Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cordelia Fine, Professor, History & Philosophy of Science program, School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
The British journal Nature was founded in 1869 and is one of the world’s most influential and prestigious outlets for scientific research. Its publisher, Nature Portfolio (a subsidiary of the academic publishing giant Springer Nature), also publishes dozens of specialised journals under the Nature banner, covering almost every branch of science.
In August, the company published new ethics guidance for researchers. The new guidance is part of Nature’s “attempt to acknowledge and learn from our troubled deep and recent past, understand the roots of injustice and work to address them as we aim to make the scientific enterprise open and welcoming to all”.
An accompanying editorial argues the ethical responsibility of researchers should include people and groups “who do not participate in research but may be harmed by its publication”.
It also notes that for some research, “potential harms to the populations studied may outweigh the benefit of publication”, and licenses editors to make such determinations. Editors may modify, amend or “correct” articles post-publication. They may also decline to publish, or retract, objectionable content or articles, such as “[s]exist, misogynistic and/or anti-LGBTQ+ content”.
The guidance is correct to say academic freedom, like other freedoms, is not absolute. It’s also legitimate to suggest science can indirectly harm social groups, and their rights may sometimes trump academic freedom. Despite this, some aspects of the new guidance are concerning.
When science goes wrong
There’s no doubt science can cause harm, both for its subjects and other groups. Consider an example from the late 19th century.
Harvard professor Edward Clarke proposed that taking part in higher education would cause fertility problems in women, because energy would be diverted from the reproductive system to the brain.
Edward Clarke’s Sex in Education; or, a Fair Chance for Girls, argued that girls were physically unsuited to education. Wikimedia, CC BY
Clarke’s account, set out in a bestselling book, has been credited with deepening public opposition to universities opening their doors to women.
At first glance, this seems like exactly the kind of objectionable content that Nature’s new guidance says it would seek to amend or retract.
But the problem with Clarke’s account was not the offensive conclusions it drew about women’s capacity for intellectual development, or the discriminatory policies to which it gave support.
After all, suppose he had been right? If attending university really would harm women’s reproductive health, surely they would want to know.
The real problem with Clarke’s work was that it was bad science. Indeed, historian of science Naomi Oreskes has noted:
Feminists in the late nineteenth century found Clarke’s agenda transparent and his non-empirical methodology ripe for attack.
So drawing a particular kind of conclusion about women and girls isn’t what makes for sexist content in science. Nor is it favouring one side or another on gender-related policies. So what is it?
One answer is that it is science in which gendered assumptions bias scientists’ decisions. In the words of historian and philosopher of science Sarah Richardson, this is science in which:
gendered practices or assumptions in a scientific field prevented researchers from accurately interpreting data, caused inferential leaps, blocked the consideration of alternative hypotheses, overdetermined theory choice, or biased descriptive language.
Language and labels
The guidance also stipulates scientists should “use inclusive, respectful, non-stigmatizing language”. This merits pause for thought.
Scientists should certainly be thoughtful about language, and avoid causing unnecessary offence, hurt or stigma. However, the language must also be scientifically useful and meaningful.
For example, it is the nature of categories that some entities or individuals are excluded from them. This should be based on scientific criteria, not political ones.
Or consider the following, offered as part of working definitions in the guidance:
There is a broad range of gender identities including, but not limited to, transgender, gender-queer, gender-fluid, non-binary, gender-variant, genderless, agender, nongender, bi-gender, trans man, trans woman, trans masculine, trans feminine and cisgender.
People should of course be able to identify with whatever gender label they prefer. However, “gender identity” is a vague and contested concept, and these labels (and their meanings) are subjectively defined and continue to change rapidly over time.
Labels that are personally meaningful, deeply felt or – as in some cases – part of a political project to dismantle gender binaries, may not necessarily be scientifically useful.
An invitation to politicking
By casting a wide range of content as potentially subject to editorial intervention or veto on the grounds of harm, the guidance opens the door to the politicisation of science. Other material caught in that net is:
content that undermines – or could reasonably be perceived to undermine – the rights and dignities of an individual or human group on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant human groupings.
But scientists often do research providing information used to make policies, which will include the bestowing of various rights. The findings of such research can therefore sometimes be unpalatable to groups with economic, political, religious, emotional or other vested interests.
The guidance opens the door for such groups to try to have findings contrary to those interests “corrected” or retracted. There is not much that can’t be framed as a right, a harm, or an infringement of dignity – all notoriously difficult concepts to define and reach consensus on.
What will determine who is successful in their attempt to have articles amended or retracted? Potential harms will be assessed by journal editors and reviewers – and they will perceive these through the lens of their own prior assumptions, ideologies and value systems.
Editors may also face pressure to avoid tarnishing their journal brand, either in response to, or in anticipation of, social media mobs. After all, Springer Nature ultimately answers to its shareholders.
The responsibility of editors
As we know from the work of feminist and other critical scholars, scientific claims based on biased research have harmed marginalised groups in many ways: by explaining away group inequalities in status, power and resources; pathologising; stigmatising; and justifying denial of rights.
There is no contradiction between acknowledging these harms, and also having concerns about the new Nature guidance.
Science journals have an important role to play in facilitating socially responsible science in these sensitive areas.
Journal editors should certainly do all they can to discover and scrutinise hidden biases embedded in research, such as by commissioning reviews from experts with different or critical perspectives. However, they should not second-guess what scientific claims will cause social harm, then exercise a veto.
Cordelia Fine 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
“The duty of an Opposition is to oppose” – attributed to Lord Randolph Churchill – is one of those quotations I remember seeing on exam papers in high school politics classes. It is true, but only half-true.
Tony Abbott opposed. He opposed relentlessly. Assisted by a conservative media that also opposed relentlessly, he did much to help destroy the Labor governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, although they did a better job of destroying themselves.
When Abbott won a massive victory at the 2013 election, it was easy to proclaim him an all-time champion. In their book Battleground: Why the Liberal Party Shirtfronted Tony Abbott, Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen thought historians might one day see Abbott as the country’s “best ever opposition leader”.
Yet the negativity surrounding the role rarely makes opposition leaders popular. Late in 2012, 60% of the public told pollsters they disapproved of the job Abbott was doing.
In most occupations, we do not treat people only capable of doing half their job as good at it. Abbott was, at best, capable of doing half his job. Even then, he brought such political aggression and opportunism to the task that it poisoned the well for when he won office. As prime minister, he continued to be the country’s most prominent opposition leader.
Some have praised Tony Abbott’s skill as an opposition leader. But opposing is only half the job. Lukas Coch/AAP
Under the system of party government that still operates in Australia, we need effective oppositions. We need them for two reasons. They are there to keep governments accountable. And they are there to prepare for being the government themselves.
Assuming for a moment that both sides of politics accept both democratic norms and that their mission is to serve the public good – assumptions that recent US experience, and a little of our own, suggest might be dubious – it is beneficial to have changes of government every few years. At best, it can freshen policy, challenge entrenched assumptions, and bring new personnel, energy and life to government.
As in sport, many people are wedded to their own “team” and want that team to win – although in Australian politics, far fewer today than a generation or two ago. But as in a sporting competition in which the same team wins every year, it is not good for democratic politics when one party is permanently excluded from office. That is why those who think the present weakness of the Liberal Party is only a cause for celebration or mockery might do well to think again.
The Liberals’ weakness is self-evident and, especially at the state level, part of a long-term change in the country’s electoral politics. Labor had only been a majority government once before John Cain junior became Victorian premier in 1982. In the 40 years since, it has only had three terms out of office.
The pattern in South Australia is similar, although the shift there occurred earlier. Decades of Liberal dominance to the mid-1960s were followed by decades of Labor dominance. In Queensland, Labor dominated from 1915 to 1957, the Country Party or Nationals (sometimes partnered by the Liberals) from then until 1989, and Labor has dominated since. In New South Wales, a Coalition government in office since 2011 has moved on to premier number four, looks tired, is often mired in scandal. It faces an uphill battle to be re-elected in March next year.
In the various states, the Liberal Party’s position seems dire. A report on the Western Australian branch following its reduction to two lower house seats at the 2021 state election left the impression of an organisation that was a smouldering wreck. The WA Nationals, with four seats, became the opposition. WA voters registered their views again at the 2022 federal election by awarding Labor a swing of more than 10% and electing a teal independent to a formerly safe Liberal seat.
The Victorian Liberal Party, once considered that party’s “jewel in the crown”, has consistently failed to present as a serious alternative to the Andrews Labor government. Its polling is dire in the lead-up to a November election, and it is a regular target of ridicule.
The situation for the federal opposition is even more dire than the 2022 election results suggest. Lukas Coch/AAP
The federal scene, too, is much worse for the Coalition parties than Labor’s poor primary vote and slight majority at the 2022 election would indicate. That election was a landslide – not in favour of Labor but against the Coalition. Its loss of seats to independents in traditional heartlands looks at least as bad – and probably worse – than the loss of blue-collar support by Labor in many of its own heartlands in the mid-1990s (the latter has, in any case, been consistently exaggerated).
Oppositions do more than compete for government. They also play a crucial role in keeping governments accountable. It is a rare government that can enjoy years in office without becoming just a little arrogant and entitled. Equally seriously, popular and successful governments might perform poorly in some areas. Labor governments in Victoria and WA, for example, have had significant problems in the delivery of health services. It is appropriate and important to have an opposition that can identify and criticise problems as well as suggest alternative policies and provide viable electoral competition.
As we head towards the 50th anniversary of the election of the Whitlam government in December, it may well be that it is Gough Whitlam’s achievements as opposition leader that should grab our attention. For what it is worth, I consider him the best opposition leader the country has seen. Why? In stark contrast with Abbott, Whitlam was successful both in keeping governments accountable and in preparing for office. No one can accuse Prime Minister Whitlam of behaving as though he were leader of the opposition.
Whitlam’s government had faults. But his was a government with a genuine sense of purpose. It left a significant, positive and enduring imprint on the country. That had its origins in a fruitful period of opposition.
Frank Bongiorno recently wrote a commissioned essay, the research for which was funded by the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam Government.
If future historians pick a point in time when Australia comprehensively turned its back on coal-fired generation, they may well point to AGL’s decision to bring forward the closure of Loy Yang A, the cheapest (excluding emission costs) power generator in the energy market spanning eastern Australia.
AGL announced on September 29 that Loy Yang A will close in 2035, ten years earlier than previously planned.
The day before, the Queensland government announced it would decommission or repurpose all its coal generators by 2035. (It owns five of the state’s eight coal-fired plants, and has a joint-venture holding in another.)
Origin Energy announced in February it would bring forward the closure of the biggest coal-fired electricity generator in New South Wales, Eraring, from 3032 to 2025.
So the big coal-generation owners in the National Energy Market (which covers eastern Australia but not Western Australia and the Northern Territory) have made their intentions clear. The era of coal-fired generation is rapidly drawing to a close.
The questions now are: what forms of electricity generation will replace coal, how much will it cost, and who will pay?
Has coal generation been profitable?
Summary answers to the first two questions are easy. The future is renewable energy, storage and more transmission. More than A$100 billion of capital expenditure will be needed.
The last question (who will pay) is affected by past policy choices – particularly the privatisation of state-owned generation assets, and subsequent market regulation.
Loy Yang A, along with Victoria’s other coal and gas generators, was built in the 1980s by a government corporation and sold off in the late 1990s by the Kennett government. AGL bought a one-third share in 2004, and became the sole owner in 2012.
Since 1998 (the start of the National Electricity Market), I estimate Loy Yang A has produced earnings before interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) – a widely accepted measure of profit used by economists – of $10 billion.
I’ve calculated this using on market revenues and cost information published by the Australian Energy Market Operator. Over the same period, the power station has produced about 486 million tonnes of carbon emissions (about equal to Australia’s annual total).
For all four of the Victoria’s brown-coal generators privatised in the 1990s – Loy Yang A and B, Hazelwood and Yallourn – I estimate a total EBITDA of $23 billion on revenues of $62 billon, since 1998.
This is a 38% profit margin – an extraordinary return for shareholders from assets developed by a government corporation, and which required no great innovation or brilliance to operate.
Where did all the money go?
This $23 billion is also more than the proceeds of the privatisation of the four power stations once owned by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria.
Now AGL says the full cost of decarbonising electricity supply to its customers is $20 billion. Investment analyst UBS reckons AGL can only afford $2 billion) without harming shareholder value (profitability). By implication, the other $18 billion will need to be found elsewhere.
Privatisation of Victoria’s electricity assets delivered what was thought of at the time as handsome rewards for taxpayers.
But it turns out it’s the shareholders who come out far ahead. And they pocketed their profits instead of ploughing them back into cleaner alternatives.
They might argue that ploughing their profits back into new renewable generation would have threatened the health of their golden geese. This is evidence of a broken market. The coal generators felt no pressure to reinvest because they were confident that others could not threaten their rivers of cash.
This is not to say government ownership is necessarily better. Private capital in energy production is valuable, not least because there are many other demands on the public purse. When markets work in the interests of customers, they stimulate innovation and efficiency.
But the efficient use of private capital requires effective competition.
What went wrong? There are various views on this. I nominate competition policy that permitted excessive market concentration. There was insufficient competitive tension to check investors’ avarice. Often gullible and ideological regulators made matters worse.
As we begin the new era, these policy and regulatory failures must not be repeated. If public confidence in private investment in energy supply is to be restored, new ways of harnessing private capital must be found.
This might mean big changes from the way things have worked for the past two decades. Policy-makers should be mindful to ensure the owners of the coal generators do not get a second bite of the cherry.
Bruce Mountain 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.
The sudden leap in fidelity of artificial intelligence (AI) art production has been made possible by advances in deep learning technologies, in particular natural language processing and generative adversarial networks.
In essence, a user can input a text description and the algorithm auto-translates this into a cohesive image.
MidJourney interface showing the four-panel grid of image results from two separate text prompts. From here the user can choose to either upscale (U) or create further variations (V) from any of the four results. Mitch Goodwin/MidJourney, Author provided
MidJourney – or MJ as it is known to its passionate users – is perhaps the most seductive technology for its painterly output and poetic interactions. The charm begins from the very first moment, with the command line prompt “/imagine”.
MidJourney founder David Holz has said users find their text-to-image interactions to be a “deeply emotional experience” with the potential for it to be therapeutic. He said:
There’s a lot of beautiful stuff happening.
L-R: ‘Larry David’ from the Warrior Princess series by Brian Penny (2022-09-03); ‘An intricate schematic of a Victorian phonograph designed by Trent Reznor’ by GM Gleeson, (@NooYawkGurrl, 2022-07-15); ‘A rose is a rose is a rose’ by Mitch Goodwin (2022-07-26).
MidJourney plays with genre and form, using existing principles that have long informed media arts practice, such as non-linearity, repetition and remix, to exploit the archive.
Holz has suggested the algorithm’s purpose is to “augment our imagination”.
My first image requests were whimsical queries, nocturnal flights of fancy, gentle tentative casts into the virtual spirit world.
As it turns out, my melancholic prompts were unnervingly well-suited to the algorithm’s default aesthetic.
L-R: ‘Surgical mask discarded on a wet dirty street. In the distance, the radio plays the Beach Boys’ (2022-07-15); from the portrait series ‘Call Centre Cyborgs, 2037 AD’ (2022-07-27); ‘I thought we were all in this thing together … but I was wrong’(2022-07-14)
Magic lurks within the algorithm too. Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist at OpenAI, describes the process as “transcendent beauty as a service”.
Artist and theorist Lev Manovich has poetically described his interactions with MidJourney as akin to working with a “memory machine”.
The recognition it is a service but also a metaphysical experience is a new way of thinking about tools of automation.
The technical process can be an imprecise science in which slippages and overlaps are inevitable. As Manovich recognises, MidJourney remixes:
something from real history and popular stereotypes – real knowledge and fantasies. But we should not blame it, because we do exactly the same, all the time.
From the series, ‘My Favourite Century’ and ‘Stage designs for an unwritten play’ Lev Manovich/MidJourney/Facebook
Collaborative remixing
The MidJourney Bot is hosted on the social platform Discord creating an intoxicating cascade of generative screen works.
It is an inherently communal experience. The image stream also functions as a site of shared creation. If another user’s composition catches your eye, you can co-opt their prompt – or the image itself – and refine it according to your own aesthetic preferences.
This collaborative remixing is what makes the MidJourney Discord channel as much a social experiment as a scientific one.
Text prompts: ‘The joker’s grubby mask discarded in an alleyway, Brooklyn, NYC.’ and ‘A new age dawns as the last of the forests are consumed.’ Mitch Goodwin & Kesson/MidJourney, Author provided
My research into the darkening aesthetics of digital media means I am somewhat predisposed to spotting dystopian visions. The MidJourney Discord channel is certainly a seductive rabbit hole for voyeurs of destruction.
Ghastly cyborg futures and post-nuclear wastelands would seem to be de rigueur for the AI prompt engineer. I regularly see prompts citing the retro-futurist nightmares of artists such as HR Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński and the cinematic tendencies of David Lynch and Andrei Tarkovsky.
As Bowie crooned on the cyber-noir album Outside, itself a chronicle of art world depravity: “there is no hell, like an old hell”.
Users are also finding ways to apply the technology in a moving image context. Notable efforts include a generative fashion demo, morphing amoebas narrated by a synthetic David Attenborough, Fabian Stelzer’s crowdsourced narrative SALT_VERSE and Drew Medina’s mesmerising fractal film Monsters.
The most meaningful assemblage I have come across is Gabriele Dente’s SOLAR (the history of humanity drawn by machines), accompanied by a manifesto highlighting the associated ethical and industrial implications of neural networks.
Digital tools have long been enablers of speed, dexterity and adaptability for designers and artists. Studio professionals in the MJ community are already finding efficiencies in their workflows.
Comic book layout, ‘Death’s Dream Kingdom’ by Randall Rozzell (2022-07-27); beer label graphic by Bryan Launier (2022-07-26); Photo shoot using a Nine Inch Nails inspired industrial backdrop by Caleb Hoernschemeyer, Flow Productions, photo credit Jared Jasinski (2022-07-27). Randall Rozzell, Bryan Launier, Jared Jasinski & Caleb Hoernschemeyer/MidJourney/Facebook, Author provided
A startlingly beautiful example of the possibilities for design and concept ideation come from architect and designer Cesare Battelli.
His series “space-kangaroo” is evocative of a mode of conceptual design thinking that blends aesthetics, functionality and fantasy.
Architectural hybrid-design, ‘space-kangaroo’ by Cesare Battelli (2022-08-19) Cesare Battelli /MidJourney/Facebook
‘Spirit photography’
Eryk Salvaggio has described the technology of the more photo-realistic aspirations of the DALL-E platform as “a kind of spirit photography” conjuring images replete with the ghosts and markings of past technologies: the fading image, the decaying medium and the corrosive chemical reaction.
This ability of reconstituting the past and embellishing the outcome with techniques of capture and display and procedural degradation makes MidJourney especially fertile ground for “authentic” gestures of the fabulous and the fake.
DALL-E variation of an image from a dataset of photographs by Hungarian photographer Costică Acsinte, by Eryk Salvaggio; The alternate history of the Apollo 11 moon landing, by Mitch Gates (2022-07-21). Eryk Salvaggio/DALL.E/Mitch Gates/MidJourney
How much this sudden uptick of synthetic media will contribute to the glut of misinformation online however is uncertain. How does the visual historical record accommodate its synthetic mirror?
We should also consider the evolutionary implications for language and computation. With the democratisation of AI assistants, the field of human computer interaction is evolving rapidly as are the inherent entanglements.
And so, tonight as the city sleeps I watch the feed and dream along with the machine. I punch in another text prompt and wait impatiently for my MidJourney Bot to conjure its response. All the while I’m wondering as to the reach of the text into the algorithm’s code, and to what extent it is, bit by bit, re-coding me?
Mitch Goodwin 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.
Anthony Albanese on Sunday insisted the government’s intention to deliver the Stage 3 tax cuts has not changed, while he reinforced the expectation of deep spending cuts in this month’s budget to attack “waste”.
Meanwhile the government on Monday will point to at least 28 major defence projects that are running a total of more than 97 years late, as it highlights pressures it faces on the budget. It says project management must be improved.
After a week of speculation that the Stage 3 cuts could be recalibrated, and then suggestions on Sunday there would be no change, Albanese said repeatedly at a news conference in Perth, “Our position hasn’t changed”.
