Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Swerissen, Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University

Next week’s job summit will need to address the massive staff shortages in aged care. Estimates suggest 35,000 additional aged care workers per year are needed to fill growing aged care skill shortages. These problems will only increase as demand continues to grow.

Aged care workers provide personal and health care such as showering, feeding and changing dressings, help people with shopping and other community tasks, and support people in their homes and in aged care facilities?.

As the recent royal commission into aged care found, after decades of poor planning and governance, particularly at the local and regional level, it’s now hard to attract workers.

Workers are poorly paid, with hourly wages starting at around A$22. They often work casually or part time and there are limited career pathways.

Only around 5% of providers are currently exceeding the target staffing levels the new government has promised for 2023. Not surprisingly, there is high staff turnover in the industry and many providers simply can’t get staff.

But while skilled migration can play a role in aged care, it’s unlikely to be enough to fix the immediate or long-term problems.

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

What has the government done to boost workers so far?

The new federal government has opened up the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme to bring in more aged care workers to plug the gap.

The PALM scheme allows eligible aged care providers to hire workers from nine Pacific islands and Timor-Leste for between one and four years in unskilled, low skilled and semi skilled positions when there are not enough local workers available.

Currently, there are about 27,000 PALM workersin Australia. Most are in agriculture and manufacturing. The federal government is committed to growing the scheme, but at the end of 2021 there were only about 150 PALM workers in the care sector.

Migration processing is lagging

The total migration program is 160,000 visas per year. About 110,000 visas are for skilled migration. The rest is for families. The federal government has recently indicated it is looking at permanent migration for aged care workers.

Following COVID, there is a massive backlog in processing applications, resulting in a substantial reduction in migration.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade handles skilled visa applications and the actual assessments are issued by one of 42 skills assessing authorities. A full skills assessment takes about four to six weeks. But it takes around six to nine months for the department to issue skills visas for permanent migration and longer for temporary migration.

The Department of Home Affairs has been directed to speed up visa processing and clear the substantial backlog that has built up during the last three years.

But migration numbers are unlikely to meet demand

Even if the backlog is addressed and processing times improve, it is unlikely there will be sufficient appropriately qualified applicants to meet the aged care shortages through skilled migration, given the high demand for workers across the board and the international shortage of health care workers.

There are also broader risks in relying on temporary migration to fix short-term problems. Temporary solutions have a nasty habit of becoming permanent and undermining labour market conditions. There is now a long history of temporary migration undercutting wages and workers’ rights.

Read more:
Australia is missing 500,000 migrants, but we don’t need visa changes to lure them back

So what can be done to attract and keep aged care workers?

5 ways to boost the aged care workforce

1. Increase wages

Most importantly, wages for aged care workers must be improved immediately. The current work value case before the Fair Work Commission will help if the commission grants a substantial wage increase. The unions have called for a 25% lift to wages for aged care workers. That case should be determined later this year.

2. Improve conditions

Better wages alone won’t be enough. Conditions for aged care workers have to be made more secure. While consumer choice and flexibility are important, that can’t be at the expense of proper protections for workers. Aged care workers often have insecure and variable hours, split shifts and out-of-pocket costs.

3. Scale up training

Training and career structures have to be much more attractive. Around 30% of the workforce do not hold a relevant aged care qualification.

Despite the demand for improved training, the vocational education sector has difficulty attracting aged care students. Entry pathways to aged care work have to be made much more attractive.

While there are some traineeships for aged care, these could be scaled up. A national scaled up program of paid aged care traineeships should be considered to address the problem as an immediate extension of the federal government’s free TAFE initiative.

A Certificate III in Individual Support could be completed over two years with trainees working three days a week with approved home care and residential care providers. Training and supervision could be provided in partnership with TAFEs.

Paid traineeships would be attractive – and 10,000 to 15,000 traineeships would make a significant dent in the aged care workforce shortage.

The costs of aged care employment and training are already included in federal and state aged care and VET budgets. A traineeship scheme could be implemented in 2023.

Read more:
Budget gives $49.5 million for aged care training, but what about wages?

4. Develop career structures so workers can progress

In the medium term, aged care career structures have to be reformed both to improve the quality of the management, supervision and care of aged care services and to develop and retain the aged care workforce.

The new government’s initiatives to require 24/7 nursing oversight in all residential care facilities and to increase the care time to be provided are a start, but a broader emphasis on restructuring the personal care workforce is also needed. In particular, all personal care staff should be required to have appropriate training and registration to work in aged care.

5. Make it more attractive

Finally, the attractiveness of working in a reformed aged care sector needs to be promoted. A compelling vision of a high quality, well run, properly funded aged care sector with good wages and conditions and career pathways is needed to make aged care a much more desirable career choice.

Hal Swerissen is a non executive director of the Bendigo Kangan Institute for TAFE and a non executive director of the Murray PHN

– ref. Overseas recruitment won’t solve Australia’s aged care worker crisis – https://theconversation.com/overseas-recruitment-wont-solve-australias-aged-care-worker-crisis-189126

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Diesendorf, Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney

Energy consumption – whether its heating your home, driving, oil refining or liquefying natural gas – is responsible for around 82% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Unless Australia reduces its energy consumption, my recent study finds it’ll be almost impossible for renewable energy to replace fossil fuels by 2050. This is what’s required to reach our net-zero emissions target.

Yet, as the nation’s economy recovers from the pandemic, Australia’s energy consumption is likely to return to its pre-pandemic growth. The study identifies two principal justifications for reducing energy consumption (or “energy descent”):

1. the likely slow rate of electrifying transport and heating
2. that renewable energy will be chasing a retreating target if energy consumption grows.

Energy descent isn’t an impossible task. Indeed, in 1979, Australia’s total final energy consumption was about half that in 2021. Key to success will be transitioning to an ecologically sustainable, steady-state economy, with greener technologies and industries.

What’s slowing down growth in renewables?

To transition to sustainable energy, Australia must electrify transport and combustion heating, while replacing all fossil-fuelled electricity with energy efficiency and renewables, which are the cheapest energy technologies.

Renewables can be rolled out rapidly: wind and solar farms can be built in just a few years and residential rooftop solar can be installed in a single day.

But rapid growth in wind and solar is slowed by three critical infrastructural and institutional requirements of the electricity industry:

• to establish Renewable Energy Zones (a cluster of wind and solar farms and storage)
• to build new transmission lines and medium-term energy storage such as pumped hydro
• to reform electricity market rules to make them more suitable for renewable electricity.

These take longer than building solar and wind farms and much longer than installing rooftop solar and batteries. Nevertheless, they could be fully implemented within a decade.

In fact, transitioning existing fossil-fuelled electricity generation, such as coal-fired power stations, to 100% renewables could possibly be completed by the early 2030s.

But optimistic calculations based on how quickly we can build solar and wind farms and their infrastructure ignore the fact that the growth of renewable electricity is limited by electricity demand.

When existing coal-fired power stations have been replaced by renewables, electricity demand will be determined by how rapidly we can electrify transport and combustion heating. These are the principal tasks that will limit the future growth rate of renewable electricity. They will likely be implemented slowly, despite the urgency of climate change.

Read more:
Why Labor’s new tax cut on electric vehicles won’t help you buy one anytime soon

Households and industries have big investments in petrol/diesel vehicles and combustion heating. They may be reluctant to replace these working technologies, without substantial government incentives.

So far, effective federal government policies are almost non-existent for transitioning transport and heating, which are together responsible for 38% of Australia’s emissions.

This month’s announcement of a future “consultation” on fleet fuel efficiency standards is the government’s tentative first step.

Chasing a retreating target

If we look at only percentage growth rates, the task of renewable electricity looks misleadingly easy. From 2015 to 2019, Australia’s renewable electricity grew by 62% – an excellent achievement.

But, it was starting from a small base. This means its increase in energy production over that period was only slightly bigger than the growth of total final energy consumption – comprising electricity, transport and heating – which is still mostly fossil fuelled.

On the global scale, the situation is even worse. As a result of growth in total final energy consumption, the share of fossil fuels was the same in 2019 as in 2000: namely around 80%.

The challenge for renewable energy is like a runner trying to break a record while officials are striding away down the track with the finishing tape.

This situation is not the fault of renewable energy technologies. Nuclear energy, for example, would grow much more slowly and would take even longer to catch up with growing consumption.

In one of the scenarios I explore in my study, Australia’s total final energy consumption grows linearly at the pre-pandemic rate from 2021 to 2050. Then, renewable electricity would have to grow at 7.6 times its pre-pandemic rate to catch up by 2050.

Alternatively, if renewable electricity growth is exponential, it would have to double every 6.8 years until 2050.

Considering that future growth in renewable electricity will be limited by the rate of electrifying transport and combustion heating, both the required linear and exponential growth rates appear impossible.

Possible solutions

Both the International Energy Agency and modelling done for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change avoid the problem by assuming large-scale carbon dioxide capture and storage or directly capturing CO₂ from the air will become commercially available.

But relying on these unproven technologies is speculative and risky. Therefore, we need a Plan B: reducing our energy consumption.

Read more:
Engineers have built machines to scrub CO₂ from the air. But will it halt climate change?

My study shows if we could halve 2021 energy consumption by 2050, the transition may be possible. That is, if raw materials (such as lithium and other critical minerals) are available and local manufacturing could be greatly increased.

For example, if the total final energy consumption declines linearly and renewable electricity grows linearly, the latter would only have to grow at about three times its 2015–2019 rate to replace all fossil energy by 2050. For exponential growth, the doubling time is 9.4 years.

Improvements in energy efficiency would help, such as home insulation, efficient electrical appliances, and solar and heat pump hot water systems. However, the International Energy Agency shows such improvements will be unlikely to reduce demand sufficiently.

We need behavioural changes encouraged by socioeconomic policies, as well as technical.

Implications of energy descent

To reduce our energy consumption, we would need public debate followed by policies to encourage greener technologies and industries, and to make socioeconomic changes.

This need not involve deprivation of key technologies, but rather a planned reduction to a sustainable level of prosperity.

It would be characterised by greater emphasis on improving and expanding public transport, bicycle paths, pedestrian areas, parks and national parks, public health centres, public education, and public housing.

Read more:
Affluence is killing the planet, warn scientists

This approach of providing universal basic services reduces the need for high incomes and its associated high consumption. As research in 2020 pointed out, the world’s wealthiest 40 million people are responsible for 14% of lifestyle-related greenhouse gas emissions.

And on a global scale, energy descent could be financed by the rich countries, including Australia. Most people would experience a better quality of life. Energy descent is a key part of the pathway to an ecologically sustainable, socially just society.

Mark Diesendorf 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. It’ll be impossible to replace fossil fuels with renewables by 2050, unless we cut our energy consumption – https://theconversation.com/itll-be-impossible-to-replace-fossil-fuels-with-renewables-by-2050-unless-we-cut-our-energy-consumption-189131

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Keating, Visiting Fellow, College of Business & Economics, Australian National University

This article is part of The Conversation’s series looking at Labor’s jobs summit. Read the other articles in the series here.

Treasury’s issues paper for the jobs summit says fair pay and job security “strengthen communities, promote attractive careers and contribute to broad-based prosperity”.

But it notes “many Australians have not experienced real wage gains.

It says real (inflation-adjusted) wages have grown by only 0.1% per year over the past decade and have declined substantially over the past year.

It is important to note Australia is not unique.

In Canada, France, Britain and the United States as well as in Australia, real wage growth has been much lower in the 12 years preceding COVID than it was in the decade before that.

The critical question is why. Good policy depends on the answers.

For a long time, the authorities (in Australia, the Treasury and the Reserve Bank) assumed that low wage growth was caused by excessive slack in the labour market – too many unemployed workers available to take jobs, pushing down what could be asked for.

Low unemployment isn’t driving up wages

Unemployment exceeded their estimate of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU), which was believed to be about 5%. The theory was that once unemployment fell below that level, workers would feel more confident about asking for bigger wage increases and employers would feel the need to offer them.

The problem was that as unemployment fell, wage growth still did not recover, or did not recover sufficiently. The authorities responded by lowering their estimate of the NAIRU to somewhere between 4.5% and 5% without changing the model.

But with unemployment now down to 3.4%, and wage growth still low at 2.6%, it might be time to reexamine the model.

Productivity works both ways

The other thing the authorities consider is the rate of growth in labour productivity (output per hour worked). Australia’s productivity growth averaged 2.1% per year from 1989 to 2004 but has since fallen to about 1% per year, the lowest rate in half a century.

The authorities’ model, which assumes perfect competition, constant returns to scale and neutral technological progress implies that real wages can be expected to grow at the same rate as productivity, neither more nor less, making it look as if the collapse in productivity growth explains the collapse in wages growth.

Read more:
Are real wages falling? Here’s the evidence

But there are problems with this explanation. One is that real wage growth has not always kept pace with productivity growth. In many countries the share of national income going to wages fell as productivity growth was climbing.

Another problem is that low wage growth can contribute to low productivity growth.

Productivity growth depends principally on the adoption of and adaptation to new innovations, which require new investment. However, investment depends principally on consumer demand, which is driven by wages growth.

Wages can drive investment

Private business investment in plant and machinery averaged 6.7% of gross domestic product between 1989 and 2004 but fell to 5.1% after 2004.

It is entirely possible that if we were able to successfully address the structural causes of low wage growth, we could accelerate wages growth and thus consumer demand, which would accelerate productivity growth, giving us wages growth without a wage-price spiral.

So, what are these structural factors slowing wage growth?

The most-discussed suggestions are changed industrial relations settings (including shrinking trade union membership) and technological change and globalisation.

Low-skill jobs are hollowing out

Although there is something in both of these explanations, I put more weight on technological change and globalisation in part because other countries with different industrial relations systems also experienced weak wage growth, and also because the hollowing out of occupations clearly played a role and it is hard to see how the industrial relations system could have contributed to this.

Read more:
The Chalmers graphs: 7.75% inflation, plunging real wages, weak growth

The argument is that technological change and globalisation have hollowed out routine middle-level jobs, depressing pay in these occupations relative to higher-paid occupations.

This means programs to lift wage growth should focus on improving the capacity of the labour market to adapt to new technologies, which means retraining.

As the workforce upskills, wages will increase as workers shift to higher-paid jobs where workers are in short supply.

Thomas Piketty put it this way in his major study of inequality:

the best way to increase wages and reduce wage inequalities in the long run is to invest in education and skills

Although skills, training and migration are listed as key topics for the jobs summit, the treasury’s issues paper focuses almost entirely on industrial relations in its discussion of how best to boost wages.

The paper puts a lot of emphasis on restoring and improving enterprise bargaining, which the paper says, “should be a key enabler of both productivity growth and secure and well paid work”.

I am sceptical about this making much difference.

As I noted, other countries with different industrial relations systems have low wage growth.

The changes to the industrial relations system that would most help are those that improve job and pay security for the almost one third of workers who are casuals or independent contractors.

Helping them might flow on to others.

And wages in the public sector and jobs that are largely financed by government – such as those in health, education and caring – appear to be inadequate. There is clear evidence of unattractive salaries and work conditions causing labour shortages.

Read more:
If the PM wants wage rises, he should start with the 1.6 million people on state payrolls

These sectors are dominated by women, meaning improving their pay and conditions would help address the gender pay gap.

The price of improving the pay and conditions of these workers is worth paying, but it will come at a cost to budgets, which will have to be financed by tax, something participants at the summit should acknowledge.

Michael Keating is a former Secretary of the departments of Employment and Industrial Relations, Finance, and Prime Minister and Cabinet.

– ref. Many jobs summit ideas for lifting wages don’t make sense – upskilling does – https://theconversation.com/many-jobs-summit-ideas-for-lifting-wages-dont-make-sense-upskilling-does-189114

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chari Larsson, Senior Lecturer of art history, Griffith University

Review: Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)

Drawing together 19 artists and collectives, Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art is a celebration of women, people of colour and LGBTIQA+ artists. All share a connection to Queensland.

Co-curators Ellie Buttrose and Katina Davidson have presented an energetic and inclusive group show. The conversations are varied and important without collapsing into parochial cliché.

The curators cleverly weave multiple interconnecting themes investigating history, memory and self. Embodied Knowledge gives visual form to the complexity and diversity of contemporary art in Queensland.

At the entrance to this exhibition, you are immediately greeted with Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist Archie Moore’s newly commissioned installation in the gallery’s Watermall. Titled Inert State 2022, it consists of pieces of paper gently floating on the surface of the water.

On closer inspection, each document is a coroner’s report.

Counter-memorials

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, memorials have become increasingly contested terrain, with artists seeking to challenge the very idea of what a memorial might be.

Since the 1991 release of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report, more than 500 Indigenous people have died in police custody in Australia. Moore’s installation is a no-nonsense account of the ongoing racial violence in Australia’s prison systems.

Bitterly, this is a memorial in the present tense: Indigenous deaths in custody have not stopped.

Read more:
Black Lives Matter is a revolutionary peace movement

Also working in a counter-memorial mode, Kamilaroi artist Warraba Weatherall critiques museum collections that continue to hold human remains and cultural objects from Weatherall’s Country and its surrounds.

To Know and Possess (2021) is a series of ten memorial plaques cast in bronze. Each plaque is a cast of an original museum record.

The series sits awkwardly, out of scale on the expansive and otherwise empty gallery wall.

This is entirely the point, Weatherall is interrogating the supposed “ideological purity” and neutrality of the gallery space and, by extension, the institutional archive.

He reminds the viewer of the violence collecting practices continue to exert on Indigenous peoples.

It is as if the plaques are deliberately antagonising or waging war with the wall where they are hung.

Callum McGrath’s installation emerges from his ongoing research project investigating and documenting public sites that are memorials for the queer community.

Part travel diary, part images selected from the internet, Responsibilities to time (2019) is presented in a series of leather-bound photo albums.

The scale of McGrath’s work is intimate: he invites the spectator to step in and take a closer look. The frosted page dividers frustrate the viewer’s desire to see. Instead, the viewer is left with absences and gaps.

The work is a potent reminder of how queer histories are made invisible by heteronormative history. By working with amateur photography, McGrath is undermining the archive and its claims to authority.

