Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Maxwell, Senior Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland

I’m a geek. And as a geek, I love my tech toys. But over time I’ve noticed toys are becoming harder to understand.

Some modern toys resemble advanced devices. There are flying toys, walking toys, and roving toys. A number of these require “configuring” or “connecting”.

The line between toy, gadget and professional device is blurrier than ever, as manufacturers churn out products including drones for kids and plush toys with hidden nanny cams.

Read more: Looking for a high-tech gift for a young child? Think playgrounds, not playpens

With such a variety of sophisticated, and sometimes over-engineered products, it’s clear manufacturers have upped their game.

But why is this happening?

The price of tech

Toys these days seem to be designed with two major components in mind. It’s all about the smarts and rapid manufacture.

In modern toys, we see a considerable level of programmed intelligence. This can be used to control the toy’s actions, or have it respond to input to provide real time feedback and interaction – making it appear “smarter”.

This is all made possible by the falling price of technology.

Once upon a time, placing a microcontroller (a single chip microprocessor) inside a toy was simply uneconomical.

These days, they’ll only set you back a few dollars and allow significant computing power.

Microcontrollers are often WiFi and Bluetooth enabled, too. This allows “connected” toys to access a wide range of internet services, or be controlled by a smartphone.

Another boon for toy manufacturers has been the rise of prototype technologies, including 3D modelling, 3D printing, and low cost CNC (computer numerical control) milling.

These technologies allow the advanced modelling of toys, which can help design them to be “tougher”.

Read more: Not child’s play: The serious innovation behind toy making

They also allow manufacturers to move beyond simple (outer) case designs and towards advanced multi-material devices, where the case of the toy forms an active part of the toy’s function.

Examples of this include hand grips (found on console controls and toys including Nerf Blasters), advanced surface textures, and internal structures which support shock absorption to protect internal components, such as wheel suspensions in toy cars.

Bot helpers and robot dogs

Many recent advancements in toys are there to appease our admiration of automatons, or self operating machines.

The idea that an inanimate object is transcending its static world, or is “thinking”, is one of the magical elements that prompts us to attach emotions to toys.

And manufacturers know this, with some toys designed specifically to drive emotional attachment. My favourite example of this is roaming robots, such as the artificially intelligent Anki Vector.

With sensors and internet connectivity, the Vector drives around and interacts with its environment, as well as you. It’s even integrated with Amazon Alexa.

Another sophisticated toy is Sony’s Aibo. This robot pet shows how advanced robotics, microelectronics, actuators (which allow movement), sensors, and programming can be used to create a unique toy experience with emotional investment.

Screens not included

Toy manufacturers are also leveraging the rise of smartphones and portable computing.

Quadcopters (or drones) and other similar devices often don’t need to include their own display in the remote control, as video can be beamed to an attached device.

Some toys even use smartphones as the only control interface (used to control the toy), usually via an app, saving manufacturers from having to provide what is arguably the most expensive part of the toy.

This means a smartphone becomes an inherent requirement, without which the toy can’t be used.

It would be incredibly disappointing to buy a cool, new toy – only to realise you don’t own the very expensive device required to use it.

My toys aren’t spying on me, surely?

While spying may be the last thing you consider when buying a toy, there have been several reports of talking dolls recording in-home conversations.

There are similar concerns with smart-home assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri, which store your voice recordings in the cloud.

These concerns might also be warranted with toys such as the Vector, and Aibo.

In fact, anything that has a microphone, camera or wireless connectivity can be considered a privacy concern.

Read more: Just like HAL, your voice assistant isn’t working for you even if it feels like it is

Toys of the future

We’ve established toys are becoming more sophisticated, but does that mean they’re getting better?

Various reports indicate in 2020, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will continue to be pervasive in our lives.

This means buying toys could become an even trickier task than it currently is. There are some factors shoppers can consider.

On the top of my list of concerns is the type and number of batteries a toy requires, and how to charge them.

If a device has in-built lithium batteries, can they be easily replaced? And if the toy is designed for outdoors, can it cope with the heat? Most lithium-ion batteries degrade quickly in hot environments.

And does the device require an additional screen or smartphone?

It’s also worth being wary of what personal details are required to sign-up for a service associated with a toy – and if the toy can still function if its manufacturer should cease to exist, or the company should go bust.

And, as always, if you’re considering an advanced, “connected” toy, make sure to prioritise your security and privacy.

– ref. Robots, AI and drones: when did toys turn into rocket science? – http://theconversation.com/robots-ai-and-drones-when-did-toys-turn-into-rocket-science-127503

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity

It took 400 years, but sometime in the early fifth century Christians transformed a tradition about Jesus’s miraculous virgin birth into a doctrine that inextricably connected sex with sin. It has plagued the church ever since, doing untold damage to generations of women in particular.

In its original context, the claim that Jesus was born to a virgin mother places his birth in a long line of miraculous biblical births. The Bible tells of numerous old women, barren women and young unmarried women (“virgins” in ancient terms) who surprisingly bore children. Their offspring were seen as a sign of God’s blessing of new life, often in the midst of suffering or hardship.

Read more: God made the rainbow: why the Bible welcomes a gender spectrum

The idea of original sin and its connection to sexual intercourse was popularised by African theologian Augustine. Not without controversy at the time, Augustine argued that humans were not born innocent, but rather sinful. His rationale was that sexual intercourse involves lust or sexual desire (a negative for him).

While Augustine tied this “original sin” back to Adam and Eve, the parallel focus on Mary’s perpetual virginity is relevant. If sexual intercourse produces sinful offspring, it was essential Mary be and remain a virgin so Jesus could, uniquely, be born sinless.

Such logic might seem absurd to many modern readers, but Augustine’s influence on Christian tradition cannot be overstated. In her book, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, Princeton Professor Elaine Pagels argues Augustine has left a legacy of problematic and complicated attitudes towards sex in the Christian tradition.

Attitudes, it is worth noting, that are not in the Bible. There is no suggestion in the biblical text that consensual sex is anything other than a gift from God. There is even an entire biblical book devoted to rather erotic poetry.

The idea that Mary was a perpetual virgin was already in circulation at this time, but the influence of Augustine’s thinking on original sin would lead the 19th-century Roman Catholic Church to adopt the doctrine of Immaculate Conception. This was the idea that Mary herself was immaculately conceived, so she could be a sinless vessel to carry the fetal Jesus. This move consolidated the association of purity and virginity, arguably leading to the Protestant Church’s purity culture movement in the 20th century.

The purity movement has its roots in 19th-century social movements that sought to abolish prostitution, raise the age of consent and limit pornography. Often led by women with the intention of protecting women, these movements appealed to men not to misuse their social and sexual power over women. However, the late 20th-century American purity movement looks quite different and has arguably done damage to women.

Read more: Jesus wasn’t white: he was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew. Here’s why that matters

In the 1990s, conservative American churches started focusing on a radical abstinence from sex, the nature of which would likely have appealed to Augustine. Known as “purity culture,” both men and women were expected to remain “pure”.

Women, however, inevitably bore the brunt of this teaching. Girls pledged their virginity and were given promise rings by their fathers, a placeholder for an engagement ring when their virginity would be promised to another man. Young women were taught that the most important thing they could offer their future husband was a body untouched by another male.

Much has been written about the culture of shame and sexual ignorance that has resulted from such an emphasis on sexual purity. There were two notable outcomes: sex outside of marriage became the worst form of sin and women who experienced sexual assault were often additionally traumatised by their church’s teaching about purity and shame.

The harm caused is now so widely acknowledged that a once vocal proponent of the no-dating purity culture, Joshua Harris, has recently apologised and retracted his views and his book on the topic.

Shame, purity and sexual ignorance continue to haunt Christian communities around the globe. In Melbourne, I have encountered Christians who abstained from anything except holding hands until marriage, only to find that the leap from total abstinence to sex in one night was painful, awkward and sometimes traumatising. If you have been told something is shameful your whole life, it takes more than a wedding ceremony to shift to a sex-positive mindset.

I’ve met Christian women who will not report a childhood rape because they fear being seen as “tainted goods” or “impure” to Christian men who might not want to marry them. The association of sex and sinfulness is so strong for some that a rapist’s sin can be internalised as their own.

Read more: How the ‘extreme abstinence’ of the purity movement created a sense of shame in evangelical women

In conservative Christian circles, sexual “sins” continue to be considered the worst kinds of sin. This legacy entrenches hierarchical gender roles, can push sexual activity underground as something hidden or secret, and arguably inhibits healthy sexual development in young people. Similarly, it diminishes any robust theology of sin and, alarmingly, it can create dangerous conditions for those vulnerable to sexual predation.

These centuries of thinking about virginity, sex and sinfulness have led us a long way from the woman whose child Christians celebrate at Christmas. Somehow, a virginal young woman became used by men to support claims that sex equals sin.

Yet, in the Christian tradition, Mary is best remembered as mother of God, prophet and faithful follower of Jesus. She has long been upheld as a model of faith for women in particular. And so she should be. Not because she was ever “pure” or remained a virgin, but because she exemplifies courageous faith.

– ref. From virgin births to purity movements: Christians and their problem with sex – http://theconversation.com/from-virgin-births-to-purity-movements-christians-and-their-problem-with-sex-118327

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Forgasz, Associate Professor, Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University

The eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah begins Sunday, December 22. From Melbourne and New York to Berlin and Moscow, thousands of people will gather to light giant menorahs. In many places, these public ceremonies will be accompanied by music, street food and carnivals.

These events may primarily target Jewish communities but, given their prominent locations, many non-Jews will also participate.

In the US especially, Hanukkah has become a widely recognised holiday. As well as lighting the National Menorah in Washington DC, the president hosts an annual Hanukkah party in the White House. In big cities like New York, parents of Jewish children are often invited into elementary school classrooms to explain Hanukkah to students.

Hanukkah has even entered American popular culture. The classic children’s Hanukkah song “Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel” has appeared in several episodes of South Park.

And comic Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song” became a national obsession when it was first performed on Saturday Night Live in 1994. Sandler even found two words to (sort of) rhyme with Hanukkah in the refrain:

Put on your yarmulke, here comes Hanukkah! So much fun-akah, to celebrate Hanukkah!

But in the Jewish calendar, Hanukkah is of relatively minor religious significance compared with the biblical festival of Passover or the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

So why has it become the most widely known and publicly celebrated of all Jewish holidays, particularly in the US?

The origins of Hanukkah

Hanukkah commemorates a historical event that took place in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BCE, when the Seleucid Greek empire was the ruling power. In 168 BCE, the king Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed Jewish practice and defiled the Jewish Temple in the city by installing an altar to Zeus Olympios and sacrificing pigs.

A small army of Jews, known as the Maccabees, rebelled against this religious persecution. They regained control over the Temple, removed the symbols of Zeus and built a new altar so they could once again offer sacrifices in keeping with Jewish law.

Read more: Hanukkah’s true meaning is about Jewish survival

According to a legend recounted in the Talmud, a compilation of 3rd to 6th century Jewish teachings, a miracle occurred at this time.

There was only enough oil to keep the Temple’s menorah, one of its most important ritual objects, burning for one day. But the flame stayed alight for eight days, until a new supply of oil could be found – the basis for the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah.

An alternate version of history

Based on this version of events, Jews have seen the Maccabees as heroes who fought for religious liberty against a repressive regime.

But the historical record is more complex.

The most detailed accounts of the story of Hanukkah are recorded in First and Second Maccabees, historical books that describe the military and political events leading up to and following the Maccabean revolt. They are not included in the Hebrew Bible, but are part of the Catholic biblical canon.

According to First Maccabees,

lawless men came forth from Israel, and misled many, saying, ‘Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles round about us’. … [T]hey built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to Gentile custom, and removed the marks of circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil.

These “lawless men” were not the Seleucid rulers, but Jews who wanted to integrate aspects of Greek (Hellenistic) culture with Jewish tradition.

Hellenistic culture was based on the Greek language, literature, art and philosophy, as well as the distinctively Greek form of social and political organisation, the polis. But Hellenistic culture also involved the worship of Greek gods and social customs, such as athletic contests, that some considered incompatible with Jewish tradition.

These Hellenising Jews were the targets of the Maccabees’ vengeful attacks as much as the Seleucid Greek regime itself. As First Maccabees relates:

They organised an army, and struck down sinners in their anger and lawless men in their wrath; the survivors fled to the Gentiles for safety.

In this light, the Maccabees were not heroic liberators and defenders of religious freedom. Rather, they could be viewed as intolerant religious zealots, intent on stamping out any attempt to “modernise” Jewish tradition.

Today, most Jews would still consider the Maccabees to be heroes and defenders of Judaism. Certainly, it’s the story that children are taught in Jewish schools and synagogues. However, they would be surprised, and likely rather disturbed, by the religious fundamentalism of the Maccabees that is represented in the historical sources.

Remaking Hanukkah in the image of Christmas

Diane Ashton, an American religious historian, has traced the history of Hanukkah in the US and described how Jews have transformed Hanukkah in the past two centuries to reflect the evolving traditions of Christmas.

Inspired by children’s Christmas events in churches, American rabbis began introducing special Hanukkah celebrations for children at synagogues in the 19th century. They would tell the story of Hanukkah, light candles, sing hymns and hand out sweets. This was a way to entice children to attend synagogues, which otherwise offered little of interest to them.

Over time, Hanukkah became one of the only times of the year that many Jewish families engaged with Jewish tradition.

Read more: How Hanukkah came to America

In the early 20th century, with the commercialisation of Christmas well under way, more changes occurred. Gift-giving was never a feature of Hanukkah historically, but new Jewish immigrants from Europe began buying presents for their children as a way of signifying their economic success in the new world.

In more recent years, the public display of menorahs has also been promoted by Chabad, the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic movement that aims to bring Jews closer to their own religion.

These displays, often alongside Christmas trees, have elevated the significance of Hanukkah in the minds of both Jews and non-Jews. They were even the subject of a US Supreme Court ruling in 1989, when the court rejected a request by the city of Pittsburgh to bar a large menorah from a public building, ruling it did not amount to a government endorsement of Judaism.

Over time, American Jews have thus remade Hanukkah in the image of Christmas. In doing so, they have been able to participate in the festive season in a way that is distinctly Jewish, balancing their desires to both assimilate and retain their unique cultural identity.

Read more: What Hanukkah’s portrayal in pop culture means to American Jews

Elsewhere in the world, while large-scale public menorah lightings have become more widespread, Hanukkah is mostly a time for families to come together. Fried food, to commemorate the miracle of the oil, features heavily in family celebrations, including the popular potato fritters called latkes and deep-fried, jam-filled doughnuts known as sufganiyot.

Giving small gifts to children has become common, though nowhere has Hanukkah reached the level of commercialisation and kitsch that it has in the US.

For any other Jewish festival, this might be seen as a corrupting influence. But given that Hanukkah remains, for most Jews, a relatively minor holiday, it is viewed with some bemusement as just another example of American meshugas (craziness).

– ref. The story of Hanukkah: how a minor Jewish holiday was remade in the image of Christmas – http://theconversation.com/the-story-of-hanukkah-how-a-minor-jewish-holiday-was-remade-in-the-image-of-christmas-127620

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa McLean Davies, Associate Professor Language and Literacy Education, University of Melbourne

Alfred Tatum, a US education professor specialising in literacy for African American boys, coined the term “bookprint”. He said it’s something we all have – a list of books that have impacted how we see ourselves and the world.

What we read matters. Reading shapes the way we see the world, increases our understanding of others, and helps us imagine different narratives for ourselves.

School holidays are an ideal time for teenagers to expand their reading repertoire and pay attention to the bookprint they are creating (and is being created for them). It is important for young people to read literature that reflects their own life and also expands their experiences of the world.

Read more: Old white men dominate school English booklists. It’s time more Australian schools taught Australian books

In this spirit, we suggest five Australian texts that connect with diverse teenagers’ experiences and interests. This is not a quintessential list, but one designed to enhance any young person’s bookprint, at different ages and stages. These texts are by Australian writers, and written in the past five years.

1. Terra Nullius by Clare G. Coleman

Recommended for ages 16+

In Terra Nullius, Clare G. Coleman offers older teenagers the opportunity to immerse themselves in an imaginative response to colonisation.

Coleman’s creative representation holds both history and potential futures in tension, and an unexpected plot twist engages and provokes the imagination.

This book is an example of both climate fiction and speculative fiction. Climate fiction enables older teenagers to think about the implications of climate change from diverse perspectives, while speculative fiction encourages readers to use their imaginations to consider different futures or pasts.

The Tribe by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Recommended for ages 13+

The Tribe, by Arab-Australian writer, editor, teacher and community arts worker Michael Mohammed Ahmad, is short but powerful. It focuses on the experiences of Bani, an Arab-Australian boy, his family and their wider community.

The Tribe was Ahmed’s first work of fiction. It insightfully considers issues of identity, family, community, loyalty and love.

The text makes clear both the struggle and beauty at the heart of one immigrant family’s experiences of being Australian. The book is richly descriptive, and the reader is carried into the home that is the centre of Bani’s world.

Read more: Friday essay: how speculative fiction gained literary respectability

3. The Yield by Tara June Winch

Recommended for ages 16+

What does it mean to know the language of your country?

The question of language, lost and found, begins Tara June Winch’s latest novel. The Yield traces the history of a family in Massacre Plains on the banks of the Murrumby River.

After her grandfather’s death, August Gondiwindi returns to her family’s land. The story of her return is interspersed with the dictionary written by her grandfather before his death.

These complementary narratives reveal the complexity of place, voice, language and family in the Australian context and force a consideration of what has been lost.

While moments of violence and dispossession are central to the story, there is also tenderness and beauty in this novel by one of Australia’s most exciting authors.

4. Growing Up African in Australia, edited by Maxine Beneba Clarke

Recommended for ages 15+

Growing Up African in Australia is this year’s addition to the popular and groundbreaking Growing Up series, which includes Growing up Queer in Australia and Growing up Disabled in Australia.

Growing Up African draws from a range of authors including disability advocate Carly Findlay, journalist and filmmaker Santilla Chingaipe, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child star Kirsty Marillier, and many more.

Like the others in the Growing Up series, this compilation acts as an intersection at which we can reflect on the similarities and differences of young people growing up across the country.

One section of the anthology, named “The Body”, is particularly noteworthy, with a range of authors describing their experiences grappling with body difference and self esteem.

Read more: Growing Up African in Australia: racism, resilience and the right to belong

For some young readers this will provide a moment of “I thought it was just me”. It might help others to see cultural beauty standards – and the challenges of growing up within them – through another’s point of view.

5. Meet Me at the Intersection, edited by Rebecca Lim and Ambelin Kwaymullina

Recommended for ages 13+

Like the Growing Up series, this new collection offers much-needed new voices and perspectives for young adult readers.

Conceived as a collection of stories about marginalised people, told by people from these marginalised groups, Meet Me at the Intersection presents stories, poems, and memoirs from First Nations writers, writers living with a disability, LGBTIQA+ writers and writers from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Including a range of established and emerging writers, this collection reminds us identities are complex, created at the intersections of race, disability and sexuality, and that we are collectively a richer nation if all voices can be heard.

As our research has shown, contemporary Australian fiction, for a range of reasons, is often omitted in school curricula.

