeals, fearing they would reduce their own visibility and impose more hurdles. But the hurdles shouldn’t be impossible to leap. A global organisation has been set up to ensure best practice.

Read more: How to select a disaster relief charity

The Advance Global Australian Bushfire Appeal set up by five charities during the bushfires shows what can be done, as does February’s Fire Fight Australia concert.

A government-certified single point of contact, backed up with specific reporting requirements, could provide a level of certainty that the public feel more comfortable with in times of emergency in the future.

– ref. Next time, we’ve got to handle emergency donations better – https://theconversation.com/next-time-weve-got-to-handle-emergency-donations-better-132273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Bacchieri, PhD Candidate, Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University

Street musicians are the producers of sidewalk melodies, the authors of the soundtrack of our cities. There is a unique interrelation between buskers and fans that occurs only in the streets, with no security staff, no VIP seats, or entrance fee.

In the past two decades, the audience for street performers has grown from dozens to millions thanks to sharing on social media like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, digital platforms such as YouTube and Soundcloud, and streaming services including Spotify.

Busking has long been a way for musicians to gain performance experience and garner a following. Now digital platforms are powerful tools that can transmit local artists to global audiences.

From the streets to the charts

Australian singer Tones and I became a phenomenon after being discovered on the streets of Byron Bay. Since releasing Dance Monkey in May 2019, she went from being an unknown busker to become one of the most streamed artists on Spotify, with over 1 billion streams globally.

Four years ago, another global success was forged on the streets of Australia. Multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana used to busk on Bourke Street in Melbourne. Then the live bedroom recording of her singing Jungle scored more than 64 millions views on YouTube.

Both acts share the same management company. Lemon Tree Music was founded in 2013 by two ex-buskers, Regan Lethbridge and David Morgan. Lethbridge told The Industry Observer that he hoped to tap into the drive shown by street performers to realise a vision of busking entrepreneurship:

We always respected buskers. […] We love the work ethic, the grind. They want it more. It’s the extra 1%. They have the drive to get out there on the street every day to earn some coins and sell some CDs.

Some of contemporary music’s biggest names were discovered on the streets: Ed Sheeran (performed in London underground stations), Justin Bieber used to busk in Stratford, Canada, and singer-songwriter Benjamin Clementine was discovered while singing at Paris metro stations.

These success stories connect with pre-internet idols: Édith Piaf, B.B. King, Janis Joplin and Rod Stewart all played on the streets. According to the late Blues writer Paul Oliver,

there have been street musicians since streets were first built, and human beings began to sing, or to make and play the first musical instruments.

After 37 years performing as a busker in New York, singer Mike Yung got a couple of his performances shared on YouTube. In 2018, Yung recorded a song with Dutch DJ Martin Garrix and scored more than 27 million views online.

Change for good

Some projects and platforms have sought to combine technology with busking for a cause.

Created in 2002, the Playing For Change project aims to record musicians in the streets with a mobile studio. Music producer Mark Johnson started by recording buskers all around the world singing lines from the song Stand By Me. The clip has now had more than 140 million views. Buskers from 125 countries took part, money was raised for music schools, and the concept became a global movement “to inspire and connect the world through music”.

The Busking Project is a platform where people can join as a busker or as a fan. Artists can be hired for events and earn cashless tips.

Similar payment tools and initiatives have been established in London, Austin (USA), Melbourne and São Paulo.

A cluster of buskers

Based on online map tags, the global busking festival scene is estimated to include over 170 street music events. There is the nine-day Ferrara Buskers Festival in Italy, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, and Fête de La Musique in France. HONK! is an independent and non-commercial festival of activist street bands created in Somerville, Massachusetts, USA, and Buskers by the Lake (formerly Buskers by the Creek) on Australia’s Sunshine Coast lists Tones and I among its previous busking battle winners.

In a world where everybody is filming, the streets are the backdrop to an international music video festival.

Curation projects like The Music Man, SoundsLikeVanSpirit and StreetMusicMap (featuring my research) identify busking hubs such as the subway systems and public squares in NYC, London and Paris and musicians performing along main streets like the Paulista Avenue in São Paulo (Brazil), Istiklal Street in Istanbul (Turkey) or Bourke Street in Melbourne, Australia.

Once mapped, we hope street music acts will illuminate narratives that go beyond sounds and beats. They will tell us about global culture and human connections.

– ref. All the world’s a stage – buskers can make it big in a connected world – https://theconversation.com/all-the-worlds-a-stage-buskers-can-make-it-big-in-a-connected-world-131914

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The Morrison government has announced a funding partnership with the states expected to see A$1 billion extra spent to deal with health costs around the coronavirus.

Scott Morrison said the Commonwealth would provide money on a matching 50-50 basis.

The federal government “will pay 50% of the additional costs incurred by state and territory health services as a result of the diagnosis and treatment of patients with COVID-19, those suspected of having the virus or activities to prevent the spread of it,” Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt said in a statement.

The support will be available for services provided in public hospitals, primary care, aged care, and community health care such as health services in child care.

The federal government is putting in an initial $100 million. While the estimate is that the likely cost to the Commonwealth will be around $500 million, there will be no cap and it could exceed that.

Morrison told a news conference: “It’s a demand-driven arrangement – the costs will be what the costs are.

“But we are estimating, based on the advice we have at the moment, that this could be as much as about a billion dollars, $500 million each. … I hope it’s not that much. It could be more”.

The 50-50 arrangement is a better deal than the states get from the Commonwealth for their hospitals, which sees 45% of the funding come from Canberra.

Details of the deal with the states will be tied down by the time the Council of Australian Governments meets on Friday, when the coronavirus situation will be at the centre of discussion.

By then the Morrison government is expected to have announced its fiscal package of billions of dollars aimed at protecting jobs and businesses hit by the crisis.

Global ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has predicted in a report on the implications of COVID-19 for the Asia-Pacific region that “Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand will enter or flirt with recession”.

It says COVID-19 “could knock US$211 billion from Asia-Pacific incomes and slow GDP growth to 4.0% in 2020. Our new baseline for China is 4.8% with a downside scenario of 2.8% in 2020.”

Saying various regional countries will flirt with recession, S&P doesn’t use the standing recession definition of two quarters of negative growth.

Its definition is “at least two quarters of growth substantially below trend and sufficient to cause unemployment to rise, underlying inflation to fall, and policymakers to react with stimulus.”

S&P predicts a “hit” of one percentage point to Australian growth, “to leave growth in 2020 at 1.2%, well below trend which is closer to 2.5%”.

“The initial spillover from the coronavirus came from people flows which were already depressed from the bushfires,” it notes.

S&P expects the Reserve Bank – which cut interest rates this week – to cut again, to 0.25% “which leaves the Reserve Bank of Australia on the cusp of quantitative easing.

“We also expect moderate, targeted fiscal stimulus aimed at the most-harmed sectors.”

– ref. Morrison government pledges funds to help states with health burden of COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/morrison-government-pledges-funds-to-help-states-with-health-burden-of-covid-19-133164

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Scott Morrison is facing new questioning over the sports rorts affair, after former cabinet minister Bridget McKenzie issued a statement on Friday denying she had made last-minute changes to a list of grants.

Evidence to a Senate estimate committee from the Audit Office this week reinforced allegations the Prime Minister’s Office – which exchanged numerous emails with McKenzie’s office during the $100 million grants process – was more deeply involved than Morrison has admitted. He has sought to portray its role as just passing on representations.

McKenzie, then sports minister and the decision-maker for the program, signed off on a list of grants on April 4 2019, and she sent this to the Prime Minister’s Office on April 10.

But in an email from McKenzie’s office to Sport Australia early on April 11, the day the election was called, one project was taken off the list and one added. According to the Audit Office’s evidence, this change was at the request of the PMO. This email was sent minutes after the parliament was dissolved.

Several hours later, with the government in caretaker mode, one project was removed and nine added, in another email from McKenzie’s office to Sport Australia. The Audit evidence about these was that “none were evident as being at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office rather than the minister’s office”.

