The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hadeel Al-Alosi, Lecturer, School of Law, Western Sydney University

Last December, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made public its final report, containing 409 recommendations. The inquiry revealed that there were numerous instances where senior officials in churches failed to report allegations of child sexual abuse while in their care.

Since then, there have been steps forward. For example, on July 1, the National Redress Scheme was established to support people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse.

What has been particularly controversial is recommendation 7.4, which states:

Laws concerning mandatory reporting to child protection authorities should not exempt persons in religious ministry from being required to report knowledge or suspicions formed, in whole or in part, on the basis of information disclosed in or in connection with a religious confession.

The conflict between the rules of the Catholic Church on the confidentiality of confessions and mandatory reporting laws is not a new issue. These laws require people from selected professions (known as “mandatory reporters”) to report suspected child abuse to government authorities. However, recommendation 7.4 has recently reignited the debate.

Read more: New laws help juries understand why victims of sexual violence struggle to recall their assaults

Australian state and territory governments are responsible for mandatory reporting laws. They have shown an intention to introduce laws that would give effect to the Royal Commission’s recommendation. If introduced, these laws would result in priests facing criminal charges if they fail to report child abuse disclosed in confession.

On 1 October, South Australia will become the first Australian jurisdiction to introduce a law compelling a “minister of religion” to report any confessions of child sexual abuse.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has argued the “safety of children should always be put first”.

However, Catholic priests argue that such laws would not “make children any safer”. They maintain that the proposed laws are “contrary to their faith and would hamper religious liberty”. Some priests are apparently “willing to go to jail” rather than break the seal.

The seal of confession

The seal of confession, also known as the “sacrament of penance” or “sacrament of reconciliation”, is fundamental to the Catholic faith. Sinners can ask for forgiveness for their sins, allowing them to “reconcile with God and the Church”. It is usually done in the confessional box in a church. The seal applies only to communications made during sacramental confession to a priest.

Canon law forbids priests from disclosing a confession. It declares:

The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

A priest who violates the confessional faces ex-communication, which is the most severe form of punishment in the Catholic faith.

While maintaining the confessional seal is “inviolable” within the Catholic Church, there is no obligation on Australia’s secular society to recognise canon law.

Religious privilege

The most recent census shows that Australia is a secular and multi-faith society. Yet, some laws in Australia continue to provide an exception for religious organisations.

For example, section 127 of the Commonwealth Evidence Act 1995 confers a privilege for religious confessions. It entitles members of the clergy to “refuse to divulge” a religious confession, but only if the confession was not made for a criminal purpose. Evidence laws in most Australian jurisdictions also protect religious confession privilege.

The privilege conferred on religious organisations would be significantly limited if recommendation 7.4 is adopted.

The religious freedom argument

Central to the debate has been that protecting the seal of confession is part of religious freedom. Priests who oppose the proposed law have argued that denying the “confessional privilege would leave them in fear of surveillance and prosecution for their religion”.

Religious freedom is recognised under section 116 of the Constitution and by Australian courts.

Australia is also a party to a several international agreements that protect religious freedom, such as International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

However, rights are not absolute, especially where there are competing rights that seek to protect people from harm. Child sexual abuse is a horrific crime that violates children’s rights. No freedom of religion argument should prevail over the rights of children not to be abused.

What will ending the secrecy achieve?

Laws mandating priests to break the confessional seal by reporting child sexual abuse sound good in theory. However, we know what is good in theory does not always work in practice.

The practicality and effectiveness of laws removing the confessional seal are questionable. This is particularly so if religious leaders are refusing to abide such laws. Because the Catholic Church has accounted for the majority (61.8%) of sexual abuse allegations investigated by the Royal Commission, the proposed legislation seems futile without the support of their clergy.

It would be wishful thinking to believe child molesters would disclose their offending in confession if priests were legally obliged to break confidentiality.

Arguably, maintaining the seal might prevent molesters from committing further acts of sexual abuse. During the confession, a priest can encourage the abuser to seek psychiatric help or come forward to the police. Indeed, some priests claim they would deny absolution to those unwilling to seek treatment or counselling for their offending.

Yet, there is a significant risk that abusers will continue to offend if they are not reported to authorities.

According to Bishop Greg O’Kelly, child abuse confessions are uncommon. He reported that “no one had ever confessed it to him in his 46 years as a priest”. This is consistent with claims made by clergy to the Royal Commission.

Read more: Royal commission report makes preventing institutional sexual abuse a national responsibility

However, this conflicts with Dr Marie Keenan’s small-scale study, which was also referred to during the Royal Commission’s inquiry.

In this study, eight of nine of the priest participants admitted the confession box provided them with a “safe” place to confess sexual abusing children, resolve never to offend again, and seek forgiveness. Keenan observed that the secrecy and safety of the confessional space might have encouraged the abuse to continue.

We need to think outside the confessional box

The effectiveness of laws requiring priests to report child abuse in preventing future offending is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. But that is not an excuse for inaction.

We should pause and consider the implications of laws limiting the confessional seal. What would subjecting priests to criminal censure if they fail to report confessions of child abuse to the authorities accomplish? What is the lesser of the two evils: having no confession at all or having a confession with the prospect of priests guiding abusers to seek help?

Most importantly, it must be ensured that whatever is decided the situation is not made worse for victims, survivors and children in the care of institutions.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynsey Sutton, Teaching Fellow/Clinical nurse specialist, Victoria University of Wellington

We’ve known for a long time that certain patients in the intensive care unit recover faster and have better clinical outcomes if they receive enough nutrition.

Often, critically ill patients require tube feeding in order to get the nutrition and calories they need while receiving respiratory therapy and mechanical ventilation. However, many patients in the ICU have their feeding tubes taken out, and are encouraged to eat and drink, as soon as they no longer need this respiratory therapy.

Our research shows that more than half of patients in intensive care units don’t get enough nutrition because they eat less than a third of their meals. Of particular concern are patients who stay in intensive care for longer periods and whose nutritional intake remains poor even after they leave the ICU (and sometimes once home).

Read more: What hospital catering could learn from the prison system

Malnutrition in the ICU

Over the years, research has helped us understand some of the reasons (physiological and psychological) why ICU patients’ nutritional intake can be low.

In the initial stages of critical illness (when the patient is at their sickest), mechanical ventilation, sedation and a low level of consciousness mean that most patients need to receive nutrition continuously through a tube inserted through their nose and into the stomach. This is called Enteral Nutrition.

Research into how to improve nutrition in tube-fed patients is vast. However, despite improvements in feeding practices, malnutrition remains a problem for some patients in intensive care.

