Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), University of Melbourne

A new five-year South Australian Arts Plan was launched this week. But there was a strange disconnect between an acknowledgement by the consultants of a problem in the state – given a significant reduction in arts funding and support services over the past year in particular – and limited means of addressing this going forward.

In fact, at the outset, the consultants note that their review, “does not make recommendations requiring significant additional government expenditure”.

In other words, despite the evidence of a sector that is struggling to make sense of cuts and reductions across the spectrum, the review has no intention of recommending changes that will address this.

The review notes “some concern at the loss of an independent arts department”. In December 2018, Arts SA as an independent government entity was dissolved by the government and the skeleton staff remaining were transferred to the Premier’s Department. Arts organisations are now embedded across several departments meaning there is now no one body charged with responsibility for the arts across SA.

Increasing the pressure

While the plan’s authors note problematic aspects of the SA arts scene (such as its over-reliance on festivals and lack of cultural infrastructure) they do not make strong recommendations as to how to fix this, aside from voicing support for a new concert hall.

Instead, they put the pressure back on the arts sector itself, arguing for more structural collaboration (such as better cooperation between the Adelaide Festival Centre and its users) and more sharing of resources. They also recommend other agents get involved in the arts to cover the shortfall in government support. That is, bring in the philanthropists and the private sector.

The reality is that this does not work in a state with no corporate head offices and limited philanthropic engagement. Nevertheless, the review recommends the national organisation Creative Partnerships Australia re-open an office in SA (paid for, probably, by South Australia), despite the national organisation closing it themselves several years ago.

Creative disconnection

Also last week, the Australia Council released its next five-year strategy, titled Creativity Connects Us. There is a serious attempt within the strategy to recognise that the arts cover a broad spectrum of cultural activity – not just elite activity. It acknowledges the diversity of Australia’s culture and highlights the extraordinary length and depth of First Nations’ cultural practices.

The strategy supports “equity of opportunity and access in our creative expression, workforce, leaders and audiences”. A key performance criterion for measuring this is, “supporting at least 200 culturally diverse applications with total funding of $13 million provided per year”.

But there is a gap between rhetoric and practice. The Council’s funding for the arts was $189.3 million in 2017-18, according to its annual report. More than $111 million or around 58% of this funding goes to arguably “elite” arts activity under the major performing arts framework.

If $13 million of this was allocated towards cultural diverse activity as noted, that represents around 7% of the Council’s total arts funding. This percentage does not reflect the cultural diversity of Australia, given in 2018 the ABS recorded that 29% of the population were born overseas.

Funding rejected

Both plans use “corporate speak” and adopt a neo-liberal view of the arts which frames government arts funding as “investments”. While arts activities, organisations and artists themselves are always in competition with each other for funding, the current climate appears to exacerbate this. Further, the continued emphasis on the arts as a framing for commercial activity and as a minor player in the creative industries, serves to undermine any belief that healthy societies benefit from arts practice and should therefore generously support them.

For example, the week before the Australia Council published its new plan touting how “its investment and initiatives have grown the profile and reach of Australian arts experiences,” it had rejected hundreds of organisations for future funding through its latest funding round.

Out of 412 applications from small to medium organisations across all art forms for four-year, general grant funding, 250 have been informed they were not successful.

Of the 162 remaining, only around 100 will eventually be successful. The same scenario occurred in May 2016, on a day known as Black Friday in the arts sector, when 65 arts organisations lost their funding.

This latest round has meant loss of funding for Theatreworks in Melbourne, AustralianPlays.org in Tasmania (a resource repository for Australian plays) and the journal Overland. Others have noted the art form of literature now receives less funding as an overall percentage than it did 40 years ago.

Making arts organisations with totally different mandates compete against each other, for a diminishing amount of funding, makes no sense. Where is the rationale here for building a strong and healthy arts sector?

An ironic feature of the South Australian Arts Plan is the inclusion of the theatre company Slingsby as an example of a wonderful arts organisation that has shown appropriate resilience and fortitude. This company, despite doing incredible work, was defunded in the 2016 funding round by the Australia Council.

It has continued to survive because of the extraordinary effort of its artists and supporters.

Since the introduction of a “competition strategy” mentality in 2016, vital activities and organisations that underpin the arts are being lost, even if they have been essential to the development of a sector for 40 years. And arts activities that are inspirational and unique, such as Slingsby, are not supported.

– ref. Cut throat competition, ‘corporate-speak’ and dark ironies: two new five-year arts plans – http://theconversation.com/cut-throat-competition-corporate-speak-and-dark-ironies-two-new-five-year-arts-plans-122943

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin University

Victoria is facing an incarceration crisis. Despite a new prison (Ravenhall) opening in 2017, the state’s prison system is under enormous strain, with the premier recently announcing prefabricated prison cells would be introduced in existing prisons to cope with overcrowding.

Recent research by Federal MP Andrew Leigh argues we are now in a “second convict age”, imprisoning a greater proportion of the adult population than at any point since 1899. Imprisoning people before their trial contributes to this startling situation.

Read more: Locking up kids damages their mental health and sets them up for more disadvantage. Is this what we want?

In fact, a key driver of the increasing prison population is the unprecedented increase in the number of people imprisoned before trial. These are people who aren’t granted bail and are being held in prison “on remand” (pending trial). In fact, nearly two in five prisoners are currently on remand.

There are now more legally innocent people in jail in Victoria than there were convicted prisoners in 2005.

But Victoria is not unique. A growth in the remand population has been taking place in other Australian states and territories, with even higher proportions of prisoners being held on remand in South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

The changing function of bail

The increase in the number of people being held in prison before their trial is due to a change in the function of bail.

Traditionally, decisions were primarily based on an assessment of whether the person seeking bail would, if released back into the community, then turn up at court for the hearing of their case. Anyone deemed to be unlikely to do so would be held in prison until their trial.

Recent Victorian parliamentary debates make it clear that decisions about bail now focus on protecting the community from crimes that might be committed if people are released on bail.

This means that bail now essentially functions as a means of crime prevention.

And legislative changes have made it harder to get bail in Victoria. There are now more than 100 offences where the person applying for bail must establish why they should not be detained in custody. These offences include murder but also many drug and assault offences.

This “reverse onus” is contrary to established legal principles that presume innocence and place responsibility on the prosecution to establish the case against an accused person.

The exception, not the rule

Several high profile crimes underpin the concerns about people on bail committing offences. Adrian Bayley was on bail when he raped and murdered Jill Meagher in 2012. Sean Price was on bail and a supervision order when he killed Masa Vukotic in 2015.

Read more: After Bourke St, Victoria should not rush in on bail reform

And community outrage was amplified when it became known that James Gargasoulas was on bail when he killed six people and injured 27 more in Bourke Street in January 2017.

With such terrible crimes dominating parliamentary debates and media reporting, it is hard to remember that violent offending by those released on bail is the exception rather than the rule.

Most people do not commit an offence while on bail. If they do, the most likely offences are property, traffic and justice offences.

In Victoria, we are imprisoning far too many people as a way of dealing with serious problems created by a small number of offenders.

Read more: The folly of writing legislation in response to sensational crimes

The downside of imprisoning people before trial

We spend a lot of money putting a large number of people in prison before their trial. But the benefits aren’t clear.

Imprisoning those charged with, but not convicted of, a crime breaches the right to liberty and the presumption of innocence.

Being imprisoned disrupts family relationships, can lead to the loss of employment, makes preparing for trial more difficult and exposes people to the dangers of a prison environment.

Women and Indigenous Australians are particularly disadvantaged, with more Indigenous Australians dying on remand than after being sentenced.

Read more: Legal and welfare checks should be extended to save Aboriginal lives in custody

And women are more likely to be denied bail than men. Yet most women who are being held on remand in Victoria have not been charged with violent crimes but are accused of drug, burglary and other property offences. Just over half of them don’t even apply for bail.

There are more disadvantages associated with imprisonment before trial. Some people will be found not guilty when their trial takes place or, if convicted, given a non-custodial sentence, such as a community corrections order or a fine. These people receive no compensation for the time they have spent in prison.

Troublingly, there is also emerging evidence that denying bail and imprisoning people makes it more likely they will commit a criminal offence in the future.

Read more: Babies and toddlers are living with their mums in prison. We need to look after them better

Carefully controlled research from the United States indicates pre-trial imprisonment itself has this “downstream” effect. It’s a sad irony that imprisoning people before trial to increase community safety may actually contribute to later offending that places the community at risk.

Collectively, this information suggests we need to more accurately identify those who present a serious risk to community safety and abandon the current broad approach that is resulting in too many people being detained.

We should then re-invest the money being spent on imprisoning people before trial into more productive activities, such as housing and drug and alcohol services.

This greater support would enable more people to be released on bail and get the services they need, contributing to their rehabilitation – the best form of community protection.

– ref. Locking up legally innocent people before their trial is straining Victoria’s prisons – http://theconversation.com/locking-up-legally-innocent-people-before-their-trial-is-straining-victorias-prisons-122392

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Lecturer, General Dentist & PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

Tooth enamel is one of the hardest tissues in the human body. It acts as a protective layer for our teeth, and gives our smile that pearly white shimmer. But when enamel erodes, it can’t regrow itself.

In a significant scientific breakthrough, researchers recently discovered a way to regrow human tooth enamel.

Scientists from China have invented a gel that contains mineral clusters naturally found in teeth. In partially acid-damaged teeth, the gel stimulates crystal regrowth to restore tooth enamel back to its original structure.

While the method is yet to be tested on people, one day this could mean saying goodbye to painful needles, the dreaded dentist drill, and even fillings.

Read more: How often should I get my teeth cleaned?

What is tooth enamel?

Enamel is the outermost layer of our teeth, and protects our pearly whites from wear and tear. It also insulates us from feeling pain and sensitivity.

When this protective coat erodes, our teeth soften and become vulnerable to developing cavities (holes in the teeth) which may require dental treatment such as fillings.

Tooth enamel contains the same minerals, calcium and phosphate, found in bone. Unlike bone though, enamel contains relatively more mineral, and enamel crystals are arranged in a complex geometrical pattern.

Under a microscope, enamel crystals are shaped like long ribbons, or spaghetti strands. These crystal strands are assembled into clusters, like packets of dry spaghetti, orientated at 60 degrees to each other. The ribbon clusters, which weave together like honeycomb, are known as rods and inter-rods.

When destroyed, this weave is difficult to recreate, because the cells that form enamel die as our teeth emerge from our gums.

Why does our tooth enamel erode?

While enamel is very hard, it’s also brittle and susceptible to erosion. This occurs when tooth mineral dissolves into our saliva.

Our saliva is constantly trying to balance any “bad guys” it encounters with “good guys” at its disposal. When we get acid in our mouth (a bad guy) the mineral in our saliva (a good guy) tries to bind to it to neutralise the acid, and prevent it from causing harm. This is known as buffering.

If there’s too much acid, or the quality and quantity of our saliva is inadequate, we run out of mineral to buffer the “acid attack”. So in a final effort to neutralise the acidity in our mouth, the mineral in our teeth will dissolve into our saliva. This is when our teeth erode and become vulnerable.

Read more: Child tooth decay is on the rise, but few are brushing their teeth enough or seeing the dentist

Like the erosion we see in our beaches and river beds, under a microscope, eroded enamel surfaces appear moth-eaten and uneven. This is because erosion destroys the crystal organisation I described above.

Current dentist-recommended products repair enamel but cannot regrow the complex crystal structure to recreate a pearly white shimmer. This is why globally, the dental community are very excited about this research.

Can we control erosion?

Our teeth erode when we eat and drink foods rich in acid, including wine, cola beverages, fruit juices, sour lollies, and energy and sports drinks. As a general rule, anything that tastes sour is high in acid. It’s best to avoid or limit acidic food and drinks where possible.

People with medical conditions such as bulimia or acid reflux may be at greater risk of their teeth eroding. If you suffer from these conditions, in addition to getting help from your doctor, it’s best to seek regular dental check-ups.

When our enamel erodes, it makes our teeth appear yellower. Often, we may also experience toothache or sensitivity because we’ve lost the enamel’s natural insulation.

If your teeth are eroding, a dentist and/or dental hygienist will be able to monitor and help you manage your oral health. In addition to brushing and cleaning between your teeth, your dental professional may also recommend:

• rinsing with a bicarbonate and salt water mouthwash
• chewing sugar-free gum to stimulate an increase in mineral-rich saliva
• using a dentist-recommended toothpaste, special cream and/or mouthwash to help replace lost mineral and repair your teeth
• delaying cleaning your teeth after an “acid attack” to prevent removing softened enamel.

Read more: Two million Aussies delay or don’t go to the dentist – here’s how we can fix that

How did the scientists regrow enamel?

In a lab, extracted teeth were treated with acid to simulate erosion, then painted with a special gel. This gel contained calcium phosphate ion clusters – mineral clusters naturally found in teeth – mixed with an ingredient called triethylamine (TEA).

After two days in a simulated mouth-like environment, the previously eroded enamel was checked for crystal growth, size, shape, organisation and composition using special microscopes.

The spaghetti-like crystals had regrown seamlessly, and the crystal clusters had correctly orientated themselves to form the rod and inter-rod honeycomb weave.

When will we be able to regrow enamel?

While this technology is something to look forward to, the short answer for now is “not yet”. This study has only been performed on extracted teeth. The researchers are hoping to test their method on mice, and then people soon after.

One of the significant limitations to moving towards animal and human trials is the toxicity of the essential ingredient, TEA. Another challenge is the enamel thickness they were able to repair was at a microscopic level.

Read more: Health check: what’s eating your teeth?

But all is not lost. The scientists hope to find a safe way to use TEA with the intention of growing enamel thick enough to fix larger sections of eroded enamel.

For now, the thought of not having to get fillings at the dentist is an exciting prospect on the horizon. So watch this space.

– ref. Can we heal teeth? The quest to repair tooth enamel, nature’s crystal coat – http://theconversation.com/can-we-heal-teeth-the-quest-to-repair-tooth-enamel-natures-crystal-coat-122544

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, University of Melbourne

In October 1969, Sydney became the focus for dedicated followers of international avant garde art. It is hard to imagine how unusual it was at that time for Australia to be the focus of anything much.

The Opera House was still being built, apparently forever. Our involvement in the Vietnam war, even though it was causing a great deal of angst, was essentially a side show in global politics. We were a long way from the rest of the world and air travel was still prohibitively expensive.

But here were Christo and Jeanne-Claude directing a motley group of students, artists and other volunteers, to make the world’s largest ever work of art – wrapping the entire coast along Little Bay.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales’ latest exhibition, Making Art Public: 50 years of Kaldor Public Art Projects, revisits some of the most iconic large-scale art presented in Australia then and since – through artworks, archival materials and reconstructions. The projects were all funded by contemporary arts patron and collector John Kaldor’s public art organisation.

One million square feet

In the 1960s, creative partnerships were commonly discussed as being a purely male creation, so it was not until 1994 that Jeanne-Claude was fully acknowledged as Christo’s equal.

The previous year, they had wrapped the Kunsthalle at Berne in Switzerland, and had hoped to wrap a length of coast in California. There were logistical problems, all of which were solved by the persuasive Australian art collector and textiles manufacturer, John Kaldor. The Wrapped Coast used a lot of fabric.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are now seen as major art stars of their generation. After completing Little Bay, they created headlines around the world with each event as they wrapped a Roman Wall at Via Veneto, Pont Neuf in Paris and hung a curtain across a valley in Colorado. In 1995 they realised their long-held ambition to wrap Berlin’s Reichstag. But Little Bay remains the first magnificent installation on a grand scale. Photographs record the sheer beauty of the way fabric and rope redefined the shape of the land.

Daniel Thomas, then curator at the Art Gallery of NSW, was a passionate advocate for Christo and supported Kaldor’s offer of a wrapped gum tree as gift to the collection. It was rejected by the Trustees. In 2011, the tree entered the collection as a part of the Kaldor family’s gift of their collection to the Gallery. Now, 50 years after Little Bay, Kaldor Public Art Projects have joined with the gallery to create a survey celebrating the half century of promoting art in public.