Historically underrepresented people including Aboriginal writers, writers of colour, migrant writers, queers writers and writers living with disability are particularly underrepresented.

Read more: Diversity, the Stella Count and the whiteness of Australian publishing

Yet, we know it is of paramount importance Australian teenagers are able to locate their literary imaginations locally as well as globally, and that reading texts by and about diverse Australians will change the ways all young people see themselves and their communities.

For a longer list of Australian texts both historical and contemporary, see the Reading Australia website. This resource is designed for teachers, but is also a great starting place for parents and teenagers.

– ref. 5 Australian books that can help young people understand their place in the world – http://theconversation.com/5-australian-books-that-can-help-young-people-understand-their-place-in-the-world-127712

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dorothy Ann Lee, Stewart Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity College, University of Divinity

Belief in the virgin birth comes from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Their birth stories are different, but both present Mary as a virgin when she became pregnant with Jesus. Mary and Joseph begin their sexual relationship following Jesus’ birth, and so Jesus has brothers and sisters.

Catholic piety goes beyond this, with Mary depicted as a virgin not only before but also during and after Jesus’ birth, her hymen miraculously restored. The brothers and sisters of Jesus are seen as either cousins or children of Joseph by an earlier marriage.

In Catholicism, Mary remains a virgin throughout her married life. This view arises not from the New Testament but from an apocryphal Gospel in the second century, the “Protoevangelium of James”, which affirms Mary’s perpetual virginity.

From the second century onwards, Christians saw virginity as an ideal, an alternative to marriage and children. Mary was seen to exemplify this choice, along with Jesus and the apostle Paul. It accorded with the surrounding culture where Greek philosophers, male and female, tried to live a simple life without attachment to family or possessions.

This extolling of virginity, however unlikely when applied to Mary, did have some advantages. The option of becoming a celibate nun in community with other women gave young women in the early church an attractive alternative to marriage, in a culture where marriages were generally arranged and death in childbirth was common.

Yet belief in the eternal virginity of Mary has also inflicted damage over the centuries, particularly on women. It has distorted the character of Mary, turning her into a submissive, dependent creature, without threat to patriarchal structures.

She is divorced from the lives of real women who can never attain her sexless motherhood or her unsullied “purity”.

A strong minded leader

Yet in the Gospels, Mary is a vibrant figure: strong-minded and courageous, a leader in the community of faith.

As the first Christian, Mary proclaims a radical message of social justice, where the poor are exalted and the powerful overthrown. She initiates Jesus’ ministry at the wedding of Cana and follows him to the cross, despite the dangers. She is a vital presence at the birth of the church at Pentecost, sharing the divine vision of a world transformed.

In line with the New Testament, the early church also gave Mary the title of “God-bearer” (Theotokos), which became part of Christian orthodoxy, not tied to her perpetual virginity.

Material art portrayed her in some contexts as a priestly figure (as in an 11th century mosaic from Ravenna), with her own autonomy and authority, where she embodies the symbolic vocation of all Christians to “give birth” to the transforming presence of Christ.

Diminishing female sexuality

In contrast to these powerful images, the alternative picture of Mary, the perpetual-married-virgin, deprives women of a model not only of leadership and courage, but also of sexual desire and passion.

Simone de Beauvoir, the influential, early French feminist, observed that the cult of the Virgin Mary represented the “supreme victory of masculinity”, implying that it served the interests of men rather than women.

The ever-Virgin diminishes women’s sexuality and makes the female body and female sexuality seem unwholesome, impure. She is a safe and nonthreatening figure for celibate men who place her on a pedestal, both literally and metaphorically.

The contradiction

It is true that Catholic women across the world have found great solace in the compassionate figure of Mary, especially against images of a very masculine, judgmental God, and the brutality of political and religious hierarchy.

But for this women have paid a price, in their exclusion from leadership. Mary’s voice has been permitted, in filtered tones, to ring out across the church, but real women’s voices are silent.

In today’s context, the cult of the Virgin becomes emblematic of the way the church silences women and marginalises their experience.

Marian piety in its traditional form has a deep contradiction at its heart. In a speech in 2014, Pope Francis said, “The model of maternity for the Church is the Virgin Mary” who “in the fullness of time conceived through the Holy Spirit and gave birth to the Son of God.”

If that were true, women could be ordained, since their connection to Mary would allow them, like her, to represent the church. If the world received the body of Christ from this woman, Mary, then women today should not be excluded from giving the body of Christ, as priests, to the faithful at Mass.

The Virgin cult cuts women off from the full, human reality of Mary, and so from full participation in the life of the church.

It is no coincidence that in the early 20th century, the Vatican forbade Mary to be depicted in priestly vestments. She could only ever be presented as the unattainable virgin-mother: never as leader, and never as a fully embodied woman in her own right.

The irony of this should not be lost. A fully human Gospel symbol of female authority, autonomy, and the capacity to envision a transformed world becomes a tool of patriarchy.

By contrast, the Mary of the Gospels, the God-bearer and priestly figure – a normal wife and mother of children – confirms women in their embodied humanity and supports their efforts to challenge unjust structures, both within and outside the church.

– ref. How the cult of Virgin Mary turned a symbol of female authority into a tool of patriarchy – http://theconversation.com/how-the-cult-of-virgin-mary-turned-a-symbol-of-female-authority-into-a-tool-of-patriarchy-127806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Quilty, Senior Staff Specialist, Alice Springs Hospital. Honorary, Australian National University

This is one of our occasional Essays on Health, about one community’s attempt at closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health in the Northern Territory. It’s a long read.

You can see the gap driving through the main street of Katherine in the Northern Territory.

The broken shop windows, the dust, the wheelchairs and crutches and bandaged bodies sing out poor health and inequity.

Overcrowding and homelessness are pervasive, and there is very little reprieve from the oppressive heat.

Like many towns of its size, Katherine has its own hospital. Here, social and environmental determinants drive hospital attendance.

For instance, the town has some of the highest rates of homelessness in Australia, in a jurisdiction with the highest incarceration rates, lowest life expectancy and the poorest educational outcomes. The gap in Katherine is a chasm.

Read more: Three reasons why the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians aren’t closing

Who’s who in the emergency department?

The hospital is a busy place, made even more so by the emergency department frequent attenders who come and go through a constantly revolving door of admission and discharge.

Frequent attenders fall into two broad categories.

Roughly one-third are very sick, wracked by illness or chronic conditions, almost all underpinned by great social challenges. Despite stereotypes, this is a group that rarely drinks alcohol.

By contrast, grog is a driving force for the other two-thirds, often as a direct result of alcohol and its complications. Once again, illness and social exclusion are pervasive.

Most frequent attenders are Indigenous. They come from around 30 different tribal nations, each with unique language. Most are just three or four generations away from the first wave of colonisation.

Just over two-thirds are homeless, a situation shaped by subtle and ongoing forces of colonisation and subsequent displacement.

Read more: Making space: how designing hospitals for Indigenous people might benefit everyone

Only one-fifth of frequent attenders have access to a car in a town with no public transport (other than school buses). This affects people’s health in the tropics where it’s a long, hot walk from where most Indigenous people live to the pharmacy.

It is really no wonder more than half of frequent attenders have not taken their medicines, contributing to their presentation to the emergency department.

For frequent presenters to Katherine Hospital, poverty and illness go hand in hand. When you are living in an over-crowded house, and the A$20 power card feeding the air conditioner expires on a 43℃ tropical day, when your heart, lungs and kidneys are chronically malfunctioning and the insulin in the fridge slowly warms, the only free number you can call for help is “000” for an ambulance trip to hospital.

These are some of the real-world challenges of closing the gap in Indigenous health. But these challenges can be overcome.

Here’s what worked

We have recently published evidence of how a locally driven program can make a difference.

When some of the town’s most vulnerable people attend the emergency department, the program connects them to primary care and other supports. It also tackles underlying drivers of hospitalisation such as homelessness or inadequate housing.

The referral point taps into a critical moment when people choose to turn up to hospital, asking for help.

This an opportunity to do things differently. As such, the program re-defines “help” beyond the biomedical paradigm, to both improve health and use limited resources more efficiently.

This contrasts with past approaches grounded in discipline and law that have failed to meaningfully help people who suffer the combined disharmony of sickness, homelessness and alcohol.

Among the 109 people supported in the first ten months of the program, there was a 23% reduction in emergency department presentations.

More GP visits

A Grattan Institute report found the most disadvantaged people living in the remotest areas are the least likely to see or have access to a GP.

In Katherine, many of the people presenting frequently to the emergency department with chronic diseases would benefit from being managed by their GP or other primary care provider.

As a result of the program, there was a 90% increase in GP attendance.

Read more: Why the housing shortage exacerbates scabies in Indigenous communities

Community support is vital

The program has been developed gradually over the past five years, first with an understanding of who the hospital’s frequent attenders are, and then getting the community on board.

Central to the program’s success is this community support. The four main partners include the hospital, the Wurli-wurlinjang local Aboriginal health service, the local Aboriginal housing organisation and Katherine Regional Aboriginal Health and Related Services.

Other partners including the first ever homeless hub in Katherine (a drop-in centre and community space for homeless people), as well as St John Ambulance, Mission Australia, Red Cross and the territory housing department.

Read more: Refugees in their own land: how Indigenous people are still homeless in modern Australia

The harsh reality of the town camp

Just off Katherine’s main drag is a patch of thick scrub that shields visitors from seeing the harsh realities of Warlpiri Transient Camp. This is where many people who frequently present to the emergency department live.

This “temporary” camp, set up over 40 years ago, houses some of the sickest people in what is one of the sickest towns in Australia.

Up to 20 people live in small dwellings bursting at the seams. These structures often provide meagre refuge to people on dialysis, with failing hearts from rheumatic heart disease, and to the elderly and frail.

Only a handful of these dwellings are air conditioned; some don’t even have electricity. Often it is sickness that drives people from ancestral lands into bigger towns like Katherine to access health services like kidney dialysis.

But housing is less available than dialysis. And the camp is not a destination of choice.

Read more: Want to improve the nation’s health? Start by reducing inequalities and improving living conditions

Our analysis of the program demonstrates some striking features of people who live in the camp and who frequently attend the emergency department.

First, they are very sick. Almost 10% had died before the end of the first year of the program. Participants had an average of 2.8 significant health problems, many fold higher than the Australian average.

Three out of five didn’t have reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. Almost one-third had chronic kidney disease, and 10% were on dialysis. Of the 11 people needing dialysis three times a week, eight met the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ definition of homelessness; three were living in a tent.

Needless to say, nowhere else in Australia is it imaginable that someone sick enough to require dialysis has to live in a tent in temperatures regularly above 40℃.

Read more: Explainer: what is chronic kidney disease and why are one in three at risk of this silent killer?

A safe home, a working fridge and a good education

Modern western medicine is the icing on the cake of a healthy and meaningful life. For people who do not have even the most fundamental building blocks of a normal urban existence, like the vast majority of people in this trial, applying western medicine is like icing a cake that has not yet been baked.

A safe home, a fridge that remains powered and relatively stocked, access to transport, and a good education, are ingredients that need to be slowly and systematically put together over a lifetime for western medicine to be an appropriate first step in resolving an individual health problem.

Applying a biomedical model of emergency care is nothing more than a very expensive band aid. But emergency departments can be structured in innovative ways to make a much bigger difference.

Read more: To close the health gap, we need programs that work. Here are three of them

– ref. How a rethink of emergency care is closing the gap, one person at a time – http://theconversation.com/how-a-rethink-of-emergency-care-is-closing-the-gap-one-person-at-a-time-127020

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Carley, Principal Engineer, Water Research Laboratory, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW

Depending on definitions, the coast of New South Wales, Australia, has about 70 ocean pools, with most located between Newcastle and Wollongong. South Africa has a comparable number, but the rest of the world has only a handful.

Why are ocean pools not more widespread? It isn’t the cost – our research suggests the public benefits of NSW ocean pools greatly outweigh the investment in building and maintaining them. And these pools do hold a special place in the hearts of the communities that use them.

Read more: Community pool projects show how citizens are helping to build cities

Architect and artist Nicole Larkin says of ocean pools:

Geographically they are outliers of the built environment poised at the threshold of our nation’s boundary. Anchored to our iconic coastline, they facilitate intimate encounters with the landscape and reflect its importance in our national psyche.

Ocean pools were not the first structures built on the Australian coast. There is a prolific network of Aboriginal fish traps around Australia, with many existing structures dating back thousands of years. Any coastal structures more than 6,000 years old now lie under the sea, as global sea levels have risen 120 metres from 21,000 years ago to 6,000 years ago.

The Bogey Hole in Newcastle is usually claimed to be the first post-European-settlement ocean pool. Convicts built it in 1819.

Most of the first ocean pools involved local residents or surf lifesavers excavating suitable sections of rock shelves and enhancing them with concrete, with many further iterations until arriving at their present form.

The earliest ocean pools in Sydney’s eastern suburbs date back to the 1880s. Many of the 15 ocean pools on Sydney’s northern beaches were constructed or upgraded as job-creation projects during the 1930s Great Depression. Many Sydney beaches have an ocean pool at each end – some even have more than one.

Why does NSW have so many?

The prevalence of ocean pools in NSW arose from a confluence of many factors – geology, climate, culture and economics.

Geology

The southern two-thirds of the NSW coast generally consists of short to medium-length sandy beaches, nestled between rocky headlands. Where those headlands are sandstone, there is an ideal balance between a material that can be fairly easily excavated, yet is stable over human time scales. These headlands have allowed pools to be sited on a stable foundation where they don’t alter the shape of the surrounding beaches or fill with too much sand.

Ocean pools and magnificent sandstone buildings are two manifestations of Sydney’s moniker “Sandstone City”.

Climate

Mild to hot air temperatures and tolerable to pleasant water temperatures – fed by the East Australian (“Nemo”) Current – are conducive to swimming, bathing and surfing.

Read more: Can you surf the East Australian Current, Finding Nemo-style?

Beach and ocean culture

Beach, ocean, swimming and surfing cultures developed in the early 1900s. Despite its pleasures, the ocean can be a dangerous place. Many people drowned in the early days of surf bathing and drownings on unpatrolled beaches continue to this day.

Ocean pools offer the pleasure of saltwater bathing by the beach, free from sharks, large waves and rips. In his poem The Ocean Baths, Les Murray described the experience:

I am not in the sea but the sea’s television.

Read more: From segregation to celebration: the public pool in Australian culture

However, almost all ocean pools have dangerous conditions at times. The Water Research Laboratory at UNSW Sydney has recently applied contemporary coastal engineering techniques for estimating wave overtopping to ocean pools. This work has reconciled the theory with the expert opinions of lifeguards and surf lifesavers for a range of pools.

Economic prosperity

Population centres near the coast, economic prosperity, along with job-creation projects during downturns also drove the construction of ocean pools.

Improved sewage disposal schemes for Sydney in the early 1990s, as well as Newcastle and Wollongong, vastly improved water quality on the beaches, further increasing the attraction of ocean pools and coastal living.

What makes a good ocean pool?

We have polled many users of ocean pools and their opinions are fairly uniform. The best ocean pools have three elements:

• a lap swimming area (preferably 50 metres long)
• a separate wading/splash area
• a space for people to congregate, as these are community gathering places.

For many users, ocean pools complement other ocean activities, rather than replace them. For example, surf lifesavers or surfers often train in them when the ocean is too flat or too dangerous.

Waves washing into pools make for spectacular photos. These can enhance the sense of wildness, the connection with nature, and flush the pool with clean seawater. But waves can also make a pool dangerous and fill the pool with sand, seaweed and sometimes boulders. So a balance is needed.

Pools repay the investment

The potential costs of maintenance (cleaning and repairs) have been cited in opposition to new ocean pools. We have surveyed the asset managers for many ocean pools and found annual maintenance costs range from about A$10,000 to A$140,000, with a typical amount of A$80,000.

The aggressive location (the “wild edge”) means most pools are refurbished at intervals of 10 to 20 years. The budgets for this work range from A$200,000 to A$1.5 million.

Pool upgrades have allowed the walls of most pools to be raised over time. This has generally outpaced recent sea level rise, but accelerating rises will require serious redesign or abandonment of many pools. Some may join the ranks of existing “ghost” pools, such as those surrounding the present Dee Why ocean pool (Isa Wye Rockpool) or the headland between Bilgola and Newport. A keen eye can spot these on Google Earth.

Improvements in pump technology and economic prosperity have meant many ocean pools now use pumps to maintain water quality, rather than relying only on wave overtopping. This allows for safer pools.

In the age of “business cases” we recently combined data on beach/pool use with the economic benefits of an aquatic facility visit from studies by the Royal Life Saving Society. This indicates a typical ocean pool has a basic economic benefit of A$2 million a year and a combined economic and health benefit of A$6 million a year. A high-use ocean pool has a basic economic benefit of A$3.5 million a year and a combined benefit of A$10 million a year.

Thus, if physically suitable and environmentally acceptable sites can be found, the economic payback on investment in an ocean pool is rapid. The people of NSW have always loved their ocean pools, so these findings only confirm their status as highly valued community assets.

The author acknowledges the contributions of Ian Coghlan, Chris Drummond, Nicole Larkin, council staff, pool users, lifeguards and volunteer lifesavers.

– ref. The timeless appeal of an ocean pool – turns out it’s a good investment, too – http://theconversation.com/the-timeless-appeal-of-an-ocean-pool-turns-out-its-a-good-investment-too-127912

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

As anticipated, the Australian government downsized a number of its economic forecasts in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) released this week.

Also as anticipated, the federal government did everything it could to retain its forecast budget surplus for 2019-20. Having pinned its economic-management credentials to one single economic statistic – remember those hokey phrases from the May budget, “back in the black” and “back on track” – it was never going to be otherwise.

Read more: 5 things MYEFO tells us about the economy and the nation’s finances

One casualty of the updated numbers is the forecast, made in May, that Australia’s net government debt would be reduced to zero by 2030. MYEFO projects that net debt in 2030 will instead be about 2% of GDP.

That is, essentially, a trivial difference. But it reveals a lot about the federal government’s view of fiscal management.

Governments living within their means

An oft-repeated line from Scott Morrison – one he used when he was treasurer as well as now he is prime minister – is that the government is “living within its means”.

If one doesn’t think about it too carefully, that phrase makes a lot of sense. Do we want governments not to live within their means?

But there’s a lot hidden in the words “live” and “means”.

The way the Morrison government likes to tell it, Australia pays a lot of interest on its foreign debt. According to official figures, the interest payment on the debt in 2018-19 was about A$14 billion.

That sounds like a lot, particularly when compared with, say, the amount of money the federal government spends on schools – A$19.6 billion in the past budget year, and about A$20.9 billion this year.

Such comparisons are made by members of the Morrison government (such as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg) quite a lot.

Yes, our interest bill is in the same ballpark as the federal government’s spending on schools. But school funding is a state responsibility. The NSW government alone spent A$17.3 billion on schools in 2018-19.

So the comparison between interest and spending on schools is misleading at best and disingenuous at worst.

If they wanted to, ministers could compare the interest payment with the amount of money the government collects from tobacco taxes – A$17.3 billion. That comparison makes our interest bill sound pretty small.

