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

Housing remains one of Australia’s most pressing issues in both state and federal politics. The RBA keeping rates up and high mortgage repayments have left many Australians struggling. For those Australians who don’t own a home, it’s becoming increasingly hard to get into the housing market.

The opposition has blamed the high levels of migration for why Australians feel so much housing pain. Peter Dutton has promised to reduce the permanent migration program (which brings in many skilled workers) as part of getting net overseas migration down. He says more than 100,000 homes could be freed up over five years.

To discuss the oppositions plan, we’re joined by Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership Senator Andrew Bragg.

Andrew Bragg explains why the coalition sees migration as a critical issue when it comes to housing supply.

Ultimately, you need to get the ratios back into whack. Now, just five years ago, you had a situation where you were bringing 260,000 people in and building over 200,000 houses. In the last year you’re having 600,000 people come in the country, but you’re only building 170,000 houses. So, you have to calibrate the ratios.

When it comes to the actual building of new homes Bragg sees problems at state level, and he has a drastic solution.

The [federal] government’s policy has been to pay the states to build houses. That has not worked, and I think we need to go one step further and look at coercion. We can’t fund the local governments directly because there’s a constitutional issue, but we do need to look at how we can fund states or not fund states.

There are councils like Camden, Liverpool, Campbelltown. They all want to build houses, they want the density. But in some cases it takes them two years to get the water turned on. So while the state premier might be supporting development, the agencies are dragging the chain. So I think coercion is probably the most likely step.

Finally, on Women in the Liberal party, Bragg lays out the direction he sees for the party:

In terms of the selection of women, it is true that we have far too few in the House of Representatives, and that is something that the members ultimately need to fix. We’re not a command and control party. Now, the members will make their own judgements about who they want, and we need to encourage the members to consider these factors because we need to be a party that looks like modern Australia.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Andrew Bragg flags a coalition would use ‘coercion’ of the states to get more new houses built – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-andrew-bragg-flags-a-coalition-would-use-coercion-of-the-states-to-get-more-new-houses-built-230675

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, Griffith University

We’ve now been living with COVID for well over four years. Although there’s still much to learn about SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) at least one thing seems clear: it’s here to stay.

From the original Wuhan variant, to Delta, to Omicron, and several others in between, the virus has continued to evolve.

New variants have driven repeated waves of infection and challenged doctors and scientists seeking to understand this changing virus’ behaviour.

Now, we are faced with a new group of variants, the so-called “FLiRT” variants, which appear to be contributing to a rising wave of COVID infections around Australia and elsewhere. So where have they come from, and are they cause for concern?

A descendant of Omicron

The FLiRT variants are a group of subvariants of JN.1 from the Omicron lineage.

JN.1 was detected in August 2023 and declared a variant of interest by the World Health Organization in December 2023. By early 2024, it had become the most dominant variant in Australia and much of the rest of the world, driving large waves of infections.

As new variants emerge, scientists work hard to try to understand their potential impact. This includes sequencing their genes and assessing their potential to transmit, infect and cause disease.

In late 2023 scientists detected a range of subvariants of JN.1 in wastewater in the United States. Since then, these JN.1 subvariants, including KP.1.1, KP.2 and KP.3, have popped up and become more common around the world.

But why the name FLiRT? Sequencing of these subvariants revealed a number of new mutations in the virus’ spike protein, including F456L, V1104L and R346T. The name FLiRT was coined by combining the letters in these mutations.

The spike protein is a crucial protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 that gives the virus its spiky shape and which it uses to attach to our cells. Amino acids are the basic building blocks that combine together to form proteins and the spike protein is 1,273 amino acids long.

The numbers refer to the location of the mutations in the spike protein, while the letters designate the amino acid mutation. So for example, F456L denotes a change from F (an amino acid called phenylalanine) to L (the amino acid leucine) at position 456.

What do we know about FLiRT’s characteristics?

The regions of the spike protein where the mutations have been found are important for two main reasons. The first is antibody binding, which influences the degree to which the immune system can recognise and neutralise the virus. The second is virus binding to host cells, which is required to cause infection.