In her statement, McKenzie said she had “become aware” through the Senate estimates process this week “of changes made to a Ministerial decision brief that I signed in Canberra on 4 April 2019” for the final round of the program.

“The brief authorised approved projects for the third round – this included nine new and emerging projects which, it must be emphasised, had been identified and sent to Sport Australia in March for assessment in line with program guidelines.

“I did not make any changes or annotations to this brief or its attachments after 4 April 2019. My expectation was that the brief would be processed in a timely and appropriate manner,” she said.

“Nevertheless, changes were made and administrative errors occurred in processing the brief.

“I have always taken responsibility for my actions and decisions as a Minister, and this includes actions by my office.

“I was the Minister for Sport and therefore ultimately and entirely responsible for funding decisions that were signed off under my name, including and regrettably, any changes that were made unbeknown to me.”

When a reporter tried to ask Morrison about the McKenzie statement at his Friday news conference, which was about the coronavirus, he cut her off before she could get her words out. He finished the news conference without taking questions on general issues.

McKenzie is due to appear before the Senate committee that is examining the sports rorts affair.

The Audit Office found she had allocated grants on a politically skewed basis, but she and Morrison have always defended the substance of the decisions made.

She was forced to resign from cabinet on the more technical ground she did not declare her membership of sporting organisations that benefited from the scheme. It is well known she feels badly done by, because it was clear Morrison wanted her resignation to try to limit the political damage of the affair.

– ref. More ‘sports rort’ questions for Morrison after Bridget McKenzie speaks out – https://theconversation.com/more-sports-rort-questions-for-morrison-after-bridget-mckenzie-speaks-out-133160

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alfredo R. Paloyo, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Wollongong

Panic buying knows no borders.

Shoppers in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and the United States have caught toilet paper fever on the back of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Shop shelves are being emptied as quickly as they can be stocked.

Read more: Why are people stockpiling toilet paper? We asked four experts

This panic buying is the result of the fear of missing out. It’s a phenomenon of consumer behaviour similar to what happens when there is a run on banks.

A bank run occurs when depositors of a bank withdraw cash because they believe it might collapse. What we’re seeing now is a toilet-paper run.

Coordination games

A bank holds only a fraction of its deposits as cash reserves. This practice is known as “fractional-reserve banking”. It lends out as much of its deposits as it can – subject to a banking regulator’s capital-adequacy requirements – making a profit from the interest it charges.

If every customer simultaneously decided to withdraw all of their deposits, the bank would crumble under the liability.

Why, then, do we not normally observe bank runs? Or toilet paper runs?

The answer comes from Nobel-winning economist John Nash (played by Russell Crowe in the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind). Nash shared the Nobel prize in economics for his insights in game theory, notably the existence of what is now called a “Nash equilibrium” in “games”.

Both banking and the toilet-paper market can be thought of as a “coordination game”. There are two players – you and everyone else. There are two strategies – panic buy or act normally. Each strategy has an associated pay-off.

If everyone acts normally, we have an equilibrium: there will be toilet paper on the shop shelves, and people can relax and buy it as they need it.

But if others panic buy, the optimal strategy for you is to do the same, otherwise you’ll be left without toilet paper. Everyone is facing the same strategies and pay-offs, so others will panic buy if you do.

The result is another equilibrium – this one being where everyone panic buys.

Preventing coordination failure

So either no one panic buys (a successful coordination) or everyone does (a coordination failure).

The fear of everyone else panic buying has made some people panic buy as well. But those who are panic buying are not acting irrationally. They’re not stupid! They are executing an optimal strategy because the fear has a basis in reality: many people have experienced going to supermarkets and finding empty shelves.

Read more: Stocking up to prepare for a crisis isn’t ‘panic buying’. It’s actually a pretty rational choice

Obviously, though, only one of these equilibria is desirable. So what can we do to prevent coordination failure?

One solution is a market mechanism – allowing the price of toilet paper to increase to reduce demand. This is unlikely to happen, though, given the potential backlash associated with “price gouging”.

There are two other solutions.

The first is for the government to step in as guarantor.

In 2008, for example, the market crash engendered by the subprime mortgage crisis left multiple Australian banks vulnerable to depositor runs. In response, the Australian government announced a guarantee scheme for deposits. Depositors, assured the government would cover their losses even if their bank collapsed, no longer had the fear of being caught out by not withdrawing their savings.

In the case of toilet paper, the government acting as guarantor might involve holding a strategic stockpile of toilet paper. But all things considered – from logistics to costs – this probably isn’t a very good idea.

The second solution is to ration the commodity – putting limits on the amount a customer can buy. Imperfect though these buying limits are, they are feasible, as shown by the restrictions put in place by Australia’s supermarkets.

– ref. A toilet paper run is like a bank run. The economic fixes are about the same – https://theconversation.com/a-toilet-paper-run-is-like-a-bank-run-the-economic-fixes-are-about-the-same-133065

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Belal Alsinglawi, PhD Candidate in Data Science and ICT Lecturer, Western Sydney University

The coronavirus disease COVID-19 has so far caused about 3,380 deaths, infected about 98,300 people, and is significantly impacting the economy in many countries.

We used predictive analytics, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI), to forecast how many confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths can be expected in the near future.

Our method predicts that by March 13, the virus death toll will have climbed to 3,913, and confirmed cases will reach 116,250 worldwide, based on data available up to March 5.

To develop contingency plans and hopefully head off the worst effects of the coronavirus, governments need to be able to anticipate the future course of the outbreak.

This is where predictive analytics could prove invaluable. This method involves finding trends in past data, and using these insights to forecast future events. There’s currently too few Australian cases to generate such a forecast for the country.

Number crunching

Our model analysed existing trends to predict COVID-19 infections to an accuracy of 96%, and deaths to an accuracy of 99%, up to about one week in the future. To maintain this accuracy, we have to regularly update our data as the global rate of COVID-19’s spread increases or decreases.

Read more: How do we detect if coronavirus is spreading in the community?

Based on data available up to March 5, our model predicts that by March 31 the number of deaths worldwide will surpass 4,500 and confirmed cases will reach 150,000. However, since these projections surpass our short-term window of accuracy, they shouldn’t be considered as reliable as the figures above.

At the moment, our model is best suited for short-term forecasting. To make accurate long-term forecasts, we’ll need more historical data and a better understanding of the variables impacting COVID-19’s spread.

The more historical data we acquire, the more accurate and far-reaching our forecasts can be.

How we made our predictions

To create our simulations, we extracted coronavirus data dating back to January 22, from an online repository provided by the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Systems Science and Engineering.

This time-stamped data detailed the number and locations of confirmed cases of COVID-19, including people who recovered, and those who died.

Choosing an appropriate modelling technique was integral to the reliability of our results. We used time series forecasting, a method that predicts future values based on previously observed values. This type of forecasting has proven suitable to predict future outbreaks of a disease.

We ran our simulations via Prophet (a type of time series forecasting model), and input the data using the programming language Python.

Further insight vs compromised privacy

Combining predictions generated through AI with big data, and location-based services such as GPS tracking, can provide targeted insight on the movements of people diagnosed with COVID-19.

Read more: Why public health officials sound more worried about the coronavirus than the seasonal flu

This information would help governments implement effective contingency plans, and prevent the virus’s spread.

We saw this happen in China, where telecommunication providers used location tracking to alert the Chinese government of the movements of people in quarantine. However, such methods raise obvious privacy issues.

Honing in on smaller areas

In our analysis, we only considered worldwide data. If localised data becomes available, we could identify which countries, cities and even suburbs are more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others.

We already know different regions are likely to experience different growth rates of COVID-19. This is because the virus’ spread is influenced by many factors, including speed of diagnoses, government response, population density, quality of public healthcare and local climate.

As the COVID-19 outbreak expands, the world’s collective response will render our model susceptible to variation. But until the virus is controlled and more is learned about it, we believe forewarned is forearmed.

