Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma McNicol, Research Fellow at Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University

50 years ago, there wasn’t a single women’s shelter in Australia.

Then feminists squatted two terraces in Sydney, opening “Elsie”, Australia’s first domestic and family violence refuge.

Commissioned by Elsie co-founder Anne Summers, I’ve recorded oral histories with the women who built and sustained Australia’s refuge movement.

Australia’s refuge movement is a story of courageous grassroots feminist activism.

Read more:
The Whitlam government gave us no-fault divorce, women’s refuges and childcare. Australia needs another feminist revolution

Choose to act

In the 1970s in Australia, there was nowhere for women experiencing male violence at home to go.

One night almost exactly 50 years ago, around 40 women’s liberation activists changed that, claiming squatters’ rights over two derelict Glebe terraces. They broke a window, changed the locks and turned on the gas and water, opening “Elsie”, Australia’s first women’s refuge.

As Elsie worker Ludo McFerran explained, Elsie’s mission was a “space for women, run by women”, which the residents would control. Elsie did not offer “charity”, the founders aimed at “change”, and therefore refuges would one day become obsolete.

Cooma, Kamilaroi woman Mary Ronyane, who today manages Wilcannia Safe House, proposed that Elsie was created because, when together women draw from their strength, they can “make a choice”. They chose to act.

McFerran described the refuge work as “highly vulnerable”. At the beginning, the work was entirely voluntary, and refuge work never proved a lucrative career.

The activists sacrificed all their time, energy, health and often their safety. In the “wild west”, as McFerran described it, perpetrators would “regularly turn up, threaten to burn the house down and kill everyone inside.”

There was no legal protection for residents or workers, so when perpetrators failed to return children after visits, workers would “go and try find them” and where possible “grab the kids back and make a run for it.”

Desperately trying to cover the operating costs, some of the workers started dealing marijuana to pay for necessities. Sydney’s artists and intellectuals started seeking out “Elsie Pot”.

With an intention to secure funding, the activists started encouraging various government ministers to come and see the conditions Elsie’s residents were enduring. Founder Christina Gibbeson told me how she kidnapped Doug Everingham, the minister for health at the time. She forced her way into a car carrying Everingham and instructed his driver to take them to Elsie. She mused:

“I would’ve gone to jail for it today, I suppose.”

Ceding power and privilege

Australia’s early refuges operated collectively. Everyone was obliged to scrub bathrooms and care for resident children. Decisions took time and often went to a vote. Former resident and worker, Bundjalung woman Christine Robinson, believes “at Elsie, we all had a say and a voice.”

The founders recognised residents’ insights and skills that came with their life experience. In 1980, six years after Marrickville refuge opened, the refuge’s residents informed staff that it was time for them to leave and let them take the reins, and they did.

The activists wanted liberation for all women, not just those who looked like them. Women’s Halfway House worker Di Otto noted that they viewed the refuge “as a site in which they could make contact with women outside of [their] circles […] and work towards a collective and inclusive liberation.”

Vivien Johnson shared:

[…] [us] middle class white women were consistently confronted by our class prejudices [and] with the racism we held towards the women with whom we claimed to be equal with.

Christine Robinson believes Australia’s refuge movement “valued diversity.”
She explained that Elsie’s staff all learned how to sit with, and learn from, fellow feminists calling out their racism.

Robinson explained at Elsie, she and fellow Aboriginal leaders had a platform to culturally educate their non-First Nations colleagues, whom she described as a “captive audience”, “trying” to get it right.

Space for activism

Elsie’s founders sought to cultivate an environment in which residents could build confidence and reclaim control over their lives. In 1975, Bobbie Townsend, a working-class woman, arrived at Elsie with two children.

Townsend believes the late night discussions at Elsie’s dinner table “saved her”, and shared:

[…] for 26 years nobody had asked me what I thought about anything […] The first time someone asked me in a collective meeting what I thought, I didn’t know what to say […] Elsie was about taking control.

Robinson, like Townsend, also a resident turned staff member, reflected that “Elsie gave women power to make decisions for themselves.”

Today, there is nothing quite like Elsie

The founders all described an atmosphere of hope. Under Whitlam, things were possible.

McFerran explained that today, tendering practices have forced out community-run refuges. Run by Christian, centralised institutions, few refuges observe the grassroots collectivist principles that animated the movement’s early years.

While Elsie still opens its doors to victim-survivors today, it is run by St Vincent de Paul.

Emma McNicol does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Squatting, kidnapping and collaboration: Australia’s first women’s shelters were acts of radical grassroots feminism – https://theconversation.com/squatting-kidnapping-and-collaboration-australias-first-womens-shelters-were-acts-of-radical-grassroots-feminism-225895

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janice Lord, Associate Professor in Botany, University of Otago

Chillier mornings and higher heating bills aren’t the only signs of the changing seasons. Common insects, too, are having to adapt. One day we see them in our gardens and parks, the next they appear to have disappeared.

But most are still here – they’re just harder to find.

Overwintering is an adaptation that many plants, insects and other invertebrates undergo in temperate climates. It’s how they survive cold times of the year when food sources are scarce.

It’s similar to the way some mammals, such as bears, hibernate. But while hibernation involves an extended and deep dormancy akin to sleep, overwintering organisms are still active, just to a lesser extent.

Some alpine insects, such as wētapunga, can even tolerate being frozen solid for days at a time, slowing down their metabolism until conditions become favourable again.

The stay-at-home monarch

New Zealand’s monarch butterflies demonstrate how insects can adapt to new environments. In North America, they disappear for the northern winter, migrating up to 5,000 kilometres from around the Great Lakes to the central Mexican volcanic mountains.

They arrive in huge swarms, with population estimates one year of around 380 million butterflies, clustering together to conserve energy.

Read more:
Insects and spiders make up more than half NZ’s animal biodiversity – time to celebrate these spineless creatures

In New Zealand, however, the monarch has adapted to island life and does not migrate. We know this because, for 15 years, the Moths and Butterflies of NZ Trust tagged monarch butterflies in autumn and winter to track where they were overwintering.

The data collected showed no pattern of migration or any common destination. Most recovered tags were still within the general area in which the butterflies were released.

New Zealand monarchs do show some similar behaviours to their North American counterparts, though. You might be fortunate to see a tree with a swarm of monarchs, usually on the tree’s northern side.

The butterflies stay active during winter, as temperatures allow. On a sunny day you will see them flying around, looking for nectar from flowers to top up their energy.

Leave the leaf litter

Overwintering in large numbers, however, is not typical of the way most insects survive the winter. Aotearoa’s native bees are active only in the summer, when females forage to collect a nutritious “pollen ball” to sustain their dozen or so offspring underground during development.

Bee larvae will remain underground during winter, long after their parents have perished. They will emerge the following summer as the new generation of adults, never having met their caregivers.

While flowers rich in nectar and pollen are crucial for insects to forage when they emerge from overwintering, dead and decaying plant matter is the lifeblood of the invertebrate world during autumn and winter.

Read more:
NZ votes the red admiral butterfly ‘bug of the year’ – how to make your garden its home

Leaf litter provides cover and nutrition for millions of insects and other microorganisms that cycle nutrients and soil, pollinate ecosystems and sustain larger organisms such as birds and fish.

You can help butterflies and other invertebrates survive winter by raking dead leaves onto the garden, rather than into the rubbish, and leaving seed heads on plants. Not only will this give these amazing ecosystem engineers somewhere to shelter, it will also help them return precious nutrients to the soil.

Plants such as Leucanthemum and Alyssum, which produce nectar-filled flowers in autumn and winter, can provide a top-up feed for butterflies and other pollinators during warm spells.

Native winter-flowering whauwhau, or five-finger (Pseudopanax arboreus), provides vital overwintering energy for insects. And kotukutuku (Fuchsia excorticata), though mainly bird-pollinated, is also popular with bees.

Flight of the bumble bee

Not all insects overwinter. Colony and social insects such as bumble bees and honey bees follow characteristic phenological cycles, intricately and inseparably linked to floral blooming seasons.

Bumble bee queens initiate a colony underground and begin to produce workers that typically live for an average of 28 days.

As the colony deteriorates with age at the end of summer, the queen will shift from producing sterile workers to producing reproductive individuals. These male drones and female gynes will leave the nest to mate, while workers consume the remaining resources.

Read more:
Why do bees have queens? 2 biologists explain this insect’s social structure – and why some bees don’t have a queen at all

Around March and April you may see many dead bumble bees on the ground. This isn’t necessarily cause for alarm – they have simply worked hard pollinating and have reached their natural life expectancy.

Meanwhile, newly mated queen bumble bees will now seek out new spots in which to begin colonies, such as vacant rodent and rabbit burrows. The queens benefit from the retained heat provided by undisturbed leaf litter, which also protects them from predators.

Eventually, our overwintering insects will emerge, often coinciding with the start of flowering and pollen production. But a changing climate can disrupt key plant-animal interactions such as pollination. In the meantime, they will appreciate all the help we can give them as temperatures drop and the cycle of life turns again.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of the Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust in the preparation of this article.

Janice Lord has received funding for invertebrate-related research from the Miss E.L. Hellaby Indigenous Grasslands Research Trust, Royal Society of New Zealand, Department of Conservation, and University of Otago. She is a member of the Entomological Society of New Zealand and an honorary associate of Plant and Food Research Ltd.

Connal McLean is a member of The Entomological Society of New Zealand and The Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust.

– ref. NZ’s summer insects are packing up for autumn – here’s how our gardens can help them through the cold months – https://theconversation.com/nzs-summer-insects-are-packing-up-for-autumn-heres-how-our-gardens-can-help-them-through-the-cold-months-226206

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cherine Fahd, Associate Professor Visual Communication, University of Technology Sydney

Science-fiction film as a genre allows us to encounter hypothetical worlds in which to understand our own.

These films often present utopian and dystopian worlds, exploring themes of nationalism and heroism. They often include a strong, white, male lead who heroically rescues the poor and the good from the stranglehold of authoritarianism. Therefore, historically, science fiction has had mass appeal for political zealots from the far left to the alt-right.

In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two (2024), however, science fiction becomes a genre to subvert colonial and patriarchal narratives of the white, masculine saviour.

Read more:
Bagpipes in space: how Hans Zimmer created the dramatic sound world of the new Dune film

What is a ‘white saviour’?

Elements of a white saviour narrative are pervasive in Villeneuve’s first Dune film (2021), which hints at – but doesn’t commit to – subverting this narrative. But before we get into the details, it helps to understand what the “white saviour complex” is.

This is, to put it simply, the idea that a white person or people are needed to help or “save” people of colour from their circumstances.

White saviourism, also called the white “messiah complex”, is born of a legacy of colonialism, and often performed in a paternalistic or self-serving way. For decades, we’ve seen this narrative play out in science-fiction films, from the Star Wars franchise to Avatar (2009).

The setup

Signs of white saviourism in the first Dune film are recognisable in the male protagonist, Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet. Paul is destined for messianic status in both films, which have so far stayed close to the plot line of Frank Herbert’s book series of the same name.

However, Chalamet’s casting as a white saviour is complicated by his physicality. In both demeanour and appearance, Paul Atreides contradicts the traditional masculinity of science-fiction heroes, with his fine features, elfin stature and mummy’s boy status.

The first film follows the House of Atreides as it travels to the distant planet, Arrakas, to take charge of the scarce and precious spice production which their future wealth, power and survival depend on.

The Indigenous inhabitants of Arrakas, the Fremen, are portrayed as being deeply connected to the desert environment.

They find innovative ways to survive in the extreme weather conditions, yet are considered savage by the aristocratic characters in the film. They’re even referred to as “rats” by the film’s villainous, luminously white, oil-bathing leader, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

This reflects a common criticism of the white saviour complex: it perpetuates stereotypes about the Indigenous people being “helped”, while ignoring their strengths and agency.

Dune as a colonial critique

It’s tempting to consider Dune’s narrative, settings and costume design as an appropriation of Islamic and Arab culture. For example, there are scenes where the Fremen are dressed in Bedouin clothing, worshipping behind an Islamic architectural screen in ways that are reminiscent of Muslim prayers at a mosque.

The cinematography and light also appear to refer to 19th-century paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme, much of which are of Islamic subjects. Such appropriations aren’t unique to Dune; the landscape of Arrakas itself is reminiscent of Tatooine, the desert planet where much of the action takes place in the original Star Wars trilogy.

While the intention may be to create otherworldly settings, the portrayal of a desert land often relies on stereotypical tropes of “exoticness” associated with the Middle East, as well as the use of Arabic-sounding names for characters and locations.

Nonetheless, there is a surprising critique of colonialist fantasy in Dune: Part Two, which primarily takes place through changes between the script and the book. These changes enable us to see the white saviour from the perspective of Chani (played by Zendaya), Paul’s Fremen love interest.

In the book, Chani is a supporting character who is merely there to encourage and promote Paul’s ascendancy. She is also a white person who is bound to Paul through having his children. In the film, Chani’s character has been adapted to provide a critical counterpoint.

This reveals Villeneuve’s directorial intention in reframing the book to account for the postcolonial and feminist perspectives of the 21st century. In many ways, Dune: Part Two can be read through the post-colonial perspective of late Palestinian-American writer Edward Said.

In his 1978 book Orientalism, a founding text of post-colonialism, Said argued against the West’s distorted image of the East or the Orient as exotic, backward, uncivilised and sometimes dangerous.

He expressed that Western scholars, artists and politicians use Orientalism as a pervasive framework to depict the East as the “Other”. This reinforces a binary opposition between the West as rational, developed and superior and the East as irrational, undeveloped and inferior.

While we see this play out in both Dune films’ visual tropes, a more nuanced message is delivered through the character of Chani.

Paul through Chani’s eyes

Chani is a woman of colour who is sceptical of Paul’s mother’s intentions for him as leader. She also refuses to believe in the prophecy of a saviour, as is held by some Fremen.

Ultimately, the film’s postcolonial and feminist leanings are made explicit in the final scenes. Through careful cinematography and editing, the audience is encouraged to see, from Chani’s perspective, the ways in which Paul is being manipulated.

When Paul avenges the death of his father and takes control of the empire, promising to marry the empress – despite having declared his enduring love for Chani – we encounter this betrayal from Chani’s standpoint.

The scenes tend to switch back to her disappointment as the witness. As viewers, we are not encouraged to celebrate Paul’s rise to messiah. Rather, we mourn the loss of his moral conscience with Chani. And this point is affirmed when we see Chani surfing the worm alone in the final scenes.

As a woman of colour who is both independent, powerful and resistant to the white saviour narrative, Chani activates the idea of looking at cinema from a non-white vantage point. She leads us to be critical of both colonial and patriarchal narratives.

Where will this lead? We will have to find out in the next film.

Read more:
Diplomacy and resistance: how Dune shows us the power of language – including sign language

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is Dune an example of a white saviour narrative – or a critique of it? – https://theconversation.com/is-dune-an-example-of-a-white-saviour-narrative-or-a-critique-of-it-225656

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacinta L. Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, University of South Australia

Urinary tract infections can be a minor medical annoyance or lead to a hospital stay – especially for older people.

If you think you might have a urinary tract infection (UTI) you need prompt advice and often antibiotics. But it can be difficult to get an appointment with your doctor at short notice, especially in rural areas.

Now trained pharmacists in most Australian states are able to review your symptoms and supply antibiotics if appropriate.

But there are still times when you should see a doctor.

What is a UTI? And when is it serious?

The urinary tract consists of the kidneys, ureters, and bladder and urethra. It’s the body system responsible for producing, storing and removing urine from the body.

When bacteria invade the urinary system – mostly from the bowel or the skin – they can multiply and cause infection.

Roughly half of all women and one in 20 men will have a UTI at least once in their lifetime. The risk increases with age. One in ten postmenopausal women report having a UTI in the last year.

Typical signs of infection include a painful or burning sensation when urinating, feeling like you need to urinate urgently and often and cloudy or foul-smelling urine. In more severe cases symptoms can include fever, lethargy and pain in the lower back.

In older adults, UTIs can cause confusion, agitation and falls.

For some people, UTIs can have serious complications, such as kidney damage, kidney failure or infection in the blood (sepsis), particularly if treatment is delayed.

Read more:
Why do I keep getting urinary tract infections? And why are chronic UTIs so hard to treat?

A common reason for hospital admission

UTIs are the second most common cause of preventable hospital visits in Australia. Across the country they are reported to result in 100,000 emergency department visits and 75,000 hospital stays each year.

The rate of hospitalisation for UTIs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is around double the rate for other Australians. People aged over 65 years are five times more likely to be hospitalised with a UTI than younger Australians.

A quicker option

The newly rolled out pharmacist consultations do not replace the option of visiting your GP. But they do provide an additional choice.

In Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia the legislation has been changed to allow pharmacists to supply antibiotics to treat women (or people with female anatomy) aged 18 to 65 years with uncomplicated UTIs.

In New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and Tasmania trials allowing pharmacists to treat UTIs in the same patient group are underway or have been announced.

