Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rabindra Nepal, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Wollongong

The shock suspension last week of Australia’s wholesale electricity market rekindled an age-old debate about whether the energy sector should be nationalised – in other words, owned and controlled by government.

The calls came after electricity prices spiked and supply tightened along Australia’s east coat, triggering a chain of events which eventually forced the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to suspend the national electricity market.

So should the flow of energy in Australia come under public control? And even if it’s feasible, would it prevent crises like the one we’ve just seen?

I’m an academic in energy economics with a special interest in electricity network privatisation. As my work has revealed, nationalising electricity is not a silver bullet. To operate most effectively, the sector needs to balance the roles of private competition and government regulation.

What’s caused the energy crisis?

A recent cold snap meant more people were turning on their heaters, so using more electricity. Compounding that, prices on the wholesale electricity market – where generators are paid for the power they produce – surged for two reasons.

First, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up global coal and gas prices.

Second, about a quarter of coal power stations feeding the national grid were offline due to unplanned outages or maintenance. At times, renewable energy outputs also fell.

All this caused wholesale electricity prices to surge, which prompted AEMO to impose a cap on prices. The capped price was less than it costs some plants to generate power, prompting them to withdraw their capacity from the market. The situation became impossible for AEMO to manage so it stepped in to suspend the market indefinitely to prevent disastrous blackouts.

Generators must now supply the market with electricity and will be compensated for losses.

Public vs private

The national electricity market was created in 1998, and comprises electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retailers. It covers all states and territories except Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and delivers around 80% of the nation’s electricity.

Since the 1990s, state governments have tended to sell off power assets to private operators. The system is now privatised to varying degrees.

In Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, electricity supply is fully owned by state governments. In Queensland, the state government owns most of the electricity supply system and only the retail market has been privatised.

The electricity system is mostly privatised in Victoria and South Australia, and partially privatised in New South Wales. However, governments still regulate electricity prices in Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania and regional Queensland.

The energy market suspension isn’t the only energy crisis Australia has faced in recent times. In 2016, the South Australian power market – a mostly privatised system – was suspended for 13 days.

Energy supply and affordability crises in the national electricity market have increasingly coincided with growing private ownership.

Western Australia, which isn’t part of the national market and has a system featuring significant state intervention in gas supply, has avoided the energy crisis currently gripping the eastern states.

My research found privatisation can lead to improved energy market efficiency, but only if coupled with strong regulation of the sector. This suggests states with fully privatised energy markets should shift to more government involvement. It also suggests public-owned states should privatise some assets.

Nationalising isn’t a silver bullet. That’s because market outcomes are the best outcomes for consumers if the market is functioning well. Having competition is the best way to bring retail and wholesale costs down.

But if electricity prices are so high that some consumers can’t afford it, it’s the responsibility of government to provide electricity to them – through subsidies, for instance.

Read more:
What’s a grid, anyway? Making sense of the complex beast that is Australia’s electricity network

Markets and government should co-exist

Experience from energy markets overseas shows that for a complicated industry like electricity to work, markets and government policies should co-exist.

Chile’s power supplies were state-owned until 1982. Then, it became the first country in the world to adopt a competitive power sector by establishing a wholesale electricity market. Today, that market is well-functioning because energy prices tend to reflect the long-term costs of producing electricity.

The success of this privately owned system is due to strong government-initiated reforms. They include effective regulation of transmission and distribution networks, strengthening sector institutions and modifying auction rules in the wholesale market to encourage new bidders.

Chile has also become a renewable energy champion while having a privatised electricity system, because market reforms were supported by policies to promote clean energy.

Other Latin American countries with market-based electricity systems, such as Argentina, also allowed for varying degrees of government involvement to make the market work.

As climate change worsens and countries struggle to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, market-based electricity systems will become more difficult.

Everyone pays the cost of emissions in the form of global warming. But these costs aren’t factored into the costs of generating electricity. So without a carbon price, there’s little incentive for generators in an entirely privatised market to reduce their emissions.

The United Kingdom has recognised this. It has significantly intervened in the electricity market by introducing a mechanism to keep prices stable for consumers, and guaranteeing extra capacity in times of tight supply.

This helps to meet its climate change objectives by preventing supply shortfalls during the transition to renewables.

What lies ahead?

Australia’s National Electricity Market lacks the right balance between state and market.

The strong push towards the market that began in the early 1990s in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales now needs to be clawed back somewhat. And in Queensland and Tasmania where markets can be established, this should be done – with policies to support energy security and environmental sustainability.

The experience of the UK and Latin America with partly state-owned electricity systems suggests Australia should not be sceptical of such reforms.

Active government involvement in the electricity sector is necessary for Australia to meet its ambitious climate targets, but this doesn’t mean totally abandoning the power of market forces.

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

– ref. Should Australian governments nationalise the electricity sector? It’s not that simple – https://theconversation.com/should-australian-governments-nationalise-the-electricity-sector-its-not-that-simple-185203

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Bartlett, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle

Restrictions have eased, international borders are open and influenza is back in Australia after a two-year absence.

Suddenly, major flu outbreaks are occurring across the country, catching many off guard.

Flu vaccinations aim to protect against four influenza viruses that cause disease in humans (two subtypes from influenza A and two from influenza B).

But vaccine-mediated protection varies each year depending on how well the vaccine matches the disease-causing influenza viruses that are circulating at a given time. Vaccine effectiveness – a real-world measure based on the proportion of vaccinated people who still develop the flu – ranges from 16% to 60%.

However, it’s still important to get your flu shot. If you’ve been vaccinated and still get the flu, you’re less likely to get as sick.

Why it’s difficult to predict which subtypes will dominate

Of the four types of influenza viruses that exist in nature, two cause significant disease in humans: influenza A and influenza B.

The 2022 influenza vaccine is quadrivalent (targets four distinct viruses): two influenza A viruses (subtypes H3N2 and H1N1) and two influenza B viruses from distinct lineages.

Within each flu A subtype further genetic variation can arise, with mutations (known as genetic drift) generating many viral variants that are classified into “clades” and sub-clades.

H3N2 is particularly good at generating lots of diversity in this way. So predicting exactly which H3N2 virus to target in the vaccine is especially difficult.

Read more:
Should I get the 2022 flu vaccine? And how effective is it?

A key challenge for flu vaccines is the decision for which virus to target has to be made months ahead of time. The the H3N2 virus in the Australian flu vaccine (A/Darwin/9/2021) was chosen in September 2021 to enable the vaccine to be manufactured and distributed in time for the 2022 winter.

There is no guarantee a different H3N2 virus that isn’t so well targeted by the vaccine won’t arrive in the country in the months leading into winter and start causing disease.

Another factor that has made predicting which H3N2 virus to target in the vaccine uniquely difficult for 2022 is the lack of data on which viruses were dominant in the preceding flu seasons, both in Australia and on the other side of the Equator.

With travel restrictions easing towards the end of 2021, flu cases did start to reappear during the northern hemisphere 2021-22 winter. But the lack of flu cases during the preceding seasons (due to COVID) meant the data used to predict which viruses to target was inadequate.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) analysed data from more than 3,000 children and found a vaccine effectiveness of just 16% protection from mild to moderate disease from H3N2. Protection from more severe disease was just 14%.

We don’t know which subtypes will circulate in Australia

Data about flu vaccine effectiveness in the southern hemisphere 2022 winter isn’t yet available, and it’s unclear how protective the current vaccine is against the currently circulating disease-causing subtypes.

While H3N2 viruses appears to be driving some disease now, other flu viruses may become more prevalent later in the season.

The flu vaccine is a quadrivalent vaccine, so in addition to influenza A H3N2, it will protect against another influenza A subtype (H1N1) and two distinct lineages of influenza B virus. These viruses don’t change as rapidly as H3N2, so it’s more likely the vaccine will give better protection against these other influenza viruses.

Even if vaccine protection against H3N2 is lower than usual this year, the vaccine could make the difference between recovering at home versus ending up in hospital.

Read more:
Which flu shot should I choose? And what are cell-based and ‘adjuvanted’ vaccines?

So who should get a flu shot and when?

The flu vaccine offers the highest level of protection in the first three to four months months after vaccination. The season generally peaks between June and September – although this year we have seen a much earlier than usual start to the flu season. It’s unclear whether this early start will mean a longer flu season or an early finish. So it’s not too late to get vaccinated.

Flu vaccines are recommended for everyone aged six months and over, but are particularly important for people who are more at risk of complications from influenza, including:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged six months and over
• children aged six months to five years
• pregnant women
• people aged 65 years or over
• people aged six months or over who have medical conditions that mean they have a higher risk of getting serious disease.

What if you still get the flu?

If you develop flu symptoms, isolate and see your GP for an influenza PCR test to determine whether you are indeed infected with influenza, particularly if you’re in the higher-risk groups.

Specific antivirals for influenza can help, if given early. To ensure rapid access to particularly vulnerable aged-care residents, aged-care facilities are being stocked with the flu antiviral drug Tamiflu.

In New South Wales, free drive-through clinics now offer testing for influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. Other states and territories may follow.

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

– ref. Why can you still get influenza if you’ve had a flu shot? – https://theconversation.com/why-can-you-still-get-influenza-if-youve-had-a-flu-shot-184327

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

You wouldn’t know it from the torrential rains that have inundated large parts of New South Wales and Queensland this year, but average late-autumn rainfall over southeast Australia has declined significantly since the 1990s.

Less rain in these areas is an expected consequence of global warming. In both the northern and southern hemispheres, the paths of the weather systems that bring rain in the middle latitudes have been moving away from the equator and towards the poles.

Read more:
Australia’s dry June is a sign of what’s to come

We studied in detail the drop in rainfall during April and May in southeast Australia, and found it is just one consequence of far-reaching changes in the behaviour of high-altitude winds over Australia.

Jet streams

These high-altitude winds are called jet streams: narrow bands of rapidly flowing air that typically occur at altitudes around the cruising height of commercial passenger aircraft. In April and May, the westerly jet stream over southeast Australia normally splits into a northern branch (called the subtropical jet) and a southern branch (called the polar-front jet).

Since the mid 1990s, the location of this split has moved and the speeds of the winds involved have also changed. We found these changes, which are related to global warming, are responsible for a decrease in the number of low-pressure systems bringing rain to southeast Australia.

The maps you might see on weather apps or TV forecasts usually show what’s going on at ground level: high- and low-pressure systems, cold fronts, and so on. However, these ground-level systems are largely driven by the jet streams and related atmospheric processes.

Humidity and rotation

As well as the changes in the jet stream, there are two other important changes reducing rainfall in the early cool season.

First, the air over parts of inland southeast Australia has become significantly drier since the 1990s.

And second, areas of strongly rotating air have moved further east and south, over the Tasman Sea.

Both humidity and air rotation are important contributors to the development of low-pressure areas that bring rain. As a result of these changes, there has been a significant decrease in late autumn rainfall in southeast Australia.

The bigger picture

Much of the variation in rainfall from year to year depends on the phase of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a large-scale climate phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean. When this is in one phase, called La Niña, eastern Australia experiences lower temperatures and higher rainfall – in the opposite phase, El Niño, it’s the other way around.

In the absence of La Niña years, and particularly groups of repeat La Niña events such as those of 2010–12 and 2020–22, we have seen extreme droughts following dry summers and dry late-autumn periods.

Read more:
Droughts and flooding rains: it takes three oceans to explain Australia’s wild 21st-century weather

Changes in the atmospheric circulation, especially in the jet stream location and strength, have contributed to the multiple-year droughts we have seen since the 1990s, namely, the periods 1997–2007 and 2017–2019. For example, rain-bearing “east coast lows” are often forming further south, and there are fewer cut-off low pressure systems over inland southeast Australia.

Unfavourable winds

The effects of drought at ground level are easy to see.

The drought periods since 1997 have killed huge numbers of river fish, reduced the viability of broad acre and pastoral farming and other economic industries, and reduced river flows and sustainable access to water in many areas. In a future warming climate, these drought periods are expected to continue.

However, changes to the jet stream also have less obvious effects at higher altitudes. In particular, these changes have implications for air transport.

Changes in speed, location and structure of jet streams will mean planes will use more fuel on many routes, including in Australia. Less favourable winds, and an increase in sudden “clear-air turbulence”, will increase aviation fuel consumption.

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.

– ref. Changes in the jet stream are steering autumn rain away from southeast Australia – https://theconversation.com/changes-in-the-jet-stream-are-steering-autumn-rain-away-from-southeast-australia-184649

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Odhran O’Brien, PhD Candidate in History, The University of Western Australia

In a wealthy country like Australia, a time with no government schools seems unimaginable. But back in the 1840s, when the Sisters of Mercy opened the first seconadary school in Western Australia, there were only a few tiny private schools. Many children, particularly girls, received no formal education.

Women religious, or nuns, made education more accessible. Their way of life also offered one of few leadership opportunities for women.

These women demonstrated entrepreneurial and diplomatic skill while developing education in Australia. Their work required them to navigate hostile male hierarchies, religious discrimination, class struggles and complex relationships with Aboriginal peoples.

Historians have documented part of this story, but there is a way to go. In a country enamoured with egalitarianism, the lives of women religious speak of the broader historical reality of inequality.

Where did these women come from?

Religious orders consist of people living apart from society but as a community in accordance with the spiritual rule of their founder. Catherine McAuley (1778-1841) founded the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin when she opened the first House of Mercy dedicated to serving the poor, sick and uneducated.

Catherine’s approach to assisting Ireland’s burgeoning poor was radical. The community consisted of two classes of sisters. Choir sisters were educated, middle-class women and generally served as teachers. Lay sisters were poor and working class and operated the kitchen or laundry.

Ursula Frayne (1816-1885), who opened the first secondary school in Western Australia as well as schools in Victoria in the mid-19th century, had trained with McAuley. In 1845 Bishop John Brady visited the sisters’ Dublin convent and requested the mother superior send six sisters to Western Australia with Frayne as the leader.

While sailing to Western Australia aboard The Elizabeth, a member of the missionary group travelling with Bishop Brady was a young French monk, Leandre Fonteinne, who ominously noted:

“His Lordship is only concerned […] for the six women religious that he is bringing along with us. They are and for quite a number of years to come will be a burden to the mission.”

What did they do in Australia?

After arriving in Perth, in 1846 the sisters became the first female religious teaching order to establish a school in Australia. Having navigated sectarism in Ireland, they decided to offer a general education to all Christians. The sisters prioritised Aboriginal people, immigrant Irish orphan girls, the poor and the uneducated. The sisters established a fee-paying school, benevolent institution and Western Australia’s first high school.

Coming from a prosperous Dublin family, Frayne was class-conscious but the distinction between choir and lay nuns was unsustainable in colonial Perth. Relying on the bishop was not an option that would allow them to progress their enterprise.

For these women to be self-sufficient, everyone had to do domestic duties. Frayne herself became a baker.

Although Bishop Brady promised financial support, in 1850 Frayne travelled to Colombo, Malta, Rome, Florence, Paris, England and Ireland to raise funds. In March 1851, she returned to Perth with £450. She gave £157 to the bishop, who was broke.

By 1853 the nuns could afford a new £800 school building. As the sisters’ workload increased, they applied to Dublin for “strong” lay sisters.

Two of the longest-serving lay sisters sent from Dublin were Catherine O’Reilly and Catherine Strahan. O’Reilly filled multiple roles, including carpenter. She was eventually promoted to choir sister and helped to establish schools at locations such as Geraldton.

Strahan’s trajectory was different. Strahan was a lay sister at 30 and provided essential services to the convent kitchen and laundry until she died at 67.

In 1857, Frayne moved to Melbourne to establish a new school as Brady’s replacement as bishop, Joseph Serra, frequently interfered in the order’s leadership. Frayne felt much of his interference unneccessary. Such interference peaked in Queensland, where the Sisters of Mercy had established the state’s first secondary school for girls. The local bishop withheld part of their government salary and exposed them to undernourishment and an early death.

Undeniably important yet curiously anonymous

Women religious operated significant educational enterprises. Historian Stephanie Burley considers female Irish teaching orders as an empire within the British Empire. Their classes bridged the political, religious and cultural norms of the Irish Catholic Church and the British Empire, acting as a pacifying force between the two spheres.

Unfortunately, as historian Colin Barr notes:

“Unfortunately, historians have too often seen these women as an undifferentiated mass, undeniably important yet curiously anonymous. Yet [they] were not merely the passive transmitters of male ideas or initiatives.”

As a leader, Frayne has been the subject of biographies. However, Catherine O’Reilly and Catherine Strahan remained cloistered.

The women who laboured in domestic roles in religious communities deserve greater attention. Although historians are increasingly showing interest in the broader role of women religious in Australian society, aspects of their influence remain opaque.

Odhran O’Brien is affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth as the archivist.

– ref. Religious women set up some of Australia’s first schools, but their history remains veiled – https://theconversation.com/religious-women-set-up-some-of-australias-first-schools-but-their-history-remains-veiled-177135

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fergus Green, Lecturer in Political Theory and Public Policy, UCL

In the wake of the Green and teal wave that crashed through the federal Parliament, attention has inevitably turned to what the new cross-benchers will say and do about climate policy. So far, attention has focused on Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target, and whether they will pressure the new Labor Government to increase its relatively unambitious) target, to which it has now formally committed.

There’s a much more important question to ask. That is, how will any new target actually be reached. The history of Australian climate policy — under both Labor and Coalition governments — shows us very clearly that our large and powerful fossil fuel industry and its political clients are adept at devising “innovative” ways to ensure targets are achieved without obstructing the Lemming-like march toward ever more coal and gas production.

Cynical? Hardly. We’ve met previous targets not by shrinking the fossil fuel industry, but through accounting tricks using inscrutable “land sector abatement”. The Morrison Government took this to new levels, allowing its signature “Emissions Reduction Fund” to become a super-generator of dodgy offsets and a figleaf for the expansion of the gas industry. Our previous government even projected it would meet its 2050 net zero emissions target through a combination of business as usual and unspecified “technological breakthroughs”. Australians are now paying the price in not only climatic terms, but also financial terms, for being too dependent on polluting methane gas and on electricity produced from ageing, unreliable and even-more-polluting coal-fired power generators.

Both teal independents and Greens have built their reputations on restoring integrity to politics. This gives them a mandate to scrutinise accounting rules, offset methodologies and assumptions behind whatever target Labor sets. That’s a start. But to foster climate politics based on integrity, they’ll have to go much further to get to the root of the problem.

We need a reckoning

First, we need an honest conversation about the extent to which the fossil fuel industry has captured Australian politics and wider society, and how this has crippled our response to the climate crisis.

To expose the depth of our gas, oil and coal industry’s influence on public perceptions and elite institutions such as political parties, the media, and virtually every aspect of government — from international diplomacy to the school curriculum – would require something like a royal commission.