Read more: Coronavirus: How behaviour can help control the spread of COVID-19

– ref. COVID-19 death toll estimated to reach 3,900 by next Friday, according to AI modelling – https://theconversation.com/covid-19-death-toll-estimated-to-reach-3-900-by-next-friday-according-to-ai-modelling-133052

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominique Allen, Senior Lecturer in Law, Monash University

The #MeToo movement has reminded us that sexual harassment has not gone away. The legal tools we’re using are not working and may even be hiding the true extent of the problem.

Most sexual harassment complaints are resolved confidentially at the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) or its local equivalents. Few go to court. This system has three fundamental problems.

Read more: Rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment: what’s the difference?

Confidential processes and settlements

Confidentiality is essential to get people to the negotiating table. Who can forget the media scrutiny actors Geoffrey Rush and Eryn Jean Norvill were subjected to?

Even for people who are not famous, the potential media interest in a sexual harassment claim is a strong reason to settle, as it is for employers who fear reputational damage. But it means the community isn’t aware that sexual harassment is still occurring or how it’s being addressed.

Employers usually insist on a confidentiality clause when they settle a claim. I recently interviewed 23 lawyers in Melbourne, asking them how common confidentiality clauses are in discrimination settlements.

A solicitor told me settlement agreements “almost always” include confidentiality. Another described the confidentiality clause as “not negotiable”. A barrister said: “No one I know has ever settled on non-confidential terms.”

The lawyers said employers use confidentiality clauses to avoid opening the “floodgates” to other victims. Employees seek confidentiality if they have left the workplace and worry about what their former employer might say about them.

At their most extreme, confidentiality clauses have a chilling effect on victims, who fear the repercussions of discussing any aspect of their claim. At the same time, they protect the perpetrator at their current workplace and anywhere they work in the future.

A complex, costly legal system

Making a legal claim is complex and costly. A woman who has been sexually harassed could use her local anti-discrimination law or the federal system. The federal system is costly because if she loses at court not only will she have to pay her own legal costs, she risks having to pay the other side’s costs too.

If she’s been discriminated against, unfairly dismissed or has a worker’s compensation claim, three more legal avenues are open to her. These vary in terms of costs, procedures, time restrictions and levels of formality, so they’re difficult to navigate without legal assistance.

It’s not surprising, then, that most people don’t use the formal legal system and those that do tend to settle.

Individual burden

There is no equivalent of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) or the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that can prosecute employers or represent victims, so the person who has been sexually harassed bears a heavy burden. As one of the lawyers I interviewed put it, the victim has to do “all the heavy lifting”.

Respect@Work

This week, the AHRC released Respect@Work, a lengthy report on sexual harassment. It made 55 recommendations, many of which are designed to improve the legal framework. Will they resolve these weaknesses?

In terms of shedding light on the prevalence of sexual harassment, the recommendations include that the AHRC and its local equivalents should collect de-identified data about sexual harassment claims and settlement outcomes, share this data and prepare coordinated annual reports. This is significant because at the moment they only release numerical annual complaint data. They don’t publish anything about the nature of claims or settlements. Acknowledging that some parties want confidentiality, the AHRC will develop “best practice” principles, which might include preparing a model confidentiality clause and making some disclosures permissible.

Lawyers told me they negotiate damages payments in excess of what courts are likely to order. Because settlements are confidential, they have no impact on the courts’ understanding of the harm of sexual harassment, and victims and their lawyers don’t have a realistic starting point for negotiations. It is pleasing that the AHRC has recommended the government conduct research on damages awards and that this should inform judicial training.

Lawyers repeatedly told me the risk of costs is the main reason victims don’t use the federal system. The AHRC recommended a losing party should only have to pay the other side’s legal costs if their claim is vexatious, which is how the Fair Work system operates. The government should act to remove this barrier right away.

The recommendations to increase funding for community legal centres and bring consistency to federal and local sexual harassment legislation (including adding sexual harassment to the Fair Work Act) will reduce the cost and complexity of the system.

Read more: Geoffrey Rush’s victory in his defamation case could have a chilling effect on the #MeToo movement

But a problem remains – the burden still rests on the victim. The AHRC has proposed establishing a Workplace Sexual Harassment Council comprised of federal and local equality and workplace safety agencies. But this is a leadership and advisory body, not an enforcement agency.

The AHRC president is conducting an inquiry into reforming discrimination law. Changing the enforcement model and alleviating the burden on the victim must be considered as part of this broader project.

– ref. Sexual harassment claims are costly and complex – can this be fixed? – https://theconversation.com/sexual-harassment-claims-are-costly-and-complex-can-this-be-fixed-133149

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roberto Musotto, Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre Postdoctoral Fellow, Edith Cowan University

While many Australians were preoccupied with panic-buying toilet paper, sales of another commodity encountered a very different sort of crisis.

Wool sales were severely disrupted last week by a ransomware attack on IT company Talman Software, which processes more than 75% of sales in Australia and New Zealand.

A ransomware attack is a form of cyber-extortion, involving software that encrypts all of the files on a system. In this case, cyber-criminals then demanded A$8 million to unlock the files. Talman has refused to pay and has instead built a replacement version of the software.

Read more: Ransomware attacks on cities are rising – authorities must stop paying out

Wool sales were halted for several days and hastily rescheduled, with an estimated 70,000 bales held in limbo. The industry’s turnover in a typical week is up to A$80 million, but prices may now drop as the postponed sales cause a glut in the market.

A ransomware attack on such an important sector of Australia’s economy shows how vital it is for authorities to defend markets against cyber threats. It is a matter of when, not if, these attacks will happen. There is a ransomware attack on a business every 14 seconds and by 2021 it will be every 11 seconds.

Read more: What’s critical about critical infrastructure?

Diverse defences

How do we improve our resilience? One way is to avoid being too dependent on particular technologies. The wool industry already knew Talman Software’s dominant role represented a significant vulnerability.

Having a wider choice of software providers, not to mention an offline alternative, would have reduced or avoided the disruption.

Previous ransomware attacks on vital infrastructure, including last month’s attack against Toll Group, have shown the need for companies to keep their operations and IT systems separate.

We can define “operations” as the software and hardware that allow a company to keep its assets and processes working. IT systems, meanwhile, are the software and hardware that handles the company’s information and data.

Separating the two would make it harder for hackers to disrupt a company’s operations by invading its IT system. However, this would make it impossible to use IT systems to control operations remotely, which would bring its own pros and cons. Imagine a nuclear power plant – do you fit it with a remote shutdown option that could be crucial in an emergency but might also become a tempting target for hackers?

Read more: Is Australia’s electricity grid vulnerable to the kind of cyber attacks taking place between Russia and the US?

Governments need to help

This issue is bigger than simply a threat to companies’ profits. Although the latest attack targeted a commercial company, it damaged the economic welfare of farmers in two countries.

Fending off future attacks shouldn’t be a job just for companies seeking to safeguard their own profits – governments need to help too.

Read more: Hackers are now targeting councils and governments, threatening to leak citizen data

Governments should have a cyber-resilience unit that supports businesses in such emergencies. They should also provide support funds for victims, and national compulsory cyber insurance to guarantee the least disruption possible.

Governments need to defend public and economic infrastructure such as transport networks, power grids and important commercial markets.

– ref. Ransomware attack on sheep farmers shows there’s no room for woolly thinking in cyber security – https://theconversation.com/ransomware-attack-on-sheep-farmers-shows-theres-no-room-for-woolly-thinking-in-cyber-security-132882

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathleen McPhillips, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle

Women still make up the majority of the Catholic workforce and Catholic congregations, but their participation in church life is in decline.

Indeed, each generation of Catholic women in Australia is less likely than the previous one to attend church and participate in parish life.

There are a number of reasons for this decline, one of which is a continued lack of action by church leadership in including women in agenda-setting and decision-making processes in church life.

Despite recommendations from the Child Abuse Royal Commission that church leaders undertake a review of their engagement of Catholic women and develop measures to increase women’s status and participation in the church, there has been little progress to date.

