Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Tattersall, Postdoc in urban geography and Research Lead at Sydney Policy Lab. Host of ChangeMakers Podcast., University of Sydney

The past few weeks has seen a drastic escalation in violence on the streets of Hong Kong. On Tuesday night, a police officer aimed a shotgun at protesters who had gathered outside a police station, while a car launched fireworks into the crowd.

Days earlier, the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters trying to reach the Chinese government’s office.

And the week before, following a protest of 430,000 people, vigilante thugs, dressed in white and carrying bamboo sticks, beat up democracy protesters at a train station.

This long summer of protests began in response to a proposed extradition bill just days after the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. But now, over eight weeks on, the protesters continue to take to the streets with a broader set of demands – and the confrontations with police are threatening to spiral out of control.

With reports of a build-up of Chinese forces on the Hong Kong border, and no end in sight to the demonstrations, many are now asking – how will this end?

Conflict arising from the Umbrella movement

Protest is a familiar tactic in Hong Kong, but this movement has adopted a series of new approaches from the lessons of other protests over the last 30 years – in particular the failures of the 2014 Umbrella Movement.

In doing so, they are building something that is – at least until now – showing resilience to Beijing’s authoritarianism.

The current protest movement isn’t a single movement. It has two dominant wings – one is passive, the other more militant. These wings accept and recognise each other’s role.

This is new. In 2014, Hong Kong democracy leaders staged a 79-day occupation to fight for universal suffrage. Called the Umbrella Movement, the occupation had two sets of leaders – older democracy leaders (known as the Occupy Trio) and younger student leaders (notably Joshua Wong and Nathan Law).

Originally, the Occupy Trio had planned a multi-year campaign to build public and political pressure for universal suffrage, but the students were more confrontational. They staged a sit-in at Civic Square on Hong Kong Island and the occupation was off and running.

During the occupation, these different views led to irreconcilable conflict, making it impossible to talk about overall strategy. When the occupation finally ended – without achieving universal suffrage – there was great acrimony between the groups that lasted for years.

A new set of principles

Realising how counter-productive this split was, the protesters were keen not to let strategic differences get in the way this time around.

As organisers made plans for the June 9 rally against the extradition bill, several new principles emerged to define how the different groups could work together and avoid falling into the deep conflict of the past.

They included such maxims as “respect the role of the different groups”, “we all lead”, “no one is left behind” and “be water” (as in, to flow from place to place, building continuous pressure). More than the power of any individual leader, these principles came to define how the movement would function and grow.

The principles reinforced one another. The decision not to have a single leader was born from the experience of the Umbrella movement. Every visible leader of that movement was jailed or threatened with jail following the occupation. (Two of the Occupy Trio received 16-month jail sentences this year).

The Extradition movement learned it was too dangerous to have figurehead leaders. If everyone led, what could Beijing do? They couldn’t jail everyone.

And when it came to respecting the role of different groups, this principle allowed those who wanted to pursue a more militant strategy to do so without fear of rebuke. Everyone was encouraged to do what they thought was needed.

On June 9, two movements launched: a peaceful protest of more than one million people, as well as a more militant movement of young people.

The confrontational wing was battle-ready. They had re-purposed everyday items like medical masks, plastic wrap, helmets, goggles, umbrellas and towels into tools of protest. The Umbrella occupation had taught them the police would likely use excessive force – so they dressed accordingly.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam was unmoved by a million-person march, but did shift her position and suspend the extradition bill when faced with a street confrontation. This sent a loud message to the protesters about what it will take to win under her authoritarian government – militancy was more potent than passive protest.

Protesters got the message. Every mass protest since then has seen these two protest wings in operation. As an elected member of Hong Kong’s government explained to me, they are “codependent” – they need each other to exist.

The two wings initially unsettled Beijing. Every time there was militancy – most dramatically when the Legislative Council Building was vandalised on July 1 – Beijing thought it could be used to their advantage.

The government aired the violence on television, hoping it would turn public opinion against the protesters and split the movement. Yet, older democracy leaders did not criticise the students, instead reiterating that “everyone in the movement has their place.”

Popular opinion is still with the protesters, and the protests are still enormous.

Flowing from protest to protest

Another form of protest also emerged to supplement the two-wing approach – the movement turned “to water”.

The protests now have a flow they didn’t have during the Umbrella occupation. Protesters don’t simply show up for weekly mass marches and then go home; they have begun organising smaller protests in their districts on a daily basis.

“Lennon walls” featuring thousands of protest messages have emerged, for instance, in every one of Hong Kong’s districts. Random Airdrop notifications share details about impromptu protests, such as last week’s sit-in at the airport. With everyone leading and the action constantly flowing from one place to the next, this protest is hard to stop.

The Umbrella movement, in contrast, was physically fixed in three locations and maintained with tents and nightly sleep-outs. The rigidity of the occupation was exhausting and took a toll on the participants.

A government can wait out an occupation, but how do you capture something that is constantly moving?

Where will it end?

Its hard to predict where the current protest movement goes next. At the moment, there are no negotiations between the government and protest leaders. The protest movement has five key demands that continue to sit on the table, ranging from withdrawing the extradition bill completely to an independent investigation into police brutality to Lam’s resignation.

But it is unclear whether the protests would end even if the demands are agreed to. All the while, Beijing makes infrequent statements in support of Lam, but it also has thousands of troops already stationed in Hong Kong – and a build-up of more across the border.

What is certain is that a long-standing democracy movement has powerfully connected to the next generation. Young students are terrified about their future and feel they have to do everything they can to fight for their rights.

But the stakes are extremely high. Is it possible for water to move so quickly that it escapes the barrel of the gun?

– ref. The Hong Kong protesters have turned militant and more strategic – and this unnerves Beijing – http://theconversation.com/the-hong-kong-protesters-have-turned-militant-and-more-strategic-and-this-unnerves-beijing-121106

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaz Ross, Lecturer in Asian Studies, University of Tasmania

This week, a heated row blew up in the senate and on social media when Shadow Home Affairs Minister Kristine Keneally demanded that a controversial political figure, Raheem Kassam, be denied a visa to speak at a political event in Australia.

Many Australians have never heard of Kassam, although he’s known in the UK for his hard right “politically incorrect” views on migration, Muslims, and women. He’s also posted offensive anti-Semitic comments online.

The Kassam visa dispute has now developed into a “free speech versus hate speech” debate on the international stage, with Donald Trump Jnr tweeting his support of Kassam.

Read more: Friday essay: networked hatred – new technology and the rise of the right

In Australia, Senator Mathias Cormann labelled Kassam’s views as disgusting, while also defending the decision to let Kassam in on the basis of freedom of speech, thought and expression.

Meanwhile, Labor senators have described the event Kassam is attending as “normalising the extreme right wing in Australia”. And Kassam’s co-hosts in Australia have ridiculed Keneally for calling a man who was raised Muslim an Islamophobe.

This isn’t the first time in the past year that controversial right-wing speakers have faced visa bans. Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopolous, conspiracy theorist David Icke and western chauvinist Proud Boy Gavin McInnes have all been turned away. And each time we see a re-run of the “free speech vs hate speech” debate.

So who is Raheem Kassam?

Raheem Kassam is a British political activist with a decade-long involvement in political campaigns on the hard right in the UK.

Now an atheist, he describes himself as philosophically conservative but radical in practice. He is notorious for provocative public statements.

His most well-known roles have been as a senior adviser to Nigel Farage during the 2015 general election and as a (failed) candidate for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leadership. Echoing Trump, his election slogan was “Make UKIP great again.”

He is a strong nationalist and an anti-refugee critic of immigration.

We should be proud of what I call Faragism – a belief in your country, a belief in your culture, a belief in the people of this great nation.

Kassam is deeply embedded in the far-right ecosystem of anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-feminist sentiment. And until 2018, he was the London-based editor of the American far-right media outlet Breitbart, one of the most influential media outlets, under the guidance of Steve Bannon.

While at Breitbart, Bannon mentored controversial figures like Yiannopolous to engage with extreme right and supremacist groups.

Read more: Booksellers, the alt-right and Milo Yiannopoulos

As an ex-Muslim who is not white, Kassam operates as a provocateur in much the same way as the openly gay (with a black husband) Milo Yiannopolous. Both use their identity to counter criticism of their extreme views as racist or intolerant.

Despite being from an immigrant background and having Muslim parents, Kassam has published books strongly against Muslim immigration. He has called the Koran “fundamentally evil”, and Islam a “fascistic and totalitarian ideology.”

Why do Labour want to keep him out?

Keneally says Kassam’s extensive track record of vilifying others on the basis of race, religion, sexuality and gender makes him a “career bigot”.

She has asked Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton to deny Kassam a visa under Section 501 of the Migration Act on the grounds that he is at risk of vilifying others, inciting discord, and putting sections of the community in danger if he is let into Australia. As a result, Kassam has threatened to sue Keneally for defamation.

Read more: Why Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views

For Labor, Kassam’s presence at the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is symbolic and significant for more than just his views.

CPAC: the ‘dark arts of hate speech’?

CPAC brings together a range of like-minded conservative politicians and lobbyists from Britain, the USA and Australia for the first time.

The list of speakers is a who’s who of hard conservative politics in Australia: One Nation’s Mark Latham, MP Craig Kelly, Senator Amanda Stoker, Tony Abbott, Campbell Newman, Ross Cameron, Peta Credlin, Janet Albrechtsen, and Rohan Dean. And visiting speakers include influential republican congressmen Matt Gaetz and Mark Meadows, and UK Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage.

The aim of CPAC is to establish a solid base for conservative lobbying and campaigning in Australian elections. Its motto is “Protect the future – fight on”, and one full day is dedicated to grassroots political campaigning.

Keneally describes this inaugural Australian CPAC as an attempt to normalise the extreme right in Australia and a “cavalcade of intolerance at the CPA talkfest of hate.” Labor Senator Penny Wong has called the annual CPAC in the USA as an extremist breeding ground of bigotry, and the “dark arts of hate speech”.

Hate speech vs free speech?

Canadian far-right anti-Islam provocateurs Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern jointly toured Australia in 2018..

Before his ban in 2019, Milo Yiannopolous toured in 2017 and even spoke in Parliament House at the invitation of Senator David Leyonhjelm.

Read more: Governments are making fake news a crime – but it could stifle free speech

Both tours generated violent clashes between opposing groups of protesters and fans. Both tours were costly in terms of police resources and security. And inflammatory, insulting and derogatory statements targeting Aborigines, women, Muslims and LGBTIQA people were made by all three speakers.

There is no evidence that Kassam uses the same extreme strategies to stir up audiences. But it’s clear he acts as an agent to goad opponents and push a hard-right conservative agenda.

Read more: Freedom of speech: a history from the forbidden fruit to Facebook

It’s also clear the American-style campaigning of inaugural Australian CPAC has truly arrived. This is a style marked by divisive and hate-filled campaigns designed to increase divisions with society using the mass circulation of highly partisan and fake news on social media.

It could be a defining moment in Australian politics.

– ref. Who is Raheem Kassam? Calls to ban the far-right speaker blur line between free speech and hate speech – http://theconversation.com/who-is-raheem-kassam-calls-to-ban-the-far-right-speaker-blur-line-between-free-speech-and-hate-speech-121309

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University

In the weeks after the 2019 federal election, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the turn-out of voters was the lowest since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1925.

It also reported there had been high rates of absenteeism of young voters who, while willing to participate in the recent marriage equality survey, had “turned their back on democracy” in the federal election.

Read more: Election explainer: why do I have to vote, anyway?

The article continues a narrative about a decline in voter participation, which the federal parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) review of the the 2016 election described it as a “concerning trend”.

But it turns out the SMH report – which was based on the actual vote count undertaken by the Australian Electoral Commission – got it wrong, because it reported on the 2019 result before the count had been completed. In fact, voter participation in 2019 was actually 0.88% higher than in 2016.

Despite this, the national participation rate hasn’t returned to the 95% rate achieved in 2007. So what’s behind the apparent decline in civic duty?

Political disengagement is one factor, but data show that low turn-out also happens in seats with a high proportion of Indigenous people, and seats with a high proportion of renters.

Electorates with the lowest participation

Looking at the participation performance of individual federal electorates can show what might be happening.

Among the litany of divisions with the lowest participation rates, two distinct electorate clusters emerge of what might be thought of as under-performing seats.

By far the most consistent under-performing seats are remote regional districts including Lingiari and Solomon (Northern Territory), Durack (Western Australia and previously known as Kalgoorlie) and Leichhardt (Queensland).

These are also the four federal seats with the highest proportion of voters who identify as Indigenous, according to the 2016 Australian census. In the case of Lingiari, 44.5% of residents identified as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, 17.9% in Durack, 9% in Solomon and 6% in Leichhardt.

Read more: Book extract: From secret ballot to democracy sausage

The next cluster of persistent under-performing seats are inner urban divisions whose residents are among the best educated and most affluent in the nation. This includes Sydney, Wentworth, Melbourne and Melbourne Ports (these days known as Macnamara).

They are also characterised by their comparative youthfulness. These are seats that have significantly larger proportions of citizens in the 19 to 39 year age groups than the national age distribution and, indeed, seats like Lingiari and Durack.

The relatively low turn-out rate and youthfulness of these inner urban electorates supports the argument that young people are enrolling, but not voting.

While this might be the case, it’s also true that the rate of participation in the inner urban cluster of seats is much stronger than for the remote rural cluster.

In short, lower election turn-out rates tend to be associated more with seats with comparatively higher proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voters than with youthful electoral districts.

This is an interesting aspect to electoral behaviour, especially when there is so much debate about how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders could be given greater input to the political process by way of reforming the Australian constitution.

The role of renting

These two clusters of seats could not be more different from each other. And yet they do share a significant socioeconomic characteristic.

Both the inner urban and remote seat clusters are characterised by the comparatively large number of citizens with rented, rather than purchased, accommodation.

Read more: Avoid the politics and let artificial intelligence decide your vote in the next election

The 2016 census found that slightly more than 30% of Australians were renters. In contrast, 60% of residents in the seat of Sydney and 52.9% of residents in Lingiari were renting.

With renting comes the possibility of citizens changing their residential address and this, in turn, can make it difficult to maintain the electoral roll.

A political crisis?

Are these trends a sign of a political crisis, or are they simply “concerning” (to borrow from the JSCEM report)?

If the data indicates disengagement, it’s doing so at a fairly minimal rate. And at the last election, attendance rates improved compared with the previous election.

What’s more, the correlation of renters to under-performing electoral districts might even indicate that the problem is administrative rather than the product of civil disobedience.

Read more: You are what you vote: the social and demographic factors that influence your vote

Having said that, if the government feels the need to address the turn-out rate, they can use coercive powers to reinforce compulsory voting. This would involve imposing bigger fines for those who do not turn up to vote.

The existing legislation allows for a significant fine to apply (one penalty unit) when a voter hasn’t turned up. But the law as it currently stands does allow a wide range of excuses to permit a much less onerous sanction of a A$20 fine.

Were the parliament to be truly concerned about participation it could seek to alter the act and strengthen the hand of the AEC.

– ref. Renters hold the key to low voter turn-out at federal elections – http://theconversation.com/renters-hold-the-key-to-low-voter-turn-out-at-federal-elections-120494

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Loughran, Research Fellow, University of Wollongong

Hype continues to surround the roll-out of 5G technology in Australia and across the world.

While there is promise of faster network speeds, and talk of exciting technologies like driverless cars, there’s also a growing movement to stop the implementation of 5G due to concerns about the effects it may have on our health.

But the scientific evidence we’ve got assures us there’s no reason to worry. The radio frequencies powering 5G will be well below the exposure limits known to cause harm.

Read more: Do Wi-Fi and mobile phones really cause cancer? Experts respond

What is 5G and how does it work?

5G is the 5th generation of mobile phone technology. All generations of mobile phones work using what’s called electromagnetic energy. The specific type of electromagnetic energy used by mobile phones is known as radiofrequency, sometimes called radio waves.

This type of radiation is non-ionising, so it doesn’t damage our DNA like ionising radiation can, such as that from the sun or x-rays. Ionising means there’s enough energy to remove electrons from the atoms they are attached to. This makes them unstable and is something non-ionising radiation, such as that used by mobile phones, lacks the power to do.

Initially, 5G will use the same type of radio waves as used in 4G. But in the future it will operate at higher frequencies. Higher frequencies allow for faster connections and response times, while also increasing capacity for more users to be connected.

The higher the frequency, the shorter the distance the radio waves travel. As the 5G frequencies will be higher than those used by previous mobile phone technologies, a lot more mobile phone base stations will be required.

Much of the public concern has centred around these two new elements – that the frequencies used will be higher, and that there will be more mobile phone base stations. While some people believe these two factors alone will lead to higher exposures, the reality is actually very different.

Read more: Can you be allergic to your Wi-Fi?

Higher frequencies don’t travel as far, meaning exposure is not as deep as previous generation technologies. This results in more superficial exposures which are mostly absorbed by the skin rather than deeper in the body.

The idea that more base stations lead to higher exposures is also a common misconception. A larger number of base stations will actually provide a more efficient network. This means mobile phones can operate at a reduced power, which is likely to result in reduced overall personal exposure.

Research and regulation

Importantly, we have no evidence of any established health effects from the exposures related to mobile phones, despite extensive research. This consensus has been reiterated by independent international expert bodies.

We know a lot about how radiofrequency interacts with the human body. Health effects occur from exposure when there is a large rise in body temperature. But this will only be seen at power levels far higher than those used in telecommunications, like from a microwave oven.

The temperature changes associated with mobile phones are very small, especially when compared with normal day-to-day or exercise-induced temperature variations.

Exposures from mobile phones and their base stations are tightly regulated. In Australia, safety standards are set by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).

These standards are based on the current scientific evidence. They also cover the new frequencies that will be used by 5G. Importantly, the safety limits are set well below levels known to cause harm. And although technology can legally run at the safety limit, in reality, exposures are typically hundreds of times below these safety limits.

Challenging misconceptions

There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding 5G, and the electromagnetic energy associated with telecommunications more generally. While there’s no evidence of harm from such electromagnetic energy, there is evidence fear and anxiety can be harmful to our health and overall well-being.

While anti-5G sentiment and campaigning might be well-intentioned, without the scientific evidence to back these sentiments, it’s likely doing more harm than good. The challenge we now face is counteracting the misinformation out there.

Read more: What is a mobile network, anyway? This is 5G, boiled down

– ref. There’s no evidence 5G is going to harm our health, so let’s stop worrying about it – http://theconversation.com/theres-no-evidence-5g-is-going-to-harm-our-health-so-lets-stop-worrying-about-it-120501

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Henley, Research Fellow in Climate and Water Resources, University of Melbourne

Melbourne’s existing water supplies may face pressure if global warming hits the 2℃ level, according to our new research published today in Environmental Research Letters.