These factors explain why some experts have suggested the FLiRT subvariants may be more transmissible than earlier COVID variants.

There are also very early suggestions the FLiRT subvariants could evade immunity from prior infections and vaccination better than the parental JN.1 variant. However, this research is yet to be peer-reviewed (independently verified by other researchers).

In more positive news, there’s no evidence the FLiRT variants cause more severe disease than earlier variants. Still, that doesn’t mean catching a COVID infection driven by FLiRT is risk-free.

Overall though, it’s very early days in terms of published research on these new FLiRT subvariants. We will need peer-reviewed data to understand more about FLiRT’s characteristics.

The rise of FLiRT

In the US, FLiRT has overtaken the original JN.1 variant as the dominant strain. The latest data from the US suggests the original JN.1 is making up less than 16% of cases.

While the FLiRT subvariants were detected in Australia more recently, they appear to be gaining traction. For example, NSW Health data up to mid May showed the proportion of KP.2 and KP.3 samples was continuing to increase.

In other parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom, the FLiRT subvariants are similarly on the rise.

In Australia, as temperatures continue to drop, and we head into the winter months, respiratory viruses commonly increase in circulation and case numbers peak.

So it is anticipated that the number of COVID cases will rise. And with the FLiRT subvariants showing evidence of increased “fitness”, meaning they present a stronger challenge against our body’s immune defences, it’s possible they will soon take over as the dominant subvariants circulating in Australia.

How can I stay protected?

As the FLiRT variants are descended from Omicron, the current booster on offer in Australia, against Omicron XBB.1.5, is likely to offer substantial protection. Although it’s not guaranteed to stop you becoming infected, COVID vaccines continue to provide strong protection against severe disease. So if you’re eligible, consider getting a booster to protect yourself this winter.

SARS-CoV-2 is now an endemic virus meaning it will continue to circulate around the world. To do this, the virus mutates – usually only slightly – to survive.

The new FLiRT subvariants are excellent examples of this, where the virus mutates enough to continue to circulate and cause disease. So far there is no suggestion these subvariants are causing more severe illness. It’s more likely they will cause people to catch COVID yet again.

While the information we have at this stage doesn’t give us significant cause for concern about the FLiRT variants specifically, we are nonetheless facing rising COVID infections once more. And we know people who are older or vulnerable, for example due to medical conditions that compromise their immune system, continue to be at greater risk.

Lara Herrero receives funding from NHMRC.

– ref. As COVID cases rise again, what do I need to know about the new FLiRT variants? – https://theconversation.com/as-covid-cases-rise-again-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-the-new-flirt-variants-230423

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clive Schofield, Professor, Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), University of Wollongong

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has found countries are obliged to protect the oceans from climate change impacts under the law of the sea.

The tribunal’s 21 judges issued a unanimous Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and International Law on May 21. It’s a landmark decision. For the first time an international court or tribunal has laid out the extent of state obligations to mitigate climate change under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

These findings are significant because ocean and climate are fundamentally linked. The global ocean covers 72% of Earth’s surface and holds 98% of its water. The advisory opinion cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2019 finding that the ocean had taken up 90% of the excess heat in the climate system.

This ruling is important for Australia, which has sovereign rights over an area of ocean – its maritime jurisdiction – almost 50% larger than its land area (excluding Antarctica).

The ruling is vitally important for small island (but large ocean) states that are most threatened by climate change impacts on the oceans.

A matter of survival for some states

Climate change impacts include ocean warming, coral bleaching, acidification and sea-level rise. These are existential threats for some island nations.

For example, Tuvalu in the South Pacific consists of nine low-lying atolls and 101 reef islands. Their combined land area is 26 square kilometres. Crucially, the average height above sea level is less than 3 metres.

This vulnerability to rising sea levels is only part of the problem for Tuvalu. The increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events due to climate change compounds the threat.

In 2015 Cyclone Pam created storm waves that displaced 45% of Tuvalu’s people. Loss and damage costs were estimated at US$10 million. That was more than a third of Tuvalu’s GDP at the time.