This is only likely to get worse after the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC)‘s recent decision to disband its Office for the Participation of Women (OPW) and Council for Australian Catholic Women (CACW). These bodies were a focal point to boost the participation of women across Catholic parishes and dioceses in Australia.

A long-discussed problem in the church

The disbanding of the OPW and CACW signals a giant step backwards for the church, and contradicts the radical reforms the Australian bishops committed to almost 20 years ago aiming to

engage the wisdom, the talents and the experience of women for the enrichment of the church and of society.

Research commissioned by the ACBC, published in the report Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus in 1999, examined the participation levels and experiences of women in the church. It clearly identified several barriers to improvement, including a failure to address gender equality, and the lack of women in official positions or visible female role models.

Read more: After Pell, the Catholic Church must undergo genuine reform

The report also revealed the majority of Australian Catholics felt a strong sense of pain and alienation resulting from the church’s stance on women.

Few of the original ACBC recommendations have been implemented and there is now no clear agenda for addressing the challenges raised by the report.

Women theologians not being consulted

Later this year, the Catholic Church in Australia will hold its Fifth Plenary Council, providing some hope to women their voices will finally be heard.

On the agenda are six national themes, which emerged from consultations with the Catholic community in Australia.

The bishops have committed to addressing “the inclusion of women in church leadership roles” and “draw on the gifts and talents” of women, but how this will happen is uncertain with no mandate or quota for women to attend as delegates.

A further disappointment is the continuing failure to recognise the expertise of Catholic women theologians.

Read more: The Catholic Church is headed for another sex abuse scandal as #NunsToo speak up

Next week, 70 theologians and ethicists from around the world will gather in Rome for a workshop that will examine questions around church abuse.

Australian theologians will be well-represented at the gathering, but there are no women among the four delegates, despite a plethora of highly-qualified women theologians in Australia.

Recently, the Global Church Project published two blogs highlighting the work of over 160 women theologians from Australia and New Zealand, many of whom have published extensively on clerical sexual abuse and spiritual trauma.

Global response

This isn’t just a problem in Australia. Globally, Catholic women continue to be sidelined from important gatherings and processes determining the future of Catholicism. As a consequence, many women are beginning to mobilise for change.

In Spain, for instance, women theologians have joined together to speak out about equality and dignity for women in the Church. And Indian nuns are risking persecution by going public with stories of sexual assaults by priests.

Catholic women’s groups from five continents have also formed the Catholic Women’s Council (CWC), which is calling for Catholic women worldwide to take part in global activism on International Women’s Day this year. The Australian organisation Women and the Australian Church (WATAC Inc.) is part of this movement.

Despite these actions, though, the current situation looks grim. With a lack of political will, the full participation of women in the life and mission of the church is a still a long way from being realised. And women are responding by moving out of the church or mobilising for change.

– ref. Denied full participation, Catholic women mobilise for change – https://theconversation.com/denied-full-participation-catholic-women-mobilise-for-change-131557

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee-Fay Low, Associate Professor in Ageing and Health, University of Sydney

In July 2019, the government introduced new aged care standards to “raise the bar” in an aged care system where some nursing home residents have experienced care that is neglectful, depersonalised, uncaring, unsafe and of poor quality.

We took a close look at breaches of aged care standards from 2019 to see what effect the new aged care standards are having, and where aged care providers are falling short.

In the interactive map below you can see aged care providers that were non-compliant in 2019.

What are aged care standards?

Aged care standards are the minimum standard of care the government expects nursing homes to provide.

They are supposed to ensure people in aged care have access to quality care including competent staff who listen, best-practice clinical care and nutritious and tasty food.

Nursing homes that don’t meet standards are given a notice of non-compliance. If the provider doesn’t fix the problems that made it non-compliant, then it will be sanctioned.

If assessors decide there is an immediate and severe risk to residents, nursing homes can also be immediately sanctioned. The nursing home provider must then bring the care up to standard before they can take new residents.

Read more: Nearly 2 out of 3 nursing homes are understaffed. These 10 charts explain why aged care is in crisis

The new aged care standards

From 2014 until the new standards were introduced in July 2019, the number of non-compliance notices and sanctions increased steadily as can be seen in the chart below.

This was likely due to a combination of increasing scrutiny of the quality of residential care as a result of the unsafe care revealed at Oakden in 2017, and the establishment of the aged care royal commission in October 2018. A 2018 policy change meant providers were no longer warned about upcoming accreditation visits.

The new standards, introduced in July 2019, focus on “personal dignity and choice”.

They were designed to support the provision of care based on what residents want, rather than penalising providers when they let residents do something that could be considered “risky”, such as allowing someone with mild dementia to walk to the shops, or having a pet in the nursing home.

The number of non-compliance notices and sanctions in the first six months of the new standards decreased. This is likely because assessors visited fewer nursing homes in this period, and may still be learning how to interpret the new standards.

Aged care providers and industry bodies have criticised the new standards for being subjective and vague. They do not measure objective resident outcomes like depression or number of infections.

For-profit companies had a higher rate of non-compliance in 2019

Some 6% of for-profit residential care facilities failed aged care standards in 2019, some of them multiple times. In comparison 5% of not-for-profit and 4% of government facilities failed standards.

The rate of non-compliance in for-profit facilities was 27% higher than not-for-profits, and 54% higher than government facilities.

This suggests for-profit providers in Australia are more likely to provide lower quality care. An international review has noted similar trends in other countries.

Profit margins are slim in aged care, and for-profit providers are under pressure to make profits by cutting costs. This could lead to a lower standard of care compared with not-for-profit or government providers.

Read more: Why is nursing home food so bad? Some spend just $6.08 per person a day – that’s lower than prison

Reasons for non-compliance in 2019

The most common reasons for non-compliance in 2019 were in the area of personal and clinical care and the area of governance.

An example of a nursing home breaching the personal and clinical care standard could be if the home’s practices mean it isn’t giving medication correctly, isn’t managing wounds properly, or isn’t providing dignified help for residents using the toilet.

Homes might also breach the personal and clinical care standards if they don’t have sufficiently skilled staff such as registered nurses to care for residents with complex health needs.

A nursing home might be non-compliant in governance when it doesn’t have the right systems in place to monitor and improve its clinical care, for example in the areas of infection control or restraints. It might also be non-compliant if residents and families don’t have enough of a say in how the facility is run.

The new standards were supposed to place an increased focus on dignity and choice, supporting the identity of a person, and increasing their say in the care they receive. This means catering for residents who want to have showers in the evening, stay up late, or make their own lunch. Previously there was much less emphasis on these aspects of aged care.

It is somewhat promising that more breaches of non-compliance in the “dignity and choice” standard have been picked up since the new standards came in. But given we know care is often poor in this area and there is an increased focus on this standard, we could have expected a more significant change.

Read more: How to check if your mum or dad’s nursing home is up to scratch

Based on the first six months of non-compliance and sanctions data for the new aged care standards, we cannot be confident the new standards are ensuring nursing homes provide higher quality care. We await more data.

Until then, aged care residents and their families should monitor the quality of care they receive, know their aged care rights, and complain if they think there is an issue.

If you or a family member are considering using an aged care provider, you can check whether the provider has breached standards via the My Aged Care non-compliance checker.

– ref. Which aged care services near you weren’t up to scratch in 2019? – https://theconversation.com/which-aged-care-services-near-you-werent-up-to-scratch-in-2019-131449

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Pittock, Professor, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

The hellish summer of bushfires in southeast Australia triggered global concern for our iconic mammals. Donations flooded in from at home and around the world to help protect furry species.

But there’s a risk the government and public responses will not see the fish for the koalas.

Of the 113 priority fauna species identified by the federal government as worst impacted by bushfires, 61 (54%) are freshwater species that live in or around our inland rivers, such as fish, frogs, turtles and the iconic platypus.

These animals and ecosystems were already struggling due to prolonged drought and mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin. Saving koalas and other mammals is of course important, but freshwater species should also be a priority for post-fire environmental programs.