The effects of drying and warming in southern Australia are expected to reduce natural water supplies. If we overshoot 2℃ of warming, even the desalination plant might not provide enough drinking water to a growing population.

However, keeping warming to 1.5℃ would help avoid many of these negative consequences. This brings home the local benefits of acting swiftly to limit global warming. Luckily, there are options available to secure our water supply.

Warming and drying effects

The Earth has warmed by about 1.1℃ since pre-industrial times, causing ongoing global changes to our atmospheric composition. The Paris Agreement commits the world to holding the increase to “well below” 2℃, and “pursuing efforts” to limit the increase to 1.5℃.

While we’re confident there will be more hot extremes and fewer cold extremes as global temperatures rise, the consequences of further global warming for other climate extremes – such as drought – in different parts of the world are harder to pinpoint.

Read more: Is Australia’s current drought caused by climate change? It’s complicated

Our study uses climate models to identify the possible changes in average rainfall and temperature in four different worlds:

• the “Natural” world, where humans have had no influence on the climate,

• the “Current” world, which approximates the impacts humans have had to date, and

• two future worlds, which are “1.5℃” and “2.0℃” warmer than pre-industrial times.

In line with previously published results, southern Australia is projected to undergo drying and warming. But we are not alone. The Mediterranean and Southwestern North America are also predicted to dry out.

Desalination is increasingly important

Most Australians recall the severity and length of the Millennium Drought. This event severely stressed agricultural and natural systems, and led to the commissioning of desalination plants in the five largest cities in Australia, at a cost of several billion dollars.

Desalination offers an important lifeline. Although it comes with high short-term costs, it supplies vital water security over the long term. Successful efforts to improve water-use efficiency have reduced per capita demand rates, but growing populations in major centres will lead to increasing water demand.

Right now, large parts of southeastern Australia are in the grips of another drought. Although drought is a common natural feature of Australia’s climate, in recent decades we have observed long-term drying trends over much of southern Australia.

Currently, all capital city urban reservoir systems in southern Australia are below 60%, and several are nearing or below 50%. The Victorian government recently ordered 125 gigalitres of water from the desalination plant.

With these challenges in mind, our paper explores the effects of future climate change on the surface water supply infrastructure for Melbourne.

Climate models and hydrological models together indicate future declines in catchment inflows as global warming increases from 1.5℃ to 2℃. The good news is when desalination is added to the mix, which it is, pressure on our water storage is dramatically reduced. However, population growth and climate change remain key challenges into the future.

The buffer is shrinking

The take-home message is, if global warming approaches 2℃ and beyond, the combined impacts of climate change and population growth will ultimately begin to outstrip the buffer desalination provides for us without ongoing investment in water security. Fortunately, desalination plants, storm water, water recycling and continuing to improve efficiency are all viable options.

To ensure our water security, and with it, the safety and prosperity of the urban centres which are the engine houses of the Australian economy, we all need to be vigilant in managing water resources.

We also all need to play an active part in the global effort to reduce the impacts of climate change. The commitments by the world’s nations for the 2020-30 period remain insufficient to achieve the temperature goals. Global emission rates continue to rise, and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are steadily accelerating.

The task of turning around our emissions in time to avert many of the serious impacts of climate change is becoming ever more implausible. In the coming 10–20 years, we expect to shoot past 1.5℃.

Read more: Meet El Niño’s cranky uncle that could send global warming into hyperdrive

With so much momentum in both human and natural systems it is becoming increasingly unlikely that we will avoid warming beyond 1.5℃. However, if we can achieve it, the list of benefits includes greatly reduced stress on the water supplies we rely on for our very existence.

– ref. 2℃ of global warming would put pressure on Melbourne’s water supply – http://theconversation.com/2-of-global-warming-would-put-pressure-on-melbournes-water-supply-118389

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Wilks, Adjunct Professor, Southern Cross University

Australia has been ranked as one of the top destinations to study internationally. The QS Best Student Cities Ranking released yesterday, which incorporates feedback from more than 87,000 current and prospective international students, ranked Melbourne as the third-best city to study. Sydney came in ninth.

London and Tokyo were number 1 and 2 respectively out of the world’s 120 top student cities. Melbourne and Sydney were joined in the top 50 globally by Brisbane (22), Canberra (23), Adelaide (26, up 15 places from last year) and Perth (41).

These results are rigorous and evidence-based, drawing on a variety of indexes (such as livability and affordability) and the student survey. When it came to the quality of life index (known as desirability), QS director of research Ben Sowter said:

Six of the world’s 30 highest-performing cities for our Desirability indicator are Australian: a record bettered by no other nation.

These results are highly influential and clearly drive education decision-making. We know students wishing to study overseas take serious account of universities that score well on independent rankings, for instance, and there’s no reason why these should be any different.

Read more: Melbourne or Sydney? This is how our two biggest cities compare for liveability

So the performance of Melbourne and Sydney on this international platform speaks volumes for the position of the country as a study destination.

What makes a good student city?

QS uses six metric groups to compile the ratings:

1. desirability: will students enjoy a high quality of life here? Do students want to study in this city?

2. university rankings: how many top-ranked universities are in the city?

3. employer activity: will a chosen city have job opportunities after graduation?

4. student mix: what proportion of a city’s population is made up of students? How diverse is that student population?

5. affordability: can students afford to study here?

6. student voice: what do students studying in this city think of it?

So, how should we read this?

In assessing quality of life the QS looks to measures such as the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index where in 2018 Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide were in the top ten of the 140 cities surveyed.

Melbourne held the top spot for seven consecutive years, only this year being edged out by Vienna by 0.7 of a percentage point.

Ben Sowter said:

This year’s edition of the QS Best Student Cities Ranking indicates that one of the primary incentives for any prospective international student to study in Australia is the high quality of life on offer there.

Quality of life includes a range of elements such as recreation facilities, public services and transport, housing and the natural environment. According to Mercer’s 2019 Quality of Living City Rankings, Melbourne and Sydney are in the top 20 worldwide.

And then there is safety.

There have been some recent challenges for Australian universities in the area of student safety, including robberies and attacks on international students at a Melbourne university.

No destination can completely guarantee the personal safety of its residents and visitors. But looking at a variety of sources and the comments of students themselves, the evidence suggests Melbourne and Sydney in particular are very safe cities overall, ranking in the top 12 worldwide for digital, health, infrastructure and personal security.

Read more: Recent campus attacks show universities need to do more to protect international students

When it comes to the student mix indicator, the QS ranking puts Melbourne as the world’s best city. This is a measure that includes tolerance and inclusion, reflecting the importance for many international students of choosing a study environment that is likely to be hospitable to their own cultural background, lifestyle and identity.

While there are admittedly periodic reports in the media about racist behaviour in Melbourne, and the government is well aware of this, Melbourne is widely recognised as culturally diverse, tolerant and welcoming. On these measures we can trust the QS ranking.

Melbourne came third in the student voice, which accounts for the experience and study destination preferences of more than 87,000 students.

Sydney ranked second on student mix and ninth on employer activity, obtaining a job at the end of their studies being a very important consideration for international students.

The QS results are in keeping with the high levels of international student satisfaction reported for Australian higher education, especially for safety, living, learning and support.

Where we can improve?

The 2019 QS ranking shows Australian universities are at a slight global disadvantage on measures of affordability. This is an observation previously made in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Australian costs are generally comparable to those of the US and the UK, but far higher than Japan, Spain, Germany or Russia, which are all serious competitors in the international student market.

But cost is not the only consideration. A benchmark HSBC report of 4,592 parents in 15 countries around the world said they would consider sending their child abroad for a better university education.

And this is where Australia has a competitive advantage.

We make up for cost when it comes to education quality. The QS results endorse government initiatives such as Study Melbourne and Study Sydney that provide international students with employment assistance, career guidance and day-to-day living support – all of which contribute to a positive international student experience.

Read more: ‘I’m an international student in Australia. How do I tell my parents the pressure they put on me is too much?’

While the results are commendable we, shouldn’t be complacent. We know the biggest concerns for prospective students relate to everyday life rather than their studies.

Issues around the cost of living, finding accommodation and employment, and safety rank among the greatest concerns. In the Australian context dealing with racism needs to be urgently addressed.

– ref. International students rank Melbourne and Sydney in world’s top cities – but we can make them feel safer – http://theconversation.com/international-students-rank-melbourne-and-sydney-in-worlds-top-cities-but-we-can-make-them-feel-safer-121238

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Walters, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, The University of Queensland

The battle for domination of the physical and digital public realms has been crucial to the fortunes of the Hong Kong protesters. Their overwhelming numbers in the tense stand-off with the might of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has captured our attention over the past eight weeks.

However, there are less obvious dynamics at work as protesters use public space – both physical and digital – to maintain their advantage. An understanding of these public realms is critical to understanding why freedom of expression either flourishes or dies in particular urban contexts.

Hong Kong protesters have drawn the world’s attention to the fragile state of democratic rights in this Special Administrative Region of China. As many as 2 million people, out of a population of 7.5 million, have poured into the streets, protesting the erosion of their special status.

Read more: Hong Kong: why the ‘one country, two systems’ model is on its last legs

These protests have been remarkably effective in the face of a PRC-aligned Hong Kong leadership, which has for now backed down on a contentious proposal to make it easier to extradite Hong Kong residents to mainland China.

In physical terms the public realm means places to gather freely with diverse others with high visibility. This makes them a focus for expressions of democratic conviction. Many great cities of the world contain iconic public places, such as Taksim Square in Istanbul, the National Monument in Jakarta, Trafalgar Square in London and, of course, Tiananmen Square in Beijing. But with varying levels of surveillance and restriction, not all of these places qualify as functioning public realms.

Read more: How city squares can be public places of protest or centres of state control

Taking to the streets …

Hong Kong, one of the most densely built and populated cities in the world, has few recognisable public places. None is capable of holding even a fraction of the numbers of protesters that have mobilised.

For that reason, crowds have taken to the streets. These are usually a degraded form of public space, but protesters have turned them from thoroughfares for vehicles to a vibrant public realm, allowing an impressive show of willpower.

The protests have been well organised and until last week were free from violence. The involvement of alleged China-backed triad criminals escalated the risk for ongoing demonstrations and the fragile public realm in Hong Kong is now threatened.

… and digital space

The success of the protests is not entirely dependent on the use of physical space. The speed and coordination of the protests would not have been possible without access to a public realm in the abstract. We see it in an active and independent press and media, and in the ability of protesters to communicate with each other quickly and freely through the digital public realm provided by social media and encrypted messaging apps.

The sheer volume of people on the streets implied spontaneous anarchy. However, the use of social media, even in the presence of covert and overt surveillance by security forces and China-friendly media, enabled organisers and protesters to retain a tactical advantage.

They have been using anonymous calls in encrypted chat applications like Telegram and Signal to coordinate efforts. These apps allow users to create public and anonymous channels to share information, as well as smaller, more private, group chats.

Read more: How a cyber attack hampered Hong Kong protesters

The protest was coordinated visibly on LIHKG, an online forum that ranks posts by popularity in a similar manner to Reddit. These forums allow protests to move fluidly and quickly, responding to changing conditions on the ground.

Protesters used social media to rapidly distribute photos to counter security authorities’ attempts to deliberately and drastically underestimate crowd numbers to downplay the strength and size of the opposition.

There was also a need to avoid particular technologies. China employs sophisticated surveillance of its citizens.

Read more: China’s Social Credit System puts its people under pressure to be model citizens

However, protesters have taken effective evasive measures. These included simple physical acts such as standing in huge queues at the Metro for paper tickets to avoid being tracked on transit smart cards. Protesters also used umbrellas, face and eye masks to prevent facial recognition and to shield themselves from teargas attacks and drone surveillance.

The digital public realm has been used successfully in other contexts as a potent intensification of physical protest. Digital spaces can amplify, broadcast and coordinate physical action.

For example, social media catalysed the Black Lives Matter protests in the US. In 2016 Philando Castile’s death was live-streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend after police shot him through the open window of his vehicle. Twitter was used extensively to publicise and coordinate the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests.

Read more: Black Lives Matter is a revolutionary peace movement

Co-opting spaces as public

Urban protests in many cities, like Hong Kong, are defined by their limited access to sanctioned public space. The co-opting of other public commons like highways and inner-city roads becomes necessary. This has been particularly successful in the American context where public space is degraded or privatised, and roads are “neutral” space.

Public space does not always look the way we imagine it. When access to public space is untenable, protesters with sufficient will can turn privatised or commercial space into a new public realm.

The Hong Kong protests have turned the international airport terminal into a temporary public realm for this purpose. The “yellow shirt” protesters did the same in Bangkok in 2008. The continued visibility of these public sites and the desire by security forces to close down protest create an uneasy stand-off, testing authorities’ resolve to respond under international scrutiny.

There is now more to the public realm than just a place to gather. Protesters need to combine their determination with a sophisticated appreciation of the digital environment and the nature and limits of public and private space.

Read more: Surprise! Digital space isn’t replacing public space, and might even help make it better

– ref. How Hong Kong protesters have been winning the battle for public space – http://theconversation.com/how-hong-kong-protesters-have-been-winning-the-battle-for-public-space-121251

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

Over the past two days the 20 leading contenders for the role of the US Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential candidate have faced off in two debates.

The exchanges between them – sometimes sharp – revealed a stark divide on economic matters. In many ways, the party’s core economic narrative is up for grabs for the first time since Bill Clinton reshaped it in the early 1990s.

There were so many contenders that there had to be two rounds, each with 10 candidates, over two nights.

But it was debate 1 in Detroit that was perhaps the most revealing about the distinct economic philosophies.

Read more: Two dozen candidates, one big target: in a crowded Democratic field, who can beat Trump?

(Aside: debate 2 also had big names and serious contenders like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, so it was also important, but it didn’t add much that would illustrate the economic divide.)

Debate 1 featured self-avowed “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders, the man who was Hillary Clinton’s bete-noire in the 2016 primaries. In addition, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Congressman Beto O’Rourke – all names even ordinary Americans might be familiar with.

Less well known, but critical, players in the opposing economic philosophies are Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman John Delaney.

You really don’t need to focus much on the other participants like the quirky but entertaining self-help guru Marianne Williamson, and the very likeable and reasonable Tim Ryan and John Hickenlooper.

The biggest battle line

The biggest distinction is between those candidates who believe in markets and those who basically don’t.

Sanders and Warren basically don’t. They want the US government to rail against corporations making lots of money. They think those companies make that money by corrupting politics. They want to aggressively tax the wealthy.

Delaney has a lot more faith in markets and free enterprise. He was an entrepreneur who took two companies public before the age of 40 and has a net worth of US$65 million.

Klobuchar doesn’t have the same background (she was a prosecutor before entering politics) but also doesn’t think government should do everything.

Buttigieg (or “Mayor Pete” as he is commonly known) was a McKinsey consultant (and Afghanistan War veteran) who is more technocratic, thinking that a good Excel spreadsheet piloted by smart folks can solve a lot of problems.

The two main issues that illustrate the big divide healthcare and taxation.

Medicare makes the difference stark

On healthcare there is no dispute that it should be universal, that every American should be covered.

The divide is between those who want there to be only government-provided health insurance, and those who want there to be a mix of government and privately-provided insurance.

A little background. “Medicare” in the US is a government-provided free plan for those 65-years and older. Other Americans get their health insurance either through their employer, don’t have health insurance, or since the advent of “Obamacare” (the Affordable Care Act) buy it themselves with a subsidy.

Read more: What the US could learn from Thailand about health care coverage

Sanders and Warren want what they call “Medicare for all”. By that they mean a single-payer system with no private insurance, everyone on Medicare.

Delaney, Klobuchar and others (especially Joe Biden from debate 2) think that’s nuts. That’s because it implies that the millions of Americans who have and value private insurance would lose it, either because bit was made illegal or because Medicare would price it out of the market.

They say they want a mere public “option”: if you like your insurance you can use it instead of Medicare, otherwise otherwise you use Medicare.

That’s a pretty stark distinction: between banning private commerce and not.

Over tax, the differences are just as stark

On taxation, again there is some agreement. All the candidates agree that wealthy Americans should pay more. What’s in dispute is how, and how much.

Warren wants a wealth tax that would take 2% of people’s wealth (not income) in excess of US$50 million (and take 3% of wealth in excess of US$1 billion).

The idea has been heavily criticised by luminaries such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers who say it won’t raise much money and will dampen incentive. They are pushing for laws which will close loopholes and tax shelters instead.

Read more: So you want to tax the rich – here’s which candidate’s plan makes the most sense

The idea has also been sharply opposed in the debate by John Delaney, who wants instead to increase the rate of capital gains tax (which, as in Australia, is lower than the income tax rate) and reverse Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

Here again, the contrast is between candidates trying to get more money from the wealthy while preserving incentives and candidates who see significant wealth as essentially immoral.

For years to come, the winner will take all

In essence the 2020 candidates are arguing about whether the third-way, market-oriented approach that Bill Clinton brought to the Democratic Party will endure, or be replaced with democratic socialism that “soaks the rich” and views private enterprise with scepticism.

At this stage there’s no telling which side will prevail. The result will have profound consequences for Americans for years to come.

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

– ref. Vital Signs: the battle for the soul of the US Democrats that’s taking place before our eyes – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-us-democrats-thats-taking-place-before-our-eyes-121298

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nonie May, Researcher, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne

Review: The Australian Dream, Melbourne International Film Festival

The Australian Dream is an affectionate portrait of a man, his sport, and his country. The documentary, which has premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival, examines the racist booing of Indigenous AFL player Adam Goodes in 2015.

Written by and featuring Stan Grant, a Wiradjuri man, the film journeys back from the events of 2015, to trace the prevalence of racial vilification throughout the AFL’s – and colonial Australia’s – history. If you love your footy, if you love your country, this is a must watch.

The Australian Dream follows the recent release of The Final Quarter – a film by Ian Darling about the last three years of Goodes’ career before his retirement in 2015. That film comprised archival footage only. This one features interviews with Goodes and other noted Indigenous sportspeople, resulting in a much more personal account of the booing saga.

Goodes is a two-time Brownlow medallist, a two-time premiership player, and a four-time All Australian Player — but these accolades are only briefly mentioned in The Australian Dream. Instead, director Daniel Gordon utilises TV footage from various games to underscore the astonishing athleticism with which Goodes played Aussie Rules.

