Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanessa Pirotta, Postdoctoral Researcher and Wildlife Scientist, Macquarie University

As humpback and southern right whales return to Antarctica at the tail end of their annual migration, east coast whale watchers may think the show will soon be over. But some whale species are still here, possibly year-round. And we need to find out more about them.

My team’s new research concerns one of these little-known species – the Bryde’s whale. You may have seen it feeding, breaching or surfing, without realising what it was.

My colleagues and I wanted to learn more about where Bryde’s whales can be found in Australian waters. So we tapped into observations shared on social media, including drone footage and photographs from whale-watching tours. We also gathered observations from scientists.

We discovered a wealth of information. It includes evidence of feeding and “surfing” behaviours possibly never documented before. Findings from this research will directly help inform conservation efforts to protect this species, which we still know so little about in Australian waters.

Observing whales through citizen science

Scientists can’t always be out in the field, or on the water. That’s why the data gathered by everyday people, known as “citizen scientists”, can be so useful. It captures valuable information about wildlife that can be used later by professional researchers.

Citizen science projects involving marine life have grown over recent years. They include people documenting humpback whale recovery by counting northward migrating humpback whales off Sydney, and people watching sharks off Bondi Beach via the @DroneSharkApp.

Hungry hungry whales

Like humpback whales, these giants are “baleen” whales, meaning they are toothless. But Bryde’s whales have a much pointier mouth and lack that famous hump.

A preference for warmer waters means Bryde’s whales are also known as tropical whales. They can be found in tropical or subtropical waters.

Around the world, Bryde’s whales have demonstrated interesting feeding behaviours, from high-speed seafloor chases to “pirouette feeding”.

Hanging out in shallow and deep waters

Our study documented Bryde’s whales feeding in both deep and shallow waters off the east coast of Australia, alone or sometimes with other whales.

We tapped into more than an hour of drone vision and more than 200 photos of Bryde’s whales shared by citizen scientists on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

In offshore environments, Bryde’s whales were typically seen “side lunging” – where they propel themselves forward and turn onto their side then open their mouth to engulf their food. They also swam from below and scooped up their prey, much like humpback whales.

In shallow waters, Bryde’s whales were observed feeding directly within or behind the surf break.

We believe this is a new feeding behaviour for this species. We call it “shallow water surf feeding”.

Whales may be using the surf to assist with their feeding efforts, or, perhaps they are there because that’s where the bait fish are hanging out.

Regardless, it’s impressive to see such a large whale in the surf and in shallow waters.

Spotted: mums with their calves

We also documented mothers with calves. This indicates some parts of the Australian east coast could possibly serve as an important area for nursing mothers with their young. They could also be using these waters for calving.

We don’t yet fully understand the species’ movements around Australia, and whether they swim in New Zealand waters. For example, the world-famous white humpback whale Migaloo has been known to swim across the Tasman Sea.

Could these Bryde’s whales we see here in Australian waters be the same ones seen in New Zealand waters? Are they calving in New Zealand or Australia and moving between the two? If so, what does this mean for their protection?

Whales don’t recognise international boundaries. They go where they want, when they want. This is why collaborative research like this is important for our growing knowledge of this species.

The more we know, the better we can protect

This is the first dedicated paper on both the occurrence and feeding behaviour of Bryde’s whale in Australian waters.

As humans continue to expand our footprint in the ocean through activities such as offshore wind energy, shipping, fishing and tourism, knowledge of this species and others can help inform future decisions in our blue backyard.

Findings of this study will directly contribute to Australia’s efforts to protect whales. One immediate action will be contributing information to the federal review of Biological Important Areas for protected marine species. The more we know, the better we can target conservation efforts to provide for a species we know relatively little about in Australian waters.

And even though the humpbacks and southern rights are headed back south to Antarctica for the summer, it’s still worth keeping your eyes on the water. You might be the next person to spot a Bryde’s whale in Australian waters. Let us know if you do!

Vanessa Pirotta 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. Social media footage reveals little-known ‘surfing’ whales in Australian waters – https://theconversation.com/social-media-footage-reveals-little-known-surfing-whales-in-australian-waters-241347

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Critical Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University

Digital inclusion for Indigenous communities is important. It’s so important, in fact, that the government has made it one of the targets under the Closing The Gap plan. The goal is:

by 2026, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have equal levels of digital inclusion.

Digital exclusion is the continuing unequal access and capacity to use digital technology that is essential to participate fully in society.

It severely stifles Indigenous creativity. It restricts access to essential tools, skills and platforms that are crucial for digital expression and innovation.

For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, this exclusion leads to missed opportunities, particularly in areas linked to economic prosperity, such as employment and education. As the government’s policy focus is on economic empowerment, this is a major barrier.

Measuring progress towards the 2026 deadline is challenging because there are simply no recent data.

But given how big the gap was to start with, the lack of importance based on gathering relevant data and the insufficient government action since, we know the target is highly unlikely to be met.

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

What’s being done?

To support the goal, the First Nations Digital Inclusion Plan offers a comprehensive strategy focused on three key pillars:

• access (to telecommunication services, devices, and data)

• affordability (the cost of services, devices, and data)

• ability (skills, attitudes, and confidence with technology).

Focused mostly on remote communities, initiatives such as the Australian Digital Inclusion Index highlight persistent challenges across all three areas.

Although digital inclusion is an urgent issue in remote areas, research also shows Indigenous populations face widespread digital exclusion across the nation, regardless of remoteness.

Some 84.6% (832,800) of Indigenous people live in non-remote areas. Many of these people are also excluded.

Last year, the government established an advisory group to drive progress.

It has developed a “road map”. This involves travelling to Indigenous communities across Australia to ensure their diverse needs, aspirations and environments are fully considered.

Despite these ongoing government initiatives and policies, efforts to close the digital divide for Indigenous peoples remain insufficient. As technology continues to advance, Indigenous communities are left in an increasingly precarious situation.

The rise of artificial intelligence

The government’s current plans do not explicitly address the role of artificial intelligence (AI). This oversight is particularly concerning given the rapid advancement of AI technologies.

A recent report on adult media literacy in Australia reveals 48% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants do not understand what AI is or the risks and opportunities it presents. This knowledge gap could further exacerbate the digital divide and deepen existing inequalities.

AI presents both opportunities and challenges. When led by Indigenous people, it holds transformative potential across multiple sectors.

It could enhance learning tailored to Indigenous knowledge systems, help in the revitalisation and preservation of languages, and improve healthcare delivery. It could also empower Indigenous businesses by optimising operations and market reach.

Read more:
AI affects everyone – including Indigenous people. It’s time we have a say in how it’s built

Indigenous people are already collaborating on research that combines Indigenous knowledge with AI to support land-management practices.

There are very few Indigenous-led AI projects underway nationally, but there’s great potential. With Indigenous people helping develop AI, these technologies could contribute to meaningful, self-determined growth across Indigenous communities.

But only if we’re included.

Avoiding exploitation

Indigenous digital exclusion, especially in policy development and regulation, can result in AI being used by non-Indigenous people to tell our stories without our permission.

They can profit from appropriation of our culture, including art and languages.

The government needs to adopt a more comprehensive and forward-thinking approach. This should involve expanding the scope of digital inclusion initiatives beyond the current limited focus to encompass Indigenous communities across the entire country.

The development of Indigenous-led digital literacy programs that respect learning styles and culture is also essential.

The government should incorporate AI and other emerging technologies into planning to ensure Indigenous communities are not left behind.

Establishing long-term partnerships with technology companies, educational institutions and Indigenous organisations to create sustainable digital inclusion programs is vital.

The focus should be on creating Indigenous-led opportunities that leverage digital technologies for economic empowerment without exploiting or harming.

Underrepresented in tech

One barrier to this is there are very few Indigenous peoples involved in the tech industry, especially in decision-making roles and policy development.

As of 2022, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accounted for less than 1.4% of tech workers. There urgently needs to be more support to boost this figure.

That’s because technology like AI presents potential careers for Indigenous people.

Currently however, Indigenous peoples are not employed in the industries involved in AI. Of the global study of people working in this specific industry, Indigenous participation was not noted.

The fact the government recognises digital inclusion as a national priority is a positive step. The current approach, however, is piecemeal and limited. We need a more holistic strategy.

By developing more inclusive, technologically advanced policies led by Indigenous people, the government can ensure they are not left behind in the digital age. We need to be at the decision-making table.

Closing the digital divide requires a multifaceted, long-term commitment from government. This means a national strategy recognising the diverse needs and aspirations of Indigenous communities across the country.

By harnessing the full potential of digital technologies, including AI, and addressing the unique challenges faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the government can create lasting positive change and truly empower Indigenous communities in the digital era.

Bronwyn Carlson is a member of the First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Council.

– ref. The government has a target for Indigenous digital inclusion. It’s got little hope of meeting it – https://theconversation.com/the-government-has-a-target-for-indigenous-digital-inclusion-its-got-little-hope-of-meeting-it-239733

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebe Taylor, Associate Professor of History, University of Tasmania

King Charles and Queen Camilla will visit Australia from Friday on a five-day tour of Canberra and Sydney.

The king will be the second ruling British monarch to visit Australia, after Queen Elizabeth II’s 16 visits over 57 years.

These visits showcase Australians’ evolving relationship with the monarchy and our colonial past.

Changing attitudes

An estimated 75% of Australians greeted Elizabeth on her first tour in 1954, at events that celebrated Australia’s growth as a prosperous nation.

Historical milestones remained central to the queen’s subsequent visits.

In 1970, she attended the re-enactment of Captain Cook’s arrival at Botany Bay. This included depictions of shooting at First Nations actors.

The queen’s 1986 visit included signing the Australia Act that severed Britain’s formal powers over Australia.

Her 1988 visit coincided with the Australian bicentenary of the arrival of the First Fleet carrying convicts and officials from Britain. But by this time, many Australians had lost their royal fervour.

Her final tour, in 2011, came 12 years after Australia had attempted to become a republic by referendum.

The queen’s death in 2022 not only reignited questions over the future of the monarchy in Australia, it instigated a public discussion over the monarchy’s role in imperial colonialism.

Genocide in Australia?

On the eve of Charles’ coronation in 2023, Indigenous leaders from 12 settler states including Australia and New Zealand cosigned a letter calling on the new monarch to apologise for the genocides that British colonisation brought to their territories.

Australia was settled in the name of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Did that settlement result in genocide?

Recent research led by Ben Kiernan for The Cambridge World History of Genocide has investigated this question using the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as a framework.

The convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The term “genocide” itself is modern; coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. The colonisation of Tasmania by the British provided Lemkin with one of the clearest examples.

The prosecution of crimes before 1951 is not permissible under the convention, which provides a definitional framework to evaluate past events as constituent acts of genocide.

The Cambridge World History of Genocide Volume II and Volume III demonstrate how settlers and government agents committed acts of genocide against First Nations Australians from the beginning of settlement to the late 20th centuries.

All parts of Australia are considered. Acts conforming to the convention’s clauses include killing, forcibly removing children and inflicting destructive conditions.

Australian historian Lyndall Ryan’s chapter, Frontier Massacres in Australia, draws on her research for a Massacre Map showing how British troops and settlers committed more than 290 massacres across Australia between 1794 and 1928.

These massacres killed more than 7,500 Aboriginal people.

Ryan found the massacres were not sporadic and isolated – they were planned and sanctioned killings, integral to the aims of the Australian colonial project.

Rebe Taylor’s chapter on genocide in Tasmania details a pattern of government-sanctioned mass killings in a colony where an estimated 6,000 Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) people were reduced to about 120 by 1835.

Raymond Evans shows how as colonisation moved northward in Australia, massacres increased in size.

Evans documents killings that persisted into the 1940s, postdating the 1928 Coniston massacre widely regarded as the last frontier slaughter.

These findings are underscored by Tony Barta’s insight that colonists’ destructive actions constitute a record of genocidal intent “more powerful than any documented plot to destroy a people”.

Research by Anna Haebich documents the taking of Indigenous children during the 19th century.

Joanna Cruikshank and Crystal Mckinnon explain how these state-sanctioned removals in the 20th century were intended to eliminate First Nations people from Australia’s national life.

The 1997 Bringing Them Home report, commissioned by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, concluded the “Australian practice of Indigenous child removal involved […] genocide as defined by international law”.

A significant moment of resistance

The colonial governor of Tasmania began to exile Palawa people from their land in 1829.

More than 200 survivors of the “Black War” were removed to Flinders Island and subjected to life-threateningly harsh conditions. High death rates were caused by ill-treatment, disease and insufficient care.

In 1846, the Palawa petitioned Queen Victoria to honour the agreement made when they were removed: that in exchange for temporarily leaving their country, they would regain their freedom.

In this bold petition, Tasmanian Aboriginal people initiated a historic appeal to the British monarchy.

Aware of Queen Victoria’s sovereign authority across the vast British Empire, this action marked a significant moment in their continued resistance to genocide.

An acknowledgement of wrongs

British sovereignty over Australia was imposed without the required consent of its First Nations. The result has been continued dispossession and suffering.

Despite the Crown’s deferral of power to its parliament, the call for an apology from the king has immense symbolic importance.

It is rooted in the desire for acknowledgement of wrongs. These include genocide and the continuing destructive effects of colonisation across Australia.

Rebe Taylor receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Greg Lehman receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. He is a member of the Board of the Tasmanian Land Conservancy.

– ref. Should King Charles apologise for the genocide of First Nations people when he visits Australia? – https://theconversation.com/should-king-charles-apologise-for-the-genocide-of-first-nations-people-when-he-visits-australia-239092

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Joyce, Senior Research Fellow, University of South Australia

A weight-loss drug more effective than Ozempic and Wegovy has recently been approved in Australia.

The drug, tirzepatide, is sold under the brand name Mounjaro and affects feelings of hunger and fullness, as well as changing how the body processess food. (In other countries, tirzepatide is also sound under the brand name Zepbound.)

So how does tirzepatide work and differ from Ozempic? And with a price tage of $315–$645 per month for the starting dose, why is it so expensive?

How does it work?

Think of tirzepatide as a master key that unlocks two important doors in your body’s weight control system. It mimics two hormones: GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) and GIP (glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide).

When you eat, your body naturally releases GIP and GLP-1 hormones. These hormones play crucial roles in regulating appetite, food intake and blood sugar levels. Tirzepatide mimics and amplifies the effects of these hormones.

By mimicking the GLP-1 and GIP hormones, tirzepatide makes people feel fuller with smaller meals. This can reduce the overall food intake and lead to weight loss over time.

It also helps your body process sugar more effectively and slows down how quickly food leaves your stomach. This results in eating less, feel satisfied for longer and having healthier blood sugar levels.

How does it compare with Wegovy/Ozempic?

Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) and semaglutide (Wegovy/Ozempic) are similar in many ways. Both are injectable medications used for weight loss and work by mimicking hormones that regulate appetite and blood sugar.

The key difference is that tirzepatide acts on two hormone receptors (GIP and GLP-1), while semaglutide only acts on one (GLP-1). This dual action is thought to be why tirzepatide shows slightly better results for weight loss in clinical trials.

