The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

If you were going to reduce a 150-page Productivity Commission examination of trends in Australian inequality to a few words, it would be nice if they weren’t “ALP inequality claims sunk”, or “Progressive article of faith blown up” or “Labor inequality myths busted by commission”.

The editorial in the Australian Financial Review of August 30 says questions about whether inequality is increasing are “abstract”, taught in universities as “an article of faith”, and a “political truncheon”.

Here I should disclose that I teach courses covering inequality as well as undertaking research on the topic. Also, I was one of the external referees for this week’s Productivity Commission report.

It adds to a growing pile of high quality research on trends in income distribution in Australia, including a recent Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and University of New South Wales study using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that provides an in-depth analysis of income and wealth inequality in 2015-16 and an analysis of trends since 2000.

Also released at the end of July was the latest HILDA Statistical Report that analyses how things have changed over time for individuals between 2001 and 2016.

The Productivity Commission survey takes the deliberately ambitious approach of assessing a wider range of outcomes than income, including indicators of household consumption and wealth, their components, and changes over time and in response to events such as transitions to work, divorce and retirement.

Much of the reporting seems to have misread the messages the survey and the Chairman’s speech to the National Press Club were trying to emphasise. For example, the editorial in the Financial Review argues the Commission’s report shows “economic growth has made everyone in Australia in every income group better off”.

Well, no, it doesn’t.

The finding that every income group has benefited from income growth should not be interpreted as meaning every person in Australia is better off. The discussion of mobility in the report makes the point that the incomes of households and individuals fall as well as rise.

Put simply, not everyone – in fact very few (about 1%) – stay in exactly the same place. Table 5.1 (page 96) shows more than 40% of the Australian population were in a lower income group in 2016 than they had been in 2001, for reasons ranging from retirement to disability to unemployment to family breakdown.

Single adults on Newstart, although not the same people, have fallen down the income distribution over the past 25 years, from around the bottom 10% to the bottom 5%. As another example, someone who worked on a manufacturing production line until it was closed and then got a job as a sales assistant would be better paid than a sales assistant used to be but most certainly not better paid than they used to be. They would have little reason to believe the Financial Review.

And as the Commission was at pains to point out, the stabilisation and slight decline in overall inequality over the past decade is to a large extent the result of specific government decisions.

One of the most important was the one-off increase in age pensions by the Rudd government in 2009. The 2016 ACOSS report on poverty found the relative poverty rate (before housing costs) for people aged 65 and over fell from around 30% in 2007-08 to 11% in 2013-14, due to the “historic increase” in pension rates.

ABS income surveys show the average incomes of households headed by people aged 65 and over climbed by 16% in real terms between 2007-08 and 2015-16, while for the population as a whole the increase was about 3%. As a result, the average incomes of older households jumped from 69% to 78% of those of households generally.

While economic prosperity was needed to fund that increase, it didn’t automatically fund it. That needed deliberate government intervention.

In his speech releasing the report, Commission chairman Peter Harris specifically noted “growth alone is no guarantee against widening disparity between rich and poor”.

Some forms of poverty for children “have actually risen”.

The slide in inequality resulting from the increase in the age pension is likely to have disguised increases in inequality elsewhere.

According to the Bureau since the global financial crisis the number of workers who are underemployed – working part time and wanting more hours – has climbed from about 680,000 to 1.1 million; from 6.3% to 8.9% of the workforce.

And the ABS finds wage disparities have increased. The ratio of the earnings of a worker at the 90th percentile (earning more than 90% of workers) to the earnings of a worker at the tenth percentile grew from 7.75 times in 2008 to 8.24 times in 2016. This was due to widening wage differentials for both full-time and part-time workers and an increase in the proportion of part-time workers

We often hear about Australia as a “miracle economy” enjoying 27 years of economic growth. In fact, the Commission report (Figure 1.2 page 13) shows real net national disposable income per person – a better measure of individual economic well-being than GDP – actually fell in six out of the last 27 years.

The income survey data show an even more mixed record. The Our World in Data database shows that by 2003 the real income of the median Australian household was only about 5% higher in real terms than in 1989, while the second and third decile households – mainly headed by those on low wages and some on social security – were actually no better-off than in 1989, largely due to the effects of the early 1990s recession.

Virtually all of the increase in real disposable household incomes enjoyed since 1989 (or 1981 for that matter) came in one five-year period, between 2003 and 2008 during the first mining boom.

What is striking about Australia compared to other countries is that since the global financial crisis we have largely maintained the income lift from the boom.

Will we be blessed by another boom to pump up the figures? Or might we be less lucky?

Despite the way it’s been spun, the Commission’s main message is that in the decades ahead we will need both policies that generate economic growth and policies that ensure it’s well spread. One without the other could leave many of us worse off.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bradley Smith, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, CQUniversity Australia

Australia’s Commonwealth Coat of Arms depicts two iconic native animals – the kangaroo and the emu. Both are unquestionably fair dinkum Aussies, unique to this continent and having lived here for a very long time. A “very long time”, according to Australian legislation (the EPBC Act 1999), is any species having been present since before the year 1400.

But in Western Australia, under the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, no native animal is guaranteed protection. The Act includes a caveat whereby the relevant minister may determine that a native species is in fact, not.

Read more: Dingoes do bark: why most dingo facts you think you know are wrong

This week, WA’s environment minister Stephen Dawson did just that, declaring that from January 1, 2019, the dingo, Australia’s native canine, will no longer be classified as native fauna.

The dingo does meet the federal government’s criterion, having lived in Australia as a wild canid for an estimated 5,000 years. But under the planned changes in WA, the dingo will lose its current listing as “unprotected fauna”, and will from next year be considered indistinguishable from either the common domestic dog or feral dogs.

What is a species anyway?

According to the biological species concept, a species is a group that has the ability to interbreed and produce viable, fertile offspring. Dingoes, dogs and other canids do interbreed (or “hybridise”), and indeed this is one of the key reasons why the pure dingo is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

But this ability to hybridise is also one of the main justifications cited by the WA government in its decision to revoke the dingo’s citizenship (the fact sheet has since been removed from the website, but can be accessed here). The rationale is that if dingoes and dogs are technically the same species, why should dingoes get special treatment?

However, the biological species concept is problematic when applied to canids. If you lump dingoes and dogs together because they readily interbreed, then logically we must do the same for wolves, coyotes, jackals or other canids that can also interbreed (and have done for millenia).

It’s hard to imagine anyone seriously suggesting that a grey wolf and a pug are the same species. This suggests that this criterion alone is insufficient to solve the conundrum. Indeed, there are at least 32 different species concepts, clearly illustrating the difficulty of defining a single rule by which all organisms should abide.

Despite this, a recent paper that argues the biological species concept should be applied to dingoes, was cited as supporting evidence by the WA government. Adopting this narrow interpretation of taxonomy is perhaps somewhat premature. It ignores other investigations that provide evidence to the contrary. Given the contention around defining species, it seems unwise to determine the species status of dingoes independently of other, more comprehensive evidence and argument.

Distinguishing dingoes

All canids share similarities, but their differences are also many and marked. The dingo can be distinguished from other dogs in various ways: their appearance, anatomy, behaviour, their role in ecosystems, and their genetics (their evolutionary history and degree of relatedness to other species). Dingoes seem to be largely devoid of many of the signs of domestication.

It is therefore reasonable for the dingo to be considered separately from wolves and domestic dogs, while also acknowledging that they all occupy the same broad species classification, Canis lupus.

Having lived in Australia as free-living, wild populations for around 5,000 years almost exclusively under the forces of natural selection, and separately from any other dog lineage until European arrival, there is no notion of the dingo as a domestic animal gone feral. To classify dingoes as nothing more than “feral domestic dogs” expunges their unique, long and quintessentially wild history. Dingoes are not ecologically interchangeable with any other type of dog, either wild or domesticated.

Labelling the dingo as a feral domestic dog changes their legal status and removes any current obligations for developing appropriate management plans. This demotion of status could lead to intensified lethal control. Indeed, control may even be legally mandated.

In the absence of thylacines, mainland Tasmanian devils, and other apex predators, the ecological role that the dingo plays in the Australian landscape is vital. Dingoes help to control kangaroo and feral goat populations, and in some cases foxes and cats as well.

Read more: Why do dingoes attack people, and how can we prevent it?

Given WA’s remoteness, it remains one of the few bastions of pure dingoes, and as such it presents an opportunity to seek ways to protect them rather than pave the way for their removal. The WA government’s decision also sets a dangerous precedent for the management of dingoes, and indeed other contentious native wildlife, elsewhere in Australia.