He denied any conflict with the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, who has been pushing for modification of the tax cuts, which are legislated to start mid-2024. In the election campaign Labor committed to keeping them. The tax cuts favour higher income earners, and Labor strongly criticised them when in opposition.
Albanese said the government was going through the budget “line by line, making sure that we get rid of the waste.
“Labor will always present responsible budgets,” he said.
Defence is one of the areas Chalmers regularly names when talking about the spending pressures on the budget. The others are aged care, health, the NDIS and interest payments on the debt.
Some 18 projects are running over budget, and there are at least $6.5 billion of variations from approved estimates. A large share of this is due to exchange rates and price indexation, the government says, but “they still have a real impact on the defence budget”.
The Coalition’s March budget estimated defence spending as a proportion of GDP would increase from 2% in 2021-22 to 2.2% over the decade, reaching more than $80 billion annually by 2032. The government says this doesn’t include future requirements not funded by the Coalition, including AUKUS and an increase in the force size.
Projects running behind schedule include: Hunter Class Frigates, Battlefield Airlifters, Offshore Patrol Vessels, Evolved Cape Class Patrol Boats, P-8A Poseidon aircraft, The Battlefield Command System, and a series of Defence Satellite Communications projects.
To strengthen the “Defence Projects of Concern” process the government says it will
Establish an independent projects and portfolio management office within Defence
Require monthly reports on Projects of Concern and Projects of Interest to the minister for defence industry and the defence minister
Establish formal processes and “early warning” criteria for placing projects on the “Projects of Concern” and “Projects of Interest” lists.
Foster a culture in Defence of raising attention to emerging problems and encouraging and enabling early response
Provide troubled projects with extra resources and skills
Convene regular ministerial summits to discuss remediation plans.
Blaming the former government for blowouts in the time and cost of projects, Defence Minister Richard Marles said: “We face the most challenging circumstances since the Second World War, compounded by the fact that the economy is facing serious pressures.
“Reaching record spending within Defence as a per cent of GDP means we need to be more responsible about the way in which we manage.”
Michelle Grattan 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.
If you watch TV or read the paper, you’ve probably seen ads spruiking the achievements of the federal or state government – from the next big transport project to how they’re reducing the cost of living. While some government ads are needed, many are little more than thinly-disguised political ads on the public dime.
A new Grattan Institute report shows both Coalition and Labor governments, at federal and state levels, use taxpayer-funded advertising for political purposes. But there is a way to stop this blatant misuse of public money.
Why do taxpayers fund advertising?
Federal and state governments combined spend nearly $450 million each year on advertising. And the federal, NSW, and Victorian governments individually spend more than many large private companies such as McDonald’s, Coles, and the big banks (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Governments are a major source of the ads on our screens.
Governments run advertising campaigns to communicate important public messages and to ask us to take action. For example, in recent years we’ve seen a lot of federal and state government advertising about COVID-19 restrictions and how to get vaccinated.
These health messages are in our individual and collective interests, so it is appropriate that governments communicate those sorts of messages and that we – the community – fund them. But this is not true of all taxpayer-funded advertising.
Governments take advantage of this pot of money
Our analysis of every federal government advertising campaign over the past 13 years reveals that many were politicised. On average, nearly $50 million each year was spent on campaigns that conferred a political advantage on the government of the day – about a quarter of total annual spending.
Taxpayer-funded advertising is never as overtly political as party-funded advertising, but it still often contains elements aimed at securing an electoral advantage. The three main signs of politicisation we identified in federal and state government advertising were:
campaign materials that included political statements, party slogans, or party colour schemes. For example, before the last federal election, the federal government published ads in major newspapers that used the Liberal Party blue, alongside a vague statement: “Australia’s economic plan. We’re taking the next step”
campaigns that were timed to run in the lead-up to an election, without any obvious policy reason for the timing. Spending on government advertising consistently spikes in the lead up to federal elections (see Figure 2)
campaigns that spruiked the government’s policies or performance and lacked a meaningful call-to-action. For example, the Queensland government spent more than $8 million on two campaigns in an election year to “inform Queenslanders of the state’s recovery plan”.
Many federal and state campaigns contained multiple elements of politicisation – using party colours, spruiking government achievements, and running on election eve.
Figure 2: Government advertising spikes close to elections.
How to depoliticise government advertising
Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for political messages. It’s a waste of public money, it undermines trust in important government messaging, and it can create an uneven playing field in elections.
In the lead up to the 2019 election, the federal government spent about $85 million of taxpayers’ money on politicised campaigns – on par with the combined spend by political parties on TV, print, and radio advertising. Oppositions, minor parties, and independents have no such opportunity to exploit public money for saturation coverage.
There are plenty of other ways governments can spruik their policies without drawing on the public purse. Ministers can use Parliament, doorstop interviews, traditional media, and their own large social media reach to promote their policies. And if governments want to convey a political message outside of those channels, they can advertise using party funds.
We recommend stronger rules to limit the scope of taxpayer-funded advertising. Campaigns should run only if they encourage specific actions or seek to drive behaviour change in the public interest. This would allow recruitment ads, tourism campaigns, bushfire or workplace safety campaigns, and anti-smoking ads – to give a few examples. But it would not allow ads that simply promote government policies.
Campaign materials should obviously not promote a party, or the government. And campaigns should run when they will be most effective, not when they will provide a political advantage (such as immediately before an election).
These rules should be enforced by an independent panel, which would check the final campaign materials. The panel should have the power to knock back campaigns that are not compliant – whether they are politicised, or more generally don’t offer value for money (see Figure 3).
Finally, we recommend a simple but strong penalty for breaking the rules: the governing party, not taxpayers, should be liable to pay the costs of any advertising that has not been ticked off by the independent panel. This would discourage governments from subverting good process, and provide a stronger safeguard against misuse of public money.
Figure 3: A better process for approving taxpayer-funded advertising.
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.
Anika Stobart and Danielle Wood 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.
The Blacks Ferns 41-17 win over the Wallaroos on the field at Auckland’s Eden Park last night was good, but the one off it was better.
There had been a lot of conjecture going into the Rugby World Cup about just how people would respond, given the team’s recent history and the fact that women’s rugby has never really been a priority for those running the game in Aotearoa New Zealand.
But it took a World Cup to finally get one thing right.
The people in charge knew that the most important ones at a sporting event aren’t the players. They’re not the volunteers, or the entertainers, or even the guy cooking Fritz’s Wieners.
It’s the ones who are there for the first time ever, most usually children but occasionally adults who are giving something new a go.
They’re the most important because their entire experience could well mean they come back next time, and again and again until they call themselves true fans. They will bring their friends, their family and eventually their own children.
If the sporting event can get it right, they lock in that person for life.
Lacklustre experiences It’s something rugby hasn’t been very good at lately. Lacklustre game day experiences have played a huge role in crowds for everything below (and sometimes including) the All Blacks gradually declining, to the point where NPC attendances are pretty much non-existent. There is nothing unique, very little that’s special.
Last night at Eden Park flipped that notion on its head. While there is a conversation to be had around just exactly how many fans were in attendance (43,000) and whether a clearly not full stadium can be described as “sold out”, in the end it didn’t really matter.
Looking around showed a different sight than an All Black test match, far more children and families. Groups of people who were clearly drawn to women’s rugby and its World Cup for reasons they’d arrived at themselves.
It was up to the day itself to carry them further.
If it was their first time at a rugby game, what they got most definitely ensured that they’d be coming back. The wave ridden by new fans of a fixture that, for a while there, the Black Ferns had no right to win, is a wonderful and unique experience of its own.
It was an evening of making sure the fan experience was paramount: from Rita Ora’s performance to affordable tickets to the Black Ferns making sure every single kid got a photo after the game – even if it meant they didn’t get into the sheds until well after 10pm.
The Black Ferns’ Portia Woodman celebrates with fans after the match. Image: Photosport/RNZ
The energy of the crowd was clearly different too to one usually found at Eden Park. For a start, there were no massive howls of protest at refereeing decisions. No one was getting rotten drunk either, despite it being Saturday night.
Happy and safe The general feel was that this was an environment that you could feel happy and safe in, something that is less directly quantifiable than numbers but infinitely more valuable in the broader context.
Does it mean that every Black Ferns test can be assured of a big crowd if they are held in a big stadium? Probably not, as the World Cup factor plays a huge role in getting people along.
But it’s a new dawn for women’s rugby, this time with an actual professional NZ Rugby competition to follow it up and a commitment by World Rugby to continue the momentum in test matches. It is proof that if you do things right and invest properly, people will show up in numbers.
From an elite level perspective, this all makes sense as it should have all happened years ago. But there was a sign during the week that the penny had finally dropped in regard to what it will mean in the long term.
When asked about how the Black Ferns would inspire player numbers, coach Wayne Smith said that “the future generations will be inspired to play rugby, be fans and follow the game”.
That’s the nail on the head, because it’s not going to matter whether those future fans are girls or boys. They will grow up and fill the seats at Eden Park and other stadiums.
While the World Cup opener should rightfully be held up as a celebration of women’s rugby right now, years from now it will be remembered as an important day for the national game of New Zealand in general.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Media execs and concerned citizens alike aired their fears about the government’s public media plan — and the commercial clout TVNZ will bring to the new entity — in parliamentary hearings this week.
Mediawatch talks to TVNZ’s Simon Power about that, and the culture clash symbolised by this week’s FBoy Island controversy.
The Herald on Sunday’s revelations about the unpleasant backstory of a contestant on a new reality show last weekend jolted TVNZ in more ways than one.
FBoy Island pits “three stunning Kiwi women searching for the guy of their dreams” against 10 “FBoys” — blokes looking for sex but not a relationship.
Wayde Moore had appeared in court charged with suffocating a woman after luring her to his home for sex when she was drunk. He was found not guilty but The Herald reported the judge had said targeting the vulnerable woman was “deeply inappropriate and disrespectful”.
“The question I keep hearing from people is … whether this is the sort of thing that one has a state broadcaster for,” investigative reporter David Fisher told TheHerald’s Front Page podcast this week.
In TVNZ’s latest annual report published last week, chief executive Simon Power listed “responsible broadcasting” as one of three key pillars of TVNZ’s strategy for a sustainable future.
TVNZ chief executive Simon Power … “I accept the [FBoy Island] title is provocative, but the show is essentially looking to create some very important conversations.” Image: 2020 Getty Images/RNZ
Is FBoy Island responsible — or reprehensible?
“The power in the programme is very much in the hands of the three women involved as contestants. It’s also part of a broader strategy for rangatahi which includes documentaries, factual programming and scripted programming,” Power told Mediawatch.
“I accept the title is provocative, but the show is essentially looking to create some very important conversations — and it may just help equip younger people with tools to navigate a new era of online dating,” Power said (… though most people’s online dates aren’t arranged by TV producers sending FBoys their way on tropical islands)
Some also saidFBoy Island was a symbol of commercial culture at TVNZ which means the government’s arranged marriage at first sight with RNZ might end in tears (or on Heartbreak Island, perhaps).
Will the new public media entity air shows like FBoy Island to attract the ad revenue it will still need to supplement public funding?
“That will be a matter for the new entity as to how it wishes to interpret the charter. But for us, it’s an HBO Max format from the US with Dutch, Danish and Swedish versions created to attract younger audiences. It has been picked up by the likes of the BBC for that very reason,” he said.
I’m a commercial TV company. Get me out of here? At the first of the select committee hearings about the creation of Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) earlier this month, the Broadcasting and Media Minister Willie Jackson said TVNZ needed to “change its attitude” to the public media entity project.
Some commentators speculated TVNZ was stalling, possibly hoping a change of government in 2023 might scupper the plan.
“No. We’re not even contemplating that. We understand who our shareholders are and that (they) wish to progress with the merger. As I’ve said publicly many times, TVNZ is very supportive and very enthusiastic about the opportunity,” Power told Mediawatch.
He also made that clear at this week’s Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee (EDSI) hearings at Parliament.
Much of TVNZ’s submission on the ANZPM legislation is about possible political interference or editorial influence if ANZPM is set up as an Autonomous Crown Entity (ACE) — and Power’s claim that could enable “Muldoon-era control” made headlines.
“The ACE model is the wrong model. It allows for direction. The use of media is currency in politics — and the [tension] between media and politics is very different to some of these other (crown) entities,” Power told Mediawatch.
Independence, interference and financial vulnerability
TVNZ CEO Simon Power addressing Parliament’s EDSI committee last Thursday on the ANZPM legislation. Imageo: Screenshot/EDSI Committee Facebook
But a more immediate problem is short-term funding. $109 million year was set in Budget 2022 — but only until 2026.
RNZ board member Jane Wrightson told the EDSI committee on Thursday that a commitment of at least five years was essential. Members of the E Tu trade union endorsed that subsequently.
Two previous attempts by Labour-led governments to deliver public service via TVNZ withered and died when funds ran out and the government changed. Opposition parties have repeatedly described ANZPM as wasteful spending which should be cut.
Power was a minister in the National-led government which repealed the TVNZ Charter and discontinued the funding of TVNZ’s non-commercial digital channels established under Labour.
Is history about to repeat?
“It’s for the government of the day to signal any permanency around that funding. That’s democracy at work,” Power said.
“If you want legislation to endure beyond governments, it’s really important you have cross-party understanding of what you’re trying to achieve — but more particularly that the model itself doesn’t allow any future leverage.”
New services? Give us a clue . . . The FBoy Island controversy inadvertently highlighted a gap that a joined-up public media outfit could fill.
Earlier this year the Ministry for Social Development proposed engaging an offshore publisher for media content about safe relationships for young people. That angered local producers, including The Spinoff which broke that story.
If New Zealand had a public broadcaster that reached younger people, perhaps they wouldn’t have had to look elsewhere in the first place.
RNZ’s proposed youth service didn’t happen after a backlash over the impact it would have had on RNZ Concert in 2020. A pared-back online service based on streaming music — Tahi — was later launched instead. TVNZ has an online service for a younger audience — Re: — but there is still no comprehensive national service for younger people.
When the select committee asked TVNZ’s head of content Cate Slater how she would deploy public funding if given a free hand, she identified that as the outstanding opportunity.
But the ANZPM Bill currently before Parliament does not oblige the new media entity to provide any specific services beyond the commercial-free ones already provided by RNZ.
That makes it impossible for the public to know what public service they’re likely to get from ANZPM — or what it will offer that commercial broadcasters cannot provide.
Yet TVNZ is calling for a “less prescriptive” charter.
“My view is that legislation works best when it’s principle-based rather than highly prescriptive, because it’s easy with prescription to omit by error. Whereas in a principle based approach, you end up debating at the margins rather than ‘what’s in’ and ‘out’.
“As things change, as markets change, as viewer trends change the way people use media changes. If the legislation is too prescriptive, it can become out of date,” Power said.
“It’s not RNZ or TVNZ that’s designed this legislation. We’re just trying to make it work. We’re doing our best to try and assist with getting the right tension in those discussions to make sure we get the right outcome.”
Power told the EDSI committee that ANZPM would “create a new culture” of its own. But media academic and public broadcasting advocate Dr Peter Thompson said in his submission the previous public service TVNZ Charter introduced in 2002 “was opposed by many within the company.”
”There is no obvious reason to suppose the ANZPM initiative will be different. Changes in organisational culture and identity requires more than legislation and a public charter stuck on the wall,” he wrote.
Commercial clout
Newshub at 6 last Thursday said the public media merger hearings heard the plan was “riddled with problems.” Image: Screenshot/Newshub at 6
Reporting of this week’s ANZPM hearings zeroed in on the main mutual concern of their own executives — the commercial clout ANZPM could carry.
The legislation does not limit the commercial activities ANZPM might undertake or revenue it might attract — and rival media companies fear it could corner the market in content, advertising and staff.
“The opportunity to be as commercially strong as possible is one that should be taken,” Power told Mediawatch.
“The new organisation has been described as not-for-profit (but) that doesn’t mean an operating surplus wouldn’t be available — and there’s an opportunity to reinvest in local content, infrastructure and platforms that other listeners and viewers might use to access content from the new entity,” he said.
“If that at some point manages to help relieve the burden on taxpayers, then that’s something that the drafters of the legislation should think about,” he said.
TVNZ’s submission notes that when Budget 2022 was unveiled, the government estimated ANZPM to be a $400 million a year operation, with roughly half the funding from public sources and half from commercial revenue.
TVNZ’s submission said that was “unambitious”
“I’d be worried if somebody had worked that out in advance, because this should be a matter for the new entity to work out,” Power told Mediawatch.
Work in progress — or fait accompli? “Advertising agencies and media agencies represent 900 businesses across New Zealand who have used TVNZ to access their customers to sell the goods and services to employ people and make a contribution to the economy. This is not something that you can just put a box around and put a number across,” he said.
That relationship is important to TVNZ staff. The recently-released annual report says 300 of TVNZ’s 733 full-time staff earn six-figure salaries.
But many Kiwis will care more about the public service they get from the state-owned media they pay for.
“I think that’s a slightly negative lens to put on the potential here. The legislation is clear that the primary driver of this new organisation is the public media outcomes,” Power told Mediawatch.
“If the commercial arm of the new entity can aid in gaining more revenue to reinvest into local content and to reinvest into public media outcomes, all the better.”
Another flaw in the plan came to light recently when the government’s broadcasting funding agency NZ on Air announced it was “urgently reshaping” its funding policies after being told on September 7 that more than half of its current budget would in future go to ANZPM.
This development had been foreseen long ago, and should have been highlighted by the consultants who worked on the business case and the minister officials overseeing the government’s Strong Public Media programme.
Dr Peter Thompson pointed out that the Joint Innovation Fund run by NZ on Air and RNZ in the past was a precedent that showed co-ordination was possible.
“I think the silence around NZ on Air is one of the things where clarification needs to be sought pretty quickly,” Power said.
The ANZPM plan was hatched behind closed doors and without public input — until the select committee process and this week’s hearings aired concerns.
Does TVNZ believe the government will make any significant changes to the legislation — or the plan cabinet has approved?
“I think all good policy makers … want the public policy and legislation to endure. There are some changes that need to be made to the legislation to ensure that, and I sincerely hope those with the ability to influence that listen carefully and make some of those changes,” Power said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Systemic Realignment and the Long Transition. – 36th Parallel Assessments
Dr Paul G Buchanan
The last few decades have seen a world in increasing turmoil. Technological advances, climate deterioration, sharpening domestic and international political conflict and global pandemics are just some of the hallmarks of the contemporary world moment. In this essay I hope to outline some of the dynamics of this time by conceptually framing its recent historical underpinnings.
Think of international relations as a complex system. Because it involves living creatures (humans), rather than inanimate objects, we can think of it as an ecosystem made up of people and their institutions, norms, rules and the behaviours (confirmative or transgressive) that flow from them. The world order is comprised of various subsystems, including regional (meso) and national (micro) systems that encompass economic, political/diplomatic and socio-cultural features linked to but distinct from the global (macro) system.They key is to understand international relations and world politics as a malleable human enterprise.
International systems are dynamic, not static. Although they may enjoy long periods of relative stability or stasis, they are fluid in nature and therefore prone to change over time. In the last century stable world order cycles have become shorter and transitional cycles have become longer due to a number of factors, including technological advances in areas such as transportation and telecommunications, demographic shifts, the globalisation of production, consumption and exchange, ideological diffusion, cultural transfer and increased permeability of national borders. Status quos are more short-lived and transitional moments–moments leading to systemic realignment–are decades in length.
We are currently in the midst of such a long transitional moment.
In fact, the post-Cold War era is a period of long transition. After the fall of the USSR in 1990, the international order moved away from a tight bi-polar system where two nuclear-armed superpowers and their respective alliance systems deterred and balanced each other through credible counter-force based on second-strike capabilities in the event of strategic nuclear war. The bipolar alliance systems were “tight” in the dual sense that their diplomatic and military perspectives were closely bound to those of their respective superpowers (think NATO and the Warsaw Pact), and States in each security bloc tended to trade preferentially with each other (known as trade and security issue linkage).
The geopolitical map of the Cold War was divided into shatter and peripheral zones, with the former being places where direct superpower confrontation was probable and therefore to be avoided (such as Central Europe and East Asia), and the latter being places where the probability of escalation was low and therefore conflicts could be “managed” at the sub-nuclear level because no existential threats to the superpowers were involved (SE Asia, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the South Pacific come to mind). Here proxy wars, guerrilla conflicts and direct superpower interventions could flourish as trialing grounds for great power weaponry and ideological supremacy, but the nature of the conflicts were opportunistic or expedient, not existential for the superpowers and their major allies. Escalation was dangerous in shatter zones; escalation was limited in the periphery.