Clinical trials have shown participants lost an average of 25% of their body fat in the first year of treatment with tirzepatide. This is when combined with lifestyle counselling from a health-care professional who encouraged a healthy and reduced-calorie diet (500 calories less per day compared to patient’s diet at the beginning of the study) and at least 150 minutes of physical activity per day.

This compares with an average of 15% weight loss in the first year for semaglutide, also alongside a reduced-calorie diet (a 500 calorie-deficit per day) and increased physical exercise (150 minutes per week).

For a person weighing 120kg, this might mean the difference between losing 30kg with tirzepatide versus 18kg with semaglutide. But of course, with both drugs, some people will lose less weight than the average, some will lose more, and some may not respond to the drug at all.

What are the side effects of tirzepatide?

Like any medication, tirzepatide has side effects. The most common are nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation. These could feel like a mild tummy bug and are similar to those seen with semaglutide.

For most people, these side effects are manageable and often improve over time.

There are also some rarer, more serious risks to consider. These include inflammation of the pancreas and gallbladder problems. There is also a potential increased risk for thyroid cancer, although this has only been seen in lab rats so far, not humans.

As with Ozempic and Wegovy, when you stop taking tirzepatide, its effects stop. Most people regain some, if not all, of the weight they lost.

Who can access tirzepatide?

In Australia, tirzepatide is approved for use in adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, or a or BMI of 27 or above if you have a weight-related health condition such as diabetes. It can only be prescribed by a doctor, after you have tried other weight-loss methods.

But it’s not suitable for everyone. It shouldn’t be used in pregnancy and may not be suitable for people with certain medical conditions and those with a history of eating disorders.

If you’re considering tirzepatide, it’s important to discuss the benefits and risks for your personal health situation with your doctor.

Why is it so expensive?

Tirzepatide typically costs around A$345 per month for the starting dose. This can escalate to $645 per month for the ongoing “maintenance” dose if a higher dose is necessary for diabetes and/or weight management. This puts the drug out of reach for most people.

Tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro in Australia, is only available on private prescription and is not subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). This means you pay the full cost of the medication without any government support.

However, the United Kingdom recently announced it would add tirzepatide to the National Health Service in a phased approach over the next three years, so it’s possible we might see it subsidised in Australia in the future.

Developing new drugs is a costly business. Companies spend billions on research, clinical trials, and getting regulatory approvals. They then set high prices to recoup these costs and make a profit.

The patent for tirzepatide lasts until 2036. So we won’t have any cheaper generic versions for more than a decade.

Paul Joyce receives funding from The Hospital Research Foundation, Cancer Council SA, and the Australian Research Council. He is Director of the Australian Controlled Release Society.

Srinivas Kamath 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. Mounjaro is more effective for weight loss than Ozempic. So how does it work? And why does it cost so much? – https://theconversation.com/mounjaro-is-more-effective-for-weight-loss-than-ozempic-so-how-does-it-work-and-why-does-it-cost-so-much-239185

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynne Chepulis, Associate Professor, Health Sciences, University of Waikato

Pharmac’s decision to fund continuous glucose monitors and automated insulin delivery systems for the approximately 18,000 people who currently live with type 1 diabetes in Aotearoa New Zealand is good news.

The decision comes after years of advocacy from patient groups and clinicians.

But there are problems within the broader system – particularly around workforce shortages – that mean full patient access to training on how to use the insulin pumps will likely take years.

Failing to address these issues will also perpetuate health inequities for Māori and Pacific people, who are less likely to have used the monitor and pump in the past, and may have to wait longer for training. These delays could mute the positive effect of Pharmac’s funding decision.

A complex balance

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder that causes a person’s pancreas to stop producing insulin. This all-important hormone is needed to move glucose into every cell in the body.

Without insulin, the cells (and the person) “starve”. While the current approach to the management of type 1 diabetes – finger pricking to test blood glucose levels and injecting insulin – works, it’s complex.

Inject too much insulin and you’ll get low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia). This leaves a person with type 1 feeling shaky and weak, or possibly even in a coma. Don’t inject enough and you have ongoing high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia). This leads to long-term health complications.

Figuring out the right amount of insulin is elusive. Needs constantly vary according to time of day, diet, exercise, illness, caffeine, alcohol, stress and other factors. This can take a toll psychologically and physiologically.

Modern solutions

Continuous monitors track blood glucose levels 24 hours a day through a sensor just under your skin, replacing finger-prick testing. They are widely funded and used overseas.

The monitors alert users to low blood glucose and have significantly reduced hospitalisations for people with type 1 diabetes.

Combining the monitors with a pump and appropriate algorithm automates the delivery of insulin when glucose levels rise higher than a patient’s target range – significantly reducing the day-to-day burden of treatment.

But the continuous monitors and insulin pumps are expensive.

Prior to Pharmac’s decision, the monitors were completely unfunded. Prices ranged between NZ$2,600 and $4,800 per year. Insulin pumps were funded, but only for a small group of people.

This created an ever-widening equity gap. Māori and Pacific people with type 1 diabetes were less likely to access monitors and pumps. They were also more likely to have recurrent hospitalisations for diabetes-related events.

A workforce shortage

When compared with other countries, New Zealand has been slow to fund the monitors.

Unfortunately, the diabetes workforce is also significantly understaffed when compared to international guidelines.

There is a shortage of all qualified health care professionals for type 1 diabetes including endocrinologists, nurse practitioners, diabetes nurse specialists, dietitians, psychologists, social workers and podiatrists.

To meet international recommendations, New Zealand would have to more than double the clinical workforce.

Most people with type 1 diabetes will be able to rapidly access the monitors because these can be prescribed through GPs as well as by diabetes specialists. However, insulin pumps and automated insulin delivery will only be accessible through specialists.

While insulin pumps offer advantages for managing glucose levels, learning to use the device takes time and requires support from clinicians. This will likely be a problem, particularly for those who already have challenges accessing healthcare services in this country.

An equity issue

Māori and Pacific people with type 1 diabetes are less likely to be current insulin pump users. This means there is a clear risk of workforce shortages causing those who would benefit most from automated insulin delivery to be among the last to have access.

Increasingly, evidence on continuous glucose monitors and automated insulin delivery shows they improve managing type 1 diabetes for everyone.

Monitor use has been shown to reduce the differences in the management of glucose levels between Māori and non-Māori children with type 1 diabetes.

Automated insulin delivery can also be an effective tool for children and adolescents with very high-risk glucose levels.

So, thank you Pharmac. Funded devices are a game changer. New Zealand has moved from an outdated, inequitable system of technology funding in type 1 diabetes to a progressive and fair system. But so much more needs to be done to support everyone with this disease.

Lynne Chepulis receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand. She is an executive member of the New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes.

Hamish Crocket receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand. He is an executive member of the New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes and is the chairperson of Nightscout New Zealand, a diabetes advocacy group. Hamish has been living with type one diabetes since 2013.

Martin de Bock receives funding from Novo Nordisk, Medtronic, Ypsomed, Dexcom, and Insulet. Honoraria, travel expenses or speaking fees from Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Pfizer, Medtronic, Boerhinger Ingelheim, Ypsomed, Dexcom, and Insulet. Advisory Boards for Tandem and Dexcom, Tautoko Tech, Nascence biomedical.

– ref. Glucose monitors for diabetes have finally been funded – but a chronic workforce shortage will limit the benefits – https://theconversation.com/glucose-monitors-for-diabetes-have-finally-been-funded-but-a-chronic-workforce-shortage-will-limit-the-benefits-241113

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack McGrath, Lecturer in Animation at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle

Stop motion films are by their nature a remarkable feat. When you know a movie has been carefully crafted, over several years and through thousands of photographs of handmade sets and characters, this alone makes it a delight to watch.

But when the story is also deep, thought-provoking and at times laugh-out-loud funny, this takes the medium to a whole new level. Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail is such a film.

Told through stop motion animation using clay (otherwise known as claymation), the film is a tactile experience in which everything you see has been made by human hands. This provides a warmth that is exacerbated by Elliot’s very human story of identity.

The film explores how it can be difficult to find your way in life, particularly when you’re different – and that it is, in fact, OK to be different.

Grace Pudel, the protagonist, is a snail enthusiast and we follow her as she navigates the many challenges that emerge in her life. Grace’s narration is raw and honest, and we can’t help but feel a deep connection with her.

The story is so human and so very moving – and to be told through human-made characters perfectly rounds off the experience.

A win at Annecy

In June, I was fortunate enough to help facilitate an animation study tour in France with students from the University of Newcastle. It was there we saw the world premiere of Memoir of a Snail at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the pre-eminent festival for animated film.

The story clearly resonated with the audience, who sat captivated throughout its 90-minute runtime. They laughed and cried in unison as one engaged mass of humanity – culminating in a long and enthusiastic standing ovation.

We were even lucky enough to bump into Elliot and his crew, and our students spoke with him about his journey in making Memoir of a Snail. The film went on to win the festival’s prestigious Cristal award for best feature.

While claymation is generally viewed as a medium aimed at young audiences, Memoir of a Snail tells a wholly unique adult story.

Much of its sophistication lies in its ability to effortlessly touch on many complex topics through a mixture of humour and emotion. Indeed, this approach to storytelling has become Elliot’s calling card.

The film’s themes include identity, loneliness, alcoholism, cultism, hoarding, suicide, homosexuality, bullying, ageing, family, fat fetishism, grief and death. The story cleverly pulls you into deep thought, before surprising you with a hilarious gag.

Elliot’s dark and captivating aesthetic

When introducing the film at Annecy, Elliot explained how his team’s limited budget led to a heavy reliance on narration, with limited walking and dialogue shots. Yet these constraints seemed to enhance the team’s creativity rather than stifle it.

Elliot has a history of working around such limitations to bring his unique aesthetic to life. His first film Uncle (1996) was shot on 16mm black-and-white film, while his other short Cousin (1999) was shot on colour – but with a muted palette of grey tones.

This palette has carried through Elliot’s work and is present in Memoir of a Snail. His version of the Australian landscape isn’t orange and sun-bleached. Rather, it is grey, overcast and drab – a dark world resembling the work of Eastern European animators such as Jan Švankmajer.

Elliot’s other films include Brother (2000), the Oscar-winning short film Harvie Krumpet (2003) and his first feature film Mary and Max (2009).

His works present tortured individuals – outsiders, misfits and oddballs – living in dark, suburban worlds. Behind the funny-looking faces and humorous vignettes lie deeper afflictions that become clear as the characters struggle through their lives.

A gentle vulnerability shines through

Elliot brings a naivety to the narration, where a simple statement of facts couches a deeper meaning. As the audience, we uncover mixed feelings of humour, dread and empathy for the tortured blobs of clay before us.

The characters stand, blinking, looking back at us while the narrator describes their situation. They feel vulnerable, as though asking for our help as they stand silently, trapped in Elliot’s bleak world.

Memoir of a Snail maintains a strong sense of materiality, as evidenced by fingerprints left on clay and brush strokes on painted backgrounds. Elliot’s self-described “chunky wonky” aesthetic abides by the rule that nothing in the world is straight.

Almost everything in Elliot’s animated world is overtly handmade, presenting a kind of nostalgic and childlike innocence you’d expect from a school project. This helps add weight and authenticity to the film.

Elliot’s world is created “in-camera”, which means no digital effects were used. Water, for example, was created using cellophane, while droplets were painstakingly animated with blobs of glycerine, one frame at a time.

Welcome relief in a hyper-digital world

Lately, Australian animation has found an international audience and this has emboldened Australian animators to tell Australian stories. Bluey, for instance, has struck a chord with viewers globally because of – and not despite – its uniquely Australian voice.

It took eight years to create Memoir of a Snail, which seems like a lifetime in today’s world. Witnessing such dedication may inspire audiences to think more deeply about animation as an art form and about film-making itself.

Memoir of a Snail is a testament to stop motion’s power to move people. Elliot himself pointed out how stop motion seems to be experiencing a renaissance, with Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), Phil Tippett’s Mad God (2021), Henry Selick’s Wendell & Wild (2022) and Chris Butler’s Missing Link (2019) all serving as recent examples of stop motion features.

I hope Memoir of a Snail helps sustain this interest. In an age of automation and artificial intelligence, the film is a welcome return to the human experience. Thought-provoking, funny and wholly unique in its story and visual style, it’s well worth the watch.

The author would like to thank Daisy De Windt for her contributions to this article.

Jack McGrath 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. Overtly handmade and so very moving: Adam Elliot’s Memoir of A Snail is a stop motion triumph – https://theconversation.com/overtly-handmade-and-so-very-moving-adam-elliots-memoir-of-a-snail-is-a-stop-motion-triumph-233105

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Aspinall, Professor in Southeast Asian Politics, Australian National University

As Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) prepares to leave office, Indonesia is still routinely lauded as one of Asia’s most important democracies. Jokowi was first elected, in 2014, on the promise of breaking with the old Jakarta elite and making government more responsive to ordinary people.

He was backed by many ardent supporters of Indonesia’s Reformasi movement. This movement had brought down the authoritarian leader, Suharto, in 1998 and pushed a transition to democracy in the years that followed.

But Jokowi has overseen a serious period of democratic backsliding.

Democratic decline

Under his watch, the Indonesian government has hobbled democratic control institutions. This includes Indonesia’s once-lauded Corruption Eradication Commission, abbreviated as KPK.

Security agencies such the army and the police have begun to resume a political role.

The government has banned major Islamic organisations.

Civil society groups speak of a dramatically narrowed civic space. They complain, for example, about the government’s increasing reliance on the Electronic Information and Transactions Law to prosecute critics of the government for defamation and its growing willingness to use violent means to respond to protests.

Jokowi’s opponents in the political elite are routinely investigated for corruption and other alleged wrongdoing.

In last February’s presidential election, there were widespread reports the police and other agencies were pressuring community leaders to mobilise the vote for Jokowi’s preferred candidate, Prabowo Subianto.

How and why does Jokowi leave this legacy?

How did a man who was once seen as a “new hope” for Indonesian democracy end up here?

The answer is part of a global story that has become broadly familiar in recent years.

These days, it is generally not unelected coup leaders who destroy democracy. Experiences like those of Thailand and Myanmar in recent years are, happily, no longer typical.

Instead, elected populist leaders hollow democracy out from within. They do so by hobbling institutions, such as anti-corruption commissions, which are meant to check executive power.

Jokowi has, in my view, followed this pattern.

Unlike many populists, Jokowi never peppered his early speeches with angry denunciations of his opponents as traitors. He never tried to whip up vitriol against vulnerable minorities.

Instead, he positioned himself as a leader who was uniquely able to understand and to embody the aspirations of ordinary people.

His trademark campaign method was known as blusukan. He would drop by unexpectedly at a marketplace, for example, to chat with ordinary people about prices and other everyday matters.

A former mayor, he was interested in the nitty gritty of governance, such as how to improve transport services or upgrade parks. He was less interested in “abstract” notions like human rights.

The implications of this philosophy only became apparent after Jokowi was elected president.

He retained his belief in his own unique ability to understand the aspirations of ordinary citizens, which had been long neglected by elite politicians.

He maintained a single-minded focus on what ordinary Indonesians wanted – improved living standards and better social welfare. And he used polls to regularly monitor public opinion.