Crowd pleasers

Christo was only the beginning. In 1971, Kaldor brought Harald Szeemann, curator for Germany’s Kassel Documenta, to Australia. Szeemann looked at studios of artists, well-known, little known and unknown. The resulting exhibition I want to leave a nice well-done child here, did not result in Szeemann choosing any Australians for international stardom, but it did encourage a new generation of Australian artists to think of themselves as being part of a global community.

Some projects showed that modern art and pleasure can go well together. In 1973, Gilbert and George performed The Singing Sculpture, while the food artist, Miralda, created Coloured bread.

Most sensational of all was Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik’s 1976 exhibition and performances with TV Cello, that included Moorman naked and playing an ice cello and smothered in 13 kilograms of chocolate fudge.

Another popular event was Jeff Koons’Puppy, created in flowers outside the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Hiding and seeking

Not all of the projects were so easily accessible to large crowds. The land artist, Richard Long, made A straight hundred mile walk in Australia near Broken Hill.

By way of contrast Thomas Demand’s The dailies was an intimate installation in the old Commercial Travellers’ Association headquarters, which are concealed inside Sydney’s MLC building.

The Kaldor artists have often experimented with different venues. Martin Boyce’s We are shipwrecked and landlocked was installed in the Old Melbourne Gaol, while Bill Viola’s Fire Woman and Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall) were installations at St Saviour’s Church in Redfern.

The Kaldor Public Art Projects have always relied on willing volunteer workers, many of them art students. The importance of these volunteers to the Kaldor program is explored in Alicia Frankovich’s The Work, exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW. As a part of Project 30, Marina Abramović: In Residence the artist mentored 12 young Australian performance artists.

The objective always was more than just showing art to a bemused public. As a part of the current exhibition, the artist Imants Tillers, who became an artist after working on the Wrapped Coast, has created A New World Rises, an homage to the impact of the Kaldor Art Projects on his professional career.

In another part of the gallery Ian Milliss, another volunteer from 1969, has created Natural Parallels 2, consisting of ropes running between four flights of stairs. Milliss had been a modernist painter before Little Bay showed him how art could be a form of political engagement.

A smaller world

Modern communications have made the world a more intimate space than it was in 1969. Australian artists are now self confident in approaching their history and their identity.

In 2016 Jonathan Jones confronted some of the ghosts of our past with barrangal dyara (skin and bones), the first Kaldor commission of an Australian artist.

Despite its size, (it effectively took over the top part of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden), barrangal dyara trod lightly on the earth. All that is left of it are the photographic records and the gypsum shields, now moved far away.

Agatha Gothe-Snape, who was born 11 years after the wrapping of Little Bay, has created Lion’s Honey, an ongoing performance tribute to the art that has helped stimulate her own practice.

The Art Gallery of NSW has recreated as much as it can of events past – using objects that have been left behind, videos and photographs.

It is an exhibition to trigger memories of experiencing, for the first time, the heady sense of being at the heart of amazing art.

Making Art Public is at the Art Gallery of NSW from Sept 7-February 16.

– ref. The heady sense of being at the heart of public art: 50 years of the Kaldor Foundation – http://theconversation.com/the-heady-sense-of-being-at-the-heart-of-public-art-50-years-of-the-kaldor-foundation-122557

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mirjam Kaestli, Research Fellow, Charles Darwin University

A study of three remote community water supplies in northern Australia, published today in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, revealed that bores with high levels of iron were more likely to harbour Burkholderia pseudomallei, the bacterium that causes the potentially fatal disease melioidosis in both humans and animals, than bores with low iron levels.

The study, by researchers from Charles Darwin University and Menzies School of Health Research, reveals the challenge of delivering safe water to remote communities in Australia’s wet-dry tropics, many of which rely on bore water from shallow aquifers. But we also found that treating water with chlorine is an effective way to improve its safety.

Read more: Getting clean drinking water into remote Indigenous communities means overcoming city thinking

Based on a modelling study, melioidosis causes an estimated 89,000 deaths worldwide, and people with diabetes, chronic lung or renal disease or hazardous alcohol use are particularly at risk. Deaths due to contaminated drinking water have been documented in Northern Australia and Thailand, where B. pseudomallei is endemic.

B. pseudomallei is found naturally in soil and surface water in rural areas around Darwin. Around one-third of tested unchlorinated residential bores were positive for this bacterium, and it has also been found in aerator sprays and tank sludge from water treatment plants.

Water can usually be made safe by treating it with chlorine, although in laboratory experiments some B. pseudomallei strains can tolerate higher chlorine levels than others.

There is also an association between B. pseudomallei and increased iron levels in bore water. Naturally occurring iron-cycling bacteria can metabolise the iron, producing bacterial films inside pipes that contribute to corrosion and reduce bore yield. The problem with biofilms is that opportunistic pathogens in water supplies such as Legionella pneumophila or Pseudomonas aeruginosa can also colonise the biofilms, protecting the bacteria from chlorination.

Many aquifers in Northern Australia contain naturally high levels of iron, and some are also shallow and prone to inundation with surface water during the wet season. This iron-rich source water potentially compromises the water in the distribution system.

Putting bores to the test

The problem is that we know very little about the microbiology of drinking water in remote communities. To learn more, we studied three remote water supplies in the Top End with varying iron levels: one low, one medium, and one high.

The “high iron” community had water with an average of 0.8mg of iron per litre – more than double the threshold of 0.3mg/L suggested by the Australian drinking water guidelines above which the taste of water is affected.

The “medium iron” community had water with average iron concentrations of 0.25mg/L, while the figure for the “low iron” community was 0.05mg/L.

All three communities had reported melioidosis cases over recent decades: three cases since 1994 in the high-iron community; 11 in the medium-iron community; and four in the low-iron community. It is not known where these patients acquired the melioidosis bacteria.

For each community, together with collaboratorsPower and Water Corporation, we sampled water from five points along the drinking water distribution system, of which three were unchlorinated (bores and tanks), and two were from the chlorinated reticulation system. We then used genetic sequencing to survey the bacterial communities in water.

We found that the geochemistry of the groundwater had a substantial impact on the types of bacteria in untreated water, particularly in the case of bacteria that can metabolise iron.

We found B. pseudomallei in bores with high iron levels, and in a bacterial biofilm inside a bore pipe which also contained iron-oxidising Gallionella, nitrifying Nitrospira, and free-living Hartmannella amoebae, which may be able to harbour B. pseudomallei.

Growing challenge

If B. pseudomallei occurs inside amoebae growing in remote communities’ source water, this could make it harder to successfully target the bacteria using chlorination. Second, the interaction with Gallionella bears further scrutiny because this iron-oxidising bacterium is increasingly used in biological iron-removal filters.

In our samples we detected three pathogen groups: non-tuberculous mycobacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and B. pseudomallei. Importantly, B. pseudomallei was found in water with scarce nutrients. This highlights the fact that this bacterium can thrive under nutritionally poor conditions (it has been known to survive even in distilled water for up to 16 years). This in turn means when water providers routinely monitor the water supply integrity by using heterotrophic bacteria counts, they might not suspect the presence of B. pseudomallei as the former cannot survive under such nutrient scarce conditions.

Surprisingly, we also found B. pseudomallei in a bore accessing a deeper aquifer. We will need to investigate further across all seasons to determine whether this bacterium does indeed live in deeper, confined aquifers, or whether it is mainly linked to intrusions of surface water during the wet season. The latter would be easier for water providers to manage.

We detected no B. pseudomallei in treated water, although we did find abundant DNA of another opportunistic pathogen group: non-tuberculous mycobacteria.

Read more: Some remote Australian communities have drinking water for only nine hours a day

Our study provides a first snapshot of the bacteria in a selection of remote water supplies, and can hopefully contribute to improved management of water supplies in the wet-dry tropics.

– ref. Bugs and bores: a source of dangerous bacteria in remote communities’ water supply – http://theconversation.com/bugs-and-bores-a-source-of-dangerous-bacteria-in-remote-communities-water-supply-122941

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Lecturer Sport Management, Western Sydney University

This month, the biopic of jockey Michelle Payne’s life, Ride Like A Girl, will be released.

In 2015, Payne made Australian sport history by riding Prince Of Penzance to victory in the Melbourne Cup at 100-1 odds. She was the first female jockey in the Cup’s 155-year history to win the prestigious race.

Payne’s success is part of a surge in the numbers of female jockeys in Australia. But while women are more visible in the silks, there is nonetheless a persistent sexist culture that is proving hard to stamp out. Australia lags behind other racing nations in making meaningful changes for women.

A sport steeped in masculine history

In its long history, horse racing has been dominated by men – they have been the jockeys, the strappers, the trainers and the administrators. It wasn’t until 1979 that female jockeys were finally granted licences to compete against men in professional races.

In recent years, the gender imbalance has started to turn around. There is little doubt that Payne’s historic win spurred the continued rise in female jockey numbers – and, in turn, the rising number of women winning races.

These days, about 30% of Australian jockeys are women. Women now dominate regional meets, most notably in Western Australia.

In Victoria, female apprentice jockeys outnumber men. As a result, women’s riding opportunities are steadily increasing.

But it remains a dangerous sport, as highlighted by the recent deaths of two female jockeys. In fact, nine of the past ten jockey deaths in Australia have been women, raising questions about safety.

While these statistics may cause people to hypothesise a link between gender and jockey falls, research remains scarce. Australian racing officials are warning that conclusions should not be drawn too early, especially about any gender-based implications. ​

In addition, the masculinist culture within the sport remains hard to shift. That seems to extend to racegoers too: despite impressive performances on the turf, punters show significant bias against female jockeys.

However, this assumption is mistaken, with female jockey performances often equal to those of men.

Following her victory, Payne had a visible platform from which to call out racing’s sexist culture. She said:

It’s such a chauvinistic sport, a lot of the owners wanted to kick me off. Everyone else can get stuffed [who] think women aren’t good enough. I believe that we [women] sort of don’t get enough of a go and hopefully this [her Cup win] will help.

A man’s world

Recent research highlights the sport’s persistent gender inequities, which are often played out in inappropriate comments about female jockeys’ physical appearance, or unwanted sexual advances. While women and men finally competing against each other equally and for equal pay is cause for celebration, women’s earning potential is often restricted because they tend to ride inferior horses in lower-class races. As American jockey Erica Murray put it:

To survive, you have to keep your mouth shut.

For many years, the few jobs for women in horse racing have been in “caring” roles such as stablehands. While women have made some gains as trainers, group 1 racing opportunities remain largely dominated by men.

In 2018, three of the top six riders in Australia were women. Despite competing and succeeding at this level, few other women made up the top 50.

Some female jockeys attribute disparities of this kind to the difficulties women can face getting a ride. Some trainers refuse to use women as riders.

Jockeys need to be strong but slight. But while women’s smaller size might be a natural advantage, within racing circles they are often considered weaker and so less able to withstand the physicality of race riding.

Where to from here?

Australian racing may be able to learn something from the French example. To create a level playing field, racehorses are given different weights. Put simply, better-performing horses are required to carry heavier loads. In 2017, the French allowed a horse with a female rider to carry two kilograms less weight than those with male jockeys. This year, Japan’s Racing Association followed suit.

Since this measure was implemented, the number of female starters in flat racing in France has doubled, with a 165% increase in the number of wins by women.

While similar measures may eventually be adopted in Australia, some female jockeys remain cautious. When asked if she would go to France to take advantage of the rule, Melbourne-based rider Linda Meech said:

You are joking. We can compete with the men without any need for that sort of advantage.

Those opposed to such a measure argue it might entrench the belief that women are somehow less capable than their male counterparts and require an advantage. For others, it is anti-competitive and discriminates against men.

Others in the industry argue that cash incentives might increase female jockey numbers. Some UK commentators go as far as to call for quota systems as a way to fast-track women.

Cultural change takes time. If the sport had more women not just riding in group 1 races but also becoming trainers and rising through the administration ranks, its entrenched sexist culture would start to change.

​

– ref. Riding (and winning) like a girl: female jockeys are more prevalent, but still treated as outsiders – http://theconversation.com/riding-and-winning-like-a-girl-female-jockeys-are-more-prevalent-but-still-treated-as-outsiders-122846

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Crock, Professor of Public Law, University of Sydney

A three-year-old boy with haemophilia and an acquired brain injury is facing removal from the country because the home affairs department has ruled his medical costs would unduly burden Australian taxpayers.

Kayban Jamshaad’s case is before Perth’s Administrative Appeal Tribunal where his parents claim that removal to their home country of the Maldives would be a death sentence because he would lose the medical care he needs to survive.

Read more: What can go wrong in the blood? A brief overview of bleeding, clotting and cancer

The case highlights one example of how a migrant’s health or disability can affect their visa status.

In this case, as with many others making the news, Kayban’s family had been living happy and productive lives in Australia on temporary visas.

Transitioning to permanent status, however, involves more onerous health requirements that deny visas to people likely to require care or use scarce community resources. Applicants are assessed against their “deemed cost”, regardless of what health or community services they will actually use.

The immigration minister has the power to grant someone a permanent visa if they fail any of the health tests, but only when intervention is in the “public interest”.

Rules are discriminatory, obscure and unfair

Complaints about the migration health rules have focused on their bluntly discriminatory nature and questionable service to Australia’s national interests.

The rules make no distinction between disease and disability: the assumption is both are equally burdensome.

No attempt is made to balance someone’s “cost” against his or her contribution to Australia. The algorithms used to determine cost, including projected costs over time, are also opaque.

Read more: Visa policy for overseas students with a disability is nonsensical and discriminatory

Australia’s discriminatory treatment of migrants with diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, and disabilities is protected by caveats it has created under both domestic and international laws.

The Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992 exempts migration decisions from full compliance with that Act.

Australia has also lodged an “interpretive declaration” to Article 18 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which addresses liberty of movement.

Yet the central focus of both the Disability Discrimination Act and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is to acknowledge people with disabilities as rights bearers who are entitled to dignity and equal treatment before the law.

The UN Committee overseeing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has identified the migration health rules as a matter of concern. When Australia appears before the Committee later this month it will be asked to account for the measures.

Tests for HIV and other infectious diseases

In Australia, all visa applicants aged 15 or over must be tested for HIV, tuberculosis and other diseases considered a public health risk.

Australia continues to test for HIV despite comparator countries no longer doing so.

Australia has ignored recommendations from the UN Programme on HIV/AIDS and others to soften its hard stance on people with HIV by abandoning mandatory testing and acknowledging the success and modest cost of available therapies.

Some softening of the rules

Persistent lobbying on the health rules themselves has seen some movement. Although, the government seems to have gone out of its way to ensure modest rule changes in July were made quietly.

In determining whether someone will incur health costs, officials consider a person’s age, state of health and (if relevant) their particular disease or disability.

Before July 2019, virtually all children born with conditions such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or autism faced exclusion.

This was because projected health costs were capped at A$40,000, assessed against life expectancy or visa duration.

Children with similar conditions are now tested against a A$49,000 cap over ten years. The changes are modest but offer some hope.

But applicants are still assessed against deemed cost even if they do not access services.

Read more: Explainer: what causes cerebral palsy and can it be prevented?

The future

Australia can ensure immigration does not result in undue burden without ditching fairness and humanity. A good starting point would be “nett benefit” health rules that measure a migrant’s contributions as well as projected costs.

Allowing officials to weigh benefit against burden would also free the minister from endless petitions to personally intervene.

– ref. Many sick and disabled people are refused permanent visas. We need compassion not discrimination – http://theconversation.com/many-sick-and-disabled-people-are-refused-permanent-visas-we-need-compassion-not-discrimination-122311

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Brown, Lecturer, Curtin University

The latest preliminary NAPLAN results came out recently, but new research has found the test might have little to do with what the kids are actually learning in class.

Our research, presented at the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA) conference in July this year, found the NAPLAN questions in numeracy for Years 5 and 9 do not cover many of the topics students are studying that year, based on the Australian mathematics curriculum.

Yet the organisation running the tests – the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) – says NAPLAN should be aligned to the curriculum.

Read more: NAPLAN results show Year 3 students perform better than Year 9 in writing, and it’s a worrying trend

New tests, old studies

We found NAPLAN mathematics is nowhere near the year level of study the students are doing at the time of taking the tests. The majority of the Year 5 numeracy test is actually content from the curriculum for Year 2 and Year 3.

For example, these are questions from the most recently released NAPLAN Year 5 Numeracy test.