How we choose to classify plants and animals might sound like dry science. But it has genuine implications for policy, management and conservation. Our scientific naming systems are vital for helping to organise and understand the rich biological diversity with which we share the planet, but it is important to remember that these systems are informed not just by biology but also by our values.

In this case, economic and political interests appear to have been favoured over wildlife preservation, and given Australia’s unenviable conservation record this is deeply concerning.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

You don’t need to be a journalist or a news junkie to be affected by the media. Its enormous influence in shaping our culture, politics and society means we all have a stake in how it functions, who it serves and the way it’s changing.

That’s why, today, we’re launching the first episode of Media Files, a new podcast featuring leading journalism researchers and working journalists taking a critical look at where the media is getting it right – and where there might be cause for concern.

Today’s episode is all about the Nine Fairfax merger, the largest media amalgamation in Australia in 30 years. Eric Beecher of Private Media, Stephen Mayne of the Mayne Report and ABC finance presenter Alan Kohler join presenters Andrew Dodd and Andrea Carson to discuss the implications for diversity and quality journalism.

Is this merger a welcome development, potentially boosting the capacity of journalists at outlets like The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review to get on with the job of reporting news and revealing wrongdoing? Or is it a takeover that should ring alarm bells for anyone who cares about investigative journalism?

Media Files is produced by a team of journalists and academics who have spent decades working in and reporting on the media industry. They’re passionate about sharing their understanding of the media landscape, especially how media policy, commercial manoeuvres and digital disruption are affecting the kinds of media and journalism we consume. The media is evolving rapidly, as new platforms and trends come and go. As old media empires collapse, new ones are forming. But the need to protect diversity, public interest journalism and public broadcasting has, arguably, never been greater.

Media Files will be out every month, with occasional off-schedule episodes released when we’ve got fresh analysis we can’t wait to share with you. To make sure you don’t miss an episode, find us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, in Pocket Casts or wherever you find your podcasts. And while you’re there, please rate and review us – it really helps others to find us.

Recorded at a public forum at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism. Producer: Andy Hazel. Research: Charlotte Grieve and Jo Chandler.

Additional audio

Theme music by Susie Wilkins.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sangeetha Pillai, Senior Research Associate, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law School, UNSW

Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton has come under scrutiny for exercising his personal powers during his time as Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to grant tourist visas to four foreign au pairs who were denied entry at the Australian border and detained, awaiting deportation.

Dutton made the decision to grant these visas at short notice and, in at least some cases, contrary to the advice of senior Border Force officials. Here I explain the scope of the minister’s legal power to grant visas in such instances, and the issues at play.

Read more: Leaks target Peter Dutton over decisions on au pairs

Did Dutton have legal power to grant the visas?

In a nutshell, yes. Under section 195A of the Migration Act, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection has the power to grant a visa to a person in detention if “the minister thinks that it is in the public interest to do so”. The minister has no obligation to grant a visa in this manner, but may do so at his or her discretion. A decision to intervene may only be made by the minister personally. This means the minister cannot delegate the power under section 195A to other Border Force personnel, although Border Force officials may provide advice and briefing information.

The minister’s power under section 195A is extremely broad. While the requirement that the power must be exercised in the “public interest” appears to impose some constraint on the minister, this is largely illusory. Courts have said that in migration matters, “public interest” is largely a matter of ministerial discretion. Section 195A drives this home by making it clear that it is up to the minister to decide whether granting a visa would be in the public interest.

Whenever the minister exercises the power under section 195, he or she must supply each House of Parliament with a statement that sets out the reasons for granting the visa. This includes the reasons for thinking that the grant is in the public interest.

The purpose of this is for transparency only: parliament has no power to overturn the minister’s decision. The transparency that can be achieved in this manner is limited by the fact that, to secure the privacy of individuals who are granted visas, identifying information must be excluded when a statement is laid before parliament. Visa decisions, including decisions under section 195A, are also excluded from administrative review.

Documents obtained via Freedom of Information request reveal that Dutton’s stated reasons for thinking that one of the visa grants was in the public interest were:

In the circumstances, I have decided that as a discretionary and humanitarian act to an individual with ongoing needs, it is in the interests of Australia as a humane and generous society to grant this person a Tourist visa.

If Dutton acted within the law, what’s the controversy?

There are two broad reasons why Dutton’s decisions to grant the au pair visas are controversial, despite falling within the scope of his ministerial power.

The first is that the breadth of ministerial discretion granted to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection under the Migration Act is itself a subject of controversy. A 2017 Liberty Victoria report reveals that the minister for immigration has 47 personal national or public interest powers – many more than any other minister. Many of these powers – including the power in section 195A – are “non-delegable, non-compellable and non-reviewable”.

In 2008, the then immigration minister Chris Evans expressed discomfort with the scope of his own power:

In a general sense I have formed the view that I have too much power. The [Migration Act] is unlike any Act I have seen in terms of the power given to the Minister to make decisions about individual cases. I am uncomfortable with that not just because of a concern about playing God but also because of the lack of transparency and accountability for those ministerial decisions, the lack in some cases of any appeal rights against those decisions and the fact that what I thought was to be a power that was to be used in rare cases has become very much the norm.

Read more: How the hard right terminated Turnbull, only to see Scott Morrison become PM

The second reason is that Dutton’s decision to intervene swiftly to grant visas to the au pairs on public interest grounds contrasts with the manner in which other migration-related decisions have been made. For example, the department has denied medical transfers to Australia to numerous asylum seekers detained offshore, including children at risk of death.

Recent reports state that an Afghan interpreter who claims his life is in danger after helping Australian troops has been denied a protection visa, and requests to meet with Dutton have gone unanswered. Departmental statistics indicate that, historically speaking, ministerial intervention to grant a tourist visa has been very rare.

Ultimately, the legal framework provided by the Migration Act allows for these variances. However Dutton, like all Ministers, is accountable to the parliament under the principle of responsible government. The Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs is currently holding an inquiry into the appropriateness of Dutton’s decision to grant visas to two of the au pairs. It is due to report by September 11.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Krzysztof Bolejko, Cosmologist, University of Sydney

Astronomers are engaged in a lively debate over plans to rename one of the laws of physics.

It emerged overnight in Vienna at the 30th Meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), in Vienna, where members of the general assembly considered a resolution on amending the name of the Hubble Law to the Hubble-Lemaître Law.

The resolution aims to credit the work of the Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître and his contribution – along with the American astronomer Edwin Hubble – to our understanding of the expansion of the universe.

While most (but not all) members at the meeting were in favour of the resolution, it was decided to give all members of the International Astronomical Union a chance to vote. Subsequently, voting was downgraded to a straw vote and the resolution will formally be voted on by an electronic vote at a later date.

Giving all members a say via electronic voting was introduced following criticism of the IAU’s 2006 general assembly when a resolution to define a planet – that saw Pluto relegated to a dwarf-planet – was approved.

Read more: Planet or dwarf planet: all worlds are worth investigating

But changing the name of the Hubble Law raises the questions of who should be honoured in the naming of the laws of physics, and whether the IAU should be involved in any decision.

An expanding universe

The expansion of the universe was one of the most mind-blowing discoveries of the 20th century.

Expansion here means that the distance between galaxies in general increases with time, and it increases uniformly. It does not matter where you are and in which direction you look at, you still see a universe that is expanding.

When you really try to imagine all of this, you may end up with a headspin or even worse, as satirically depicted by Woody Allen in his movie Annie Hall.

The rate at which the universe is currently expanding is described by the Hubble Law, named after Edwin Hubble who in 1929 published an article reporting that astronomical data signify the expansion of the universe.

Hubble was not the first

In 1927, Georges Lemaître had already published an article on the expansion of the universe. His article was written in French and published in a Belgian journal.

Lemaître presented a theoretical foundation for the expansion of the universe, and used the astronomical data (the very same data that Hubble used in his 1929 article) to infer the rate at which the universe is expanding.

In 1928 the American mathematician and physicist Howard Robertson published an article in Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, where he derived the formula for the expansion of the universe and inferred the rate of expansion from the same data that were used by Lemaître (a year before) and Hubble (a year after).

Robertson did not know about Lemaître’s work. Given the limited popularity of the Belgian journal in which Lemaître’s paper appeared and the French language used, it is argued his remarkable discovery went largely unnoticed at the time by the astronomical community.