This approach to provide accessible and timely treatment options for UTIs through pharmacies aligns with that in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Read more:
Cranberry juice can prevent recurrent UTIs, but only for some people

Not for everyone

State guidelines direct pharmacists to only provide antibiotics to women (or people with female anatomy) aged 18 to 65 years with uncomplicated UTIs. If the pharmacist finds warning signs for a serious infection, or a complicated UTI, you will be referred for further consultation with a doctor.

Under this program, UTIs that occur in people who have an anatomically male urinary tract, are under 18 years or over 65, or are pregnant would be considered to have complicated UTIs, and such patients would be referred to their doctor.

Some other situations where UTIs are considered complicated and should be assessed by a doctor include when they occur in people with kidney disease, urinary catheters, a condition that weakens the immune system (such as diabetes, cancer or HIV) or reoccurring symptoms.

To supply antibiotics for UTI treatment pharmacists are required to undertake additional training. Pharmacists can only prescribe antibiotics according to an agreed evidence-based treatment guideline, such as South Australia’s.

Pharmacists will assess if you are eligible for the pharmacy UTI service and ask specific questions to check your symptoms match those of an uncomplicated UTI or for warning signs you need to see a doctor. If treatment is appropriate, they will ask questions about your medical and medication history to determine which type of antibiotic is most suitable for you.

Pharmacists will not test urine for bacteria, as Australian guidelines state antibiotic treatment can be started for women with uncomplicated UTIs straight away. If your symptoms or history suggest urine testing might be required the pharmacist will refer you to a doctor.

You can get a record of the consultation that you can share with your doctor. The requirements for documentation differ in different states but pharmacists can upload information to My Health Record (if you haven’t opted out and are happy for them to do so).

This new service is not without controversy. GPs have expressed concerns about misdiagnosis and antimicrobial resistance where the bacteria could evolve and become much harder to treat. Detailed procedures have been developed for pharmacists to minimise these risks.

Read more:
Do you really need antibiotics? Curbing our use helps fight drug-resistant bacteria

What else can you do?

While taking antibiotics to treat a UTI you should also drink lots of water and ensure you empty your bladder completely every time you go to the toilet.

Pain relievers can help ease discomfort from a UTI. But it’s important to speak with your pharmacist or doctor to find the best pain management option for you.

Jacinta L. Johnson is employed as the Senior Pharmacist for Research within SA Pharmacy and is a Board Director for the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia. In the last five years, she has received research funding or consultancy funds (for development and delivery of educational materials) from SA Health, the Medical Research Future Fund, the Hospital Research Foundation – Parkinson’s, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia, the Australian College of Pharmacy, Mundipharma Pty Ltd, Aspen Pharmacare Australia Pty Ltd, Reckitt Benckiser (Australia) Pty Ltd and Viatris Pty Ltd. Jacinta has not received funding from any organisation related to pharmacist consultations for provision of antibiotics for urinary tract infections.

Wern Chern Chai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Now you can get UTI antibiotics from pharmacies without prescription. Here’s what to know – https://theconversation.com/now-you-can-get-uti-antibiotics-from-pharmacies-without-prescription-heres-what-to-know-224962

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

Last Sunday, Liverpool faced Manchester United in the quarter finals of the FA Cup – and in the final minute of extra time, with the score tied at three-all, Liverpool had the crucial opportunity of a corner kick. A goal would surely mean victory, but losing possession could be risky.

What was Liverpool to do? Attack or play it safe? And if they were to attack, how best to do it? What kind of delivery, and where should players be waiting to attack the ball?

Set-piece decisions like this are vital not only in football but in many other competitive sports, and traditionally they are made by coaches on the basis of long experience and analysis. However, Liverpool has recently been looking to an unexpected source for advice: researchers at the Google-owned UK-based artificial intelligence (AI) lab DeepMind.

In a paper published today in Nature Communications, DeepMind researchers describe an AI system for football tactics called TacticAI, which can assist in developing successful corner kick routines. The paper says experts at Liverpool favoured TacticAI’s advice over existing tactics in 90% of cases.

What TacticAI can do

At a corner kick, play stops and each team has the chance to organise its players on the field before the attacking team kicks the ball back into play – usually with a specific prearranged plan in mind that will (hopefully) let them score a goal. Advice on these prearranged plans or routines is what TacticAI sets out to offer.

The package has three components: one that predicts which player is most likely to receive the ball in a given scenario, another that predicts whether a shot on goal will be taken, and a third that recommends how to adjust the position of players to increase or decrease the chances of a shot on goal.

Trained on a dataset of 7,176 corner kicks from Premier League matches, TacticAI used a technique called “geometric deep learning” to identify key strategic patterns.

The researchers say this approach could be applied not only to football, but to any sport in which a stoppage in the game allows teams to deliberately manoeuvre players into place unopposed, and plan the next sequence of play. In football, it could also be expanded in future to incorporate throw-in routines as well as other set pieces such as attacking free kicks.

Vast amounts of data

AI in football is not new. Even in amateur and semi-professional football, AI-powered auto-tracking camera systems are becoming commonplace, for example. At the last men’s and women’s World Cups in 2022 and 2023, AI in conjunction with advanced ball-tracking technology produced semi-automated offside decisions with an unprecedented level of accuracy.

Read more:
Games by numbers: machine learning is changing sport

Professional football clubs have analytical departments using AI at every level of the game, predominantly in the areas of scouting, recruitment and athlete monitoring. Other research has also tried to predict players’ shots on goal, or guess from a video what off-screen players are doing.

Bringing AI into tactical decisions promises to offer coaches a more objective and analytical approach to the game. Algorithms can process vast amounts of data, identifying patterns that may not be apparent to the naked eye, giving teams valuable insights into their own performance as well as that of their opponents.

A useful tool

AI may be a useful tool, but it cannot make decisions about match play alone. An algorithm might suggest the optimal positional setup for an in-swinging corner or how best to exploit the opposition’s defensive tactics.

What AI cannot do is make decisions on the fly – like deciding whether to take a corner quickly to exploit an opponent’s lapse in concentration.

There’s also something to be said for allowing players creative licence in some situations. Once teams are using AI to suggest the optimal corner strategy, opponents will doubtless counter with their own AI-prompted defensive setup.

So while the tech behind TacticAI is very interesting, it remains to be seen whether it can evolve to be useful in open play. Could AI get to the stage where it can recognise the best tactical player substitution in a given situation?

DeepMind researchers have advanced decision-making like this in their sights for future research, but will it ever reach a point where coaches would trust it?

My sense from discussions with people in the industry is many believe AI should only be used as an input to decision-making, and not be allowed to make decisions itself. There is no substitute for the experience and instinct of the best coaches, the intangible ability to feel what the game needs, to make a change in formation, to play someone out of position.

Smart tactics – but what about strategy?

Coming back to that crucial Liverpool corner in last Sunday’s FA Cup quarter final: we don’t know whether Liverpool’s manager Jürgen Klopp considered AI advice, but the decision was made to play an attacking corner kick, presumably in the hope of scoring a last-minute winner.

The out-swinging delivery into the box may well have been the tactic with the highest probability of scoring a goal – but things rapidly went wrong. Manchester United gained possession of the ball, moved it down the pitch on the counterattack and slotted home the winning goal, sending Liverpool out of the tournament at the last moment.

So while AI might suggest the optimal delivery and setup for a set piece, a coach might decide the wiser move is to play safe and avoid the risk of a counterattack. If TacticAI continues its career progression as a coaching assistant, it will no doubt learn that keeping the ball in the corner and playing for penalties may sometimes be the better option.

Mark Scanlan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Can AI improve football teams’ success from corner kicks? Liverpool and others are betting it can – https://theconversation.com/can-ai-improve-football-teams-success-from-corner-kicks-liverpool-and-others-are-betting-it-can-225894

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Flood, Professor of Sociology, Queensland University of Technology

Four in five young men and two in three young women have been exposed to pornography by the time they turn 20, according to the first nationally representative survey on this issue in Australia.

Boys and young men are exposed earlier to pornography than girls and young women, and far more likely to be frequent users.

Among young people who had seen pornography, the average age of first exposure was 13.2 years for males and 14.1 years for females.

Exposure to pornography is likely to shape children’s and young people’s developing sexual and relationship attitudes and behaviours, with potentially significant health consequences.

We summarise the findings here, drawing on the survey among 1,985 young people aged 15-20 conducted by leading violence prevention organisation Our Watch, as well as Maree Crabbe’s interviews with young Australians.

Read more:
Pornography has deeply troubling effects on young people, but there are ways we can minimise the harm

Exposure is common

Most young people aged 15-20 have seen pornography, whether intentionally or accidentally. Over four-fifths (86%) of young men, and over two-thirds (69%) of young women, have encountered pornography.

While the average age of first exposure to pornography among those who have seen it is 13 for boys and 14 for girls, some children’s first exposure is considerably earlier. As Lizzie commented,

I was maybe 8 or 9 years old when I first saw porn. I had an older brother and I think one day he left a porn site open, and it just sparked my curiosity after that.

Young people see pornography two to three years before their first sexual experience with a partner. As Nathan commented,

there was a group of boys who would spend the entire time at the back of the classroom just having fun, laughing and watching pornography together. And this was well and truly before any of us were sexually active.

Read more:
Help, I’ve just discovered my teen has watched porn! What should I do?

Deliberate and accidental exposure

First exposure is about equally likely to be deliberate or accidental. Among young people who had seen pornography, 50.1% of young men and 40.3% of young women reported deliberately seeking pornography the first time they viewed it, while 46.2% of young men and 55.7% of young women reported that their first exposure was unintentional.

Among the children and young people who had deliberately sought out pornography the first time they saw it, the most common motivation was curiosity. Other motivations included looking for sexual stimulation, because friends were watching it, and wanting to learn more about sex.

For young people whose first exposure was unintentional, most had accidentally encountered pornography via an internet pop-up or web search. Other common means included being shown by someone else and coming across it on social media.

Emma’s story is typical:

I accidentally clicked on just one of the many pop-ups that are around and it took me to a porn site.

As Mohammad explained:

Even when you’re not looking for it you find it on the internet.

Young men are frequent users

There is a strong gender contrast in the frequency of pornography use among young people. Many young men are frequent users, with over half (54.4%) using pornography at least weekly and one in six (16%) doing so daily. On the other hand, only about one in seven young women (14.3%) use pornography weekly and only one in 70 (1.4%) do so daily.

Pornography use is both widespread and normalised among young men, as Crabbe’s interviews corroborate. “It was just assumed that boys our age were watching it,” reports Tash. “Every guy I know uses it, girls not so much”, said Hannah.

One-fifth of young people have not seen pornography, including one-tenth (10.5%) of young men and over one-quarter (28.7%) of young women. Compared to boys and young men, girls and young women are less interested in and more critical of pornography.

Lack of interest was the most common reason for not having seen pornography, reported by 59% of men and 87% of women. Other common reasons included concerns that it is disgusting or gross (20% men, 40% women) and that they would not like its depictions of relationships (10% men, 39% women).

Why does it matter if young people are exposed to porn?

Other studies document that pornography shapes young people’s sexual understandings, expectations, and experiences, just as it shapes these among adults.

Pornography consumption is associated with a range of harms, including risky sexual behaviours such as choking, more sexually objectifying and gender-stereotypical views of women, rape myth acceptance, sexual coercion and aggression, and sexual and dating violence victimisation.

Read more:
Hold pornography to account – not education programs – for children’s harmful sexual behaviour

Lessening the harms

Four strategies are necessary to mitigate the potential harms of pornography exposure.

First, children and young people across Australia should have access to respectful relationships education and comprehensive sexuality education in schools. This should provide alternative and age-appropriate content on sexuality, including critical content on pornography.

Second, parents should be equipped with the tools to talk to their children about pornography, helping them to avoid or reject content that is sexist or celebrates violence that can be found in much pornography.

Third, we need social marketing and communication campaigns intended to undermine the influence of sexist and harmful content in pornography, and instead foster more gender-equitable and inclusive social norms.

Fourth, the federal government should support regulatory strategies to reduce minors’ exposure to pornography, such as age verification for adult websites, labelling and warning systems, mandated filtering by internet service providers with options for adult opt-in, and other measures.

Maree Crabbe has worked as a consultant on this issue and has developed a range of resources including school curricula, professional learning, two documentary films, and the “It’s Time We Talked” website.

Kelsey Adams and Michael Flood do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. By the time they are 20, more than four in five men and two in three women have been exposed to pornography: new research – https://theconversation.com/by-the-time-they-are-20-more-than-four-in-five-men-and-two-in-three-women-have-been-exposed-to-pornography-new-research-225573

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya Davison, Adjunct professor, Health & Ageing Research Group, Swinburne University of Technology

While many people maintain positive emotional wellbeing as they age, around half of older Australians living in residential aged care have significant levels of depression. Symptoms such as low mood, lack of interest or pleasure in life and difficulty sleeping are common.

Rates of depression in aged care appear to be increasing, and without adequate treatment, symptoms can be enduring and significantly impair older adults’ quality of life.

But only a minority of aged care residents with depression receive services specific to the condition. Less than 3% of Australian aged care residents access Medicare-subsidised mental health services, such as consultations with a psychologist or psychiatrist, each year.

Instead, residents are typically prescribed a medication by their GP to manage their mental health, which they often take for several months or years. A recent study found six in ten Australian aged care residents take antidepressants.

While antidepressant medications may help many people, we lack robust evidence on whether they work for aged care residents with depression. Researchers have described “serious limitations of the current standard of care” in reference to the widespread use of antidepressants to treat frail older people with depression.

Given this, we wanted to find out whether psychological therapies can help manage depression in this group. These treatments address factors contributing to people’s distress and provide them with skills to manage their symptoms and improve their day-to-day lives. But to date researchers, care providers and policy makers haven’t had clear information about their effectiveness for treating depression among older people in residential aged care.

The good news is the evidence we published today suggests psychological therapies may be an effective approach for people living in aged care.

Read more:
Why are so many Australians taking antidepressants?

We reviewed the evidence

Our research team searched for randomised controlled trials published over the past 40 years that were designed to test the effectiveness of psychological therapies for depression among aged care residents 65 and over. We identified 19 trials from seven countries, including Australia, involving a total of 873 aged care residents with significant symptoms of depression.

The studies tested several different kinds of psychological therapies, which we classified as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), behaviour therapy or reminiscence therapy.

CBT involves teaching practical skills to help people re-frame negative thoughts and beliefs, while behaviour therapy aims to modify behaviour patterns by encouraging people with depression to engage in pleasurable and rewarding activities. Reminiscence therapy supports older people to reflect on positive or shared memories, and helps them find meaning in their life history.

The therapies were delivered by a range of professionals, including psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists and trainee therapists.

In these studies, psychological therapies were compared to a control group where the older people did not receive psychological therapy. In most studies, this was “usual care” – the care typically provided to aged care residents, which may include access to antidepressants, scheduled activities and help with day-to-day tasks.

In some studies psychological therapy was compared to a situation where the older people received extra social contact, such as visits from a volunteer or joining in a discussion group.

What we found

Our results showed psychological therapies may be effective in reducing symptoms of depression for older people in residential aged care, compared with usual care, with effects lasting up to six months. While we didn’t see the same effect beyond six months, only two of the studies in our review followed people for this length of time, so the data was limited.

Our findings suggest these therapies may also improve quality of life and psychological wellbeing.

Psychological therapies mostly included between two and ten sessions, so the interventions were relatively brief. This is positive in terms of the potential feasibility of delivering psychological therapies at scale. The three different therapy types all appeared to be effective, compared to usual care.

Read more:
Too many Australians living in nursing homes take their own lives

However, we found psychological therapy may not be more effective than extra social contact in reducing symptoms of depression. Older people commonly feel bored, lonely and socially isolated in aged care. The activities on offer are often inadequate to meet their needs for stimulation and interest. So identifying ways to increase meaningful engagement day-to-day could improve the mental health and wellbeing of older people in aged care.

Some limitations

Many of the studies we found were of relatively poor quality, because of small sample sizes and potential risk of bias, for example. So we need more high-quality research to increase our confidence in the findings.

Many of the studies we reviewed were also old, and important gaps remain. For example, we are yet to understand the effectiveness of psychological therapies for people from diverse cultural or linguistic backgrounds.

Separately, we need better research to evaluate the effectiveness of antidepressants among aged care residents.

What needs to happen now?

Depression should not be considered a “normal” experience at this (or any other) stage of life, and those experiencing symptoms should have equal access to a range of effective treatments. The royal commission into aged care highlighted that Australians living in aged care don’t receive enough mental health support and called for this issue to be addressed.

While there have been some efforts to provide psychological services in residential aged care, the unmet need remains very high, and much more must be done.

The focus now needs to shift to how to implement psychological therapies in aged care, by increasing the competencies of the aged care workforce, training the next generation of psychologists to work in this setting, and funding these programs in a cost-effective way.