Fewer studies have focused on the nutritional intake of patients who do not have a breathing tube in place or who can “theoretically” eat and drink. We know that a reduced level of consciousness, poor appetite, taste changes, pain, poor sleep, anxiety, low mood, social isolation, routine changes and an inability to lift cutlery are common barriers.

Eating enough

The purpose of our research was to explore if oral nutritional intake was adequate in critically ill patients after removal of their feeding tubes. We also wanted to identify factors that contributed to patients poor oral intake. We conducted our research at an 18-bed general ICU for adults and children with a variety of serious conditions, post surgery or acute illness.

Of the 79 patients in the study, 54 (68%) were acute or emergency admissions and 25 (32%) were planned post-surgical admissions. The largest patient group had come to the ICU following heart surgery followed by patients with sepsis and primary respiratory conditions.

Only 38% of the patients were assessed as having adequate food intake, defined as eating two thirds or more of meals on a standard menu per day. Commonly, these patients experienced fewer complications post surgery, had short ICU stays of one or two days and were expected to have a routine, uncomplicated recovery.

The rest of the patient group (62%) did not manage to eat enough, with most of them taking only a third of the meals provided. These patients had a similar mix of medical and surgical conditions. Most were early in their ICU stay and were only there for one or two days before being discharged to a ward after an uncomplicated clinical trajectory.

We do not know at what point they started to take an adequate diet as there was limited follow-up post ICU. However, research has shown that this poor intake persists sometimes beyond seven days for a large proportion of post ICU patients. However much more research is needed into this aspect of nutrition post ICU.

More concerning was the finding for some ICU patients who were in intensive care for much longer (between six and 23 days) were classed as being complex, unwell, critically ill patients. This group had a very poor food intake that persisted all the way through their ICU stay and beyond, sometimes up until hospital discharge. This is concerning because these patient still need ongoing nutrition in order to recover from a prolonged ICU stay.

Long-term ICU patients

Such patients are typically classified as long-term. They have been very sick, often requiring multiple lifesaving therapies during their acute phase, but are stabilised, recovering and entering the rehabilitation phase. They are often in the ICU for more than five days and have been receiving enteral nutrition via their feeding tube.

However, our research shows that the tube was sometimes removed too early, coinciding with the removal of the breathing tube. Although this “milestone” signifies the patient is improving, their appetite can remain low for a long time afterwards. They also need ongoing nutrition to counter muscle wasting due to bed rest and to support rehabilitation. This is typically the end result of being acutely unwell, on a breathing machine and on bed rest for a prolonged period.

Unfortunately, this muscle weakness (which can be profound) and ongoing fatigue that long term patients experience, makes it incredibly challenging for them to move, or even pick up and hold cutlery. In our study, more than a quarter of the patients were physically unable to feed themselves and were reliant on a busy nursing staff to ensure they received meals.

Based on our research, we suggest ICU guidelines should include protocols on the transition to oral food. Each patient should be assessed whether they are physically able to feed themselves. For those with significant weakness, the removal of their feeding tube should be delayed until a minimum standard of oral intake is achieved.

Patients’ food intake should be monitored and documented, and ICU dietitians should be involved in assessing when a patient is ready to have their feeding tube removed. Patients in the ICU should also have nutritional drink supplements offered regularly in addition to an oral diet that is nutritious, delicious and appetising.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zoë Krupka, PhD Student, Faculty of Health Sciences, Lecturer, The Cairnmillar Institute, La Trobe University

In 1971, when I was four years old, my brother died of a congenital heart condition. Writing about this experience has prompted more responses than anything else I’ve ever written or spoken about. Untold and unheard stories appear in comments sections, strangers tell me cross-culturally consistent tales in the soft corners of conference rooms and speak about the siblings they’ve lost and how present the memories of them still are in their minds and hearts.

These stories all have one thing in common: a sense of being forgotten, left out of conversations about the dead, of rituals of mourning, and excluded from the respectful circle that is drawn around the bereaved.

Read more: Death and families – when ‘normal’ grief can last a lifetime

One of the reasons stories of sibling loss spark so much interest is that the research literature in the area is so sparse. We still know so little about what children who’ve lived through this kind of death need as they mourn.

While the quantitative literature has explored the profound negative lifelong physical and psychological health impacts of this kind of bereavement, so many social and familial factors contribute to these impairments that it’s hard to imagine how the figures would look if families and communities were better equipped to respond to grieving children.

Part of the picture of sibling loss is that it is compounded. Children not only lose their sibling, but also the parents they knew disappear at least for a time into profound grief. This can lead to the loss of the child’s position as they try to cope with the higher expectations on their shoulders.

Adding to this complexity, the small body of qualitative research into children’s experience of losing a sibling highlights a raft of social failures. Silence about the mechanics of death, family isolation and the persistent myth across many cultures that children bounce back from grief more easily than adults are some of the most salient.

Read more: Singing death: why music and grief go hand in hand

In this literature, grieving children tell us about what they wanted and didn’t get, and reading it provides some guidance on how to support bereaved siblings for anyone willing to listen. The following short list of suggestions is drawn directly from this qualitative literature.

Make genuine room for children in discussions

The evidence is very strong that grieving children of all ages need to be involved at every level in discussions about death and in the planning and performing of death rituals.

But, if we’re going to make room for them, we have to get across our own death material and be prepared to answer painful, graphic and profound existential questions about death and dying, such as:

Can you show me what a decomposing body looks like? Why are we going to burn my sister in her coffin? When will you die? And how? When will I die? Why do some people die while others keep on living? Why my brother and not someone else?

To tell the truths about death to children and to really include them in family and community meaning-making is to expose our culture’s myths of death and dying, whatever they are, to profound criticism and scrutiny. That is what we are being asked to do.

Accept that children’s grief is no different to ours

Sibling bereavement researcher Betty Davies’s participants spoke to her again and again about their need for the lifelong persistence of their grief to be understood.

They spoke of wanting the adults in their lives to accept that their grief is no different to ours, that they are never too young to feel loss and that just because they are children doesn’t make them any more resilient than grown-ups.

They are asking us to challenge the almost universal myth that children forget, and instead to stand with them in their bereavement rather than setting them apart to take solace in their imagined innocence.

Honour continuing bonds with the dead

Our siblings play a significant role in our development, and this helps to explain some of the reasons why we are so deeply impacted when a sibling dies.

We develop our self in relationship to others, and our siblings are a kind of mirror. When they die, we lose a relationship that provided an essential reflection of who we are and who we might become. Children whose sibling has died need to have a place for their ongoing thoughts, feelings and connection to the dead throughout their lives.