But the findings published by Hubble in 1929 were most likely influenced by Lemaître. In July 1928, Lemaître and Hubble met at the 3rd meeting of the International Astronomical Union, in Leiden. During the meeting they discussed the astronomical evidence suggesting the expansion of the universe.

Lost in translation

In January 1930 at the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in London, the English astronomer, physicist and mathematician Arthur Eddington raised the problem of the expansion of the universe and the lack of any theory that would satisfactory explain this phenomenon.

When Lemaître found about this, he wrote to Eddington to remind him about his 1927 paper, where he laid theoretical foundation for the expansion of the universe. Eddington invited Lemaître to republish the translation of the paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In the meantime, Hubble and the American astronomer Milton Humason published new results on the expansion of the universe in the Astrophysical Journal. This time the sample was larger and reaching regions more than ten times greater than before.

These new measurements made prior measurements of the expansion of the universe obsolete. Thus, when working on the translation, Lemaître removed from his article the paragraphs where he estimated the rate of the expansion of the universe.

As a result of this change, for people not familiar with the previous papers by Lemaître or Robertson, it looked like it was Hubble who was the first one to discover the expansion of the universe.

Lemaître was apparently not concerned with with establishing priority for his original discovery. Consequently, the formula that describes the present-day expansion rate bears the name of Hubble.

The resolution of the executive committee of the IAU wants to change the name to the Hubble-Lemaître Law, to honour Lemaître and acknowledge his part in the discovery.

Naming things in the universe

The IAU was founded in 1919 and one of its activities is to standardise the naming of celestial objects and their definitions: from small asteroids, to planets and constellations.

The IAU comprises of Individual Members (more than 12,000 people from 101 countries) and National Members (79 different academies of science or national astronomical societies). The decisions made by IAU do not have any legislative power, but it does say:

The names approved by the IAU represent the consensus of professional astronomers around the world and national science academies, who as “Individual Members” and “National Members”, respectively, adhere to the guidelines of the International Astronomical Union.

It is thus reasonable to expect that if the resolution is passed then with time the new name will become more widely used.

Game changing resolution

This resolution has serious implications. It seeks to acknowledge Lemaître for his involvement in one of the most fundamental discoveries on the behaviour of our universe. At the same time, the resolution may set a precedent for future actions.

Will this initiate further changes? Will other disciplines follow the example set by astronomers?

Read more: The universe’s rate of expansion is in dispute – and we may need new physics to solve it

Science is full of laws, effects, equations and constants that in many cases do not bear the name of their rightful discoverers. Some people worry that giving the due credit in all of such cases will cost a lot of effort and time.

Others will welcome this precedent and eagerly await when, for example, Henrietta Swan Leavitt will finally be properly acknowledged for the discovery of the period-luminosity relation.

For now, we have to wait for the result of the electronic voting.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Branch, Associate Professor in Telecommunications Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology

Who will build Australia’s 5G mobile phone network?

Not Chinese telecommunications infrastructure company Huawei, which was recently excluded from involvement via a statement from then acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison – now prime minister – and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield.

Read more: Explainer: why Chinese telecoms participating in Australia’s 5G network could be a problem

Australia’s 5G is likely to be up and running sometime in the next few years, with some trials already underway.

Nevertheless, widespread rollout needs equipment to be purchased, tested and deployed. It needs sites to be obtained for base stations. It needs software upgrades to billing and management systems. So it’s likely to be a little way off yet.

The nuts and bolts of a network

5G will have the same high level architecture as previous cellular networks, but the intricate details are very different.

In very simple terms, a cellular mobile network consists of three components: mobile devices, a radio access network and a core network.

The mobile device might be a smart phone, tablet, or a computer with a USB dongle, but could also be a low-cost sensor with a simple transmitter.

The radio access network consists mainly of base stations (mobile phone towers), and is connected to the core network. The base station uses radio waves to relay communications between the mobile device and the core network. The area covered by a base station is called a cell.

The core network’s main role is to set up communication with other devices and other networks, user management and record information for billing.

Each generation of cellular networking has introduced radical changes to what the network does and how it does it.

Previous generations have seen communications moving from analogue to digital, have introduced data services, have moved to a simplified architecture, have increased the data speed available to end users and increased bandwidth efficiency.

Read more: Only with urgent change can Australia’s mobile networks meet our voracious demand for data

How is 5G different?

Many of the changes introduced by 5G will be in the base stations and core network. These are less apparent to end users, but very important for the network operators.

5G will make use of much higher frequencies for radio communications than has been used in cellular networks in the past.

Since higher frequencies attenuate (weaken) with distance more rapidly than lower frequencies, 5G will use much smaller cell sizes than previous generations. In urban areas cell sizes might only be a few hundred metres in diameter.

Small cell sizes make available previously unused radio frequencies – but introduce additional complexity in managing interference and handover of mobile stations from one base station to another.

5G will also support very large numbers of devices per cell. One of the working parties developing 5G standards specifies a minimum of one million devices per square kilometre.

Being able to support such large numbers of devices is important for the “Internet of Things” – where household devices and machinery are also connected to the internet.

Read more: The 5G network threatens to overcrowd the airwaves, putting weather radar at risk

5G will make use of sophisticated signal processing techniques such as Multi Input, Multi Output (MIMO) antennae – which will improve the efficient use of bandwidth.

Because the frequency is higher, the wavelength is smaller (around one millimetre). Optimal antenna size is related to the wavelength. Small wavelengths mean more antennae can be used per mobile node than has been possible in the past which is the basis of MIMO.

Another significant change for 5G will be to centralise much of the processing that in the past was carried out at the base stations. Dealing with the high density of devices and doing sophisticated processing requires a great deal of computing power. Rather than having each base station doing it, the raw data will be transmitted to a central location and be processed there.

China’s Huawei has taken a leading role in the development of 5G. It has made substantial contributions to the standards development process and has been among the first to carry out substantial trials.

China is expected to be the largest global market for 5G with some predictions of more than 400 million connections by 2025.

Will my phone service improve?

Once it’s up and running, the main change for 5G users will be increased speed and reduced delay.

Plans are for peak data rates of around 20 gigabits per second (Gbps) down to the receiver, and 10 Gbps up to the base station. The delay (the time taken to get a packet from the mobile device to the base station) will for most users be less than 4 milliseconds.

Fixed wireless setups are already operating in Europe that use technologies we know will be used in 5G.

However, even though we know what technologies 5G will use, the detailed standards for mobile cellular networks are still to be formalised. Without them, companies cannot produce networking equipment and handsets.

Telecommunications companies need to find sites for the base stations, install the systems and upgrade their software. Consequently, we are still a few years off widespread deployment.

And we don’t know who will build it in Australia.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lloyd Cox, Lecturer, Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University

It’s hard to read the recent felling of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as anything other than an act of revenge by Tony Abbott and his closest supporters.

This is indeed the judgement of former foreign minister and opposition leader Alexander Downer and former Liberal Party treasurer Michael Yabsley, as revealed in ABC’s Four Corners.

This judgement fits with everything we know about the humiliation and embitterment Abbott and his conservative allies felt after Turnbull toppled Abbott in a leadership spill in 2015.

Read more: If the Liberals have any hope of rebuilding, they might take lessons from Robert Menzies

It also accords with what modern psychology and social science would lead us to expect in circumstances where a person or group experiences what they perceive to be unjust treatment at the hands of an adversary. The feelings of grievance and damage to the ego can often only be ameliorated by revenge against those who inflicted the harm.

Such feelings, and the aggression they cause, apply no less to politicians such as Abbott and his conservative colleagues than they do to anyone else.

How then, can revenge become a force that controls us?

The emotional basis of revenge

The predisposition to harm those who are perceived to have harmed us – the essence of revenge – is a fundamental human desire.

Cultural and legal deterrents against “taking the law into your own hands” might mitigate the destructive potential of vengeful behaviour, but it can never fully remove it.

That’s why we observe revenge in all societies and walks of life, including politics. It’s what Francis Bacon, writing nearly 400 years ago, warned of as a kind of “wild justice” that can destroy both the avenger and their victim.

While revenge often involves planning and cool calculation (the proverbial “dish best served cold”), psychologists and social scientists have long recognised it’s always premised on particular emotions.

Shame and humiliation, typically caused by the perceived erosion of respect and esteem in the eyes of others, are particularly important instigators of vengeful thoughts and actions. When others undermine our feelings of self worth, this often triggers resentment and rage and the desire to strike back against one’s tormentors.