In response to these grave challenges, Antigua, Barbuda and Tuvalu founded the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS) in October 2021, on the eve of the COP26 UN climate conference. Members now include Palau, Niue, Vanuatu, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, and the Bahamas.

Tribunal lays out specific obligations

A key finding was the tribunal’s recognition that greenhouse gas emissions constitute pollution of the marine environment under the convention.

The tribunal also determined that parties to the convention have substantive, specific obligations to mitigate the impacts on the oceans resulting from their greenhouse gas emissions. This applies to both the high seas and maritime areas under a state’s jurisdiction. These measures include laws and regulations to prevent, reduce and control marine pollution due to emissions from:

• land-based sources
• vessels flying their flag or under their registry
• offshore activities such as oil and gas extraction.

State parties must also take all measures needed to implement the international standards set by competent international organisations, including the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

States are required to act on the basis of best available science and international rules and standards. The tribunal underscored the relevance of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, with its goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as the main international legal instruments to combat climate change.

These obligations are recognised as being ones of conduct (to make all necessary efforts) rather than ones of result (ensuring harm does not occur). The tribunal made it clear that the standard of due diligence in relation to meeting these obligations is “stringent”.

The advisory opinion noted efforts to fulfil these obligations may vary with the means available to states. It acknowledged the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, which has been developed under the climate regime.

Law of the sea obligations to assist developing states, especially those vulnerable to climate change, were also highlighted. So too was the requirement to monitor and assess climate impacts and share information.

The tribunal emphasised the specific obligation on states to prevent emissions under their control from causing damage to the marine environment of other states. It pointed to specific convention obligations of co-operation and consultation between states or through international organisations.

The tribunal recognised the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment was broad in scope. However, it stressed the specific obligations to protect and preserve rare and fragile ecosystem, the habitats of threatened or endangered species, and living marine resources threatened by climate change impacts.

Advisory opinions carry weight

While it’s an advisory opinion, the tribunal’s findings are authoritative.

Previous advisory opinions have made important contributions to the law. For example, the tribunal’s decisions on deep-seabed mining and illegal fishing in waters under the jurisdiction of states developed the concept of due diligence as a standard of care under the law of the sea.

An advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice persuaded the UK to resume negotiations with Mauritius over the future return of the Chagos islands. It also enabled the tribunal to resolve a maritime boundary dispute between the Maldives and Mauritius.

This week’s advisory opinion underpins efforts by vulnerable developing states, including small island states, which have contributed the least to climate change, to hold the developed world to account.

Under the law of the sea, states bear responsibility for failing to comply with obligations to prevent pollution and protect the marine environment. The tribunal has confirmed these obligations apply to climate change and ocean acidification.

Its advisory opinion could open the door to future litigation of climate change issues related to the oceans, including through the convention’s compulsory dispute resolution mechanisms.

Clive Schofield has received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) through its fellowship and research grant schemes.

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

– ref. Why a new ruling on the law of the sea and climate change matters for Australia and especially our island neighbours – https://theconversation.com/why-a-new-ruling-on-the-law-of-the-sea-and-climate-change-matters-for-australia-and-especially-our-island-neighbours-230682

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Glen Thomas Currie, Energy Systems Program Impact Manager, Climateworks, Monash University, Monash University

Australia has a new National Battery Strategy, unveiled this week as a key part of the government’s
Future Made in Australia agenda. The vision is for this country to be making batteries with secure supply chains by 2035.

It makes perfect sense for Australia to pursue domestic battery manufacturing.

Australia has all the ingredients needed to create a booming battery industry: abundant minerals, a strong resource sector, renewable energy resources, manufacturing know-how, trading partners and a skilled workforce. Now it’s time to get cooking.

But building a thriving national battery supply chain and local manufacturing industry won’t happen overnight. While new money is important for any new industry, what’s been missing is overarching government co-ordination. Otherwise it could mean spending a lot of money to little effect.