Read more:
The teal independents want to hold government to account. That starts with high-quality information

In recent years, investigations have been launched into the fossil fuel industry’s knowledge and practices around climate change by investigative bodies ranging from the Massachusetts Attorney General to the Philippines Human Rights Commission. In the Massachusetts case, the Attorney-General’s three-year investigation of oil giant Exxon Mobil was followed by a lawsuit against the company, which is ongoing.

Investigating the practices and influence of Australia’s fossil fuel industry would lead naturally into a discussion of what can and must be done to restore integrity to our democracy — from bans on fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship to restrictions on lobbying, donations, and revolving-door and “golden escalator” relationships.

We could look to Victoria’s pioneering approach to tobacco in the 1980s, including banning tobacco advertising and promotion and buying out tobacco sponsorships from sports and arts bodies.

A principled phase-out

Integrity is not only about honesty but also upholding moral principles. A principled approach to fossil fuel production is sorely needed. Australia is among the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels.

The emissions burned overseas from the coal and methane gas we export dwarf the emissions produced within our borders. Our political leaders have long hidden behind claims that these exported emissions are the responsibility of the importing country. Never mind that we put the weight of our foreign and trade policy behind cultivating overseas demand for our fossil fuels. You might have also heard the drug dealer’s defence of “if we don’t export the coal and gas, someone else will.” All of these are hypocritical and opportunistic excuses – the opposite of adhering to moral principles.

Taking a principled stand means taking responsibility for problems to which we contribute, or that we have the power to redress, regardless of whether others are acting wrongfully. It’s not beyond us. In other areas, successive Australian governments have performed admirably in taking a stand on issues from nuclear disarmament to the mining of asbestos. We stopped doing dangerous things like mining asbestos because they were wrong, and we used our diplomatic weight to persuade other countries to follow suit.

If Australia was to regain its moral compass on fossil fuels, we wouldn’t be acting alone. A number of governments recently formed the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance, which commits them to stop issuing new oil and gas exploration and production licences and to phase out existing oil and gas production on a timeframe aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Other governments, including New Zealand and California, have taken significant steps in that direction.

In this spirit, I hope the teal independents join the Greens in championing an end to fossil fuel subsidies and a ban on new coal and gas projects. Not only is a ban the principled thing to do, but it will help protect existing fossil fuel jobs for a transition period while governments plan a managed phase-out of the industry.

Phasing out this industry must happen while putting communities first and while amplifying the voices of those in the community already working to forge a future beyond fossil fuels. Fortuitously, the teal independents know a thing or two about community-building.

Read more:
The ultra-polluting Scarborough-Pluto gas project could blow through Labor’s climate target – and it just got the green light

Fergus Green receives funding for some of his research from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). He is a member of the Just Transition Taskforce of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, an intergovernmental body.

– ref. Australia has a once in a lifetime opportunity to break the stranglehold fossil fuels have on our politics – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-a-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-to-break-the-stranglehold-fossil-fuels-have-on-our-politics-184748

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Scollay, Honorary Associate Professor of Economics, University of Auckland

The frequent use of the term “shared values” to describe developments in the Pacific tends to obscure a distinct shift in New Zealand and Australian relations with their Pacific partners over the past two decades.

This shift has seen a move away from ready acceptance by Pacific nations of policy prescriptions reflecting “developed country” priorities, towards a greater insistence on New Zealand and Australian support for policies generated by those Pacific partners themselves.

This shift has now been recognised by New Zealand’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, and more recently by Australia’s new foreign minister, Penny Wong, during her visit to New Zealand last week, giving credibility to a renewed Australian focus on the “Pacific family”.

Perhaps the most obvious expression of those Pacific priorities and values relates to climate change. This existential challenge to island nations has been given the highest priority by Pacific governments, but has also been by far the most divisive factor in recent Australia and New Zealand relations with the Pacific.

Successive Australian leaders have refused to consider commitments to climate change policies that Pacific countries see as critical to their long-term survival. Australian officials have worked to weaken the outcomes of international climate change conferences.

Frustrated by Australia’s resistance to using the Pacific Islands Forum to demand more meaningful action on climate change, Pacific countries have felt compelled to seek participation in other international groups and forums where their priorities could be unambiguously advanced.

Against this background, Wong’s post-election dash to Fiji was a necessary and timely “save”. Her catch-cry of “we have heard you and we are listening” crucially signalled a coming change in Australia’s climate change stance.

A new regional convergence on climate change policy will remove a major irritant from Pacific relations and create a solid foundation for the partnership’s future. But ongoing commitment by Australia and New Zealand to climate change policies that are fit for purpose will be essential for its durability.

Fiji’s growing influence

Fiji’s evolving position has been an important factor in the widening of Pacific states’ international relations.

Following the 2006 coup, Fiji reacted to tensions with Australia and New Zealand by aggressively pursuing a “Look North” policy. It intensified trade and development partnerships with East Asian and other non-Western states (including China) and pressured other Pacific governments to follow its lead.

Read more:
Pacific Island nations will no longer stand for Australia’s inaction on climate change

While Fiji eventually moved away from its adversarial stance towards Australia and New Zealand, the legacy of that policy remains, in expanded connections with China and other non-Western countries.

In recent years, relations between New Zealand and Fiji have been progressively normalised. This is reflected, for example, in Fiji’s participation along with New Zealand and other partners in the proposed Agreement on Climate Change Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS). It was further cemented by New Zealand’s support for Fiji’s COVID vaccine rollout.

Read more:
After many false dawns, Australians finally voted for stronger climate action. Here’s why this election was different

In the meantime, Fiji has engaged energetically in international climate change diplomacy, positioning itself as a global champion of the Pacific’s priorities. This has enhanced its leadership credentials among Pacific Island Forum members, further amplified this year by its status as forum chair.

The visits to Fiji earlier this year by New Zealand cabinet ministers Peeni Henare and Nanaia Mahuta, and the resulting Duavata Declaration, reflected both the realities of the renewed partnership and the modern regional role of both countries.

Understanding China’s misstep

China’s recent failure to secure Pacific nations’ support for its proposed agreement on regional governance and security was greeted with relief by observers in New Zealand.

Read more:
To meet the Chinese challenge in the Pacific, NZ needs to put its money where its mouth is

But it’s important to recognise that failure was also a salutary demonstration of Pacific governments’ insistence that policies affecting the region must be based on decisions by those governments themselves, reflecting their own priorities.

New Zealand has been wise to recognise this and allow space for regional governments to build consensus on relevant issues ahead of the coming meeting of Pacific Island Forum leaders.

Read more:
Labor’s proposed Pacific labour scheme reforms might be good soft diplomacy but will it address worker exploitation?

Progress needed on labour mobility

Looking to the future, the greatest potential contribution New Zealand can make to Pacific development lies in the expansion and broadening of labour mobility arrangements with Pacific partners. This has the added advantage that China will not realistically be able to match such arrangements.

The impact of Pacific seasonal workers’ absence during the pandemic highlighted their importance to the New Zealand economy.

Consultation should now take place both internally and with Pacific partners to design and implement an expanded range of labour mobility arrangements that both support Pacific development aspirations and deliver an economic benefit to New Zealand.

During the recent Australian election campaign, both major parties indicated their intention to move ahead on this issue. It’s one area – among others – where New Zealand should not be seen to lag behind.

Robert Scollay 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.

– ref. A New Pacific Reset? Why NZ must prioritise climate change and labour mobility – https://theconversation.com/a-new-pacific-reset-why-nz-must-prioritise-climate-change-and-labour-mobility-185204

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

In Tuesday’s budget, NSW will announce a switch from stamp duty to land tax.

It will become the second Australian jurisdiction to do so, with the ACT halfway through a 20-year switchover.

Homebuyers who accept the offer will be taxed annually on the value of their land, instead of hit with an upfront fee (that averaged $50,000 for Sydney in 2018) when they buy.

Once they have accepted, their property will be out of the stamp duty system and subject only to land tax for future owners.

It’s become conventional wisdom to say that such a revenue-neutral switch would boost productivity.

Why? Moving house sets in motion a chain of transactions: residents engage lawyers to transfer titles, real estate agents to manage the property sale, removalists to transport possessions, and so on.

Stamp duties compound these costs, by adding a significant, additional layer of taxation, which in some states makes up 80% of the total cost of moving house.

Land tax, in contrast, is one of the least-damaging taxes. It encourages land owners to put land to its highest-value use.

Read more:
Abolish stamp duty. The ACT shows the rest of us how to tax property

In a landmark modelling exercise completed this month, my team at the Victoria University Centre of Policy Studies finds that the productivity gains are large by the standards of tax swaps.

After 20 years, replacing stamp duty with a land tax would boost national income by A$0.30 for each dollar of revenue swapped, or up to $720 per household if implemented Australia-wide, about 0.34% of annual gross domestic product.

Of greater interest for homeowners and buyers is what it would do to prices.

Houses versus apartments

Broadly, we find that the switch would put downward pressure on prices, but not for every type of home.

Across the market as a whole, we expect downward pressure on the price paid by buyers of about 4.7%, and downward pressure on the price received by sellers of about 0.1%.

But for houses, we expect much stronger downward pressure than the average suggests.

We expect the price paid by house buyers to fall by about 7.6%, and the price received by sellers to fall 3%.

Interestingly, for apartments we expect movements in the other direction, pushing up the price paid by buyers by 2%, and pushing up the price received by sellers by 6.4%.

What’s so different about apartments?

Why would the switch put downward pressure on the price of houses but upward pressure on the price of apartments?

It is because of how two offsetting effects play out.

One is that higher land taxes depress land prices. Buyers who know they will be lumbered with future bills find their purchases less valuable. This effect is much bigger on house prices than apartment prices, because houses occupy more land on average.

Read more:
Axing stamp duty is a great idea, but NSW is doing it wrong

The other effect is that removing stamp duty not only removes an impost on the current buyer, but also removes an impost that will have to be paid when the current buyer sells, and when the subsequent buyer sells, and so on, making resale more valuable to the current buyer than it would have been.

For properties that aren’t turned over often this effect isn’t very important, but for properties that are turned over frequently, it becomes significant.

Apartments are turned over twice as frequently as houses, meaning that for apartments the upward effect on prices from removing stamp duty overwhelms the downward effect from imposing land tax.

Much depends on exactly what’s proposed

It would be possible to lessen this upward pressure on apartment prices by imposing higher land taxes on higher density housing, an idea canvassed by the Henry Tax Review in 2010. Planning and zoning rules could also play a role.

Other policy design decisions could have other effects on prices. Our modelling is based on an immediate swap of stamp duty for land tax.

This is not the same as the NSW government’s opt-in proposal, which could have different price consequences to the policy we modelled.

Read more:
Finding the losers (and surprising winners) from phasing out stamp duty

The NSW government is also reported to be considering excluding the most expensive 20% of properties from the switchover, so it can continue to collect stamp duties on high-value transfers.

In future work we plan to extend our modelling beyond a simple swap of stamp duty and land tax.

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

– ref. Swapping stamp duty for land tax would push down house prices but push up apartment prices, new modelling finds – https://theconversation.com/swapping-stamp-duty-for-land-tax-would-push-down-house-prices-but-push-up-apartment-prices-new-modelling-finds-184381

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zofia Bednarz, Lecturer in Commercial Law, University of Sydney

What if your insurer was tracking your online data to price your car insurance? Seems far-fetched, right?

Yet there is predictive value in the digital traces we leave online. And insurers may use data collection and analytics tools to find our data and use it to price insurance services.

For instance, some studies have found a correlation between whether an individual uses an Apple or Android phone and their likelihood of exhibiting certain personality traits.

In one example, US insurance broker Jerry analysed the driving behaviour of some 20,000 people to conclude Android users are safer drivers than iPhone users. What’s stopping insurers from referring to such reports to price their insurance?

Our latest research shows Australian consumers have no real control over how data about them, and posted by them, might be collected and used by insurers.

Looking at several examples from customer loyalty schemes and social media, we found insurers can access vast amounts of consumer data under Australia’s weak privacy laws.

Your data is already out there

Insurers are already using big data to price consumer insurance through personalised pricing, according to evidence gathered by industry regulators in the United Kingdom, European Union and United States.

Consumers often “agree” to all kinds of data collection and privacy policies, such as those used in loyalty schemes (who doesn’t like freebies?) and by social media companies. But they have no control over how their data are used once it’s handed over.

There are far-reaching inferences that can be drawn from data collected through loyalty programs and social media platforms – and these may be uncomfortable, or even highly sensitive.

Researchers using data analytics and machine learning have claimed to build models that can guess a person’s sexual orientation from pictures of their face, or their suicidal tendencies from posts on Twitter.

Think about all the details revealed from a grocery shopping history alone: diet, household size, addictions, health conditions and social background, among others. In the case of social media, a user’s posts, pictures, likes, and links to various groups can be used to draw a precise picture of that individual.

What’s more is Australia has a Consumer Data Right which already requires banks to share consumers’ banking data (at the consumer’s request) with another bank or app, such as to access a new service or offer.

The regime is actively being expanded to other parts of the economy including the energy sector, with the idea being competitors could use information on energy usage to make competitive offers.

The Consumer Data Right is advertised as empowering for consumers – enabling access to new services and offers, and providing people with choice, convenience and control over their data.

In practice, however, it means insurance firms accredited under the program can require you to share your banking data in exchange for insurance services.

The previous Coalition government also proposed “open finance”, which would expand the Consumer Data Right to include access to your insurance and superannuation data. This hasn’t happened yet, but it’s likely the new Albanese government will look into it.

À lire aussi :
Soft terms like ‘open’ and ‘sharing’ don’t tell the true story of your data

Why more data in insurers’ hands may be bad news

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about insurers collecting and using increasingly detailed data about people for insurance pricing and claims management.

For one, large-scale data collection provides incentives for cyber attacks. Even if data is held in anonymised form, it can be re-identified with the right tools.

Also, insurers may be able to infer (or at least think they can infer) facts about an individual which they want to keep private, such as their sexual orientation, pregnancy status or religious beliefs.

There’s plenty of evidence the outputs of artificial intelligence tools employed in mass data analytics can be inaccurate and discriminatory. Insurers’ decisions may then be based on misleading or untrue data. And these tools are so complex it’s often difficult to work out if, or where, errors or bias are present.

Although insurers are meant to pool risk and compensate the unlucky, some might use data to only offer affordable insurance to very low-risk people. Vulnerable consumers may face exclusion.

A more widespread use of data, especially via the Consumer Data Right, will especially disadvantage those who are unable or unwilling to share data with insurers. These people may be low risk, but if they can’t or won’t prove this, they’ll have to pay more than a fair price for their insurance cover.

They may even pay more than what they would have in a pre-Consumer Data Right world. So insurance may move further from a fair price when more personal data are available to insurance firms.

We need immediate action

Our previous research demonstrated that apart from anti-discrimination laws, there are inadequate constraints on how insurers are allowed to use consumers’ data, such as those taken from online sources.

The more insurers base their assessments on data a consumer didn’t directly provide, the harder it will be for that person to understand how their “riskiness” is being assessed. If an insurer requests your transaction history from the last five years, would you know what they are looking for? Such problems will be exacerbated by the expansion of the Consumer Data Right.

Interestingly, insurance firms themselves might not know how collected data translates into risk for a specific consumer. If their approach is to simply feed data into a complex and opaque artificial intelligence system, all they’ll know is they’re getting a supposedly “better” risk assessment with more data.

Recent reports of retailers collecting shopper data for facial recognition have highlighted how important it is for the Albanese government to urgently reform our privacy laws, and take a close look at other data laws, including proposals to expand the Consumer Data Right.

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Hidden costs, manipulation, forced continuity: report reveals how Australian consumers are being duped online

Zofia Bednarz receives funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society.

Kayleen Manwaring receives funding from the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law & Innovation.

Kimberlee Weatherall receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society, and a Fellow with the Gradient Institute.

– ref. Insurance firms can skim your online data to price your insurance — and there’s little in the law to stop this – https://theconversation.com/insurance-firms-can-skim-your-online-data-to-price-your-insurance-and-theres-little-in-the-law-to-stop-this-185038

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patricia A. O’Brien, Faculty Member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; Visiting Fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University; Adjunct Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC., Georgetown University

Foreign Minister Penny Wong was no doubt expecting a cooler reception than her three previous visits to the Pacific when she touched down in Honiara last Friday.
The Solomon Islands government website had not even listed the Australian minister’s visit – but it did note the first visit of a Saudi Arabian tourism minister, happening the same day. With this visit, Wong walked a diplomatic tightrope that no senior minister in the previous government appeared willing to.

Solomon Islands leaders have had a very crowded schedule of late, as highlighted by the Solomon Star newspaper. It said Wong was the latest foreign figure to arrive on Solomon Island shores after a number of “high-level visits from USA, Japan and China recently, before and after the signing of the security pact”.

The security pact in question is the one signed on April 20 between China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Solomon Islands’ foreign minister, Jeremiah Manele. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare explained the riots of November 2021 left his government with “no option” but to enter into such a security agreement to “plug the gaps that exist in our security agreement with Australia”. What these “gaps” are, he did not say.

Since that signing, the entire Pacific has shifted in myriad ways. Wong has been very busy in her first month in office trying to reduce its impact.

Read more:
Saying China ‘bought’ a military base in the Solomons is simplistic and shows how little Australia understands power in the Pacific

She has had some wins with Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Also, Australia assisted with the rapprochement at the Pacific Islands Forum, which has emerged reinvigorated after the stress test of the past year, when one-third of the members threatened to leave. This was averted with a special meeting in Suva on June 7, with Micronesian leaders transported to it on Australian planes.

The biggest win so far, for which Wong can take some credit, was for her work in advance of the Pacific Islands Forum meeting on May 30. Here, the ten nations that recognise China did not collectively sign on to become “China-Pacific Island countries”. (Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuleo rallied the region with a stirring letter that instantly became a classic text.)

A whirlwind multi-nation visit by Wang before and after the May 30 meeting added inducements for working more closely with China through numerous bilateral agreements.

Wang spent the most time on his trip in the Solomon Islands. The effect of his effusive welcome by Sogavare, encapsulated in the photograph of the pair linking arms, denoted the “iron-clad” ties the two leaders were cementing between their nations.

In addition to the game-changing Framework Security Agreement, the Solomon Islands and China “achieved eight-point consensus” during Wang’s visit.

This is a template agreement Wang has already shopped around Asia in 2021, tweaked for national specificities and concerns. In the case of the Solomon Islands, it mentions working together on “climate change” and “marine protection”.