In the Year 9 NAPLAN test, only 25% is content above Year 7 level. Absent from the tests are some of the more difficult content areas, including use of large numbers to do addition in Year 5 and the index laws (such as x^ax^b=x^a+b) in Year 9.

The tables (below) show that the NAPLAN tests have a year level focus which is much lower than the year level of the students sitting the tests.

Where is the mathematical reasoning?

The NAPLAN Numeracy tests are mainly multiple choice, so it’s not surprising topics that require depth of thinking – such as reasoning and problem solving – are neglected.

This is despite what the lead writer of the mathematics curriculum, Professor Peter Sullivan, says:

[…] reasoning is essential to mathematics, it’s what doing mathematics is about.

Our analysis of 312 questions from the most recent publicly-available NAPLAN tests in numeracy found a significant number of the questions tested recall rather than skills.

For example, in measurement and geometry there is an emphasis on knowing the names of shapes, rather than applications such as symmetry or proof.

We found 19% of what the mathematics curriculum Year 5 students should be able to do was not tested in the Year 5 NAPLAN numeracy test. That figure was 35% for Year 9 students.

The Australian Mathematics Curriculum requires students to be able to sketch graphs, and to explain a plan for selecting a random sample from a population in order to describe the items using statistics. The words “explore” and “investigate” occur in many content areas.

Such aspects of the curriculum are not recognised in the format used in NAPLAN testing. Instead of mathematics being thoughtful and creative, NAPLAN promotes an impression that quick responses to a lot of brief questions reveals a complete picture of mathematical ability.

The move to test online

NAPLAN is moving to an online format, which means tests since 2016 will not be made public because the questions will be reused within the new online system.

In future, students will not all receive the same questions. Instead, questions will be drawn from a secret database depending on how well the students are doing. It will no longer be possible to assess the nature of the questions nor to compare them against the curriculum.

The reliability of NAPLAN is not in question. The questions consistently give predictable results. It is validity that is the issue: does the NAPLAN actually reveal ability at what the students should have been learning?

Read more: Kids learn valuable life skills through rough-and-tumble play with their dads

We say no, as the questions cover material from the curriculum for much younger students and avoid the difficult aspects of mathematics.

NAPLAN is a multimillion dollar exercise which is supposed to assess the attainment of Australian school students. In practice, the results come to teachers too late to be of value for diagnostic purposes, and students are never permitted to know which questions they got wrong.

But NAPLAN is influential in defining the public impression of what mathematics is, and that is not the same as the mathematics curriculum.

If the real purpose of the NAPLAN is to check up on schools and school systems, there has to be a cheaper and less harmful way of doing so.

– ref. NAPLAN tests are not tough enough for the level of maths students are studying – http://theconversation.com/naplan-tests-are-not-tough-enough-for-the-level-of-maths-students-are-studying-121934

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Kent, Research Fellow, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney

Many of the chronic and costly diseases Australians face are related to how we live in cities. The speed of modern life clashes with poorly designed urban areas. As a result, health-promoting activities, such as regular physical activity, community interaction and the preparation of healthy food, become low priorities.

We know better urban planning can encourage healthier behaviours. Providing infrastructure for walking and cycling is a prime example.

Read more: Is your ‘experience diet’ making you unwell?

Yet there are other, often overlooked, ways that urban planners are on the front line when it comes to promoting the health of Australians. In particular, the way cities are planned can reduce inequities in both access to health services and health outcomes. This has important implications for the health of individuals and their communities.

Urban planners are well versed in the fundamentals of planning the equitable city. But planners must work within the constraints of our political systems and prevailing approaches to government. Our recent analysis of health and urban planning in Australia identified a few key ways urban planners can “work the system” to promote health equity.

Why is equity so important for health?

Promoting equity is important for health because there is a social gradient to the differences between people’s health. In general, the higher a person’s socio-economic position, the healthier he or she is. People from poorer social or economic circumstances have higher rates of illness and disability, and live shorter lives.

Read more: Designing suburbs to cut car use closes gaps in health and wealth

Differences in life expectancies across the nation illustrate this. In 2016, a man born in remote New South Wales had a life expectancy 13 years less than a man born in the affluent suburb of Mosman in Sydney.

To promote equity, we need to define what we are seeking to equalise. In this case, it is the distribution of the social determinants of health.

These determinants are the conditions in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age. Factors such as income, education, employment, empowerment and social support can strengthen or undermine health and well-being.

Our planners have access to the data and the grounded knowledge required to expose gaps in services. For example, a local infrastructure planner can readily identify the communities that lack internet broadband access but need it. A transport planner working for Sydney’s City Rail knows all too well which train service is unreliable, and which train station is routinely missed during the peak because of overcrowding.

Planners also have the skills and insights to raise concerns about shortages of residential housing stock, before these trigger the kind of housing affordability crises we have seen recently in Australian cities.

Read more: With health assuming its rightful place in planning, here are 3 key lessons from NSW

Planners need to ‘work the system’

The real challenge for planners promoting equity in Australia is the need to work within the constraints of the nation’s dominant political economy. In Australia today, we have a neoliberal system, epitomised by “the subjugation of the public to the private, the state to the market, the social to the economic”, as John Clarke put it. The result of this has been a progressive withdrawal of government involvement in many areas since the latter half of the 20th century.

Our recent analysis of health and urban planning in Australia provides several recommendations on how urban planners can work within this system to promote health equity.

Play to emotions

The first is to harness the power of human health’s emotive appeal. Relative to other planning concerns, such as environmental sustainability, health is an issue that appeals more directly to the individual.

By making clear the links between good planning principles and human health, planners can leverage this emotion to promote concepts that might otherwise be ignored in developer-driven agendas. The protection of green open spaces for physical activity and community connection is a good example. By pointing out how important these things are for human health, urban planners can make a compelling and robust case for preserving these spaces.

Read more: Higher-density cities need greening to stay healthy and liveable

Speak the language of money

A second way that planning for health can leverage space in a neoliberal system is to speak the language of the market. In 2016-17, Australia spent A$180.7 billion on health. This spending increases from year to year, outpacing growth in inflation, population or the economy.

Most of this funding is dedicated to treating people once they are sick, rather than preventing illness. But prevention would produce large cost-savings. These savings can be captured in decision-making tools such as cost-benefit analysis.

Planners are in a powerful position to work with public health professionals to develop a deeper understanding of the health cost savings to be made from better urban planning decisions.

Enlist trusted figures

Finally, health can be promoted by harnessing the power of the health fraternity. Australian research shows the voice of a well-versed and respected individual can often make the difference when it comes to preserving a piece of open space, funding a cycleway or protecting the use of land for farmers’ markets.

Australians hold health professionals in high esteem. Polling company Roy Morgan conducts an Image of Professions Survey, asking Australians to rank 30 professions by characteristics such as ethics and honesty. Medical professionals, such as nurses, doctors, pharmacists and dentists, have consistently featured in the top five. These trusted professionals could be influential voices for healthy built environment agendas.

Our cities can and should be places that promote good health for everyone who lives in them. Quite simply, this means the (re)prioritisation of well-being over economic growth.

This is a crucial barrier to planning healthy built environments in Australia. Yet it is not insurmountable. Indeed, the key to overcoming it may well be harnessing the power of health as a significant concern for all.

The ideas in this article are taken from a new book, Planning Australia’s Healthy Built Environments. Join Jennifer Kent at the Festival of Urbanism in Sydney on September 9 to explore these issues.

– ref. Working the system: 3 ways planners can defy the odds to promote good health for all of us – http://theconversation.com/working-the-system-3-ways-planners-can-defy-the-odds-to-promote-good-health-for-all-of-us-122181

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

Official figures released Wednesday show the Australian economy growing at the slowest pace since the financial crisis.

GDP growth was only 0.5% for the June quarter, meaning that in the past year output grew by a feeble 1.4%.

The figures weren’t a surprise, but they do contain a message about what can go wrong.

Australia has enjoyed 28 years of uninterrupted economic growth, in part due to good management, in part due to good luck, and in part due to happy accidents of timing.

Good management

Credit has to be paid to the economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating era. Labor doesn’t talk about that legacy much these days, but it was a remarkable period of transformation.

From floating the Australian dollar and financial deregulation to the accord with trade unions, tariff reductions, and privatisation of state-owned enterprises, Hawke and Keating opened Australia to the world, and the world to Australia.

Without those reforms the Australian economy would look more like those of Italy, Spain, or Portugal.

And although John Howard was no pushover as a politician, he deserves credit for voting for economic reforms he believed in, even if Labor got the credit for implementing them.

Read more: Hawke was our larrikin, but also our reformer

It is worth remembering that there was a time, not so long ago, when politicians put country before party.

Good luck

We’ve also had some pretty good luck as a country. The most obvious piece of luck has been the economic awakening of China.

To have a billion people on our doorstep rapidly and radically transitioning from subsistence farming to sophisticated manufacturing and commerce, hungry for natural resources, sure helped.

Perhaps less obvious has been the rising importance of globally relevant cities around the world.

In his wonderful book, The Triumph of the City, Harvard economics professor Ed Glaeser chronicles how, as he puts it, “cities magnify humanity’s strengths”.

Modern cities, thanks in part to information technology, spur innovation like never before. They bring talent together, serve as a cradle for entrepreneurship, and provide a vehicle for socioeconomic mobility.

Australia, as a highly urbanised country with two globally relevant cities in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as several other very important cities, has benefited from the triumph of the city more than most countries.

Great timing

But perhaps the greatest piece of good luck we’ve had was timing.

We now know that we live in a low-growth, low-inflation world, known as a secular-stagnation world. Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says we might have been in one for many years but failed to notice.

In Summers’s telling, secular stagnation was masked in the United States by a massive housing bubble. In Australia it was masked by a housing bubble and a once-in-a century mining boom.

But more to the point, as housing and mining waxed and waned – as these things tend to do – one always seemed to be doing well just as the other was struggling, as the following chart shows:

Helpfully out of sync. Growth in mining output and property prices

So, not only have we had a “China boom”, we’ve also had a “China hedge”: a source of economic growth not fully synced with, and at times offsetting, housing booms and busts.

What’s next?

In eulogising his brother Robert, Edward Kennedy quoted from a speech his brother gave in South Africa in 1966, in which he said:

Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny.

There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.

The same might be said of Australia.

We want to believe our national destiny will be shaped by good work, rather than good luck.

For that to be the case, we will need to have some hard discussions about the what government can and should do in the new low growth, low inflation secular-stagnation world.

This is Richard Holden’s 200th article for The Conversation.

– ref. Vital Signs. Sure, economic growth is low, but think about what’s gone right – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-sure-economic-growth-is-low-but-think-about-whats-gone-right-122973

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tyson Yunkaporta, Senior Lecturer Indigenous Knowledges, Deakin University

In Dreaming stories, Emu is often a narcissist who damages social relationships. These stories teach us about the protocols for living sustainably, and warn us about unsustainable behaviours. The basic protocols of Aboriginal society, like most societies, include respecting and hearing all points of view in a yarn.

Narcissists demand this right, then refuse to allow other points of view on the grounds that any other opinion somehow infringes their freedom of speech or is offensive.

They destroy the basic social contracts of reciprocity (which allow people to build a reputation of generosity based on sharing to ensure ongoing connectedness and support), shattering these frameworks of harmony with a few words of nasty gossip. They apply double standards and break down systems of give and take until every member of a social group becomes isolated, lost in a Darwinian struggle for power and dwindling resources that destroys everything. Then they move on to another place, another group. Feel free to extrapolate this pattern globally and historically.

We have stories for this behaviour, memorial stones scattered along songlines throughout the landscape, victims and transgressors transformed into rock following epic struggles to stand for all time as cautionary tales. Clancy McKellar, a Wangkumarra Songman, took me to a site where three brothers who had kidnapped women were punished and turned to stone.

All over that place in Tibooburra the red rocks are people turned to stone for breaking the Law or messing around too much with weather modification rituals. There is Law and knowledge of Law in stones. All Law-breaking comes from that first evil thought, “I am greater-than,” that original sin of placing yourself above the land or above other people.

In our traditional systems of Law we remember, however, that everyone is an idiot from time to time. Punishment is harsh and swift, but afterwards there is no criminal record, no grudge against the transgressor. Perpetrators are only criminals until they are punished, and then they may be respected again and begin afresh to make a positive contribution to the group.

In this way, people will not lie and shift blame or avoid punishment by twisting rules to escape accountability. They can look forward to a clean slate and therefore be willing and equal participants in their own punishment and transformation, which is a learning process more than anything else.

This is perhaps something of value to be taken from our stone stories to make justice systems more effective and sustainable today. Those old criminals in stone all over this country are not despised figures, but respected entities who received their punishment and are now revered in their roles of keeping the Law. If we respect them and hear their stories, they can tell us how to live together better.

Read more: Explainer: the seasonal ‘calendars’ of Indigenous Australia

Albino boy

But I don’t know very much about rocks. I feel more at home on open savannah and dry sclerophyll bushlands, and my Story Place has only one stone, which moves around of its own accord and so is in a different position every time you go there. It arrived from Asia, carried by a cyclone, and never quite settled down to live slowly like other rocks. So I need to yarn with somebody who really understands the way stone works. As usual, I seek the most insightful knowledge in the most marginalised point of view. I talk to a young Tasmanian Aboriginal boy called Max.

Max has silvery white hair and alabaster skin. He looks and talks like he’d be more at home riding a dragon than a stock horse. He’s a proper nerd, memorising hundreds of digits of pi for no particular reason, thinking his martial arts skills are much better than they really are, and carrying around an encyclopaedic knowledge of elves and hobbits and superheroes. He can also write songs in his ancestral language that make me cry.

We’ve spent a lot of time sparring in a traditional style that was once done with stone knives. The rules of engagement are that you can only cut your opponent on the arms, shoulders or back (extremely difficult to do) and — here’s the kicker — at the end of the fight the winner must get cut up the same as the loser, so that nobody can walk away with a grudge.

It’s hard enough to cut somebody on the back with a stone knife when they’re trying to do the same to you, but it’s even harder when you know that every time you cut them you’re really just cutting yourself.

In our yarns following these sessions we decided this kind of combat forces you to see your enemy’s point of view, and by the end of it you can no longer be opponents because you’re connected by mutual respect and understanding. More lessons from stone — but how to apply these today? Sounds like a good opportunity for a thought experiment.

I guess if you wanted to take a contemporary economy that is dependent on perpetual war and try to make it sustainable, you could start by applying similar rules of engagement. But in the stone-knife model, enemies are a non-renewable resource and eventually you would run out of them. It would not be sustainable at all for the war machine if everybody ended up respecting all points of view.

Perhaps the transferable wisdom here is simply that most young men need something a little meatier than mindfulness workshops to curtail the terrifying narcissism that overtakes them from the moment their balls drop. Maybe then they won’t grow up to be the men who start wars in the first place.

This brings us back to that foundational flaw, that Luciferian lie: “I am greater than you; you are lesser than me.” Because his appearance does not match some people’s idea of his cultural identity, Max faces abusive encounters grounded in that foundational flaw daily. His identity is constantly questioned by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who place themselves in a greater-than position and get a little thrill out of pronouncing judgement on his existence. Max reflects on these encounters, deciding that these people lack their own authentic identities and therefore can only find comfort in assaulting his.

Max may not know everything about his lineage or his culture, both of which were catastrophically disrupted by large-scale genocide, but he knows who he is, and the fragments of cultural knowledge he carries have integrity and value. He applies the pattern in those fragments to every aspect of his life.

I don’t know what I’d be if I didn’t have my identity, because I haven’t really known a life without it. I can’t discern parts that are Indigenous and parts that are not because all of my actions are Indigenous — the way I move through the world, my social interactions, my way of thinking about anything. It bleeds through you no matter what.

When Max recites a hundred digits of pi he is not stepping outside of his identity; he is singing a pattern of creation from north to south. He does not need to have an Elder’s level of knowledge to do this. He needs only to perceive the pattern in what he does know.

Keepers of knowledge see him behaving in this way and know he is ready to be responsible for additional knowledge, so pass on story to him. This is how Indigenous Knowledge works.

Strong no matter what

Max teaches me about rocks, because Tasmanian people have a particular connection to rocks.

