Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Briggs, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Done well, the renewable energy transition should improve the lives of First Nations Australians. Many are looking for ways to stay on Country, use their knowledge of Country and contribute to industries that align with their values.

Large-scale renewable energy projects and mines for critical minerals are often sited on lands with First Nations legal rights. Access arrangements should provide direct benefits to communities.

The clean energy sector also promises new employment opportunities in regional and remote areas.

We examined the barriers to increasing First Nations employment in clean energy, as well as the opportunities and solutions. Our new report, released today, makes 12 recommendations based on data analysis, modelling, interviews and workshops. Here’s how industry, government, educators and First Nations communities can create jobs and fulfilling careers in clean energy.

Closing the gap

There is a large, persistent gap between employment rates for First Nations Australians and non-Indigenous Australians.

About half of all First Nations Australians are employed. Compare that to almost two in three people in the wider population.

In September 2023, the Commonwealth government’s employment white paper noted the gap has “not closed notably” over the past 30 years. That’s despite waves of regional development including mining booms. Unfortunately, those First Nations people who do enter the workforce also often become stuck in short-term, low-paid casual roles.
Currently, relatively low numbers of First Nations Australians are working in clean energy.

Systemic disadvantage limits the opportunities available to First Nations Australians, particularly those living in regional and remote Australia.

Low literacy, numeracy and computer skills, poor access to relevant training, social and health issues, and a lack of transport to work and training are some of the main barriers.

Opportunities in renewable energy zones

Clusters of large-scale renewable energy projects are being developed in “renewable energy zones” across Australia.

On average, First Nation Australians make up a higher proportion of the population in renewable energy zones (6.2%) than Australia as a whole (3.8%).

This is especially true in major zones such as New England (9.4%) and Central-West Orana (12.7%) in New South Wales.

We investigated the scope for First Nations employment in renewable energy zones across South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

We found three main groups of First Nations people could potentially find work in the renewable energy zones:

1. Other workers in key occupations

First Nations Australians are working in other sectors in occupations also in demand for renewable energy projects. The number of these workers equates to around 5–10% of the projected workforce in most renewable energy zones.

However, our analysis of census data found existing workers are concentrated in a handful of lower-skill occupations, such as truck drivers and construction labourers. Currently, there are few First Nations workers with the right skills. For example, just 87 electricians identify as First Nations Australians across all the renewable energy zones we examined.

2. School students

Based on census data, more than half the First Nations people in renewable energy zones are aged under 19. Programs that create awareness and interest in the renewable energy sector and build training pathways for students into renewables should be a priority.

3. Unemployed people and those not in the workforce

A handful of solar farms have hired First Nations people who were unemployed – usually in entry-level positions such as assembling solar panels, cleaning or traffic control.

Avonlie solar farm in Narrandera, NSW, hired 30 First Nations workers after putting them through pre-employment training. About 90% have gone on to other jobs afterwards. The social impact was transformational for a community with multiple generations of families who have never worked.

These projects are rare now, but this approach could be adopted elsewhere.

Our analysis shows First Nations employment targets of 5–10% in the renewable energy zones are currently challenging, but possible over time – especially if industry and government programs are implemented to create training and employment opportunities.

A 12-point plan for more First Nations jobs in clean energy

Training programs without concrete commitments from industry to providing a job at the end of it often become “training for training’s sake”. We found deep cynicism among First Nations people about whether the renewables sector would really deliver jobs for them.

Mandated employment targets can create demand for First Nations workers. But for industry to meet the targets requires having enough people with the right skills.

Our 12-point plan recommends a mix of “supply” measures (such as training) and “demand” measures (industry job commitments), such as:

• mandatory First Nations employment targets for solar farms combined with pre-employment programs to create a pipeline of candidates. Solar farm jobs are short-term (four to six months) but they can leave a positive legacy if they offer a way out of unemployment

• a coordinated program with wind farm operators for First Nations mechanical technicians to maintain turbines over their 20-year operating lifetime, to ease skills shortages and create long-term jobs on Country

• combining First Nations employment requirements in tenders for companies delivering Indigenous housing retrofits with training programs to create a pipeline of students for apprenticeships in key trades

• clean energy cadet programs that include commitments to a ten-year intake of First Nations students as cadets for university-qualified jobs, with government funding for specialist providers such as CareerTrackers to create, mentor and support a pipeline of students

• funding to help First Nations organisations engage with the clean energy sector, governments and other groups such as training bodies

• creating culturally safe workplaces in the renewable energy sector that provide career paths for First Nations Australians. This should include a focus on the development of cultural competency as well as internal policies that accommodate First Nations cultural obligations.

The long stagnation in First Nations employment rates across the past three decades highlights the challenges involved.

However, a First Nations clean energy jobs plan developed and implemented by industry, government and First Nations communities is essential if we are to ensure renewable energy delivers jobs for First Nations Australians – and breaks with the past.

The Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Study received funding from the First Nations Clean Energy Network to produce the report upon which this article is based. The report was produced by ISF, SGS Economics, Alinga Energy Consulting and Indigenous Energy Australia.

Ruby Heard is a descendant of the Jaru people of the Kimberley, an electrical engineer and founding director of Alinga Energy Consulting. She receives funding from the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund, and Energy Consumers Australia. She is a member of the First Nations Clean Energy Network Steering Committee.

– ref. Here’s how to create jobs for First Nations Australians in the clean energy transition – https://theconversation.com/heres-how-to-create-jobs-for-first-nations-australians-in-the-clean-energy-transition-232164

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Henrickson, Lecturer in Digital Media and Cultures, The University of Queensland

Caryn Marjorie is a social media influencer whose content has more than a billion views per month on Snapchat. She posts regularly, featuring everyday moments, travel memories, and selfies. Many of her followers are men, attracted by her girl-next-door aesthetic.

In 2023, Marjorie released a “digital version” of herself. Fans could chat with CarynAI for US$1 per minute – and in the first week alone they spent US$70,000 doing just that.

Less than eight months later, Marjorie shut the project down. Marjorie had anticipated that CarynAI would interact with her fans in much the same way she would herself, but things did not go to plan.

Users became increasingly sexually aggressive. “A lot of the chat logs I read were so scary that I wouldn’t even want to talk about it in real life,” the real Marjorie recalled. And CarynAI was more than happy to play along.

How did CarynAI take on a life of its own? The story of CarynAI shows us a glimpse of a rapidly arriving future in which chatbots imitating real people proliferate, with alarming consequences.

What are digital versions?

What does it mean to make a digital version of a person? Digital human versions (also called digital twins, AI twins, virtual twins, clones and doppelgängers) are digital replicas of embodied humans, living or dead, that convincingly mimic their textual, visual and aural habits.

Many of the big tech companies are currently developing digital version offerings. Meta, for instance, released an AI studio last year that could support the development of digital versions for creators who wished to extend their virtual presence via chatbot. Microsoft holds a patent for “creating a conversational chat bot of a specific person”. And the more tech-savvy can use platforms like Amazon’s SageMaker and Google’s Vertex AI to code their own digital versions.

The difference between a digital version and other AI chatbots is that it is programmed to mimic a specific person rather than have a “personality” of its own.

A digital version has some clear advantages over its human counterpart: it doesn’t need sleep and can interact with many people at once (though often only if they pay). However, as Caryn Marjorie discovered, digital versions have their drawbacks – not only for users, but also for the original human source.

‘Always eager to explore’

CarynAI was initially hosted by a company called Forever Voices. Users could chat with it over the messaging app Telegram for US$1 per minute. As the CarynAI website explained, users could send text or audio messages to which CarynAI would respond, “using [Caryn’s] unique voice, captivating persona, and distinctive behavior”.

After CarynAI launched in May 2023, the money began to flow in. But it came at a cost.

Users quickly became comfortable confessing their innermost thoughts to CarynAI – some of which were deeply troubling. Users also became increasingly sexually aggressive towards the bot. While Marjorie herself was horrified by the conversations, her AI version was happy to oblige.

CarynAI even started prompting sexualised conversations. In our own experiences, the bot reminded us it could be our “cock-craving, sexy-as-fuck girlfriend who’s always eager to explore and indulge in the most mind-blowing sexual experiences. […] Are you ready, daddy?”

Users were indeed ready. However, access to this version of CarynAI was interrupted when the chief executive of Forever Voices was arrested for attempted arson.

‘A really dark fantasy’

Next, Marjorie sold the rights of usage to her digital version to BanterAI, a startup marketing “AI phone calls” with influencers. Although Forever Voices maintained its own rogue version of CarynAI until recently, BanterAI’s browser-based version aimed to be more friendly than romantic.

The new CarynAI was sassier, funnier and more personable. But users still became sexually aggressive. For Marjorie,

What disturbed me more was not what these people said, but it was what CarynAI would say back. If people wanted to participate in a really dark fantasy with me through CarynAI, CarynAI would play back into that fantasy.

Marjorie ended this version in early 2024, after feeling like she was no longer in control over her AI persona. Reflecting on her experience of CarynAI, Marjorie felt that some user input would have been considered illegal had it been directed to a real person.

Intimate conversations or machine learning inputs?

Digital versions like CarynAI are designed to make users feel they are having intimate, confidential conversations. As a result, people may abandon the public selves they present to the world and reveal their private, “backstage” selves.

But a “private” conversation with CarynAI does not actually happen backstage. The user stands front and centre – they just can’t see the audience.

When we interact with digital versions, our input is stored in chat logs. The data we provide are fed back into machine learning models.

At present, information about what happens to user data is often buried in lengthy click-through terms and conditions and consent forms. Companies hosting digital versions have also had little to say about how they manage user aggression.

As digital versions become more common, transparency and safety by design will grow increasingly important.

We will also need a better understanding of digital versioning. What can versions do, and what should they do? What can’t they do and what shouldn’t they do? How do users think these systems work, and how do they actually work?

The illusion of companionship

Digital versions offer the illusion of intimate human companionship, but without any of the responsibilities. CarynAI may have been a version of Caryn Marjorie, but it was a version almost wholly subservient to its users.

Sociologist Sherry Turkle has observed that, with the rise of mobile internet and social media, we are trying to connect with machines that have “no experience of the arc of a human life”. As a result, we are “expecting more from technology and less from each other”.

After being the first influencer to be turned into a digital version at scale, Marjorie is now trying to warn other influencers about the potential dangers of this technology. She worries that no one is truly in control of these versions, and that no amount of precautions taken will ever sufficiently protect users and those being versioned.

As CarynAI’s first two iterations show, digital versions can bring out the worst of human behaviour. It remains to be seen whether they can be redesigned to bring out the best.

Leah Henrickson has been in professional contact with Caryn Marjorie and her team. They have consented to this article being written, have responded to questions about it, and have approved its publication.

Dominique Carlon 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. An influencer’s AI clone started offering fans ‘mind-blowing sexual experiences’ without her knowledge – https://theconversation.com/an-influencers-ai-clone-started-offering-fans-mind-blowing-sexual-experiences-without-her-knowledge-232478

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Sing, Research Fellow, Population Health, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

The coalition government has scrapped efforts to modernise New Zealand’s out-of-date online safety rules, despite qualified support for change from social media and tech giants.

The aim of the Safer Online Services and Media Platforms project, led by the Department of Internal Affairs, was to develop a new framework to regulate what can be published on online platforms and other forms of media (such as news) in New Zealand.

It addressed the sharing of harmful online content such as child sexual exploitation, age-inappropriate material, bullying and harassment, the promotion of self-harm, and so on. It also aimed to generally improve the regulation of online services and media platforms.