Read more: Grief rituals: what Australia can learn from the Day of the Dead

For children who never knew their dead sibling, this affirmation of their connection to the lost one has a different quality but is no less important. While for these children the links are not made up of memories of a relationship, they are important symbolic representations of the self through the lens of the grief that came before.

For both groups of children, those who knew their dead sibling and those who did not, stories about the lost child help to make sense of who they are and of their place in the world.

We can all play a part in making space for children whose sibling has died to bear the unbearable – by offering solace in the form of genuine inclusion and by breaking the silence that can turn pain into suffering.

Zoë Krupka is the author of Holding hands in the dark: Unburdening a child whose sibling has died, a chapter in Brothers and Sisters Coping with Loss and Grief, published in 2018 by Interactive Publications.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lily van Eeden, PhD Candidate in Human-Wildlife Conflict, University of Sydney

Farmers have struggled for millennia to protect their livestock from wolves, lions, bears, and other large carnivores. It’s expensive and time-consuming for farmers, governments and related agencies. Many current approaches have led to dramatic reductions or the complete loss of some apex predators from many regions of the globe.

Despite these substantial costs and their long history, we have remarkably little understanding of what methods best reduce livestock attacks.

A recent synthesis study, led by Lily van Eeden, Ann Eklund, Jennie Miller, and Adrian Treves with a total of 21 authors from 10 countries, found that there’s a worldwide dearth of rigorous experimental studies testing the effectiveness of interventions to protect livestock from carnivores.

Where studies do exist, results were mixed. Some management interventions did reduce livestock losses, some made little to no difference, and some resulted in increased livestock losses. This means that for some methods, farmers would be better off doing nothing at all than using them.

Poor evidence, poor outcomes

The scant evidence is cause for concern. Aside from financial waste, preventable livestock attacks cause economic, emotional, and social costs for farmers. And both livestock and carnivores may be left maimed and suffering by human failures to separate the two sets of animals.

Too often, studies and management programs measure success based on money spent or saved, numbers of community members who contributed, or carnivores killed. None of these factors necessarily mean livestock loss is prevented or reduced.

In fact, livestock owners, policy makers, and scientists should work together to build an evidence base and discover what works best to reduce attacks on livestock under different conditions.

What works and why

Where we found rigorous studies quantifying livestock loss, three methods were consistently effective: livestock guardian dogs, some kinds of fencing, and a deterrent called “fladry” (a Polish word for strips of cloth or plastic flagging hung at regular intervals along a rope or fence line).

Read more: Watching over livestock: our guardian animals

Livestock guardian dogs have been used successfully in Europe for centuries and are now seeing a revival elsewhere, including in North America and Africa.

Livestock guardian dog breeds, such as Maremma and Komondor, are typically much larger than herding dogs. They are raised with and trained to consider themselves part of a livestock herd and so protect their herd from threats.

While dogs are most common, they’re not the only guardian animals: llamas, alpacas, and donkeys are also used to protect livestock from smaller predators like coyotes and foxes, but more research is needed to determine how effective they are.

Fencing can be simple post-and-wire, an electric fence, or corrals, kraals or bomas (circular enclosures used in some parts of Africa) constructed from stones or wood.

Livestock can be kept within fenced areas all the time, or only at night when they are most vulnerable to carnivores (who often hunt at night, dawn, or dusk).

Our study didn’t find sufficient evidence to show that all kinds of fencing work, but there was enough that they should be considered generally effective and adapted to local conditions.

“Fladry” is a Polish word for strips of cloth or plastic flagging hung at regular intervals along a rope or fence line. Fladry is usually red, which is considered the most effective colour for scaring away carnivores. This method has been proven effective at deterring predators like grey wolves and coyotes from entering pastures.

Read more: Killing sharks, wolves and other top predators won’t solve conflicts

Interestingly, all three of the methods we found to be generally effective do not involve killing carnivores.

This is good news for carnivore conservation, because it means that management can simultaneously protect livestock and carnivores. Large carnivores can play crucial roles in ecosystem regulation, so removing them can cause cascading consequences for landscapes and biodiversity.

Given the damage that ineffective management can cause to farming communities, animal welfare, and ecosystems, we hope our research serves as a catalyst for policy-makers and practitioners to think critically about the methods they use and why.

Too often, we continue to use a particular method due to habit and history, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to protect assets.

Governments that continue to fund and encourage ineffective management are not giving farming communities the best chance of success.

Dr Jennie Miller, Senior Scientist at Defenders of Wildlife, contributed to this article.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Kennedy, Postdoctoral research fellow, RMIT University

Ever wondered what all the fuss is about when it comes to smart homes? You’re not alone.

While the idea of networked entertainment systems, automated security, mood lights and voice-controlled thermostats is popular, uptake of smart home technologies has been lower than anticipated.

Some researchers say this is because of affordability and installation challenges. Others claim it’s because smart home technologies aren’t that desirable or useful.

Read more: Smart speakers could be the tipping point for home automation

New research we’ve released today identifies the benefits and problems smart home adopters actually experience, and compares them to the technological solutions on offer. Our report shows that while living in a smart home is appealing for early adopters, it also throws up some unexpected challenges.

The 3Ps

The smart home market is growing rapidly, but the industry is still frequently dubbed a “solution in search of a problem”. Interest in smart home technologies can be dismissed as “boys and their toys” because men are more often the instigators for bringing smart home technology into the home and managing their operation.

Current US industry sales figures show consumers of smart home devices are slightly more likely to be male (57%), while “smart home obsessives” (those who customise and fine-tune every aspect of their home automation systems beyond standard off-the-shelf offerings) are typically men. But women – especially those 18-35 – are increasingly interested in smart home technology.

We visited 31 households that were early adopters of smart home technology and interviewed 42 people for between one and 2.5 hours. We found three primary categories of use:

• security devices to facilitate care and protection
• automated or multitasking tools to improve productivity
• aesthetic and ambience enhancements that provide pleasure.

We refer to these as “the 3Ps”: protection, productivity and pleasure.

Protection

In our study, technology users expressed a desire to care for and protect the home and its occupants. Smart cameras installed in the home allowed adults to monitor dependants – children and, increasingly, pets – while they were away.

These strategies of protection were also used in the homes of people living with disabilities. Smart technology provided safeguards against potential vulnerabilities by, for example, allowing people to remotely unlock doors for visitors, or monitor the room temperature and health of children with special needs.

Productivity

A commonly identified benefit of smart home technologies was their ability to generate “small conveniences” that reduced the physical or mental effort involved in daily tasks. These efficiencies allowed householders to offload the burden of mundane activities.