With the demise of the USSR the bipolar world was replaced by a unipolar world where the US was the sole superpower and therefore considered the “hegemon” (in international relations jargon) where its economic, military and political power was unmatched by any one country or group of countries. This is noteworthy because “hegemonic” superpowers intervene in the international system for systemic reasons. That is, they approach the international system in ways that preserve an institutional and regulatory status quo that supports and reaffirms their position of dominance. In contrast, great and middle powers intervene in the international system in order to pursue national interests rather than systemic values. Absent a hegemon to act as systems regulator, this may or may not lead to disorder.
The hegemonic premise is the conceptual foundation of the liberal international foreign policy approach adopted by US administration and many of its allies (including NZ) during the post -Cold War period and which persists to this day. For the West, the combination of market economics and liberal democracy is the preferred political-economic form because it is seen as the best way to achieve peace and prosperity for its subjects. As a result, it needs to be expanded globally and supported by a “rules-based” international institutional order crafted in its image. Although this belief was honoured most often in the breach (as any number of US-backed military coups d’état demonstrate), it constituted the ideological foundation for post-Cold War international relations because there was no global alternative to it.
US dominance as the sole superpower and global “hegemon” lasted little more than a decade. After the 9/11 attacks (which were not, in spite of their horrifying spectacle, an existential threat to the US unless it over-reacted), the US engaged in a series of military adventures under the umbrella justification of fighting the (sic) “war on terror.” In doing so it engaged in what may be called neo-imperial hubris, which in turn led to neo-imperial overreach. By invading Iraq and extending the (arguably legitimate) original irregular warfare mission against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan into an open-ended nation-building exercise, then invading Iraq on a pretext that it was involved in the 9/11 plot while conducting counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and even in the wider European Rim, the US expended vast amounts of blood and treasure in pursuit of the unachievable goal of redrawing the map of the Middle East in an US entered image.
That is because although terrorists can be physically eliminated, the ideas that propel them cannot, and unless there is an ideological project that can counter the ideological beliefs of the “extremists,” then the physical wars are a short-term solution to a long-term problem. The US (and the West in general) lacked an ideological counter to Wahabism and Salafism, so the roots of Islamic extremism remain even if its human materiel has been depleted. In addition, pursuing a war of opportunity (rather than of necessity) in Iraq only generated concern and resentment in the Arab world and laid the foundations of the emergence of ISIS as an irregular Sunni fighting force, prompted Iran to pursue its nuclear deterrence option, and diverted resources from the fight in Afghanistan. That in turn allowed the latter to turn into a tar baby for the ISAF coalition fighting the Taliban and various Sunni irregular groups, which eventually produced the graveyard of Empire scenes at Kabul and Bagram airports in 2022.
More importantly for our purposes, despite its surface appearances and the claims of some scholars that a unipolar international hierarchy is the most stable systemic arrangement, a unipolar world is inherently an unstable world. As the hegemon attempts to maintain its dominance in the international order by engaging in wars of conquest, military interventions in peripheral areas or by attempting to be the world’s “policeman” in parallel with economic and diplomatic efforts across the globe, it expends its power on several dimensions. At the same time, pretenders to the throne build their power while avoiding direct confrontations with the superpower until the balance shifts in their favour and the time becomes ripe for a challenge. That is the time when the knives come out. That time could well have arrived and the moment of long transition may be coming to a head.
The move from a unipolar to a multipolar world still in the making began on 9/11 and continues to this day. There is good and bad news in this transition. The good news is that multipolar systems characterised by competition and cooperation among a small odd number (3-7) of great powers is arguably the most stable of international orders because it allows each State to form alliances on specific issues and balance or counter-balance the ambitions of others. The preferred configuration is an odd number because that avoids deadlocks and facilitates cross-cutting alliance formation on specific issues. This leads to a situation where balancing becomes a primary feature and objective of the international system as a whole. In a sense, it is the geopolitical equivalent of the invisible hand of the market: actors act in pursuit of their preferred interests and with a desire to secure preferred outcomes, but it is the aggregate of their actions that leads to balancing and realignment. Actors may wish to steer outcomes in their favour but what eventuates is seldom in line with their individual preferences. Instead, multipolar “market” clearance rests on a dynamic balance of great power national interests..
The bad news is that in the period of transition between unipolar and multipolar orders, consensus on the rules governing State behaviour and adherence to institutional edicts and mores breaks down. International norm erosion becomes widespread, uncertainty becomes generalised and conflict becomes the systems regulator. A lack of enforcement capability by international organisations and States themselves allows norm violations to proceed unchecked and perpetrators to act with impunity (as see, for example, in Syria, the South China Sea or the Ukraine). While geopolitical shatter and peripheral zones continue to exist (albeit not as they existed during the Cold War), the majority of the world becomes contested space in which State, multinational and non-state actors vie for influence using a mix of power variables (say, for instance, chequebook and debt diplomacy, direct influence operations or trade and security agreements). This includes cyber- and outer space, which are increasingly at the forefront of hostile great power contestation.
Transitional conflicts may be economic, cultural, political, military or some combination thereof. In the present moment conflicts are increasingly hybrid in nature, with mixes of persuasive and dissuasive (using mixtures of soft, hard, smart and sharp) power operating on multiple dimensions that, due to technological advancements, do not respect national sovereignty. States and non-state actors now appeal to and influence the predilections of foreign audiences in direct ways that might be called “intermestic” or “glocalized:” what is foreign is also domestic, what is local is global. For hostile actors, the objective of hybrid warfare campaigns that use direct influence tactics is to undermine the enemy from within rather than attack it from without.
There is little governmental filter or defence against such penetrations (say, on social media) and the responses are usually reactive rather than proactive in any event. This is a major problem for liberal democracies that value freedoms of speech and association because often the aim of recent adversarial sharp power campaigns (commonly labeled as disinformation campaigns) is to corrode domestic support for democracy as a form of governance. Because of their repressive nature, authoritarian regimes do not have quite the same problem when confronted by foreign direct influence operations. In that sense, as China and Russia have understood, freedoms of speech, movement and association in liberal democracies constitute Achilles heels that can be exploited by hybrid power direct influence campaigns.
Norm erosion, increased uncertainty and the rise of hybrid conflict as the systems regulator have encouraged the emergence of more authoritarian (here defined as command-oriented rather than consultative in approaches to governance and policy-making), less Western-centric approaches to international relations. The liberal international consensus failed to deliver on its promises in most of the post-colonial world as well as in many advanced democracies, so alternatives began to appear that challenged its basic premise. Many of these have a regressive character to them, characterised by a shift to economic nationalism, anti-immigration policies, and a focus on restoring “traditional” values. After decades of promoting free trade, multilateralism and open borders, the last decade has seen a turn inwards that has encouraged nationalistic authoritarian solutions to domestic and international problems.
National populism is one manifestation of the rejection of the liberal democratic order, and the Asian Values school of thought converged with anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiment to reject liberal internationalism on the global plane. Instead, the emphasis is on efficiency under strong centralised leadership grounded in nationalist principles rather than on transparency, multilateralism, inclusion and representativeness. Throughout the world democracy (both as a form of governance as well as a social characteristic) is in decline and authoritarianism is on the rise, with their attendant influence on the conduct of foreign policy and international relations.
This brings up one more aspect of transitional moments leading to systemic realignment: competition between rising and declining powers.
The shift between international systems is at its core the result of competition between ascendent and descend great powers. Ascendency and decline can be the result of economic, military, social or ideological factors. States in decline will attempt to maintain their positions against the challenges of new or resurgent rivals. The competition between them can theoretically be managed peacefully if States accept their fate and trust each other to engage with mutual respect. In reality, transitional competition between rising and declining powers is often existential in nature (at least in the eye of those involved), and if multidimensional conflict turns to war it is usually the declining power that starts it. World War I can be seen in this light, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a contemporary case in point. Although the US is also in decline, it is undergoing a gradual rather than a rapid loss of power and status. Instead of being a new form of politics, Trump and MAGA are the product of a deep long-term malaise that is as socio-cultural as it is political. Trumpism may act as an accelerant in hastening the US decline but it is not, as of yet, immediately terminal.
Russia, on the other hand, is faced with a societal decline (low birthrates, ageing population, pervasive corruption, export commodity dependence, severely distorted income distribution and social anomaly) that is immediate and likely irreversible. It has an economy equivalent in size to that of Spain or the US state of Texas rather than those of Japan, Germany, China or the US. The invasion of Ukraine, phrased in revisionist “return-to-Empire” language, is a last ditch effort to gain both people and land in order to arrest the decline (because annexing Eastern and Southern Ukraine would provide a younger population of Russian speakers, fertile agricultural lands, a non-extractive manufacturing base and warm water trading ports for Russian goods and imports).
Given Ukraine’s and the NATO response, this is akin to the last gasp of a drowning person. No matter whether it “wins” or loses, Russia will be permanently diminished by having undertaken this war. As it turns out, rather than the US, Russia is the great power whose decline motivated the march to war and which will precipitate the emergence of a new multipolar world order.
What might this new multipolar international system look like? A decade ago there was agreement that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) would emerge as great powers and vie with the US on the global stage. India and China clearly remain as emerging great powers. However, Brazil and South Africa have failed to achieve that status due to internal dysfunctions exacerbated by poor political leadership. Rather than restore some of its Empire, Russia is committing an act of national Hara kiri in Ukraine and has lost its chance at genuine great power status in the post-war future .
So who might emerge if not the BRICs? Germany and Japan clearly have the resources and means to join the new multipolar constellation. Beyond that, the picture is cloudy. The UK is in obvious long-term decline and France is unable to elevate beyond its regional power status. No Middle Eastern, Latin American, SE Asia, Central Asian or African country can do more than become a regional power. Nordic and Mediterranean Europe States can complement but not replace powers like Germany in a multipolar world. Australia and Indonesia may someday emerge as rightful contenders for great power status but that day is a ways off. The US will remain as great rather than a superpower, so perhaps the making of a new multipolar order will involve it, China, India and restored Axis powers finally emerging from the ashes of WW2.
On interesting prospect is that both during the transition to a new multipolar world and once it has consolidated, small and medium States may have increased flexibility nd room to manoeuvre between the great powers. This is due to balancing focus of the new constellation, which its a premium on forging alliances on specific issues. That can encourage smaller states to get more involved in negotiations between the great powers, thereby augmenting their diplomatic influence in ways not seen before. On the other hand, if the opportunity is not recognised by the great powers or seized by smaller States, then the broadening of the multipolar constellation to include satellite alliances around specific great power positions will have been lost.
Hybridity as a transitional hallmark extends beyond warfare and traditional conflict and into the world of so-called “grey area phenomena.” It now refers to the the merging of criminal and State organisations in pursuit of a common purpose that serves their mutual interests. Cyber-hacking is the clearest case in point, where state actors like the Russian GRU signals intelligence unit collude with criminal organisations in cyber theft or cyber disruption campaigns. This hand-in-glove arrangement allows them to share technologies in pursuit of particular rewards: money for the criminals and intellectual property theft, security breaches or backdoor vulnerabilities in foreign networks for the state actor. China. Israel, North Korea and Iran are considered prime suspects of ending in such hybrid activities.
Externalities have been magnified during the long transitional moment. In particular, the Covid pandemic has revealed the crisis of contemporary capitalism and the relative levels of government incompetence around the world. The need to secure borders and curtail the movement of people and goods across borders demonstrated that features like commodity concentration, “just-in-time” production, debt-leveraged financing and other apparent pathologies exacerbated the costs and impeded effective response to the pandemic. In turn, the pandemic exposed government corruption and incompetence on a global scale, where the Peter Principle (a person or agency rises to its own level of incompetence) separated efficient from failed pandemic mitigation policy. The US, UK, Russia and Brazil are examples of the latter; NZ, Uruguay, Singapore and Taiwan are generally considered to be examples of the former.
What all of this means is that in the post-pandemic future multipolarity will emerge as the new global alignment under conditions of great uncertainty that produce different rules, prompt institutional reform and which promote different international behaviours. Capitalism will have to adapt and change (such as through near-shoring and friend-shoring investment strategies and a decentralisation of commodity production, perhaps including a return to national self-sufficiency in some productive areas and an embrace of competitive rather than comparative advantage economic strategies). “Living within our means” based on sustainability will become an increasingly common policy approach for those who understand the gravity of the moment.
The most change, however, is in the field of post-pandemic governance. The frailties of liberal democracy have been glaringly exposed, including corruption, lack of transparency, sclerotic systems of representation and voice, and pervasive nepotism and patronage in the linkage between constituents and elected officials. Authoritarians have emerged as alternatives in both historically democratic as well as traditionally undemocratic political systems, with that trend set to continue for the near future. That may or not be a salve rather than a solution to the deep seated problems afflicting global society but what it does demonstrate is that not only is the multipolar future uncertain to discern, but the systemic realignment may not necessarily lead to a more peaceful, egalitarian and representative constellation than what we have seen before.
Time will tell what our multipolar future holds.
*This essay was written as a think piece that will serve as the basis for a public lecture the author will deliver to the World Affairs Forum in Auckland on October 10, 2022.
Wellington’s Tory Whanau has convincingly won the mayoralty race for Te Whanganui-a-Tara in a triumph for diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand’s local government elections.
She said getting the call to say she had won was “pretty wild”.
Whanau ran as an independent, but was a Green Party chief of staff and digital director for six years before joining local politics.
She beat Andy Foster who was running for a second term as mayor after holding a seat on the city council since 1992. Foster finished second, Ray Chung came in third and Paul Eagle fourth.
In the other major cities, Phil Mauger was winning in Christchurch, Jules Radich prevailing in Dunedin and Wayne Brown claiming victory in Auckland, defeating the Pacific hopeful Fa’anānā Efeso Collins.
Paula Southgate is set to be re-elected as Hamilton’s mayor.
One-term councillor Jules Radich has won the Dunedin mayoralty off incumbent Aaron Hawkins. Radich garnered almost twice the number of first preference votes than any of his rivals.
Narrow lead The Christchurch council said Mauger had a narrow 4000-vote majority over David Meates with 50,086 votes.
New Zealand’s new mayors of the country’s major cities, according to the provisional results … Auckland’s Wayne Brown (from left); Wellington’s Tory Whanau; Christchurch’s Phil Mauger; and Dunedin’s Jules Radich. Image: RNZ
Brown is leading the Auckland mayoralty race with 144,619 votes, ahead of Efeso Collins by 54,808 votes. This progress result reflects about 85 to 90 per cent of votes counted after voting closed at midday today.
Progress results show Tim Shadbolt — who held the record for most elected terms as mayor, eight — losing heavily in Invercargill, with former deputy mayor Nobby Clark winning the top job in Invercargill, and broadcaster Marcus Lush conceding in a tweet.
Results also show Rangitikei mayor Andy Watson has won his fourth term in office, while Neil Brown has been re-elected Mayor of Ashburton by a large majority. Nigel Bowen looks to be re-elected as Timaru mayor and Kirsten Wise will return as Napier mayor for a second term.
Tania Tapsell has been elected as Rotorua’s new mayor. She takes over from Steve Chadwick, who was mayor for three terms. Vince Cocurullo is on track to win the Whangāreri mayoralty and Grant Smith has been releected as Palmerston North mayor.
Andrew Tripe will be the new mayor of Whanganui, beating incumbent Hamish McDouall by about 2000 votes, and Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy has been re-elected for another term.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
At least 37 people were killed on Thursday by a lone assailant at a day care centre in Thailand’s north-eastern province of Nongbua Lamphu, local police say. Among the dead are at least 24 children, while the alleged gunman also killed his wife and child, then himself.
The alleged killer was a former member of the police force, who was facing trial on a methamphetamine possession charge after having been dismissed over drug allegations.
This shocking incident will trigger a national conversation around gun control and drug use, as well as on questions of mental health after a really difficult couple of years since the onset of COVID-19, ahead of the next election scheduled for around May 2023.
Lone assailants rare
Lone gunman massacres have been very rare in Thailand.
Aside from yesterday’s tragic killings, there’s only one other similar incident in the country’s modern history. That occurred in February 2020, when a disgruntled Thai soldier killed 29 people and wounded 58 others in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima, most of whom were shot at a shopping mall.
Other mass shooting incidents have occurred when the military has put down popular demonstrations. For example, the “Black May” mass demonstrations in 1992 where over 50 civilians were killed, and the 2010 military crackdown following the “red shirts” protests in which just under 100 people were killed.
COVID, poverty and mental health
I think (and hope) this incident will trigger a national conversation in Thailand about issues surrounding mental health. But I have my doubts. There’s somewhat of an attitude of Buddhist-informed stoicism in the country, to accept the reality of suffering and just keep going in the face of hardship.
There has been serious adversity since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and there’s an accumulating resentment towards the current government. The country has had a very difficult time over the last two years, as the national economy shrunk by more than 6% in 2020 and scores of workers lost their jobs particularly in the hospitality and tourism sectors. Some of the worst affected have been poorer families, whose kids stopped going to school. They may not return, which suggests this could turn out to be an ongoing generational issue.
Thailand isn’t very well-resourced when it comes to support for mental health. A 2015 study found “an urgent need to invest in the policy, practice, and research capacity for mental health promotion” in Thailand.
While the country is better than a lot of parts of Southeast Asia in terms of welfare payments (they have been prepared to take on government debt during the pandemic), there are still problems rolling it out. Consequently, there’s been growing resentment directed towards the current prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who’s very unpopular.
This massacre has happened just ahead of the next election, which is scheduled for the first half of next year. Politicians are starting to get into campaign mode.
In the past, opposition parties have occasionally campaigned on issues around reforming the security forces, and in recent years there have been signs the government wants to be seen to be doing things on this issue. One such topic has been that of military conscription – all men over 21 years of age in the country must register for the draft, which takes the form of a lottery every April.
This practice is very unpopular, and became a political issue in the last election. The military has floated ways to scale back conscription, but whether changes will actually be implemented is another matter.
My studies of the Thai military over a long period suggest such announcements are often quietly shelved later.
Indeed there’s relatively little oversight of the security forces, because of the country’s governance – in many respects, the military is the government. Other agencies of the government are reluctant to put any pressure on the security forces, as is the country’s anti corruption commission. Military reform is left to the military itself.
Another central issue that will likely be raised in the national conversation is methamphetamine. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has for some time been warning about the volume of meth moving through the Mekong region, a lot of which is being shipped through Thailand.
There’s a view among anti-drug agencies that such volumes of probably couldn’t be moved around without high-levels of the security forces being involved. The issue of corruption among security forces isn’t new, and dates back to the mid-20th century where the “Golden Triangle” (at the confluence of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar) was a notorious haven for drug lords and opium production.
In the 1950s, Thailand’s most powerful generals Sarit Thanarat, Phao Sriyanond and Phin Choonhaven worked with Chinese syndicates in opium and heroin trafficking.
Manufacturing has been slowly pivoting from opium to meth, as the latter is much less visible than vast poppy fields.
Drug issues have from time to time become a national issue, such as in 2003 when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched an anti-drug campaign, which featured extra-judicial killings. Hence this period has since been compared to that of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s infamous war on drugs.
At least one prominent Thai, the Director of Thailand’s Moral Promotion Center Dr Suriyadeo Tripathi, has called for gun control since the massacre, but it’s a relatively new debate in the country.
The alleged killer who carried out this week’s massacre legally purchased the gun he used in the attack (though he mostly used a knife).
There’s never been mass community outrage about gun control (and there’s no United States’ style gun lobby in Thailand) though this latest massacre may spark a reckoning.
Greg Raymond 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.
Australians along the east cost are bracing for yet another round of heavy rainfall this weekend, after a band of stormy weather soaked most of the continent this week.
The Bureau of Meteorology has alerted southern inland Queensland, eastern New South Wales, Victoria and northern Tasmania to ongoing flood risks, as the rain falls on already flooded or saturated catchments.
This widespread wet weather heralds Australia’s rare third back-to-back La Niña, which goes hand-in-hand with heavy rain. There is, however, another pressing issue arising from La Niña events: coastal erosion.