A sense of self

This exhibition cleverly interweaves key moments in the history of native title.

Meriam artist Obery Sambo is from the Torres Strait island of Mer (Murray Island) and a descendent of a long line of master mask and headdress-makers. Here he continues that tradition with his own ornate masks.

In 1898, the University of Cambridge sponsored a team of anthropologists to travel to the Torres Strait, where they filmed Sambo’s ancestors dressed and dancing for ceremony.

Many years later, the footage was used as evidence of cultural continuity in the Mabo ruling in 1992.

Read more:
Australian politics explainer: the Mabo decision and native title

Working in an entirely different register, Justene Williams’ installation The Vertigoats (2021) consists of a series of mannequins.

Williams has long been associated with the grunge aesthetic of Sydney in the 1990s. This work is more disco. With their disproportional limbs, Williams’ figures gleefully dance and cavort across the gallery space.

In her sights is the darker side of the online wellness and fashion industries. The idealised fabrication of our online selves is placed under pressure as the mannequins’ elongated limbs stretch to nightmarish proportions.

In playful dialogue with Williams’ mannequins is Jenny Watson’s series Private views and rear visions (2021-2022). Comprising of 48 paintings displayed along the length of the gallery wall, the work’s scale is commanding.

Watson has painted over printer’s proofs of the exhibition catalogue for a showing of her work in 2016. This creates a curious fold in time: Jenny on Jenny.

Watson is at her performative best: she places the notion of the authentic self under pressure while working in her distinctly confessional mode of address. Watson draws on recurring motifs that have defined her career, such as the lone woman, horses and the playful incorporation of text.

Embodied Knowledge is on display at QAGOMA until January 22.

Chari Larsson 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. QAGOMA’s Embodied Knowledge is an energetic and inclusive celebration of contemporary Queensland art – https://theconversation.com/qagomas-embodied-knowledge-is-an-energetic-and-inclusive-celebration-of-contemporary-queensland-art-188722

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Sutton, Senior Lecturer in Accounting, University of Technology Sydney

Aged care homes struggling to meet staffing needs are increasingly relying on externally contracted care workers to make up shortfalls.

However, our new study, shows homes that rely more heavily on externally contracted care staff provide significantly worse quality of care.

With the government convening a national jobs and skills summit next week, much attention is focused on addressing current staff shortages across the economy. Legislation has just been passed to increase the numbers of workers in aged care homes, and our research indicates workers’ employment conditions are critical to ensuring higher quality of care is provided to senior Australians.

‘Agency’ staff across the sector

Within the residential aged care sector, approximately 9% of all the registered nurses, enrolled nurses and personal care workers are external contractors. Employed by third-party labour hire agencies, these “agency” staff work across different aged care homes on a temporary basis.

This sort of employment arrangement can help homes deal with short-term fluctuations in demand and staffing shortfalls. So it’s not surprising that as shortages have become more acute, this workforce strategy has become more commonplace.

In particular, as homes have struggled to maintain sufficient staff during the COVID pandemic, the use of agency staff has increased across the sector.

As agency staff tend to work intermittently, there are concerns they lack familiarity with individual residents and their unique needs. This can be disruptive and distressing for residents and their families and undermine the continuity of their care.

Also, as agency staff frequently work across different homes, they tend to be less efficient and require more supervision. This can can increase workload pressures, stress and turnover of permanent workers.

Read more:
Getting more men into nursing means a rethink of gender roles, pay and recognition. But we need them urgently

The relationship between staffing and quality care

Our study of 1,709 aged care homes over five years investigated the relationship between the quality of care provided by aged care homes and their reliance on agency contract care staff.

We found the use of agency staff was relatively common, with the majority of homes using agency care staff at some point.

More importantly, we found homes that rely more heavily on agency staff have worse quality of care. Specifically, they have higher rates of workforce-related complaints to the regulator, occurrences of missing residents, reportable assaults, preventable hospitalisations and instances of non-compliance with accreditation standards.

While this is the first such study in Australia, these results align with international evidence. One striking similarity is how sensitive care quality is to even tiny increments of agency staffing. We found that even if just 5% of care time is delivered by agency staff, homes deliver significantly poorer quality outcomes.

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

But we’re in the middle of a workforce crisis

Our findings suggest one way to improve quality of care is for homes to reduce their reliance on contract care staff. This could involve efforts to improve the recruitment, retention and rostering of permanent nurses and care workers.

However, in the current context, this might be easier said than done. With the industry in the midst of a massive workforce crisis, homes may have no choice but to continue to rely on agency workers.

In such cases, homes should adopt strategies to mitigate the potential for bad outcomes. For example, they might improve residents’ continuity of care by drawing from a pool of regular agency workers and investing in better orientation and shift handover processes.

In terms of policy, much of the recent reform agenda has focused improving staffing numbers and skills in aged care, through funding for training programs, mandatory care minutes, 24/7 registered nurses and addressing workers pay.

Another of Labor’s election promises was to implement a recommendation from the Royal Commission to require aged care providers to preference direct employment over using contracted “agency” workers. This issue is now being investigated by the Productivity Commission, which will hand its report down next month.

Read more:
‘Respite care’ can give carers a much-needed break, but many find accessing it difficult

No quick fixes

Simply putting limits on agency staff is unlikely to work in the current context. Imposing caps may result in homes providing less total care to residents.

Rather, the widespread use of agency across the sector reflects a need to understand and address its root causes. As will be discussed next week at the jobs summit, staffing shortages are not isolated to aged care but widespread across the economy.

Policymakers also will have to be mindful of the impact of other reforms in play. For instance, the use of contractors may well increase as providers attempt to increase staffing levels to meet incoming mandatory minimum standards, while managing the demands and disruptions of COVID outbreaks.

Despite these challenges our research highlights the importance of finding ways to sustainably curb the use of contract staff so as to deliver the quality of care all senior Australians deserve.

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

Nelson Ma 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. Complaints, missing persons, assaults – contracting outside workers in aged care increases problems – https://theconversation.com/complaints-missing-persons-assaults-contracting-outside-workers-in-aged-care-increases-problems-188745

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jaelen Nicole Myers, PhD Candidate, James Cook University

Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s series introducing you to unloved Australian animals that need our help.

Have you ever done the “stingray shuffle”? If you live by the coast, you’ve probably taken this precaution to frighten off any buried stingrays as you wade into the water. Breath easy – your chances of getting stuck with a nasty barb are slim.

Any thoughts we have about stingrays usually end once danger is averted, but these fascinating creatures are much more than an inconvenience for beachgoers.

Stingrays are flat-bodied sharks that live in almost all marine environments worldwide. In fact, there are over 600 recognised species – most of which we know very little about. Even in the research world, we struggle to answer simple questions such as: which areas are most valuable for stingray populations and why?

The mangrove whipray (Urogymnus granulatus) is one such species. Aptly named, mangrove whiprays feel at home gliding through submerged mangrove roots in the tropical coastal regions of the Indo-Pacific and Northeast Australia. Unfortunately, they are at risk of decline and localised extinctions.

As a scientist who studies them, I attest these rather ordinary, mud-covered stingrays are beautiful, and I never tire of watching them. We have to ask ourselves: would it make any difference if these rays were here or not? How relevant are they for ecosystem health?

The situation at hand

Sharks and rays are experiencing some of the most drastic declines of any animal group inhabiting our oceans today due to fishing pressure and habitat loss, and coastal species are particularly vulnerable.

Stingrays are occasionally preyed upon by their toothy relatives, such as formidable Carcharhinid or hammerhead sharks. However, the shark-eat-shark world isn’t all to blame for losses of abundance and species becoming red-listed.

Most stingrays depend on shallow tidal habitats for feeding and protection, especially during their first years of life, but many of these areas worldwide are being lost and degraded. This is a big threat to the survival of mangrove whiprays.

Coastal development is a major contributor to the destruction of mangroves as we replace these seaside forests with marinas, agricultural land, factory ports, ocean-view hotels, homes, and other structures.

A recent global assessment of tidal wetlands found that compared to other coastal environment types, mangroves experienced some of the greatest losses due to human activities, with 3,700 square kilometres lost worldwide between 1999-2019.

Worsening drought conditions due to climate change may also threaten mangrove forests. For example, recent research suggests climate change contributed to the deaths of 40 million Northern Australian mangroves in the summer of 2015 and 2016.

We can only expect that with the loss of pristine mangrove environments, mangrove whiprays will diminish along with them. As this threat continues into the future, this little stingray remains at risk.

Why they matter

Mangrove whiprays do much more than lay buried in the sand. While they’re not high profile apex predators, they fill an important niche as intermediate predators. Essentially, they are the glue that connects higher and lower levels of the food chain.

Since they’re usually seen from above, it’s hard to notice the small, suction-like mouth underneath, which they use to extract buried invertebrate prey. Combined with vigorous flapping of their winged pectoral fins, their feeding can stir up hefty clouds of sediment.

Through this intense excavation, they recirculate buried nutrients and small food items back into the water column. This, in turn, can be important for creating feeding opportunities for other organisms. My personal observations of foraging mangrove whiprays have revealed that small fishes often linger nearby to snack on stray food particles.

As both predator and prey, these rays also help transfer nutrients beyond where they feed across a broader range of ecosystems. This can occur at small scales when they creep in and out of intertidal areas with the tide and at larger scales when juveniles transition to deeper waters as adults.

This strengthens ecosystem connectivity, which is a critical component of overall health and stability of coastal environments.

So, under the category “ecosystem functions”, coastal stingrays like the mangrove whipray have an impressive resume worthy of our attention. The next big question regarding their conservation is: what can we do for them?

What we can do

Realistically, we cannot snap our fingers and stop all human activities from threatening the coastal mangroves they call home. What we can do is achieve a better understanding of where they are highly abundant and why, so we can identify pieces of critical habitat.

This way, conservation efforts can be designed to protect the areas they rely on the most.

An improved understanding on how mangrove whiprays participate in coastal food chains would also help us determine if declining populations threaten the welfare of coastal mangrove forests.

But the campaign for action doesn’t stop at mangrove whiprays. This species represents just one of many creeping into the bubble of conservation concern, and more may join the list if we continue without vital knowledge that can support their protection.

Examples of other vulnerable species that have been documented sharing habitats with mangrove whiprays are the pink whipray (Pateobatus fai) and giant guitarfish (Glaucostegus typus). Therefore, in areas where these different ray species live together, conservation strategies for one may have positive outcomes for all.

It’s up to scientists to fill the existing gaps on stingray ecology, but the average bystander can also help by spreading awareness for stingrays so their plight won’t drag on without any media headlines to lament it.

They may not warm our hearts with their cuddly cuteness (me excluded), but the wellbeing of our coastal ecosystems may just depend on these remarkable flat-bodied sharks. I know I will miss them if they are gone.

Jaelen Nicole Myers receives funding from James Cook University’s College of Science and Engineering and Orpheus Island Research Station; funding also provided by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment via the Ecological Society of Australia

– ref. ‘I will miss them if they are gone’: stingrays are underrated sharks we don’t know enough about – https://theconversation.com/i-will-miss-them-if-they-are-gone-stingrays-are-underrated-sharks-we-dont-know-enough-about-186214

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly E Matthews, Associate Professor, Higher Education, Institute of Teaching and Learning Innovation, The University of Queensland

Each year tens of thousands of higher education students complete the Student Experience Survey. It’s seen as a litmus test of student engagement, satisfaction and educational quality. But do the ways in which institutions and governments try to understand student experiences still add up?

The pandemic has transformed enrolment patterns and the ways in which students interact with their institutions and the courses they offer. We suggest the data from the 2021 survey released today no longer adequately capture students’ experience of study. The current version of the survey was designed for a time when modes of study were more clearly defined than they have become since COVID-19 emerged.

The student survey is part of the Australian Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching (QILT) suite of measures for higher education. The 2021 report shows ratings are more positive compared to 2020 for younger and internal (classroom-based) students. According to the report, this “can likely be attributed to some return to on-campus learning and also a change in the expectations and experience of students”.

Read more:
COVID has changed students’ needs and expectations. How do universities respond?

But how are “internal” students engaging in their studies? Does learning look the same today compared to 2019, and should it?

New forms of flexibility in student mode of study have to be matched with new forms of support to enable students to make smart choices. The mode of study categorised as internal for the survey now includes so much variation that it no longer serves a useful function for reporting and analysis purposes.

Read more:
Digital learning is real-world learning. That’s why blended on-campus and online study is best

Why QILT results matter

Individual higher education providers might use results to:

• set key performance indicators – for example, “by 2030, we will be in the top 3 universities for learner engagement”

• market themselves – “we are the top Australian university for teaching quality”

• undertake evidence-informed planning – “develop sense-of-belonging roadmap to increase scores”.

Student survey data are also used in research that informs policymakers. Drawing on many years of survey results, social scientists analyse datasets to answer big, high-level questions.

It’s more than a matter of comparing universities and providers. Questions of equity and access are investigated. For example, how are rural and regional students engaging in higher education?

These data are used in research with other national datasets. For example, reports from the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education at Curtin University demonstrate the importance of such data.

COVID has changed how we study

The pandemic shone a light on issues of student equity as mode of study shifted (as a recent review showed). Mode of attendance is defined as:

• internal: classroom-based

• external: online, correspondence, and electronic-based (the language used for data-collection purposes shows how outdated it is)

• multimodal: mix of internal and external.

In 2019, about 75% of Australian higher education students were enrolled as internal students. Multimodal studies accounted for roughly 14%.

Even at that time, it could have been argued that the lines between internal (classroom-based) and external (online) were already becoming blurred. Lecture recordings, learning management systems, flipped classrooms, endless debates about the “lecture”, and growth in digital technologies not only broadened access to knowledge but also enabled a mix of online and in-class interaction.

The use of existing technologies was a key reason the higher education sector could pivot online in a week when the pandemic hit in early 2020. Imagine if the pandemic had happened in 2005 instead of 2020? Higher education institutions would have simply shut down without these technologies.

Now we have had two years’ experience of online learning and new modes of study. Examples include attendance via Zoom rooms, live online, hi-flex (making class meetings and materials available so students can access them online or in person), swapping from on-campus to online due to lockdowns, students moving between internal and external study on a week-by-week basis. Does the either-or categorisation of modes of attendance – internal or external – still make sense?

Read more:
Beyond Zoom, Teams and video lectures — what do university students really want from online learning?

5 problems with categorising attendance this way

We have identified at least five problems with the current survey categorisation of modes of attendance:

1. categorising attendance as purely one or other mode, rather than a combination of modes, stifles research and analysis of important national datasets

2. the existing categorisations stifle innovation, limiting institutions from creating distinctive blends of modes of teaching and learning

3. it perpetuates an outdated, either/or mindset that permeates discussion in the sector

4. it masks important implications of differences between new and established modes of attendance, including:

• hidden workloads for staff, leading to questions of burnout and mental health

• unclear expectations for students, which hinders decision-making and effective study approaches

• hidden costs and unclear planning processes for differing modes of study

• lack of clarity about blurred modes of study being offered, which can restrict access to higher education and create obstacles to success for equity students.

5. the sector is missing opportunities to gather relevant mass-scale data on modes of attendance to guide policy and practice.

Sector needs to agree on a new model

The crude categorisation of modes of study is hindering evidence-based decision-making. Across the sector, institutions are scrambling to sort out how best to maintain the flexibility many students now demand while ensuring students meet expected learning outcomes. And institutions need to do so in ways that are sustainable and healthy for staff.

As the chaos of the pandemic hopefully subsides, the higher education sector would benefit from a sector-wide process of developing an agreed way of describing the full range of modes of attendance. A framework is needed that enables shared understanding of all these modes. This will enable institutions to better plan, resource, innovate and engage students and staff.

Such a framework could then inform ongoing national data collection, such as QILT, so social scientists and educational researchers can, in turn, better guide policy and practice.

Kelly E Matthews has received funds from the Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment in a project with the co-authors and Matthias Kubler.

Jason M Lodge has received funds from the Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment in a project with the co-authors and Matthias Kubler.

Melissa Johnstone has received funds from the Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment in a project with the co-authors and Matthias Kubler.

– ref. 5​ problems with the Student Experience Survey’s attempt to understand what’s going on in higher education post-COVID – https://theconversation.com/5-problems-with-the-student-experience-surveys-attempt-to-understand-whats-going-on-in-higher-education-post-covid-185483

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geology, Curtin University

“To see a world in a grain of sand”, the opening sentence of the poem by William Blake, is an oft-used phrase that also captures some of what geologists do.

We observe the composition of mineral grains, smaller than the width of a human hair. Then, we extrapolate the chemical processes they suggest to ponder the construction of our planet itself.

Now, we’ve taken that minute attention to new heights, connecting tiny grains to Earth’s place in the galactic environment.

Looking out to the universe

At an even larger scale, astrophysicists seek to understand the universe and our place in it. They use laws of physics to develop models that describe the orbits of astronomical objects.

Although we may think of the planet’s surface as something shaped by processes entirely within Earth itself, our planet has undoubtedly felt the effects of its cosmic environment. This includes periodic changes in Earth’s orbit, variations in the Sun’s output, gamma ray bursts, and of course meteorite impacts.

Just looking at the Moon and its pockmarked surface should remind us of that, given Earth is more than 80 times more massive than its grey satellite. In fact, recent work has pointed to the importance of meteorite impacts in the production of continental crust on Earth, helping to form buoyant “seeds” that floated on the outermost layer of our planet in its youth.

We and our international team of colleagues have now identified a rhythm in the production of this early continental crust, and the tempo points to a truly grand driving mechanism. This work has just been published in the journal Geology.

Read more:
What created the continents? New evidence points to giant asteroids

The rhythm of crust production on Earth

Many rocks on Earth form from molten or semi-molten magma. This magma is derived either directly from the mantle – the predominantly solid but slowly flowing layer below the planet’s crust – or from recooking even older bits of pre-existing crust. As liquid magma cools, it eventually freezes into solid rock.

