Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide

The common weed killer Roundup (glyphosate) is back in the news after a US court ruled it contributed to a man’s terminal cancer (non-Hodgkin lymphoma). Following the court’s order for manufacturer Monsanto to compensate the former school ground’s keeper US$289, more than 9,000 people are reportedly also suing the company.

In light of this, Cancer Council Australia is calling for Australia to review glyphosate’s safety. And tonight’s Four Corner’s report centres around Monsanto’s possible cover-up of the evidence for a link between glyphosate and cancer.

Juries don’t decide science, and this latest court case produced no new scientific data. Those who believe glyphosate causes cancer often refer to the 2015 report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that classified the herbicide as “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

IARC’s conclusion was arrived at using a narrower base of evidence than other recent peer-reviewed papers and governmental reviews. Australia’s regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), reviewed the safety of glyphosate after IARC’s determination. It’s 2016 report concluded that

based on current risk assessment the label instructions on all glyphosate products – when followed – provides adequate protection for users.

The Agricultural Health Study, which followed more than 50,000 people in the US for over ten years, was published in 2018. This real world study in the populations with the highest exposure to glyphosate showed that if there is any risk of cancer from glyphosate preparations, it is exceedingly small.

It also showed that the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma is negligible. It is unclear to what extent this study was used in the recent court case.

What did the IARC and others find?

Glyphosate is one of the most used herbicides worldwide. It kills weeds by targeting a specific pathway (the shikimic acid pathway) that exists in plants and a type of bacteria (eubacteria), but not animals (or humans).

In terms of short-term exposure, glyphosate is less toxic than table salt. However, it’s chronic, or long-term, exposure to glyphosate that’s causing the controversy.

Pesticides and herbicides are periodically re-evaluated for their safety and several studies have done so for glyphosate. For instance, in 2015, Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment suggested glyphosate was neither mutagenic nor carcinogenic.

But then came the IARC’s surprising classification. And the subsequent 2015 review by the European Food Safety Authority, that concluded glyphosate was unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard, didn’t alleviate sceptics.

The key differences between the IARC’s and other reports revolve around the breadth of evidence considered, the weight of human studies, consideration of physiological plausibility and, most importantly, risk assessment. The IARC did not take into account the extent of exposure to glyphosate to establish its association with cancer, while the others did.

Read more: Council workers spraying the weed-killer glyphosate in playgrounds won’t hurt your children

Demonstrating the mechanism

Establishing whether a chemical can cause cancer in humans involves demonstrating a mechanism in which it can do so. Typical investigations examine if the chemical causes mutations in bacteria or damage to the DNA of mammalian cells.

The studies reviewed by IARC, and the other bodies mentioned, that looked at glyphosate’s ability to produce mutations in bacteria and to mammalian cells were negative. The weight of evidence also indicated glyphosate was unlikely to cause significant DNA damage.

Animal studies

Animal studies are typically conducted in rats or mice. The rodents are given oral doses of glyphosate for up to 89% of their life spans, at concentrations much higher than humans would be exposed to.

Studies examined by the European Food Safety Authority included nine rat studies where no cancers were seen. Out of five mouse studies, three showed no cancers even at the highest doses. One study showed tumours, but these were not dose dependent (suggesting random variation, not causation) and in one study tumours were seen at highest doses in males only.

This led to the European Food Safety Authority’s overall conclusion that glyphosate was unlikely to be a carcinogenic hazard to humans.

The IARC evaluation included only six rat studies. In one study, cancer was seen but this wasn’t dose dependent (again suggesting random variation). They evaluated only two mouse studies, one of which was negative for cancer and that showed a statistically significant “trend” in males.

The IARC thus concluded there was sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in animals but there was no consistency in tumour type (mouse vs rat) or location.

Read more: Are common garden chemicals a health risk?

Human studies

This is an enormous field so I can only briefly summarise the research. The European Food Safety Authority looked at 21 human studies and found no evidence for an association between cancer and glyphosate use. The IARC looked at 19 human trials and found no statistically significant evidence for an association with cancer. It did find three small studies that suggested an association with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (not statistically significant).

As already mentioned, the large Agricultural Health Study found no association between cancer and glyphosate in humans. And the 2016 review by Australia’s regulator concluded glyphosate was safe if used as directed.

It’s possible the animus towards Monsanto and genetically modified organisms may have influenced the recent juries’ decision far more than any science. However, these materials had no impact on the scientific findings.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin White, Senior lecturer, University of Adelaide

Doctor Who is back on our TV screens with the first episode of the new series airing on the ABC here in Australia today, staring Jodie Whittaker as the first female regeneration of this particular Time Lord.

Anyone who has been watching the long-running BBC series over the past few years should not find a female Time Lord surprising.

The Doctor’s arch enemy The Master has most recently been brought to life as Missy, in a BAFTA-nominated performance by Michelle Gomez that easily ranks as my favourite incarnation of the evil Time Lord.

Read more: Science fact vs fiction in Star Wars and other sci-fi movies: relax, and enjoy the entertainment

We have also been shown an actual regeneration of a male Time Lord into a female body, when a character known as The General regenerated in the Series 9 episode Hell Bent.

The fact that a Time Lord can periodically regenerate into another body was itself only invented to allow the show to sidestep the failing health of William Hartnell, who played the first Doctor on TV.

Nevertheless, to deny that the decision to cast a woman as the Doctor is a historic moment is to understate the bravery of the new production team, led by Chris Chibnall (of Torchwood and Broadchurch fame), and of Whittaker in particular.

A regeneration reboot

The latest episode, The Woman Who Fell to Earth, picked up where the 2017 Christmas special left off, but teasingly didn’t offer us a view of the new Doctor for several minutes.

Indeed, with its Northern England setting and outstanding shots of Yorkshire scenery, I could be forgiven for confusing it with an episode from the Dalziel and Pascoe boxset that I’m still working through.

We were soon on familiar ground, as Whittaker’s Doctor chased a mysterious, Predator-inspired alien through the streets of Sheffield. It is way too early to gauge where Whittaker fits in the pantheon of Doctors, but her hyperactive, clever and funny performance brought to mind a greatest hits package of Christopher Ecclestone (the Ninth Doctor) and David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor), with less of the darkness that has been favoured of late.

She delivered the requisite post-regeneration comedy with ease, and expertly portrayed a Doctor who knows everything and knows nothing at the same time. I predict great things as the season develops.

The production changes

The Doctor’s gender was not the only thing that felt new. The show looked noticeably more fantastic than it has at any point in its history, aided by properly cinematic landscapes and an alien that still looked scary in close-up.

It also sounds better, with composer Segun Akinola’s score proving more contemporary and less obtrusive than the previous work of Murray Gold. I assume much of this was terrifying for children, and thank goodness for that!

But my favourite change in the show is in the writing. The new companions were fleshed out to such an extent that a particular shock late in the episode felt genuinely tragic, a feat that is particularly impressive for a script that also had to dump enough Who-lore to pull in new viewers.

In crafting a self-contained ensemble drama, there is evidence that Chibnall’s team will avoid the overly-intricate plotting of the outgoing Steven Moffat-led era.

My only complaint is that we were cruelly taunted with the demise of that laziest of plot devices – the sonic screwdriver – only to have it dramatically reinvented later in the episode.

Best of all, the show ended on a massive cliffhanger, the likes of which we have not seen since the classic era. Fans of the reboot have thus far been robbed of this experience, and I hope that we can expect more ludicrous finales as the weeks roll by.