Doing so constitutes a form of emotionally gratifying communication. The avenger “teaches” the object of revenge a lesson. They make the victim of revenge feel what they once felt, communicating a psychologically satisfying message of righteous redress to the victim, third parties and, most importantly, themselves.

The substance of this message varies, but typically includes assertions about the resolve of the avenger to uphold rights that have been violated, to preserve respect that has been threatened, and to shore up social and personal honour that has been besmirched. The avenger demonstrates to themselves and the world they are somebody not to be crossed.

Psychologically, this helps the avenger restore an ego deflated by their previous humiliations. Revenge, to put it bluntly, helps the humiliated person feel better about themselves. It helps them cope. They take satisfaction in the knowledge the source of previous harms is now being punished, and that they deserve their punishment. This is why revenge has often been described as “sweet”.

Modern neuroscience and psychology affirms that revenge is indeed sweet. Inflicting harm on those who have previously harmed us arouses feelings of pleasure in those parts of the brain regulating emotion. Even thinking about or planning revenge – the so called “revenge fantasy” – releases feel-good chemicals in our brains.

This is why we can become so preoccupied and even obsessed with vengeful thoughts. The more we think about revenge, the more we reinforce neural pathways that trigger those thoughts and release those chemicals. We can become addicted to the feeling of revenge, which can lend a certain vindictive cast to a person’s character.

Such a character trait typically manifests itself when the person feels themselves, or persons and groups with whom they identify, to be the victim of an injustice. Revenge fulfils what justice demands. Revenge erases unjust humiliations. It turns the world right side up again. Vengeful acts are thus always redemptive acts – or at least, that is the hope. More often than not, they end up being hugely destructive acts.

The destructiveness of revenge – a common literary theme from the ancient Greeks, through Shakespeare to contemporary writers – can be understood in two senses.

On the one hand, the victim and perpetrator of revenge can both be damaged. The reasons are obvious in the case of the victim. For the perpetrator, the destructiveness arises from being consumed by vengeance. This can overtake all rational judgement about what is in the avenger’s interests, and what is a proportional response to a perceived harm. Sometimes, no price seems too high to pay to realise revenge.

On the other hand, revenge can be hugely destructive because it unleashes cycles of further revenge and counter revenge. Anthropologists confirm instances of tribal warfare in the New Guinea Highlands, and blood feuds in Mediterranean peasant societies, where cycles of revenge have lasted for generations, long after the source of the original conflict has been forgotten.

Today’s political parties are not immune to such human failings. In fact, where towering personal ambitions meet huge but often fragile egos, vengeful behaviour is inevitable.

While all of this “madness”, as Turnbull called it, was not just the product of vengeance – deep ideological fractures within the Liberal Party and Australia more generally were just as important – it was nonetheless a key ingredient.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: The high costs of our destructive coup culture

Conservatives harnessed vengeful motives to their broader efforts to re-capture the Liberal Party. In so doing, they became slaves to their emotions, animosities and personal ambitions. They will now pay the electoral price.

When they do, we can expect further vengeful recriminations. Such is the logic of “wild justice.”

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Koplin, Resarch Fellow in Biomedical Ethics, Melbourne Law School and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, University of Melbourne

DrinkWise Australia has withdrawn thousands of posters designed to inform women about the risks of drinking during pregnancy.

DrinkWise – which has previously drawn criticism for its alignment with the alcohol industry – distributed the posters to hospitals and GP clinics. The posters were pulled after the Australian Medical Association raised concerns that the text included misleading and inaccurate information.

Read more: DrinkWise’s cynical campaign shouldn’t fool anyone

The headline of the poster states “It’s safest not to drink while pregnant.” The following message was printed underneath:

It’s not known if alcohol is safe to drink when you are pregnant. What is known is that the risk of damage to your baby increases the more you drink and binge drinking is particularly harmful.

The safest option for women is to abstain from drinking if they are pregnant, planning a pregnancy or breastfeeding.

The problem lies in the first sentence, which claims it’s “not known” whether it is safe to drink while pregnant. This claim is misleading. There is clear evidence that drinking during pregnancy can harm the developing foetus.

There is less evidence on the risks of drinking small amounts of alcohol during pregnancy, but even here the limited available evidence arguably suggests that abstaining is the safest option.

DrinkWise responded to the complaints by replacing the posters with an updated version. The new posters remove the original text and add the following sentence:

A very important choice you can make for the health of your baby is to abstain from alcohol while pregnant, planning a pregnancy or breastfeeding.

This change removes the misleading information. But how effectively does it communicate the risks of drinking during pregnancy?

Why language matters

How we write can have a dramatic impact on how, and whether, our message is understood. The same facts, presented in different ways, can have a profoundly different impact.

We can even nudge people towards making certain choices by framing information in particular ways. This is a technique already used by governments to encourage the public to make healthier choices and by corporations to encourage consumers to spend more money.

The language we use is therefore practically and ethically important, especially when public health is at stake. We should pay attention both to what is said and to how it’s expressed.

Read more: Health Check: what are the risks of drinking before you know you’re pregnant?

The DrinkWise posters are designed to highlight the risks of drinking during pregnancy. To do so effectively, the message presumably needs to be clear and direct. How well do the replacement posters meet this goal?

Not very well. The revised text has several features that muddy the message.

The poster explains that “a very important choice you can make for the health of your baby is to abstain from alcohol while pregnant, planning a pregnancy or breastfeeding.” This is a strikingly graceless sentence.

One time-honoured rule for clear writing recommends keeping the grammatical subject short. This is because sentences are easier to follow when the subject leads quickly to the verb. The revised text begins with a grammatical subject that’s an ungainly 13 words long (“A very important choice you can make for the health of your baby…”) Exactly what this refers to (“…abstaining from alcohol…”) trails afterwards.

Structuring the sentence in this way has some interesting effects. The text does not actively recommend abstaining from alcohol, nor does it directly claim it is important to do so. Instead, the option of abstaining from alcohol is positioned as an “important choice” that women can make.

Read more: Health risks of light drinking in pregnancy confirms that abstention is the safest approach

The text also avoids claiming that drinking during pregnancy can cause harm. Instead, abstaining from alcohol is framed, obscurely, as a choice you might make “for the health of your baby”.

The poster’s headline does state it’s safest not to drink while pregnant. However, even this comparatively explicit message says nothing about the nature or magnitude of the possible risks.

Women are already required to negotiate a range of contradictory information and advice about the risks of drinking while pregnant. The awkward wording of the DrinkWise poster is more problematic than just weak copywriting. It undermines the public health message the poster is intended to convey.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Knight, Honorary Research Professor, University of Melbourne

Peter Corris, author of the Cliff Hardy novels, died on August 30 2018 age 76.

By the 1970s Australian crime fiction was drifting.

The genre had a long history, back to convict days, when it dealt with unfair convictions and brutal treatments, most famously in Marcus Clarke’s For The Term Of His Natural Life (1870-2).

Being mostly published in London for the curiosity of the English, Australian crime fiction had followed European models, with some major success like Fergus Hume’s best-selling The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), and the fine series of mysteries by post-second world war women writers June Wright, “Margot Neville”, Pat Flower and Pat Carlon. But local crime fiction was little publicised and had little impact – the books mostly came into libraries from London.

English business interests and Australian outlooks changed as time passed. Then, in 1980, Peter Corris’s The Dying Trade appeared, a crime story which was American in its influence, fully Australian in its spirit, and both published and strongly publicised at home. The novel was the first adventure of a tough, but at times sensitive, Sydney private eye with the wonderfully Australian name, offering both geography and morality, Cliff Hardy. Corris, who has published over

Published by McGraw Hill, an American company newly adventuring across the Pacific, the novel was very well-received, and started Peter’s own long series of fiction. But it was also the first of a very striking renaissance (or even naissance) in Australian crime writing.

Read more: Friday essay: from convicts to contemporary convictions – 200 years of Australian crime fiction

Within ten years Marele Day, Jennifer Rowe and Claire McNab were producing their sharp variants of female detection. By 2000, major producers such as Gabrielle Lord, Gary Disher and the powerful Peter Temple, who also recently passed away, were busily at work. They were asserting that the mysteries of death and detection could have a distinctly local and socially investigative thrust – as Corris had established back in 1980. No wonder he has been named the “godfather” of modern Australian crime fiction.

Cliff Hardy, though tough in his name, could be subtle. He lives in Sydney’s Glebe; he spent some time at the nearby university; and is capable of close analysis when needed. His cases are brought to him, but, as the masters of the form Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler established, the P.I. will also assert his privacy and make decisions about where his investigation is going to go.