His talent for the game is palpable: every mark, every spoil, every goal-scoring-kick seems effortlessly powerful and precise. This footage is intercut with a voiceover from Goodes who talks of finding an identity in football and finding a tribe with The Sydney Swans. This motivated him, in turn, to act as an elder for the younger men on the team and to return to his roots as an Adnyamathanha man, eventually leading to his public activism against racism.

Goodes used his platform as an elite AFL player to address the persistent racial issues faced by First Nations peoples in Australia. This was not received well by many footy fans, who found his anti-racism acceptance speech for 2014 Australian of the Year to be “un-Australian”. The footage shown of the vehemence of both YouTubers and online commenters against Goodes is shocking.

When Goodes continued to publicly and unapologetically call out racist slurs in 2015, fans of opposing teams across the country booed every time he was near the ball. The film details how heavily these boos weighed on Goodes, affecting both his ability to play the game, and his psychological well-being. It also underscores his stoicism amid an outpouring of hatred.

The Australian Dream makes it abundantly clear that this was not an isolated moment in AFL’s history. Footage from 1999 of Sam Newman in blackface mocking Indigenous player Nicky Winmar, and his smirking quasi-apology the following day, is evidence enough of a culture that seemed to want Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men performing on the field but silent off the field.

Testimony from Winmar and Gilbert McAdam details the historical prevalence of racist catcalls from footy fans, players and coaches alike. Like Goodes, these men speak of their love for the game, framing it through a connection to the Indigenous game Marngrook: when they touch the ball it is like the connection they feel with the land, it’s spiritual.

The tragedy of this, for Winmar, was that the racial vilification he experienced took this important connection away for him. His love for the game was replaced by hatred. Like Goodes, he retired early.

A portrait of a colonial country

Inevitably, perhaps, this portrait of a man and his sport, becomes a portrait of a colonial country. It details the historical abuses enacted by Australian colonisers – government and settlers – against First Nations peoples, and the continual proliferation of racially motivated violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The booing of Goodes was a moment in which this country’s systemic, historical, and persistent racism was brought to the forefront of our social consciousness. The film holds those who booed accountable, showing extensive footage of the booing, and of the racist commentary across media outlets that followed.

Inter-cutting footage from present-day interviews with Grant, and his IQ Racism Debate speech from 2015, the film asks its white spectators to front up to their part in what he calls, “the howls of humiliation” that vilify this country’s first peoples. These howls, Grant says, “echo across two centuries of dispossession, and injustice, and suffering”.

This racism is an indictment of the “Australian Dream”. It is a reminder of Australia’s violent colonial history, and a reminder that this colonisation persists: the boos and ape-jokes thrown at Goodes were masked by the myth of the “Aussie Larrikin”, who could elide the harm of those catcalls as “just a joke”. This is most evident in the footage from 1999, when Eddie McGuire smirks his way through Newman’s stunt.

Read more: The ape insult: a short history of a racist idea

This archival footage, which is edited seamlessly into the telling of Goodes’ story, reminds the audience that these jokes are part of a racist history.

But The Australian Dream is also optimistic. Grant and Gordon frame this narrative as a conversation, one that could change our culture forever.

Gordan films Goodes with his feet in the soil of Adnyamathanha tribal lands. He is filmed speaking with his elders, and he nods as they tell him that we must be willing to listen and learn.

The final shot of The Australian Dream is the most optimistic of all: a couple of kids in the desert kicking a red footy against red sunset. This rough-and-tumble round of Aussie Rules, wrapped up in a uniquely Australian landscape, closes the film with a reminder of our love for the game, and holds out hope for the next generation of Indigenous players.

– ref. The Australian Dream is must-see for lovers of football and this country – http://theconversation.com/the-australian-dream-is-must-see-for-lovers-of-football-and-this-country-121119

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Orr, Professor of Law, The University of Queensland

High Court challenge to Liberal victories in Kooyong, Chisholm

So read the headlines on Wednesday. But what is the law behind these election petitions?

My new book, The Law of Politics, offers a detailed examination of the laws surrounding Australian elections. Here, I’ll offer a potted explanation of the substance and process at play in the challenges to the results in these two Victorian seats at the 2019 federal election.

Read more: High Court challenge to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg under section 44

Amid all the recent concerns about online political disinformation worldwide, and about MPs’ qualifications in Australia, it is almost reassuring to be back on the terrain of old-fashioned, misleading campaign material.

The petitions allege that physical posters used at polling stations by the Liberal Party were likely to mislead electors in “casting” their votes.

The posters were written in Chinese and used in two seats with significant proportions of Chinese immigrants. Headed “CORRECT VOTING METHOD”, the posters went on to advise electors to vote “1” for the Liberal Party, then number the other boxes. The posters were authorised, in small print at ankle height, by the Liberal Party. But their appearance aped the purple and white used by Australian Electoral Commission posters.

Outside South Australia, there are no “truth in political advertising” laws in Australia. So what constitutes the offence of misleading an elector in casting a vote?

At its crudest, you cannot publish false addresses of how or where to vote. Nor can you claim false party affiliations or mimic other parties’ how-to-vote material.

The commission did not seek to have the posters removed on election day. It’s hard to get a court injunction in the space of a couple of hours. The commission doesn’t have copyright in its colours, but having spent public money establishing a brand, it needs to protect it. Instead, an independent candidate and another citizen have filed these petitions.

Election petitions go back centuries. They aren’t vehicles for purifying elections. They are tough to mount and to win.

The first hurdle was a tight time limit. The petitions had to be filed within 40 days of the election “writs” being finalised. That’s just 40 days to brief lawyers, assemble basic evidence and plead the claim.

As for winning a case – which means forcing a fresh election in either seat – it is not enough to show that the posters were likely to mislead. It must also be shown that the election outcomes were likely to have been affected.

In Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg’s margin over the Greens was 11,289 votes. There is no way upwards of 6,000 electors not only read and understood the signs, but were likely to have been fooled into voting differently.

In Chisholm, Gladys Liu’s majority over Labor was 1,090. It’s theoretically feasible that over 550 voters were swayed, especially as Chisholm is heavily populated with Mandarin and Cantonese speakers (both groups can read Chinese script).

But how could this be proven? Might a psephologist like Antony Green be called? Is there any evidence of a strong and clear benefit to the Liberal vote where the posters appeared, as opposed to results at, say, early voting booths? And what is the control group for such comparisons?

One quirk of election petitions is uncertainty about where the onus of proof lies. On one view, the petitioner must prove their case on the balance of probabilities. It’s a big thing to unseat an MP and march the voters back to the polls.

On another view, elections are about public trust, so if the posters seem legally dodgy and widespread, it is up to the Liberal Party to demonstrate there was little chance the election result was affected.

On top of this, the law beseeches the court to act quickly. The status of parliament needs to be finalised sooner rather than later. The High Court usually does not try fact-heavy petitions, so it’s likely to refer them to the Federal Court.

Then there’s the question of legal costs. In civil cases, costs are routinely awarded to the winning litigant. This isn’t to punish the loser, but to indemnify the other side for the decision to keep litigating.

But, as we just noted, election petitions are not routine commercial litigation. There is an overarching public interest at stake.

Read more: From robo calls to spam texts: annoying campaign tricks that are legal

If the Liberal Party is found to have engaged in misleading behaviour, the court can require it to bear the costs of its defence. That happened to the Labor Party in a Queensland case.

It’s folly to predict the outcome of litigation without hearing the case. But it’s telling that the Labor Party, which would stand to gain most from a fresh election especially in Chisholm, has not sued.

From this vantage, the court may well find the Liberal Party breached the law and therefore must bear most of its own costs.

But there is no way Frydenberg’s win in Kooyong will be imperilled, and it would take an intuitive leap to find that Liu’s majority in Chisholm is unsafe.

In short, the petitioners may win the battle but lose the war.

– ref. High Court challenge in Kooyong and Chisholm unlikely to win, but may still land a blow – http://theconversation.com/high-court-challenge-in-kooyong-and-chisholm-unlikely-to-win-but-may-still-land-a-blow-121300

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dempster, Director, Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research; Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, UNSW

Now all the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing have died down it’s worth considering where we are with future lunar missions half a century on.

Australia has long played a role in space exploration beyond helping to bring those historic images of the first moonwalk to our television screens back in 1969.

Labor MP Peter Khalil has already called for Australia to be involved in a mission to the Moon, and later to Mars. He is co-chair of the recently reformed Parliamentary Friends of Space, along with the National’s MP Kevin Hogan.

Read more: Not one but two Aussie dishes were used to get the TV signals back from the Apollo 11 moonwalk

But there is plenty of interest from others in going to the Moon.

The new Moon race

Only last month, India launched its Chandrayaan 2 mission that’s already orbited the Moon and due to land there on September 7.

China recently landed Chang’e-4 on the far side of the Moon while Israel almost succeeded in landing its Beresheet probe.

NASA has committed to sending people to the Moon again by 2024, and to significant lunar infrastructure such as the lunar Gateway, lunar landers and companies to deliver payloads to the Moon.

There is no doubt the Moon has once more captured the world’s interest. One of the reasons for this is human exploration, and that a Moon presence is now recognised as being essential to any future mission to Mars.

Water on the Moon

Another is the presence of water on the Moon, and the usefulness of water for all sorts of reasons in space.

By the time we hosted the second Off-Earth Mining Forum in 2015, it was clear water was the space resource of most immediate interest.

But the companies that existed at that time were mainly looking to source that water from asteroids. It has only been in the past two years that companies like iSpace have come to the fore, aiming at extracting water from the Moon.

Australia has reacted quite quickly to this evolving environment. Only last month, the first workshop met to establish a Remote Operations Institute in Western Australia to look at operating automated machines at a distance – remote mines and space.

The CSIRO identified nine potential “nation-building” flagship space missions, of which four relate to the Moon. One (disclosure, championed by me) is an orbiter and lander aimed at extracting water, but the other three could all support such a mission. Of those nine, four (including mine) have been selected for further examination at a workshop in mid-August in Brisbane.

Since January, we have been working on the Wilde project, where we have re-focussed our space resources research towards the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s poles, where water is highly likely to occur in acceptable concentrations.

We are also looking to reduce the risk of investing in a water extraction venture, including the design of orbiter and lander missions.

Explosion of Aussie interest

These Australian initiatives are all being driven in part by the explosion of the Australian space sector. One symptom of this is the establishment of the Australian Space Agency. The agency’s very existence and its promise have further emboldened space businesses and researchers.

But more than a year after its founding we still await any real missions, or commitment to upstream projects (upstream in space projects means those that are actually in space – those great Australian contributions to Apollo were all on the ground – downstream).

The other important driver for the new space projects mentioned above is that Australia has such a strong mining industry, and that so much mining innovation is created in Australia.

Read more: How big is the Moon? Let me compare …

As disciplines, space and mining have a lot in common: both involve complex engineering systems, work in hostile environments, and human control is increasingly handed over to autonomous robotics. Exploiting resources in space represents a genuine opportunity for Australia to establish a niche around which a sustainable space industry can be built.

So now is a perfect time for Australia to consider a new Moon mission. The industry is growing rapidly and a flagship mission would give it something around which to build.

Our special expertise in resource extraction offers a unique opportunity, which others have only just started to pursue. And a community of companies and researchers has been gathered for the task.

Hopefully it won’t be another 50 years before Australia has its own presence on the Moon.

– ref. Australia can pick up its game and land a Moon mission – http://theconversation.com/australia-can-pick-up-its-game-and-land-a-moon-mission-121109

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, La Trobe University

The term herd immunity comes from the observation of how a herd of buffalo forms a circle, with the strong on the outside protecting the weaker and more vulnerable on the inside.

This is similar to how herd immunity works in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Those who are strong enough to get vaccinated directly protect themselves from infection. They also indirectly shield vulnerable people who cannot be vaccinated.

There are various reasons a person may not be able to be successfully vaccinated. People undergoing cancer treatment, and whose immune systems are compromised, for instance, are impaired in their ability to develop protective immunity from all vaccines. Often, people who can’t be vaccinated are susceptible to the most serious consequences from being infected.

Another vulnerable group are babies. Infants under six months of age are susceptible to serious complications from influenza. Yet they can’t be given the flu vaccine as their immune systems are not strong enough.

Read more: Kids are more vulnerable to the flu – here’s what to look out for this winter

How does herd immunity work?

For a contagious disease to spread, an infectious agent needs to find susceptible (non-immune) people to infect. If it can’t, the chain of infection is interrupted and the amount of disease in the population reduces.

Another way of thinking about it is that the disease needs susceptible victims to survive in the population. Without these, it effectively starves and dies out.

What level of coverage provides herd immunity?

How many people need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity varies from disease to disease.

Measles can be transmitted through coughing and sneezing and the virus causing measles can survive outside the body for up to two hours. So it’s possible to catch measles just by being in the same room as someone who is ill if you touch a surface they’ve coughed or sneezed on.

In contrast, Ebola can only be spread by direct contact with infected secretions (blood, faeces or vomit) and therefore requires close contact with an ill person. This makes it much less spreadable.

Read more: Fast-spreading killers: how Ebola compares with other diseases

We can determine how contagious a disease is by tracking its spread throughout a population. In doing so, we can attribute each disease a reproductive number denoted by the symbol Ro. The bigger the Ro the more easily the disease is spread throughout the population.

If everyone who has a disease on average infects two people, the Ro for that disease is 2. This means the disease, relatively speaking, is not particularly contagious. However, if everyone who has a disease infects ten people on average, it would have an Ro of 10, which means it’s a much more contagious disease.

We can use the Ro for a disease to calculate the herd immunity threshold, which is the minimum percentage of people in the population that would need to be vaccinated to ensure a disease does not persist in the population. The more contagious a disease, the higher the threshold.

Measles is one of the most infectious diseases to affect humans with an Ro of 12-18. To achieve herd immunity to measles in a population we need 92-95% of the population to be vaccinated.

Current data indicates full vaccine coverage for five year olds in Australia is sitting at around the 95% level. However, vaccination rates in some communities have fallen below ideal levels, making them susceptible to measles outbreaks.

The overwhelming success of measles vaccinations means many people have no memory of what this disease looks like, and this has resulted in its effects being underestimated. Measles can cause blindness and acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), which can result in permanent brain damage.

Read more: Why parents should fear measles, not the vaccine

Herd immunity, or community immunity, as it’s sometimes called, is a powerful public health tool. By ensuring those who can be vaccinated do get vaccinated we can achieve herd immunity and prevent the illness and suffering that comes from the spread of infectious diseases.

– ref. What is herd immunity and how many people need to be vaccinated to protect a community? – http://theconversation.com/what-is-herd-immunity-and-how-many-people-need-to-be-vaccinated-to-protect-a-community-116355

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong

Question Time is, in a sense, the highlight of any day of parliament. It is televised and attracts the attention of the media, providing political leaders with fairly regular public exposure.

If parliament is about theatre, this is the headlining act. It is a major opportunity for the government of the day to strut its stuff and for the opposition to embarrass the government.

In theory, question time is about accountability. But in practice, it is about politics.

And herein lies the problem. Amid concerns the institution has become a venue for grandstanding, heckling and other questionable behaviours, members of parliament’s procedures committee are finalising the terms of an inquiry on how question time can be improved. The public will be permitted to lodge submissions.

Read more: VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the opposition’s tactics in question time – and Morrison’s views on the public service

Perhaps former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop put it best when she described how question time had devolved in recent years.

It ends up as an embarrassing circus. Ministers and shadow ministers are judged on their performance in question time and the more you sledge, the more you ridicule, the more you’re applauded.

So, how did we get to this point, and how can we fix it?

What question time was intended to do

Question time is regarded as one of the central features of the Australian version of the Westminster system. It occurs in both the parliaments of the Commonwealth and states.

Its role is based on the idea of “responsible government” – that the government of the day should be answerable or accountable to parliament and hence to the people who elected parliament.

As it is part of the tradition of responsible government, its practice is not defined by the Constitution but by the conventions of parliament. It has evolved over time.

Two types of questions can be asked: questions with notice that are submitted and answered in writing, and questions without notice that are asked orally during the period of parliament known as “question time”.

Read more: Question Time: don’t change the contest we want to watch

The general expectation is currently that around 19 oral questions will be asked during the question time session.

The practice is to allow the government and opposition to ask questions in turn, with some provision made for crossbenchers. The session is meant to focus on big issues, particularly those of immediate relevance. Hence, it is the most “political” aspect of parliament.

There was a time during the second half of the 20th century when there was a concern that too few questions were being asked. Today, the concern is there are too many “Dorothy Dixers”, or easy questions lobbed up by backbenchers who support the government.

These softball questions provide an opportunity for the government to display its wares, as their supporters can ask questions that have been prepared in advance and ministers can deliver “good news.”

Most of the other questions come from the opposition – an opportunity to paint the government in a bad light. The prime minister and other ministers cannot know exactly what questions are coming, but they can anticipate some of them and get their staff to prepare briefings.

How performance leads to boorishness

The central feature of question time is performance. It provides the prime minister and leader of the opposition, in particular, a platform to demonstrate that they are worthy of their jobs. Ministers are also given the opportunity to perform, demonstrate their capacity to think on their feet, and reveal their wit and mastery of their portfolios.

Paul Keating was particularly well-known for his sharp humour and one-liners during question time. And who could forget Julia Gillard’s now-famous speech against misogyny during question time in 2012?

A good performance in question time helps to raise the spirit of the “team” and to establish psychological dominance within parliament. It also allows the government, when it is performing well, to radiate its confidence and dominance to a much wider audience.

But there is a downside to question time that comes from this quest for dominance. Parliamentarians can sometimes forget they are speaking to a wider audience. Too often, they put on an exhibition that is not particularly edifying and undermines their goals.

Read more: The Turnbull government gets practiced at pivots

What appears to them to be wit and playfulness can come across to the public as boorishness and childishness.

The “optics” of the behaviour of MPs is increasingly a source of concern. When many of them were caught playing on their mobile phones during question time this week, they looked like children in class who were not paying attention.

Ministers answering Dorothy Dixers also do not make for good television and are more likely to inspire contempt than respect in those watching. The impending inquiry will likely examine whether these questions should be eliminated and it may be in the interests of political leaders to do so.

There may well be an argument that politicians need to clean up their acts and make question time more suitable for a 20th century audience. Wit is a good thing, and has long been a feature of our parliamentary system, but it needs to be accompanied by good taste.

That said, we should appreciate question time for what it is – a once-a-day performance that is, in reality, much more about politics than accountability. It is a tradition of our political life and the robust exchanges are part of that tradition.

– ref. As question time becomes political theatre, does it still play a vital role in government? – http://theconversation.com/as-question-time-becomes-political-theatre-does-it-still-play-a-vital-role-in-government-121177

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Appleby, Associate Professor, UNSW Law School, UNSW

On July 18, the former chief justice of the High Court of Australia, Murray Gleeson, delivered a powerful endorsement of the proposal for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through a First Nations Voice, describing it as a “worthwhile project”.