For Jokowi, maintaining popular support and satisfying public demands was the essence of democracy. He was not interested in institutions that place limits on governmental power, which are arguably just as important to a functioning democratic system.

For example, his government enacted legal amendments that significantly weakened the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Late last year, the Constitutional Court – headed by his brother-in-law – changed the the rules on candidate age limits to allow Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to stand for the vice presidency. Many Indonesians viewed this as a transparent – and successful – attempt to manipulate a key control institution for the purpose of maintaining Jokowi’s dynastic grip on power.

Even so, as Jokowi leaves office, he does so a very popular politician.

Prabowo as president

Jokowi hands power to a man with an even more chequered democratic history.

Prabowo Subianto is a former general with a record of alleged human rights abuses dating back to the late Suharto period. (Although, like other senior military officers accused of responsibility for the Suharto regime’s well-documented record of human rights abuses, he was never convicted of any crimes). Prabowo was close to the heart of that regime: indeed, he used to be Suharto’s son-in-law.

Prabowo has since reinvented himself as a fun-loving grandfather figure and Jokowi’s greatest fan, capitalising on the president’s own popularity.

In fact, Prabowo used to be among Jokowi’s greatest rivals before becoming his defence minister in 2019.

In previous elections, Prabowo presented himself as a firebrand populist who angrily denounced his opponents for allegedly selling Indonesia out to foreigners. He promised he would provide the strong hand the country needed to become truly great.

We don’t know yet what kind of president Prabowo will be. His early political socialisation, as a leading elite figure close to the heart of the Suharto regime, suggests his instincts are likely to be deeply authoritarian.

He inherits from Jokowi a country in which democratic institutions have already been seriously undermined, and a series of lessons in how to weaken them further.

Edward Aspinall has received funding from the ARC and DFAT.

– ref. Jokowi was once seen as Indonesia’s ‘new hope’. Instead, he leaves a legacy of democratic backsliding – https://theconversation.com/jokowi-was-once-seen-as-indonesias-new-hope-instead-he-leaves-a-legacy-of-democratic-backsliding-237319

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wenting He, PhD candidate of International Relations, Australian National University

China’s relentless economic growth used to be the marvel of the world. Oh, what a memory.

The past couple of years have seen China contend with an economic slowdown amid colliding crises, many of which make it internationally unique. Consumer prices have been approaching deflationary territory, there’s an oversupply of housing, and youth unemployment has soared.

Mounting pressure has forced the Chinese government to step in. Over the past month, Beijing has put forward a set of significant economic stimulus measures aimed at reviving China’s faltering economy.

According to a research note by Deutsche Bank, this stimulus could potentially become “the largest in history” in nominal terms. But there’s still a lot we don’t know. So what kinds of measures that are in this package so far, and has China been here before?

What’s in the package?

On September 24, Pan Gongsheng, governor of China’s central bank, unveiled the country’s boldest intervention to boost its economy since the pandemic.

The initiatives included reducing mortgage rates for existing homes and reducing the amount of cash commercial banks are required to hold in reserves. The latter is expected to inject about 1 trillion yuan (A$210 billion) into the financial market by letting the banks lend out more.

On top of this, 800 billion yuan (A$168 billion) was announced to strengthen China’s capital market.

This comprised a new 500 billion yuan (A$105 billion) monetary policy facility to help institutions more easily access funds to buy stocks, and a 300 billion yuan (A$63 billion) re-lending facility to help speed up sales of unsold housing.

Further signs of economic revitalisation became evident at a Politburo meeting of China’s top government officials, two days after this announcement.

Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the urgency of economic revival. Xi even encouraged officials to “go bold in helping the economy” without having to fear the consequences.

That same day, seven government departments released a joint policy package to stabilise China’s 500 billion yuan (A$105 billion) dairy industry, which has been severely impacted by declining milk and beef prices since 2023.

A market rollercoaster

Initially, the market’s response was overwhelmingly positive. Perhaps too positive. In the last week of September, stock markets in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong saw their biggest weekly rise in 16 years.

On October 8, following China’s National Day holiday, turnover on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges hit an unprecedented 3.43 trillion yuan (A$718 billion). However, expectations for further stimulus measures were met with disappointment.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission brought forward 100 billion yuan (A$21 billion) in spending from the 2025 budget. That wasn’t enough to sustain market optimism. On October 9, Chinese stocks saw their most severe drop in 27 years.

This downturn only worsened a few days later, when China’s Ministry of Finance hinted there was “ample room” to raise debts but did not specify any new stimulus measures.

Still thin on the details

The market remains deeply uncertain about the future direction of China’s economic policies and what they might mean for the world. Hopes that more details might be released over the weekend were largely dashed.

Back in July, Chinese authorities asserted in their Third Plenary Session communique that China “must remain firmly committed” to achieving this year’s economic growth target of 5%. Compared to the country’s reform-era economic performance, that’s a modest goal.

But facing a persistently sluggish economic outlook, Xi later seemed to subtly shift the tone, changing the language from “remain firmly committed” to “strive to fulfill” in September.

Over the past decades, China has frequently employed massive-scale stimulus measures to revive its economy during downturns. These policies have been able to significantly rejuvenate the economy, though occasionally with some worrying side effects.

In response to the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s State Council released a 4 trillion yuan (A$837 billion) stimulus package. This successfully helped China stand firm through the crisis and was credited as a key stabiliser of the global economy.

But it also accumulated trillions of yuan in debt through local government financing and accelerated the rise of “shadow banking” – unregulated financial activities.

China also spent big on stimulating its economy in 2015, following stock market turbulence, and then again in the wake of the pandemic.

What should we expect?

What should we expect this time? How balanced or sustainable will any ensuing growth be?

We are still waiting on many of the details about the size and scope of the package, but any big increase in Chinese economic demand will likely have “spillover” effects.

As we’ve discussed, many of the measures announced to date will have their most immediate effect on borrowing, lending and liquidity in China’s stock markets.

That suggests we should watch for what’s called the “wealth effect” in economics. This is the theory that rising asset prices – such as for housing or shares – make people feel wealthier and therefore spend more.

If China’s big stimulus spend causes sustained increases in asset values, it could give rise to economic optimism. Chinese consumers – and investors – may become less anxious about the future.

From Australia’s point of view, that could see increases in demand in areas where our economies are interlinked – iron ore, tourism, education and manufactured food exports.

More broadly, Chinese demand could contribute to growth in other global economies, with a self-reinforcing effect on the world as a whole.

Beware financialisation

On the other hand, China’s shift to depending more on volatile asset price rises in its capital markets to sustain growth could have destabilising effects. Where asset price increases benefit those at the “top end of town,” they can breed inequities and imbalances of their own.

China’s “Black Monday” stock market crash in 2015 raised alarm in Beijing. Partly reflecting a wariness of excess financialisation, Xi cautioned at the time that “housing is for living in, not for speculation”.

So far, China is still navigating its path towards a more sustainable development model, striving to strike a balance between sustaining economic growth and stabilising its domestic markets and political landscape. As for the outcome, it remains a profound uncertainty for us all – perhaps China itself included.

Wesley Widmaier receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Wenting He 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. China’s government is about to spend big on stimulus – can it turn around the country’s sluggish economy? – https://theconversation.com/chinas-government-is-about-to-spend-big-on-stimulus-can-it-turn-around-the-countrys-sluggish-economy-241260

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By AD Narayan, Visual Effects Artist and Lecturer in Digital Communication, Auckland University of Technology

From the mind-bending reality warps of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) to the breathtaking alien vistas of Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), visual effects have transported us to worlds beyond imagination. Yet the future of visual effects (VFX) could hang in the balance as artificial intelligence is subsumed into screen production processes.

Lionsgate’s recent partnership with AI startup Runway has sparked controversy in the visual effects industry.

By allowing Runway to train AI on Lionsgate’s vast film and TV catalogue, the collaboration promises increased efficiency and financial savings – but at what cost?

Growing apprehension among workers

According to a research report published in January, 75% of 300 entertainment industry leaders surveyed said generative AI tools, software and models had contributed to the elimination, reduction or consolidation of jobs within their business divisions.

The report highlighted the visual effects sector as being particularly vulnerable, as AI techniques are often applied in post-production processes. This vulnerability was typified in our own research published today.

Our work reveals visual effects artists have serious concerns about generative AI’s integration into screen production. These include worries over job insecurity, creative devaluation, and the potential for AI to produce derivative content that fails to meet audience expectations.

Challenges of AI in the VFX industry

Our findings reflect growing concerns that AI’s use in filmmaking could magnify existing industry problems. It could, for instance, exacerbate unfair working conditions. Or it could undermine creativity if artists are expected to “clean up” AI-generated work rather than create their own.

Visual effects artists, who have typically been early adopters of new technologies, acknowledge AI could bring both opportunities and challenges. While it could help streamline certain tasks, it could equally impact on the overall quality of their work.

The artists we spoke to were worried a reliance on AI might stifle creativity and skill development, by making the work “more mechanical and less creative”. In a recent example, the AI-generated title sequence for Marvel’s Secret Invasion series was widely criticised for lacking artistic merit.

There were also questions about how artists would be compensated if their work is used to train AI models.

Some senior supervisors were particularly concerned about the ethical and legal considerations of using AI on commercial projects. They were uncertain around intellectual property rights for AI-generated content, as well as the potential for copyright infringement.

On the creative and technical front, artists recognised AI’s value in generating ideas and automating repetitive tasks. However, nearly all of them said AI tools weren’t yet production-ready, and highlighted difficulties with integrating said tools into existing pipelines.

The next steps

The VFX industry was already struggling with profits and sustainability before the AI boom. Visual effects companies often face bankruptcy – even Oscar-winning ones. In many cases, artists will get laid off once a project is complete.

The partnership between Lionsgate and Runway represents the industry’s collective failure to address concerns over AI. But there’s still time to fix things.

The first step is developing clear industry guidelines for AI’s use in visual effects. Above all else, AI should help augment human creativity, rather than replace it. And artists should be fairly compensated if their work is used to train AI models.

Investment in training programs could also help artists adapt to new AI tools without compromising their creativity. As one interviewee told us, human expertise and creativity remain important in visual effects.

“Understanding the why behind certain choices, the creative decision making, that’s something I haven’t really seen AI effectively do,” they said.

As the industry stands at a technological crossroads, it must balance the pursuit of efficiency with genuine creativity. Otherwise, we risk losing the human touch that brings our favourite films to life.

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. AI is creeping into the visual effects industry – and it could take the human touch out of film and TV – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-creeping-into-the-visual-effects-industry-and-it-could-take-the-human-touch-out-of-film-and-tv-240112

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Bertram, Visiting Scholar, School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Economists working on macroeconomic policy – things like taxes and spending, interest rates and border controls on flows of trade and money – often refer to a set of key relationships governments can influence. In the textbooks, each of those relationships is drawn as a curve in a graph.

First is the IS (“investment–saving”) curve. This says that if everything else stays the same, the Reserve Bank can increase economic output and employment by lowering the interest rate. Or it can cause a recession by raising the interest rate. (For simplicity’s sake, the curves here are depicted as straight lines.)

Second comes the Phillips Curve, which is usually drawn sloping upwards to suggest that if everything else stays the same, inflation will rise during economic booms and fall in recessions. In other words, the Reserve Bank or the government can apparently bring inflation down by causing a recession.

Third comes the trade balance – the current account of the balance of payments (investment income and traded goods and services between New Zealand and the rest of the world).

If everything else stays the same here, as the exchange rate of the dollar falls, the current account strengthens by moving towards or expanding a surplus. If the exchange rate rises, the current account weakens: exports fall and imports increase.

However, it’s a mistake to suppose each of these relationships will stay where it is while the government and Reserve Bank each tinker with their own policy settings. So, what could go wrong?

The effect of austerity

Start with the IS curve – the way output and employment are affected by interest rates, assuming the government makes no big budgetary changes. But what if the government embarks on an austerity program, slashing its spending and cancelling projects, which shrinks the economy?

At any given interest rate, output and employment will be lower, shifting the whole curve “leftwards” towards lower economic activity (see above).

Even if the Reserve Bank lowers the interest rate, that won’t expand the economy because the government’s fiscal policy is killing off its expansionary effect. The recession created by the austerity program rolls on.

Along the way, it increases costs to government from unemployment, paying other benefits, and lower tax revenue. If the government responds with further austerity, we enter a downward self-reinforcing spiral.

Wages and inflation

Second, take the Phillips Curve and ask what happens if inflation isn’t, in fact, sensitive to how the economy is doing.

In this case, driving the economy into recession has no effect on the inflation rate. When the Reserve Bank changes the interest rate, inflation just stays where it is because the Phillips Curve is flat, not upward-sloping. Reducing inflation requires completely different policy interventions.

Back when the Phillips Curve was invented, it was reasonable to think inflation fell during recessions because workers could get higher wage increases in booms than in slumps.

Bringing on a recession would reduce the bargaining power of workers, result in slower wage growth, and thereby tame inflation (given that wages are an important part of the costs of production).

But workers today have lost the bargaining power they used to have when unions were strong and welfare-state thinking prevailed.

In a paper fellow economist Bill Rosenberg and I published this year, we show the bargaining power of labour was killed off in 1991 by the Employment Contracts Act and has not recovered since. Wages no longer drive inflation in contemporary New Zealand.

Interest rates and inflation

Could the Phillips Curve work because producers of goods and services push up prices and profits faster in booms and cut their margins in recessions?

It’s possible: there’s plenty of evidence of big companies using their market power to price-gouge consumers. But it’s not clear this exercise of market power is greater in booms and lesser in slumps.

In fact, the opposite could be true. Small businesses are most likely to be driven out of the market in recessions, leaving big companies with increased market share and less competitive pressure on their margins.

Forces both locally and in international markets have clearly been pushing the Phillips Curve down, producing lower inflation. Local forces include the current government’s abrupt cancellation of major construction activities, dismissal of public servants, the constant negative messaging on the state of the economy, and rising outward migration as a consequence of all these.

International markets, including falling prices for imports such as oil, have also clearly been pushing the Phillips Curve down. While the Reserve Bank will claim credit, it’s not at all clear the bank’s interest rate policy has made that much difference.

Finally, what about the international balance of payments? One thing the Reserve Bank can do by changing the interest rate is change the exchange rate between the New Zealand dollar and other currencies.

If New Zealand’s interest rates increase relative to elsewhere in the world, short-term money flows in to take advantage of the higher rates. This raises the exchange rate, and in turn weakens the external balance by cutting the return on exports and increasing the volume of cheaper imports.

Producers of goods and services that face international competition are squeezed. Meanwhile, what used to be called the “sheltered” or “non-tradeable” industries – including the big banks, insurance companies, electricity suppliers, supermarkets, consultancies – are unscathed.

Deeper recession

The Reserve Bank may not have much effect on inflation, but it can certainly affect the structure of the economy. Using the interest rate as the weapon against inflation squeezes manufacturers, tourism and farmers, but leaves non-tradables largely untouched.

Right now in New Zealand, the IS curve is remorselessly shifting left as the economy plunges into a deeper recession exacerbated by government austerity – an ideologically driven quest for instant fiscal surpluses, low public debt and a shrinking public sector relative to GDP.