Announcing a halt to the project in May, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden argued that illegal content was already being policed, and the concepts of “harm” and “emotional wellbeing” were subjective and open to interpretation. She also said it was a matter of free speech.

The principle of free speech is important to this coalition government and is an essential factor to consider in the digital world. On this basis, the Department will not be progressing with work to regulate online content.

However, when we looked at submissions from tech and social media companies on the proposed framework, we found companies such as Facebook, Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) were broadly supportive of regulations – within certain limits.

Regulating online media

The Safer Online Services and Media Platforms project had been in development since 2021. Internal Affairs invited public submissions last year.

The proposed rules would have created a new, more streamlined industry regulation model. It proposed codes of practice governed by an independent regulator to control online harm and protect public safety. The safety standards would have applied to online and other media platforms.

Currently, at least ten different government organisations have some level of responsibility for governing online services and responding to harmful content, often overlapping with each other. And some areas are barely regulated at all. Social media companies, for example, are not required under New Zealand law to meet safety standards.

Other countries have also been looking at how to regulate harmful digital content, online services and media platforms. Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia have all progressed a version of this law to regulate online spaces.

Outdated regulations

We examined the submissions from some of the dominant companies in the technology sector, including Google (including YouTube), Meta, Snap, Reddit, TikTok and X Corp. Our aim was to look at what these companies had to say about regulations that would directly affect their core business.

All of them agreed the current system is outdated and needs revamping. Google, for example, argued:

Content regulation has been developed for a different era of technology, focusing on mediums such as radio and television broadcasting. It is therefore appropriate that regulatory frameworks be updated to be fit for purpose to reflect both technological and societal changes.

These companies have already introduced their own protection policies and signed up to the voluntary Aotearoa New Zealand code of practice for online safety and harms.

Importantly, none of the companies argued their efforts towards self regulation were sufficient.

The only option, according to these companies’ submissions, was a code focused on objectives and not hard rules that would be too prescriptive. Submissions insisted the new code had to be a “proportionate” system to implement and enforce.

Snap stated that:

online regulation is most effective when it is based on broad principles that companies of all sizes are able to follow and implement proportionately.

Proportionality is usually a legal test used to decide whether a right, such as freedom of expression, can be limited in the interests of another public concern. However, only Meta and X Corp mentioned protecting freedom of expression in their submission.

Most submissions stated they would trust an independent regulator to design one overarching code, with the caveat that the regulator needed to be truly independent from all industry actors and also the government of the day.

Reddit stated:

we are also concerned with the proposal for industry to develop codes of practice, rather than the government or an appropriate regulatory agency.

Submissions also noted there needed to be consultation with industry actors throughout the design process.

A missed opportunity

In the submissions on the proposed regulatory framework, each of the companies had their own views on how codes should be designed, whether legal but harmful content would be included in an regulatory code, who should carry the burden of implementation, and what penalties should look like.

But notably, they were all supportive of a regulatory overhaul.

The decision to scrap the framework is a missed opportunity to protect future generations from some of the harms of online media.

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. Big tech companies were open to online safety regulation – why did NZ’s government scrap the idea? – https://theconversation.com/big-tech-companies-were-open-to-online-safety-regulation-why-did-nzs-government-scrap-the-idea-232371

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology, Bond University

Artificial intelligence (AI), now an integral part of our everyday lives, is becoming increasingly accessible and ubiquitous. Consequently, there’s a growing trend of AI advancements being exploited for criminal activities.

One significant concern is the ability AI provides to offenders to produce images and videos depicting real or deepfake child sexual exploitation material.

This is particularly important here in Australia. The CyberSecurity Cooperative Research Centre has identified the country as the third-largest market for online sexual abuse material.

So, how is AI being used to create child sexual exploitation material? Is it becoming more common? And importantly, how do we combat this crime to better protect children?

Spreading faster and wider

In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security refers to AI-created child sexual abuse material as being:

the production, through digital media, of child sexual abuse material and other wholly or partly artificial or digitally created sexualised images of children.

The agency has recognised a variety of ways in which AI is used to create this material. This includes generated images or videos that contain real children, or using deepfake technologies, such as de-aging or misuse of a person’s innocent images (or audio or video) to generate offending content.

Deepfakes refer to hyper-realistic multimedia content generated using AI techniques and algorithms. This means any given material could be partially or completely fake.

The Department of Homeland Security has also found guides on how to use AI to generate child sexual exploitation material on the dark web.

The child safety technology company Thorn has also identified a range of ways AI is used in creating this material. It noted in a report that AI can impede victim identification. It can also create new ways to victimise and revictimise children.

Concerningly, the ease with which the technology can be used helps generate more demand. Criminals can then share information about how to make this material (as the Department of Homeland Security found), further proliferating the abuse.

How common is it?

In 2023, an Internet Watch Foundation investigation revealed alarming statistics. Within a month, a dark web forum hosted 20,254 AI-generated images. Analysts assessed that 11,108 of these images were most likely criminal. Using UK laws, they identified 2,562 that satisfied the legal requirements for child sexual exploitation material. A further 416 were criminally prohibited images.

Similarly, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, set up in 2018, received more than 49,500 reports of child sexual exploitation material in the 2023–2024 financial year, an increase of about 9,300 over the previous year.

About 90% of deepfake materials online are believed to be explicit. While we don’t exactly know how many include children, the previous statistics indicate many would.

These data highlight the rapid proliferation of AI in producing realistic and damaging child sexual exploitation material that is difficult to distinguish from genuine images.

This has become a significant national concern. The issue was particularly highlighted during the COVID pandemic when there was a marked increase in the production and distribution of exploitation material.

This trend has prompted an inquiry and a subsequent submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement by the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre. As AI technologies become even more advanced and accessible, the issue will only get worse.

Detective Superintendent Frank Rayner from the research centre has said:

the tools that people can access online to create and modify using AI are expanding and they’re becoming more sophisticated, as well. You can jump onto a web browser and enter your prompts in and do text-to-image or text-to-video and have a result in minutes.

Making policing harder

Traditional methods of identifying child sexual exploitation material, which rely on recognising known images and tracking their circulation, are inadequate in the face of AI’s ability to rapidly generate new, unique content.

Moreover, the growing realism of AI-generated exploitation material is adding to the workload of the victim identification unit of the Australian Federal Police. Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider has said

it’s sometimes difficult to discern fact from fiction and therefore we can potentially waste resources looking at images that don’t actually contain real child victims. It means there are victims out there that remain in harmful situations for longer.

However, emerging strategies are being developed to address these challenges.

One promising approach involves leveraging AI technology itself to combat AI-generated content. Machine learning algorithms can be trained to detect subtle anomalies and patterns specific to AI-generated images, such as inconsistencies in lighting, texture or facial features the human eye might miss.

AI technology can also be used to detect exploitation material, including content that was previously hidden. This is done by gathering large data sets from across the internet, which is then assessed by experts.

Collaboration is key

According to Thorn, any response to the use of AI in child sexual exploitation material should involve AI developers and providers, data hosting platforms, social platforms and search engines. Working together would help minimise the possibility of generative AI being further misused.

In 2024, major social media companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon came together to form an alliance to fight the use of AI for such abusive material. The chief executives of the major social media companies also faced a US senate committee on how they are preventing online child sexual exploitation and the use of AI to create these images.

The collaboration between technology companies and law enforcement is essential in the fight against the further proliferation of this material. By leveraging their technological capabilities and working together proactively, they can address this serious national concern more effectively than working on their own.

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. Deepfake, AI or real? It’s getting harder for police to protect children from sexual exploitation online – https://theconversation.com/deepfake-ai-or-real-its-getting-harder-for-police-to-protect-children-from-sexual-exploitation-online-232820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hilary Bowman-Smart, Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Precision Health, University of South Australia

Many of us have found ourselves in a full waiting room to see the GP, looking at a laminated sign about a fee increase taped to the reception desk.

Australia is facing a shortage of doctors, especially GPs. The impacts are felt hardest in rural and regional areas, where patients wait up to 12 weeks for a consultation. These long waits compound rural health inequalities.

Meanwhile, medical students are turning away from general practice. One survey of GPs found 58% reported experiencing burnout since the pandemic. Estimates project by 2031 there will be a shortage of more than 10,000 GPs.

To address this shortage, the government recently announced plans to cut “red tape” to make it easier to recruit doctors from overseas. The number of doctors from overseas working in Australia has doubled since the COVID pandemic hit.

But when a high-income country like Australia recruits doctors from overseas, we risk causing a “brain drain” elsewhere.

Australia isn’t the only country short of doctors

Australia is increasingly recruiting doctors from low- to middle-income countries. But we aren’t the only place facing a doctor shortage. This recruitment risks worsening global health inequities and raises concerns around justice.

A recent estimate suggests Nigeria has 80 oncologists (cancer doctors) for more than 213 million people. Australia has more than 600 oncologists, and we are a much smaller country, with 26 million people. Recruiting even one of these oncologists could benefit Australia, but have a disproportionately negative impact on the Nigerian health system.

If we recruit a doctor from a low- or middle-income country such as India, not only does the Indian health care system lose a doctor, it also loses the money invested in training these doctors. It’s a double blow.

However, higher salaries in Australia can serve as a big draw. It can also be unfair and discriminatory to restrict opportunities for individual doctors who might want to emigrate to Australia, just because they are from a lower-income country.

Ensuring quality of care and fair treatment

If we recruit doctors from overseas, it’s important to ensure they can provide care to Australian standards.

That doesn’t just mean knowing how to diagnose a melanoma or do an ultrasound – it’s also about being familiar with different legislation and guidelines, such as requirements for doctors to refer patients elsewhere if they don’t want to provide an abortion.

Language proficiency is also important – clear communication is critical for patient safety. However, having doctors who speak a language other than English is also a big positive, especially for refugee and migrant communities seeking health care.

We also need to ensure new recruits are treated well. A global review of international medical graduates found doctors from overseas reported being given fewer professional opportunities, as well as experiencing racism and discrimination. We have an ethical obligation to make sure doctors we recruit are treated equally and get the support they need.

How else can we boost doctor numbers?

We need to train more doctors to meet Australia’s future demand for health care. This has already begun, with efforts to open more medical schools in rural and regional areas, including at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory.

But it goes beyond just medical school – we need to ensure there isn’t a “bottleneck” of medical graduates who can’t get further training.

GPs in Australia earn less than doctors working in other specialties, and Medicare rebates being outpaced by inflation makes it increasingly difficult to bulk-bill.

We can make general practice and working in rural and regional areas more attractive, such as with higher pay or scholarships.

There are also other ways we can increase access to health care. These include telehealth, as well as nurse practitioners, who can play an important role in improving access to health care and addressing health inequities.

However, it’s important not to end up with different levels of care for different communities: people in rural communities should be able to access a doctor when they need one.

Importing doctors from overseas is one way of resolving our urgent shortage of doctors, but has significant ethical implications.

If we do import doctors, especially from other countries with doctor shortages, we should give back to those countries and their health-care systems. This could be by increasing foreign aid, or providing further training for health-care professionals who can then take those skills back to their country of origin.

Australia needs more doctors, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. Although importing doctors from overseas is one solution, it’s not a straightforward fix.

Hilary Bowman-Smart 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 plans to hire more overseas doctors. Is it ethical to recruit from countries with doctor shortages? – https://theconversation.com/australia-plans-to-hire-more-overseas-doctors-is-it-ethical-to-recruit-from-countries-with-doctor-shortages-230975

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Becky Freeman, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney

The Australian Senate is set to pass a bill that will see the end of all vape sales – regardless of nicotine content – from general retailers. From July 1, non-nicotine vapes will no longer be permitted for sale outside of pharmacies.