Read more:
How our residential aged-care system doesn’t care about older people’s emotional needs

Tanya Davison currently receives research funding from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), Australian Research Council (ARC), and Aged Care Research and Industry Innovation Australia (ARIIA). She is employed as Director of Research Discovery at Silverchain (an Australian in-home care provider) and is a committee member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) Psychology and Ageing Interest Group.

Sunil Bhar currently receives research funding from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), Australian Research Council (ARC), National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Aged Care Research and Industry Innovation Australia (ARIIA), The Ian Potter Foundation (IPF) and Arcare Family Foundation (AFF). He is the Director of the Swinburne Wellbeing Clinic for Older Adults (a free counselling service for aged care residents) and is employed as Professor of Clinical Psychology at Swinburne University. He is a committee member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) Psychology and Ageing Interest Group.

– ref. Half of Australians in aged care have depression. Psychological therapy could help – https://theconversation.com/half-of-australians-in-aged-care-have-depression-psychological-therapy-could-help-223544

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nik Callow, Associate Professor – Geography, The University of Western Australia

In the 1890s, railway engineers noticed river water used by steam locomotives started to become salty when surrounding land was cleared for agriculture.

Over the next decades, the problem worsened. In 1917, a Royal Commission in Western Australia dismissed the threat from salt and instead promoted more clearing of land.

Ignoring the problem didn’t solve it. Salt water began rising from below in many new agricultural regions. Crops could not use this salty water. In March 1924 – a century ago this month – the railway engineer W.E. Wood published the first scientific paper on the causes of salinity in Australia.

Wood concluded land clearing was causing groundwater levels to rise, bringing salt stored underground to the surface. He correctly proposed the salt in this region had come from the oceans, after evaporated seawater with residual salt fell as rain.

In 2002, our last comprehensive national estimate put salinity-affected land at around 1.75 to 2 million hectares – about 7.5 times the size of the Australian Capital Territory.

What is dryland salinity?

Salt is a natural part of our oceans. Some parts of the land have plenty of salt and are naturally saline. Salt lakes are part of traditional songlines. Globally, we also find salted earth where former inland seas have deposited salt and where irrigation has concentrated salt in the soil.

But other areas have become salty due to land clearing. This is dryland salinity. When deep-rooted trees and shrubs are present, they use most of the rainfall. Very little is left over to leak down into the groundwater.

When trees and shrubs are cut down to make way for farmland, more rain permeates the earth. This mixes with naturally salty groundwater and rises to the surface where it can damage plants and infrastructure.

Plants such as samphire are salt-tolerant and can live in salt lakes. Saltbush can absorb salty water and get rid of the salt by expelling it onto the outside of its leaves. But most plants can’t do this. Absorbing salt water will damage or kill them.

The cruel irony of dryland salinity is that plants can die in dry landscapes from there being too much water.

The long search for solutions

In Australia, dryland salinity is worst in southwest Western Australia, as well as the southern and western reaches of the Murray-Darling Basin.

We didn’t begin trying to fix the problem in earnest until the 1950s, when state-based Soil and Land Conservation services started tackling salinity in Australia.

The 1990s saw the first nationally coordinated efforts through the National Dryland Salinity Program. This drew together farmers, community groups, natural resource management organisations, universities and government agencies such as CSIRO. Satellites gave us a better understanding of the true extent of the problem, estimated to affect around 20,000 farms.

Unfortunately, we no longer have a coordinated national approach. Government investments have shifted to focus on equally complex challenges such as improving water quality in Great Barrier Reef catchments and trying to save threatened species from extinctions.

Read more:
I have always wondered: why is the sea salty?

Saltbush, not ponds

So what works against dryland salinity? Researchers have found some practical and economic solutions.

Revegetating the landscape can work, but requires trees, shrubs and plantations to cover two-thirds of a cleared catchment to manage a problem affecting a much smaller area. This is very expensive, and doesn’t work well with existing farms or for regional communities.

The most widely adopted methods of dealing with salt are based on adaptation, such as planting species such as river and old man saltbush on saline land and areas around it. Livestock can eat the leaves, and saltbush species are excellent at living in salty soils.

Other developing options include pumping up brackish groundwater and turning it into high-quality water through micro-desalination.

Engineering solutions such as pumping out salty water and deep drainage run into problems with salt disposal, cost and challenges with clay soils, which do not drain well.

Subsurface drains in sandier soils near the surface can reduce waterlogging and salinity, and also increase crop productivity.

In areas prone to dryland salinity, reducing pooling of water reduces the salinity of water flowing into ecosystems downstream. This means landscape rehydration strategies such as natural sequence farming, which deliberately slow and pond water, can actually make salinity worse in older, weathered landscapes.

Less rain but still salinity

The scale of the salinity challenge is further demonstrated by the impact of climate change.

Since 1970, annual rainfall has fallen across Australia by about 10–15%, particularly in Victoria and southwest Western Australia. This change in climate has impacted drinking water supplies in WA, forcing an increasing reliance on desalination.

You might expect groundwater levels to also potentially drop. But for many areas such as south-western WA and the Murray Darling Basin, groundwater levels are actually still rising even as rainfall declines, due to the ongoing impact of historic land clearing.

A key lesson we have learned from the long fight against dryland salinity is it’s very hard to create profitable farms which mimic the original natural systems.

The fight against salinity continues

Salinity still affects millions of hectares of agricultural land across Australia, driven by the processes described 100 years ago. An award for excellence in salinity research named after railway engineer W.E. Wood was awarded five times in the early 2000s, and will return in 2024 to mark the centenary of his paper.

We’ve learned a lot about dryland salinity in a century, but the search continues for viable methods of combating or adapting to the salt below.

Read more:
Australia’s south west: a hotspot for wildlife and plants that deserves World Heritage status

Nik Callow has received salinity-related funding as an employee of The University of Western Australia and previously when working for the WA Government Department of Food and Agriculture. He is a director of the Centre for Water and Spatial Science at UWA that receives private, industry and public funding to undertake research on salinity and water resources.

David Pannell received salinity-related funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation, the CRC for Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity, the Future Farm Industries CRC, the Australian Research Council, and the University of Western Australia. He was a member of a Ministerial Taskforce on salinity in 2001, the Salinity Investment Framework committee for the Western Australian Government, and various other salinity-related committees. He was the fifth winner of the W.E. Wood Award for Salinity Research.

Ed Barrett-Lennard is Senior Principal Soil Scientist in the Western Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and Professorial Fellow at Murdoch University. He has previously received research funding through the CRC for Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity and the Future Farm Industries CRC. He currently receives funding for salinity research through the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. He was fourth winner of the W.E. Wood Award for salinity research.

Richard George works for the West Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development. He was second winner of the W.E. Wood Award for salinity research

I previously worked for CSIRO 1988-2014 and in 1999 was the first recipient of the W.E.Wood Award for Salinity Research.

– ref. Even far from the ocean, Australia’s drylands are riddled with salty groundwater. What can land managers do? – https://theconversation.com/even-far-from-the-ocean-australias-drylands-are-riddled-with-salty-groundwater-what-can-land-managers-do-225277

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute

Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re going down.

The good news is contained in two separate draft decisions today by the Australian Energy Regulator and Victoria’s Essential Services Commission, on the maximum price energy retailers can charge electricity consumers under a specific plan that must be offered to all consumers.

The price is officially known as the “default market offer”. It’s the price you’re charged on a “default” plan with an electricity retailer – in other words, the plan customers are on if they haven’t shopped around to find a better deal from competing retailers. The bottom line is, most of these residential electricity customers should receive price reductions of between 0.4% (A$13) and 7.1% ($211) next financial year. In most cases that’s less than the rate of inflation.

The relief is largely the result of a drop in wholesale prices – that’s the price paid to the generators producing electricity. Unfortunately, however, at the same time transmission and distribution prices – or network costs – have gone up. So the savings won’t be as great as they might have been.

A big improvement on previous years

This is the sixth year in which regulators have set default market offers for retail electricity customers. They do it where there is competition in the sector: so in southeast Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and, separately, Victoria.

It does not include Tasmania, the ACT, Western Australia or the Northern Territory, where the relevant regulator sets the prices and there’s no or very little competition.

About 5-10% of consumers across the states involved are on default plans. The rest have a contract arrangement with a retailer. But the draft decision, if enacted, still directly affects hundreds of thousands of people. And as commentators have observed, it sends an important market signal about the general direction of electricity prices.

The Australian Energy Regulator says most residential customers on the default market offer can expect to save on their electricity bills in 2024-25. But the offers vary depending where you live.

Have a look at the table above to see what residential customers without “controlled load” can expect. That covers most households. (Controlled load is when you also have an off-peak tariff for hot water heating.)

Some customers will be paying more for electricity. In Southeast Queensland, residential customers will pay 2.7% more, which is an extra $53 on average.

Using an inflation forecast of 3.3%, the Australian Energy Regulator also calculates what they call the “real” year-to-year variation in prices. So even if there’s a small increase in the price for a particular area, it’s less than the rate of inflation. For that example in southeast Queensland, it equates to a decrease of 0.6% and a saving of $12 in real terms.

Residential customers on the Victorian default market offer can expect to save 6.4%. The retail power prices in Victoria are slightly better than in the other states largely because there are lower wholesale power prices.

All in all it’s a big improvement on the price hikes of last year and the year before that.

The final default market offer prices will be released in May, but we can expect little change.

Read more:
The government will underwrite risky investments in renewables – here’s why that’s a good idea

Network prices are up

Regulators set the default market offer by itemising all costs retailers are likely to incur in the course of running their business. From that, they calculate the fair price retailers should offer customers on default plans.

Wholesale electricity costs, incurred when retailers buy electricity from generators on the wholesale market, make up maybe 30–40% of your bill.

The other major cost retailers face is for the electricity transmission and distribution network – that is, the “poles and wires”. These also comprise around 40% of your bill.

The network price is driven by inflation and interest rate rises, and also includes the costs of maintenance, and building new transmission infrastructure to connect renewable energy generators to the grid.

The easing of wholesale prices since their 2022 peak has been offset by increases in these network prices. In fact, network prices have increased by almost as much as wholesale prices have come down.

Read more:
Wholesale power prices are falling fast – but consumers will have to wait for relief. Here’s why

A difficult ask

Responding to the draft decision on Tuesday, Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said it showed the Albanese government was stabilising energy prices.

But Bowen came to office promising to cut power bills by $275 by 2025. That deadline is not very far away.

Bowen made that commitment in December 2021. Very soon after, electricity prices shot through the roof. It’s becoming very difficult to see how the $275 cost reduction will be achieved by next year.

The bottom line is prices have stabilised after a couple of bad years and hopefully the worst is behind us. But, it would be a brave person who attempts to predict where they go from here. There are too many moving parts. Governments should stay the course on policies, and consumers, worried about electricity prices, should go online, compare offers, and to find the best possible deal.

Read more:
Unsexy but vital: why warnings over grid reliability are really about building more transmission lines

Tony Wood may have interests in companies impacted by the energy transition through his superannuation fund.

– ref. Finally, good news for power bills: energy regulator promises small savings for most customers on the ‘default market offer’ – https://theconversation.com/finally-good-news-for-power-bills-energy-regulator-promises-small-savings-for-most-customers-on-the-default-market-offer-226020

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney

The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that it’s time to stop using the term “long COVID” has made waves in Australian and international media over recent days.

Gerrard’s comments were related to new research from his team finding long-term symptoms of COVID are similar to the ongoing symptoms following other viral infections.

But there are limitations in this research, and problems with Gerrard’s argument we should drop the term “long COVID”. Here’s why.

A bit about the research

The study involved texting a survey to 5,112 Queensland adults who had experienced respiratory symptoms and had sought a PCR test in 2022. Respondents were contacted 12 months after the PCR test. Some had tested positive to COVID, while others had tested positive to influenza or had not tested positive to either disease.

Survey respondents were asked if they had experienced ongoing symptoms or any functional impairment over the previous year.

The study found people with respiratory symptoms can suffer long-term symptoms and impairment, regardless of whether they had COVID, influenza or another respiratory disease. These symptoms are often referred to as “post-viral”, as they linger after a viral infection.

Gerrard’s research will be presented in April at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. It hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Read more:
I have COVID. How likely am I to get long COVID?

After the research was publicised last Friday, some experts highlighted flaws in the study design. For example, Steven Faux, a long COVID clinician interviewed on ABC’s television news, said the study excluded people who were hospitalised with COVID (therefore leaving out people who had the most severe symptoms). He also noted differing levels of vaccination against COVID and influenza may have influenced the findings.

In addition, Faux pointed out the survey would have excluded many older people who may not use smartphones.

The authors of the research have acknowledged some of these and other limitations in their study.

Ditching the term ‘long COVID’

Based on the research findings, Gerrard said in a press release:

We believe it is time to stop using terms like ‘long COVID’. They wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about longer term symptoms associated with this virus. This terminology can cause unnecessary fear, and in some cases, hypervigilance to longer symptoms that can impede recovery.

But Gerrard and his team’s findings cannot substantiate these assertions. Their survey only documented symptoms and impairment after respiratory infections. It didn’t ask people how fearful they were, or whether a term such as long COVID made them especially vigilant, for example.

In discussing Gerrard’s conclusions about the terminology, Faux noted that even if only 3% of people develop long COVID (the survey found 3% of people had functional limitations after a year), this would equate to some 150,000 Queenslanders with the condition. He said:

To suggest that by not calling it long COVID you would be […] somehow helping those people not to focus on their symptoms is a curious conclusion from that study.

Another clinician and researcher, Philip Britton, criticised Gerrard’s conclusion about the language as “overstated and potentially unhelpful”. He noted the term “long COVID” is recognised by the World Health Organization as a valid description of the condition.

A cruel irony

An ever-growing body of research continues to show how COVID can cause harm to the body across organ systems and cells.

We know from the experiences shared by people with long COVID that the condition can be highly disabling, preventing them from engaging in study or paid work. It can also harm relationships with their friends, family members, and even their partners.

Despite all this, people with long COVID have often felt gaslit and unheard. When seeking treatment from health-care professionals, many people with long COVID report they have been dismissed or turned away.

Read more:
Social media, activism, trucker caps: the fascinating story behind long COVID

Last Friday – the day Gerrard’s comments were made public – was actually International Long COVID Awareness Day, organised by activists to draw attention to the condition.

The response from people with long COVID was immediate. They shared their anger on social media about Gerrard’s comments, especially their timing, on a day designed to generate greater recognition for their illness.

Since the start of the COVID pandemic, patient communities have fought for recognition of the long-term symptoms many people faced.

The term “long COVID” was in fact coined by people suffering persistent symptoms after a COVID infection, who were seeking words to describe what they were going through.

The role people with long COVID have played in defining their condition and bringing medical and public attention to it demonstrates the possibilities of patient-led expertise. For decades, people with invisible or “silent” conditions such as ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) have had to fight ignorance from health-care professionals and stigma from others in their lives. They have often been told their disabling symptoms are psychosomatic.

Gerrard’s comments, and the media’s amplification of them, repudiates the term “long COVID” that community members have chosen to give their condition an identity and support each other. This is likely to cause distress and exacerbate feelings of abandonment.

Terminology matters

The words we use to describe illnesses and conditions are incredibly powerful. Naming a new condition is a step towards better recognition of people’s suffering, and hopefully, better diagnosis, health care, treatment and acceptance by others.

The term “long COVID” provides an easily understandable label to convey patients’ experiences to others. It is well known to the public. It has been routinely used in news media reporting and and in many reputable medical journal articles.

Most importantly, scrapping the label would further marginalise a large group of people with a chronic illness who have often been left to struggle behind closed doors.

Deborah Lupton is affiliated with OzSAGE.

– ref. Why scrapping the term ‘long COVID’ would be harmful for people with the condition – https://theconversation.com/why-scrapping-the-term-long-covid-would-be-harmful-for-people-with-the-condition-225880

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

Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio?

It can’t be because of the money.

In Australia they are paid at rates so low they come close to making streaming services look generous. By law, no radio station can be made to pay no more than 1% of the station’s gross revenue for all of the music it plays, even if it is an all-music station. By the time the labels have had their cut, the artists get a lot less.

Legislation now before the Senate would remove the ceiling, allowing radio stations and the representatives of musical artists to negotiate freely, with a final decision made by a tribunal in cases where they can’t reach agreement.

It’s a bit like the legislation set up to arbitrate disputes between platforms such as Facebook and news organisations about the amount to pay for news.

The parallels tell us an awful lot about where the power lies in disputes between platforms and providers. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t lie with providers, whether they provide music, or news, or, for that matter, fruit to Coles and Woolworths.

Radio pays little for music, and always has

Here’s what happened with radio.

Legislation dating back to 1968 has given Australian radio stations a blanket right to play whatever music they want so long as they negotiate a payment rate with the relevant collecting society.

If the station and collecting society can’t agree on the rate, the decision is made by an independent tribunal, but, for commercial stations, the tribunal is limited to awarding no more than 1% of the station’s gross revenue, and for ABC stations, a mere half of one cent per Australian resident per year.