Through this cooling process of magma crystallisation, mineral grains grow and can trap elements such as uranium that decay over time and produce a sort of stopwatch, recording their age. Not only that, but crystals can also trap other elements that track the composition of their parental magma, like how a surname might track a person’s family.

With these two pieces of information – age and composition – we can then reconstruct a timeline of crust production. Then, we can decode its main frequencies, using the mathematical wizardry of the Fourier transform. This tool basically decodes the frequency of events, much like unscrambling ingredients that have gone into the blender for a cake.

Our results from this approach suggest an approximate 200-million-year rhythm to crust production on the early Earth.

Read more:
Ancient Earth had a thick, toxic atmosphere like Venus – until it cooled off and became liveable

Our place in the cosmos

But there is another process with a similar rhythm. Our Solar System and the four spiral arms of the Milky Way are both spinning around the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre, yet they are moving at different speeds.

The spiral arms orbit at 210 kilometres per second, while the Sun is speeding along at 240km per second, meaning our Solar System is surfing into and out of the galaxy’s arms. You can think of the spiral arms as dense regions that slow the passage of stars much like a traffic jam, which only clears further down the road (or through the arm).

This model results in approximately 200 million years between each entry our Solar System makes into a spiral arm of the galaxy.

So, there seems to be a possible connection between the timing of crust production on Earth and the length of time it takes to orbit the galactic spiral arms – but why?

Strikes from the cloud

In the distant reaches of our Solar System, a cloud of icy rocky debris named the Oort cloud is thought to orbit our Sun.

As the Solar System periodically moves into a spiral arm, interaction between it and the Oort cloud is proposed to dislodge material from the cloud, sending it closer to the inner Solar System. Some of this material may even strike Earth.

Earth experiences relatively frequent impacts from the rocky bodies of the asteroid belt, which on average arrive at speeds of 15km per second. But comets ejected from the Oort cloud arrive much faster, on average 52km per second.

We argue it is these periodic high-energy impacts that are tracked by the record of crust production preserved in tiny mineral grains. Comet impacts excavate huge volumes of Earth’s surface, leading to decompression melting of the mantle, not too dissimilar from popping a cork on a bottle of fizz.

This molten rock, enriched in light elements such as silicon, aluminium, sodium and potassium, effectively floats on the denser mantle. While there are many other ways to generate continental crust, it’s likely that impacting on our early planet formed buoyant seeds of crust. Magma produced from later geological processes would adhere to those early seeds.

Harbingers of doom, or gardeners for terrestrial life?

Continental crust is vital in most of Earth’s natural cycles – it interacts with water and oxygen, forming new weathered products, hosting most metals and biological carbon.

Large meteorite impacts are cataclysmic events that can obliterate life. Yet, impacts may very well have been key to the development of the continental crust we live on.

With the recent passage of interstellar asteroids through the Solar System, some have even gone so far as to suggest they ferried life across the cosmos.

However we came to be here, it is awe-inspiring on a clear night to look up at the sky and see the stars and the structure they trace, and then look down at your feet and feel the mineral grains, rock and continental crust below – all linked through a very grand rhythm indeed.

Chris Kirkland receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Phil Sutton 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. Scientists have traced Earth’s path through the galaxy via tiny crystals found in the crust – https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-traced-earths-path-through-the-galaxy-via-tiny-crystals-found-in-the-crust-188158

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Lecturer, General Dentist & PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

Most of us can’t smell our own breath. If someone bravely informs you your breath smells, believe them, and do something about it. Or if you are worried you have bad breath, seek out a trusted opinion.

Your breath can be the first sign something in your body needs attention. Here are some tips to help you identify the cause, and how to fix it.

What causes bad breath?

Of the many causes of bad breath, 90% originate from putrid-smelling bacterial by-products inside our mouth. These by-products form a bouquet of odours that can make our breath smell like rotten eggs (volatile sulphur compounds) or poo (methyl mercaptan/hydrogen sulphide).

The largest and most significant odour-cultivating culprit is our tongue. The back of our tongue is a perfect petri dish for bacteria that feed on dead cells, saliva proteins, sinus ooze and fluids from untreated gum disease.

These bacteria can form a furry coat on our tongue that permeates our breath. The good news is you can fix this by brushing your tongue when you clean your teeth.

Eating onion and garlic can add a sulphurous tone to your breath for up to three days, due mainly to food particles left behind. Tobacco smoking also causes bad mouth smells to linger. Pus from dental infections can also be a smelly culprit.

Hard-to-reach places in the mouth where the toothbrush just can’t seem to clean can act like greenhouses where unhealthy bacteria thrive. Spaces in faulty or broken fillings, holes in teeth, gaps (pockets) in the gums that form with advancing gum (periodontal) disease, as well as improperly cleaned dental implants, dentures and braces, all contribute to bad odours.

Your dentist or hygienist can help identify these smell-promoting reservoirs, and fix or clean them. They can also help customise your oral hygiene routine to improve your health and reduce malodour.

Read more:
Why do I grind my teeth and clench my jaw? And what can I do about it?

What about morning breath?

We all experience morning breath, with some suffering more than others. Morning breath occurs when our saliva flow slows or stops while we sleep. And without saliva to wash, dilute or flush, everything stagnates: food particles ferment and the bacteria multiply to release gassy odours.

This is why it is important to brush your teeth and gums, and use appropriate tools such as floss or interdental brushes before going to bed. If you are unsure, your dentist or hygienist will be able to identify which tools work best for you.

Other factors that reduce saliva include stress, anxiety, fasting, dehydration, antidepressants and blood-pressure-reducing medication, recreational drugs, caffeine and alcohol.

And if you tend to breathe through your mouth rather than your nose while asleep, your morning breath may be worse. Mouth-breathers can have sinus issues that block their noses to prevent proper breathing.

More serious causes

Chronic (long-term) sinusitis and tonsillitis can also cause bad breath (especially if the tonsilitis causes tonsil stones – smelly cheese-like clumps of bacteria, dead skin cells, keratin and foreign debris).

Occasionally, young children may insert small objects into their nasal passages, which causes a buildup of bacteria and a yucky smell.

Read more:
Is whitening bad for teeth? We asked five experts

What do I do if I have bad breath?

For most of us, good oral hygiene, drinking plenty of water, avoiding tobacco products, regular dental visits, and chronic sinus and tonsillitis management will help avoid bad breath.

In some instances, we may choose to suffer the short-term consequences (because onion and garlic are delicious). Chewing sugar-free gum or mints may temporarily ease any issues caused by last night’s garlic pizza.

If you’re concerned, see your hygienist or dentist, who can diagnose and help you manage the cause of your bad breath.

Arosha Weerakoon 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 does my breath smell bad, and what can I do about it? – https://theconversation.com/why-does-my-breath-smell-bad-and-what-can-i-do-about-it-184560

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

There is no better example of how Australia’s defamation laws enable the rich and powerful to intimidate their critics than Lachlan Murdoch suing Crikey.com over a comment piece concerning Fox News, Donald Trump and the Washington insurrection of January 6 2021.

Crikey says it has published the correspondence between its lawyers and Murdoch’s in order to show how media power is abused in Australia.

The correspondence begins with a “concerns notice” Murdoch sent to Crikey, which is the essential first step in launching an action for defamation. In it, Murdoch claims that the Crikey commentary by Bernard Keane, published on June 29 2022, conveyed 14 meanings that were defamatory of Murdoch.

Murdoch’s allegation and Crikey’s defence

According to Murdoch’s claims, Keane’s piece alleges that Lachlan Murdoch illegally conspired with Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 US presidential election result and incite an armed mob to march on the Capitol to prevent the result from being confirmed.

Read more:
Web activists Avaaz put Lachlan Murdoch’s media interests under the spotlight

Crikey has responded by disputing that these meanings are conveyed, saying they are
“contrived and do not arise”. Crikey also argues that whatever it published could not possibly have done serious harm to Lachlan Murdoch’s reputation.

In order to get an action for defamation off the ground, Murdoch, the plaintiff in this case, has to satisfy the court that serious reputational harm has been done. The court may well decide this is the case.

Crikey says that given what much bigger media companies such as the Washington Post, the New York Times and the ABC (American Broadcasting Company) have already published about Murdoch’s Fox News and its propagation of the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, what Crikey has published cannot further harm Murdoch’s reputation.

US vs Australian defamation protections

This brings us to the first way Australia’s defamation laws facilitate intimidatory action by the rich and powerful.

Since those two big American newspapers have published similar material to that published by Crikey, the question naturally arises: why has Lachlan Murdoch not sued them? The answer is that in the United States, there is a “public figure” defence to defamation.

Read more:
Why defamation suits in Australia are so ubiquitous — and difficult to defend for media organisations

In the US, Lachlan Murdoch would easily qualify as a public figure, being executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation. If he sued there, he would have to prove malice on the part of the newspapers. That means he would have to prove that the newspapers lied or were recklessly indifferent to the truth.

No such defence is available to the media in Australia, despite decades of intermittent campaigning by the media that it is needed. The reasons these efforts have gone nowhere are twofold.

First, Australian politicians are among the most avid users of defamation laws, and it would be unrealistic to expect they would change this convenient state of affairs. This has been illustrated recently by the successful defamation action taken by the former deputy premier of NSW, John Barilaro, against an online satirist, Jordan Shanks, aka friendlyjordies.

Second, the tradition of accountability in public life is weak in Australia and the tradition of secrecy is strong, as vividly demonstrated by Scott Morrison’s behaviour in the affair of the multiple portfolios.

Another major factor in the chilling effect that the Australian defamation laws exert on the media is the extravagant damages the courts have awarded to plaintiffs that sue media companies, as well as the high cost of litigation. This has caused large media companies to settle cases even when they had an arguable prospect of defending themselves.

Read more:
Australian law says the media can’t spin lies – ‘entertainment magazines’ aren’t an exception

A recent example was when the biography of the AFL player Eddie Betts was published, confirming what had happened at the now notorious training camp held by the Adelaide Crows in 2018. At the camp, Betts alleged he was targeted, abused and the camp “misused personal and sensitive information.”

However, when The Age broke the story initially, it was sued by the company that ran the camp. The newspaper issued an apology, although it did not admit the story was wrong.

The Age said its parent company, Nine Entertainment, had made a “business decision” to settle the case. In other words, it did not want to risk the costs and damages involved in contesting the suit.

Liabilities for online publication

A third main factor is the failure of the Morrison administration to bring to finality stage two of the defamation law reforms, which concern the liabilities and defences for online publication.

Currently, anyone who publishes a website or a blog is liable for the comments made there by third parties. Continuously moderating comment streams for potentially defamatory material is onerous and expensive at a time when media organisations have far fewer resources than they did in the pre-digital age.

Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that Lachlan Murdoch feels he can use his immense wealth and power to intimidate and silence a relatively small outfit like Crikey.com. Behind him stand corporations with a market capitalisation of billions. Crikey says its company, Private Media, is valued at less than $20 million.

Murdoch’s demands

Murdoch wants Crikey to take down the story and issue an apology. In
pursuit of his case, he has filed suit in the Federal Court.

In defiance of Murdoch’s claim, Crikey has published his 2014 oration at the State Library of Victoria named in honour of his grandfather, Sir Keith Murdoch, as part of its publishing of the legal correspondence:

Censorship should be resisted in all its insidious forms.
We should be vigilant of the gradual erosion of our freedom to know, to be informed
and make reasoned decisions in our society and in our democracy.
We must all take notice and, like Sir Keith, have the courage to act when those
freedoms are threatened.

Quite.

Denis Muller 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. Murdoch v Crikey highlights how Australia’s defamation laws protect the rich and powerful – https://theconversation.com/murdoch-v-crikey-highlights-how-australias-defamation-laws-protect-the-rich-and-powerful-189228

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow in Applied Labour Economics, Auckland University of Technology

The birth of a child is a positive milestone in most parents’ lives. And with the new responsibilities come behavioural changes, particularly for first-time parents. Such a turning point can have long-term or even permanent effects.

For people who have committed crimes before having children, in particular, impending parenthood correlates with drastic behavioural shifts. For both mothers and fathers, the arrival of a child increases employment prospects and decreases criminal behaviour.

However, there is ample empirical evidence that the child’s gender plays a particular role for some fathers.

A new examination of New Zealand data shows the amount of change in young fathers can depend on their cultural and criminal background. Having sons appears to have the most profound impact on young New Zealand European men, persuading them to turn their lives away from crime.

The demand for sons

Previous research has documented that for some fathers the child’s gender plays a crucial role in how much he changes his behaviour.

Studies have also shown that fathers are more likely to stay in the household if the child is a boy, while girls are disproportionately more likely to be raised by single mothers. On average, fathers of sons are more likely to have jobs.

A child’s gender also appears to make a difference in turning lives around for socially vulnerable fathers. Using Danish data, a recent study showed that young fathers are more likely to stop participating in criminal behaviour when they have a son rather than a daughter.

Spotlight on NZ dads

Our new research examines the effect a child’s gender has on young fathers in New Zealand.

Our study used Statistics New Zealand’s large research database, the Integrated Data Infrastructure. Individual records from various public agencies are linked across different data sets to provide a broad picture of the various activities of Aotearoa’s population.

Read more:
Many parenting apps are reinforcing the gender divide

We looked at differences in paternal behaviour by comparing data relating to young fathers with a son to those who had a daughter. The research focused on understanding the long-term differences in future criminal activities, employment, education and relationship status.

We ensured that all of the fathers included in this research had similar life trajectories before they became a parent, to ensure any changes in their behaviour could be connected to the effects prompted by their child’s gender.

The footprint in the data

Young fathers are a particularly vulnerable population. On average, compared to older fathers, they are less frequently employed, less likely to be in a stable relationship and are more often involved in criminal activities.

Using Department of Internal Affairs birth records, we tracked the data footprint of young fathers aged between 17 to 21 who had their first child born between January 2005 and December 2010.

Read more:
Stopping violence against women starts with learning what misogyny really is

Court data from the Ministry of Justice enabled us to illustrate how the criminal behaviour of young first-time fathers changed before and up to ten years after childbirth.

Inland Revenue’s tax records were used to track the fathers’ employment trajectory. Additionally, we looked into the 2013 Census to explore the effect of a child’s gender on education and family formation.

The long-term impact

We found that some young fathers changed their behaviour more drastically when they had a son rather than a daughter – but this was only observed among young New Zealand European fathers who had convictions before childbirth.

We did not find any relevant evidence that indicated Māori fathers responded to the gender of their child. These results suggest that the preference for sons is perhaps more prevalent among Europeans or Western societies. After all, pre-colonial Māori society is widely believed to have been fundamentally inclusive of sexual diversity.

For young New Zealand European fathers with a pre-birth conviction who had a son, the effect was both large and persistent. Over the ten years after a child’s birth, fathers in this group with a son had 17.2% fewer convictions on average than those with a daughter.

Read more:
Mothers behind bars nurture relationships with visitors in this unusual prison garden

When only looking at serious sentences such as imprisonment or home detention, the difference was 11.4% for the decade after the child’s birth. The relationship between having a son and a reduction in criminal behaviour was particularly noticeable for fathers with offences related to burglary, dangerous acts, drugs or fraudulent activities.

Less crime and more work

Importantly, this behavioural difference prompted by the child’s gender spilled over into the fathers’ labour market behaviour.

We found a stronger commitment to work and higher accumulated earnings from wages and salaries for fathers with a son. Over the ten years after a child’s birth, the aggregated income was 21.5% higher on average – and the number of months receiving benefits were 21.6% lower on average.

Further differences were observable across other aspects of their lives. When linking our sample with the 2013 Census, the data showed that having no qualification was more common among young fathers with a daughter. Having a son also increased the likelihood of being in a partnered relationship.

Understanding the gender bias

Why do some fathers prefer sons? There is a long list of potential reasons, but scholars have not found unanimous consensus yet. Our study suggests the importance of cultural background and societal structure as other contributing factors.

Future research needs to look into how these sons actually profit from the behavioural change of their fathers – and by how much the daughters are left behind.

Kabir is currently employed at the Federal Reserve Board. The opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and should not be attributed to the Federal Reserve Board.

Alexander Plum 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. Having a son improves the lives of young dads with a criminal history. New research suggests cultural explanations – https://theconversation.com/having-a-son-improves-the-lives-of-young-dads-with-a-criminal-history-new-research-suggests-cultural-explanations-187252

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Tiernan, Adjunct Professor of Politics. Griffith Business School, Griffith University

In the wake of the controversy over former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s secret cabinet appointments, there’s talk of the need to formalise the conventions the former prime minister breached.

While codification is sometimes necessary when conventions break down, this ignores the simple truth that cabinet itself is a convention.

At the heart of a well-functioning cabinet is collective responsibility, and most importantly, trust.

Cabinet is an organic institution

Cabinet is the apex of political authority in our system, but there isn’t a word about it in the Australian constitution.

It has remained at the heart of executive government in countries that inherited the British tradition because it is an accepted, if ill-defined, organic institution. It is capable of adaptation in changing times and imperatives, and open to a variety of uses by different governments and their leaders.

An Australian constitutional commission in the 1980s explicitly rejected proposals to formalise cabinet’s role and functions.

The solicitor-general’s advice to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week specifically references the importance of flexibility, noting Australia’s constitutional framers anticipated the institution of responsible government would continue to evolve.

Collective responsibility

That said, a cabinet cannot work if ministers, in particular government leaders (who set the rules for Cabinet), do not respect the fundamentals.

From its origins in 18th century Britain, the primary purpose of cabinet has always been to produce collective decision-making among a group with different outlooks on the world, differing (sometimes conflicting) portfolio responsibilities, and competing ambitions.

Collective responsibility is not just a convention: it’s the essence of a well-functioning cabinet. The British constitutional lawyer, Sir Ivor Jennings, wrote that any government that cannot maintain the discipline of collective responsibility is “riding for a fall”.

When ministers leak against their colleagues or publicly brawl over matters to be determined by cabinet, we know we are witnessing a government in its death throes.

Trust lies at its heart, and good “cabinet craft” is overwhelmingly concerned with maintaining this trust. Those charged with managing cabinet processes have the responsibility to ensure an honest debate that enables ministers to concentrate on agreed facts, and focus on those matters that only they can resolve.