Read more: Vital Signs: why governments get addicted to smoking, gambling and other vices

Spending as an investment

What’s missing is the broader point that when the government borrows money to invest in social and physical infrastructure it can often generate returns far in excess of the interest cost.

Currently the federal government can borrow for ten years at an annual interest rate of about 1%. Investing in nation-building like road and rail infrastructure, schools, preventive medical care, mental health and recreational facilities would almost certainly generate a return of more than 1% a year.

If the government was a business it would jump at the opportunity to borrow at 1% and generate higher returns year after year (such as for education).

Read more: Vital Signs: it’s time to borrow to build

But conservative governments – as political outfits – love the narrative of belt-tightening and living within one’s means.

Beware of boondoggles

To be fair, without some financial discipline low interest rates on government debt can also be used to justify every idiotic pork-barrel project imaginable. These routinely come up on both sides of politics. Think of the Rudd government’s disastrous “pink batts” scheme, or Barnaby Joyce’s inland rail scheme.

White elephants are easy to find when governments get involved in spending without proper cost-benefit analysis. I have proposed, with my colleagues Rosalind Dixon and Alex Rosenberg, a method for doing cost-benefit analysis more rigorously to take account of the broader social benefits of government spending.

Governments aren’t households

One very simple thing to remember is that governments are not like households.

You and I will will not be around forever. When we die our financial dealings will be tallied up. Most of us would like to pass on something to our children. If we have the means and the discipline, many of us do.

But governments don’t end. They represent a population that carries on indefinitely. Their success is not measured by what gets passed on at some end point. It’s measured by what they do for the public year after year.

Sometimes that can be improved by borrowing sensibly to invest in social and physical infrastructure.

Read more: Surplus before spending. Frydenberg’s risky MYEFO strategy

In 2020 I hope we will hear less from Scott Morrison and his ministers about balanced budgets and debt elimination, and more about another phrase of his – “good debt” versus “bad debt”.

Australia is desperately in need of investment by the government – and sensible, nation-building infrastructure is definitely “good debt”.

– ref. Vital Signs: Australia’s nation-building opportunity held hostage by the deficit daleks – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-australias-nation-building-opportunity-held-hostage-by-the-deficit-daleks-129000

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cherine Fahd, Director Photography, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

We are used to being spectators of news events — viewing difficult images beamed to us from the other side of the world, the next state or the next suburb.

This spectator lens can start to feel so familiar that we become numb to what we are witnessing. News reports show us another scene of destruction, another disaster, another cry for help, another decline. We can look away from the paper, turn off the television or radio. But our social media marches on.

Instagram images of smoke, coloured orange by the bushfire sun, catch us off-guard. Social sharing of images like those of the current bushfires cuts through the resistance we’ve built up to the news cycle, chipping away at the degrees separating us from the event itself.

Bringing us closer to disaster, for better or worse.

The frame

For the most part, news images are taken by professional photographers trained to frame a decisive moment; the picture-perfect scene that will capture an “event”. Photographers know how to manipulate light and composition to create a great image. We are accustomed to seeing catastrophes through their expert eye.

Our newspapers feature stunning photographs, such as one captured recently by Sydney Morning Herald photographer Nick Moir. In it, two firefighters hold their hands to their heads while running through an apocalyptic, dizzying shower of fire.

SMH photo editor Mags King told us “images taken by professional photojournalists … still retain their visceral impact and trigger a deeper reaction or a lasting thought on the subject”.

She notes that the fire photos taken by Moir are “highly considered”.

The impact, judging by the feedback, has been tremendous. They are nightmarish, powerful, all encompassing. I think people can see that they are not snaps. These are the type of photos that make you feel and that is the skill of a photojournalist who understands the tenets of photojournalism.

Sometimes that consideration can push an image too far. In 2015, a significant number of entries (20%) were disqualified from the World Press Photo competition for excessive manipulation and post-processing.

The 2019 World Press Photo top prize went to John Moore of Getty Images for his capture of a simple image, devastating in its natural depiction of a Honduran toddler crying as she and her mother were taken into custody by US border officials in Texas.

The winning photo is framed at the height of the small child, while her mother and the official’s figures are cut at waist height. We can see the child’s emotional reaction to the events unfolding at the adult level above her.

Stop, look, read

In photojournalism, the proximity of the photographer to the event is key. Robert Capa, the photojournalist who founded Magnum Photos in 1947 with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert, famously said “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”.

Capa was so close to crisis that it cost him his life in 1954 when, at age 40, he stepped on a landmine while on assignment for Life in Northern Vietnam.

The task of the professional photojournalist — to distil a crisis artfully in an image that makes us stop, look and read — has never been more difficult. Exposure to images has reached unprecedented levels, while our trust in news has declined.

The proportion of Australians avoiding news increased from 57% in 2017 to 62% in 2019, and 28% say they are worn out by the volume of news. Meanwhile, social media analysts report 9,442,000 Instagram users in Australia in 2019, accounting for 37.2% of the country’s population.

Sharing, caring

Viewing images on Instagram offers a different, though linked, perspective to the photojournalist.

As the devastating bushfires ravage parts of New South Wales and Queensland, “ordinary” people are sharing, viewing, commenting on and “liking” images of the crisis engulfing the state.

Captured on smart phones, images posted on Instagram still frame the event as spectacle but from a different point of view. Proximity is still key, but it is gained via a different path. And the path images take to reach us is also different.

On Facebook and Twitter, news sharing from faceless sources is deemed responsible for the spread of fake news. Instagram (though owned by Facebook) is designed primarily so that images provide information. Caption plays a supporting role only.

The images are taken by amateurs and they are people we mostly know, or feel like we know, and follow on social media.

As Waleed Aly noted in response to photos on Facebook of the London Bridge attack in 2017, “images can be weaponised to evoke and reinforce existing narratives, confirm prejudices and galvanise a sense of shared outrage”.

A social stage

The algorithmic bubble that drives our social media feed, exposes us to images and sentiments that mirror our own. But increasingly, the public is suspicious of “spin” in news and images of crisis transmitted to us through news outlets that are owned by those with political biases, special interests and powers.

Researchers in Finland who studied issues of trustworthiness in amateur images in newspapers versus professional images, found that people tended to trust amateur ones more than the professional.

The amateur snaps were imbued with authenticity, and a lack of vested interests associated with news corporations.

That same authenticity might be available to us via Instagram, ironically the natural home of colour filters, selfies and silicon enhancements.

According to sociologist and social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson, the ontology of the “social photo” — the fundamentals of its reason for being — is sharing.

“Social photos are not primarily about making media but about sharing eyes,” he writes.

Images shared among friends and followers fuel a “social process” as catalysts for dialogue. Like the newspaper once did, Instagram offers a communal conversation.

While Instagram is a brand that carries a slick aesthetic, the feature of sharing and commenting creates a collective cultural archive. News photography can affect change but our responses to these images have reportedly dimmed as we become inured to images of children like three-year-old Alan Kurdi caught up in the refugee crisis.

Instagram has become a repository that collects and organises images through its various tools of hashtags and geolocation. More than just the playground for “influencers” and their polished images, it is the contemporary family album that also features images from connections who act as “our man on the ground” photojournalist.

Read more: Ten photos that changed how we see human rights

Closer to home

One might encounter a stream of images in seemingly random succession: a hotel room in Cologne, a family pet, children playing in the suburbs, a duck-faced selfie, a red sun, an image of smoke obscuring the Sydney Opera House, a radio announcer posing with Samuel L. Jackson, a friend’s son ice-skating somewhere, riots in Hong Kong, the army approaching protestors angrily in Beirut, fresh paint on canvas.

The images in this eclectic stream catch the viewer off-guard: images of crisis are couched within images of everyday life with kids, cats, selfies and fires.

These are not news images that comply with the tenets of photojournalism; they are taken on a smart phone and shared immediately. The snapshot taken by your friend on Instagram, as compared to the framed shot by a professional photojournalist, has a different kind of “proximity”.

In the age of Instagram, being close enough to take the good picture — in Robert Capa’s terms — means not just proximity to the scene or event, but also proximity to a social network that will receive the post in their feed (unless posts are, in turn, re-purposed by a news outlet).

So when someone you follow — who is a friend — “reports” on the fire from their backyard, it stops you in your tracks. A picture of a tree fern covered in lurid pink fire retardant shows how close the fire came.

Looking back on the same friend’s feed to see a bucolic photograph of a similar tree fern amongst daisies, only enhances the tragedy by showing what was once there and what has been destroyed in the fires.

For the viewer of the image, proximity means closeness to the person who took the photograph. It is this social connection — “kinship” in anthropological terms — to the photographer that can impact the way we respond to that image.

In the social realm, care and concern turns spectatorship into an act of obligated looking. Such an ethical response means we resist the impulse to look away.

– ref. Friday essay: seeing the news up close, one devastating post at a time – http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-seeing-the-news-up-close-one-devastating-post-at-a-time-128774

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

Dear Michael, Josh, David, et al

Sorry to have left you all without my guiding hand this week. But Jen and I really needed the break. And the girls too – it’s hard when you’re the kids of the nation’s Daggy Dad.

We were all exhausted. And then came that smoke over Kirribilli – last straw.

I’d hoped to keep my absence nice and private, especially from those quiet Australians fighting fires. (By the way, David, I saw you planned to join your local rural fire service. Great idea. Get yourself pictured fully kitted.)

Regrettably, despite best efforts, my press office wasn’t able to keep a lid on the story. How useless are they!! Just joking. Our media favourites played ball, but as for some others … and social media went mad. I was called such mean things.

TV found the old footage of my criticising then Victorian police chief Christine Nixon’s “bad judgment call” when she dined out during the Victorian fires. Lines for times, I say. As for Lara Worthington’s (née Bingle) “WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU???” tweet: Listen Lara, just leave being the smart aleck to me.

Albo didn’t join the pile on. Said it would be “cheap politics”. Clever Albo.

I do admit (in the privacy of this correspondence, which you leak at your peril) it wasn’t such a good look to be out of the country this week.

Still, you put it well on TV, Josh: “He’s having a well deserved break … He’ll be back at work shortly and then he’ll be off to India leading a delegation to advance Australia’s interests.” Made it clear I’ll be slaving in January.

Michael, I loved that as acting PM you celebrated running the country from Wagga. Not a man to get above his station, although a few eyebrows did go up when you said Wagga “is finally the nation’s capital”. Anyway, Wagga has had only a smidgeon of smoke. You could hardly see your hand in front of your face in the actual capital, so my staff told me.

Remember when Doug Anthony used to run the show from a caravan somewhere? Mind you, back then people were told Malcolm Fraser was on hols and even, I think, usually where he was. Often on a motor bike down at Nareen. John Howard loved holidaying at Hawks Nest – so Australian – until too many Aussie battlers started bugging him.

Josh, you did a great job with MYEFO. Those numbers look rather ominous, but you’re always a man of cheer. And Mathias is a rock. Thank goodness he’s denied the silly rumour about pulling the pin.

If he wasn’t there, who’d wrangle Pauline and Jacqui? Have a wine with Labor’s Penny Wong? And the odd beer with Centre Alliance’s Rex Patrick? Mathias certainly needs a holiday.

I’m praying the economic figures turn upwards soon. Otherwise the backbench could be in a funk. Like the Reserve Bank recently, with Phil Lowe talking his head off, often with messages I don’t want to hear. Too much independence. If they were the public service, they’d be to heel by now.

Anyway Joshie, we’ll be okay. If things get bad, if people don’t spend over Christmas, we’ll fit up Albo, blame Labor, and save the day with a stimulatory May budget. But if the economy is indeed at the “gentle turning point” the bank suggests in its rare sanguine moments, you and I will share the glory (just a little bigger slice for me).

Meanwhile do you, as deputy Liberal leader, have any ideas about Angus? I can’t shift him from energy, at least not for a while. But really, he’s a walking fire cracker. (By the way, Josh, some day you must tell me your own tales of Oxford.)

Were you ever a boy scout Josh? What about that cubs’ buddying system? Could we buddy Angus with someone? You perhaps? No? You’ve had enough of all that emissions stuff from Malcolm’s day?

Oh well, let’s all mull over the challenge. We’ll call it the “Taylor project”. Someone might think of something.

It can’t be harder than the religious discrimination project, the good-idea-at-the-time that’s testing Christian. I see Stuart Robert (how good a mate is Stewie!) told The Australian he reads the Bible “cover to cover every year”. Might be easier than reading our revised bill.

Christian, you won’t have an easy new year but, to adapt an old phrase, it will make a minister of you. After you finish with the prelates, you need to get Jackie’s vote on that union bill. My advice: fly to Tassie, source a good red, find the best pizza joint in town. Mathias will prep you.

David, I felt for you this week, trying to deal with state ministers shrieking like banshees at the possibility of changing water policy. Talk about herding wild boars! They’re impossible, all absurdly pursuing the narrow self-interests of their own states. Really, sometimes federalism just sucks. Pity Malcolm lost interest in that inquiry into it that Tony started.

But David, I must say it was a touch risky to promise those farmers yelling for more irrigation water that you’d hold this review into their grievance (even if it’s headed by an ex-cop and I agreed at the time).

Yes David, I know they were in very big trucks, which can be quite intimidating when they’re outside parliament house. But what if we can’t deliver to them? What if the states put their little feet down? The trucks could return.

Best to get some advice from your new head of department Andrew Metcalfe. You’ll be glad I brought him back to bubbleland. Good man, Metcalfe, with plenty of experience of tricky situations. Ran the immigration department when all those boats were arriving under Labor. Tony sacked him when we won in 2013 – he’d made a few unfortunate reflections on our policy – but all that’s ancient history.

It’ll be a great Christmas for Andrew, enjoying the glow of vindication. Not so good for the departmental secretaries I’ve just dismissed from the bubble. Still, that’s how the cookie crumbles, as they say. If Bill Shorten hadn’t been so hopeless, the quiet Australians could have ousted me.

Then I might have quit parliament and been looking for a post-politics career in the new year.

Back in tourism? Nah. Imagine selling Australia as a destination just now. Even I decided to holiday offshore.

Yours, with authority, Scott

P.S. I have selfies to share in cabinet. They’re classified top secret. For national security, AKA political, reasons.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Scott Morrison’s Christmas letter to the colleagues – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-scott-morrisons-christmas-letter-to-the-colleagues-129140

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland

Last week Aung San Suu Kyi took the stand at the International Court of Justice to defend Myanmar against charges of genocide.

A 2017 military campaign against the Muslim Rohingya expelled more than 700,000 from Rakhine State into Bangladesh. Survivors recounted numerous mass executions, rapes and other atrocities. The ferocity and scale of this violence is based on longstanding denial of the Rohingya’s right to belong in Myanmar.

Nationalists have long derided the Rohingya as illegal Bengali immigrants. A 1982 citizenship law excluded them from a list of “national races” because they had not arrived in Myanmar before 1823.

The seeds of a similar situation have now been planted in India under an increasingly nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Like in Myanmar, the likely epicentre of a violent contest over who belongs and who does not is a remote state bordering Bangladesh: Assam.

This year, a statewide government program, known as the National Register of Citizens, verified the citizenship of all residents. It identified 1.9 million people as illegal immigrants.

Read more: India’s new citizenship act legalizes a Hindu nation

Excluding Muslims

As it became apparent that just as many Hindus as Muslims lacked adequate documentation, the BJP submitted a new bill to parliament, which was quickly passed by both houses. The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a path to citizenship for all Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians who can claim persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan and arrived in India before 2014.

Muslims are conspicuously absent from the list, despite the persecution of Ahmadis and Shia in the three states. No mention was given of the neighbouring states with some of the worst violations of minority rights: China and Myanmar. The reason is clear – the persecuted groups there are Muslim.

Those excluded from the National Register of Citizens can appeal to specially created foreigner tribunals, but these are likely to be highly politicised. The next and final step of appeal is the Supreme Court, but this is beyond the financial means of most.

Detention will then await, just as in Rakhine. The Indian government is currently building a 3,000-person detention centre in Assam’s Goalpara district. Unrecognised as citizens by Bangladesh, these people will be rendered stateless, just as the Rohingya before them.

Read more: Tampering with history: how India’s ruling party is erasing the Muslim heritage of the nation’s cities

A volatile history

If Assam’s history is any guide, this repression will be accompanied by political violence. The last period of turmoil over illegal immigration, known as the Assam Movement of 1979 to 1985, saw widespread protests, strikes and insurgency.

Ignited by claims voting rolls contained the names of hundreds of thousands of non-citizens, the period involved extensive communal violence. The main targets were people the movement deemed to be immigrants, particularly those of Bengal-origin. In a single incident, the Nellie Massacre, a mob killed more than 2,000 people.

I have written elsewhere about recent anti-migrant massacres in Assam in 2012 and 2014 in which mobs killed several hundred members of the Bengali Muslim and Advivasi communities. Widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act have broken out in the state in recent days, not at the exclusion of Muslims as elsewhere in India, but at the impending naturalisation of Hindus and other groups.

The dangers of violence in Assam are real. A former chief minister of the state described it as a powder keg of ethnic tensions.

Read more: In India’s Assam, a solidarity network has emerged to help those at risk of becoming stateless

Assam’s future in a nationalist India

The BJP president, Amit Shah, has stated that the National Register of Citizens will be conducted throughout India. During the April 2019 national election, Shah said:

Illegal immigrants are like termites. They are eating the grain that should go to the poor, they are taking our jobs.

He said that after coming to power, the party would throw the termites into the Bay of Bengal but would grant citizenship to every Hindu and Buddhist refugee. This is similar nativist and genocidal language to that used by the Myanmar army chief as the military began its campaign against the Rohingya:

The Bengali problem was a longstanding one which has become an unfinished job.

It seems unlikely violence on the scale perpetrated by the military in Rakhine State in Myanmar will occur in India. The militaries of the two countries have very different relationships with civilian political actors, and Muslims play an important political role in Assam and can therefore (to some extent) moderate the behaviour of nationalists.

But India has set itself on a nationalist trajectory under the BJP, and the end point is uncertain. There were warnings of impending genocide in Myanmar in the years before 2017. By the end of that year it was too late. There are now warnings of similar violence against Muslims in India, but there is still time to act.

– ref. A new law in India could put Muslims at greater risk of persecution, like the Rohingya – http://theconversation.com/a-new-law-in-india-could-put-muslims-at-greater-risk-of-persecution-like-the-rohingya-129075

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

The US House of Representatives voted today to impeach President Donald Trump, making him the third president in the history of the United States to be impeached.

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump.

The first stated that Trump committed an impeachable offence by withholding $391 million in military aid from the Ukraine until its government announced an investigation into the activities of Joe Biden, a potential political opponent of Trump’s in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.

Read more: Can Congress hold Trump accountable? 4 essential reads on a historic power struggle

The article states the president “abused the powers of the Presidency,” “betrayed the nation,” and remains an ongoing “threat to national security and the Constitution”.

The second article is worded just as strongly. It claims that Trump obstructed due process in pressuring government agencies and officials to defy multiple subpoenas issued by the congressional committees established to investigate the president’s actions in relation to the Ukraine.

Referring to Trump, it states:

In the history of the Republic, no president has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate “high crimes and misdemeanours” – the Constitutional standard justifying the impeachment of a sitting president.

These are obviously very serious charges.