Given all that China has offered Sogavare and his political allies – to the great detriment of the nation according to Opposition Leader Matthew Wale, who has charged the security deal is “a personal deal to protect the prime minister” – what could Penny Wong offer?

Read more:
On the Pacific, the new government must be bold and go big. Here’s how the repair work could begin

On her visits to Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, not being a member of the Morrison government that clung to its coal power and climate policies gave Wong a lot of mileage. This is the most important issue facing the region, recently reiterated in an impassioned speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue by Fiji’s minister for defence and policing, Inia Bakikoto Seruiratu. The Solomon Islands is no exception.

That said, not being a Morrison government minister did not get Wong very far in Honiara. As she had signalled she would), Wong announced more vaccines donations and an expansion of the very popular (and desperately needed) labour scheme, the topic on which she got the most questions at her press conference.

She also visited a school and lunched with women leaders), who would have raised the dire need for improved medical facilities). Notably, it seems Wong did not meet Wale and other Sogavare opponents.

Very subtly, Wong presented an alternative to the China path. Unlike Wang’s visit, which greatly restricted press coverage, Wong encouraged it, no doubt hoping word would spread as it reportedly) had in other parts of the Pacific.

But what about “our shared security interests”, as Wong termed it? This got little traction in Honiara as Sogavare will not walk back from the China-Solomon Islands agreement. On the election campaign trail, Wong described the pact as “the worst foreign policy blunder since world war two”.

Many anticipate China will build a naval base, as appears to be happening in Cambodia). However, Sogavare has assured Wong, and others, this will not occur. What may happen is that maritime militias appearing as fishing vessels, which China has used to great effect in the South China Sea, will slowly build a China military presence if there is not a change of leadership and direction in the Solomon Islands.

The recent “dangerous” confrontation between a Chinese fighter jet and an Australian airforce plane in the South China Sea on May 26, the day Wong began her visit to Fiji, is another sobering instance of tactics that might move south.

While Wong’s visit did not deliver big wins, it did not make things worse. She got reassurances, but given what Sogavare has signed onto with China of late, there is a clear lack of connection between words and deeds. What Wong did do is signal another way forward for Sogavare’s considerable opposition.

In the coming week, a multilateral Pacific Islands effort will be announced in Washington DC that involves the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and France.

Given this, it is almost certain that the tempo of visits to the Solomon Islands and other Pacific nations is going to rise.

Patricia A. O’Brien received funding from the Australian Research Council as a Future Fellow, the Jay I. Kislak Fellowship at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. and New Zealand’s JD Stout Trust.

– ref. In the Solomon Islands, Wong takes first tentative steps in repairing a strained relationship – https://theconversation.com/in-the-solomon-islands-wong-takes-first-tentative-steps-in-repairing-a-strained-relationship-185200

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Hitch, Senior Lecturer in Occupational Therapy, Deakin University

Disadvantaged communities not only suffer disproportionately from COVID, they are even more likely to be impacted by the cascading effects of long COVID.

With a new federal government, now is the time to engage in transformative planning to address a range of societal issues, including the impact of the pandemic on the most disadvantaged Australians.

We outline three policy areas to address the impact of long COVID on disadvantaged communities.

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Australia is failing marginalised people, and it shows in COVID death rates

Disadvantaged communities already at risk

The greater impact of pandemics on disadvantaged communities was recognised before COVID.

Along with medical risks such as obesity, these communities already contended with social risks such as poverty, unhealthy environments and disability.

The interaction between these risks produces sustained and multiplied disadvantage, compounding existing barriers to health care and other supports.

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Pandemic pain remains as Australia’s economic recovery leaves the poor behind

Then came COVID

While the pandemic has taken a toll on everyone, there is growing international evidence of greater effects on disadvantaged communities.

Communities with greater insecure employment, housing density and linguistic diversity recorded a higher incidence of COVID infections.

Risk factors for poorer clinical outcomes from COVID – such as hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes and respiratory disorders – are also more common in disadvantaged communities.

While many developed countries achieved good vaccine uptake, studies report greater vaccine inequity and hesitancy in these communities.

Low-paid, precarious, essential and manual workers also struggled to adhere to stay-at-home orders and social distancing in the face of food and financial insecurity.

All these factors – some in place before COVID, some new – contribute to a higher risk of COVID for disadvantaged communities. That’s even before we start considering the impact of long COVID.

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As lockdowns ease, vaccination disparities risk further entrenching disadvantage

How about long COVID?

Most people with COVID make a full recovery. But for some, symptoms linger. The World Health Organization defines long COVID as new, persistent or fluctuating symptoms present three months after COVID infection, lasting at least two months, and not attributable to other diagnoses.

Globally, 43% of people with COVID have ongoing symptoms affecting daily life six months after infection. Fatigue and memory problems are the most commonly reported of the diverse symptoms linked to long COVID. However, an Australian study of long COVID estimated 5% of people have symptoms after three months.

So we need to learn more why these percentages differ.

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Fatigue after COVID is way more than just feeling tired. 5 tips on what to do about it

Long COVID hits disadvantaged communities harder

In addition to the higher risk of exposure to COVID in the first place, disadvantaged communities lack accessible services and resources to support full recovery.

You can see how issues such as the rising cost of living and the lack of sick pay for casual workers can have a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged people who need to
return to work before they are fully recovered.

In disadvantaged communities, there are also more barriers to accessing health care, excluding people already experiencing disadvantage.

For example, we know asylum seekers and undocumented migrants have experienced worse mental health, social isolation and access to health care than other groups during the pandemic.

While telehealth has opened up access for some, it increases barriers for others.

Geographical location is also a barrier for many Australians with long COVID, with most specialist clinics in metropolitan health services.

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Five tips for young people dealing with long COVID – from a GP

A growing problem

The human and financial costs associated with the complex disadvantage resulting from COVID (and long COVID) are vast.

One analysis estimated there would be up to 60,000–133,000 long COVID cases as Australia eased restrictions.

Analyses by the Bank of England and the United States Brookings Institute flag long COVID as a significant factor in future labour shortages.

However, we have few mechanisms to measure and track any impacts. Even putting an accurate figure on the number of COVID cases is difficult due to the greater reliance on rapid antigen tests, rather than PCR tests.

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We calculated the impact of ‘long COVID’ as Australia opens up. Even without Omicron, we’re worried

What needs to happen next?

The relationship between long COVID and disadvantage is a collision between two highly complex issues. With new variants and reinfections, long COVID will be with us for years, further increasing an already complex (or “wicked”) problem.

However, we are yet to see leadership from local, state and territory, and federal governments on this issue.

Disadvantaged communities (particularly those most affected) are yet to be mobilised, to identify and tackle the local problems most affecting their recovery from COVID. Policies to tackle the disproportionate impact on them are yet to be developed.

These three actions would make a meaningful impact on health equity for everyone with long COVID.

1. Measure and track the issue

We urgently need high-quality data on long COVID to understand the trajectory and duration of recovery, and its interdependence with social determinants of health, for example, living in rural/remote Australia or being unemployed.

Investment in nationwide standardised data collection would enable targeted support for the communities that need it most.

2. Acknowledge diversity and intersectionality

A reductionist approach to long COVID or disadvantage that targets single aspects of someone’s identity will not work.

That’s because long COVID symptoms can be multiple and diverse, affecting all body systems. People may also experience multiple layers of disadvantage. So an “intersectional” approach acknowledges how various factors – such as health, poverty, gender or visa status – interplay.

3. Work with disadvantaged communities

Disadvantaged communities are the ones most affected by long COVID. So
any policy needs to be developed with their meaningful involvement.

People know what tangible outcomes would work best (or fail) in their community. So it’s crucial to have this input if we are to make real improvements.

This story is part of The Conversation’s Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Evelyne de Leeuw receives funding from CIHR (the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the equivalent of NHMRC) for research into financial strain during the pandemic. The relevant resources have not paid her personally.

Aryati Yashadhana ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. First, COVID hit disadvantaged communities harder. Now, long COVID delivers them a further blow – https://theconversation.com/first-covid-hit-disadvantaged-communities-harder-now-long-covid-delivers-them-a-further-blow-183908

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ralph Sims, Emeritus Professor, Energy and Climate Mitigation, Massey University

After decades of avoiding inclusion in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), New Zealand’s primary production sector has begrudgingly acknowledged that reducing on-farm emissions of greenhouse gases is an imperative.

Charged by the government with developing a pricing mechanism and strategy as an acceptable alternative to joining the ETS in 2025 under the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, the sector finally released its proposal earlier this month.

Called He Waka Eke Noa, the partnership involves Federated Farmers, Dairy NZ, Sheep and Beef NZ, Horticulture NZ, the Foundation for Arable Research and the Federation of Māori Authorities.

Their recommendations have now been submitted to the government, which has until the end of this year to consider its options. However, numerous uncertainties surround the scheme, which will need to be addressed if it’s to work properly.

Farm emissions still rising

Since opposing a previous Labour government’s so-called “fart tax” in 2003, many farmers and their representative organisations have resisted inclusion in the ETS while also calling for government assistance to help cope with the impacts of climate change.

In 2015, Federated Farmers claimed voluntary levies had reduced emissions per unit of meat and milk produced by 1.3% a year since 1990 (achieving similar objectives to those of the loathed “fart tax”).

Regardless of these industry and government initiatives, however, annual agricultural emissions have risen 15%, from 34.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (emissions of all greenhouse gas added together) in 1990 to 39.4 million tonnes in 2020 (the latest available data) with no signs of decline.

Read more:
Air of compromise: NZ’s Emissions Reduction Plan reveals a climate budget that’s long on planning, short on strategy

He Waka Eke Noa recommends all agriculture and horticulture businesses above a certain size should be registered and encouraged to calculate their annual emissions. This will include both short-lived biogenic methane from ruminants and long-lived nitrous oxide from soils, as well as carbon dioxide from fertiliser manufacture (though fossil fuel emissions aren’t included).

A split-gas levy will then be charged, but at a much lower price per tonne than all other sectors are being charged under the ETS. The levy would increase each year, with its price determined by a “systems oversight board”.

Typically the annual levy, as proposed for a large dairy, sheep or beef farm, could exceed NZ$30,000, whereas it might be only $100 for an orchard, based on synthetic fertiliser use.

Doubts and uncertainties

In order to reduce their annual emissions and hence the levy paid, the intention is that farm businesses will have an incentive to use carbon mitigation technologies and introduce forest sinks on their property.

Fossil fuel energy inputs are already covered under the ETS so have been excluded. Unfortunately, this prohibits any incentives being applied for reducing diesel consumption by improving the efficiency of machinery, displacing coal and gas used for heating, or even generating renewable electricity from solar, wind, micro-hydro, crop residues or animal waste resources available on the farm.

He Waka Eke Noa analysis points to a reduction of agricultural emissions of just a few percent by 2030 from both the uptake of new technologies and farm forest sequestration.

Read more:
11,000 litres of water to make one litre of milk? New questions about the freshwater impact of NZ dairy farming

Assumed total administration costs of around $120 million to $130 million will be necessary to achieve an annual emissions reduction of about two million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 if successful. Such an annual reduction should be ongoing, although the levy prices charged are yet to be determined.

Therefore the overall cost measured in terms of dollars per tonne of carbon dioxide avoided, and the revenue to be obtained from the levy for investment in research and development, are not known.

There are numerous other uncertainties. What percentage of farm businesses will register, calculate their emissions and then dutifully pay the levy? What happens to those who don’t wish to take part? Who will monitor the accuracy of their annual submissions and using what methods?

It has been acknowledged that much trust in the farming community will be involved.

Unanswered questions

Furthermore, what happens when no more suitable, low-grade land is available for forest sequestration? Planting trees can only be a short-term measure to buy time before having to reduce domestic carbon emissions more stringently.

Under the ETS, the minimum land area for registering a forest sink is one hectare, so the carbon uptake can be measured and monitored. How will numerous small areas of trees on thousands of farms be monitored, and future carbon loss from harvesting, storm damage or fire accounted for?

Read more:
How NZ could become a world leader in decarbonisation using forestry and geothermal technology

Areas of mature indigenous forest are in carbon balance so they cannot sequester more carbon. However, if the trees have been damaged by stock or pests whose removal allows some regrowth, how will this be measured in practice?

Perhaps the main question to ask is, given the relatively low prices likely to be applied per tonne of emissions, how many mitigation technologies will prove economic to implement?

For example, if the 2030 levy price on methane is $15 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, whereas the cost of mitigation strategies (such as using seaweed additives in cow feed) comes in at $20, then why would a dairy farmer bother?

Read more:
The Groundswell protest claimed regulation and taxes are unfair to farmers – the economic numbers tell a different story

‘Dead rats’ to swallow

Ultimately for a farm business it will be a balancing act between costs and achieving emission reduction goals. As the Climate Change Commissioner has said:

Agricultural emissions pricing needs to achieve emissions reductions – but if implemented poorly it also has the potential to create financial hardship for farmers as they transition to low emissions.

And in the words of the president of Federated Farmers:

Like all of these types of agreements with many parties involved, there’s always going to be a couple of dead rats you have to swallow.

So whether the ministers of climate change and agriculture will swallow a dead rat or two and accept these industry recommendations – with all their uncertainties and lack of high ambition – remains to be seen.

Or will the primary sector be made to join the ETS after all? If so, the fart tax might have been a better outcome for farmers in the first place.

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

– ref. A new farming proposal to reduce carbon emissions involves a lot of trust – and a lot of uncertainty – https://theconversation.com/a-new-farming-proposal-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-involves-a-lot-of-trust-and-a-lot-of-uncertainty-185121

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arunima Malik, Senior Lecturer in Sustainability, University of Sydney

The desire by people in richer countries for a diverse range of out-of-season produce imported from overseas is driving up global greenhouse gas emissions, our new research has found.

It reveals how transporting food across and between countries generates almost one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector – and affluent countries make a disproportionately large contribution to the problem.

Although carbon emissions associated with food production are well documented, this is the most detailed study of its kind. We estimated the carbon footprint of the global trade of food, tracking a range of food commodities along millions of supply chains.

Since 1995, worldwide agricultural and food trade has more than doubled and internationally traded food provides 19% of calories consumed globally. It’s never been clearer that eating local produce is a powerful way to take action on climate change.

A web of food journeys

The concept of “food miles” is used to measure the distance a food item travels from where it’s produced to where it’s consumed. From that, we can assess the associated environmental impact or “carbon footprint”.

Globally, food is responsible for about 16 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year – or about 30% of total human-produced carbon emissions. The sources of food emissions include transport, land-use change (such as cutting down trees) and the production process.

Our study used an accounting framework we devised in an innovative platform called the FoodLab. It involved an unprecedented level of detail, spanning:

• 74 countries or regions
• 37 economic sectors
• four transport modes – water, rail, road and air
• more than 30 million trade connections: journeys of a single food from one place to another.

Read more:
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Our results

We found global food miles emissions were about 3 billion tonnes each year, or 19% of total food emissions. This is up to 7.5 times higher than previous estimates.

Some 36% of food transport emissions were caused by the global freight of fruit and vegetables – almost twice the emissions released during their production. Vegetables and fruit require temperature-controlled transport which pushes their food miles emissions higher.

Overall, high-income countries were disproportionate contributors to food miles emissions. They constitute 12.5% of the world’s population yet generate 46% of international food miles emissions.

A number of large and emerging economies dominate the world food trade. China, Japan, the United States and Eastern Europe are large net importers of food miles and emissions – showing food demand there is noticeably higher than what’s produced domestically.

The largest net exporter of food miles was Brazil, followed by Australia, India and Argentina. Australia is a primary producer of a range of fruits and vegetables that are exported to the rest of the world.

In contrast, low-income countries with about half the global population cause only 20% of food transport emissions.

Where to now?

To date, sustainable food research has largely focused on the emissions associated with meat and other animal-derived foods compared with plant-based foods. But our results indicate that eating food grown and produced locally is also important for mitigating emissions associated with food transport.

Eating locally is generally taken to mean eating food grown within a 161km radius of one’s home.

We acknowledge that some parts of the world cannot be self-sufficient in food supply. International trade can play an important role in providing access to nutritious food and mitigating food insecurity for vulnerable people in low-income countries.

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How Australia can boost the production of grains, while lowering its carbon footprint

And food miles should not be considered the only indicator of environmental impact. For example, an imported food produced sustainably may have a lower environmental impact than an emissions-intensive local food.

But there is much scope to reduce food transport emissions, especially in richer countries. Potential measures include:

• carbon pricing and import duties
• investing in less-polluting vehicles
• encouraging businesses to cut emissions in their production and distribution chains
• planning laws that allow more urban agriculture projects.

Consumers also have the power to reduce food transport emissions by adopting a more sustainable diet. For instance, next time you go to buy fruit out of season – which may have been grown overseas or on the other side of the country – perhaps consider whether a local alternative might do.

The problem of food transport emissions will only worsen as the global population grows. Governments, corporations and everyday people must work together to ensure the production and consumption of food does not make climate change worse.

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

– ref. The world’s affluent must start eating local food to tackle the climate crisis, new research shows – https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-affluent-must-start-eating-local-food-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-new-research-shows-185251

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Garland, Lecturer in Applied Mathematics and Physics, Griffith University

Over the decades, supportive parents of Australian students on the cusp of graduating from their undergraduate studies have occasionally been struck by a bewildering decision by their pride and joy. Instead of pursuing an appetising salary in a prestigious company, their student has instead decided to do the unthinkable: they’re going to do a PhD. Where’s the money in that? What will we tell the neighbours?

A PhD program is foremost a training experience. A PhD student works a full-time apprenticeship (38 hours a week on average) in their chosen research field, guided by expert mentors along the way. While the choice to enter a PhD program is primarily based on a student wanting to upskill and learn, much like the choice to pursue an undergraduate degree, the starting point, method of study and outputs of a PhD are very different.

In Australia, the standard scheme to fund the living costs of PhD candidates is a tax-free stipend from their university. The university is allocated the funds via the Research Training Program (RTP).

This stipend is now $28,854 a year (indexed annually against inflation). That’s only two-thirds of the national minimum wage after last week’s increase to $42,246.88.

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In weekly terms an income of $554.88 puts PhD candidates well below the poverty line of $608.96 for a single person if they have to pay for housing. Further, it’s close to an all-time low of 30% as a proportion of average full-time earnings.

In 2017 a sliding scale of stipends was introduced. Looking at the websites of the 39 members of Universities Australia in June 2022, it is encouraging to see a few universities offer higher rates than the required minimum for their PhD programs. However, most universities still mandate the lowest base rate.

A fair shake of the sauce bottle

This funding arrangement has been in place for some time, serving the community reasonably well. However, in the current economic climate of uncertainty, rising costs of living, skyrocketing rents and the Fair Work Commission’s decision to increase the minimum wage by 5.2%, it is worth comparing historical stipend rates, dating back to 1959, with other relevant yardsticks of income.