The Attorney General introduced the ceilings to “allay the fears” of radio stations and initially promised a review after five years, a provision he later dropped from the final draft of the legislation. A half a century of inflation has rendered the ABC’s ceiling of half a cent per person worth a fraction of what it was.

The ABC pays half a cent per person

The ceilings only apply to radio stations and only to the recordings. Television stations (including ABC stations) pay much more per track.

And composers, who are paid separately with no legislated limit, get much more.

This means the composers of You’re the Voice get paid quite well, but the performer, John Farnham, does not.

The record industry has tried time and time again to remove the ceiling.

In 2010 it even went to the High Court, arguing along the lines of the case depicted in the movie The Castle that the constitution prevented the Commonwealth from acquiring property other than “on just terms”.

The High Court said “no”, finding copyright wasn’t property.

Now, independent Senator David Pocock is trying again.

‘Fair pay for radio play’

Pocock’s Fair Pay for Radio Play bill would remove the ceilings, allowing the radio industry and the record industry to negotiate “a fair rate” subject to adjudication by the Copyright Tribunal.

The radio industry says, if that happens, it will play less Australian music. It would also ask to be freed from the legislated requirement to play Australian music.

The recording industry talks as if the radio industry is bluffing.

Annabelle Herd, head of the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia, told the Senate hearing

even if the radio networks stopped playing all Australian music, they would still have to pay to play UK music, Canadian music and music from pretty much every other country in the world.

It’s a point she might not want to push too far.

In 1970 that’s exactly what happened. In response to what it felt was an over-large demand from the Phonographic Performance Company, the commercial radio industry said no, and refused to play any of its music.

Instead, it played records from independent Australian labels who didn’t charge and got their records pressed in Singapore, and American music, lots of it.

While the industry couldn’t play music from the UK, Canada and a bunch of other countries that were signatories to the relevant copyright treaty, it could play music from the United States, which didn’t charge, and wasn’t.

When radio called the labels’ bluff

A disc jockey quoted at the time said he didn’t think the average listener would notice, and there’s nothing on record to suggest the average listener did.

The Beatles album Let it Be was released on May 8. The record ban, as it was called, came into force on May 16. The Long and Winding Road cracked the top five just about everywhere it was released, apart from Australia.

Five months later, the record companies caved. The only thing the radio industry offered it was a guaranteed number of advertisements per week. Which had been the radio industry’s point all along. The record companies needed ratio play for exposure. Without it, people were unlikely to buy their discs.

Read more:
Facebook won’t keep paying Australian media outlets for their content. Are we about to get another news ban?

It’s possible to stretch parallels too far, but when Facebook temporarily stopped linking to pieces from Australian news sites in 2021, traffic to those sites slid 13%.

The common theme is that – as unfair as it seems – platforms have an awful lot of power over providers. If Coles and Woolworths say no, fruit growers won’t be able to distribute their product; if radio stations say no, artists won’t be as widely disseminated; and if Facebook and its ilk say no, news sites will get fewer clicks.

Facebook has been paying millions of dollars to Australian news sites since the news media bargaining code began in 2021. In February it said when the agreements expire, it will pay no more.

The code allows the government to force Facebook to pay, but only if it continues to link to news, and it has given every indication it won’t.

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. What’ll happen when Facebook stops paying for news? Here’s what happened when radio stopped paying for music – https://theconversation.com/whatll-happen-when-facebook-stops-paying-for-news-heres-what-happened-when-radio-stopped-paying-for-music-226013

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand

In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to be of national or regional significance.

The Fast-track Approvals Bill, introduced under urgency on March 7, would take precedence over several current environmental laws and give ministers the power to skirt existing approval processes.

Leaders of ten scientific societies that conduct biodiversity research in Aotearoa New Zealand, representing thousands of members (ourselves included), have called on the government to slow down the pace of reform.

They warn that decision-making criteria are weighted towards
development, not environmental protection or sustainable resource use, and undermine New Zealand’s obligations to protect the country’s unique and threatened biodiversity.

New Zealand’s economy relies on the environment in many ways. One study estimated New Zealand’s land-based ecosystem services contributed NZ$57 billion to human welfare in 2012 (27% of the country’s GDP). This includes services such as crop pollination by insects, erosion control by plants and flood regulation by wetlands.

The fast-track bill requires expert panels to provide recommendations to the relevant ministers within six months of a project being referred to them. This time frame is wholly unsuitable to making proper assessments of environmental impacts, including those on plants and animals, as surveys will likely be conducted at inappropriate times of the year.

No time for on-site ecological assessments

A key requirement of assessing impacts on biodiversity is to undertake new ecological surveys of the project site and surrounds. Such surveys identify the threatened species and ecosystems found on the site, catalogue where they are found and estimate their population numbers.

This information is then used to determine how those species and ecosystems could be affected, and whether the project could be modified to avoid or mitigate these impacts.

There are currently no directions in the bill for the expert panel to commission new ecological surveys. However, even if panels could do this, the six-month time frame precludes robust ecological surveys.

Read more:
Without a better plan, New Zealand risks sleepwalking into a biodiversity extinction crisis

Thorough ecological assessments involve conducting surveys at multiple times throughout the year because certain species will only be present during particular seasons.

For instance, reptiles, frogs, invertebrates and migratory species of birds are usually only detectable during warmer times of the year. Surveys for them during winter are unlikely to find these species.

Even certain plants, such as orchids that can lie dormant underground as a tuber, have life cycles that make them difficult to detect. Many grasses are best identified when they are in flower.

In many cases, restricting consenting to just six months means expert panels would have to make their assessments based only on existing ecological information. This is known as a “desktop assessment”.

While a useful first step, these are not a replacement for on-the-ground surveys. This is particularly the case in New Zealand, where we have limited data on many species and for many parts of the country. For example, we don’t have sufficient data on most of New Zealand’s reptiles.

Evidence-based decisions are critical

Apart from the proposed fast-tracking of resource consents, the government has already repealed the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act. Both were enacted only last year as part of a new resource management regime.

The government also plans to replace the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, which provides direction to local authorities on how to manage activities that affect the health of lakes and rivers.

None of the recent and proposed changes to environmental legislation are responsive to the dual biodiversity and climate crises. They are also inconsistent with the government’s own stated goal of evidence-based decision making.

Read more:
Restoring ecosystems to boost biodiversity is an urgent priority – our ‘Eco-index’ can guide the way

New Zealand’s plants, animals, fungi and ecosystems are globally unique. They underpin key economic sectors, especially primary production and tourism. But they are also threatened with extinction.

More than 75% of New Zealand’s native species of reptile, bird, bat and freshwater fish are either threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened.

New Zealand has international obligations to conserve biodiversity under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was signed in 1993. In 2022, New Zealand joined almost 200 member nations in adopting the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which commits countries to protect 30% of land and ocean globally by 2030.

Read more:
Despite its green image, NZ has world’s highest proportion of species at risk

Much of New Zealand’s most at-risk indigenous biodiversity is found on private land and may be subject to detrimental impacts from land use and development pressures.

The fast-tracking agenda threatens to undermine New Zealand’s progress on biodiversity protection and other key environmental issues. It erodes rather than sustains the natural capital on which the economy depends.

New Zealand’s scientific societies are urging the coalition government to allow adequate time for appropriate parliamentary select committee processes and thorough public consultation on the bill.

They call for a comprehensive legislative and policy framework, centred on the protection of environmental values and sustainable resource management, to ensure development occurs in ways that don’t further degrade natural capital.

The authors thank Dr Fleur Maseyk for her comments and discussions on this piece.

Tim Curran receives funding from the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Fire and Emergency New Zealand, the Hellaby Grasslands Trust, Marlborough District Council, Brian Mason Scientific and Technical Trust, and the Lincoln University Argyle Trust. Tim is the Submissions Coordinator and a past President of the New Zealand Ecological Society, and coordinated and helped draft the open letter to the government referred to in this article.

Jo Monks receives funding from the New Zealand Department of Conservation and Auckland Zoological Park. She is Vice President of the New Zealand Ecological Society and a council member of the Society for Research on Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand. Jo is a previous employee of the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Jo signed the open letter to government referred to in this article on behalf of the New Zealand Ecological Society.

– ref. The government wants to fast-track approvals of large infrastructure projects – that’s bad news for NZ’s biodiversity – https://theconversation.com/the-government-wants-to-fast-track-approvals-of-large-infrastructure-projects-thats-bad-news-for-nzs-biodiversity-225790

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University

After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week.

The Devils will wear green, yellow and red, and their guernsey will feature a map of Tasmania with a central red “T”. The club’s logo features a profile of a Tasmanian devil, which chair Grant O’Brien said represented the state’s “proud, tough, determined” characters.

Were there any surprises in the branding? None. Perfectly on brand and what has largely been seen already from Tasmania’s junior state teams.

The difference though was this was the official AFL launch. No turning back. And it had cleared some fairly big hurdles such as reaching an agreement with global entertainment giant Warner Bros over the use of the name, colours and logo.

But why was this day so important?

Read more:
The case for a Tasmanian AFL team, from an economist’s point of view

Building the (sports) brand

Sport has always been the original crowd funding model. Without fans, there is no team, really. So it was great to see the Devils have been saintly with their marketing to their base – namely the $10 foundation membership.

Within two hours of the launch, the Devils had sold more than 40,000 foundation memberships at $10 a pop. For comparison, the AFL’s most recent expansion clubs, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, totalled 23,359 and 33,036 members respectively at the end of 2023.

Selling cheap foundation memberships several years ahead of the team’s first game was smart, as it gets some nice hard cash rolling in until match-day revenue and sponsorships arrive.

Next, they gain access to a large database, so critical in breaking down members into different segments, and then tailoring an offering to each.

And of course there is the engagement aspect, which for the Devils is particularly important as both the stadium and team are several years away from AFL action – the club is set to enter the national competition in 2028.

They need to keep these foundation members, these key supporters, engaged to keep word of mouth high. And these members aren’t just in Tasmania – they are going to be found everywhere. The team will only play half its games at home, so it is going to need supporters at games played outside the state. The AFL needs this as well.

It helps that these supporters can call themselves foundation members forever. Powerful word of mouth and nice branding. And 50,000+ in a few short hours says the market agrees.

The Devils though must focus on retaining those initial members during what will be a long journey before they play their first game at Macquarie Point.

Why is branding so crucial for sports teams?

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are the benchmarks in world sport for why details matter in sports marketing. Think “CR7” and you think of only one person. And what kid would say no to a Messi number 10 jersey?

Both bring in tens of millions per year for their franchise in merchandise and ticket sales.

The biggest sporting brands on earth, such as Barcelona FC, manage every single detail of their brand image down to the actual colour shade on all brand offerings.

It’s the same for the Devils, not least because of Warner Bros, but also to avoid the Port Adelaide v Collingwood jersey issue.

The Devils offering had to be unique to every other brand in the AFL, but also use colours in the logo and character which would deepen resonance between team, supporters, and community.

The colours of myrtle green, primrose yellow, and rose red do exactly that. That mix and variations are all theirs. They are representative of the colours of Tasmania, and have been used extensively by many other sporting teams from the state. Consistency is so important in sports marketing and this was great to see.

These colours will help drive deeper emotional responses to the brand, and keep supporters engaged at the highest level, thereby helping to attract sponsors.

As for the brand logo, there was no other choice than the Tasmanian devil, and it’s a great one. Nearly every other AFL team builds much of their branding around their character and this is something the Devils need to do sooner and not later.

The initial public reaction was almost overwhelmingly positive, and allows the Devils to build that core base of supporters who will fill 23,000 seats every home game.

Read more:
Job creation isn’t always a good thing. Hobart’s new stadium can only make Tasmania’s housing crisis worse

Challenges and next steps for ‘brand Tasmania’

There will be challenges the brand can’t control, such as the rising concern over concussion and the growth of competitors such as basketball, e-sports and soccer. These may impact the brand but overall will be handled by the AFL itself.

Locally, the brand has to focus on providing as many touch-point experiences as possible, such as meet and greets or merchandise days. Tangibility adds value to sports brands in ways most other brands envy.

And this will help keep the brand community active and vocal, which will help deflect any political challenges to the covered stadium, but also attract other supporters, sponsors and community to the team the closer the start date gets.

With the Devil out of the bag, the challenge for the club will now be to ensure it doesn’t veer too much out of its territory and lose sight of just how hard and long it is going to take before its real prey: that one day in September at the MCG.

Andrew Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Devil in the details: breaking down the branding of the AFL’s newest team – https://theconversation.com/devil-in-the-details-breaking-down-the-branding-of-the-afls-newest-team-226010

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University

“If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime series High Country.

Andie has recently arrived in the lush remote Victorian High Country with her partner Helen Hartley (Sara Wiseman), both trying to put traumas behind them as they start afresh.

Driving along a snaking winding road, Andie finds an isolated Mercedes Benz car. The driver’s door is wide open and the owner has left valuables behind, including keys and wallet.

Doctor Haber (Francis Greenslade) is another in a line of missing persons who have disappeared mysteriously into the rural mountain wilderness.

New in town and without the experience of other local police, Andie – to the decry of her colleagues – is assigned the case of solving a murder and disappearance of two locals that has the agitated town wanting answers.

Seasoned hands

From the opening of this new eight-part series on Binge, High Country feels in steady hands helped by the well-seasoned cast of familiar Australian crime genre actors. Purcell (previously seen in Wentworth Prision) is joined by Aaron Pedersen (Mystery Road), Nicholas Bell (Scrublands), Henry Nixon (The Kettering Incident), Geoff Morrell (Deep Water) and the versatile Northern Irish actor Ian McElhinney.

High Country was created and written by Marcia Gardner and John Ridley whose background includes scripting Australian network crime shows Wentworth Prison and Stingers. They are joined by Wentworth Prision director Kevin Carlin, who directs five of the eight episodes.

With this experience, Gardner, Ridley and Carlin have created a well-plotted and suspenseful procedural crime series that never loses pace or focus. An effective cliff hanger ends each episode making this a very binge-worthy show.

High Country sits within the tradition of uniformed middle-aged female police officers, most notably Jodie Foster in the recent series of True Detective: Night Country and Sarah Lancashire in Happy Valley.

Similar to these series, Andie’s own past comes back to haunt her, forcing her to confront the very thing that she was trying to flee. High Country equally deals with the issues and frustrations of women having to navigate themselves through the gender politics of a male-dominated workforce.

Read more:
True Detective: Night Country’s indigenous representation offers hope for decolonising television

Space for contemplation

Despite High Country arriving in a packed market of quality crime television and the show always playing within the tropes of the crime genre (dirty cops, historical town secrets, wrongly accused victims) there is enough nuance for it never to feel predictable or cliched.

An important reason for this is Purcell’s captivating performance, equally convincing in the sensitive domestic scenes with her partner and wayward teenager daughter, contrasted against dealing with the white, male, toxic thugs who think they run the town.

High Country possesses a vastness that allows ample opportunity for contemplation. The viewer is invited to delve into the intricacies of the setting and its characters. The writing and cinematography are multi-dimensional, offering depth and complexity that encourages reflection and engagement at each turn.

Australian rural noir

The line “if you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are” is repeated across the series. It also becomes the very thing that Andie must investigate in order to solve the crime.

In the rich tapestry of Australian crime fiction – and as its title would suggest – High Country adds to the rise of what has been dubbed “outback” or “rural” noir, sharing similarity with other recent Australian series such as Scrublands and Mystery Road.

A localised theme emerging through Australian rural noir is the Indigenous detective at the centre of the narrative. This is true of TV shows Mystery Road and High Country and also present in literary rural crime noir such as Julie Janson’s Madukka: The River Serpent (2022), an outback crime novel told from the perspective of a Aboriginal sleuth in her 50s.

Taking place in the Victorian Alps, High Country was filmed in the region that served as the backdrop for Robert Connelly’s latest feature film, Force of Nature: The Dry 2, which also deals with people missing in the Victorian wilderness.

Set in the close-knit community, the narrative tackles climate change, domestic violence, and Indigenous identity and land possession. Garner and Ridley paint a vivid picture of the ethical and societal ramifications of these challenges on rural populations.

High Country presents a poignant and impactful exploration of environmental crises and domestic turmoil that has every potential to resonate with a broad mainstream streaming audience.

High Country is on Binge from today.

Read more:
‘You rarely see abuse directed at men’: a look at the sexist abuse women police officers face online

Stephen Gaunson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Led by Leah Purcell’s captivating performance, High Country delivers fresh take on Australian rural noir – https://theconversation.com/led-by-leah-purcells-captivating-performance-high-country-delivers-fresh-take-on-australian-rural-noir-225890

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Vivienne Bentley, Research Scientist, Responsible Innovation, Data61, CSIRO

Today, almost a quarter of Australians are digitally excluded. This means they miss out on the social, educational and economic benefits online connectivity provides.

In the face of this ongoing “digital divide”, countries are now talking about a future of inclusive artificial intelligence (AI).

However, if we don’t learn from current problems with digital exclusion, it will likely spill over into people’s future experiences with AI. That’s the conclusion from our new research published in the journal AI and Ethics.

What is the digital divide?