A picture of devastation

The government’s priority species list includes three turtle species, 17 frogs, 22 crayfish, 17 fish and the platypus. Rounding out the list is an alpine stonefly, although many other invertebrates are also likely to be affected (as well as other species that depend on moist, streamside forest habitats).

Excluding tropical savannah, the recent bushfires burnt more than 7.7 million hectares in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. Rainforests and riparian (riverside) forests were extensively damaged along the Australian east coast and alps. These are normally moist environments, which are not adapted to fire.

Plant and animal species at the edge of waterways, in peat wetlands and in riverside forests are likely to have been burnt or killed by heat, such as crustaceans , lizards, and corroboree and mountain frogs in the alps and east coast rainforests.

Read more: Fire almost wiped out rare species in the Australian Alps. Feral horses are finishing the job

Burnt riverside forests no longer shade the water, making water temperatures hotter and leading to increased evaporation that may stress surviving wildlife. The loss of vegetation cover also leaves prey exposed to predators.

Following recent rain, water flowing into rivers has washed ash into streams. This clogs fish gills and brings nutrients that drive algal blooms. Sediment washed into waterways fills in the gaps between rocks and holes in river beds – places where many species shelter and breed. For instance, the River Murray catchment’s last population of Macquarie perch was impacted as rain washed ash and sediment into Mannus Creek in southern NSW.

Fires tend to burn forests in patches, sometimes leaving refuges for land-based animals. However fire damage to waterways flows downstream, systematically degrading the habitat of aquatic animals by leaving little clean water to hide in.

Long-term damage

The devastating impact of the fires in river environments may be long-lived.

When aquatic animals species are wiped out in particular rivers, they may not be able to recolonise from surviving populations in other unconnected rivers.

Some species will invariably now be closer to extinction. For example many key peat swamp habitats of the critically endangered northern corroboree frog have been burnt in the Bogong Peaks and Brindabella mountains of NSW and the ACT.

Read more: The sweet relief of rain after bushfires threatens disaster for our rivers

And after fires, fast-growing young eucalyptus forests transpire much more water than older burnt trees. This may reduce inflows into streams for a century.

The recent bushfires followed several years of extreme drought across much of Australia. In the Murray-Darling Basin, these challenges were compounded by poor water management that contributed to dried-up rivers and mass fish deaths.

Water-sharing rules in the basin determine how much water is allocated to agriculture and the environment. Current water-sharing plans do not explicitly include allocations to manage losses due to climate change, and as the plans will only be updated once a decade, it is questionable whether they will be adjusted to sustain flows needed to conserve threatened species.

Here’s what to do

After the fires, government officials and scientists rescued a number of “insurance” populations of threatened aquatic animals such as turtle and fish species, and took them to captive breeding facilities, such as the stocky galaxias fish in the alps. We must ensure healthy habitat is available for these animals to re-establish viable populations when released.

In the short term, we must protect surviving and regenerating habitat. Government programs are off to a good start in promising to cull feral predators such as cats and foxes, as well as grazing animals such as pigs, deer and goats. The NSW and Victorian governments must also remove feral horses in the Australian Alps that are damaging the swamp habitats and streams.

Now so many infested riverside forests are accessible, it is a key time to control weed regrowth.

Read more: Last summer’s fish carnage sparked public outrage. Here’s what has happened since

In the medium term, we should expand programs to fence livestock out of waterways, install other watering points for these animals and revegetate stream banks.

Deep holes in rivers and streams with cool water are important refuges for aquatic animals, and ways to restore them should be investigated.

Impediments to fish migration, such as weirs, should be removed or fish “ladders” installed to aid fish movement. Aquatic species often won’t breed unless the water is the right temperature in the right season; to prevent the release of overly cold water from the bottom of dams, better water release structures should be installed.

An opportunity for change

Successive governments have been asleep at the tiller when it comes to threatened aquatic animals. Official recovery plans for many fire-affected species have not been adequately funded or implemented.

In the Murray-Darling Basin for example, a native fish strategy was shelved in 2013 after the NSW government reportedly pulled funding.

The impending release of a new fish strategy, and other post-fire recovery actions, are an opportunity for governments to right past wrongs and ensure our precious freshwater species thrive into the future.

– ref. Sure, save furry animals after the bushfires – but our river creatures are suffering too – https://theconversation.com/sure-save-furry-animals-after-the-bushfires-but-our-river-creatures-are-suffering-too-133004

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Gerrard, Senior lecturer, University of Melbourne

In recent days the federal government announced a new funding formula for non-government schools. Called the Direct Measure of Income, the formula will base the level of government funding on school parents’ incomes rather than the socioeconomic profile of where they live.

Education minister Dan Tehan said the changes will make the distribution of funding within the non-government sector “more accurate” and “equitable” and that funding will go to schools that need it most. Attached to this new measure is a significant boost in funds to non-government schools.

But while the funding formula may direct money to relatively more needy private schools, these extra federal resources aren’t addressing the inequalities of the education system as a whole.

How will the formula work?

At the moment federal government funding of non-government schools is calculated in relation to the socioeconomic profile of the suburbs where parents live. It uses census data to calculate what is known as the “SES score” of school families.

This means if a non-government school has a high proportion of families living in well-off areas, it is entitled to less government funding than a school with parents living in less advantaged areas.

The announced changes are based on recommendations of a review of the current funding model, conducted by the National School Resourcing Board. It recommended the government use a newly available measure of parents’ capacity to contribute financially to the school, which comes from combining census and income tax data.

The Direct Measure of Income formula will offer a more accurate picture of parents’ capacity to contribute. This is because it relies on parents’ actual income rather than the socioeconomic profile of the neighbourhood they live in.

The new formula requires an amendment to the Australian Education Act, a bill for which was introduced to parliament on February 26 and referred to a Senate committee with a report due in May.

What you need to know about this funding model

The new model is accompanied by a significant increase in government funds into the non-government sector. The education minister estimated there will be an additional A$1.3 billion in the current budget, and a $3.4 billion increase in funding over ten years.

The government is also directing $200 million to help schools transition to the new formula, and a further $1.2 billion through the Choice and Affordability Fund. The latter is to support “underperforming” and “educationally disadvantaged” non-government schools (among other target areas).

Calculating parents’ incomes requires a new combination of data. To calculate parental capacity to contribute the government will combine de-identified data from the Australian Tax Office and the census. This will be done through the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP).

This kind of mapping has only recently become possible due to developments in data technology and cooperation between agencies. It marks a new kind of government policy making, driven by fine-grained personal data.

The new formula, based on how much parents can contribute to the school, reinforces the idea that schools are mainly about individual gain and contribution. It also suggests funding problems can be solved by more drilled-down data about children and their families.

What’s the problem with school funding in Australia?

The question of government funding for non-government schools is one of the most acrimonious public debates in Australia, and has been going for more than 100 years.

The 2010-2011 Gonski review of school funding was an attempt to end the school funding wars. But the report’s recommendations were never fully implemented.

The report described school funding in Australia as complex, confusing, opaque and inconsistent. Arguably, this is still the case, with successive federal governments generating their own methods to solve it.

Australia has one of the highest rates of private schooling in the world. We also have high rates of public funding of the private schooling sector – the majority of non-government schools would probably not survive long without it.

Our high levels of funding for private schools is now taken for granted. It is seen as an expression of parents’ rights over their children’s education.

The new funding model further entrenches the belief private schools are a national priority, to be funded by the federal government. The reforms don’t address the relative equity between government and non-government schools. This remains a burning question for Australian education.

– ref. More money for private schools won’t make Australia’s education fairer, no matter how you split it – https://theconversation.com/more-money-for-private-schools-wont-make-australias-education-fairer-no-matter-how-you-split-it-132769

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Freney, Lecturer in Industrial and Sustainable Design, University of South Australia

Recent disastrous bushfires have rebooted debate about how to (re)build in the Australian bush. Questions are being asked about building standards, whether a fire-proof home is possible, the value of fire bunkers when it’s too late to leave, and if we should even live in the bush any more.