Stones to me are the objects that parallel all life, more so than trees or mortal things because stones are almost immortal. They know things learned over deep time. Stone represents earth, tools and spirit; it conveys meaning through its use and through its resilience to the elements. At the same time it ages, cracking and eroding as time wears it down, but it is still there, filled with energy and spirit.

We yarn about the sentience of stones and the ancient Greek mistake of identifying “dead matter” as opposed to living matter, limiting for centuries to come the potential of western thought when attempting to define things like consciousness and self-organising systems such as galaxies. They viewed space as lifeless and empty between stars; our own stories represented those dark areas as living country, based on observed effects of attraction from those places on celestial bodies.

Read more: How ancient Aboriginal star maps have shaped Australia’s highway network

Theories of dead matter and empty space meant that western science came late to discoveries of what they now call “dark matter”, finding that those areas of “dead and empty” space actually contain most of the matter in the universe.

This brings us back to Elder of the Nyoongar people, Uncle Noel Nannup’s, creation story of when Emu went nuts with narcissism and demanded to become the boss of creation. In that story, the pre-creation reality was that space was solid: it sat heavily upon the ground, crushing everything that attempted to come into being. Earth and sky had to be separated, the Ancestors lifting up the heavens physically.

Sky country is seen in our stories as tangible, having mass, in a way that reveals an understanding of dark matter. All that celestial territory is in constant communication with us, exerting forces upon us and even exchanging matter in the form of rocks crashing through our atmosphere. Our stories show our ancient understanding of the way asteroids form craters, a realisation that only entered scientific knowledge a few short decades ago.

Max and I yarn about how our knowledge of these things cannot have always been unique to our culture alone, as the ancient names for constellations are often the same as ours throughout the world — the seven sisters, the two brothers, the eagle, the hunter.

These are global stories and systems of knowledge that must have once been common to all people. We think something terrible must have happened in the north to make people forget, causing science to have to start all over again from scratch rather than building on what went before. What could this cataclysm have been?

I imagine the Black Death couldn’t have helped, but I suspect it began earlier than that. I think the Emu deception got out of hand somewhere and spread, causing more and more people to think themselves greater than the land, greater than others, greater than the women who hold our lives in their hands and bellies. Whatever it is, this cataclysm is growing and I wonder how we can stand against it.

Max responds:

Stone teaches us that we should be strong no matter what tries to crack us or wear us down, keeping an unbreakable core through your culture and your beliefs. The majority of this earth is rock, and while water and plants make up its surface, the body of the earth, the part that keeps it all together, is rock.

You can have life and creation but it will all crumble without a solid base, same with society, companies, relationships, identities, knowledge, almost anything both tangible and intangible. Like those forests and trees sitting as a skin over the rocks of the earth — without that strength inside, without that stone, it would crumble.

Uluru rocks

Thinking about the shape of the world Max describes and the thin skin around it, I reflect on the physics of our creation stories and the way rocks wear away over time into balls.

I perceive a pattern in the universe whereby the most efficient shape for holding matter together is a sphere. I might say to the growing numbers of flat-earth theorists out there, “Blow me a flat bubble and I’ll consider your theory.” But that would be placing myself in a greater-than position, so I need to check myself and pay attention to them, remembering that there is always value in marginal viewpoints.

So I listen to them online and realise that the sphere is not the final shape of this creation process. Our own galaxy began as a sphere and flattened into a disc and the earth is gradually flattening itself too, as it spins like a lump of clay on a wheel. It’s only flattened by just over 20 kilometres at the poles so far, but it’s getting there. It’s a good thing I didn’t dismiss the flat-earthers out of hand, otherwise I might never have understood that properly.

But what use could come from that kind of thinking? Well, thought experiment might yield a few applications. Packaging, for example, might make more efficient use of space and resources if we considered that you can get a hell of a lot more into a small sphere than a big box.

But then what would stop those spheres rolling off the shelves? The flat-earthers resolve this — just squash the spheres down a bit. Thank you, flat-earthers. That innovation could save a bit of landfill, buy us a little time.

Max thinks it will take a bigger shift in thinking to stave off planetary destruction, that we need to learn more about respect from the stones. I agree — the understanding that we are no greater or lesser than a rock would certainly change things if a critical mass of people all came to it at once.

Anyone who thinks they’re better than a rock should be turned into one — then they would find out they’re not that special, and they could finally be happy. Max suggests that in recent decades people have been becoming aware of rock spirit, reminding me of what has been going on at Uluru.

There is a shed there full of rocks. For a long time, tourists took stones away from that sacred site as souvenirs, then a few decades ago something strange began to happen. The tourists started mailing the rocks back with panicked reports of weird happenings, disturbed sleep, bad luck, ghostly visitations and terrible accidents. Somehow they knew it was because of the rocks, and were sending them back with desperate apologies. So many were returned that they had to build a big storage shed to house them.

In our Law we know that rocks are sentient and contain spirit. You can’t just pick one up and carry it home, as you will disturb its spirit and it will disturb you in turn. If you sit at any campfire for a yarn with Aboriginal people anywhere on this continent, you will be sure to hear a cautionary tale about a relative who was silly enough to pick up a rock and take it home, who then got sick or was haunted or killed or went crazy.

A lot of rocks are benevolent and enjoy being used and traded, but you have to follow the guidance of the old people to know which ones you can use. Rocks are to be respected.

Perhaps further work needs to be done on what constitutes consciousness and what constitutes life. If the definitions of these things could include rocks as sentient beings, it would go a long way towards stemming the emu-like behaviours that are running rampant across the earth and cyberspace right now. Either that, or we could start mailing those Uluru rocks out to all the narcissists to give them a lesson in respect for others.

This is an edited extract from Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, Text Publishing.

– ref. Friday essay: lessons from stone – Indigenous thinking and the Law – http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-lessons-from-stone-indigenous-thinking-and-the-law-122617

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

It was all gain for Scott Morrison when he took a bunch of senior colleagues to Nine’s Monday fundraiser which reaped mega dollars – the exact amount is unclear – for the Liberal party. Maximum productivity for minimum effort.

The pain was worn by Nine and its chief executive Hugh Marks, who faced a backlash from staff at the company’s recently acquired former Fairfax newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review. The journalists were appalled, as they should have been, to see such compromising behaviour from their management.

As the papers’ house committees pointed out, “Our mastheads have done much to expose the corrupting influence of money on politics. It is vitally important that we remain independent of the political process.”

Questioned later, Morrison avoided being drawn into the row. Asked on 3AW whose idea the function had been he said, “I couldn’t tell you, I was just invited”. Did he see anything wrong with it? “Well it’s not really for me to say. I mean they were happy to host an event and I attended an event.”

The money-raising hosted by Nine had none of the sleaziness and claimed illegality of the $100,000 donation a Chinese property developer allegedly delivered to the NSW ALP in that now-notorious Aldi bag. (Incidentally, the assistant minister for financial services, Jane Hume, produced an Aldi bag at the Nine function to make a joke about Labor’s woes.)

But while the Nine gathering was above board and nobody will end up on any witness stand, it was, according to those trying to explain it away later, a bid to get into the prime minister’s ear. Just as Huang Xiangmo , the Chinese billionaire, was always attempting to get into (multiple) Labor ears.

Read more: The truth about political donations: there is so much we don’t know

James Chessell, executive editor of Nine’s newspapers, said in a note responding to staff anger that Marks had told him hosting the function had been a mistake. “Hugh made the point Nine’s primary motivation was to engage with the government on issues of importance to the newsroom – such a press freedom and the ACCC’s inquiry into digital platforms – which is a valid argument for management to make. But he agrees it could have been handled better.”

Well indeed it could have. There is something bizarre in arguing that a good way to engage with the government on press freedom is to rake in funds for it.

The Nine journalists and the management are at one in wanting to try to guarantee media freedom after it has come into question with the recent raids on a News Corp journalist and the ABC.

But this should be pressed without opening the organisation to criticism on other fronts, by appearing as if it is kowtowing.

If the company wants to make its case with the PM on its own turf (the function was held at Nine’s Willoughby studios), then invite him to a board room lunch, a common practice. By all means give him a free meal, but don’t generate a wad of money to go with it.

Anyway, one wonders how much Morrison will be influenced on media freedom by such lobbying. He sounded hard line this week in comments about everyone being subject to the law. The impression he gives is that he will only cede what ground he absolutely has to.

It’s also difficult to judge whether Nine’s assertion about wanting to use the occasion for representations on press freedom was in part just “spin”, after it emerged Nine hosted a fundraiser for Malcolm Turnbull too.

Read more: Consumer watchdog: journalism is in crisis and only more public funding can help

Relations between media companies and powerful political figures are often murky. At least this ill-judged effort was out in the open. The first report of it came from Joe Aston, gossip columnist in the AFR, shortly before the event.

Post the fundraiser debacle, media observers will have an even closer eye on how the journalism works out in the merged Nine organisation (which is chaired by Peter Costello, formerly treasurer in the Howard government).

The Nine takeover of Fairfax brought into the fold newspapers which had behind them decades of tough independent editorial cultures. Chessell in his message to staff made the point that nobody at Nine had attempted to influence editorial coverage since the merger.

But it’s early days and whether the newspapers’ cultures will remain in future years as they are now has to be an open question. Remember it was not all that long ago that the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald had competing federal political coverage. Now it is all one, a major change that would have seemed unlikely a few years before.

More immediately, the current focus on political fund raising is a fresh reminder of how distorting – and at its worst, as in NSW Labor, corrupting – this can be for the democratic system. Combined with the professional lobbying industry, it has made access and influence expensive tradable commodities. Vested interests are literally buying the time of political leaders.

On the other side of the coin, occasionally the threatened withdrawal of funds can be invoked to try to twist arms. The CFMEU Victorian branch has warned it would cut off funds to the ALP if its official, John Setka, is expelled (a threat that fortunately does not appear to faze Anthony Albanese).

Legislating various rules around donations hasn’t deterred wrongdoing. In NSW the laws have been flouted over the years by both sides of politics.

Read more: Australians think our politicians are corrupt, but where is the evidence?

The most drastic solution is total public funding of election campaigns, which are already partly paid for by the taxpayer.

Moving to full funding should be a last resort, because it raises issues of cost, fairness (how to treat emerging parties), and people’s rights to use their resources to promote their views.

Short of that solution, the shocking story unfolding in NSW emphasises the need for real time disclosure of donations and tighter enforcement of rules.

The lesson of the Nine affair is actually less about donations and more about the importance of those managing a media empire imbibing a central principle of journalism. Its sharp message is that, while it might often seem otherwise, the media must keep a fence between themselves and the politicians.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: When schmoozing the PM gets you a black eye – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-when-schmoozing-the-pm-gets-you-a-black-eye-123032

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

This week’s June quarter national accounts showed weakness in business investment and consumer spending, reflecting an all-round lack of confidence. Still, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg remains optimistic about the economy.

In this episode of Politics with Michelle Grattan, Frydenberg talks about the government’s discussions with the Reserve Bank on a new agreement covering the inflation target, saying:

If you look at the last 20 quarters, 17 of those were outside the [2-3%] band and today inflation is at 1.6%.[…]You want to have a target which can be met, which is met, and is not merely just aspirational.

He also promises to announce the proposed inquiry into retirement incomes before year’s end.

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

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AAP/ James Ross

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on a slowing economy – http://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-treasurer-josh-frydenberg-on-a-slowing-economy-122940

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Tomkins, Geologist, Monash University

Next year, both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will send new rovers to Mars to hunt for evidence of past life.

As previous missions have discovered, Mars had a warmer and wetter past, featuring conditions that could probably sustain life. Current satellites orbiting Mars also reveal there are many places where water was once present on the surface.

The difficulty in hunting for life lies not in finding where there was water, but in identifying where the essential nutrients for life coincided with water.

Micrometeorites mean potential life

For life to move into a new environment and survive, it needs essential nutrients such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur (together known as CHNOPS), plus other trace elements. It also needs to acquire energy from the environment. Some of Earth’s earliest life forms gained energy by oxidising minerals.

Mars’s crust is mostly made of intrusive and volcanic basalt (the same rock that forms from Hawaii’s lavas) which is not particularly nutrient-rich. However, meteorites and micrometeorites are known to continuously provide essential nutrients to the surfaces of planets.

Read more: Hope springs: signs of life could be waiting for us on Mars

Our team investigated how much cosmic dust (comet and asteroid dust) would survive atmospheric entry to Mars, and where it would accumulate on the surface as micrometeorites.

We modelled the heating and oxidation effects of atmospheric entry to Mars and found most particles less than about 0.1-0.2mm in diameter would not melt, depending on their composition. In terms of materials accumulating on the martian surface, particles of this size are overwhelmingly more common than larger particles.

On Earth, about 100 times as much cosmic dust in this size range accumulates on the surface, when compared to meteorites larger than 4mm. This is despite extensive melting and evaporation during atmospheric entry to Earth.

Evidence closer to home

As part of our research, we used an analogue site on the Nullarbor Plain in South Australia (which, like Mars, has wind-modified sediment sitting on cracked bedrock) to examine whether wind causes micrometeorites to accumulate at predictable locations.

We found more than 1,600 micrometeorites from a variety of sample sites.

Our observations show that because many micrometeorites are denser than normal sand grains, they are likely to accumulate in bedrock cracks and on gravel-rich surfaces where lighter particles have been blown away. Our samples typically contained several hundred micrometeorites per kilogram.

Several factors added together indicate that micrometeorites should be much more abundant on Mars than on Earth. And this is expected to be true for most of Mars’s 4.5-billion-year history.

Even martians need nutrients

Unmelted and partially melted micrometeorites supply complex carbon compounds to the martian surface, which are the building blocks of life. They also supply the only source of reduced phosphorus through the mineral schreibersite, which has been shown to react with simple hydroxyl compounds to form the precursors for life.

Micrometeorites also provide other reduced minerals like sulfides and iron-nickel metal that can be exploited as an energy source by primitive microbes. Therefore, they provide both the essential nutrients and an energy source that can allow existing microbes to migrate and persist.

Mars 2020

Many scientists believe life on Earth may have started around undersea geothermal vents or in volcanic hot springs like those at Yellowstone or Rotorua. Beneath these, water circulates through the hot crust, dissolving nutrients from the rocks and carrying them upwards to the vents, where there are dramatic changes in temperature and chemistry.

Read more: Evidence of ancient life in hot springs on Earth could point to fossil life on Mars

This creates a large range of niche environments, some of which have the ideal combination of water, temperate conditions and chemistry for life.

The expired Spirit rover found evidence of an extinct volcanic spring on Mars and more have been inferred from orbital observations. These volcanic springs were considered as a landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, but in the end Jezero Crater was chosen.

Jezero Crater has a combination of water-produced channels in a delta system that contains clay and carbonate minerals in sedimentary rocks. These are ideal for preserving geochemical signs of life. Similarly, Oxia Planum has been chosen as the landing site for ESA’s ExoMars rover, which also contains clays in sedimentary deposits.

While neither Jezero Crater or Oxia Planum contain known volcanic springs, they are still water-rich environments where life may have existed on Mars.

Micrometeorites provide the nutrients that may have allowed life to migrate into and persist at these locations, and could even provide the ingredients for life to emerge away from Mars’s volcanic springs.

With plans in the works for 2020, we may soon be on the cusp of one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.

– ref. Tiny specks in space could be the key to finding martian life – http://theconversation.com/tiny-specks-in-space-could-be-the-key-to-finding-martian-life-122857

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of US national polls, Donald Trump’s ratings are currently 41.4% approve, 54.0% disapprove with all polls for a net approval of -12.6%. With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 42.6% approve, 53.3% disapprove (net -10.7%). His ratings have slowly slid since mid-July, with economic concerns over the US-China trade war likely responsible for the more recent downturn.

In a late August Quinnipiac University national poll (one of Trump’s worst pollsters), his ratings were 38% approve, 56% disapprove. Trump trailed leading Democratic contenders Joe Biden by 54-38, Bernie Sanders by 53-39, Elizabeth Warren by 52-40 and Kamala Harris by 51-40. The most support he achieved against any Democrat was two points above his overall approval rating.

CNN analyst Harry Enten has compared Trump’s deficits in this Quinnipiac poll against how all incumbent presidents since the second world war have performed in head to head match-ups against their eventual opponents in their worst poll about this far from election day. The presidential general election will be held on November 3 2020.