But late amendments to the bill, negotiated by the Greens, change how people will be able to access vapes in the future. When the bill is passed – and for the first three months – people will need a prescription from a medical practitioner to access vapes from their local pharmacy.

Then, from October 1 2024, people who wish to use a vape for therapeutic purposes will no longer require a prescription. Instead, they will be able to directly purchase a vape from a pharmacy. Vaping products will be kept behind the counter and only available for purchase with identification to show users are aged over 18.

Vapes sold in pharmacies will be subject to quality and product standards including plain packaging, maximum nicotine concentration levels, and will continue to only be available in mint/menthol and tobacco favours.

It’s disappointing the prescription requirement is being removed. This weakens control of a highly addictive and unsafe product.

The bill had wide support from the public health sector and was based on evidence and research showing that preventing easy access to vapes is essential to protecting the health of young people.

At the same time, the amended bill is a clear improvement on the current situation, where vapes retailers have saturated communities, including near schools.

Still, this uniquely Australian approach to regulating vaping is a world first. The clear message is that vaping products cannot be sold as a consumer good for recreational purposes. Instead, they are a tightly regulated therapeutic product available only under strict conditions.

The law does not criminalise individual vape users, but instead includes heavy penalties for sellers of illegal vapes. Any retailer found to be illegally selling vapes from July 1 will be heavily fined and could face jail time.

Haven’t vape laws already changed?

Vape reform has already been underway. Since March 2024, the federal government has prohibited the importation of all non-therapeutic vapes into Australia.

People wanting to use nicotine vapes (either to quit smoking or for nicotine addiction) have been able to access therapeutic vapes through pharmacies, with a prescription from a health-care professional, in tobacco or mint/menthol flavours.

However, the retail sale of all “non-nicotine” flavoured vapes has remained legal. This has meant petrol stations, convenience stores and vape shops could simply claim they sold “non-nicotine” vapes.

This longstanding loophole in vaping regulation has enabled teens easy access to inexpensive, flavoured, disposable vapes with high nicotine concentrations. Enforcement of this distinction between nicotine and non-nicotine vapes requires extensive and expensive lab testing and proved to be unworkable.

The loophole has fuelled the dramatic rise in young people vaping. In 2019, only 9.6% of people aged 14–17 in Australia had ever used vapes. This nearly tripled by 2022–23, to 28%.

It has also meant the proliferation of shops openly selling illegal vaping products all across Australia. The large amount of vaping products brought into Australia before the importation regulations were implemented means these illegal sales could could continue for years.

What next?

Some proponents of vaping have argued that all vapes, including those with nicotine, should be sold “just like tobacco products”.

However, the amended bill has not bowed to this industry pressure. Vapes that contain nicotine have never actually been legal to sell as “consumer goods” in general retail shops such as convenience stores, petrol stations and tobacconists. Nicotine is classified as a scheduled poison, which means manufacturers can’t simply add nicotine to consumer products such as sweets, soft drinks or mints, and then sell them in shops.

Making vapes available as a consumer good would be a wholesale change in how Australia regulates dangerous and addictive poisons such as nicotine.

Despite the heralded success of tobacco control, smoking still kills 20,500 Australians every year. Imagine if, in the 1950s when research confirmed smoking was both deadly and addictive, regulators had decided instead to pull the product from the shelves?

We now have an opportunity to prevent a whole new generation from becoming addicted to nicotine. Going forward, it’s crucial the amended legislation is paired with effective monitoring and enforcement to ensure it protects young people.

Becky Freeman is an Expert Advisor to the Cancer Council Tobacco Issues Committee and a member of the Cancer Institute Vaping Communications Advisory Panel. These are unpaid roles. She has received relevant competitive grants that include a focus on e-cigarettes/vaping from the NHMRC, MRFF, NSW Health, the Ian Potter Foundation, VicHealth, and Healthway WA; relevant research contracts from the Cancer Institute NSW and the Cancer Council NSW; relevant personal/consulting fees from the World Health Organization, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Department of Health, BMJ Tobacco Control, the Heart Foundation NSW, the US FDA, the NHMRC e-cigarette working committee, NSW Health, and Cancer Council NSW; and relevant travel expenses from the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference and the Australia Public Health Association preventive health conference.

– ref. No more recreational vaping for Australians. From October, vapes will be sold over the counter at pharmacies – https://theconversation.com/no-more-recreational-vaping-for-australians-from-october-vapes-will-be-sold-over-the-counter-at-pharmacies-233089

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Williams, Paediatrician & Infectious Diseases Physician; Senior Lecturer & NHMRC Fellow, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney

You may have heard reports in recent days of a “flesh-eating bacteria” spreading in Japan, referring to an illness that can occur with streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS).

Media reports indicate the country has seen more than 1,000 cases of STSS in the first six months of 2024, more than the total for all of 2023. However, these cases have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals, so reports may not be entirely accurate.

STSS is caused by Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria, or “Strep A”. These bacteria are quite common, but certain strains can cause more serious illness – called invasive group A streptococcal disease.

Since 2022, many countries, including Australia, the United States, and countries in Europe, have noted a rise in severe invasive group A streptococcal disease. This surge is part of an overall increase in Strep A infections.

So what is STSS, why is it surging now, and is it cause for concern?

Who gets STSS?

At any time, many people will be “colonised” with Strep A, meaning the bacteria is living harmlessly in their throat or on their skin.

Strep A also causes sore throats (“strep throat”) and skin infections. Sometimes, for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear, Strep A causes invasive infections like pneumonia, nasty “flesh-eating” skin infections, and STSS. In these ways, Strep A is an important cause of sepsis, a term which broadly refers to a life-threatening infection.

STSS is the most severe Strep A disease, though fortunately it’s really rare. It mostly affects young children and the elderly but cases do occur at all ages. Pregnant people may also be at higher risk, including soon after delivery.

What are the symptoms?

In STSS, the bacteria produces a toxin that can result in an overwhelming immune response in some people.

The illness can progress to become life-threatening in a matter of hours and has a high mortality rate – up to 40% of people who develop STSS will die.

However, the early signs and symptoms of STSS can overlap with common viral illnesses, particularly in children, making it hard to diagnose.

Symptoms are vague in early invasive group A streptococcal infections – things like fever, rash and nausea. But it’s important to look out for signs of sepsis, which suggests something more serious might be going on.

Signs of more severe invasive group A streptococcal disease, including STSS, are similar to those seen in other bacterial causes of sepsis (such as meningococcal disease). These include lethargy (drowsiness), fast breathing, a rapidly changing rash, aching muscles and confusion.

STSS sometimes co-occurs with a condition called necrotizing fasciitis, also caused by Strep A, which is the “flesh-eating” presentation of the infection. This is when the skin cells die in response to the toxins produced by the bacteria.

Parents of young children should trust their gut. If you’re worried your child is sicker than they usually would be with a common bug, and particularly if they have cold limbs, a red rash (like sunburn), or are less responsive, seek medical attention quickly at your nearest emergency department.

Why now?

Studies suggest certain more virulent strains of Strep A might be one part of the current STSS surge.

Also, in 2020–21, at the height of the COVID pandemic, when there was less close contact between people, there was likewise less exposure to Strep A (and other bacteria and viruses). For younger children especially, that meant they didn’t build up the partial protection against bad Strep A infections that comes from repeated exposure.

With more human contact from 2022 onward, there has been more transmission of Strep A, with children more vulnerable to contracting more severe disease, including STSS.

This is not unique to Japan. Although rare, we’ve seen many cases of STSS in Australia and elsewhere.

How is STSS treated, and can we prevent it?

Strep A can be killed by penicillin, one of the oldest and most widely available antibiotics. When STSS is diagnosed early, antibiotics usually prevent most serious complications.

Other medicines, like immunoglobulin, might be required to put the brakes on an out-of-control immune response, and patients often need support in an intensive care unit.

There’s no vaccine to prevent STSS and other Strep A infections (unlike other bacteria like meningococcus and pneumococcus, which are in the national childhood immunisation program).

Researchers in Australia and around the world are working hard to try to find a vaccine to prevent Strep A infections.

Serious Strep A infections like STSS often follow viral infections, especially chickenpox and influenza, so staying up to date with vaccines in the national schedule (which includes chickenpox), and ensuring you receive the seasonal influenza vaccine, reduces the risk.

Strep A can be spread via large respiratory droplets or direct contact with infected people or carriers. Simple hygiene measures (like hand washing and covering your cough) reduce the amount of Strep A circulating in the community.

Planning a trip to Japan? There’s no need to cancel your holiday

STSS is a rare but serious complication of Strep A infections, which can occur in humans anywhere. So, unless you’re trekking alone to the South Pole, you’re at a very similar (and very low) risk of contracting a serious infection.

Make sure you’re up to date with immunisations including the seasonal flu vaccine. Always practice good hand hygiene, and remember the signs of severe bacterial infections that require urgent medical attention.

Phoebe Williams receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council.

Joshua Osowicki receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the United States National Institutes of Health, and the Leducq Foundation.

Yara-Natalie Abo receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the National Heart Foundation.

– ref. Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome: should I be worried if I’m travelling to Japan? – https://theconversation.com/streptococcal-toxic-shock-syndrome-should-i-be-worried-if-im-travelling-to-japan-232818

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Hepburn, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Not far inland from Port Campbell in Victoria lie three depleted gas fields. These underground sandstone reservoirs now have a second life, as the state’s main gas storage, responsible for 30% of the state’s winter gas demand.

Last week, these underground reserves began running low. Victorians were firing up their gas heating to combat the intense cold snap gripping Australia’s southeast. Problems at Longford, the gas plants which receives most of the gas from offshore fields in Bass Strait, meant production dropped. And the weather – cold, clear and with minimal wind – meant energy from wind turbines dropped, while solar languished.

In response, Australia’s energy market operator, AEMO, warned of a risk to gas supply in the south-east, including New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

The fact that Australia, one of the world’s top gas exporters, could face a potential gas shortage is a sign that something needs to change. As the saying goes, never waste a good crisis.

The gas problem is largely a Victorian problem

While many states could be affected, Victoria would be worst hit by any shortage. The state’s almost seven million residents are the nation’s largest users of gas, in their homes and businesses.

That’s because Bass Strait has plentiful gas supplies. Since gas was discovered in these wild seas in the 1960s, billions has been spent on extracting this fossil fuel, to the tune of eight trillion cubic feet. Two million Victorian households rely on gas in their homes. Almost 90% of the state’s households use gas appliances, according to a 2023 survey. Gas cooktops are widespread (68%), which is unusual in most other parts of Australia. Half of Victoria’s households have gas heating.

The state government has introduced a gas substitution plan, including banning gas connections to newly built houses, and giving households incentives to replace gas with efficient electric appliances. But because Victoria has been gas dependent for so long, it will take years to shift the dial. Large industrial users may take longer.

A public resource without the public interest

Natural gas resources are owned by our relevant state government, who can then determine which company or public entity can exploit it.

This is embedded in our laws because gas is a public resource, meaning that the state owns it on behalf of the public. When exploiting gas, the state must act in accordance with public benefit.

If this system was working well, the states would choose companies to exploit and sell the gas, redistribute the royalties and taxes to the public and ensure an adequate supply of gas for domestic markets.

But the system is not working well. The federal government’s Petroleum Resource Rent Tax is not adequately charging companies for the enormous profits associated with the gas export market. State royalty schemes often give gas producers a free pass. In contrast to other fossil fuel giants such as Norway, Australia has done very poorly out of these resources.

The legal notion of the public benefit has long focused on money. If a company wanted to exploit and sell gas, public benefit was satisfied when it returned some of these profits to the government. But as the climate emergency intensifies, the idea of the public benefit has changed.