Prior to today’s vote, impeachment has only happened twice in American history – once in 1868 when President Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing a cabinet colleague, and again in 1998 when President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about and covering up his relationship with an intern, Monica Lewinsky. President Richard Nixon resigned before being formally impeached over his involvement in Watergate.

Impeachment is a political act. Conviction is unlikely

Legal debates about what constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanours” are ever present in these types of proceedings. But impeachment is ultimately a political act.

It requires a majority in the House of Representatives to impeach and a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate (67 Senators) to convict.

Democrats control the 435 member House of Representatives with 232 sitting members, giving them a clear majority. Republicans control the Senate 53-45 (with two independents).

That makes the likelihood of achieving 67 votes required for a conviction unlikely.

So far, events are unfolding as many predicted. The house voted largely along party lines to impeach the president on both articles, which means a legal trial will now be held in the Senate starting in January.

Given the Republican majority in the Senate, it is hard to see the president being convicted. As a result, Trump’s impeachment is anti-climactic because justice is likely to be thwarted by partisanship.

Just as worrying, Trump has demonstrated that the more corrupt and mendacious the behaviour of a candidate and then president is, the lower the expectations the public and their party has for them. How long lasting this corruption of basic democratic standards will be is hard to tell.

What to expect in 2020

Events will move fast next year: the Senate trial will be completed within the first few months of 2020, which means the country’s attention will then shift to the presidential race. If, as expected, Trump survives in office, what matters then is the court of public opinion.

Republicans prefer a quick trial, as public opinion has not shifted against the president as Democrats hoped it would as more information was revealed.

According to a recent CNN poll, support for convicting and removing Trump from office stands at 45%, which is down from 50% in a poll conducted in mid-November. When it comes to registered Democrats, 77% support conviction, but this too is down from 90% recorded in November.

When it comes to the swing states that could decide the next presidential election, citizens are split, with 46% wanting removal and 45% opposed.

These numbers do not provide a great deal of guidance as to whether impeachment is going to help or hurt Trump’s re-election chances in 2020.

Read more: Trump will cling to power — and Republicans will cling to him

Growing disengagement

One of the more troubling aspects to emerge from recent opinion polling is that there is a large minority of Americans who are disengaged from this whole process. Impeaching a president is a political act, but it is also the most serious action that can be taken against a sitting president.

As Richard Nixon put it, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.”

However, according to a new Washington-Post ABC News poll, while 62% of respondents said they were following events closely, 38% said they were either only paying modest attention, or not paying any attention at all.

This is troubling, for whatever one thinks about Trump’s policies, he is a populist president who sees democratic institutions as a hindrance to his rule.

When such a large minority expresses disinterest in his impeachment, it is a toxic mix of a leader eager to sideline democratic institutions and a large bloc of voters unable and unwilling to make a considered judgement on whether or not “their president is a crook.”

This, of course, may be symptomatic of the Trump era. One crisis – even one as grave as impeachment – is simply replaced by another crisis in due course, all of which, in more tranquil times, might have spelled the end of a presidency – but not so in the age of Trump.

It is as if the boundaries between right and wrong, between authoritarianism and democracy, between truth and lies, have become so blurred that citizens no longer know where to take their stand, or they simply retreat into a knee-jerk partisanship which no longer requires critical thought.

Next year will begin with the Senate trial of Trump. He will be most likely acquitted by the Republican majority.

Attention will then turn to the race for the White House. Trump’s approval numbers are not good, but they are salvageable. More twists and turns will surely follow impeachment proceedings. In the Trump era, we should expect nothing less.

Impeachment is not the end of the process for Trump.

– ref. Donald Trump has become the third president in US history to be impeached. He’s unlikely to be convicted – http://theconversation.com/donald-trump-has-become-the-third-president-in-us-history-to-be-impeached-hes-unlikely-to-be-convicted-128302

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University

Julian Assange may be an odious character in the eyes of some. He may not be a journalist in the estimation of others. He may be regarded as a serial pest by his detractors, but his case in the British courts has become a cause celebre for free speech and civil liberties advocates.

In a London magisrate’s court on Friday, early shots will be fired in the Assange defence team’s efforts to block his extradition to the United States on 17 charges under the Espionage Act with a separate indictment under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Assange is facing a jail sentence of 175 years on alleged breaches of the Espionage Act, and further penalty under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Read more: Explainer: what charges does Julian Assange face, and what’s likely to happen next?

At issue, and separate from the extradition proceedings, is whether an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spied on Assange during his seven years in the Ecuador embassy, after taking refuge there in 2012.

He sought Ecuadorian diplomatic protection to avoid extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual misconduct. Those charges have been cancelled.

British authorities arrested Assange in April this year after he was ejected from the embassy. Bail was refused on grounds he had absconded before.

Spain’s national court will hear evidence on whether Spanish surveillance company UC Global had provided transcripts, videos and other material from surveillance equipment secretly installed to monitor Assange’s private communications. It is alleged these were provided to the CIA.

Assange is due to give testimony via video link from Belmarsh prison outside London to the Spanish court, and in person, also by video link, at Westminster Magistrate’s Court.

Findings in this case will inform arguments against his extradition to the United States. Those extradition hearings are set to begin before a London magistrate’s court on February 24 2020.

Among extradition claims is that he coached former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning into cracking a password on the Pentagon computer to obtain top-secret material about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These became known as the “war logs” and included graphic video of an Apache helicopter attack on Iraqi civilians. This attack led to the deaths of two Reuters journalists.

The US application for extradition relates to Assange’s WikiLeaks activities before – not during – the 2016 presidential election. In those elections it’s widely believed he collaborated with Russia to publish leaked documents from the Democratic National Committee to undermine Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump said more than once he “loved” WikiLeaks. However, within a year or so his administration was pursuing Assange for alleged breaches of the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

What happens now?

The Assange saga will drag on for months, if not years, before the UK courts, as his British lawyers fight the extradition proceedings tooth and nail.

This is a highly complex case – if it reaches the US court system, it will involve arguments about whether Assange was performing the role of a journalist or whistleblower and therefore entitled to First Amendment free speech protections.

In the first instance, his defence team will no doubt contend that his extradition is excluded under Britain’s extradition treaty with the US. This includes an exception for political offences.

In other words, the case has the potential, even the likelihood, of becoming a broader argument about the extraterritorial reach of the US. This leaves aside a free speech argument about the definition of what is, and what is not, journalism in a social media age.

The Obama administration had considered and then baulked at seeking Assange’s extradition, after concluding it would be perilous to charge him under the Espionage Act. This act does not make a distinction between journalists and non-journalists.

Read more: New indictments set up a confrontation between the US and Julian Assange

Obama-era Justice Department attorneys had also concluded that a First Amendment defence, questioning the definition of what constitutes journalism in the US, would vastly complicate attempts to convict.

American publications, including principally The New York Times, had collaborated with Assange in the publication of material from war logs whose disclosure embarrassed the US government.

In its reporting of the Assange matter, the Times has been assiduous in its defence of journalistic inquiry. The paper commented:

Though he is not a conventional journalist, much of what Mr Assange does at WikiLeaks is difficult to distinguish in a legally meaningful way from what traditional news organizations like the Times do: seek and publish information that officials want to be secret, including classified national security matters, and take steps to protect the confidentiality of sources.

The above reflects widespread concern among American media about implications more broadly for reporting sensitive national security issues that might themselves become subject to the Espionage Act.

Other publications across the world, among them The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais, also cooperated with Assange. Newspapers in his native Australia published extensively from the leaked documents.

View from Assange’s homeland

In Australia, support for Assange has been patchy. The Australian government has gone through the motions in providing him with consular assistance.

However, in recent months a trickle of support for Assange has emerged. Politicians from both sides of politics have expressed their concerns about the possibility of him being extradited to the US on charges that would confine him to jail for the rest of his life.

The prospect of a life sentence would be very real.

As Assange’s case proceeds, it is likely support for him will build. In the process, this will pressure the Australian government to do more to persuade the Americans to back off.

A risk for Canberra is that inaction would be interpreted as being complicit in Assange’s removal to the US.

Australian journalism has been conflicted over the degree to which Assange should be supported, with arguments for and against. These have centred on his practice of simply dumping documents into the public domain without subjecting them to rigorous editorial processes.

However, what has not been properly addressed by those Australian journalists who have been quick to disavow him is whether Assange should be extradited for what amounts to a capital crime for leaking material that their own news organisations disseminated.

Perhaps we should leave the last word to former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, whose organisation collaborated with – then fell out with – Assange in the publication of the “war logs”.

Rusbridger defends Assange against attempts to extradite him on grounds that “whatever Assange got up to in 2010-11, it was not espionage”.

He alludes to perhaps the strongest argument against Assange’s removal to the US to face charges under the Espionage Act. This is that he is not a US citizen and his alleged crimes were committed outside the US. This is the extraterritorial argument.

Rusbridger quotes Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists who observed:

Under this rubric anyone anywhere in the world who publishes information that the US government deems to be classified could be prosecuted for espionage.

It is a good point.

– ref. As Assange faces court over extradition attempts, the case is complex and the stakes are high – http://theconversation.com/as-assange-faces-court-over-extradition-attempts-the-case-is-complex-and-the-stakes-are-high-128999

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lueck, Professor of Tourism, Auckland University of Technology

Boeing has announced it will halt production of the beleaguered B737-MAX series from January. Boeing’s announcement this week follows the grounding of the aircraft after two fatal crashes.

After the first crash, of Lion Air in Indonesia in October 2018, people blamed poor maintenance and insufficient pilot training. When a second airliner, of Ethiopian Air, crashed in March 2019, similarities quickly transpired. There was no apparent external influence such as poor weather. Neither was there any interference with the flight decks, as in a hijacking.

In both cases the pilots could not keep the aircraft from nose-diving. Airlines and regulators around the world started grounding the MAX indefinitely. Australia’s Civil Aviation Authority prohibited any B737MAX aircraft in its airspace, followed by New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Surprisingly, the last authority to clamp down was the US Federal Aviation Administration, the governmental body in charge of certifying aircraft.

At first, Boeing was optimistic the aircraft would re-enter service by the end of this year, but recertification has been delayed several times. Globally, 387 delivered and about 400 undelivered MAX aircraft are grounded. The production shutdown is expected to take several months, with ramifications for suppliers and thousands of jobs at risk.

Read more: Boeing 737 Max: The FAA wanted a safe plane – but didn’t want to hurt America’s biggest exporter either

Aircraft computer system likely at fault

The suspected cause of the problems on board the two doomed airliners was a system new to the latest iteration of the previously best-selling commercial aircraft – the B737. The MAX series, the fourth generation of the aircraft, entered service in 1968 in its first version (B737-100). The 737MAX is the latest version and started flying in 2018.

Boeing’s main competitor, Airbus, developed the A320 family in the same category of the B737, but included new, more fuel-efficient engines. Boeing was under pressure to counter this when it developed the MAX series.

It shifted its larger new engines to provide more ground clearance, but this changed the balance of the aircraft and it tended to pitch up. Boeing created a computer system called Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which would detect any unwanted upward pitch and automatically force the nose down.

Shortly after take-off, the Lion Air 737MAX pilots struggled to stay in the air. The aircraft kept pulling down despite the nose not pitching up. Similarly, the pilots of the Ethiopian flight were not able to control the continuous forcing down of the nose.

Crash investigations are yet to be completed, but information released so far points to Boeing’s computer system and a faulty gauge that measures the angle at which the aircraft is flying.

Since the grounding, Boeing has worked tirelessly on a software fix, but regulators found other issues. This includes problems with software affecting flaps and other flight-control hardware, and issues with rudder cables potentially affected by a so-called uncontained engine failure. In the latter, parts of the engine blades detach and may fly at high speed into the fuselage, severing these cables.

Read more: Boeing 737 Max: air safety, market pressures and cockpit technology

Cutting corners at cost of safety

It is becoming increasingly clear Boeing has cut corners, presumably under pressure from the performance of its Airbus competitor. Boeing has been accused of delivering the aircraft before it was ready to fly safely.

It has transpired that Boeing may have been aware of computer system problems even before the Lion Air crash, but delivered the aircraft without modification or information to airlines. Even after the crash, Boeing did not halt deliveries. Instead it worked to fix the software and told pilots there was a potential problem.

The Federal Aviation Administration did not intervene either, despite its own analysis showing that, without intervention, the plane was likely to crash about one or two times a year. Equally astonishing is that the pilot manual for the MAX did not mention the new system. Instead, training for pilots moving from the previous 737NG to the new 737MAX consisted of a 56-minute iPad video, but no training in flight simulators.

A Joint Authorities Technical Review found:

The lack of a unified top-down development and evaluation of the system function and its safety analyses, combined with the extensive and fragmented documentation, made it difficult to assess whether compliance was fully demonstrated.

Boeing taking on part of aircraft certification

In a hearing by the US House Transportation Committee, a whistleblower revealed he urged Boeing managers to halt production because of mistakes, errors and corner cutting, as well as an overworked workforce.

Of further concern is that the Federal Aviation Administration has shifted some of its work to the manufacturer. Boeing now does parts of the certification process. This is not in the interest of safety. Overseas regulators, such the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, have criticised this approach.

The MAX disaster has already cost Boeing billions of dollars. Prior to the grounding, it produced 52 aircraft per month. It has since reduced production to 40, all of which are now parked.

The production halt will have ripple effects on US suppliers, with tens of thousands of jobs at risk. The fallout is likely to affect the wider US economy and many suppliers in Europe and in China.

I have flown on many Boeing aircraft and never felt unsafe. But with recent problems with the Dreamliner, the MAX and most recently the 777X, I question if Boeing has shifted from a safety first philosophy to prioritising profits and dividends for its shareholders.

– ref. Grounded: what’s behind Boeing’s production shutdown of MAX aircraft – http://theconversation.com/grounded-whats-behind-boeings-production-shutdown-of-max-aircraft-129077

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

How did our galaxy form? How do galaxies evolve over time? Where did the Sun’s lost siblings end up?

Three hours north-east of Parkes lies a remote astronomical research facility, unpolluted by city lights, where researchers are collecting vast amounts of data in an effort to unlock some of the biggest questions about our Universe.

Siding Spring Observatory, or SSO, is one of Australia’s top sites for astronomical research. You’ve probably heard of the Parkes telescope, made famous by the movie The Dish, but SSO is also a key character in Australia’s space research story.

In this episode, astrophysics student and Conversation intern Cameron Furlong goes to SSO to check out the huge Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT), the largest optical telescope in Australia.

Read more: Darkness is disappearing and that’s bad news for astronomy

And we hear about Huntsman, a new specialised telescope that uses off-the-shelf Canon camera lenses – a bit like those you see sports photographers using at the cricket or the footy – to study very faint regions of space around other galaxies.

Listen in to hear more about some of the most fascinating space research underway in Australia – and how, despite gruelling hours and endless paperwork, astronomers retain their sense of wonder for the night sky.

“For me, it means remembering how small I am in this enormous Universe. I think it’s very easy to forget, when you go about your daily life,” said Richard McDermid, an ARC Future Fellow and astronomer at Macquarie University.

“It’s nice to get back into it to a dark place and having a clear sky. And then you get to remember all the interesting and fascinating things, the size, the grandeur and the peacefulness of being in the dark.”

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Read more: Trust Me, I’m An Expert: what science says about how to lose weight and whether you really need to

Additional audio

Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks.

Lucky Stars by Podington Bear from Free Music Archive.

Slimheart by Blue Dot Sessions from Free Music Archive.

Illumination by Kai Engel from Free Music Archive.

Phase 2 by Xylo-Ziko from Free Music Archive.

Extra Dimensions by Kri Tik from Free Music Archive.

Pure Water by Meydän, from Free Music Archive.

Images

Shutterstock

Cameron Furlong

Read more: Antibiotic resistant superbugs kill 32 plane-loads of people a week. We can all help fight back

– ref. ‘The size, the grandeur, the peacefulness of being in the dark’: what it’s like to study space at Siding Spring Observatory – http://theconversation.com/the-size-the-grandeur-the-peacefulness-of-being-in-the-dark-what-its-like-to-study-space-at-siding-spring-observatory-128998

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kira Westaway, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University

Imagine your child asked you “When did grandma die?” and you could only respond “It was probably a while ago, but it could have been quite recently.” Most likely your child would be unsatisfied with the reply.

This has been our situation regarding the ancient human species Homo erectus. We know these distant cousins of modern humans were alive almost 2 million years ago, but when did they die out? Probably a while ago, but perhaps quite recently.

A key site in our understanding of Homo erectus, at Ngandong, in Java, Indonesia, has until now defeated all attempts at reliable dating since it was first excavated more than 90 years ago.

With the aid of new techniques, we have now found that the Ngandong Homo erectus fossils are the most recent known specimens, dating from between 117,000 and 108,000 years ago.

This discovery will help us understand where they sit in the evolutionary tree, who they interacted with and why they became extinct.

Read more: A snapshot of our mysterious ancestor Homo erectus

The discovery at Ngandong

In 1931, a team of Dutch archaeologists made an unbelievable discovery at Ngandong when they unearthed 12 skulls and two leg bones of Homo erectus. Finding even one fossil human skull is remarkable, but finding 12 together is almost miraculous.

Other Homo erectus skulls have been found in Java and elsewhere, but the ones at Ngandong have the largest brain size and highest forehead of any of them.

This indicates an important evolutionary change, and knowing when it happened is crucial to our interpretation and understanding of these ancient cousins.

However, the nature of the site – where the fossils were buried in a deposit of sediment close to the Solo River – makes it difficult to determine how old the fossils are. Many attempts have been made to establish a timeline for the site, but until now none have been very successful.

Difficulties of dating

In 1931, when Ngandong was excavated, archaeologists relied heavily on the estimated age of the associated fossil fauna to date the Homo erectus remains.

By 1996, better dating techniques such as electron spin resonance and uranium-series dating were available. A team led by American geochronologist Carl Swisher applied these techniques to ancient buffalo teeth found at the Ngandong site.

Using the buffalo teeth dating, Swisher claimed that Homo erectus survived as recently as 27,000 years ago. This would overlap with the arrival of our own species, Homo sapiens, in the region.

However, examining the plans from the original excavation revealed the Dutch team had dug up and reburied an enormous area of ground. It turned out the buffalo teeth Swisher dated came from an area that had already been excavated and buried again.

This meant they could not have come from the same layer as the 12 Homo erectus skulls, so their ages were not related.

Despite the issues with Swisher’s dating, the theory that Homo erectus survived so recently has persisted in the literature and our understanding of Ngandong since 1996.

In 2011, at team led by Indonesian researcher Etty Indriati re-dated the site and obtained ages between 130 and 500,000 years. But again they focused mainly on dating the non-human fossil evidence and ignored the sedimentary context.

Consequently, the age range is too wide to provide much help in reconstructing the evolutionary significance of Ngandong.

Reading the river

Recently, we were part of a team of Indonesian, American, and Australian researchers led by Yan Rizal who tried a different approach. We worked on an understanding that the site is in a river deposit that is part of a sequence of floodplain steps called terraces.

Our study was based on how the Solo River system was created (landscape context), how the terraces were formed (terrace context), and how the fossils were deposited (fossil context).

To do this we first dated when the Southern Mountains in Java were formed – to define when the Solo River was diverted to the north to form the terraces. We then dated the sequence of river terrace sediments using a technique called optically stimulated luminescence dating, which provided the first ever sedimentary age for the site.