Automated or voice activated lights, heating, doors or blinds became significant and normal parts of everyday life. Householders doubted whether they could live well without these conveniences once they become accustomed to the benefits.

Read more: ‘Smart home’ gadgets promise to cut power bills but many lie idle – or can even boost energy use

Smart home technologies also improved productivity through coordination and multitasking. In particular, voice assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, freed people’s hands to do other tasks, making households feel more productive.

One research participant was living with a disability that made small everyday tasks extremely difficult and exhausting. She described productivity as a way of conserving her energy for other tasks, making smart technologies “absolutely brilliant and invaluable” for people with disabilities.

Pleasure

Living in a smart home and experimenting with new devices also provided considerable amounts of fun and pleasure. Smart lighting and speakers were a major source of this enjoyment, generating sensory experiences to affect ambience and mood. Automated water features also generated sensory pleasure.

We found householders created a relaxing and pleasurable home environment to replicate the experience of going on holiday or living in a resort. Home cinemas, audiovisual systems, pools, and outdoor and indoor entertainment areas were all common pursuits seeking this vacation-style pleasure.

For the predominantly male smart home initiators we interviewed, pleasure also came from implementing and “tinkering” with their smart systems. Further enjoyment ensued when sharing these smart devices and experiences, and showing them off to others.

And the pitfalls

While our research showed the potential benefits of smart home technologies, it also revealed a few pitfalls that are likely to limit market growth.

Those adopting smart home technologies for the care of others are usually confident in their knowledge and skills in setting up new technology, but expressed concern for the security or privacy of other less aware or capable households.

Somewhat ironically, smart home technologies can undermine productivity by creating extra “digital housekeeping” in the home. This included researching and setting up new devices, updating and synchronising software, fixing problems or glitches, or just tidying up the various cables and technologies required to keep it all running. Most of this extra work was being done by men, but it was also viewed as a pleasurable hobby.

Read more: The hidden energy cost of smart homes

The further downside of smart home technology is that potential new and enhanced forms of entertainment and ambience increase household energy consumption. This has a cost to both the householder and planetary resources as a whole.

Finally, householders want to integrate smart technologies into their home to increase its value and desirability to others. While this is easy for homeowners, the ability of renters to make changes to the home are very restricted.

The authors would like to acknowledge Melissa Gregg, Principal Engineer and Research Director of the Client Computing Group at Intel, for her contributions to this article.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sacha Molitorisz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Media Transition, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney

In an age of social media and smartphones, people are accessing more news than ever. The problem is, they don’t believe much of it.

Three-quarters of Australian news consumers say they have experienced “fake news” and are very concerned by it. In the US, two-thirds of adults get their news from social media, but more than half of people expect this news to be “largely inaccurate”.

This is in stark contrast to public trust in journalism before the rise of the internet. In the 1970s, more than two-thirds of Americans trusted news media. By 2016, that figure had fallen to less than one third.

This question motivated new research at the Centre for Media Transition at UTS, which was funded by Facebook as part of the company’s APAC News Literacy initiative, but conducted independently by my colleagues and me.

Our findings suggest that what Australians want most from their news media is accuracy and objectivity, not necessarily accessibility and friendliness – the hallmarks of social media.

What can be done to restore trust in news media?

In the first stage of our research, we compiled an extensive, annotated bibliography of the academic and non-academic literature focusing on trust and the news media. That bibliography includes more than 200 titles and many more authors.

Among these authors is Rachel Botsman, who argues that institutional trust in the media has largely been replaced by what she calls “distributed trust”. Where people used to trust banks, the church, the government and the news media implicitly, she argues, they now tend to trust their friends, family and even strangers.

This is evident in the success of social media, but more obviously in the rise of companies such as Uber and Airbnb, which exemplify the “gig economy” and “collaborative consumption.”.

Read more: FactCheck Q&A: Has confidence in the media in Australia dropped lower than in the United States?

Drawing on Botsman and other authors, we postulated that today’s news consumers want a different type of news media: one that is more peer-to-peer and less top-down. And so in the second stage of our research, we held four qualitative workshops in Tamworth and Sydney to ask participants about their relationship with the news media.

In one exercise, we asked participants to design their ideal news source by choosing from a list of 13 characteristics, including “interactive”, “accurate”, “transparent”, “easy to access”, “objective” and “vulnerable” (by admitting and correcting mistakes). We also included “like a friend” and “less ‘voice of god’”. These last two, we suspected, might well be popular, especially among the young. (Of our participants, half were under the age of 35.)

But the results surprised us. Overwhelmingly, participants both young and old did not want their ideal news source to be like a friend or less like the “voice of god”. These two attributes were the least popular. Conversely, top of the list were three highly traditional journalism values: accuracy, objectivity and being in the public interest.

A closer look, however, revealed that participants did value some elements of a peer-to-peer news media – they also wanted their ideal news source to be transparent, easy to access and interactive.

Trust goes deeper than the source

If our participants are typical, these results suggest that Australians want the news media to be aligned foremost with traditional journalistic values, but also enable consumers to be part of the news-sharing, and sometimes even news-making, process.

In other words, Australians seem to want news that blends elements of institutional and distributed trust.

The workshop participants repeatedly expressed grave concerns about trusting news on social media. However, our results also suggest that Australians believe the trust problem is not wholly the fault of social media. According to our participants, part of the problem is that journalists themselves need to be better at accuracy, objectivity and working in the public interest.

Read more: Outlawing fake news will chill the real news

This corresponds with the results of the Digital News Report: Australia 2018, published earlier this year, which found the most common form of “fake news” encountered by Australians is “poor journalism”.

In another exercise, we asked our participants to rate six trust-enhancing strategies currently being trialled by media outlets in various forms.

Tellingly, the most preferred option was “go behind the story”, which involves informing readers why a story was written and what the journalist was unable to find in his or her reporting, among other details. The second preferred option was a clear labelling of news, comment and advertising.

Clearly, consumers want a higher degree of transparency from their news sources.

People will pay for media they trust

The good news emerging from research globally is that there has been a rebound in trust in journalism. Currently, 50% of Australian news consumers trust the news, up from 42% last year. By contrast, only 24% of people trust the news they find on social media.

In his 1995 book Trust, US political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that high-trust societies tend to be thriving societies. And this is where the media play a crucial role. As philosopher Onora O’Neill says:

If we can’t trust what the press report, how can we tell whether to trust those on whom they report?