Pouring new money into battery action

Last week’s federal budget contained plenty of new money for batteries:

• $523.2 million for a “Battery Breakthrough” to help manufacturers build capability in crucial areas. They will be paid to focus on high-value battery products that align with Australia’s areas of advantage and support the climate energy transition.

• $20.3 million for “Building Future Battery Capabilities” to develop skills and expertise through stronger national collaboration. This includes funding to deliver a supply chain navigator tool. There’s also a battery innovation and scale-up program, best practice guidelines and standards, and battery industry skills and training.

• $5.6 million to deliver an “Australian Made Battery Precinct” in
  partnership with the Queensland government. The plan is ultimately to invest up to $100 million in the precinct.

• $1.7 billion for the Future Made in Australia Innovation Fund. It will support innovation, commercialisation, pilot and demonstration projects and early-stage development in priority sectors. This includes manufacturing clean energy technologies such as batteries.

We need more energy storage

Electricity storage will be crucial for decarbonising the global energy sector. It also underpins emissions reductions across the wider economy by enabling other sectors such as transport and heavy industry to be electrified.

Batteries cut costs for the dynamic electricity market and support the energy transition. Renewables remain the lowest-cost energy source in Australia.

There’s plenty of demand for batteries. We need more storage in our energy system right now.

Australia currently has 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of energy storage capacity. Our forecasts suggest we’ll need a whopping 14.9GW of storage by 2030, and 30.5GW by 2040. That’s on the lowest-cost pathway for Australia to play its part in limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

This means Australia is importing batteries while our emerging battery industry develops.

With government support Australia can develop onshore battery manufacturing at scale. This will give Australia better access to clean technologies while making more use of mineral resources. Such a strategy is key to making best use of opportunities in the transition to a net-zero global economy.

However, the history of the automotive industry in Australia shows domestic industries face substantial global competition. The challenge ahead is developing the skilled battery manufacturing workforce to harness available mineral resources.

Australia has strong university and private technology industry sectors, so we should be able to pull it all together. Building a skilled workforce creates social and economic benefits, and can be a source of national pride.

Co-ordinating cooks in the kitchen

Other countries are looking to build their own battery industries too. However, Australia can leverage an enormous advantage in critical minerals and energy resources. By joining with trading partners, Australia can provide “green” minerals and batteries to the world.

There is also an opportunity to align with solar manufacturing and other high-tech industries, which will support Australia’s ambition to become a renewable superpower.

The National Battery Strategy can contribute to decarbonising and building a prosperous nation that offers secure work for Australians. Australia’s deployment of battery storage can help make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime green economy transformation.

This will require co-ordination across governments and industry. Along with Future Made in Australia, there’s the National Reconstruction Fund and government support through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

The strategy unveiled yesterday is a solid step towards the nation achieving its energy storage goals. Importantly, too, it can help ensure Australia’s industrial and manufacturing heartlands remain competitive in a net-zero world.

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

– ref. The government’s cash splash aims to kickstart Australia’s battery industry. Has it flipped the right switches? – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-cash-splash-aims-to-kickstart-australias-battery-industry-has-it-flipped-the-right-switches-230856

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca McGirr, Postdoctoral research fellow, Australian National University

Imagine you’re standing near the edge of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, gazing out over the ocean, when the ice near you starts to melt very rapidly. A surge of meltwater flows into the ocean. Surprisingly, you watch the sea level fall – not rise.

But why? When we think of sea level rise, we picture oceans rising uniformly. But the sea is not like a bucket of water. It is bumpy and uneven. Gravity plays a vital role. Water is heavy. And unlike rocks, this enormous mass moves easily. Ice melts, snow and rain falls, rivers run, water evaporates and forms clouds. When ice melts, its weight shifts from land to sea and back again.

Our new research uses gravity-sensing satellites to track how changes in water storage on land can cause unexpected fluctuations in sea levels.

This century, rapid melting of ice sheets and mountain glaciers has raised overall global sea levels by around 1.5 millimetres a year. Melting ice has contributed 75% to the overall increase in ocean mass. The remaining 25% is due to changes in water storage on ice-free land areas. This includes changes in water captured in dams, water used by crops and vegetation as well as extraction of groundwater which then either evaporates or flows down rivers and eventually ends up in the oceans.