The digital divide is a well-documented social schism. People on the wrong side of it face difficulties when it comes to accessing, affording, or using digital services. These disadvantages significantly reduce their quality of life.

Decades of research have provided us with a rich understanding of who is most at risk. In Australia, older people, those living in remote areas, people on lower incomes and First Nations peoples are most likely to find themselves digitally excluded.

Zooming out, reports show that one-third of the world’s population – representing the poorest countries – remains offline. Globally, the digital gender divide also still exists: women, particularly in low and middle-income countries, face substantially more barriers to digital connectivity.

During the COVID pandemic, the impacts of digital inequity became much more obvious. As large swathes of the world’s population had to “shelter in place” – unable to go outside, visit shops, or seek face-to-face contact – anyone without digital access was severely at risk.

Consequences ranged from social isolation to reduced employment opportunities, as well as a lack of access to vital health information. The UN Secretary-General stated in 2020 that “the digital divide is now a matter of life and death”.

Read more:
‘Digital inclusion’ and closing the gap: how First Nations leadership is key to getting remote communities online

Not just a question of access

As with most forms of exclusion, the digital divide functions in multiple ways. It was originally defined as a gap between those who have access to computers and the internet and those who do not. But research now shows it’s not just an issue of access.

Having little or no access leads to reduced familiarity with digital technology, which then erodes confidence, fuels disengagement, and ultimately sets in motion an intrinsic sense of not being “digitally capable”.

As AI tools increasingly reshape our workplaces, classrooms and everyday lives, there is a risk AI could deepen, rather than narrow, the digital divide.

Read more:
Artificial intelligence holds great potential for both students and teachers – but only if used wisely

The role of digital confidence

To assess the impact of digital exclusion on people’s experiences with AI, in late 2023 we surveyed a representative selection of hundreds of Australian adults. We began by asking them to rate their confidence with digital technology.

We found digital confidence was lower for women, older people, those with reduced salaries, and those with less digital access.

We then asked these same people to comment on their hopes, fears and expectations of AI. Across the board, the data showed that people’s perceptions, attitudes and experiences with AI were linked to how they felt about digital technology in general.

In other words, the more digitally confident people felt, the more positive they were about AI.

Read more:
Giving AI direct control over anything is a bad idea – here’s how it could do us real harm

To build truly inclusive AI, these findings are important to consider for several reasons. First, they confirm that digital confidence is not a privilege shared by all.

Second, they show us digital inclusion is about more than just access, or even someone’s digital skills. How confident a person feels in their ability to interact with technology is important too.

Third, they show that if we don’t contend with existing forms of digital exclusion, they are likely to spill over into perceptions, attitudes and experiences with AI.

Currently, many countries are making headway in their efforts to reduce the digital divide. So we must make sure the rise of AI doesn’t slow these efforts, or worse still, exacerbate the divide.

What should we hope for AI?

While there is a slew of associated risks, when deployed responsibly, AI can make significant positive impacts on society. Some of these can directly target issues of inclusivity.

For example, computer vision can track the trajectory of a tennis ball during a match, making it audible for blind or low-vision spectators.

AI has been used to analyse online job postings to help boost employment outcomes in under-represented populations such as First Nations peoples. And, while they’re still in the early stages of development, AI-powered chatbots could increase accessibility and affordability of medical services.

Read more:
To boost Indigenous employment, we need to map job opportunities to skills and qualifications. Our new project does just that

But this responsible AI future can only be delivered if we also address what keeps us digitally divided. To develop and use truly inclusive AI tools, we first have to ensure the feelings of digital exclusion don’t spill over.

This means not only tackling pragmatic issues of access and infrastructure, but also the knock-on effects on people’s levels of engagement, aptitude and confidence with technology.

Sarah Bentley works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

Claire Naughtin works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

– ref. The ‘digital divide’ is already hurting people’s quality of life. Will AI make it better or worse? – https://theconversation.com/the-digital-divide-is-already-hurting-peoples-quality-of-life-will-ai-make-it-better-or-worse-222987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University

It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group.

Working with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner’s office, we worked with more than 100 Indigenous women across Australia to talk about their interpretations and experiences of care.

“Mainstream” definitions and measures of care do not include the vast and complex ways care is defined by First Nations women. This includes care not only for people, but for communities, Country and culture.

It means important work goes unrecognised, uncompensated or misunderstood, leading to the marginalisation of this crucial work and the women who do it.

Read more:
‘Definitions are often very western. This excludes us.’ Our research shows how to boost Indigenous participation in STEM

Redefining the concept

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Wiyi Yani U Thangani report illuminates the crucial importance of the care provided by First Nations women. Our work follows and builds on this report.

An Indigenous woman from the East Kimberley told us:

Well, care for me, as an Indigenous person, is not just caring for your family, it’s caring for your Country.

Another woman from the ACT told us care is a disposition, and a means of respecting culture and heritage:

[Care is] enveloped in everything we do and everything we are and everything about where we are going and paying homage again to our ancestors and who’s come before us. That’s what care is.

This notion of care as a strength is an important insight from the women in this study. However, unpaid care is often unrecognised and undervalued in Australian policy, which while prioritising getting women into employment, has neglected funding and supporting the existing unpaid care work that women do.

What is evident from our study is that Indigenous women want more support for the care work they do, as well as better care services largely within Aboriginal community-controlled organisations to assist them in doing it.

Care has consequences

Women frequently linked their demanding care loads to ongoing colonisation, which continues to create damage to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A woman from greater Sydney said:

It’s colonial […] It’s just not being able to do things in the way we should be doing them […] because of the colonial structure and things like that.

This includes the impacts of colonisation on gender roles, child removals, incarceration rates, poor health, poverty, racism and more.

It also includes the impacts of state institutions set up to “care”, but which are often uncaring and may be violent and harmful.

Ultimately, this requires Indigenous people’s care to heal, adding extra demands on existing care loads.

Read more:
First Nations women don’t always access health care after head injuries from family violence. Here’s why

Many of the women interviewed in this study were also tired, and often carers needed care too. Some were in, or had been through, periods of utter exhaustion and illness due to trying to carry their stressful care load. A Central Australian woman told us:

It’s hard. It’s draining. Every day just exhausted. Sometimes there’s days when I just can’t keep up with it. And I don’t want to listen, just go away. But those are days when they really need help. So yeah, it’s very exhausting.

Time is money, but no one gets paid

Our research also included a time-use survey, which showed that all unpaid care activities accounted for, on average, 62% of our participant women’s time on a usual weekday (about 14.8 hours per day on average), with 48% of their time (around 11.5 hours) spent caring for others and/or caring for Country and culture specifically.

Because (lost) remuneration for this work was raised as a crucial point by Indigenous women during our interviews, we also calculated the approximate market value of this unpaid care work through using hourly award rates for corresponding care activities (sometimes called the replacement method, which understands the cost of this work in the paid market).

The estimated economic value of this work ranged between $223.01 and $457.39 per day (representing an estimated annual salary of between $81,175.64 and $118,921.40). This estimation is conservative as it does not include the multitasking of more than one care activity at the one time.

The estimation raises important questions as to what is owed to Indigenous women, not just because the economy free-rides on unpaid care, but also because much of this care work mops up the mess of colonisation.

Many of the women we spoke to also talked about how unpaid care and paid employment interact.

In addition to their unpaid care roles, most women in paid employment in this study had roles in the community sector which put them at the frontline of caring for community. They saw this work as part of their broader commitment to supporting their families, communities and advancing Indigenous peoples. It is therefore hard to draw a line for these women between paid and unpaid work, meaning it is rare to be able to “switch off”.

Often, employers didn’t realise the amount of unpaid care of this type women do in their paid work roles, even though this actually makes their paid employment successful. Women are also not paid adequately for these valuable skills.

A new approach is needed

Our research follows generations of Indigenous women who have long shown the strength of care, but also looks at how settler society makes this work harder.

This research underlines the importance of a new approach to supporting Indigenous women, in which their voices, ideas and needs are central, and where care is placed at the heart. This is different to just “fitting” Indigenous care into various settler models, policies and measures already in circulation.

Elise Klein receives funding from the Gender Institute at the Australian National University. She is a member of the Anti-Poverty Centre, the Accountable Income Management Network and a Co-Director of the Australian Basic Income Lab.

Chay Brown receives funding from the Office of Gender Equity and Diversity at the Northern Territory Government. She is affiliated with ANU, Tangentyere Council, and Her Story Mparntwe.

Kayla Glynn-Braun is a First Nation Wiradjuri Women whom is a project coordinator at The Equality Institute and Co-Foundered Her Story Consulting and lead on U Right Sis? project, Indigenous Knowledge

Janet Hunt and Zoe Staines do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Care is in everything we do and everything we are’: the work of Indigenous women needs to be valued – https://theconversation.com/care-is-in-everything-we-do-and-everything-we-are-the-work-of-indigenous-women-needs-to-be-valued-225780

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Balogh, Adjunct Lecturer, University of New England

How do you manage your emails? Are you an “inbox zero” kind of person, or do you just leave thousands of them unread?

Our new study, published today in the journal Information Research, suggests that leaving all your emails in the inbox is likely to leave you dissatisfied with your personal records management.

In an exploratory survey, we asked participants how they dealt with their personal records such as bills, online subscriptions and similar items. Many of these arrive by email.

We found that most respondents left their electronic records in their email. Only half saved items such as bills and other documents to other locations, like their computer or the cloud. But having a disorganised inbox also led to problems, including missing bills and losing track of important correspondence.

The risk of losing track of your emails

Receiving bills, insurance renewals and other household documents by email saves time and money, and reduces unnecessary paper use.

However, there are risks involved if you don’t stay on top of your electronic records. Respondents in our research reported issues such as lapsed vehicle registration, failing to cancel unwanted subscriptions, and overlooking tax deductions because it was too much trouble finding the receipts.

This suggests late fines and other email oversights could be costing people hundreds of dollars each year.

In addition to the financial costs, research suggests that not sorting and managing electronic records makes it more difficult to put together the information needed at tax time, or for other high-stakes situations, such as loan applications.

Read more:
Why do I get so much spam and unwanted email in my inbox? And how can I get rid of it?

What did we find?

We surveyed over 300 diverse respondents on their personal electronic records management. Most of them were from Australia, but we also received responses from other countries, such as the United Kingdom, United States, Switzerland, Portugal and elsewhere.

Two-thirds of the respondents used their email to manage personal records, such as bills, receipts, subscriptions and more. Of those, we found that once respondents had dealt with their email, about half of them would sort the emails into folders, while the other half would leave everything in the inbox.

While most sorted their workplace email into folders, they were much less likely to sort their personal email in the same way.

The results also showed that only half (52%) of respondents who left all their email in the inbox were satisfied with their records management, compared to 71% of respondents who sorted their email into folders.

Of the respondents who saved their paperwork in the cloud (Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox and similar), 83% reported being satisfied with their home records management.

The study was exploratory, so further research will be needed to see if our findings apply more universally. However, our statistical analysis did reveal practices associated with more satisfactory outcomes, and ones that might be better to avoid.

What can go wrong with an inbox-only approach?

Based on the responses, we have identified three main problems with leaving all your email in the inbox.

First, users can lose track of the tasks that need to be done. For example, a bill that needs to be paid could slip down the line unnoticed, drowned by other emails.

Second, relying on search to re-find emails means you need to know exactly what you’re looking for. For example, at tax time searching for charity donation receipts depends on remembering what to search for, as well as the exact wording in the email containing the receipt.

Third, many bills and statements are not sent as attachments to emails, but rather as hyperlinks. If you change your bank or another service provider, those hyperlinks may not be accessible at a later date. Not being able to access missing payslips from a former employer can also cause issues, as shown by the Robodebt scandal or the recent case of the Australian Tax Office reviving old debts.

4 tips for better records management

When we asked respondents to nominate a preferred location for keeping their personal records, they tended to choose a more organised format than their current behaviour. Ideally, only 8% of the respondents would leave everything in their email inbox, unsorted.

Our findings suggest a set of practices that can help you get on top of your electronic records and prevent stress or financial losses:

• sort your email into category folders, or save records in folders in the cloud or on a computer

• download documents that are not attached to emails or sent to you – such as utility bills and all your payslips

• put important renewals in your calendar as reminders, and

• delete junk mail and unsubscribe, so that your inbox can be turned into a to-do list.

Read more:
Do you answer emails outside work hours? Do you send them? New research shows how dangerous this can be

Matt Balogh previously received funding from an Australian Government Research Training Stipend Scholarship.

– ref. Do you have 7,513 unread emails in your inbox? Research suggests that’s unwise – https://theconversation.com/do-you-have-7-513-unread-emails-in-your-inbox-research-suggests-thats-unwise-225181

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute

Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its plan. Greater transparency on who is donating, caps on donations, and limits on campaign expenditure are all on the table. Here’s what the government should – and shouldn’t – do.

Rules around political donations at the federal level have long lagged the states. Under the federal rules, only donations of more than $16,300 need to be on the public record. Before the last federal election, Labor promised to lower this threshold to $1,000, in line with NSW, Victoria, and Queensland, and it is now seeking to fulfil this promise.

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Special Minister of State Don Farrell wants donation and spending caps for next election

Donations from the same donor should also be aggregated by political parties to prevent “donations splitting”.

Quicker reporting of political donations is long overdue. Under the current system, it takes at least seven months and sometimes up to 19 months for a large donation to be made public. Introducing “real time” disclosure requirements would mean that Australians know who’s donating while policy issues – and elections – are still “live”.

These three changes – reducing the donations disclosure threshold, aggregating donations from the same donor, and publishing the data in real time – are all quite simple reforms that could be implemented quickly. And there is likely to be widespread support across parliament for these sorts of transparency measures, so this would be a good place to start.

Where things get trickier is around caps – on both political donations and campaign spending. Both types of caps were supported by a recent parliamentary committee inquiry into the 2022 election, and Labor has signalled its interest in these bigger reforms.

A cap on political donations aims to reduce the influence of any one donor. Clive Palmer’s record-breaking donations in the lead-up to the 2019 and 2022 federal elections have highlighted the potential for wealthy individuals to have substantial influence in Australian elections.

The trick will be in setting the right level for the cap: low enough to be meaningful, yet high enough to enable new entrants to raise the funds necessary to compete with existing players. Some people show their political support with time, others with money, so donations caps need to allow for different forms of democratic participation too.

Caps on campaign spending would be the real game-changer though. Parties and candidates can currently spend as much money as they can raise, so big money means greater capacity to sell your message to voters.

Capping expenditure in the lead-up to elections would limit the “arms race” to raise more and more funds, and ultimately reduce parties’ dependency on major donors. It is this dependency that “buys” donors substantial access to politicians – and access means opportunities to sway public decisions in the donor’s favour.

Caps on campaign spending would be a big reform to reduce the influence of money in politics. But there are several design issues that still need to be resolved.

Given that other groups, such as unions and industry peak bodies, may campaign on political issues, their political expenditure would also need to be capped. A higher cap should apply for political parties – the primary players in an election – than for third parties.

Independents have warned that spending caps could create barriers for new entrants. A “one-size-fits-all” model would favour the major parties because they are already well known and usually contest every seat. At a minimum, caps are needed both for total spend and per electorate, to prevent major parties pooling their resources to fight just a few seats.

Read more:
A full ban on political donations would level the playing field – but is it the best approach?

These challenges are not insurmountable. NSW has long had expenditure caps in place for state elections and offers a model the federal government could follow.

Another way to resolve many of the concerns would be for the cap to apply to political advertising expenditure only. The idea would be to limit political-party and third-party advertising during election campaigns, but not restrict political expression through more grass-roots channels, or at other times.

The government should take the time to get this right. Campaign spending caps would be a bold reform that would strongly benefit from agreement across the parliament. Even if a quick consensus could be reached, the Australian Electoral Commission would still need time to implement the changes, so this reform would not be ready for the next federal election.

The government should take a consultative approach on caps to land a model that has broad support and trust. But there is no need to delay the transparency reforms. If the government moves quickly, Australians could have much better information on who funds political parties when we head to the polls in 2025.

The Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

– ref. Political donations rules are finally in the spotlight – here’s what the government should do – https://theconversation.com/political-donations-rules-are-finally-in-the-spotlight-heres-what-the-government-should-do-225901

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health.

The study involved patients in Italy who had a condition called carotid artery plaque, where plaque builds up in arteries, potentially blocking blood flow. The researchers analysed plaque specimens from these patients.

They found those with carotid artery plaque who had microplastics and nanoplastics in their plaque had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, or death (compared with carotid artery plaque patients who didn’t have any micro- or nanoplastics detected in their plaque specimens).

Importantly, the researchers didn’t find the micro- and nanoplastics caused the higher risk, only that it was correlated with it.

So, what are we to make of the new findings? And how does it fit with the broader evidence about microplastics in our environment and our bodies?

What are microplastics?

Microplastics are plastic particles less than five millimetres across. Nanoplastics are less than one micron in size (1,000 microns is equal to one millimetre). The precise size classifications are still a matter of debate.