Two weeks later, another former chief justice, Robert French, wrote an essay in The Australian explaining that the constitutional entrenchment of a First Nations Voice would be part of Australians’ journey to know “who we are as a nation”.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: When it comes to Indigenous recognition, Ken Wyatt will have to close multiple gaps

The intervention of two esteemed and vastly experienced judges in a controversial and complex debate is significant and provides an important signal of hope in finding a way towards political agreement on the issues.

Why their views matter

Gleeson was appointed by the Howard government and he served as chief justice between 1998 and 2008. The Rudd government appointed French to succeed Gleeson and he served until our current chief justice, Susan Kiefel, was appointed in 2017.

The importance of Gleeson’s speech extended beyond his status as a former High Court chief justice. Gleeson is one of Australia’s most respected thinkers on constitutional law.

While appointed by the Howard government, Gleeson was never considered to be a political or partisan conservative. Rather, he maintained wide respect across the political spectrum as what is referred to as a legally (as opposed to politically) conservative, or orthodox, judge. His legal decision-making was closely confined to established legal rules and steered clear of controversial policy issues.

Read more: Listening with ‘our ears and our eyes’: Ken Wyatt’s big promises on Indigenous affairs

While Gleeson has largely kept himself out of the public spotlight since his retirement in 2008, he did accept an appointment to the Referendum Council. The council was convened in December 2015 to advise the prime minister and leader of the opposition on progress and next steps towards a referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution.

In its final 2017 report, the council endorsed the proposal from the Uluru Statement from the Heart. It recommended that a referendum be held to provide in the constitution for a body that gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander First Nations a Voice to the Commonwealth Parliament. So the former chief justice delivering a speech endorsing the proposal may have come as little surprise.

However, it represented an important and new contribution to the current debate. It revealed, for the first time, one of Australia’s most highly respected, legally conservative mind’s understanding of why the Voice was consistent with our constitutional system, and why it should be pursued as “a worthwhile project”, as he put it.

French is also one of Australia’s most respected constitutional lawyers. Before his appointment to the High Court he was the president of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law. French was, and is, well respected across political lines. Indeed, as a young man he had run for office in Western Australia as a Liberal candidate against Kim Beazley senior.

French’s intervention in the current debate also drew on his extensive experience working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As founding member of the West Australian Aboriginal Legal Service, he was involved in many native title cases as a Federal Court judge from 1986-2008. He was president of the Native Title Tribunal from 1994-1998.

French’s essay, which largely endorses and expands upon the position of Gleeson, is heavily informed by this extensive experience with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly in relation to native title claims, over the course of his career.

‘A worthwhile project’

Australia, Gleeson explained in his speech, has undergone fundamental legal developments in the last 30 years. In this time, the Australian people have changed in their social and cultural attitudes towards Indigenous people. He argues that these changes, particularly in relation to land rights and native title, demonstrate we are ready to address the historical fact of dispossession and its consequences, possibly through constitutional recognition.

French echoes these sentiments, explaining the importance of constitutional recognition as the next step Australians need to take in a journey towards “knowing who we are as a nation”. He writes:

Recognition in the Australian Constitution would reflect an existing national growth of respect for our First Peoples and thus for the whole of the full, rich and long history of the people of this continent.

Gleeson is not, however, in favour of any form of constitutional reform. He placed two conditions on his support. First, such reform must be consistent with the nature of the constitution. Second, it must confer “substantial benefit upon Indigenous people”.

‘Constitutionally entrenched, but legislatively controlled’

The Australian Constitution was not forged during revolution in which the people demanded greater controls on the power of the state. Rather, it was about creating a federation between the colonies, which wished to come together for largely pragmatic reasons. The document, Gleeson reminded us, “is essentially a structural plan for a federal system of government, not what would now be called a human rights instrument”.

It is for this reason, Gleeson said, that many people have rejected one proposal for constitutional recognition, recommended first in 2012 by the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians, for a constitutional protection against racial discrimination.

Read more: Changing the Australian Constitution was always meant to be difficult – here’s why

In his words, once the nature of our constitutional document is remembered, that proposal appears “incongruous”, in that it would reduce the law-making powers of the parliament.

In contrast, the proposal for a First Nations Voice is entirely consistent with the Australian constitutional system. Gleeson provides three reasons why this is so.

The first is that it does not limit parliament’s law-making powers.

This is sometimes referred to it as being consistent with parliamentary sovereignty. This is because the Voice is to parliament, advising parliament. It is not in parliament, exercising or limiting legislative power. Certainly, it would be hoped that the Voice would have influence over how the legislative powers are exercised, but there would be no way of compelling that to occur.

The second is that, while it is proposed that the Voice will appear in the constitution, the structure, composition and functions of the Voice will still be determined and susceptible to change by legislation. It would be, in Gleeson’s words “constitutionally entrenched but legislatively controlled”. French, in his essay, provides the constitutional and legal detail as to how this might be achieved.

The third is that the Voice was intended to have as its core function monitoring the use of the federal parliament’s races power, which has been used to make special laws for Aboriginal people.

Gleeson believes it should remain parliament’s decision as to whether a particular law is beneficial to Aboriginal people and thus justifies the passage of a law under the races power. This is further evidence as to why he doesn’t endorse the racial non-discrimination clause, which would pass this power across to the courts.

Given our constitution confers a power on the parliament to make special laws for Aboriginal people, he says, establishing a body to advise on the exercise of that power “hardly seems revolutionary”.

‘Substantive, and not merely ornamental’ recognition

Gleeson’s second condition was that the reform must confer substantial benefit on Indigenous people. His view is that, the Voice represents “substantive, and not merely ornamental” reform.

Gleeson provided two compelling reasons why this reform was a substantive project.

The first came in response to objections that the proposal would be divisive. More specifically, that it would undermine the value of equality that informs our democracy.

Gleeson explained his view that, rather than cause damaging division, the Voice would provide Australia with an opportunity to provide an appropriate response to the history of division through dispossession that started in 1788. Further, it would provide a safeguard and response to the division that still forms part of our constitutional system today through the races power.

The second reason was based on the practical value he saw in the operation of the Voice to parliament. He explained:

[a] body that has the capacity to speak to the Parliament on behalf of Indigenous people should be of advantage to Parliament and, through it, the nation.

The parliament will benefit from advice that will help it come to more informed, just decisions with respect to First Nations peoples.

Where to from here?

Much consensus in the debate about constitutional recognition for First Nations has been forged in the two years since the Uluru Statement was delivered.

Following the reports of the Referendum Council and the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, we have seen major political parties form a consensus that reform is needed to provide an institutional Voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

But there remains significant division as to whether the Voice should be constitutionally entrenched. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated he would not support such a move. So the contributions of Gleeson and French about the desirability, as well as the practicality, of achieving this are significant.

There is also much work to be done before a First Nations Voice can be established, including detail around its precise composition, functions and powers.

In its April budget, the government committed $7 million to a co-design process for this to occur. French rallied us in the final words of his essay: while there is much to be done in the detailed design of the Voice, “the creation of a national consensus should not be beyond our wit”.

– ref. ‘A worthwhile project’: why two chief justices support the Voice to parliament, and why that matters – http://theconversation.com/a-worthwhile-project-why-two-chief-justices-support-the-voice-to-parliament-and-why-that-matters-120971

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Sheedy, Professor – Risk governance, culture, remuneration, Macquarie University

Casual observers of the financial services royal commission might be forgiven for thinking the days of sales-based commissions being paid to bank and insurance staff were over.

Apparently not.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s discussion paper on Strengthening Prudential Requirements for Remuneration, released last week, condones the ongoing use of “balanced scorecards” for determining bonuses.

While possibly not as bad as the old bonus systems based only on sales or profits, a “balanced scorecard” – which also includes less tangible outcomes such as “customer satisfaction” – is not a good solution.

In a study presented at the 2019 Financial Markets & Corporate Governance Conference, I and my colleagues Le Zhang from Macquarie University and Dominik Steffan from the Technical University of Munich find that balanced scorecards produce significantly worse outcomes than no bonuses at all, and create environments in which bad behaviour is more easily tolerated.

Take 318 bankers…

We asked 318 finance professionals to take part in 20-minute trading sessions in which they could transact up to 60 times, making decisions that in our simplified balanced scorecard approach were rewarded on the basis of both profit and following risk rules. In the other scenario, the reward was a flat payment, unrelated to performance.

We found that the proportion of people who chose to consistently apply the rules dropped 16% under the balanced scorecard approach.

For those who sometimes violated the rules, compliance dropped 24% when paid under the balanced scorecard approach.

One reason might be that financial criteria such as sales and profits are easy to measure, and are audited, whereas other criteria such as following rules and providing good service are difficult to measure, at least in the short-term.

‘Balanced’ is unbalanced

Customer outcomes are often measured with customer surveys such as the infamous net promoter score that asks whether they would keep using the service or recommend it to others.

It works well for services such as restaurant meals, where customers can quickly form valid judgements. But when it comes to financial services, the quality of what they have been offered might not become apparent for years. When customers are disengaged or have low levels of financial literacy, or when products are complex, the quality may never be apparent!

Complaints data bring other problems. One is that often customers don’t bother to complain. Another is that firms sometimes “pay off” disgruntled customers, leaving them satisfied but the underlying problems unresolved. The customers who never complain are left to suffer from poor practices and the complaints data give no meaningful information.

Another popular solution is to rely on manager ratings in the performance assessments that determine bonuses. Manager ratings are often not credible. Academic researchers find that they are as much influenced by the managers own incentives and preferences as they are by performance.

Managers need not tell the truth

Managers keen to retain top performers in sales and profits can give them high ratings despite poor behaviour. Even more worrying, subjective performance ratings can be prone to favouritism, collusion and extortion.

Nobel prizewinner Bengt Holmstrom predicted years ago that the balanced scorecard wouldn’t work, in his landmark paper on multitask principal-agent analysis.

He found that when some criteria are easy to measure and others aren’t, employees will put most of their energy into the criteria that are easy to measure, in this case sales and profits. Balanced scorecards are inherently unbalanced.

Read more: There’s no evidence behind the strategies banks are using to police behaviour and pay

What’s the solution? One might be deferrals – bonuses based on financial performance that are held back for multiple years.

Over time, and with active regulation, it would become obvious whether profits have been generated by fair means or foul. If foul, the bankers would not be eligible to receive what they thought they had earned.

A better idea might be to revert to a system of fixed salaries with no bonuses. It works for most Australians, and it used to work for bankers.

Read more: Confiscate their super. If it works for sports stars, it could work for bankers

– ref. How not to police financial services. Balanced scorecards don’t work for bankers – http://theconversation.com/how-not-to-police-financial-services-balanced-scorecards-dont-work-for-bankers-120899

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathrynne Henshall, PhD Candidate, School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University

Happy birthday to each and every Australian Thoroughbred racehorse, as today (August 1) is considered their official “horse birthday” in the southern hemisphere, no matter what date they were actually born. (The “horse birthday” date is January 1 for Thoroughbreds in the northern hemisphere.)

The annual Thoroughbred breeding season starts on September 1, and timing is crucial because foals born early in the season have an advantage when that official birth date rolls around the following year. The more mature they are at the start of the two-year-old racing season, the better they will cope with the demands of the sport.

But there is quite a process involved in producing a Thoroughbred foal, and it requires a range of departures from natural horse reproduction.

Read more: The success of Winx shows the value of symmetry in race horses

Last year it was estimated more than 14,000 foals were born in Australian stud farms. To match that this year, it’s about to get extremely busy at those farms around the country.

Preparing the mare

If the mare has recently raced, she will be “let down”. This involves her gaining weight and developing a normal oestrus (reproductive) cycle, which can be disrupted by the demands of racing.

The mare is housed during the winter months under artificial lighting that mimics the increasing day length of spring. This tricks her body into cycling much earlier in the year than would otherwise be the case.

Before mating (called covering), the mare’s oestrus cycle will be monitored by observing her behaviour and performing a rectal ultrasound examination. This allows the veterinarian to view her ovaries and determine how close she is to ovulation. Ovulation can be manipulated by the administration of hormones.

Mares generally have a 21-day cycle, during which seven days are spent in active oestrus, when the mare will accept a stallion, followed by a period of dioestrus during which she is unreceptive.

In the wild, the mare usually initiates mating by approaching the stallion and performing a range of courtship behaviours before allowing him to cover her multiple times a day during her receptive period.

But at the stud, the aim is to achieve conception on the first covering. This saves time and money for mare owners and the stud.

Most Thoroughbred studs rely on a “teaser” stallion to perform courtship behaviour and elicit telltale signs of oestrus in mares. Teasers are usually ponies, who are too small to physically mate with the mares.

Mares who aren’t ready to breed may respond aggressively, so it’s the teaser’s job to take the heat instead of the stud’s valuable stallions, who may command service fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Restraints

When the mare is ready to be mated, she will be brought to the covering shed. Her perineal area (that includes the vulva) will be washed and her tail will be bandaged or shaved to protect the stallion’s penis from injury should it get caught in the hairs during mating.

To prevent injury to the stallion and to facilitate an efficient covering, the mare will be fitted with equipment designed to restrict her behaviour during mating.

To minimise kicking, she may be fitted with breeding hobbles or boots that limit the movement of her hind legs. A breeding cape protects her neck from bites during copulation.

A device known as a twitch may be used as an additional form of restraint. This is a loop of string or rope that is twisted tightly around the upper lip, causing a temporary reduction in heart rate and the release of endorphins that induce calmness in the mare.

Preparing the stallion

Popular Thoroughbred stallions may cover three mares per day, seven days a week during the season, which runs from September 1 to December 31 each year.

Unlike in the wild, most domestic stallions lead solitary lives in stables or small paddocks due to concern about injuries and aggressive behaviour. Recent evidence shows that stallions can safely live in groups when not breeding mares.

The stallion will be fitted with a bridle to enhance control. Experienced stallions may develop an erection when they see or smell the bridle due to forming an association between the appearance of the bridle and covering mares soon afterwards.

Let’s get mating

Left to themselves, the stallion takes time to investigate the mare with a range of pre-copulatory behaviours, such as licking or nipping her perineal region, face and flanks and inhaling the scent of her urine.

But in the stud environment, stallions are trained to mount mares on command with minimal interaction with the mare beforehand.

Stallions do vary in their libido and mating quirks. Some will be known as “slow breeders” who will mount a mare only after extended periods of pre-copulatory behaviour. Others will mount within minutes of entering the barn.

With hundreds of mares to cover on the big farms, extensive training is given to novice stallions to ensure the job is done as efficiently as possible.

Immediately before mating, an attendant may hold up one of the mare’s front legs to further immobilise her while the stallion mounts. Once the stallion is firmly inside the mare, the foreleg will be released to allow her to take the weight of the stallion.

The restraint of the mare ensures she is unable to reject the stallion’s advances. An attendant may guide the stallion’s penis into the mare and if the stallion has a particularly large penis, a breeding roll (a tube of foam) will be placed between the mare’s hindquarters and the stallion’s penis to reduce the depth of his thrusting.

A few weeks later

About a fortnight after covering, the mare will be undergo an ultrasound examination to determine whether she is pregnant, and to see if she is carrying twins. If the mare conceives twins she is highly likely to lose the pregnancy.

Very few twin pregnancies go to term, and those that do often result in foals that are poor racing prospects.

If twins are discovered, the veterinarian destroys one of them. This allows the surviving embryo to go to term, but unfortunately this also allows the genes for twinning through to the next generation.

A mare’s pregnancy lasts around 11 months, and as she enters the final days she will be brought into the foaling paddocks or, if the weather is inclement, specially designed foaling stables. There she will be observed for 24 hours a day until she foals.

Foaling assistants will intervene if the mare experiences difficulties during foaling and can assist by repositioning the foal’s legs or pulling the foal out manually. Foaling staff also provide immediate postnatal care to the foal.

This contrasts with what happens the wild, where mares separate themselves from their herd to foal alone.

Should a mare be unable to care for her foal, nurse mares may be used to rear her foal. Nurse mares can be hired from specialist providers or are maintained at the stud.

The nurse mare’s own foal will be removed and replaced with the Thoroughbred foal which she will raise as her own.

There is no official data on the number or fate of nurse mare foals, or the average age at which they are removed. Orphan foals can be difficult and costly to hand-rear and may be prone to health and behavioural issues later in life.

Health issues can arise if the orphan foal has difficulty adapting to the abrupt change in diet (from mare milk to milk replacer). Behavioural issues can arise due to the lack of socialisation with other horses during the hand-rearing period.

The use of hormones to induce lactation in nurse mares without the need for them to be pregnant or give birth to a foal shows promise as a means of reducing the production of surplus foals from nurse mares.

About a month after giving birth, the mare will be mated again to produce next year’s foal.

Who gets to race?

Not every foal makes it to the racetrack.

Read more: Dressing up for Melbourne Cup Day, from a racehorse point of view

Some will experience career-ending injuries as youngsters (before they enter training), and many more will be deemed too slow or suffer injuries during pre-race training as young adult horses.

Some of the female horses who don’t race will end up as broodmares themselves, depending on the quality of their pedigree.

But the 65% of Thoroughbred foals that do make it to the track are the end result of a complex and highly choreographed breeding system designed with one goal in mind: to maximise the chance of producing a winner.

– ref. Breeding Thoroughbreds is far from natural in the race for a winner – http://theconversation.com/breeding-thoroughbreds-is-far-from-natural-in-the-race-for-a-winner-121087

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacinta Carroll, Senior Research Fellow, Counter Terrorism and Social Cohesion, National Security College, Australian National University

It’s been two years since the government announced it would establish a Home Affairs portfolio, and just over 18 months since it came into being. Since then, the department, and its high-profile minister and secretary, have attracted much controversy, discussion and criticism.

The latest debate centres on concerns that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is further consolidating power with legislation that would prevent foreign fighters from returning home for up to two years and the recent decision to move refugee services into his department.

There’s also been criticism that the portfolio is cloaked in secrecy, with some questioning why an internal strategic review of the ministry has not been made public.

Are we seeing an unprecedented consolidation of unregulated power? Or is there a reasonable story of good public policy behind the headlines?

Creating a single defence portfolio

These questions need to be placed in the context of both history and broader developments in home affairs policy.

We’re used to having a single Department of Defence in Australia. But it was only 40 years ago that the momentous decision was made to consolidate five departments — including one for each of the armed services — into a single agency.

There was push-back at the time from some agencies, and also a focus on the high-profile personalities involved in the process, including Defence Secretary Sir Arthur Tange, and his relationship with ministers and service chiefs.