Changes to local sea level aren’t just due to melting glaciers or ice sheets. Any change in water mass on land can do the same thing. During large floods, the land gets heavier, boosting its gravity and triggering temporary local sea level rise. During droughts, the land loses mass, gravity drops and local sea levels fall.

These short-term effects are in addition to the long-term increases in sea level caused by the melting of Greenland and Antarctica and the thermal expansion as the oceans warm due to climate change.

How does water exchange influence sea level?

Why would local sea level fall near the coast of Antarctica if the ice sheet melts? It’s all because of gravity.

Think about the size of the Antarctic ice sheet, which covers the continent and the seas around it. It’s almost 5 kilometres high at its thickest point, and weighs a staggering 24 million billion tonnes. A mass this size exerts a gravitational pull on the ocean nearby, making sea levels higher than if it wasn’t there. But as the ice sheet melts, it loses mass, weakening the pull. As a result, the mass of the ocean is less attracted to the ice and nearby sea levels actually fall – while more distant sea levels rise.

Water is constantly being exchanged between land and sea. This exchange – through rainfall, rivers and groundwater – changes sea levels further away, affecting coastlines far beyond the point of entry or extraction. These fluctuations in water levels follow a predictable pattern as Earth rotates.

What this means is that sea level rise is different from place to place and time to time, even as ice steadily melts from global warming.

If there’s a sudden change to water or ice storage, it can profoundly influence water flows in the ocean, determining where sea levels rise or fall. For instance, as the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt, the change to gravity actually leads to a fall in sea levels in the polar oceans, while sea level rises rapidly near the Equator.

Our research has shown the pumping of groundwater in ice-free regions – the continents where most of us live – can, in places such as Kuwait City, nearly mask the anticipated rise in sea levels from ice sheet melting. But in places such as New York, far away from intense groundwater extraction in Asia, sea level rise is accelerated.

Of water and land

In ice-free regions, the local sea level is influenced by what happens to water on land, whether by changes in lakes and rivers, soil moisture during drought and floods, or over-extraction of groundwater.

When La Niña arrives in eastern Australia or northern South America, this climate cycle often brings torrential rain, which can result in large-scale flooding, billions of dollars of damage, and loss of life. But La Niña can also tilt the gravitational balance towards the land.

In 2010 and 2011, consecutive La Niña events dropped so much rain on land that global sea level fell about 5mm. In the triple La Niña from 2020 to 2023, the rain dump significantly slowed the rate of global sea level rise.

This reduces, albeit temporarily, the climate-driven rise in global sea level.

What about groundwater? In most of the world, the drive for development and population growth have driven ever greater demands for water. Regions of China and India have been extracting groundwater at a combined rate of around 37 billion tonnes a year, far exceeding natural replenishment rates.

This over-extraction of groundwater has made a substantial contribution of ~1 mm per decade to overall sea level rise. But paradoxically, it has caused local sea levels to fall, as our industrious activities shift water mass from underground onto farms and then to the sea, via rivers.

As groundwater is depleted, the land loses mass and its gravitational pull falls. So far, this has had a far more pronounced effect on local sea level than the rise resulting from distant melting ice.

Of course, the water has to go somewhere. Unsustainable groundwater use ends up causing sea levels to rise elsewhere, and adds to the overall increase from ice sheet and mountain glacier melt.

What does the future hold?

Our research points to one reason why some of us have not yet seen the full effects of global warming driving sea level rise – it’s been masked by groundwater extraction or climate cycles such as La Niña.

Groundwater overuse has slowed in China due to policy changes, leading to roughly 21 billion tonnes of increased water in these regions since the policy changes took effect.

Perversely, this will see local sea level rise accelerate, as groundwater extraction no longer offsets the increase from melting ice sheets. But on distant coastlines, reduced groundwater pumping will cause sea level rise to slow.

At present, in some places, groundwater use and other changes on land rivals the impact of ice-driven effects. The changes to water on our continents has been significantly affecting local sea levels.