If they are to go out into the public and defend a decision with which they do not agree, ministers must feel they had a reasonable opportunity to convince their colleagues, and lost following a fair debate.

Inevitably, there must be compromise. In a well-functioning cabinet, ministers must be prepared to trust the judgement of the government leader or a colleague. This is why the failure to disclose personal interests is so deeply corrosive. It is also why cabinet handbooks and ministerial codes of conduct are concerned with such matters.

Breaching trust

We await the decision of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on the events that led to former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation.

It’s unlikely she broke the law. But in failing to disclose a personal relationship at the heart of several judgement calls, her position as a key member and later head of cabinet became deeply problematic.

From the strong sentiments expressed by some of his former colleagues, it’s evident Morrison’s failure to declare his assumption of ministerial powers would have undermined his ability to function as an effective prime minister. This was compounded by the fact he presided over a coalition government.

It’s unwise, but not inherently improper, to have two ministers with concurrent powers. Secrecy was the issue here – a breach of trust so profound that the former prime minister lost the confidence of his colleagues when it was disclosed.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence

The solicitor-general concluded that Morrison’s failure to inform the public and the parliament of his appointment to multiple ministries “fundamentally undermined” the principles of responsible government. This is because secrecy rendered impossible their ability to hold ministers accountable.

Given the informality and flexibility of cabinet government, it would be counter-productive to codify these conventions. But there’s a strong case for them to be restated – as they have been in the solicitor-general’s advice.

Government and opposition leaders around the country have been taught an invaluable lesson about the centrality of trust in the efficient working of cabinets. It seems likely that current, former and prospective cabinet ministers will now think more carefully about how they exercise the principle of collective responsibility.

Anne Tiernan has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). She is a member of the Centre for Policy Development’s (CPD) Research Committee.

Gary Sturgess 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. Morrison and Berejiklian scandals show the importance of trust – and a well-functioning Cabinet – https://theconversation.com/morrison-and-berejiklian-scandals-show-the-importance-of-trust-and-a-well-functioning-cabinet-189230

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wendy Stone, Professor of Housing & Social Policy, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

Private rental forms an increasingly large part of our housing system. Just over a quarter (26%) of Australian households – 2.4 million of them – live in privately rented dwellings. And increasing numbers are renting long-term.

These trends are reshaping expectations of private rental housing. Residential tenancy reforms that are rolling out around the nation – albeit in slightly variable ways – are an important part of this national change.

These reforms are important to ensure tenants are safe, secure and happy in their homes. Insecure and poor-quality housing can harm renters’ health and wellbeing.

Read more:
Stability and security: the keys to closing the mental health gap between renters and home owners

Importantly, the reforms also shape the role and responsibilities of investor landlords – “rental providers” as Victoria recently renamed them – and the expectations we can have of them. These changes have implications for the support they need to be good landlords.

Using 2019-20 ABS Survey of Income and Housing data, we estimate around 14.8% of households were residential investor landlords who received rental income. This is an increase from 13.8% in 2015-16 and 10% of households in 2003-04.

Unlike investments that do not directly affect others, investing in housing means providing other people with a home.

Tax concessions for investor landlords are generous by international standards. In 2016, capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing were together estimated to cost the budget $11.7 billion a year.

Current data are difficult to access. Recent independent analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office commissioned by the Greens shows 57% of negative-gearing deductions go to rental investors in the top 20% of income earners, with men benefiting most.

In return for these tax breaks, there are expectations about the standards of housing that investors provide.

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What are the key issues for reform?

We see five key changes in many state and territory reforms so far. These should be central to further reforms:

1. “rent bidding”: this practice has plagued access to private rental tenancies as vacancy rates have fallen nationally, but new laws include provisions to prevent real estate agents and landlords letting property to “the highest bidder”

2. minimum standards: these cover conditions of dwellings, including heating, safety/security and in some cases, such as the ACT, a focus on sustainability and reducing appliance energy use

3. property modifications: the most progressive reforms allow tenants to make reasonable alterations to properties – such as hanging picture hooks or having vegetable gardens – and generally require them to return properties to the original form when the lease ends

4. pet inclusion: Australian households increasingly see their pets as part of the family and many tenancy reforms put the onus on landlords to establish grounds for refusing pets

5. more secure leases: a major change in all recent reforms, with the striking exception of New South Wales, is the removal of “no grounds eviction”. Landlords must now provide one of several regulated reasons (such as returning to live in the property) for asking a tenant to vacate a property during a lease. Importantly, reforms are also introducing a new ground for asking tenants to vacate property, where they are deemed dangerous to property and/or unsafe for neighbours.

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What is each state and territory doing?

Below is a snapshot of recent regulatory reforms across Victoria, NSW, ACT, NT, pending reforms in Queensland , and lessons for future reforms in Western Australia (currently under review), Tasmania and South Australia. It summarises key changes for tenants and investors since tenancy reforms began around 2019.

Helping landlords to be better rental providers

Reforms to residential tenancy laws are practical measures to enhance the housing of tenants. The changes recognise that renters have often been left behind in the rapid financialisation and growth of the sector. The reforms clarify landlords’ responsibilities to provide decent housing, in return for currently generous tax concessions.

Much of the commentary on these reforms can take an “us and them” approach to tenant and property owner rights. This is unnecessary and a missed opportunity to educate investor landlords in their essential role as housing providers. It’s clear an important element of the reforms is ensuring investors understand their role and have capacity to fulfil it.

It is too early to assess the direct impacts of recent reforms, not least because they have come into effect in the years disrupted by COVID-19. However, by international standards the reforms are moderate.

Real estate industries and financial sectors – along with consumer affairs offices and tenant advocacy in each state and territory – can usefully support people who are looking to invest in residential property to understand their role and responsibilities as rental providers. States including Victoria and Tasmania have appointed a residential tenancies commissioner. Other jurisdictions could consider doing the same to offer additional support.

Key elements of effective support would ensure landlords have:

• full information about the upfront and ongoing costs of delivering housing that at least meets minimum standards of liveability and safety

• adequate income and resources to respond promptly to the need for any property repairs and improvements

• an understanding of their important role as long-term providers of housing and home.

Tenants have to provide detailed evidence of their capacity to be a tenant. Rental providers should face similar requirements to rent out a property.

Wendy Stone receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), Housing for the Aged Action Group and Kids Under Cover and has previously received funding from the Victorian Government.

Terry Burke has received funding from AHURI, ARC, and Homes Vic but has no current funding. He is affiliated with the Community Housing Industry Association Victoria (CHIA Vic) for which he provides volunteer professional development training.

Zoe Goodall has received funding from the Victorian Government and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and receives an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

– ref. How 5 key tenancy reforms are affecting renters and landlords around Australia – https://theconversation.com/how-5-key-tenancy-reforms-are-affecting-renters-and-landlords-around-australia-187779

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mario Peucker, Senior research fellow, Victoria University

Mistrust in the media is widespread among Australians, but this view becomes particularly antagonistic at the far-right fringe where mainstream media are typically viewed as “traitors” and the “enemy of the people”. This post from an Australian user on the far-right, social media platform Gab captures this common sentiment:

The corporate media are the enemy, they are traitors, they are collaborators, they are the number 1 barrier in the road to genuine and effective change.

Despite such aggressive opposition to the media, many within far-right communities read and prolifically share mainstream media articles. As part of a larger research program, we examined which media outlets were particularly popular and how far-right users utilise – or (mis)appropriate – these outlets to spread their message and attract new followers.

Read more:
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An analysis of far-right postings

To answer these questions, we analysed over 56,000 posts by 90 far-right online accounts on Facebook and Gab.

Some users seem to deliberately refrain from posting any mainstream media content; this applied to around half of all 40 analysed Gab accounts. One of them made their view on this very clear:

I am now muting anyone who posts trash fake news links news.com.au or daily mail. I come here to get away from that shit. Support alternative media don’t give these fake news fuckers any extra exposure.

But that was only half of the story. While links to far-right or hyper-partisan fringe platforms and blogs were frequently posted, almost 60% of posts with an outbound URL link (not including links to other social media) shared mainstream media sources.

Most popular sources

Links to media outlets from across the political mainstream spectrum, from progressive to conservative, were posted. There were, however, significant quantitative differences.

Read more:
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In the Facebook dataset, The Daily Mail was the most commonly shared media source with 430 posts sharing one of its articles, followed by ABC (337), Sky News (318), 7News (206), News.com.au (175) and The Australian (174).

In the Gab dataset, the two by far most frequently shared were Sky News (3,131 posts) and The Daily Mail (1,851), followed by News.com.au (675), ABC (604), and The Age (227). The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald tied with 226 posts each.

What these figures do not tell us, however, is how mainstream media are (re)framed for ideological messaging in these far-right online spaces. To explore these questions, we conducted an analysis of 522 quasi-randomly selected posts that shared a mainstream media source.

How mainstream media is reframed for right-wing readers

We found partisan media content, such as editorials and opinion pieces, predominantly from conservative, right-leaning media outlets were almost always shared in an affirmative way. This content was posted to articulate and support ideological tropes prominent within far-right online communities.

In the analysed Gab sample, for example, almost all of the partisan media outputs shared affirmatively were from right-leaning media outlets, most prominently Sky News, The Herald Sun and The Australian.

Neutral news articles are also frequently posted, though users often post their own accompanying thoughts (57.6% in the Facebook sample; 23.2% in the Gab sample). A News.com article titled ‘Anti-maskers vandalise Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt’s Melbourne office’, for example, was shared by a Gab user with the additional text:

‘A load of BS. This is a typical article turning anyone who does not agree with them into a “terrorist” …Besides Greg Hunt is a Globalist Dunderhead who is in bed with the UN and especially WHO’.

News reports from mainstream media sources are co-opted for ideological messaging in different ways.

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We found that balanced news reporting that presents different perspectives on an issue can be used for ideological messaging by selectively amplifying and politicising one perspective. Even critical news reporting from more progressive outlets, for example about alleged government wrongdoing, was co-opted to articulate a much more radical and ideological anti-government stance.

Relaying an ideological message

Neutral news articles are often shared without additional content, especially on Gab (53.0%), but the user can still send an ideological message that is clearly ‘heard’ within the context of these online communities. This posting pattern relies on news reports on issues that are politically charged within the far-right community like multiculturalism, immigration, climate change or allegations of government overreach. We call this posting pattern ‘contextual messaging’.

For example, a Gab user posted an SBS article about a local council in Sydney that decided to pay childcare costs for asylum seeker families. The post only cited the article’s headline: “These asylum seeker families are being given free childcare in Sydney”.

Within the ideological context of these far-right online communities, this post signals disapproval, possibly alluding to allegedly preferential treatment of refugees. The comments responding to this post showed this is how the message was ‘heard’ and understood by the Gab audience.

Contextual messaging is used in different ways to subtly relay an ideological message to likeminded others. Almost one in ten Gab posts we analysed (3.6% in the Facebook sample) shared a mainstream media source to express the user’s opposition to another media outlet or mainstream media more generally.

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A number of articles from left-leaning or centrist news outlets such as The Guardian (“fake news peddler”), SBS (“Marxist media”), the ABC (“Brainwashed globalist shills”), and The Age (“foul media operation”) were shared in this way.

Content from more conservative media was occasionally posted to praise the respective outlet while attacking other (more left-leaning) outlets for their alleged agenda or bias.

Our research is not intended to point fingers at any particular media outlets for providing content for far-right online messaging. Instead, we conclude that no media outlets, whether right, left or neutral, are safe from being co-opted and re-purposed to suit right-wing ideologies. Groups will utilise whatever sources are available, including ones they’ve labelled the “enemy of the people,” to convey their messaging.

Mario Peucker has received funding from the Victorian Government. He is affiliated with the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS) .

– ref. How far-right online spaces use mainstream media to spread their ideology – https://theconversation.com/how-far-right-online-spaces-use-mainstream-media-to-spread-their-ideology-189066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lindsie Arthur, PhD Candidate, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

The first hormonal contraceptive (the “pill”) was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1960. Hormonal contraceptives have since become one of the most prescribed drugs in the world, used daily by more than 100 million people worldwide.

These drugs prevent pregnancy by delivering synthetic hormones into the bloodstream. Synthetic hormones stop the body’s own hormones from stimulating ovulation, so no eggs are released, no fertilisation can occur, and pregnancy is prevented.

Research has shown naturally occurring hormones have a strong influence on behaviour in humans and other animals. But less is known about the behavioural effects of synthetic hormones – like those in the pill.

Some of the hormones affected by the pill are linked to competitive behaviour. We wanted to find out more about how hormonal contraceptives change this behaviour, so we reviewed all the research we could find about hormonal contraceptives and competitive behaviour.

Hormones and competition

Competition is part of life. We compete for a variety of resources, such as money, food, mates and allies, to fulfil our needs and improve our chances of survival and flourishing.

These resources may also be intangible things, such as social status, that give us access to more direct goods. A high-status individual may have better opportunities for education and jobs, for example.

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Hormonal contraceptives directly affect three hormones that have been linked to competitive behaviour: testosterene, progesterone, and a type of estrogen called estradiol.

To understand the role of hormonal contraceptives on competition, we reviewed 46 studies, with a total of 16,290 participants. This was all the available published research that included a measure of competition.

Status and motivation

One finding from our review was that hormonal contraceptives may have an impact on women’s motivation and ability to achieve higher status.

One study shows an effect of lower achievement motivation.

Another study shows lower performance on tasks requiring persistence. This is concerning because people often achieve higher status by demonstrating skill or mastery.

Mating choices

The pill may also affect competition around mating. Recent research shows naturally cycling women feel more sexually desirable and attractive mid-cycle, but hormonal contraceptive users do not.

This suggests hormonal contraceptives diminish a fertility-induced increase in feelings of desirability that likely motivate sexual behaviour.

Read more:
Freer sex and family planning: a short history of the contraceptive pill

We did not find robust evidence that hormonal contraceptive users differ from non-users in the type of men they are attracted to. There was also a lack of evidence that users behave differently when competing for financial resources compared to non-users.

Interestingly, the effect of hormonal contraceptives on mating and status-based competitiveness depended on the participants’ relationship status. For example, one study revealed that hormonal contraceptive use diminished self-reported competitiveness for women in relationships but not single women.

This could mean synthetic hormones influence single and partnered women differently. On the other hand, it could also mean single and partnered women have other differences that influence these behaviours.

Small effect sizes and methodological limitations

It’s important to note that the behavioural differences between those who use hormonal contraceptives and those who don’t were generally quite small.

Another discovery from our review was that much of the existing research on the effect of hormonal contraceptives is plagued by important methodological limitations.

Only one of the studies we reviewed used randomised controlled trials, the gold standard for determining the effect of a particular drug or treatment.

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Many studies we reviewed also did not account for other differences between hormonal contraceptive users and non-users, such as age. These are factors that could explain behaviour differences independent of hormones and hormonal contraceptives.

The small sample sizes in much of the research make it difficult to generalise to a wider population. Non-white women in particular were largely underrepresented in this research.

Many of the studies also did not report the types of hormonal contraceptives that people were using. This makes it impossible to determine whether all types of contraceptives are associated with similar outcomes.

Because of these limitations, the findings in our review are only preliminary.

Where to from here?

Despite 60 years of widespread use, the effects of hormonal contraceptives are still poorly understood. They are also used for many purposes other than birth control, such as to reduce premenstrual symptoms, resolve hormone imbalances, or lessen the symptoms of acne and endometriosis.

Access to reliable contraception has huge benefits for individuals and society. It is associated with increased female participation in higher education, a smaller gender gap in wages, and reduced female poverty.

To ensure women can make informed decisions about their own bodies, we need reliable and robust evidence about the full effects of hormonal contraceptives. To paraphrase American filmmaker Sindha Agha, we have the right to birth control, but we also have the right to better birth control. It’s going to take a lot more research.

Khandis R Blake receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DE210100800 & DP220101023).

Kathleen Casto and Lindsie Arthur 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. Taking the pill may change your behaviour – but exactly how is still uncertain – https://theconversation.com/taking-the-pill-may-change-your-behaviour-but-exactly-how-is-still-uncertain-187461

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rhys Mantell, PhD Candidate, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney

Men aged 85 and older have the highest suicide rates in Australia, but the tragedy has gone relatively unnoticed. This group is growing older, feeling alone and flying under the radar.

The tragedy of suicide is recognised as a major public health issue. Yet what may come as a surprise to many is data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing men over 85 have suicide rates more than three times the average rate.

Public perception is that men – in particular, young men – have the highest suicide risk. While this is true for the net number of suicides, if we don’t consider age-standardised rates (which account for differences in age distribution across the population) we miss a crucial finding.

Adjusting for age

Men aged over 85 accounted for a relatively small proportion of all male suicides (3.1%) in 2020 (the latest data available). But the age-specific suicide rate was 36.2 deaths per 100,000 (up from 32.3 per 100,000 in 2019). For women aged over 85, this rate was much lower (6.2 per 100,000). The next highest rate was for men in both the 40-44 and 50-54 age bands (27.1 per 100,000).

In 2020, the overall suicide rate was 12.1 per 100,000 people.

But this issue is rarely addressed in public discourse or policy directives. The National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing released last month did not include data on people older than 85.

This risk is not new, but little has changed to address it over the past decade. In light of COVID and what it has revealed about ageism and the value of older people in our society, it is crucial to explore these issues again.

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Preventable deaths

It is startling that men who have shown resilience to survive to late life are at such risk of preventable death. Many factors contribute, including physical and material circumstances like frailty, chronic pain, bereavement and financial troubles. However, we cannot assume only external issues cause distress and lead to suicide.

In fact, for older people, successful ageing is rarely defined purely by physical circumstances. Ageing well often implies flourishing despite hardship.

The silent challenge among men aged over 85 who take their own lives is psychological and existential distress, which can reinforce feelings of loneliness and worthlessness. Older men at risk of suicide may feel they are “no longer needed” or perceive themselves as “burdensome” to family and community.