Read more: There’s no clear need for Peter Dutton’s new bill excluding citizens from Australia

Decades later, the Department of Defence remains a large but effective organisation with a joint strategic and operational command, supported by a capable department. But its strategically important role and the significant resources needed to do its job mean it continues to require close management, attention and review.

Last year’s decision to take the Australian Signals Directorate out of the department shows it remains a work in progress, but one that continues to head in the right direction.

The lesson is that significant change in important areas of government policy, operations and services takes time, accompanied by ongoing review and revision.

Competing agencies and priorities

Before the Home Affairs portfolio was created, there were numerous security issues that cut across government agencies and demonstrated the need for a more strategic approach and greater collaboration among agencies.

The crisis around the unauthorised boat arrivals in the late-2000s, for example, created significant tension between the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

The high number of arrivals saw demands to speed up immigration visa processing. But ASIO was seen as delaying the process as it had to ensure the largely undocumented arrivals presented no security threat.

It was challenging for the two agencies, with such different responsibilities, to work through these issues. There was also pressure on the Australian Defence Force to provide the operational response at sea, and on law enforcement and customs officials investigating people-smuggling operations and other related crimes.

The agencies worked reasonably well together, but were often constrained due to their separate roles and protocols that did not support collaboration. They got through the crisis, with a lot of effort.

Read more: Politics podcast: Peter Dutton on balancing interests in home affairs

Counter-terrorism has been another major cross-agency issue. ASIO handled terror threat advisories and terror investigations (along with the police), while the attorney-general’s department oversaw countering violent extremism (CVE) policy.

The prime minister’s department was home to senior counter-terrorism and cyber-security coordinators, and the departments of defence and foreign affairs and trade ran their own counter-terrorism initiatives.

There was no single agency responsible for providing strategic policy direction on the issue until the establishment of Home Affairs.

One strategic policy home

The advent of Home Affairs means that complex and sometimes competing priorities have a strategic policy home and can be worked through at a portfolio level.

Immigration and ASIO are now in the same portfolio. Other agencies have also been added to the mix, including the Australian Border Force (ABF), the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).

Even in the short period since its creation, Home Affairs has made progress in providing more effective operations and services, supported by enhanced information sharing and technical capabilities.

For example, the department now has dedicated leads overseeing cross-agency efforts on counter-terrorism, cyber-security and organised crime and foreign interference.

Read more: The new Department of Home Affairs is unnecessary and seems to be more about politics than reform

Yet, the breadth of issues handled by the portfolio has also raised concerns about consolidation of power.

But most of the Home Affairs agencies are separate statutory authorities, retaining the independence and power established in their roles. The heads of ASIO and AFP, for instance, provide advice directly to the prime minister and cabinet when required and carry out their own operations.

In the aftermath of the AFP raids on media organisations, both Dutton and AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin confirmed the minister had no involvement in the operations.

Ongoing communication and appropriate oversight

The most important issue facing Home Affairs is the need for clear communication to the public on what the department does, why it’s important, and how its work is carried out. That must also include assurances the department has appropriate oversight and accountability systems in place.

This is easier said than done in the highly charged political atmosphere that’s surrounded Home Affairs since its inception.

It’s good news, then, that Labor chose to establish a shadow home affairs minister after the federal election, thereby working with the new Home Affairs arrangements and letting the portfolio as a whole settle down.

The oversight and accountability mechanisms are also doing what they’re supposed to do. The proposed security laws, for example, were scrutinised by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), which recommended changes to reduce the minister’s power.

Most suggestions were incorporated in the revised legislation, though Labor still has concerns about the minister’s power to grant a temporary exclusion order (TEO) for returning foreign fighters. The PJCIS will continue to examine the use of TEOs, as will the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and other oversight organisations.

The PJCIS is also due to report to parliament in October on its inquiry into press freedom, which will shed light on issues related to the AFP raids. And we’ll likely see the key findings of Home Affairs’ internal review as its annual report and regular Senate Estimates appearances approach.

Why it should work

The creation of Home Affairs enables a more strategic and integrated approach to security, law enforcement, migration and border issues. It also means more efficient delivery of services.

But there are significant challenges to doing this and getting it right, particularly while managing such a vast portfolio of operations and responsibilities. Maintaining a balanced approach, and ensuring considered and appropriate oversight and review will be critical to its success.

More than 40 years after its creation, the Department of Defence is held up now for its strategic vision and stewardship of the country’s armed forces. The divisive politics surrounding its creation have long been forgotten.

And so it should be with Home Affairs. The creation of the portfolio is ultimately a good thing for Australia and for good public policy and services. But this is a long-term endeavour and the project is still in its early days.

– ref. Yes, Peter Dutton has a lot of power, but a strong Home Affairs is actually a good thing for Australia – http://theconversation.com/yes-peter-dutton-has-a-lot-of-power-but-a-strong-home-affairs-is-actually-a-good-thing-for-australia-121047

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ralph Martins, Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Macquarie University

With the rise of fad diets, “superfoods”, and a growing range of dietary supplement choices, it’s sometimes hard to know what to eat.

This can be particularly relevant as we grow older, and are trying to make the best choices to minimise the risk of health problems such as high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart (cardiovascular) problems.

We now have evidence these health problems also all affect brain function: they increase nerve degeneration in the brain, leading to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other brain conditions including vascular dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

We know a healthy diet can protect against conditions like type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Fortunately, evidence shows that what’s good for the body is generally also good for the brain.

Read more: People living in rural areas may be at lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease

Oxidative stress

As we age, our metabolism becomes less efficient, and is less able to get rid of compounds generated from what’s called “oxidative stress”.

The body’s normal chemical reactions can sometimes cause chemical damage, or generate side-products known as free radicals – which in turn cause damage to other chemicals in the body.

To neutralise these free radicals, our bodies draw on protective mechanisms, in the form of antioxidants or specific proteins. But as we get older, these systems become less efficient. When your body can no longer neutralise the free radical damage, it’s under oxidative stress.

The toxic compounds generated by oxidative stress steadily build up, slowly damaging the brain and eventually leading to symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more: What causes Alzheimer’s disease? What we know, don’t know and suspect

To reduce your risk, you need to reduce oxidative stress and the long-term inflammation it can cause.

Increasing physical activity is important. But here we are focusing on diet, which is our major source of ANTIoxidants.

Foods to add

There are plenty of foods you can include in your diet that will positively influence brain health. These include fresh fruits, seafood, green leafy vegetables, pulses (including beans, lentils and peas), as well as nuts and healthy oils.

Fish

Fish is a good source of complete protein. Importantly, oily fish in particular is rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

Laboratory studies have shown omega-3 fatty acids protect against oxidative stress, and they’ve been found to be lacking in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

They are essential for memory, learning and cognitive processes, and improve the gut microbiota and function.

Low dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids, meanwhile, is linked to faster cognitive decline, and the development of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (changes in the brain that can be seen several years before for onset of symptoms such as memory loss).

Omega-3 fatty acids are generally lacking in western diets, and this has been linked to reduced brain cell health and function.

Fish also provides vitamin D. This is important because a lack of vitamin D has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and vascular dementia (a common form of dementia caused by reduced blood supply to the brain as a result of a series of small strokes).

Berries

Berries are especially high in the antioxidants vitamin C (strawberries), anthocyanins (blueberries, raspberries and blackberries) and resveratrol (blueberries).

In research conducted on mouse brain cells, anthocyanins have been associated with lower toxic Alzheimer’s disease-related protein changes, and reduced signs of oxidative stress and inflammation specifically related to brain cell (neuron) damage. Human studies have shown improvements in brain function and blood flow, and signs of reduced brain inflammation.

Read more: Six things you can do to reduce your risk of dementia

Red and purple sweet potato

Longevity has been associated with a small number of traditional diets, and one of these is the diet of the Okinawan people of Japan. The starchy staple of their diet is the purple sweet potato – rich in anthocyanin antioxidants.

Studies in mice have shown this potato’s anthocyanins protect against the effects of obesity on blood sugar regulation and cognitive function, and can reduce obesity-induced brain inflammation.

Green vegetables and herbs

The traditional Mediterranean diet has also been studied for its links to longevity and lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Green vegetables and herbs feature prominently in this diet. They are rich sources of antioxidants including vitamins A and C, folate, polyphenols such as apigenin, and the carotenoid xanthophylls (especially if raw). A carotenoid is an orange or red pigment commonly found in carrots.

The antioxidants and anti-inflammatory chemicals in the vegetables are believed to be responsible for slowing Alzheimer’s pathology development, the build up of specific proteins which are toxic to brain cells.

Parsley is rich in apigenin, a powerful antioxidant. It readily crosses the barrier between the blood and the brain (unlike many drugs), where it reduces inflammation and oxidative stress, and helps brain tissue recovery after injury.

Read more: What is the Mediterranean diet and why is it good for you?

Beetroot

Beetroot is a rich source of folate and polyphenol antioxidants, as well as copper and manganese. In particular, beetroot is rich in betalain pigments, which reduce oxidative stress and have anti-inflammatory properties.

Due to its nitrate content, beetroot can also boost the body’s nitric oxide levels. Nitric oxide relaxes blood vessels resulting in lowered blood pressure, a benefit which has been associated with drinking beetroot juice.

A recent review of clinical studies in older adults also indicated clear benefits of nitrate-rich beetroot juice on the health of our hearts and blood vessels.

Foods to reduce

Equally as important as adding good sources of antioxidants to your diet is minimising foods that are unhealthy: some foods contain damaged fats and proteins, which are major sources of oxidative stress and inflammation.

A high intake of “junk foods” including sweets, soft drinks, refined carbohydrates, processed meats and deep fried foods has been linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Where these conditions are are all risk factors for cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease, they should be kept to a minimum to reduce health risks and improve longevity.

Read more: Health check: can eating certain foods make you smarter?

– ref. Are there certain foods you can eat to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease? – http://theconversation.com/are-there-certain-foods-you-can-eat-to-reduce-your-risk-of-alzheimers-disease-117096

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor Thornton, Lecturer, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

As the dramatic shutdown of major recycling company SKM this week has illustrated, recycling is not free.

Householders in Australia pay council rates for a recycling and garbage service. This fee is largely based on the costs of collecting, sorting and processing, and – importantly – what returns are likely from selling the end product.

However, since 2017 the price on the open market for mixed plastics has plummeted from about A$325 per tonne to A$100 per tonne. Mixed glass actually dropped to a negative value, which meant that generators were potentially paying for it to be taken away.

Read more: Indonesia has sent Australia’s recycling home – it’s time to clean up our act

On the other hand, prices for high-quality recycling (not mixed materials or items contaminated with food, for example) largely remained the same or slightly increased.

This shows the market for low-quality, poorly sorted recycling, which Australia has previously offloaded to China and other Southeast Asian countries, is ending.

Unless we improve our recycling industry, we must start sending more recyclable material to landfill – as is happening now in some Victoria councils.

So what can we do about it?

Reduce first

Reduction, fundamentally, comes before recycling. We need to avoid waste to begin with, in our homes and businesses.

As consumers, we should be vocal about seemingly contradictory practices by businesses. For example, supermarkets congratulate themselves on reducing plastic bags, but then use small plastic toys as marketing tools – not even making them out of recycled plastic. These toys are destined for disposal, potentially contaminating recycling streams, and not all consumers are happy.

Throw out recycling properly

It’s tempting, if you don’t know whether something is recyclable, to simply put it in the yellow bin and assume someone on the other end will “sort it out”. But in reality, incorrectly recycled material can contaminate entire loads of otherwise valuable and useful recyclables, diverting it to landfill.

Councils blame the recyclers for this, who blame the councils. Everyone blames state governments, and they in turn blame the recyclers.

Fundamentally though, we as the generators of waste must assume a high degree of responsibility. We are the ones putting contaminants into the recycling system that everyone else in the management structure must deal with.

Read more: Australian recycling plants have no incentive to improve

It’s our job to familiarise ourselves with what can and cannot be recycled – although, to be fair, this can vary widely from council to council, and should be made easier to check.

If we can clean up the recycling streams, markets should increase and prices for these commodities will similarly rise. This encourages those in the sector to improve their plant technology, and for others to enter in what would then be a more competitive market.

Develop the industry

Clean recycling still requires an established market to be profitable. Governments, as the single largest purchasers in Australia, can play an important role here.

The Victorian government has already committed to helping government agencies increase recycled content in their purchasing requirements. Other governments are doing likewise and this is a very positive step.

At a minimum, contracts and tenders should specify a certain level of recycled materials used in products sold to the government, or prefer those suppliers who do have recycled content.

Read more: We can’t recycle our way to ‘zero waste’

One innovative approach where governments can use their purchasing power is with the use of plastic and glass recyclables in roads. Trials have been extremely positive.

In fact, the Australian Council of Recycling has suggested that using recycled material in construction for the Snowy 2.0 scheme would consume all the recyclables generated in Australia.

We need to chew and walk gum

The most important message is, just as there’s no single person or sector to blame for Australia’s dismal recycling situation, there’s no single solution. We all need to take more care with what we put in the bin. Governments around Australia should incentivise local manufacturers to use domestic recycling.

Read more: Why you’re almost certainly wasting time rinsing your recycling

Recycling companies should certainly improve their technology so they can produce higher-quality material, which can be sold at a profit.

And, as the current SKM debacle illustrates, governments need a plan B when the market breaks down.

Even with all of this, a sustainable domestic recycling industry is some way off. We urgently need to start doing the things we already know will work, rather than playing endless rounds of a pointless blame game.

– ref. Don’t just blame government and business for the recycling crisis – it begins with us – http://theconversation.com/dont-just-blame-government-and-business-for-the-recycling-crisis-it-begins-with-us-121241

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Wilson, Senior Lecturer – Research Methodology / Educational Assessment & Evaluation, University of Sydney

The numbers of secondary school students who take higher-level maths and science are low in Australia. In 2012, there were 30,000 more Year 12 students than in 1992. But the numbers of students studying physics, chemistry and biology decreased by 8,000, 4,000 and 12,000 respectively.

Enrolments in intermediate and advanced mathematics also fell over this period, by 11% and 7% respectively.

The Australian Curriculum mandates maths until Year 10. But we’re seeing more students dropping the subject as soon as they can.

In 2008, 31.2% of the NSW student population were studying maths for the High School Certificate, compared to 28.9% in 2017. This was a drop of around 5,300 students.

But studying maths brings many benefits. Here are three reasons to persevere.

1. You’ll be more likely to get a job

Many industry and economic experts predict future economies – specifically those using technology to rapidly create goods and services – will be built on maths and science knowledge and skills.

Research on the changing nature of employment predicts that, by 2030, we will spend 77% more time on average using science and mathematics skills. With youth (people aged 15-24) unemployment in Australia on the rise, maths skills may offer some protection.

Read more: Why it matters that student participation in maths and science is declining

There are more engineering jobs in Australia than skilled people to fill them. Between 2006 and 2016, the demand for engineers exceeded the number of local graduates. Employers often look overseas for suitable applicants, with some figures showing more vacancies are filled by overseas engineering graduates than locals.

2. You’ll probably earn more

Some studies have shown students taking higher maths at school go on to have higher earnings in adulthood.

The relationship between studying higher-level maths and earning more may be one of causation (that maths skills lead to higher earners), correlation (that people with good maths skills are more likely to have other skills that lead to higher earnings), or a bit of both. But, either way, it exists.

According to US analysis that compared university majors with median starting pay, median mid-career pay (at least ten years in), growth in salary and wealth of job opportunities, maths and engineering majors reigned supreme.

And a more recent analysis by the US data researcher PayScale found graduates in maths, science and engineering had the highest mid-career salary.

One of the biggest gender gaps in education is seen in maths. Girls in most countries complete less, or lower level, maths than boys.

The low numbers of girls participating in advanced maths courses is not because girls are worse at maths, as there is no clear gender gap when it comes to maths abilities. But girls do show less confidence in their maths skills and more maths anxiety than boys.

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

Research suggests learning maths is often associated with student anxiety. This anxiety is related to poor performance, negative attitudes and general avoidance of the subject. If girls were encouraged to persist with the challenges presented by advanced levels of maths, we could even see a start to a narrowing of the gender wage gap.

3. You’ll probably be smarter

A study examined the association between intelligence and educational achievement in relation to 25 secondary school subjects in the UK. It showed maths was most strongly associated with the so-called “g” factor, which is a mark of underlying intelligence (English came second).

The g factor, or general ability, is the foundation of cognitive abilities and affects all learning, including in maths and science. Graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines report their degrees led to them developing higher-order skills and qualities (such as logical thinking and creativity).

Another study showed an increase in population IQ alongside a rise in access to maths education in the US. Studies show higher levels of maths attainment for a population are strongly linked to national IQ and national shifts in economic development, such as higher GDP and faster economic growth.

A higher g factor is also associated with higher scores on international assessments of educational attainment, such as PISA and TIMSS, and IQ tests.

As the Australian system doesn’t require maths after Year 10, it seems it is up to individuals, families and their communities to recognise its importance and support students in persevering in maths for their own good.

Read more: What to say if your child asks, ‘what’s the point of maths?’

– ref. More teens are dropping maths. Here are three reasons to stick with it – http://theconversation.com/more-teens-are-dropping-maths-here-are-three-reasons-to-stick-with-it-119745

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanzil Shafique, PhD Researcher in Urban Design, University of Melbourne

Imagine a community of 200,000. Convivial, walkable, six times the density of Manhattan but with a smaller ecological footprint. It provides low-cost services and affordable housing mixed with productive uses such as recycling, farming and trading. It’s a city within a city.

But the streets aren’t wide enough to allow cars. The houses seem makeshift and the drains need work. The adaptations make it look like a place under perpetual construction.

In fact, the landlords and local leaders have incrementally built their houses and urban amenities over the last 40 years. They have self-organised to provide services such as gas, electricity and water. Non-government organisations (NGOs) have often provided extensive support to help with this process.

Read more: Design in the ‘hybrid city’: DIY meets platform urbanism in Dhaka’s informal settlements

The only catch is this community has been built on unused public land. Now the residents face threats of resettlement to allow for “development” projects planned by the state. After spending six months in such a place, I can attest to their simultaneous desire to live their lives and the fear of uprooting that underlies their daily life.

The story of a billion people

The place is Karail, the largest informal settlement in Dhaka, but the story is not particular to there. A billion people live in such places around the world. That number is slated to reach 3 billion people in the next 30 years.

This means informal settlements are one of the major ways developing cities are being produced. Conventional planning approaches such as slum clearance, cookie-cutter high-rises, peripheral resettlement and back-to-village programs have often failed to manage them.