At this point, only two incumbent presidents trailed in any poll. Jimmy Carter trailed Ronald Reagan by four points, and Barack Obama trailed Mitt Romney by one point. Enten says there were other polls that had Obama ahead. Carter was defeated at the 1980 election, but Obama won in 2012. Trump’s current deficits (11 to 16 points depending on his opponent in this Quinnipiac poll) are far larger than any incumbent president has faced at this point.

Quinnipiac is one of Trump’s worst pollsters, and other polls are not so bad. In RealClearPolitics averages, he trails Biden by 9.9 points, Sanders by 6.0 points, Warren by 4.1 points and Harris by 3.5 points.

To be re-elected, Trump needs the US economy to stay strong. He will also probably need to successfully demonise his eventual opponent. Once again, he could win the Electoral College despite losing the national popular vote.

There was a further bad finding for Trump in this Quinnipiac poll. By 49-46, voters disapproved of his handling of the economy. The only previous occasion in Quinnipiac polls going back to June 2018 where Trump’s rating on the economy was negative was in late January 2019 (51-46 disapproved), owing to the government shutdown.

Biden still leads Democratic primary despite one outlier poll

In late August, Monmouth University had a sensational poll of the national Democratic primary, which had Sanders and Warren leading with 20% each, followed by Biden at 19%. The Democratic primary sample was just 298, with a 5.7% margin of error.

Since this poll, other polls have confirmed that Biden is clearly ahead. In the RealClearPolitics average, Biden has 30.4%, Warren 17.1%, Sanders 16.3%, Harris 6.6% and Pete Buttigieg 4.6%, with everyone else at 3% or less. For some reason, there have been no polls of the earliest voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire taken since early August.

Read more: US Democratic presidential primaries: Biden leading, followed by Sanders, Warren, Harris; and will Trump be beaten?

Some people have suggested that Monmouth should have suppressed its poll, but I strongly disagree. One of the problems with polling at the Australian election was “herding” – where pollsters look at each other’s results as a check. Pollsters should produce an outlier now and again – it means they are being honest.

In late 2015, the old live phone Newspoll was closed, and replaced with an online and robopolling firm. Since this occurred, Newspoll has been excessively stable unless there was a clear reason for a change. This probably contributed to the polling miss at the federal election.

Owing to higher thresholds, just ten candidates qualified for the September 12 Democratic debate, down from the 20 in the first two debates. As a result, this third debate will occur on one night; the first two debates were held over two nights.

UK: Legislation opposing a no-deal Brexit passes against government’s wishes

On September 3, the UK House of Commons changed the order of business to allow legislation opposing a no-deal Brexit to be debated by 328 votes to 301. As a result, the 21 Conservative MPs who opposed the government were kicked out of the Conservative party and will not be able to stand as Conservative candidates at the next election.

On September 4, the legislation passed the Commons comfortably, and will now go to the House of Lords, where it will pass easily. PM Boris Johnson attempted to call an early election, but won far fewer than the two-thirds majority needed to dissolve parliament.

Assuming this legislation passes the Lords and gains royal assent, it does not stop a no-deal Brexit on October 31, as Johnson could defy parliament and refuse to request an extension.

I wrote for The Poll Bludger in August that there are two definite ways for Parliament to prevent a no-deal Brexit: no-confidence in Johnson followed by confidence in someone who will follow parliament’s wishes, or revoking Brexit legislation altogether. Neither of these solutions is likely.

Johnson wants an election to be held on October 15, but opposition parties will not cooperate in giving him his election until (at the least) the legislation against no-deal passes parliament and receives royal assent; this should occur by early next week before parliament is prorogued.

I wrote for The Poll Bludger on September 2 that the Conservatives have a large lead in the UK polls, though those polls were taken before parliament returned from summer recess.

Palaszczuk’s ratings tank in a Queensland YouGov poll

A Queensland YouGov poll, conducted August 28-29 from a sample of 1,000, gave the LNP a 51-49 lead, a three-point gain for the LNP since the last such poll in February. Primary votes were 37% LNP (up two), 32% Labor (down three), 13% Greens (up two) and 13% One Nation (up five). The next Queensland election will be held in late October 2020.

34% (down 12) approved of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, and 45% disapproved (up seven), for a net approval of -11, down 19 points. Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington had 30% approval (down one) and 30% disapproval (down five). Palaszczuk lead by 34-29 as better premier, a big fall from a 47-27 lead in February.

In the federal component of this poll, the Coalition led in Queensland by 55-45 (58.4-41.6 at the May election). Primary votes were 40% LNP, 29% Labor, 13% Greens and 12% One Nation. Federal polling in Queensland has had a bias towards Labor, and particularly so at the last election. As The Poll Bludger says, the last YouGov Queensland poll, taken 9-10 days from the election, gave the federal Coalition just a 51-49 lead, more than a seven point miss.

The latest federal Newspoll, conducted August 15-18 from a sample of 1,620, gave the Coalition a 51-49 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since late July. Primary votes were 42% Coalition (down two), 34% Labor (up one), 11% Greens (steady) and 4% One Nation (up one). Scott Morrison had a +6 net approval, down from +15. Anthony Albanese had a +7 net approval, up from +3. Morrison led by 48-30 as better PM (48-31 previously).

Far-right Salvini loses power in Italy

In Italy, there was a coalition between the far-right League and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. I wrote for my personal website on September 4 that League leader Matteo Salvini broke this coalition to force early elections, but the Five Stars allied with the centre-left Democrats to form a new government. Also covered: Israeli polls ahead of the September 17 election, and the far-right surges in two German state elections.

– ref. Trump trails leading Democrats by record margins, plus Brexit latest and the LNP leads in Queensland – http://theconversation.com/trump-trails-leading-democrats-by-record-margins-plus-brexit-latest-and-the-lnp-leads-in-queensland-122783

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graham White, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

What comes first: the chicken or the egg?

Economists ask a slightly different question regarding economic growth (usually measured as growth in gross domestic product). Does supply or demand come first?

A week before yesterday’s news that Australia’s GDP growth is at its slowest in a decade, federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg signalled he was firmly in the supply camp.

In a speech to the Business Council of Australia, he put Australia’s 28 consecutive years of economic growth down to “the three Ps”: productivity, population and participation.

Productivity had contributed 1.7 percentage points of Australia’s 3.1% annual average growth rate over those years, Frydenberg said, with population and participation responsibe for the other 1.4 percentage points.

The three Ps refer to what economists call our “capacity” to produce goods and services. Productivity means how much output is produced per inputs used. Population and participation determine the number of people in the labour force.

This focus on supply-side factors in economic growth is the conventionally accepted one. But is it correct?

A different school of economic thought says it is not – that it errs in giving too little emphasis to the role of demand. This error is more than academic, because it may result in the wrong economic policies.

The conventional view

The conventional view about economic growth acknowledges demand is needed for businesses to want to produce goods and services. But it emphasises that boosting capacity to produce is ultimately what leads to greater demand.

It says increasing productivity (both directly through workers improving their skills and indirectly through using better technology in production) will lead to higher wages, because an employer will pay more to a more productive employee. Higher wages in turn lead to greater consumer spending.

As Frydenberg said last week, to guarantee higher living standards “we must tackle the productivity challenge”.

Lack of demand, in the conventional economic view, suppresses GDP growth only in the short term. It’s something that can be fixed by making markets work more efficiently. In the longer term what counts are capacity factors, with demand eventually adapting itself to supply.

Those who subscribe to this view don’t spend much time worrying that sluggish GDP growth might actually be caused by wage stagnation. If anything, they think stronger growth and a healthier labour market have to come first to get wages moving.

They also tend to be lukewarm about the idea that, when monetary policy (the Reserve Bank setting interest rates lower) appears ineffective, the key to lifting GDP growth is for the government to ratchet up fiscal policy and stimulate the economy with more spending.

Instead, they will argue for microeconomic measures – such as tax incentives to business, workplace reform, getting people off welfare and into work – intended to boost the three Ps.

An alternative view

An alternative “demand-led” view of economic growth has existed as an undercurrent in economics for as long as the conventional view.

It has evolved out of the first formalised economic models of growth, by English economist Roy Harrod and Russian-American economist Evsey Domar, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. These models were inspired by John Maynard Keyne’s critique of conventional economic theory.

The “demand-led” view says there is no automatic mechanism by which increasing productivity or the size of the labour force magically generates greater demand. It says improvements in productivity and labour-force participation are more likely the result of growth, not its cause.

Higher productivity, for example, usually comes from new technology, which is generally the result of new investment, which is driven by expectations of growing demand. Labour force participation increases when it becomes easier to get a job, and this occurs when businesses hire more people as they expand.

In the conventional view, full employment is assured over time so long as markets are working properly (wages are flexible, there is sufficient competition and so on). In the demand-led view, there is no guarantee of full employment, no matter how well the markets are working.

The demand-driven view of economic growth casts serious doubts on the conventional notion that growth in labour productivity must come before growth in wages. On the contrary, it suggests increasing wages may be needed to increase consumer spending and therefore create incentives for business investment.

It leads to very different policies to lift economic growth. If consumers and investors are unwilling to spend or invest more, and monetary policy is pushed to the wall, it’s up to the government to boost demand by spending more.

The Australian government, however, has staked its reputation as a responsible economic manager on delivering a budget surplus. If the conventional view of economic growth is in fact wrong, its policy cupboard is bare.

– ref. With conventional wisdom, answers to our economic malaise are in short supply – http://theconversation.com/with-conventional-wisdom-answers-to-our-economic-malaise-are-in-short-supply-122938

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Baer Arnold, Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of Canberra

When you visit a pharmacy, your main focus is probably getting your script filled, or some advice on an over-the-counter medication. While you’re there, you might also pick up some cosmetics, sunglasses, toys, jellybeans or other items.

If you’re an investor, the pharmacy is a way of making money – potentially lots of money if you operate on a large scale. While the consumer thinks of convenience and health, the entrepreneur thinks of revenue and opportunities to reshape the rules for greater profit.

Those opportunities for profit underpin the Community Pharmacy Agreement, Australia’s pharmacy regulation framework. Negotiations for the seventh agreement, which will take effect mid next year, are currently underway.

Read more: Explainer: what is the Community Pharmacy Agreement?

Last week the Australian Medical Association raised the issue of who should be allowed to own pharmacies and where they can be located. Doctors should, the AMA argued, be able to own pharmacies that are co-located in their clinics, for the convenience of patients.

Federal health minister Greg Hunt ruled out relaxing pharmacy ownership rules, though the AMA says it will continue to lobby state and territory governments.

But deregulating pharmacy ownership could enshrine the dominance of major operators and privilege a handful of health companies that already own GP clinics, private hospitals, rehabilitation and testing centres.

What are the current rules?

In Australia, you are broadly free to operate most retail premises in any location. Three coffee shops might sit side by side, along with two bike shops and a barber’s.

A consequence of the National Health Act 1953 and state and territory law is that pharmacies are different – that’s why you never see two in a row.

Location restrictions state that when pharmacies relocate, they must do so within 10km of the existing site.

The establishment of a new pharmacy must generally be at least 1.5km from an existing operation.

We also have restrictions on ownership. Pharmacies must be operated by a registered pharmacist. A single person or corporation can own no more than five pharmacies. (Though franchising – where individual owners pay for use of a national brand such as Amcal and for services provided by the brand owner – blurs that restriction.)

Read more: The right prescription: pharmacy sector in dire need of reform

The current rules seek to ensure most Australians have access to a pharmacy staffed by a highly skilled professional with a pharmacy degree.

By not having too many pharmacies within the same area, and therefore reduced local competition, it increases the likelihood they’ll make enough profit to stay open.

Such restriction is pragmatic, although it discomforts free-market purists who believe fewer rules foster competition through lower prices and better service.

What could change?

One suggestion is restrictions on pharmacy ownership should be removed to allow, for example, an individual (who isn’t a pharmacist) or corporation to own an unlimited number of outlets that operate as standalone stores or are co-located with other businesses, including those outside the health sector.

This proposal is of interest to corporations that run medical clinics, private hospitals and other services such as pathology labs.

It is also of interest to the companies such as API (Australian Pharmaceutical Industries), which currently own some pharmacies and determine the operation of many more through franchises.

The API group is the parent company of 420 Priceline Pharmacy stores, 100 Soul Pattinson Chemists, 72 Pharmacist Advice pharmacies and affiliates.

API’s competitor Sigma Healthcare distributes through 700 pharmacies, under the brands Amcal, Guardian, Discount Drug Stores, Chemist King and PharmaSave.

Why should you care?

Relaxing ownership rules risks pharmacies replicating the corporatisation of health services, such as GP clinics and pathology providers, where corporations have numerous premises across Australia in the same way there is a KFC and McDonalds in all major centres.

Just like GP chains wiped out many smaller, independent practices, such a move in pharmacy could spell the death of the local chemist, and the higher quality and more individualised care you receive.

Read more: Discount chemists are cheapening the quality of pharmacy along with the price

Changing rules about ownership of pharmacies located in medical centres also risks accelerating the shift towards “factory medicine”, with customers processed as quickly as possible (with little time wasted on advice or empathy) and persuaded to buy goods such as herbal products or vitamins that most people don’t need.

Discussions shouldn’t only involve the privileged

As pharmacy and health department officials negotiate the seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement behind closed doors, we need public debate about pharmacy ownership and location rules, and the implications of such changes.

Should pharmacy ownership remain restricted to pharmacists, as long as a pharmacists is on site to guide customers?

And should pharmacy ownership be capped at five stores? Or should it be completely opened up, so that if you have the resources you could have a bottle shop, a tyre outlet, a pharmacy and a supermarket in every town and major suburb across Australia?

If it’s the latter, pharmacists will need to resist pressure from corporate owners to sell homeopathic and other products that don’t work, or risk losing the public’s trust in the pharmacy profession.

Read more: Pharmacies to push supplements as ‘fries and Coke’ to prescriptions

Former ACCC head Graeme Samuel’s suggestion that regional towns could have a combined post office, bank and pharmacy makes for a nice soundbite but the reality could be very different.

– ref. Relaxing pharmacy ownership rules could result in more chemist chains and poorer care – http://theconversation.com/relaxing-pharmacy-ownership-rules-could-result-in-more-chemist-chains-and-poorer-care-122628

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leslie Sikos, Lecturer, Edith Cowan University

For many years, the Apple iPhone has been considered one of the most secure smart phones available. But despite this reputation, security issues that might affect millions of users came to light last week, when researchers at Google revealed they had discovered websites that can infect iPhones, iPads, and iPods with dangerous software.

Simply visiting one of these websites is enough to infect your device with malicious software, allowing a high level of access to the device. Worryingly, it seems these vulnerabilities have been “in the wild” (that is, actively used by cyber-criminals) for around two years.

As there is no visible sign of infection on the device, it is likely users are completely unaware of the risks they’re facing.

Read more: Don’t click that link! How criminals access your digital devices and what happens when they do

The vulnerabilities being exploited are present on devices running recent (but not the most recent) versions of Apple’s iOS operating system — specifically, iOS 10 through to early versions of iOS 12. Every device running the vulnerable versions of iOS is a potential target for these websites.

Devices are infected via several methods, using 14 different security flaws — an unusual number of ways to compromise a device. Worse is that seven of the flaws involve Safari, the default web browser for many of these devices (and web browsing is a common activity for many users).

It’s not all bad news though. After Google reported the issues to Apple earlier this year, the vulnerabilities were promptly patched with the latest release of iOS (12.4.1).

Any user updating their device to the latest version of iOS should be protected against this attack. The easiest way to do it is to go to Settings > General > Software Update on your phone and then follow the prompts.

What happens when you visit an infected site?

As soon you open the web page, malicious software is installed on the device. This software has the potential to access location data and information stored by various apps (such as iMessage, WhatsApp, and Google Hangouts).

This information can be transmitted to a remote location and potentially misused by an attacker. The information extracted can include messages that are otherwise protected when sent and received by the user, removing the protection offered through encryption. Hackers can also potentially access private files stored on the device, including photos, emails, contact lists, and sensitive information such as WiFi passwords.

All of this data has value and can be sold on the Internet to other cyber-criminals.