The wild weather associated with La Niña will drive more erosion along Australia’s east coast – enough to wipe out entire stretches of beaches and dunes, if all factors align. So, it’s important we heed lessons from past storms and plan ahead, as climate change will only exacerbate future coastal disasters.
Ongoing flood risk for eastern Australia |
Bureau of Meteorology.
How La Niña batters coastlines
La Niña is associated with warmer waters in the western Pacific Ocean, which increase storminess off Australia’s east coast. Chances of a higher number of tropical cyclones increase, as do the chances of cyclones travelling further south and further inland, and of more frequent passages of east coast lows.
Australians had a taste of this in 1967, when the Gold Coast was hit by the largest storm cluster on record, made up of four cyclones and three east coast lows within six months. 1967 wasn’t even an official La Niña year, with the index just below the La Niña threshold.
Such frequency didn’t allow beaches to recover between storms, and the overall erosion was unprecedented. It forced many local residents to use anything on hand, even cars, to protect their properties and other infrastructure.
Official La Niña events occurred soon after. This included a double-dip La Niña between 1970 and 1972, followed by a triple-dip La Niña between 1973 and 1976.
These events fuelled two cyclones in 1972, two in 1974 and one in 1976, wreaking havoc along the entire east coast of Australia. Indeed, 1967 and 1974 are considered record years for storm-induced coastal erosion.
Studies show the extreme erosion of 1974 was caused by a combination of large waves coinciding with above-average high tides. It took over ten years for the sand to come back to the beach and for dunes to recover. However, recent studies also show single extreme storms can bring back considerable amounts of sand from deeper waters.
La Niña also modifies the direction of waves along the east coast, resulting in waves approaching from a more easterly direction (anticlockwise).
This subtle change has huge implications when it comes to erosion of otherwise more sheltered north-facing beaches. We saw this during the recent, and relatively weaker, double La Niña of 2016-18.
In 2016, an east coast low of only moderate intensity produced extreme erosion, similar to that of 1974. Scenes of destruction along NSW – including a collapsed backyard pool on Collaroy Beach – are now iconic.
This is largely because wave direction deviated from the average by 45 degrees anticlockwise, during winter solstice spring tides when water levels are higher.
The current triple-dip La Niña started in 2020. Based on Australia’s limited record since 1900, we know the final events in such sequences tend to be the weakest.
However, when it comes to coastal hazards, history tells us smaller but more frequent storms can cause as much or more erosion than one large event. This is mostly about the combination of storm direction, sequencing and high water levels.
For example, Bribie Island in Queensland was hit by relatively large easterly waves from ex-Tropical Cyclone Seth earlier this year, coinciding with above-average high tides. This caused the island to split in two and form a 300-metre wide passage of seawater.
Further, the prolonged period of easterly waves since 2020 has already taken a toll on beaches and dunes in Australia.
Traditionally, spring is the season when sand is transported onshore under fair-weather waves, building back wide beaches and tall dunes nearest to the sea. However, beaches haven’t had time to fully recover from the previous two years, which makes them more vulnerable to future erosion.
Repeated elevation measurements by our team and citizen scientists along beaches in the Sunshine Coast and Noosa show shorelines have eroded more than 10m landwards since the beginning of this year. As the photo below shows, 2-3m high erosion scarps (which look like small cliffs) have formed along dunes due to frequent heavy rainfalls and waves.
Dune scarps at a beach in Noosa. Javier Leon, Author provided
On the other hand, we can also see that the wet weather has led to greater growth of vegetation on dunes, such as native spinifex and dune bean.
Experiments in laboratory settings show dune vegetation can dissipate up to 40-50% of the water level reached as a result of waves, and reduce erosion. But whether this increase in dune vegetation mitigates further erosion remains to be seen.
A challenging future
The chances of witnessing coastal hazards similar to those in 1967 or 1974 in the coming season are real and, in the unfortunate case they materialise, we should be ready to act. Councils and communities need to prepare ahead and work together towards recovery if disaster strikes using, for example, sand nourishment and sandbags.
Looking ahead, it remains essential to further our understanding about coastal dynamics – especially in a changing climate – so we can better manage densely populated coastal regions.
After all, much of what we know about the dynamics of Australia’s east coast has been supported by coastal monitoring programs, which were implemented along Queensland and NSW after the 1967 and 1974 storms.
Scientists predict that La Niña conditions along the east coast of Australia – such as warmer waters, higher sea levels, stronger waves and more waves coming from the east – will become the norm under climate change.
It’s crucial we start having a serious conversation about coastal adaptation strategies, including implementing a managed retreat. The longer we take, the higher the costs will be.
Javier Leon receives funding from Noosa Council and The Queensland Earth Observation (EO) Hub, a partnership between the Queensland Government and SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC)
Around 60 Australian women and children are reported to be living in Syrian detention camps, most of them children under six years of age. This week, the federal government announced plans to rescue these Australians – family members of slain or jailed Islamic State combatants – from the camps and repatriate them.
UNICEF says these and hundreds of other children in the camps are “critically vulnerable and in urgent need of protection”, without basics including warm clothes, hygiene, health, education and food.
The time spent in the Syrian detention camps will have affected these children differently depending on their age and stage of development. Their experiences will likely affect their lifelong health and well-being. What is needed to address the trauma experienced during their stay and the challenges they will face following repatriation? How can we help?
By mid to late 2014, they controlled a large part of Syrian and Iraqi territories. During this peak of successes in gaining territories, ISIS attracted thousands of people from around the world to come join their ranks. Reportedly, about 300 people from Australia joined ISIS and other militant groups.
In Syria, ISIS set up a government with a caliphate as the head in its control areas. Vulnerable young Muslim women were lured online from western countries to become brides of ISIS fighters. Women were promised a better future and community where they would be loved, appreciated and valued as Muslim members. But they became a commodity, sold among ISIS fighters on arrival to Syria.
In March 2019, ISIS was defeated and its government collapsed. Thousands of women and children of ISIS fighters were rounded up by the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria and placed in detention camps. In the camps, they have limited access to clean drinking water, poor hygiene, insufficient medical care and counselling, lack of schooling, and poor nutrition.
Early childhood provides the foundations for adult relationships, behaviours, health, and sociocultural outcomes such as employment and education.
Experts report children of all ages and stages in refugee camps experience a wide range of issues that can affect their ability to thrive.
Our work on migrant and refugee health, vulnerability and resilience reveals migrant youths face challenging stressors such as trauma, loss of status and social networks, lack of opportunities, cultural differences, poverty and unemployment, language difficulties and more. Depending on the support they receive and their environment, young people pass through phases of readjustment following resettlement, with outcomes ranging from integration through to marginalisation.
The Australian children in Syria will have experienced negative health outcomes under ISIS rule and afterwards in the Syrian refugee camps. They will have experienced direct or indirect violence, poor housing, disrupted schooling and malnutrition. They may have been exposed to diseases such as tuberculosis and gastrointestinal infections, and inadequate vaccination against preventable illnesses.
Long-term exposure to these conditions as children are linked to subsequent high-risk behaviours including substance and alcohol abuse. It may lead to mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer are more likely. And a broad range of social determinants of health – including poor academic outcomes and poor socioeconomic status – are also affected.
While their time in the Syrian camps will have been traumatic, their repatriation may also be disruptive and influence their health, in similar ways to other migrant groups.
The circumstances of their repatriation, alongside challenges of resettling, may come with stigma and discrimination. They will be unfamiliar with the language and culture in Australia and have uncertain legal status.
Mediation and resilience building
Despite the challenges, children have high levels of resilience and can enjoy improved health, well-being and development once in a safe, stable, supportive and nurturing environment.
Research shows children who’ve been through similar transitions are able to bounce back, express a positive outlook and high level of motivation.
To help the repatriated children thrive in Australia, we recommend interventions underpinned by a trauma-informed framework. This approach would consider different experiences endured by children under ISIS rule, while in refugee camps, on repatriation and during resettling in Australia.
The holistic approach understands the experiences of trauma from different perspectives including awareness, sensitivity, responsiveness and systemic care. Support services could include health assessment, counselling, educational support and maintaining healthy relationships with chidren’s caregivers. Helping children to establish routine can also help with readjustment. These services need to be coordinated and not siloed from one another.
Services should empower children and address stigma and discrimination. These Australians should not be referred to as “children and families of ISIS”. Their repatriation will be an opportunity for governments, schools, healthcare, community organisations and religious institutions to work together for the children’s development and wellbeing.
William Mude receives funding (4-H3C9CYL) from the Australian Government to investigate hepatitis B service use and access for Pacific Islander seasonal workers in regional Queensland. There are no other disclosure to make other than my affiliation with my current institution. The views expressed in this article does not represent my institution’s views.
Lillian Mwanri 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.
ADHD coaching has been in the news this week, with the release of new guidelines for diagnosing and managing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The evidence-based clinical guidelines recommend ADHD coaching could be considered for adolescents and adults as part of a holistic treatment and support plan.
What is ADHD coaching? Do you really need it? And how do you go about finding coaching support?
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition. It involves difficulties focusing attention (for example, in class or at work) and/or excessive levels of activity (for example, being restless and constantly on the go) and/or impulsivity (for example, acting without thinking). These symptoms would be above and beyond what you would expect for a person’s age.
It is most commonly diagnosed in childhood but is increasingly being recognised in adults. ADHD can occur in males or females and often occurs with other difficulties, such as autism and learning disorders.
The guidelines recommend a range of supports for people with ADHD. This includes offering medication and non-pharmacological supports. ADHD coaching is one type of non-pharmacological support.
It involves working with a person to provide education about ADHD, building on individual strengths and resources, and developing new strategies and systems in daily life to help minimise the impact of ADHD symptoms.
ADHD coaching shares common elements with a type of psychological “talk” therapy known as cognitive behavioural therapy, which has strong evidence to support it.
So allied health professionals, such as psychologists, already use elements of ADHD coaching.
There is also a specialised form of life coaching for people with ADHD provided by an “ADHD coach”. This sometimes draws on the experience of people living with ADHD to help others achieve their personal goals.
There are few high-quality research studies evaluating the effectiveness of ADHD coaching, and the advantages of using this approach is unclear.
So the guideline’s recommendation that ADHD coaching “could” be considered as part of a treatment plan for adolescents and adults, was made after input from health professional groups, as well as from people living with ADHD.
We’d like to see more high-quality research evaluating the use of ADHD coaching.
As many allied health professionals use elements of ADHD coaching in their clinical practice, we suggest talking to your main health-care provider to discuss whether ADHD coaching may be right for you, and to discuss referral options.
When choosing the right professional help, consider whether in-person or telehealth sessions would be better, and whether input from someone who is living with ADHD is important.
If choosing an “ADHD coach”, rather than an allied health professional who provides health coaching as part of their practice, make sure they have received appropriate training and are a member of the International Coaching Federation.
Can I get it on Medicare?
The reality is that many people will have to go through the private system to access health care for ADHD.
This may include a Better Access plan to see a private psychologist for partially rebated sessions. So, this usually involves some out-of-pocket costs.
If you chose to see an “ADHD coach” (someone who is not an allied health professional like a psychologist), this is not covered by Medicare, so you will have to pay.
Coaching support may form part of a plan under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). But few people with ADHD receive NDIS funding.
Emma Sciberras receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Medical Research Future Fund, veski, the Waterloo Foundation, and internal research funding from Deakin University. She is a member and director of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association. Emma Sciberras was a member of the development group for the ADHD guidelines mentioned in the article.
Daryl Efron was a member of the development group of the ADHD guidelines mentioned in the article.
Mark Bellgrove receives funding from the NHMRC and MRFF for his research activities at Monash University. He is the President of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association (AADPA) which has led the development of an evidenced-based clinical practice guideline for ADHD
Aotearoa New Zealand’s high school teachers’ union recently approved a policy to end streaming – also known as “ability grouping” – in New Zealand high schools by 2030. The primary teachers’ union NZEI Te Riu Roa took a similar stance in March 2021.
Supporters of streaming argue it enables teachers to focus on learning that is most appropriate for the particular achievement level of each class, and to direct extra resources to struggling students.
However, organisations including the Ministry of Education and Iwi Chairs Forum have spoken out against streaming, and policies on Māori and Pasifika education describe streaming as harmful and discriminatory.
But for a nation’s two main teacher unions to move so decisively against streaming is, as far as we know, unprecedented internationally.
So what does the new PPTA Te Wehengarua high school teachers’ union policy actually say? And is it backed by research?
We take a closer look at of the core two claims about streaming that have stirred debate.
Is streaming really discriminatory and racist?
The PPTA policy claims “streaming creates and exacerbates inequity” and “Māori and Pasifika students bear an inequitable burden” from the harms of streaming.
There is also overwhelming national and international evidence that streaming produces racist and classist outcomes and some studies (and the PPTA policy) link streaming to historically racist policies.
Research from England shows a widening gap in both achievement and self-confidence from age 11 to 13 when students are streamed for maths and English. Students in top streams increase in achievement and self-confidence compared to students in middle streams.
But importantly, students in top streams are not necessarily the highest achievers. Evidence has also shown that girls, Black and Asian students are more likely to be allocated to a lower level maths class than White students, regardless of where they should be placed based on achievement. Black or Asian students are also more likely to be allocated to a lower level English class than White students.
In other words, streaming reinforces racial and gender achievement gaps and racist stereotypes, going against the idea that all children get a fair go in our public education system.
Research from Aotearoa also reflects these trends, showing that teachers underestimate the achievement of Māori students and overestimate the achievement of Pākehā students in primary, intermediate, and secondary schooling.
When teacher expectations are low, the students are placed into low-level ability groups or streams, often completing mundane, repetitive tasks. Certainly, their learning activities are very different to those of students in the top groups or streams.
This creates a visible gap between the higher and lower achievers. As students go through school, the gap gets wider. Students become disillusioned, lose self-esteem, motivation and engagement when they are continually told through grouping and streaming that they are “not good enough”.
Yet, when students from lower-level groups or streams are given the same opportunities as those in the top groups, they do just as well as those who supposedly had more ability.
Proponents of streaming argue that all students are equal but learn differently, however, the very structure of the streaming system communicates a different message.
Is the proposal to end streaming by 2030 realistic?
So what needs to happen to make the PPTA’s new policy a reality?
Moving away from streaming and ability grouping will work best if everyone works together – including teachers, principals and others working in schools along with government agencies like the Ministry of Education, New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Teaching Council.
Iwi (Māori tribal) groups and the wider community have a role to play as well.
It is essential that we have a shared understanding of why the change is important and a shared plan for how to get there.
If streaming and ability grouping is to be removed from our schools, then something needs to be put in its place. We need to keep developing and sharing effective ways of teaching without streaming.
Successfully moving away from these practices is a multi-year project for a school. Transitions that are not well planned can lead to the failure of de-streaming initiatives, and strong leadership is vital to support sustainable reform.
Teachers are already under huge workload pressure, so this needs to be supported with time for them to learn and plan.
With brave leadership, careful and coordinated change, professional development and – most importantly – government investment to support schools through the change, by 2030 we might very well be living in a streaming-free Aotearoa.
David Pomeroy receives funding from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI).
Becky Taylor receives research funding from the Education Endowment Foundation.
Kay-Lee Jones receives funding from TLRI.
Affiliation to University of Canterbury.
Sara Tolbert receives funding from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI).
Christine Rubie-Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The race for the Auckland mayoralty ends this weekend in the Aotearoa New Zealand local elections and polls indicate that either Pacific contender Fa’anānā Efeso Collins or Wayne Brown will claim the chains.
RNZ News spoke to some prominent Aucklanders about who they believe should get the city’s top job.
Former world heavyweight boxing title contender David Tua said he was firmly in the corner of Efeso Collins.
Tua believed Collins would be a mayor for all, in particular the youth.
“At the end of the day they are our future and I believe he is a man the youth can relate to.”
Tua said Collins had a humanitarian nature.
Former world heavyweight boxing title contender David Tua … Efeso Collins has a humanitarian nature. Image: Photosport/RNZ
“What he’s standing for is for the people, all the people. It’s always about the people and I believe that’s what he’s about.”
The ‘man for the job’ Advocate Shaneel Lal believes Collins is the man for the job due to the past support he has shown to the LGBTQI+ community.
Advocate Shaneel Lal … Efeso Collins is calm, collected and open to ideas and change. Image: Pacific Cooperation Foundation/RNZ
Lal said Collins had progressed in his views and proved he had a backbone when he offered help during their campaign to ban conversion therapy.
“We need to give people room for growth, he advocated against same-sex marriage in 2012, the bill passed in 2013, in those 10 years he has come on a long journey of learning, that was 10 years ago and to me he clearly has changed.”
Lal said Collins had the temperament for the job.
“I also think Efeso is calm and collected and open to ideas and change, he has always been respectful to me and spoken with kindness even when he has disagreed with me.”
Former North Shore mayor George Wood is backing Wayne Brown.
Former North Shore mayor George Wood … backs Wayne Brown. Image: Cole Eastham-Farrelly/RNZ
“Wayne has already run a district council I think that will give him good knowledge of what it is like to run a local government organisation.”
Wood said Brown did have some room for improvement, however.
“He does have a tendency to say things off the cuff without realising the significance of what he is saying and it is an area he will have to improve that communication.”
Getting the balance right Prominent activist Lisa Prager said Brown would get her tick.
“Wayne has the experience in both the corporate environment and also understands small local businesses so he understands what this city needs and how to get that balance right.”
Prager said council needed restructuring which Brown could deliver.
“I think it is excessive in its spending and failing to deliver the essential services that we all need.”
Actor Oscar Kightley said as a fellow Samoan man, Collins was the clear choice.
Actor Oscar Kightley … it was time for change with Collins. Image: Daniela Maoate-Cox/RNZ Pacific
“When you are Samoan you experience different aspects of life Aotearoa including prejudice and discrimination and when you’ve fought through that and succeeded it just gives you skills to see the bigger picture.”
Kightley said it was time for change.
“I love how he’s changed his approach from when he first entered council, I think he’s really listened to all the diverse voices out there.”
Making a difference Well-known celebrant Ronny Franks is voting Brown.
“I think he would make a huge difference, I think there could be good changes, particularly with Auckland Transport and other areas that are sort of lagging behind at the moment.”
Franks believed Brown’s personality would serve him well in office, despite the occasional gaffe.
“He’s a no nonsense man, he probably does rattle a lot of feathers but when you have to get something done you have to get it done and there is a right way of doing it and he does things the right way.”
Monday was the last day to get votes in the post but there are vote boxes at supermarkets, transport hubs and council buildings around Tāmaki Makaurau.
Auckland has a population of 1.7 million.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Nobel Prize in physics this year has been awarded “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.
To understand what this means, and why this work is important, we need to understand how these experiments settled a long-running debate among physicists. And a key player in that debate was an Irish physicist named John Bell.
In the 1960s, Bell figured out how to translate a philosophical question about the nature of reality into a physical question that could be answered by science – and along the way broke down the distinction between what we know about the world and how the world really is.
Quantum entanglement
We know that quantum objects have properties we don’t usually ascribe to the objects of our ordinary lives. Sometimes light is a wave, sometimes it’s a particle. Our fridge never does this.
When attempting to explain this sort of unusual behaviour, there are two broad types of explanation we can imagine. One possibility is that we perceive the quantum world clearly, just as it is, and it just so happens to be unusual. Another possibility is that the quantum world is just like the ordinary world we know and love, but our view of it is distorted, so we can’t see quantum reality clearly, as it is.
In the early decades of the 20th century, physicists were divided about which explanation was right. Among those who thought the quantum world just is unusual were figures such as Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr. Among those who thought the quantum world must be just like the ordinary world, and our view of it is simply foggy, were Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger.
At the heart of this division is an unusual prediction of quantum theory. According to the theory, the properties of certain quantum systems that interact remain dependent on each other – even when the systems have been moved a great distance apart.
In 1935, the same year he devised his famous thought experiment involving a cat trapped in a box, Schrödinger coined the term “entanglement” for this phenomenon. He argued it is absurd to believe the world works this way.
The problem with entanglement
Niels Bohr (left) and Albert Einstein (right) argued for many years over whether the world was really as fuzzy and strange as quantum mechanics suggested. Paul Ehrenfest
If entangled quantum systems really remain connected even when they are separated by large distances, it would seem they are somehow communicating with each other instantaneously. But this sort of connection is not allowed, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein called this idea “spooky action at a distance”.