UN-Habitat, the body with global responsibility for issues of urban growth, advocates city-wide slum upgrading and integration with metropolitan plans. Such programs are explicitly “participatory” and inclusive. Specifically, UN-Habitat recommends member states “recognise the rights and contributions of slum dwellers and change the view that they are illegal”.

Read more: Will Habitat III defend the human right to the city?

However, these recommendations are non-binding. It is up to the state and NGOs to implement policies on the ground. While funding agencies and local civic bodies have important roles too, they are ineffective in formulating the upgrading programs by themselves.

Read more: When planning falls short: the challenges of informal settlements

What’s the plan for Karail?

In Karail’s case, the land belongs to the Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology (MoSICT). It plans to establish a software technology park to replace the settlement. In 2014, several NGOs providing pro bono legal aid filed petitions in court challenging the authority to carry out evictions on such a massive scale. The final verdict is still pending, but the word on the streets in Karail is that the wheels are in motion to make the project happen by any means.

If the project proceeds, the demolitions will begin soon. The resettlement plan for the project proposes six options, none of which are slum upgrading.

In the best-case scenario, about 6,000 economy flats (roughly 25 square metres) will be built on site. Remember, at least 40,000 families live in Karail. The other options – including off-site resettlement or cash compensation – are far worse.

The draft plan shows no understanding of the site as an existing city, nor are there any attempts to integrate slum upgrading into the project, as UN-Habitat recommends. Note that the objective of the project is “to establish knowledge-based industries contributing to the national economy and helping achieve the goals of Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh”. The project is predicted to create 30,000 jobs.

Such is the cruel irony of “development”. For an estimated investment of AU$300 million, the project will generate 30,000 future jobs, replacing the estimated 116,000 jobs that Karail supports. The project will displace 40,000 families from their current affordable housing and build high-rise apartments to house only 6,000.

In a city already on the verge of collapse with traffic congestion, the project is set to attract more traffic to the centre. Vehicle-based infrastructure will replace the non-motorised walkable neighbourhood of Karail. The cost of losing the accumulated social capital of the people of Karail only makes it worse.

‘Development’ that fails people

Such “development” in pursuit of a techno-ideological spectacle, without a sense of equitable well-being, is empty and is particularly threatening to informal settlements due to land value. Even when the state operates with the best of intentions and provides off-site resettlement, it has proven to be disastrous in Bangladesh, as exemplified by the Bhashantek Rehabilitation Project.

As Karail’s case shows, conventional “development” and policymaking do not know how to deal with such settlements. Planning is conducted with half a mind in the absence of empathy. “Inclusive cities” and “sustainable development” become empty motherhood slogans.

New practices can only emerge when we begin to learn how the other half lives and become allies in their struggle. Will Karail survive the onslaught of development? Well, it has survived decades of adversity so far and there is never any scarcity of hope.

– ref. What sort of ‘development’ has no place for a billion slum dwellers? – http://theconversation.com/what-sort-of-development-has-no-place-for-a-billion-slum-dwellers-120600

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert McLachlan, Professor in Applied Mathematics, Massey University

The New Zealand government has proposed new fuel standards to cut greenhouse emissions, along with consumer rebates for cleaner cars – paid for by fees on high-polluting cars.

The long-awaited proposed changes would bring New Zealand in line with most other developed countries; apart from New Zealand, Russia and Australia are the last remaining OECD nations without fuel efficiency standards.

New Zealand’s long tradition of not regulating its car market, combined with substantial indirect subsidies for private cars, makes addressing emissions from the transport sector both challenging and highly significant.

Read more: Four ways our cities can cut transport emissions in a hurry: avoid, shift, share and improve

New Zealand’s second-rate car fleet

Land transport emissions – the single largest source of fossil carbon dioxide in New Zealand – grew 93% between 1990 and 2017. There are multiple causes. The population grew 44% during this period, mostly through immigration. The car ownership rate also grew rapidly, partly due to economic growth and deficiencies in public transport in the main cities. Car ownership in New Zealand is now the highest in the OECD and there are more motor vehicles than adults.

Fuel efficiency improved only slowly over this period, before stalling in recent years: at 180g CO₂/km, the emissions of newly imported vehicles in New Zealand are 50% higher than in Europe. Because of the lack of a fuel efficiency standard, importers provide less efficient versions of their bestsellers to the New Zealand market. Of the ten bestselling new vehicles, five are utes (which also benefit from a fringe benefit tax exemption, four are SUVs and one is a regular car.

In addition, half of all vehicles are imported secondhand, mostly from Japan. They are cheap, but less efficient than newer models. Emissions, and congestion, are likely to continue rising as the national vehicle fleet is increasing by 110,000 vehicles a year.

One bright spot in the present situation is the emergence of an electric vehicle segment, mostly driven by the availability of cheap second-hand Nissan Leafs from Japan and the construction of a fast-charging network by a private company. Although sales have stalled in the past year at a market share of 2%, there are now 15,000 electric vehicles in New Zealand. (Australia has around 10,000 electric vehicles.)

New Zealand’s history of fuel taxes

New Zealand does not have a strong record of taxing “bads”. The only goods subject to excise taxes are tobacco, alcohol and fuel. The fuel tax is moderate by international standards. Over the past decade, the fuel tax has been fully allocated to road construction and maintenance.

New Zealand has an emissions trading scheme. The current carbon price of NZ$25/tonne of carbon dioxide adds five cents per litre to the price of fuel. Clearly, any likely increases in the carbon price are not going to be enough to change car buying decisions. Research shows that consumers tend to focus on upfront costs, while underestimating future fuel and maintenance costs.

Despite that, a special Auckland fuel tax of 10 cents per litre that co-funds public transport investment provoked a brief but intense backlash from the public. Plans to extend the scheme to other centres were canned.

A two-pronged plan

The proposed fuel efficiency standard would require car importers to either meet it or pay a fine. The suggested standard is 150gCO₂/km in 2021, falling to 105gCO₂/km in 2025, with further falls thereafter. There are more than 3000 car importers in New Zealand, so this could prompt a major shakeup, including possible price adjustments.

The standards are similar to those proposed by the Australian Coalition government in 2016, which have not yet been taken any further. Internationally, fuel efficiency standards cover 80% of the light vehicle market.

Read more: Australians could have saved over $1 billion in fuel if car emissions standards were introduced 3 years ago

But the second component of the proposal, the clean car discount, has attracted more attention. Cars emitting less than the current threshold would received a discount, initially up to NZ$1800 for an efficient petrol car, up to NZ$4800 for a hybrid and up to NZ$8000 for a battery electric car. Cars costing more than NZ$80,000 would not receive a discount.

Known as a “feebate scheme”, those rebates would be paid for by increased fees for high-polluting cars, of up to NZ$3000. The amounts are designed so that the entire scheme would be revenue neutral to the government. Modelling suggests that the proposed standard and discount combined would save motorists NZ$12,000 over the life of a vehicle.

International clean car schemes and testing

There is international experience with similar schemes, and they have been broadly effective. France has been operating a “feebate” scheme since 2008 with periodic adjustments. New Zealand’s proposed scheme is similar to the French and Swedish schemes.

But there is also room to get it wrong. Tinkering with electric vehicle incentives has led to wild sales fluctuations in the Netherlands and Denmark.

The spread between tested and real-world fuel use has widened, up from 9% in 2001 to 42%. The new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure testing cycle, currently being adopted by Japanese and European manufacturers, is believed to be more representative of real-world fuel use, as is the test already in use in the United States.

But overall, the New Zealand proposal has been received positively by car makers and across political parties.

One possible weakness is that it is entirely based on carbon dioxide. Other pollutants, including nitrous and sulphur oxides and particulate matter (soot), that are responsible for most of the immediate health impacts of vehicle pollution and are worse in diesel than in petrol vehicles, are not targeted. Nor are the underlying subsidies to the car-based transport system, which make a transition to active and public transport more difficult.

Any decisions made now will have impacts for decades to come. Switching the fleet to electric is different from just switching to more fuel-efficient cars. It involves new charging infrastructure and some behavioural changes from the public, and these challenges (rather than simply cost) are stumbling blocks worldwide to more rapid adoption.

These arguments have persuaded many countries to bring in electric vehicle incentives beyond simply targeting carbon dioxide. Norway is a famous example, where electric vehicles avoid purchase taxes and market share is already 60%. The UK has recently exempted electric company cars from fringe benefit tax.

As the global market share of electric vehicles still stands at only 2%, eight years after they became widely available, and the number of fossil-fueled vehicles is increasing by 48 million a year, stronger action on vehicle emissions is clearly needed worldwide.

– ref. New Zealand poised to introduce clean car standards and incentives to cut emissions – http://theconversation.com/new-zealand-poised-to-introduce-clean-car-standards-and-incentives-to-cut-emissions-120896

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clem Bastow, PhD candidate at RMIT and tutor in screenwriting, University of Melbourne

Why do we tell stories, and how are they crafted? In this series, we unpick the work of the writer on both page and screen. Warning: this story contains spoilers.

When this year’s Emmy nominations were announced, one thing was made very clear: Fleabag creator, writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s ascension to the upper echelons of Hollywood was complete.

The second (and, so she says, final) season of Fleabag received 11 nominations, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series, adding a gilt edge to the critical praise Waller-Bridge has already received for both seasons. How has Fleabag so confidently captured the attention of so many viewers and critics? The answer is in the screenwriting.

In both seasons, Waller-Bridge artfully repurposes two narrative devices that have long been gathering the dust of cliché: breaking the fourth wall (when a character appears to address the viewer directly), and flashback. From a screenwriting perspective, this repurposing of hoary narrative tools is part of Waller-Bridge’s sly feminist genius: she shows how good they can be, then walks away from them.

Waller-Bridge has been hard at work rewriting the newest Bond film, but the second season of Fleabag cements her reputation as one of the most exciting screenwriters around. In more conventional hands, Fleabag might have been another ho-hum dramedy about a woman having a tough few years, but by employing and then exploding those narrative devices, Waller-Bridge creates a series that is formally intriguing and emotionally complex.

Read more: A black, female 007? As a lifelong James Bond fan, I say bring it on

The fourth wall

In season 1 of Fleabag, we are introduced to the eponymous character (we never learn her real name), and the tragedy that might be at the root of her sexual proclivities. In season 2, a slightly more together Fleabag finds herself falling in love with the Catholic priest who will soon officiate her Dad’s second marriage to her dreaded godmother.

The conceit of breaking the fourth wall has long seemed to operate as an extension of the screenwriter’s macho authorial voice. Think of film and TV’s famous examples of to-camera asides: Ferris Bueller, Annie Hall’s Alvy Singer, American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, House of Cards’ Frank Underwood. Though the first season of Sex and The City featured to-camera monologues from the protagonists, this was quickly dropped in favour of the far less emphatic voice-over (“I got to thinking …”) from Carrie Bradshaw. Like a female colleague emailing “Just wondering …”, there was something in the voice-over that felt less confrontational than Underwood or Bateman talking at the viewer.

In Fleabag, the eponymous character speaks directly to us as a way of inviting us into her chaotic emotional world: her quips, explanations and asides are delivered at breakneck speed, dipping out of conversations to quickly give us some context or to talk herself down (or up). She’s not talking at the viewer, but rather to them.

Sometimes, the camera operates as a trusted confidante. Other times, it’s more like a mirror, as Fleabag tries to convince herself, in a sort of de-motivational manner, not to spill her guts. She’s hysterically funny, but we also get the sense that her fourth-wall breaking is a distancing device, like a person telling their therapist “It’s all good material!” rather than weeping at the injustice of the world.

But the masterstroke of season 2 is when the fourth-wall breaking is itself broken by another character. The Priest (Andrew Scott) tells Fleabag that they won’t be having sex, but they can be friends. When she turns to us and asserts that the friendship “won’t last a week”, The Priest notices, asking her, “Where did you just go?”

The moment is shocking – for Fleabag as well as the viewer – and it has profound implications for the avowedly atheist character. Who has she really been talking to all this time, if the only person who knows about her talking “to camera” is a priest?

Memory flashes

The show is similarly deft in its use of flashback. When used prosaically, flashback can read as lazy storytelling (its use is commonly discouraged in many screenwriting texts). Increasingly, popular cinema seems to employ flashback — inevitably just before the narrative climax — in its most straightforward form, as though the screenwriters don’t trust the audience to understand the payoff of a key plot point without literally replaying the setup.

But where other series unload flashback as lumpen exposition (“As you know, Bob, 15 years ago …”), Waller-Bridge employs a more elegant use of the narrative convention, teasing the viewer with “memory flashes” – flashbacks that only last a few seconds — that gradually gain context and flesh out the story.

In season 1 of Fleabag, these memory flashes initially appear disparate: Fleabag in bed with someone, and her best friend Boo (Jenny Rainsford) looking desolately sad at the side of a busy road.

It is only as the series continues that we begin to realise the two are linked in a way that gnaws at the heart of Fleabag’s being: in her laissez-faire (perhaps addictive) approach to sex and love, she slept with Boo’s new boyfriend; Boo committed suicide by throwing herself into traffic. Fleabag cannot move past the idea that her actions directly led to her friend’s death.

In her book The 21st Century Screenplay, Linda Aronson characterises this particular type of narrative device as the “life-changing incident flashback”. These flashbacks recur “incrementally, showing an extra bit each time, until we finally see it in its entirety, when its final moments explain the baffling motives and behaviour of the unfathomable character”.

Time slippage

In Fleabag’s second season, flashbacks shift from device to plot structure in episode 4, where Fleabag and The Priest attempt to shift their burgeoning attraction back into a friendly sphere. As Fleabag considers the relationship, painful memories flood back. These aren’t the fragmented, life-changing incident flashbacks of season 1, but rather fully-fledged slippages of the show’s temporality: finally, we step inside the funeral of Fleabag and her sister Claire’s late mother.

It’s a bold choice for a show that has previously used flashback in such an impressionistic manner. The funeral scenes give us richer insight into the characters, from Dad (Bill Paterson) to Godmother/Stepmother (played with gleeful unctuousness by Olivia Coleman) to the fractious love of Fleabag and Claire (Sian Clifford, brilliantly tightly-wound) – and, naturally, Boo is there.

Boo appears again, later in the episode: Fleabag, in the confession booth, once more sees her late friend’s face. The Priest prods her to continue, but Fleabag’s stammering — “And … and … I can’t …” — is suddenly interspersed with painterly memory flashes that recall the first season’s shattered flashbacks: Boo laughing, looking lovingly at Fleabag, and then once again those awful, imagined last moments, her face streaked with tears.

The contrast between the richer, extended funeral flashback — suggesting, perhaps, Fleabag’s tentative steps towards emotional maturity — and the return of those fragmented memories is striking. In a moment, Fleabag begins to undo all the good work she’s been so diligently striving towards. As Vulture TV critic Allie Pape wrote, “She’s not just ashamed of her role in Boo’s death anymore; she’s ashamed of her shame, her inability to move forward”.

Flashback has almost entirely disappeared from the narrative by the second series’ bittersweet concluding episode. Instead, Waller-Bridge uses visual and narrative echoes of previous moments: Claire and Fleabag greeting guests at the wedding, just as they greeted mourners; the return of Godmother’s sculpture, a recurring motif since the first episode of season 1.

Finally, Fleabag and The Priest are alone at a bus stop, where she confesses her love for him. When The Priest tells Fleabag “it’ll pass”, he may well be referring to her love, but when, moments later, Fleabag dismisses the confidante/mirror of the fourth wall and tells us not to follow her, the series ends on a hopeful note: maybe her shame and sorrow will pass, too.

In this way, it’s almost like Waller-Bridge is signing off from using these narrative devices – leaving us wondering what aspect of screenwriting practice she’ll revolutionise next.

– ref. Fleabag’s feminist rethinking of tired screenwriting tools – http://theconversation.com/fleabags-feminist-rethinking-of-tired-screenwriting-tools-121104

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

The citizenship provision of the Constitution’s section 44 has raised its head again, with the eligibility of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg being challenged by an elector in his Kooyong seat.

Michaal Staindl has filed a petition with the High Court, which sits as the Court of Disputed Returns, alleging Frydenberg is ineligible “because he is a citizen of the Republic of Hungary”.

The petition says

The respondent’s mother arrived in Australia in 1950 in possession of a valid passport, inferred to be a valid Hungarian passport. This indicates that she continued to be a citizen of Hungary after 1948.

Pursuant to the law of Hungary, all children born to the respondent’s mother are a citizen of Hungary from the time of their birth and in the premise, the respondent is a citizen of Hungary

Staindl told Guardian Australia he was pursuing the action against Frydenberg, whom he knew, because “he’s consistently betrayed me, the electorate and the country on climate change”.

The Guardian reported that Staindl “said if Frydenberg shows evidence he is not Hungarian he could drop the case”; otherwise, he said, he would “see it through”.

Under Section 44, a person cannot sit in the federal parliament if he or she is “under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power”.

In his “statement of member’s qualifications relating to section 44 and 45 of the constitution”, posted on Wednesday, Frydenberg records that his mother – who arrived in Australia as a refugee – was a Hungarian citizen between 1943 and 1948.

Frydenberg said “I have clear legal advice that I do not hold citizenship of another country.”

Section 44, which has several prohibitions, cut a swathe through the last parliament, overwhelmingly on citizenship grounds, hitting Coalition, Labor, and crossbench parliamentarians and triggering multiple byelections.

Although Frydenberg’s situation was canvassed during the previous term Labor backed off, given his mother had escaped the Holocaust.

Frydenberg, in comments in the last term, said his mother had arrived stateless. “It is absolutely absurd to think that I could involuntarily acquire Hungarian citizenship by rule of a country that rendered my mother stateless,” he said then.

Separately, Frydenberg’s eligibility is being challenged under the Electoral Act over Liberal party Chinese-language signs. This challenge is being brought by Oliver Yates, who ran as an independent against Frydenberg. It is claimed the signs were likely to have misled voters into thinking that to cast a valid vote they had to put the figure 1 beside the Liberal candidate.

A similar challenge over Chinese-language signs has been brought by a Chisholm voter against the new Liberal MP for Chisholm, Gladys Liu.

The ALP is not involved in the challenges.

The ALP’s acting national secretary Paul Erickson said in a statement that Labor was “disappointed by the tactics employed by the Liberal Party at the election, which went well beyond the accepted bounds of a vigorously contested campaign – especially in the divisions of Chisholm and Kooyong.

“The Chinese-language signs used by the Liberal Party in those contests were clearly designed to look like official Australian Electoral Commission voting instructions using the AEC colours, for the clear purpose of misleading Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking voters into voting for the Liberal Party,” he said.