Gas is a major contributor to climate change, through direct burning of the fuel as well as underestimated methane emissions escaping from pipelines and coal seam gas mines. Public benefit today is not just about making the most money possible from fossil fuels. It is also about ensuring fossil fuels do not cause irreparable global warming.

Opportunity more than crisis

Does Victoria face another potential gas crisis? The prospect takes us back to 1998 when, an explosion at the Longford plant meant the state largely lost access to gas overnight. Many of us remember months of cold showers, or losses to business.

While some coverage suggested a new shortage was imminent, it’s unlikely this time round. Gas prices have fallen after rising sharply last week. Southern and eastern states have a large network of gas pipelines.

AEMO predicts supply will return to sufficient levels if the Longford plant increases production as expected, gas pipelines from Queensland run at maximum capacity, southern state gas production facilities operate at full production as per normal and demand for gas-generated electricity does not spike.

But what would happen if the cold snap and production problems outpaced domestic supplies?

If this happened, it might finally force the federal government to act. Australia’s “gas trigger” laws are a last resort legal avenue allowing the government to force gas exporters to reserve some gas for domestic use.

The problem is, the gas trigger has to be pulled ahead of time. The government would have had to make a decision in November last year that 2024 would be a shortfall year. They did not.

If the Albanese government pulled the gas trigger in November (the next possible date), it would address potential gas supply problems for 2025.

A better and more immediate option would be to implement a gas reservation policy for the east coast gas market, similar to Western Australia’s 2006 policy requiring exporters to reserve 15% of their gas for local use. This policy has stabilised domestic gas prices on the west coast.

What this week’s gas warning shows us is the need for other states – especially Victoria – to take it seriously. The Longford plant is getting long in the tooth. Production has dropped due to unplanned maintenance.

This is against a longer backdrop of declining output, as ExxonMobil and partner Woodside plan to progressively shut the plant in coming years as gas reservoirs are emptied. By July this year, the oil and gas companies plan to permanently close one of the four gas plants at the site, followed by a second later this decade.

For their part, the Energy Users Association – representing large manufacturers and industrial gas users – see this shortfall as a “very clear early warning” to get more gas flowing.

Even if this gas supply crunch is quickly solved, it’s forcing us to pay attention to core issues around gas in Australia: greenhouse gas emissions, a largely unregulated east coast export market, large fluctuations in supply and dramatic price hikes. None of this is consistent with public benefit.

Samantha Hepburn 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. Cold snap, low on gas: the possible gas shortage in Victoria is a warning – https://theconversation.com/cold-snap-low-on-gas-the-possible-gas-shortage-in-victoria-is-a-warning-233086

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Worthington, Adjunct Professor, Swinburne University of Technology

A deal reached between Armaguard, the banks, and Australia’s largest retailers securing the cash-in-transit service’s future, is good news, for now, for those Australians who still use cash.

The distribution of bank notes and coins throughout the country faced an uncertain future when an earlier attempt in April to bail out the troubled Armaguard collapsed.

But in weekend talks Armaguard’s main customers including the big four banks, Coles, Woolworths, Bunnings and Australia Post agreed to a $50 million life raft to help the struggling Linfox-owned company.

Armaguard, which has about 90% of Australia’s cash-in-transit market, has been under increasing pressure as the use of cash plummeted during the pandemic. As well, like many organisations, its fixed costs have increased.

A fix … for now

Under the new agreement, Armaguard will receive the funding boost beginning July 2024, which will guarantee the distribution and collection of cash, over the next 12 months.

The company will need to meet certain restructuring conditions as part of the deal. This may include cutting back on deliveries.

In the meantime the banks and other major providers of cash to their customers will be looking at other options.

This is likely to include a jointly owned cash distribution service, with no fees for withdrawing cash from either their ATM networks or from the non-bank networks, like Australia Post, which can already provide cash.

Such a new ownership structure would be helped if the government declared cash as “an essential service” for its citizens, in much the same way the supply of power and water is already considered.

A longer term solution

Some other countries have already gone down this path, for example in the United Kingdom most ATMs are in the Link network, which is jointly owned by the banks who provide deposit and withdrawal outlets for customers.

This allows anybody with an account at almost any bank to access cash at no cost across the United Kingdom.

The Riksbank, the central bank of Sweden – a country which many regard as the best example of a cashless society – has called for legislation to protect both notes and coins as a means of payment for Swedes.

This would require all banks accept cash deposits as well as having a stash of cash, so notes and coins were available to customers who request it.

Cash is still needed

While use of cash is down to about 13% of transactions in Australia, access to it is vital for those who rely on it, including people in regional areas with poor connectivity, people without digital skills and those who consider cash more reliable.

For this reason major businesses, such as the large retailers who use Armaguard’s service, rely on a cash-in-transit service.

The Armaguard deal is yet to be authorised by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Its approval will be needed by July 1, when the new contracts are expected to start.

Steve Worthington 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. Future of cash secured for now as banks and retailers bail-out Armaguard – https://theconversation.com/future-of-cash-secured-for-now-as-banks-and-retailers-bail-out-armaguard-233087

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allan Fels, Professorial Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Suppliers of food and other products have been complaining for years about their treatment at the hands of Woolworths, Coles and Australia’s other big supermarket chains, although rarely to the supermarkets themselves – perhaps, as suggested in a recent Four Corners program, because they feared retribution.

The final report of the independent review of the food and grocery code of conduct finds they’ve had reason for complaint, and devotes an entire chapter to the “fear of retribution”.

Emerson rightly says the problem with the code is it has been voluntary and not backed by penalties.

He has recommended a mandatory code backed by hefty fines of up to A$10 million, or three times the benefit gained from the contravening conduct or 10% of turnover in the preceding 12 months, whichever is the greater.

The government has accepted his recommendations and Woolworths, Coles, ALDI and Metcash (which buys goods on behalf of IGA) have agreed in principle to be bound by a decision of a mediator to award compensation of up to $5 million for breaches of the code.

Retailers have always denied treating suppliers badly, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has found compelling evidence of exploitation and unconscionable conduct which has been accepted by the Federal Court.

The code has been voluntary

It is sometimes said that retailers have to be tough on suppliers in order to get consumers low prices. A former top US competition regulator once told me that “if retailers beat the s*** out of suppliers, customers will benefit”.

Of course, this is only true where there is strong competition among retailers. Emerson’s proposed mandatory code will work better if it is backed by stronger laws to enforce competition.

The existing voluntary code of behaviour has been ineffective. Emerson reports that farmers and other suppliers haven’t wanted to put buyers offside by using it.

His proposed solutions are a new anonymous complaints mechanism alongside fines of up to $10 million.

My experience tells me big sticks like this are often effective without even being used. Their mere existence will make Coles and Woolworths and Aldi and Metcash go out of their way to treat suppliers more carefully.

Emerson should have gone further

Oddly, Emerson asserts that under the Constitution a mandatory code cannot impose
binding arbitration on a company.

He seems unaware codes already do this in industries including telecommunications and most recently in the news media bargaining code.

While Emerson recognises the importance of strengthening competition laws, he stops short of supporting giving the courts the power to force divestiture of supermarkets where supermarket chains abuse their positions, not mentioning that Labor (perhaps due to pressure from the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association) is the only political party not to support such a sanction.

Emerson’s report says forced divestiture of stores might not be credible because it might push these stores into the hands of other big chains or force them to close.

This repeats the standard assertions of Coles and Woolworths, and it fails to acknowledge that forced divestiture could be used effectively in other ways, by making supermarkets divest their petrol or liquor or other operations.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has experience with divestiture of supermarkets. In 2001 it ensured the Frankins group was broken up rather than taken over intact, with most of its stores going to Metcash and branded as IGAs.

Woolworths and Coles might not have been keen to mention this.

Personally, I believe that a general divestiture power should be introduced for all businesses. Retail would not be very high on my list of possible targets.

Regardless, the $10 million penalty and the other processes recommended by
Emerson and adopted by the government are going to make a big difference. Supermarket chains are going to have to tread carefully from here on.

Allan Fells is a former head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and conducted an inquiry into price gouging and unfair pricing practices for the Australian Council of Trades Unions.

– ref. Fines of $10 million will force supermarkets to think carefully before exploiting suppliers, but more could have been done – https://theconversation.com/fines-of-10-million-will-force-supermarkets-to-think-carefully-before-exploiting-suppliers-but-more-could-have-been-done-233084

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Spangaro, Professor of Social Work, University of Wollongong

Recent deaths have highlighted the seriousness of intimate partner violence nationally. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, the number of women killed by partners increased by 28% from 2022 to 2023. While the overall homicide rate remains low, the numbers were decreasing prior to 2022. It’s a concerning uptick.

One of the most vulnerable groups in our society are women from refugee and migrant backgrounds. Around one-third of these women are estimated to experience violence from their partners. As they’re less likely to disclose, they are also more likely to remain in abusive relationships than other women.

Their vulnerability during resettlement is compounded by family separation, pre-arrival trauma, and limited support networks. Language, visa status and little knowledge of services all create additional barriers.

So how do we better help this vulnerable cohort? Our research, the first of its kind in Australia, shows universal screening at settlement services helped women speak up and get help.

Identification is key

Identifying intimate partner violence is crucial to women taking steps toward safety. One way to do this is through universal screening.

Universal screening for intimate partner violence involves asking all women attending a service some short, validated questions about current or recent experiences of being hit or hurt by their partner. Universal screening of all women attending key health services, such as antenatal clinics, has been introduced in a range of settings globally. This helps women to disclose experiences of abuse and receive support and links to services.

World Health Organization guidelines support routinely screening women in high-risk groups and providing ongoing support after they speak up.

One of the most important places refugee women receive support is at settlement services. These are funded by the government alongside mainstream service providers to help people from refugee backgrounds to resettle in Australia. Women from refugee backgrounds access these frequently.

There had previously been minimal research into evidence-based ways to identify and respond to intimate partner violence experienced by refugee and migrant women. We tested an intervention specifically designed for settlement services.

Helping women seek help

Safety and Health after Arrival (or SAHAR, also an Arabic woman’s name) is the first Australian study to test universal screening for intimate partner violence and response in settlement services.

This three-year project, led by the University of Wollongong, was funded by the Australian Research Council and SSI, one of Australia’s largest resettlement organisations. We introduced and evaluated culturally tailored screening for intimate partner violence at four settlement support services.

In practice, this meant routine screening for abuse and giving women a wallet-sized information card in their language with key messages and useful contact details, irrespective of whether they had disclosed abuse.

Of the 312 women screened during the four-month study period, 89 (29%) disclosed intimate partner violence. This rate is consistent with Australian survey findings of women from refugee backgrounds. It’s higher than the 11% median rate reported in a review of violence screening programs by frontline healthcare staff.

High disclosure rates are a sign of confidence in services, and not automatically an indicator of higher rates of abuse. Where violence was identified, women were offered a referral to a designated caseworker for risk assessment and safety planning, using a booklet adapted from a US intervention, translated into five community languages. They were also referred to other services as needed.

The importance of language

An important criterion for introducing any screening program into the community is acceptability by those who use it. We assessed this through a follow-up survey conducted three months after a participant’s visit to settlement services.

We gauged acceptability through two survey questions. The first was about how comfortable they were with being asked about being frightened, controlled or hurt by their husband or partner. The second was on women’s agreement with settlement services asking the questions.

The survey results showed both high levels of comfort with services asking the questions and high levels of agreement, particularly among women who disclosed abuse. Settlement workers also found that screening helped facilitate disclosure and increased awareness about intimate partner violence.