Again in 1935, Einstein, along with two colleagues, devised a thought experiment that showed quantum mechanics can’t be giving us the whole story on entanglement. They thought there must be something more to the world that we can’t yet see.
But as time passed, the question of how to interpret quantum theory became an academic footnote. The question seemed too philosophical, and in the 1940s many of the brightest minds in quantum physics were busy using the theory for a very practical project: building the atomic bomb.
It wasn’t until the 1960s, when Irish physicist John Bell turned his mind to the problem of entanglement, that the scientific community realised this seemingly philosophical question could have a tangible answer.
Bell’s theorem
Using a simple entangled system, Bell extended Einstein’s 1935 thought experiment. He showed there was no way the quantum description could be incomplete while prohibiting “spooky action at a distance” and still matching the predictions of quantum theory.
John Bell in his office at CERN in Switzerland. CERN
Not great news for Einstein, it seems. But this was not an instant win for his opponents.
This is because it was not evident in the 1960s whether the predictions of quantum theory were indeed correct. To really prove Bell’s point, someone had to put this philosophical argument about reality, transformed into a real physical system, to an experimental test.
And this, of course, is where two of this year’s Nobel laureates enter the story. First John Clauser, and then Alain Aspect, performed the experiments on Bell’s proposed system that ultimately showed the predictions of quantum mechanics to be accurate. As a result, unless we accept “spooky action at a distance”, there is no further account of entangled quantum systems that can describe the observed quantum world.
So, Einstein was wrong?
It is perhaps a surprise, but these advances in quantum theory appear to have shown Einstein to be wrong on this point. That is, it seems we do not have a foggy view of a quantum world that is just like our ordinary world.
But the idea that we perceive clearly an inherently unusual quantum world is likewise too simplistic. And this provides one of the key philosophical lessons of this episode in quantum physics.
It is no longer clear we can reasonably talk about the quantum world beyond our scientific description of it – that is, beyond the information we have about it.
As this year’s third Nobel laureate, Anton Zeilinger, put it:
the distinction between reality and our knowledge of reality, between reality and information, cannot be made. There is no way to refer to reality without using the information we have about it.
This distinction, which we commonly assume to underpin our ordinary picture of the world, is now irretrievably blurry. And we have John Bell to thank.
Global demand for exotic pets is increasing, a trend partly caused by social media and a shift from physical pet stores to online marketplaces.
The United States is one of the biggest markets for the wildlife trade. And our new research has identified an astonishing number of unregulated wild-caught animals being brought into the US – at a rate 11 times greater than animals regulated and protected under the relevant global convention.
Wildlife trade can have major negative consequences. It can threaten the wild populations from which animals and plants are harvested, and introduce novel invasive species to new environments. It can also lead to diseases transmitted from wildlife to humans and threaten the welfare of trafficked animals.
Tackling this problem requires an international effort – particularly by rich nations where the demand for exotic pets is greatest.
Global demand for exotic pets is increasing. Pictured: a barred eagle-owl kept as a pet in Indonesia. Mast Irham/EPA.
Shining a light on the pet market
Most live animals transported through the wildlife trade are destined for the global, multi-billion dollar exotic pet market. Captive breeding supplies a portion of this market, but many species are collected from the wild – often illegally.
Animals such as otters, slow lorises and galagos or “bushbabies” are frequently depicted on social media as cute, and with human-like feelings and behaviours. This helps create demand for such species as pets which drives both the illegal and legal wildlife trades.
Non-native animals frequently smuggled into Australia in the past, include the corn snake, leopard gecko and red-eared slider turtle. Reptiles and birds are among the most commonly trafficked species because they can be easily transported.
Species deemed at risk from international trade are regulated through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It aims to ensure sustainable and traceable legal international trade.
But the convention lists less than 10% of all described plants and terrestrial vertebrates, and less than 1% of all fish and invertebrate species. No international regulatory framework exists to monitor the trade of the many unlisted species.
Australia has rigorous regulations for exotic pet ownership and trade. Broadly, our native wildlife cannot be commercially exported.
However, Australia’s fauna is poached from the wild and illegally exported for the international pet market. Once the animal is smuggled out of Australia, its trade in recipient countries is often not monitored or restricted.
For example, research last year showed four subspecies of Australia’s shingleback lizard – one of which is endangered – were being illegally extracted from the wild and smuggled out of the country, to be sold across Asia, Europe and North America.
This lack of overseas regulation prompted the former Morrison government to push for 127 native reptile species targeted by international wildlife smugglers to be listed under CITES. They include blue tongue skinks and numerous gecko species.
But in the meantime, the global illegal wildlife trade continues. Our new research analysed the extent of this, by focusing on the movement of unlisted species to and from the US.
Otter sold via Instagram in Indonesia. Instagram
What we found
The US is one of the few countries that maintains detailed records of all declared wildlife trade, including species not listed under CITES.
We examined a decade of data on wild-harvested, live vertebrate animals entering the US. Most would have been headed for the pet trade. We found 3.6 times the number of unlisted species in US imports compared with CITES-listed species – 1,356 versus 378 species.
Overall, 8.84 million animals from unlisted species were imported – about 11 times more than animals from CITES-listed species. More than a quarter of unlisted species faced conservation threats – including those with declining populations and those threatened with extinction.
For example, we found a substantial trade of the unlisted Asian water dragon. These bright green lizards are native to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma and southern China, and are considered vulnerable.
In the decade to 2018, more than 575,000 Asian water dragons were imported to the US from Vietnam. The species has been proposed for inclusion in CITES. But decades of unregulated global trade poses a major threat to the survival of native populations.
Unregulated global trade threatens the wild populations of the Asian water dragon. Wikimedia
How do we fix this?
Our study highlights the urgent need to monitor all traded wildlife species, not just those listed under CITES.
The biodiversity of life on Earth is under enormous pressure. Given this, and the other harms caused by the wildlife trade, this lack of regulation and monitoring is unacceptable.
For a species to be considered for listing under CITES, a national government must demonstrate that regulation is needed to prevent trade-related declines. But if trade in the species has never been monitored, how can that need be proven?
Sadly, the trade of many species is not formally regulated until it’s too late for their wild populations. Clearly, tighter regulation is needed to prevent this decline.
A critically endangered radiated tortoise recovering from capture by wildlife traffickers in Madagascar. Wildlife Conservation Society/AP
Traded wildlife predominantly flows from lower-income to higher-income countries. Many source countries do not possess the frameworks needed to monitor the harvest and export of unlisted species.
So what should be done? First, all nations should follow the lead of the US and record species-level data for all wildlife imported and exported. This information should be gathered as part of a standardised data management system.
Such a system would increase compliance with the rules and make the origin of wildlife easier to trace It would allow trade data to be shared and integrated between countries and allow timely assessment of species which may need further protection.
And second, affluent countries – where demand for exotic pets is largest – must take the lead on sustainable trade practices. This should include supporting supply countries and pushing for better data collection.
Such measures are vital to protecting both wildlife and human wellbeing.
Freyja Watters receives funding from an Adelaide University Postgraduate Research Scholarship.
Phill Cassey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions.
As data storage has become more accessible than ever, the amount of digital “stuff” we all have stashed away is on the rise, too – for many of us, it’s becoming more unwieldy by the day.
In a recent paper published in the journal Information & Management, we have investigated a rising phenomenon called “digital hoarding” – the need to acquire and hold onto digital content without an intended purpose.
The way we interact with digital content through easily available smartphones, social media and messaging apps only exacerbates the behaviour. Social media platforms especially encourage us to hoard, as our emotions get entangled with the digital contents we share with others, such as photos with lots of shares or likes.
If it can take up to 25 or more selfies before seeing a “winner”, the sheer volume of content creation raises an important question: how do we plan to manage this morass of data?
Taking clutter into the digital era
Hoarding is defined as a persistent difficulty in discarding one’s posessions, and can be either a disorder on its own, or a symptom of another mental health issue such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. They end up with an excessive accumulation of stuff in their home, regardless of actual value.
We propose that digital hoarding happens when an individual constantly acquires digital content, feels difficulty in discarding it, and accumulates digital content without an intended purpose.
Digital hoarding can quickly spiral out of control, too – perhaps even more quickly than in the physical world, due to several reasons.
First, the digital hoarder is less likely to notice the space limitations in the digital world. While the boundaries of a physical space are clear, such boundaries are less prominent in digital spaces. Second, hoarding of physical objects happens in fixed boundaries, while digital spaces are “expandable” – you can get additional digital storage with minimum effort at very little or zero cost.
Third, to hoard physical items, a person needs to expend some effort, such as purchasing them. By contrast, most digital contents are either self-created, free, or available on a subscription basis. Fourth, compared with physical stuff, digital contents can be multiplied (for example, by making copies) with very minimal effort.
Overall, having various formats of digital content, an endless capacity to expand storage, increasing emotional attachment, and the lack of a sophisticated retrieval system may all make an individual nervous to delete this digital content – showing the potential signs of digital hoarding.
Unlike physical clutter, digital storage can feel nearly limitless. Garsya/Shutterstock
Defining digital hoarding
We define digital hoarding based on these three criteria: constant acquisition of digital contents, discarding difficulty, and a propensity for digital content clutter.
Constant acquisition refers to the constant gathering of digital content, without much consideration of its value, purpose or utility. With most communications taking place electronically, we tend to keep any and all digital content without discrimination – just in case! This includes emails, images, videos, bills and receipts.
In our research sample, some people had gathered more than 40 terabytes (TB) of digital content over time. Acquisition refers not just to photos you have in storage devices, for instance, but also ones uploaded to social media.
Difficulty of discarding digital content is the second characteristic of digital hoarding. Think about the last time you meticulously deleted old emails, for example. Theoretically, an individual with compulsive hoarding disorder tends to place high value on the contents they have, and as a result, they feel great difficulty discarding them.
Clutter propensity is the third characteristic of digital hoarding. It refers to how abundant digital contents, often unrelated, are stored in a disordered fashion.
As most digital contents can be stored in any digital device, individuals tend to save such content without much organisation and think they can sort it out later. This often leads to a feeling of being disorganised and cluttered in digital spaces.
In our survey of 846 respondents representing the general population, we found that digital hoarding can lead to higher levels of anxiety. Statistically, 37% of one’s total level of anxiety, measured using an established depression, anxiety, and stress scale, was explained by digital hoarding.
Our research also showed females are 27% more likely to feel the negative impacts of digital hoarding, compared with their male counterparts.
Not surprisingly, the number of data storage devices someone owned worsened the impact of digital hoarding. For example, if someone owns multiple hard drives or cloud storage, digital hoarding impacts can increase.
In the modern world, it is inevitable that digital content plays an important role in our lives. Therefore, the potential of serious mental health impacts from digital hoarding is a real possibility.
If you think you’re holding onto too much digital content, here are some tips:
consider doing a “spring clean” every year, and schedule a time to spring clean your digital footprint
reduce unnecessary digital content
come up with simple mechanisms to organise your files, emails, pictures and videos
reassess the importance of many social networks, including groups in many communication apps, and retain only those essential to you.
However, if you find these issues particularly difficult or confronting, consider speaking to your doctor or a mental health specialist.
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.
Mosquitoes are a problem every summer. But the recent arrival of the mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus in eastern Australia brings more significant concerns.
There are hundreds of different mosquito species in Australia but only a dozen or so pose a public health threat. Activity of these mosquitoes shifts from season to season with differences in rainfall and temperature.
A changing climate and extreme wet weather events can boost mosquito numbers and bring additional threats.
So how can we reduce the risk of contracting diseases that spread via mosquitoes, including Japanese encephalitis?
First, some mozzie basics
Mosquitoes need stagnant water to complete their life cycle. Immature mosquitoes hatch from eggs and complete their development underwater until they turn into pupae, before emerging as adult mosquitoes.
Female mosquitoes need blood before laying eggs. They seek blood from a wide range of animals and, as well as sucking up blood, they can also pick up a virus. That virus can then be passed on to another animal, or person, when they need another hit of blood.
Mozzies make you sick by injecting a cocktail of saliva and virus when they bite. The “mozzie spit” may leave you with an itching red lump as well as a dose of a potentially deadly disease.
Mosquito-borne diseases pose a threat to more than just people. Horses can suffer severe symptoms following infection with Ross River virus or Kunjin virus.
The illness can be mild, with common symptoms of fever, joint pain and a rash. In severe cases people also experience headache, neck stiffness, confusion, seizures, and sometimes coma and death. Fewer than 1% of those infected will develop a severe brain infection, encephalitis, which may be fatal.
The virus has been detected in humans, pigs (both in commercial piggeries and feral populations) and mosquitoes across South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Northern Territory. There have been 40 cases of human disease, including six deaths.
A recent study of five regional communities in southern NSW suggests almost 9% of the human population had been exposed to the virus last summer.
More rain doesn’t just mean more mosquitoes: it means better conditions for waterbird breeding too. More water, more birds, and more mosquitoes sets the scene for potentially more activity of Japanese encephalitis and other mosquito-borne diseases.
The mosquito species of greatest concern is Culex annulirostris. This mosquito is the one most likely to be driving transmission of the virus among animals, as well as spillover to the human population.
This species is closely associated with freshwater habitats. With extensive flooding across many regions, there will be plenty of suitable habitat available throughout the coming summer.
Mosquitoes belonging to the genus Culex are thought to play the most important role in Japanese encephalitis virus transmission. Cameron Webb/NSW Health Pathology
So how can we reduce the risk?
While authorities are investigating ways to control mosquito populations such as spraying insecticides especially around piggeries and other high-risk locations, insecticides alone won’t eliminate the risk of Japanese encephalitis virus this season. Other strategies are required.
But there simply isn’t enough vaccine available globally to vaccinate everyone at risk in Australia.
Surveillance will provide an early warning of elevated risks. Authorities will track and test mosquito populations for the presence of virus, as will various networks of animal surveillance. If detected, authorities can strategically respond through enhanced surveillance, control, or education programs.
Many of the ways we reduce mosquito bites during summer months to allow us to enjoy time outdoors, whether it is in the backyard of bush, will also protect against the mosquitoes carrying these viruses.
Covering up with loose fitting long sleeves, long pants, and covered shoes will create a barrier to mosquito bites.
Applying topical insect repellents, especially formulations containing diethyltoluamide, picaridin, or oil of lemon eucalyptus, will provide safe and effective long-lasting protection against biting mosquitoes.
Preventing mosquito bites is the best way to protect yourself and your family from mosquito-borne diseases.
Cameron Webb and the Department of Medical Entomology, NSW Health Pathology, have been engaged by a wide range of insect repellent and insecticide manufacturers to provide testing of products and provide expert advice on mosquito biology. Cameron has also received funding from local, state and federal agencies to undertake research into mosquito-borne disease surveillance and management.
Global demand for exotic pets is increasing, a trend partly caused by social media and a shift from physical pet stores to online marketplaces.
The United States is one of the biggest markets for the wildlife trade. And our new research has identified an astonishing number of unregulated wild-caught animals being brought into the US – at a rate 11 times greater than animals regulated and protected under the relevant global convention.
Wildlife trade can have major negative consequences. It can threaten the wild populations from which animals and plants are harvested, and introduce novel invasive species to new environments. It can also lead to diseases transmitted from wildlife to humans and threaten the welfare of trafficked animals.
Tackling this problem requires an international effort – particularly by rich nations where the demand for exotic pets is greatest.
Global demand for exotic pets is increasing. Pictured: a barred eagle-owl kept as a pet in Indonesia. Mast Irham/EPA.
Shining a light on the pet market
Most live animals transported through the wildlife trade are destined for the global, multi-billion dollar exotic pet market. Captive breeding supplies a portion of this market, but many species are collected from the wild – often illegally.
Animals such as otters, slow lorises and galagos or “bushbabies” are frequently depicted on social media as cute, and with human-like feelings and behaviours. This helps create demand for such species as pets which drives both the illegal and legal wildlife trades.
Non-native animals frequently smuggled into Australia in the past, include the corn snake, leopard gecko and red-eared slider turtle. Reptiles and birds are among the most commonly trafficked species because they can be easily transported.
Species deemed at risk from international trade are regulated through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It aims to ensure sustainable and traceable legal international trade.
But the convention lists less than 10% of all described plants and terrestrial vertebrates, and less than 1% of all fish and invertebrate species. No international regulatory framework exists to monitor the trade of the many unlisted species.
Australia has rigorous regulations for exotic pet ownership and trade. Broadly, our native wildlife cannot be commercially exported.
However, Australia’s fauna is poached from the wild and illegally exported for the international pet market. Once the animal is smuggled out of Australia, its trade in recipient countries is often not monitored or restricted.
For example, research last year showed four subspecies of Australia’s shingleback lizard – one of which is endangered – were being illegally extracted from the wild and smuggled out of the country, to be sold across Asia, Europe and North America.
This lack of overseas regulation prompted the former Morrison government to push for 127 native reptile species targeted by international wildlife smugglers to be listed under CITES. They include blue tongue skinks and numerous gecko species.
But in the meantime, the global illegal wildlife trade continues. Our new research analysed the extent of this, by focusing on the movement of unlisted species to and from the US.
Otter sold via Instagram in Indonesia. Instagram
What we found
The US is one of the few countries that maintains detailed records of all declared wildlife trade, including species not listed under CITES.
We examined a decade of data on wild-harvested, live vertebrate animals entering the US. Most would have been headed for the pet trade. We found 3.6 times the number of unlisted species in US imports compared with CITES-listed species – 1,356 versus 378 species.
Overall, 8.84 million animals from unlisted species were imported – about 11 times more than animals from CITES-listed species. More than a quarter of unlisted species faced conservation threats – including those with declining populations and those threatened with extinction.
For example, we found a substantial trade of the unlisted Asian water dragon. These bright green lizards are native to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma and southern China, and are considered vulnerable.
In the decade to 2018, more than 575,000 Asian water dragons were imported to the US from Vietnam. The species has been proposed for inclusion in CITES. But decades of unregulated global trade poses a major threat to the survival of native populations.
Unregulated global trade threatens the wild populations of the Asian water dragon. Wikimedia
How do we fix this?
Our study highlights the urgent need to monitor all traded wildlife species, not just those listed under CITES.
The biodiversity of life on Earth is under enormous pressure. Given this, and the other harms caused by the wildlife trade, this lack of regulation and monitoring is unacceptable.
For a species to be considered for listing under CITES, a national government must demonstrate that regulation is needed to prevent trade-related declines. But if trade in the species has never been monitored, how can that need be proven?
Sadly, the trade of many species is not formally regulated until it’s too late for their wild populations. Clearly, tighter regulation is needed to prevent this decline.
A critically endangered radiated tortoise recovering from capture by wildlife traffickers in Madagascar. Wildlife Conservation Society/AP
Traded wildlife predominantly flows from lower-income to higher-income countries. Many source countries do not possess the frameworks needed to monitor the harvest and export of unlisted species.
So what should be done? First, all nations should follow the lead of the US and record species-level data for all wildlife imported and exported. This information should be gathered as part of a standardised data management system.
Such a system would increase compliance with the rules and make the origin of wildlife easier to trace It would allow trade data to be shared and integrated between countries and allow timely assessment of species which may need further protection.
And second, affluent countries – where demand for exotic pets is largest – must take the lead on sustainable trade practices. This should include supporting supply countries and pushing for better data collection.
Such measures are vital to protecting both wildlife and human wellbeing.
Freyja Watters receives funding from an Adelaide University Postgraduate Research Scholarship.
Phill Cassey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions.
When I teach budding screenwriters, I will often use the “show don’t tell” rule as a quick-fix for students trapped in the more familiar mode of literary storytelling. The Stranger, an accomplished Australian thriller, written and directed by Thomas M. Wright, abides closely to this adage with visceral storytelling using images and sounds, the material of cinema.
While the film is adapted from Kate Kyriacou’s The Sting, based on the Daniel Morcombe murder, it fictionalises the specifics and leaves the heinous crime off-screen.
In The Stranger, Mark (Joel Edgerton), is at the centre of an elaborate undercover operation tasked with extracting a confession from key suspect Henry (Sean Harris).
Where true-crime books, and podcasts, have the capacity to re-tell timelines, circumstances, and characters in detail – filmmakers need to find imaginative ways to render these stories for the screen. Wright utilises a notion of interiority to do this, which works both literally and psychologically in the film.
Literally, in the sense that it unfolds mostly in underexposed interior spaces, and psychologically with its emphasis on the character’s anxiety manifested through professional work duties.