To make a fair comparison, we could scale up historically recorded weekly average, median and minimum wages over a 52-week year, noting that most Australian PhD programs permit 20 days of paid personal leave per year. Below, we see how these annual incomes have evolved over time since the inception of the PhD stipend.

Alternately, we can plot the PhD base rate and minimum wage as proportions of the average full-time income. Also shown is the consumer price index (CPI) as a standard measure of inflation, to give us some context – especially at this time of soaring living costs.

At present, PhD stipends languish far below the minimum wage, even allowing for tax on the minimum wage (take off roughly $4,600 for the new minimum wage). The PhD stipend is at a near historical low when compared to the average full-time annual income.

Clearly, from the historical trends in the above graphs, things weren’t always this bad. The minimum wage and PhD stipend values have been comparable, but now they are well and truly detached.

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Is it a good time to be getting a PhD? We asked those who’ve done it

Most PhD candidates have already done four or five years of university studies and have advanced, valuable skill sets. Being asked to live far below minimum wage seems a little unfair.

It’s also worth considering the overall benefits and impacts of knowledge generated a PhD student generates. They produce journal articles throughout their PhD project. Being told to survive well below minimum wage, while making valuable contributions to society and the future of Australia, doesn’t sound like a fair go for those who have a go, as a former prime minister once said.

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1 in 5 PhD students could drop out. Here are some tips for how to keep going

But there is hope

While these trends and current situations don’t make for happy reading, there is hope, and precedent for change. The above graphs show the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments arrested the free-fall in PhD stipend value around 2009. This happened in response to a proposal by the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations after PhD students fell below the poverty line for the first time.

Looking abroad to Europe, countries like the UK, Germany and Italy show us it is possible to value the hard work of research students at universities.

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Australia can get a better return on its investment in PhD graduates

The COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to consider the immediate relevance of cutting-edge science, technology and medical research. As the world waited for an end to lockdowns and uncertainty, PhD students were making vital contributions to help find a way out of our global predicament. Although usually in a supporting capacity, their role required a significantly advanced and niche skill set.

Some of these PhD students across Australia probably could have made a bit more money working fewer hours if they did run off and join the circus instead, but we’re lucky they didn’t.

Nathan Garland has previously received funding from an Australian Postgraduate Award.

Shaun Belward works for James Cook University. He received an Australian Postgraduate Research Award to study a PhD in the 1990s and has also benefitted from federally funded learning and teaching grants.

– ref. How are PhD students meant to survive on two-thirds of the minimum wage? – https://theconversation.com/how-are-phd-students-meant-to-survive-on-two-thirds-of-the-minimum-wage-185138

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Age and education levels were the most important demographic variables in the Coalition’s loss of support between the 2019 and 2022 elections, according to an Australian National University analysis released on Monday.

“These two factors were much stronger predictors than sex, country of birth, location, and even household income,” the study found.

The analysis, titled Explaining the 2022 Australian Federal Election Result, authored by Nicholas Biddle and Ian McAllister, is based on an ANUpoll/Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey of more than 3500 voters.

It compared people’s voting intentions in April and their actual vote in May, as well as how people voted in 2019.

The study found that in general 2022 Coalition voters tended to be older, indigenous, with low education, living outside the capitals and with household income that put them outside the bottom quintile.

Labor voters tended to have higher education levels, lived in the capitals, and had low incomes.

Greens voters tended to be women, young, born in Australia or another English-speaking country, and without a trade qualification.

Biddle said more than one in three voters under 55 (34.9%) who voted Coalition in 2019 voted for someone else this year. But only about one in five (21.1%) aged 55 and over did so.

The Coalition also lost more votes among the better educated, he said. Some 31% of those who had completed year 12 and voted for the government in 2019 changed their vote in 2022. In contrast only 14.8% of Coalition voters who had not finished year 12 changed their vote .

“Education, and particularly high school education, really matters when it comes to understanding this election result,” Biddle said.

The Coalition also lost more voters in capital cities compared to outside the capitals.

The analysis said the results suggested the change in government was mainly driven by “younger, urban and more well educated” Coalition voters moving away from the government, while Labor was able to maintain its support across most demographic groups, apart from those outside capital cities.

The study found women were less likely to vote for the Coalition compared to men. But the largest gender difference related to the Greens with 22.5% of women voting for them but only 16.4% of men.

Some 13.6% of voters made up their minds how to vote on election day.

Most people voted in May the way they had indicated in April that they would – but more than a fifth (21.9%) changed their mind in the campaign. The most common reason people gave was because their views about the local candidate changed.

The data on those who voted for candidates and parties other than the Coalition, Labor and the Greens has not been fully analysed yet, so there is no information specifically on the “teal” vote.

The survey found voter volatility in 2022 was similar to 2019. “A similar proportion of Australians voted for a different party across those two elections as between the 2016 and 2019 election, and there was a remarkably similar proportion across the two elections of Australians who voted for a different party to that which they had intended to vote in the last survey prior to the election.”

The proportion of people splitting their lower house and Senate vote was low in both elections but appeared to have declined in 2022.

The survey also found a strong post-election increase in people’s satisfaction with the direction the country is going in, from 62.4% in April to 73.3% in May. Biddle said this was one of the highest levels of satisfaction since the 2019-20 bushfires and the pandemic’s start.

But satisfaction did vary according to how people had voted. While satisfaction jumped among Labor and Green voters it went down among Coalition voters.

Most people thought the election had been conducted fairly.

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.

– ref. Age and education key demographics in government’s election loss: ANU study – https://theconversation.com/age-and-education-key-demographics-in-governments-election-loss-anu-study-185374

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western Australia

On June 17 2022, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel issued a statement confirming she had approved the US government’s request to extradite Julian Assange. The Australian founder of Wikileaks faces 18 criminal charges of computer misuse and espionage.

This decision means Assange is one step closer to extradition, but has not yet reached the final stage in what has been a years-long process. Patel’s decision follows a March decision to deny leave to appeal by the UK Supreme Court, affirming the High Court decision that accepted assurances provided by the US government and concluded there were no remaining legal bars to Assange’s extradition.

The High Court decision overruled an earlier decision by a District Court that extraditing Assange to the US would be “unjust and oppressive” because the prison conditions he was likely to experience would make him a high risk for suicide. In the High Court’s view, the American government’s assurances sufficiently reduced the risk.

Read more:
Julian Assange’s extradition case is finally heading to court – here’s what to expect

Another appeal ahead

Wikileaks has already announced Assange will appeal the home secretary’s decision in the UK courts. He can appeal on an issue of law or fact, but must obtain leave of the High Court to launch an appeal. This is a fresh legal process rather than a continuation of the judicial stage of extradition that followed his arrest in 2019.

Assange’s brother has stated the appeal will include new information, including reports of plots to assassinate Assange.

Several legal issues argued before the District Court in 2020 are also likely to be raised in the next appeal. In particular, the District Court decided the question of whether the charges were political offences, and therefore not extraditable crimes, could only be considered by the home secretary. The question of whether and how the home secretary decided on this issue could now be ripe for argument.

Assange’s next appeal will also seek to re-litigate whether US government assurances regarding the prison conditions Assange will face are adequate or reliable. His lawyers will also again demand the UK courts consider the role of role of freedom of expression in determining whether to extradite Assange.

Assange will remain detained in Belmarsh prison while his appeal is underway. The decision of the High Court on his appeal against the home secretary’s decision may potentially be appealed to the Supreme Court.

If, after all legal avenues are exhausted in the UK, the order to extradite stands, Assange could take a human rights action to the European Court of Human Rights.

However, the European Court has rarely declared extradition to be contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, except in cases involving the death penalty or whole-life sentences. It has not yet considered freedom of expression in an extradition case.

Further appeals could add years more to the saga of Assange’s detention.

Responses from the Assange family and human rights advocates

Assange’s wife, Stella Moris, called Patel’s decision a ‘“travesty”. His brother Gabriel Shipton called it “shameful”. They have vowed to fight his extradition through every legal means available.

According to Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard:

Assange faces a high risk of prolonged solitary confinement, which would violate the prohibition on torture or other ill treatment. Diplomatic assurances provided by the US that Assange will not be kept in solitary confinement cannot be taken on face value given previous history.

What role for the Australian government?

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus responded to the latest development last night. They confirmed Australia would continue to provide consular assistance to Assange:

The Australian government has been clear in our view that Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and that it should be brought to a close. We will continue to express this view to the governments of the United Kingdom and United States.

However, it remains unclear exactly what form Australia’s diplomatic or political advocacy is taking.

In December 2021, Anthony Albanese said he could not see what purpose was served by the ongoing pursuit of Assange. He is a signatory to a petition to free Assange. Since he was sworn in as prime minister, though, Albanese has resisted calls to demand publicly that the US drop its criminal charges against Assange.

In contrast, Albanese recently made a public call for the release of Sean Turnell from prison in Myanmar.

Read more:
A new book argues Julian Assange is being tortured. Will our new PM do anything about it?

In a way, Patel’s decision this week closes a window for stronger advocacy between Australia and the UK. While the matter sat with the UK Home Secretary, the Australian government might have sought to intervene with it as a political issue. Now it seems possible Australia may revert to its long established position of non-interference in an ongoing court process.

Some commentators argue this is insufficient and that Australia must, finally, do more for Assange. Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie said it was high time Australia treated this as the political matter it is, and demand from its allies in London and Washington that the matter be brought to an end.

Barrister Greg Barns likened Assange’s situation to that of David Hicks, who was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay:

The Howard government at the time brought him back to Australia. This is not unprecedented. It is important that Australia is able to use the great relationship it has with Washington to ensure the safety of Australians.

These comments suggest that Australia ought to focus any advocacy towards the US government, making a case for the criminal charges and extradition request to be abandoned. At this stage it is impossible to say if the Albanese government has the will to take a stronger stand on Assange’s liberty. The prime minister and foreign minister have certainly invested heavily in foreign relations in the early weeks of their government, with emphasis on the significance of the US alliance.

Perhaps strong advocacy on Assange’s behalf at this time might be regarded as unsettling and risky. The US has had plenty of opportunity, and its own change of government, and yet it has not changed its determination to prosecute Assange. This is despite former President Barack Obama’s decision to commute the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower who provided classified material to Assange for publication through Wikileaks.

Stronger Australian advocacy may well be negatively received. Assange’s supporters will continue to demand that Albanese act regardless, banking on the strength of the Australia-US alliance as capable of tolerating a point of disagreement.

Holly Cullen has done occasional volunteer work with the Australian Labor Party..

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

– ref. UK government orders the extradition of Julian Assange to the US, but that is not the end of the matter – https://theconversation.com/uk-government-orders-the-extradition-of-julian-assange-to-the-us-but-that-is-not-the-end-of-the-matter-185363

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

Buttons have now been pressed to electronically distribute preferences for the May 21 federal election in the Senate for South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. I discussed the ACT and NT results that elected David Pocock to the Senate on Tuesday.

Read more:
ACT Senate result: Pocock defeats Liberals in first time Liberals have not won one ACT Senate seat

All states have 12 senators, with six up for election at half-Senate elections. A quota is one-seventh of the vote, or 14.3%. State senators are elected for six-year terms beginning July 1, barring a double dissolution.

Final primary votes in Queensland were 2.47 quotas for the LNP, 1.73 Labor, 0.87 Greens, 0.52 One Nation, 0.38 Legalise Cannabis and 0.29 UAP. The result was two LNP, two Labor, one Green and one One Nation. The change from the previous parliament was the Greens winning a seat from the LNP.

Preferences were distributed on Friday. ABC election analyst Antony Green said after the exclusion of Clive Palmer (UAP), 57% of his preferences flowed to One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, putting Hanson ahead of Labor’s second candidate, Anthony Chisholm.

Final results were 0.996 quotas for Hanson, 0.974 Labor and 0.720 for the LNP’s third candidate, Amanda Stoker. Hanson was elected fifth, Chisholm sixth and Stoker was defeated.

Final primary votes in South Australia were 2.37 quotas for the Liberals, 2.26 Labor, 0.84 Greens, 0.28 One Nation, 0.21 UAP and 0.21 Nick Xenophon. Rex Patrick, who defected from Xenophon’s Centre Alliance, won just 0.15 quotas.

Preferences were distributed on Wednesday. The Poll Bludger said the third Liberal won the final seat over One Nation by 0.87 quotas to 0.67. At the previous count, Labor was excluded behind One Nation, with 0.56 quotas to 0.61 for One Nation and 0.67 for the Liberals. The Liberals would have won even if Labor had made the final two.

At the 2016 double dissolution election, Xenophon won three seats with two getting long terms that expire on June 30. Labor and the Liberals were each defending two seats. So the Greens and Liberals each gained a seat with Centre Alliance losing their two seats (one a defector).

Final primary votes in Tasmania gave the Liberals 2.24 quotas, Labor 1.89, the Greens 1.08, the Jacqui Lambie Network (JLN) 0.61 and One Nation 0.27.

Preferences were distributed Thursday. The second Labor candidate and the JLN’s Tammy Tyrrell reached quota, with Tyrrell joining Lambie and increasing the JLN’s Senate representation from one to two. This was a gain for the JLN from the Liberals. At the final count, Tyrrell had 1.05 quotas and One Nation 0.63, with the third Liberal excluded before One Nation.

The third Liberal was Eric Abetz, who has been a senator since 1994. At this election, he was demoted to third on the Liberal Tasmanian ticket. Analyst Kevin Bonham said Abetz easily won the biggest share of 39s (last preference) out of all below the line voters who numbered every box.

Remaining states

Twenty-two of the 40 Senate seats up for election have now been formally decided, and have gone as expected. I expect the remaining states early next week. Primary votes in NSW are 2.57 quotas for the Coalition, 2.13 Labor, 0.80 Greens, 0.29 One Nation and 0.24 UAP. This will result in three Coalition, two Labor and one Green.

The Coalition has 2.26 quotas in Victoria, Labor 2.20, the Greens 0.97, UAP 0.28, Legalise Cannabis 0.21 and One Nation 0.20. Complete data files on every vote cast in Senate contests are available soon after the distributions. From this data, the Poll Bludger said One Nation preferences flowed far better to the UAP in SA than in 2019.

If this pattern is repeated in Victoria, he said UAP has a much better chance of winning the final seat than 2019 preference flows would suggest. So Victoria will be two Coalition, two Labor, one Green, with the final seat leaning to the UAP instead of the Coalition.

Labor has 2.42 quotas in WA, the Liberals 2.22, the Greens 1.00, One Nation 0.24, Legalise Cannabis 0.24 and the Christians 0.15. Labor is likely to win three senators in WA, the Liberals two and the Greens one, but it’s still possible Labor loses the last WA seat to either the Liberals or One Nation.

If results in the remaining states are as expected, the outcome of this half-Senate election would be 15 Coalition out of 40, 15 Labor, six Greens and one each for One Nation, UAP, JLN and David Pocock.

The Coalition would hold 32 of the 76 total senators, Labor 26, the Greens 12, One Nation two, the JLN two and Pocock and UAP one each. To pass legislation opposed by the Coalition, Labor would need support from the Greens and any one of the six others.

If Labor loses the final WA seat, their path to legislation is more difficult. They would then need the Greens and two of the six others, and would likely depend on the JLN.

House: independent in Groom makes final two on just 8.3% primary vote

In the House of Representatives, primary votes in Groom were 43.7% LNP, 18.7% Labor, 9.6% One Nation, 8.3% for independent Suzie Holt, 7.1% for another independent, 5.9% Greens and 5.1% UAP. After a distribution of preferences, Holt jumped over both One Nation and Labor to make the final two, but she still lost decisively to the LNP.

Analyst Peter Brent said Holt had the third lowest primary vote percentage, and the lowest when both major parties contested, to make it to the final two at a federal election or byelection, and is the first to make the final two from fourth or lower on primary votes.

In Australia the two top candidates on primary votes are not guaranteed to be the final two. The distribution of preferences starts by excluding the lowest polling candidate, and their votes are distributed to all remaining candidates. This is followed until there are two candidates remaining.

In past elections, the Australian Electoral Commission has not released the full distribution of preferences for all seats until months after the election.

Essential poll: Albanese surges to 59% approval

Essential is the first Australian pollster to poll Anthony Albanese’s ratings since the election. In this week’s poll, he had a 59% approval for his performance as prime minister, and just an 18% disapproval (net +41). In Essential’s final poll before the election, Albanese was at +1 net approval for his performance as opposition leader (42-41 approval).

By 44-34, voters supported Australia becoming a republic, down from a 49-28 margin in March 2021.

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

– ref. More Senate results: Hanson wins easily, but Labor still on track for a friendly Senate – https://theconversation.com/more-senate-results-hanson-wins-easily-but-labor-still-on-track-for-a-friendly-senate-185051

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Breadon, Program Director, Health and Aged Care, Grattan Institute

At the urging of the premiers, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday agreed to extend current public hospital funding until the end of the year.

The federal government will keep paying for 50% of new costs, up from the usual 45% in pre-pandemic times. The limit on how much costs can go up each year has also been suspended. The extension will cost A$760 million.

The premiers have long argued for a permanent 50:50 share of new, public hospital costs. They have pointed to growing demand for hospital care, new costs from the pandemic, and the fact that states only get about one third of the nation’s taxes.

The decision kicks the can down the road. In the next few months, the prime minister and premiers will need to forge a new deal for health reform that breaks a long-standing stalemate.

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New funding should reshape the system

The states need help to meet rising costs, but this shouldn’t just mean shifting more of the financial burden onto the federal government while ignoring the underlying causes.

Instead, any further extension of funding should reshape the health-care system, shifting care out of hospitals and keeping people well so they don’t need hospital care in the first place.

Activity-based funding for public hospitals was introduced nation-wide a decade ago. It funds hospitals based on the number and mix of patients they treat, using the average cost of care. That gives hospitals an incentive to bring their costs down, and it has worked well.

But demand for care is rising as the population grows bigger, older and sicker. That means new funding must help keep people out of hospital, not just tamp down hospital costs once they get in the door.

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We need to shift care away from hospitals

The quickest way to do this is to move care, providing it at home, and virtually, when it is safe to do so, in a hospital-in-the-home model.

Evidence shows there’s no place like home when it comes to hospital care: patients prefer it, it improves outcomes, frees up beds and slashes brick-and-mortar spending.

Other countries and some states in Australia are expanding in-home care. The federal government should push this further by tying a significant share of new funding to these models.

Knee replacements are a good example. In other countries, patients increasingly have a one-day hospital stay for their surgery, with preparation and recovery supported at home. The results are much better than staying in hospital for multiple days, which remains the standard in Australia.