According to antivirus firm Malwarebytes, the malicious software is removed when the infected device is restarted. While this limits the amount of time that the device is compromised, the user risks being reinfected the next time they visit the same website (if still using a vulnerable version of iOS).

The list of websites involved has not yet been made publicly available, so users have no means to protect themselves other than by updating their device’s operating system. But we do know the number of visitors to these sites are estimated in the thousands per week.

Are Apple devices no longer secure?

High-profile attacks on these devices might dispel the myth that Apple devices are not susceptible to serious security breaches. However, Apple does have a bug-bounty program that offers a US$1 million reward to users who report problems that help to identify security flaws.

But considering the impact of this incident, it’s obvious someone out there is making considerable efforts to target Apple devices. While the tech giant regularly updates its software, there have been recent incidents in which previously fixed security flaws were reintroduced. This highlights the complexity of these devices and the challenge of maintaining a secure platform.

Read more: Everyone falls for fake emails: lessons from cybersecurity summer school

The most important lesson for Apple’s millions of users is to ensure you keep up to date with the latest patches and fixes. Simply installing the latest iOS update is sufficient to remove the threats caused by this vulnerability.

If you’re concerned your details may have been stolen, changing passwords and checking your credit card and bank account statements are also important steps to take.

– ref. Apple iPhones could have been hacked for years – here’s what to do about it – http://theconversation.com/apple-iphones-could-have-been-hacked-for-years-heres-what-to-do-about-it-122860

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Associate Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University

Last week, the Queensland government extinguished native title over tracts of land in the Galilee Basin so the Adani coal mine could proceed.

This gives Adani freehold title to the land, and means the Wangan and Jagalingou native title holders’ objections no longer have the same legal significance.

But they do have moral significance, and this decision has implications for Australia’s international reputation.

Read more: Infographic: here’s exactly what Adani’s Carmichael mine means for Queensland

Australia voted against the adoption of the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, before changing its view and accepting the declaration as an “aspirational” statement in 2009, complete with its insistence that development on Indigenous lands should not take place without the Indigenous people’s “free, prior and informed consent”.

At the time, federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin explained the declaration had the potential to help reset “the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and mov[e] forward towards a new future”.

But, legally, extinguishment means the land in the Galilee Basin is no longer Indigenous land.

And while extinguishment of native title remains possible and has happened, the “aspiration” for Indigenous people to enjoy political authority over their own affairs, as the declaration promises, is severely restricted.

This means Indigenous citizenship cannot be equal. For example, insecure land rights mean the internationally-recognised human right to culture cannot be upheld.

What is native title?

Native title is regulated under the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993. But the commercial interests of Adani prevailing over the rights of the Wangan and Jagalingou people shows just how fragile the act is.

Native title is the recognition Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have rights to land according to their own laws and customs.

It also recognises Indigenous rights of prior occupancy. This follows the Mabo v Queensland decision of the High Court in 1992, in which the court found Australia was not terra nullius – it was not “unoccupied land” when British colonisation began.

Read more: Australian politics explainer: the Mabo decision and native title

Then, in 1996, the High Court granted a native title claim by the Wik peoples of Cape York. This case was significant because the court found native title could co-exist with pastoral leases issued by the government. A lease over pastoral land did not automatically extinguish native title.

Political controversy about the scope of the native title right followed. There were deeply contested arguments about whose positions would prevail when there was conflict between native title rights and the rights or interests of others, with some arguing pastoral leases should, in fact, automatically extinguish native title.

The right to say ‘no’ is at the heart of political equality

While the native title holders’ objections no longer have legal significance in terms of stopping the Adani mine, there is far-reaching moral significance in terms of, for instance, Queensland’s ideas of equal citizenship and property rights.

With the guidance of the UN declaration, Queensland could aspire to more democratic values. In a liberal democratic society, the internationally-recognised right to property is a basic right and should not be taken away lightly.

At the same time, mining on Indigenous lands is not always a source of conflict. Native title holders can enter Land Use Agreements with companies like Adani to allow mining on mutually beneficial terms.

Some native title holders in the Galilee Basin preferred this approach, but others did not because they wanted to retain use and custodianship of the land.

In any case, a secure right to say “no” is a mark of political equality. The right to say “no” means non-Indigenous interests do not automatically take priority.

Read more: Landmark High Court decision guides how compensation for native title losses will be determined

Political equality occurs when the “rightness” or “wrongness” of a policy idea is determined by reason and argument. It’s not determined by the apparent moral inferiority of an Indigenous position, just because it’s an Indigenous view.

The deep politics of racial division is at play when governments position mining as in the public interest, with Indigenous land owners obstructive of that interest and not part of the public on whose behalf governments are supposed to govern.

The UN declaration imagines a more inclusive idea of who and what makes up the “public”, with Indigenous peoples having the same meaningful opportunities as anyone to participate in decision-making, and their perspectives respectfully heard.

Indigenous rights in Australia

According to the declaration, Indigenous peoples have the right:

to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the state.

The declaration also affirms Indigenous rights to land and culture. If one sees it as an aspirational document, as Australia does, then the declaration would allow cultural priorities to be expressed by Indigenous people in policy-making forums.

Read more: FactCheck: can native title ‘only exist if Australia was settled, not invaded’?

Instead, extinguishing a land right also means extinguishing certain cultural rights. It means extinguishing elements of what the declaration affirms as:

the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions.

Indigenous autonomy cannot be realised when native title is extinguished. Taking away native title means the full implications of the High Court finding that Australia was not terra nullius in 1788, cannot be fully examined.

The declaration’s aspirations for language, culture, land, and decision-making authorities provide a framework for thinking about what it means to have fundamental human equality in a land which has, in fact, been occupied for many thousands of years.

– ref. Indigenous people no longer have the legal right to say no to the Adani mine – here’s what it means for equality – http://theconversation.com/indigenous-people-no-longer-have-the-legal-right-to-say-no-to-the-adani-mine-heres-what-it-means-for-equality-122788

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Carey, Professor, Director of the Centre for Remote Health, Flinders University

In any year, one in five Australians will experience symptoms of a mental illness.

While drug treatments are widely used and can be effective, they sometimes come with troubling side-effects such as weight gain, headaches, and fatigue.

Talking therapies can be just as effective for a number of mental health conditions including anxiety and depression, or can be a good add-on therapy for those who are finding success with medications.

And they have the added benefit of tackling any underlying reasons why the problem arose in the first place.

So, what are the options for treatment and how do they work?

Read more: More Australians are diagnosed with depression and anxiety but it doesn’t mean mental illness is rising

First, find a psychologist you click with

One of the most important aspects of psychological treatment is having an engaging relationship with your psychologist.

If you don’t “click” within the first few sessions, treatment is unlikely to be effective.

This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or your psychologist. It’s just that this particular relationship isn’t going to be useful – and you should seek out someone you can connect with.

It’s also important to find the method of therapy that suits you best.

Some people, for example, like to get clear instructions and advice, while others prefer to take time to discover their own solutions. Each of these people will connect with different types of therapy and different psychologists.

So what are the key types of therapy psychologists offer and who are they best suited to?

Cognitive behaviour therapy

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is one of the most widely used and well-known talking therapies.

CBT refers to a range of different structured approaches that are based on the assumption that the way a person feels is closely related to the way a person thinks and the way they behave.

The treatment then uses activities to target both the things people think (their cognitions) and the things they do (their behaviours).

To change a person’s feelings, a psychologist providing CBT will help that person engage in different activities that can help to change thinking and behaviour patterns.

A CBT psychologist might encourage a person to keep a diary, for example, of the kinds of things they think through the day. Thought diaries often follow an ABC format:

• A, the activating event – the thing that made the thought happen
• B, the belief – the actual thought itself
• C, the consequence – how thinking that thought made the person feel.

Sometimes D and E are added:

• D, some disputing the person could do – what could they think instead
• E, the end result – reflecting on how this alternative way of thinking makes the person feel.

Read more: Explainer: what is cognitive behaviour therapy?

Acceptance and commitment therapy

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is another popular treatment that can be effective across a wide range of situations and problems.

ACT specifically targets the person’s tendency to avoid things and helps them develop greater psychological flexibility so they can pursue areas of value and live meaningful lives.

While CBT tries to change thinking and behaviour, ACT introduces the intriguing idea of people not changing their thoughts and behaviours but, rather, achieving a state of mind where they’re able to notice the problematic thoughts, images, feelings, or behaviours but not be overwhelmed or consumed by them. That’s the “acceptance” part.

Read more: Everything dies and it’s best we learn to live with that

ACT also encourages people to identify values that are important to them and figure out ways their day-to-day life can reflect these values. That’s the commitment part.

ACT psychologists have a range of novel and engaging activities at their disposal. An ACT psychologist might help a person visualise placing their thoughts on leaves floating down a stream. They can then watch their thoughts float by and disappear down the stream.

Behavioural activation

Behavioural activation was initially developed for the treatment of depression but has since been used more widely. It involves identifying and scheduling activities that promote enjoyment or reduce stress.

Behavioural activation helps people identify things in their environment that are contributing to the problem, and the things that could really help, along with the behaviours that are associated with each of those things.

Read more: ‘What is wrong with me? I’m never happy and I hate school’

The focus of behavioural activation is on helping people develop specific goals and achievable plans that activate rewarding behaviours.

Behavioural activation can involve similar activities to CBT, with more of an emphasis on the behaviours than the thoughts. Someone engaging with a behavioural activation psychologist, for example, might spend time monitoring the activities they do throughout the day and rating each in terms of the impact it has on their mood.

Method of levels

Method of levels is a newer and less well-known treatment but is gaining increasing interest. It focuses on the control that a person has in their life, how it was interrupted, and how it can be restored.

Method of levels has similarities with each of the other therapies but uses the conversation that develops in therapy, based on the indivdual’s perspective of their problems, as the main “technique”.

This type of therapy responds to how a person is functioning “right now” in the session as they’re talking to the psychologist.

The topic of any session is determined by the person with the problem. The psychologist focuses on the distress associated with any particular pattern of symptoms rather than the symptoms themselves.

If a person reported, for example, being highly anxious in social situations and constantly worrying about what other people were thinking of them, the psychologist would be interested in exploring what bothered the person about feeling that way, what it was interfering with, and what it was stopping them from doing.

Through these conversations, the psychologist helps people generate their own solutions to their problems rather than providing advice and guidance from their perspective.

Method of levels recognises the variability in how long it takes for people to resolve psychological and social problems and that psychological change often follows a nonlinear, unpredictable course, so it uses a patient-led approach to appointment scheduling rather than neat schedules.

What if it’s not working?

There are many more treatments available than those listed above, and many psychologists will be skilled in more than one treatment or may even combine different treatment types.

If you can find someone you relate to, who is interested in monitoring your progress on a regular basis, and who can work flexibly and responsively with you about the things you’re troubled by, it’s likely you’ll find the relief you are looking for.

But there are no guarantees. A treatment is simply a resource which people can use to help make sense of things that previously seemed senseless and to restore contentment, satisfaction, and feeling that you’re living a valued life. It’s the people who make treatments work.

If you don’t seem to be getting the results you want, it could be time to consider seeing someone else or trying a different type of therapy.

Read more: Talking therapies can harm too – here’s what to look out for

– ref. Thinking of seeing a psychologist? Here’s how to choose the therapy best for you – http://theconversation.com/thinking-of-seeing-a-psychologist-heres-how-to-choose-the-therapy-best-for-you-114294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emily Freeman, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Newcastle

Play is an important way for children to learn about the world around them.

Through play, they learn cultural norms, socialisation guidelines and experiment with different ways to interact with their environment.

But play between a father and their child or children can offer a different type of play. It’s often boisterous, physical and competitive, and this all has an equally important role to play in a child’s development.

Read more: Let them play! Kids need freedom from play restrictions to develop

The rough-and-tumble play

Dads tend to engage in more active, physical play activities with their young children – rough-and-tumble play.

Dads often engage in activities such as play wrestling and throwing their child into the air.

This type of play is full of excitement and challenge, and if it weren’t for the clear enjoyment of both parties, it might sometimes seem a little aggressive to an outsider.

But this play isn’t just fun. Research has shown it’s also important for healthy child development.

Of course, rough-and-tumble play doesn’t have to be exclusive to dads. Mums can also engage in such play with their kids and, although that’s not been the subject of research to date, there’s no reason the results can’t be just the same.

Rough-and-tumble play improves social skills

In one study we looked at the quality of father-child rough-and-tumble play, and children’s emotional and behavioural problems.

High-quality rough-and-tumble play was defined as being warm and sensitive, dominance-sharing and playful in nature.

We found high-quality play was related to higher levels of what’s termed prosocial behaviour. Prosocial behaviour includes things like being considerate of other people’s feelings and sharing well with others.

In other words, high-quality rough-and-tumble play is linked to nice children who are probably going to have an easier time making friends with their peers.

Rough-and-tumble play improves emotion regulation

Play that’s active, physical and competitive has also been linked to better emotion regulation.

Dads have a tendency to push their kids to the limit, to set goals that are just a bit beyond their reach, and to rough-and-tumble play in a way that gets the kids worked up.

Good rough-and-tumble play is play where the kids don’t just get worked up and potentially frustrated, but where the child learns how to handle these emotions – how to regulate them.

This is important as better emotion regulation allows children to understand and manage their own behaviour and reactions.

Rough-and-tumble play reduces injury risk

Now this one might seem a bit counter-intuitive.

In one of the studies we conducted, we looked at the relationship between father-child rough-and-tumble play and childhood injury rates in 46 families.

What we found was the more dads engaged in rough-and-tumble play with their kids, the fewer injuries those kids sustained.

We think the rough-and-tumble play is teaching kids about their limits – how far they can physically push themselves.

Winners and losers

One of the important lessons from any rough-and-tumble play, though, is about the balance between winning and losing. It’s important parents don’t dominate.

One of my favourite rough-and-tumble games is the sock wrestle. Each player puts on just one sock. The aim of the game is to get your opponent’s sock off their foot. Give it a try. It’s simple, but a lot of fun!

When you’re playing this with your kid (or kids if you want an extra challenge!), make sure you share the winning and losing.

It’s important for your child to both win and lose, as without the losing and the frustration that comes with that, you’re not helping to teach them how to regulate their emotions.

So it seems as though the rough-and-tumble play with kids isn’t just enjoyable, it’s also an important part of a child’s development.

Read more: Let them play! Kids need freedom from play restrictions to develop

It’s teaching children how to regulate their emotions, how to safely push and extend their limits, how to assess risky situations, and how to get along well with others.

Not only that, but physical activity has multiple health benefits too. Rough-and-tumble play is the sort of thing we should be encouraging parents to do regularly.

– ref. Kids learn valuable life skills through rough-and-tumble play with their dads – http://theconversation.com/kids-learn-valuable-life-skills-through-rough-and-tumble-play-with-their-dads-119241

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Potter, Lecturer in Conducting, The University of Queensland

Conductors are a relatively new breed of musician. Only as compositions became more complex circa 1810 (blame Beethoven!) did the actual need for a conductor become more relevant. Conductors were in demand pre-Beethoven, but to a far lesser degree.

As the noted author and music critic Norman Lebrecht has alluded to in his book The Maestro Myth, there remains considerable mystique surrounding conductors, despite the fact that thousands of performance recordings showing conductors “face-on” are now available online. One such example is Sir Simon Rattle conducting Gustav Mahler’s 2nd symphony.

As with all branches of music performance, a conductor’s job is communication, not only musically, but beyond the music.

Pre-performance

A conductor’s communication with an audience begins from the first step onto the concert platform. During the walk to the podium, he or she must not only negotiate safe passage through an often crowded performance space, but also smile, engage with both audience and performers and complete the pre-concert rituals. (The latter include acknowledging audience and orchestra, shaking hands with the Concertmaster, and bowing.)

All this while also concentrating on how the opening few bars of the repertoire needs to be conducted technically and musically.

A conductor will usually be professionally proficient on at least one instrument. He or she must, however, have a strong working knowledge and understanding of all instruments and voices being conducted. The score is fully absorbed prior to the rehearsal stage and is very rarely sight-read on the podium itself.

The choice of concert attire can effectively communicate with audience members during “the walk”. Although formal concert dress for mainstream subscription concerts is still in vogue, other concert portfolios offer more interesting dress options: the sight of Darth Vader, for example, conducting is not unusual!