Our workshops suggest that Australians want to trust the media, but are suspicious. This must be addressed, not least because, as the Digital News Report: Australia 2018 found, there is a strong link between trust in news, concern about fake news and people being prepared to pay for their news.

This raises an interesting prospect: if we can successfully address the issue of trust and news media, we might even begin to solve journalism’s revenue crisis.

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

Our society is replete with tales about the unobserved abuse of vulnerable people – in schools, kindergartens, child care facilities, psychiatric institutions, hospitals and the aged care facilities highlighted in the two-part ABC Four Corners report.

Read more: Aged care failures show how little we value older people – and those who care for them

Institutions are under pressure to deploy CCTV to deter abuse and provide evidence for discipline or prosecution. But this is controversial because it erodes the privacy of people in care, staff and visitors.

Some people are taking surveillance into their own hands by using private recording devices to detect abuse and thereby protect a loved one. Use of “grannycams” – undisclosed recording by an individual of what takes place in a senior’s room – is a variant of the “nannycam” used by parents who don’t trust the babysitter.

The use of such devices in places like nursing homes is likely to increase as people are sensitised to this surveillance through reports in the media and revelations by the royal commission.

What the law says

There’s no meaningful restriction on the sale of hidden recording devices. They are readily available through Australian shopfront retailers and online. Questions about legality instead relate to how they are used.

Those questions demonstrate the inadequacy of Australian privacy law – which is a very uneven and increasingly moth-eaten patchwork.

No jurisdiction has an overarching privacy statute. Some states, such as New South Wales and South Australia, have a law that specifically restricts covert recording by officials and by private individuals. But some of that law is seriously outdated because it is restricted to audio recording – centred on the wiretaps that feature in old Hollywood dramas – rather than illicit observation using cameras and other technologies.

Read more: We’ve had 20 aged care reviews in 20 years – will the royal commission be any different?

Some jurisdictions, such as the ACT, have gone further by enacting law that specifically deals with observation in workplaces and criminalises unauthorised recording. A workplace includes a hospital, school and aged care home – not just an office or retail mall.

The restriction of covert private recording in most other jurisdictions is potentially a matter for action under criminal law. But it’s conceivable that users of the devices would argue they were justified: a “public interest” defence in preventing a crime against vulnerable people.

Use of a grannycam is therefore legally problematic. We don’t have a large body of case law that gives clear examples of what is permissible and how courts in different jurisdictions will respond.

Right to privacy

Aged care staff and visitors whose conversation and actions have been captured without their knowledge and thus without their consent can legitimately argue their privacy has been violated.

Despite language about “rights”, there is no overarching “right to privacy” at the national level. That’s one reason why we need a “privacy tort”. This would allow individuals to assert a right to privacy and gain compensation where that right had been seriously disregarded, similar to compensation for a physical injury attributable to malice or negligence.

Read more: Reform that wobbles like jelly: A spineless approach to privacy protection

Someone who has engaged in covert recording might argue it was ethically acceptable – “I did it to save grandpa from the abuser” – and that while it was legally wrong, in these very specific circumstances it could be forgiven by the court. Such forgiveness would thus treat privacy as a matter of balances.

Courts would likely consider whether recording was justifiable (for example, whether there was a reasonable belief that someone was at risk of harm) and, importantly, what was done with the recording. Providing the images to the facility’s managers, the Australian Health Practitioner’s Regulatory Agency (AHPRA) and the police as the basis for prosecution and protection of other elders is quite different from streaming audio of every conversation in the room or images of the elder in an adjacent bed using a bedpan.

Aside from the threat of legal action, covert surveillance also has other risks and shortcomings. Many surveillance devices are insecure and can be hacked. Recordings may be inadmissible as evidence. And they are likely to miss some abuse.

Ultimately, the best response to concerns about elder abuse will be achieved by improving the resource allocation, supervision of staff and management of aged care facilities, alongside a coherent national privacy and surveillance law reform.

Note: This piece does not represent legal advice on the part of the author or The Conversation.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rose O’Dea, PhD Candidate, Biology, UNSW

There is a stubborn stereotype that maths and science are masculine.

But our study of the school grades of more than 1.6 million students shows that girls and boys perform similarly in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects.

The research, published today in Nature Communications, also shows that girls do better than boys in non-STEM subjects.

Read more: ‘Walking into a headwind’ – what it feels like for women building science careers

Our results provide evidence that large gaps in the representation of women in STEM careers later in life are not due to differences in academic performance.

Men vs women

One explanation for gender imbalance in STEM is the “variability hypothesis”. This is the idea that gender gaps are much larger at the tails of the distribution – among the highest and lowest performers – than in the middle.

Genius and eminence have long been considered the domain of men. Parents ascribe giftedness to sons more often than to daughters. Children think girls are less likely than boys to be “really, really smart”. And fields that value “giftedness”, such as maths and philosophy, employ fewer women.

Greater male variability was first proposed as an explanation for men’s superiority in the 1800s, and the idea never disappeared.

In 2005 the variability hypothesis regained prominence. American economist Lawrence Summers, who was then the president of Harvard University, listed greater male variability as a key reason for why there were more men in top science and engineering positions. He said:

…in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.

Backlash against these comments was swift: Summers was reviled and subsequently apologised.

But was he right?

What the grades say

One of us (Shinichi Nakagawa) co-developed a powerful method to test for differences in variation between groups in a meta-analysis.

We applied this method to test for greater male variability in academic performance, using data from many studies.

We searched the scientific literature and found information about the grades of more than 1.6 million students, awarded between 1931 and 2013, from 268 different schools or classrooms. Most of these data were for English-speaking students from around the world, with the majority based in North America.

For each group of students, we calculated the difference between girls and boys in both average score and variability.

In STEM subjects, we found the distributions of grades for girls and boys were very similar. The biggest gender gaps were in non-STEM subjects such as English, where girls earned 7.8% higher average grades and 13.8% less variable grades than boys.

We then used our estimates of gender differences to simulate the distributions of girls’ and boys’ high school grades, to explore whether the 7.6% greater male variability in STEM is sufficient to explain why women are underrepresented in these fields from the beginning of university.

Enough talented girls

Our results from the simulation suggest the top 10% of a STEM classroom would contain equal numbers of girls and boys.

Given that being in the top 20% is sufficient to enter a science degree at a highly ranked university, the small gender gap in variability cannot directly account for the gender gap in undergraduate students choosing to study maths-intensive STEM subjects.

Lawrence Summers was not entirely wrong – there are “gender differences in variability of aptitude”.

It is true that among extremely high achievers we would expect to see more males, based on greater male variability producing more males at the extreme tails of the achievement distribution. But is a career in STEM restricted to these very high achievers?