Some emergency department care can also be moved out of hospitals. The Albanese government’s promised investment in urgent care centres is a welcome step in this direction. Once these urgent care centres are established, new funding for growing hospital demand could be used to refine the model and set up more clinics.

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Labor’s urgent care centres are a step in the right direction – but not a panacea

We need to keep people healthy

The harder way to keep people out of hospital is to keep them healthy. New hospital funding can help here too, by paying for hospital staff to spend more time supporting GP clinics.

Waiting times to see a public hospital specialist were long before the pandemic and have blown out since. Many GP referrals to specialists, and many emergency departments visits, could be avoided by hospital specialists advising GPs, helping them to keep patients well.

These changes won’t help the bottom line immediately, but ultimately, freeing up hospital beds and better management of chronic disease will cut costs, waiting times and pressure on the health-care workforce. More importantly, it will mean a healthier population.

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Waiting for better care: why Australia’s hospitals and health care are failing

The clock is ticking on broader reform

Public hospital funding is just one piece of the health reform puzzle that the Commonwealth and states will have to solve together under a new health reform agreement.

Equity remains a burning problem, with big gaps in care access and outcomes for people who are poorer, live in rural areas, or for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Closing these gaps – and explicit funding and accountability for them – should be a key focus.

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First Nations people in the NT receive just 16% of the Medicare funding of an average Australian

Solving health worker shortages will take a shared plan that brings together training places, clinical placements, migration and new workforce models.

Since preventing disease is a shared responsibility, all governments should agree how they will align their work with Labor’s proposed
centre for disease control.

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How should an Australian ‘centre for disease control’ prepare us for the next pandemic?

Perhaps most importantly, the new agreement should be clear on the overarching goals of the health system and how we will measure progress and value as a nation.

Striking a new funding and reform deal by the end of the year is a big challenge, but these reforms are long overdue, so a sense of urgency is welcome.

Too much of the federal-state health-care debate is about how much each side should spend. It would be a wasted opportunity if our political leaders came back again in six months without a long-term plan about how to fund and improve the system.

Peter Breadon ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Hospital funding deal sets a tight deadline for real reform, and the clock’s ticking – https://theconversation.com/hospital-funding-deal-sets-a-tight-deadline-for-real-reform-and-the-clocks-ticking-185296

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liam Phelan, Senior Lecturer, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle

The clock is now ticking on New South Wales’ largest coal mine. BHP has announced it will close its Mount Arthur mine in the Hunter Valley in 2030 – 15 years ahead of its scheduled end of life.

This decision comes after two years attempting to sell the mine, in keeping with BHP’s strategy to divest itself of thermal coal operations.

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BHP’s offloading of oil and gas assets shows the global market has turned on fossil fuels

Given the collapsing market for coal assets, the lack of interested buyers is not a huge shock. But this announcement is still significant. The end is no longer speculative. There’s a firm deadline for the thousands of workers employed at the mine, and for the surrounding communities.

This use-by date should focus the attention of the local, state and federal governments on the much talked-about need for a just transition for coal communities.

How to assist those communities to survive (and prosper) after coal has been talked about for decades? Now with less than a decade to go, that talk must turn into concrete plans and action.

End of the line for 2,000 workers

The Mount Arthur mine is the one of the biggest coal mines in the world by estimated reserves. Mining began in 2002, extending on existing mining in the area dating back to the late 1960s. Up to 20 million tonnes of thermal coal a year have been extracted. About 2,000 workers are employed at the site.

It’s worth noting BHP only has permits from the NSW government to operate the mine until 2026. So it will need to seek an short extension to keep to its schedule. The NSW government can be expected grant that extension.

The NSW government will probably be glad for the extra time to plan on the transition. It has already been caught off-guard once this year, by Origin Energy’s February announcement of the early closure of its Eraring coal-fired power station in Lake Macquarie, also in the NSW Hunter region.

Federal government planning on just transitions for coal communities, meanwhile, has been stymied by the Coalition’s focus over the past decade on prolonging coal mining as long as possible.

What Labor will do is yet to be seen, though new federal member for the electorate of Hunter, Dan Repacholi, has said his key concern is the welfare of workers.

Read more:
Australia’s next government must start talking about a ‘just transition’ from coal. Here’s where to begin

Three community priorities

Communities in NSW’s Hunter Valley are more than aware that time is running out for coal mining. Last year community workshops were held around the region to discuss what is needed for a just transition to occur. Three priorities emerged from those discussions:

• a local authority to coordinate transition efforts
• funding for a “flagship” job-creation project
• more resources for technical and vocational education.

Read more:
3 local solutions to replace coal jobs and ensure a just transition for mining communities

The first priority has been somewhat met by the NSW government creating a Royalties For Rejuvenation Fund and Expert Panel, which has $25 million a year to spend on mining communities.

But compare that to the $660 million the Western Australian government has allocated to fund the coal transition of a single town, Collie.

Lessons from the past

Research shows the best transitions are those that are equitable, just, and well-planned.

The good thing is that the Hunter Valley has experience with transition, from when BHP shuttered its Newcastle steelworks in 1999. While not a perfect case study, it does provides lessons for today.

Read more:
‘We want to be part of that movement’: residents embrace renewable energy but worry how their towns will change

Particularly important is a collaborative approach between unions and management. This ensured workers had support for redundancy, retraining, financial planning and finding new employment. A Hunter Valley alliance between unions and environmental groups is pushing for the same level of collaborative planning.

Without a co-operative and inclusive approach, drawing on local knowledge, no transition plan is likely to succeed.

Kimberley receives an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend as part of her PhD programme with the University of Technology, Sydney. She is affiliated with Hunter Renewal and Hunter Jobs Alliance as a volunteer

Liam Phelan 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.

– ref. NSW’s biggest coal mine to close in 2030. Now what about the workers? – https://theconversation.com/nsws-biggest-coal-mine-to-close-in-2030-now-what-about-the-workers-185292

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katja Ignatieva, Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney

News about the energy crisis engulfing Australia’s east coast seems inescapable. Terms such as “grid”, the “National Electricity Market” and “transmission” are being tossed around alongside the frightening prospect of soaring power bills – but what does it all mean?

Here, I break down a few of the terms and ideas underpinning this unprecedented event to help you make sense of it.

Read more:
Why did gas prices go from $10 a gigajoule to $800 a gigajoule? An expert on the energy crisis engulfing Australia

What is the electricity grid and how does it work?

An electricity grid doesn’t refer to any specific location, but is a network that delivers electricity from producers to consumers through a series of poles and wires spanning the continent.

The National Electricity Market is one such interconnected grid. Contrary to its name, it doesn’t cover the entire nation, only Australia’s east and south: New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.

Each time you switch on the light, heater, or toaster, you’re using electricity that arrives to your home via this network.

Power is carried from electricity generators (coal-fired power stations, gas plants, wind and solar farms) to retailers (the company charging your power bills) to your home or business via “inter-connectors” (high voltage towers, undersea cable).

Inter-connectors are particularly important when the demand for electricity in a region is higher than what a local generator can supply, such as during cold snaps or heatwaves. Then, a supplier in a neighbouring region can step in to fill demand using the inter-connectors.

Neighbouring suppliers can also step in if their electricity prices are lower than local suppliers’.

Read more:
Want a solution for the energy crisis gripping Australia’s east? Look west

Why do energy prices fluctuate throughout the day?

Energy prices rely heavily on demand. The more electricity is needed, the more expensive it is. And clearly, demand fluctuates throughout the day.

During cold winter months electricity demand is expected to increase as people switch on their heaters. During hot summer months, switching on air conditioners also leads to increased electricity demand.

The winter demand typically experiences two daily peaks: in the cold morning and evening hours, when most people use their heaters. The demand during the day, when the outside temperatures are relatively high, drops to a lower level.

Likewise, the summer demand usually peaks during hot afternoon hours, when most people use their coolers and air-conditioners.

How are energy supply and prices determined?

The National Electricity Market is not only a physical grid, but also plays the role of a wholesale market which facilities the exchange of energy between generators and retailers.

Because electricity can’t be stored easily, energy supply and demand is matched instantaneously, in real time.

Generators submit their offers to supply the market with a certain amount of energy for a certain period of time. The Australian Energy Market Operator then decides which generators to deploy, starting with the cheapest.

Read more:
Australia’s National Electricity Market was just suspended. Here’s why and what happens next

Retailers buy energy from generators at a wholesale price, which is extremely volatile because of sharp unpredictable increases in energy demand and, therefore, price.

Retailers then resell the electricity to businesses and households. Consumers pay a more-or-less fixed price for power. But since retailers need to mitigate their risks related to the extremely volatile wholesale prices, they incorporate this risk into consumers bills.

Indeed, wholesale prices have historically represented around 35% of the final bill for households.

But retailers can’t go overboard – energy prices in the National Electricity Market are regulated by state and federal laws. Though, retailers are allowed to make a reasonable margin.

I have rooftop solar. How am I affected by the current price spikes and shortages?

By installing a rooftop solar, households are expected to escape any sharp increases to their energy bills, and even save around 30% to 60%.

This results in return on investment into rooftop solar system in three to seven years, depending on the location, and usage time, shading, roof direction and inclination.

So it’s not surprising soaring power prices have led to increasing demand for solar panels.

Households can make the most of their solar panel system by adding battery storage – technology that allows you to store any extra electricity your rooftop solar generates – to maintain electricity supply during grid blackouts. Batteries, however, are expensive, which means this option might not be very cost-effective just yet.

Could price gouging be impacting energy prices?

The increase in energy prices is mainly driven by the increasing global cost of fossil fuels, inflation, and supply chain disruption. But it’s also likely electricity generators are taking further advantage of the situation by price gouging in the National Electricity Market.

This is a situation when generators try to withhold some supply to get higher payments later, making so-called “windfall” profits. It is the energy regulator’s responsibility to look closely into this issue.

Read more:
Australia already has a UK-style windfall profits tax on gas – but we’ll give away tens of billions of dollars unless we fix it soon

Can electricity prices in Australia go down in the short term?

The outlook isn’t very optimistic and we probably won’t see electricity prices decline in the next few weeks or months.

The challenging global environment (largely due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), the shutdown of coal-fired power plants in Australia, limited generating capacity, and the colder than usual start to winter, are creating extreme demand conditions.

These challenges aren’t going away any time soon, and will likely result in even larger price spikes in the future.

Fortunately, the Australian Energy Market Operator has taken the extraordinary measure to bring some stability to the energy sector by temporary suspending the normal market operations.

This will reduce the risks of blackouts or supply shortfalls. It will also provide transparency on how generators operate, preventing them from price gouging.

Once we reach some stability, ensuring uninterrupted power supply to Australians, ways to reduce energy cost should be explored. This will take a number of months.

Would having more renewable energy help?

The Labor government plans to significantly increase the share of renewables in the National Electricity Market, to 82% by 2030.

More renewable energy in the grid could certainly reduce energy prices in the medium to long term – it’s the most cost-effective way to generate electricity, and as Australia’s produces its own renewable energy, we’ll be better shielded from global market issues.

But transitioning from fossil-fuel generation to renewables will be difficult, as it requires building significant new infrastructure, which takes time.

So while Australia transitions to clean energy, it’s imperative to set up a short-term strategy to ensure the sector is sustainable. This could include government investment in dispatchable generation – energy that can be dispatched to consumers on demand.

Read more:
5 policy decisions from recent history that led to today’s energy crisis

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

– ref. What’s a grid, anyway? Making sense of the complex beast that is Australia’s electricity network – https://theconversation.com/whats-a-grid-anyway-making-sense-of-the-complex-beast-that-is-australias-electricity-network-185127

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wendy Boyd, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Southern Cross University

Celebrations greeted Thursday’s co-ordinated announcement by the NSW and Victorian governments that they will invest $6 billion and $9 billion, respectively, to provide 30 hours a week of play-based learning for all children in the 12 months prior to primary school. It’s a promising indication of growing public and political support for valuing our children and the voices of women and families.

There is clear evidence that quality early childhood education and care benefit children not only at the time they attend but is likely to have an enduring life-long impact.

Read more:
Play-based learning can set your child up for success at school and beyond

Investment in children is worth it

This investment in resourcing children with opportunities for play-based early childhood education is likely to have positive impacts on children’s learning and development. The benefits include:

• social and emotional well-being
• cognitive development
• communication and language development
• physical development.

This week’s announcements are extremely important for the nation’s children as 2022 data from the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) show that 21% of children in NSW and 19% in Victoria are assessed as “vulnerable” in at least one area of development when they start school.

Read more:
Report finds every $1 Australia spends on preschool will return $2, but this won’t just magically happen

But beware ‘schoolification’

Australia’s mandatory national curriculum framework, the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), states:

“Play-based learning is a context for learning through which children organise and make sense of their social worlds, as they engage actively with people, objects, and representations.”

Within the framework there is:

“a specific emphasis on play-based learning [that] recognises the importance of communication and language (including early literacy and numeracy) and social and emotional development”.

Children have a right to play. Care needs to be taken to ensure this right is upheld with the rollout of 30 hours a week of early childhood education.

Early childhood educators need to be fully versed in the power of play. They will have to take care to ensure this “play-based” approach does not result in “schoolification” of our early childhood programs. It will be essential to assure parents of the importance and value of play.

Read more:
A failure at 6? Data-driven assessment isn’t helping young children’s learning

How does Australia compare to other countries?

Provision of 30 hours-a-week access to early childhood education and care for all children is termed universal access. It’s deemed to be the gold standard for early childhood service provision.

In addition to the state governments’ initiative, the newly elected federal government has commissioned a Productivity Commission review of early childhood care and education to support a universal 90% childcare subsidy. Access to good-quality and affordable early education and care is regarded as a fruitful investment in children.

Equitable access in the Nordic countries is one reason they are renowned as world exemplars of excellence in early childhood services. A 2017 UNICEF report on quality education ranked Finland first and Norway ninth. Australia was 39th of the 41 countries.

This suggests Australia has a long way to go to reach international standards used by UNICEF to determine if programs are meeting all preschoolers’ needs.

Read more:
More diversity can help solve twin problems of early childhood staff shortages and families missing out

Children will still miss out for years to come

Based on the NSW and Victorian governments’ plans for a new free year of preschool from 2030 and 2025 respectively, is Australia finally on the road to achieving authentic and universal access to excellent early childhood education and care? Or does our slow approach throw up other problems that may become barriers to achieving quality early learning experiences for all children now and in the future? The extended rollout period means many children may miss out.

Our children and parents deserve more than just promises. If it is truly universal access, it should be available at no cost to all children across all ages in the years before school.

Many key issues must be considered before rolling out free preschool. Factors such as ensuring equity in attendance, meeting demand, and evenly distributed availability are critical for flexibility and choice.

The NSW government announcement included measures to provide for better access. Equitable access arrangements will enable mothers and fathers to participate equally in the workforce. This means parents can fully engage in paid work with suitable hours for children and their paid work.

Don’t compromise on quality

Parents also need to feel assured their children are getting good-quality education and care, so the focus on quality must be maintained.

Resourcing of the sector has to be carefully considered to safeguard free access when rolled out. A recent report on Norway emphasises that to sustain a quality play-based preschool program it must be underpinned by:

• clear values and principles
• appropriate level of resources to ensure long-term viability
• inclusivity
• a well-qualified, engaged and supported workforce.

However, there is already a shortage of qualified teachers in the early childhood education and care sector. A key reason is they suffer poor work conditions compared to primary school teachers.

Attending a quality play-based program for 30 hours a week will provide children opportunities to develop and enhance their development. To achieve those outcomes, it is imperative that the newly announced initiatives are genuinely resourced for quality learning experiences and equitable opportunities.

If that happens, we’ll ensure Australian children thrive during their childhood and have a seamless and positive transition to school. And that will set them up for the life we all want for them.

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.

– ref. A $15 billion promise of universal access to preschool: is this the game-changer for Aussie kids? – https://theconversation.com/a-15-billion-promise-of-universal-access-to-preschool-is-this-the-game-changer-for-aussie-kids-185211

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Director of the Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis Dr Lain Dare discuss the week in politics.

This week the pair discuss Australia’s escalating energy crisis – and how a lack of clear energy policy got us here.

They also canvass the Fair Work Commission’s decision this week that increased the minimum wage by 5.2% and its potential impact on the spiralling cost-of-living, as well as the Albanese government’s first National Cabinet meeting.

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.

– ref. VIDEO: Albanese holds his first National Cabinet – https://theconversation.com/video-albanese-holds-his-first-national-cabinet-185290

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Bisley, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University, La Trobe University

In its first month in power, foreign policy and national security have played a major part of the new government’s activities.

Very soon after the election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended the Quadrilateral Security Initiative (Quad) leaders’ meeting in Tokyo. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has made trips to the South Pacific and Indonesia. And this month, Defence Minister Richard Marles met ministers and other key figures in Singapore and Japan.

Marles’ historic trip sheds some light on the new government’s approach to national security matters.

Read more:
It’s great Albanese is in Indonesia, but Australia needs to do a lot more to reset relations. Here are 5 ways to start

Signalling a new approach

Marles was in Singapore to join the first in-person Shangri-La Dialogue to be held since 2019.

This meeting, also known as the Asia Security Summit, has been run annually since 2002 by the think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies. It brings together defence ministers, chiefs of defence forces and related security policy makers from across Asia and beyond.

Marles’ plenary speech at this meeting was one of the most interesting made by an Australian leader in some years.

It underscored the continuity in Australian policy: the importance of the UN and international law, the focus on the alliance and the commitment to defence expenditure increases made by the previous government.

But it also showed where key changes would be made, including a much greater focus on climate change, a change in attitude and approach to the South Pacific and a subtle but significant shift in tone toward China.

Marles’ predecessor had tended to paint China’s regional activity in semi-apocalyptic terms.

By contrast, the new defence minister emphasised recognising the reality of China’s rise but framed it in terms of responsibilities that come with it. He also stressed the need for China to accept and respect the restraints the great powers must exercise.

It was a thoughtful and measured approach that is a good sign of the direction of Australia’s regional policy.

Getting back on track with France, sideline meetings with allies

The deputy prime minister also had an extensive set of meetings on the sidelines of the dialogue.

This included 15 bilateral meetings with the defence ministers of Singapore, Solomon Islands, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Fiji, Indonesia, Canada, the US, Timor Leste, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

He also met with the French defence minister, himself newly appointed, making the point on social media that Franco-Australian defence cooperation was “back on track”.

While in Singapore, Marles took part in the latest meeting of the Trilateral Security Partnership, an initiative of Japan, the US and Australia to advance shared security goals.

This produced a wordy joint statement of intent to strengthen their collaborative initiatives in Asia.