Falling interest rates will struggle to make expansionary headway against that austerity.

Meanwhile, corporate profiteering and rising government charges continue to put upward pressure on the Phillips Curve, and the balance of payments is weakening. This means the country as a whole is piling up increasing debts to the rest of the world (largely through the Australian-owned banks).

The question is, does the current government understand where its policies are taking us?

Geoff Bertram 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. Austerity and recession: 3 simple graphs that explain New Zealand’s economic crisis – https://theconversation.com/austerity-and-recession-3-simple-graphs-that-explain-new-zealands-economic-crisis-241259

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

Hard on the heels of pledging a crackdown on excessive surcharges, the Albanese government has promised legislation to ban unfair trading practices.

The government said this would include specific prohibitions on various “dodgy” practices.

“From concert tickets to hotel rooms to gym memberships, Australians are fed up with businesses using tricky tactics that make it difficult to end subscriptions or add hidden fees to purchases,” the prime minister, treasurer and assistant treasurer said in a statement.

“These practices can distort purchasing decisions, or result in additional costs, putting more pressure on the cost of living.”

They said the government would deal with

• “subscription traps” that make it difficult to cancel a subscription

• “drip pricing” characterised by hidden fees or fees added during the purchase

• deceptive and manipulative online practices. These aim to confuse consumers, such as for example by creating a false sense of urgency, warning there is only a limited time to purchase

• dynamic pricing, where a price changes during the transaction

• requiring a consumer to set up an account and provide unnecessary information for an online purchase

• a business making it difficult for a consumer to contact it when they have a problem with the product.

Earlier this week Arts Minister Tony Burke said on the ABC the government was not looking at “dynamic pricing” in the music industry.

Asked on Four Corners whether dynamic pricing should be allowed in Australia, Burke said: “Surge pricing is something that, as consumers, people have always dealt with.

“I don’t love it, but I think we have to be realistic, it’s always been there. It’s not something we’re looking at, at the moment.”

Asked about the discrepancy, a government spokesperson said the Four Corners interview “was recorded a month ago, before this policy existed”.

Treasury will consult on the design of the planned changes. The government on Wednesday will put out a consultation paper on reforms for greater protections for consumers and small businesses under the consumer guarantees and supplier indemnification in the Australian Consumer Law.

The government says it will work with the states to have a final reform proposal in the first half of next year.

There will be penalties for suppliers that refuse to give consumers a remedy such as a replacement product or a refund when legally required.

“Currently, it can be difficult for consumers to obtain a remedy, especially when engaging in the digital economy,” the government statement said.

The reforms would empower the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and state and territory agencies to pursue breaches of consumer guarantees and supplier indemnification provisions.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “hidden fees and traps are putting even more pressure on the cost of living and it needs to stop”.

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. Albanese government promises to ban ‘dodgy’ trading practices – https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-promises-to-ban-dodgy-trading-practices-234142

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

George Negus, who has died at the age of 82, belonged to the nomenclatura of Australian television current affairs journalism.

He first came to prominence as a member of the team that produced the groundbreaking nightly ABC TV current affairs program, This Day Tonight. That team was made up of others who were also to become household names: presenter Bill Peach and reporters Peter Luck, Gerald Stone and Mike Willesee.

The program became a burr under the saddle of senior ABC management. On its second day it broke the story that the then chair of the ABC, James Darling, was not to be given a third term. The story incurred the chairman’s displeasure. The fallout went on interminably, a rehearsal for many tumults that were to follow throughout TDT’s 11-year existence.

This kind of fearless, sometimes irreverent, public-interest journalism was meat and drink to Negus. He practised it from both sides of the chasm that traditionally separates journalists from political staffers.

During the term of the Whitlam government, he became press secretary to the attorney-general, Lionel Murphy. He leaked to the media Murphy’s plan to raid the headquarters of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in 1973 because Murphy believed the agency was withholding from him information about domestic terrorism.

However, it was as a television journalist that Negus made his name. In 1979 he joined the founding team of the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes program, alongside Ray Martin, Ian Leslie and, later, Jana Wendt.

In 1992 he became the founding host of ABC TV’s Foreign Correspondent program and worked there until 1999. He developed a reputation as a well-informed and courageous reporter specialising in the Middle East. In 2004, he published a bestselling book, The World from Islam: A Journey of Discovery through the Muslim Heartland, in which he defended Islam against the stereotype that it was inherently violent.

In 2005 he became host of the SBS program Dateline, which also had a foreign affairs focus, and in 2011 began hosting 6.30 with George Negus on the Ten network.

In 2012, Negus and a fellow panellist on the Ten network show The Circle, Yumi Stynes, became embroiled in a controversy concerning remarks they made about Ben Roberts-Smith, many years before he was found by a federal court judge to have committed war crimes, a finding that is now on appeal.

There was severe public blowback on Negus and Stynes, who then apologised to Roberts-Smith. They in turn received apologies from Australia’s major newspapers for misconstruing the original remarks.

In 2015 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to media and environmental conservation.

Although he acquired a knockabout image, he was described by two women who worked with him as disarmingly approachable.

Nehida Barakat was the senior producer for the ABC’s 7.30 program in about 2000 when Negus stood in as the summer presenter. She was apprehensive when he rang to discuss an intro she had written. “This gentlemanly voice asked: ‘Would you mind if I changed just a couple of words?’”

Nicole Chvastek, who worked with him at Nine, said he was a big star who generated an air of excitement, a mixture of the intelligent, well-travelled journalist and “a sort of approachable larrikin everyman”.

It was his down-to-earth approach to storytelling that viewers related to so readily. This, coupled with unshakeable fairmindedness on the issues he reported on, marked him out as an unusually gifted journalist.

He is survived by his partner, Kirsty, and two sons, Ned and Serge. The family released a statement saying he had “passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones after a gracious decline from Alzheimer’s disease, all the while with his trademark smile”.

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. Fair-minded, down to earth and unusually gifted: George Negus dies at 82 – https://theconversation.com/fair-minded-down-to-earth-and-unusually-gifted-george-negus-dies-at-82-241367

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Angel Zhong, Associate Professor of Finance, RMIT University

In a move that could reshape how Australians pay for everyday purchases, the federal government is preparing to ban businesses from slapping surcharges on debit card transactions.

This plan, pending a review by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), promises to put money back into consumers’ pockets.

The RBA, which is accepting submissions until December, released its first consultation paper on Tuesday to coincide with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ joint announcement.

But as with any significant policy shift, it’s worth taking a closer look to see what it really means for all of us.

How much are we really saving?

Based on RBA data, the potential savings are huge – up to $500 million a year if surcharges on debit cards are banned.

And if the government goes one step further and includes credit card transaction fees in the ban, those savings could hit a massive $1 billion annually.

While these figures sound impressive, when you break it down, the savings per cardholder would amount to around $140 annually.

It’s not a life-changing amount, but for frequent shoppers or anyone making larger purchases, it could add up.

Of course, not everyone will benefit equally. Those who shop less might not notice the difference.

How does Australia stack up globally?

RBA data shows Australians are paying more in merchant service fees than people in Europe, but less than consumers in the United States.

These fees are what businesses pay to accept card payments, and they get passed on to us in the form of surcharges.

The proposed ban on debit card surcharges occupies a middle ground in the global regulatory landscape. The European Union, United Kingdom and Malaysia have implemented comprehensive bans on surcharges for most debit and credit card transactions.

But in the US and Canada, businesses can still charge you for using a credit card, though debit card surcharges aren’t allowed.

The merchant’s perspective

While the surcharge ban seems like a clear win for consumers, it’s essential to consider the impact on merchants, especially small businesses. The reality is not all merchants are created equal when it comes to card payment fees.

In Australia, there’s a significant disparity between the fees paid by large and small merchants. In fact, RBA data shows small businesses pay fees about three times higher than what larger businesses pay.

It all comes down to bargaining power. Bigger businesses can negotiate better deals on fees. This difference is primarily driven by the ability of larger merchants to thrash out favourable wholesale fees for processing card transactions.

For small businesses, the cost of accepting cards can range from under 1% to more than 2% of the transaction value, which can eat into profits, especially for those working with tight margins.

While the ban may sound like good news for consumers, there’s still a need to fix the bigger issues in the payment system. Innovations like “least-cost routing”, which allows businesses to process transactions at the lowest possible cost, could potentially help level the playing field.

How businesses might exploit the loopholes?

If payment costs are entirely passed on to merchants, they might find ways to recover those expenses through other means. We’ve seen this happen in other countries that abolished surcharges. Some potential strategies include

• slightly raising overall prices to cover lost surcharge revenue
• implementing or increasing minimum purchase requirements for card payments
• introducing new “service” or “convenience” fees for all transactions, or increasing weekend and holiday surcharges.

Most of these tactics have been around for a while. The challenge for regulators will be to monitor and address any new practices that emerge in response to the new rules.

Credit cards: the elephant in the room

While the ban on debit card surcharges is a step in the right direction, it raises an obvious question: why not extend it to credit cards?

The option to ban credit card surcharges along with debit cards is proposed in the RBA’s review consultation paper. The answer lies in the complex web of interchange fees and merchant costs associated with credit card transactions.

Credit card transactions cost merchants more to process because of additional services and rewards programs offered by credit card issuers.

Banning surcharges on these could potentially lead to merchants increasing their base prices to cover these costs. This could effectively result in users of lower-cost payment methods subsidising those opting for premium cards.

The absence of surcharges could also reduce the competitive pressure on card networks to keep their fees in check, potentially leading to higher costs in the long run.

Some countries have managed to ban surcharges on credit cards, but they usually have stricter regulations around interchange fees than we do in Australia.

As policymakers grapple with this complex issue, they must weigh the benefits of consumer simplicity against the risk of distorting market signals and potentially increasing costs for both merchants and consumers alike.

Angel Zhong 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. Banning debit card surcharges could save $500 million a year – if traders don’t claw back the money in other ways – https://theconversation.com/banning-debit-card-surcharges-could-save-500-million-a-year-if-traders-dont-claw-back-the-money-in-other-ways-241354

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abu Barkat ullah, Associate Professor of Cyber Security, University of Canberra

The Australian government has introduced its first-ever standalone cyber security act. Along with two other cyber security bills, it’s currently being reviewed by a parliamentary committee.

Among the act’s many provisions are mandatory “minimum cyber security standards for smart devices”.

This marks a crucial step in defending the digital lives of Australians. So what devices would it apply to? And what can you do right now to protect your smart devices from cyber criminals?

Smart devices are everywhere

The new legislation aims to cover a wide range of smart devices – products that can connect to the internet in some way.

This includes “internet-connectable” products – think smartphones, laptops, tablets, smart TVs and gaming consoles. It also includes indirect “network-connectable” products, which can send and receive data. This means things like smart home devices and appliances, wearables (smart watches, fitness trackers), smart vacuums and many more.

Simple electronic devices that don’t connect to the internet or can’t store or process sensitive data are not included.

According to one study, 7.6 million Australian households – more than 70% – had at least one smart home device by the end of 2023, and 3 million of those households had more than five.

To work as well as they do, smart devices typically collect, store and share data. This can include sensitive personal information, health data and geo-location data, making them attractive targets for cyber criminals.

A notorious example is the Mirai botnet in 2016, when cyber criminals infected more than 600,000 devices such as cameras, home routers, and video players globally to use them in massively disruptive network attacks, known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).

Even implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, can have security flaws that could be exploited.

Just last week, the ABC reported that one of the world’s largest home robotics companies has failed to address security issues in its robot vacuums despite warnings from the previous year.

The consequences of such vulnerabilities can be even more dangerous when smart devices are part of critical infrastructure. As these devices become more interconnected, a breach in one can compromise entire networks, amplifying the security risks.

What will be the ‘minimum’ security standards?

The new cyber security act provides for “mandatory security standards” for smart devices. It establishes the legal framework for enforcing these standards, but doesn’t explicitly outline the technical details smart devices must meet. In the past the Department of Home Affairs has suggested that Australia consider adopting an international security standard, such as ETSI EN 303 645.

The bill’s focus is on securing connected devices to protect users from internet-based threats, vulnerabilities and risks.

In practice, this means manufacturers will have to ensure their products meet these minimum security standards and provide a statement of compliance. And suppliers will have to include statements of compliance with the product, and will be forbidden from selling non-compliant products.

All this will be enforced through the Secretary of Home Affairs, who can issue compliance, stop, or recall notices for violations of these rules.

You can do your bit to stay safe

The proposed cyber security act is a significant step forward in protecting Australians from the growing threat of cyber attacks on smart devices.

But this may only apply to new devices or ones still receiving updates from manufacturers. Exact details on how the legislation will apply to existing devices will be determined by the government agency responsible for its implementation.

“Legacy” devices with outdated software – older products that are no longer supported and don’t receive the latest security patches – are particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks.

While the government works on introducing the new cyber security laws, there are several things you can do to protect your smart devices:

• set up a strong wifi password to prevent unauthorised access to your home network
• create a dedicated, more secure wifi network for smart home devices
• always install security patches and updates promptly
• create unique and complex passwords for each account
• where possible, use two-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security
• disable unnecessary features or permissions, and be mindful of the information you share with apps and devices
• make sure you understand how your data is collected and used by apps and devices.

By mandating minimum cyber security standards and providing for effective enforcement mechanisms, Australia’s new cyber security act will help keep consumer devices safer.

However, it’s important to note that as technology continues to evolve rapidly, the cyber crime ecosystem is also expanding. The global cost of cyber crime is projected to reach US$9.5 trillion in 2024.

Given the dynamic nature of cyber threats, relying solely on standards may not be sufficient to address all potential risks. New vulnerabilities are discovered regularly, and it’s essential for every one of us to remain vigilant and practice good cyber hygiene by following the tips above.

Abu Barkat ullah 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. Speakers, vacuums, doorbells and fridges – the government plans to make your ‘smart things’ more secure – https://theconversation.com/speakers-vacuums-doorbells-and-fridges-the-government-plans-to-make-your-smart-things-more-secure-241057

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Green, Research Fellow, Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University

Multinational concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment has come under fire, with an ABC Four Corners investigation saying its unprecedented market power is open to abuse.

The report follows concerns about the introduction of dynamic pricing – where ticket prices change according to demand – to the Australian concert market. A parliamentary inquiry into the live music sector is also underway.

Industry luminaries such as Peter Garrett and Michael Chugg told the ABC that Australia’s music scene is under threat, echoing the concerns of frustrated bands and fans. Live Nation issued a statement ahead of the program, calling it inaccurate and unbalanced.

So what is Live Nation and how is market concentration affecting our music scene?

The business

Live music is one of our most popular forms of cultural participation, engaging almost half of Australians over 15. In the decade before COVID, ticket buying and revenue for contemporary music doubled.

Ticket revenue doubled again in the year 2022–23 to well above pre-pandemic levels. How can such growth be squared against widespread talk of a sector in crisis, with venues closing and festivals cancelled?

This is because the growth is top-heavy. Overall figures have been boosted by an influx of stadium concerts by international superstars such as Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Rising revenue outpaced attendance growth by almost three to one, with average ticket prices rising 47.4% to A$128.21. Market power is increasingly concentrated in a few corporate hands, notably Live Nation Entertainment.