We don’t think so. Successful scientists are generally ordinary, hardworking people. Unfortunately the false belief that exceptional ability is required for some STEM fields may be helping to perpetuate gender inequalities.

Read more: New study says the gender gap in science could take generations to fix

Gender differences in academic performance exist, but we shouldn’t overemphasise their importance. There are more than enough talented girls to close the gender gaps in STEM. But these girls have other options, because they are likely to be talented in non-STEM subjects too.

Women in STEM face hurdles that have nothing to do with their abilities, such as stereotypes, backlash, discrimination, and harassment. Until these hurdles are toppled, we should not use the small gender difference in variability as an excuse for under-representing women in STEM.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandy Matheson, Scientist and Digital Librarian, Neuroscience Research Australia

Schizophrenia is one of the world’s top ten causes of disability. It develops between the ages of 16 and 30 and often persists for life. It affects between 100,000 and 200,000 Australians.

Symptoms include delusions and hallucinations (“psychotic” symptoms), diminished emotional expression, poverty of speech and lack of purposeful action (known as “negative” symptoms), and incoherent speech and disorganised behaviour (“disorganised” symptoms). A diagnosis of schizophrenia requires at least two symptoms, including one psychotic or disorganised, to be present for at least six months. These must result in significant social or occupational dysfunction.

It is thought disruptions in brain development early in life may underlie the emergence of schizophrenia in later years. While the causes of these disruptions aren’t exactly clear, research points to several possible reasons.

Genes

Hundreds of genes have been linked to schizophrenia, but do not appear to follow typical patterns of inheritance across generations, where disorders can be predicted with confidence. Like diabetes and coronary heart disease, schizophrenia cannot be predicted from family history alone. This is because no one gene, or set of genes, has definitively been identified as causing the disorder.

Read more: Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression share genetic roots: study

Family studies do provide robust evidence of a genetic contribution. For instance, across the population, a person’s risk of developing schizophrenia is 1%. If one of their parents has the disorder, the risk increases to 15%.

Twin studies have found a 50% increase in the risk of schizophrenia in the identical twin of a person with schizophrenia. Because identical twins share 100% of their DNA, this means environmental risk factors must also be involved. We do not currently know exactly which genes interact with which environmental factors, nor the extent of these interactions.

There is also an association between the age of the father at the time the child is born and an increased risk of schizophrenia in the child. If the father is over the age of 55, the child’s risk of schizophrenia increases by 50%. This may be due to rare mutations in paternal sperm that could lead to abnormal development, or to family factors associated with having an older father.

Obstetric complications

Various obstetric complications in utero and at birth have also been identified as risk factors for schizophrenia in the offspring. Complications during pregnancy include maternal bleeding, diabetes, rhesus incompatibility (when the mother has Rh-negative blood and the fetus Rh-positive, or vice versa), pre-eclampsia and abnormal fetal growth and development.

Read more: Blood groups beyond A, B and O: what are they and do they matter?

Maternal exposure to famine during pregnancy has been linked to schizophrenia in the offspring. Complications at delivery include uterine atony (failure of the uterus to contract after delivery), lack of oxygen to the fetus and emergency caesarean.

Most of these obstetric associations are small, and other potential influencing factors weren’t controlled for. For example, exposure to maternal infections, such as upper respiratory tract and genital or reproductive infections, has been linked to schizophrenia in the offspring. If exposed to these infections, these could be the real culprits rather than the obstetric complications described above.

Exposure to infections in childhood, such as Toxoplasma gondii (a parasitic organism carried by domestic cats) and viral central nervous system infections (such as meningitis), have also been linked to schizophrenia in adulthood. Again, if exposed, these could have led to the mental illness as opposed to complications in delivery.

Immune markers

Markers of infection and inflammation are often increased in adults with schizophrenia. This means immune system dysfunction may be involved in the development of the disorder.

Drug use

Studies following people from birth to adulthood have identified cannabis use in childhood or adolescence as a likely risk factor.

These studies have adjusted for other risk factors and taken into account intoxication effects and reverse causation (that schizophrenia may cause cannabis use). They found a dose-response effect, which means the risk of psychosis increased as the frequency of cannabis use increased. Such dose-response effects provide the most robust evidence of causation.

The neurological and biological mechanisms of cannabis use are similar to those in schizophrenia, with the same neurons showing activity.

Methamphetamines, particularly ice or crystal methamphetamine, have been linked to increased risk of persistent psychosis, and not just substance-induced psychosis. Controlled amphetamine administration that triggers temporary psychosis in healthy individuals can also be blocked by antipsychotics. This further strengthens the evidence of association.

Social factors

There is solid evidence supporting the link between having experienced child abuse, or any type of abuse that includes bullying, and schizophrenia. Stressful life events in adulthood have been associated with schizophrenia too.

People living in urban areas, particularly areas with high income inequality, also show increased risk, which may be associated with social fragmentation. Both first- and second-generation immigrants show increased risk, with surprisingly greater risk seen in the second generation.

Read more: Extreme stress in childhood is toxic to your DNA

Studies have also found a greater risk of schizophrenia in ethnic minority groups living in areas of low ethnic density than those living in high ethnic density areas. These finding indicate that sustained social marginalisation, particularly from early childhood, may have greater adverse effects than migration itself.

Stress

Social stressors can lead to biological disruptions. For instance, stress increases the release of dopamine. And evidence shows people with schizophrenia have increased dopamine production and release.

Stress is also associated with dysregulation of a brain network known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is sensitised in people with schizophrenia.

Stress associated with being raised in a harsh environment has been linked to the emergence of an inflammatory gene expression in adolescents. And people with schizophrenia show immune system dysfunction in both the early and late stages of the disorder.

Disruption to these biological systems can cause paranoid ideas, social withdrawal and other behavioural problems. These in turn cause additional stress and further biological disruption. In time, paranoid ideas can become delusional and fixed, signalling schizophrenia, particularly in the presence of other symptoms.

While much progress has been made in identifying the potential causes of schizophrenia, most of the evidence comes from population-level studies that may or may not be applicable to a particular individual. More research is required to determine the various individual pathways to schizophrenia.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jabin Watson, Postdoctoral researcher, The University of Queensland

Fish need to move to find food, escape predators and reach suitable habitat for reproduction. Too often, however, human activities get in the way. Dams, weirs and culverts (the tunnels and drains often found under roads) can create barriers that fragment habitats, isolating fish populations.