Finally, we conducted extensive excavations at Ngandong in carefully selected areas using maps from previous excavations. These new excavations revealed the same bone bed found by the Dutch in 1931 and provided evidence directly associated with the human fossils that could also be dated.

Read more: Old teeth from a rediscovered cave show humans were in Indonesia more than 63,000 years ago

A new age

The analysis resulted in 52 new ages that were modelled to precisely define the age of the original bone layer to 117–108,000 years ago. This is the youngest reliable age for Homo erectus in Indonesia, and the last appearance of Homo erectus anywhere in the world.

At this age, Homo erectus would not have encountered Homo sapiens, but they may have met other now-extinct human species such as the enigmatic Denisovans. First discovered in the cold caves of Russia, the Denisovans are mostly known from traces of their DNA in modern humans rather than actual fossils. The Denisovans might have been distributed as far as Southeast Asia.

The new age range now raises important questions about the interactions between the Denisovans and the Ngandong Homo erectus. Could interbreeding with Denisovans be the source of the evolutionary change and larger skulls in this late Homo erectus population?

This possibility is yet to be proven. But it is clear that this improved age for the Ngandong Homo erectus has opened new lines of investigation that can provide a window into understanding the complex world of human evolution.

We are finally ready to get to know our extended family.

– ref. When did _Homo erectus_ die out? A fresh look at the demise of an ancient human species over 100,000 years ago – http://theconversation.com/when-did-homo-erectus-die-out-a-fresh-look-at-the-demise-of-an-ancient-human-species-over-100-000-years-ago-126181

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University

The final report of the Independent Review of the Australian Public Service is much more substantial than its interim report. That is hardly a high hurdle, but its 18-page bibliography suggests considerable reflection beyond the (mostly disappointing) submissions and commissioned papers.

However, the report still has an excessive amount of rhetoric and is not an easy read.

Broadly, its themes are:

• a united service

• partnerships beyond the APS

• embracing new technology

• investing in people and capability

• a more dynamic and responsive operational model

• improved leadership and governance.

There are many sensible recommendations, but detail is often missing and analysis weak. Some recommendations reveal a surprising lack of understanding of the public sector.

The central theme of a “united” service is overdone, notwithstanding the case for greater coordination today. The APS does not need “an inspiring purpose and vision” – the first objective set out in the Public Service Act 1999 is clear. It is:

to establish an apolitical public service that is efficient and effective in serving the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public.

The APS Values also define the role of the APS as an institution. The review might have made more of the High Court’s references to these in confirming the constitutional standing of the APS.

Read more: View from The Hill: Morrison won’t have a bar of public service intrusions on government’s power

The review is right to press for a better coordinated service today, retreating from the late 1990s devolution under the new public management model. That Australia went too far is very clear (particularly on pay and conditions). Public expectations in light of modern technology are also demanding much greater connectivity today.

But the review goes too far the other way. The APS performs a wide range of functions, each requiring specialist expertise.

The Secretaries Board is not like a private sector board. Cabinet and ministers are the primary decision-makers under the Constitution, and secretaries’ first responsibilities are within their portfolios, serving and advising their ministers and delivering services and implementing government policies. At the centre it will always be primarily the responsibility of the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) to do the administrative coordination, though necessarily in close consultation with secretaries and other agency heads.

Perhaps the most valuable contribution of the report relates to the application of new technology. It makes a convincing case for very substantial new capital investments over many years and for increasing allocations for minor capital investment. These, and the associated building of skills, are necessary for more citizen-centred services and a more digitally enabled administration.

The report is also on the right track with several other themes:

• invest in people and strengthen capability

• reduce hierarchy and promote more dynamic teamwork across the service

• improve governance and leadership, including by firmer merit-based approaches to appointments.

But the report pulls its punches about the causes of the problems. It could have been clearer about what needs to be fixed.

Why has strategic policy advising capacity declined and other expertise been lost? Why has evaluation activity and skills dropped away? Why has the APS become more risk-averse and hierarchical?

Thankfully, the Thodey Report does include recommendations aimed at strengthening the standing of the APS and clarifying relations with the government and the parliament. These include:

• the accountability and integrity of ministerial staff

• secretary and other agency head appointments and terminations, the respective roles of the APSC and secretary of PM&C, and the appointment of the APS commissioner.

Even if I disagree with some aspects, the report at least puts these things firmly on the table (see also my recent Parliamentary Library lecture).

On several other matters there is a disappointing lack of detail, despite the report often pointing in the right direction. These include:

• The discussion of the APS Values ends up proposing some new statement of “principles” to supplement the values. What is needed is to recast the values to reflect more directly the APS’s unique institutional role (and return “merit” to the list).

• The important discussion of place-management fails to set out the architecture required at community and regional levels, and how it might link with state government service delivery.

• The discussion on budgeting rightly highlights the importance of adequate capital investment, but overlooks the equally important issue of how running costs should be financed (without crude efficiency dividends).

The government’s response

Michelle Grattan correctly summarised the response as solidifying the power of the prime minister and rejecting any recommendations that would strengthen the standing and independence of the APS.

Sadly, the result will be that many of the recommendations ostensibly “agreed” by the government will not succeed because the drivers behind the reduced capability of the APS (and its risk-averse and hierarchical culture) will remain and will probably grow stronger.

The repeated references in the response to “consistent with the Secretaries Board’s advice” when a recommendation was not agreed is both odd and worrying. If the advice was as claimed, I can only surmise that it demonstrates to the rest of the APS the leadership’s lack of frank and fearless advice. Surely the Secretaries Board supports a more uniform pay and conditions framework, and a more robust process for their own appointments and terminations?

On a positive note, the government agrees with the majority of the recommendations, particularly those relating to digital technology. Most of the responsibility for proceeding will lie with the APS itself. Whether the government will eventually sign up to the capital funding the head of the review, David Thodey, believes will be needed (initially at least A$100 million a year after the audit is complete) is uncertain.

The government has so far agreed only to A$15 million over two years to start work on all the agreed recommendations.

Machinery of government

Aspects of the prime minister’s earlier announcement about machinery-of-government changes have merit. They include:

• reducing the separation of policy and administration by replacing DHS with an executive agency within the DSS portfolio

• re-establishing strong links between education, employment and training

• separating energy from the environment, recognising that the tensions between these major functions should be settled in cabinet.

But the failure to recognise such changes only work if aligned to ministry arrangements is extraordinary. The 1987 introduction of mega-departments was only partly to do with economies of scale. Mostly it was about streamlining cabinet: allowing cabinet to be small and manageable while still having every (portfolio) department represented, and allowing portfolio ministers to exercise, with their assistant ministers, more responsibility including over resource allocation.

Read more: Morrison cuts a swathe through the public service, with five departmental heads gone

The prime minister’s claim that his restructuring will ensure “congestion busting” and a much improved “line of sight” is contrived and almost certainly illusory. It cannot be achieved without “line of sight” between ministers and the public service. The new infrastructure department will have eight ministers, four in cabinet, several with responsibilities in other portfolios, and around 80 ministerial staff. This is hardly a recipe for a stronger focus on serving the public.

We do not know what, if any, advice the APS provided about these changes. My fear is that APS expertise in such matters has deteriorated greatly in recent years.

Apart from this misalignment between the ministry and the machinery of government, some of the details of these changes are wanting. In particular, there remains a serious problem about the separation of Medicare Australia from health policy.

Where to from here?

The Morrison government’s pronouncements over the past fortnight confirm its lack of real interest in the public service as an institution. Sadly, it seems much of the conservative side of politics has lost the sort of support of our institutions that Menzies and other traditionalists exemplified.

Equally, it would be wrong to rely on the other side of politics to pursue the directions in the Thodey Report that the Morrison government has ruled out. Not only would this ignore Labor’s contribution over the years to the current sorry state of affairs, but it would set up for partisan debate the appropriate governance and degree of independence of the APS, something inimical to what fundamentally must be non-partisan.

Instead, we need the parliament to intervene, if not in the immediate light of the Thodey Report and the government’s response, then before or shortly after the next election. A Senate select committee might be asked to undertake an inquiry into the relationship between the APS, the government and the parliament. It should examine:

• the constitutional role of the APS and how this is reflected in the Public Service Act

• the distinctive values of the APS in line with its constitutional role

• the corresponding distinctive values of other components of the Commonwealth, including within the executive, the legislature and the judiciary

• the processes for appointing and terminating secretaries and other APS agency heads

• the respective roles of the APS commissioner and secretary of PM&C

• the roles and responsibilities of secretaries, senior executives and the Secretaries Board

• the Members of Parliament Staffing Act and associated accountability arrangements.

This inquiry should consider Thodey’s recommendations and other options, and be asked to come up with its own concrete recommendations.

– ref. Report on public service overhaul a good start, but parliamentary inquiry is needed – http://theconversation.com/report-on-public-service-overhaul-a-good-start-but-parliamentary-inquiry-is-needed-127602

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katinka van de Ven, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Rural Criminology, HASSE, University of New England & Visiting Fellow, Drug Policy Modelling Program, SPRC, University of New South Wales, University of New England

Rural Australians are more likely than their city counterparts to drink alcohol at harmful levels. They’re also higher consumers of cannabis, ice and the prescription opioids oxycodone and fentanyl.

Drug-related deaths are also rising more rapidly in rural Australia, up 41% since 2008, compared with a 16% increase in major cities over the same period.

Several reports have also shown that the burden of alcohol and other drug use increases with remoteness.

Read more: ‘If you don’t have a beer you’re not a man’ – rural workplaces made more dangerous by drugs and alcohol

Our review of the international literature on rural opioid-related harms, published today, shows it’s not just the higher rates of drug use causing greater harms in rural and remote areas.

It also comes down to specific features of rural communities including poorer access to treatment and harm-reduction programs, and more conditions that promote alcohol and other drug use, such as economic hardship.

Our research focused on opioids, but the findings hold for other types of illicit drug use and alcohol abuse.

Why rural people suffer greater harms

Living in rural and remote areas shapes the risk of harm from opioids through four key influences:

1. economic conditions – many rural areas have experienced economic decline through the loss of manufacturing and other industries. This causes high levels of economic distress among some residents, particularly due to job losses

2. physical conditions – rural areas often lack infrastructure and public transport. Those who need alcohol and other drug services often have to travel greater distances for treatment. There are also fewer recreational activities, especially for young people

3. social conditions – the use of drugs as a recreational activity was linked with particular sub-cultures in rural areas. In small towns, a lack of anonymity and stigmatisation of people who use opioids can lead to people avoid seeking treatment. People in rural areas may also lack knowledge about treatment options or even what constitutes risky behaviour

4. policy conditions – rural areas often have limited coverage and availability of harm-reduction schemes such as needle and syringe programs, and residential and outpatient rehabilitation programs.

While a number of the above factors also apply to urban areas, rural environments have distinct, and often overlapping, physical, social, policy and economic features.

Invest in treatment facilities to reduce overdoses

Access to treatment and harm-reduction services are crucial to preventing drug-related harms, and in particular, overdose deaths.

One study found overdose rates tended to be higher in rural and remote areas where there was limited access to alcohol and other drug treatment services.

Read more: You don’t have to go off the grid to get treatment for drug dependence

Where rural treatment facilities and harm-reduction services operate, they tend to employ less qualified and experienced staff and have greater difficulties retaining specialised and high-quality staff.

The challenge of finding suitable treatment in rural and remote areas is magnified by poor infrastructure and costly and limited public transport options in these areas.

We’ve known for several decades that demand for alcohol and other drug support and treatment services is high and increasing in rural communities. But these services are still under‐resourced.

We need urgent government action, including sufficient funds, to improve service delivery.

Video services also have a role

While distance makes service delivery difficult, tele-health and tele-counselling may also help overcome some of these barriers.

Tele-health is where health services are delivered via live video-conferencing, while tele-counselling is a mental health service performed via phone or a secure video.

Technology can also help deal with concerns surrounding confidentiality in tight-knit communities. It allows people to receive drug and alcohol services from any location, including their home, as opposed to physically entering a drug treatment facility. This avoids the risk of being recognised by others and stigmatised as a person who uses drugs.

However, in some cases, tele-health will not replace physical services. Clean needles and syringes, for example, or drugs to prevent overdose (naloxone), require adequate funding and people on the ground to deliver them.

Read more: Weekly Dose: Naloxone, how to save a life from opioid overdose

Policymakers must also attend to the economic, physical, social and policy conditions which are shaping the risk of alcohol and other drug use in in rural communities. This might include:

• supporting more economic opportunities and recreational activities for young people

• investing in public transport

• providing adequate funding to attract and retain high-quality drug and alcohol workers.

These measures would help reduce some of the burden of drug and alcohol-related harm being borne by our rural communities.

Read more: Investing in rural health brings dollar returns to local economies (and improves health)

– ref. As drug deaths rise in rural Australia, we must do more to prevent overdoses – http://theconversation.com/as-drug-deaths-rise-in-rural-australia-we-must-do-more-to-prevent-overdoses-128229

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurien Beane, Course Coordinator, Queensland Undergraduate Early Childhood, Australian Catholic University

Friendship is critical to a young person’s development. Recent research showed teenagers with just one close friend were better able to bounce back from stress than teenagers without one.

But we also know about the high prevalence of bullying in schools and may have, ourselves, had a negative early friendship that has affected us well into adulthood.

So, if you suspect your child – whether they are in early childhood education and care, primary or secondary school – has a questionable friend, here are some tips on how to deal with it.

Early Childhood (birth to five years)

Early childhood education and care centres enrol children from birth to five years old. One of the learning outcomes of the governing Early Years Learning Framework is to teach and assess if children can “learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect”.

Educators work to ensure interactions with your child, and the other child, meet the learning outcomes.

Educators in childcare centres are legally required to take regular written observations to record, interpret, analyse and plan the next steps in children’s learning journeys.

These written records are of interactions between individual children, and in small and large groups of children. These should be available for viewing and consultation by parents and caregivers.

You can request educators to keep you updated on interactions your child has with friends. This includes positive, neutral and negative interactions as they are all part of your child’s social development.

Read more: Childhood shyness: when is it normal and when is it cause for concern?

When children are young, they may not yet have the communication skills to explain their feelings. Instead, they may bite or hit another child. Some young children will never go through this stage, and others may take a little while to develop the skills to use their words for positive communication.

If your child comes home with bite marks, or you are regularly receiving incident reports about these types of interactions with the same child, this might signal an undesirable friendship.

You could make an appointment with the centre director to collaborate on possible changes. They may be able to provide support staff in the room at certain times.

The centre may also help you to make a plan to relocate to another room in the centre. Usually this means moving up to the next room with a slightly older age group, when there is a space. – Laurien Beane

Primary school

Peers play a key role in a child’s cognitive, social and emotional development at primary school. These influences can be both positive and negative.

Unhealthy friendships involve a breach of trust or damage to someone’s well-being. Some signs your primary-aged child may be dealing with a challenging friend is if:

• the person lies to your child on a regular basis

• they change best friend status depending on their mood for the day

• they control who your child can play with, which clothes they can wear or which interests they can have

• they bully your child through social exclusion, verbal put downs, rumour-spreading and/or physical intimidation

• they encourage or pressure your child to participate in antisocial or risky behaviours

• you have noticed a decline in your child’s self-esteem and overall well-being

• you have noticed an increase in withdrawn or aggressive behaviour in your child.

Research shows children are less likely to display antisocial or risky behaviour when their parents are aware of their friendship network. Parental monitoring and supervision can also decrease socialisation with these unhealthy peers.

But overly intrusive parenting can undermine a child’s autonomy. This could make the child more aggressive or rebellious and increase their socialising with unhealthy peers.

Young people are more likely to disclose peer issues to their parents if you:

• respond with empathetic advice based on lessons you learnt in your own life (“I understand how you might be feeling. When I was your age something similar happened to me […] I realised a true friend wouldn’t want me to hurt myself just because they thought it was funny. So I decided to make some new friends”)

• involve them in the problem-solving process by asking them to consider the options and potential consequences (“What do you think might happen if you stay friends with Sally and she keeps daring you to do XYZ? How could this hurt you or other people? What are some things you could do to protect yourself?”). Allow them to make their own decision.

If open discussion and collaboration in solving the problem doesn’t work, or it doesn’t have a positive result, it may be necessary for parents to intervene.

Subtle intervention could involve limiting your child’s availability by filling in weekends and afternoons with activities like visiting relatives. Eventually, this distance may enable the friendship to fade or run its course in a less confronting way.

Read more: Making friends in primary school can be tricky. Here’s how parents and teachers can help

Direct intervention may involve banning contact with the friend, even if this means relocating to a different school or area. This may seem drastic but it may be a necessary course to protect your child’s well-being.

Research shows associations with unhealthy or bullying peers as a child can have serious long-term effects like lowering academic self-esteem while increasing the chance of poor physical and mental health and risky behaviours (including substance abuse and unprotected sex into adulthood.

Counselling may also be required to help the child work through grief, rebuild self-esteem and seek healthier friendships. – Natasha Wardman

Read more: Making friends in primary school can be tricky. Here’s how parents and teachers can help

High school

Friendships influence a young person’s development. Happy and healthy relationships between young people can make the transition from primary to secondary school more successful and help shape future trajectories beyond school, even future economic success.

If you are worried your teenager is struggling with a challenging friendship, there are some ways you can help.

Research shows expressions of love and care, even if they are received with repulsion, will likely enhance your teen’s self-esteem and capacity for dealing with difficult friendships.

Saying “I love you” on a regular basis and showing physical affection can be a good habit to establish.

Read more: Teens with at least one close friend can better cope with stress than those without

Research also shows parents remain the most significant influence through the teenage years. Parents might consider talking with their kids about what the family values and whether those values might align with the behaviours and actions of friends.

For example, if you are concerned about what your child’s friend said about someone on social media, you might ask your child questions such as:

• “Is that what you would say on social media about others?”

• “Do those words reflect the person you want to be?”

• “Is this friendship going to bring out the best in you?”

Parents should also be wary of the dangers of overprotective parenting.

Usually, excessive supervision or intrusion in teenagers’ lives does not give them the chance to handle difficult situations competently.

It is usually a good idea to give teenagers some freedom in their decision-making and responsibilities.

You may wish to:

• encourage positive friendships. If you know friends who are a good influence on your teenager, try to make opportunities for those friendships to develop

• talk about the pros and cons of different friendships. Sometimes parents might use their own friendships as examples. Let your teenager know how you manage and support your friendships and why you manage them in different ways

• talk about the real consequences of friendships. Positive friendships can result in anything between good fun and deep development. Harmful friendships have the potential to result in sadness, confusion and stress, with the possibility of life-changing unwanted consequences.

A calm, adult-like dialogue and modelling good behaviours are more likely to elicit an adult-like response from your teenager than forcing them to do something against their will. This is especially true for the choices they make in forming friendships. – Michael Chambers

– ref. From childcare to high school – what to do if you don’t like your kid’s friend – http://theconversation.com/from-childcare-to-high-school-what-to-do-if-you-dont-like-your-kids-friend-126193

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Levinson, Professor of Transport, University of Sydney

You are walking east on a footpath and come to an unmarked intersection without traffic signals. A vehicle is driving north, across your path. Who has right of way in Australia?