What is Live Nation?

Live Nation began in the United States as a concert promoter. Traditionally, a promoter funds and arranges live events, negotiating with artists, their agents, venues and ticketing services. But Live Nation has integrated many such components into its operations. Now, everything from artist management to venues and merchandise can be done in-house.

In 2010, the US Department of Justice allowed the merger of Live Nation with major ticketing company Ticketmaster. The resulting entity, Live Nation Entertainment, has since acquired a growing set of interests internationally.

Live Nation’s acquisitions over the past decade in Australia include:

• Michael Coppel Presents

• Secret Sounds Group, which promotes Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival in addition to touring, sponsorship, PR and artist management businesses (the acquisition excluded Secret Sounds record labels and venues)

• Moshtix, billed as Australia’s leading provider of general admission tickets for unreserved or standing-room events

• Mellen Events, a leading Western Australian concert promoter

• Kicks Entertainment, which operates Spilt Milk festival

• Face to Face Touring, a regional promoter with events including Red Hot Summer, SummerSalt and By the C.

Live Nation Entertainment also acquired venues, leasing Melbourne’s Palais Theatre for 30 years from 2017 and Festival Hall. The group purchased Anita’s Theatre in Thirroul in 2022 and opened Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall (2020) and Adelaide’s Hindley Street Music Hall (2022) in partnership with local entities.

Ticketmaster is the authorised ticketing agency for Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium and for Australian tours promoted by Live Nation. These include concerts by Oasis, Green Day, P!nk and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Live Nation has also acquired several Australian booking agencies, including Village Sounds, which represents Bernard Fanning, Courtney Barnett and Vance Joy.

The only competitors are TEG (which owns Ticketek) and AEG-Frontier. Music industry stakeholders are concerned about the oversized influence of these three “corporate giants”.

Keeping the shareholders happy

For consumers, a lack of competition can mean higher prices. Dynamic pricing made headlines, but Four Corners also alleged there were a range of “hidden fees” in the price of tickets ordinarily sold by Ticketmaster and Ticketek.

Artists are at a disadvantage when negotiating with a mass of connected businesses that are often owned by one entity and which sometimes includes their own agent.

South Australian rock band Bad//Dreems told the ABC they were left with just $9,000 from a tour that grossed $100,000.

Veteran promoter Michael Chugg complained major artists were being overpaid, skewing the sector to the detriment of local musicians. While Australian promoters, including Chugg and the late Michael Gudinski, have a history of consolidating interests and crowding out competition, they also had skin in the Australian music game. Live Nation is a publicly listed company with duties to its shareholders, including US hedge funds and Saudi royalty.

Midnight Oil singer and former politician Peter Garrett said this meant there was “no loyalty” to Australian artists. A multinational promoter with a shareholder-driven approach might be more likely to cancel a festival after weak opening sales, instead of weathering short-term losses to preserve the brand and relationships.

That cancellation might even consolidate demand for the company’s upcoming headline tours. But opportunities are lost for Australian artists, businesses and culture.

What can be done?

Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke told Four Corners he has put Live Nation on notice and warned the company not to use its power in an anti-competitive way. But he did not commit to legislative change.

In the United States, the Department of Justice and dozens of states have sued Live Nation for antitrust, seeking “to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s monopoly and restore competition for the benefit of fans and artists”.

Australian courts currently have no power to break up monopolies without new legislation. However, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission can investigate and prosecute misuse of market power, as alleged by some in this case.

Fair trading authorities in the United Kingdom and Europe are examining Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing in the wake of the Oasis ticket-pricing controversy. However, Burke said surge pricing is something consumers have always dealt with, and “not something we’re looking at, at the moment”.

Governments could also regulate more transparency in ticket fees, as well as the rights of artists, who sit uncomfortably between employees and small businesses. Their union, MEAA’s Musicians Australia, is currently advocating about these matters.

Those passionate about Australia’s live music scene fear that if the sector isn’t better regulated, it’ll soon be too late to save it.

Ben Green receives research funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australasian Performing Right Association.

Sam Whiting receives funding from RMIT University and the Winston Churchill Trust.

– ref. Are market giants endangering Australia’s live music scene? Industry veterans and local artists are worried – https://theconversation.com/are-market-giants-endangering-australias-live-music-scene-industry-veterans-and-local-artists-are-worried-241244

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

New Zealand’s infrastructure woes are a constant political pain point. From ageing water systems to congested roads and assets increasingly threatened by climate change, the country faces mammoth upgrading and future-proofing challenges.

Enter Winston Peters and NZ First with a surprise proposal for a NZ$100 billion “Future Fund” dedicated to infrastructure investment. Sounds promising – but the proposal’s success will hinge on getting the details right and, more importantly, getting the politics out of infrastructure planning.

Unveiled at NZ First’s annual convention last weekend, the idea bears striking similarities to challenges previously highlighted by urban planning and infrastructure experts.

The country currently has an estimated infrastructure deficit of over $100 billion, which aligns eerily with the scale of Peters’ proposed fund.

The Future Fund proposal sounds impressive on paper. Ring-fenced from political meddling and focused on national interests, it’s billed as a silver bullet for infrastructure funding problems.

Peters claims he’s taken a page from the Singapore and Ireland playbooks – potentially breaking New Zealand’s habit of treating big infrastructure projects like they’re part of a three-year plan.

Long-term savings

As always, the devil is in the details – and the Future Fund is light on them. How exactly would this fund be financed? How would projects be selected and prioritised? And, crucially, how would it be insulated from the political interference it claims to avoid?

The potential benefits are significant. Research suggests that a stable, long-term approach to infrastructure investment and better utilisation of existing assets could unlock substantial savings – potentially up to 40% of total project costs.

A well-managed $100 billion fund could provide the certainty and consistency needed to achieve these efficiencies.

The scale of the fund also aligns with the urgent need for a comprehensive infrastructure overhaul. From modernising water systems to expanding road and rail networks, and ensuring resilience against climate change, the required investment is indeed massive.

Politics is the problem

Yet the proposal faces significant hurdles, not the least of which is from NZ First’s own coalition partners.

The National Party’s previous commitments to curb borrowing seem at odds with a fund of this magnitude. Peters argues that debt for wealth creation and infrastructure differs from debt for consumption.

That’s a valid point, but one that may struggle to gain traction in a political environment focused on reducing overall government debt.

The proposal also raises questions about how it would interact with existing initiatives, such as the National Investment Agency set up by Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop. It’s unclear whether these entities would complement each other or create redundancies and inefficiencies.

Perhaps the most critical question is whether this fund, despite its claimed independence, can rise above the political cycle. We have a long and exhausting history of proposing infrastructure for political gain, where one government’s “vital infrastructure” becomes the next’s “wasteful spending”.

Time for a 30-year plan

While the Future Fund could be a big move in the right direction, we must also rethink how we plan (and pay) for infrastructure completely.

A good start would be a 30-year plan that all political parties can get behind, like the United Kingdom’s National Infrastructure Assessment. This would give us a real long-term vision rather than promises that change with each election cycle.

We should also look at more innovative ways to fund projects. Value capture, which leverages rising property values near new infrastructure to help finance its development, helped build London’s Crossrail. And Australia is “asset recycling” from old infrastructure into new projects.

These aren’t just theoretical ideas. They could change how we build what New Zealand needs without the risks of entirely relying on taxpayers.

Ending the boom-bust cycle

Efficiency must also be a priority. Time-of-use charges for roads, already implemented in cities such as Stockholm and Singapore and proposed for Auckland, could reduce congestion and wasteful spending on unnecessary road expansions.

Volumetric charging for water, as seen in the Kāpiti Coast, can significantly reduce water waste without massive new investments.

New Zealand could also break free from its boom-bust infrastructure cycle by establishing an agency outside the political realm to manage the cash Winston Peters is proposing.

A truly independent infrastructure body, similar to Infrastructure Australia, could provide the continuity and expertise needed to see projects through political cycles.

Money isn’t the only issue here. Politics is the real roadblock. Right now, every election cycle, priorities change, projects fly out the window, and the bill for desperately needed infrastructure only gets bigger.

The Future Fund seems like a step in the right direction. But without also overhauling how we make decisions about infrastructure, it could end up being just another political football.

Timothy Welch 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. Winston Peters’ $100 billion infrastructure fund is the right idea. Politics-as-usual is the problem – https://theconversation.com/winston-peters-100-billion-infrastructure-fund-is-the-right-idea-politics-as-usual-is-the-problem-241346

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Draper, Professor, and Executive Director: Institute for International Trade, and Jean Monnet Chair of Trade and Environment, University of Adelaide

Finally, Australia’s rock lobster industry will be able to export to China again, following a deal struck on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Laos last week.

It will take some weeks to finalise the paperwork, but Chinese diners can expect to eat our high-quality crustaceans as we devour our Christmas roast turkeys.

The breakthrough brings a particularly nasty chapter in Australia-China trade relations to a close. Tariffs on rock lobsters were the only remaining major restriction of a raft of trade barriers imposed by China in 2020.

It might be tempting to celebrate, but we should tread carefully. Our situation remains hostage to Beijing’s relationship with Washington. Whether Australia’s trade woes with China are actually over may ultimately be out of our hands.

Read more:
China removes block on Australian lobster, in last big bilateral trade breakthrough

Australia’s reversal of fortunes

The past couple of years have been a whirlwind.

The Albanese government has seen China systematically undo the export restrictions it had imposed on Australia in 2020 – including on barley, wine, beef, and now lobster – without giving away much of substance in return.

Yes, Australia suspended two cases it had brought against China at the World Trade Organization, concerning barley and wine duties China had imposed. But those cases can be resumed if the Chinese government backslides.

And true, the Albanese government did not oppose China’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership – an important regional free trade agreement of which Australia is a founding member. But neither did it endorse China’s bid.

It seems we’ve come a long way since 2020, when China tabled its infamous “14 grievances” against Australia. This deliberately leaked document publicly criticised Australia on a whole range of fronts, including foreign investment decisions, alleged interference in China’s affairs, research funding and media coverage.

A more sobering picture elsewhere

This reopening of trade might make it seem like things are looking up for Australia. In some cases, our business community has bounced back with gusto, notably wine exports to China.

Zooming out, however, paints a more sobering picture of global trade relations. In the near term, the decisions of our key allies – namely the United States – may come to matter more than our own.

The Biden administration has long hoped to place a “floor” under America’s geopolitical competition with China. Neither side wants things to get ugly.

But in Washington, strong bipartisan consensus remains that China must be confronted. The US has continued to take coercive actions against Chinese exports and investment.

For example, the US recently imposed a 100% import duty on electric vehicles produced by Chinese-owned companies. Similarly, it imposed a 25% import duty on imports of Chinese container cranes. Strategic distrust will escalate no matter who wins the White House on November 5.

This animosity is mirrored in Beijing. China’s security state is expanding ever more into business, while its private sector retreats. China’s own coercive activities are also escalating in regional disputes over the South and East China seas, as well as in its trade retaliations against Western markets.

Widening tensions

These tensions are also playing out in Europe and the Middle East. International relations scholars worry that the West must now confront an authoritarian axis comprising Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.

China’s “no limits” partnership with Russia has spooked most European elites. Western sanctions on Russia, meant to erode the Kremlin’s war machine, are likely being circumvented by China’s unmatched industrial capacities.

Iran’s military support for Russia supplements the Kremlin’s war-fighting capacities at Ukraine’s expense.

Unsurprisingly, economic security concerns are rapidly eclipsing free trade considerations for the US.

When US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan introduced the 2022 National Security Strategy, he adopted a selectively restrictive approach he called “small yard, high fence”.

He was talking about export controls and inward restrictions on investment, applied to high-technology products.

Since then, the “yard” has grown wider, and the “fence” has expanded. More sectors and products are being thrown into the mix, from energy security, through critical minerals, to food production.

The challenge with digital technologies, able to be used for both military and civilian purposes, is that the yard can be very large indeed.

Middle power problems

The US has the economic and military weight to confront China. As the European Union is learning, having the economic weight is necessary. But being politically united is essential, and they remain far from that.

Australia is a middle power, without the necessary economic weight or military heft to confront China. That means we must support the rules-based multilateral trading system – preserving the authority of institutions like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – to constrain the actions of the great powers and preserve as much of our open trade posture as possible.

Washington, however, increasingly expects its allies to fall into line. How else can one explain Canada’s decision to follow the US and impose 100% import duties on electric vehicles produced by Chinese owned companies?

Like Australia, Canada is also a middle power. It is also a strong supporter of the rules-based multilateral trading system. But Canada’s action violates WTO rules.

The fact that Washington’s actions also violate these rules is taken for granted these days.

Australia must pay attention

Global trade cooperation is deteriorating, and the world is fracturing into two “values-based” trading blocs. While there could be positive upswings in our bilateral trade relations with China, the medium term trend is down.

As Napoleon Bonaparte is reputed to have said:

China is a sleeping giant; let him sleep, for if he wakes he will shake the world.

China has changed, and the world with it.

Australian business needs to pay attention. Our East Asian partners, notably Japan and South Korea, have long spoken of the need for a “China plus one” (or more) business strategy – making sure trade and investment is diversified into other countries, as well.

Such diversification will be increasingly important in the years to come.

Peter Draper 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. Is Australia’s trade war with China now over? The answer might be out of our hands – https://theconversation.com/is-australias-trade-war-with-china-now-over-the-answer-might-be-out-of-our-hands-241117

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gertjan Verdickt, Lecturer, Business School, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

When it comes to investing and planning your financial future, are you more willing to trust a person or a computer?

This isn’t a hypothetical question any more.

Big banks and investment firms are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help make financial predictions and give advice to clients.

Morgan Stanley uses AI to mitigate the potential biases of its financial analysts when it comes to stock market predictions. And one of the world’s biggest investment banks, Goldman Sachs, recently announced it was trialling the use of AI to help write computer code, though the bank declined to say which division it was being used in. Other companies are using AI to predict which stocks might go up or down.

But do people actually trust these AI advisers with their money?

Our new research examines this question. We found it really depends on who you are and your prior knowledge of AI and how it works.

Trust differences

To examine the question of trust when it comes to using AI for investment, we asked 3,600 people in the United States to imagine they were getting advice about the stock market.

In these imagined scenarios, some people got advice from human experts. Others got advice from AI. And some got advice from humans working together with AI.

In general, people were less likely to follow advice if they knew AI was involved in making it. They seemed to trust the human experts more.

But the distrust of AI wasn’t universal. Some groups of people were more open to AI advice than others.

For example, women were more likely to trust AI advice than men (by 7.5%). People who knew more about AI were more willing to listen to the advice it provided (by 10.1%). And politics mattered – people who supported the Democratic Party were more open to AI advice than others (by 7.3%).

We also found people were more likely to trust simpler AI methods.

When we told our research participants the AI was using something called “ordinary least squares” (a basic mathematics technique in which a straight line is used to estimate the relationship between two variables), they were more likely to trust it than when we said it was using “deep learning” (a more complex AI method).

This might be because people tend to trust things they understand. Much like how a person might trust a simple calculator more than a complex scientific instrument they have never seen before.

Trust in the future of finance

As AI becomes more common in the financial world, companies will need to find ways to improve levels of trust.