Joel Edgerton in The Stranger. Netflix
Interiors
The Stranger is bathed in darkness. In lieu of narrative detail, or exposition, Wright uses cinematic mood to do the work.
This kind of storytelling existed prior to cinema. Watching the film, I was reminded of the paintings of Caravaggio which portray violent scenes using chiaroscuro and an absence of light. This comparison is evident in the setup for the film, when Henry is recruited to work for the faux criminal mob. While this takes place on a remote bus, realism is put to one side with the scene staged in a dark, abstract abyss devoid of background detail.
What follows is a range of dread-inducing scenes that unfold in drab domestic and industrial interiors. In these spaces, curtains and blinds are inevitably drawn denoting the secrecy of the operation and the thematic darkness of the scenario.
Cinematography from Sam Chiplin is bold. And in repeated driving scenes, featuring Mark and Henry, the car itself functions as a chamber for the anticipated confession. Whilst the remote exterior landscape may be visible through the window, it is at a remove, with the two mirrored characters (one good, one evil) remaining trapped within a dark interior cabin.
I saw the film in a theatre, it will be interesting to see if audiences think the film is too dark streaming on Netflix, a controversy of late in relation to Game of Thrones.
The Stranger is bathed in darkness. Netflix
Anxiety
On one hand, anxiety is a pre-condition for an undercover cop story. We’ve seen this in Donnie Brasco (1997) with Johnny Depp or, even better, in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006) featuring a gripping performance from Leonardo Di Caprio.
But The Stranger goes one step further in situating anxiety centre frame. Joel Edgerton’s interest in the story, as a producer, was to reveal the sacrifice, and indeed the trauma, which some professions subsume for the greater good.
Mark’s trauma from his police work is ever-present: we see his nightmares, his over reliance on alcohol and his short temper when taking care of his young son. The film explores a mode of psychological interiority in which our deepest and darkest thoughts reside.
In the trailer Mark (Edgerton) models a breathing exercise, drawn from psychological therapy, for his young son (Cormac Wright) saying “Do you want me to teach you something I learned at work?” The character’s panic attacks must ring true for Edgerton, who has spoken publicly about his own experience with anxiety to alleviate the stigma attached to mental health.
Style
The Stranger exhibits a tendency in Australian cinema that has become a recipe for success: true-crime stories which show hypermasculinity played out against a periphery of (off-screen) violence. From The Boys (1998) to Nitram (2021) there is a strong lineage here.
Yet while the market always awards familiarity or brand recognition – will this recipe prove creatively restrictive to Australian filmmakers in the long run? To my mind, Thomas M. Wright’s debut Acute Misfortune (2018) offered something more unorthodox, more vital in Australian cinema. That film, on the late Australian painter Adam Cullen, unfolded within a boxy, claustrophobic frame and delivered a more exploratory, artisanal filmmaking process.
It would be a shame for Wright to be subsumed entirely within a successful, if at times predicable, Australian house style.
Alex Munt 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.
When Scott Morrison was treasurer he flew the kite for an increase in the GST. The debate ran a while, before then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull shut it down. It was all too hard.
Now we have Jim Chalmers with a kite up, although he’s not “freelancing” as much as the wilful Morrison did.
Anthony Albanese is sanctioning Chalmers testing the mood for recalibrating the tax cuts.
Asked on Thursday whether he’d had Albanese’s permission to “float that balloon” on changing Stage 3, Chalmers said, “I don’t need permission to point out that every budget we hand down, including the one in three weeks’ time, will put a premium on responsible economic management”.
At no point during Thursday’s news conference did Chalmers discourage the conclusion that the shape of Stage 3 is up for reconsideration. “It’s not a big surprise to me that on an issue as big as this, there’ll be a range of views,” he said
Stage 3, the last part of the Coalition’s tax package, is tilted towards those on higher incomes.
People on incomes between $45.000 and $200,000 would pay a marginal rate of 30%, with the top 45% rate cutting in at $200,000, rather than the present $180,000. The cost would be more than $240 billion over the first decade.
Only weeks ago Chalmers was insisting this was not the time to discuss Stage 3, which doesn’t start until mid-2024. Now he’s deliberately letting the talk run, highlighting the increasingly uncertain international economic outlook.
Despite repeatedly saying he believes the public are up for “a conversation” on how to pay for big spending programs, Chalmers is not so much having a “conversation” about these tax cuts, as engaging in contradictory Delphic messaging. He’s using a tease to fire up the debate.
Thus on Thursday he said “when it comes to the Stage 3 tax cuts, our position hasn’t changed”, while encouraging the impression that it was changing.
If Chalmers was actually having a “conversation” he’d say something like: “Before the election, we promised to deliver these legislated tax cuts. We now think circumstances have changed, and we are considering altering them.” That would be framing a frank conversation.
Why has Chalmers apparently switched his public position? Do new circumstances require a rethink of Stage 3?
It is true the international and local economic outlooks have worsened. But things are also highly volatile. There is no knowing where the Australian economy will be at in mid-2024. On the forecasts, inflation will have subsided. The economy could have slowed to the point where the stimulus from the tax cuts could be useful.
But Chalmers clearly has come to the view that with the deteriorating international situation, it is urgent to get the budget house in order, rebuilding a buffer, and borrowing somewhat less. Among other things, this sends a signal to the rating agencies.
He says in a Friday speech, released ahead of delivery: “The fiscal strains that we’re under are intensifying rather than easing”. Interest payments on debt would increase by about 14% annually over the next four years; defence spending by 4.4% per year; the NDIS by 12.1% annually, with the increases for hospitals and aged care 6.1% and 5% respectively.
“The fiscal position we find ourselves in means that will will have to make some difficult decisions with this budget,” Chalmers says pointedly in his speech. “Following the responsible path, not the path of least resistance. We must be serious about rebuilding our budget buffers – particularly given the deteriorating global outlook.”
Chalmers says “we’re facing the prospects of a third global slowdown in the last 15 years” – following the global financial crisis and the pandemic. “The third would be an inflationary shock and a hard landing brought about by rapidly tightening monetary policy.”
Some of those advocating scrapping or (more realistically) changing Stage 3 point to Liz Truss dumping her tax relief for high income earners, following a very damaging market reaction to her fiscal package.
But the comparison is flawed. Stage 3 has long been built into both federal budget planning and market expectations. Drawing on the British experience is more a convenient argument than a meaningful parallel.
Whether it ends in a change (which now appears increasingly likely) or not, the treasurer’s push to rework Stage 3 is risky.
Even if the status quo were reaffirmed, people would know breaking a promise had been contemplated, and could be revisited later.
Going back on the election promise would undermine, to a greater or lesser degree, people’s perception of Albanese’s integrity, after his oft-repeated commitment to keeping promises. The key political question is: would voters on balance tolerate this breach, or would it put a hard-to-remove stain on the government’s future believability?
Those who maintain the tax cuts are unfair and or/unaffordable and the money should be devoted to more worthy purposes (Labor priorities, or shoring up the budget bottom line) downplay the importance of prime ministers keeping their word.
But history, going right back to Paul Keating’s so-called L-A-W tax cuts, and embracing the broken promises of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard, tells us flouting commitments often ends badly.
Some caucus members are concerned about a backlash if such a key promise is breached, and have been willing to speak out. Mike Freelander, member for the NSW seat of Macarthur, said this week, “We’ve made promises and I think that we need to stick to them”.
Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, told Sky News, “we are sticking to the policies we took to the election. I think that’s important for the integrity of the democracy. You saw before the election [a] big drop in the share of people who said that they could trust politicians to do the right thing. So it is important that after the election we are the government that we said we would be before.”
If the government recalibrates the tax cut, senior Labor members who have emphatically repeated the “no change” line, such as cabinet minister Brendan O’Connor, will be left out on limbs. There’ll be backlashes in some seats and the opposition will be delivered an unexpected bonus.
Moreover, this isn’t necessarily the tax argument we should be having.
Rod Sims, former head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, addressing an Australia Institute summit on revenue on Thursday, argued it was vital to raise more tax. But, he said, “Australia has likely maxed out on raising corporate or personal taxes.
“We are already heavily reliant on these two taxes as they amount to more than 70% of our tax revenue, and high tax rates encourage unfortunate behaviour to minimise tax as Australian rates are generally higher than those levied overseas, or can become disincentives to effort.”
Sims instead suggests various alternatives, including raising extra revenue from energy and mining companies.
It should be remembered that Labor is in its present pickle by its own decisions.
If it had been braver and more confident before the election it would have left the way open to changing the Stage 3 tax cuts. It could also have avoided promising not to make discretionary increases in taxes this term (apart from combating avoidance by multi-nationals).
But Albanese was the small-target man. Instead of giving itself flexibility, Labor purchased insurance. Now it’s left paying off the premium.
Albanese will have the final word on this imbroglio – proceeding with a change, or stepping back. It is an invidious choice, as well as a test of the persuasive power of the treasurer and of the prime minister’s willingness to spend precious political capital.
Michelle Grattan 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.
In response to Australia’s biggest ever data breach, the federal government will temporarily suspend regulations that stop telcos sharing customer information with third parties.
It’s a necessary step to deal with the threat of identify theft faced by 10 million current and former Optus customers. It will allow Optus to work with banks and government agencies to detect and prevent the fraudulent use of their data.
But it’s still only a remedial measure, intended to be in place for 12 months. More substantive reform is needed to tighten Australia’s loose approach to data privacy and protection.
This a piece of “subordinate” or “delegated law” to the Telecommunications Act 1997. Amending the act itself would require a vote of parliament. Regulations can be amended at the government’s discretion.
Under the Telecommunications Act it is a criminal offence for telcos to share information about “the affairs or personal particulars of another person”.
The only exceptions are sharing information with the National Relay Service (which enables those with hearing or speech disabilities to communicate by phone), to “authorised research entities” such as universities, public health agencies or electoral commissions, or to police and intelligence agencies with a warrant.
That means Optus can’t tell banks or even government agencies set up to prevent identity fraud, such as the little-known Australian Financial Crime Exchange, who the affected customers are.
This information can only be shared with government agencies or financial institutions regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority. This means Optus (or any other telco) won’t be able to share information with the Australian branches of foreign banks.
Financial institutions will also have to meet strict requirements about secure methods for transferring and storing personal information shared with them, and make undertakings to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (which can be enforced in court).
The information can be shared only “for the sole purposes of preventing or responding to cybersecurity incidents, fraud, scam activity or identify theft”. Any entity receiving information must destroy it after using it for this purpose.
These are incredibly important safeguards given the current lack of limits on how long companies can keep identity data.
Although temporary, these changes could be a game changer. For the next 12 months, at least, Optus (and possibly other telcos) will be able to proactively share customer information with banks to prevent cybersecurity, fraud, scams and identity theft.
But this does not nullify the need for a larger legislative reform agenda.
Australia’s data privacy laws and regulations should put limits on how much data companies can collect, or for how long they can keep that information. Without limits, companies will continue to collect and store much more personal information than they need.
This will require amending the federal Privacy Act – subject to a government review now nearing three years in length. There should be limits on what data companies can retain, and how long, as well as bigger penalties for non-compliance.
We all need to take data privacy more seriously.
Brendan Walker-Munro receives funding from the Australian Government through Trusted Autonomous Systems, a Defence Cooperative Research Centre funded through the Next Generation Technologies Fund.
This week, rain has drenched almost all of Australia – even the arid interior. The heaviest falls have hit the continent’s southeast, where the huge deluge has just propelled Sydney past its annual rainfall record of 2.2 metres with three months to go until year’s end.
Other parts of the eastern seaboard are bracing for yet more flooding in coming days. So what’s actually causing all this rain?
It all started last week, when unusually warm seas off northwest Australia gave off vast volumes of moist air. This air rose to form huge clouds which, propelled by winds, carried billions of tonnes of water across the continent.
Clouds might look fluffy and insubstantial, but they actually carry truly gigantic quantities of water. Let’s take the nearly 100 millimetres of rain that’s fallen so far this week on Sydney’s inner city – about 25 square kilometres. That’s about 2.5 billion litres of water!
On the wettest days, we can accumulate more than 4mm of rain on average across the whole continent. This equates to about 30 trillion litres of water. Or, to use the colloquial Australian measurement, 60 Sydney Harbour’s worth (1 Sydharb = 500 gigalitres).
Why do we get rain in the first place?
Major rain events need two main ingredients: moisture and rising motion in the atmosphere. Most of that moisture comes from evaporation from oceans but some comes from evaporation from the land, especially when it’s wet.
We get rising motion with surface heating or when air is forced to go up over obstacles (like mountains), or when we have weather systems that cause the air to ascend.
A blob of moist air rising from the surface will expand as it moves higher up in the atmosphere, since air pressure drops quickly with height. This is why balloons eventually pop when they go up in the sky. We can’t see this blob as it rises – it hasn’t turned white and fluffy yet.
The expansion of this moist air blob requires work, so energy has to be found from somewhere. The energy is taken from the movement of air and water molecules within the blob, and since temperature is a measure of the movement of molecules, the air cools.
As the air cools and the water molecules slow down, they stick together more easily, forming droplets. This is the process of condensation and it results in clouds forming. Clouds range in sizes but the biggest cumulonimbus – towering dark storm clouds – can reach more than 10km above the surface.
Even small clouds contain a lot of water. A single cloud covering one cubic kilometre would hold around 500 tonnes of water. You might wonder why this weight doesn’t bring the whole cloud down immediately. The answer is the moisture is very spread out throughout the cloud, and the air beneath the cloud is denser.
At a certain point, enough water has condensed and come together into droplets for gravity to win out and pull the water to the ground as rain.
On rare days, rain can fall across a third of Australia – even on the arid interior, as this 2019 photo of Uluru shows. Shutterstock
So why’s it raining so much right now?
Right now, we have abundant moisture in the air. The weather is primed to move moisture up through the atmosphere, via low pressure systems and cold fronts moving from west to east.
Low pressure systems mean air pressure is lower than the surrounding areas. Because nature likes to even things out, air at the surface moves in to try and cancel out differences in pressure, although the rotation of the Earth forces the air to spiral in rather than moving directly in. This creates winds which move in towards the low pressure centre and then have to move upwards, carrying moisture with them. That’s why low pressure systems are associated with winds and rain.
Cold fronts are characterised by rising masses of air because they mark divisions between colder and warmer air. The warmer air is less dense and forced to rise over the colder air.
Low pressure is expected to dominate over eastern Australia with troughs and cold fronts crossing the region and bringing rain. Bureau of Meteorology, CC BY
Why is there so much moisture in the air? That’s linked to warmer sea temperatures off northern Australia, which cause more water to evaporate from the sea surface.
La Niña conditions – which we’re experiencing for the third year running – brings cooler seas in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator and above-average sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific, including around Australia.
But La Niña has company. We also have what’s called a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, where westerly winds intensify, warming the waters around Indonesia and Australia’s northwest.
During La Niña, sea surface temperatures are lower than average in the tropical central and eastern Pacific but warmer than normal around Australia. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
With these two climate cycles intersecting, we get more and more moisture in the air around Australia. When low pressure systems emerge, they draw the moisture over the continent and cause the air to rise and form heavily-laden clouds.
We can get heavy rains without La Niña, but La Niña loads the dice, making it more likely we get heavier and more widespread rain events. For example, the chance of having a wet day across a third of Australia more than doubles during La Niña compared to neutral conditions – and is more than five times more likely than in an El Niño event.
Australia has more days with widespread rain during the La Niña (LN) phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate cycle compared to El Niño (EN) or neutral spring seasons. Histograms of percentage area of Australia experiencing a wet day (greater than 1 mm of rain) by ENSO phase based on Bureau of Meteorology gridded rainfall data. Author provided
During most spring days, only a small percentage of Australia has a day with more than 1mm of rain. But occasionally, we can have days when a third or more of the continent experiences rain – just as we’ve seen this week.
As La Niña continues, we can expect more widespread heavy rain events. And since eastern Australia’s soils are saturated in many areas, there’s a renewed chance of flooding.
By the start of next year, most forecast models predict a weakening La Niña. But it will most likely be a wet summer. Keep your eye on the horizon – and look for the clouds.
Support for Ukraine is normally described in ideological or moral terms as a duty to support democracies in the face of resurgent totalitarianism.
This is an important consideration. But since Russia’s declared annexation of Ukraine’s sovereign land last week, there’s now a hard-headed security rationale for supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Russia’s brutal invasion and claimed annexation is a clear breach of an international law rule that is critical to the security of smaller and middle powers like Australia.
This security imperative requires more, not less, support for Ukraine for the duration of this war.
International law and wars of territorial acquisition
Why should we care about international law? The short answer is that certain rules in the international legal order are effective, even in the absence of centralised enforcement.
Prior to the second world war, international law formally recognised territorial acquisition through war. This was, after all, the age of empires, a time when powerful and wealthy European countries acquired their colonies through war.
But, after the horrors of WWII, the international community built an international order that banned territorial acquisition through war. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter states that:
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
This norm has exerted a strong “compliance pull”, which means there have been very few instances of the use of war to annex territory. Since 1945, powerful countries simply do not invade and annex other countries anymore. As problematic as the United States’ wars have been since then, they have never involved a war of territorial acquisition against a sovereign state.
Article 2 is therefore a critical norm for the security of less powerful countries, such as Australia.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most brazen attack on this rule since 1945. Last week, Russia formally annexed swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, after invading Ukraine over seven months ago.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has justified this action on the basis that Ukraine is not a “real country” and that its government is the puppet of neo-Nazis and the West. This justification echoes wars of imperial aggression from the 19th century and reflects Putin and his supporters’ neo-imperial mindset.
Russia’s war of conquest is therefore more than a Cold War-esque showdown between Russia and the United States.
It threatens to destroy the key rule found in Article 2 of the UN Charter against the acquisition of territory through war. It therefore threatens to bring us back to the 19th century world where strong countries do what they want and the weak suffer what they must.
The security ramifications
The war in Ukraine, therefore, has clear security ramifications for smaller or middle powers.
If Russia is successful in taking land by force, other powerful countries in the world will be more likely to follow suit.
This has clear implications for Australia’s security position. As China grows more powerful in Asia and our ally the United States weakens, Australia will rely increasingly on Article 2’s strong international law norm against warlike acquisition of territory for its territorial integrity.
Australia’s support for Ukraine so far has been limited. And Russia’s claimed annexations was met with a muted response from the Australian government. This is a mistake.
How we talk about the war
This also has implications for how we talk about the war in Ukraine to countries in the global south.
Discussing the war as one between democracy and totalitarianism might make sense in the West, but is problematic for many countries in the global south that are suspicious of American democracy promotion efforts. This in part has explained the tacit support or neutrality of many of these countries towards Russia.
But if we talk about this war as potentially reopening the door to wars of territorial acquisition today, we are far more likely to persuade these countries of the need to condemn Russia and support Ukraine in its fight to uphold a foundational norm in international law.
With its assertions of sovereignty over Ukrainian land through force, Russia’s actions in Ukraine are about more than a new Cold War.
They now pose a fundamental threat to the stability of the international system and the national security of small and middle powers around the world.
Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory has therefore significantly raised the stakes in this war – for much of the world.
William Partlett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
More than a few eyebrows were raised at the weekend when it was reported a staggering 433 people won the jackpot of a government-backed lottery in the Philippines – sharing in 236 million pesos (about A$6.2 million).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has led to calls for an enquiry into how this seemingly “near-impossible” outcome could have arisen.
However, a basic understanding of probability and human psychology helps explain why this outcome isn’t as implausible as you might think.
How the lottery works
Each person to purchase a lottery ticket picks six numbers between 1 and 55. The winning jackpot sequence is drawn at random. A ticket wins the jackpot if the six numbers on it are the same as the six numbers drawn.
Each ticket therefore has:
a six in 55 chance of getting the first number drawn, multiplied by
a five in 54 chance of getting the second, multiplied by
a four in 53 chance of getting the third, multiplied by
a three in 52 chance of getting the fourth. multiplied by
a two in 51 chance of getting the fifth, multiplied by
a one in 50 chance of getting the last.
Together, this means any given ticket has a 1 in 28,989,675 chance of winning the jackpot. So how is it possible for 433 tickets to have done this?
What are the chances?
Without knowing how many tickets were actually sold, we can’t know the exact probability of getting 433 winning tickets.