The Doctor as a role model in science

The Doctor is a rare figure in popular culture, being a person devoted to solving problems with little more than curiosity and an immense scientific knowledge.

A couple of years ago, I was part of a group that toured Australian theatres in a Royal Institution of Australia production that explored whether that scientific gobbledegook has any basis in fact.

This allowed us to explain the science of time travel (yes, it is possible), regeneration (you do this roughly every seven years, with exceptions) and extra dimensions (yes, they are possible!) to an audience of more than 6,000 people who would never knowingly attend a science lecture.

Most importantly for the children in the audience, we were able to communicate both the excitement of scientific research, and the feasibility of becoming a professional scientist regardless of your background. This really is the closest you can get to being the Doctor without having a TARDIS.

Read more: Study of 1.6 million grades shows little gender difference in maths and science at school

In a country where over three times as many boys as girls study high school physics, and a 2014 survey revealed that some girls do not take physics because they think that boys are better with numbers, I find it hard not to see the selection of a female doctor as the greatest science communication opportunity of my lifetime.

In an age of binge watching, the coming generation will be awed by both the Doctor’s male and female incarnations. Can there be any better role model for budding young scientists?

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Balkin, Lecturer, English and Theatre Studies, University of Melbourne

Review: Watt, Melbourne International Arts Festival.

It resembled a pot, it was almost a pot, but it was not a pot of which one could say, Pot, pot, and be comforted. It was in vain that it answered, with unexceptionable adequacy, all the purposes, and performed all the offices, of a pot, it was not a pot. And it was just this hairbreadth departure from the nature of a true pot that so excruciated Watt.

This passage from Watt, the novel Samuel Beckett wrote while hiding from the Gestapo during the second world war, describes the title character’s dawning certainty that a pot is not actually a pot. The instability goes beyond language to ontology, or the nature of being.

There is much to like in Barry McGovern’s adaptation of Watt, which presents selections from the text. McGovern is a seasoned performer who spoke Beckett’s repetitive prose beautifully. His quiet delivery brought out the novel’s deadpan qualities; the audience laughed often. And yet, I came away with the feeling that McGovern’s Watt was not quite a pot, which is to say, not quite Watt.

McGovern first adapted Watt for a production at Dublin’s Gate Theatre in 2010. In this Melbourne production, with his worn clothing, boots, braces, and pepper-coloured hat, he looked the part of a generic Beckett character.

This was not a bad thing per se, but it did contribute to my sense of seeing the ghost of a Beckett play. It is tempting to attribute this washed-out quality to the difficulty of adapting the novel to the stage. And yet, the problems instantiated by the novel’s narration are well suited to McGovern’s adaptation.

Beckett’s novel describes Watt’s journey to, within, and away from Mr Knott’s house, where Watt lives for some time as a servant. Upon leaving Mr Knott’s service, Watt travels to an institution, seemingly an asylum, where he tells his story to another inmate, Sam. But the story is told out of order, sometimes in unreadable language, and with fragmentary addenda appended by a fictional editor.

The narrator is not just unreliable, but impossible, or plural: though late in the novel the narrator identifies himself as Sam, who is reporting Watt’s story as Watt told it to him, neither Watt nor Sam were present at the beginning of the novel. These contradictions are not resolved; indeed, they constitute the novel.

McGovern sometimes was Watt while he narrated what happened to Watt. This was especially effective in two scenes. In the first, McGovern demonstrated the extraordinary way in which Watt walks:

Watt’s way of advancing due east, for example, was to turn his bust as far as possible towards the north and at the same time to fling out his right leg as far as possible towards the south, and then to turn his bust as far as possible towards the south and at the same time to fling out his left leg as far as possible towards the north.

McGovern spoke the lines while performing the motions, embodying Beckett’s comic repetition and the unexplained inefficiency with which Watt advances.

McGovern was likewise effective in a scene where Watt, resting in a ditch that anticipates the one in which Waiting for Godot’s Estragon sleeps, seems to hear “from afar, from without, yes, really it seemed from without, the voices, indifferent in quality, of a mixed choir.” A recorded choir sang the two verses Beckett supplies (though the music is not printed in all editions), including such lyrics as “Fifty two point two eight five seven one four” and “oh a bun a big fat bun.”

During the first choral verse I was unsure about the choice to include the recording, since it seemed to resolve definitely that the voices came “from without” — a point that Beckett leaves open. But as the second verse was sung, and as McGovern reacted with quiet but increasing perplexity to its nonsense, I changed my mind.

I was with Watt in that moment, but where was I? I could no longer say, in the world of the play, that the choir came from outside him; only that it seemed to, and that its lyrical improbability put pressure on this seeming. In moments such as these, McGovern enacted the instability of the novel’s form and perspective.

At other times McGovern spoke and performed as different figures from the story: as Arsene, the servant who leaves Mr Knott’s establishment as Watt arrives, or as a narrator (Sam in the novel, but nameless in the play) to whom Watt has told his story. Here too the shifts enacted the text’s instabilities in another medium. Who was speaking, and why were they telling us this story? We weren’t to know. In the audience’s laughter I felt an acceptance of skimming along the surface of things.

My dissatisfaction with McGovern’s Watt is not about what he included and excised, though one might object that he made it a bit too coherent. My frustration boils down to his treatment of the pot, one of the production’s few props. At the relevant moment, McGovern produced and unfolded a piece of paper with a picture of a pot on it. In so doing he made a point about representation: an image of a pot is not a pot. But I wanted him to make a point about existence — to produce a solid pot and make me question, or make me think he questioned, whether it was a pot.

Theatre is the perfect medium in which to make an audience see that a pot is not a pot. Stage pots may be real, may even be cooked in, but as props they are also fictional and fictionalizing. Making us feel this could have been a resonant counterpoint to the kinds of ghosting — Marvin Carlson’s term for theatrical elements that appear again and again — that attended McGovern, boots, braces, hat, and ditch.

Watt is being staged as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival until October 13.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Howden, Director, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University

A landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commissioned at the breakthrough 2015 summit that brokered the Paris climate agreement, outlines what’s at stake in the world’s bid to limit global temperature rise to 1.5℃.

The report, released today, sets out the key practical differences between the Paris agreement’s two contrasting goals: to limit the increase of human-induced global warming to well below 2℃, and to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5℃.

Read more: The UN’s 1.5°C special climate report at a glance

Two and a half years in the making, the report provides vital information about whether the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious goal is indeed achievable, what the future may look like under it, and the risks and rewards of hitting the target.

Here are five key questions to which the report provides answers.

Can we limit warming to 1.5℃?

There is no clear yes or no answer to this question.

Put simply, it is not impossible that global warming could be limited to 1.5℃. But achieving this will be profoundly challenging.

If we are to limit warming to 1.5℃, we must reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030, reaching near-zero by around 2050.

Whether we are successful primarily depends on the rate at which government and non-state bodies take action to reduce emissions. Yet despite the urgency, current national pledges under the Paris Agreement are not enough to remain within a 3℃ temperature limit, let alone 1.5℃.

Global warming is not just a problem for the future. The impacts are already being felt around the world, with declines in crop yields, biodiversity, coral reefs, and Arctic sea ice, and increases in heatwaves and heavy rainfall. Sea levels have risen by 40.5mm in the past decade and are predicted to continue rising for decades, even if all greenhouse emissions were reduced to zero immediately. Climate adaptation is already needed and will be increasingly so at 1.5℃ and 2℃ of warming.