I suggest homes and community buildings in bushfire-prone areas can be made much more fire-resistant, perhaps even fire-proof, by adopting earth-covered, off-grid structures – known as Earthships – as the new standard.

Read more: Before we rush to rebuild after fires, we need to think about where and how

Built for survival

Houses sheltered by earth have a higher chance of survival in a bushfire. This is because earth-based constructions are non-flammable (while topsoil can burn and smoulder, clayey, sandy and gravelly soil does not).

A typical Earthship design has double-glazed windows to the north to let in winter sun, while mounds of earth, pushed up to roof level, protect the south, east and west walls. Taking this a step further, an earth-covered house includes a layer of earth over the roof.

The north-facing double-glazed windows (an essential element of passive solar design) is the only part of the building that needs some other protection.

Bushfire building codes and standards already demand that windows have extra-thick, toughened glass to resist burning debris and intense heat. Double glazing (two layers of glass separated by a small air gap) offers extra protection. In very high-risk areas, bushfire shutters are a requirement.

Although not demanded by building codes, automated sprinklers could be used to spray water on the windows. But automated systems are problematic during a bushfire when power and water supplies are likely to fail.

Read more: No food, no fuel, no phones: bushfires showed we’re only ever one step from system collapse

Independent water supplies (big water tanks) and pumps (usually petrol or diesel) are often a condition of approval for new homes in fire-prone areas. However, these are difficult to automate because of choke, throttle, ignition and refuelling issues.

Examples around Australia

Enter the Earthship. Invented by American architect Michael Reynolds, thousands have been built all over the world, often by owner-builders.

Australian examples can be found in all states, including at Ironbank in South Australia, Kinglake in Victoria, East Augusta and Jurien Bay in Western Australia, and Narara and Marulan in New South Wales.

Earthships have an electric pump powered by solar panels and a battery for day-to-day water supply – and to fight fires. Sprinklers can then spray water on any vulnerable areas regardless of grid failures and without needing to deal with the flammable fuel that petrol and diesel pumps require.

The standard Earthship design has another feature that could save lives. Underground pipes called earth-tubes or cooling tubes bring fresh air into the building at a nice temperature (better than outside) due to the heat-exchanging effect of the earth around the pipes. When wet fabric is placed over the end of the pipes, these can filter out bushfire smoke.

Earth-covered homes are very air-tight, which combined with the earth-tubes helps keep out smoke and reduce asphyxiation risks.

Another defence mechanism is the “greenhouse”, a sunroom and corridor space on the sunny north side used for passive heating and cooling, treating wastewater and growing food. Yet another layer of double glazing isolates the greenhouse from the living spaces behind it. Adding indoor sprinklers (commonplace in commercial buildings) to the greenhouse could create a “wet buffer zone” and stop embers blowing into living areas where flammable furnishings are a hazard.

An iconic Earthship feature is the tyres used to form the exterior earth walls. While empty tyres are highly flammable, in this design they are not. The tyres are filled with compacted earth and protected by a layer of earth many metres thick (inside walls are rendered). There is already evidence of their fire-resistant nature.

Read more: Australian building codes don’t expect houses to be fire-proof – and that’s by design

Safer for the planet too

My PhD research focused on the energy efficiency and environmental footprint of the Earthship, comparing it to other construction systems and designs.

Earth is a low-cost, readily available material. It takes very little energy to dig it up, needs no processing and minimal (if any) transport. It is difficult to think of a more sustainable, inexpensive and non-flammable material.

I found off-grid homes minimise their eco-footprint by kicking three very dirty habits: the power, water and sewage grids. “Earthy” construction methods, such as Earthship, rammed earth, mudbrick and strawbale, also have much lower environmental impacts.

Earth-covered buildings are renowned for their energy efficiency. Earth insulates and has “thermal mass”, an architectural term for dense materials (e.g. concrete, brick, rammed earth, water). Thermal mass evens out temperature changes by absorbing heat when it is too hot inside and releasing heat when it is too cold inside. This means minimal heating and cooling bills.

There are a few “tricks” to getting council approval. Hire an experienced structural engineer and use a private certifier or surveyor for building rules consent as they are better equipped to certify compliance with the National Construction Code. The one aspect of the Earthship I couldn’t get approved was an indoor greywater garden and toilet-flushing system.

Read more: Sustainable cities? Australia’s building and planning rules stand in the way of getting there

Parts of the roof are earth-covered with fire-fighting sprinklers on the roof and windows. If I was building again I’d prioritise bushfire resilience by making it fully earth-covered with fire shutters, sprinklers and a safe room.

Further study is needed to scientifically validate my proposal here. However, we already have some evidence that Earthships, with a few minor design changes, might be the most sustainable, liveable, economical, fire-resistant buildings ever conceived of.

– ref. How ‘Earthships’ could make rebuilding safer in bushfire zones – https://theconversation.com/how-earthships-could-make-rebuilding-safer-in-bushfire-zones-131291

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

This week the Reserve Bank of Australia did something everyone expected and the US Federal Reserve did something almost nobody expected. Both are revealing.

At its monthly meeting Australia’s central bank cut official interest rates by 25 basis points to a record low of 0.5%.

The Fed cut rates by 50 basis points – not at a regular meeting but “off cycle” – in response to the COVID-19 crisis, which looks likely to become a global pandemic.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s announcement of its decision made it seem COVID-19 was the main, if not only, reason it was cutting rates.

Read more: One word repeated 9 times explains why the Reserve Bank cut: it’s ‘coronavirus’

In reality, the bank was always going to cut rates sooner rather than later. Australia’s economic growth remains sluggish on a per capita basis, wage growth is still hovering about 2%, unemployment is 5.3% and inflation has been below the 2-3% target band for Philip Lowe’s entire time as governor (since September 2016).

The US economy, by contrast, is doing better on all these measures. Unemployment is at its lowest rate in several decades. Wage growth is above 3.6% on an annual basis.

That makes the US rate cut far more revealing about the Fed’s view on the economic effects of COVID-19.

The Fed’s Open Market Committee is worried. US stock markets responded to the announcement by dropping about 3%, before recovering the next day.

One tool in the box

There is a narrative in Australian business circles, among certain commentators – and voiced by former treasurer Peter Costello – that the Reserve Bank’s interest rate cuts no longer do anything to spur investment and growth because rates are already so low.

Moreover, the argument goes, by cutting rates the central bank sends a negative message about the state of the Australian economy.

The hard truth is the economy is in bad shape.

Read more: Economic growth near an end as Treasury talks of prolonged coronavirus downturn

Interest-rate cuts alone won’t solve the problem. But it is the tool the Reserve Bank has at its disposal. There is also good reason, as I wrote late last year, to believe the normal transmission mechanisms of monetary policy are still working.

As almost every mainstream economist has said, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak the Australian economy needed significant fiscal stimulus rather than the balanced-budget fetishism of the current Coalition government (and, to be fair, also the current Labor opposition).

We are now going to see some targeted stimulus because of COVID-19, but that won’t address the Australian economy’s pre-existing problems.

Sending a message

Curiously enough, the critique of the Reserve Bank of Australia just mentioned applies quite well to the US Federal Reserve’s decision to cut rates dramatically – and do so off-cycle.

The Fed cut its rate range from 1.5%-1.75% to 1.0%-1.25%. Doing so used up a lot of its remaining monetary policy ammunition.

And the virus crisis is not just a demand-side problem where consumers aren’t spending. It’s also a supply-side problem where businesses are unable to produce what consumers might be willing to buy. No rate cut can repair global supply chains disrupted by mass factory closures in China.

What the Fed definitely did do is send a message that the virus crisis is going to be a really big deal. That helps create its own vicious cycle of beliefs on the demand side as consumers respond to the rate cut by increasing precautionary savings and cutting back on spending.

So the Fed used some of its limited ammunition in a way unlikely to be very effective, and has freaked out markets and consumers. Oops.