But while there was a strong case that the signs breached the Electoral Act Labor was not seeking to overturn the results in Chisholm and Kooyong, given the cost and time involved, Erickson said.

– ref. High Court challenge to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg under section 44 – http://theconversation.com/high-court-challenge-to-treasurer-josh-frydenberg-under-section-44-121277

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

The department of human services (DHS) is under scrutiny this week after the Nine papers revealed the department sent letters to 50,000 patients who were previously prescribed lithium. DHS was seeking to recruit the recipients into a non-government study on bipolar disorder.

Psychiatrists raised concerns after receiving complaints from patients who had received the letters and accused their psychiatrists of breaching patient confidentiality.

The doctors didn’t breach confidentiality. Instead, DHS, which delivers social and health payments and services, including via Medicare, used data held by Medicare to contact patients who had previously been prescribed lithium on behalf of researchers from the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.

Patients were invited to complete an online survey, and potentially provide DNA samples, to identify genetic markers associated with bipolar disorder.

Read more: After the Medicare breach, we should be cautious about moving our health records online

Research using big datasets is increasingly common. Big data, combined with genomics, is an extremely powerful research tool, offering tantalising opportunities to gain insight into major challenges to human health. It’s reliant on collection of data from many different individuals.

But in pursuing population-scale benefits, the risks to individual autonomy and privacy are easily overlooked – or worse, they’re disregarded.

Has the ethics framework been disregarded?

This week’s revelations highlight issues with the existing ethical and legal framework governing data access.

The National Health and Medical Research Council’s national statement governs the conduct of ethical research in Australia. It outlines the structure and approval process of human research ethics committees, and identifies issues that committees must consider when deciding whether to grant approval. That includes how researchers propose to recruit research participants.

Researchers often struggle to recruit sufficient participants to their research. Participants must agree to participate voluntarily, without coercion. For some research, recruitment may be particularly challenging. The requirements imposed on participants may be excessively onerous, inconvenient or just distasteful.

Why is DHS accessing this data?

Some people in the community are especially vulnerable to breaches of confidentiality and privacy due to social stigma. This might include people with a mental illness, sexually transmitted disease, criminal conviction or parenting order. Yet DHS may hold or access data on these vulnerable groups.

Datasets such as those overseen by DHS provide researchers with a goldmine of potential participants who can be approached more directly. In this case, they were approached by DHS itself on behalf of researchers. This decision to contact patients on behalf of the researchers is ethically and legally questionable.

Read more: A new model for research ethics reviews

While DHS does release statistical information from the various schemes it administers for research, DHS’s privacy policy states it will not release identifiable or identifying information for research unless the research has ethics committee approval, and the person consents. That restriction is fundamental to Australian privacy law and policy.

DHS hasn’t released identifiable patient data. Instead, it has used personal data collected through prescriptions to contact patients on behalf of a third party – in this case the researchers. Implicitly, its mail-out signals everyone on the list has a specific medical condition.

Problematically, DHS’s privacy policy does not indicate it will collect data for this purpose, or use collected data in this way.

It’s about respect, not convenience

Given the significance of privacy and the government’s supposed commitment to transparency, many questions remain unanswered:

Which committee granted ethics approval for the research? Did that committee have the necessary expertise in data access and privacy law to make that determination, as required under the national statement?

How did the researchers justify their choice of a recruitment strategy which necessarily compromises the reasonable expectations of patients about how, and for what purposes, their personal information will be used by DHS?

Did DHS advise the relevant ethics committee that it was an agent for the researchers? How did DHS decide to use data in this way? Who made that determination? What process did they rely on to reach that decision? Are they accountable?

Who funded the mail-out? Did DHS fund the printing and distribution of the letters from its own budget? Did the researchers pay them to do so? What effect does any commercial relationship between the researchers and the department have on the independence of the research?

Can other researchers expect comparable support from DHS in future? If not, how will DHS decide between research it deems to be of merit, and research it deems to be unworthy of its assistance? And is that its role?

DHS shouldn’t just give out your data

If DHS continues acting for researchers in this way, Australians with data contained in DHS data holdings could be inundated with requests to participate in research, resulting in disengagement and research fatigue.

DHS’s reported response when questioned by journalists was that people could opt-out of further mail-outs by emailing the department. That shifts the burden of good data governance onto consumers, rather than beneficiaries of it, for the sake of bureaucratic convenience.

Read more: Why prosecutions for welfare fraud have declined in Australia

The fundamental issue here is one of trust, coercion and consent. People providing their personal information to the government, to access government services including prescribed medications, are doing so through necessity, not choice. Failure to provide the information results in denial of access to the service.

For DHS to use the information provided in a way that is outside both the reasonable expectation of those providing it, and its own privacy policy, is deeply disrespectful.

– ref. No, it’s not OK for the government to use your prescription details to recruit you for a study – http://theconversation.com/no-its-not-ok-for-the-government-to-use-your-prescription-details-to-recruit-you-for-a-study-121122

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Pringle, Senior Lecturer, UNSW

A bill to decriminalise abortion in NSW has been delayed by conservative MPs who reportedly want more time to consider the legislation. Debate is now set to start in the lower house next week.

Still, the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019, to be introduced by independent MP Alex Greenwich, has widespread support in the Legislative Assembly and looks likely to pass. It also has the support of Health Minister Brad Hazzard, who is one of its 15 co-sponsors, as well as Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The bill primarily seeks to remove three sections of the NSW Crimes Act that criminalise “unlawfully” attempting to procure an abortion by administering drugs or using instruments or other means. The woman seeking an abortion can be prosecuted under the law, as can anyone who unlawfully performs an abortion or supplies the drugs or instruments that could be used for an abortion.

Read more: Where Australian states are up to in decriminalising abortion

These sections were incorporated in the NSW Crimes Act in 1900, using the wording of the UK Offences against the Person Act 1861. Similar provisions formed the basis of anti-abortion laws across Australia. Today, only NSW and South Australia still have these provisions on the books.

Key interpretation of the law

Despite these laws, abortions are routinely conducted in NSW on much the same terms as other Australian states. However, it is difficult to estimate how many are performed every year because only South Australia collects and publishes comprehensive data.

Given the frequency of the procedure, and generally broad access to abortions covered in part by Medicare, it is perhaps not surprising that more than 70% of people in NSW are unaware that these provisions remain in the criminal law.

Read more: Explainer: what are abortion clinic safe-access zones and where do they exist in Australia?

The law seems restrictive on its face, but since 1971, prosecutions have been rare. This is due to a ruling by Judge Aaron Levine in NSW District Court who drew attention to the fact that abortion itself is not a crime in the NSW act, and that only unlawfully performed actions are punishable.

The inclusion of the word “unlawfully” means that actions to procure an abortion may be undertaken lawfully, and not every attempt to perform an abortion is criminal.

Levine phrased the lawfulness test in these terms:

It would be for the jury to decide whether there existed in the case of each woman any economic, social or medical ground or reason which in their view could constitute reasonable grounds upon which an accused could honestly and reasonably believe there would result a serious danger to her physical or mental health.

This lawfulness test is further reinforced in the NSW Ministry of Health’s policy framework for terminations in public health organisations.

Risks still exist for doctors

Levine’s ruling is an example of fine legal reasoning, but such distinctions have not found favour with doctors, who have long called for greater clarity in regard to the possible criminality of their actions.

As Greenwich noted this week,

our bill ensures that women will have access to safe and legal abortions and ensures that doctors have the legal clarity that they have long sought.

And in supporting the bill, the Australian Medical Association said it would remove the “stigma and legal uncertainty” around the performance of abortions.

It is noteworthy that although there have been very few prosecutions under the act since 1971, nearly all have involved the legality of the actions of doctors. In 2017, a Sydney woman was convicted of administering misoprostol to herself in an attempt to end her pregnancy at 28 weeks.

Greenwich’s bill follows the passage of roughly similar reform bills in the ACT (2002), Victoria (2008), Western Australia (2011), Tasmania (2013), the Northern Territory (2017) and Queensland (2018). A bill in the South Australia parliament to fully decriminalise abortion has also been referred for review to the SA Law Commission.

Abortion not a voter issue

For many, it is a puzzle why the NSW Crimes Act provisions have remained in place for so long. In 2016, Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi introduced a bill to change the NSW law, but it was voted down in the upper house.

One possible reason it has taken so long to reform the law was the spectre of a backlash among voters. Even feminist campaigners had concerns that attempts to reform the law might fail and backfire on reformers, perhaps resulting in more restricted access.

This view is mistaken in two main ways. First, no public opinion poll in Australia in 50 years has found a popular majority opposed to broad access to abortion. In fact, no opinion poll has found more than 5-10% of voters opposed to abortion in all or almost all circumstances.

A good summary of recent polls is provided in a 2017 briefing paper by the NSW Parliamentary Research Service.

Moreover, religious affiliation is not strongly correlated with opposition to abortion access, as it is in the US. Nor is there a large gulf in opinion along gender lines. For example, a 2005 research brief of the Australian Parliamentary Library showed a slightly higher proportion of men over women favouring wide access to abortion.

Read more: It’s time to lift the restrictions on medical abortion in Australia

Second, my research has found scant evidence to show that attitudes to abortion in Australia play a significant role in the way people vote, as they do in the US. This has been the case for at least 40 years.

While Australians across party lines support wide access to abortion, sociologist Katharine Betts argued in 2004 that LNP candidates were significantly more conservative than voters on the question. But by 2009, even this divide had narrowed.

The chief obstacle to reform has little to do with voters’ electoral behaviour, let alone their general attitudes on abortion. Rather, it’s been the lack of will among MPs that’s been the problem.

In NSW, this appears to finally be changing, with bipartisan support – and a new sense of urgency – to reform the law.

– ref. After 119 years, NSW is set to decriminalise abortion. Why has reform taken so long? – http://theconversation.com/after-119-years-nsw-is-set-to-decriminalise-abortion-why-has-reform-taken-so-long-121112

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janie Hoormann, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Astrophysics, The University of Queensland

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

Can Earth be affected by a black hole in the future? – Rakovi, age 12, Dimapur, India.

That is a great question.

As you know, black holes are called that because the gravity in their centre is so strong, it sucks all nearby light in. None can escape. That’s how strong a black’s hole’s gravitational pull is.

Black holes create the strongest gravitational pull in the universe (that we know of). So you really don’t want to get very close to one.

If you get too close, the pull of gravity from the black hole is so strong that you would never be able to escape, even if you were travelling at the speed of light.

This point of no return is called “the event horizon”.

Another reason you don’t want to get too close to a black hole is because of something we call “spaghettification”.

Read more: Curious Kids: How do wormholes work?

Turning a star into spaghetti strips

Imagine an object in space, like a star. As the star gets closer to a black hole, one side of it is pulled harder than the other. That’s because one side of the star will be closer to the black hole than the other.

The pull from gravity will be stronger on the side closest to the black hole, and weaker on the side that’s further away.

This difference in the pull of gravity (which is called a “tidal force”) would cause the star to get pulled apart. It’s kind of like pulling a lump of pasta dough into spaghetti.

Sometimes astronomers can observe this happening in other galaxies. The technical name is a “tidal disruption event” but it just means that a star got too close to a black hole and got pulled apart.

Here’s an artist’s impression of what spaghettification might look like:

The closest black hole is too far away to hurt us

Thankfully, though, we don’t need to worry. There are no black holes close enough to Earth to affect us. The closest black hole to Earth that we know of is named V616 Monocerotis. It is also known as A0620-00.

This black hole is 6.6 times more massive than our Sun. (That means it has a lot of mass, which means it has a really strong gravitational pull – much stronger than even our Sun’s gravitational pull.)

If Earth gets within about 800,000 kilometres (3.7 light seconds) of this black hole it will get pulled apart. But that’s unlikely to happen and certainly not in your lifetime.

V616 Monocerotis is about 3,300 light years away. That’s very, very far away.

Read more: Curious Kids: Where do black holes lead to?

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: can Earth be affected by a black hole in the future? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-can-earth-be-affected-by-a-black-hole-in-the-future-118181

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeanell Carrigan, Associate professor, University of Sydney

Review: Oscar and Lucinda, composer Elliott Gyger, librettist Pierce Wilcox, after the novel by Peter Carey, Sydney.

Attending the opening night of a world premiere performance of a new Australian opera is an exhilarating experience – though one that requires a bit of pre-performance research. This is not the first Australian opera that has been based on an iconic novel: recent others include Cloudstreet (2016), Bliss (2010) and Voss (1986).

Like Cloudstreet and Bliss, Oscar and Lucinda was first a novel written by Peter Carey, then a film and then an opera. Should the opera viewer encounter these other versions first to get a true understanding of the plot and characters? The novel by Peter Carey contains short chapters where the characters are developed into distinct personas. The reader gains an insight into their very being. There is a duality of complexity and simpleness.

The plot is a love story with a tragic end. It explores the relationships between the key characters, their addiction to gambling and the personal motivations for that addiction as well as an important element – that of “chance”. The film version (1997) starring Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett, has so many successful elements – scenery, staging, a cohesive story line which is not broken by scene changes with titles or chapter headings – as well as the combined interpretations of the director and individual actors.

Thus we come to the opera already familiar with the story, perhaps having also seen the film. The two operatic acts were broken into scene changes that presented the overall outline of the story. Because of the limited space and staging possibilities everything was minimal.

The sets were few and sparse, the characters – except for the two main protagonists – played many different roles each. It was very clear, due to clever costuming and quick changes, which character was played at any time but still audience members had to employ their imagination to grasp the innate characterisations of the different roles. The libretto was highly narrative and kept to the important details of the novel’s plot.

What then of the music? In an opera adaption surely the most important feature is the music and how well adapted to the story it is. Should it not almost tell the story without any visual component? Oscar and Lucinda is a tragic love story. Many operas share a similar plot. At the conclusion, one protagonist dies and the other loses her entire fortune.

There are dramatic scenes – a big storm, other people die, someone’s murdered on stage and of course, there is a love scene. But in the opinion of this reviewer, the music did not react to or reflect the action on stage or in the story.

Had one not had the visual aspect and the text so wonderfully displayed on surtitles, hearing the music would not have given the listener the effect of what was transpiring. Should one therefore also, before attending the opera, study the music of its composer Elliott Gyger to understand how and why the music was conceived?

It was a complex plot and a very complex score that at times sounded completely random. Gyger writes in the program notes:

The guiding metaphor for the music is one not found in the novel …In a kaleidoscope, small fragments of coloured glass fall into arbitrary relationships which are then mirrored geometrically to create the illusion of order. Different settings of the kaleidoscope generate particular harmonic colours …

If this was the guiding principle behind the composition then Gyger was successful, as the music does sound like a kaleidoscope, pieces of coloured glass falling into space. However, it seemed to this listener that the music never changed to reflect the story presented.

In the love scene, the kaleidoscope of colours did not reflect a warmth normally associated with such a scene. In the death scene, which was rather protracted, the colours were again so much of the sameness of other parts of the action. What began as colourful and very exciting became uninteresting and no longer captivating.

The singers, however, particularly Jessica Aszodi and Brenton Spiteri in the title roles and the four other cast members – Jane Sheldon, Jeremy Kleeman, Mitchell Riley and Simon Lobelson who played a myriad of different characters – were excellent. One could only admire the virtuosity of their performances considering the complexity the music.

Likewise, the orchestra and conductor Jack Symonds were fabulous supporting the cast with excellent balance and refined tonal colours. Lighting and sets, despite their minimalistic nature were completely appropriate, and created enough imagery for the audience to “get” what was happening.

An exhilarating experience? Yes, to have been present at an opening night of an Australian opera definitely, but it was doubtful whether the music portrayed enough of the story line to warrant putting this story into an operatic medium.

Oscar and Lucinda, a co-production and co-commission of Sydney Chamber Opera, Opera Queensland and Victorian Opera, will be performed from 27 July – 3 August 2019

– ref. A clever operatic adaptation of Oscar and Lucinda is let down by music that fails to captivate – http://theconversation.com/a-clever-operatic-adaptation-of-oscar-and-lucinda-is-let-down-by-music-that-fails-to-captivate-121101

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Smith-Miles, Professor of Applied Mathematics, ARC Laureate Fellow, Chief Investigator in the Australian Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers, University of Melbourne

The role of algorithms in our lives is growing rapidly, from simply suggesting online search results or content in our social media feed, to more critical matters like helping doctors determine our cancer risk.

But how do we know we can trust an algorithm’s decision? In June, nearly 100 drivers in the United States learned the hard way that sometimes algorithms can get it very wrong.

Google Maps got them all stuck on a muddy private road in a failed detour to escape a traffic jam heading to Denver International Airport, in Colorado.

As our society becomes increasingly dependent on algorithms for advice and decision-making, it’s becoming urgent to tackle the thorny issue of how we can trust them.

Read more: What’s not to like? Instagram’s trial to hide the number of ‘likes’ could save users’ self-esteem

Algorithms are regularly accused of bias and discrimination. They have attracted concern from US politicians, amid claims we have white men developing facial recognition algorithms trained to work well only for white men.

But algorithms are nothing more than computer programs making decisions based on rules: either rules that we gave them, or rules they figured out themselves based on examples we gave them.

In both cases, humans are in control of these algorithms and how they behave. If an algorithm is flawed, it’s our doing.

So before we all end up in a metaphorical (or literal!) muddy traffic jam, there is an urgent need to revisit how we humans choose to stress-test those rules and gain trust in algorithms.

Algorithms put to the test, kind of

Humans are naturally suspicious creatures, but most of us can be convinced by evidence.

Given enough test examples – with known correct answers – we develop trust if an algorithm consistently gives the correct answer, and not just for easy obvious examples but for the challenging, realistic and diverse examples. Then we can be convinced the algorithm is unbiased and reliable.

Sounds easy enough, right? But is this how algorithms are usually tested? It’s harder than it sounds to make sure that test examples are unbiased and representative of all possible scenarios that could be encountered.

More commonly, well studied benchmark examples are used because they are easily available from websites. (Microsoft had a database of celebrity faces for testing facial recognition algorithms but it was recently deleted due to privacy concerns.)

Comparison of algorithms is also easier when tested on shared benchmarks, but these test examples are rarely scrutinised for their biases. Even worse, the performance of algorithms is typically reported on average across the test examples.

Unfortunately, knowing an algorithm performs well on average doesn’t tell us anything about whether we can trust it in specific cases.

It’s not surprising to read that doctors are sceptical of Google’s algorithm for cancer diagnosis, which offers 89% accuracy on average. How does a doctor know if their patient is one of the unlucky 11% with an incorrect diagnosis?

Read more: Treat or trick: we asked people how they feel about sharing fitness data with insurance companies

With increasing demand for personalised medicine tailored to the individual (not just Mr/Ms Average), and with averages known to hide all sorts of sins, the average results won’t win human trust.