Should you step into the road expecting the vehicle to slow down or stop if necessary? Is the driver legally obliged to do so?

And does the driver see you? How fast is the vehicle going? Can it stop?

Now imagine you are the driver. What will the person on foot do next?

So the answer to the question of “giving way” is complicated. It depends on the speed of the car, how fast the person is walking, how quickly the driver reacts to apply the brakes, the vehicle itself, road conditions and how far the car and walker are from each other. Ideally, both the driver and walker can assess these things in a fraction of a second, but human perception and real-time calculation skills are imperfect. At higher speeds, both pedestrians and drivers underestimate vehicle speed.

Soon we will have to seriously consider autonomous vehicles, which can assess distance and speed almost perfectly, but there is still that ambiguity.

Read more: Driverless vehicles and pedestrians don’t mix. So how do we re-arrange our cities?

What does the law say?

Road rules legislate how drivers should behave. But it turns out most people do not know right-of-way rules.

In Australia, the National Transport Commission recommends model rules, which each state adopts and lightly modifies. For instance, New South Wales Road Rules 72, 73 and 353 cover pedestrians crossing a road.

Rule 353 says:

If a driver who is turning from a road at an intersection is required to give way to a pedestrian who is crossing the road that the driver is entering, the driver is only required to give way to the pedestrian if the pedestrian’s line of travel in crossing the road is essentially perpendicular to the edges of the road the driver is entering – the driver is not required to give way to a pedestrian who is crossing the road the driver is leaving.

Because of the legal principle of duty of care, drivers must still try to avoid colliding with pedestrians. They have a legal obligation to not be negligent. Thus, they must stop if they can for pedestrians who are already there, but not those on the side of the road wanting to cross.

However, this element of the NSW Road Transport Act is not made explicit in the NSW Road Rules. There is no statutory requirement in the road rules or elsewhere to give way to pedestrians other than as set out specifically in the road rules.

In contrast, NSW Road Rules 230 and 236 explicitly require pedestrians to avoid behaving dangerously around cars.

The published advice in NSW is:

Drivers must always give way to pedestrians if there is danger of colliding with them, however pedestrians should not rely on this and should take great care when crossing any road.

This statement is not supported by any road rule or other law.

Does the law as written mean a slow-moving person can never cross the street because of the risk of being hit? Only because duty-of-care logic indicates both the driver and pedestrian should yield to the other to avoid a collision is it possible for this person to cross without depending on the kindness of strangers. But the law gives the benefit of doubt to the driver of the multi-ton machine. Existing road rules permit drivers to voluntarily give way, or not.

Keep in mind the asymmetry of this situation. A person walking into the side of the car is silly. A car being driven into the side of a person, as happens 1,500 times a year in NSW, is life-threatening.

Read more: Pedestrian safety needs to catch up to technology and put people before cars

What do we recommend?

The UK Manual for Streets presents a street user hierarchy that puts pedestrians at the top. That is, their needs and safety should be considered first.

Walking has multiple benefits. More people on foot lowers infrastructure costs, improves health and reduces the number in cars, in turn reducing crashes, pollution and congestion. However, the road rules are not designed with this logic.

The putative aim of road rules is safety, but in practice the rules trade off between safety and convenience. The more rules are biased toward the convenience of drivers, the more drivers there will be.

Read more: How traffic signals favour cars and discourage walking

Yet public policy aims to promote walking. To do so, pedestrians should be given freer rein to walk: alert, but not afraid.

Like many things in this world, intersection interactions are negotiated, tacitly, by road users and their subtle and not-so-subtle cues. Pedestrians should have legal priority behind them in this negotiation.

The road rules need to be amended to require drivers to give way to pedestrians at all intersections. We favour a rule requiring drivers to look out for pedestrians and give way to them on any road or road-related area. In the case of collisions, the onus would be on drivers to show they could not in the circumstances give way to the pedestrian.

We believe all intersections without signals – whether marked, courtesy, or unmarked – be legally treated as marked pedestrian crossings. (It might help to mark them to remind drivers of this.) We should think of these intersections as spaces where vehicles cross an implicit continuous footpath, rather than as places where people cross a vehicular lane.

This change in perspective will require significant road user re-education. Users will have to be reminded every intersection is a crosswalk and that pedestrians both in the road and showing intent to cross should be yielded to, whether the vehicle is entering or exiting the road. We believe this change will increase safety and willingness to walk, because of the safety-in-numbers phenomenon, and improve quality of life.

Drivers should assume more responsibility for safety

People should continue to behave in a way that does not harm themselves or others. People on foot should not jump out in front of cars, expecting drivers to slam on their brakes, because drivers cannot always stop in time.

Read more: Nothing to fear? How humans (and other intelligent animals) might ruin the autonomous vehicle utopia

Similarly, drivers should be ready to slow or stop when a person crosses the street, at a crosswalk or not. But the law should be refactored to give priority to pedestrians at unmarked crossings. This will reduce ambiguity and make drivers more alert and ready to slow down.

In tomorrow’s world of driverless and passengerless vehicles, the convenience of drivers becomes even less essential. If someone is crossing the road, most of us probably believe a driverless vehicle should give way to ensure it doesn’t hit that person for two reasons: legally, to avoid being negligent; and morally, because hitting people is bad, as identified in many examples of the Trolley Problem.

Further, we should think more like the Netherlands, where vehicle-pedestrian collisions are presumed to be the driver’s fault, unless it can be clearly proven otherwise.

Read more: The everyday ethical challenges of self-driving cars

This article examined a few of 353 distinct road rules. Many others affect pedestrians and should also be re-examined.

This article was extensively edited by Janet Wahlquist of WalkSydney and extends some ideas developed as part of Betty Yang’s undergraduate thesis, but the text is the sole responsibility of the author.

– ref. Why Australian road rules should be rewritten to put walking first – http://theconversation.com/why-australian-road-rules-should-be-rewritten-to-put-walking-first-127789

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Grimmer, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania

For many of us, our first experience with “gambling” was the lucky dip at the local school fete. We handed over our pocket money and hoped the plain packet we selected would contain something worth our 50 cents.

Now the lucky dip has been reinvented and become ubiquitous in the form of the blind bag toy.

Blind bags (also referred to as surprise packs or surprise toys) involve small and collectible toys hidden inside opaque packaging. There are now hundreds of different blind bag lines, from old favourites such as My Little Pony, Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to new fads like Tokidoki, Zomlings and the hugely popular L.O.L. Surprise! dolls.

Though no statistics for global blind bag toy sales are available, data from the United States give an indication of their phenomenal growth in recent years. Between 2017 and 2018, market analyst NPD estimates the blind bag market in the US grew by about 60% even while total toy sales fell 2%.

Not surprisingly the US Toy Association declared “The Big Reveal” its top trend for 2018, with “the act of removing a surprise toy from a blind bag” being “just as exciting as the toy itself”.

Read more: The power of rewards and why we seek them out

There’s no reason to think 2019 will be any different in the US or around the world. Indeed, if toy aisles in stores are anything to go by, buyers’ appetite for blind bags appears to be ballooning.

The factors driving this sales growth include social media – in which “unboxing” has become an entertainment in itself – and the growing adult market for toys.

But the three most potent elements are the combination of price, the appeal of collecting and the psychological lure of surprise. It’s these three things that make blind bag toys so ethically problematic.

Collect them all!

Compared with other options, blind bag and surprise toys seem cheap. In Australia, prices range from about A$1.60 to A$15. This makes them attractive to children and adults alike, particularly as stocking stuffers at Christmas.

But the problem is that one is never enough.

Almost all blind bag toys are marketed as collections – with “collecting them all” emphasised in packaging and advertising. There may be dozens to collect. Ooshie maker Head Start International, for example, has released four series of Marvel Ooshies with a total of 164 toys to collect.

So despite not being very costly to buy once, the costs add up.

As we’ve noted before in discussing the Ooshies phenomenon, collecting is attractive to children. While an estimated 30% of adults collect something, more than 90% of children do so. Collecting appeals to children’s natural curiosity and is also a way of understanding the world through gathering and categorising.

Read more: Ooshies – a cautionary toy story about cashing in on childhood innocence

The blind bag business model weaponises this collecting impulse through the gamble of the lucky dip. It combines the pleasure of reward with the element of surprise, which is both compelling and addictive. It taps into the same psychological mechanism that results in gambling addiction – namely intermittent reinforcement.

Intermittent reinforcement

The seductive, manipulative power of intermittent reinforcement (also known as variable ratio reinforcement) was famously shown in experiments with pigeons in the 1950s led by the noted American psychologist B.F. Skinner.

His team trained pigeons to peck a small lever that led to a food reward. When rewarded every time, the pigeons pecked the lever only when they were hungry. But when rewarded intermittently, they became compulsive peckers.

Th effects of intermittent reinforcement have also been demonstrated in clinical tests with children.

This helps explain the phenomenal growth and profitability of blind bags for toy companies. With the outcome being uncertain and the reward intermittent, the dopamine rush of opening each new bag is maintained.

Loot boxes

A virtual form of blind bag is proving even more profitable for video game companies. They’re known as loot boxes, which players can buy with real money in the hope of scoring “equipment” or “skins” to enhance their game avatar. More often than not they don’t contain anything the player wants. Which is why players keep buying.

A study this year estimated loot boxes could be worth US$30 billion a year to the video game industry.

Concern about loot boxes effectively exposing children to gambling has led to calls in many countries for greater regulation. Belgium has banned them. In Britain, the government is considering making companies that make money using loot boxes hold a gambling licence. In Australia, the federal government says more research is needed before it will regulate.

Read more: Gaming or gambling: study shows almost half of loot boxes in video games constitute gambling

How different is a blind bag toy?

Maybe you are always assured a toy, but the relative scarcity of different toys in a series means some are worth much more than others, and the desire for those will drive further purchases. It’s a business model that still fundamentally works on the same principles that make poker machines, scratchies and other forms of gambling so addictive.

So while blind bag toys can be fun, the use of “blind” packaging and intermittent reinforcement to drive sales must be considered ethically problematic, especially given they are targeted at children.

As in all things, awareness and moderation are key.

– ref. Blind bags: how toy makers are making a fortune with child gambling – http://theconversation.com/blind-bags-how-toy-makers-are-making-a-fortune-with-child-gambling-127229

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stefanie Johnstone, PhD Candiate, University of Technology Sydney

How many Star Wars films did George Lucas plan? According to Dan Golding in his recent book Star Wars After Lucas, this depends on when Lucas was asked.

The often-quoted number is nine, but it might wind up being as many as 12. How ever many he planned, we know he planned them in threes.

Today’s release of The Rise of Skywalker, directed by J.J. Abrams, marks the end of the third trilogy in the franchise.

But where does the trilogy story form come from?

Changing the world

Trilogy is a very old form. The earliest known example is Aeschylus’ Oresteia, which tells a story of revenge and change in law following Agamemnon’s return home from the Trojan war. It was first performed in Athens 2500 years ago.

In the first play, Agamemnon is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra as revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter. In the second play, their son Orestes murders his mother, to avenge his father’s death.

In the final play of the trilogy – with no more family members remaining to avenge Clytemnestra’s death – Orestes is put on trial in front of an Athenian jury. Also the first ever courtroom drama, Aeschylus used this third play to twist the story world set up in the first two plays.

A hallmark of the trilogy genre is the shift in the final part, with a revolution (as in The Hunger Games) or a restoration (as in Isaac Asimov’sFoundation). In linking three individual texts, there is a fourth, monumental, overarching story.

Read more: How JJ Abrams ruined Star Trek and what that means for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

In the first two Star Wars trilogies, we followed Luke Skywalker’s journey to becoming a Jedi (Episodes IV-VI) and Anakin Skywalker’s journey to the Dark Side (Episodes I-III).

The current trilogy (Episodes VII-IX), so far, has expanded this overarching narrative even further: a hero’s journey in Rey, mimicking Luke’s journey to becoming a Jedi; and an anti-hero’s journey as Kylo Ren following the same path as Anakin.

Planned and unplanned

Trilogies can be “planned” or “unplanned”: did the creator have a trilogy in mind all along, or was it conceived on a sequel-by-sequel basis?

There is a crucial difference in viewing the trilogy from a creative point of view, and an industrial?? one. Even if results might not be what you would expect.

Christopher Nolan talks about The Dark Knight Trilogy as unplanned: devised as they went, sequel by sequel. Over the three films, Nolan was able to craft a unifying story about Bruce Wayne becoming Batman and then learning to give up the mantel.

The Wachowski’s The Matrix was always planned as a trilogy – but the first film was released well before the sequels were funded. Although this trilogy was planned, the sequels failed to replicate the success of the first: an unsatisfactory ending which didn’t stand up to the promise of the first film.

The danger of an unplanned trilogy is once a film is released its story cannot be changed, and so the filmmakers are not always able to find the balance between the three single stories and the overarching story. A frequent trap is that the first film can fully stand alone, but the second and third films feel like a single, two-part film.

What makes a good film trilogy is sometimes difficult to determine or predict. But each film in a trilogy must stand on its own – yet the three must work together as a whole.

It all ends

The original Star Wars trilogy concluded with the fall of The Galactic Empire and restoration of the Jedi Order. In Episodes I-III, the Old Republic and Jedi Order faced revolution, replaced with The Empire and The Sith.

The latest films have subverted expectations of a Star Wars trilogy. Old favourites have passed, a Jedi’s faith has been disturbed, Rey’s parents are still unknown.

If we follow trilogy lore, and especially Star Wars trilogies, we can expect a world order to fall. Will it be the First Order or The Resistance? Or will balance finally be restored to the force?

No matter how it concludes, perhaps the most crucial question is: can J.J. Abrams pull off a satisfying end to the current Star Wars trilogy?

Will the third film in the third trilogy make it third time’s a charm?

– ref. The Rise of Skywalker ends a third Star Wars trilogy. Here’s why stories work so well in threes – http://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-skywalker-ends-a-third-star-wars-trilogy-heres-why-stories-work-so-well-in-threes-127997

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

The New Zealand government today officially pardoned Māori leader Rua Kēnana Hepetipa, who was convicted for “moral resistance to arrest” more than a century ago.

Descendents of the Pacifist leader gathered to watch the final reading of the pardon bill which clears Rua Kēnana’s name and acknowledges that his wrongful treatment caused lasting damage to his people.

Rua Kēnana was arrested when armed police invaded Maungapōhatu in 1916. His son and another family member were killed in the illegal raid, and both sides suffered injuries during a gun fight.

The Governor General will travel to Maungapōhatu on Saturday to sign the bill in an historic first.

But while the pardon restores the reputation of Rua Kēnana and his descendants, it does not go far enough. It acknowledges that Rua Kēnana did nothing wrong, but it fails to recognise that the Crown committed a grievous miscarriage of justice.

The power of the law

At the turn of the 20th century, Rua Kēnana was an obscure rural wage labourer. He lived in an area ravaged by war, government confiscations of land, disease and lack of economic development. Against this tide of deprivation, he emerged as a religious leader with a quiet compassion for those suffering, and he set up a community at Maungapōhatu, on land of the Tūhoe tribe.

But his popularity brought him into conflict with the government, which responded with the introduction of the 1907 Tohunga Suppression Act, intended to stop people using traditional Māori healing practices with a spiritual element.

After this first brush with the power of the state, Rua Kēnana took on positions of more conventional responsibility within existing local authorities. He was strongly in favour of one law for all people.

In the early years of his teachings, he was against alcohol. But alcohol was widely available, and his position moved from prohibition to regulation. He thought he could control its impact on his community by gaining a liquor licence. This was a difficult goal as New Zealand was moving towards increased restrictions and the law was clearly discriminatory, giving Māori significantly less liberty than non-Māori.

In 1910, police found unlicensed alcohol in Rua Kēnana’s community and he was prosecuted for five breaches of liquor laws. He was convicted on all five counts and fined on four. And he was ordered to come back for sentencing for the fifth charge, but was never summoned.

Read more: Five key values of strong Māori leadership

Intolerance against dissent

Between 1912 and 1915, New Zealand underwent a fundamental change of direction. This was driven by then prime minister William Massey, attorney general Alexander Herdman and police commissioner John Cullen. The three men, armed with powerful laws and a police force used for partisan purposes, led New Zealand through turbulent times of social unrest and violent clashes with organised labour.

The same men were at the helm when New Zealand joined the first world war.

In May 1915, further evidence emerged that others in Rua Kēnana’s community were again selling alcohol illegally. Five new charges were added. When he was brought to court the second time, the same judge who convicted him in 1910 sentenced him to three months in jail for the fifth charge that had been left hanging in 1910.

Shortly after his release, Rua Kēnana was summoned for sentencing on the new charges for his 1915 convictions. By this time, he had become outspoken on Pacifist ideas and saw no need for Tūhoe people to volunteer for WWI – a stance that sparked a media and public backlash against him.

When the police came to arrest Rua Kēnana for the second tranche of alcohol charges, he refused to go. He indicated he wanted to talk to senior government officials as he believed he was being charged for the same offence twice. He allegedly said he thought the Allies could lose the war – and the serious charge of sedition was added.

The police left, but sent the police commissioner and attorney general – the two men who had been at the forefront of breaking up unions in 1912 and 1913 – to talk to him. Rua Kēnana refused to come out.

Read more: How NZ’s colonial government misused laws to crush non-violent dissent at Parihaka

An illegal raid turns fatal

The situation escalated the following year. On 2 April 1916, 70 armed police and a media contingent arrived with an arrest warrant. This raid was illegal as it was carried out on the one day (a Sunday) the warrant did not cover. Worse still, the it turned into a violent confrontation and a firefight broke out.

Four police officers were wounded and two Māori killed, including Kēnana’s son Toko and another family member, Te Maipi Te Whiu. They were buried without an inquest.

The Crown tried to blame Rua Kēnana for what had happened, but failed to prove that the wounding of the police officers was unlawful or that he was guilty of sedition or the counselling of others towards murder or bodily harm. The only thing he was found guilty of was “moral resistance” to the second tranche of alcohol charges.

These words of “moral resistance” were a novelty, as the law that covered resistance to arrest was focused primarily on obstruction, or physical resistance.

Rua Kēnana was sentenced to one year’s hard labour, followed by 18 months of “reformative purposes”. The judge considered him and his people to be “still in tutelage” and that Māori should learn from this trial that:

In every corner of the great Empire to which we belong, the King’s law can reach anyone that offends him.

Eight of the 12 jury members were so outraged by the judge’s interpretation of their mention of “moral resistance” they wrote an open letter to the newspapers. They explained they felt Rua Kēnana had been unjustly persecuted. They wanted a proper investigation of the entire operation and, in particular, the deaths of the two Māori.

They explained they only used “moral resistance” because ten of the jury wanted an outright acquittal, and they agreed to these words to satisfy the other two. They had not expected their words would be used to sentence Rua Kēnana. The same group created a petition to parliament, alleging a grave miscarriage of justice and calling for a full investigation into the events.

Rua Kēnana was released after eight months, having struck a deal to speak in favour of the war effort. He went home to an economically and socially depleted community. Undeterred, he continued to work for the betterment of his people.

He welcomed the establishment of a new Presbyterian mission and worked closely with medical authorities during the influenza epidemic in 1918. In 1921, he urged his tribe to part with a quarter of its remaining territory as advance payment for roads to help develop the region economically.