An Australian innovation, however, promises to help dwindling fish populations in Australia and worldwide. Our solution, recently described in Ecological Engineering, tackles one of the greatest impediments to fish migration in Australia: culverts.

A culvert crisis in our waterways

Freshwater ecosystems are one of the most heavily impacted by human activities.

Many freshwater species, such as the iconic barramundi, start their life as larvae in estuaries, then as small juveniles they make mammoth upstream migrations to freshwater habitats. In fact, about half of the freshwater fish species in southeast Australia need to migrate as part of their life cycle.

When fish are unable to pass human-made barriers, the decline in populations can be huge. For example, in the Murray-Darling Basin where there are thousands of barriers and flows are highly regulated, fish numbers are estimated to be at only 10% of pre-European numbers.

In New South Wales alone, there are more than 4,000 human-made barriers to fish passage. Over half of these are culverts. Culverts are most often installed to allow roads to cross waterways. They are designed to move water under the road, which they do quite efficiently, but often with no consideration of the requirements of the animals that live there.

When a stream enters a culvert, the flow can be concentrated so much that water flows incredibly fast. So fast, in fact, that small and juvenile fish are unable to swim against the flow and are prevented from reaching where they need to go to eat, reproduce or find safety.

Many current design ‘fixes’ come with problems

The problem culverts pose for fish is now well acknowledged by fisheries managers, and as a result efforts to make culverts fish-friendly are now widespread.

Where space allows, these new fish passage solutions can resemble a natural stream, where rocks of various sizes are added to break up the flow. Alternatively, artificial baffles (barriers to break up and slow the flow) are also commonly attached to the walls of the tunnel.

These designs do have some drawbacks. They may suit some fish sizes and species, but not all. They can be expensive to install. They also tend to catch debris, which increases maintenance costs and the risk of flooding upstream during high flow events.

Using physics to find a new solution

We took a new approach that harnesses a property of fluid mechanics that scientists call the “boundary layer”. When a fluid moves over a solid surface, friction causes the water to slow down next to the surface. This thin layer of slower-moving water is called the boundary layer.

Where two surfaces meet, such as in the corner of a square culvert, the boundary layers of the bed and wall merge. This creates a small area of slower-moving water – the “reduced velocity zone” – right in the corner. This is quite small, but little fish can still use it and are very good at finding it.

We wanted to expand this zone (to accommodate a wider range of fish sizes) and slow the water in it further.

So, we added a third surface, generating three boundary layers that then joined. This was done by adding a square beam running the length of the channel wall, close to the floor. The boundary layers of the floor, wall and bottom surface of the beam merged to create a reduced velocity channel along the side of the main flow.

In this GIF to the right hand side, the reduced velocity zone is revealed by adding a fluorescent dye, which lingers in the slower flowing water under the square beam we added to the channel.

Testing our design in a 12 metre channel (or flume) found that water velocity in the zone below the beam was slowed by up to 30%. For small fish, this is a huge reduction.

In tests, we focused on small-bodied species, or juveniles of larger growing species, because these are considered the weakest swimming size class and most vulnerable to high water velocities created within culverts. Every species tested saw significant improvements in their ability to swim and traverse up the channel.

All of the species benefited, regardless of their body shape or swimming style.

The GIF on the right hand side here shows a juvenile Murray cod swimming upstream using the reduced velocity zone we created by adding the beam.

Creating a slower-flowing zone

Our novel fish passage design is highly effective, yet very simple. It’s a square beam installed along the length of a culvert wall, so it’s easy to incorporate into new structures and cheap to retrofit into existing culverts.

It is also much less likely to trap debris than baffles or rocks embedded in the floor of a culvert.

This is a totally new approach that has the potential for widespread application, helping to restore the connectivity of freshwater fish populations here in Australia, and overseas.

More research lies ahead. We’re hoping that by optimising the dimensions of the beam we can get even more fish through the channels, with even greater ease. We’re also planning field testing to check our laboratory findings work in the real world.

Freshwater biodiversity is greatest in the tropics. Here, developing countries are having drastic impacts on their freshwater ecosystems. The simplicity of this design may make it an affordable approach to help maintain and restore habitat connectivity in developing regions.

Matthew Gordos from NSW Fisheries contributed to this article.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University

I began my life as an activist academic in 1979 when the Western Australian government closed the Fremantle railway, saying buses would be better. Patronage immediately fell by 30% and I ran a four-year campaign to save the railway. We won. I have been writing books and running campaigns ever since on why trains and trams are better than buses. But I have changed my mind. The technology has changed, and I think it will end the need for new light rail.

“Trackless trams” are based on technology created in Europe and China by taking innovations from high-speed rail and putting them in a bus.

I went to China to check out the CRRC trackless tram (they call it autonomous rail transit, or ART). I came back convinced it’s a transformative transit technology.

Read more: Our new PM wants to ‘bust congestion’ – here are four ways he could do that

Light rail is a connecting service. It joins up corridors or links heavy rail stations to surrounding areas and sometimes completes shorter corridors that lack rail lines. Buses were filling these functions in most cities but failing on two fronts:

• buses were not competing with cars so cities were filling with traffic
• buses did not enable denser development to be viable so cities were sprawling rather than redeveloping.

Light rail had many success stories of competing with cars and attracting denser development, so commentators like me did our best to make them policy-relevant (see, for example, here, here and here).

So what can the new technology do?

Trackless trams are neither a tram nor a bus, though they have rubber wheels and run on streets. The high-speed rail innovations have transformed a bus into something with all the best features of light rail and none of its worst features.

It replaces the noise and emissions of buses with electric traction from batteries recharged at stations in 30 seconds or at the end of the line in 10 minutes. That could just be an electric bus, but the ART is much more than that. It has all the speed (70kph), capacity and ride quality of light rail with its autonomous optical guidance system, train-like bogies with double axles and special hydraulics and tyres.

It can slide into the station with millimetre accuracy and enable smooth disability access. It passed the ride quality test when I saw kids running up and down while it was going at 70kph – you never see this on a bus due to the sway.

The autonomous features mean it is programmed, optically guided with GPS and LIDAR technologies, into moving very precisely along an invisible track. If an accident happens in the right of way a “driver” can override the steering and go around. It can also be driven to a normal bus depot for overnight storage and deep battery recharge.

The standard ART system is three carriages that can carry 300 people, but it can take five carriages and 500 people if needed. In three years of trials no impact on road surfaces has been found.

How do trackless trams improve on light rail?

Trackless trams can avoid the worst features of light rail – disruption and cost. It can take years to lay rail tracks, causing major disruption to local economies, as is happening in Sydney.