These beliefs can overlap with major life transitions, such as retirement, stopping driving or moving to residential care, where they are a minority. Such stressful events can increase feelings of marginalisation, loss of independence and worthlessness, and also lead to social isolation.

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Talking about it

A reluctance to express their feelings or be vulnerable has long been discussed as an important factor for men’s wellbeing, especially when they’re feeling low.

Research suggests gender stereotypes and social norms linked to masculinity reduce help-seeking behaviours and can increase suicide risk. Many ageing men hold restrictive and stoic beliefs about what it means to be a man. This may make them less inclined to share when they aren’t coping.

Yet emerging research challenges the assumption men don’t talk because they can’t. One reason men are not talking about their mental health struggles is because there’s nowhere for them to open up in a way they see as culturally and socially acceptable.

Instead, older men are speaking through their actions.

Suicide prevention and early intervention responses that are not tailored to the needs of older men are unlikely to be effective. We need to meet men where they are and listen to their quiet and absent voices by designing programs in partnership with them.

This means better understanding men’s barriers to suicide interventions. These include a lack of trust in traditional services and an aversion to “formal” supports that frame emotional distress and suicidal behaviours as mental illness.

It also means exploring, developing and funding new options that are acceptable, relevant and accessible, such as gendered support, peer-led programs, community-based informal support and programs combining exercise with mental health promotion.

The objective is not only to develop more suitable suicide prevention for this specific group, but also to examine broader interactions between ageing, isolation and loneliness; all key risk factors for suicide that have become even more relevant due to COVID.

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More calls for help

Increased feelings of distress and loneliness produced by the pandemic can be measured by increased calls to services such as Lifeline. And more persistent mental health problems are likely to present more slowly, over longer horizons, and peak after the most acute phases of the pandemic.

Older people have handled much of the burden of COVID, including unprecedented restrictions and ageist sentiments. We must recognise these factors – growing old, being alone and feeling unheard – underpin increasing distress felt by men aged over 85, not only during the pandemic, but more generally.

This group must be seen as a priority population for suicide prevention. We must start listening and work together to find solutions so older men can access the help they need in a way that suits them.

UNSW Ageing Futures Institute would like to acknowledge the research contribution of Lifeline Research Foundation’s Dr Anna Brooks (National Manager) and Dr Tara Hunt (Research and Engagement Manager).

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, you can call these support services, 24 hours, 7 days:

• Lifeline: 13 11 14

• Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467

• Kids Helpline: 1800 551 800 (for people aged 5 to 25)

• MensLine Australia: 1300 789 978

• StandBy – Support After Suicide: 1300 727 24

Rhys Mantell receives PhD scholarship funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC).

Adrienne Withall receives funding from the NHMRC and MRFF. She is affiliated with the Ageing Futures Institute and the Australian Human Rights Institute.

– ref. Suicide rates reveal the silent suffering of Australia’s ageing men – https://theconversation.com/suicide-rates-reveal-the-silent-suffering-of-australias-ageing-men-187925

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Maund, WSP Team Lead Regional NSW & ACT / Adjunct Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle

This year’s floods in South-East Queensland and Northern New South Wales devastated communities. The NSW flooding was on “a scale never seen before”. More than 5,000 homes were left uninhabitable. Many residents had nowhere else to go.

The NSW government promised to provide temporary housing in the form of 2,000 modular homes. But delivery has been held up by the need for planning approval amid community divisions over some sites.

Flood victims’ continuing struggle to find suitable housing long after the February-March flooding subsided has exposed a critical gap in our plans for recovery from natural disasters. The planning system should be reformed to include temporary housing that provides effective options in the short term (weeks) through to the long term (years). Australia needs to develop a permanent reserve of temporary housing.

In developing this resource, governments must work with communities to avoid the conflicts over temporary housing sites we’re now seeing.

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What are the conflicts about?

In July, Lismore City Council considered a request from Resilience NSW to lease part of Hepburn Park as a site for state-funded temporary housing. The park is used for local sports such as cricket, hockey, soccer, school athletics, touch football and Oztag. The motion lapsed as there was no seconder.

Councillors later did discuss a further NSW government request to use the site for temporary housing. The minister for flood recovery, emergency services and resilience noted there were “no other suitable alternative sites”.

However, there has been a community debate about the importance of retaining sporting grounds for local sports. The council decided this month not to permit temporary housing at the park. This leaves displaced residents with no other options.

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The NSW government promised in April to send up to 2,000 modular homes to communities across the Tweed, Byron, Ballina, Richmond Valley and Lismore areas. Most sites required a lease arrangement with the local council.

By July, only one of 11 sites identified as suitable for housing flood victims had opened at Wollongbar. Others are still being constructed.

The uncertainty about providing shelter for disaster-affected communities six months after the floods confirms the urgent need to co-ordinate policy on temporary housing at all levels of government.

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Adding to the existing housing crisis

The disasters of recent years – both floods and bushfires – have added to an ongoing housing crisis in many parts of the country.

After the 2019-2020 bushfires we saw some flexibility in our planning system to permit moveable dwellings without approval. Extended stays in caravan parks or camping grounds for temporary and emergency accommodation were also permitted. This flexibility has been extended so temporary caravan parks or camping grounds can be set up by, or on behalf of, a public authority without planning approval.

The NSW government has committed to providing temporary housing for up to three years after the floods. Yet, as we have seen in Lismore, existing local uses and temporary housing can come into conflict. Unless a long-term solution is found, this conflict will bedevil future disaster responses too.

Our planning system provides little flexibility in achieving this solution. Housing is generally seen as fixed, with temporary housing limited to specific locations such as caravan parks or camping grounds. This approach does not allow for the uncertain and catastrophic impacts of disasters that require immediate responses.

Temporary housing for thousands of people requires extensive infrastructure such as water, sewerage, power and communications. Housing on this scale may have long-term impacts on recreation areas and completely remove their availability for other uses in the short term. Ways to balance ongoing community needs and temporary housing are needed.

Read more:
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What planning system changes are needed?

We need to reform our planning system to account for the level of need for temporary housing. We should construct and monitor a minimum number of safe and secure temporary emergency houses each year in at-risk locations across Australia to help meet this ongoing need. At the same time, the needs of communities to access these sites must be considered.

The type and location of emergency and temporary housing needs to be agreed now. This will enable pods and mobile homes to be moved around the country at short notice. People left homeless after a disaster should not be left waiting months for solutions.

In addition, our planning system should provide for different time frames for housing need:

• immediate: identify existing buildings across Australia that can be used as multi-purpose evacuation centres – while thousands of flood-stricken people are sheltering in schools, clubs and halls, we can do better

• short-term: identify all alternative forms of temporary housing as the people most affected by disasters are often least able to afford short-term accommodation in caravans parks, motels and Airbnbs – which should give first priority to those people with support from government

• medium-term: locations should be zoned to allow temporary emergency housing and infrastructure so it can be provided there when needed with no further approvals, with sites managed by community housing providers or partnerships between government and agencies such as the reconstruction authority recommended by the 2022 NSW Flood Inquiry

• long-term: the first priority in all planning decisions should be to avoid or minimise exposure to natural hazards – this needs to be enshrined in all planning policies in Australia, as the inquiry recommended.

Mark Maund works as an environmental planner in private practice.

Kim Maund and Thayaparan Gajendran 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. Nearly 6 months on, flood victims are still waiting to be housed. This is what Australia must do to be ready for the next disaster – https://theconversation.com/nearly-6-months-on-flood-victims-are-still-waiting-to-be-housed-this-is-what-australia-must-do-to-be-ready-for-the-next-disaster-188883

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Spring is nearing and birds will soon start nesting in trees in backyards across Australia. The trees in our garden are now 40 years old – not old by tree standards, but old enough to be among the tallest in our suburb, offering refuge for local native birds.

When I propagated Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) seedlings for research in the mid 1970s, there were a few left over. I kept a couple, and one made a fine indoor Christmas tree for our young family in the early 1980s. My plan was to get rid of the tree but, after a few Christmases, the family was determined it would stay.

In the years since our tree, now in the garden, has grown to nearly 27 metres tall and almost 1m in diameter. It has become a favourite of many birds over the years and a nesting tree for ring-tailed possums.

A group of noisy but intelligent little ravens (Corvus mellori), have roosted in it, crowed from its lofty heights and battled others of the same and different species that have trespassed.

Over COVID lockdowns, I observed the curious behaviour of little ravens as they busily built their nests using the trees in my garden, and learned how they create a soft nest lining for their chicks. This spring you, too, can observe the delightful behaviour of birds as they visit your nearby trees and shrubs.

Little ravens in backyards

Monterey pine is an introduced species to Australia, and has significant potential to become a weed, so we regularly check for self-sown seedlings. So far our vigilance has paid off and there are no escapees in the parks, gardens and surrounds.

While I would never recommend its planting, we are going to make the most of its presence while we have it. Over the years the tree has provided great summer shade and some wonderful interactions with local wildlife.

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The din when sulphur-crested and yellow-tailed black cockatoos make their visits to feed on cones has to be heard to be believed. The cockatoos drive the little ravens away as they enjoy the cones, but the little ravens keep a look out and return as soon as the cockatoos have finished feeding.

During lockdowns the avian demands, discussion and negotiations were a welcome and entertaining break.

Little ravens aren’t likely to rank high in the list of popular birds, but there is much to be impressed by when you study them.

Despite their name, little ravens aren’t actually that little, at over 40 centimetres tall. They are common across southern Australia and will eat almost anything, plant or animal.

They’re intelligent birds and great scavengers, capable of opening food containers, raiding bins and devouring road kill. They have adapted well to humans and so are found in backyards across the country.

Building cosy nests

Another special tree in our garden is the messmate stringy bark (Eucalyptus obliqua). I grew it and hundreds of others from seed for research experiments in the late 1970s, and it comes from the Wombat Forest near Daylesford, Victoria.

Its spreading canopy provides fine dappled summer shade. And it’s almost inconspicuous white flowers cause the tree to hum from the visits of local bees, not to mention the visits of native honey eaters, such as the yellow wattlebird and the white plumed honeyeater.

Every spring for about 20 years I had noticed marks on the tree’s branches, and wondered what caused them. During lockdown, I observed little ravens peeling strips of the fibrous stringy bark from upper branches. These are private, unannounced visits without calls or fuss. You had to be alert to know the birds were there.

Many birds are expert home decorators. The little ravens know exactly what they’re after and where to find it, and harvest nest-building material from different parts of the tree.

Read more:
Stringybark is tough as boots (and gave us the word ‘Eucalyptus’)

In their first visits, they gather material for the basic structure of the nest, made from twigs. Once in place, they strip long, coarse strings of bark from lower and larger branches in the canopy.

A few days later, the birds return to some of the younger upper branches where they collect fine, almost fur-like snippets of bark. These will provide an ideal fine soft inner nest lining for hatching raven chicks.

Observing birds in your own backyard

From my work with trees, I have come to appreciate some of the delicate and intimate relationships between fauna and flora and fungi.

I look for evidence of possum claw marks on heavily grazed trees and the damage to branches caused by the nibbling of the powerful beaks of sulphur-crested cockatoos. Now, I know the long strands pulled from the upper trunks and larger branches of messmate stringy bark are due to the careful work of little ravens lining their nests.

Read more:
The ancient, intimate relationship between trees and fungi, from fairy toadstools to technicolour mushrooms

So at this time of the year, keep an eye out on both your garden plants and their avian visitors.

Look for birds darting, almost furtively, in and out of your trees, wisterias and rose bushes – they may have a nest within the foliage. Your prickly shrubs can afford protection to smaller birds and increase the chances of successful breeding.

Both native and introduced birds will be breeding in the next few weeks. And both native and introduced trees can be used by both for nesting.

Many of popular garden trees – such as wattles or introduced conifers – can host magpies and silvereyes. If you live near a creek, you may attract the superb fairy wren in a bottlebrush. And different finches may occur in your gum trees, roses or wisterias.

Native tree and shrub species with diverse flowering times can be beneficial to our native birds. They provide nectar and host native insects species in late winter and deliver a full bounty of resources in spring.

Trees with fine foliage and fibrous bark, such as stringy bark and some of the feathery-leaved wattles, are popular with birds at this time of year for nesting material.

This means your garden can be an important way to maintain local biodiversity. In a changing climate, we need all the diversity we can get!

Read more:
B&Bs for birds and bees: transform your garden or balcony into a wildlife haven

Gregory Moore 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. Look up this spring – you might see little ravens build soft, cosy nests from your garden trees – https://theconversation.com/look-up-this-spring-you-might-see-little-ravens-build-soft-cosy-nests-from-your-garden-trees-189143

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xinyu (Andy) Zhao, Research Fellow, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Deakin University

Screen time was a battle for parents before COVID and it continues to be a battle, long after lockdowns have ended.

The Royal Children’s Hospital March 2021 child health poll found too much screen time was parents’ number-one health concern about their kids, with more than 90% of surveyed parents saying it’s a problem.

We are researchers in digital childhoods. Our new research identified four main ways parents try to deal with their children’s use of screens. And all have their benefits and drawbacks.

Our research

For our latest study, we interviewed 140 parents in seven different countries – Australia, China, United Kingdom, United States, South Korea, Canada and Colombia – with children ranging from ages four to 11. Twenty interviewees were from Australia.

We wanted to find out how children’s screen media routines changed during COVID and how parents dealt with this. Unsurprisingly, “screen time” came up a lot in our conversations with parents.

Underpinning this was parents’ desire for more control of their children’s everyday use of screen media and devices.

How do parents control their children’s screen time?

1. Denying access

Many parents tried denying access to certain screen-related activities with varying degrees of success. They limited children’s access to tablets, computers and phones, TVs and gaming consoles, disconnected them from WiFi when not required for school, or deleted certain apps.

This reduced children’s time on screens, yet often at the expense of family relationships as screen time became a battleground.

Dana* used to block WiFi to the PlayStation at home until 2.30pm every day during the pandemic. It did help her son complete all his school work, but

[…] he was really disgruntled and you know, saying to his friend, ‘it’s not fair’ or whatever.

Children also miss out on opportunities to learn critical digital literacy when simply denied access to certain types of screen activities. Not only do they miss out on learning how to identify credible online sources of information and services but they also miss out on parental support when faced with unknown situations.

2. Real-time monitoring

Other parents allowed access to screen media under supervision.

This took various forms, including requiring children to use screen media only in “public” home spaces, setting up password-controlled accounts for children using parents’ contact information, and using parental control apps or settings.

All these measures helped calm parental worries over children’s safety online and gave some sense of control about their use of screens during the pandemic. However, this required a lot more time and energy. As Joanne* said:

I couldn’t possibly just police it, it was too much […] I just couldn’t be sitting there watching her do work. It would send me around the bend.

And while parents felt calmer, it didn’t mean they were successful. Children have a knack, believe it or not, of working around parental controls. So it may create a false sense of security.

3. Contract making

Parents in our study found making contracts with young children remarkably successful in the short-term. They set up verbal or written rules with their children about who, how, when and why different devices could be used.

Some families agreed on a “one for one rule” (for example, an hour of non-screen activity for every hour “on screens”), others allocated certain devices for certain activities at certain times of day (for example, gaming on a computer after school until dinner then only TV until the bedtime routine).

While effective in the beginning, parents experienced a slow creep away from the terms of agreement – as long-term habits were not being set up. The creep started with small “negotiations” and sometimes escalated to arguments. Kathy (a mother of two in Melbourne) told us her son “pushed the boundaries so much”.

And sometimes you were busy. And you didn’t notice that he pushed that boundary. So then it became quite a battle.

The solution? A screen-free day (or days) to reset the contract.

4. Teaching self-regulation and digital literacy

Self-regulation, as we saw in the study, involves children learning strategies to moderate how and how much they use screens.

While many parents did not start out with this approach, as lockdowns and the pandemic drew on, the demands of work and family life meant they ended up here – almost out of necessity. As Dana told us:

I kind of feel like the bar shifted massively in lockdown.

Teaching a child self-regulation and digital literacy is a long game, and requires patience and trust on the part of parents. With parental support, children learn to connect how they feel and behave with the type and duration of technology they just used. They also learn how to regulate feelings and behaviours by modifying their technology use.

Parents can offer simple strategies to help children self-regulate. These may be similar to the ones used when making a contract but here, the child is in control. For example, the child chooses to set a timer to remind them it’s time to change activities. Or the child pre-plans their digital technology use, in conversation with a parent. The child’s plans should include what they intend to do afterwards too – mealtimes can be used to support a calm transition from one activity to another.

If children come across something online they don’t understand or don’t like, they know they can ask their parents.

In the meantime, parents can teach children how to be safe online, largely by letting their kids see how they navigate the online world. One Melbourne mother Maree, involved her eight-year-old in everyday online tasks, such as shopping. This allowed her to talk about spotting scams, verifying seller information and comparing products.

What next?

No matter which approach you choose, it won’t be a perfect one. It is likely you will find a combination of strategies most effective.

Perhaps the most useful question is not about how to stop “screen time”, but how to find ways to talk with your children about using screens safely and in a way that is good for them – that helps their learning and leisure. In a world where screens are all around us, this is going to be an ongoing and constantly changing conversation.

*names have been changed.

Xinyu (Andy) Zhao works for the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (https://www.digitalchild.org.au/). This article is based on a research project which received funding from the Centre.

Sarah Healy works for The University of Melbourne and is an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University’s Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. This article is based on a research project which received funding from the Centre.

– ref. Parents and screen time: are you a ‘contract maker’ or an ‘access denier’ with your child? – https://theconversation.com/parents-and-screen-time-are-you-a-contract-maker-or-an-access-denier-with-your-child-188977

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc C-Scott, Senior lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria University

Beloved children’s program Bluey has received some backlash.

Not due to the program, but to Disney’s decision to make edits to various episodes for the US market.

Dubbed “censorship” by some publications, the changes to the third season, released in America on Disney+ this month, include Bandit not being hit in a sensitive area, a conversation about getting a vasectomy replaced with “getting dog teeth removed”, the horse Buttermilk no longer stands next to poo on screen and Aunt Trix is no longer seen on the toilet during a video call.