Rapid action is essential and the next ten years will be crucial. In 2017, global warming breached 1℃. If the planet continues to warm at the current rate of 0.2℃ per decade, we will reach 1.5℃ of warming around 2040. At current emissions rates, within the next 10 to 14 years there is a 2/3 chance we will have used up our entire carbon budget for keeping to 1.5.

How can we limit warming to 1.5℃?

The report says “transformational” change will be needed to limit warming to 1.5℃. Business as usual will not get us there.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases need to reach net zero globally by around 2050. Most economists say putting a price on emissions is the most efficient way to do this.

By 2050, 70-85% of electricity globally will need to be supplied by renewables. Investment in low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies will need to double, whereas investment in fossil-fuel extraction will need to decrease by around a quarter.

Carbon dioxide removal technology will also be needed to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. But the IPCC’s report warns that relying too heavily on this technology would be a major risk as it has not been used on such a large scale before. Carbon dioxide removal is an extra step that may be needed to keep warming to 1.5℃, not an excuse to keep emitting greenhouse gases.

Production, consumption and lifestyle choices also play a role. Reducing energy demand and food waste, improving the efficiency of food production, and choosing foods and goods with lower emissions and land use requirements will contribute significantly.

Taking such action as soon as possible will be hugely beneficial. The earlier we start, the more time we have to reach net zero emissions. Acting early will mean a smoother transition and less net cost overall. Delay will lead to more haste, higher costs, and a harder landing.

Reducing emissions quickly will also ensure warming is capped as soon as possible, reducing the number and severity of impacts.

Yet severe impacts will still be experienced even if warming is successfully capped at 1.5℃.

What is the cost of 1.5℃ of warming?

Although the Paris Agreement aims to hold global warming as close to 1.5℃ as possible, that doesn’t mean it is a “safe” level. Communities and ecosystems around the world have already suffered significant impacts from the 1℃ of warming so far, and the effects at 1.5℃ will be harsher still.

Poverty and disadvantages will increase as temperatures rise to 1.5℃. Small island states, deltas and low-lying coasts are particularly vulnerable, with increased risk of flooding, and threats to freshwater supplies, infrastructure, and livelihoods.

Warming to 1.5℃ also poses a risk to global economic growth, with the tropics and southern subtropics potentially being hit hardest. Extreme weather events such as floods, heatwaves, and droughts will become more frequent, severe, and widespread, with attendant costs in terms of health care, infrastructure, and disaster response.

The oceans will also suffer in a 1.5℃ warmer world. Ocean warming and acidification are expected to impact fisheries and aquaculture, as well as many marine species and ecosystems.

Up to 90% of warm water coral reefs are predicted to disappear when global warming reaches 1.5℃. That would be a dire situation, but far less serious than at 2℃, when the destruction of coral reefs would be almost total (greater than 99% destruction).

How do 1.5℃ and 2℃ compare?

Impacts on both human and natural systems would be very different at 1.5℃ rather than 2℃ of warming. For example, limiting warming to 1.5℃ would roughly halve the number of people globally who are expected to suffer from water scarcity.

Seas would rise by an extra 10cm this century at 2℃ compared with 1.5℃. This means limiting global warming to 1.5℃ would save up to 10.4 million people from the impacts of rising seas.

At 1.5℃ rather than 2℃:

• up to 427 million fewer people will suffer food and water insecurity, climate risks, and adverse health impacts

• extreme weather events, heat-related death and disease, desertification, and wildlife extinctions will all be reduced

• it will be significantly easier to achieve many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, including those linked to hunger, poverty, water and sanitation, health, and cities and ecosystems.

How does the 1.5℃ target fit with the Sustainable Development Goals?

The Sustainable Development Goals aim for a world in which people can be healthy, financially stable, well fed, have clean air and water, and live in a secure and pleasant environment. Much of this is consistent with the goal of capping global warming at 1.5℃, which is why the IPCC notes there are synergies if the SDG initiatives and climate action should be explicitly linked.

But some climate strategies may make it harder to achieve particular SDGs. Countries that are highly dependent on fossil fuels for employment and revenue may suffer economically in the transition towards low-carbon energy.

Carefully managing this transition by simultaneously focusing on reducing poverty and promoting equity in decision-making may help avoid the worst effects of such trade-offs. What works in one place may not work in another, so strategies should always be locally appropriate.

Where next?

Limiting global warming to 1.5℃ will require a social transformation, as the world takes rapid action to reduce greenhouse gases. The effects of climate change will continue to shape the world we live in, but there is no doubt we will be far better off under 1.5℃ than 2℃ of global warming.

Read more: Why is climate change’s 2 degrees Celsius of warming limit so important?

The choices we make today are shaping the future for coming generations. As the new report makes clear, if we are serious about the 1.5℃ target, we need to act now.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the substantial contribution to authorship of this article by of Lamis Kazak, an Australian National University Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies (Sustainability) student, as part of a Science Communication Internship with the Climate Change Institute.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Iain Stewart, Analyst, ClimateWorks Australia

The long-awaited special report on the science underpinning the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5℃ has been released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It tells us that hitting this goal will be challenging, but not impossible. And it highlights the benefits of hitting the target, by pointing out that global warming will be vastly more damaging if allowed to reach 2℃.

Read more: The UN’s 1.5°C special climate report at a glance

The report says that for a 66% chance at limiting global warming to 1.5℃, an additional 550 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent) can be emitted globally from the beginning of 2018. Increasing the risk to a 50% chance at limiting global warming to 1.5℃, that figure becomes 750Gt CO₂e.

Based on previous calculations, Australia’s fair share of the global carbon budget is roughly equivalent to 1%. That would put Australia’s remaining carbon budget at 5.5Gt and 7.5Gt for a 66% and 50% chance, respectively.

The simplified trajectory below shows that Australia would therefore need to reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2038 for a 66% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5℃, and by 2045 for a 50% chance.

In practical terms, this gives Australia two decades to deliver on our part, for a good chance of avoiding the most devastating impacts of a warming climate. Globally, we must reach net zero greenhouse emissions by 2047 for a 66% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5℃, and by 2058 for a 50% chance. Australia will have to hit net zero before it is achieved globally because we currently have among the highest per person emissions, so our decarbonisation trajectory needs to be steeper.

But Australia’s emissions are rising

From 2006 to 2013, Australian emissions decreased, but they have since begun to rise again. As shown in ClimateWorks Australia’s recently released report, Tracking Progress, we are not yet on track meet our current Paris commitment of cutting emissions by 26-28% relative to 2005 levels by 2030. Nor are we on track to reach net zero.

Yet our research also showed we have the potential to get back on track. There have been recent periods when sectors of our economy have cut carbon at or near the pace required to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Read more: Australia is not on track to reach 2030 Paris target (but the potential is there)

Reaching net zero from here will require rapid, economy-wide action, including:

• increasing the share of renewable electricity
• improving energy efficiency
• electrifying transport and industry where possible
• switching to lower-emission fuels such as gas
• land use changes (reforestation, reduced land clearance, and best practice farming).

There are already many examples of these kinds of approaches. For example, since 2010, solar photovoltaic prices have fallen by around 70% and battery prices by around 80%, while uptake rates have surpassed expectations. This has been the result of research, investment, government incentives, shifting consumer preferences, and economies of scale.

Consumers are beginning to embrace trends such as electric vehicles and 3D printing, and we can expect more technological disruptions throughout the economy such as building optimisation, smart grids, and solar-hydrogen, which all have the potential to reduce emissions significantly.