An historic meeting with China’s defence minister

But the meeting garnering the most attention was with China’s defence minister, Wei Fenghe.

This was notable less for its content, which by all accounts followed relatively routine patterns, but for the fact it happened at all.

There have been no meetings between Australian and senior Chinese government figures for some years. The Australian ambassador in China has had virtually no access and the broader diplomatic relationship has been essentially non-functional.

It was a brief meeting and involved no major breakthroughs. But the fact it happened at all indicates Australia should be able to navigate back to a working relationship with Beijing without having to make concessions.

Shoring up the Japan-Australia relationship

Marles then travelled to Tokyo for meetings with counterparts in Japan.

Australia and Japan are one another’s most important security partners after the US, and each sees the other as a crucial component in their regional security strategy.

Despite considerable goodwill, this part of the trip did not yield any significant further developments in the two countries security cooperation – as was made clear by the somewhat sparse joint statement it produced.

This may well be a function of the fact the two are already doing a lot together. Their practical capacity to do a great deal more, particularly of any strategic significance, is relatively constrained by resource limitations.

The early days are the easiest

The new Labor government has had a good first month or so on the foreign policy front.

It has been are active, engaged and well received by regional powers. It has struck a prudent balance between the changes it seeks and the importance of continuity.

Marles has played his part successfully, particularly in communicating the need to have a productive relationship with China while not giving ground on core issues.

But the early days are the easiest ones and the true test of the new government’s foreign policy has yet to come.

Read more:
As Wong makes her mark in the Pacific, the Albanese government should look to history on mending ties with China

Nick Bisley is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the think tank that runs the Shangri-La Dialogue.

– ref. Marles shifts tone on China at defence summit – but the early days of government are easiest – https://theconversation.com/marles-shifts-tone-on-china-at-defence-summit-but-the-early-days-of-government-are-easiest-185032

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Woods, Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney

The government costs of providing subsidised aged care for around 1.5 million seniors are set to blow out, while earnings for providers are dropping. Aged care delivers many essential services to senior Australians from meals, transport and help at home, to 24/7 nursing and personal care in aged care homes.

This week, the governor of the Reserve Bank, Phillip Lowe, warned Australia is on track to spend more on things like disability services, aged care and defence than what taxes can pay for:

There are increasing demands on the public purse. It’s harder to find out how we’re going to pay for that.

He told ABC viewers this was a discussion the nation needed to have.

In a paper released today, we argue the sustainability of the aged care system needs such a national discussion.

The paper raises serious questions about whether the system can survive the measures needed to address the:

• current unacceptable quality and safety of some services
• unmet demand for home-based services
• low wages and poor conditions of the workforce and
• high number of providers operating at a loss.

The sector already costs taxpayers A$27 billion per year and it accounts for 1.2% of the economy (GDP). This is expected to nearly double to 2.1% within 40 years.

While demand for subsidised services is high and rising, many parts of the system need improvement. The federal budget can’t solve these problems by placing the entire burden on taxpayers.

Read more:
‘Fixing the aged care crisis’ won’t be easy, with just 5% of nursing homes above next year’s mandatory staffing targets

A gloomy outlook

Looking forward, the aged care system will not be “self-correcting”.

Australia’s population is ageing. The number of people aged 85 and older is projected to triple to 1.9 million by 2060-61.

This will increase the demand for aged care services and staff and will coincide with an additional necessary lift in staffing to improve the quality of services.

At the same time, the proportion of the population of working age will decline.

Aged care will have to compete with the rest of the economy for skilled staff by offering more attractive wages and conditions. Providers will need more funding to meet these rising costs, especially given that around 60% of aged care homes are already operating at a loss.

Despite this, the government’s budget is not only stressed now, but projections from the 2021 Intergenerational Report show budget deficits and government debt will be stretching out for at least the next 40 years.

To add to the gloom, our analysis, and that of the Actuaries Institute, suggests the aged care budgetary impact could be even more severe than government projections.

Budgetary pressures are not the only concern. Other dimensions of the sustainability challenge include the:

• future availability of a skilled workforce
• viability of high-quality providers and services
• need to maintain community satisfaction with service standards.

Read more:
Quality costs more. Very few aged care facilities deliver high quality care while also making a profit

More than money – 4 key strategies

Our paper offers four broad strategic approaches to addressing these issues.

1. Slow the level of demand

An often overlooked first strategy is to reduce the growth in demand for subsidised aged care services. Sound investment in primary care, such as more funding for nurse practitioners, physiotherapists and other allied health workers, can help older people improve their health and well-being and maintain their independence for longer.

2. Improve services and health

A second approach is to take a closer look at the effectiveness of the current range of subsidised services. For instance, the delivery of more restorative care would help more people regain and retain their independence. This could reduce the need for some ongoing services and produce better outcomes for those in need, at a lower overall cost.

3. Improve efficiency and workforce engagement

The efficiency of service delivery by providers also deserves closer examination. Evidence shows a highly trained and engaged workforce is much more productive and delivers improved standards of care.

At the same time, by improving career pathways for aged care workers, staff turnover costs can be reduced and the need for short-term agency replacements can be lessened.

4. Balance private and public costs

Finally, the balance between the private and public costs of the aged care subsidies should be reassessed.

There has to be a safety net for the many senior Australians who need care and yet are living on low incomes and have few assets. However, the overall level of consumer contributions to care services amounts to less than 10% of total care costs. The national debate needs to reach broad consensus on what is a fair and reasonable contribution from seniors who have higher incomes and wealth.

Read more:
How to complain about aged care and get the result you want

Planning for the future of aged care

While greater funding from taxpayers and better-off consumers is inevitable, a more sustainable future needs to be achieved through the adoption of multiple interconnected strategies like these. The nature, scale and timing of such strategies should be at the heart of a national conversation about the elders of our society today and tomorrow.

At stake is the sustainable delivery of safe, high-quality services from viable and responsive providers and highly skilled and engaged staff. But these need to be at a cost that can be afforded by current and future generations.

Read more:
Today’s aged care falls well short of how we’d like to be treated – but there is another way

Michael Woods is Professor of Health Economics at the UTS Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation. He is a policy adviser to the UTS Ageing Research Collaborative which received support to undertake this independent research.

The UTS Ageing Research Collaborative acknowledges that this independent report was commissioned by the Aged and Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) in collaboration with Anglicare Australia, BaptistCare, Catholic Health Australia and UnitingCare Australia, with the support of COTA Australia and National Seniors Australia

Nicole Sutton is the current Treasurer of the Palliative Care Association of N.S.W.

– ref. More funds for aged care won’t make it future-proof. 4 key strategies for sustainable growth – https://theconversation.com/more-funds-for-aged-care-wont-make-it-future-proof-4-key-strategies-for-sustainable-growth-185194

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn Campbell, Professor, School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology

Early childhood education and care is facing serious staff shortages in Australia. Thursday’s announcements by the New South Wales and Victorian governments that they will provide an extra year of education for three-and-four-year-olds (by 2030 and 2025 respectively) will only add to these pressures.

These multibillion-dollar commitments are in addition to the new federal government’s plan to reduce childcare costs with a higher subsidy that will benefit more families. While these announcements are welcome, the increase in places and doubling of hours for early learning mean many more staff will need to be trained and employed. Even now, thousands of advertised positions need to be filled.

In particular, to meet the needs of all families in multicultural Australia, staff will have to be recruited from culturally and linguistically diverse populations.

Read more:
High childcare fees, low pay for staff and a lack of places pose a huge policy challenge

Lack of diversity is a barrier for families

Many families from these groups are not using early childhood services. The result is poorer academic outcomes compared to English-speaking families, as our commentary this month in Australasian Journal of Early Childhood explained.

Research has also shown that having culturally diverse carers and teachers benefits children as they can identify with those who have similar backgrounds to develop their own identity. Children from the dominant culture benefit too. Seeing adults from different cultures co-operating and working together develops tolerance and cultural awareness.

However, many young children from different backgrounds find going from home care to childcare difficult. They are often unfamiliar with spoken English. They also struggle with differences in expectations from adults and playing with other children, as well as differences in cultural practices of eating and sleeping.

Parents from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds sometimes encounter difficulties finding places for their children. The expense of preschool is of course a major barrier for many refugee families. But they have also reported a lack of interpreters if needed to enrol their children and that preschools do not accept bilingualism.

In addition, many migrants, refugees and asylum seekers value different experiences for their children than the childcare workers and teachers. Parents wanted their children to learn to conform. Teachers wanted the children to learn assertiveness and valued individuality.

Read more:
Preschool benefits all children, but not all children get it. Here’s what the government can do about that

What are the obstacles to a diverse workforce?

Thus, employing more diverse workers would seem logical. But there are difficulties to overcome.

At the moment, many culturally diverse childcare workers are unskilled. They are working in early childhood settings as their tertiary professional qualifications in other areas are not recognised in Australia.

However, the domestic enrolments of culturally and linguistically diverse student in higher education has increased as the percentage of the Australian population born overseas increases.

These students face many challenges. Educational practices are often very different from their country of origin so they can have difficulty navigating tertiary study. Some struggle with a lack of finances and friends.

These students unfortunately seem to fail their teaching practice more often than their Anglo-Australian peers when undertaking tertiary studies in early childhood teaching and care. It appears they have added struggles during the practicum or teaching experience required for their training. The students are often very worried about talking to parents of the children, what to say to them, parents speaking too fast for the student to understand and parents not understanding the student.

Read more:
Australia’s education system is one of the most unequal in the OECD. But we know how to help fix it

How can we increase the sector’s diversity?

There are many things, however, that we can do to help culturally and linguistically diverse students overcome such barriers and traumas. First, as in NSW, a program could be conducted for migrant and refugee children in years 9 to 11 to explain employment networks and help them make vocational choices.

Second, training programs for practicum supervisors can enhance the experience for the students as well as pre-practicum programs themselves. Students have appreciated support programs that improved their experience of placements.

However, paradoxically these programs try to have these students change to fit in, to be fixed to the Australian model. This approach implies they are the problem. Yet what we want to achieve by inclusive practices is diversity that better reflects Australian society today.

The most logical change would be for tertiary lecturers and trainers to teach in a culturally aware way to assist culturally and linguistically diverse students in both their tertiary education and in their practicum. Cultural awareness isn’t just language, food, dress and religious differences. There are deep cultural differences such as child-rearing practices, educational practices and concepts of beauty, modesty and justice.

To be culturally competent one needs to be aware of culture differences and have knowledge and skills that are demonstrated by one’s behaviour and attitude to teaching students from different cultural backgrounds.

Australia needs to promote and support an educated diverse workforce in early childhood education and care as acknowledged by the Productivity Commission. We should see diversity as a strength to attract and retain diverse workers by bridging courses and different career pathways.

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

– ref. More diversity can help solve twin problems of early childhood staff shortages and families missing out – https://theconversation.com/more-diversity-can-help-solve-twin-problems-of-early-childhood-staff-shortages-and-families-missing-out-185205

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

As the energy crisis continues to grip Australia’s east coast with consumers told to limit their consumption and warnings of blackouts Tony Wood, director of the energy program at the Grattan Institute, speaks with Michelle Grattan about why this has happened and what can be done to fix the system.

The crisis is unprecedented, Wood says. “We’ve certainly seen situations where things have got very tight[…] But this sort of extended period when we’ve had major power outages and real stress on the entire system for such a long time has never been seen before.”

He says the crisis could have been minimised if past governments had worked to “address climate change” and “bring on more renewables” as well as all the technology to support a renewables industry.

That being said, Wood points out there are other factors also driving the crisis.

“We still would have had the weather patterns we had in the south, on the east coast of Australia, that caused all the rain and caused all the flooding of the coal mines that interrupted power supply. And of course, we wouldn’t have prevented the Ukraine war and we probably would have had real stress on the gas supply system.”

Wood argues that “things became very complicated very quickly”, as the crisis developed.

On whether the crisis is in part a result of power companies playing the system, he says: “I don’t honestly think the companies were trying to game the system, but I think the commercial arrangements were so complicated [that the Australian Energy Market Operator taking over the system] was the only solution.”

Some have suggested the crisis has been worsened because many assets have been privatised. Wood disagrees. “I don’t think this is a fundamental failure of privatisation […] I do think it’s a fundamental physical problem and government ownership wouldn’t have made much difference.”

“Transitions are always difficult things […] I think we can see where we’re going. It’s got to be a system which is overwhelmingly dominated by renewable energy.”

“In the short term, we are going to manage this transition carefully, which means as we adopt more and more renewables, we’re going to need some of these coal-fired power stations and gas-fired power stations to maintain the stability and the reliability of the system. They should only be there as necessary to support that transition.”

“I have no doubt we can move to net zero by 2050. But remember, it will be net zero. It won’t be absolute zero. And of course, the sooner we start really seriously creating momentum in that direction, the more likely we are to get there and the more likely it is we’ll get there without too much cost.”

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Tony Wood on the unprecedented energy crisis – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-tony-wood-on-the-unprecedented-energy-crisis-185225

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Baron, Associate professor, Australian Catholic University

Spoiler alert: this article explains a key plot point, but we don’t give away anything you won’t see in trailers. Thanks to reader Florence, 7, for her questions.

At the beginning of the new Disney Pixar film, Lightyear, Buzz Lightyear gets stranded on a dangerous faraway planet with his commanding officer and crew.

Their only hope of getting off the planet is to test a special fuel. To do that, Buzz has to fly into space and repeatedly try to jump to hyper-speed. But each attempt he makes comes with a terrible cost.

Every time Buzz takes off for a four-minute test flight into space, he lands back on the planet to find many years have passed. The people Buzz cares most about fall in love, have kids and even grandkids. Time becomes his biggest enemy.

What’s going on? Is this just science fiction, or could what happened to Buzz actually happen?

Time is relative: Einstein’s big idea

Buzz is experiencing a real phenomenon known as time dilation. Time dilation is a prediction of one of the most famous scientific theories ever developed: Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Prior to relativity, the best theory of motion we had was Isaac Newton’s mechanics.

Newton’s theory was incredibly powerful, providing stunning predictions of the motion of the planets in our solar system.

In Newton’s theory, time is like a single giant clock that ticks away the seconds in the same way for everyone. No matter where you are in the universe, the master clock will display the same time.

Read more:
Curious Kids: is time travel possible for humans?

Einstein’s theory of relativity shattered the master clock into many clocks – one for each person and object in motion. In Einstein’s picture of the universe, everyone carries their own clock with them.

One consequence of this is there is no guarantee the clocks will tick at the same rate. In fact, many clocks will tick at different rates.

Even worse, the faster you travel relative to someone else, the slower your clock will tick compared to theirs.

This means if you travel very fast in a spaceship – as Buzz does – a few minutes might pass for you, but years might pass for someone on the planet you left behind.

Time travelling forwards – but not backwards

In a sense, time dilation can be thought of as a kind of time travel. It provides a way to jump into someone else’s future.

This is what Buzz does: he jumps into the future of his friends left on the planet below.

Unfortunately, there is no way to use time dilation to travel backwards in time, into the past (as one important character talks about later in the film).

It’s also not possible to use time dilation to travel into your own future.

That means there’s no known way for you to travel into the future and meet your older self, simply by going really fast.

Time travellers above Earth right now

Time dilation might seem like science fiction, but in fact it is a measurable phenomenon. Indeed, scientists have conducted a number of experiments to confirm that clocks tick at different rates, depending on how they are moving.

For example, astronauts on the International Space Station are travelling at very high speeds compared with their friends and family on Earth. (You can watch the space station pass overhead if you know when to look up.)

This means those astronauts are ageing at a slightly slower rate. Indeed, US astronaut Buzz Aldrin, from whom Buzz in Lightyear gets his name, would have experienced a tiny bit of time dilation during his trip to the Moon in the 1960s.

Don’t worry, though, the astronauts on the International Space Station won’t feel or notice any time dilation. It’s nothing like the extreme time jumps seen in Lightyear.

Aldrin was able to return safely to his family, and the astronauts up in space now will too.

To infinity – and beyond

Clearly, time dilation could have a serious cost. But it’s not all bad news. Time dilation could one day help us travel to the stars.

The universe is a massive place. The nearest star is 40,208,000,000,000 km away. Getting there is like travelling around the world one billion times. Travelling at an ordinary speed, no one would ever survive long enough to make the trip.

Time dilation, however, is also accompanied by another phenomenon: length contraction. When one travels very fast toward an object, the distance between your spaceship and that object will appear to be contracted.

Read more:
Curious Kids: what would happen if someone moved at twice the speed of light?

Very roughly, at high speeds, everything is closer together. This means that for someone travelling at a high speed, they could make it to the nearest star in a matter of days.

But time dilation would still be in effect. Your clock would slow relative to the clock of someone on Earth. So, you could make a round trip to the nearest star in a few days, but by the time you arrived home everyone you know would be gone.

That is both the promise, and the tragedy, of interstellar travel.

Sam Baron receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. In the new Disney Pixar movie Lightyear, time gets bendy. Is time travel real, or just science fiction? – https://theconversation.com/in-the-new-disney-pixar-movie-lightyear-time-gets-bendy-is-time-travel-real-or-just-science-fiction-185137

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Fuller, Charles Perkins Centre Research Program Leader, University of Sydney

Australia’s regulator has banned FatBlaster Max, an over-the-counter pill that claimed (with no evidence) to be able to help you lose weight.

FatBlaster Max can no longer be purchased, after the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) found the company behind the pills registered the medicine with no mention of weightloss properties and failed to produce any evidence substantiating its advertised claim it led to weight loss.

The ban has put over-the-counter weightloss pills back in the spotlight, shining light on an unregulated area that is immensely popular. Studies show one in seven people have tried an over-the-counter weightloss pill, undoubtedly enticed by their promises of helping people lose weight easily and rapidly.

But do over-the-counter weightloss pills really work? Here’s everything you need to know about the weightloss supplements currently claiming a big share of Australia’s billion-dollar weight-loss industry.

What exactly are over-the-counter weightloss pills?

Broadly speaking, over-the-counter pills are anything you buy from a pharmacist without a prescription, like cold and flu remedies and paracetamol. Some over-the-counter medications are also available at retailers like supermarkets, service stations and health food stores.

Over-the-counter weightloss pills are essentially dietary and herbal supplements marketed and sold with claims of assisting with weight loss.

The important distinction between over-the-counter weightloss pills and weightloss medications prescribed by a doctor is that prescription weightloss drugs – like all pharmaceutical drugs – must go through clinical trials and provide Australia’s drug regulator with evidence of their effectiveness and safety.

Read more:
‘Fat blaster’ drug can give you weight loss to die for

Worryingly, the distributors of over-the-counter diet pills and supplements are not required to produce any evidence of their products’ efficacy and safety before they hit the Australian market. The TGA only requires them to hold, but not necessarily make freely available, evidence substantiating their claims.