As with the major American writers, the primary themes of the Cliff Hardy novels are urban corruption. But Corris’s expertise in Pacific history informs his writing. The first novel involves Pacific misdoings. White Meat (1981) makes Indigenous themes important – which return strongly in The Black Prince (1998).

Read more: True Blue? Crime fiction and Australia

Like the detective of Peter Temple, who no doubt learnt both confidence and approach from Corris, Hardy shows how local malpractice can have its roots in national and international criminal evil.

Though Australian crime writers have had very little success with the spy thriller, Corris’s Ray Crawley series – eight novels from Pokerface (1985) to The Vietnam Volunteer (2000) – are a capable version of the form.

More remarkable is his eight-book “Browning” series, from Box Office Browning (1987) to Browning Without a Cause (1965). In the series, the popular investigator Browning (one wonders why Corris chose the name of the wry learned 19th century English poet) adventures in part comically around the world, meeting on his way his compatriot Errol Flynn.

Corris also assented to the recent (and internationally very late) male Australian crime-writer engagement with police detectives – some of his leanest and sharpest novels are the three in the Luke Dunlop series about an undercover police agent, from Set-Up (1992) to Get Even (1994).

At first an academic historian, in the 1970s Corris became the literary editor of the much-regretted serious weekend newspaper The National Times. He had a wide range of knowledge and interests.

But what Corris will be most remembered for, and what he kept flowing in novels — and also in a number of short stories – were the adventures of Cliff Hardy. Cliff was drinking and chasing women a lot back in 1980. He calmed down in both departments, but kept at his investigations of corruption and malpractice, both business-oriented and personal.

Through his hero, with his physical and moral echt-Australian name Cliff Hardy, and through his lucid, calm plotting, Hardy has matched Raymond Chandler in the modern world’s dominant crime form.

Both citified and individualist, the private eye story at its best demands personal, deep referential knowledge of the author – and calm stylistic skills. We have seen all this in the Hardy novels.

At the very end of Corris’s last Hardy novel, Win, Lose or Draw (2017) – in Australia, sport is always there – Hardy is smiling. So should his creator have been. With Hardy, he made a richly entertaining, very widely-admired, genuinely, lastingly, Australian international crime fiction hero.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Maguire, Senior Lecturer in International Law and Human Rights, University of Newcastle

Chelsea Manning is due to commence a speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand on Sunday. Her appearances at the Sydney Opera House and subsequent venues, though, are in doubt.

The Department of Home Affairs has written to Manning to give notice of an intention to “consider refusal” of her visa application. New Immigration Minister David Coleman may decide to refuse Manning’s application on the basis that her criminal record prevents her from meeting the character test.

The New Zealand government is facing the same decision, with the opposition National party calling on the immigration minister to refuse entry to Manning on the grounds of poor character.

Chelsea Manning’s past and the character test

In 2010, while a US army intelligence operative, Manning leaked over 700,000 items of interest to WikiLeaks. That site published vast amounts of classified material from Manning’s leaks, including videos showing US airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan which killed non-combatants.

Manning is variously described as a whistle-blower, a danger to others and a traitor.

Manning, a transwoman formerly known as Bradley Manning, was acquitted of aiding the enemy, a charge that could have carried a death sentence. However, a military court convicted her of multiple other crimes, including violations of the Espionage Act.

Read more: Clemency for Chelsea Manning – but will Assange or Snowden also find the US merciful?

She was sentenced to 35 years in prison and served seven, before then President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. Despite transitioning during her imprisonment, Manning had been kept in a men’s prison and had twice attempted suicide prior to her release.

For the purposes of the current controversy, it is important to distinguish between commutation of a sentence and a reversal of a conviction. Although Manning was released early, she retains a criminal record.

Under s501(6)(a) of the Migration Act (Cth), a person does not meet the character test if they have a “substantial criminal record”. A prison sentence of over 12 months constitutes a substantial criminal record, and therefore it is clear that Manning can be said to fail the character test.

Yet the Migration Act does not automatically ban the granting of visas to people who fail the character test on these grounds. Instead, it gives the minister discretion to grant or refuse a visa. There is an expectation of natural justice, which means that Manning – if refused – could appeal the decision.

In practical terms, this is of little assistance to Manning. It has been reported that a notice of intention to consider refusal of a visa typically results in refusal. It is unlikely that her application could be refused and then successfully appealed within the time required to travel from the US.

Freedom of speech in Australia

Human rights proponents and community members have called on the Minister to grant Manning’s visa. Amnesty International argues:

Australians have a right to engage in important discussions about human rights. Silencing Chelsea Manning is a denial of her right to freedom of expression.

The Castan Centre for Human Rights notes that Manning pled guilty to the crimes she was convicted of and that her contrition and contributions to public debate demonstrate that she satisfies the character test:

In contrast, those calling for Manning to be denied entry to New Zealand have argued that moves to deny her a visa are not related to freedom of speech.

New Zealand National Party immigration spokesperson and former minister Michael Woodhouse said

This is not a question of free speech. Manning is free absolutely to say whatever she wants but she’s not free to travel wherever she wants. Other countries have already denied her entry.

There is no express right to free speech in Australia. However, the High Court has held that freedom of political communication should be implied, because the Constitution provides for a system of representative government.

The implied right to freedom of political communication does not operate as a personal right. Instead, it acts as a constraint on legislative and executive power.

In practice, this means that courts are required to determine whether the law is reasonably appropriate and adapted to serve a legitimate end in a manner that is compatible with “the system of government prescribed by the Constitution”.

This is in stark contrast to other countries where free speech is afforded stronger protection. The First Amendment of the US Constitution provides explicit and largely unconstrained freedom of speech. In the United States, free speech is afforded much stronger protection by the Constitution.

Freedom of opinion and expression are also protected across the broad spectrum of international human rights laws, as necessary preconditions for the realisation of other human rights.

Therefore, as in several other areas, there is a disjuncture between Australia’s international legal obligations and the extent to which these are incorporated in domestic law. The limited explicit protection of free speech in Australia is unlikely to afford much in the way of formal protection for Manning.

Public and political perceptions of free speech

Despite the limited legal protection of free speech in Australia, the notion that free speech is an important part of a thriving liberal democracy is uncontroversial. What is more contentious is the appropriate balance between protecting freedom of expression and ideas, and protecting individuals from the harm certain kinds of speech might engender.

Denying Manning the opportunity to enter Australia to undertake her speaking tour seems at odds with the Australian government’s purported commitment to freedom of expression.

Read more: Free speech? It depends who you are, in Peter Dutton’s view

This commitment has been on public display in recent times, perhaps most notably in supporting “robust” and hurtful public debate around the marriage equality plebiscite), and in attempts to repeal s18C ] of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth).

Other “free speech” visa cases have received global attention in recent times. For example, “alt-right” commentators Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were recently permitted to enter Australia for provocative speaking engagements. Southern had previously been denied a UK visa on the grounds that her visit would not be in the public interest, with Southern claiming she had been told that she was “banned for racism”.

Protests were held in Melbourne last year over the speaking tour of Milo Yiannopoulos. His visit also attracted public demonstrations from far-right Australian groups like the United Patriots Front.

Of course Manning’s case is distinguished by her criminal record. The minister is free to use his discretion to refuse her entry. But it is not clear what harms her free expression might cause in Australia, particularly if we contrast her case with those above.

“Good character” decisions are not made in a political vacuum. They are no doubt informed by the political exigencies of the day. Perhaps, in Manning’s case, Australia’s US alliance is a factor in the likely visa refusal.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Wade, Research Affiliate, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney

We know from new research that children whose mothers are depressed may respond differently to stress, have altered immunity and be at greater risk of psychological disorders. This work adds to the body of research showing children can be affected in negative and long-term ways by their mothers’ mental ill-health.

But what about dads?

Men’s mental health is more on the societal radar these days – but less so in terms of fatherhood. This area has been relatively under-researched. So how important is a father’s mental health to the way thier child grows and develops? Very important, as it turns out.

Dads have a powerful impact on their kids

Fathers’ mental health and the quality of their co-parenting relationships have a powerful impact on child development. Evidence shows fathers who are sensitive and supportive have children who develop better social skills and language, regardless of socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity.

Read more: What type of relationship should I have with my co-parent now we’re divorced?

Research also shows when fathers experience mental illness, their children are at higher risk of behavioural and emotional difficulties. The magnitude of this risk is similar to when mothers experience mental illness.

Data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children show fathers who experience snowballing distress report being less consistent in setting and enforcing clear expectations and limits for their child’s behaviour, and show less warmth and greater hostility towards their children by the time the child is eight to nine years of age.