The goal is still in reach (just)

The new IPCC report is adamant that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5℃ is still achievable – despite previous fears that it is already out of reach. Yes, it is tight, but the challenge is in going faster, not the lack of solutions.

Crucially, the report also points out that 2℃ of global warming would be vastly more damaging than 1.5℃, and that 2℃ cannot be treated as a “safe” limit.

At 2℃, the report predicts it is “very likely that there will be at least one sea-ice-free Arctic summer per decade”. In contrast, holding warming to 1.5℃ rather than 2℃ would protect an extra 10.4 million people from rising sea levels.

Some of these people are our neighbours in Pacific Island nations, many of which are implementing some of the most ambitious climate policies in the world. For low-lying countries and island states, the reality is “1.5 to stay alive”.

Australia’s climate at stake

Closer to home, the impacts of climate change on Australia will continue to manifest themselves in extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and bushfires. Increasing impacts are expected to extend to water, food and even border security, creating the potential for millions of climate refugees in our region before the end of the century.

As a wealthy, emissions-intensive country with abundant natural resources, in a region highly vulnerable to climate impacts, Australia should take its Paris climate targets very seriously. Australia has the means to become a regional leader in climate action, positioning ourselves as a “clean energy superpower” and helping our neighbours work towards becoming carbon-neutral.

Read more: Lack of climate policy threatens to trip up Australian diplomacy this summit season

There are many examples within Australia of commitments already made to reach net zero emissions. States and territories representing 80% of Australia’s emissions – along with the federal opposition – have committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Tasmania has already reached net zero. The ACT has legislated to do so by 2045.

Other organisations have also pledged to go carbon-neutral or use 100% renewable energy, including multinational companies, major cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, and universities.

These initiatives prove that setting targets for emissions reduction actually ignites action. The IPCC’s new report sets us perhaps the most important target of all: the world must hit net zero emissions by mid-century if we are to stand a good chance of avoiding the worst impacts of global warming.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Hopkin, Section Editor: Energy + Environment, The Conversation

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report today on the impacts of global warming of 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels.

The report outlines the considerable challenges of meeting the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃, the global effort needed to achieve the target, and the consequences of not.

The highlights of the report are presented below:

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandy Stefanakis, Sessional lecturer in music education, Deakin University

Review: 16 Lovers Lane, Melbourne Festival.

The Go-Betweens’ 1988 album, 16 Lovers Lane, was a bit of a sleeper when released. Over time, however, it has achieved critical acclaim to the point where the song Streets of Your Town was placed first in a recent Songs of Brisbane poll conducted by The Guardian.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the album’s release, members of the band have been performing its finely crafted songs in some of Australia’s major cities. On stage in Melbourne, original group members Lindy Morrison, Amanda Brown and John Willsteed were joined by Dan Kelly, Danny Widdicombe and Luke Daniel Peacock.

The presence of some of our very finest songwriters as special guests at this event – including Jen Cloher, Paul Kelly, Dave Graney and Laura Jean – was homage to the regard in which the band’s writers, Robert Forster and the late Grant McLennan, are held. Indeed Paul Kelly spoke about how he had “mined” the duo’s ideas as much as he could. In other fields, such a confession might be regarded with outrage, but for musicians, providing inspiration for others is the highest accolade one can receive.

Still, the role of the instrumentalists, the incredible constancy of Morrison’s drumming, the multi-instrumental and vocal work of Brown and the fine guitar playing of Willsteed contributed equally to the Go-Betweens’ unique style. Although many describe their work as epitomising the sound of the 1980s, it was always idiosyncratic, with its mix of poetic lyrics and folk/rock sound combined with the vocal edginess spawned by such bands as Talking Heads.

This concert provided an opportunity for greater vocal clarity, allowing the sentiments of song narratives to come to the fore. The impact was heightened by the detailed attention to the instrumental arrangements of each song.

Jen Cloher spoke about her own band’s performance of Love Goes On in various parts of the world where it is often recognised and instantly embraced. it opened the concert and Cloher’s vocal richness combined with the fullness of the band, set the scene for a warm, nostalgic experience.

Rob Snarski sang the haunting Quiet Heart and Danny Widdicombe’s beautiful clean lead sound was a standout, as was Snarski’s brief improvisation on mouth organ.

There was something exquisite about Paul Kelly interpreting my favourite song on the album, Was There Anything I Could Do? The lyrics are about a partner who takes off, exploring the world, taking some life punts and engaging in a range of belief systems, while her lover wonders what could have been done to discourage this adventurousness. The answer, of course, is “zip”. Amanda Brown’s fabulous violin forays into the wilderness in response to Kelly’s voice of yearning attested to this fact. It was a lovely interplay.

Not only were most participants in this feast of an evening songwriters, but many, were also multi-instrumentalists. Laura Jean, like Amanda Brown, is classically trained and plays an array of instruments. She sang Streets of Your Town. The music is up-tempo and has a cyclic feel to it. The shades of lyrical darkness – of battered wives and butcher’s knives get lost in the optimism of the music. Laura’s vocal interpretation was strong and John Willsteed’s intricate acoustic guitar work a standout.

At the time the album was being written, McLennan’s relationship with Brown was ardent and many of his songs explore his feelings. Brown was the subject of The Devil’s Eye, a beautiful love song about being separated by distance. It was poignantly sung at the concert by Brown, and backed with simple, largely acoustic accompaniment sans drums and bass. Dan Kelly and Luke Daniel Peacock, as with many of the performances, worked wonders with finely balanced vocal harmonies.

Romy Vager and Rob Snarski’s collaboration on Apology Accepted, with fabulous steel pedal guitar and violin was also a standout. And Dave Graney has a voice which has a greater similarity to Forster’s than others performing, which he used truly on Dive for Your Memory. Clare Moore supported on vibes while Brown reproduced the distinctive oboe riff resplendent on the original.

Though Cattle and Cane is not on the 16 Lovers Lane album, it is a pivotal Go-Betweens song. It is also a deceptively difficult song, but was interpreted superbly by Alex Gow. The sustained complex rhythm demanding so much of Morrison on drums was highly memorable.

The concert ended with John Willsteed taking a photo of the audience who stood as one to applaud the musicians.

16 Lovers Lane was staged as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Laurenceson, Deputy Director and Professor, Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI), University of Technology Sydney

This article is part of our series of explainers on key moments in the past 100 years of world political history. In it, our authors examine how and why an event unfolded, its impact at the time, and its relevance to politics today.

By orchestrating China’s transition to a market economy, Deng Xiaoping has left a lasting legacy on China and the world.

After becoming the leader of the Communist Party of China in 1978, following Mao Zedong’s death two years earlier, Deng launched a program of reform that ultimately saw China become the world’s largest economy in terms of its purchasing power in 2014.

Last year it accounted for 18.2% of total global purchasing power, compared with 15.3% for the United States.

What happened?

A major turning point was the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which took place in December 1978. For the three decades prior, production in China was structured around a central planning model: collectivised agriculture in rural areas and state-owned industrial firms (SOEs) in urban regions. The prices of goods and services were also fixed by the government rather than determined by supply and demand.

Deng recognised that the outcomes produced by the planned economy were poor, with more than 60% of the population living in poverty. That’s why he launched a series of measures such as opening up the economy to foreign trade and investment.

He summarised his distinctly pragmatic rather than ideological approach to development with the phrase, “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice”.

Under Deng, the market wasn’t given free rein immediately. There was no reform of the “big bang” variety seen in former centrally-planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe.