One episode, Family Meeting, where Bluey accuses dad Bandit of farting in her face, was removed entirely – although due to the backlash it appears this decision has been rescinded.

Episodes in previous seasons have also been edited or unavailable to stream on Disney+.

This decision by Disney comes at a time when there has been a fundamental shift, both in the way audiences consume content and how content is distributed. Through global streaming services, content previously produced for a local market now has a greater opportunity to reach a global audience.

The New York Times has said Bluey “could rival The Wiggles as Australia’s most popular children’s cultural export”.

But can screen content truly be considered a cultural export if it is re-edited to reflect cultural aspects of the market it is being distributed in?

Read more:
‘An idealised Australian ethos’: why Bluey is an audience favourite, even for adults without kids

Content for global audience

Australian media content being changed for the US market is not a new phenomena.

More than 40 years ago, Mad Max was dubbed with American accents for the US market.

More recently, Australian television shows like Wilfred (2011), Kath & Kim (2009) and The Slap (2015) have been reproduced for a US market.

Since these Americanised series premiered, there has been a shift in the commissioning of media. Content distributors no longer solely rely on local broadcasters: they now are able to go direct to a global audience through streaming services.

Since the start of 2022, Netflix has commissioned content from 44 territories, Warner Bros commissioned work across 27 territories for HBO Max and Discovery+, Disney 23 and Amazon 21.

These streaming platforms aren’t looking for local hits: they’re looking for global hits, from anywhere. It’s not just about making the next Stranger Things, it’s about making the next Money Heist – the Netflix hit from Spain – or the next South Korean juggernaut Squid Game.

A question of quotas

In 2021, the federal government removed the quota requiring local children’s programming on Australian commercial television. This has resulted in a significant decline in the broadcast of children’s content.

We have seen increased investment of Australian content by streaming services. Together, Amazon Prime, Disney, Netflix and Stan spent A$178.9 million in the 2020–21 financial year, including children’s television. This is up more than $25 million in the previous year.

Earlier this year, Netflix launched a partnership with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation to fund the development of original Australian children’s series. Disney has also announced its planned investment in local Australian children’s content.

This increase by streaming service is yet to fill the shortfall by commercial television.

Read more:
Cheese ‘n’ crackers! Concerns deepen for the future of Australian children’s television

But is it Australian?

In June, the Make It Australian campaign was launched at the Sydney Film Festival. The campaign calls for Australian stories to be “told on Australian screens by us, to us, about us”.

At the campaign launch, arts minister Tony Burke said international and commercial success for Australian films is “wonderful, but that is a bonus.”

The “first objective” for Australian films, he said:

is to make sure our stories are told so that we know better ourselves; we know better each other and the world has a better way of knowing us.

It is the last point that Tony Burke makes, about the world “knowing us”, that is less considered in the ongoing local screen content debate. Indeed, Australian content is being shown to a global audience.

But what happens when Australian content is edited with these international audiences in mind? Edits like those Disney made to Bluey not only impact the humour and the narrative, but also impact the cultural representation within the program.

Increased investment by streaming services will provide opportunities for Australian local content to be successful locally and globally. But for Australian television and films to be true cultural exports, the world should be seeing the version of ourselves we are seeing, too.

The success of this relies on not only focusing on content production and local distribution, but including strategies that allow Australian content to remain free from localised edits, so it can truly reflect an Australian cultural export.

Read more:
TV has changed, so must the way we support local content

Marc C-Scott 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. Bluey was edited for American viewers – but global audiences deserve to see all of us – https://theconversation.com/bluey-was-edited-for-american-viewers-but-global-audiences-deserve-to-see-all-of-us-188982

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Williamson, Senior Lecturer in the School of Hospitality and Tourism at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland University of Technology

Almost three years after COVID-19 hit New Zealand, the hospitality sector is slowly rebuilding. Widespread business closures, limited opening hours and an inability to attract workers have drawn widespread media attention and renewed calls for increasing the number of migrant workers allowed into New Zealand to fill vacant jobs.

The government has also set out its goals for regenerative tourism (encouraging visitors to leave a destination better than when they arrived) and hospitality (fostering a sustainable and attractive industry that raises the reputation of the sector). It has also opened debates about a “reset” of immigration policy.

However, our survey of 400 hospitality workers, taken immediately before the pandemic struck and now published in full, showed concerning levels of non-compliance with basic employment rights within the industry. The survey results point to long-standing issues in the sector.

By correctly understanding the true origins and nature of the problems in hospitality, we can identify better solutions.

Reputational damage

Key findings from the survey include:

• 16% of respondents have not signed an employment agreement before starting work

• 13% of respondents are not receiving the correct payslips

• 18% of respondents are not receiving the minimum wage

• 22% of respondents did not get the correct holiday pay

• 22% of respondents are not getting time off or correct pay for working statutory holidays

• 22% of respondents are not receiving the correct rest breaks

• 81% of respondents state they received no training in their jobs

• 49% of respondents experienced or witnessed harassment in the workplace

• 69% of respondents were aware of health and safety risks in their workplace.

These findings describe a sector with a significant number of employers who are not meeting common expectations for decent work. This minority is dragging down the overall image of the industry and undermining the many good hospitality employers.

One hospitality worker said:

I haven’t had a pay rise in the four years I have been with my current employer.

According to another:

I didn’t get my minimum wage. I didn’t get my holiday pay, and because of my migrant status I was too afraid to protect myself legally.

A third said:

The longer you work in the industry the more you see and are subjected to all forms of abuse. Some people (customers and employers) see hospitality staff not much more then a slave to service their needs”.

Failures are not new

The first message from the survey is that while current issues in the sector are acute, they are not new. COVID has simply amplified long-standing problems.

Crucially, it is important to draw a distinction between issues around migrant labour and the low pay and poor conditions that the survey highlights.

Read more:
Shocking yet not surprising: wage theft has become a culturally accepted part of business

The New Zealand hospitality sector has always struggled to find local workers. As a result it has been highly dependent on migrant labour. But the poor pay and conditions so clearly exposed by the survey were not common before the 1980s.

This raises the question – what changed?

Prior to the 1980s, hospitality pay and conditions were contained within industry-wide collective agreements, enforced by a powerful union that benefited from strong relationships with the state and employers.

While one couldn’t argue that exploitation never occurred during this period, the system provided both migrant and local hospitality workers with concrete minimum pay rates, extensive penalty rates and protected conditions.

Read more:
We’ve let wage exploitation become the default experience of migrant workers

However, the free market revolution of the 1980s and 1990s strongly encouraged individual contracting and removed compulsory unionism. Hospitality workers were now exposed to downward pressure on wages and conditions, without the protection of a powerful union or collective agreements.

From this point on, increasing casualisation (part-time or on-call work, rather than full-time employment), falling wages and increasing numbers of exploitation cases have come to define the sector.

A map for change

So what needs to change to improve the sector?

Firstly, the government needs to increase pressure on poor employers and reward the good employers. By increasing the resources of the Labour Inspectorate, a more rigorous enforcement of labour laws can be brought to bear on employers who are not meeting the standards of decent work.

At the same time, customers can be engaged though initiatives like the New Zealand Restaurant Association’s Hosopocred scheme. This scheme, which will require an employer to apply and provide evidence for accreditation, will help identify good employers and allow customers to make a choice to support them. Consumer behaviour can be a powerful incentive for improving employment practices.

Read more:
No, a ‘complex’ system is not to blame for corporate wage theft

Secondly, there needs to be widespread support for the government’s proposed fair pay agreements. These could be the basis for industry-wide commitment to decent work, including better pay and conditions, improved training and better representation of employees voices.

Fair pay agreements could result in significant changes in the workplace, including lifting service quality and employment standards.

Finally, those involved in the hospitality sector must continue and strengthen the tripartite approach between unions, employer groups and the government that is driving the proposed industry transformation plan set out by the government. Only when all elements of the industry work together can the image and reality of hospitality work be fundamentally changed.

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. Hostile hospitality? Survey finds decent work conditions still missing from too many menus – https://theconversation.com/hostile-hospitality-survey-finds-decent-work-conditions-still-missing-from-too-many-menus-188286

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

Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue has neatly summarised Scott Morrison’s political misdemeanour in having himself secretly appointed to all those ministries.

Morrison, by his failure to disclose what he had done, undermined the Westminster system of “responsible government” at the most basic level.

Ministers are responsible to parliament and, through parliament, to the voters. But how can there be that accountability if parliament and the public don’t know a (prime) minister has been appointed to administer a particular department?

As Anthony Albanese says, there remain outstanding questions in this affair. Despite his news conference last week, and more comments on Tuesday after the solicitor-general’s opinion was released, Morrison has not convincingly explained why he behaved in this strange way, with such discourtesy to colleagues, let along disdain for the public.

But whether we need a full legal inquiry is another matter. That smacks of current politics as well as past payback – for the investigations the Coalition government launched after it took office, into the “pink batts” scheme and into the trade unions.

Together, those royal commissions saw two former Labor prime ministers (Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard) and a Labor opposition leader (Bill Shorten) giving evidence.

Labor would relish similar public pressure put on Morrison.

There’s no doubt what Morrison did was reprehensible. He was able to do it because of a gap in the political system’s safeguards, allowing for ministerial appointments to go unannounced.

But that gap is one which can be easily fixed, either by changes to rules or by legislation to ensure all such appointments have to be immediately disclosed.

Legislation would be best because once in place, it effectively couldn’t be undone. What government would try to repeal it, to allow secrecy again?

Going to an inquiry raises some tricky questions for the government, as it works out the detail of its terms of reference.

Prime among these is the matter of the Governor-General, David Hurley.

Hurley acted, properly, on government advice in ticking off on the Morrison appointments. But he also had the capacity to ask questions about what he was signing and, as far as we know, he didn’t do that. Hence there has been sharp criticism of him from some quarters.

From what we can judge, Albanese doesn’t want to embroil Hurley.

Asked whether the inquiry would examine Hurley’s role or exempt him, Albanese said: “Well, the governor-general’s role has been examined here [in the opinion]”.

Hurley had made “a very clear statement”, from his perspective, on how he operated, taking the advice of the government of the day, “which is consistent with the responsibility of the governor-general”, Albanese said.

The idea of the governor-general being asked to give evidence goes into awkward territory, even if it just exposed that Hurley wasn’t sharp enough to notice anything unusual.

But it is hard to figure how the governor-general can be carved out of an inquiry, if that inquiry is to get to the full story. This is especially so given the inquiry will look at the role of the prime minister’s department in preparing the request that was dispatched to Hurley. Clearly some bureaucrats will be in the frame.

Constitutional expert George Williams, from the University of NSW, is one who thinks Hurley’s role should not to be excluded. Not because Hurley did anything wrong, but because “the governor-general was at the centre of the ratification”.

Williams would prefer a parliamentary inquiry, rather than one by a legal figure. “Parliamentarians should assert themselves in solving this problem”, he says.

The revelations about Morrison’s conduct have yielded a political bonanza for Albanese, and he will be hoping for more. Whether the inquiry will be seen in retrospect as justified, or political overkill, will depend on what it uncovers.

The solicitor-general’s opinion is another blow for Morrison’s record (and his quest for future employment), and for the Coalition as it tries to regroup.

Morrison, writing on Facebook on Tuesday, summarised his defence in these seven points.

the authorities established were valid

there was no consistent process for publication of such authorities

no powers were exercised under these authorities, except in the
case of the PEP11 [gas exploration] decision, or misused

Ministers exercised their portfolio authorities fully, with my utmost confidence and trust, without intervention

as Prime Minister I did not ‘Act’ as Minister or engage in any
‘Co-Minister’ arrangements, except in the case of the PEP11 decision

on the PEP11 matter, this was done lawfully from first principles
and my intent to do so was advised to the relevant Minister before
doing so

Australia’s performance through the pandemic was one of the
strongest in the developed world

He also said: “I will appropriately assist any genuine process to learn the lessons
from the pandemic. I would expect that any credible processes would
also extend to the actions of the States and Territories”.

But this inquiry is not one broadly into the handling of the pandemic. Albanese indicated a wider inquiry is still some time away.

Morrison can protest all he likes, but now that the appropriateness of his bizarre power grab has become an argument between him and the solicitor-general, he is on a hiding to nothing.

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. View from The Hill: How does Albanese frame Morrison inquiry without embroiling the governor-general? – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-how-does-albanese-frame-morrison-inquiry-without-embroiling-the-governor-general-189238

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this podcast, politics editor Amanda Dunn and Michelle discuss the solicitor-general’s advice on Scott Morrison’s secret appointment to multiple ministries, which flouted “responsible government”. Morrison’s action will now be scrutinised by an inquiry.

They also canvass next week’s jobs and skills summit, where the government will be seeking agreement on immigration and improving industrial relations.

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. Word From The Hill: More heat piled on Morrison over those multiple ministries – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-more-heat-piled-on-morrison-over-those-multiple-ministries-189244

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this podcast, politics editor Amanda Dunn and Michelle discuss the solicitor-general’s advice on Scott Morrison’s secret appointment to multiple ministries, which flouted “responsible government”. Morrison’s action will now be scrutinised by an inquiry.

They also canvass next week’s jobs and skills summit, where the government will be seeking agreement on immigration and improving industrial relations.

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. Word From The Hill: Morrison faces inquiry into how he flouted responsible government – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-morrison-faces-inquiry-into-how-he-flouted-responsible-government-189244

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samina Yasmeen, Director of Centre for Muslim States and Societies, The University of Western Australia

Tensions between former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and the current coalition government are coming to a head.

Khan made a speech in the northern city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad on Sunday, August 21, seeking a return to office after losing a no-confidence vote in April and being ousted as prime minister. Just hours beforehand, Pakistan’s electronic media regulator prohibited Khan’s rallies from being broadcast live on all satellite TV channels.

As he started his address, which was being broadcast on social media, YouTube experienced “disruptions”. This prompted Khan to accuse the government of attempting to silence him.

Following this, Pakistani police laid charges of terrorism against Khan for comments he had made in a speech about the judiciary a day earlier in Islamabad.

Previously, the government had been quite permissive of Khan’s rallies, but this approach appears to have changed.

So how did we get here?

Khan’s narrative

Since March this year, even before he was ousted, Khan has held numerous rallies, gatherings and social media activities to present his narrative to the Pakistani people locally and overseas.

He has accused, without evidence, the coalition government of working at the behest of the United States. He has labelled the government an “imported government” and popularised the hashtag “imported government na Manzoor” (the imported government is unacceptable).

Khan has also levelled varying degrees of criticism against the judiciary, bureaucracy and media for enabling the coalition government’s return to power in April.

In contrast, he portrays himself as a good Muslim, someone who is following in the footsteps of the founder of the country, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and as being knowledgeable about the West, honest and incorruptible.

He believes he’s different from the government, which he denounces as corrupt “thieves”, and that he can lead the people of Pakistan in their struggle for true independence. He has urged young people and others to wage the struggle for “haqiqi azadi” (real independence).

The often well-choreographed rallies feature music by renowned musicians and singers, and appearances by popular actors. The appeal of this narrative is obvious in the thousands of Pakistanis of all ages and backgrounds attending these rallies.

Khan’s speeches are broadcast on social media, including YouTube and Twitter, with the Pakistani diaspora following these developments.

Read more:
What’s next for Pakistan after Imran Khan’s ouster?

The government’s changing stance

Since coming to power in April, the coalition government has allowed almost all of these rallies to take place.

One exception was Khan’s May 25 “independence march”, when his supporters marched to Islamabad to call for new elections. The government had attempted to shut down the march, but the Supreme Court overturned the ban. Media reported some clashes between police and Khan’s supporters, with police firing teargas and detaining some protesters.

There are two possible explanations for the government’s mostly permissive approach to Khan’s rallies. The first is that it’s keen to demonstrate its democratic credentials.

The second is that the military – which was instrumental in removing Khan from power – thought Khan’s popularity would run its course and decline over time, so there was no need to intervene especially given the support for Khan’s party apparent among some retired military officials. But that didn’t happen.

Khan’s criticism of the regime became more strident. His references to the “neutrals”, a euphemism for the military establishment, became increasingly pronounced. Calling upon the “neutrals” to see the light and return power to the rightful representatives, Khan implied the military had supported his ouster and needed to mend its ways. Coupled with his increasing popularity despite his own government’s poor performance, such references fuelled anti-military sentiment that has swept across social media.

A Pakistan Army helicopter crash on August 1 in the province of Balochistan killed six military officials. This unfortunately led to anti-military groups stoking speculation online that the military itself had orchestrated the crash, and that military hardware was more precious than the military officials lost.

The leadership of Khan’s party denied any connection to the widely circulating anti-military tweets. But within days of this denial, Khan’s chief of staff read a controversial statement on the ARY television network that authorities claim was seditious and amounted to an incitement of mutiny within the armed forces.

The terrorism charges, along with Pakistan’s electronic media regulator banning live broadcast of his rallies, show Pakistani authorities are coming down firmly on Khan. They are now attempting to deny Khan the ability to mobilise masses against the judiciary, law enforcement agencies and the military. Time will tell whether this will be successful. But there are ominous signs of impending instability.

Samina Yasmeen 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 the dispute between Imran Khan and the Pakistan government about? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-dispute-between-imran-khan-and-the-pakistan-government-about-189128

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Glavovic, Professor in Natural Hazards Planning and Resilience, Massey University

The New Zealand town of Nelson remains in a state of emergency, with nearly 500 homes evacuated, after the region received more than three times its average August rainfall in less than five days last week.

The prospect of yet more flooding is devastating, but thankfully there has been no loss of life.

Extreme weather is making life increasingly precarious in many other parts of the world, often with a terrible death toll.

As we prepare for a more turbulent future, fuelled by a changing climate, we can learn from the experiences of another New Zealand city, Ōtautahi Christchurch.

People there have lived through a decade of extreme events. They have experienced devastating earthquakes, floods, a terrorist attack, the COVID-19 pandemic, air pollution, growing social inequality and more.

In a new book, A Decade of Disaster Experiences in Ōtautahi Christchurch: Critical Disaster Studies Perspectives, we argue that our traditional response to disasters is no longer sufficient and we must begin to address the underlying causes that make some communities more vulnerable than others.