When Rua Kēnana died in 1937, no roads had been built. Nor had there been an investigation into the miscarriage of justice in his trial. Even today, despite the welcome pardon, an acknowledgement of a miscarriage of justice is missing.

– ref. Why a pardon for 20th-century Māori leader Rua Kēnana doesn’t go far enough – http://theconversation.com/why-a-pardon-for-20th-century-maori-leader-rua-kenana-doesnt-go-far-enough-126920

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

Last week, Michelle Grattan and Peter Martin (economics editor at The Conversation)were in Sydney to launch the 2019 Conversation Yearbook. The event was held at Glebebooks and presented an opportunity for readers to hear Michelle and Peter’s discussion about the year that was, and ask questions.

This podcast is aa edited recording of that event.

New to podcasts?

Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click here to listen to Politics with Michelle Grattan on Pocket Casts).

You can also hear it on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Politics with Michelle Grattan.

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

Image:

The Conversation

Audio:

Special thanks to Glebebooks for recording this event.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Grattan and Martin on the year that was, in politics and economics – http://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-grattan-and-martin-on-the-year-that-was-in-politics-and-economics-129062

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sue Green, Deputy Co-ordinator, Journalism Program, Swinburne University of Technology

Review: A Boy’s Own Story at the Johnston Collection, East Melbourne

Johnston Collection director and curator Louis Le Vaillant was weary of hearing that men could not knit or sew. After all, he can and so could antiques and decorative arts dealer William Johnston, whose estate comprises the East Melbourne house museum.

So Le Vaillant planned a summer exhibition to challenge audiences used to seeing the work of skilled craftswomen.

A Boy’s Own Story features the work of 17 male artists, asked by Le Vaillant to respond to items in the collection with new works. When Le Vaillant put the men only idea to the collection trustees they responded positively:

They said, bring it on. They were open to challenging the boundaries of art and craft in an exhibition house. We thought we would see what would happen. I thought, ‘the challenge is out there’.

The statistics do suggest an imbalance. Since the collection began its “inspired by” shows in the early 2000s there have been 3754 women participants and three men.

Nonetheless, it is questionable whether, in a #metoo climate pushing for women’s voices to be heard, an all-male exhibition is appropriate.

Helping men?

Artist Kate Just, head of graduate coursework at the Victorian College of the Arts, has created art with knitting for almost 20 years. Her new work is a year of knitting Anonymous Was a woman. She’d reached 41 panels from 730,825 stitches by early December.

Key to the project is Just’s exploration of reports on the under-representation of women in art. She cites global figures showing there are no women in the top 0.03% of the Western art auction market, where 41% of the profit is concentrated.

The income gap between men and women is wider in the arts than the average gap across all industries in Australia. Research shows that artists earn a little more than a third of their income from their creative efforts, with women making an average of $15,400 from their art while men earn $22,100 from theirs.

Australian gender representation in the contemporary arts is monitored by the Countess Report, which most recently analysed the work of 13,000 exhibiting artists, outcomes of Australia Council grants, and staff and board members of arts organisations. It found signs of a turnaround in 2018 compared with 2016, with women equally represented in art prizes, fairs, commercial galleries (52% up from 30%) and organisations.

However there was still an imbalance in taxpayer-funded state galleries, with the representation of women falling (37 to 34%) since 2016.

Le Vaillant had prepared himself for criticism and trolling in response to the men-only exhibition, having received outraged emails and social media criticism in the past (that time over yarn bombing and some decorative street art with cake icing).

“It is not happening,” he says. “It is an extraordinary irony of contemporary life that it is not happening. It’s an extremely benign exhibition.”

Is there a gender-based double standard at play? Le Vaillant concedes this: “Maybe it’s because men have done these works in the show.” Are men allowed to push the boundaries, while women are pigeonholed?

Lace and statements

Some of the work in the exhibition is traditional – the superb handmade lace and embroideries by three generations of Collyer men, the basic knitting by Tristan Brumby Rendell and Luke Hockley’s handmade shirts.

Other pieces are more pointed in their intent. Audiences are warned of the confronting nature of textile artist Douglas McManus’s sculptural gallows chandelier.

Inspired by a Green Room chandelier in the Johnston house and a portrait of Edward Lord Montagu, a founder of the Guy Fawkes night observance, it includes bleeding limbs and a hanging man – a commentary on the damage to men’s souls from society’s expectations.

Young quilter Lucas Grogan also creates work on such themes. A Dawn Quilt, with printed pillowcases reading “FIGHT” and “FLIGHT”, is elaborate and skilled, showcasing quilting, smocking and embroidery skills.

It’s important to note the quality of this and most – but not all – the work, displayed with collection items. The five women in my tour group (visits are by booking) agreed that most works warranted exhibiting but some did not.

Le Vaillant accepts this assessment. “I thought it would be a very simple exhibition to do but … it took a lot of encouragement in terms of some of them putting their work in a public space,” he says.

While this appears to contradict his assertion that numerous men undertake these traditionally gendered crafts, it tallies with my own research in which I found male knitters who would not knit in public because they feared homophobic attacks.

They also experienced “overpraising”, particularly from women knitters, attracting unsought attention.

Artist Jude Skeers told me in an interview for my research that the novelty of being a male knitter helped publicise his art knitting, especially given the devaluing of knitting as women’s work.

The craft that men do is more highly prized than the craft dominated by women – working with glass, ceramics and in particular wood. It’s seen as a higher craft than any textiles. This is not just true of textiles.

A Boy’s Own Story, although challenging and with significant creative merit, feeds into this long-standing gender inequity. In seeking to rebalance the scales it leans too far in the other direction, excluding women completely.

A Boy’s Own Story is on at The Johnston Collection until 4 February 2020.

– ref. Men craft too – but do they need support to raise their artistic profile? – http://theconversation.com/men-craft-too-but-do-they-need-support-to-raise-their-artistic-profile-126595

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

’Tis the season to be jolly. We all enjoy the sentiments of this well-known carol during the festive season. There’s little doubt public merriment is in abundance at this time of year, with alcohol generally reducing inhibitions.

But at what point does good-natured inebriation become criminally-tinged intoxication? And what about those full of merriment who are in the streets late at night?

Let’s see what the law says.

In court the morning after

Public intoxication is illegal in every jurisdiction in Australia, but there are differences from place to place, depending on the way the offence is created, enforced and responded to.

Read more: Street drinking, fly-tipping and nuisance neighbours: who experiences anti-social behaviour?

The law, generally speaking, empowers police to apprehend anyone (including a person under 18 years of age) who is drunk in a public place.

They used to be taken to a police station, but since the mid-1980s, there has been a realisation (in all jurisdictions except Queensland and Victoria) this wasn’t the best place for an intoxicated person.

In fact, the South Australian Public Intoxication Act 1984 states:

Persons or bodies involved in the administration of this Act are to be guided by the following principles: (a) primary concern is to be given to the health and well-being of a person apprehended under this Act; and (b) a person detained under this Act should, where practicable, be detained in a place other than a police station.

This was a remarkably insightful reform. It was designed to stop the farcical spectacle of dozens of men and women who had been arrested for being drunk being paraded through magistrates courts the following morning, racking up hundreds of convictions and thousands of dollars in fines they were never going to be able to pay, and wasting thousands of hours of court time each year in the process.

Now, when a person is apprehended for public intoxication, they usually end up back at home, or at a shelter, often with simply an on-the-spot fine.

Abolishing the laws after deaths in custody

There has recently been a dramatic development in Victoria, one of the recalcitrant states, following the case of Tanya Day. The 55-year-old Yorta Yorta woman died after falling and hitting her head in the cells of the Castlemaine police station in December, 2017.

Read more: Aboriginal woman Tanya Day died in custody. Now an inquest is investigating if systemic racism played a role

She had been taken to the station, arrested for not paying a train fare, and was charged with public drunkenness. She was then put the watch house cells for four hours to “sober up”, but when she hit her head she sustained a brain haemorrhage that led to her death in hospital 17 days later.

In August this year, Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy advised she planned to write to the Victorian coroner to say the Labor government had committed, in principle, to abolishing the crime of public drunkenness. She said:

Public drunkenness requires a public health response, not a criminal justice one, and now is the right time to take this important reform forward.

We must also remember that 27 of the Aboriginal Australians whose deaths were examined by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (beginning in 1988) were in police cells because they had been arrested while drunk.

Recommendation 79 of the Royal Commission report urged:

in jurisdictions where drunkenness has not been decriminalised, governments should legislate to abolish the offence of public drunkenness.

But that has not happened universally, despite repeated urging from reform advocates and the successes of night patrols in remote and regional communities.

Where can you drink this Christmas?

Today, by-laws are the key to determining what you can and cannot do with alcoholic beverages in public.

Questions about where it’s okay to have a beer, or whether a bottle must be in a bag or with the top firmly secured can only be answered by reference to council regulations where the public drinking occurs.

Hundreds of public places – including beaches, parks, shopping precincts and recreation grounds in Australian “dry zones” – have been legislated, and each carries its own rules. This means it’s important to review the area you plan to drink in, because you could be committing an offence without realising it.

Read more: How night club bouncers police the social order – from Berlin to Johannesburg

And before leaving this topic, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the various liquor licensing laws of every jurisdiction.

A person in South Australia, for example, commits an offence if they fail to leave licensed premises when the licensee asks because they are drunk, or fighting, threatening, abusive or insulting.

Typically, licensees in these situations have delegated their authority to crowd controllers (“bouncers”).

It’s also worth noting these security officers are considered far better trained and monitored now after the death of cricketer David Hookes in 2004, when a hotel staff member chased him into the street and punched him to the ground. The tragedy gave rise in 2005 to Standards Australia releasing a draft voluntary code on the desirable qualities of people who are employed as bouncers.

One sure way for public planners and policy-makers to rid festive events of unacceptable drunken behaviour is simply to stop the festival in its tracks. But in any case, you can only hope that with a little bit of peer pressure, a clear message might start to sink in – the days of public drunken revelry are numbered.

– ref. Be careful where you drink your beer this summer. Here’s what the law says about public drunkenness – http://theconversation.com/be-careful-where-you-drink-your-beer-this-summer-heres-what-the-law-says-about-public-drunkenness-128922

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peggy Kern, Associate professor, University of Melbourne

Imagine yourself graduating from high school, with the world before you.

But now you must decide what career you want to pursue. You hope for a job that will pay the bills, but also one you will enjoy. After all, you will spend a large portion of your waking hours at work.

But how can you make a reliable choice – beyond what your parents might be pushing for, or what your final year results will get you direct entry into.

Our study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found different professions attract people with very different psychological characteristics.

When looking for a new career, you might visit a career adviser and answer a set of questions to identify your interests and strengths. These results are used to match you with a set of potential occupations.

However, this method relies on long surveys, and doesn’t account for the fact that many occupations are changing or disappearing as technology transforms the employment landscape.

21st century job search

We wondered if we could develop a data-driven approach to matching a person with a suitable profession, based on psychological traces they reveal online.

Studies have shown people leave traces of themselves through the language they post online and their online behaviours.

Could we analyse this to find out the extent to which people doing the same job shared the same personality traits?

Read more: Employment services aren’t working for older jobseekers, jobactive staff or employers

In our research, we identified more than 100,000 Twitter users, each of whom included one of 3,513 job titles in their user profile.

Then, using a tool available through IBM’s cloud-based artificial intelligence engine Watson, and its Personality Insights service, we gave each profile a score across ten personality-related characteristics, based on the language in their posts.

We used a variety of data analytics and machine learning techniques to explore the personality of each of the occupations.

For example, to create the “vocation compass map” we used an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to cluster occupational personality data into twenty distinct clusters, grouping the occupations that were most similar in terms of personality.

An occupational map

Work has long been thought to be more fulfilling if it fits who we are as a person, in terms of our personality, values, and interests.

Our results confirmed this, and we found that different occupations tended to have very different personality profiles.

For instance, software programmers and scientists were generally more open to experiencing a variety of new activities, were intellectually curious, tended to think in symbols and abstractions, and found repetition boring. On the other hand, elite tennis players tended to be more conscientious, organised and agreeable.

Our findings point to the possibility of using data shared on social media to match an individual to a suitable job.

We used machine learning to cluster more than one thousand roles based on the inferred personality traits of people in those roles.

Read more: Inspire children with good careers advice and they do better at school

We found many similar jobs could be grouped together.

For example, one cluster included different technology jobs such as software programming, web development, and computer science. Another group included gym management, logistic coordination, and concert promotions.

You can explore more with this interactive online map we made.

However, while many of the combinations aligned with existing occupation classifiers (current formal groupings that governments and other organisations use to group jobs together), some clusters included roles not traditionally grouped together.

For instance, cartographers, grain farmers and geologists ended up grouped together and shared similar personality traits to many of the technology professionals.

A data-driven vocation compass

With our results, we explored the idea of building a data-driven vocation compass: a recommendation system that could find the best career fit for someone’s personality.

We built a system that could recommend an occupation aligned to people’s personality traits with over 70% accuracy.

Even when our system was wrong, it wasn’t far off, and pointed to professions with very similar skill sets. For instance, it might suggest a poet becomes a fictional writer.

Professions are quickly changing due to automation and technological breakthroughs. And in our connected, digital world, we leave behind traces of ourselves. Our work has offered one approach to using these traces in a productive way.

Read more: Artificial intelligence may take your job, so political leaders need to start doing theirs

This approach may one day be used to help people find their dream career, or at the very least, better our understanding of the hidden personality dimensions of different roles.

– ref. Robot career advisor: AI may soon be able to analyse your tweets to match you to a job – http://theconversation.com/robot-career-advisor-ai-may-soon-be-able-to-analyse-your-tweets-to-match-you-to-a-job-128777

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

’Tis the season to be jolly. We all enjoy the sentiments of this well-known carol during the festive season. There’s little doubt public merriment is in abundance at this time of year, with alcohol generally reducing inhibitions.

But at what point does good-natured inebriation become criminally-tinged intoxication? And what about those full of merriment who are in the streets late at night?

Let’s see what the law says.

In court the morning after

Public intoxication is illegal in every jurisdiction in Australia, but there are differences from place to place, depending on the way the offence is created, enforced and responded to.

Read more: Street drinking, fly-tipping and nuisance neighbours: who experiences anti-social behaviour?

The law, generally speaking, empowers police to apprehend anyone (including a person under 18 years of age) who is drunk in a public place.

They used to be taken to a police station, but since the mid-1980s, there has been a realisation (in all jurisdictions except Queensland and Victoria) this wasn’t the best place for an intoxicated person.

In fact, the South Australian Public Intoxication Act 1984 states:

Persons or bodies involved in the administration of this Act are to be guided by the following principles: (a) primary concern is to be given to the health and well-being of a person apprehended under this Act; and (b) a person detained under this Act should, where practicable, be detained in a place other than a police station.

This was a remarkably insightful reform. It was designed to stop the farcical spectacle of dozens of men and women who had been arrested for being drunk being paraded through magistrates courts the following morning, racking up hundreds of convictions and thousands of dollars in fines they were never going to be able to pay, and wasting thousands of hours of court time each year in the process.

Now, when a person is apprehended for public intoxication, they usually end up back at home, or at a shelter, often with simply an on-the-spot fine.

Abolishing the laws after deaths in custody

There has recently been a dramatic development in Victoria, one of the recalcitrant states, following the case of Tanya Day. The 55-year-old Yorta Yorta woman died after falling and hitting her head in the cells of the Castlemaine police station in December, 2017.

Read more: Aboriginal woman Tanya Day died in custody. Now an inquest is investigating if systemic racism played a role

She had been taken to the station, arrested for not paying a train fare, and was charged with public drunkenness. She was then put the watch house cells for four hours to “sober up”, but when she hit her head she sustained a brain haemorrhage that led to her death in hospital 17 days later.

In August this year, Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy advised she planned to write to the Victorian coroner to say the Labor government had committed, in principle, to abolishing the crime of public drunkenness. She said:

Public drunkenness requires a public health response, not a criminal justice one, and now is the right time to take this important reform forward.

We must also remember that 27 of the Aboriginal Australians whose deaths were examined by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (beginning in 1988) were in police cells because they had been arrested while drunk.

Recommendation 79 of the Royal Commission report urged:

in jurisdictions where drunkenness has not been decriminalised, governments should legislate to abolish the offence of public drunkenness.

But that has not happened universally, despite repeated urging from reform advocates and the successes of night patrols in remote and regional communities.

Where can you drink this Christmas?

Today, by-laws are the key to determining what you can and cannot do with alcoholic beverages in public.

Questions about where it’s okay to have a beer, or whether a bottle must be in a bag or with the top firmly secured can only be answered by reference to council regulations where the public drinking occurs.

Hundreds of public places – including beaches, parks, shopping precincts and recreation grounds in Australian “dry zones” – have been legislated, and each carries its own rules. This means it’s important to review the area you plan to drink in, because you could be committing an offence without realising it.

Read more: How night club bouncers police the social order – from Berlin to Johannesburg

And before leaving this topic, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the various liquor licensing laws of every jurisdiction.

A person in South Australia, for example, commits an offence if they fail to leave licensed premises when the licensee asks because they are drunk, or fighting, threatening, abusive or insulting.

Typically, licensees in these situations have delegated their authority to crowd controllers (“bouncers”).

It’s also worth noting these security officers are considered far better trained and monitored now after the death of cricketer David Hookes in 2004, when a hotel staff member chased him into the street and punched him to the ground. The tragedy gave rise in 2005 to Standards Australia releasing a draft voluntary code on the desirable qualities of people who are employed as bouncers.

One sure way for public planners and policy-makers to rid festive events of unacceptable drunken behaviour is simply to stop the festival in its tracks. But in any case, you can only hope that with a little bit of peer pressure, a clear message might start to sink in – the days of public drunken revelry are numbered.

– ref. The summer heat calls for a cold beer, but be careful where you drink it. Being drunk in public is a crime – http://theconversation.com/the-summer-heat-calls-for-a-cold-beer-but-be-careful-where-you-drink-it-being-drunk-in-public-is-a-crime-128922

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Stone, General practitioner; Clinical Associate Professor, ANU Medical School, Australian National University

Around 70% of people who sought treatment for their mental health in Australia in 2015-16 saw a general practitioner. This amounts to 18 million dedicated mental health consultations.

GPs are often the first point of contact for people concerned about their mental health. Mostly, though, mental health care occurs within consultations initiated for other reasons. This could be when someone sees a doctor for a physical health concern, a general check up, or to get a prescription.

Whatever the reason, GPs see 88% of the Australian population every year, putting us in a unique position in the health system to work with people with mental health concerns.

When you visit your GP with a mental health concern, you should be able to expect compassionate care alongside practical advice to help you navigate the treatment you need.

Read more: Depression: it’s a word we use a lot, but what exactly is it?

Why see a GP for your mental health needs?

People can see us without a referral, and we get to know our patients over time, which can make it easier to discuss difficult issues.

We see patients during important transitions, for example after giving birth, after a major illness, or during a relationship crisis.

We also see people at higher risk of mental illness than the overall population, such as refugees, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, LGBTI people, and those experiencing poverty and homelessness. Many of our patients are survivors of childhood abuse, domestic violence, or other forms of trauma.