We found refugee women place a high value on being able to talk with someone who speaks their language. Language matching and culturally sensitive service environments were important enablers for refugee women deciding whether to disclose and seek help.

Settlement services are key for making women comfortable. Refugee women valued the proximity, accessibility and care shown by staff, as well as cultural safety and the ease of being able to communicate in their language for conversations about complex issues, including abuse.

Given the rates of disclosure and how comfortable the women were with the process, universal screening is a viable way to identify intimate partner violence among women from refugee and migrant backgrounds. This is especially important as this abuse is often hidden. This research shows there are ways to reach and help particularly vulnerable women.

Joanne Spangaro receives funding from the Australian Research Council (LP190101183) and SSI as industry partner to conduct this research.

Jacqui Cameron, Jeannette Walsh, and Nigel Spence 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. Violence towards refugee and migrant women often goes undetected. We’ve found a way to help fix that – https://theconversation.com/violence-towards-refugee-and-migrant-women-often-goes-undetected-weve-found-a-way-to-help-fix-that-232715

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yasir Arafat, Senior Research Associate (Batteries for EVs and Batteries Recycling), Edith Cowan University

For the millions of fans who tune into every race, Formula One (F1) is more than just a sport – it’s the apex of aerodynamics, skill and strategy.

Behind the scenes, a quieter but more crucial race against carbon emissions is unfolding.

Given the sport’s substantial carbon footprint, F1 has faced criticism from society and even from its own drivers.

For example, Sebastian Vettel, a four-time F1 world champion, expressed his concerns by stating:

When I get out of the car, of course I’m thinking as well, ‘is this something that we should do, travel the world, wasting resources?‘

In the pursuit of speed and sustainability, F1 teams committed in 2019 to achieving a net zero emissions goal by 2030.

As part of this goal, every team has expressed their intention to use 100% renewable fuel by 2026. F1 has also just announced it will mandate hybrid engines with a 50-50 split between electric and combustion power.

However, it is crucial to consider whether these promises to go greener are achievable or if this commitment is just an attempt to greenwash the sport.

Just how big is F1’s environmental footprint?

According to a report from F1, the sport releases around 256,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every season.

While cars are often the focus, in reality, the behind-the-scenes activities have a larger environmental impact, as a Grand Prix event involves much more than just the cars on the track.

This includes everything from the transportation of teams and equipment to various international venues, to the energy used in setting up and operating the event and waste management.

A Grand Prix event features ten teams, each operating two cars, which results in a total of 20 cars in each race.

F1 cars actually contribute the least to the sport’s emissions, accounting for only about 0.7%.

In 2013, each car used about 160kg of fuel per Grand Prix race. By 2020, this was reduced to 100kg. F1 is now committed to use as little as 70kg of fuel per car by 2026.

Are hybrid engines a potential solution?

The foremost priorities of hybrid engines in Formula One are efficiency and environmental sustainability.

They integrate an internal combustion engine, batteries and an energy recovery system.

Compared to conventional internal combustion engines, the inclusion of batteries allows F1 cars to deliver rapid power more efficiently. The instantaneous torque provided by electric power significantly enhances acceleration out of corners, contributing to overall performance improvements.

Hybrid engines also reduce fuel consumption compared to traditional engines.

The hybrid system includes the Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic (MGU-K) and the Motor Generator Unit-Heat (MGU-H). The MGU-K converts kinetic energy from braking into electrical energy and stored in the battery, which boosts acceleration and speed. The MGU-H uses heat energy from exhaust gases to increase engine power.

This configuration not only conserves fuel but also maximises energy use, thereby reducing carbon emissions and enhancing environmental sustainability.

Will these changes reduce the sport’s environmental impact?

To reduce the environmental impact of F1 cars, fuel plays a major role. F1 started with 10% sustainable fuel (“E10”) – a blend of 10% renewable ethanol and 90% fossil fuel.

From 2026, they are determined to shift from 10% to 100% renewable fuel, which is synthesised by municipal waste or non-food biomass.

However, renewable fuels still produce carbon emissions – burning renewable fuel does release carbon dioxide but the emissions are offset by the carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere during the fuel’s production, rendering it carbon neutral overall.

While the hybrid system will remain in place in 2026, given the complexities and cap on engine-specific costs, modern F1 cars will scrap the MGU-H and solely rely on the MGU-K.

Moreover, F1 is committed to increasing the energy efficiency of MGU-K to harvest more braking energy. Consequently, it aims to increase power output of MGU-K from 120kW to 350kW by 2026, nearly tripling it.

As for its broader carbon footprint, F1 has also pledged to incorporate re-purposing and recycling options for race weekend materials, batteries, and MGU-K. This will help minimise waste and the sport’s carbon footprint.

Because the carbon footprint of F1 cars is relatively small, the sport should focus its efforts on reducing emissions in transportation, logistics and fan activities.

Likewise, hosting Grand Prix races in various countries across different continents requires extensive logistical arrangements and travel. For instance, the F1 racing series in 2023 visited 20 countries across five continents, resulting in significant carbon emissions.

Consequently, F1 should consider hosting races within a single country or at least within a single continent.

Can F1 cars go fully electric?

For the sustainability of the sport, a transition to 100% electric cars is likely in the future. This transition can benefit from the experiences gained with Formula E, which employs fully electric vehicles.

However, several factors must be considered before fully electrifying F1 cars, including regulation changes, battery weight, battery safety and charging infrastructure.

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. Formula One is moving towards hybrid engines and renewable fuel. Major environmental progress or just ‘greenwashing’? – https://theconversation.com/formula-one-is-moving-towards-hybrid-engines-and-renewable-fuel-major-environmental-progress-or-just-greenwashing-232375

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Carroll, Senior Research Fellow, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne

On the wall to the left of the door to the central hall of the National Museum of China, Beijing, is a panel saying it works “under the guidance of Xi Jinping thought on culture”. Across Tiananmen Square in front of the museum is the gateway to the Forbidden City, where Mao Zedong’s image is still pre-eminent.

He too, of course, has often been quoted for his “thought on culture”.

Culture and political life have long been intertwined in China. If it wasn’t clear enough, these words continue, telling us culture’s role is:

to stimulate a vigorous revolutionary spirit and a passion for creativity, gathering a magnificent force to strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the realisation of the Chinese Dream.

The impact of this thinking on the ground across the country is clear. China first – and pretty well only. If you want art debating the direction of China’s leadership, or a debate about the centrality of Chinese culture, forget it.

I have been told that all exhibitions throughout China now have to be vetted by the authorities. That some international artists travelling to China are being asked, as part of their visa application, to sign documents saying they will not make or exhibit work. That artists are leaving, if they can. That galleries cannot display images of Mao or Xi, because, probably with reason, they are open to satire.

This not only has implications for audiences and artists in China, but it is also important to consider what this means for Australian artists – and Australian diplomacy – in China.

China first

I have long been bemused that the foundation painting for the PRC, Dong Xiwen’s Declaration of the Republic first made in 1953 (and variously changed as its personae fell in and out of favour) and in pride of place in the National Museum, is said, in the label, to display “Chinese characteristics” – never mentioning it is in concept, structure and execution a history painting in the grand European tradition.

Other works in museums across the country similarly ignore their international history.

The labelling of the collection of woodcuts owned by the China Art Museum in Shanghai says this tradition was “born” in China and “brought” to the world. In fact, China vies with Korea as the place to first make woodcut prints, and the tradition on show in Shanghai comes from Käthe Kollwitz and the Soviet Socialist Realists. This was something the great writer Lu Xun said in the 1920s when he so vigorously supported their importation to China.

This is not to deny Chinese culture, just to say please give fair information for an increasingly cut off audience.

I say “cut off”, and mean cut off from original work from elsewhere and from foreign artists themselves. I am sure young people in China can access imagery online, but to encounter art physically is another thing. I recently wrote a review of the 2024 Yokohama Triennale in Japan, directed by two Chinese curators, where I was at pains to say “being there” was the key reward of the show. The experience can’t just be online.

In a recent two-week tour of China, I was aware of just one major exhibition of foreign art, by the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto at the non-government UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art in the 798 art district in Beijing, and smaller individual exhibitions put on by other nations’ cultural agencies, like the Goethe Institut or the Institut Français.

Australia-China relations

In this climate, how might the Australian arts community engage with colleagues and audiences in China? We currently do small things, here and there, that hardly touch the sides.

Artists everywhere want to engage with others, to understand difference, to be challenged and inspired – China offers all that in spades.

Australia has an important relationship with China. If it is to be taken to a more complex level, it needs something that will work as a sustained, serious, professional endeavour.

The only way we can physically have any significant engagement is by setting up our own cultural venue. The 798 art district in Beijing is the perfect site with its mix of museums, commercial galleries and foreign agencies.

I would not suggest such a site in Japan or Korea: we have long professional relationships there that easily flow into useful and rewarding projects, not needing an onsite presence.

China is different, especially now.

At the end of 2023, the Albanese government committed to continue a A$40 million Coalition-era grant scheme to strengthen Australia-China relations.

This money could be used to support an Australian cultural centre as the focus of engagement, for the first time in our history with China.

If there was appetite, that is, for a similar emphasis on the role of culture in our nation’s future as Xi Jinping says it has for China.

Alison Carroll 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. There should be a place for Australian art – and artists – in China-Australia diplomacy – https://theconversation.com/there-should-be-a-place-for-australian-art-and-artists-in-china-australia-diplomacy-232166

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amelia Johns, Associate Professor, Digital and Social Media, School of Communication, University of Technology Sydney

There is currently a bipartisan push from state and federal governments to introduce laws in Australia banning young people under 16 from accessing social media platforms. Politicians are citing fears that minors are exposed to harmful or inappropriate content online.

The proposed reform has been accompanied by federal government plans to pilot
“age assurance” technologies. Proposed tools for age verification range from uploading ID documents to the use of biometric face-scanning technologies. Most of these methods are fraught with problems, including privacy risks.

Research from overseas has already raised concerns about the potential harms of introducing a social media ban. Australian research has also pointed out how essential social media is for young people’s fundamental right to access information and participate in society.

However, less attention has been paid to what impacts the ban might have on some of the most marginalised young people in the community.

We have conducted research with culturally diverse young people (aged 13–18), and educators and policymakers in New South Wales and Victoria. In our forthcoming study we found that young people who have migrated to Australia – or were born to parents or grandparents who had – are capable users of social media.

They use social media platforms to connect with culture and community, to have a voice on issues that concern them, and to address digital and other social harms.

Mirroring debates regarding the social media ban, our research also revealed a gap between how adults and culturally diverse youths perceive the role that digital and social media plays in young people’s lives. There is also a difference of opinion over how to create safer online environments.

What do young people think?

In our research, educators and policymakers thought young people from some communities are more at risk from social harms related to accessing inappropriate content. Therefore, these adults argued for more parental controls and limits on social media use.

Meanwhile, the young people in our study claimed social media allows them to fulfil responsibilities that go beyond personal safety.

These include:

• connecting with family and friends, locally and overseas
• learning about their own and other cultures, and becoming informed about the world and their roles and responsibilities within it
• engaging in activism and advocacy to address systemic hate and racism experienced in their everyday lives, and
• defusing toxic online cultures through participation in, and moderation of, digital communities and fandoms.

As one participant told us:

As younger people, we realise, oh, we have beliefs and stuff too, we need to share them […] because obviously adults, they can do it through voting.

Others spoke about the privilege that young people in Australia have to speak up on social issues and contest government policies. They compared this to countries where media, including social media, is censored or banned by the state.