Rather, in the words of Barry Naughton, China’s economy was simply allowed to “grow out of the plan”.

For example, state-owned firms were not sold off to private entrepreneurs at the outset. Rather, privately-owned companies were permitted to emerge alongside SOEs. This gave Chinese consumers choices and the competition forced SOEs to become more responsive to market demand and efficient in their production practices.

The impact of the reforms

The outcomes of Deng’s reforms have been without historical peer.

The latest data put the proportion of China’s population living in poverty at less than 1%. Of course, despite hundreds of millions being lifted out of poverty, this does not mean that all Chinese are rich: average incomes are still only around one-third of those in Australia.

The reasons Deng’s reforms proved successful can be traced back to two key factors.

The first is policy logic.

John McMillan and Barry Naughton showed that the newly-emerged private sector played a crucial role in improving the Chinese economy’s overall efficiency.

Another key consideration was that China benefited from its starting point.

Jeffrey Sachs and Wing Thye Woo pointed out that in 1978, most Chinese people were poor and living in rural areas. Compared with other centrally-planned economies such as the former Soviet Union, this made the task of shifting labour from producing low-productivity agricultural output to higher productivity industrial goods easier.

Just how far along the path to a market economy has China come?

That depends on the measure and the part of China’s economy under focus.

Last month, Meixin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in the United States, pointed to China’s state sector as evidence its economic growth would slow. He wrote that China’s economy was “nowhere near as efficient as that of the US”. And the “main reason for this is the enduring clout of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which consume half of the country’s total bank credit, but contribute only 20% of value-added and employment”.

Yet, perhaps unwittingly, Pei makes an important observation. SOEs may account for one-fifth of China’s value-added output and employment. But that means four-fifths now comes from Deng’s private sector.

Contemporary relevance

Careful work by Nicholas Lardy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics has concluded that by 2011, China’s public sector, including SOEs, only employed 11% of China’s labour force. As a comparison, in 2013, Australia’s public sector accounted for 18.4% of total employment. In other words, at an aggregate level and in terms of employment, the private sector is more prominent in China than in Australia.

An OECD study in 2010 found that 87% of China’s 523 industrial sectors were highly competitive. They observed that this compared favourably with international standards, including with the US.

Commentators like Minxin Pei are correct that China’s SOEs do benefit from government policy support, such as cheap loans from state-owned banks.

But the data nonetheless point to China’s private sector being hyper-competitive in the sense that despite such discriminatory policies, the sector as a whole has continued to thrive.

In a 2016 paper for a Reserve Bank of Australia conference, Nicholas Lardy highlighted that in terms of output growth, profitability and indebtedness, private Chinese industrial firms outperform SOEs by a wide margin.

The prominent and vibrant role the private sector plays in China today means that its economic growth may be more sustainable than some of its critics imagine.

That said, the pace of economic reform has slowed under current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, who took over in 2012.

Arguably the slowdown dates back even further. For example, in terms of subjecting Chinese firms to increased competition from overseas firms, China’s trade-weighted average tariff in 2000 stood at 14.7%. After entering the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, this fell dramatically to 4.7% by 2005. Since then, no further progress has been made. In fact, in 2016 the figure was higher at 5.2%.

Similarly, four decades after Deng began to allow foreign investment into the manufacturing sector, other parts of China’s economy, particularly the so-called “commanding heights” of the economy such as energy, telecommunication and finance, remain curtailed or off limits entirely. Overall, China is less open to foreign investment than high-income countries and many emerging markets as well.

This lack of reciprocity is at least partly responsible for much of the international community’s criticisms of China’s economy today. Jason Young, the Director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre wrote last week that the current US-China trade war is really a “dispute over what models of political economy are deemed fair and legitimate economic policy-making in today’s highly-integrated global economy”.

Over the past decade, around one-third of the world’s economic growth has emanated from China. Countries like Australia have been leading beneficiaries, with China buying $116 billion last year.

China’s economic growth, and therefore the world’s, will be more assured if Deng’s reform legacy is reclaimed by China’s current crop of leaders. Just announced tariffs cuts and new openings for foreign investment are steps in that direction.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katina Michael, Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society & School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University

New laws enacted in New Zealand this month give border agents the right to demand travellers entering the country hand over passwords for their digital devices. We outline what you should do if it happens to you, in the first part of a series exploring how technology is changing tourism.

Imagine returning home to Australia or New Zealand after a long-haul flight, exhausted and red-eyed. You’ve just reclaimed your baggage after getting through immigration when you’re stopped by a customs officer who demands you hand over your smartphone and the password. Do you know your rights?

Both Australian and New Zealand customs officers are legally allowed to search not only your personal baggage, but also the contents of your smartphone, tablet or laptop. It doesn’t matter whether you are a citizen or visitor, or whether you’re crossing a border by air, land or sea.

Read more: How to protect your private data when you travel to the United States

New laws that came into effect in New Zealand on October 1 give border agents:

…the power to make a full search of a stored value instrument (including power to require a user of the instrument to provide access information and other information or assistance that is reasonable and necessary to allow a person to access the instrument).

Those who don’t comply could face prosecution and NZ$5,000 in fines. Border agents have similar powers in Australia and elsewhere. In Canada, for example, hindering or obstructing a border guard could cost you up to C$50,000 or five years in prison.

A growing trend

Australia and New Zealand don’t currently publish data on these kinds of searches, but there is a growing trend of device search and seizure at US borders. There was a more than fivefold increase in the number of electronic device inspections between 2015 and 2016 – bringing the total number to 23,000 per year. In the first six months of 2017, the number of searches was already almost 15,000.

In some of these instances, people have been threatened with arrest if they didn’t hand over passwords. Others have been charged. In cases where they did comply, people have lost sight of their device for a short period, or devices were confiscated and returned days or weeks later.

Read more: Encrypted smartphones secure your identity, not just your data

On top of device searches, there is also canvassing of social media accounts. In 2016, the United States introduced an additional question on online visa application forms, asking people to divulge social media usernames. As this form is usually filled out after the flights have been booked, travellers might feel they have no choice but to part with this information rather than risk being denied a visa, despite the question being optional.

There is little oversight

Border agents may have a legitimate reason to search an incoming passenger – for instance, if a passenger is suspected of carrying illicit goods, banned items, or agricultural products from abroad.

But searching a smartphone is different from searching luggage. Our smartphones carry our innermost thoughts, intimate pictures, sensitive workplace documents, and private messages.

The practice of searching electronic devices at borders could be compared to police having the right to intercept private communications. But in such cases in Australia, police require a warrant to conduct the intercept. That means there is oversight, and a mechanism in place to guard against abuse. And the suspected crime must be proportionate to the action taken by law enforcement.

What to do if it happens to you

If you’re stopped at a border and asked to hand over your devices and passwords, make sure you have educated yourself in advance about your rights in the country you’re entering.

Find out whether what you are being asked is optional or not. Just because someone in a uniform asks you to do something, it does not necessarily mean you have to comply. If you’re not sure about your rights, ask to speak to a lawyer and don’t say anything that might incriminate you. Keep your cool and don’t argue with the customs officer.

Read more: How secure is your data when it’s stored in the cloud?

You should also be smart about how you manage your data generally. You may wish to switch on two-factor authentication, which requires a password on top of your passcode. And store sensitive information in the cloud on a secure European server while you are travelling, accessing it only on a needs basis. Data protection is taken more seriously in the European Union as a result of the recently enacted General Data Protection Regulation.