A time to borrow and spend

Coming back to Australia, it will be important to unpack both the Reserve Bank’s monetary response and the federal government’s fiscal response. How much is a response to COVID-19 and how much to the underlying weakness of the Australian economy?

The real fear is that too little will be done, especially with fiscal policy, to address that underlying economic weakness.

There is some hope, now the prospect of a budget surplus has essentially evaporated, the Coalition government will be free to do what it should have been doing all along – making long-term investments in the Australian economy.

Read more: Vital Signs: Australia’s nation-building opportunity held hostage by the deficit daleks

Let’s not forget the government can borrow for 10 years at 1% in nominal terms – a negative interest rate when adjusted for inflation. Debt markets will essentially pay us to borrow from them. That is a rare opportunity to make smart investments that will pay huge dividends in years to come.

– ref. Vital Signs: Australian and US rate cuts underline seriousness of the coronavirus crisis – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-australian-and-us-rate-cuts-underline-seriousness-of-the-coronavirus-crisis-132970

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pybus, Adjunct Professor in History, University of Tasmania

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.

In 1839, George Augustus Robinson arrived in Melbourne as Chief Protector of Aborigines for the Port Phillip District, bringing with him a select group of Aboriginal guides from Tasmania, including a woman called Truganini. He could never have foreseen the dramatic and tragic consequence.

Sometime in August 1841, Truganini left Melbourne with her new husband Maulboyheener travelling toward Westernport, working for food and shelter at stations along the way.

On September 4, they were on James Horsfall’s Ballymarang station, where they were joined by their companions, Peevay, his wife Plorenernoopner, and Maytepueminer, wife of their friend Lacklay who had gone missing. All five were on a mission to find out what had happened to Lacklay, last heard of heading into Lower Westernport in May 1840.

On a mission

Negotiating the mangroves at the top of Westernport was torturous. The Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp spread for miles to the north and east making it near impossible to find a way through. Truganini and her companions were obliged to make a wide detour around it to find higher ground, where they followed the course of the Lang Lang River to the coast, where massive tide fluctuations had created an extensive inter-tidal zone providing a rich harvest of scallops, mussels, oysters, abalone, limpets, marine worms, crabs and burrowing shrimp.

Despite the evidence of long-standing occupation in the exposed shell middens, the place was empty. When Samuel Anderson and Robert Massie first sailed from Launceston to the eastern shores of Westernport in 1835, they had found the Boonwurrung owners had been extinguished by the cumulative effect of encroachments from Van Diemen’s Land, endemic warfare with the Kurnai from Gippsland and attacks by sealers who “stole” women, all compounded by epidemic disease.

On September 15, Anderson and Massie became aware that Truganini, Maulboyheener, Peevay, Plorenernoopner and Maytepueminer had established camp on their pastoral lease on the Bass River. The two squatters knew members of the group very well from their time working for the Van Diemen’s Land Company, where Anderson had been a bookkeeper and Massie the engineer. If anyone in Lower Westernport knew what had happened to Lacklay, it would be these two squatters.

While at Anderson and Massie’s station, the five almost certainly heard the same information they’d given to Assistant Protector William Thomas when he had come looking for Lacklay — known to him as Isaac — in the previous year: that he was last seen in the company of settler who lived at the end of Westernport Bay. Further inquiries by Thomas established the man in question was the skipper of a cutter that had sailed away from the far eastern tip of Westernport Bay. On board where a woman and her three children, plus Lacklay and an unnamed German man as the crew.

The night they sailed, a heavy squall had swept in from the Tasman Sea and the boat was presumed to have capsized, with everyone drowned, though no bodies or pieces of wreckage had been recovered. Thomas was not convinced, noting in the margin of his journal “the death of Isaac supposed”.

Thomas was right to have reservations about this narrative of death by drowning. The truth, only established 176 years later, was that the cutter did not capsize, but sailed all the way to the remote whaling port of Kororareka in New Zealand. At the time, there was no conceivable way that anyone in Port Phillip could have known the boat had managed to sail across the Tasman Sea.

Lacklay’s disappearance was left to speculation. A story that made much more sense than drowning was that he had been shot by a settler, a narrative everyone in Port Phillip was familiar with. Truganini and Maulboyheener had heard that version of the story too, and now were in Lower Westernport to investigate.

After a leisurely stay at Anderson and Massie’s run, the five moved off on September 29. They crossed the Powlett River and made camp close to the home of William Watson. He was the sole settler below the Bass River, having very recently arrived with his wife, daughter and son-in-law, Walter Ginman, in May 1841. Watson was employed by a consortium of investors to work the seam of coal that Anderson had discovered. He had sunk a shaft into the coal seam near the mouth of the Powlett River, where he built a rudimentary hut just above the high-water mark.

Watson welcomed Truganini and her friends, giving them tea and sugar and even lending them a kettle. On October 2, the fourth day of their visit, Watson and Ginman departed for the mine, and the five approached the hut and lingered in the yard until Mrs Watson came out to give them some more tea and sugar.

Some time later, the women began to scatter the bark from their shelters and pack up their belongings, while the men went to the hut to return the kettle.

Shots fired

Once the men gained entrance to the hut, the tone of their interactions suddenly shifted. The reasons why would only become clear much later.

Peevay went to look for Watson’s guns, while Maulboyheener took Mrs Watson and her daughter by the shoulders to propel them outside. There Truganini and Maytepueminer pulled them into the bush and pointed them in the direction of safety at Anderson and Massie’s station. Meanwhile, Peevay and Maulboyheener systematically stripped the hut of food staples, blankets, clothing, an axe, two guns and a supply of buckshot. After setting fire to the hut, the five loaded up their plunder and followed the river towards the coast.

Early that evening, Peevay and Maulboyheener lay concealed in the low coastal heath watching Watson and his son-in-law returning from the mine. When the two men came into range, they fired a volley of shots from several guns, hitting Ginman in the calf and slightly wounding Watson in the foot and elbow. Hobbling towards their hut, the two men saw their home was a smouldering ruin and their wives had vanished. It was well after dark when they reached Anderson and Massie’s station and found their wives unharmed. The next day, Massie supplied Watson with a brace of firearms and two of his workers for a search party.

Peevay and Maulboyheener must have known that Watson would come looking for them, and that he would likely shoot them on sight, yet they lingered at the Powlett River mouth for another four days.

Blood on the beach

Staying low, with the heath to provide cover, the five kept careful watch for Watson’s search party. From a high point on the sand dunes, they had an excellent view of the flat country to the north and east, the direction they knew danger would come from. They managed to avoid detection until the evening of October 5, when Watson caught a glimpse of Maulboyheener standing on a high dune. Several shots were fired, failing to wound Maulboyheener, although a bullet came close enough to make a neat hole in the coat he was wearing.

Alert to the danger from Watson’s party, Truganini’s group failed to notice six unarmed men approaching from the south, walking along the beach to Watson’s mine in the late afternoon on October 6. The six men had walked overland from the whaling station at Lady’s Bay, on Wilson’s Promontory, more than 50 miles away. Two of the whalers, known as Yankee and Cook, had set out to locate the miners while their companions entered the hut to rest. Minutes later, two shots rang out in quick succession.

Maulboyheener and Peevay had each fired, first one then the other, in such quick succession there was no time between to reload with powder and shot. Having seen the two men fall, Maulboyheener kept watch from the top of the dune while Peevay, Truganini, Plorenernoopner and Maytepueminer went down to the beach to check the fallen. Lying on the beach were two men they had never seen before: a shot had hit one in the head, killing him instantly, while the other had entered the second man’s side, leaving him grievously wounded and in agony.

The four returned with this terrible information to Maulboyheener, who pulled up a couple of strong tree roots and went alone to the beach to dispatch the wounded stranger with heavy blows to the back of his head. Watching from above, the three women cried in distress.