This might involve teaching people more about how the AI systems work, being clear about when and how AI is being used, and finding the right balance between human experts and AI.

Furthermore, we need to tailor how AI advice is presented to different groups of people and show how well AI performs over time compared to human experts.

The future of finance might involve a lot more AI, but only if people learn to trust it. It’s a bit like learning to trust self-driving cars. The technology might be great, but if people don’t feel comfortable using it, it won’t catch on.

Our research shows that building this trust isn’t just about making better AI. It’s about understanding how people think and feel about AI. It’s about bridging the gap between what AI can do and what people believe it can do.

As we move forward, we’ll need to keep studying how people react to AI in finance. We’ll need to find ways to make AI not just a powerful tool, but a trusted advisor that people feel comfortable relying on for important financial decisions.

The world of finance is changing fast, and AI is a big part of that change. But in the end, it’s still people who decide where to put their money. Understanding how to build trust between humans and AI will be key to shaping the future of finance.

Gertjan Verdickt 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. Do people trust AI on financial decisions? We found it really depends on who they are – https://theconversation.com/do-people-trust-ai-on-financial-decisions-we-found-it-really-depends-on-who-they-are-240900

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

The Albanese government has announced a first step in what it says is a crackdown on excessive card surcharges and threatened a ban on surcharges for debit cards from early 2026.

In the latest of its cost-of-living measures, the government will provide $2.1 million for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission “to tackle excessive surcharges”.

The government also says it is prepared to ban debit card surcharges from January 1 2026, subject to further work by the Reserve Bank and “safeguards to ensure both small businesses and consumers can benefit from lower costs”.

The government is not considering a ban on credit card surcharges, although the ACCC scrutiny will cover both debit and credit cards.

The bank is reviewing merchant card payment costs and surcharging. Its first consultation paper will be released on Tuesday.

The government said in a statement: “the declining use of cash and the rise of electronic payments means that more Australians are getting slugged by surcharges, even when they use their own money”.

“The RBA’s review is an important step to reduce the costs small businesses face when processing payments. We want to ease costs for consumers without added costs for small businesses, or unintended consequences for the broader economy,” the statement from the prime minister, treasurer and assistant treasurer said.

Funding for the ACCC “will enable the consumer watchdog to crack down on illegal and unfair surcharging practices and increase education and compliance activities”.

The Reserve Bank required card providers such as Visa and Mastercard to remove their no‐surcharge rules in 2003 allowing retailers to directly pass on the costs of accepting card payments.

With the spread of payments by card, surcharges have become ubiquitous.

In a parliamentary hearing in August the head of the National Australia Bank Andrew Irvine complained about having to pay a 10% surcharge when he bought a cup of coffee in Sydney.

He told an inquiry it was “outrageous”, saying he didn’t like “the lack of transparency and lack of consistency”.

The ACCC regulates surcharges and can require merchants prove a surcharge is justified. It can take merchants to court to enforce the regulations governing surcharges, and has done so. But many charges are still higher than they are supposed to be.

The European Union bans surcharges.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said: “Consumers shouldn’t be punished for using cards or digital payments, and at the same time, small businesses shouldn’t have to pay hefty fees just to get paid themselves”.

The total cost to Australian consumers of surcharges is disputed – the RBA review will look at the likely cost.

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. Albanese government has surcharges in its sights, as it pursues the votes of consumers – https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-has-surcharges-in-its-sights-as-it-pursues-the-votes-of-consumers-241251

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raffaele F Ciriello, Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting personal. Chatbots are designed to imitate human interactions, and the rise of realistic voice chat is leading many users to form emotional attachments or laugh along with virtual podcast hosts.

And that’s before we get to the really intimate stuff. Research has shown that sexual roleplaying is one of the most common uses of ChatGPT, and millions of people interact with AI-powered systems designed as virtual companions, such as such as Character.AI, Replika, and Chai.AI.

What does this mean for the future of (human) romance? The prospects are alarming.

Better be nice to your AI overlord

The most prominent AI companion service is Replika, which allows some 30 million users to create custom digital girlfriends (or boyfriends).

While early studies indicate most Replika users are male, Caucasian and under 30, other demographics are catching up. Male sex robots have been in the making for some years. And they’re more than just vibrators with integrated jar openers.

For a subscription fee, users can exchange intimate messages or pictures with their AI partners. Over half a million users had subscribed before Replika temporarily disabled its “erotic roleplay” module in early 2023, fearing regulatory backlash — a move that users dubbed “The Lobotomy.”

The Replika “lobotomy” highlights a key feature of virtual companions: their creators have complete control over their behaviour. The makers of apps can modify or shut down a user’s “partner” – and millions of others – at any moment. These systems also read everything users say, to tailor future interactions and, of course, ads.

However, these caveats don’t appear to be holding the industry back. New products are proliferating. One company, Kindroid, now offers voice chats with up to ten virtual companions simultaneously.

The digital world isn’t the limit either. Sex doll vendors such as Joy Love Dolls offer interactive real-life sexbots, with not only customisable skin colour and breast size, but also “complete control” of features including movement, heating, and AI-enabled “moans, squeals, and even flirting from your doll, making her a great companion”.

For now, virtual companions and AI sexbots remain a much smaller market than social media, with millions of users rather than billions. But as the history of the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon has taught us, today’s digital quirks could become tomorrow’s global giants.

Towards ethically sourced AI girlfriends?

The availability of AI-driven relationships is likely to usher in all manner of ethically dubious behaviour from users who won’t have to face the real-world consequences.

Soon, you might satisfy any kink with your AI girlfriend for an extra fee. If your AI wife becomes troublesome, just ask the corporate overlord to deactivate her envy module — for a price, of course. Or simply delete her and start fresh with as many AI mistresses as you like in parallel.

The way people form relationships has already been disrupted by dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble.

What will happen if, in the future, people looking for love are competing against perfect synthetic lovers that are always available and horny? Well, at least they’ll be able to create virtual replicas of those hot dates they didn’t land.

And for those who lack the skills to create their own virtual companions, there will be plenty of off-the-shelf alternatives.

An ABC investigation revealed the use of generative AI to create fake influencers by manipulating women’s social media images is already widespread. This is generally done without consent to sell pornographic content. Much of this content depicts unattainable body ideals, and some depicts people who appear to be at best barely of consenting age.

Another likely application? Using AI sexbot technology to bring celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Clara Bow back to life. After all, dead people cannot deny consent anymore.

Replika itself was inspired by its founder’s desire to recreate her late best friend through a chatbot. Many use the app to keep deceased loved ones around. What a time to be alive (or dead)!

The potential for emotional manipulation by inventive catfishers and dictators is alarming. Imagine the havoc if figures like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong-un harness this technology to complement their nations’ already extensive cyber-espionage operations.

Perhaps before long we will see corporations offering “responsibly sourced” AI girlfriends for the more ethical consumer – organically grown from consensually harvested content, promoting socially acceptable smut.

Society and the state must act now

With loneliness rising to epidemic levels — surveys suggest up to one in four people in OECD countries lack human connection — the demand for sexbots is only going to grow. Corporations will meet this demand unless society and the state set clear boundaries on what’s acceptable.

Sex and technology have always co-evolved. Just as prostitution is “the oldest profession”, porn sites are some of the oldest corners of the internet. However, the dystopian potential of sexbots for mass-customised, corporate-controlled monetisation of our most intimate sphere is unprecedented.

Users aren’t entirely blameless, either. There’s something vicious about replacing a real human being with a totally submissive lust machine.

Early studies suggest narcissism is prevalent among users of this technology. Normalising harmful sexual behaviours such as rape, sadism or paedophilia is bad news for society.

However, going after users isn’t likely to be the best way to tackle the issue. We should treat sexbot use like other potentially problematic behaviours, such as gambling.

As with other problematic behaviours where the issue lies more with providers than users, it’s time to hold sexbot providers accountable. As our links to AI are growing ever more intimate, there’s not much time to waste.

Raffaele F Ciriello 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. The AI sexbot industry is just getting started. It brings strange new questions – and risks – https://theconversation.com/the-ai-sexbot-industry-is-just-getting-started-it-brings-strange-new-questions-and-risks-238998

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynzi Armstrong, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

It has been two decades since New Zealand decriminalised sex work. And while sex workers have workplace rights, they still worry about the risks of discrimination in everyday life.

In my recent research, local sex workers explained the benefits of decriminalisation – and what still needs to change. Their experiences highlight that while much has changed for the better, stigma remains an issue. Further change is needed to better protect sex workers from it.

New Zealand’s experience is relevant right now, as a number of governments elsewhere are reviewing their laws around sex work.

Scotland, for example, is considering a proposal that would criminalise the purchase of sex – known as the Nordic model due to its initial adoption in some Nordic countries.

Supporters argue this will help sex workers and extend gender equality. But evidence suggests the Nordic model actually harms sex workers: it impedes safety strategies, increases the risk of violence, limits access to justice, and enables discrimination.

What is decriminalisation?

The other options are decriminalisation and legalisation. While these terms are often used interchangeably, they are different. Legalisation of sex work (in Germany and the Netherlands, for example) means legalising an act that was previously against the law.

For sex workers, this means restrictive government regulation and control, which may include mandatory registration with authorities, compulsory sexual health checks, and permission to work in specific areas only.

Decriminalisation, on the other hand, means repealing laws that make an act or behaviour a crime, but not necessarily introducing restrictive regulations specific to the sex industry.

That said, decriminalisation does not mean there is no regulation. Instead, regulations are comparable to other businesses. The focus is not on regulating sex workers, but providing them with rights.

Under New Zealand’s Prostitution Reform Act (2003) it is an offence to induce or compel a person to do sex work. Sex workers have the right to refuse to see clients for any reason at any time. If a sex worker wishes to stop doing sex work, they can access unemployment benefits immediately (rather than having the normal stand down period ).

Impacts of decriminalisation in New Zealand

Research three years after the law came into force found a majority of participants felt they had more rights and were more able to refuse to see clients than before. Several participants felt police attitudes towards them had improved.

Subsequent research found relationships between street-based sex workers and police had improved. Decriminalisation supported the safety strategies of these sex workers better.

There have also been several high-profile cases where sex workers have exercised their legal rights. Brothel-based sex workers won sexual harassment cases against business owners, and convictions of rape against two clients who covertly removed condoms during their bookings.

Among the 26 sex workers we interviewed in New Zealand, participants described feeling fortunate to work in the decriminalised context. They also felt working conditions for sex workers were better than in other countries.

One participant said:

I also feel that we shouldn’t have to say “oh we’re so lucky” but we are compared to other people in other countries.

Another felt decriminalisation gave sex workers a “protective layer”.

This meant, as one participant put it, “we have rights, full stop”.

Participants appreciated sex work being defined as work and the rights that accompany this. Decriminalisation was considered both ideal and normalised. As another explained,

it’s been decriminalised for a long time now, like it’s part of our reality.

Room for improvement?

While participants felt grateful to work in the decriminalised context, this doesn’t mean there weren’t issues.

Decriminalisation in New Zealand doesn’t include legal protection from discrimination. Sex workers have little recourse if they are treated unfairly because of their job.

The sex workers we spoke with believed the social stigma of sex work was gradually fading, and instances of discrimination described by participants were rare. But they still feared the consequences of discrimination (such as being denied accommodation or premises to work from if their work became known to a landlord).

They supported further legal protection from discrimination. For one participant this meant,

I could tell people my job without […] any fear of backlash, and that would be fantastic.

Participants also wanted the protections of decriminalisation extended to temporary migrants. People who hold temporary visas face deportation if they are found to be working in the sex industry, making them vulnerable to exploitation.

Falling behind

After two decades of decriminalisation, New Zealand risks falling behind as more jurisdictions (such as Victoria and Queensland in Australia) adopt decriminalised frameworks that build in protection from discrimination.

Such protections mean it is no longer legal to deny a person accommodation or a job based on their sex work experience, or deny them a bank loan or mortgage.

To keep up, New Zealand needs to follow suit. The next step is therefore to strengthen and expand the rights sex workers have.

Perhaps then, in another 20 years, the country will still be seen as one that put the human rights of sex workers first and showed the rest of the world what equality really looks like.

Lynzi Armstrong received funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund (2019-2024)

– ref. Two decades after decriminalisation, NZ’s sex workers still need protection from discrimination – https://theconversation.com/two-decades-after-decriminalisation-nzs-sex-workers-still-need-protection-from-discrimination-240787

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South Australia

With COVID still classified as an ongoing pandemic, it’s difficult to contemplate the next one. But we need to be prepared. We’ve seen several pandemics in recent decades and it’s fair to expect we’ll see more.

For the final part in a series of articles on the next pandemic, we’ve asked a range of experts what Australia got right and wrong it its response to COVID. Here they share their thoughts on the country’s COVID response – and what we can learn for the next pandemic.

Quarantine

The federal government mandated 14 days of quarantine for all international arrivals between March 2020 and November 2021. During that period, 452,550 people passed through the system.

The states and Northern Territory were given just 48 hours to set up their quarantine systems. The states chose hotel quarantine, while the Northern Territory repurposed an old miner’s camp, Howard Springs, which had individual cabins with outdoor verandas. The ACT had very few international arrivals, while Tasmania only had hotel quarantine for domestic travellers.

During the first 15 months of the program, at least 22 breaches occurred in five states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia). An inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine found the lack of warning and planning to set up the complex system resulted in breaches that caused Victoria’s second COVID wave of 2020, leading to almost 800 deaths. A breach at Sydney airport led to the introduction of the Delta variant into Australia.

In the next pandemic, mistakes from COVID need to be avoided. They included failure to protect hotel residents and staff from airborne transmission through ventilation and mask usage. Protocols need to be consistent across the country, such as the type of security staff used, N95 masks for staff and testing frequency.

These protocols need to be included in a national pandemic preparedness plan, which is frequently reviewed and tested through simulations. This did not occur with the pre-COVID preparedness plan.

Dedicated quarantine centres like Howard Springs already exist in Victoria and Queensland. Ideally, they should be constructed in every jurisdiction.

Michael Toole

Treatments

Scientists had to move quickly after COVID was discovered to find effective treatments.

Many COVID treatments involved repurposing existing drugs designed for other viruses. For example, the HIV drug ritonavir is a key element of the antiviral Paxlovid, while remdesivir was originally developed to treat hepatitis C.

At the outset of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty about COVID treatment among Australian health professionals. To keep up with the rapidly developing science, the National Clinical Evidence Taskforce was established in March 2020. We were involved in its COVID response with more than 250 clinicians, consumers and researchers.

Unusually for evidence-based guidelines, which are often updated only every five years or so, the taskforce’s guidelines were designed to be “living” – updated as new research became available. In April 2020 we released the first guidelines for care of people with COVID, and over the next three years these were updated more than 100 times.

While health-care professionals always had access to up-to-date guidance on COVID treatments, this same information was not as accessible for the public. This may partly explain why many people turned to unproven treatments. The taskforce’s benefits could have been increased with funding to help the community understand COVID treatments.

COVID drugs faced other obstacles too. For example, changes to the virus itself meant some treatments became less effective as new variants emerged. Meanwhile, provision of antiviral treatments has not been equitable across the country.