Microplastics and nanoplastics are created when everyday products – including clothes, food and beverage packaging, home furnishings, plastic bags, toys and toiletries – degrade. Many personal care products contain microsplastics in the form of microbeads.

Plastic is also used widely in agriculture, and can degrade over time into microplastics and nanoplastics.

These particles are made up of common polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride. The constituent chemical of polyvinyl chloride, vinyl chloride, is considered carcinogenic by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Of course, the actual risk of harm depends on your level of exposure. As toxicologists are fond of saying, it’s the dose that makes the poison, so we need to be careful to not over-interpret emerging research.

Read more:
Australians are washing microplastics down the drain and it’s ending up on our farms

A closer look at the study

This new study in the New England Journal of Medicine was a small cohort, initially comprising 304 patients. But only 257 completed the follow-up part of the study 34 months later.

The study had a number of limitations. The first is the findings related only to asymptomatic patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy (a procedure to remove carotid artery plaque). This means the findings might not be applicable to the wider population.

The authors also point out that while exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics has been likely increasing in recent decades, heart disease rates have been falling.

That said, the fact so many people in the study had detectable levels of microplastics in their body is notable. The researchers found detectable levels of polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (two types of plastic) in excised carotid plaque from 58% and 12% of patients, respectively.

These patients were more likely to be younger men with diabetes or heart disease and a history of smoking. There was no substantive difference in where the patients lived.

Inflammation markers in plaque samples were more elevated in patients with detectable levels of microplastics and nanoplastics versus those without.

And, then there’s the headline finding: patients with microplastics and nanoplastics in their plaque had a higher risk of having what doctors call “a primary end point event” (non-fatal heart attack, non-fatal stroke, or death from any cause) than those who did not present with microplastics and nanoplastics in their plaque.

The authors of the study note their results “do not prove causality”.

However, it would be remiss not to be cautious. The history of environmental health is replete with examples of what were initially considered suspect chemicals that avoided proper regulation because of what the US National Research Council refers to as the “untested-chemical assumption”. This assumption arises where there is an absence of research demonstrating adverse effects, which obviates the requirement for regulatory action.

In general, more research is required to find out whether or not microplastics cause harm to human health. Until this evidence exists, we should adopt the precautionary principle; absence of evidence should not be taken as evidence of absence.

Read more:
We’re all ingesting microplastics at home, and these might be toxic for our health. Here are some tips to reduce your risk

Global and local action

Exposure to microplastics in our home, work and outdoor environments is inevitable. Governments across the globe have started to acknowledge we must intervene.

The Global Plastics Treaty will be enacted by 175 nations from 2025. The treaty is designed, among other things, to limit microplastic exposure globally. Burdens are greatest especially in children and especially those in low-middle income nations.

In Australia, legislation ending single use plastics will help. So too will the increased rollout of container deposit schemes that include plastic bottles.

Microplastics pollution is an area that requires a collaborative approach between researchers, civil societies, industry and government. We believe the formation of a “microplastics national council” would help formulate and co-ordinate strategies to tackle this issue.

Read more:
The problem with Oodies: hooded blankets are cosy but they are not great for oceans or our health

Little things matter. Small actions by individuals can also translate to significant overall environmental and human health benefits.

Choosing natural materials, fabrics, and utensils not made of plastic and disposing of waste thoughtfully and appropriately – including recycling wherever possible – is helpful.

Mark Patrick Taylor is a full-time employee of EPA Victoria, appointed to the statutory role of Chief Environmental Scientist.
He previously received funding via an Australian Government Citizen Science Grant (2017-2020), CSG55984 ‘Citizen insights to the composition and risks of household dust’ (the DustSafe project). Outputs from this project included published work on microplastics with Drs Neda Sharifi Soltani and Scott Wilson who were at Macquarie University at that time.

Scott P. Wilson works for the Australian Microplastic Assessment Project run by the not for profit organisation the Total Environment Centre. He has previously received funding from the NSW EPA for research into microplastic source tracking in Deewhy Lagoon and for developing a Microlitter Reduction Framework.

– ref. Study links microplastics with human health problems – but there’s still a lot we don’t know – https://theconversation.com/study-links-microplastics-with-human-health-problems-but-theres-still-a-lot-we-dont-know-225354

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year and numerous weather disasters occurred as climate change reared its head.

How did Australia’s environment fare against this onslaught? In short, 2023 was a year of opposites.

For the past nine years, we have trawled through huge volumes of data collected by satellites, measurement stations and surveys by individuals and agencies. We include data on global change, oceans, people, weather, water, soils, vegetation, fire and biodiversity.

Each year, we analyse those data, summarising them in an annual report that includes an overall Environmental Condition Score and regional scorecards. These scores provide a relative measure of conditions for agriculture and ecosystems. Scores declined across the country, except in the Northern Territory, but were still relatively good.

However, the updated Threatened Species Index shows the abundance of listed bird, mammal and plant species has continued to decline at a rate of about 3% a year since the turn of the century.

Read more:
How 2023’s record heat worsened droughts, floods and bushfires around the world

Riding a climate rollercoaster in 2023

Worldwide, 77 countries broke temperature records. Australia was not one of them. Our annual average temperature was 0.53°C below the horror year 2019. Temperatures in the seas around us were below the records of 2022.

Even so, 2023 was among Australia’s eight warmest years in both cases. All eight came after 2005.

However, those numbers are averaged over the year. Dig a bit deeper and it becomes clear 2023 was a climate rollercoaster.

The year started as wet as the previous year ended, but dry and unseasonably warm weather set in from May to October. Soils and wetlands across much of the country started drying rapidly. In the eastern states, the fire season started as early as August.

Nonetheless, there was generally still enough water to support good vegetation growth throughout the unusually warm and sunny winter months.

Fears of a severe fire season were not realised as El Niño’s influence waned in November and rainfall returned, in part due to the warm oceans. Combined with relatively high temperatures, it made for a hot and humid summer. A tropical cyclone and several severe storms caused flooding in Queensland and Victoria in December.

As always, there were regional differences. Northern Australia experienced the best rainfall and growth conditions in several years. This contributed to more grass fires than average during the dry season. On the other hand, the rain did not return to Western Australia and Tasmania, which ended the year dry.

So how did scores change?

Every year we calculate an Environmental Condition Score that combines weather, water and vegetation data.

The national score was 7.5 (out of 10). That was 1.2 points lower than for 2022, but still the second-highest score since 2011.

Scores declined across the country except for the Northern Territory, which chalked up a score of 8.8 thanks to a strong monsoon season. With signs of drought developing in parts of Western Australia, it had the lowest score of 5.5.

The Environmental Condition Score reflects environmental conditions, but does not measure the long-term health of natural ecosystems and biodiversity.

Firstly, it relates only to the land and not our oceans. Marine heatwaves damaged ecosystems along the eastern coast. Surveys in the first half of 2023 suggested the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef plateaued.

However, a cyclone and rising ocean temperatures occurred later in the year. In early 2024, another mass coral bleaching event developed.

Secondly, the score does not capture important processes affecting our many threatened species. Among the greatest dangers are invasive pests and diseases, habitat destruction and damage from severe weather events such as heatwaves and megafires.

Read more:
New ecosystems, unprecedented climates: more Australian species than ever are struggling to survive

Threatened species’ declines continued

The Threatened Species Index captures data from long-term threatened species monitoring. The index is updated annually with a three-year lag, largely due to delays in data processing and sharing. This means the 2023 index includes data up to 2020.

The index showed an unrelenting decline of about 3% in the abundance of Australia’s threatened bird, mammal and plant species each year. This amounts to an overall decline of 61% from 2000 to 2020.

The index for birds in 2023 revealed declines were most severe for terrestrial birds (62%), followed by migratory shorebirds (47%) and marine birds (24%).

A record 130 species were added to Australia’s threatened species lists in 2023. That’s many more than the annual average of 29 species over previous years. The 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires had direct impacts on half the newly listed species.

Population boom adds to pressures

Australia’s population passed 27 million in 2023, a stunning increase of 8 million, or 41%, since 2000. Those extra people all needed living space, food, electricity and transport.

Read more:
Our population is expected to double in 80 years. We asked Australians where they want all these people to live

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 18% since 2000. Despite small declines in the previous four years, emissions increased again in 2023, mostly due to air travel rebounding after COVID-19.

Our emissions per person are the tenth-highest in the world and more than three times those of the average global citizen. The main reasons are our coal-fired power stations, inefficient road vehicles and large cattle herd.

Nonetheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. Many other countries have dramatically reduced emissions without compromising economic growth or quality of life. All we have to do is to finally follow their lead.

Our governments have an obvious role to play, but we can do a lot as individuals. We can even save money, by switching to renewable energy and electric vehicles and by eating less beef.

Changing our behaviour will not stop climate change in its tracks, but will slow it down over the next decades and ultimately reverse it. We cannot reverse or even stop all damage to our environment, but we can certainly do much better.

Read more:
As Australia’s net zero transition threatens to stall, rooftop solar could help provide the power we need

Australia’s Environment is produced by the ANU Fenner School for Environment & Society and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an NCRIS-enabled National Research Infrastructure. Albert Van Dijk receives or has previously received funding from several government-funded agencies, grant schemes and programmes.

Tayla Lawrie is a current employee of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.

Shoshana Rapley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. On a climate rollercoaster: how Australia’s environment fared in the world’s hottest year – https://theconversation.com/on-a-climate-rollercoaster-how-australias-environment-fared-in-the-worlds-hottest-year-225268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University

Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the early 17th century English royal court.

George Villiers rose from humble beginnings to cup-bearer in 1614, Gentleman of the Bedchamber in 1615, and ultimately to the royal favourite of King James VI & I, amassing many titles and court appointments. In 1623 he was made Duke of Buckingham, the only duke who was not a member of the royal family.

In Mary & George, Mary moulds George to be James’ lover, where he would become the second-most powerful man in England. But from dizzying heights can come a great fall.

Much of the show is embellished for dramatic effect – it’s unclear if James actually did have sexual relationships with his male favourites, and Sir Francis Bacon did not die of syphilis.

However, other aspects of the show are fact. The Earl and Countess of Somerset were tried and found guilty of murder through poisoning (though they weren’t executed) and Frances Coke really was abducted and forced to marry John Villiers (witnesses noted her crying in the ceremony just like depicted).

Although George’s relationship with James is a central focus of the series, the Villiers women – George’s mother, sister and wife – all strategically bolstered the power and influence of their male relatives and ensured their family remained in royal favour.

Here’s what you should know about the real women behind the characters.

Read more:
How to make friends and influence people (as a 17th-century woman)

The mother: Mary Villiers

While the fictional Mary Villiers’ origins are depicted as low-born, the real Mary was from a gentry family with a good name but little money.

Mary’s four children with her first husband, George Villiers, were Susan, John, George and Christopher (“Kit”), who all feature in the show.

She married again to Sir William Rayner, and finally Sir Thomas Compton. She was created Countess of Buckingham in her own right (not tied to a husband) in 1618.

Like many women at this time who could not own property or assets due to the laws of coverture, Mary strategically married and used the other avenues available to her – such as social networking – to rise through the ranks of Jacobean society until her death in 1632.

History has not been kind to Mary. Her ambition for her family marked her as greedy, calculating and ruthless, which the show extends to lesbianism and murder despite the absence of any historical evidence.

The sister: Susan Villiers

Mary’s only daughter Susan is portrayed in the show as a quiet, timid and boring teenager. In reality Susan, who went by Sue, learned a great deal from her mother and used strategic connections to improve the social standing of her family.

In 1607, before the rise of the Villiers family at court, she married a country gentleman named William Fielding. Sue and William used George’s favour with the king to obtain many offices and titles; they were made the Countess and Earl of Denbigh in 1622.

After Charles I ascended the throne and married French princess Henrietta Maria, Sue was appointed as the most senior Lady of the Bedchamber.

Read more:
Beheaded and exiled: the two previous King Charleses bookended the abolition of the monarchy

These positions gave her vast influence at court. Surviving papers describe how she was frequently paid for “secret service” for the queen.

Over time, Sue developed a close relationship with Charles and Henrietta Maria, godparents to some of her grandchildren. Her letters show she was concerned with the social position of her own son, his education and his advancement at court.

When the queen fled for France during the English civil wars, Sue went with her and remained until her death in 1652.

The wife: Katherine Manners

In the show, George is forced into a partnership with “Katie” Manners when his mother and sister conspire to lock them in a room overnight, risking their reputations.

Young, “fertile” and wealthy, Katie describes herself as the perfect aristocratic wife.

They married in 1620 in a private ceremony witnessed only by James and her father, the Earl of Rutland. Katie became Katherine Villiers, Marchioness and then Duchess of Buckingham. She and George had four children, Mary, Charles, George and Francis.

James was Mary’s doting godfather. In his letters, he called her his grandchild, while Kate and George became his “children” and he their “dear dad”.

As the show depicts, George and the Villiers women became like a new family to James. This intimacy explains the libels which claimed Mary and George killed the king, a rumour the show brings to life.

Katherine, like Mary and Sue, became a Lady of the Bedchamber to Henrietta Maria. Katherine was pregnant when George was assassinated in 1628 and witnessed his death at the Greyhound Inn (where you can still stay) in Portsmouth.

She went into mourning, commissioning portraits and the Buckingham monument at Westminster Abbey in a chapel usually reserved for royalty. She continued to live at York House in London, marked today by its Watergate near Embankment Station.

Although she and her children remained favourites of Charles, her reconversion to Catholicism in 1628 and marriage to the Irish Catholic Randall MacDonnell in 1635 caused a strain. Katherine spent much of the civil wars in relative poverty in Ghent and Ireland, with her husband often imprisoned for his role in the Irish Confederacy.

She died in 1649, shortly after Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland, her life and the rule of Charles I both coming to an end.

But the influence of the Villers women in the royal court continued throughout the 17th century. George and Katherine’s daughter Mary married a Stewart, making their royal connections official.

Later generations of Viliers women, including Sue’s daughter Barbara also served in the households of Henrietta Maria and later, Catherine of Braganza, continuing the tradition of royal service and influence that began under Mary and George.

Read more:
Mary & George: homosexual relationships in the time of King James I were forbidden – but not uncommon

Sarah Bendall receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK and Parold Research Fund.

Megan Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Intimacy, ‘secret service’ and social climbing: meet the real Villiers women behind Mary & George – https://theconversation.com/intimacy-secret-service-and-social-climbing-meet-the-real-villiers-women-behind-mary-and-george-225356

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University

This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here.

Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ease rental stress and get more Australians into home ownership. Four of the most prominent are:

• first homeowner grants

• shared equity schemes

• first homeowner stamp duty exemptions

• rent assistance.

Our team at Victoria University’s Centre of Policy Studies has modelled the economic impact of each of them in a way that allows their outcomes to be compared.

The bad news is that we’ve found none of the four can simultaneously lift affordability for renters, lift affordability for owners, get more Australians into home ownership, and boost economic efficiency.

The good news is we’ve found a mix that could work well.

We used Victoria University’s regional economic model to compare the effect of spending an extra A$500 million on the variant of each of the programs presently available in Victoria.

To better assess the economic impact, we assumed the extra $500 million was paid for by an increase in taxation.

Grants and shared equity

We found first homeowner grants improve affordability for owners, slightly improve affordability for renters, and slightly increase home ownership rates, but come with a heavy economic cost.

The cost to economic efficiency amounts to about 20 cents for every dollar spent. Economic efficiency measures the extent to which inputs such as labour, land and capital are allocated to their most valuable uses.

Importantly, that 20 cents in the dollar cost is the economic cost of the spending, not the cost of raising the revenue to fund it.

With the average economic cost of state government taxation in the vicinity of 30 cents per dollar raised, that means every extra dollar raised to be spent on a first home buyer grant has an economic cost of about 50 cents, making it an economically expensive way to get people into homes.

Shared equity schemes in which the government part-owns a home with a buyer have similar costs, but are better at getting people into their own homes.

Stamp duty discounts

Our modelling finds that stamp duty discounts for first home buyers have an economic benefit. This is because stamp duty is an extraordinarily inefficient tax that makes it harder for people to move.

Unfortunately, the model also finds stamp duty discounts will make home ownership even less affordable by pushing up property prices, and make it only slightly easier for the first home owners able to get the discounts.

Rent assistance

Rent assistance is delivered by the Commonwealth rather than states to Australians in receipt of Commonwealth benefits.

Our study finds its economic costs are low, just 5 cents for every dollar spent, meaning that raising extra tax and spending it on rent assistance should have a total economic cost of about 35 cents for each dollar raised and spent.

We find it has a significant effect in making rent more affordable, but causes home ownership rates to fall, because it tips the balance for financially strained households in favour of renting rather than buying.

What works best

If making shelter more affordable for low-income earners is the number one priority, by far the best way to do it is to boost rent assistance.

While the benefits come at the expense of home ownership, for the renters receiving them, they are worth having.

But rent assistance is federally administered. For a state government, the best way to help both owners and renters at the lowest economic cost appears to be a mix of two thirds first home buyer grants and one third stamp duty discounts.