How do over-the-counter weightloss pills help you lose weight?

Over-the-counter weightloss pills usually claim to have several herbal or natural ingredients that help you lose weight in one of four ways:

1. by suppressing your appetite or making you feel full using ingredients like a tropical fruit called Garcinia cambogia or glucomannan, a dietary fibre made from the root of the konjac plant

2. by speeding up your metabolism and your body’s ability to burn fat using components like the herb Ephedra sinica or a fatty acid (conjugated linoleic acid) found in meat and dairy products

3. by blocking your body’s ability to digest things like carbohydrates and fat using Phaseolus vulgaris (also known as the common bean) or a variety of green tea leaf called Camellia sinensis

4. by absorbing fat in the foods you eat, relying on ingredients like chitosan, a product created using the shells of crustaceans and insects.

Do these weightloss pills work?

In a word: no.

Most advertising for over-the-counter weightloss pills and dietary supplements will proudly claim a product’s results are backed by “clinical trials” and “scientific evidence”, but the reality is a host of independent studies don’t support these claims.

Two recent studies by the University of Sydney examined data from more than 120 placebo-controlled trials of herbal and dietary supplements for weight loss, including products featuring the ingredients described above. None of the supplements provided clinically meaningful weight loss.

If they don’t work, why are they allowed to be sold?

Given there are few to no checks and even less accountability when compared to prescription weightloss drugs, the researchers’ findings should come as no surprise.

Recent studies suggest weightloss supplement companies have conducted very few high-quality studies. Many trials are too small, poorly designed and don’t accurately report the composition of the supplements being investigated. This is because there are no guidelines currently covering how these types of trials should be conducted.

The good news is the Australian regulator is taking some action on the claims made by distributors of these weightloss supplements, with the TGA recently banning the sale of FatBlaster Max.

Read more:
Science or Snake Oil? Do the enduring Hydroxycut weight-loss products work?

While the reality is the most likely thing to be damaged by over-the-counter weightloss pills is your hip pocket, the TGA’s action also serves as an important reminder that the safety of over-the-counter weightloss supplements can never be guaranteed.

Several products have been banned from sale around the world after causing serious health problems. This includes the TGA and America’s Food and Drug Administration banning dietary supplements containing ephedra in 2018, when supplements containing this stimulant herb were associated with cases of heart attack, seizure, stroke and sudden death.

Real harm is also caused by the over-the-counter weightloss industry feeding on people’s desire for a quick fix to achieve rapid weight loss.

The reality is there is no wonder pill.

Losing weight and achieving lasting results comes down to: following evidence-based care from health-care professionals and making meaningful changes to your diet, exercise and lifestyle that you can sustain for life.

A spokesperson for FatBlaster said the company is disappointed with the TGA’s decision and it is evaluating options for next steps.

It said the TGA’s requirements had changed during the years that FatBlaster Max Tablets have been on the market and the company has taken great care to update all packaging, advertising and claims to ensure compliance with these requirements.

The listing cancellation does not impact the wider FatBlaster range.

Dr Nick Fuller works for the University of Sydney and has received external funding for projects relating to the treatment of overweight and obesity. He is the author and founder of the Interval Weight Loss program.

– ref. FatBlaster Max has just been banned. Why? Here’s everything you need to know about diet supplements – https://theconversation.com/fatblaster-max-has-just-been-banned-why-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-diet-supplements-183347

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nic Rawlence, Senior Lecturer in Ancient DNA, University of Otago

It’s not often New Zealanders admit Australia is onto a good thing. Our long-running trans-Tasman rivalry usually revolves around accusing Australians of stealing national cultural icons like Phar Lap, Pavlova or Crowded House.

But I have to admit that when it comes to championing palaeontology (the study of fossils and what they can teach us about our biological heritage), the Australians have a good thing going.

Taking an idea that originated in America, many Australian states in recent decades have started adopting fossil emblems (alongside animal, floral, marine and mineral ones) that epitomise the natural history of each region.

In turn, these emblems can help promote fossil tourism, educational outreach and awareness of the need for fossil protection strategies.

Western Australia chose the 380 million-year-old Devonian fish Mcnamaraspis kaprios, while New South Wales picked a similarly aged fish, Mandageria fairfaxi. South Australia adopted the 550 million-year-old Spriggina floundersi from the dawn of complex life – the first animal in the fossil record whose left and right sides mirrored each other, like ours do today.

The Australian Capital Territory picked the 545 million-year-old brachiopod Atrypa duntroonensis, while a public vote in Victoria chose the 125 million-year-old giant amphibian Koolasuchus cleelandi. Queensland is currently holding a public vote to pick an emblem from 12 candidates that include dinosaurs, giant marine reptiles, an amphibian, a crocodile, a monotreme, a plant and a sea lily.

Aotearoa’s rich fossil record

Aotearoa New Zealand also has a rich fossil record that palaeontologists have used to unlock the evolution of our taonga (treasured) species and their unique whakapapa (lineage), in some cases stretching back tens to hundreds of millions of years.

In spite of this, there’s a distinct shortfall in palaeontological expertise and funding, which is affecting our ability to study and protect the local fossil record.

Read more:
How did ancient moa survive the ice age – and what can they teach us about modern climate change?

Nonetheless, New Zealand’s fossils have captured the public imagination, such as the recently discovered 16-19 million-year-old giant Catriona’s shelduck (Miotadorna catrionae) from St Bathans. Fossils can also inspire future generations through interactive museum displays, outreach and volunteering on fossil digs.

Educational resources can be developed around our unique fossils to teach young New Zealanders how plants and animals evolved in response to the country’s dynamic geological and climatic history.

Fossil tourism

Emblems can also help teach us about the plight and importance of fossils. Newly exposed sites are not being excavated by experts, while other sites are eroding before our eyes. The potential information those sites hold is lost.

While fossil collection by amateurs provides some information, data retention is often substandard, and amateur collection can destroy small sensitive sites. Numerous moa bones, often illegally collected, still come up for sale despite the best efforts to stop this practice.

Read more:
A new method of extracting ancient DNA from tiny bones reveals the hidden evolutionary history of New Zealand geckos

In a post-pandemic world, promoting sustainable tourism is more important than ever. Many regions are uniquely suited to fossil tourism, such as Waitomo and the West Coast. North Otago is already home to the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark, which promotes the geological and fossil history of the region.

Fossil tourism could also be developed at Foulden Maar, a 23 million-year-old lake deposit near Middlemarch in Central Otago, which the public fought to project from mining. It could house a museum and research facilities, and offer opportunities for people to collect fossils for themselves (as happens at Kronosaurus Korner in Queensland) or volunteer on digs (as they can at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs).

Time to choose

So, what should New Zealanders choose for their fossil emblem? Should we pick something flashy like the pouakai/Haast’s eagle (Aquila haasti) whose ancestor, the smallest eagle in the world, arrived in Aotearoa only about 2.5 million years ago and rapidly evolved into the world’s largest?

What about the 75 million-year-old plesiosaur Kaiwhekea katiki or the shark-toothed dolphin that capture my children’s attention?

We could agree that size does matter and choose the 55-60 million-year-old giant Bice penguin (Kumimanu biceae) or moa nunui/South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus). At the other end of the scale, how about the smallest fossils like 505 million-year-old trilobites, some of our oldest fossils?

Should we consider historical value, like the first theropod dinosaur or one of the mosasaurs (such as Prognathodon overtoni) that pioneering fossil hunter Joan Wiffen discovered? Or should scientific value prevail, like the living pūpū whakarongotaua/flax snail (Placostylus ambagiosus), whose abundant fossil shells are teaching us a lot about the impacts of climate change and human settlement?

Read more:
Proposal to mine fossil-rich site in New Zealand sparks campaign to protect it

I’m forming a committee of palaeontologists from across New Zealand to decide on a shortlist to put to a public vote. We would welcome input about what fossils to consider, whether we should have a single emblem representing New Zealand, or regional emblems, and even a yearly competition like the sometimes controversial Bird of the Year.

So get your iwi, whanau, school and local museum involved, lobby your local politicians and let us know what you think at nzfossilemblem@otago.ac.nz

Nic Rawlence receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.

– ref. New Zealand should celebrate its remarkable prehistoric past with national fossil emblems – have your say! – https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-should-celebrate-its-remarkable-prehistoric-past-with-national-fossil-emblems-have-your-say-184942

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rodney Tiffen, Emeritus Professor, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

One of the more curious legacies of the Watergate scandal is so obvious that we barely notice it.

Watergate was the name of the Washington office complex where five men – later revealed to be working on behalf of US president Richard Nixon’s administration – were discovered burgling the Democratic Party’s national headquarters. Their arrest on June 17 1972 – 50 years ago today – not only led eventually to Nixon’s resignation but also fuelled an international tendency to add “-gate” to anything that looks scandalous.

The fashion was started by New York Times columnist William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter, apparently to defend his former boss by showing just how prevalent scandals were. Early cases included Koreagate (following revelations of secret Korean donations to congressional candidates in the 1976 elections) and Billygate (named after president Jimmy Carter’s wayward younger brother, whose high-profile antics included promoting a new beer, Billybeer, and receiving money from the Libyan government) and Lancegate (sparked by the dubious business affairs of Carter cabinet member Bert Lance).

Fifty years later, the suffix is as popular as ever. When Will Smith dashed on stage and slapped MC Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife at this year’s Academy Awards, the incident was immediately labelled Slapgate.

More seriously, when British prime minister Boris Johnston and his colleagues defied government bans on social gatherings designed to curb the spread of COVID, the term Partygate was quickly, and damagingly, coined by the media.

Sometimes “-gates” go head to head, most famously during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. Around a month before the election, a tape emerged of Trump boasting to a male colleague about the things you can do to women if you’re a star. Inevitably it attracted the distasteful label, Pussygate, and so dominated the news that many thought Trump would have to withdraw his candidacy.

The other side of the equation came a couple of weeks later, when Emailgate made a comeback. It had been revealed some years earlier that Hillary Clinton had used private email rather than the official government server when she was secretary of state. Now, FBI director James Comey announced he was re-opening investigations. By giving Trump licence to denounce Clinton’s “corruption”, the decision guaranteed that the last weeks of the campaign would be dominated by this issue. Days before voting day, Comey cleared Clinton.

The prominence of the issue, highlighting what many thought was the tendency of the Clintons to make their own rules, may have caused some potential supporters to stay home, and so affected the election result.

Read more:
From irreverence to irrelevance: the rise and fall of the bad-tempered tabloids

My favourite “-gate” emerged from the scandal engulfing America’s most famous TV evangelist, Jim Bakker, and his wife Tammy after their multi-million dollar empire collapsed. Jim was eventually imprisoned for fraud and various sexual liaisons. The scandal was dubbed Pearlygate.

Perhaps the ultimate in wordplay came during two scandals labelled Gategate. The first was a brief episode in the colourful career of Colonel Oliver North, a Reagan administration official closely associated with the Iran-Contra scandal (sometimes called Irangate). During the furore, North was given taxpayer assistance to increase security at his home; the extravagance involved was labelled Gategate.

The other Gategate stretched on for a couple of years. In 2012, conservative MP Andrew Mitchell attempted to leave Downing Street by the main gate, only to be told by a police officer to use another one. He allegedly lost his temper and, amid his stream of abuse, called the officer a “pleb”. The subsequent uproar forced Mitchell to resign. Both politician and police officer launched defamation suits against the other, but the judge ruled in the police officer’s favour. British media used both Plebgate and Gategate as shorthand for the affair.

The term also spread to Australia, though not always to describe allegations with a solid basis. Utegate involved a charge of corruption launched spectacularly in 2009 by opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull against prime minister Kevin Rudd and treasurer Wayne Swan. Turnbull’s claim that they had acted improperly on behalf a Queensland car dealer seemed dramatic and damaging, but it turned out the key evidence was a forgery by Treasury official Godwin Grech. The charge collapsed in ignominy.

The list of scandals goes on. When NSW premier Barry O’Farrell was shown to have misled the Independent Commission Against Corruption by denying having received a $3000 bottle of Grange Hermitage from a Liberal colleague, Grangegate was the obvious shorthand. O’Farrell resigned as premier. When the speaker of the House of Representatives, Bronwyn Bishop, used taxpayers’ money to fly to a Liberal Party fundraiser at a cost of around $5000, Choppergate was born. Bishop resigned as speaker and lost preselection at the next election.

When Australian cricketers were found to have tampered with the ball during a test match in South Africa in 2018, the affair was labelled Sandpapergate. Three players, including captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner, received suspensions.

Coming full circle, Australia had its own Watergate in 2019. A water buyback payment of $80 million under the Murray–Darling Basin scheme went to a company registered in the Cayman Islands. Minister Barnaby Joyce approved the payment, but it emerged that the company had been founded by another minister, Angus Taylor.

Read more:
Australia’s ‘watergate’: here’s what taxpayers need to know about water buybacks

After 50 years, though, “-gate” has lost much of its force – and might even be an obstacle to rational debate.

On one notorious occasion, for example, the suffix was used widely to impute serious wrong-doing when none had occurred. In the lead-up to the Copenhagen summit on global warming in late 2009, emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were hacked and snippets selectively publicised by a group of climate sceptics.

A series of inquiries eventually confirmed the integrity of the Centre’s research, but the hackers had succeeded in casting aspersions on climate science at a strategic moment, and part of their success was in the almost universal use in the media of the derogatory term, Climategate.

What these 50 years of examples show, above all, is that we’ve become increasingly desensitised to scandalous behaviour of many kinds. In a long-running scandal with several twists and turns – such as Boris Johnson’s Partygate, or Watergate itself – the label can be helpful shorthand. Most often, though, what was once attention-grabbing and sometimes an amusing gimmick has become a stale cliché.

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

– ref. Watergate at 50: the burglary that launched a thousand scandals – https://theconversation.com/watergate-at-50-the-burglary-that-launched-a-thousand-scandals-185030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Quilty, Senior Staff Specialist, Alice Springs Hospital. Purple House Medical Advisor. Honorary ANU., Australian National University

In remote Indigenous communities that are already very hot and socioeconomically disadvantaged, climate change is driving inequities even further.

Our new research, published in the MJA, shows how higher temperatures in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory will drive inequities in housing, energy and health.

Read more:
Caring for Country means tackling the climate crisis with Indigenous leadership: 3 things the new government must do

Housing standards are poor

Existing housing in remote areas is old and poorly constructed. In many remote Indigenous communities in the NT, you don’t need a building permit or even a qualified builder to build a house.

Houses have missing doors, boarded-up windows, no air conditioners, are often un-insulated, have failed plumbing and have been poorly maintained over decades.

These houses become dangerously hot as climate change bares down.

In Darwin, an example where there is high humidity, days over 35℃ are considered very hot. In 2004, there were an average 11 days a year over 35℃. By mid-century, modelling predicts 176 days, and by the end of the century 288 days.

Read more:
Torres Strait Islanders face more than their fair share of health impacts from climate change

Houses are not energy efficient

In remote South Australia, public housing is being built to an energy rating of more than 8 stars in recognition of climate vulnerability. But in the NT, houses must only reach 5 stars.

That’s lower than the national standard of at least 6 stars, under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme.

The less-energy efficient your house, the more electricity you use to keep it thermally safe. In the extreme heat of the NT, and as temperatures rise, this places increasing stress on already disadvantaged communities.

Read more:
We need to design housing for Indigenous communities that can withstand the impacts of climate change

Energy insecurity worsens

Residents prepay their electricity using “power cards”. If cards are not topped up, the power is disconnected.

In fact, remote NT communities have among the world’s most energy insecure dwellings because of this pre-payment purchase (not because the power is unreliable). Most households are disconnected more than ten times a year; hot weather increases disconnection rates.

Not all NT public housing comes with air conditioning. So tenants often block up windows with plywood to retrofit window-mounted air conditioning units (see main image). This means residents cannot use the window for natural ventilation and light.

These cheaply constructed airconditioning units are energy inefficient, expensive to run, and amplify electricity use.

Read more:
Climate change hits low-income earners harder – and poor housing in hotter cities is a disastrous combination

All this impacts health

We know extreme heat causes significant health problems and makes existing ones worse. Aside from dehydration and heat stroke, extreme heat places extra demand on the heart, kidneys and other body organs.

People in remote NT communities, many of whom have complicated health conditions and who may be living in substandard housing, are affected by this extreme heat in many ways.

They cannot shelter from the heat. If they cannot afford to top up their power cards, the power cuts off so regularly a fridge may not be able to store temperature-sensitive medicines or perishable food. So some houses don’t have fridges. If they do, they are too expensive to run.

If the power goes off, people cannot use vital health equipment, such as machines to help them breathe, or home dialysis equipment.

Having to top up the power card in hot weather means some are choosing between power, food, or petrol to travel to town to see the doctor.

Read more:
Extreme heat hurts human health. Its effects must be mitigated — urgently

There are solutions

1. Indigenous communities need a say

Indigenous people in remote communities generally don’t have a say in how their houses look and function, whether that’s to meet cultural or environmental needs.

New houses need to be co-designed with their communities. These designs need to reflect the cultural practices of the people who will live in them, and who have thousands of generations of accumulated knowledge of how to live in hot climates.

2. Buildings need to be climate resilient

It has long been recognised that appropriate housing is key to improving health outcomes in remote communities.

So all buildings should be climate resilient. New buildings need to be highly energy efficient and existing ones need to be retrofitted to meet basic standards and tenants’ rights to live in safe and thermally efficient housing.

3. Energy needs to be safeguarded

Residents of remote NT communities need to have the same protections to their power supply that apply to Australians living in other jurisdictions. For instance, national guidelines protect people requiring critical health-care equipment from being disconnected. But in the NT, this protection is not uniformly applied.

All remote dwellings should have access to subsidies for rooftop solar panels.

One of us (Mr Jupurrurla) had his house connected to rooftop solar. His is the only Indigenous public housing in the NT to achieve this.

Now his family no longer pays electricity bills or disconnects from power. The payback time of this investment is under three years. He received no government subsidy.

4. Houses need to be maintained

All houses should have regular inspections by local people with existing cultural and linguistic skills, who are trained in maintenance and processes to initiate works. Pathways for reporting faults need to cater for people with English as a second, third or fourth language, and who often have limited written literacy, so can find completing forms a challenge.

There needs to be a review of maintenance standards that empowers tenants in these culturally and linguistically unique communities.

Legislated minimum standards for maintenance would ensure vital infrastructure – electricity, windows, doors and plumbing – is safe and functional. Maintenance performance would need to be reported to government.