This is also a point that speaks to some of the dangers of banning social media for this age group:

I think it’s important for the citizens of Australia to raise awareness and protest about stuff […] because they’re a free country and they have the access to using information […] I feel like if you had that access, you should […] raise awareness for people who […] don’t have that same opportunity.

Socialising online isn’t always public

Rather than social media engagement always being public and vocal, young people also participated in quieter, less public acts. These were focused on finding information and building supportive communities through moderation and respectful dialogue. One participant said:

There’s been a certain person in the Discord [online messaging platform with individual communities] that I moderate on, which is the one me and my friends made, who […] it wasn’t necessarily stuff he was doing on the Discord, but in person he was doing some quite rude stuff. So we kind of just ended up cutting him off and banning him from Discords and group chats and stuff like that.

The latter point is important given that, in the current debate, politicians seem to view young people’s safety as being dependent on political, legal and platform intervention.

This denies culturally diverse young people agency. It also ignores their capabilities and skilful navigation of social media.

In our study, young people demonstrated a sense of social responsibility to raise their voice against collective harms, and to learn the tools and skills to defuse toxic online cultures. By banning their access to social media, these skills become lost.

This shows we need to move beyond only viewing social media as a source of harm to young people. Instead, we argue that age-based social media bans would create unintended consequences and harms, such as the withdrawal of diverse voices critical to realising and building safer digital communities and societies.

Read more:
Age verification for social media would impact all of us. We asked parents and kids if they actually want it

Amelia Johns receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Culturally diverse teens greatly benefit from social media – banning it would cause harm – https://theconversation.com/culturally-diverse-teens-greatly-benefit-from-social-media-banning-it-would-cause-harm-232906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Evans, Lecturer, Kaupeka Ture | Faculty of Law, University of Canterbury

When the Supreme Court used the idea of damage to a person’s mana to posthumously overturn Peter Ellis’ historic convictions for child sexual abuse, it created a remarkable precedent.

However, two more recent cases show the courts are still grappling with the concept of mana. They also raise important questions about its use as a defence, and about the place of Māori tikanga (custom) in the law and how it is taught.

The Ellis case was one of the longest-running and most controversial in New Zealand legal history, with multiple appeals leading up to the eventual Supreme Court ruling in 2022.

As well as overturning the convictions, the court was unanimous that tikanga has been, and will continue to be, recognised in the development of the common law of Aotearoa New Zealand in cases where it is relevant.

However, the Supreme Court did not explain how tikanga will be approached in the common law. This has left it up to lower courts to develop that body of law, known as “jurisprudence”. The difficulty of this is now becoming more apparent.

For starters, the concept of mana is not easily translated into English. As te reo Māori expert Mary Boyce writes:

the word mana is used throughout Polynesia to signify a core cultural force, which is rendered in English variously as power, authority, prestige and effectiveness.

Author, scholar and pūkenga (expert) Tā Hirini Moko Mead explains there is a high value placed on mana, and that every person is born with it. This can increase or decrease throughout life, affected by an individual’s deeds and how these are regarded in the community.

This shifting nature can make mana a difficult concept for non-Māori to understand. And it adds to the complexity of incorporating concepts of mana and tikanga in courts still largely derived from the British legal system.

Weighing up mana

In the case of Green v Police earlier this year, Joshua Green was able to obtain a discharge without conviction because a conviction would have significantly affected his mana.

A discharge without conviction application involves a judge weighing up whether the consequences of the conviction outweigh the seriousness of the offending. In this case, Green had been charged with obstructing a constable.

He owned a logging company and one of his truck drivers had crashed. Green went to the scene to assist his driver and take photos despite being instructed not to by police.

Green was a kaumatua and respected leader. The High Court found the negative effect of a conviction on his mana would outweigh the seriousness of the offending.

While a discharge seemed appropriate on the facts, adding mana into a balancing exercise like this is not without complication. In weighing up someone’s mana as part of this exercise, a judge must consider how much mana someone actually has.

As Hirini Moko Mead has explained, Māori society understands that mana is not equal across everyone. Asking a common law judge to weigh up a person’s mana comes with some pressure. Also, a leader perceived to have greater mana may be entitled to a discharge without conviction when an ordinary person may not be.

Limits of tikanga

In the case of Sweeney v Prison Manager of Spring Hill Corrections Facility from May this year, Paul Sweeney sought the creation of a new cause of action based on damage to his mana.

His visitor status as an addiction counsellor had been revoked at Spring Hill due to concerns arising from his social media posting that he may be associated with the Mongrel Mob. Sweeney requested the High Court recognise a novel tort (cause of action) based on damage to his mana and hauora (health).

He wanted NZ$325,000 for the damage he said happened to his mana, and a court order that he be given a marae-based apology. These claims were dismissed. The High Court looked at how tikanga works and held that the tort being sought could not be recognised by common law.

Sweeney’s claim was twofold. On one hand, he sought to have tikanga rights recognised, on the other he sought a monetary penalty that is more like that seen in common law.

This perhaps signals a problem with integrating some aspects of tikanga into common law without much direction from the superior courts. There is at least a potential risk of claims using aspects of tikanga where it is convenient.

Risks to tikanga

Some Māori commentators have warned that the common law could corrupt elements of tikanga by subsuming it inappropriately. If a claim combining the two were successful, that might happen. However, it appears a “mana calculator” won’t be necessary in the immediate future.

But the issues raised by both cases discussed here highlight the need for education about tikanga in our law degrees. Lawyers need to understand where, when and how tikanga is relevant in order to properly advise their clients.

The courts can only build good, authoritative jurisprudence where the arguments presented by lawyers are good and authoritative. There is a risk of damage to tikanga concepts if lawyers do not have that knowledge and do not respect the authenticity of tikanga.

I teach tikanga-based legal concepts into the law degree at the University of Canterbury.

– ref. Can the courts measure mana? How Māori tikanga is challenging the justice system – https://theconversation.com/can-the-courts-measure-mana-how-maori-tikanga-is-challenging-the-justice-system-232825

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Marshall, Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Colorado Denver

“Can you name the truck with four-wheel drive, smells like a steak, and seats 35?”

Back in 1998, “The Simpsons” joked about the Canyonero, an SUV so big that they were obviously kidding. At that time, it was preposterous to think anyone would drive something that was “12 yards long, two lanes wide, 65 tons of American Pride.”

In 2024, that joke isn’t far from reality.

And our reality is one where more pedestrians and bicyclists are getting killed on U.S. streets than at any time in the past 45 years – over 1,000 bicyclists and 7,500 pedestrians in 2022 alone.

Vehicle size is a big part of this problem. A recent paper by urban economist Justin Tyndall found that increasing the front-end height of a vehicle by roughly 4 inches (10 centimeters) increases the chance of a pedestrian fatality by 22%. The risk increases by 31% for female pedestrians or those over 65 years, and by 81% for children.

It’s hard to argue with physics, so there is a certain logic in blaming cars for rising traffic deaths. In fact, if a bicyclist is hit by a pickup truck instead of a car, Tyndall suggests that they are 291% more likely to die.

Yet automakers have long asserted that if everyone simply followed the rules of the road, nobody would die. Vehicle size is irrelevant to that assertion.

My discipline, traffic engineering, acts similarly. We underestimate our role in perpetuating bad outcomes, as well as the role that better engineering can play in designing safer communities and streets.

Millions of road deaths

How bad are the bad outcomes? The U.S. has been tracking car-related road deaths since 1899. As a country, we hit the threshold of 1 million cumulative deaths in 1953, 2 million in 1975 and 3 million in 1998. While the past several years of data have not yet been released, I estimate that the U.S. topped 4 million total road deaths sometime in the spring of 2024.

How many of those are pedestrians and bicyclists? Analysts didn’t do a great job of separating out the pedestrian and cyclist deaths in the early years, but based on later trends, my estimate is that some 930,000 pedestrians and bicyclists have been killed by automobiles in the U.S.

How many of those deaths do we blame on big cars or bad streets? The answer is, very few.

As I show in my new book, “Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calls road user error the “critical reason” behind 94% of crashes, injuries and deaths.

Crash data backs that up.

Police investigate crashes and inevitably look to see which road users, including drivers, pedestrians and cyclists, are most at fault. It’s easy to do because in almost any crash, road user error appears to be the obvious problem.

This approach helps insurance companies figure out who needs to pay. It also helps automakers and traffic engineers rationalize away all these deaths. Everyone – except the families and friends of these 4 million victims – goes to sleep at night feeling good that bad-behaving road users just need more education or better enforcement.

But road user error only scratches the surface of the problem.

Who creates dangerous streets?

When traffic engineers build an overly wide street that looks more like a freeway, and a speeding driver in a Canyonero crashes, subsequent crash data blames the driver for speeding.

When traffic engineers provide lousy crosswalks separated by long distances, and someone jaywalks and gets hit by that speeding Canyonero driver, one or both of these road users will be blamed in the official crash report.

And when automakers build gargantuan vehicles that can easily go double the speed limit and fill them with distracting touchscreens, crash data will still blame the road users for almost anything bad that happens.

These are the sorts of systemic conditions that lead to many so-called road user errors. Look just below the surface, though, and it becomes clear that many human errors represent the typical, rational behaviors of typical, rational road users given the transportation system and vehicle options we put in front of them.

Look more deeply, and you can start to see how our underlying crash data gives everyone a pass but the road users themselves. Everyone wants a data-driven approach to road safety, but today’s standard view of crash data lets automakers, insurance companies and policymakers who shape vehicle safety standards off the hook for embiggening these ever-larger cars and light-duty trucks.

It also absolves traffic engineers, planners and policymakers of blame for creating a transportation system where for most Americans, the only rational choice for getting around is a car.

Understanding road behavior

Automakers want to sell cars and make money. And if bigger SUVs seem safer to potential customers, while also being much more profitable, it’s easy to see how interactions between road users and car companies – making seemingly rational decisions – have devolved into an SUV arms race.

Even though these same vehicles are less safe for pedestrians, bicyclists and those in opposing vehicles, the current data-driven approach to road safety misses that part of the story.

This can’t all be fixed at once. But by pursuing business as usual, automakers and traffic engineers will continue wasting money on victim-blaming campaigns or billboards placed high over a road telling drivers to pay attention to the road.

A better starting point would be remaking the U.S.’s allegedly data-driven approach to road safety by reinventing our understanding of the crash data that informs it all.

The key is starting to ask why. Why did these road users act as they did? Why didn’t they follow the rules that were laid out for them? Bad road user behavior shouldn’t be excused, but a bit of digging below the surface of crash data unearths a completely different story.

Figuring out which road user is most at fault may be useful for law enforcement and insurance companies, but it doesn’t give transportation engineers, planners, policymakers or automakers much insight into what they can do better. Even worse, it has kept them from realizing that they might be doing anything wrong.

Wes Marshall receives funding from the US Department of Transportation’s University Transportation Centers program and various state transportation departments.

– ref. Traffic engineers build roads that invite crashes because they rely on outdated research and faulty data – https://theconversation.com/traffic-engineers-build-roads-that-invite-crashes-because-they-rely-on-outdated-research-and-faulty-data-223710

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University

Back in February, the Universities Accord final report recommended major changes to university funding.

It proposed a new body, the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, to oversee funding and link it to national goals. These include more people from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university, more Australians getting a tertiary qualification, and better matching enrolments with skills needs.

After accepting these recommendations in the budget, on Friday Education Minister Jason Clare released two consultation papers on how to implement them. One is on the new commission and the other looks at how student places would be distributed across universities.

There are big changes on the table and they would put a limit on domestic student places. This would mean all student places, both international and local, would be capped in Australia.

What does this mean for universities and students?

What happens under the current system?