Similar disruption has happened in the Gold Coast, Canberra and elsewhere, but ultimately light rail systems have been highly successful in attracting patronage and land development. This will happen in Sydney too when the project is complete.

Read more: Why Gold Coast light rail was worth it (it’s about more than patronage)

However, the cost has been far beyond original expectations. Sydney is costing over $120 million per kilometre. The Gold Coast was similar. Canberra and Newcastle are over $80 million per kilometre, as was the cancelled light rail in Perth.

The trackless tram costs around $6-$8 million per kilometre. And it can be put into a road system over a weekend.

The big test is whether the trackless tram can attract development around its stations as light rail can. That is the missing link in our cities. How can we unlock urban regeneration and prevent our cities sprawling ever outwards with poorer and poorer suburbs while the well-placed inner and middle suburbs become more and more expensive?

The divided city needs something that can unlock affordable medium- and high-density housing in new urban centres across the city. Following many discussions with the urban development industry, I think the trackless tram can do this. The cost can be afforded as a contribution to any new development and will bring the uplift in land value that unlocks investment.

We have developed a model that means governments do not need to find all or even any of the capital costs. This is how trams were first built as real estate projects.

But governments are needed to manage the process and create the land assembly and other urban regeneration processes as well as community engagement. This will help show where best to route such a system and how to manage it as a transit system operating for the public good. Governments can help with risk management on the financing, as in City Deals. We have produced a guide and manual for how to do this.

Read more: Sidelining citizens when deciding on transport projects is asking for trouble

Australian cities are lining up

Cities across the world are lining up to trial these trackless tram systems. So far, Australian cities moving to use them are Townsville, Hobart, Melbourne (in Fishermans Bend and other sites), Sydney (in Liverpool and perhaps Parramatta Road where the first studies were done) and Perth – where five separate corridors are competing to run the first ART trial.

The table below summarises the main characteristics of buses, light rail and trackless trams, showing the improvements the new technology provides on key criteria.

Others would rate some characteristics higher or lower, but for me the trackless tram looks a winner due to its ride quality, land development potential and cost.

Time will tell if the early demand for ART translates into a real transformative change – a disruptive innovation. It reminds me of the early days of solar and batteries, which are now completely disrupting coal power systems.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Witcomb, Professor, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, Deakin University

Review: Mandela My Life, Melbourne Museum.

What is the role of commemorative exhibitions that focus on the life of a single change agent I asked myself, as I viewed Melbourne Museum’s latest blockbuster, Mandela My Life: The Official Exhibition.

The result of an international collaboration between Museums Victoria, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and IEG exhibitions, the exhibition is billed as a major international event that “will commemorate, illuminate and most importantly share Nelson Mandela’s living legacy with the world” on the centenary of his birth.

At first glance I doubted that these aims could be achieved. The tone of the exhibition could be accused of being hagiographic, given the ostensible reason for the exhibition – to celebrate the centenary of Mandela’s birth – as well as its narrative structures, which blended Mandela’s own words with the editorialising of the Mandela Foundation. This lent support to the claim that this exhibition was the “official” version of how to interpret the meaning of Mandela’s life.

Read more: Revisiting Nelson Mandela’s roots: a photographic exploration

Organised chronologically, the exhibition follows Mandela’s life. It begins with his birth in the Transkei region of South Africa, where he was initiated into his tribe’s traditional cultural practices and knowledge systems and attended a mission school.

The exhibition then follows him as he decides to leave his homeland for Johannesburg, where his experiences under apartheid radicalised him, leading on towards his role as a leader in the African National Congress, and his eventual imprisonment. His resilience while in prison and his leadership of the new post-apartheid South Africa led him to become the revered figure he is today.

This simple chronological narrative is given emotive force by three elements that come into play.

The first of these is the sound of Mandela’s voice at key moments. These include his famous Rivonia Trial speech in which he stated that he was prepared to die for the anti-apartheid movement.

Others are his memories of his childhood in the Transkei, his reflections on his time in prison, and his speech when he was freed, where his conciliatory approach to ending apartheid set the tone for what was to follow. Mandela’s voice guides us through the exhibition, supported by a rich display of personal photographs, letters and personal objects carefully preserved by the Mandela Foundation.

These are then contrasted with the evidence of apartheid from material borrowed or reproduced from other collections and media organisations, which provides the second element. The role of these sources is to lend authority to the human rights claim that apartheid was an unjust system – they are the evidence of what goes wrong when equality between humans is not respected.

The third element is the visitor – a visitor who already knows the end of the story and believes in its righteousness. Mandela was on the right side of history.

None of this is wrong of course. But the desire to eulogise, as often appears to be the case in this exhibition, does not allow space for questions that might allow for a fuller explication of the nature of Mandela’s legacy and its relevance beyond South Africa.

Read more: Centenary of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s birth: a tribute in poems

For instance, the final gallery shows a series of 16 paintings by John Myer, retelling Mandela’s life story and giving body to South African’s pride in the achievements of this extraordinary man. This could have been the moment, however, when his legacy could have been broadened out and key themes explored and thus gone beyond the outpouring of grief on his death, captured by the 95 messages of condolence, one for each year of his life – available in the penultimate gallery via a table full of telephone handsets.

Beyond the obvious answer – he was a hero who fought apartheid and won – what is it that those fighting for human rights can learn? What are the difficult questions his activism raises for those fighting on behalf of the oppressed? And, finally, are there other contexts in which his life might have meaning?

In an Australian context, some of the answers were alluded to in the speeches on opening night, which pointed to the relevance of Mandela’s activism for Australians fighting for Indigenous rights. Such speeches go some way towards explaining why the Melbourne Museum, which is aligned with human rights museums and whose First Peoples Gallery is an eloquent articulation of the need for treaty, is host to this exhibition.

But I would also argue that Mandela’s life is relevant to all of us at this particular juncture in time – a time when we need to hang on to the hope that change is both necessary and possible and that the actions of ordinary, everyday people can bring it about. This is as true for situations of unequal power relations as for other complex problems, such as what to do about climate change.

Mandela was an extraordinary man – but he was also supported by many others, both within and outside South Africa, all of whom believed in the necessity of change. Mandela is important because we need to have figures who show us that hope, resilience and leadership is still possible when those values are valued by all of us.

The exhibition does not make these points itself – but perhaps it is enough that such points can be made by those who visit it and reflect upon it. Even so, I wish there was less emphasis on the authorised, official nature of the exhibition, which, for me, closed down the potential for some really interesting discussions on the nature of change and how to achieve it.

Mandela My Life is being exhibited at the Melbourne Museum until March 3 2019.