One widely circulated estimate this week assumed there were around 10 million ticket sales, and claimed the chances were as little as “one out of one followed by 1,224 zeros” – a truly absurd number. This is smaller than the chances of flipping a typical coin 2,800 times in a row and seeing tails every time.
However, this estimate ignores substantial empirical evidence about human behaviour and psychology. It naively assumes each person purchasing a ticket has an equal chance of selecting each of the 28,989,675 possible number combinations.
Across the world, it has been clearly observed that some combinations are vastly more popular than others.
This is why some experts often advocate using a random number generator when cashing a ticket. While it won’t increase your chance of matching the winning values, it may reduce your chance of having to share any winnings with multiple other gamblers if you do.
More psychology than probability
A closer look at the winning numbers – 9, 18, 27, 36, 45 and 54 – may give some clue as to a possible explanation. Those of you who paid attention when learning your nine times table will recognise a clear pattern in the apparently randomly drawn numbers.
It’s likely this pattern is what has appealed to people, and why more people will have chosen this particular sequence of numbers. Rather than providing a smoking gun to suggest impropriety, this pattern may indeed explain the high number of winning tickets.
A similarly unusual spike of winners was observed in the United Kingdom in 2018, when five of the six numbers were multiples of seven. In 2020, a streak of consecutive numbers (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) produced multiple jackpot winners in South Africa.
Also, you have to remember that the winning sequence is the Philippines lotto is no less likely to be drawn than any other sequence of numbers. The chances of 9, 18, 27, 36, 45 and 54 being drawn are exactly the same as, say, 1, 18, 19, 28, 30 and 46.
Yet many people would (wrongly) perceive the latter sequence to be more likely to occur at random.
The winning numbers were all divisible by 9. Facebook/Phillipine Charity Sweepstakes Office
In general, humans have been shown to be surprisingly poor judges of what a string of truly random numbers would look like. In fact, they have even been outsmarted at simple probabilistic pattern-matching by the humble pigeon.
In one study, participants were more than twice as likely to select an odd number than an even number when asked to think of a random number, suggesting that some numbers may “feel” more random than others, despite the obvious absurdity of this.
Could foul play be involved?
The fact that 433 winning tickets were sold is far from convincing evidence of any wrongdoing. It would be interesting to know how many people bought this same pattern of numbers in previous weeks, or which other combinations also attract several hundred ticket sales.
Based on anecdotal evidence from other lotteries, this number may not at all be unusual.
We also need to consider the many thousands of similar lotteries drawn around the world each year, almost all of which receive no international press. While such outcomes are highly improbable for any given draw, the huge number of total lotteries means it’s actually quite likely at least one of them will produce a remarkable outcome by chance alone.
There are often accusations when remarkable lottery results are announced, perhaps most infamously when FC Barcelona legend Xavi was announced the winner of a private lottery shortly after moving to Qatar.
But overall it is highly plausible the only real statistical anomaly at play here is how so many people’s perception of randomness drew them to the same number pattern. That said, I won’t be rushing to buy a lottery ticket any time soon.
Stephen Woodcock 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.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a sense of uncertainty and fear across all aspects of life in New Zealand. Along with concerns about health and well-being, many wondered what impact the pandemic would have on the economy and economic policy.
Unpredictable events like this carry significant risk for investors and fund managers alike. There have been several major events in the past two decades that have sent shock waves across the global economy – for example, the 2000-2001 dotcom bubble, the 2007 global financial crisis, Brexit and, more recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Researchers from Auckland University of Technology have developed an index that highlights just how sensitive our investments are to domestic policy concerns.
This work builds on the limited number of tools to help businesses and investors manage these crises.
Creating a guide for investors
Our study developed a numerical measure, called an “economic policy uncertainty” (EPU) index.
An index is a measure that represents a market in a specific country – NZX50 or ANZ’s business confidence index, for example. These measure the rise and fall of stock prices (or business confidence).
Similar to the business confidence index or investor sentiment index, our EPU index measures the levels of uncertainty stemming from economic policies.
Working from more than two decades of data, our index maps how the stock market responds to periods of economic policy uncertainty. Higher values in the index indicate greater policy-related economic uncertainty faced by political decision makers, giving investors the chance to respond early and shift investment strategy.
A new index from AUT researchers offer insight into the impact economic policy has on the investment industry. Getty Images
Millions of data points
To create our index, we used an already well established methodology based on newspaper coverage of economic policy developments. We incorporated more than eight million newspaper articles published between 1997 and 2021 by four major news outlets including NZ Herald, Fairfax, Stuff and Interest.co.nz.
With the help of digital tools, we extracted words from each news article that broadly captured the three main dimensions of economic policy in New Zealand: news coverage of policy related to economic uncertainty, tax code provisions, and disagreement among economic forecasters.
By focusing on the managed funds industry – non-bank financial institutions that manage investors’ money – and examining monthly returns for a diverse set of mutual funds, pension funds, insurance funds and exchange traded funds, we found that economic policy uncertainty can influence trading behaviour.
In short, fund managers were willing to pay an economically significant premium for funds that offered a hedge against policy uncertainty.
NZ’s unique investment industry
The managed fund industry in New Zealand has several unique features that can broaden our understanding of the crossover between economic policy uncertainty and financial markets.
First, the industry doubled between 2014 and 2021, growing from around NZ$115 billion to $257 billion.
Second, almost 85% of stock investments in New Zealand are carried out by the managed investment funds, making it a useful industry to test the implications of our index.
A third distinguishing feature of the NZ investment industry is a relatively high investment in foreign stocks, bonds and other assets. Between roughly 60% and 70% funds in New Zealand are invested in foreign assets.
Yet, until now, little has been known about the factors driving fund returns during periods of economic policy uncertainty. Our study attempts to fill this void and highlights the need to account for local economic policy uncertainty in making investment decisions.
Bucking traditional wisdom
Given the unique features of NZ investment industry, conventional wisdom suggests that funds should be more sensitive to global uncertainty than domestic uncertainty.
However, our findings run counter to this. We show that domestic policy uncertainty indeed matters significantly more than those at a global level.
There are two possible explanations for this finding. First, the NZ index contains both local and global economic shocks and is therefore more complete. The second explanation is that NZ fund managers (investors) incorporate more local economic policy uncertainty shocks than global shocks in their investment decisions.
New Zealand’s sharemarket is unique, with roughly 60% to 70% of funds invested in foreign assets. Despite that, local economic policy uncertainty matters, Getty Images
Local insights
Our analysis revealed four key findings:
Funds that are more sensitive to economic policy uncertainty are considered risky, therefore risk-averse investors will require a higher return for investing in these risky funds. We estimate the required compensation to be 6% per year.
Our index can predict future fund returns for up to 12 months based on risk factors affecting the different types of stocks.
Since our index predicts future economic policy-related changes, investment managers can devise strategies to optimise their returns. At the same time, the index can be used by organisations such as the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to predict what changes to policy might mean for the market.
Finally, global and local investors can use our index as a proxy for the investment outlook in New Zealand.
Fundamentally, our study offers new insights into the NZ fund industry and paves the way for future work to explore whether policy uncertainty can drive investor cash flows in or out of funds.
Another interesting application would be to examine if policy uncertainty contributes to possible herd behaviour among institutional investors and how such behaviour, if present, affects investor returns.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In 1887, Australian Museum scientists undertook a pioneering expedition to Lord Howe Island, a tiny patch of land off the east coast of Australia. Among their many discoveries, they recorded “a large Blatta” – a type of cockroach – under a decaying log.
This was later described as Panesthia lata, the Lord Howe Island wood-feeding cockroach. P. lata was noted as being highly abundant, playing a key role in nutrient recycling, and presumably a food source for the many birds on the island.
Alas, in 1918 rats arrived on the island from a shipwreck. By the late 20th century, P. lata could not be found despite extensive searches over multiple decades, and was assumed to have gone extinct due to rat predation.
But could it have survived in some unexplored pocket of the island?
The crescent-shaped Lord Howe Island off the eastern coast of Australia is home to unique flora and fauna. John Carnemolla/Shutterstock
Putting the cockroach back where it belongs
In 2019, the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment (NSW DPE) implemented the final stage of its highly successful (although at times controversial) rat eradication program on the island.
Following this, I and my colleagues from NSW DPE, Lord Howe Island Museum, Chau Chak Wing Museum, CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection and the University of Melbourne became interested in the biology of P. lata and the potential to repopulate the island with this insect.
This was on the cards because in 2001, P. lata had been discovered on Blackburn and Roach islands, two small islands near Lord Howe Island.
The wood-feeding cockroach doesn’t go anywhere near people’s homes. Justin Gilligan/DPE, Author provided
But hang on a minute: why would we want to put cockroaches, one of the most reviled creatures on Earth, back on a beautiful island after their seemingly fortuitous extermination?
Well, P. lata is, believe it not, quite cute and charismatic, and has no interest in going into people’s houses. It is wingless, about 4cm long, and stays hidden in the forest, where it burrows into the soil and feeds on leaf litter and rotting wood by night.
In July we received funding from the Australia Pacific Science Foundation to investigate the genetics and ecology of P. lata from Blackburn and Roach Islands. So Maxim Adams, an honours student in our lab at the University of Sydney, and Nicholas Carlile from NSW DPE headed off to Lord Howe Island to begin the study.
The wood-feeding cockroach was thought to be extinct for decades, after extensive searches turned up no populations on Lord Howe Island. Justin Gilligan/DPE
Bad weather prevented them from going out to Blackburn Island, so they decided to examine potential sites on Lord Howe Island that might have once been teeming with P. lata before the rats arrived.
They walked to a secluded area in the north of the island, and decided to turn over a few rocks. Literally the first rock they checked revealed a small congregation of the cockroaches! I was due to join them three days later, but they called me that afternoon with great excitement to relay the news.
Maxim Adams and Nicholas Carlile under the banyan tree where they made the surprise discovery. Justin Gilligan/DPE, Author provided
They found a few others within a few metres under the same fig tree, but extensive searching over the next few days revealed none in other nearby areas or other parts of the island.
Not the same as their neighbours
We carried out some preliminary DNA tests upon our return to Sydney, finding the rediscovered Lord Howe Island population of cockroaches was distinct from the ones found on Blackburn and Roach islands.
It is possible the population hung on as a result of rodent baiting in the area. The baiting was done in recent decades to assist the survival of various other threatened species.
We are now carrying out more extensive DNA studies, including historical museum samples collected from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and samples from Ball’s Pyramid, roughly 20km southeast of Lord Howe Island, collected by Dick Smith in the 1960s.
Ball’s Pyramid is the eroded remnant of an ancient shield volcano, and part of Lord Howe Island Marine Park. Ashley Whitworth/Shutterstock
Through these studies, we hope to determine the relationship of the rediscovered population with those originally collected on the island a century or more ago and those on the outer islands. We also hope to uncover the origins and evolutionary history of P. lata.
The Lord Howe Island Group is a UNESCO world heritage site of global natural significance, and is home to more than 100 plant species found nowhere else on Earth, and many more endemic animal species. The biology of many of these species, particularly the island’s invertebrates, remains mysterious.
We hope our use of DNA techniques will help us to establish P. lata as a model for understanding several million years of evolution on the Lord Howe Island archipelago, and aid the re-establishment of this shy yet charismatic creature on its homeland.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a landmark reform of the last decade. But while delivering much benefit, it has operational problems and its cost has escalated dramatically – currently around $30 billion annually, there have been suggestions it could reach $60 billion. The scheme looms as one of the major pressures on the Albanese government’s budgets in coming years.
In this podcast, Michelle Grattan talks with Bill Shorten, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Minister for Government Services about the issues around the scheme and the reforms needed to improve its operation and contain its cost.
Registered providers have been warned they’ll be reined to prevent “price gouging”.
“We have to tackle this issue of double pricing. That is the phenomena that you turn up with little Johnny for a service, and if you don’t have an NDIS package, the therapy or the treatment you get, you know, is $100. But if you say to them that you’ve got an NDIS package, magically that same service goes up in price and the scheme shouldn’t be treated that way.”
Shorten wants to clear the legacy load of disputed cases. “When we were elected four months ago, there was four and a half thousand matters tied up in the courts. Now, whilst that’s a small percentage of half a million people [in the NDIS], for those four and a half thousand people, their families, service providers, etc, it’s traumatic, drags on. So we made a resolution to review the matter. What are we really arguing about? Make offers to resolve it”.
In his role as government services minister, Shorten has been vocal in demanding Optus provide the government with full information about those affected by the exposure of the Medicare cards and the like.
“I get that Optus is under a lot of pressure and it must be very tough for their executives. But the real victims here are the customers of Optus […] I think communication is getting better now. The reason why we wanted the data is that apparently there’s 36,900 people’s Medicare numbers that have been breached.”
“Where Optus has required government information – passports, driver’s licence, Medicare, etc – we want to have a line of sight. [To know] who are these individuals who are affected so that if we do detect anyone trying to breach the first wall of our defences, we can red flag it straight away.”
Michelle Grattan 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.
Climate change has caused melting icebergs, flooding, and landslides. It can also bring about an increase in pollen levels, prolong the duration of pollen season, and cause more pollen-related health problems.
Pollen grains landing on the moist membranes of the nose or eyes cause “hay fever” (allergic rhinitis) in one in five people. This often leads to a runny or blocked nose and itchy eyes.
During the pollen season, people with asthma are at greater risk of a flare-up.
Thunderstorms cause a drop in temperature and a sudden rise in humidity. This can cause whole grass pollen grains to rupture into particles that are tiny enough to penetrate deeper into the lungs, which causes thunderstorm asthma.
Because of this, a lot of people – even those with no known asthma – can be affected.
The largest thunderstorm asthma event occurred in Melbourne during the 2016 grass pollen season – some 10,000 people were affected and hospital emergency departments were over-capacity by at least 3,000 respiratory-related cases. Sadly, ten people also died from asthma that night.
This short Better Health Channel video gives a quick overview of thunderstorm asthma.
Who is at risk of thunderstorm asthma?
Even people who do not have a history of asthma are at risk of thunderstorm asthma. However, research has shown some people can be more susceptible to pollen than others. This includes:
those with lower socioeconomic status, as reduced access to health care and poor quality housing can exacerbate symptoms.
In our research, we found people with co-existing allergic conditions (such as asthma and hay fever) to be more impacted by pollen compared to those with single allergic conditions (such as asthma only).
How else can pollen cause harm?
Even outside of thunderstorms, pollen alone can cause asthma attacks requiring hospitalisations, respiratory symptoms such as wheezing and runny nose, and reduced lung function, making it harder to breath.
Our yet-to-be-published research has shown grass pollen may trigger a general state of heightened immune responses, leading to increased risk of eczema flares in children.
Other studies have indicated children with eczema experience more symptoms such as a higher intensity of itchiness and rash on days with high levels of grass pollen.
So, what can you do to prepare for the grass pollen season and the threat of thunderstorm asthma?
download your state’s emergency services app, such as the Victorian Emergency App, which can provide thunderstorm asthma alerts
keep an eye on pollen counts (see below for useful websites)
keep doors and windows closed on high pollen days
use air purifiers
stay indoors during high pollen counts or thunderstorm asthma alerts
plant non-allergenic flowers if you have a garden
keep wearing a face mask. Masks have shown to be very effective in reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection and pollen-induced respiratory symptoms
take anti-asthma medications. Reliever medications are available over-the-counter. Preventer medications offer much stronger protection but require a prescription from a doctor. They also need to be used preventatively in the setting of pollen-induced asthma, or in severe hay fever, to prevent thunderstorm asthma
take antihistamines such as Zyrtec, which can be used both on an as-needed basis or more regularly through the pollen season. However, it does not treat or prevent asthma.
People with diagnosed asthma should take their preventer medication regularly during the pollen season. Shutterstock
If you know you suffer from asthma, hay fever or pollen allergy, you are at risk of thunderstorm asthma. Aside from taking advantage of warning systems and staying out of the storm, you should see your doctor and have an asthma puffer at hand through the pollen season to keep yourself safe. Your doctor can advise you on the correct treatment.
Research including our own has shown pollen exposure can have a lagged effect on the lungs and airways. This means asthma attacks or respiratory symptoms can sometimes occur a few days after exposure. So, if you forget to take medications pre-emptively, it’s not too late. However, go to a hospital if it gets severe.
Refer to the following websites for useful daily pollen information in Australia: AirRater or AusPollen.
Shyamali Dharmage receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She currently holds investigator-initiated grants from GSK and AstraZeneca for unrelated work.
Jo Douglass has received honoraria for educational presentations from Astra-Zeneca, GSK, Novartis, Shire, & CSL. She has served on advisory boards: Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, GSK, Astra-Zeneca, Shire, Immunosis, Equilium and CSL. She has undertaken contracted or investigator-initiated research for unrelated work on behalf of: GSK, Novartis, Immunosis, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Grifols, CSL, BioCryst & Equilium. She has a personal superannuation shareholding in CSL.
Sabrina Idrose receives funding from the NHMRC Centre for Food and Allergy Research and LifeCourse PhD scholarships.
Journalists may face decades in prison for “foreign interference” offences unless urgent changes are made to Australia’s national security laws, according to a University of Queensland researcher.
PhD candidate Sarah Kendall from UQ’s School of Law warned that reporting on issues relating to Australian politics, national security or international relations while working with overseas media organisations could place journalists at risk of criminal prosecution under the Espionage and Foreign Interference Act 2018.
“The law could apply to any journalist, staff member or source who works for or collaborates with foreign-controlled media organisations,” Kendall said.
“There could also be repercussions for journalists working overseas, as any news published in Australia is subject to these laws.”
The Espionage and Foreign Interference Act 2018 covers nine foreign interference offences, with penalties ranging from 10 to 20 years imprisonment.
“While these offences require some part of the person’s conduct to be covert or involve deception, this does not exclude legitimate journalistic activities,” Kendall said.
“Journalists could be acting covertly whenever they liaise with a confidential source using encrypted technologies or engage in undercover work using hidden cameras.”
Public interest protection In a Foreign Interference Law and Press Freedom briefing paper, Kendall recommended that the government introduce an occupation-specific exemption to protect journalists working in the public interest.
The paper argues that the scope of offences be narrowed to remove “recklessness” and “prejudice to Australia’s national security” as punishable elements.
“For example, a journalist could be accused of recklessly harming national security when they publish a story that reveals war crimes by members of the Australian Defence Force,” Kendall said.
“Journalists and their sources could face up to 20 years in prison if any part of their conduct was covert, even if they are engaged in legitimate, good faith reporting.”
Kendall said the law’s Preparatory Offence, which carries a potential jail term of 10 years, risked creating a dangerous precedent when combined with the offence of conspiracy.
“This offence can capture the earliest stages of investigative reporting so a discussion between a journalist and source about a potential story on Australian politics could see them charged with conspiring to prepare for foreign interference,” Kendall said.
Foreign Interference Law and Press Freedom is the latest report in UQ Law School’s Press Freedom Policy Papers series, a project aimed at laying the groundwork for widespread reform in laws spanning espionage, whistleblowing and free speech as they affect the media.
The Post-Courier daily newspaper is one of 15 companies in Papua New Guinea that have pledged to fight against gender-based violence (GBV) while promoting gender equality within and outside of the workplace.
Signing the National Capital District Commission’s “Zero Tolerance to GBV Pledge” under its GBV Strategy 2020–2022, means that as organisations, the 15 companies will partner with the NCDC to eradicate all forms of violence within the city through their employees.
City manager Ravu Frank congratulated the organisations for taking the bold step at the signing up yesterday, noting that addressing GBV-related issues in the city required a collective effort from the municipal authority in partnership with all stakeholders.
PNG POST-COURIER
“We came up with the NCDC GBV Strategy to raise awareness of the acts of violence against women with the view to end violent behavior against women and to regard them as equal partners in development,” he said.
“I am glad that a good number of our contractors have shown commitment to this cause.
“By signing the pledge all NCDC contractors agree to avoid any form of violence against women at their workplace, at home and in public.
“All NCDC contractors will be accountable for their violent actions against women and will seriously impact their engagement with NCDC leading to the termination of their contracts.”
Second batch of companies This is the second batch of companies that have contracts with the city authority to sign the GBV pledge.
NCDC commenced implementation of the three-pillar Zero Tolerance to GBV Strategy 2020–2022 last year. The first was Walk the Talk with a compulsory signing of a pledge by NCDC staff to abstain from any form of violence.