The need for new testing protocols

It’s clearly not rigorous enough to test a bunch of examples – well-studied benchmarks or not – without proving they are unbiased, and then draw conclusions about reliability of an algorithm on average.

And yet paradoxically this is the approach on which research labs around the world depend to flex their algorithmic muscles. The academic peer-review process reinforces these inherited and rarely questioned testing procedures.

A new algorithm is publishable if it’s better on average than existing algorithms on well-studied benchmark examples. If it’s not competitive in this way, it’s either hidden away from further peer-review scrutiny, or new examples are presented for which the algorithm looks useful.

In this way, a warm, flattering light is shone on each newly published algorithm, with little attempt to stress-test its strengths and weaknesses, and present it warts and all. It’s the computer science version of medical researchers failing to publish the full results of clinical trials.

As algorithmic trust becomes more crucial, we urgently need to update this methodology to scrutinise whether the chosen test examples are fit for purpose. So far, researchers have been held back from more rigorous analysis by the lack of suitable tools.

We’ve built a better stress-test

After more than a decade of research, my team has launched a new online algorithm analysis tool called MATILDA: Melbourne Algorithm Test Instance Library with Data Analytics.

It helps stress-test algorithms more rigorously by creating powerful visualisations of a problem, showing all scenarios or examples an algorithm should consider for comprehensive testing.

MATILDA identifies each algorithm’s unique strengths and weaknesses, recommending which of the available algorithms to use under different scenarios and why.

For example, if recent rain has turned unsealed roads into mud, some “shortest-path” algorithms may be unreliable unless they can anticipate the likely impact of weather on travel times when advising the quickest route. Unless developers test such scenarios they’ll never know about such weaknesses until it is too late and we are stuck in the mud.

MATILDA helps us see the diversity and comprehensiveness of benchmarks, and where new test examples should be designed to fill every nook and cranny of the possible space in which the algorithm could be asked to operate.

The image below shows a diverse set of scenarios (dots) for a Google Maps type of problem. Each scenario varies conditions – like the origin and destination locations, the available road network, weather conditions, travel times on various roads – and all this information is mathematically captured and summarised by each scenario’s two-dimensional coordinates in the space.

Two algorithms are compared (red and green) to see which can find the shortest route. Each algorithm is proven to be best (or shown to be unreliable) in different regions depending on how it performs on these tested scenarios.

We can also take a good guess at which algorithm is likely to be best for the missing scenarios (gaps) we haven’t yet tested.

Read more: Consumer watchdog calls for new measures to combat Facebook and Google’s digital dominance

The mathematics behind MATILDA helps to create this visualisation, by analysing algorithm reliability data from test scenarios, and finding a way to see the patterns easily.

The insights and explanations mean we can choose the best algorithm for the problem at hand, rather than crossing our fingers and hoping we can trust the algorithm that performs best on average.

By rigorously stress-testing algorithms in this way – warts and all – we should reduce the risk of rogue algorithm decisions, securing the trust of Mr/Ms Average, and perhaps even the most sceptical humans.

– ref. Algorithms are everywhere but what will it take for us to trust them? – http://theconversation.com/algorithms-are-everywhere-but-what-will-it-take-for-us-to-trust-them-118830

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sierra Keung, Kaiako – Sport & Recreation, Auckland University of Technology

For the past seven years, 70 of the 75 players who have been selected for New Zealand’s senior men’s rugby league team were of Māori or Pasifika heritage. About 42% of the National Rugby League’s player base is Pasifika.

The start of the inaugural Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) Oceania Cup last month further highlights the contribution Indigenous and Pasifika communities make to the game. The Oceania Cup allowed Māori and Pasifika players to showcase their footy skills and represent their cultural heritage on a global stage, outside of the world cup competition.

Given the continued contribution Indigenous and Pasifika communities make to the growth of rugby league in particular, we need to use processes and practices that resonate with the diverse player base.

Read more: It’s time we moved the goalposts on Indigenous policies, so they reflect Indigenous values

Player development ignores culture

The Oceania Cup is a long overdue move. It reflects the impact of the decision several prominent Pasifika rugby league players made at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup to turn down the opportunity to represent a top-tier nation like New Zealand and Australia. Instead they chose to represent the country of their heritage. Since then, more Pasifika players have followed suit.

The pathway towards a professional sporting career is typically shaped by four key aspects: physical, technical, tactical and psychosocial. Despite the significant contribution of our Indigenous communities, existing talent development research fails to acknowledge cultural nuances that are critical to the preparation and performance of Māori or Pasifika athletes.

Research highlights the critical role the psychosocial aspect plays in facilitating longevity and success for a professional sportsperson. For many teenage Māori and Pasifika athletes, this can be more arduous than the physical aspect.

So far, the psychosocial aspect of talent development has been discussed from a Western perspective, which focuses on the achievements of the individual. In my research, I challenge this with an approach that more appropriately reflects the Māori and Pasifika talent of rugby league.

A significant finding was the importance and value of relationships with other people, including family and mentors. My research suggests that key relationships are those that are anchored by trust and create an energy that helps junior players to process mentally trying times they may experience during training. When viewed through a Māori and Pasifika lens, psychosocial training is (re)defined as the inter-connectedness of relationships, trust and energy.

This relational foundation is missing when psychosocial development is viewed from a Western perspective. Elite athletes are aware of the fact failure is part of the process for success and growth. How one learns to cope with setbacks is dependent on an athlete’s psychosocial foundation, which they build as they move to a senior elite level.

A more appropriate approach would integrate practices throughout the talent development process to facilitate reciprocal relationships, based on trust. Relationships also include those of a spiritual nature. Faith or spirituality play a significant role in strengthening the overall health and well-being for Māori and Pasifika.

Faith and a belief in God were found to give athletes strength and perspective in dealing with adversity. As such, organisations may do well to offer time or space for athletes to meditate, read or listen to scripture, or simply express gratitude. This is a critical element of talent development that tends to be overlooked when supporting the performance of Māori and Pasifika athletes.

Read more: Federal budget undermines Indigenous self-determination in sport programs

Value of relationships and trust

Professional sports, like other mainstream industries, are heavily dominated by a Eurocentric power structure and culture. Māori and Pasifika are expected to integrate into a system that does not typically reflect their cultural structure, values and beliefs.

Specialist support people and resources are typically made available in the professional sporting world to help athletes manage the demands of becoming a professional sportsperson. But we need to consider the value of relationships, trust and energy for Māori and Pasifika athletes to succeed in the high performance sport environment.

From a collective cultural perspective, success is measured by how well one takes care of those around them. Athletes are likely to progress better through the development process when they feel their support team (coaches, trainers, managers) takes care of them. For Māori and Pasifika athletes, this includes their family and the wider collective they represent.

The athlete may be the individual training and playing the game, but for Māori and Pasifika, their success is not their success alone.

– ref. Athlete development must better support Indigenous and Pasifika players – http://theconversation.com/athlete-development-must-better-support-indigenous-and-pasifika-players-119976

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joy Hussain, GP Researcher, RMIT University

Why do people use sauna? Despite centuries of anecdotal evidence which says the practice is relaxing and healthy, researchers have never actually asked this question. Until now.

With increasing evidence pointing to the health benefits of sauna, Australian researchers decided to conduct an online global sauna survey to start to understand why people regularly subject themselves to extreme heat.

They found the overwhelming motivation for sauna bathing was relaxation and stress reduction, alongside other health benefits such as pain relief and improved sleep.

But the results highlighted that sauna does not appear to be widely recognised as a health intervention for a range of chronic conditions it has been shown to benefit. This suggests more education is needed for both medical professionals and the wider community.

At the same time, we need continued scientific research to better understand the health benefits of sauna bathing.

Read more: Infrared sauna is no better for your health than traditional sauna: busting a common wellness myth

What the survey found

The survey received 472 responses from 29 countries (with Finland, the United States, and Australia making up the top three).

The average age of participants was 45, and respondents used a sauna on average once or twice per week. Bathers used both traditional and infrared saunas, although infrared use was much higher in Australia and the US (both 30%, compared to only 2% in Finland).

All respondents selected “relaxation/stress reduction” as a highly important reason for sauna bathing. The results showed using sauna five to 15 times per month was associated with higher mental well-being scores compared to those using sauna less frequently. But more evidence is needed to establish a link between thermal therapy and mental health.

Other leading motivations for using sauna included “to relieve aches and pains” (88%), “social – to meet and talk with friends” (85%), “to improve circulation” (85%), “detoxification” (83%), and “professional – to meet and talk with business colleagues” (50%).

The top three activities reported as occurring inside the sauna were relaxation (100%), talking with others (79%), and meditation (68%) – again highlighting the function of sauna as a space for mental regeneration.

Read more: Why saunas really are good for your health

Some 84% of respondents reported improved sleep, lasting for one to two nights after sauna use. Given the importance of sleep for general health, sauna seems to hold promise as an enjoyable and non-pharmacological tool to promote better rest.

One-third of respondents were overweight or obese, which suggests regular sauna bathing is well tolerated by this population.

While the precise mechanisms are still not understood, the physical effects of sauna – including heart rate, blood pressure, and cellular responses – correspond to similar benefits seen with moderate intensity physical exercise.

Sauna use doesn’t reflect knowledge of recent evidence

The survey revealed two important broader points. Firstly, people are using sauna in ways not fully backed up by medical evidence yet. One-third of respondents reported having a medically diagnosed health condition, with the most common being back pain, followed by musculoskeletal problems. Interestingly, two-thirds of these respondents reported sauna bathing improved their condition, at least temporarily.

But there is little evidence on sauna for these specific health issues, and sauna is rarely part of conventional treatment plans for such conditions. The same applies to reports about improved sleep.

Secondly, and by contrast, high blood pressure and heart conditions were not among the top medical conditions of respondents, despite the benefits sauna has demonstrated for cardiovascular health. Recent observational and experimental studies have shown people who regularly use sauna experience fewer incidents of high blood pressure and have fewer heart attacks and strokes.

But the fact sauna users are not commonly bathing with these benefits in mind suggests many health professionals may not yet be aware of the scientific literature surrounding the potential preventive health benefits of sauna use.

Given the evidence for stress reduction shown in this survey, sauna also shows promise as an intervention for a range of chronic diseases where psychological stress is considered to be strongly associated with the mechanisms behind the disease (for example, depression, heart disease, and arthritis).

Read more: Curious Kids: What happens in the body when we sweat?

From sauna research to sauna treatment

Sauna has potential benefits for a range of major health challenges facing today’s population. To maximise these benefits, a few key steps lie ahead.

The most important thing is more attention from researchers. The health outcomes demonstrated so far all need further evidence, and we need continued social science to understand more about how the technology might be spread at a community level. Increased access to community bathing facilities will require public support and entrepreneurial vision.

The other key step is for sauna researchers to engage with health professionals, so sauna may become recognised alongside other evidence-based treatments for chronic conditions in both clinical and community settings.

Do you use sauna in Australia? Researchers from Western Sydney University are currently conducting a follow-up survey.

– ref. People use sauna for well-being, but its medical benefits are not widely understood – http://theconversation.com/people-use-sauna-for-well-being-but-its-medical-benefits-are-not-widely-understood-117972

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mike Letnic, Professor, Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW

Coalition minister Angus Taylor is under scrutiny for possibly intervening in the clearing of grasslands in the southern highlands of New South Wales. Leaving aside the political dimensions, it’s worth asking: why do these grasslands matter?

Read more: Pauline Hanson stymies inquiry into Angus Taylor’s intervention on endangered grasslands

The grasslands in much of eastern Australia are the result of forests and woodlands cleared to “improve” the landscape (from a grazier’s point of view) to make it suitable for grazing livestock.

The “improvment” typically entails cutting trees, burning the felled timber and uprooting tree stumps, followed by ploughing, fertilising and sowing introduced grasses that are more palatable to livestock than many native grasses.

However, largely treeless native grasslands once occurred at high elevations across much of the Monaro tableland, in the area stretching between Canberra and Bombala.

The Monaro grasslands (or in scientific speak, the natural temperate grassland of the Southern Tablelands) are in relatively dry and cold areas, particularly in upland valleys or frost hollows where cold air descends at night.

The combination of dry climate and cold restricts tree growth and instead has encouraged grasses and herbs. Native grasses such as kangaroo grass and poa tussock dominate the grasslands, but there are many other unique plants. A typical undisturbed grassland area will support 10-20 species of native grasses and 40 or more non-grass species.

Read more: When tree planting actually damages ecosystems

The grassy plains are also home to unique cold-adapted reptiles such as the grass-land earless dragon, little whip snake, pink-tailed worm lizard and striped legless lizards. This combination of plants and animals create a unique ecological community.

A fraction remain

It is estimated only 0.5% of the area that would once have been natural temperate grasslands in the Southern Tablelands remains. The rest has been gradually “improved” since the mid-nineteenth century to make them more productive for livestock grazing.

Livestock dramatically change the composition of grasslands, as animals remove palatable plants and compact the soil under their weight. Disturbed soil and the livestock also help to spread non-native weeds.

However, most native grasslands have not just been modified by grazing but completely replaced by man-made pastures. That is, the land has been ploughed, fertilised and the seeds of introduced grasses have been planted.

Read more: Australia’s plantation boom has gone bust, so let’s make them carbon farms

These changes to the landscape mean much of the landscape is dominated by introduced plants and is now unsuitable for many of the native plants and animals that once lived and grew there.

Because the Natural Temperate Grassland of the Southern Tablelands is now so rare it is classified as critically endangered and federally protected. Furthermore, many of the distinct plants and animals that still live in these grasslands are classified as vulnerable or endangered.

Some of the best remaining examples of the Monaro grasslands can be found in old cemeteries and in areas set aside as public livestock grazing areas. These areas of public land have often been spared from pasture improvement or only lightly grazed, and thus now support relatively intact native grassland ecosystems.

Read more: Spinifex grass would like us to stop putting out bushfires, please

While, to the untrained eye the Monaro grasslands may seem unremarkable and difficult to distinguish from grazing pastures, they are deeply important. They show us what Australia once looked at, and act as a haven for native biodiversity.

Indeed, what remains of the natural grasslands is now so disturbed by agriculture there is a real threat this distinctive ecological community and many of the species it contains may disappear altogether, if they are not protected from excessive grazing, fertilisers and the plough.

– ref. What are native grasslands, and why do they matter? – http://theconversation.com/what-are-native-grasslands-and-why-do-they-matter-121181

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Soong, Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education Practice, School of Education, University of South Australia

On behalf of student here from Hong Kong I am so worried to tell my parents that the work is too much. They want me to study hard and continue at an Australian university.

– Anonymous

Key points

• first and foremost, look after yourself
• try to talk to your parents, remembering they only want what’s best for you
• find a trusted friend or counsellor you can talk to.

Hi, and thanks for your question. My answer to your question is quite long because there are a few ways you can approach this.

Coming to live in Australia on your own and studying in an unfamiliar education system is extremely hard. You may be struggling with the language barrier, making you more stressed and anxious. I imagine there are times when you might feel quite alone.

Having worked with many international students, I’ve seen firsthand how pressure from from parents can affect students’ stress levels and mental health – you are not alone. A recent report found due to culture, language and academic barriers international students are at a higher risk of mental ill-health than domestic students.

There aren’t any statistics around the mental health of Chinese international students, but recent news coverage has shed light on its prevalence.

Read more: Recent campus attacks show universities need to do more to protect international students

It’s tough, but you should talk to your parents

Being an international student is a family project, not just an individual venture. Many Asian students who go overseas to study have financial and emotional support from their parents.

They carry their parents’ aspirations and dreams. They consider education extremely important to getting a good job. Sound familiar?

In particular, many people born in China believe academic success comes mainly from diligence, so many Chinese parents believe their child can make it if they work hard enough. Such value on education is a powerful influence of the Confucian tradition.

If you can, you should try to tell your parents how you feel. Being honest with your parents about what is happening can be extremely hard. This is because we are afraid we might be misunderstood by immediate family or we might bring shame to our parents when we let them know we are struggling.

Unfortunately there is no fixed way to approach a conversation with your parents as each parent-child relationship is unique. Remember, there is no shame in letting your parents know you are seeking their support in your present life in Australia.

Read more: I Need to Know: ‘My friend is using ice and smoking pot. What do I do?’

Find a trusted friend to talk to

While you are in Australia, it is important to find someone you can relate to. There are more than 17,000 students from Hong Kong in Australia.

Often, international students like to socialise with other international students. Do you know of any other Hong Kong international students in your campus/school? Are there any international student friendship groups, clubs or social organisations you can attend? Have a look on Facebook or your university’s socials page.

You don’t necessarily have to make friends with someone of the same background as you. There are many people in the same situation, who feel stressed and alone in a different country.

Focus on you

Your ability to grow confident will strongly impact your well-being and mental health. And self-care is the first step towards battling, or helping to prevent, mental-health issues.

Here are some tips on how to do that:

• Do you like food? What’s your favourite meal? It can be comforting to eat food you miss when you are homesick. If you don’t know how to cook meals you love, you could learn: YouTube channels on “how to cook Chinese food” can be handy.

• hearing and reading about how other international students overcome their personal challenges can be another strategy – here’s a blog you might like

• check out the Instagram account @internationalstudentsofaus. It offers advice, genuine experience and stories, which will show you are not alone

• if the language barrier is a persistent challenge for you, there are ways to improve your English. Try volunteering at local school or university events, or offer an hour or two per week of your time to volunteer for community organisations such as an aged care service or library. In this way, you can learn about Australian culture and develop confidence to communicate through experiences.

There are ALWAYS people to talk to

If you don’t feel comfortable speaking to your parents, family or friends, then please find a professional to talk to. If you’re in a capital city, a quick Google search of “Cantonese speaking psychologist” should bring up a list of results.

Or, here are some other options:

You are struggling because you care a lot about your parents. But they also want you to be happy with your stay and studies in Australia. Your personal aspiration is just as important as your parents’ hopes for you – remember that.

If things don’t get better and you find yourself with no one to talk to, there are two mental-health services you can call: Lifeline on 131 114 or beyondblue 1300 22 46 36.

If you’re a teenager and have a question you’d like answered by an expert, you can:

• email us at intk@theconversation.edu.au
• submit your question anonymously through Incogneato, or
• DM us on Instagram.

Please tell us your name (you can use a fake name if you don’t want to be identified), age and which city you live in. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

– ref. ‘I’m an international student in Australia. How do I tell my parents the pressure they put on me is too much?’ – http://theconversation.com/im-an-international-student-in-australia-how-do-i-tell-my-parents-the-pressure-they-put-on-me-is-too-much-111834