There is also emerging evidence to show supporting fathers’ mental health early in their parenting journey has positive effects on children.

We also know in order to thrive, develop well and sail relatively smoothly through to maturity, children need parents who feel confident, supported and equipped with the right skills to navigate the sometimes choppy waters of parenting.

It’s critically important we understand how both mothers and fathers are doing when it comes to mental health. For the sake of their own health and the well-being of their children.

New insights on Australian dads

Recent research conducted by the Parenting Research Centre sheds some new light on the mental health of Australian fathers. The research found one in five dads has experienced symptoms of depression and/or anxiety since having children. This includes nearly one in ten dads who report experiencing postnatal depression.

This may sound surprising, but it gives us reliable Australian data from the perspectives of a large and representative sample of fathers. It’s drawn from a new analysis of the Parenting Today in Victoria survey of 2,600 parents, 40% of whom were dads.

Fathers with poorer mental health told us they were less likely to feel effective as parents and were less confident in their own parenting. They were more critical of, less patient and less consistent in parenting behaviours with their children. They also spent less time with them, were less likely to be involved with their child’s school or early education service and less likely to feel confident about helping them with their school work.

Read more: Mums and dads of very preterm babies more likely to be depressed

The proportion of dads reporting symptoms of depression and anxiety in this survey is lower than for mums (one in three). But the dads surveyed were less likely than mums to identify someone they trusted they could turn to for advice.

The dads were generally more positive than mums about the amount of support they received from their partner. But the fact many fathers are likely to be struggling with no clear view of where to get help should sound alarm bells.

Research on the co-parenting relationship (including for separated parents) shows the level of support parents provide each other through sharing everyday parenting responsibilities impacts child outcomes.

So, what can be done?

It’s important to note the majority of dads surveyed were doing well. In general, there’s a very positive overall picture of fathering in Australia. This contradicts out-dated assumptions fathers are less involved or less effective than mothers when it comes to child health and development.

Read more: Shared parenting: what’s really important when dads move out

But we can’t ignore the relatively high numbers of dads who aren’t travelling so well. This research highlights three key areas that will reap rewards for children if we focus on them now:

1. make it routine to address fathers’ as well as mothers’ mental health in services for new parents – this isn’t currently happening in maternal, family and child health services

2. offer support to parents around co-parenting and what it means to support each other, particularly those who are co-parenting across different types of family living arrangements to help them get on the same parenting page

3. work on ways to better engage dads in two areas: in parenting support services to give them strategies for parenting confidently and in early education settings and schools, where having both parents involved results in benefits for the child.

Research shows involving both parents in parenting programs rather than just one is more beneficial to children. We should consider what we know about dads’ motivations for attending or not attending parenting programs or education sessions (such as lack of time or feeling uncomfortable asking for help) and tailor strategies specifically to dads that take these into account.

Fathers tend to look for information and advice about raising their children online, rather than consulting professionals or attending group sessions. Some 76% of the dads surveyed said they went online for parenting information or advice. But many (around 66%) said they used books. Dads need access to credible parenting information in formats they can explore on their own terms.

Five free resources for dads

The Australian government funded website raisingchildren.net.au has lots of evidence-based, dad-specific and general parenting information in the form of articles, videos and free webinars that can be viewed any time.

The University of Newcastle’s SMS4dads is a text messaging service which aims to check in with dads through their smartphone before and after the birth of their baby.

The Movember Foundation website has a section devoted specifically to mental health that encourages men to start a conversation about their own mental health and reach out for help and advice.

Beyondblue has a four-part web series called Dadvice, which follows four dads on their journey into fatherhood.

Health Direct, funded by the federal government and most Australian states, offers information on depression in men and where to seek help.

If you are a dad who needs to speak to someone immediately about a mental health issue, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Milford, Professor, Queensland University of Technology

Whether you do your shopping online or in store, your retail experience is the latest battleground for the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning revolution.

Major Australian retailers have begun to realise that they have a lot to gain from getting their AI strategy right, with one currently recruiting for a Head of AI and Machine Learning supported by a team of data scientists.

Read more: Ethics by numbers: how to build machine learning that cares

The newly developed Woolworths division WooliesX aims to bring together a diverse group of teams, including technology, customer digital experience, e-commerce, financial services and digital customer experience.

All about crunching the data

To understand the opportunities and threats for all major retailers, it’s useful to understand why artificial intelligence is back on the agenda. Two crucial things have changed since the initial forays into AI decades ago: data and computing power.

Computing power is easy to see. The smartphone in your hand has millions of times more computational power than the bulky computers of decades ago. Companies have access to almost unlimited computing power with which to train their AI algorithms.

The other critical ingredient is the scale and richness of data available, especially in retail.

Artificial intelligence systems – especially learning techniques such as machine learning – thrive on large, rich data sets. When fed appropriately with this data, these systems discover trends, patterns, and correlations that no human analyst could ever hope to discover manually.

These machine learning approaches automate data analysis, enabling users to create a model that can then make useful predictions about other similar data.

Why retail is suited for AI

The rapidity of AI deployment in different fields depends on a few critical factors: retail is particularly suitable for a few reasons.

The first is the ability to test and measure. With appropriate safeguards, retail giants can deploy AI and test and measure consumer response. They can also directly measure the effect on their bottom line fairly quickly.

The second is the relatively small consequences of a mistake. An AI agent landing a passenger aircraft cannot afford to make a mistake because it might kill people. An AI agent deployed in retail that makes millions of decisions every day can afford to make some mistakes, as long as the overall effect is positive.

Some smart robot technology is already happening in retail with Nuro.AI partnering with grocery behemoth Kroger to deliver groceries to customers’ doorsteps in the United States.

But many of the most significant changes will come from deployment of AI rather than physical robots or autonomous vehicles. Let’s go through a few AI-based scenarios that will transform your retail experience.

Your shopping habits

AI can detect underlying patterns in your shopping behaviour from the products you buy and the way in which you buy them.

This could be your regular purchases of rice from the supermarket, sporadic purchases of wine from the liquor store, and Friday night binges on ice cream at the local convenience store.

Whereas inventory and sales database systems simply track purchases of individual products, with sufficient data, machine learning systems can predict your regular habits. It knows you like cooking risotto every Monday night, but also your more complex behaviour like the occasional ice cream binge.

At a larger scale, analysis of the behaviour of millions of consumers would enable supermarkets to predict how many Australian families cook risotto every week. This would inform inventory management systems, automatically optimising stocks of Arborio rice, for example, for stores with lots of risotto consumers.

This information would then be shared with friendly suppliers, enabling more efficient inventory management and lean logistics.

Efficient marketing

Traditional loyalty scheme databases like FlyBuys enabled supermarkets to identify your frequency of purchase of a particular product – such as you buying Arborio rice once a week – and then send an offer to a group of consumers who were identified as “about to buy Arborio rice”.

New marketing techniques will move beyond promoting sales to customers who are already likely to buy that product anyway. Instead, machine learning recommenders will promote garlic bread, tiramisu or other personalised product recommendations that data from thousands of other consumers has suggested often go together.

Efficient marketing means less discounting, and more profit.

Pricing dynamics

The pricing challenge for supermarkets involves applying the right price and the right promotion to the right product.

Retail pricing optimisation is a complex undertaking, requiring data analysis at a granular level for each customer, product and transaction.

To be effective, endless factors need to be examined, like how sales are impacted by changing price points over time, seasonality, weather and competitors’ promotions.

A well-crafted machine learning program can factor in all of these variations, combining them with additional details such as purchase histories, product preferences and more to develop deep insights and pricing tailored to maximise revenue and profit.

Customer feedback

Historically, customer feedback was attained via feedback cards, filled out and placed in a suggestions box. This feedback had to be read and acted upon.

As social media increased, it became a platform to express feedback publicly. Accordingly, retailers turned to social media scraping software in order to respond, resolve and engage customers in conversation.

Moving forward, machine learning will play a role in this context. Machine learning and AI systems will enable for the first time bulk analysis of multiple sources of messy, unstructured data, such as customer recorded verbal comments or video data.

Read more: Angry social media posts are never a good idea. How to keep them in check

Reduction in theft

Australian retailers lose an estimated A$4.5 billion annually in stock losses. The growth in self-service registers is contributing to those losses.

Machine learning systems have the ability to effortlessly scan millions of images, enabling smart, camera-equipped point of sale (POS) systems to detect the different varieties of fruits and vegetables shoppers place on register scales.