The engagement of contractors is part of the second pillar to involve stakeholders and partners and the third is the demand for a community free from gender-based violence.
Hebou Construction Limited was one of the first companies to sign up.
According to health and safety manager Larry Watson, the pledge has helped the company give back to its employees and community through promoting gender equality and ensuring that female employees get proper assistance when needed.
In an editorial on Tuesday, the Post-Courier quoted from the first African-American President Barack Obama:
“You can judge a nation and how successful it will be based on how it treats women and girls.”
“And his observation, we say, is an expression of wisdom and truth,” said the newspaper.
“No country in the world will improve itself where the culture of violence against women exists, that is what he meant in his statement.
‘A lot of talk’ “In PNG there’s being a lot of talk and even action on violence against women and girls, but the message and progress has been unsatisfactory.
“Just last week bodies of two women were discovered in the nation’s capital with preliminary examination showing that they were raped and murdered.”
The Post-Courier said that while some might say that the two incidents were isolated, “we say its not and that despite numerous efforts by NGOs, churches and even parliamentarians on this issue, the incidences of women and girls being mistreated and murdered is slowly on the rise again.”
The newspaper said there were three major factors in the violence and the community’s response:
It is a cultural issue and it is huge;
It is not recognised as a development issue; and
We’re just talking; no money and no real action
The Post-Courier said it was time to recognise that mistreatment of women was the biggest drawback in the country’s national development.
Papua New Guinea’s National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop wants the city’s police to fully investigate the gruesome murder of two women in Port Moresby late last week.
Parkop told the Post-Courier that such “despicable” brutality against womenfolk in the city and throughout the country was not welcome — and the recent crimes were not either.
The two women were allegedly raped, murdered and dumped at different locations last week.
One body was discovered at the 9-Mile public cemetery just outside the city and the other body at a spot along the Gordon storm-water drain in the early hours of Sunday morning.
“I am and will continue to be appalled that such despicable crimes continue to be committed against women and girls in our city and elsewhere in our country,” Parkop said.
“While there may be other factions contributing to these crimes, the lack of or poor respect for women and girls as equal citizens of our country remains a main cause of violence against women and girls in our country.”
Parkop is a strong advocate of women’s rights and has initiated several programmes to promote gender equality within Port Moresby and also in the National Capital District Commission (NCDC).
Women’s, girl’s lives ‘risky’ “These latest killings in our city are not an exception. Lives of women and girls continue to be risky in our country as a result of continuing gender inequality. I appeal to the police to investigate and have these perpetrators arrested and charged.”
The NCDC will continue to promote the gender equality and eliminate gender-based violence (GBV) across the city.
“On our part in the city we continue to implement our GBV strategy which we will in fact escalate [on Wednesday] with signing of more of NCDC contractors pledging to abide by and implement the strategy with us,” Parkop added.
Superintendent Ikumu urged city residents — especially young girls and women — to be more considerate about their security and safety when “hanging out with friends” during social outings.
He said such killings were a concern for police and investigations were continuing.
Claudia Tallyis a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
Concerns are being raised about the future survival of the iTaukei (Fijian) language as a threat of extinction looms despite its everyday use among its people.
A language and culture scholar in Fiji, Dr Paul Geraghty, said a growing generational gap within the iTaukei language had been detected and caused concern.
Dr Geraghty said the extent of knowledge of iTaukei vocabulary and its diversity through the different dialects had reduced significantly over the years.
Fijian language scholar Dr Paul Geraghty … “People are losing their distinctiveness. The language is becoming what I would call standard Fijian.” Image: USP
“Young people of today, especially in urban areas, do not speak as well as their parents or grandparents. They don’t have the same vocabulary knowledge, so that is something to be concerned about,” he said.
“People are losing their distinctiveness. The language is becoming what I would call standard Fijian or Fijian of the urban centres.”
Dr Geraghty added that the loss of richness within the iTaukei language was rooted in Fiji’s long colonial history.
“The peculiar colonial history that we have is to a large extent to blame not only for the loss of indigenous languages in Fiji or the reduction of the knowledge of Fijian language but also perceptions are an essential thing.”
New Zealand’s influence on Fijian education Dr Geraghty explained that until 1930 all education was in the vernacular, either iTaukei, Hindi (Fiji’s second largest spoken language) or Rotuman, until it was no longer sustainable and colonial law makers began to look to the region for assistance.
“The New Zealand government began teaching in Fiji, and its education system was not inclusive towards teaching Māori, which is not the case today. But that culture was brought across to Fiji and children were punished for speaking in their native languages.”
The lasting impacts of this event were still actively practised in Fiji, added Dr Geraghty.
“We look up to English as a superior language and make jokes about people who don’t speak English well. That is not funny — English people don’t make jokes about people who can’t speak French. The most important thing in a child’s education is learning to speak their language well.”
Dr Geraghty has advocated the importance of incorporating native language into the education system as a scholar of language.
History has always been a leading guide to the future, and learning not to repeat the past, is what linguists advise.
Importance of sustaining iTaukei language Dr Geraghty said that multilingualism was vital for a child’s education as it stimulated the mind and opened many other possibilities.
“Bilingualism and multilingualism — speaking two or more languages should be encouraged as it will increase the beauty of diversity in the world and our knowledge of this world and our position in it.”
A call for the Fijian Ministry of Education to act now and implement the compulsory learning of iTaukei and Hindi in schools was paramount.
Dr Geraghty added while the Fijian government and universities had started incorporating vernacular into the curriculum, more needed to be done.
Fijian Language Week celebration
NZ’s Minister of Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio … “The Fijian people can always rely on their language, traditions and values to sustain them.” Image: RNZ Pacific
The Fijian community has launched a week-long celebration of the Fijian language, traditions and culture with events across Aotearoa.
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, marked Macawa ni Vosa Vakaviti — Fijian Language Week, welcoming this year’s theme of nurture, preserve and sustain the Fijian language.
Aupito acknowledged the enduring strength and sustainability of Vosa Vakaviti and its importance as the Fijian community navigated its recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.
“Fiji has been hit hard by the covid-19 pandemic and climate change’s ever-increasing impacts,” he said.
“Yet, while it faces a road to recovery, the Fijian people can always rely on their language, traditions and values to sustain them.
“Now more than ever, the Fiji language, culture, and identity is important to uphold both in Aotearoa and Fiji.”
Aupito said the Fijian community in Aotearoa, New Zealand, should be applauded for their tireless efforts in advocating for and strengthening Vosa Vakaviti.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Thousands of New Zealand tertiary union members will go on strike at eight universities tomorrow over a cost of living pay demand.
The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) said its members were walking off the job for part of the day at the eight universities in the country.
Union members at Auckland University of Technology initially planned to refuse to enter students’ marks from October 6 to 21, the union said.
However, after the AUT management warned that striking staff would face suspension and loss of pay for two weeks, TEU withdrew the action so that staff would join the Thursday strike instead, a later union statement said today.
The TEU, which has 7000 members, is demanding an 8 percent pay rise needed to keep up with the cost of living.
Each university was negotiating its own collective agreements with the union, but the agreements expired at about the same time enabling a co-ordinated industrial action.
The action announced includes full stoppage between 1pm and 5pm at University of Auckland, University of Waikato and AUT; from 12pm to 4.30pm at Victoria University of Wellington and for shorter periods at three other universities.
There will be rallies at each university and marches and pickets at Waikato and Massey universities.
On its website, the University of Auckland stated it had explained to the unions that it had made an offer that was fair and reasonable and rewarded staff, while retaining fiscal responsibility.
“The university has made a best offer of a 5 percent and 4 percent general revision offer over two years, subject to certain conditions,” the statement said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele says the country joined an agreement with the United States only after changes to wording relating to China.
He said the country did not want to be forced to choose sides, and the Pacific should be seen as a region of peace and cooperation.
Manele was in Wellington today for an official meeting with his New Zealand counterpart Nanaia Mahuta, and was welcomed to Parliament with a pōwhiri today.
Solomon Islands has been a central focus in discussions over partnerships and security in the region after it signed a partnership agreement with China in April.
After a draft of the agreement was leaked in March, New Zealand had described it as “gravely concerning”, but the full text of the final document has never been made public.
The US has been working to contain China’s growing influence with Pacific countries, and last week brought leaders of 12 Pacific nations to Washington DC for two days with the aim of finalising a new Pacific strategy with a joint declaration of partnership.
Decision clarified Manele clarified that decision when questioned by reporters this afternoon.
“In the initial draft there were some references that we were not comfortable with, but then the officials under the discussions and negotiations … were able to find common ground, and then that took us on board, so we signed,” he said.
Asked what specifically they were uncomfortable with, he confirmed it related to indirect references to China.
“There was some references that put us in a position that we would have to choose sides, and we don’t want to be placed in a position that we have to choose sides.”
He said the Solomons’ agreement with China was domestically focused and did not include provision for a military base.
“My belief … and my hope is this — that the Pacific should be a region of peace, of co-operation and collaboration, and it should not be seen as a region of confrontation, of conflict and of war,” he said.
“And of course we are guided by the existing regional security arrangements that we have in place — and these are the Biketawa declaration as well as the Boe declaration.
US re-engagement welcomed “We welcome the US re-engagement with the Pacific and we look forward to working with all our partners.”
A pōwhiri for Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele at Parliament today. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ
Manele said he was “delighted” to be in Aotearoa for the first time in about eight years, after his previous plans to visit two years ago were put on hold by the covid-19 pandemic.
He thanked New Zealand for support in helping manage and contain the virus, including with vaccines and medical equipment.
Manele said the discussion between the ministers covered the RSE scheme, the need to review the air services agreement, the 2050 Blue Pacific strategy, and maritime security.
He was keen to stress the importance of increased flights between New Zealand and Solomon Islands.
“I think this is important, we are tasking our officials to start a conversation, we’ll be writing formally to the government of New Zealand to review the air services agreement that we have between our two countries,” he said.
Boost for business, tourism “This will not only facilitate the RSE scheme but I hope will also facilitate the movement of investors and business people and general tourism.”
The country was also hopeful of more diplomatic engagement with New Zealand.
“Not only at the officials level but also at the ministerial level and at the leaders level, and your Prime Minister has an invitation to my Prime Minister to visit New Zealand in the near future, and my Prime Minister is looking forward to visiting.”
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta welcomes Jeremiah Manele at Parliament today. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ
Increased engagement would be required, he said, from all Pacific Island Forum partners, including Australia and New Zealand, to tackle climate change in line with the Blue Pacific Continent 2050 strategy agreed at the most recent Forum meeting in Fiji.
Both Manele and Mahuta highlighted climate change as the greatest threat to security in the region.
He was to attend a roundtable discussion with New Zealand business leaders this evening.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Delegates from French Polynesia have flown to New York for the annual meeting of the UN Decolonisation Committee.
The veteran pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru is heading his team while the French Polynesian government has sent the Equipment Minister Rene Temeharo as its spokesperson.
The territory was reinscribed on the list on non-self-governing territories in 2013, but France refuses to accept the inscription and engage in any UN-supervised process.
Temeharo said the inscription occurred at a time of political instability and without putting the issue to the voters.
He said French Polynesia was not a colony as it had a democratically elected territorial government.
French Polynesian cabinet minister Rene Temeharo (right) … Tahiti “is not a colony”. Image: RNZ Pacific
France has not responded to calls to hold a referendum on independence.
The other main French territory in the Pacific, Kanaky New Caledonia, has been on the UN Decolonisation List since 1986, which France has recognised.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meg Keen, Honorary Professor, Department of Pacific Affairs, ANU; Director, Pacific Island Program, Lowy Institute, Australian National University
Mark Schiefelbein/AP/AAP
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare will arrive in Australia on October 6 for talks with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. What should we expect from his visit?
Sogavare has had a tumultuous year, particularly as far as relations with Australia are concerned: in April, he signed a controversial security pact with China, the latter of which has been expanding its reach in the Pacific. It was telling that one of Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s first overseas missions after Labor won the May election was to the Pacific, including Solomon Islands.
More recently, Sogavare blasted Canberra for making an “assault on our parliamentary democracy” and directly interfering in domestic affairs after the Australian government offered to help fund the upcoming election, to avoid postponing them to accommodate the 2023 Pacific Games.
Yet only a few weeks earlier, Sogavare also referred to Australia as the country’s “security partner of choice” and gave our PM a warm hug when they met. He even accepted the election funds after securing a one year extension to his term in office. Support the 2023 Pacific Games – one of his top priorities – was banked too.
Sogavare is no stranger to political leadership — he’s been the prime minister of Solomon Islands four times since the mid-1990s. It’s a difficult job, and political allegiances in the island nation are fluid. Sogavare has benefitted from generous Chinese aid and resource revenue. His Western friends worry the increasing Chinese investment could give China strategic advantage and destabilise the delicate geopolitical balance in the region.
Of course, Honiara still benefits from generous aid from Australia and other donors. Australian assistance exceeds $150 million each year, in addition to defence cooperation. Sogavare has no intention of giving up diverse development investments; if he can, he’ll maximise all.
He’s a fiery orator and adept political operator. He regularly appeals to national pride, but when support wavers he can be assertive, even authoritarian. He switched the country’s recognition to China without waiting for advice from the Foreign Relations Committee, limited media scrutiny of his government, and withheld finances from unsupportive MPs.
A nationalist leader, Sogavare is wary of Australia and its motives. He fears Australia wants to control, not partner, with him. Feeling the political heat from the Australian government after his switch of recognition from Taiwan to China, he lashed out at Australia and others for undermining his government and failing to recognise its sovereignty.
A fractious relationship
His relationship with Australia has long been rocky. In 2006, when prime minister previously, he expelled the Australian High Commissioner over a dispute about a legal case against his attorney general. Matters reached a low during a subsequent and related raid of his offices involving Australian police. He angrily threatened to chuck Australia out of the country. It’s unlikely Sogavare has forgotten or forgiven that chapter of history.
Nonetheless, times move on. At the departure of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2017, Sogavare gave an emotional speech of gratitude for what the mission (and Australia) achieved. He thanked Australia for police assistance late last year to help control rioting. The regional intervention brought calm, but Honiara still endured loss of life, looting and extensive property damage.
The inability of his police forces to control social unrest creates a political vulnerability. Sogavare signed the security pact with China to boost his response options for any future unrest and diversify aid and trade. This is in addition to the security agreement Solomon Islands has with Australia. The Chinese deal also benefitted government (and political) coffers.
Some believe the deal helped Sogavare fight off a motion of no confidence that followed the riots.
An Australian solider keeps watch over a Honiara market in 2006 as part of the RAMSI mission. Lloyd Jones/AAP
What can we expect when Sogavare comes to Australia?
The Albanese government has acted quickly to calm the political waters stirred up by the Morrison government’s strong response to the China security pact and other festering irritants related to weak action on climate change and the AUKUS deal. One of the first bilateral visits Foreign Minister Wong made was to Solomon Islands.
Like other Pacific leaders, Sogavare will leverage the tense geopolitical situation to advantage. He’ll work to diversify, not deter, donor relations, even if at times it gets rather messy. To date the strategy has boosted assistance to Solomons by hundreds of thousands.
Harsh words thrown our way by Sogavare are not well matched by public sentiment. For the people of Solomon Islands, Australian engagement is welcome, including security assistance, generous aid, and the expanded labour mobility program.
Sogavare can be tough on Australia, but it’s a careful balancing act. He’ll want to maintain, even grow, labour market access, educational scholarships, and investments in COVID recovery and infrastructure.
There is mutual interest in keeping the region and Solomon Islands stable.
For the upcoming visit, Australia will not apply pressure, but rather play the long game and advance an image of a patient and committed friend. The clear message will be that the door is open for dialogue and the relationship will endure beyond these tense times, and strengthen. Sogavare will likely also be measured and courteous as a guest of state.
There will be sweeteners. Australia will likely put additional offers of assistance on the table, which Sogavare will no doubt graciously accept. But that won’t bind him in the future. His attitude to Australia will remain prickly and wary. The message from Sogavare is he’ll call the tune, even if it is discordant. The Solomon Islands’ opposition, and many back in his country, would prefer a less bellicose approach.
Like other regional leaders, Sogavare claims to be “friends to all, enemy to none”. That’s a nice way of saying: I can go elsewhere when pressured or need resources. But true friends take care not to undermine the foundations, integrity and longevity of a relationship.
This trip is an opportunity to strengthen the relationship through quiet diplomacy, with neither side shying away from critical issues of strategic interests, media freedom and climate action.
The Pacific Island Program at the Lowy Institute receives funding from the Australian government, the private sector and non-government organisations. None of these funds influence the personal views expressed in this article. The author is not a direct recipient of these funds.
As noted in my bionote I am the Pacific Island Program Director, at the Lowy Institute. This is Australia’s leading think tank. I am also an Honorary Professor, Department of Pacific Affairs, ANU.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing and Deputy Head (Learning & Teaching), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University
A new type of COVID test is set to be available from November for Australians to use at home.
It promises an alternative to rapid antigen tests (RATs), which we’re familiar with. It also promises a faster and more convenient option than PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests performed in a lab.
It’s a type of nucleic acid test. That makes it similar in some way to lab-based PCR tests, which also detect the genetic material of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.
But lab-based PCR tests amplify the genetic material in a different way to this home-based test. So, strictly speaking, this new test is not a PCR test.
The new test isn’t a RAT either. RATs work by testing for viral antigens (parts of viral proteins that generate an antibody response).
But the test does use a collection technique you will be familiar with – a nasal swab.
What’s new (to the general public) is the technology behind the test and its use to detect COVID at home.
It uses a process called isothermal cross priming amplification to copy tiny amounts of viral RNA extracted from your nasal swab. It does this many, many times so there’s enough viral RNA for the test to detect.
It does this without the multiple cycles of high and lower temperatures used to copy and amplify viral RNA in lab-based PCR testing.
Health workers are already using the technology (and the better known PCR) to detect COVID in hospitals and other health-care facilities. Here, they are known as “point of care tests” because they can provide rapid results at the bedside, rather than the swab needing to be processed in a lab.
The EasyNAT takes this further because it can be done at home. The test is said to detect all current variants of SARS-CoV-2.
Unlike RATs, this test needs to be stored in the fridge before use.
You take a nasal swab, insert it into a solution in a tube, then add one drop to a special battery operated cassette.
The test uses a battery powered cassette. Elamaan Health
Then you add a buffer solution to the cassette, put the cap on, switch the cassette on to process the sample and wait 55 minutes. After switching the cassette off, you add a second lot of buffer solution, close the cap, and wait another 5 minutes before reading the result. The result must be read within 30 minutes of completing the test.
Results therefore take an hour – considerably quicker than waiting for the results from a PCR test processed in a lab, but much longer than a RAT where you get your results in about 15 minutes.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) describes the test as having
“very high sensitivity”. This means more than 95% positive agreement with a lab-based PCR test. This is comparable to the most sensitive RATs. But it is more sensitive than some RATs on the market (those labelled “acceptable sensitivity”, which agree with lab-based PCR tests more than 80% of the time).
The manufacturer reports a percent positive agreement with PCR of 95.4%.
Both European Union and Australian regulators have approved the test for COVID.
The manufacturer also reports a figure of 99% accuracy compared to lab PCR tests. This is a reflection of the sensitivity (correctly detecting a positive case) and specificity (not giving a false positive result). The sensitivity of the EasyNAT is 95.4% and the specificity is 99.8%.
Testing errors (such as incorrect swabbing technique, incorrect storage) mean the possible errors of doing a home RAT are just as likely with the EasyNAT.
A company spokesperson says the test is expected to retail for about A$55, which is considerably more expensive than a RAT (single RATs retail from $9-10, or are free for some people).
It’s unclear if a positive COVID result using this test is enough for eligible people to access oral COVID antiviral medicines, such as Paxlovid or Lagevrio, under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Current requirements are for someone’s COVID status be confirmed by a PCR test or a “medically verified” RAT (one supervised by a health professional).
The EasyNAT costs more than a RAT and takes longer to complete. It doesn’t appear to be more sensitive or specific overall compared to the best “very high sensitivity” RATs. But it is more sensitive than some RATs on the market.
I’d like to know if the test allows you to detect COVID sooner after infection compared with a RAT (it generally takes at least a couple of days after infection before enough viral proteins accumulate to be detected on a RAT). Those data are not publicly available.
Thea van de Mortel teaches into the Master of Infection Prevention and Control program at Griffith University.