Our modelling suggests such a blend would have a negligible impact on economic efficiency and home affordability, while allowing more owners to rent and, as a result, make renting more affordable.

However, it would be costly. From a national perspective, the same improvement in rental affordability could be achieved for less than one-tenth the financial cost if the Commonwealth were to fund additional rent assistance.

If nothing else, our modelling proves these decisions are difficult.

No single tool is perfect, but using the right mix of them can help – all the more so if the states and Commonwealth can work together. Our estimates can help.

Read more:
The Help to Buy scheme will help but won’t solve the housing crisis

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What’s the best way to ease rents and improve housing affordability? We modelled 4 of the government’s biggest programs – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-ease-rents-and-improve-housing-affordability-we-modelled-4-of-the-governments-biggest-programs-225446

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania

Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to get right?

Despite the ongoing debate about whether Avatar (2005–08) is indeed an “anime” (since it’s made by US creators), the series has nonetheless gone down as a favourite among Western anime fans.

Netflix’s new rendition has been rated highly by fans and critics alike. Viewers have flocked online to share their opinions on everything from the casting choices, to the sets and costumes, to changes in the story.

But while this is being praised, that makes it an outlier in live-action anime adaptations. What is it about such adaptations that leads to them being so closely scrutinised? And why are they so often met with disappointment?

‘Anime’ is evolving

Before the original Avatar came out, defining “anime” or “Japanimation” was straightforward. Anime were cartoons made in Japan, often based on manga or Japanese comics.

However, Japanese studios are outsourcing more and more of their background and scenery animation to studios in South Korea and South-East Asia, creating only the main character animation in house. As such, anime purists – who often seem to be Western viewers – may argue the above definition is no longer sufficient. (It’s also helpful to remember that in Japanese, “anime” refers to all animated material, regardless of country of origin.)

Avatar has been noted for its anime-inspired themes and action, and for laying the path for other US-made series such as Voltron (2016–18) and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018–20). Both of these shows mix 1980s nostalgia with 2010s storytelling and a hybrid animation style. While they may not technically be considered anime, depending on whom you ask, the overlap can’t be ignored.

Successful cases

One successful anime live-action adaptation is the 2008 film Speed Racer, adapted from the 1967–68 anime of the same name. Directed by the Wachowskis, the film has become a camp classic. It uses the same comic book-style special effects developed for The Matrix franchise, which itself was inspired by anime and manga, and particularly Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 film Ghost in the Shell.

A more recent success was Netflix’s adaptation of One Piece. This show has arguably rewritten the rules of live-action anime adaptations by blending original anime and manga story lines with a diverse cast of talented young actors.

Through a mix of expert writing, costuming, characterisation and visual effects, the essence of the long-running manga and anime series is retained for a new audience. The story of a boy who dreams of becoming king of the pirates – published over some 25 years – is distilled into a fast-paced series portrayed through childhood flashbacks and wacky hijinks.

Upon seeing the cast, original One Piece author and creator Oda Eiichiro said they were perfect:

It’s like you’re watching the Straw Hats in real life.

Notable failures

So, does the opinion of the original creator determine the success of an adaptation?

Certainly it may if we consider 2009’s infamous film Dragon Ball: Evolution. This US remake, rated 2.5/10 on IMDB, was widely criticised for its lacklustre production and “whitewashing”.

It was such a failure it inspired Dragon Ball creator Toriyama Akira, who passed away on March 1, to return to the franchise after a 15-year hiatus. Toriyama felt the film didn’t capture the “world” or the “characteristics” of the series.

Similarly, the 2017 live-action Ghost in the Shell was heavily criticised for its casting of Scarlett Johansson as the Major, with fans saying she should have been played by a Japanese actor.

In the various Ghost in the Shell anime, films and manga, the Major is an augmented cyborg whose original identity is never revealed. Indeed, the search for some kind of connection or identity forms part of her character. Johansson’s casting should therefore technically not be an issue. Mamoru Oshii himself said there was “no basis” for an “Asian actress” to play the role.

That said, the 2017 film was ultimately too clever for its own good as the final twist reveals the Major is a … Japanese woman in a white woman’s body.

An adaptation problem, or a fan problem?

Besides issues of whitewashing, what makes anime adaptations so different to other adaptations that miss the mark?

For instance, the Marvel films – adapted from the original superhero comics – have delivered hits alongside horrible flops. Yet, one could argue the flops didn’t attract quite as much fan fury as many botched anime adaptations do.

It may be anime live-action adaptations actually aren’t that bad when judged independently, but that the change in medium and language, and the impossible task of casting humans as anime characters, is what sets fans’ collective teeth on edge.

So much of anime’s magic lies in the creativity and imagination of the animators who, given how flexible their medium is, build massive fantasy worlds brimming with the impossible. Currently, no amount of CGI can perfectly replicate anime world-building.

There’s also the issue of condensing anime narratives for live action. Whereas anime made for Japanese audiences can have hundreds or even thousands of episodes, US-made live-action versions tend to have much shorter seasons due to time and budget constraints.

This means creators have to scrap and condense much of the original content. But while these scrapped scenes might be considered “filler” to them, they likely hold a lot of value in fans’ eyes, and contribute to making the original anime so compelling.

Japanese versus Western audiences

There have been a number of incredibly successful Japanese-language anime and manga live-action adaptations. Some of these have been faithful to the original series, such as Ruroni Kenshin (2012-21). Others such as Nana (2005) play with the source material to create new stories.

Anime fans in Japan arguably aren’t as offended by slightly off-kilter adaptations as Western anime audiences often are. Perhaps this is because they’ve been raised on franchises where the same characters appear over and over in different shows, with a different backstory each time.

One example is manga artist Tezuka Osamu’s “star system”. Throughout his career, Tezuka has reused the same character designs and names across different series. The character of Shunsaku Ban, for instance, appears as a detective in Metropolis and as Astro Boy’s teacher in Astro Boy.

These disparate versions exist simultaneously, and fans are free to pick their favourites and ignore the others. It’ll be interesting to see whether this approach is eventually embraced in adaptations made for Western audiences.

Emerald L King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Anime live-action adaptations are often hated by (Western) fans. But are they being too harsh? – https://theconversation.com/anime-live-action-adaptations-are-often-hated-by-western-fans-but-are-they-being-too-harsh-225569

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia

Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination in Australia, according to a new study.

The prevalence of mistreatment has been revealed in the first national review of work-related discrimination, disadvantage and bias among pregnant and parent workers in a decade, undertaken by researchers from the University of South Australia.

More than 1,200 pregnant and parent workers responded to the survey, and despite being an intentionally gender-inclusive study, almost 95% of the respondents identified as female.

Disturbingly, the analysis revealed 91.8% of respondents experienced discrimination during their return-to-work phase, 84.7% during parental leave and 89% while pregnant at work.

One respondent reported:

I was told I wouldn’t want to return to work as I would be “clucky”. My career was severely impacted by my pregnancy, and I was forced to give up my team leader role.

Being overlooked while still in the workplace

A third of pregnant respondents (32.7%) said they did not receive any information about their upcoming leave entitlements such as whether leave could be extended if there were complications, or if anyone would be checking in with them while they were away.

Many said they missed out on training opportunities they were in line for (21.2%) had they not been pregnant while others said they were ignored or excluded (39%) from work-related activities and decisions as they were about to go on leave.

Just over a quarter (25.4%) felt they needed to hide their pregnant belly while 45.7% were ordered to do work below their competence level in the lead up to their parental leave starting.

One said:

I was denied permission to wear tights and a belly support while pregnant, despite the fact I was on my feet and had hip pain while working.

Some colleagues gave unsolicited advice and made unwelcome comments about how a pregnant woman looked, prompting a respondent to say:

We have poor systems for pregnancy in the workplace. Often companies have breastfeeding policies, but nothing for pregnancy. This leaves people open to project their opinion or experience on pregnant people, impacting their experience and often leading to discrimination.

Feeling forgotten and excluded

During parental leave, respondents stated being excluded from communications about work-related or social events.

Many said they would have liked to use “keep in touch” days which might include attending a planning meeting or doing some training before returning to the office, but were not offered this option.

My employer (and many others) find it hard to figure out the “keep in touch” days which are available through the government paid parental leave. It would have been nice to be able to easily access these and attend a day here and there.

And more than half (50.8%) were not told about workplace restructures or other changes in their absence that could affect them on their return.

Also, 21.3% of workers on parental leave were pressured by their manager to begin or finish their leave earlier or later than they wanted to fit in with the workplace’s or management’s needs.

Three quarters of respondents said they would have liked to have extended their time away to care for their child because their partners (in 35.1% of cases) did not get parental leave.

When returning to work, parents said they encountered the most discrimination, such as receiving negative comments from managers or co-workers about working part-time or needing flexible work hours (43.9%).

Many had their role dramatically redesigned without any consultation and felt they were being denied opportunities due to working less days.

I feel I am overlooked and not shortlisted to interview for roles because I work part time. I am highly qualified for these roles.

Just over 45% said they were given fewer opportunities for career advancement and promotions because they were “just a mum” and faced the assumption that they “might get pregnant again” and were therefore unlikely to stay around.

Almost 27% did not have access to appropriate breastfeeding or expressing facilities and, as such, were often forced to express in a locked toilet cubicle or standing up in a cluttered cupboard.

Attitudes need to change

Pregnant and parent workers represent a substantial proportion of the Australian workforce. More than 20% of all Australian households have young children.

The 2023 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported
the number of children has increased over the last 50 years, with the number estimated to grow to 6.4 million by the year 2048.

Without intervening action, pregnancy and parental work-related discrimination will remain common and socially tolerated, adversely affecting more of the population.

Having a designated Fair Work Ombudsman who focuses especially on pregnant and parent workers would help change attitudes and bring about change.

Read more:
Mothers are more likely to work worse jobs – while fathers thrive in careers

Employers need to ensure pregnant and parent workers receive the same opportunities and recognition as other employees. Providing breastfeeding areas and relevant facilities should be mandatory.

Managers have a duty of care and should engage in consultation and discussion with workers at each stage – pregnancy, parental leave and return to work – to establish clear mutual expectations.

There are already anti-discrimination laws in place in Australia that are clearly not being enforced. There needs to be mandatory regulation of employers to ensure they are providing pregnant and parent workers with the professional and personal support needed.

Dr Rachael Potter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Just a mum’: pregnant women and working parents feel overlooked and undervalued in the workplace – https://theconversation.com/just-a-mum-pregnant-women-and-working-parents-feel-overlooked-and-undervalued-in-the-workplace-225676

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne

Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they deserved substantial wage rises of up to 28%. The federal government has committed to the increases, but is yet to announce when they will start.

But while wage rises for aged-care workers are welcome, this measure alone will not fix all workforce problems in the sector. The number of people over 80 is expected to triple over the next 40 years, driving an increase in the number of aged care workers needed.

How did we get here?

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which delivered its final report in March 2021, identified a litany of tragic failures in the regulation and delivery of aged care.

The former Liberal government was dragged reluctantly to accept that a total revamp of the aged-care system was needed. But its weak response left the heavy lifting to the incoming Labor government.

The current government’s response started well, with a significant injection of funding and a promising regulatory response. But it too has failed to pursue a visionary response to the problems identified by the Royal Commission.

Action was needed on four fronts:

• ensuring enough staff to provide care
• building a functioning regulatory system to encourage good care and weed out bad providers
• designing and introducing a fair payment system to distribute funds to providers and
• implementing a financing system to pay for it all and achieve intergenerational equity.

A government taskforce which proposed a timid response to the fourth challenge – an equitable financing system – was released at the start of last week.

Read more:
What will aged care look like for the next generation? More of the same but higher out-of-pocket costs

Consultation closed on a very poorly designed new regulatory regime the week before.

But the big news came at end of the week when the Fair Work Commission handed down a further determination on what aged-care workers should be paid, confirming and going beyond a previous interim determination.

What did the Fair Work Commission find?

Essentially, the commission determined that work in industries with a high proportion of women workers has been traditionally undervalued in wage-setting. This had consequences for both care workers in the aged-care industry (nurses and Certificate III-qualified personal-care workers) and indirect care workers (cleaners, food services assistants).

Aged-care staff will now get significant pay increases – 18–28% increase for personal care workers employed under the Aged Care Award, inclusive of the increase awarded in the interim decision.

Indirect care workers were awarded a general increase of 3%. Laundry hands, cleaners and food services assistants will receive a further 3.96% on the grounds they “interact with residents significantly more regularly than other indirect care employees”.

The final increases for registered and enrolled nurses will be determined in the next few months.

How has the sector responded?

There has been no push-back from employer groups or conservative politicians. This suggests the uplift is accepted as fair by all concerned.

The interim increases of up to 15% probably facilitated this acceptance, with the recognition of the community that care workers should be paid more than fast food workers.

Read more:
It’ll take more than 15% to beat the stigmas turning people off aged care

There was no criticism from aged-care providers either. This is probably because they are facing difficulty in recruiting staff at current wage rates. And because government payments to providers reflect the actual cost of aged care, increased payments will automatically flow to providers.

When the increases will flow has yet to be determined. The government is due to give its recommendations for staging implementation by mid-April.

Is the workforce problem fixed?

An increase in wages is necessary, but alone is not sufficient to solve workforce shortages.

The health- and social-care workforce is predicted to grow faster than any other sector over the next decade. The “care economy” will grow from around 8% to around 15% of GDP over the next 40 years.

This means a greater proportion of school-leavers will need to be attracted to the aged-care sector. Aged care will also need to attract and retrain workers displaced from industries in decline and attract suitably skilled migrants and refugees with appropriate language skills.

The caps on university and college enrolments imposed by the previous government, coupled with weak student demand for places in key professions (such as nursing), has meant workforce shortages will continue for a few more years, despite the allure of increased wages.

A significant increase in intakes into university and vocational education college courses preparing students for health and social care is still required. Better pay will help to increase student demand, but funding to expand place numbers will ensure there are enough qualified staff for the aged-care system of the future.

Read more:
Changes are coming for Australia’s aged care system. Here’s what we know so far

Stephen Duckett is Deputy Chancellor of RMIT University which i.a. provides education for the aged care sector.

– ref. Who will look after us in our final years? A pay rise alone won’t solve aged-care workforce shortages – https://theconversation.com/who-will-look-after-us-in-our-final-years-a-pay-rise-alone-wont-solve-aged-care-workforce-shortages-225898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal pathway” for Australia, over the next two decades, to acquire between six and eight sub-surface nuclear propulsion boats, or more simply put, nuclear submarines.

The plan to acquire and build them has been the subject of ongoing debate. That’s largely because there’s limited understanding of the need for Australia to acquire submarines of this kind.

Concerns are also emerging over how committed the US really is to the deal, given doubts about whether it has the industrial capability to manufacture enough subs to meet its own needs. All this has fuelled speculation over the project’s viability.

So what is the US obliged to provide Australia with, in terms of submarines, under AUKUS? When will Australia likely get submarines under this deal? And how much can the domestic political and naval challenges facing the US affect how it meets its AUKUS requirements, particularly if Donald Trump is elected president?

Read more:
Why AUKUS is here to stay, despite looming roadblocks

The state of play

Australia is now heavily invested in making AUKUS work, avoiding further policy U-turns.

Aided by some deft Australian diplomacy, in December 2023 the US Congress passed the National Defence Authorisation Act which authorised the transfer of three Virginia class submarines to Australia in the 2030s. Given the almost gridlocked US political system, this was once considered inconceivable.

The act also confirmed arrangements for training Australians in US and UK shipyards and, in turn, the maintenance of their submarines in Australia by Australians.

That does not mean, though, that everything is now set on autopilot. Understandably, the US reserves the right to fulfil its own domestic naval needs first.

But fears of the plans being derailed are misplaced, and suggestions Australia reverse course are problematic. Critics referring to the “profound impact” of any production slowdown have an important political point to make, drawing attention to the need for urgency and acceleration of the program, not cancellation.

Reports that the rate of production of these Virginia class submarines will dip to 1.3 per year has generated some alarm. This belies the fact the dip in production was anticipated and plans are underway to rectify the shortfall. The two US manufacturing companies that make submarines of this type, Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries, are taking measures to accelerate the rate of manufacture to 2.3 boats per year.

Read more:
The AUKUS deal will be hotly debated at the ALP national conference, but its real vulnerabilities lie in America

Australia’s financial and personnel contributions are helping. Plans are still in place that will enable Australia to purchase its first second-hand, but refurbished, Virginia class submarine in the mid-2030s.

That seems a long way off. To cover the gap, Australia’s existing diesel-electric Collins class submarines will be retained, supplemented by a Submarine Rotational Force-West, which will include UK and US submarines rotating through the Garden Island Naval Facility in Cockburn Sound, south of Fremantle.