The failures of ‘traditional’ disaster studies

Traditionally, disaster studies and practices have centred on putting in place measures to contain natural hazards. For example, stop banks are erected to contain flooding.

Risk analysis and treatment options enable specialists to determine the probability and consequences of extreme events and prescribe optimal solutions. In Aotearoa New Zealand, robust legislation and policy such as the coastal policy statement are in place to improve natural hazard management and build community resilience.

These measures have unquestionably helped to reduce the impacts of extreme events. They have minimised loss of life. However, traditional approaches have not prepared our communities for the disruptive events we face now and in the future.

Read more:
Climate change is making flooding worse: 3 reasons the world is seeing more record-breaking deluges and flash floods

Climate change is a game changer. Sea-level rise is unstoppable. Flooding is commonplace.

We describe a new approach to research, policy and operational practice, based on a critical disaster studies perspective.

Focusing on underlying causes of vulnerability

The book provides an account of what people in and around the city of Christchurch have lived through in the face of disaster upon disaster upon disaster.

It reveals important lessons from real-world experiences and shares vital insights from Māori and migrant communities on response and recovery efforts as well as by individuals, civil society, the private sector and government.

A critical disaster studies perspective is distinguished from traditional approaches through its focus on the underlying drivers and root causes of vulnerability and risk that predispose people to harm.

It leverages the social sciences and humanities. It works in cross-disciplinary ways to better understand and address the influence of power, inequity and injustice in constructing vulnerability. It uncovers the everyday reality of disasters for those most susceptible to harm.

Disasters hit some people harder than others

Traditionally, a disaster is framed as an abnormal situation in which people, cities and regions are overwhelmed by extreme natural hazard events that exceed coping capacity.

A critical disaster studies perspective recognises that disasters are much more than naturally occurring ruptures. It views disasters as socially constructed and mediated.

In other words, historical and contemporary conditions, like social marginalisation and oppression, impoverishment, racism, sexism, inequity and injustice, predispose some people to much more harm than others in the face of shock and disruptive changes.

Read more:
New flood maps show US damage rising 26% in next 30 years due to climate change alone, and the inequity is stark

Vulnerability is not merely periodically revealed by occasional extreme events. It can be an “everyday reality” for some people – made much worse during extreme events.

Inevitably, the root causes of disasters are manifold and interconnected. This was laid bare in the decade of disaster experiences in Ōtautahi Christchurch from 2010. The lessons from these experiences should inform future responses to unfolding climate-compounded disasters and help us navigate the challenging times ahead.

Lessons from past disasters

Ōtautahi has become a laboratory for the world – a prelude to a turbulent future. Our book reveals several lessons.

First, vulnerability has a history. Building a city in a drained swamp, at sea level and by a capricious river, made it a disaster waiting to happen. Many of the problems the city’s rebuild has had to reckon with predate the earthquakes. They include colonisation, the declining central city, car dependency and the wellbeing of communities in poorer parts.

Second, rebuilding the city is much more than physical reconstruction. Recovery is chiefly the reconstruction of the city’s soul, its culture and social fabric. It involves ongoing restoration and rebuilding of the lives of individuals, whānau, communities and more.

Restoring and building trust to enable innovation and collaboration turns out to be even more important than marshalling bricks and mortar. And crucially, who is the city for?

Third, disaster recovery cannot be dictated from on high. A critical disaster studies perspective recognises the limits of central government. It underscores the importance of mana whenua and local communities to be supported by both local and central government. When it comes to recovery, it is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but both.

Fourth, authentic public engagement and a common vision and purpose are foundational to revealing and addressing the drivers of vulnerability.

From these lessons, we can draw conclusions and advice for future planning and disaster response and recovery:

• do not allow new development in hazardous locations and avoid putting people in harm’s way

• take action now to contain the compounding impacts of climate change, which is driving more intense and frequent extreme events, such as storms, floods and unavoidable sea-level rise

• create space for young people to be part of planning and preparedness – it is their future

• leadership by women enables empathy and emancipation

• reinvigorate local democracy

• avoid privatisation of disaster risk, because civil society holds collective responsibility for past, present and future choices about human development – it is best supported by the private sector and government

• resilience (within limits) is founded upon diversity of people and the ecosystems on which we depend

• put vulnerable people first. This is the cardinal rule of a critical disaster studies perspective.

Bruce Glavovic currently receives funding from various funding bodies including the National Science Challenge: Deep South (MBIE) and from Horizons Regional Council for work on adaptation planning in the face of climate change.

Steve Matthewman receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund.

Shinya Uekusa 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. One disaster after another: why we must act on the reasons some communities are facing higher risks – https://theconversation.com/one-disaster-after-another-why-we-must-act-on-the-reasons-some-communities-are-facing-higher-risks-189217

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

If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese really wants to boost wage growth, there’s a simple way to do it.

And if he did that one simple thing, analysis prepared for The Conversation shows some of our most trusted but least well-paid workers – teachers and nurses – could be among the wage winners.

During the election campaign, the Labor leader made a public push for wages growth. He held aloft a $1 coin and said that’s what his government would be asking for: a boost in the minimum wage from $20.33 an hour to $21.36, which would lift it 5.1%, which was the inflation rate at the time.

After the election that’s what the government asked for. The Fair Work Commission delivered slightly more for Australia’s lowest-paid – an increase of 5.2% – and somewhat less for higher earners: an increase of 4.6%.

Then the inflation rate climbed to 6.1%. That figure, for the year to June, far eclipsed total wage growth of 2.6% over the same period and rendered even what the commission had delivered out of date, sending real (inflation adjusted) wages backwards by the most in 25 years.

Next week’s Jobs Summit is, in part, an attempt to do something about wages. But the issues paper released ahead of the summit is curiously bereft of ideas about how.

The paper says wages have traditionally climbed with labour productivity (which is output per hour worked) and that productivity growth has fallen to its lowest in 50 years.

It says if businesses invested more in labour-saving technology and workers got a better mix of skills, productivity growth would climb, but (and it’s a big but) that growth would only flow through to wages “over the medium term”.

Which leaves… not much happening for wages in the meantime.

Silent on what the states should do

The other things the paper notes are that fewer workers are covered by enterprise agreements and more by Fair Work Commission awards (presumably because enterprise agreements have expired, or aren’t high enough) and that 23% of workers are casuals (a figure that hasn’t changed much in 20 years).

What the summit paper doesn’t mention, but ought to, is that governments set wages – the wages of their own employees.

The lowest-paid quarter of the workforce has its wages set by the Fair Work Commission, either via the minimum wage or awards.

The Fair Work Commission looks after these people by usually increasing their wages in line with the consumer price index, and often by more.

Private employers are offering more, where they can

Most of the rest of the workforce gets only what their employers agree to, and the good news here is that, increasingly, employers are offering more.

Two years ago, as COVID took hold, the private employers who did lift wages offered an average of 0.8%. One year later, in the year to June 2021, they offered 2.7%. In the year to June this year they offered 3.8%.

Of course many private employers can’t offer much. They are small, and are being squeezed by soaring costs.

Read more:
Are real wages falling? Here’s the evidence

But governments budget in billions, and can afford to offer whatever they think they should, covering it with tax or borrowing.

The Commonwealth government, under Albanese, employs one quarter of a million Australians. The states, with whom Albanese could have a word, employ 1.6 million – many of them teachers and nurses.

Yet far from increasing their wages in line with inflation, or even in line with private sector increases, Australia’s states have been extraordinarily stingy.

Governments are offering as little as 1.5%

Victoria’s wages policy, announced in January, is for a cap on annual increases of 1.5%. Western Australia, despite its large budget surplus, is limiting increases to 2.5%.

NSW has a ceiling of 3%, which falls back to 2.5% after two years. (And the NSW ceiling is lower than it seems. It includes employers’ super contributions, which are to climb by 0.5 percentage points a year for the next few years, making the quoted ceiling of 3% a ceiling of 2.5% for take-home pay.)

Using Bureau of Statistics figures to examine the increases actually paid (as opposed to offered) shows Western Australian public sector wages climbed just 1.1% in the year to June. South Australian public sector wages climbed 1.7%.

In Victoria and NSW, the increases were 2% and 2.1%. Only Queensland, which shelled out 4%, paid anything approaching the rate of inflation.

Nurses and teachers hit hard

This stinginess hits most the two biggest groups of state government employees: teachers and nurses.

Whereas public wages as a whole climbed 2.4% over the past year, the wages of public education and training workers climbed 2.2%.

A Bureau of Statistics breakdown prepared for The Conversation shows that in NSW and Victoria those workers (mainly teachers) got just 2%. In Victoria, health care and social assistance workers (largely nurses) got 1.7%.

Economic research suggests the states are stingy, in part because they can be. They are the only big employer of nurses, teachers, police and public servants.

The PM could have a word

If Albanese means what he says about wages keeping pace with inflation, his next step should be to ask his mates in the states to do more. Most of the premiers are from his side of politics. All of them will be at the Jobs Summit.

There are signs he is putting his own house in order. His departments have been told not to enter into new agreements while the previous penny-pinching wages policy is under review, and he has backed a big rise for aged care workers (whose wages the Commonwealth funds) in a submission to the Fair Work Commission.

But going easy on the states, as he has so far, while telling private sector employers with far smaller financial resources) to lift wages, makes it look as if he is not serious.

If he genuinely believes wages ought to keep pace with inflation, he ought to name and shame his Labor mates.

Read more:
The Chalmers graphs: 7.75% inflation, plunging real wages, weak growth

Peter Martin 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. If the PM wants wage rises, he should start with the 1.6 million people on state payrolls – https://theconversation.com/if-the-pm-wants-wage-rises-he-should-start-with-the-1-6-million-people-on-state-payrolls-188904

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

Scott Morrison’s action in having himself appointed secretly to multiple ministries was legal but breached “the principle of responsible government”, according to advice from the Solicitor-General, Stephen Donaghue.

Releasing the advice, Anthony Albanese announced the government would set up an inquiry, under an “eminent person with a legal background”, into the former prime minister’s actions.

Albanese said questions that needed examining included: “Why this occurred? How this occurred? Who knew about it occurring? What the implications are for our parliamentary system? Are there any legal implications behind decisions that were made? How can we avoid this happening again?”

Over 2020-21 Morrison had himself appointed to the ministries of health; finance; industry, science, energy and resources; home affairs and treasury. The appointments were not announced, Morrison did not tell cabinet and some of the ministers directly affected did not know.

The advice particularly considered the resources department, where Morrison overrode the decision of the minister on a gas exploration project, but the findings applied to the departments generally.

The solicitor-general said the constitution’s section 64 empowered the governor-general to appoint multiple ministers to administer a single department.

But under responsible government, outlined in chapter II of the constitution, the executive was responsible to parliament and, through it, to the electorate.

“It is impossible for the Parliament and the public to hold ministers accountable for the proper administration of particular departments if the identity of the Ministers who have been appointed to administer those departments is not publicised.”

Morrison’s multiple appointments were not announced and “there was no way the public could discern [them] from the Ministry list, or anywhere else.”

“The capacity of the public and the Parliament to ascertain which Ministers have been appointed to administer which departments is critical to the proper functioning of responsible government, because it is those appointments, when read together with the [administrative arrangements order], that determine the matters for which a Minister is legally and politically responsible.”

“To the extent that the public and the Parliament are not
informed of appointments that have been made under s 64 of the Constitution, the principles of responsible government are fundamentally undermined.”

“Neither the people nor the Parliament can hold a Minister accountable for the exercise (or, just as importantly, for the non-exercise) of particular statutory powers if they are not aware that the Minister has those powers.”

“Nor can they hold the correct Ministers accountable for any other actions, or inactions, of departments.”

Morrison’s name did not appear in the ministry list in October 2021 in relation to any of the five departments he had been appointed to administer, the advice noted.

The solicitor-general said the undermining of responsible government did not depend on the extent to which Morrison exercised power.

Canvassing a number of ways the government could remedy the situation, including having all details put in ministry lists, the solicitor-general observed such measures would not bind future governments.

“For that reason, the Government might choose to entrench a requirement for the publication of appointments under s 64 of the Constitution by creating a statutory requirement for the publication of appointments”.

Albanese said he had told his department to work with the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General to adopt a practice of publishing in the Commonwealth Gazette future appointments of ministers to administer departments. The government will also consider legislation to ensure such appointments are made public.

Governor-General David Hurley has come under public criticism for apparently not questioning the strange arrangement Morrison was making.

The solicitor-general noted, “The governor-general has no discretion to refuse to accept the prime minister’s advice in relation to such an appointment.”

Hurley himself has said he had no reason not to think the government would make the appointments public.

Albanese made it clear he would not criticise Hurley.

Asked whether Morrison should resign from parliament, Albanese said that is “a matter for Mr Morrison and his colleagues”.

“Quite clearly, I think Mr Morrison’s behaviour was extraordinary. It undermined our parliamentary democracy and he does need to be held accountable for it.”

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. Morrison’s multiple ministries legal but flouted principle of ‘responsible government’: solicitor-general – https://theconversation.com/morrisons-multiple-ministries-legal-but-flouted-principle-of-responsible-government-solicitor-general-189227

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robin Smit, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Last week, federal Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen officially put fuel efficiency standards on the national agenda, saying the measure would reduce transport emissions and encourage electric vehicle uptake.

Fuel efficiency standards are applied to car manufacturers and indirectly set limits on how much CO₂ can on average be emitted from a new vehicle. Such standards lead to lower fuel costs for motorists and could help Australia meet its targets under the Paris climate agreement.

Importantly, Bowen noted any new rules must be ambitious and designed specifically for Australia. But implementing effective standards is easier said than done – and there are many potholes to avoid.

Without a robust set of mandatory transport emissions standards, Australia’s dependence on fossil fuels will deepen, and reaching our emissions reduction goals will become harder.

Standards must be mandatory

Road vehicles vary in the efficiency with which they use fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel. For example, large SUVs are usually less fuel efficient than smaller, lighter cars. And of course, electric vehicles operate without any fossil fuels at all (although the energy source used to charge their batteries determines how “green” they are).

Stringent fuel efficiency standards will encourage the auto industry to bring more electric vehicles to Australia, and reduce how many polluting vehicles it imports.

Australia is the only country in the OECD without mandatory fuel efficiency standards for road transport vehicles. Voluntary fuel economy targets were adopted for new petrol cars in 1978, but were not achieved in 2010. In 2020, Australia’s automotive industry announced a new voluntary reporting system for CO₂ emissions reduction of 3-4% per year this decade.

These rules are not mandatory, and the target probably falls short of what’s needed. Yet, the industry is promoting these standards as a template for Australia’s new fuel efficiency rules.

Mandatory fuel efficiency standards are at the core of energy and transport policies around the world. So this should be the first guiding principle of any new system pursued by the federal government.

Read more:
As the world surges ahead on electric vehicle policy, the Morrison government’s new strategy leaves Australia idling in the garage

Real-world driving patterns

Second, the standards must be based on real-world fuel consumption.

Setting fuel efficiency standards first requires selecting a specific “driving pattern” that includes vehicle speed, acceleration, deceleration and power usage, and are used to determine a vehicle’s fuel use and emissions.

The patterns also take into account local road type (such as residential, arterial or motorway) and driving conditions (such as free-flow or morning peak).

The voluntary industry standards now in place in Australia are based on a driving pattern called the “New European Drive Cycle” or NEDC. Among its shortcomings, the cycle assumes mild accelerations and constant speeds that don’t reflect modern-day driving.

This has led to substantial deviations between the NEDC assumptions about fuel use and real-world consumption.

Our recent research measured emissions from five SUVs driving around Sydney. After comparing our measurements with the Green Vehicle Guide, we found fuel use was 16% to 65% higher than NEDC values, depending on the vehicle and driving conditions.

And research in 2019 suggested that, contrary to official figures using the NEDC, the rate of CO₂ emissions for new Australian passenger vehicles was not falling – and may actually have increased since 2015.

Why? It’s likely due to an increase in sales of bigger, heavier vehicles in Australia, such as SUVs, as well as a shift towards more 4WD and diesel cars.

So it’s crucial that we drop the NEDC – and base the new Australian standards on a drive pattern that represents real-world conditions. This could be similar to the pattern adopted by the European Union, or a real-world Australian drive cycle.

Read more:
We thought Australian cars were using less fuel. New research shows we were wrong

Other things to consider

The federal government should implement a single standard for all passenger vehicles – including all SUVs, without exception.

Australia’s voluntary system allows large road-based SUVs to fall into the same category as light commercial vehicles. This means they’re subject to less stringent fuel efficiency standards than cars.

This may inadvertently promote sales of heavy SUVs and, as a result, significantly increase real-world fuel consumption and associated emissions.

And Australia’s standards must also eliminate loopholes that could allow companies to comply with regulations but not actually improve fuel efficiency to the extent intended.

The considerations listed above are by no means exhaustive. And new fuel efficiency standards must be supported by other policy measures, such as reducing our reliance on private cars, and promoting public transport, walking and cycling.

Transport is Australia’s third-biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and federal government moves to tackle this problem are welcome. But if fuel efficiency standards are not carefully designed, the sector will continue to let down motorists, and the planet.

Robin Smit is the founder and director at Transport Energy/Emission Research Pty Ltd (TER) and an Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Technology Sydney.

Hussein Dia receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre, Level Crossing Removal Authority, City of Boroondara, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Transport for New South Wales, EmissionsIQ Pty Ltd, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, and Beam Mobility Holdings

Nic Surawski has worked on projects funded by city councils, alternative engine design companies, the Australian Coal Association Research Program, the federal Department of Environment and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Nic is a member of the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand.

– ref. The road to new fuel efficiency rules is filled with potholes. Here’s how Australia can avoid them – https://theconversation.com/the-road-to-new-fuel-efficiency-rules-is-filled-with-potholes-heres-how-australia-can-avoid-them-188814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giuseppe Carabetta, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney

While legal challenges against federal and state vaccine mandates have come to nothing, in recent months two Australian workers have won unfair dismissal cases after being sacked for not complying with their employer’s vaccination orders.