Microsoft, Apple and Google all indicate that handing over a password to one of their apps or devices is in breach of their services agreement, privacy management, and safety practices. That doesn’t mean it’s wise to refuse to comply with border force officials, but it does raise questions about the position governments are putting travellers in when they ask for this kind of information.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kwadwo Adusei-Asante, Senior Lecturer, Edith Cowan University

Recent episodes of violence among Australian youth of African descent have been a topic of mounting concern for politicians, the police and African communities alike.

The Australian public is divided on the issue. Some believe these violent acts are isolated cases that are being hyped by the media to create moral panic. Others argue that authorities are downplaying concerns over so-called “African gangs” and question the integration of all African migrants in Australia.

According to ABS data, Sudanese people have the highest imprisonment rate per capita of any ethnic group in Australia. But incarceration has not been an effective deterrent in reducing crime – many young people reoffend after returning to the community as they lack relevant support systems and opportunities to reintegrate.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has proposed a more radical solution to the problem – deporting criminal offenders. Some parents and guardians have resorted to sending their children back to Africa to keep them out of trouble.

A new peer-oriented approach

But there may be another, less drastic way forward – peer mentoring.

Peer mentoring is considered an effective vehicle for communicating values to young people as they are more apt to listen and learn from like-minded youths in their communities rather than authority figures.

In 2017, the non-profit Organisation of African Communities of Western Australia (OAC-WA) launched the Stop the Violence Project (STVP), whose mission is to identify youths in the African community at risk of committing crimes and match them with peer mentors who can steer them out of trouble.

Read more: Why the media are to blame for racialising Melbourne’s ‘African gang’ problem

The program is being implemented in two phases. Phase One was dedicated to training 18 young Africans between the ages of 18 and 29 to become peer mentors.

This training involved a six-month program where they learned about WA criminal law, conflict resolution, the importance of self-esteem and identity, the history of African migration to Australia, the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse, financial management, the value of formal education and leadership skills.

The program is now in Phase Two, which involves the mentors going out to their respective communities to share violence prevention and conflict resolution techniques. A second batch of mentors is currently being recruited, as well.

Cultural differences revealed

Edith Cowan University has designed an evaluative case study to examine the impact of the program. In the first part of the study, focus groups have been conducted with program facilitators and mentors before and after their training.

The discussions have so far focused on the nature of violence committed by African youths, the impact the program has had on the mentors’ lives and the readiness of the mentors to engage with their peers.

The study identified three main forms of violence occurring among African youth: inter-African country violence (for example, conflicts between sporting clubs of different African countries at sporting events); inter-ethnic or tribal conflict; and fights between groups over specific territory in their communities.

Read more: Sudanese heritage youth in Australia are frequently maligned by fear-mongering and racism

This helped the mentors understand the dynamics underpinning violence in their communities and develop more effective strategies for combating it.

The focus groups also revealed that many mentors were themselves unaware what types of behaviours constituted a crime in Australia. As a couple of the mentors explained to us:

I didn’t know that touching a person could be a crime and the law is against it … back home, we touch people freely … but it’s not OK here.

I knew about resolving conflict, but I would do it my own way, which usually involved the use of force. But the facilitators … explained them systematically in a way that made sense and is very applicable to us. I have learned that before violence breaks out, it goes through stages before escalating into aggression.

The mentors are now beginning their outreach into their communities. The impact of the mentoring on their peers will be evaluated, particularly where the peers are under 18.

Some of the mentors are organising seminars and workshops for their peers, at times also including their parents, the WA police and other community organisations. One mentor has launched cultural dance sessions as a way of keeping young people off the streets, while another is running a support program for African youths who have returned from detention, to help them reintegrate into the community.

Overall, the mentors report that they feel better equipped now to relate with their peers, recognise when an innocuous argument is likely to lead to violence and deescalate tensions when they do arise.

At first when I see violence about to start or people arguing I was confused and didn’t know what to do. But I have learned techniques to calm them down.

A positive impact in other communities

Peer mentoring programs have proven effective in preventing youth violence in other countries. According to one survey, at-risk youths who took part in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program in the US were 32% less likely to hit another person, 46% less likely to start using drugs, and 27% less likely to start drinking alcohol. The program also showed other benefits, such as better school attendance and improved relationships with parents.

Another study looking at a Youth Inclusion Program in the UK found a 62% decrease in arrest rates and a 27% reduction in suspensions from school among a test group of 50 at-risk youths.

Our hope is the Stop the Violence project can achieve similar positive outcomes in Perth and perhaps be replicated in other communities in Australia. This depends, of course, on the outcome of the pilot program and the continued support from the community and funding from the government.

Our findings so far suggest we are on the right track, and Australian youth of African descent will be far better at communicating positive conflict resolution to their communities than tough-on-crime politicians.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Avery, PhD Student, University of Technology Sydney

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) began a full national rollout in July 2016 with a fundamental objective to give those with a disability choice and control over their daily lives. Participants can use funds to purchase services that reflect their lifestyle and aspirations. Two years on, how is the scheme faring?

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with severe disability face many barriers to fully accessing the support offered by the NDIS. This group of people has already experienced long-standing isolation and are particularly vulnerable to being left behind, again.

The prevalence of disability among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is twice that experienced by other Australians. It is more complex in terms of more than one disability or health issue occurring together, and it is compressed within a shorter life expectancy.

The latest NDIS quarterly report states 9,255 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are participating in the NDIS (roughly 5.4% of the total). Though, being a “participant” means they have been signed up to an insurance policy. It doesn’t necessarily mean the policy has been paid out. And many others aren’t on the scheme at all.

There are an estimated 60,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia with a severe or profound disability. In 2014-15, around 45% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 years and over said they experienced disability – 7.7% of whom needed assistance with core activities some or all of the time.

My recent research shows Indigenous people who live with disability experience far greater inequality when it comes to social, health and well-being, compared to other population groups. This includes Indigenous people without disability, and people with disability who are not Indigenous.

Read more: Understanding the NDIS: the scheme does not yet address all the needs of Indigenous people with disabilities

Many struggle with basic survival needs

My research consisted of statistical data and the personal testimonies of 47 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability. It showed the NDIS isn’t accommodating the unique needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability.

People in one Aboriginal community said while the NDIS was providing support packages – in some cases at around A$50,000 per person per year – these were not translating into actual expenditure as there weren’t any disability services in the community that NDIS participants could purchase.

Members from another Aboriginal community pointed out that some families needed food and blankets because they were homeless and hungry. But while the NDIS is legislated to provide “reasonable and necessary” supports, food and blankets don’t meet the requirements of the definition. As one Aboriginal community Elder said:

Swags and blankets are something that our families ask for all the time, help with making sure that they’ve got somewhere warm and safe to sleep, and that’s a real practical thing […] And now the NDIS is saying ‘No, we don’t buy swags and blankets for people. That’s not reasonable and necessary’. But if you’ve got nowhere to sleep, of course blankets and swags are necessary.

In another community, wheelchairs provided to people with a mobility impairment weren’t suitable for an environment with no footpaths and where the heat can sometimes melt away the tyres.

This image shows what happens when a wheelchair designed for an urban environment is used in remote Australia.

We also spoke with people who said the houses built for them under a remote housing scheme didn’t have disability access in mind. In the Aboriginal community where the below photo was taken, we were told if people with disability came over, they would have to be lifted over a ledge and around the house so they could join in.