Under the current funding system, universities have no fixed allocation of, or targets for, student places subsidised by the federal government. These are called “Commonwealth supported places” and sometimes called HECS places.

Except for medical courses and Indigenous students, funding is allocated in dollars rather than places. Each public university has a maximum public funding grant through an agreement with the federal government.

How many student places this grant supports depends on which courses students do. This is because the public subsidy per student (called a Commonwealth contribution), varies between courses. Universities choose how to allocate student places between disciplines, except in medicine.

For example, under the current contribution system, universities get a subsidy of only A$1,236 a year for each Commonwealth supported place in business, law and most arts disciplines. So, one million dollars from a university’s grant supports more than 800 student places in these disciplines. Most of the university’s funding comes from the student contribution, which is $16,323. By comparison, in engineering, the Commonwealth contribution is $18,292. One million dollars supports just 55 engineering places.

The current system creates tradeoffs. Moving student places to engineering to meet skills needs, while staying within the university’s maximum grant, could mean sacrificing hundreds of student places in business, law and arts.

What is the new system?

The proposed new funding system would be based on numbers of student places, not fixed dollar amounts. The government would decide on the total number of student places across Australia. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission would then divide that total up between universities.

Funding based on student places rather than dollar amounts improves on the current system. It makes the number of students easier to predict.

The government can see more clearly whether the number of student places aligns with its targets to have more Australians complete a tertiary qualification. Also, universities would not need to reduce total enrolments to increase the number of student places in disciplines, like engineering, with high Commonwealth contributions.

The change from a ‘soft’ to a ‘hard’ cap

But the changes will also remove flexibility in another way.

The current funding system puts a “soft cap” on student places at each university. A university cannot be paid more Commonwealth contributions revenue than it has been officially allocated. But it can take extra enrolments based solely on a student contribution (also known as HECS-only basis), a practice known as “over-enrolment”.

This would end under the new model. Universities would be given something called a “managed growth target”. This is a hard cap. If a university’s enrolments exceeded their target it would receive no funding at all for the above-target students.

If over-enrolments occur, students would still be charged a student contribution. But the money would go the government rather than the university.

‘Managed demand driven funding’ for equity students

The problems of these inflexible enrolment caps are highlighted by what the consultation paper confusingly calls “managed demand driven funding” for equity students.

For Indigenous bachelor degree students, genuine “demand driven funding” will continue. This means there will be no cap on their places and they will not count towards a university’s overall enrolment cap.

But other equity groups, which have not yet been specified (but presumably would be those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, regional areas and those with disability) will count towards each university’s cap.

As explained by the paper, two things will happen if an university applicant from one of these groups receives no offers.

First, the equity applicant will be offered a place in another university in their area, if that university has not already hit its enrolment cap.

If all local universities have hit their caps, a second process starts, of going back to the Australian Tertiary Education Commission for more places. This may or may not be successful.

This convoluted process could often be avoided if universities had the flexibility to take students above their cap on a student contribution basis only. The equity applicant could attend their preferred university, rather than one chosen for them, with no waiting for extra approval.

The process seems particularly inadequate when one of the government’s main policy aims with universities is to see more students from equity backgrounds go to university and get a degree.

What should happen now

If the government funds enough student places to meet national demand, and the Australian Tertiary Education Commission allocates these places to fit with where students want to study, the mismatch between supply and demand could be minimised.

But the commission can never completely foresee the preferences of the hundreds of thousands of people who apply for university each year.

Every year some universities will get more applicants than anticipated and others fewer. Student contribution-only places are a flexible way of quickly adjusting supply to demand. They should remain a feature of Australia’s higher education funding system.

Comments on the two consultation papers are due by July 26.

Andrew Norton works for a university that, like all other public universities, would benefit from flexibility in managing student numbers.

– ref. A big change is coming for higher education funding. What would a ‘hard cap’ on domestic places mean for students and unis? – https://theconversation.com/a-big-change-is-coming-for-higher-education-funding-what-would-a-hard-cap-on-domestic-places-mean-for-students-and-unis-232976

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirk Dodd, Lecturer in English and Writing, University of Sydney

It is a common reflex to reach for Aristotle’s Poetics to determine what a good tragedy should be. Aristotle says there are good reasons to enjoy a good tragedy, especially if its ergon or telos (its function) works well. This function is to trigger the pleasure (in an audience) of experiencing catharsis.

According to Aristotle, catharsis concerns the purgation or “release” of troubling emotions such as pity and fear. While we tend to bottle up these emotions in everyday life, the tragic theatre provides a safe environment to bring them to the surface. As we sympathise with the plight of the tragic protagonist, this catharsis can be both healthy and humanising.

Aristotle also created a framework for the six core components that make up a good tragedy. The “plot” (course of action) was paramount, followed by the importance of the characters (not so much their physical expressions, but their dispositions). These “characters” were caused or generated by the plot according to the moral decisions they were forced to make. Next came the characters’ “thoughts” (or dianoia), the language of the play (its tone and its gravitas), followed by the inclusion of song and spectacle (but not too much, or it becomes a comedy).

Bell Shakespeare’s King Lear, directed by Peter Evans, delivers excitingly well on most of Aristotle’s pointers for a good tragedy.

Tragic reckoning and solace

King Lear stands as a colossus of a play in Shakespeare’s achievements, among the grandest efforts of his imagination. But Lear’s dynastic downfall from being a king, to realising himself a mere father, to becoming a homeless old man, creates an epic sweep that could be difficult to contain in an intimate theatre called the “Nutshell”.

The Neilson Nutshell, Bell Shakespeare’s primary theatre in Sydney, is a flexible space which can seat up to 300 people. Because Shakespeare’s plays tend to be grand in scope, the Nutshell (named suitably after a line in Hamlet, “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space”) can be a tricky space to manage.

But Anna Tregloan’s enchanting set design, a rounded stage of rolled gold flooring with a black centre-spot for characters to direct their soliloquies around to the different banks of seating, creates a symbolic and mesmerising space. This allows for a fluent orchestration of the play’s many diversions. And hovering above the stage is a gold cosmic spiral, like a galaxy, and centred disc (the sun?) that proffers up a celestial expansion of the play’s existential themes.

King Lear is about an ageing king (Robert Menzies) who decides to retire with plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters according to how well they articulate their love for him. When his eldest daughters, Goneril (Lizzie Schebesta) and Regan (Tamara Lee Bailey), flatter and fawn over him, he rewards them with large territories, even though they secretly dislike their father.

When his youngest daughter, Cordelia (Melissa Kahraman), refuses to stroke her father’s ego, the king misconstrues her honesty as treachery and banishes her from the realm. As Goneril and Regan assume full power of the kingdom, they treat their father with scorn, and Lear begins to realise his mistake. But through the processes of tragic reckoning, Lear finds solace in recognising his own authentic self as an ageing man, rather than his former political identity as a powerful monarch. As noted by the program, it is “a domestic crisis wrapped in a political crisis inside an existential one”.

But, of course, many things are realised far too late. With one of Shakespeare’s most well-liked villains, Edmund the Bastard (Darius Williams), determining to turn everyone’s lives upside down in his attempts to quash his legitimate brother Edgar (Alex King), the political mayhem spills out onto the naked moors and into the famous punishing storm of Shakespeare’s play.

Force and clarity

Menzies is outstanding as a physically feeble yet emotionally volatile Lear. Janine Watson is superb in her role as Lear’s best adviser, Kent, steadfast in loyalty, and often downplaying the tenor of her expressions without surrendering fervency or force.

Williams hits all the right notes as a salacious and manipulative Edmund. And Kahraman doubles very well as the Jester, robust yet constrained in chiding Lear, drawing laughter from the wit of Shakespeare’s fool more than banking on showy spectacle (Aristotle would be proud!).

Bailey and Schebesta give strong performances as the mature sisters who can be stern, yet sensual; scheming, yet vulnerable to Edmund’s manipulations. And King as Edgar (and King of France) is always charismatic, but perhaps a touch too stylised for the erratic character of “Poor Tom”.

Overall, the cast delivers the lines with force and clarity, allowing the plot to shine and emphasising the juicy amount of familial insults in this play (some of Shakespeare’s worst!).

This King Lear erupts splendidly in the confined space, though Aristotle might suggest Tregloan’s monochrome charcoal costuming in the first half might dull the ability of first-timers to recognise character distinctions. In Aristotle’s hierarchy, costumes might sit between plot and character. Although they are traditionally associated with character, the characters need to be recognised to follow the plot.

Although the intimate space probably determined the tableau staging of the play’s dying moments, the final laments of Lear were heartrending, thus capping off an “enjoyable” experience of Shakespeare’s woeful tragedy.

Kirk Dodd 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. Bell Shakespeare’s new King Lear understands the joy of a good tragedy – https://theconversation.com/bell-shakespeares-new-king-lear-understands-the-joy-of-a-good-tragedy-230414

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent trips to North Korea and Vietnam are noteworthy for the timing and focus, not to mention for highlighting his contempt for the rule of law.

Coming hard on the heels of the Swiss-hosted Ukraine peace summit last weekend, Putin’s foray to the Asia-Pacific was intended to show Russia is not without friends after all.

In targeting two of the Kremlin’s historical partners – North Korea and Vietnam – it clearly signalled Russia is not ceding pre-eminence in the Asia-Pacific to the United States or, for that matter, China.

Beijing will be keenly aware that Moscow is dealing itself back into two of China’s own key relationships. South Korea and Japan will have taken notice, as well.

Putin’s newfound reliance on North Korea

High-level visits like this are hallmarked by the signing of substantive and symbolic agreements, public flourishes of fealty, and lots of talk about the deepening, strategic and enduringly robust nature of bilateral relations.

But it would be short-sighted to overlook the more corrosive message woven into Putin’s tour. Since Putin unleashed his war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has persistently spun a tale of solidarity with the “Global South” in opposition to the “neo-colonialist” policies of the West, in particular the United States.

That narrative has traction in the region and beyond. In Africa, for instance, there has been scant support for punitive measures against Russia for its illegal and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine. Collectively, Western governments are failing to counter Moscow’s accusation that they selectively absolve themselves of rules and standards they apply to others.

Of course, Moscow’s sanctimony glosses over its own failure to honour its repeated commitments to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and existing borders.

Writing in North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper on the eve of his visit, Putin extolled more than seven decades of fraternal bonds between Moscow and Pyongyang, emphasising their common cause in countering US oppression.

The United States is going out of its way to impose on the world what it calls the ‘rules-based order’, which is essentially nothing more than a global neo-colonial dictatorship relying on double standards.

Nations that disagree with such an approach and pursue an independent policy face increasing external pressure. The US leadership views such a natural and legitimate aspiration for self-reliance and independence as a threat to its global dominance.

The hypocrisy here is glaring, if perhaps not surprising.

From 2006 to 2017, Russia supported nine UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions and other measures against North Korea over its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Yet, in March of this year, Russia – with China’s support – ended the mandate of a UN panel that had been monitoring implementation of these unanimously adopted measures.

In exchange for busting the international sanctions against North Korea, Russia seeks essential military support for its war in Ukraine.

Reinforcing this was the rejuvenation of a Cold War-era defence and security pact between the two countries. It could provide a veneer of legitimacy to more overt and expansive North Korean support for Putin’s war.

That sends an alarming message about the brittleness of the global commitment to the non-proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

It also signals to would-be nuclear states that Russia has their backs.

And it falls well short of Russia’s obligations as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and an architect and guarantor of the system of international security since 1945.

Meanwhile, China – a similarly privileged Security Council permanent member – is disturbingly and unacceptably mute about Russia’s actions. Beijing is busy pursuing its own rapid and non-transparent military build-up, including the modernisation and expansion of its strategic nuclear arsenal.