Over time, systems will also get better at detecting all the products sold at a store, including a task called fine-grained classification, enabling it to tell the difference between a Valencia and Navel orange. Hence there would be no more “mistakes” in entering potatoes when you are actually buying peaches.

In the longer term, POS systems may disappear completely, as in the case of the Amazon Go store.

Read more: The economics of self-service checkouts

Computers that order for you

Machine learning systems are rapidly getting better at translating your natural voice into grocery lists.

Digital assistants such as Google Duplex may soon create shopping lists and place orders for you, with French retailer Carrefour and US giant Walmart already partnering with Google.

An evolving AI retail experience

As you move through life stages you get older, occasionally get unwell, you may get married, perhaps have kids, or change careers. As life circumstances and spending habits of a customer change, models will automatically adjust, as they already do in areas like fraud detection.

Read more: Location and voice technology are the future of retail

The current reactive system involves waiting for a customer to start buying nappies, for example, to then identify that customer as having just started a family, before following up with appropriate product recommendations.

Instead, machine learning algorithms may model behaviour, such as the purchases of folate vitamins and bio oils, then predict when offers should be sent.

This shift from reactive to predictive marketing could change the way you shop, bringing you suggestions you perhaps never even considered, all possible because of AI-related opportunities for both retailers and their customers.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Ware, Senior Lecturer in International & Community Development, Deakin University

The UN Human Rights Council released a new report last Monday, which calls last year’s violence against the Rohingya “genocide”.

Released almost exactly a year after the start of devastating violence that drove 671,500 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh within a matter of months, the report found conclusive evidence that Myanmar’s armed forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Using the strongest language to date, the report calls for the Myanmar commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, and five generals to be prosecuted.

What was the UN investigating?

The UN Human Rights Council formed a Rohingya investigating commission in March 2017, five months before the start of the violence that led to the mass flight of Rohingya refugees. The initial reason for the commission was a five-month military “area clearance operations” in Rohingya communities from October 2016 to February 2017, which resulted in widespread allegations of human rights abuses and war crimes.

The commission was set up to investigate alleged human rights violations by military, “with a view to ensuring full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims.” The August 2017 violence occurred after the commission had already begun, but obviously gave it more to investigate.

The “area clearance operations” were triggered by attacks against security forces on October 9, 2016, by a new militant group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). What really spurred the military into action was that the same day as the attacks, the organisation uploaded a series of 11 videos calling for international funding and fighters to join their jihad to liberate northern Rakhine State for the Rohingya – links were quickly found between the leader and the Taliban.

Apparently fearing a situation similar to the ISIS-linked Marawi crisis in the Philippines, the Myanmar army launched massive operations. But this military action failed to root out ARSA, and they responded with a second, much larger attack on August 25, 2017.

The Myanmar government quickly labelled the coordinated attacks by ARSA on over 30 security posts on a single night as “terrorism”. In response, the military quickly launched even more brutal counter-terrorist operations.

Obviously, any government must respond to violence perpetrated against its security forces. But the UN commission has been investigating alleged human rights abuses by the Myanmar army against the Rohingya people as a whole, as they tried to contain the armed threat.

What is the state of the Rohingya crisis?

The onset of brutal military action in their communities led to mass panic by Rohingya communities. Over half the Rohingya in Myanmar were so terrified they abandoned everything and fled to Bangladesh. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) quickly estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya died in the military violence in the first month alone. Total Rohingya deaths were perhaps over 13,000 people.

By March 2018, the UNHCR counted 671,500 Rohingya who had fled Myanmar since August 25, 2017. Counting those who had fled earlier violence, the UNHCR was looking after 836,210 Rohingya refugees in camps in Bangladesh.

Given some remain outside the camps, the Bangladeshi authorities claim 1,092,136 Rohingya refugees are now sheltering in their country. Only about 500,000-600,000 Rohingya Muslims now remain in Myanmar, and their situation is very vulnerable.

With allegations of Rohingya links to terrorism, some elements are trying to isolate these Rohingya villages and drive them out. On the other hand, there are many others locals rebuilding relations with local Rohingya.

What did the report find?

The Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar released this week found conclusive evidence that the army and security forces had indeed engaged in mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya, with “genocidal intent”. It therefore recommended that the UN Security Council should refer the Myanmar commander-in-chief and five generals to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, or an ad hoc international criminal tribunal. The report also suggested that ARSA might be guilty of war crimes too, and should be held to account.

The report said that Nobel Peace Prize-laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her government “contributed” to the atrocities through “acts and omissions”. This is a serious critique, and the international community must continue to demand she and her government change policy direction on the Rohingya.

The report authors strongly criticised Suu Kyi in particular, for not using her moral or political authority to stem the hate speech or apparently attempt to limit the military response. However, the passive role described in this report does not leave her open to international prosecution.

How can the crisis be brought to an end?

With serious mass atrocity crimes now documented, it is now urgent that the power of the army be reined in. The Myanmar army must be brought under civilian, parliamentary oversight, and the key perpetrators be at very least removed from position. The military have clearly demonstrated that they need formal oversight, and that their current senior leadership are unfit for command.

Myanmar has long demonstrated its ability to be belligerent to the international community, and that it is prepared to isolate itself in the face of international criticism. If this occurs now, 1.1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and up to 600,000 Rohingya in Myanmar remain in peril.

The perpetrators of mass crimes must be removed. But we must be careful that dogged pursuit of individuals for prosecution does not so undermine any hope of cooperation by the military and government, and thus further jeopardise the future and wellbeing of the Rohingya themselves.

Read more: ‘They shot my two daughters in front of me’: Rohingya tell heartbreaking stories of loss and forced migration

The repatriation of Rohingya to Myanmar is urgent, before all chance of them returning to their own land is removed. But repatriation plans to date don’t sufficiently guarantee their security and human rights guarantees. The international community needs to push for this, and engage more strongly than ever with the Myanmar authorities in achieving this outcome.

Likewise, the international community must commit resources now to ensure the security and future of the 600,000 or so Rohingya remaining in Myanmar. Much work must be done on strengthening social cohesion, and facilitating the sort of social change that would prepare the local population for accepting all the refugees back too. Now is not the time for broad sanctions and isolation, but engagement for the sake of the Rohingya.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Lavender, Lecturer, School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Curtin University

This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, a series where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.au

Why do our muscles get stiffer as we get older? At the age of 65, I’m immensely grateful I can maintain an active lifestyle including bushwalking and cycling. But when starting after a period of rest I feel quite stiff and awkward. This wasn’t a problem a couple of decades ago. Now I watch the flexibility of my young grandsons with awe. What changes in our muscles to cause this stiffness as we age? – Peter, 65

Many older people find they’re not able to move as freely as they did when they were younger. They describe their movements as feeling stiff or restricted. In particular, feeling stiff when getting out of bed first thing in the morning or after sitting for a long period. The feeling does eventually ease with movement as the muscles “warm up”, but it can be troublesome. There are a few reasons this happens.

As we age, bones, joints and muscles tend to become weak. Movements feeling stiff is often our perception of the increased effort required to perform daily tasks.

Many older people have ageing-associated conditions that can contribute to muscle stiffness. These include osteoarthritis (breaking down of the cartilage in joints), osteomalacia (a softening of the bones due to a lack of vitamin D), osteoporosis (where bone mass is reduced causing bones to become brittle), rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation of the joints, and muscle weakness due to sarcopenia (the natural loss of muscle mass and strength).

Read more: Frailty isn’t an inevitable consequence of ageing

Blood flow may also play a part. As we age, our arteries become stiffer and less flexible, meaning blood can easily pool, particularly in the feet.

When we get up after sitting or lying down for a long period of time, the stiffness may be due to a lack of the lubricating fluid in the joints. Once we move around for a while and warm up, more of the lubricating fluid, called synovial fluid, is moved into the joint, so the joint surfaces have less resistance to movement and can move more freely.

Normal healthy ageing results in a loss of joint cartilage, particularly of the knee. This cartilage provides a smooth articulating surface between bones at the joint that wears down, becoming thinner and providing less cushioning between the articulating surfaces. This may account for stiffness felt during movement.

Another contributing factor is the change in ligaments, tendons and muscles that are relatively relaxed and flexible when we are young. These lose that flexibility with ageing and disuse. In fact, many of the age-related changes in muscles, bones and joints are the result of disuse.

Read more: What’s happening in our bodies as we age?