These cases highlight an unfolding design fault of the NDIS: if a person with a disability doesn’t have survival basics, the scheme falls short in its capacity to ensure the choice, control and independence it was set up to achieve for people with disability.

Read more: The NDIS is delivering ‘reasonable and necessary’ supports for some, but others are missing out

Social policies must work together

Proponents of the NDIS might point out it is designed as an insurance scheme and not intended to provide welfare. Basics such as blankets and food would be more the purview of the Closing the Gap framework to address Indigenous disadvantage.

But the NDIS and Closing the Gap live on two separate government islands, with no bridge in between. The NDIS is a market-based scheme devoid of a strategy that fills the gaps in basic public structure that make markets work. Nor does it have a plan to develop a workforce to meet the demand for disability services in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Meanwhile, despite the link between disability and social inequality, there is no reference to disability in any of the Closing the Gap targets.

Addressing the core public infrastructure needed to make the NDIS work in remote communities, or developing the workforce to meet the demand for disability supports in the hard-to-reach markets are not quick fixes. We need a longer term strategic approach that focuses on community development to overcome the sustained inequality that comes with being both Aboriginal and living with disability.

Read more: How to improve the NDIS for people who have an intellectual disability as well as a mental illness

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeleine De Gabriele, Deputy Editor: Energy + Environment

Australia has just had its driest September on record, and the second driest month ever: the only drier month was April 1902.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s tropical cyclone outlook is out today. It’s predicting a weaker-than-normal tropical cyclone season this year but if one hits – and it’s likely one will – it’ll bring water to rain-starved soil that will soak it up and reduce the flooding risk.

Read more: Lessons not learned: Darwin’s paying the price after Cyclone Marcus

Wes Mountain speaks to forecaster Andrew Watkins, who explains how the forecast works, why a cyclone could help some farms, and how to keep safe this cyclone season.

We’ve never gone through a tropical cyclone season without at least one hitting our coast, but Australia’s past may no longer be a reliable guide to our future.

In her book Sunburnt Country: the history and future of climate change in Australia, scientist Joelle Gergis maps Australia’s climate over thousands of years. While we’ve always been a land of extremes, rapid warming since 1950 is starting to alter our weather patterns.

Read more: Australia’s 2017 environment scorecard: like a broken record, high temperatures further stress our ecosystems

Dr Gergis told Madeleine De Gabriele about creating the most comprehensive history of Australia’s climate ever, and why she still has hope for the future.

Credits

Free Music Archive: Podington Bear, Clouds, Rain, Sun

ABC: Morrison talks drought relief on first day as PM

Free Music Archive: Blue Dot Sessions – El Tajo

Free Music Archive: Blue Dot Sessions – Arizona Moon

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda Simon, Teacher in adult and vocational education, Charles Sturt University

This article is part of a series on the Future of VET exploring issues within the sector and how to overcome the decline in enrolments and shortages of qualified people in vocational jobs. Read the other articles in the series here.

In 1974, a review of the VET sector set out an agenda for the future of the vocational education and training sector. It emphasised education and social inclusion in work as key functions of the sector, rather than mainly its “manpower role”.

In the ensuing decades, this emphasis has been overturned. The vocational education and training system of today is industry-led. It is funded primarily to achieve employment outcomes.

Read more: What Australia can learn from England’s plan for vocational education

VET’s role in skill development and educating those who engage in the range of occupations that contribute to Australia’s economy is critical. But we also need to strongly support the role VET plays in getting disadvantaged groups into education and work.

Previous social inclusion policies

Social inclusion in this case reflects the federal government’s social inclusion principles, established in 2010. These were created to ensure people have the resources, opportunities and capabilities they need to learn, work and have a voice.

Social inclusion initiatives are designed for groups generally identified as possibly experiencing disadvantage, who require extra support to succeed in education and work. Students with a disability, students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD), Indigenous students and students from low SES backgrounds, women, and people from rural, regional or remote locations or communities are among those who might need this support.

The then Labor government established a National VET Equity Advisory Council (NVEAC) in 2009. Its task was to provide training ministers with advice on how to reform VET to ensure disadvantaged students achieved improved outcomes from participating in VET. Such outcomes include securing a job or further study.

NVEAC drafted the Equity Blueprint in 2011. This set out the advisory committee’s advice to ministers on what reforms were needed to ensure the VET system could support all learners to achieve their potential, no matter what their circumstances.

These reforms were designed to be long-term, as system-wide reform takes time. Suggested reforms included:

• a new, more sustainable funding model for VET (including increased federal investment)
• measuring and reporting on disadvantaged students’ progress and achievement to keep providers accountable
• a national framework for building the capability of VET teachers to better train and support all students
• listening to the voice of the learner so their actual needs and concerns would be addressed, including types of courses on offer, facilities and how they learn
• investment in teaching foundation skills (such as literacy and numeracy) as a priority, and to do it better
• embedding career, pathway and transition planning and advice into the VET and school systems to better support students into employment.

Unfortunately, the Equity Blueprint was not implemented. With a change of government in 2013, NVEAC was disbanded.

Where are we now?

The VET sector has been increasingly marketised. This marketisation is seen in cuts to government funding of VET and the shifting of responsibility for funding post-school vocational education onto students.

Read more: Changes to VET might be good for business, but not for students

VET providers including TAFE, which has traditionally provided programs to meet the specific needs of disadvantaged groups, have increasingly cut access and Certificate I and II courses. It’s these low-level courses that can provide the initial skills and confidence needed to enter the workforce or to progress to an industry-recognised qualification.

Despite some acknowledgement by state and territory governments in their annual planning documents that there’s still a role for VET in meeting its obligation to equity and community service, funding has not fully reflected this. When restructures of the system are designed and money is tight, equity programs are often the first on the chopping block.

For example, the current restructure of TAFE NSW has cut many of the educationally qualified staff who designed and delivered outreach and support programs for students. This has meant reducing numbers of specialist staff for culturally and linguistically diverse students and those with disabilities.

Outreach programs provide opportunities for students to undertake relevant courses in their communities. This addresses both student and community needs.

Equity groups left out

National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) figures show a decline in the participation of several equity groups in recent years. They include people from remote and very remote areas, those in the most socio-economically disadvantaged group, female students and students in the youngest age group (15 to 19).

The fact many of these equity groups were targeted in the VET FEE-HELP scandals has possibly also undermined confidence in a VET pathway for these students.

Disadvantage often reaches into many aspects of a learner’s life, and that needs to be recognised and understood. Understanding issues around motivation to learn and social disadvantage is necessary.

Read more: To fix higher education funding, we also need to fix vocational education

How motivated a student is informs how much time and effort they put into their study. Factors such as low socio-economic status, language barriers or hurdles, and competing responsibilities at home can have negative effects on motivation to learn.

An NCVER study identified five effective strategies for supporting learners who become disengaged from study:

1. address the overall barriers and challenges experienced by students, which might include home life and socio-economic concerns as well as learning issues

2. provide appropriate teaching that meets students’ specific needs, such as team teaching with professionals who have tertiary qualifications as well as experience in literacy and numeracy, or giving students additional support while studying a vocational course

3. be flexible in the delivery of programs such as outreach programs so they’re delivered where students feel most comfortable, in community settings and at times that meet their parental and caring responsibilities

4. offer ongoing support beyond VET, which might include counselling, careers advice and further training in foundation skills

5. provide students with pathways to further study and/or work through VET providers, government agencies and community groups working together.