We understand certain physical illnesses and medications can predispose people to mental illness. We also understand people with serious mental illnesses are likely to die from physical diseases up to 20 years earlier than the general population. So we can focus on physical and mental health together.

We are trained in diagnosis, but we understand mental health is complex. Not everyone with depression has the same illness experience. It’s critical we help people understand what their illness means, not just what it “is”.

It’s then our responsibility to help our patients understand their options, by communicating the evidence behind different treatments, and helping them navigate the mosaic of services available.

Read more: Stroke, cancer and other chronic diseases more likely for those with poor mental health

Finding the right clinic and the right doctor

The billings we generate in the consulting room fund our clinics and our staff. The longer the consultation, the lower the patient’s Medicare subsidy per minute. In other words, shorter consultations earn much more money for the clinic.

Some bulk-billing clinics use this incentive to drive what’s become known as “six-minute medicine”: where the majority of consultations are very quick and therefore lucrative. These business models don’t enable complex care, like the sort of care needed to deal with a mental health issue, to occur easily.

Further, individual GPs have certain areas of practice that interest them. Some GPs are more interested in and comfortable with physical health than mental health care.

Consumers have reported disappointing encounters with some GPs, describing, for example, poor communication skills and a perceived lack of competence in mental health care.

It’s important to take the time to find a clinic and a GP right for you.

Navigating a fraught system

The mental health sector is complex and fragmented with overlaps, inefficiencies, duplication and poor coordination of services. GPs spend a significant amount of time assisting patients to navigate multiple mental health systems (state services, Commonwealth services, non-government services, and private services).

We often have few accessible resources at our disposal to help our patients recover. Psychologists and other allied health practitioners are frequently unaffordable or inaccessible. There’s a shortage of psychiatrists in Australia. Acute psychiatric beds, particularly for young people or patients with eating disorders, are in short supply.

Read more: To really fix Victoria’s mental health system, we’ll need to bridge the state/Commonwealth divide

Meanwhile, disadvantaged communities have higher rates of mental illness, but lower access to services.

Unfortunately, none of these problems will be solved within a GP’s consulting room – but we do our best to navigate them case by case.

10 tips for patients

We believe the core of mental health care is a consistent, empathic therapeutic relationship to support consumers in their journey towards recovery.

Every consumer has the right to find a GP who can partner in that recovery. These tips will help you get the most out of your GP mental health consultation:

1. if you can, make a longer appointment. Mental health consultations take time
2. choose a GP carefully. You need to feel comfortable with them
3. consider taking a supportive friend or relative with you
4. if waiting rooms are stressful for you, consider timing your appointment at the beginning or end of the day
5. have a list of medications and therapies you’ve tried, and whether you found them helpful
6. if you have any reports from previous doctors, bring them with you
7. your GP will want to know your family history, including physical and mental health disorders, so find out what you can
8. be as honest and open as you can. Your GP can help you more effectively if they know what’s going on. This includes drug and alcohol issues which commonly accompany mental illness
9. if you need an interpreter, let the practice know in advance
10. be patient. It may take a few consultations for your GP to really understand what you need.

Read more: When it’s easier to get meds than therapy: how poverty makes it hard to escape mental illness

– ref. Your first point of contact and your partner in recovery: the GP’s role in mental health care – http://theconversation.com/your-first-point-of-contact-and-your-partner-in-recovery-the-gps-role-in-mental-health-care-124083

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

If you live near a public playground it can be a convenient outdoor destination for short excursions and a life-saving source of pressure relief when the kids are too surly to bear inside the house. But in research, published in the Journal of Urban Landscape and Planning, we found having a playground nearby can also add value to your property.

The presence of a playground added about A$20,000 (4.6%) to the average property price of A$439,000.

Read more: Do ‘screaming children’ in playgrounds ruin neighbourhood parks?

Importantly, we can reject the idea that a playground has no effect or a negative effect on property prices.

That’s something residents should consider if they fear a new playground to be built in their neighbourhood could lower property prices, as they did at Mount Eliza, Victoria, last year.

What planners need to know

Local councils need to know the costs and benefits of building a playground when making decisions about investment in local infrastructure. If playgrounds are undesirable, they might avoid them altogether or place them far from where people live.

We wanted to know what value local residents might place on playgrounds using data from Moreland City Council in the north Melbourne metropolitan area.

One way to assess the value of playgrounds is simply to ask people. But we didn’t do that. We know people often over- or understate the value or cost of things in surveys because there is no real cost to pay.

We used ten years of every property price transaction in Moreland to try to measure the value people place on playgrounds. Property prices reflect the value people place on the attributes of a place they are buying.

These attributes include location (location, location) and things about the property such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Prices also include the value people place on local amenities such as shops nearby or a train station within walking distance.

Read more: Rail works lift property prices, pointing to value capture’s potential to fund city infrastructure

So how could we possibly work out the little bit of all that that’s about the distance to a playground?

Let’s build a model

First, we estimate a very detailed model of the determinants of property prices. This includes the type of dwelling, size, bedrooms, bathrooms, the presence of 19 different features such as balconies or spas, year and quarter of sale, and suburb.

We control for distance to a wide range of amenities including shops, schools and golf courses. Finally, we control for the distance to 14 different types of open space, including shared trails and community horticulture.

Moreland City Council provided us with the data on amenities and open spaces. With this model, we are able to explain about 70% of the variation in house prices.

With the help of Melbourne Water, we identified two empty green spaces (in Coburg North and Pascoe Vale) that were suitable for building a small local playground. These are the smallest of the five categories of playgrounds in Moreland City Council. They generally consist of a swing set, a slippery dip (slide) and small rocking animals. They are targeted at young children, ages three to six.

The second step is to match properties that are near the empty green spaces with properties that are similarly close to a playground.

After matching properties in this way and accounting for all of the determinants of property price in our model, we attribute any unexplained difference in the prices of the matched properties to the presence of the playground.

We found a consistently positive effect of local playgrounds on property prices. The benefit of a playground is larger when properties are closer, as the effect falls with distance from the playground.

For example, the presence of a playground within 300 metres adds about A$20,000 (4.6%) to the average property price. But our estimate is somewhat imprecise with the calculations showing it could be as low as A$10,000 or as high as A$30,000.

If we look at houses only the increase is A$32,000 (6.4% of the median house price of A$499,000), but again within a plausible range of A$8,000 to A$46,000.

A note of caution

Given the potential variation, are these price increase effects realistic?

My personal feeling is that A$20,000 seems on the large side. We may be picking up other unpriced attributes of properties that differ in the matched samples.

Read more: Australian cities pay the price for blocking council input to projects that shape them

But we are dealing with a very rich set of characteristics and property attributes. We took several walks around the area to see whether anything was affecting our results. We could not identify anything.

Councils should see the need to consider the value of playgrounds in property prices as an important input into any cost-benefit analysis of investing in playground infrastructure.

Likewise, homeowners should not be worried (and object) to the construction of new playgrounds as they do not lower housing prices, rather they add to home value.

– ref. That public playground is good for your kids and your wallet – http://theconversation.com/that-public-playground-is-good-for-your-kids-and-your-wallet-127910

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neal Hughes, Senior Economist, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES)

The current drought across much of eastern Australia has demonstrated the dramatic effects climate variability can have on farm businesses and households.

The drought has also renewed longstanding discussions around the emerging effects of climate change on agriculture, and how governments can best help farmers to manage drought risk.

A new study released this morning by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences offers fresh insight on these issues by quantifying the impacts of recent climate variability on the profits of Australian broadacre farms.

Read more: Droughts, extreme weather and empowered consumers mean tough choices for farmers

The results show that changes in temperature and rainfall over the past 20 years have had a negative effect on average farm profits while also increasing risk.

The findings demonstrate the importance of adaptation, innovation and adjustment to the agriculture sector, and the need for policy responses which promote – and don’t unnecessarily inhibit – such progress.

Measuring the effects of climate on farms

Measuring the effects of climate on farms is difficult given the many other factors that also influence farm performance, including commodity prices.

Further, the effects of rainfall and temperature on farm production and profit can be complex and highly location and farm specific.

To address this complexity, ABARES has developed a model based on more than 30 years of historical farm and climate data—farmpredict — which can identify effects of climate variability, input and output prices, and other factors on different types of farms.

Cropping farms most exposed

The model finds that cropping farms generally face greater climate risk than beef farms, but also generate higher average returns.

Cropping farm revenue and profits are lower in dry years, with large reductions in crop yields and only small savings in input costs.

Effect of climate variability on rate of return

In contrast, drought has a smaller immediate effect on beef farm revenue, because in dry years farmers can increase the quantity of livestock sold.

However, drought also lowers herd numbers, which lowers farm profit when herd value is accounted for.

Higher temperatures, lower winter rainfall

Australian average temperatures have increased by about 1°C since 1950.

Recent decades have also seen a trend towards lower average winter rainfall in the southwest and southeast.

This drying trend has been linked to atmospheric changes associated with global warming.

However, while global climate models generally predict a decline in winter season rainfall across southern Australia and more time spent in drought, there is still much uncertainty about what will happen in the long term, particularly to rainfall.

Climate shifts have cut farm profits

ABARES has assessed the effect of climate variability on farm profits over the period 1950 to 2019, holding all other factors constant including commodity prices and farm management practices.

We find that the shift in climate conditions since 2000 (from conditions in the period 1950-1999 to conditions in the period 2000-2019) has had a negative effect on the profits of both cropping and livestock farms.

Effect of 2000 – 2019 climate conditions on average farm profit

We estimate that the shift in climate has cut average annual broadacre farm profits by around 22%, which is an average of $18,600 per farm per year, controlling for all other factors.

The effects have been most pronounced in the cropping sector, reducing average profits by 35%, or $70,900 a year for a typical cropping farm.

At a national level this amounts to an average loss in production of broadacre crops of around $1.1 billion a year.

Although beef farms have been less affected than cropping farms overall, some beef farming regions have been affected more than others, especially south-western Queensland.

Read more: Drought is inevitable, Mr Joyce

Like previous ABARES research this study finds evidence of adaptation, with farmers reducing their sensitivity to dry conditions over time.

Our results suggest that without this adaptation the effects of the post-2000 climate shift would have been considerably larger, particularly for cropping farms.

Effect of post-2000 climate on average annual farm profits

Risk and income volatility have also increased

The changed climate conditions since 2000 have also increased risk and income volatility.

This is particularly so for cropping farms, where we find the chance of low-profit years has more than doubled as a result of the change in climate conditions.

Effect of climate variability on typical cropping farm

Handle with care – the drought policy dilemma

Drought policy faces an almost unavoidable dilemma, that providing relief to farm businesses and households in times of drought risks slowing industry structural adjustment and innovation.

Adjustment, change and innovation are fundamental to improving agricultural productivity; maintaining Australia’s competitiveness in world markets; and providing attractive and financially sustainable opportunities for farm households.

Read more: Helping farmers in distress doesn’t help them be the best: the drought relief dilemma

For these reasons, the strategic intent of drought policy has shifted away from seeking to protect and insulate farmers towards the promotion of drought preparedness and self‑reliance.

The best options for reconciling the drought policy dilemma focus on boosting the resilience of farm businesses and households to future droughts and climate variability, including through action and investment when farmers are not in drought.

The government’s Future Drought Fund, which will support research and innovation, is a good example of this approach.

Developing new insurance options is one worthwhile avenue of research which could provide farmers a way to self-manage risk. It would require investments in data and knowledge to support viable weather insurance markets: where farmers pay premiums sufficient to cover costs over time.

Read more: Better data would help crack the drought insurance problem

Supporting farm households experiencing hardship is legitimate and important, but for the long term health of the farm sector this needs to be done in ways that promote resilience and improved productivity and allow for long term adjustment to change.

– ref. New study: changes in climate since 2000 have cut Australian farm profits 22% – http://theconversation.com/new-study-changes-in-climate-since-2000-have-cut-australian-farm-profits-22-128860

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathalie Collins, Academic Director (National Programs), Edith Cowan University

Now the high of Game of Thrones has faded, another pop culture token has arrived. It takes the form of a green alien baby from the Star Wars television series The Mandalorian – a key offering from Disney+ when it launched last month.

In “Baby Yoda” (he is officially called The Child), we are introduced to a new version of someone we already love. The tiny, revered elder of the films has been further miniaturised and transformed. No longer a wizened oracle, he is presented as a vulnerable infant.

Imbued with traits we are biologically driven to find appealing – a large, symmetrical head, large eyes, a small mouth and a small nose – viewers have taken to this precious bundle and given him the online status he deserves: the internet meme.

There are online gifs, images and videos of Baby Yoda sipping soup, sharing a 50th birthday with celebrities, embodying extreme cuteness and – most importantly – inspiring Disney+ subscriptions.

Baby Yoda is shrouded in the mystery of uncharted territory. Unlike our first encounter with Yoda in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, this time we get to journey with him, as he and The Mandalorian explore a universe after the fall of the Empire.

The unlikely caretaker – one of the few remaining Mandalorian bounty hunters, who also made their debut in The Empire Strikes Back – discovers “the kid” towards the end of the first episode. The audience looks on with delight as the Mandalorian creates the unlikely kinship we all wish we could have with our own Baby Yoda.

Although recent Star Wars instalments didn’t hit home as strongly, we forgive all when we stare into those dark, pleading eyes.

The power of nostalgia

Disney has always marketed to the whole family, with a deep understanding of how nostalgia brands work.

Generations hand their cultural icons down with more effectiveness than any material heirloom. And yet companies need to constantly reinvent the nostalgia brand to keep it current without compromising its essential elements.

To the generation who grew up with Star Wars, Older Yoda represents an elder. His key quotes from the series are repeated, referenced, and revered. He’s a voice we’ve trusted since we were as tall as he supposedly is.

Yoda was designed by George Lucas in keeping with religious and cultural traditions, with ties to Buddhist principles of mindfulness, the universal life force of Taoism, and the Christian parables of Jesus. He was designed to inspire trust – and has now been designed again to inspire wonder and affection.

For viewers without access to their own elders, Older Yoda was the grandfather we always wanted: there to guide and tell us, “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Do life-long fans become life-long subscribers?

Disney is not in the movie business, nor in the cartoon business. It is in the “cultural icon” business – perhaps better described as the “clout” business.

Clout is an academic term for the power a brand or a product has to shape markets. Getting clout is challenging. Maintaining it just as challenging, if not harder.

Real clout doesn’t just sell us stuff. It redefines how we think through authentically tapping into who we are, what we believe, how we consume and – most ambitiously – how we feel. And how markets form and reform.

This is what Disney is after through Baby Yoda: in inspiring love and attachment that will capture share of heart, and then share of wallet. Baby Yoda is the perfect figure to convince customers Disney+ is not just another video streaming service: it is the streaming service you have to have.

Gathering around the water cooler for a chat doesn’t happen much these days. Work teams are often virtual and families are dispersed in all directions. The ideological chasms that divide us seem to be getting wider and deeper.

But Baby Yoda is something we can all relate to, co-creating messages and sharing a laugh – no matter where we are. Here, or in a galaxy far, far away.

– ref. Baby Yoda: the meme child making it a very Disney+ Christmas – http://theconversation.com/baby-yoda-the-meme-child-making-it-a-very-disney-christmas-128779

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Casswell, Professor of public health policy, Massey University

Earlier this month, the New Zealand government released draft legislation for how cannabis could be bought, grown and sold. It is a first glimpse at what New Zealanders will be voting on in next year’s cannabis referendum.

Justice minister Andrew Little said the primary objective of the draft bill was to reduce overall use and protect young people from access.

The bill proposes a minimum purchase and use age of 20 and restrictions on marketing and advertising of cannabis products. It says harm minimisation messages are to be included, consumption prohibited in public places and sales limited to specifically licensed physical stores. The cultivation and supply chain would be licensed and controlled by the government.

A clear public health orientation is to be applauded but once cannabis is made legal, I suggest the chances of increased use are high. This is not necessarily an argument against legalisation but we need much clearer thinking about the parameters of the legal cannabis market than is obvious in the current debate.

Read more: Most Australians support decriminalising cannabis, but our laws lag behind

An expanding cannabis market

Despite claims of high levels of use in New Zealand, the best data suggests only 15% of adults used cannabis in 2018/19, compared with 80% drinking alcohol.

In the US, where states have legalised medicinal cannabis and more recently recreational use, there has been an increase in cannabis use disorders among adults, prenatal and unintentional childhood exposure, use in adults and cannabis-related emergency room visits and fatal vehicle crashes.

We must expect more health harm from legal cannabis and, if legalisation is to go ahead, the government is right to draft law that protects us, and particularly the most vulnerable. But we may need to go beyond what the government is currently planning.

The level of harm from cannabis use depends on the amounts consumed, and there are many factors that drive use. These include levels of disadvantage, a sense hopelessness, familial history or personal and family crises, but one of the important drivers of heavy use is the way the products are supplied and marketed. This draft bill attempts to grapple with this.

Regulation beyond national level

The cannabis referendum provides both an opportunity and an imperative to question the proposed policy response. Our consumption is now strongly influenced by large and powerful transnational corporations, several of which produce alcohol products and will be the producers of the cannabis we smoke, vape, eat and drink.

Already alcohol companies are part owners of cannabis production overseas. The resources and influence these transnational alcohol corporates wield in the political arena weaken and prevent good legislation being passed throughout the world. The alcohol transnationals (aided by the advertising industry) have succeeded in fighting off meaningful regulation to control their marketing.

The draft New Zealand cannabis law proposes advertising regulations similar to those of the Smokefree legislation. These regulations, relevant when they were introduced in 1990, include no reference to marketing via social media platforms, where most alcohol marketing now takes place. Big data is used to target potential heavy drinkers and send messages the recipient they may not even recognise as marketing.

Read more: Children’s health hit for six as industry fails to regulate alcohol ads

Preventing industry influence on policy

Despite some voluntary restrictions on social media platforms, cannabis is being marketed with the help of influencers.

Cannabis corporates will work to weaken restrictions on marketing. Already in New Zealand, in response to the current proposals, Paul Manning, the chief executive of New Zealand cannabis producer Helius commented:

You could argue the ban on advertising is a bit tough given alcohol corporations are still allowed to advertise … .

We should expect a push from corporates around the world to bring cannabis regulation (in all its aspects) into line with very weak controls on alcohol. Countries around the world are looking at cannabis regulation and will learn from each other as the research on the impact of legalisation mounts. But the global corporations are already active and have resources to influence the policy processes.

Tobacco control has benefited greatly from an international and legally binding treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This specifically excludes corporate influence from the policy process. As a signatory to this treaty, New Zealand agreed to prevent tobacco industry influence on policy. There is no recognition of a similar intention in the draft cannabis bill (or in alcohol legislation).

Alcohol is the only drug not subject to an international health treaty and this is urgently needed.

The UN conventions on illicit drugs are not relevant when cannabis is legalised.

It is time to complement national policy on both alcohol and cannabis with a global framework that prevents industry influence on policy. This would help reduce harm by recognising the conflict of interest in maximising profits from selling addictive and intoxicating products.

– ref. Why NZ’s cannabis bill needs to stop industry from influencing policy – http://theconversation.com/why-nzs-cannabis-bill-needs-to-stop-industry-from-influencing-policy-128530