They were not the only ones watching. Having been woken by the gunshots, two more whalers, Robbins and Evans, stepped outside the hut to look about. They saw a party of four or five people, with what looked like two guns visible on a high dune some 200 yards away. The whalers could not distinguish whether these figures were male or female, but they observed some of the group going down to the beach, leaving a person with a gun watching from above. When they returned, the one who had been watching went down to the beach alone.

Believing they had seen a group of miners hunting birds or kangaroos, Robbins and Evans concluded there was no reason to be alarmed and went back inside to sleep. Waking about an hour later, Evans was disturbed to see his companions Yankee and Cook had not returned. This time he went to search for them. He was a few yards from the hut when Watson’s search party materialised, with their guns aimed right at him. Evans talked quickly and established that none of these men had fired the shots he’d heard earlier.

Alarmed, he enlisted Watson’s party to help search for Yankee and Cook and found their bodies on the beach, their blood staining the sand. Yankee was already cold, with a bullet wound behind his ear. Cook had a deep wound in his side and had been bludgeoned on the back of his head.

‘What could make you do it?’

It was another six weeks before the five were captured before dawn on November 20, in the coastal heath just south of the murder site. The search party was led by Land Commissioner Frederick Armand Powlett, after whom the river was named. It was comprised of 18 soldiers and policemen, reinforced by four settler volunteers with seven Kulin men as trackers.

Once caught, Truganini, Peevay and Maulboyheener were taken by Powlett to point out the exact place of the murders. On locating the spot, Truganini explained only one shot had been fatal and Maulboyheener had used sticks to beat the wounded man’s head.

“What could make you do it?” Powlett demanded. “We thought it was Watson,” Maulboyheener volunteered, and then fell silent.

Truganini and her companions arrived in Melbourne in chains on November 26. They were taken to the watchhouse, where committal proceedings commenced almost straightaway. Statements were taken from the whaler Evans, from Watson and his wife, from Powlett and members of the search party.

When the display of damning evidence concluded, Maulboyheener made a garbled attempt at a defence. Watson had tried to kill him, he explained, and when he saw the whalers he thought it was Watson and had fired his gun.

On December 2, Robinson and the Methodist minister Reverend Joseph Orton went to speak with the accused men. Peevay remained silent, but Maulboyheener gave an explanation for their otherwise inexplicable actions. Both Robinson and Orton separately recorded in their journals how Maulboyheener explained that James Horsfall of Ballymarang station had told them Watson had in fact killed their friend Lacklay. The men were sentenced and publicly hanged on January 20, 1842.

Edited extract from Truganini: journey through the apocalypse by Cassandra Pybus, published by Allen & Unwin.

– ref. Friday essay: Truganini and the bloody backstory to Victoria’s first public execution – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-truganini-and-the-bloody-backstory-to-victorias-first-public-execution-129548

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

It’s the ultimate bubble news perhaps, but this week the Department of Parliamentary Services put out a circular saying work was underway to ensure Parliament House “is prepared to manage any potential issues relating to coronavirus”.

Most immediately, hand sanitisers have been put around the place and cleaners are concentrating on “disinfecting high traffic touch points, particularly in the public areas”.

Goodness knows what will happen in the event the virus hits Parliament House, especially if the politicians are there. We can report, however, that so far the national toilet paper panic hasn’t threatened the spare rolls in the parliamentary lavatories.

Read more: Why are people stockpiling toilet paper? We asked four experts

The circular was a small reminder of how fast the COVID-19 situation is moving.

In just a week, we’ve seen a dramatic escalation. The travel ban has been extended and widened; it now prohibits the arrival of foreigners from Iran (announced on Saturday) and South Korea (added on Thursday) as well as from China, and there is enhanced screening for those coming from Italy.

We’ve had the initial locally-transmitted cases emerge. The first nursing home has been hit. The government has flagged the possible use of drastic biosecurity powers. The Reserve Bank has cut interest rates, and an official number has been put on COVID-19’s likely impact on the economy.

Scott Morrison has received praise for his handling of the situation, which is being contrasted with his cack-handedness during the bushfires.

(Notably, without the crisis, Morrison would have been on the back foot this week. It overshadowed embarrassing revelations at Senate estimates about the role of the Prime Minister’s Office in the sports rorts affair, and the Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Campbell, saying he had expressed concern to Morrison over the use of defence material in the PM’s notorious bushfire advertisement.)

Often secretive and downright slippery, on the coronavirus the government has shared information, and provided regular updates. It has acted strictly on the medical advice. The border closures are slowing the importation of the virus, allowing maximum time for local arrangements to be put in place.

Early on, some questioned whether the government was over-reacting. And the caution hasn’t been without cost, with about 90,000 students still unable to reach universities here. In a measure of the deepening crisis, that issue, at the centre of attention only weeks ago, has receded from public view.

Read more: First locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases in Australia, as Attorney-General warns drastic legal powers could be used

Despite what it has done so far, the government’s real battle is just beginning. Containing the virus from spreading in the aged care sector, and from penetrating indigenous communities will be critical tests for federal and state authorities. And if we reach the stage that draconian powers are used, they could be very controversial.

Then there is the economy.

Appearing before a Senate committee hearing, Treasury estimated the virus would shave “at least” half a percentage point from growth in the March quarter. That’s on top of the bushfires taking off an estimated 0.2% across the December and March quarters, mostly the March one.

In one piece of positive news this week, the national accounts showed 2.2% annual growth and 0.5% in the December quarter. Worse numbers had been feared, which would have left the economy in a weaker position for the extremely difficult time ahead.

Still, the future looks very hairy.

The government faces the prospect of a negative March quarter, and the knowledge the virus will still be infecting growth in the June quarter.

Two negative quarters would be a technical recession, something the Rudd government avoided in the global financial crisis and the Morrison government is desperate to dodge in the coronavirus health crisis.

In some ways this crisis is more complex to deal with than the GFC. Aspects of the public panic are irrational and so very hard to calm. The effectiveness of the planned stimulus could be limited by the difficulty businesses will have sourcing supplies from China, where the problem started.

Even as he and his ministers grapple with their fiscal response, Morrison, a totally political animal, is always anxious to make a partisan point. The Coalition harks back to Labor’s spending too much in the GFC, and to flaws in programs.

Well, now the Coalition will be tested in circumstances different but also comparable to those faced by the Rudd government.

It needs to keep growth going, spending enough (not too much, not too little) and choosing the right measures.

And it must keep flexible. As Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy said at the Senate estimates hearing, “The government will need to be nimble. in how it watches how the shock unfolds”.

“Go early, go hard, go households”, then Treasury secretary Ken Henry told Labor in the GFC.

On the health side of the COVID-19 crisis, the government has followed the advice of Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy to go early and go hard. In terms of the economy, its concern about the budget has made it reluctant to get ahead of the game.

Faced with dire forecasts, it is now rapidly pulling together an economic response. But it is not, at this stage, intending to “go households” – that is, to have a cash splash (although a change in the deeming rate for the pension will help some retirees).

Next week, when it is expected to release its package, we will see how “hard” it will go to fireproof the economy.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has confirmed the measures will run into billions of dollars, and indicated they’ll include some form of investment allowance. The government’s mantra is the package will be “targeted”, “measured” (the word “modest” has been dropped), and “scalable” – that is, able to be ramped up if the outlook deteriorates further.

It will be centred on preserving cash flow and encouraging investment.

Read more: Support package gains shape as GDP turning point swamped

Morrison says the package will be aimed at “keeping people employed and supporting jobs. … keeping business in business, so those businesses can support those jobs and the incomes of Australians.

“It will have a focus on ensuring that we bounce back better on the other side of this,” he told parliament, “because there will be a strong recovery on the other side of the coronavirus”.

The big question is: just how bad will things get until “the other side” comes into view? That will be crucial not just for many Australia’s businesses and workers, but also for the Morrison government’s credentials as an economic manager.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Can Scott Morrison match Kevin Rudd in keeping Australia out of recession in a global crisis? – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-can-scott-morrison-match-kevin-rudd-in-keeping-australia-out-of-recession-in-a-global-crisis-133084