I use a pair of trusted red stripy shoes to make impact with audiences, a fact noted by reviewers who have compared me to the Bishop of Rome.

In the 21st century, conductors are increasingly required to introduce the performance. But eventually, the conductor will turn his/her back on the audience (with the exception of those sitting in choir stalls) and the music will commence.

What about those arm movements?

Intense eye contact with the ensemble members is pivotal to the success of most performances. Now comes the almost fabled waving of arms.

This is part mathematical, part artistic. The mathematical refers to the precise time keeping of rhythm, which in turn allows the ensemble to have the greatest chance of performing together.

Many conductors use a baton to help pinpoint this use of time, although some do not. Such an individual choice can vary with the size and style of the repertoire being performed. The beating arm is usually on the individual’s strongest side: I am right-handed, for example.

A major part of the conductor’s role is to accurately show the length of each bar according to the interpretation and theoretical structure of it. A bar is a mathematical tool that helps to visually organise the music for the performers concerned.

An avid audience member will notice that most bars have beating patterns that conductors utilise. The beating pattern is dictated by the number of beats in the bar (the usual number of beats would be between two and four). It is defined by a combination of vertical and horizontal beats (the conductor will indicate these by moving their arm up or down or side to side).

The more beats there are, the more complex the pattern becomes. The type of beat pattern is usually dictated by and reflects the rhythmic structure of each bar.

Nearly all bars have first and last beats, respectively known as the downbeat and upbeat (it is rarer for bars to have only one beat). Downbeats move from north to south, and upbeats do the opposite: imagine drawing an imaginary line in the air from 12:00 to 6:00 (downbeat) on a clock, and vice versa (upbeat).

Both downbeats and upbeats act as a visual aid to performers to check respective points within the bars and scores being played. Upbeats and downbeats visualise bar lines, which in turn mathematically aide the music.

While most bars in music are of similar lengths, this is not always the case, as online recordings of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring will prove. This notorious work has multiple and often changing bar lengths, all of which require high levels of technique and musicality from a conductor.

Emphasising Volume

The beating arm does not only communicate time: it also has the potential to influence degrees of volume. In general terms, the louder the music is, the larger the size of physical gesture used.

A conductor’s whole body helps to communicate the artistic message to an ensemble, and, consequently, to audiences. From head to toe, it can musically influence the performance, via such things as player cues, dynamic control (volume), ensemble balance, and artistic shape.

Communication, whether verbal or otherwise, is a conductor’s business. Without successful communication from the podium, the enjoyment of music making for all concerned, including the audience, is lessened.

– ref. Explainer: what exactly do musical conductors do? – http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-exactly-do-musical-conductors-do-82889

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

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has paved the way for increased public preparedness to defend Australia’s sovereignty against foreign interference, outgoing ASIO head Duncan Lewis has said.

In an address to the Lowy Institute, Lewis repeated his earlier warning about this interference. “The current scale and scope of foreign intelligence activity against Australian interests is unprecedented,” he said.

While the threat was not just from any one particular country, Lewis noted the scale and sophistication of threats varied greatly.

He did not mention China by name, but the government considers China poses by far the largest threat in terms of interference on a range of fronts.

Some years ago Lewis warned the major political parties of this attempted influence through political donations. In the current NSW ICAC inquiry attention has been centred on an alleged $100,000 donation to Labor in 2015 by Chinese property developer Huang Xiangmo, a banned donor. Huang later was prohibited from re-entering Australia, on ASIO advice that he had links with the Chinese Communist Party.

Lewis warned that “unlike the immediacy of terrorism incidents, the harm from acts of espionage may not present for years, even decades, after the activity has occurred. These sorts of activities are typically quiet and insidious, with a long ‘tail’”.

“There has been a great deal of coverage recently in the Australian media regarding espionage and foreign interference, ascribing blame and describing vectors of attack and influence.

“It is not proper for me to dive into the detail of this coverage for a number of reasons.

“Suffice it to say I am satisfied that ASIO is following the ball closely and has seeded what is now a public consciousness and awareness of the matter and I hope in short-order there will come an increased public preparedness to better defend our country and its sovereignty,” Lewis said.

Read more: New ASIO head, Mike Burgess, is moving from one security agency to another

On terrorism, he said the global threat from violent Islamist extremism was not eliminated by ISIL’s declining fortunes and loss of terititory.

“Increasingly, disillusioned ISIL supporters are turning to more egregious and desperate measures in and beyond the Middle-East.”

On the “complex” issue of returning foreign fighters, “we have worked to develop and implement effective and appropriate management strategies. We will be paying a lot of attention on a case by case basis to the security implications of any returnees with a range of responses”.

These varied, “depending on whether the returnee is an active foreign fighter, where a successful brief would see them in jail, or whether the case is of an infant who clearly would be approached in a completely different way,” Lewis said.

“At the other end of the spectrum, right wing or ethno-supremacist extremism is not being ignored by ASIO.

“Recent history around the world is peppered by acts of extreme right wing motivated attack”, including the horrific Christchurch massacre, Lewis said.

The new chief of ASIO is Mike Burgess, former head the Australian Signals Directorate.

– ref. Outgoing ASIO head hopes for greater public preparedness to defend Australian sovereignty – http://theconversation.com/outgoing-asio-head-hopes-for-greater-public-preparedness-to-defend-australian-sovereignty-122969

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin., Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The Australian economy is tepid, with consumer spending the weakest in ten years, business investment shrinking, and economic growth too weak to cover population growth.

Were it not for very strong growth in export income and the biggest surge in government spending in 15 years, the economy would have shrunk.

The treasury believes the Australian economy is capable of growing at a sustained annual pace of 2.75%. The growth rate in the past finacial of 1.4% reported on Wednesday is only half that.

Not since September 2009 has the gap between what the Australian economy is capable of and what it has been delivering been so wide. 2009 was the year of the global financial crisis.

Real GDP growth

Economic growth has rarely been as low as 1.4% outside of a recession.

When account is taken of population growth, income and production per citizen went backwards. The last time that happened was during financial crisis. The last time before that was during the early 1990s recession.

Household spending, which accounts for more than half of total spending, also failed to keep pace with population growth. The inflation-adjusted growth rate of 1.4% was also the lowest since the financial crisis.

Growth in household consumption

Other figures released on Tuesday show retail spending dipped a further 0.1% in July.

Hardest hit was spending in the 2018-19 financial year was spending on cars. Updated figures released at the same time as the national accounts show sales of new cars down 10% over the year to August.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he preferred to think that households were delaying rather than abandoning purchases of cars, waiting until the economic outlook was clearer.

Growth in consumption by category

Weighing on consumers is an extended period of unusually low wage growth that the national accounts show has brought the share of national income paid out as wages down to just about its lowest point since 1964.

Although the wage and superannuation bill increased, climbing 5% over the year as employment grew, the share of national income paid out as wages and super fell to 52% – the lowest since the global financial crisis, and before that the lowest since the Beatles toured Australia and Donald Horne published The Lucky Country.

Also weighing on consumers has been housing. Investment in housing (including alterations and additions) was down 9.1% over the year. Business investment fell 10%.

Company profits grew 12.8%, but leaving aside mining companies, whose profits grew strongly on the back of higher prices and export volumes, other profits grew only weakly, climbing 1.8%.

Mining income pushed up nominal GDP (the raw dollars unadjusted for prices that drive nominal incomes) up a healthy 5.4%, probably delivering the government a budget surplus one year earlier than promised, in 2018-19. Frydenberg said he already knew the result and would unveil it in a fortnight. His smiles suggested it’s one he likes.

Nominal GDP growth

Mining income also pushed up what the Reserve Bank regards as the best measure of actual living standards, which (perhaps surprisingly) is not GDP per capita, which is going backwards, but a lesser known and purpose-designed measure known as “real net disposable income per capita”. It grew a healthy 2.65% over the year and a very healthy 1% over the quarter.

It is true that much of it was paid out in mining profits, but it is also true that it isn’t necessarily right to latch on to the cruder measure of GDP per capita and say that living standards are going backwards.

Helping maintain living standards was a very healthy growth in government spending, the highest for some time – not government infrastructure spending, that actually fell over the year as some state projects wound up, but day to day spending on things such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Oddly, because of the way the national accounts work, economic growth was also helped by a slump in imports, down 2.8% over the year due largely to a slump in imports of consumer goods.

The economy is in a bad way. Aside from mining and government spending, the only real bright spot is employment growth, and as the Reserve Bank often points out, employment growth doesn’t tell us much about what’s going to happen.

It tends to lag everything else in the economy, by up to nine months. By the time it turns down, other things already have.

Few clear ways out

Frydenberg doesn’t seem too worried. For now he is banking on the tax cuts and the interest rate cuts in June and July to lift investment and spending.

The treasurer has two Plan B’s. One is an aggressive investment allowance for business. He spoke about introducing one last week, but on Wednesday he indicated that he wasn’t planning to do so until next year’s May budget. If needed, he could bring the date forward.

The other is another Reserve Bank rate cut, most likely at the board’s meeting on Melbourne Cup Day, by which time it will have before it an updated set of inflation figures.

Read more: ‘Back yourself’ Treasurer Frydenberg tells business. But it’s not that simple

Frydenberg revealed on Wednesday that he is taking a close look at the government’s contract with the Reserve Bank, a formal written agreement which is renewed after each election.

He has asked the treasury to look at it to see whether it needs to be tightened to make the bank more responsive to the state of the economy.

– ref. Why we’ve the weakest economy since the global financial crisis, with few clear ways out – http://theconversation.com/why-weve-the-weakest-economy-since-the-global-financial-crisis-with-few-clear-ways-out-122942

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danny Eckert, Director, Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, Professor, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Flinders University

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.

Why are some people affected by sleep paralysis? – Tess, age 13.

Falling asleep is a bit like flicking off a light switch. One moment we are awake, but then the switch is flicked and we fall asleep.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. But sometimes, the switch gets a bit “sticky” and the light flickers between being awake and asleep. This is what happens with sleep paralysis – when you wake up but feel like you can’t move.

To answer your question, you’re more likely to experience sleep paralysis if:

Many people experience sleep paralysis at some stage, and it’s usually first noticed in teenagers. It can affect men or women.

Overall, though, there’s still a lot scientists don’t know about sleep paralysis and why some people are more prone to it than others.

Here’s a bit about what we do know.

Read more: Curious Kids: Where do dreams come from?

Our brain is half asleep

In the olden days, some people called sleep paralysis the “Night Hag” and said it felt like a spooky witch or demon was sitting on your chest. Now we know it is quite a common sleep problem or what doctors call a parasomnia, caused by a little brain hiccup. And thankfully, it usually doesn’t last very long.

With sleep paralysis, some parts of your brain are awake and still active but other parts are fast asleep.

The sleeping part is the section of the brain that tells the muscles to relax while we sleep so we don’t act out our dreams. Evolution probably gave us that trick because acting out dreams can be harmful to yourself or others (although this trick doesn’t always work and some people do act out their dreams).

Sleep paralysis can feel pretty strange and scary, at least until you realise what is happening.

Sleep paralysis often doesn’t need treatment

If you are unable to move or speak for a few seconds or minutes when falling asleep or waking up, then it is likely that you have what doctors call “isolated recurrent sleep paralysis”.

If you sometimes experience sleep paralysis, here are some things you can try at home:

• make sure you get enough sleep
• try to reduce stress in your life, especially just before bedtime
• try a different sleeping position (especially if you sleep on your back)

See your doctor if sleep paralysis continually prevents you from getting a good night’s sleep.

Your doctor may ask about how you’re feeling, your health history and if your family has had sleep problems. They may tell you to go to a specialist sleep doctor who can investigate further.

Read more: Curious Kids: What happens in our bodies when we sleep?

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: why are some people affected by sleep paralysis? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-are-some-people-affected-by-sleep-paralysis-121125

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Dominey-Howes, Professor of Hazards and Disaster Risk Sciences, University of Sydney

At least seven people have died in the wake of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, although that figure is expected to rise as rescue work continues.

Dorian began life as a small tropical depression southeast of the Lesser Antilles on August 24, 2019, and grew to be a Category 5 hurricane as it devastated the Bahamas.

Read more: Damage estimates for hurricanes like Dorian don’t capture the full cost of climate change-fueled disasters

At the time of writing, Dorian has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm and is currently tracking northward parallel to the US coast.

Where Dorian decides to travel next is still hard to forecast. It does not look like Dorian will make landfall in the United States, but the US National Hurricane Center currently expects it to turn northwards by Wednesday evening, followed by a turn towards the north-northeast on Thursday morning local time.

On this track, the core of Hurricane Dorian will move dangerously close to the Florida east coast and the Georgia coast. The centre of Dorian is forecast to move near or over the coast of South Carolina and North Carolina on Thursday through Friday morning.

Dorian is the second most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record, packing sustained winds of more than 270km per hour, with peak gusts approaching 350km/h. At its peak the storm system was more than 700km in diameter, causing massive rainfall and a huge storm surge peaking at more than 7 metres above sea level – both contributing to substantial flooding.

As a Category 2 storm, it still has 177km/h winds and tremendous destructive capacity.

Path of devastation

As Dorian passed over the Bahamas absolutely the worst scenario occurred: it more or less stopped dead in its tracks.

Slow-moving hurricanes do immense amounts of damage. Rather than moving on quickly, high winds, heavy rainfall and large storm surges all combine to hammer the landscape and of course, people, buildings and crucial infrastructure. Dorian sat over the Bahamas for more than 20 hours, maximising the amount of damage.

The official death toll is currently seven, but Prime Minister Hubert Minnis and national and international emergency management agencies expect that number to rise sharply as response and recovery teams start to gain access to heavily damaged areas.

Aerial footage is emerging of extensive damage across wide areas, with total devastation of built structures and massive impact on the natural environment.

Is Dorian linked to climate change?

Many people are understandably asking if there is a direct connection between human-induced climate change and Hurricane Dorian. The short answer is it’s hard to say.

Here’s what we know. By adding greenhouse warming gases to the atmosphere, more heat is trapped in the atmosphere and oceans. Increasing heat equals increasing energy in the atmosphere-ocean system, and increased heat fuels extreme events such as hurricanes, heatwaves, storms, and floods. A new science called “attribution” investigates the statistical probability that a particular event such as Hurricane Dorian is more likely in a human-warmed climate. Work is now under way to gather the data necessary to determine mathematically whether Dorian was likely connected to a warming world.

Read more: Extreme weather news may not change climate change skeptics’ minds

Regardless, previous work shows Atlantic hurricanes have been getting larger and more intense, and significantly more destructive.

What are the lessons?

Australia, like many parts of the world, is regularly affected by hurricanes, although we refer to them as tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean or typhoons in the western Pacific.

Continued investment in detection, monitoring and forecasting are vital. Linked to this is the need for ongoing effects to improve community education about the dangers and how to prepare at the start of hurricane or cyclone seasons.

More research is needed to understand future changes in tropical cyclone frequency and intensity as well as their complex behaviour so experts can provide more reliable forecasts and path track estimates. This is really important because current forecasts show that in some parts of the world, the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones will increase and in other parts, decrease. This has important implications for disaster preparedness and response.

Read more: Why the Indian Ocean is spawning strong and deadly tropical cyclones

Crucially, Dorian shows we cannot be complacent about the dangers of large-scale weather events, and the ongoing effects of climate change.

– ref. Hurricane Dorian: where it hit, where it’s headed, and why it’s so destructive – http://theconversation.com/hurricane-dorian-where-it-hit-where-its-headed-and-why-its-so-destructive-122937

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor Jones, Lecturer in Musical Theatre, Griffith University

In a 2004 original musical about creating an original musical – cheekily titled [title of show] – one writer asks, “So movies make good musicals?” His writing partner responds: “Well, they make musicals.”

This year, Australian theatre audiences have seen stage adaptations of the films School of Rock, Billy Elliot, Saturday Night Fever and Muriel’s Wedding. Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s adaptation of Bring It On, based on the 2000 cheerleading movie, has already played in Melbourne and Perth and opened in Sydney last week.

In 2020, productions of Frozen, Waitress, Moulin Rouge and Shrek will be performed across Australia.