What needs to happen now

While VET has the capacity to offer socially inclusive educational programs, for successful and sustainable outcomes the training provider must also be able to work with other agencies supporting learners. A VET course is not the end of the journey. Government agencies and community groups can provide funding to ensure the VET qualification leads to meaningful work.

Read more: Victorian TAFE chaos: a lesson in how not to reform vocational education

But success for many students is not just measured through completions and attainment of a qualification or job. When we talk about success here, it’s more in terms of less tangible outcomes such as building confidence, self-respect, life skills and engagement with their communities.

To rebuild this role, VET needs sustainable investment. Supporting disadvantaged learners is successful when it’s an institution-wide commitment.

Such support requires the commitment of all levels of government, not only to ensure VET retains this capacity, but so there’s an obligation of social inclusion that goes beyond the classroom. It should also build strong relationships with employers and communities.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer in Australian Studies, Flinders University

A major thematic exhibition showcasing more than 280 film stills, costumes and casting books is on display in Adelaide. Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits, co-curated by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery, encompasses more than a century of Australian film making.

This exhibition acts as an awakening force, occasioning reflective thought, with films like Caddie (1976), My Brilliant Career (1979), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), The Wog Boy (2000), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), Ten Canoes (2006) and The Sapphires (2012) signalling significant historical changes caused by catastrophic events and/or major socio-cultural attitudinal shifts.

The headshots and stills in Starstruck act as mnemonics for moments in Australian history. As Hayden White has written, “The historical evidence produced by our epoch is often as much visual as it is oral and written in nature.”

These film stills testify to a century that includes massive rupture (the two World Wars), and other more gradual changes (for example, the continuing impact of migration in Australia and mainstream Australian acceptance of the harsh reality of the Stolen Generations).

Others are testament to continuing social and ideological contestations: the snakes and ladders progressive/regressive nature of Australian feminism from the 1970s until now, and the more recent, often toxic, exchanges a propos of gay marriage, not to mention the ever burgeoning celebrity culture that focuses on “stars”, successively held up as social exemplars, then routinely cut down as tall poppies.

Also on show in a darkened gallery space at the Samstag Museum is Rolf de Heer and Molly Reynolds’s sombre moving image work, The Waiting Room. It’s fitting that these two exhibitions are being showcased in Adelaide, where the South Australian Film Corporation was established in 1972 by the visionary Dunstan government. Since then, the corporation has acted as a catalyst by commissioning numerous film productions while developing a solid infrastructure (some of which has since been dismantled) to underpin the Australian film industry’s ongoing vigour.

Early works

Significant early works in the exhibition include a 1919 still from The Sentimental Bloke, a silent film based on what Phillip Butterss has described as “C.J. Dennis’s verse narrative about a larrikin street-fighter and his nervous courtship of Doreen, a young woman who pastes labels in a pickle factory. It’s still the best-selling book of Australian verse. Since its publication in October 1915 more than 300,000 copies have been sold in upward of 60 editions.”

As both book and film, The Sentimental Bloke offers a biting commentary on class in Australia. Given the Bloke’s historical – and continuing – significance, it’s surprising that it’s only represented by a single image in this exhibition.

Among other important early works is a photographic portrait of the Sydney-born actress Louise Lovely (1895-1980), who is recognised as the first Australian woman to forge an international acting career in the United States, later reigniting it in Australia.

Lovers and Luggers (1937), which focused on the pearling industry, and was filmed on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, became famous owing to the glamorous Shirley Ann Richards’s portrayal of a sometime-androgynous vamp.

This is immortalised in an extraordinary movie still in which she’s wearing a man’s safari suit while somehow also managing to strike a provocatively seductive pose.

The actor Chips Rafferty meanwhile, found his service in the RAAF reinforced his stature as a film star when in 1940 he had the leading role in Forty Thousand Horsemen. Revered not only as an actor, he came to be regarded as an archetypal figure of white Australian masculinity. This was well before the later incarnations of Jack Thompson and Paul Hogan.

Our more recent past

In 1989, a young Nicole Kidman launched her career in the Phil Noyce thriller Dead Calm, a gripping psychodrama that largely takes place aboard a yacht. In this film, Kidman really had to act, displaying naked emotion and vulnerability, while gradually building her character to the point where she taps into an inner strength enabling her to take on her murderous, psychotic persecutor.

Kidman’s hardened stare, along with the defiant posture she’s assumed in Sheldon’s photograph, hand clasping a harpoon, evince the young woman’s convincing transition.

The year 1994 saw the emergence of two films that have become Australian classics: Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Both films struck a chord with Australians, unselfconsciously using Aussie humour as a magnet and a weapon. A photograph in the show of Hugo Weaving as Mitzi in Priscilla captures a moment expressed succinctly by Bernadette (Terence Stamp) in conversation with Felicia (Guy Pearce): “That’s just what this country needs: a cock in a frock on a rock.”

Where was I when…?

The photographic stills of more recent films act as an evocative force at the individual level (“What was happening in my life at the time I saw Rabbit-Proof Fence? and/or “Who accompanied me to that film?”). These images are also conduits for broader sociopolitical enquiry and reflection on Australia’s national history (“Did that film change my views on post-contact Aboriginal history?”), affording greater visibility to subjugated groups.

Certain directors and actors have also played significant roles in that national awakening and ensuing discussion, for example Gulpilil, Deborah Mailman, Judy Davis, Hugo Weaving, Raymond Longford, the Chauvels, Bruce Beresford, Gillian Armstrong, Nick Giannopoulos, Rachel Perkins, Scott Hicks, Wayne Blair, Jennifer Kent and others. The contemporary pantheon of Aboriginal, women, migrant and LGBTIQ directors and actors attest to this.

Many of the stills on display in Starstruck are photographs taken by Australia’s greatest photographers, including Robert McFarlane and Lisa Tomasetti.

Also on display is Matt Nettheim’s fine portrait of Geoffrey Rush as Sir Basil Hunter in the Fred Shepisi-directed film based on Patrick White’s novel, The Eye of the Storm. The long, patrician face of Hunter/Rush, wearing a ruminative expression, is brilliantly juxtaposed against the crass happy-smiley face of the entrance to Sydney’s Lunar Park.

A hanging offence?

My only two beefs with Starstruck – a marvellous exhibition in many respects – are with “the hang” and absence of even a rudimentary chronology. Many of the photographic exhibits are exhibited too closely to one another, to some extent denying the integrity of the individual images – which are in themselves works of art. It must be said that this is a result of the curatorial approach taken by the Canberran curators, and not down to the Samstag Museum.

The crowded nature of the works on display is a minor criticism, however, in comparison with the fact that the curators have taken a thematic approach that’s largely ahistorical. While the works in Starstruck are loosely grouped into rather porous thematic categories, there’s no real attempt to establish a chronology. Some viewers – including this one – will regard this as an opportunity lost.

But prospective visitors should be undeterred by this. Starstruck is a marvellous exhibition offering a form of visual ethnography attesting to the dramatic transformations that have taken place in Australian society over the past century.

Accompanying Starstruck at the Samstag is Molly Reynolds and Rolf de Heer’s The Waiting Room, a virtual reality installation. The Waiting Room – a meditation on the fragile state of planet earth – presents a significant counterpoint to Starstruck’s anthropocentric preoccupations. While at one level it’s an elegant, lyrical piece, it offers a dark prognosis for the future, declaring homo sapiens to be the ultimate villain of the piece. The Waiting Room is a work for our times.

Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits and The Waiting Room continue until Friday 30th November 2018, at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, Hawke Building, City West precinct, University of South Australia. Entry is free.