This story is part of The Conversation’s Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Norman Frank Jupurrurla is a Warumungu Elder and Director of the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation in Tennant Creek, NT. He is also a board member of Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation and is on a number of other boards in the Barkly and Central Australia regions.

– ref. How climate change is turning remote Indigenous houses into dangerous hot boxes – https://theconversation.com/how-climate-change-is-turning-remote-indigenous-houses-into-dangerous-hot-boxes-184328

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Mortlock, Senior Analyst at Aon Reinsurance Solutions and Adjunct Fellow, Macquarie University

The world’s coastlines are at the forefront of climate change. That’s because they’re constantly changing, and respond quickly to changes in climate. They’re particularly important because around 70% of the world’s population live within 100km of the coast, and 90% of the world’s trade passes through ports on the coast. The global economy relies on our coastal systems functioning because of the volume of trade and commerce that takes place at or through the coastal zone.

Change and disruption do not fall evenly across the globe, however. Our new research is the first to find a group of coastal locations around the world highly vulnerable to one specific climate-driven change: stronger waves, or waves coming from a different direction, which may cause widespread coastal erosion.

These changes will affect major ports and coastal cities such as Lima, Cape Town, Durban and Mombasa, as well as broadly affecting the Pacific-facing east coasts of Peru and Chile, the Atlantic-facing west coasts of Namibia and South Africa, and the southeast coast of Kenya down to South Africa.

Many of these locations are in developing nations with low GDP, making it harder to adapt or reduce damage from these changes. While some areas will be able to respond better than others, the combined GDP of countries most affected is only about one percent of global GDP. This speaks to how climate change can act as an inequality amplifier, hitting the Global South the hardest.

What’s the link between climate change and wave strength?

Our previous work found climate change is already making waves more powerful, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.

How? Ocean waves are generated by winds blowing along the ocean surface. If the sea surface becomes warmer, wind patterns change as well. In turn, this can alter the wave conditions across the world’s oceans.

But due to reasons such as the fact that oceans are heating at different rates in different places, wave conditions are not changing at the same rate everywhere. Some areas will be worse affected than others.

Why does this matter for humans on dry land? Because waves have shaped Earth’s coastlines for millions of years. Even small, sustained changes in waves can have long term consequences for our coasts and the people who rely on them.

That’s because waves control how much sand is moved along the coast, and where it is deposited. Changes to local wave climates could dramatically increase erosion in some areas, for instance, threatening human and natural use of the coasts as well as infrastructure and houses.

To find out where they are changing the most, we applied wave tracking algorithms to models of future wave conditions. To model ocean waves in the future, we used numerical wave models driven by atmospheric conditions such as wind and air pressure, taken from global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Our work builds on years of research developing a method to track different wave conditions (or “wave climates”) globally. For example, the Southern Ocean wave climate is characterised by big, powerful waves with long wave periods as they circumnavigate the globe west to east.

By comparison, the wave climate of equatorial regions is typically lower energy, shorter wave period, and travels west to east. The characteristics of each wave climate is what we call their “signature” and this is what we track.

Read more:
Climate change is making ocean waves more powerful, threatening to erode many coastlines

We use data from the last 19 years to identify the signature for each wave climate, and track how they will change under different emissions scenarios by the end of the century. By comparing the differences between present and future conditions across the world’s oceans, we can identify the areas likely to see the greatest changes in wave conditions.

What about sea level rise?

Until recently, most of the focus on coastal climate change impacts has been on sea level rise, which will affect low-lying areas and cities.

In the next few decades, however, changes in wave conditions are likely to be more important than sea level rise along millions of kilometres of the world’s sandy coastlines.

By itself, sea level rise does not cause erosion. Waves do. As the sea rises, waves can expand the reach and eat away at the beach and beyond. The net effect of wave power increasing and sea level rise will vary locally, however, because changes in wave conditions can either boost or dampen the effect of sea level rise on the coast, depending on how much sand is available and where it is moved to.

Cutting carbon emissions makes a difference

Our modelling explored two scenarios. The first was a high emissions future world with little to no carbon emissions reduction, leading to global temperatures rising by over 4℃ by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial levels.

The second was a low emissions scenario, where global warming is kept below 2℃ by 2100, which requires deep and immediate reduction in global carbon emissions.

We found reducing emissions can have a significant impact on how much wave conditions change in the future. By keeping warming under 2℃, we found there would be almost no change in wave conditions for many of the coastal locations which we identified as particularly at risk in a 4℃ world.

It is still not too late to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, but the window of opportunity is closing fast. We hope this research will help direct funding for coastal adaptation and resilience to the areas which will need it most.

Read more:
Climate change may change the way ocean waves impact 50% of the world’s coastlines

Thomas Mortlock is affiliated with Aon, Australia.

Adrean Webb receives funding from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.

Nobuhito Mori receives funding from JSPS KAKENHI (19K15099, 19H00782) and Integrated Research Program for Advancing Climate Models (TOUGOU Program: JPMXD0717935498) supported by MEXT of Japan.

Rodolfo Silva receives funding from CEMIE-Océano, CONACYT-SENER Sustentabilidad Energética project.

Tomoya Shimura receives funding from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.

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

– ref. Climate-fuelled wave patterns pose an erosion risk for developing countries – https://theconversation.com/climate-fuelled-wave-patterns-pose-an-erosion-risk-for-developing-countries-184064

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louis Lignereux, TBA, University of Adelaide

The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 pushed a host of threatened species closer to extinction, including the critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart. And as our research released today shows, feral cats posed a second lethal threat to the species in the weeks after the disaster.

The Kangaroo Island dunnart is a mouse-sized marsupial found only on the western end of the island. Bushfires in January 2020 burnt more than 98% of its habitat. The dunnart population was thought to be about 500 before the fire; its current numbers are being surveyed but are thought to have since declined even further.

Cat predation has caused the extinction or near-extinction of several native species around the globe. Our results confirm for the first time that feral cats prey on the dunnart and did so directly after the bushfires.

The findings underscore the importance of acting immediately to protect threatened species from predators in the wake of catastrophic natural events.

Analysing feral cat diets

Before the Black Summer fires, the Kangaroo Island dunnart’s habitat was fragmented due to land clearing and other pressures. Feral cats on the island were also suspected of contributing to the species decline, but this had not been proven.

A federally funded feral cat eradication program has been in place since 2015, and aims to make Kangaroo Island free of feral cats by 2030.

A 2020 study estimated there were between 1,000 and 2,300 feral cats on Kangaroo Island. We set out to determine whether cats threatened the dunnart.

We analysed the diet of feral cats humanely euthanised immediately after the 2019 bushfire. We accessed the stomach contents and digestive tracts of 86 cats captured between February and August 2020.

The cats were not killed for our study, but as part of the national feral cat control program and were euthanised in accordance with South Australia animal welfare laws. They were caught in unburnt areas where dunnarts and other species that survived the fire would likely have sought refuge.

We identified 263 distinct prey items in the cats’ stomachs and digestive tracts. They comprised:

• 195 mammals
• 46 birds
• 10 reptiles
• 12 arthropods (invertebrates such as beetles).

Among them, the introduced house mouse represented the most significant proportion, being part of the diet for 47 cats.

We found the remains of eight Kangaroo Island dunnarts in seven different cats. Three dunnarts were readily identifiable as they were nearly whole carcasses. Five more were identified based on hair features.

We observed dunnart tissue in both the stomach and large intestine of one cat, suggesting it had recently preyed on at least two individuals.

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Our results confirm for the first time that feral cats prey on Kangaroo Island dunnarts and were efficient hunters of this species directly after the fires.

Our results provides only a small snapshot of what the feral cat had eaten. That’s because once the prey is fully digested (between 27 and 36 hours after being caught) we cannot analyse it. So the cats may well have recently consumed more prey than we could identify.

Safe to say, the cats present a substantial threat to the dunnart. We also found the remains of the endangered southern brown bandicoot in a male cat’s stomach. This endangered species is likely the last out of eight native bandicoot species still living in the wild in South Australia.

Read more:
Australian endangered species: Kangaroo Island Dunnart

Saving the most vulnerable

The Kangaroo Island dunnart is emblematic of challenges faced by threatened species across the world – especially those confined to increasingly fragmented habitats, coping with the catastrophic consequences of climate change and preyed on by introduced species.

Species already compromised can easily slide into extinction after disasters such as the Black Summer fires – the likes of which are predicted to become more frequent as the world warms and dries.

After such events, we must act immediately to protect vulnerable species from invasive predators. These measures can mean the difference between survival and extinction.

But prevention is better than cure, and we should not wait until after a catastrophic event to protect our most threatened fauna.

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I’m searching firegrounds for surviving Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spiders. 6 months on, I’m yet to find any

Louis Lignereux receives funding from Human Frontier Science Programme (Grant RGP0062/2018)

– ref. This critically endangered marsupial survived a bushfire – then along came the feral cats – https://theconversation.com/this-critically-endangered-marsupial-survived-a-bushfire-then-along-came-the-feral-cats-185133

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nimish Biloria, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney

If you’re anything like me, you’re increasingly working from home, one that was built before energy efficiency measures were introduced in Australia.

With temperatures along the east coast plunging and power bills skyrocketing, heating (and cooling) our homes is an energy intensive, expensive affair.

Almost 8 million homes across Australia lack sufficient insulation, use sub-par heating and cooling equipment, or are badly designed.

Indeed, these 8 million pre-energy rated homes account for 18% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. And research finds 26% of Australians across all housing types can’t stay warm at least half of the time during winter.

Retrofitting this housing stock to be more energy efficient is essential to successfully meet Australia’s target of cutting emissions 43% by 2030, while finding comfort in our future of intensifying climate extremes.

My research into net-zero emissions retrofitting identifies three broad categories that must be considered when retrofitting existing homes to be more climate friendly:

1. visual comfort: the sufficient quality, quantity and distribution of light

2. thermal comfort: determined by the temperature, humidity, air flow and a person’s physical condition

3. energy consumption: the amount of energy we use, and the energy used in manufacturing, transporting, constructing, maintaining, and removal of materials to build our homes.

1. Visual comfort

It’s vital to understand how much sunlight the outside and interior of your home is exposed to. One can, accordingly, re-organise interior functions based on the demand for lighting, heating or cooling needs.

During summer, spaces used often during the day, such as your home office, could benefit from being in places that receive less direct sunlight, so are cooler. In winter, consider moving your home office set up to a room with higher levels of direct sunlight, where it’s warmer.

This will naturally reduce the amount of energy needed to cool or heat these rooms while allowing for comfortable working conditions.

Other ways we can find more visual comfort include modifying the size of windows and skylights to let in more sunlight. To diffuse harsh lighting, consider adding screens, sun baffles, overhangs, or pergolas over windows.

You can also replace your lights with LEDs equipped with linear controllers and motion sensors in places where lights tend to be left on. LEDs use around 75% less energy than halogen light bulbs.

2. Thermal comfort

Older Australian homes are incredibly draughty, and a lot of the energy we spend cooling or heating our homes escapes outside due to poor insulation. Retrofitting to improve your home’s natural ventilation can reduce the number of times you need to switch on the heater or air conditioner.

Sealing outside and internal surfaces until they’re airtight is crucial. Different surfaces – whether walls, floors or ceilings – require different methods, types and thicknesses of insulation.

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If you’re renting, chances are your home is cold. With power prices soaring, here’s what you can do to keep warm

Walls, for instance, require a “blow-in” method. This can involve installing cellulose foam or glasswool (made from fibreglass) into the wall, via a small hole through the wall cavities (for cellulose foam) or laying glasswool batts in wall cavities. Floors, on the other hand, can require insulation panels fitted between timber or steel supports or foam boards.

Also important is to choose materials and methods that maximise insulation while minimising thermal bridging. A thermal bridge is a weak point where heat is lost, such as wall intersections, connecting points of mounting brackets, and even penetration points of electric cables.

Between ten and 35% of the energy we spend cooling or heating our homes escapes through single glazed windows and doors. Installing double or triple glazed windows and doors will go a long way to keep temperatures more stable inside.

It’s worth noting the energy performance rating systems on measurement labels, which are often attached to window and door units you can buy in stores.

Ultimately, a combination of improved natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation (such as air conditioners as fans) can result in considerable energy savings – up to 79% in some instances.

3. Energy consumption

While the above strategies will result in significant energy savings, it’s also vital to consider the energy required to produce and manufacture retrofitting materials. Consider using salvaged or recycled materials where possible, or choosing locally made products which avoid emissions associated with transport.

Effectively installing solar panels can offset this “hidden” carbon. Let’s say you’ve done all you can to lower your home’s carbon footprint – you’ve rolled out insulation, installed double glazed windows and made the most of sunshine.

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You can then calculate the energy you still use to heat or cool your home. This number will determine how many rooftop solar panels you should install to break even, rather than simply installing as many panels that can fit.

This will not only save you money, but also minimise waste. Researchers estimate that by 2047, Australia will accumulate 1 million tonnes of solar panel waste.

It’s worth opting for solar panels with micro-inverters, which capture optimal energy performance per panel while allowing you to add more panels in future if needed.

Another option is to use air-source heat pumps, which absorb heat from outside and bring it inside (like a reverse air conditioner). These can take the form of mini-split heat pumps for individual rooms, or multi-zone installations.

They can sense indoor temperature, and operate at variable speeds and heating or cooling intensity, which means their energy performance is very efficient. My research finds well-planned use of such systems can reduce the energy used for heating by 69% and cooling by 38%.

It’s well worth the effort

These retrofitting ideas might seem expensive, or take too much time. However, they’ll often save you money in the long run as energy prices become increasingly uncertain.

You can look to Every Building Counts, an initiative by the Green Building Council and the Property Council of Australia, which provides practical plans for emission reduction.

Australia can also learn from ongoing efforts by the Energiesprong network in the Netherlands. This network is industrialising energy efficiency with prefabricated retrofitting building elements.

Some initiatives include lightweight insulated panels that can simply be placed in front of existing walls of homes. These panels are precisely fitted after carefully laser scanning a facade and robotically cutting openings to match existing homes. Harnessing contemporary technology is vital for a speedy net-zero transition.

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Nimish Biloria has received funding in the past from organisations such as The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications: Smart Cities and Suburbs Program, Transport for New South Wales, HMI Technologies, Leigh Place Aged Care, and the City of Sydney

– ref. Keen to retrofit your home to lower its carbon footprint and save energy? Consider these 3 things – https://theconversation.com/keen-to-retrofit-your-home-to-lower-its-carbon-footprint-and-save-energy-consider-these-3-things-175921

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jess Harris, Associate Professor in Education, University of Newcastle

Every student in every school in Australia has experienced unprecedented disruptions to their schooling over the past three years. On top of the disruptions and stress of COVID-19 lockdowns, isolation from their schools, their friends and (for many) their extended families, tens of thousands of Australian families have also seen their communities ravaged by fires and floods.

Kids have had to spend lunchtimes indoors to avoid the smoky haze and ash falling on their playgrounds. They have been rescued from their rooftops by boat and helicopters. Lives have been lost and communities devastated.

Our research on post-crisis schooling and the impacts of COVID-19 found the disruptions to schooling had significant impacts on the well-being of teachers and students, whereas academically the kids were OK.

And yet schools and teachers are still under pressure to make sure students don’t “fall behind” academically. This concern has often overshadowed trickier questions like “how are they coping?” In Australia, we have just one professionally trained school counsellor for every 750 students.

What did the research find?

Reading results of year 3 and 4 students in 2020 were not significantly different from students who did the same tests in 2019. The picture was more complex in mathematics – some students achieved more and some slightly less than their 2019 peers. Overall, though, students have continued to progress at the same rate.

However, teachers’ morale and feelings of self-efficacy dropped substantially in 2020.

And disruptions to schooling and home lives have had a massive impact on the well-being and mental health of students. Mental health support services, such as Kids Helpline, reported increases in calls of up to 28% in Victoria while they endured repeated lockdowns.

Teachers from all levels of schooling reported seeing decreased engagement and increases in poor behaviour and student anxiety. One teacher told us:

And even the engagement, their concentration levels really, really dropped off a lot. […] they can’t sit still for more than a minute and, like I said, normally before COVID they were fine. They were able to participate in class discussions. And all of a sudden now, engagement […] they can’t sit still anymore. They’ve always got to be up. Focus and concentration floats in and out […] routine is gone, it’s not there anymore.

How can we support communities under pressure?

Natural disasters like fires and floods can traumatise children, particularly when their communities have been hit repeatedly. While children often show resilience immediately following natural disasters like bushfires, studies show up to one in five students report moderate to severe symptoms of trauma six to 12 months after the event.

Kids across the country have lost their homes and their schools. Many students, particularly those in the flooded Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, are living in temporary accommodation and going to “pop-up classrooms”. Sometimes these are in a different town, adding up to two hours of travel time for students and families. That’s stressful and exhausting for kids and families suffering from trauma.

Following repeated national emergencies, children need opportunities to talk about their experiences. It helps them to respond, recover and build resilience.

As a key part of the community, schools are uniquely placed to support children and their families in times of crisis. Calls for mental health literacy programs in schools offer one part of the solution. However, this is a complex issue that requires both immediate and ongoing responses.

Invest more in support services

On average, there’s only one professionally trained school counsellor to deal with the needs of students for every two schools in Australia – and there are far fewer counsellors in regional areas. Students are waiting more than four weeks to see their school counsellor. Schools and communities are desperate for this urgent and critical support.

Most teachers and school staff have limited training in how to understand impacts of trauma on student learning and behaviour, and in effective teaching practices for students who have experienced trauma. Departments need to invest in ensuring all teachers have these skills to support our kids in the years to come. The immediate solution can’t rely on our already overworked teachers.

Access to professional support for the mental health and well-being of our children is paramount. The current funding of $62.4 million a year provided for school chaplains, who do not require specialist training in psychology, could be re-allocated to ensure adequate and appropriately trained support for all children, particularly those who have lived through the most recent crises. While school chaplains reported increases in student mental health issues, family conflicts and behavioural issues in 2021, they made less than 15% of referrals in schools to other supports.

Schools are pillars of their communities. In the current crisis in the Northern Rivers, principals and teachers have again responded with unparalleled community spirit. But they need more support.

Established crisis communication plans can help principals, teachers, students and their families stay connected and feel some sense of control over their own lives. A strategic approach to setting up public and mental health hubs within schools for the whole community is essential for building resilience and getting kids ready to learn.

This article is part of The Conversation’s Breaking the Cycle series, which is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Jess Harris received funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, the Department of Education and Training (Victoria) and the NSW Department of Education for the research. This article is part of The Conversation’s Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. The series is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

– ref. After years of COVID, fires and floods, kids’ well-being now depends on better support – https://theconversation.com/after-years-of-covid-fires-and-floods-kids-well-being-now-depends-on-better-support-184848