COVID drugs have had important, though not game-changing, impacts. Ultimately, effective vaccines played a much greater role in shifting the course of the pandemic. But we might not be so fortunate next time.

In any future pandemic it will be crucial to have a clear pathway for rapid, reliable methods to develop and evaluate new treatments, disseminate that research to clinicians, policymakers and the public, and ensure all Australians can access the treatments they need.

Steven McGloughlin and Tari Turner, Monash University

Vaccine rollout

COVID vaccines were developed in record time, but rolling them out quickly and seamlessly proved to be a challenge. In Australia, there were several missteps along the way.

First, there was poor preparation and execution. Detailed planning was not finalised until after the rollout had begun.

Then the federal government had overly ambitious targets. For example, the goal of vaccinating four million people by the end of March 2021 fell drastically short, with less than one-fifth of that number actually vaccinated by that time.

There were also supply issues, with the European Union blocking some deliveries to Australia.

Unfortunately, the government was heavily reliant on the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was found, in rare cases, to lead to blood clots in younger people.

Despite all this, Australia ultimately achieved high vaccination rates. By the end of December 2021, more than 94% of the population aged 16 and over had received at least one dose.

This was a significant public health achievement and saved thousands of lives.

But over the past couple of years, Australia’s initially strong vaccine uptake has been waning.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation recommends booster doses for vulnerable groups annually or twice annually. However, only 30% of people aged 75 and over (for whom a booster is recommended every six months) have had a booster dose in the past six months.

There are several lessons to be learned from the COVID vaccine rollout for any future pandemic, though it’s not entirely clear whether they are being heeded.

For example, several manufacturers have developed updated COVID vaccines based on the JN.1 subvariant. But reports indicate the government will only be purchasing the Pfizer JN.1 booster. This doesn’t seem like the best approach to shore up vaccine supply.

Adrian Esterman, University of South Australia

Mode of transmission

Nearly five years since SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) first emerged, we now know airborne transmission plays a far greater role than we originally thought.

In contrast, the risk of SARS-CoV-2 being transmitted via surfaces is likely to be low, and perhaps effectively non-existent in many situations.

Early in the pandemic, the role contaminated surfaces and inanimate objects played in COVID transmission was overestimated. The main reason we got this wrong, at least initially, was that in the absence of any direct experience with SARS-CoV-2, we extrapolated what we believed to be true for other respiratory viruses. This was understandable, but it proved to be inadequate for predicting how SARS-CoV-2 would behave.

One of the main consequences of overestimating the role of surface transmission was that it resulted in a lot of unnecessary anxiety and the adoption of what can only be viewed in retrospect as over-the-top cleaning practices. Remember the teams of people who walked the streets wiping down traffic light poles? How about the concern over reusable coffee cups?

Considerable resources that could have been better invested elsewhere were directed towards disinfecting surfaces. This also potentially distracted our focus from other preventive measures that were likely to have been more effective, such as wearing masks.

The focus on surface transmission was amplified by a number of studies published early in the pandemic that documented the survival of SARS-CoV-2 for long periods on surfaces. However, these were conducted in the lab with little similarity to real-world conditions. In particular, the amounts of virus placed on surfaces were greater than what people would likely encounter outside the lab. This inflated viral survival times and therefore the perception of risk.

The emphasis on surface transmission early in the pandemic ultimately proved to be a miscalculation. It highlights the challenges in understanding how a new virus spreads.

Hassan Vally, Deakin University

National unity

Initially, Commonwealth, state and territory leaders were relatively united in their response to the COVID pandemic. The establishment of the National Cabinet in March 2020 indicated a commitment to consensus-based public health policy. Meanwhile, different jurisdictions came together to deliver a range of measures aimed at supporting businesses and workers affected by COVID restrictions.

But as the pandemic continued, tensions gave way to deeper ideological fractures between jurisdictions and individuals. The issues of vaccine mandates, border closures and lockdowns all created fragmentation between governments, and among experts.

The blame game began between and within jurisdictions. For example, the politicisation of quarantine regulations on cruise ships revealed disunity. School closures, on which the Commonwealth and state and territory governments took different positions, also generated controversy.

These and other instances of polarisation undermined the intent of the newly established National Cabinet.

The COVID pandemic showed us that disunity across the country threatens the collective work needed for an effective response in the face of emergencies.

The COVID response inquiry, due to release its results soon, will hopefully help us work toward national uniform legislation that may benefit Australia in the event of any future pandemics.

This doesn’t necessarily mean identical legislation across the country – this won’t always be appropriate. But a cohesive, long-term approach is crucial to ensure the best outcomes for the Australian federation in its entirety.

Guzyal Hill and Kim M Caudwell, Charles Darwin University

This article is part of a series on the next pandemic.

Adrian Esterman receives funding from the NHMRC, MRFF and ARC.

Michael Toole receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Steven McGloughlin works with the Australian Living Evidence Collaboration and is a consultant for the World Health Organisation Health Emergencies Program.

Tari Turner receives funding from MRFF; NHMRC; the Victorian, WA and Commonwealth governments; and philanthropy.

Guzyal Hill, Hassan Vally, and Kim M Caudwell 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. Lessons for the next pandemic: where did Australia go right and wrong in responding to COVID? – https://theconversation.com/lessons-for-the-next-pandemic-where-did-australia-go-right-and-wrong-in-responding-to-covid-239819

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Murphy, Visiting Fellow, Economics (modelling), Australian National University

The independent inquiry into the government’s COVID response is due to report on October 25.

As part of its investigation into the government’s economic responses, I briefed it on the findings of my economic modelling, using the sort of model I helped design for the Australian Treasury and consulting firms including Econtech and Independent Economics, specially customised for this study.

I found that government responses such as JobKeeper and the Jobseeker Supplement were initially successful. They reduced the peak rate of unemployment by two percentage points, or by more if we count workers who are stood down as employed.

But they lingered too long, ultimately providing $2 of compensation for every $1 of private income lost to COVID.

Government support was essential

Some parts of the economy were deeply affected by the COVID shutdowns which began in early 2020, others much less so.

It is widely accepted that the best response to that (unusual) circumstance is to replace the income those workers and businesses lose. This means, for example, when movie theatres close, the government should replace the incomes of their workers.

This has two benefits. The first is to allow movie theatre workers to maintain their normal spending, stopping the downturn spreading to unrestricted industries. The second is to ensure movie theatre workers don’t have to bear an unfair share of the cost of measures put in place to protect everyone’s health.

Around one sixth of the Australian economy was severely restricted by government measures in the early months of COVID.

This made measures such as JobKeeper, the Boosting Cash Flow for Employers program and the JobSeeker Supplement appropriate.

Too much support for some, too little for others

The government spent $144 billion on these three programs, and my modelling finds the total was about right to compensate for the early losses of income.
But the pattern of compensation was wide of the mark, with a mix of overcompensation and undercompensation.

JobKeeper was designed to guarantee workers a minimum income rather than compensate them for lost income. This meant typical full-time workers were undercompensated while typical part-time workers were overcompensated.

For businesses, the compensation for lost profits depended on workers being active, which meant the firms that lost the most because they had suspended their entire operations got no compensation for losing their entire profits even though some of their expenses continued.

Better programs were put in place in 2021 when the Delta wave of COVID struck. A COVID disaster payment more accurately compensated workers for lost hours, and programs such as NSW JobSaver more accurately targeted lost profits.

Extra support for the entire economy wasn’t needed

In principle, well-designed compensation for the parts of the economy that were actually shut down would have been enough to support the rest of the economy, but despite this, the government also announced broader supports aimed at the entire economy.

Among them were bringing forward the so-called Stage 2 tax cuts and allowing businesses to immediately expense equipment.

These general stimulus measures almost doubled the size of stimulus from $219 billion to $428 billion. Besides being large and unnecessary, most of the general stimulus was delivered late, after the worst of the pandemic was over.

How it could have been done better

I have modelled what could have happened if the government had only spent on the health measures that were clearly warranted and had limited its compensation to income actually lost at the time it was lost.

This so-called shorter stimulus scenario also includes a more usual response to economic recovery by the Reserve Bank in which it began lifting interest rates one year earlier, in May 2021 instead of May 2022.

In the shorter stimulus scenario, the Reserve Bank’s cash rate would by now be 2.85% instead of 4.35% because of lower inflation. Equally, in two or three years interest rates are similar in both scenarios once the economy has stabilised.

Australia’s unemployment rate would be higher than it is now at about 5.1% instead of 4.2% as it glides towards a sustainable equilibrium rather than having been pushed below it.

This glide path keeps inflation lower by avoiding a boom and bust and results in the same endpoint for unemployment.

Inflation would have peaked much lower at about 5% instead of about 7%.

About 1.4% percentage points of the reduction would have been due to better fiscal (spending and taxing) policy and about 0.7 points due to better management of interest rates.

In addition, the government would have saved about $209 billion in avoidable spending and government debt.

Nevertheless, even if the government had limited its response to the more targeted measures modelled in the shorter stimulus scenario, inflation would have reached 5% and interest rates and government debt would have still climbed, but by less.

Hindsight can help

The government’s responses to COVID were developed quickly at a time when no one knew what was going to happen, which makes some overcompensation understandable.

But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine what happened in order to work out how it could have been done better.

Australia will be hit by future pandemics and pandemic-like crises, which means it’s important to learn from our mistakes. Next time the government should concentrate on replacing income where and when it is lost.

Chris Murphy assisted the COVID-19 Response Inquiry.

– ref. The government spent twice what it needed to on economic support during COVID, modelling shows – https://theconversation.com/the-government-spent-twice-what-it-needed-to-on-economic-support-during-covid-modelling-shows-240999

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney

A century ago, French writer André Breton published a manifesto that would go on to become one of the most influential artistic texts of the 20th century. Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism launched a movement that transformed not only visual art, but also literature, theatre and film.

Surrealism drew on developments in psychology to herald a revolutionary new way of doing, seeing and being. It is, as art critic Jonathan Jones once noted, “the only modern movement that changed the way we talk and think about life”.

Surrealism also fundamentally changed the way we make art. Its cultural impact and legacy can be felt in, to pluck three random examples, the cinematic dreamscapes of David Lynch, the lyrical cut-ups of Bob Dylan and the monumental sculptures of Louise Bourgeois.

The term itself has entered our everyday lexicon. By the same token, some question its significance and aesthetic merits. Moreover, to borrow a couple of rhetorical questions posed by Mark Polizzotti in a book marking the movement’s centenary: “Does Surrealism still matter? Has it ever mattered?”

These questions are hardly new. They’ve been around since the movement’s inception – and continue to be asked in our historical moment of catastrophe. As Polizzotti writes:

young people of the 21st century could hardly be faulted for wondering what a bunch of eccentric writers and artists showing off their dream states could have to do with such pressing concerns as social and racial injustice, a faltering job market, gross economic inequities, the decimation of our civil liberties, questions of gender identity and equality, environmental devastation, education reform, or, once again […] the spectre of world war.

The answer, Polizzotti points out, is simple: “Surrealism engaged with all of these crises.”

While Surrealism started as a literary movement, it quickly evolved into a formidable platform for critiquing dominant sociopolitical inequalities and systems of oppression.

In both word and deed, the surrealists opposed warmongering and colonial expansion. They railed against religious dogma and championed the freedom of sexual expression.

Breton perhaps put it best in 1935. “From where we stand,” he said, while tipping his hat to Karl Marx, “we maintain that the activity of interpreting the world must continue to be linked with the activity of changing the world.”

WWI and meeting Jacques Vaché

Born in Normandy in 1896, André Breton was the only child of a policeman and a seamstress.

While studying medicine, Breton developed an interest in mental illness. He also had a passion for poetry. At an early age, he started exchanging letters with the prominent avant-gardist Guillaume Apollinaire, who coined the term “surrealism” in 1917.

Breton’s interests were disrupted when he was conscripted into the French army in 1914. During World War I, he served as a stretcher bearer, dealing firsthand with shellshocked soldiers. He also worked as a nurse in Nantes, France, where he met a wounded Jacques Vaché.

According to art historian Susan Laxton, the dandyish Vaché was in equal measure “disdainful and deeply cynical”, seeming to live “in a perpetual state of insubordination”. His unconventional approach to life and creativity had a profound impact on Breton’s thinking about Surrealism.

Vaché had little patience for most writers and artists. He was, however, a big fan of Alfred Jarry – best known for his scandalous drama Ubu Roi (1896). Jarry is frequently cited as an influence on Dadaism, an anarchic art movement that was developed in Europe in 1915 and led by Tristan Tzara.

The Dadaists thumbed their noses at convention and embraced chaos, irrationality and spontaneity. As Tzara explained, Dadaism was vehemently opposed to “greasy objectivity, and harmony, the science that finds everything in order”.

Breton was impressed. Keen to establish his credentials as an artist, he set out to build his own avant-garde coalition.

The rise of automatism

Enlisting Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault, Breton set up Littérature. Running from 1919 to 1924, this review published many key surrealist works, including excerpts of Breton and Soupault’s book The Magnetic Fields (1920).

Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s concept of the unconscious, this groundbreaking collaboration marked the first sustained use of a practice called surrealist automatism.

The Magnetic Fields was written in secret over the course of a single spring week in 1919. The guidelines Breton and Soupault established for themselves were simple. They would engage in writing sessions that could last for several hours at a time – often inducing a state of shared euphoria – without any chance for reflection or correction.

The aim was to bypass rational modes of thinking and tap directly into the imagination, thereby producing a revolutionary new kind of poetry. In the words of art historian David Hopkins, this practice “was predicated on the conviction that the speed of writing is equivalent to the speed of thought”.

Following this breakthrough, Breton and the surrealists continued to refine the technique, pushing it further into new, untrammelled realms of creative possibility. With the subsequent publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton solidified the movement’s core principles. In it, he offers a definition:

Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principle problems of life.

In other words, Surrealism was not just an artistic endeavour, but a philosophical stance that sought to radically rethink experience and existence.

Elsewhere in the manifesto, Breton introduces the key surrealist concept of “the marvellous”. For the surrealists, the marvellous could be found in poems, paintings, photographs and everyday objects. It was experienced as a shock or jolt, a moment of recognition that allowed one to transcend the ordinary and glimpse the sublime hidden within the apparently mundane.

By rejecting traditional modes of understanding and embracing the unconscious, the surrealists attempted to upend the established order of things. They viewed automatism and the marvellous as ways to access deeper truths, free from the constraints of rationality which they believed had long dominated Western thought.

A movement transcending borders

The events that followed the publication of Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism supported his claim, made during a 1934 lecture, that the movement had “spread like wildfire, on pursuing its course, not only in art but in life”.

Surrealism’s public profile expanded internationally, along with its adherents. Luis Buñuel, Frida Kahlo, Aimé Césaire, Lee Miller, Salvador Dalí and Leonor Fini are just some of the important figures who embraced the movement.

And as the raft of high-profile exhibitions currently taking place confirms, the surrealist spirit lives on, decades after the movement wound down. Unabated, the search for the marvellous continues.