Some original imports like Come From Away and The Book of Mormon are being seen on Australian stages and Hamilton will open here next year, but the emphasis on movie adaptation seems to have a limiting effect on original Australian creation.

Recent announcements by the Queensland Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir St Theatre do not include plans to premiere new Australian musicals in 2020.

From novel to screen to stage

Musical theatre has always been a genre that favours adaptation. In 1927, Show Boat was an adaptation of Edna Ferber’s novel. Oklahoma was based on the play Green Grow The Lilacs by Lynn Riggs. Musicals were adapted from novels, plays, short stories (South Pacific, Guys and Dolls), comics (Annie, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown) and even the Bible (Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar).

When Oscar Hammerstein II mentored Stephen Sondheim as a composer and lyricist, he set him the task to write four musicals, including three adaptations.

As cinema increased in popularity, musicals were increasingly based on movies. These ranged from arthouse films such as Fellini’s 8 ½ (adapted as Maury Yeston’s Nine) and Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of A Summer Night (Stephen Sondheim’s inspiration for A Little Night Music) to blockbusters such as Sister Act.

Of course, this process can also be reversed with movie musicals like the upcoming Cats starting life onstage. The cycle completes itself when a production like Hairspray goes from screen to stage and is then filmed as a movie musical.

Adapting popular films for the stage became common practice in the 21st century as producers sought to draw new audiences into theatres to see shows with familiar titles. The most recent Broadway season included adaptations of Pretty Woman, Tootsie and Beetlejuice.

Many ways to stage

The most straightforward adaptation approach is to use songs from the soundtrack of an original movie to create a jukebox-style experience. Moulin Rouge is an example of this style of adaptation, along with Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Although the music rarely propels the plot, the songs provide spectacular entertainment.

Other adaptations, such as School of Rock, Kinky Boots and Pretty Woman take an existing plot and insert original songs, usually by one composer (Andrew Lloyd Webber for School of Rock, Cyndi Lauper for Kinky Boots and Bryan Adams for Pretty Woman). Songs are used to create memorable production numbers, but also take the place of dialogue or provide a reflective solo number.

One difficulty with this style of adaptation, though, is that audiences are not familiar with the new songs and often expect to hear music from the original movie. The Roy Orbison song Oh Pretty Woman was not originally included in the Broadway production of Pretty Woman but was later added to the finale for this reason.

Disney’s stage adaptations (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King) tend to be a hybrid of these two approaches, incorporating the well-loved songs from the movie and adding new songs by the same composer.

Bring on originality

Some of the most successful film adaptations bring new elements to create a stage version with enough familiarity to appeal to the audience while also updating the setting or altering the plot to spark new moments of engagement.

Muriel’s Wedding still tells the familiar story of awkward Muriel Heslop but contemporises the original film by incorporating the pressures of social media in the song Shared, Viral, Linked, Liked.

Bring It On maintains the thrilling cheerleading elements of the movie, but incorporates issues of self-esteem, socio-economics and the LGBTQ community.

Australian musicals such as Hot Shoe Shuffle (1992), The Boy From Oz (1998) and Keating! The Musical (2005) have proved successful in the past. Since 2017, Muriel’s Wedding has toured nationally and Barbara and the Camp Dogs trimphed at the Helpmann Awards.

But other than a revival of Bran Nu Dae our stages will be bereft of original Australian musicals next year. This may reflect an influx of international productions and low risk scheduling.

Adaptation is an important element of musical theatre, which can harness the power of a well-known property for the stage and draw new audiences to the theatre. While film adaptations are sometimes critiqued as shameless attempts to play on nostalgia to chase dollars, they can also produce satisfying theatrical pieces that develop the artform.

Hopefully, those new audiences will eventually encourage Australian producers to develop original works as well.

– ref. Hollywood onstage: why are so many musicals adapted from movies? – http://theconversation.com/hollywood-onstage-why-are-so-many-musicals-adapted-from-movies-122329

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Wynn, Senior Economic Advisor, CSIRO

Growing interest in healthy and sustainable lifestyles could be worth about A$25 billion and make up about 10% of the value of Australia’s food and agribusiness sector by the end of next decade.

These projections are made by Australia’s industrial research agency, CSIRO, in an economic analysis published today.

The high rate of growth in demand for healthy and sustainable products could make the food and agribusiness sector more valuable than mining. The sector currently contributes about A$138 billion to the Australian economy, or about 7.6% of GDP, compared with 8% from mining.

Domestic demand will comprise about $15 billion. Exports of $10 billion will be underpinned by rising demand throughout Asia, where Australian produce already has a reputation for quality, safety and value.

Growth opportunities

In health and wellness products, our report examines four high-growth opportunities:

• fortified and functional foods, which contain added ingredients intended to aid health
• free-from and natural products, including gluten-free and certified organic
• vitamins and supplements
• personalised nutrition.

In sustainable solutions, we identify three growth areas:

• alternative protein sources, any food eaten as an alternative to meat and seafood
• organic waste conversion, generating useful products from waste
• sustainable packaging, such as bioplastics and biodegradable packaging.

Read more: Beyond meat? The market for meat substitutes is way overdone

As well as these areas relating to health and sustainability, we also look at three areas of “premium interactions” – products and services that attract premium prices due to quality, convenience, luxury or novel attributes, ranging from rock lobsters to gourmet cheeses and winery visits.

Estimating potential

This new economic analysis builds on CSIRO’s 2017 Food & Agribusiness roadmap. It considers factors such as trends in consumer preferences, competitive advantages, potential competitors and substitutes, and broader macroeconomic forces such as population and income growth.

Because industry outlooks and projections are subject to high degrees of uncertainty, we have consciously included data sources, assumptions and methodology in the report. We welcome discussion of our assumptions and estimates.

The following figure shows the expected growth rate and potential size of the various market segments in 2030.

The biggest opportunity is in fortified and functional foods. Examples include probiotics and omega-3 oils added to yoghurt and milk, and antioxidant-rich breads, cereals and beverages.

Although this is a mature industry, CSIRO’s analysis suggests its value will increase from $6.7 billion in 2018 to $9.7 billion in 2030.

The second-biggest market potential is in alternative proteins. These include plant proteins such as soy and pea, and emerging products such as insect-based ingredients.

The market for alternative proteins is expected to grow at about 5% a year, more than double the rate of 2.4% for the whole food and agribusiness sector.

As well as domestic and export sales valued at $6.6 billion in 2030, we estimate alternative protein sources may be worth $5.4 billion in carbon emission and water savings. This estimate is based on first calculating the emissions and water saved by consuming alternatives to animal protein, and then calculating the value of those using market prices for carbon and water.

Read more: What’s your beef? How ‘carbon labels’ can steer us towards environmentally friendly food choices

We also see significant environmental savings from sustainable packaging ($1.7 billion) and organic waste conversion ($600 million).

Capturing market share depends, of course, on being able to compete with overseas suppliers. There is a risk, without investment in research, development and innovation, that Australia will not capture these opportunities. On the other hand, if we capitalise on our opportunities, the rewards could be even greater.

– ref. Health and sustainability market could be worth $25 billion to Australian producers by 2030 – http://theconversation.com/health-and-sustainability-market-could-be-worth-25-billion-to-australian-producers-by-2030-122856

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Gothard, Adjunct Associate Professor, Murdoch University

Being born in Australia does not make you an Australian citizen. The Tamil family with two Australian-born daughters on Christmas Island awaiting a decision on their future knows this only too well.

In some countries, such as the United States, children born there automatically become citizens of that country.

But in Australia, this isn’t the case. In Australia, the automatic birthright to citizenship ended on August 19, 1986, under section 12 of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. Children born in Australia from August 20 1986 are only Australian citizens by birth if, at the time of their birth, at least one of their parents was an Australian citizen or permanent resident. If they meet this criterion, they can obtain a passport.

Read more: Most migrants on bridging visas aren’t ‘scammers’, they’re well within their rights

But while the rules on who has a birthright to Australian citizenship are clear, the rules on how a child can prove this birthright are anything but.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), which issues Australian passports, says: “only Australian citizens can be issued with Australian passports”, but the Department of Home Affairs sometimes has other ideas.

This has had a negative impact on children who might fall into the gap between the passport and citizenship requirements of these two government departments.

Most of the time, acquiring an Australian passport at birth, based on providing standard evidence of identity like birth certificates, means citizenship for life.

In some instances, though, Home Affairs has the power to request, arbitrarily and with no explanation, that further evidence be provided to justify a child’s citizenship, even DNA testing.

DNA testing to prove citizenship

In one recent case our firm has dealt with, the foreign mother of an Australian child who had an Australian passport was told she needed to produce evidence of citizenship for her son, even though he was born in Australia and his father had always held Australian citizenship.

The family birth certificates and passports she had provided when successfully obtaining her child’s passport were “not deemed sufficient evidence” of citizenship.

She was required to obtain a “certificate of citizenship” from Home Affairs. And to get this, DNA testing was requested to prove the Australian citizen was indeed the biological father of the child in question.

Read more: Should I get my DNA tested? We asked five experts

But the mother’s relationship with the child’s father had broken down irreparably at the time of the child’s birth, and the father refused the DNA test.

DNA testing was not compulsory, Home Affairs advised. Other methods could be used to prove the relationship between the father and son was biological.

But the alternative social evidence recommended by Home Affairs and supplied by the mother included exhaustive personal, hospital, social work and government records. They detailed the mother and child’s contact with the father and grandparents before and after the birth. This was still deemed “not sufficient”.

In effect, this shows DNA has become the only acceptable evidence, despite Home Affairs’ claims. The outcome, Home Affairs advised, is that the child’s passport will be cancelled and the child will lose his status as an Australian citizen.

In another example, the father of a child in care, an Australian passport holder, was asked to do a DNA test as part of the process of obtaining a certificate of citizenship for the child.

He was estranged from the child and the mother, and so he refused. Home Affairs made its assessment of paternity based on that refusal, and the child’s passport and citizenship were cancelled.

Losing citizenship from ‘insufficient’ evidence

Citizenship can be revoked and a passport consequently cancelled in limited circumstances – mostly relating to criminal or security issues.

There is no provision in the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 for the cancellation of citizenship held by a child under 16 who became a citizen at birth. Yet it is happening.

Our firm has recently seen an increase in cases where the citizenship status of a child passport holder has been challenged if the child’s mother is a temporary resident.

While investigating a mother’s circumstances, Home Affairs delegates have required children – Australian passport holders with citizenship acquired through their father – to verify their citizenship by obtaining “certificates of citizenship”.

In these recent cases, the evidence usually required to obtain such a certificate – relevant birth certificates linking the child to the father, and evidence of citizenship or permanent residence of the father at the time of birth – has been rejected as insufficient.

The common thread is the absence of the father, where family relationships have broken down. The child is consequently caught in a bureaucratic tangle: their birth certificate identifying their father remains valid, but Home Affairs refuses to accept this.

Evidence of paternity can’t always be provided when families break down

For Home Affairs, sometimes the standard evidence of identity isn’t enough to justify a child’s citizenship. And where a relationship has broken down, or if a father has moved on physically or emotionally from the child, there may be no way of providing biological proof of that paternity.

The onus of proof in this case is on the child or its mother, with Home Affairs providing no explanation why such evidence may be necessary or relevant.

A child’s birth certificate signed at the time of birth by an Australian citizen father, or social evidence of a paternal relationship, can count for nothing here.

Read more: Yes, Peter Dutton has a lot of power, but a strong Home Affairs is actually a good thing for Australia

What’s disconcerting is the apparently unfettered right of Home Affairs to request additional evidence of citizenship from children who already hold Australian passports, granted following the normal protocols, without any need for Home Affairs to explain on what basis such information is sought.

This is at odds with the practice under the Migration Act 1958, which acknowledges principles of “natural justice”. Cancelling children’s passports and withholding citizenship, effectively a consequence of their absent father and their parents’ inability to maintain a harmonious relationship, seems clearly unjust.

Refusing to accept certificates issued by state Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and overturning the capacity of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to issue passports based on its own sets of rules, is yet another indicator of the enormous and – despite its denials – unchecked power of Home Affairs.

If birth certificates no longer suffice as evidence of paternity, perhaps we’ll all be looking at DNA testing in the future.

The author wishes to thank Alice Graziotti of Estrin Saul Lawyers for her contributions to this article.

– ref. Yes, you can hold an Australian passport but not be a citizen – here’s how – http://theconversation.com/yes-you-can-hold-an-australian-passport-but-not-be-a-citizen-heres-how-122632

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alessandro Palci, Research Associate in Evolutionary Biology, Flinders University

Only fish have gills, right? Wrong. Meet Hydrophis cyanocinctus, a snake that can breathe through the top of its own head.

The 3m species, which is native to Australian and Asian coastal waters, can draw in oxygen with the help of a unique set of blood vessels below the skin in its snout and forehead.

The network of blood vessels works very similarly to a fish’s gills, and represents a newly discovered addition to the extraordinary range of adaptations that sea snakes use to thrive below the waves.

Read more: There are dozens of sea snake species in the Indian and Pacific oceans, but none in the Atlantic or Caribbean. Why?

In evolutionary terms, sea snakes are relative newcomers to aquatic life, having evolved from land-based snakes only about 16 million years ago. This is much more recent than marine mammals such as whales and dugongs, which arose around 50 million years ago.

The roughly 60 known species of sea snakes have nevertheless developed an impressive array of adaptations to marine life. These include salt glands under the tongue, nostrils that face upwards and can be sealed by valves, paddle-like tails to facilitate swimming, and the ability to absorb oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide through their skin.

Some sea snakes have even evolved light sensors on the tips of their tails, possibly as a way to avoid having them nibbled off by predators when partially hidden in crevices.

A mysterious hole in the skull

Just when we thought we had uncovered all the strange things sea snakes do, we discovered something new. As we report today in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the annulated sea snake Hydrophis cyanocinctus effectively has a set of gills on its forehead.

The first sign of something unusual was an odd hole (in anatomical terms, a “foramen”, the Latin word for “hole”) in the roof of this species’ skull.

This hole is reminiscent of the “pineal foramen” found in several lizard species, which contains a tiny light-sensitive organ called the pineal eye. Could sea snakes also have a pineal eye?

No trace of such a foramen has ever been found in a modern snake. In fact, snakes are thought to have lost the pineal foramen at least 100 million years ago, which is the age of the oldest reasonably complete fossil snakes.

However, because some sea snakes have light-sensitive organs in their tails, we couldn’t rule out the possibility of a light-sensitive organ reappearing in its ancestral position in the skull – snakes did evolve from lizards, after all.

Not an eye, but a lung

We decided to investigate this unexpected foramen in H. cyanocinctus more closely. We obtained some live specimens from Vietnam, where sea snakes are commonly sold as food in fish markets, and generated images of the soft tissues around the foramen using a combination of traditional and computer-assisted methods.

These images revealed that this snake does not have a pineal eye. What actually goes through the mysterious hole in its skull is a large blood vessel (sometimes paired). This blood vessel then travels forward and branches into a complex network of veins and sinuses immediately under the skin of the forehead and snout.

We then examined other snakes, both terrestrial and marine, using the same methods, and realised that this network of blood vessels in H. cyanocinctus is unique.

Read more: Did snakes evolve from ancient sea serpents?

While a network of blood vessels is expected to be present under the skin of all snakes, what is special about H. cyanocinctus is the greatly exaggerated size of the blood vessels and the fact that they converge towards a single large vein that goes into the brain.

Gills on top of the head

This strange network of blood vessels makes sense when we consider that sea snakes can breathe through their skin. This happens thanks to arteries containing much lower oxygen concentrations than the surrounding seawater, which allows oxygen to diffuse through the skin and into the blood.

However, these low oxygen levels in arterial blood can cause problems, because the brain may not get the oxygen it needs. The dense network of veins on the forehead and snout of these sea snakes helps solve this problem by picking up oxygen from seawater and redistributing it to the brain while swimming underwater.

If you think that sounds similar to what fish do with their gills, you’re absolutely right. H. cyanocinctus has managed to evolve a respiratory system that works in much the same way as gills, despite the vast evolutionary distance between these two groups of species. Truly, these snakes are indeed creatures of the sea.

– ref. Deep breath: this sea snake gathers oxygen through its forehead – http://theconversation.com/deep-breath-this-sea-snake-gathers-oxygen-through-its-forehead-122784