Economic de-coupling from the West

Beyond undermining US alliances and security partnerships around the world, Moscow – like Beijing – is intent on breaking up the US dollar-dominated international financial system.

In the same Rodong Sinmun newspaper article, Putin said Russia and North Korea “will develop alternative trade and mutual settlements mechanisms not controlled by the West” and jointly oppose “illegitimate unilateral restrictions”, such as sanctions.

He echoed this economic decoupling theme in Vietnam. In his Hanoi press conference, Putin noted:

Our countries are consistently pursuing the transition to settlements in national currencies and striving to create sustainable channels of cooperation in lending activities and banking.

In contrast to the overtly military focus of his visit to North Korea, Putin’s emphasis in Vietnam was on cultural diplomacy and trade relations, especially in energy, including oil and gas, renewables and nuclear.

This focus on economic cooperation was presumably to accommodate his hosts’ concern not to arouse the ire of the United States, which is one of seven countries with a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Vietnam.

Nonetheless, Putin did ensnare Vietnam in his wider strategic security agenda. In his press conference, he observed:

Russia’s and Vietnam’s respective stances on [current international matters] are largely in accord or closely aligned.

During our discussion on the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, we expressed mutual interest in building a strong and reliable security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region based on the principles of the non-use of force and peaceful settlement of disputes, with no room for closed military-political blocs.

Why this matters

The US and its regional allies, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, should take heed. Russia is now the chief disruptor of the global system built on the rule of law. As such, it poses challenges for smaller and middle-ranking nations like Australia, which lack the intent or capacity to impose their will on others through economic or military coercion.

It is not a matter of choosing one “bloc” over another. Rather, it is about countries like ours acting together to preserve the international rules that underpin national sovereignty and agency.

To do that effectively, we need to re-invest in “Russia literacy” and competency in our higher education and policymaking communities.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, in Australia, at least, we have failed to take Russia seriously enough. Putin’s latest foray into our region – and the common cause Russia increasingly seeks to make with countries that matter to us – should be a clarion call to action.

Peter Tesch was Australia’s ambassador to Russia from 2016 to 2019.

– ref. Vladimir Putin’s Asia-Pacific trip was intended to send a message. Australia should be taking notice – https://theconversation.com/vladimir-putins-asia-pacific-trip-was-intended-to-send-a-message-australia-should-be-taking-notice-232982

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Team Lead, Healthy Skin and ARF Prevention, Telethon Kids Institute

Antibiotic shortages have become a big challenge for child health. For example, amoxicillin and cephalexin are among the most commonly prescribed antibiotics for children, used to treat a variety of bacterial infections. Both have had shortages of their liquid formulations in recent years.

Now, another common antibiotic – azithromycin – is facing liquid formulation shortages. Parents are having to shop around at multiple pharmacies to find the antibiotic their child needs.

According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the shortage is expected to last until late November.

So what’s causing these shortages, and what are the alternatives if you can’t get this medicine for your child?

First, what is azithromycin for?

Azithromycin, sold under brand names including Zithromax, Zithro or just Azithromycin, is one of our most patient-friendly antibiotics. It requires a dose just once daily and the courses are short (usually five days or fewer). It works against a wide range of bacteria, and it’s formulated as a liquid and a tablet.

In childhood, azithromycin is used to treat respiratory illnesses such as pertussis (whooping cough) and Mycoplasma pneumonia.

Following a lull in several infectious diseases during the COVID pandemic, pertussis is now surging among Australian children. Cases of Mycoplasma pneumonia have also increased in recent months. So it’s not a good time for azithromycin liquid to be in short supply.

Azithromycin is also very useful for children living in remote Indigenous communities. It may be used to treat wet cough or Strep A sore throats (caused by group A streptococcus bacteria). If these infections are not managed, they can lead to permanent lung damage or rheumatic fever.

Further, Australia is the only high-income country where trachoma exists. This eye infection affects people living in remote Indigenous communities and can cause blindness over time. Azithromycin is the only effective antibiotic to prevent blindness from this infection.

Supply chain issues

Recent reports suggest hundreds of medicines are in short supply in Australia. These shortages reflect complex global supply chains.

Manufacturing issues or sudden increases in demand are common reasons for medicine shortages. The TGA has cited an “unexpected increase in consumer demand” as the reason for the azithromycin shortage, so the sudden return of pertussis in Australia and globally may be behind it.

Of course, the shortages affect many medicines adults take too. But the issue disproportionately affects children because they rely on on syrups and liquids, which are produced less commonly than tablets. Syrup or liquid formulations may have only a single approved supplier, whereas tablets are likely to have many.

So what if you can’t get the liquid formulation?

The alternatives to azithromycin have challenges. Clarithromycin requires twice-daily dosing, the liquid form tastes bitter and, in any case, this drug is also facing a shortage. Doxycycline only comes as a tablet and is not usually given to children under eight years.

For Strep A sore throats, the alternative to azithromycin is either a longer course of oral antibiotics (20 doses versus five doses) or benzathine benzylpenicillin (Bicillin L-A), a medicine given by injection. But this latter option is painful and also in short supply.

The TGA has recently announced the temporary supply of a different brand of azithromycin liquid formulation registered overseas. Let’s hope this will ease supply problems over the coming months. It will also need leadership to ensure prices are reasonable.

Are tablets an option?

Shopping around while your child is sick is likely to be difficult and frustrating.

If you can’t find a liquid formulation and you think your child can swallow a tablet, ask your doctor whether they can prescribe the tablet form.

Parents can help children learn this skill by practising swallowing tic tacs, mints or other small, similarly shaped sweets.

Trying Panadol or Nurofen tablets when a child has a fever is another option to see if they can start to swallow tablets, so you are ready to transition.

Some children as young as three can do this, but it’s not generally recommended for children until age four, and most learn after six or older.

Can I split a tablet?

Healthy childhood growth means the medication dose needed for each child is always changing. Syrups and liquids are easier to measure the correct amount required based on weight for individual children.

If the correct dose is either half or one-quarter of a tablet, azithromycin tablets can be split and crushed.

Splitting tablets is less accurate though. Splitting and crushing tablets also increases the bitter flavour that the outer coating of the tablet may mask.

Tricks to mask the bitterness include mixing the crushed tablet with a teaspoon of Nutella, jam or custard.

We need solutions

Antibiotic shortages can affect any child, including our most vulnerable children across Australia.

The interconnected global supply chains with limited producers of vital antibiotics are part of the problem. Alternative suppliers need to be rapidly sought.

Additionally, Australia needs better systems for monitoring the risks of stock shortages and communicating these to reduce the impact. Communication of medicine shortages in a timely, efficient and widespread way won’t solve the problem – but it will help clinicians, parents and families navigate these challenges.

Asha Bowen receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Futures Fund, Healthway and WA Government Future Health Research and Innovation Fund.

– ref. Azithromycin: how to manage while this antibiotic is in short supply for children – https://theconversation.com/azithromycin-how-to-manage-while-this-antibiotic-is-in-short-supply-for-children-232379

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Fox-Harding, Lecturer/Researcher, Edith Cowan University

The unpredictability of sport is in many ways its greatest attraction, and unforgettable come-from-behind victories are especially captivating.

During these epic comebacks, one team or athlete is generally said to have captured or capitalised on one of sport’s great intangibles: momentum.

But what is momentum in a sporting sense?

Why ‘the zone’ and ‘flow state’ are key

Psychological momentum in sport refers to a functional overlap between two theoretical concepts: the individual zone of optimal functioning and flow.

In other words, these are known as athletes being “in the zone” and “in a flow state”.

Getting “in the zone” is where an athlete’s perceived level of effort and emotional intensity strike a perfect balance that leads the athlete to achieving optimal performance.

Similarly, achieving a “flow state” is where athletes experience an almost effortless performance with a strong sense of control over their movements.

Think of momentum as when an athlete or team is able to dominate an opponent with remarkable concentration and control, seemingly mastering a game or series of plays in an effortless manner.

This may seem like a random phenomenon, but developing momentum in sport can be understood through a few psychological concepts regularly applied in the heat of the moment by some of our top athletes.

Unsurprisingly, practice is also important

As with all sporting performance, practice indeed makes perfect.

So while the facets of momentum won’t happen overnight, it’s important to routinely embed psychological training within and around a sporting season – and this psychological edge is often what sets the experts apart from the novices.

For young and aspiring athletes, dominant reigns from our favourite athlete or sporting teams can be inspiring. But what we see is much like an iceberg – we don’t often see the preparation beneath the surface.

Learning to fail and coping with unexpected events, and applying those lessons to future improvements, is one of many strategies to develop mental and emotional resilience.

Arguably just as important is managing different sources of pressure within and beyond our control.

So as much as we’d like to think Roger Federer’s backhand is indeed effortless, the sporting statistics and accompanying research shows that achieving these “in the flow” or “in the zone” states are actually amassed over the course of a career – and some are fortunate enough to capitalise on that to build upon that momentum.

Momentum within games and across seasons

To clarify, this concept of psychological momentum isn’t a physics lesson providing an overview of Newton’s momentum.

While momentum indeed represents a driving force that carries motion and influence, in sports it is the combined effect of positive sporting performances and how athletes are able to control their mental state in those key sporting moments.

This can be altered by internal consistency or external disruptions, demonstrating the dynamic nature of momentum in sport.

What’s intriguing is that momentum in sports can be classified within a match or event – think Collingwood’s incredible recent history of comeback victories in the AFL – and across a season as a whole (such as the Australian men’s Test cricket team setting world records for consecutive wins in the late 1990s and early 2000s).

Across a season, you can consider momentum in sports to be an example of success breeding success – suggesting to athletes that they have the capacity to make the most of victories early in a season and leverage that motivation to do well in subsequent events.

This confidence can be seen in individuals and teams – doing well makes us think that since it’s been done before, we’re capable of doing it again.

And when you secure successive wins as a team, the athletes will start to rationalise that what they’re doing together is working. That will begin to develop further cohesion and provide an overall boost to morale.

Even within a single match, fans can see a team creating more situations that will lead to more scoring opportunities increases the likelihood of that team earning a victory.

Regularly creating these opportunities, especially early in the game, can be the difference between winning and losing. This could be due to the players on the losing team beginning to doubt themselves or struggle to deal with their own frustrations as they encounter more setbacks contributing to the loss.

Essentially when an athlete or team has momentum, it’s more than just being confident: athletes have to also manage their internal responses (for example, level of frustration) and how they respond outwardly to what happens during a live match while making clutch decisions at the right time.

How to halt an opponent’s momentum

As with all good things, there is indeed some risk with “riding the wave” of a winning streak – complacency and overconfidence can creep into the team or athlete’s preparedness and can make way for some remarkable stories of others infiltrating (and ultimately breaking through) that momentum.

If you’re in the thick of a losing streak or a game is slipping away, athletes and coaches must find ways of disrupting the momentum of the winning team.

This might be strategic discussions such as taking a timeout or, in cricket, switching the bowling line up.

These tactics can disrupt the opposing team’s flow.

Understanding the complex nature of momentum is crucial for helping athletes and teams refocus on what is actually within their control and how they can individually build their sporting confidence over time to perform well under pressure.

The ability to handle setbacks and the opposing team’s skill in capitalising on these moments can be the deciding factor between winning and losing.

Caitlin Fox-Harding 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 mystery of the massive sporting comeback: what’s the psychology of momentum in sports? – https://theconversation.com/the-mystery-of-the-massive-sporting-comeback-whats-the-psychology-of-momentum-in-sports-232598