Alexander Howard 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. 100 years of surrealism: how a French writer inspired by the avant-garde changed the world forever – https://theconversation.com/100-years-of-surrealism-how-a-french-writer-inspired-by-the-avant-garde-changed-the-world-forever-237464

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Wille, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne

The Australian government has committed A$95 million to fight a virulent strain of bird flu wreaking havoc globally.

With the arrival of millions of migratory birds this spring, there is an increased risk of a deadly strain arriving in Australia, known as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1.

Australia is the only continent free of this rapidly spreading strain. Overseas, HPAI H5N1 has been detected in poultry, wild birds and a wide range of mammals, including humans. But our reprieve will likely not last forever.

As Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek warned on Monday, “the awful reality of this disease is that – like the rest of the world – we will not be able to prevent its arrival”. HPAI H5N1 is like nothing we’ve seen in Australia. The extra funding, which is in addition to Australia’s current biosecurity budget, will help us prepare and respond.

A trail of destruction

Avian influenza is a virus that infects birds, but can infect other animals.

In Australia we have various strains of avian influenza that don’t cause disease, referred to as low pathogenic avian influenza. While these viruses occur naturally Australian wild birds, it is the disease-causing strains, such as HPAI H5N1 and HPAI H7 we are worried about. These HPAI strains have enormous consequences for wild birds, domestic animals, and animal producers and workers.

HPAI H5N1 first emerged in Asia in 1996, and has been circulating in Asian poultry for decades. Following genetic changes in the virus, it repeatedly jumped into wild birds in 2014, 2016 and again in 2020, after which it caused an animal pandemic, or panzootic.

Starting in 2021, the virus rapidly spread. First, from Europe to North America in 2021. Then into South America in 2022. There, in South America, the virus caused the death of more than 500,000 wild birds and 30,000 marine mammals.

While we had seen large outbreaks in wild birds globally, the huge outbreaks in seals and sea lions in South America was unprecedented. With this came substantial concern that the virus was spreading from mammal to mammal, rather than just bird to bird or bird to mammal, as was happening elsewhere.

About a year after arriving in South America, the virus was detected in the sub-Antarctic, and a few months later, on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Australia and New Zealand are still free of the virus, for now.

The rising death toll

Beyond wildlife, HPAI H5N1 is having a huge impact on poultry.

In 2022 alone, it caused 130 million poultry across 67 countries to die of the illness or be euthanased because they were infected.

In contrast, earlier this year Australia’s biggest avian influenza outbreak to date – caused by a different strain, HPAI H7 – caused the death or destruction of 1.5 million chickens. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to what is occurring globally.

Concerningly, in the United States, the virus has jumped into dairy cattle and so far has affected more than 200 dairy herds in 14 states. It has also jumping into humans: in the past ten days alone, six human cases have occurred – all in dairy workers in California.

Given HPAI H5N1 has spread around the globe, the risk of the virus entering Australia has increased.

In a recent risk assessment, my colleague and I identified two main pathways for H5N1 into Australia.

The most likely route is that H5N1 is brought in from Asia by long-distance migratory birds. Birds such as shorebirds and seabirds arrive in the millions each spring from Asia (and in some cases as far away as Alaska).

A second route is with ducks. If the virus spreads across the Wallace Line (a biogeographical boundary that runs through Indonesia), it will come into contact with endemic Australian duck species.

Unlike shorebirds and seabirds, ducks are not long-distance migrants, and don’t migrate between Asia and Australia. That endemic Australian ducks are not exposed to this virus because they don’t migrate to Asia may be one of the reasons why H5N1 has not yet arrived in Australia.

So, what’s the plan?

The Australian government’s new $95 million funding commitment is a crucial response to the heightened level of risk, and the dire consequences if H5N1 entered the country.

The funding is divided between environment, agriculture and human health – the three pillars of the “One Health” approach.

Broadly, the money will be spent on:

• enhancing surveillance to ensure timely detection and response if the disease enters and spreads in animals within Australia

• strengthening preparedness and response capability to reduce harm to the production sector and native wildlife

• supporting a nationally coordinated approach to response and communications

• taking proactive measures to protect threatened iconic species from extinction

• investing in more pre-pandemic vaccines to protect human health.

Importantly, the funding covers preparedness, surveillance and response.

Preparedness includes proactive measures to protect threatened birds – for example, vaccination or reducing other threats to these species) and improving biosecurity.

Surveillance is essential to catch the virus as soon as it arrives and track its spread. Australia already has a wild bird surveillance program which, among other things, investigates sick and dead wildlife as well as sampling “healthy” wild birds. The additional commitment will bolster these activities.

Response will include things like better and faster tests. It will also include funding for practical on-ground actions to limit the spread and impacts of HPAI H5N1 for susceptible wildlife. This might include a vaccination program for vulnerable threatened species, as an example.

Work has already begun

This funding is a long-term investment, and mostly allocated to future activities. In the short term, my colleagues and I have already begun our spring surveillance program.

We aim to test about 1,000 long-distance migratory birds arriving in Australia for avian influenza. Based on our risk assessments, we are focusing on long-distance migratory seabirds such as the short-tailed shearwater, and various shorebirds including red-necked stints, arriving from breeding areas in Siberia.

This surveillance program is supported by, and contributes to, the national surveillance program managed by Wildlife Health Australia

In addition to our active surveillance, we need your help! If you see sick or dead wild birds or marine mammals, call the Emergency Animal Disease Watch Hotline on 1800 675 888.

In addition, the Wildlife Health Australia website offers current advice for:

• people who encounter sick or dead wild birds

• vets and other animal health professionals

• bird banders, wildlife rangers and researchers

• wildlife managers and wildlife care providers, who can access risk mitigation toolboxes.

For more information, visit birdflu.gov.au or Wildlife Health Australia’s avian influenza page

Michelle Wille receives funding from Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Wildlife Health Australia.

– ref. ‘Awful reality’: Albanese government injects $95 million to fight the latest deadly bird flu – https://theconversation.com/awful-reality-albanese-government-injects-95-million-to-fight-the-latest-deadly-bird-flu-241243

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lizzy Lowe, Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Ecology and Entomology, Edith Cowan University

If you notice a tiny, strikingly coloured spider performing an elaborate courtship dance, you may have seen your first peacock spider.

New species of peacock spider are discovered every year; the tally is now 113. One newly discovered species, Maratus yanchep, is only known to exist in a small area of coastal dunes near Yanchep, north of Perth.

As Perth’s suburbs sprawl ever further north and south, it means one problem – the housing crisis – is worsening another, the extinction crisis.

The dunes which are home to Maratus yanchep are just 20 metres from land being cleared for large new estates.

If the species was formally listed as threatened, it could be protected. But the spider was only described in 2022 and has not been listed on state or federal threatened species lists. That means Maratus yanchep has no protection, according to the state government.

What’s so special about a spider?

Peacock spiders are tiny. Many have bodies just 4–5 mm across. The males only put on their mating displays during short periods of the year, typically August to September. Their size and habits also make it hard to learn about their populations and preferred habitats. This is partly why we’re only now realising how many peacock spider species there are.

Concerted effort by enthusiasts such as Jurgen Otto has greatly expanded our knowledge. Of the 113 described species, each has distinctive colouring and its own dances (males have the colour and the moves). But we know there are more species of peacock spider waiting to be recognised by western science.

Many species of peacock spider are only known from within a very small area of suitable habitat.

This puts the species at high risk of extinction because a single threat such as a large bushfire or a suburban development can destroy all their habitat at once.

How can this be allowed?

Before any native bushland is cleared in Australia, developers have to undertake an environmental impact survey to look for threatened species and assess what damage the development would do. If a threatened species is found, the development can be scaled back or denied.

The problem is, these surveys only look for species known to be in danger. If a species isn’t listed on Australia’s growing list of threatened species, it won’t be looked for.

But Maratus yanchep has not been assessed to see if it is threatened. This means it has no protection from development.

This points to a wider problem. Large, well-known Australian vertebrates such as koalas and platypuses tend to get more attention – and conservation efforts – than humble invertebrates. We face an uphill battle to conserve our wealth of invertebrates.

Worldwide, many invertebrates are in real danger of disappearing. Australia is home to at least 300,000 invertebrate species, dwarfing the 8,000-odd vertebrates – but only 101 are currently listed under the federal government’s laws protecting threatened species, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act. The problem here is we don’t have enough data to assess most invertebrate species for formal conservation listing and protection.

Data takes money

Listing a species as threatened requires a large amount of data on where the species is and isn’t found. This takes time and specialist knowledge. But funding is scarce.

As a result, our efforts to gather data on invertebrates often relies on passionate volunteers and enthusiasts, who may often pick one genus – say peacock spiders – and set out to expand our knowledge.

When clear and immediate threats do appear – such as clearing coastal dunes in Yanchep – we are again reliant on the unpaid work of volunteers to gather information.

The problem of sprawl

Perth is one of the longest cities in the world. Its suburbs sprawl for 150 kilometres, running from Two Rocks in the north to Dawesville in the south.

Many Perth residents want to live by the coast, driving demand for new housing on the city outskirts. This drives destruction of native bushland and pushes species towards extinction. Some species tolerate the change from bushland to suburbia, but these are a minority – less than 25%. Small, localised species are at highest risk of extinction.

Perth’s sprawl shows no sign of slowing. Land clearing for housing has contributed to the worsening plight of the Carnaby’s cockatoo. Fifty years ago, the iconic cockatoo flew over the city in flocks as large as 7,000. There’s nothing like that now.

What can we do?

Efforts are underway to protect Maratus yanchep. The not-for-profit charity Invertebrates Australia is working to nominate it for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. Greens MP Brad Pettitt raised the issue in Parliament in August.

The one thing peacock spiders have going for them is their looks. They are spectacularly beautiful. They’re also easily identified by the distinct patterns on the males – for most species you don’t need expert training to tell them apart, just decent eyesight.

As a result, peacock spiders have drawn attention from dozens of amateur arachnologists and photographers who collect and share information on where they can be found. This citizen science data is often able to be used as evidence in listing a species as threatened – and unlocking vital protection.

Images of these spiders also boosts their public profile and support for their protection.

Despite the recent groundswell of interest in saving this tiny spider, it may be too late. To avoid the mass extinction of iconic Australian species, we must find better ways of building without large-scale habitat clearing.

Read more:
Photos from the field: zooming in on Australia’s hidden world of exquisite mites, snails and beetles

Lizzy Lowe is affiliated with Invertebrates Australia

Jess Marsh is affiliated with Invertebrates Australia.

Dr Leanda Denise Mason is affiliated with Centre for People, Place, and Planet.

– ref. This beautiful peacock spider was only found two years ago. Now it could be dancing its last dance – https://theconversation.com/this-beautiful-peacock-spider-was-only-found-two-years-ago-now-it-could-be-dancing-its-last-dance-238437

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Powles, Associate Professor of Law and Technology; Director, UWA Tech & Policy Lab, Law School, The University of Western Australia

Since 2019, the Australian Department for Industry, Science and Resources has been striving to make the nation a leader in “safe and responsible” artificial intelligence (AI). Key to this is a voluntary framework based on eight AI ethics principles, including “human-centred values”, “fairness” and “transparency and explainability”.

Every subsequent piece of national guidance on AI has spun off these eight principles, imploring business, government and schools to put them into practice. But these voluntary principles have no real hold on organisations that develop and deploy AI systems.

Last month, the Australian government started consulting on a proposal that struck a different tone. Acknowledging “voluntary compliance […] is no longer enough”, it spoke of “mandatory guardrails for AI in high-risk settings”.

But the core idea of self-regulation remains stubbornly baked in. For example, it’s up to AI developers to determine whether their AI system is high risk, by having regard to a set of risks that can only be described as endemic to large-scale AI systems.

If this high hurdle is met, what mandatory guardrails kick in? For the most part, companies simply need to demonstrate they have internal processes gesturing at the AI ethics principles. The proposal is most notable, then, for what it does not include. There is no oversight, no consequences, no refusal, no redress.

But there is a different, ready-to-hand model that Australia could adopt for AI. It comes from another critical technology in the national interest: gene technology.

A different model

Gene technology is what’s behind genetically modified organisms. Like AI, it raises concerns for more than 60% of the population.

In Australia, it’s regulated by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. The regulator was established in 2001 to meet the biotech boom in agriculture and health. Since then, it’s become the exemplar of an expert-informed, highly transparent regulator focused on a specific technology with far-reaching consequences.

Three features have ensured the gene technology regulator’s national and international success.

First, it’s a single-mission body. It regulates dealings with genetically modified organisms:

to protect the health and safety of people, and to protect the environment, by identifying risks posed by or as a result of gene technology.

Second, it has a sophisticated decision-making structure. Thanks to it, the risk assessment of every application of gene technology in Australia is informed by sound expertise. It also insulates that assessment from political influence and corporate lobbying.

The regulator is informed by two integrated expert bodies: a Technical Advisory Committee and an Ethics and Community Consultative Committee. These bodies are complemented by Institutional Biosafety Committees supporting ongoing risk management at more than 200 research and commercial institutions accredited to use gene technology in Australia. This parallels best practice in food safety and drug safety.

Third, the regulator continuously integrates public input into its risk assessment process. It does so meaningfully and transparently. Every dealing with gene technology must be approved. Before a release into the wild, an exhaustive consultation process maximises review and oversight. This ensures a high threshold of public safety.

Regulating high-risk technologies

Together, these factors explain why Australia’s gene technology regulator has been so successful. They also highlight what’s missing in most emerging approaches to AI regulation.

The mandate of AI regulation typically involves an impossible compromise between protecting the public and supporting industry. As with gene regulation, it seeks to safeguard against risks. In the case of AI, those risks would be to health, the environment and human rights. But it also seeks to “maximise the opportunities that AI presents for our economy and society”.

Second, currently proposed AI regulation outsources risk assessment and management to commercial AI providers. Instead, it should develop a national evidence base, informed by cross-disciplinary scientific, socio-technical and civil society expertise.

The argument goes that AI is “out of the bag”, with potential applications too numerous and too mundane to regulate. Yet molecular biology methods are also well out of the bag. The gene tech regulator still maintains oversight of all uses of the technology, while continually working to categorise certain dealings as “exempt” or “low-risk” to facilitate research and development.

Third, the public has no meaningful opportunity to assent to dealings with AI. This is true regardless of whether it involves plundering the archives of our collective imaginations to build AI systems, or deploying them in ways that undercut dignity, autonomy and justice.

The lesson of more than two decades of gene regulation is that it doesn’t stop innovation to regulate a promising new technology until it can demonstrate a history of non-damaging use to people and the environment. In fact, it saves it.

The UWA Tech & Policy Lab receives funding from nationally competitive research grants and philanthropic partners. The present research was supported by GA308883: Effective Ethical Frameworks for the State as an Enabler of Innovation, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Julia Powles is the Director of the Lab and has served as an independent member of the National AI Centre’s Think Tank on Responsible AI, the Australian Government’s National Robotics Strategy Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Panel supporting the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Use of Generative AI in the Australian Education System. Through each of these bodies, she has provided advice on comparative AI regulation.

Haris Yusoff 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. Australia has led the way regulating gene technology for over 20 years. Here’s how it should apply that to AI – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-led-the-way-regulating-gene-technology-for-over-20-years-heres-how-it-should-apply-that-to-ai-240571