While it doesn’t have the recognition of Pearl Harbor, Cockburn Sound is just as significant. In the Pacific war, about 170 allied submarines were based at Cockburn Sound from 1942 to 1945. From there, they protected Allied shipping and interdicted enemy sea lines of communication across the Indian Ocean, as well as the Malacca, Lombok and Sunda straits (in modern-day Indonesia), and across the South China Sea and around Formosa (now Taiwan).

Already, US Navy Virginia class subs have started making routine port calls there. The deterrent effect is already kicking in – and vociferous criticism of AUKUS suggests that some doth protest too much.

What if Trump comes to power?

In the meantime, some worry about what effect Trump’s prospective return to office might have on these plans.

AUKUS is understood to be a game-changer, and political leaders in Washington DC, both Democrat and Republican, understand this. It reflects an enduring overlap of Australian and US interests, not just sentimental attachments.

Australia benefits from US technology in bolstering its military and intelligence capabilities, reducing its “fear of abandonment”.

In turn, the US retains access to facilities in the East Asian hemisphere to monitor security trends and bolster deterrence in ways that suit their economic and security interests. This is appreciated by US security partners in Asia.

Moreover, while Trump has been critical of NATO and other allies, he has broadly avoided criticising Australia.

The overwhelmingly bipartisan December vote in Congress suggests that fears of the agreement losing support in the US are misplaced. There are no indications Trump is set to change that stance, and there are some compelling reasons for the next US administration to stay the course.

Why do we need new submarines anyway?

Back home, though, the Australian government’s message on these submarines has been clouded.

Eager to avoid drawing undue attention to the limitations of the current fleet, it has avoided talking up how potent and useful the replacement subs will be.

This is in spite of the fact that no matter how well maintained and updated the Collins are, such submarines are no longer viable for long-distance transits required for Australian submarine operations. This is not because of some intrinsic fault with the Australian submarines, but due to their ability to be detected from above.

The surveillance web of persistent and almost saturation satellite coverage, coupled with drones and artificial intelligence, makes the wake of the submarine funnels are detectable when they raise their snorkel to recharge batteries.

Much of this surveillance is believed to be operating from Chinese facilities in Antarctica, southern Africa and South America.

With stealth of submarines the only real advantage over surface warships, the usefulness of the current fleet on long transits sinks quickly. This leaves nuclear propulsion as the only viable path for countries that must traverse vast ocean distances even to cover their own waters.

For Australia, a transit from any capital city across to Fremantle cannot happen without exposure to detection. In wartime, that presents a catastrophic risk only surmounted by remaining underwater for the duration.

Read more:
The AUKUS deal will be hotly debated at the ALP national conference, but its real vulnerabilities lie in America

Beyond recouping stealth, the benefits of the new nuclear submarines are considerable. Australian submarines are intended to help manage vital shipping lanes.

The new vessels can travel faster than the current fleet (about 20 knots on average instead of six-and-a-half knots) and stay on station for longer, bolstering the deterrent effect.

The main constraint is food for the crew. A fleet of up to eight nuclear subs should generate three times the effective deployable time compared with the current Australian fleet because it can deploy faster, loiter longer and remain undetected, without needing to recharge batteries.

John Blaxland is Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies and Director of the Australian National University’s (ANU) North America Liaison Office in Washington DC. He is author of a number of works, including Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence and the Advent of Cyber (UNSWP, 2023, with Clare Birgin).

– ref. Will the AUKUS deal survive in the event of a Trump presidency? All signs point to yes – https://theconversation.com/will-the-aukus-deal-survive-in-the-event-of-a-trump-presidency-all-signs-point-to-yes-225661

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland

Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines.

Many of us think the age of steam has ended. But while the steam engine has been superseded by internal combustion engines and now electric motors, the modern world still relies on steam. All thermal power plants, from coal to nuclear, must have steam to function.

But why? It’s because of something we discovered millennia ago. In the first century CE, the ancient Greeks invented the aeolipile – a steam turbine. Heat turned water into steam, and steam has a very useful property: it’s an easy-to-make gas that can push.

This simple fact means that even as the dream of fusion power creeps closer, we will still be in the Steam Age. The first commercial fusion plant will rely on cutting-edge technology able to contain plasma far hotter than the sun’s core – but it will still be wedded to a humble steam turbine converting heat to movement to electricity.

Why are we still reliant on steam?

Boiling water takes a significant amount of energy, the highest by far of the common liquids we’re familiar with. Water takes about 2.5 times more energy to evaporate than ethanol does, and 60% more than ammonia liquids.

Why do we use steam rather than other gases? Water is cheap, nontoxic and easy to transform from liquid to energetic gas before condensing back to liquid for use again and again.

Steam has lasted this long because we have an abundance of water, covering 71% of Earth’s surface, and water is a useful way to convert thermal energy (heat) to mechanical energy (movement) to electrical energy (electricity). We seek electricity because it can be easily transmitted and can be used to do work for us in many areas.

When water is turned to steam inside a closed container, it expands hugely and increases the pressure. High pressure steam can store huge amounts of heat, as can any gas. If given an outlet, the steam will surge through it with high flow rates. Put a turbine in its exit path and the force of the escaping steam will spin the turbine’s blades. Electromagnets convert this mechanical movement to electricity. The steam condenses back to water and the process starts again.

Steam engines used coal to heat water to create steam to drive the engine. Nuclear fission splits atoms to make heat to boil water. Nuclear fusion will force heavy isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) to fuse into helium-3 atoms and create even more heat – to boil water to make steam to drive turbines to make electricity.

If you looked only at the end process in any thermal power plant – coal, gas, diesel, nuclear fission or even nuclear fusion – you would see the old technology of steam taken as far as it can be taken.

Read more:
Nuclear fusion breakthrough: Decades of research are still needed before fusion can be used as clean energy

The steam turbines driving the large electrical alternators which produce 60% of the world’s electricity are things of beauty. Hundreds of years of metallurgical technology, design and intricate manufacturing has all but perfected the steam turbine.

Will we keep using steam? New technologies produce electricity without using steam at all. Solar panels rely on incoming photons hitting electrons in silicon and creating a charge, while wind turbines operate like steam turbines except with wind blowing the turbine, not steam. Some forms of energy storage, such as pumped hydro, use turbines but for liquid water, not steam, while batteries use no steam at all.

These technologies are rapidly becoming important sources of energy and storage. But steam isn’t going away. If we use thermal power plants in any form, we’ll still be using steam.

Why can’t we just convert heat to electricity?

You might wonder why we need so many steps. Why can’t we convert heat directly to electricity?

It is possible. Thermo-electric devices are already in use in satellites and space probes.

Built from special alloys such as lead-tellurium, these devices rely on a temperature gap between hot and cold junctions between these materials. The greater the temperature difference, the greater voltage they can generate.

The reason these devices aren’t everywhere is they only produce direct current (DC) at low voltages and are between 16–22% efficient at converting heat to electricity. By contrast, state of the art thermal power plants are up to 46% efficient.

If we wanted to run a society on these heat-conversion engines, we’d need large arrays of these devices to produce high enough DC current and then use inverters and transformers to convert it to the alternating current we’re used to. So while you might avoid steam, you end up having to add new conversions to make the electricity useful.

There are other ways to turn heat into electricity. High temperature solid-oxide fuel cells have been under development for decades. These run hot, at between 500–1,000°C, and can burn hydrogen or methanol (without an actual flame) to produce DC electricity.

These fuel cells are up to 60% efficient and potentially even higher. While promising, these fuel cells are not yet ready for prime time. They have expensive catalysts and short lifespans due to the intense heat. But progress is being made.

Until technologies like these mature, we’re stuck with steam as a way to convert heat to electricity. That’s not so bad – steam works.

When you see a steam locomotive rattle past, you might think it’s a quaint technology of the past. But our civilisation still relies very heavily on steam. If fusion power arrives, steam will help power the future too. The Steam Age never really ended.

Read more:
What will power the future: Elon Musk’s battery packs or Twiggy Forrest’s green hydrogen? Truth is, we’ll need both

Andreas Helwig receives funding from Federal Government Department of Education SURF and RRC research grants.

– ref. Even as the fusion era dawns, we’re still in the Steam Age – https://theconversation.com/even-as-the-fusion-era-dawns-were-still-in-the-steam-age-217273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill before parliament could change all that.

Currently, our law guarantees special protections for victims in the criminal justice system but not those in the Family Court.

Victims who testify in criminal proceedings are entitled to give evidence by alternate means, typically some combination of prerecording their evidence and testifying remotely.

While the Family Court can apply these protections to victims who testify in child protection or family law cases, they are not required to do so. In practice, it’s rare to allow victims to testify via these alternate means in Family Court proceedings.

This means people who have experienced family and sexual violence may be required to testify in person in the Family Court. Victims are often face-to-face and with little physical distancing between themselves and their alleged perpetrators.

Extending protections

Labour MP Tracey McLellan recently introduced the Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill to extend some of the special protections in criminal proceedings involving family and sexual violence to Family Court proceedings.

This is an important first step to implementing the “no wrong door” principle outlined in the Ministry of Justice’s Family Violence and Risk Assessment Management Framework. The principle is victims should receive a consistent and safe response regardless of which door they knock on for help.

Read more:
Taking the Treaty out of child protection law risks making NZ a global outlier

If anything, protection for victims is more important in the Family Court than in the criminal courts. This is because family proceedings are private, civil proceedings that the parties initiate and prosecute themselves.

Victims in the criminal courts have police, prosecutors, and support workers from Victim Support to assist them. But victims in the Family Court are often left alone to navigate a complex, hostile system.

Meanwhile, some perpetrators initiate or prolong these proceedings as a form of “systems abuse” – weaponising the judicial system to prevent their victims from escaping their control and abuse. This approach inflicts additional harm on victims.

More support is needed

The member’s bill is a good step towards improving the system. But more needs to be done to improve the process for victims of violence or abuse.

This includes requiring police to seek protection orders on behalf of victims. In criminal cases, police can seek non-contact restrictions so victims don’t have to pay legal fees to do so for themselves.

In Massachusetts in the United States, a victim witness advocate from the prosecutor’s office helps victims complete the paperwork for protection orders and offers them the option of filing criminal charges against their abusers, and a court advocate helps them through the proceedings.

Meanwhile, in Tasmania, the police can issue final family violence orders on the spot without requiring victims to undergo lengthy and burdensome court processes.

In Aotearoa New Zealand several improvements could be made to make the system less dangerous for victims.

This includes providing victims with free legal representatives (the equivalent of prosecutors) in child custody cases involving family violence or protection order cases. This would mean victims don’t have to spend their life savings (or get into debt) trying to get protection.

Read more:
Why it’s so hard to prosecute cases of coercive or controlling behaviour

The Family Court could also be staffed with forensic investigators (the equivalent of police) to investigate claims of abuse and gather supporting evidence so that victims don’t have to struggle to do this themselves.

Children who have experienced family violence could also be given the right to participate safely and directly in proceedings that affect them – as they do when they are complainants in criminal proceedings.

The Victims’ Rights Act and the services of Victim Support could be extended to include child-protection and family law proceedings. Victims would then receive the same support and practical assistance in the Family Court they currently receive in criminal proceedings.

Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) coverage could also be extended for sexual abuse and assault to cover all family violence reports and not just criminal assaults.

Family violence isn’t a family matter. It’s a public health problem and a human rights violation.

When a family violence perpetrator inflicts abuse on other members of their family, we have an obligation as a society to protect their victims from further abuse and help them heal from past trauma.

We must keep working to improve the process for victims who have taken the brave first step of seeking help and find themselves in the Family Court.

Carrie Leonetti is a member of the Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children.

– ref. Victims need to be protected – regardless of whether they are testifying in family court or criminal court – https://theconversation.com/victims-need-to-be-protected-regardless-of-whether-they-are-testifying-in-family-court-or-criminal-court-225886

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University

In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian ballot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He will serve for six more years.

He will be 77 years old in 2030. According to the constitution, which he re-wrote to his benefit in 2020, he then could stand again for a further six-year term.

To put that in perspective, Putin already has ruled Russia as president or prime minister for 24 years, or the equivalent of eight Australian parliamentary terms. In that period, Australia has had eight prime ministers and changed governing party three times. The United States has had five different presidents; the United Kingdom seven different prime ministers.

In contrast to elections in the West, where the outcomes are genuinely in the hands of the voters and adjudicated by independent electoral commissions, Russia is different. As the former UK ambassador to Moscow, Laurie Bristow, wrote:

In Russia, the purpose of elections is to validate the decisions of its rulers, not to discover the will of the people.

Putin’s jaded view of the West

Putin now will appoint a new government. His picks will be intensely scrutinised for clues to a succession plan and future policies. Although he is a master of surprise, we should not count on Putin leaving any time soon. Only four leaders of modern Russia and the USSR have left the top job alive; the rest have died in office of natural or other causes.

Moreover, Putin’s actions over the past two years have been directed at moving Russia from authoritarianism to semi-totalitarianism. The Carnegie Endowment’s Andrei Kolesnikov has written persuasively of these tectonic shifts that recall the darkest years of Soviet Stalinism.

Putin has explicitly presented his war of choice in Ukraine as a proxy for a wider, long-term conflict with the West. He believes the West is irresolute, in decline, and easily distracted and deflected.

Former US President Donald Trump’s “have at them” attitude towards US allies and partners, and the woeful Western vacillation over further military aid to Ukraine, will only embolden Putin further. Buoyed by his ritual success in this weekend’s election, he will embark on further risky and provocative adventurism.

Read more:
What can we expect from six more years of Vladimir Putin? An increasingly weak and dysfunctional Russia

Consequently, Putin – and the ideology of “Putinism” – pose a serious challenge for Western governments and policymakers who are genuinely accountable to their electorates, the party room, the parliamentary opposition, a vocal and inquisitorial media and an independent judiciary.

As exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar has argued, part of Putin’s statecraft is directed at making common cause with ultra-conservative Western political elements to contest global “wokeness”, demobilise support for Ukraine, and dull resistance to Russian territorial ambitions in its neighbourhood.

How democratic governments need to respond

Putin is well aware that the inherent fractiousness of democracy and the need to court the fickle voters hobbles democratic governments’ long-term planning.

Moreover, our political culture is predisposed to wanting to “solve” issues. Sometimes, though, problems of the scale posed by Russia or the Middle East can only be managed, not solved – and then only through joint efforts with like-minded allies and partners. That requires persistence and resilience to rise above short-term politicking and the twitches of our “instant expert” social media culture.

It also demands constant investment in building and sustaining public understanding of what really is at stake, beyond the borders of Europe that were drawn in the bloodshed and misery of the second world war.

This is difficult anywhere, not least in the West, where we have had it comparatively easy for most of the post-second world war era. We need stalwart and principled leadership now more than at any other point in the last 50 years. Most of all, we need ongoing serious and informed public conversations about what we value in and wish for in democratic societies, and the price we are willing to pay to attain and preserve that.

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That sort of discourse can be hard to generate in our politically rather apathetic society. However, it is vital when the institutions of our democracy are barraged by foreign information manipulation and interference designed to sow doubt and distrust and corrode popular faith in the integrity of our form of government.

Especially in Australia, we have allowed our already limited pool of Russia expertise to atrophy to near-extinction. It is well past time to re-invest, modestly but purposefully, in Russian language and associated studies at our universities. We need to boost “Russia literacy” and comprehension of a country that will remain a significant and disruptive player in the world. This matters to countries that matter to us.

We should also honestly and critically assess the mistaken assumptions and indifference that at times have undermined effective Western policies towards post-Soviet Russia. However, we should not succumb to the propaganda peddled by Putin and his proteges abroad that Moscow is a blameless victim of Western perfidy and deception aimed at destroying the Russian state.

Rather, as Australian professor Mark Edele writes in his recent book, Russia’s War Against Ukraine:

Russia never came to terms – either as a society or as a polity – with its transformation from a continental empire with global reach into a nation-state and a regional power.

The Kremlin is marketing Russia as an ally of “the Global South” in resisting resurgent neo-colonialism and championing “multipolarity”.

The Putin thesis is that Ukraine is a patsy of London and Washington, while Moscow is on the side of the formerly colonised. That argument is finding some ready ears, evident in the patchy support for sanctions on Russia. We cannot assume our own Indo-Pacific region is persuaded of the wrongness of the Kremlin’s claims.

The reality confronting us is that of a sullen and resentful Russia, convinced that history, morality and even divinity is on its side in a de facto existential war with the West.

Moreover, as Bristow, my former colleague in Moscow, has written:

we would be unwise to assume that a rising generation of Russians will embrace a more democratic and pro-Western outlook.

Yet, we must not turn away from those Russians – far from an irrelevant minority – who do not share Putin’s view that the future of their country lies in the perceived glories of its past. The challenge is to articulate what a better future would look like for Russia, beyond confrontation, and to keep that alternative clearly in view.

Peter Tesch is the former Australian ambassador to the Russian Federation (2016–19).

– ref. The West can’t ‘solve’ its Russia problem. Here’s how it should handle 6 more years of Vladimir Putin – https://theconversation.com/the-west-cant-solve-its-russia-problem-heres-how-it-should-handle-6-more-years-of-vladimir-putin-225999