Move it or lose it

As we get older, we tend to become less physically active. While that’s understandable and reasonable, reducing the amount we exercise too much or stopping exercise altogether can exacerbate these age-related changes. Muscles need to be stimulated by physical activity in order to maintain strength and mass.

Bones also need stimulation through loading to keep their density. Joints too need stimulation from movement to keep that feeling of stiffness to a minimum. And aside from our muscles and joints, the heart, lungs and circulatory system also need to be stimulated by exercise to maintain their ability to function optimally.

While there are many factors that contribute to this common feeling of restricted movement or stiffness, the most important action we can take is to move more. This can be achieved through a number of measures.

Read more: Do you even lift? Why lifting weights is more important for your health than you think

Becoming involved with a formal exercise or sports club is a great way to ensure you continue to exercise regularly. Teaming up with a friend to meet for exercise which could include aerobic activities such as running, swimming or walking is another good way to make sure you get some exercise.

Resistance training is also important for muscles and bones. Moving the limbs through the entire range of motion of the joints is important for maintaining the ability to move freely and keep the muscles, tendons and ligaments healthy.

There’s a lot of truth to the old adage “move it or lose it”: if we don’t keep moving, we lose our ability to do so. Exercise can be fun and finding something enjoyable will help you to stick to it. The social interactions that come with exercising, particularly in groups or clubs, is an added advantage which also has mental health benefits.

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The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chelsea Liu, Senior Lecturer, Adelaide Business School, University of Adelaide

Companies with more gender-balanced boards are less often sued for breaching environmental laws, suggesting that these companies are more mindful of protecting the environment. That is the key finding of my research, published in the Journal of Corporate Finance.

I studied 1,893 environmental lawsuits filed against any of the firms listed on the Standard and Poor’s 1500 composite index in the United States from 2000 to 2015.

I found that for every additional woman appointed to a corporate board, the company experienced an average 1.5% reduction in litigation risk.

The average cost of an environmental lawsuit is estimated to be 2.26% of a company’s market value, which translates into a dollar value of US$204.3 million based on the current average market capitalisation of the S&P1500 firms in my sample. This means that reducing the litigation risk by 1.5% (by appointing a female director) would be the equivalent of saving US$3.1 million.

What makes female directors green?

My research only shows a correlation between the gender makeup of corporate boards and their likelihood of having been sued on environmental grounds in subsequent years. From these data it is of course difficult to draw any conclusions about the causes of this relationship. But there are nevertheless several theories that can potentially help to explain why more gender-diverse boards might tend to make better environmental decisions.

First, women and men tend to have different ethical standards, according to existing research. Male directors are stereotypically power-oriented, whereas female directors show greater universalistic concerns for other people. Female voices in the boardroom could therefore conceivably help companies to keep the welfare of local communities in mind when making environmental decisions.

Second, people who are more different from one another (such as in terms of gender or race) generally make better group decisions together. This is in part because different people can bring different perspectives to discussions and come up with a wider range of potential options from which to choose. This in turn allows them to find the optimal solution. Given that many arenas of business are still male-dominated, hiring female directors generally improves boardroom diversity.

Third, research shows that female executives and directors are more likely to seek advice to complement their own knowledge. Environmental decisions typically require specialised knowledge and skills, and women’s openness to receiving expert advice may thus help to minimise environmental risks.

However, having more women on the board is not always better. If the proportion of female directors exceeds half, then any additional women appointed will reduce gender diversity. Given that diversity is key to good decision-making, maintaining a balance of men and women on the board is important.

I found that female directors make a bigger difference in reducing environmental lawsuits in companies run by male chief executives, compared with those companies that have female chief executives. Conversely, when I divided the firms into two groups with higher versus lower levels of female board representation, I found that a female chief executive only makes any difference to environmental lawsuit risk when the board is male-dominated. This shows that female chief executives and female directors have complementary roles in a boardroom.

Gender quotas?

Globally, women are underrepresented on corporate boards. According to the Australian Institute of Company Directors, only 21.7% of board members of the top 500 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange are women – and 113 of those companies still have no women on their boards.

Ten years ago, Norway blazed a trail by becoming the first country to require companies to appoint at least 40% women on their boards. Since then a dozen countries have followed suit and set boardroom gender quotas, including France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain. The UK and Australia continue to rely on firms adopting voluntary initiatives, such as joining the 30% Club, to improve boardroom gender diversity.

In Australia and the European Union, debates persist over whether companies should have a mandatory quota of female directors. Critics of this idea have argued that it would not necessarily boost profits, and may force companies to hire unqualified candidates or to offer multiple board positions to a relatively small group of highly qualified women.

Read more: Daniel Andrews, board quotas and the myth of ‘insufficient women’

Proponents of board gender diversity argue that having women on boards helps companies make better decisions – a theory that is supported by my research results.

My study did not directly measure whether “being green” makes companies financially better off. But given the urgency of global environmental problems, female corporate leadership makes an important contribution to benefit societies by improving companies’ environmental conduct.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Beasy, Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy (Equity and Diversity), University of Tasmania

Through the year there are now countless awareness-raising days for a range of causes. Whether you’re sending your child to school with a gold coin for Red Nose Day or wearing a pink ribbon on your lapel to work for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, these initiatives are now common in Australian daily life. But what’s the purpose of these events and do they actually work?

In a time of social media “slacktivism” from behind computer screens, there has been much criticism of the practical ability of awareness-raising campaigns to bring about real social change beyond superficial feel-good politics.

There’s no hard data to suggest days such as Wear It Purple Day this week actually have a long-term effect. But there is some evidence similar events provide important visibility for complex social issues and can create social change.

Wear It Purple

Wear It Purple Day is celebrated on the last Friday in August each year. It’s an annual event to raise awareness about same-sex attracted and gender diverse young people’s experiences of bullying and harassment, particularly at school.

Read more: Making schools safer and more welcoming for LGBTQI students

Wear It Purple was founded in 2010 in response to high rates of young people taking their lives as a result of homophobic bullying. This event is now an international movement. Many Australian workplaces and schools will host bake sales and encourage staff and students to wear purple clothes to support their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) peers.

The Queensland Police Service have even issued officers and staff with purple bootlaces to wear on the day.

But while these celebrations of diversity and inclusion send an important message, it’s unlikely they’ll have any real effect if they don’t give people practical things they can do to help the cause, or if they don’t engage the broader community in a meaningful way.

R U OK? Day

R U OK? Day, held annually in September, is dedicated to reminding people to ask others “are you OK?”, in terms of their mental health.

Researchers from across Australia used a population survey to find out what impact this event was having in the community. They found people who were aware of R U OK? Day were more willing to talk with others about their troubles and to hear the troubles of others.

Melbourne-based researchers reviewed suicide prevention media campaigns more broadly and found they create positive impacts in the community, including boosting help-seeking behaviours and improvements in attitudes about suicide.

White Ribbon Day

White Ribbon Day has become a global movement to end violence against women. Its history in Australia is one example of how an awareness-raising day can be the platform for building a broader movement. Starting as an annual White Ribbon Day on November 25, the organisation now delivers education programs and bystander initiatives.

Although it continues to attract critics, White Ribbon Day demonstrates the potential for one-off awareness-raising days to have a broader social impact when expanded into an ongoing movement, organisation, or initiative.

Mardi Gras

This year marked the 40th anniversary of the first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras march in Sydney. It began in 1978 as a protest against police brutality of gay men. The 1978 Sydney Mardi Gras became a defining moment in the history of LGBTIQ rights in Australia and remains symbolic for the LGBTIQ community. The Sydney Mardi Gras marches put Sydney on the map as an international gay and lesbian city.

A study found Pride marches such as Mardi Gras are important for raising awareness of social injustice for event participants. They also enhance participants’ sense of identity in everyday life through collective experiences of resistance and the shared identity.

Read more: How the histories of Mardi Gras and gay tourism in Australia are intertwined

More than just lip service

Taken together, these examples show how raising awareness is only the first step in creating social change. The impact of awareness-raising days is in their power to start conversations about important issues and provide visibility to causes that might otherwise be absent in the public sphere.

While there is a real danger of equity and diversity days reducing the issue to a local or individual concern, there’s also the potential for such events to create dramatic change in policy if communities get behind the cause.

Practical strategies that help give awareness-raising days momentum include having a clear call for action, such as R U OK? Day, which aims to promote conversation between individuals and raise awareness of mental health. Or by leveraging the passionate people invested in the cause, similar to Mardi Gras. Or to work strategically with key stakeholders to build longer term awareness-raising programs into organisations, such is the work of White Ribbon.