These wins in the federal industrial relations tribunal, the Fair Work Commission, confirm employers do not have carte blanche to insist employees be vaccinated.

The victories do not signal a “change in the narrative” – or that future legal claims against government mandates in other courts may succeed. But they do affirm and refine principles previously applied in vaccination-related cases heard by the commission.

The cases have turned on matters of procedure.

The commission’s rulings have confirmed the general validity of employer-imposed vaccination policies but highlighted the need for fair processes when applying such policies.

Key to these two unfair dismissal rulings were that the employers went about things the wrong way and failed to consider individual circumstances.

Robyn Pskiet vs Nocelle Foods

One case involved Adelaide woman Robyn Pskiet, sacked on 12 January 2022 by Nocelle Foods, a food wholesaler and distributor.

Pskiet was working as a quality assurance manager alongside about 60 office and factory workers at Nocelle’s Adelaide factory. She had been with the company since 2005.

The company told staff in late November 2021 it was considering implementing a COVID vaccination policy, due to workplace health and safety concerns and increasing levels of community transmission after South Australia opened its borders on November 22.

It implemented its vaccination policy on December 29. Staff were required to show evidence of their first vaccination by January 10 2022. Pskiet was dismissed for failing to provide a vaccination certificate or medical exemption.

Pskiet’s case to the Fair Work Commission was that she was concerned about the safety of then available COVID vaccines but willing to take a “safer vaccine”, such as Novavax, which the Therapeutic Goods Administration did not provisionally approve until January 20 2022.

Read more:
Haven’t yet been vaccinated for COVID? Novavax might change your mind

She argued Nocelle’s vaccination policy was not reasonable or lawful because it did not give her the option to work from home or grant her leave until Novavax was approved.

Commissioner Peter Hampton agreed.

He ruled Nocelle Foods’ vaccination policy was a lawful and reasonable direction, and refusing to comply was a valid basis for termination. But Pskiet’s dismissal was still unfair, because of her position and long-standing service, and the timing and manner of applying the policy to her.

He said “proper consideration of her circumstances” could have avoided, or at least delayed, the need to sack Pskiet.

He ordered the company to compensate her $3,462 plus superannuation. He did not, however, order the company to reinstate Pskiet – the first option when workers win unfair dismissal cases.

Bradley Dean vs Rex Airlines

The second unfair dismissal case involved pilot Bradley Dean, sacked by regional airline Rex, on December 1 2021, after 27 years of service, for breaching a policy requiring staff members to be fully vaccinated by November 1.

Dean’s position was similar to Pskiet’s. He wanted to wait for the Novavax vaccine. He asked to be given alternative duties – for example, working as a flight simulator – and requested more time to get vaccinated.

In finding for Dean, Commissioner Donna McKenna ruled the airline could validly dismiss an employee for failing to be vaccinated, but the way it had treated Dean had been unfair.

Rex’s failure to comply with procedural considerations included not discussing options to dismissal, despite assuring Dean it would.

Dean received his two Novavax vaccinations once they became available, after he was sacked. Commissioner McKenna ordered his reinstatement, with no loss in continuity of service.

Read more:
Qantas has grounds to mandate vaccination, but most blanket policies won’t fly

Individual circumstances matter

A key message from these rulings is that employers making COVID vaccination a condition of employment is generally lawful and reasonable – at least where COVID remains a significant hazard and workers are in roles requiring proximity to others.

These principles were affirmed in a December 2021 decision of the
Fair Work Commission’s full bench.

In that case, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union successfully challenged a vaccine policy introduced by the BHP subsidiary operator of the Mt Arthur coal mine in NSW’s Hunter Valley.

The full bench agreed the vaccination mandate was unreasonable because the employer had failed to properly consult with employees in introducing the policy – but confirmed the general validity of vaccination policies.

Read more:
BHP’s vaccine policy ‘not lawful and reasonable’ – but this is no win for mandate opponents

Procedure also counts when it comes to dismissing an employee for failing to comply with a vaccination requirement. The same general principles have also been upheld in unfair dismissal cases concerning mandatory influenza vaccination policies.

Employers can have a general vaccination policy but must treat every individual case on its own merits and circumstances – including the timing and manner of applying the vaccination policy to the particular employee.

Extra latitude must be given to longer serving, senior employees or those with good performance records.

Giuseppe Carabetta 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. Unfair dismissal rulings show personal circumstances matter in vaccine refusals – https://theconversation.com/unfair-dismissal-rulings-show-personal-circumstances-matter-in-vaccine-refusals-188987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Ober, IRC Fellow, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

It’s essential for non-Aboriginal researchers to establish relationships with First Nations people when conducting research in their communities.

Past research practices have left a legacy of mistrust towards non-Indigenous researchers among many First Nations people. This is because research has been steeped in colonial practices, including viewing research as something done to Indigenous peoples without them having a say in how they are represented.

First Nations people and communities have had data about them collected with little or no input into the processes or questions asked. Even now, standard questions used for data collection do not always acknowledge that First Nations ways of living may be different from the rest of the population.

This includes things like the effects of intergenerational trauma, the fact First Nations family systems often involve more people than are blood related, and different cultural needs within health services.

This is where research practices such as “yarning” can offer an opportunity to establish relationships with these communities.

Once researchers establish a connection with people from the place they’re wishing to conduct their research, a mutual and inclusive relationship can be forged. This is essential to ensuring First Nations research participants are included in research, and not seen as research subjects.

Being able to build a relationship is vital to ensuring the lives of First Nations people are accurately portrayed and recorded, participants are not taken advantage of, and communities can benefit from the research.

Read more:
Establishing a Voice to Parliament could be an opportunity for Indigenous Nation Building. Here’s what that means

A history of research ‘on’ instead of research ‘with’

Since colonisation, Indigenous people have had negative experiences of Western research. Through fields such as anthropology, First Nations peoples were observed without permission, and had remains stolen.

Because non-Aboriginal researchers lack significant knowledge about First Nations people, their cultures and societies have often been judged by the degree they conform to Western customs and norms. As a result, misconceptions have followed, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have received very little benefit from the research conducted about them.

However in the past two decades, research has been undergoing a significant transformation. This is through incorporating First Nations practices such as yarning into the way research is conducted, providing additional insight into First Nations ways of being, doing and knowing.

Not only does yarning have the power to decolonise Eurocentric research practice, but it can also contribute to non-Indigenous researchers gaining a better understanding of Indigenous peoples and their communities.

Read more:
Shifting seasons: using Indigenous knowledge and western science to help address climate change impacts

What is yarning?

Yarning is a tradition practised for thousands of years by many First Nations people in Australia. It is an integral part of Indigenous ways of learning and sharing.

It is usually undertaken by Aboriginal people coming together informally to unwind or in more formal ways such as discussing community or cultural matters. Storytelling is an important part of yarning that allows for reflection on recent or past histories and lived experiences and sharing knowledge.

Researchers can take part in “yarning” by talking to First Nations people about where each of them is from, people they know in common, and their connection to the place on which they meet, just to give a few examples.

Relationships are important in research

We have explored relationships between researchers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants, and have found building trust is essential, but can be difficult.

For example, we found when a young non-Indigenous teacher started work in an Aboriginal community it took her roughly a year before the Aboriginal community decided she was ready to know about their land and culture. According to the teacher, the time proved she was “serious” about being the children’s teacher.

Researchers in First Nations communities need to make connections through sharing dialogues and lived experiences, mutual investment and building trust and credibility. This can be done by taking trips out to the bush and demonstrating commitment to the communities they wish to learn about.

Establishing relationships with the community like this also allows researchers to become acquainted with non-verbal communication such as body language and gestures fundamental to how some Aboriginal people interact.

Ideally these relationships should extend beyond local Aboriginal communities to relevant Aboriginal service providers, educators, practitioners, policymakers, academics and even park rangers. This will ensure additional background information, cultural contexts, and by extension, more robust research.

Researchers need to ask themselves how the research they are undertaking could have useful outcomes for communities, not just academia. This reciprocity can potentially address mistrust with some First Nations people.

It’s important researchers undertake culturally appropriate research that gives back to communities. Through establishing relationships and taking the time to listen to these communities, this will better ensure research undertaken is safe, ethical and useful for them too.

Robyn Ober receives funding from Australian Research Council

Rhonda Oliver receives funding from Australian Research Council.

Sender Dovchin receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘You can’t just show up and start asking questions’: why researchers need to understand the importance of yarning for First Nations – https://theconversation.com/you-cant-just-show-up-and-start-asking-questions-why-researchers-need-to-understand-the-importance-of-yarning-for-first-nations-187920

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodie McVernon, Professor and Director of Doherty Epidemiology, The University of Melbourne

Way before COVID, in 2005 the World of Warcraft game developers accidentally introduced an extremely virulent highly contagious disease into this game which then spread to infect the whole fantasy world and caused a virtual pandemic.

As far removed as this may seem from the goings on in the real world, the spread of this virtual disease appeared to have potential relevance to understanding real world epidemics.

Disease modelling has played a crucial role during the COVID pandemic to help anticipate the spread of an entirely new infectious disease through the population.

Infectious disease models use mathematical equations to describe how infectious diseases, humans and the environment interact. Then we can scope out what’s likely to happen if we let an epidemic run its course or try out various public health intervention options to see their effect on transmission.

This approach lets us take a peek into an uncertain future to assess the likely impact of control strategies on disease outcomes.

Read more:
Doherty modelling update provides the goalposts, but local insights will determine play

World of Warcraft and the corrupted blood plague

In the World of Warcraft online game, the disease that was introduced and spread widely throughout the virtual world was called Corrupted Blood.

This introduced disease was intended to be confined to a particular area of the virtual world, as a “debuff” spell used by the dungeon “boss” Hakkar the Soulflayer, to pose an additional challenge to players. Upon engaging the boss, players were stricken by the spell which would periodically sap their life.

However, to the surprise of the game developers, features of this virtual world, the nature of the introduced disease and the unanticipated behaviour of players led to rapid spread of this infection into the wider game. Players unknowingly transmitted infection to their animal companions, who were able to then infect other players in the wider game.

Developers didn’t predict panicked players would subsequently travel great distances to densely populated areas and spread illness there. Some players displayed altruistic behaviours, rushing to the aid of their friends and becoming infected. The disease spread widely and quickly.

There were also a number of individuals who intentionally spread disease for no obvious reason. A full-scale game wide pandemic ensued, with high rates of infection and death.

Given the extent to which players inhabited their virtual personas, this phenomenon led some researchers to speculate that gamifying infectious disease epidemics might be a way to gain insights into human behaviour during a pandemic.

Data derived from observing the actions of players in the virtual realm in response to an introduced virtual disease threat could be fed into real world disease models, they suggested, to better account for the unpredictability of human behaviour.

Indeed, many of the behavioural drivers of infectious spread identified in the game outbreak have also played an important role in the spread of COVID.

The key issue is that, despite the sophistication of disease modelling, the biggest source of uncertainty in these models comes from trying to factor in human behaviour.

Disease modelling and COVID

The COVID pandemic has highlighted just how complex and varied our responses to infectious disease threats are. Differences in social cohesion, trust in governments and political priorities can drive these responses.

Some high-income countries, like the United States and the United Kingdom, that were expected to be well placed to respond to the pandemic performed poorly. Other lower income countries, like Vietnam and Thailand, performed exceptionally well despite having fewer resources. To make things even more complex, as the pandemic has continued to unfold, public perceptions have been changing too.

So, how do we gather the data needed to model human behaviour better?

Since early 2020, many countries have implemented behavioural surveys in real time as a way of understanding attitudes and behavioural response to the pandemic, including cooperation with social measures mandated or recommended by authorities.

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What have we learned about COVID from World of Warcraft?

Have virtual epidemics been used to inform infectious disease models and make them more “realistic”?

Despite some initial excitement about using observed player behaviour in virtual fantasy worlds to enhance epidemic models, we have not seen such data being used in any meaningful way.

Despite the parallels between player interactions in virtual worlds and the real world, online behaviour varies in significant ways and may still be too far removed from reality to be of any practical use. Most notably, the potential for limitless experiences in online games is very different to the real world. Despite theoretical interest, the idea really hasn’t taken off.

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While behavioural data from virtual worlds may not be of sufficient relevance to inform real world disease models, the need to predict human behaviour better remains very important. The pandemic showed us how unpredictable our responses are.

A prime example of this was the rush to hoard toilet paper . No one would have anticipated this phenomenon before the pandemic, and it was totally irrational, but it was replicated throughout the world. While this is a somewhat obscure example, what it highlights is the unpredictability of human behaviour. There is no doubt that if we can better understand human behaviour and feed this into our disease models we will be better placed to predict disease outcomes and the impacts of public health interventions.

Unfortunately, in the real world we don’t have the luxury the game developers of World of Warcraft had. When they couldn’t stop the spread of the corrupted blood disease, they just performed a game reset to end the pandemic and get back to life as normal. If only!

Jodie McVernon receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government Departments of Health and Ageing and Foreign Affairs and Trade and the World Health Organisation. She has been an invited expert member of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, the Communicable Disease Network of Australia COVID-19 working group, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation’s COVID-19 Technical Group, and the COVID Multi-Model Comparison Collaboration’s Technical Group.

Hassan Vally 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. Did an accidental ‘blood plague’ in World of Warcraft help scientists model COVID better? The results are in – https://theconversation.com/did-an-accidental-blood-plague-in-world-of-warcraft-help-scientists-model-covid-better-the-results-are-in-188219

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Rosamilia, Adjunct associate professor and urogynaecology & pelvic reconstructive surgery, Head Pelvic Floor Unit at Monash Health, Monash University

A vaginal pessary is a removable device inserted in the vagina to support its walls or uterus (support pessary) or for bladder leakage (continence pessary).

Pessaries have been around for a very long time, the oldest known pessary – as described by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates – was a pomegranate soaked in vinegar!

Nowadays, pessaries are made from silicone which is non allergenic, long lasting, pliable and can be sterilised. Some are worn continuously for weeks, months or years with appropriate maintenance, while others are inserted as needed.

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What they are good for

There are many types of vaginal support pessaries with (mostly) descriptive names: ring, Gellhorn, donut, cube, C-POP and more. At least two models of continence pessaries – branded Contiform and Coo-Wee – are relatively new on the market as well as the continence ring and dish.

Continence pessaries are used for stress urinary incontinence or “light bladder leakage” that occurs with coughing, sneezing or exercise. These act to support the urethra, as can a vaginal tampon, and can prevent leakage in up to 60% of women. They are especially useful if leakage is predictable, such as when a woman goes to the gym or out for a jog.

Vaginal support pessaries can be effective for prolapse (a type of hernia or weakness of the vaginal walls and ligaments that allow the uterus, bladder, or bowel to descend to or beyond the vaginal opening). If successfully fitted, pessaries can help 60% to 70% of women with these problems. There is improvement in the feeling of a vaginal bulge or tissue protrusion, improvement in bladder emptying and bladder leakage and urgency, sexual frequency and satisfaction. About 50% of women who have a vaginal birth will have some prolapse and up to 20% will go on to have surgery during their lifetime.

Pelvic floor muscle training in the early stages can improve symptoms as can vaginal estrogen in women after menopause. A pessary can be an alternative to surgery or used while women are delaying (such as in between pregnancies) or waiting to have surgery.

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The downside

Pessary use can have a downside too. Side effects may include vaginal discharge or odour or vaginal bleeding. These side effects generally occur after many months or years of continuous use and contribute to discontinuation.

An Australian study reported only 14% women continued long term use of pessaries mainly due to these side effects and the need for long term maintenance.

But a pessary can “buy time”. Theoretically, pessary use can help prevent worsening of prolapse.

A pessary for longer wear is usually fitted in clinic. Generally, all gynaecologists are trained to fit a pessary as are specialised pelvic floor physiotherapists and continence nurse specialists. Women often require a trial of more than one size or type to find the “best fit”. Sometimes a pessary can’t be fitted, is uncomfortable or falls out. This can occur when the vaginal length is short after previous prolapse surgery or hysterectomy, the vagina has a wide opening or the muscles are very weak.

Support pessaries can be self-managed by women who are willing to do this regularly in the same way they might manage a tampon, menstrual cup, or diaphragm contraceptive device. Sexually active women may choose to remove the pessary prior to intercourse; however, this is not essential for all types.

If not self-managed, pessary follow up is needed every six to 12 months, when the device is removed, cleaned, and reinserted or a new one inserted.

There are rare but serious complications like fistula (an opening between vagina and bowel or bladder) and impaction where an anaesthetic or surgery is required to remove the pessary.

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Some future models

Recently, there is some research and development occurring in adding personalised or “smart” capabilities to the vaginal support pessary such as electrical stimulation therapy or pressure biofeedback such as already exists for pelvic floor training devices.

Acceptance of pessaries is variable and often related to prior knowledge and appropriate counselling.

There is a lack of knowledge and awareness regarding how common pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence are. We often hear women express embarrassment, shame or fear but many suffer in silence. The main barrier to seeking treatment is the perception that prolapse or incontinence are inevitable parts of childbirth and ageing.

Prolapse and urinary incontinence can have a negative impact on a woman’s physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Women experiencing any pelvic floor dysfunction can speak to their GPs, gynaecologists, or urogynaecologists (gynaecologists specialised in management of prolapse and incontinence).

Read more:
Explainer: what is pelvic organ prolapse?

Anna Rosamilia is Clinical Associate Investigator for studies receiving funding from NHMRC, Past research grants from Boston Scientific, American Medical Systems. Astellas. She has had an expert witness role. None of this funding is related to pessaries.

She is affiliated with and member of International Urogynecological Association, Urogynaecological Association of Australia, Continence Foundation of Australia and International Continence Society.

Mugdha Kulkarni is a member of International Urogynecological Association & Urogynaecological Association of Australia.

– ref. Pessaries are still a taboo topic – but these ancient devices help many women – https://theconversation.com/pessaries-are-still-a-taboo-topic-but-these-ancient-devices-help-many-women-187083