But these changes are temporary and limited in magnitude relative to the big one: accelerating melting of the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica.

Rebecca McGirr works for the Australian National University at the Research School of Earth Science. She receives funding from Geoscience Australia and The Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science which is a Special Research Initiative funded by the Australian Research Council.

Anthony Purcell works for the Australian National University at the Research School of Earth Science. He receives funding from the CRC-P program.

Herb McQueen works for the Australian National University at the Research School of Earth Sciences.

Paul Tregoning works for the Australian National University. He is Head of Climate and Ocean Geosciences at the Research School of Earth Sciences and is a member of the Institute for Water Futures and the ANU Institute for Space. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Heavy water: how melting ice sheets and pumped groundwater can lower local sea levels – and boost them elsewhere – https://theconversation.com/heavy-water-how-melting-ice-sheets-and-pumped-groundwater-can-lower-local-sea-levels-and-boost-them-elsewhere-229503

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney

This should be a golden age for Australian soccer. After all, the big picture is good: the Matildas are waltzing, the Socceroos are well supported and Australia was just awarded hosting rights to the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup.

Australia is still buzzing from the success of the amazing FIFA Women’s World Cup last year in Australia and New Zealand. In a phenomenon I dubbed “Matildanomics”, the huge crowds of 80,000 and more for the Matildas in the largest stadiums in the land contrasted with the 15,000 they achieved in a friendly against Brazil in Penrith just seven years ago.

Football Australia was excited about the economic impact even before the World Cup kick-off. They anticipated at least A$400 million in total benefits, including 3,000 full-time jobs and 60,000 visitors to the country.

Beyond tourism and broadcast rights, they were expecting a legacy of long-term economic and social impact.

In the men’s game, the Socceroos also performed admirably at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. It was an incredible sight to see masses of fans at Sydney’s Darling Harbour and Melbourne’s Federation Square watching the national team play.

Soccer is no doubt in great shape at the elite level in Australia. Things are also purring at grassroots levels.

What about soccer participation?

Soccer has long been one of Australia’s dominant codes in terms of participation.

This is particularly so at junior levels, although it drops off as kids enter their teens.

At the moment, at junior levels, participation levels for girls should receive a boost with 407,000 new participants expected by 2027. This is mainly thanks to “the Matildas effect” and Football Australia’s “Legacy23” strategy, which seeks to boost community infrastructure (such as soccer pitches, training facilities and change rooms) to meet surging demand.

With Australia’s national teams performing well, strong participation at the grassroots levels and individual athletes (such as Sam Kerr) and Spurs manager (Ange Postecoglou) having made a name on the world stage, it should be a sparkling era for soccer in this country.

However, these achievements mask some problems for the game at home.

Record women’s crowds but the A-League is still struggling

A-League Women (ALW) attendances are still hardly Matildas-sized, averaging a touch more than 2,200 a match this season. But the 2024 campaign attracted 300,000 fans, which the APL says was the most attended season of any women’s sport in Australian history.

This compares favourably to last year’s Super Netball competition (266,000 fans) and the latest AFL Women’s season (284,000).

But the bigger picture is that the A-League is in financial turmoil. Some of its clubs are in trouble too.

The league’s governing body, the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), is trying to plug a $100 million funding hole and is planning to cut its funding to A-League clubs by 80%.

Then there is the perrenial discusion as to why A-League attendances are falling, on average, since the league’s early days but they are still reasonable by world standards.

Then there are issues with the A-League’s recent broadcast deal with Network 10 and Paramount, with production company Global Advance recently placed into voluntary administration.

Many fans were also outraged by the A-League’s decision to “sell” the grand final to Sydney, with backlash forcing the league to abandon the deal with the NSW government.

What to do at the national competition level below the A-League is also causing issues. Football Australia says a national second division competition for men’s clubs is going ahead, but there is a scramble for clubs that want to be included.

To top it all off, three male players have recently been charged in connection with alleged betting corruption. There has also been recent violence involving fans, players and even referees.

These are headlines the domestic game definitely doesn’t need at a time of financial fragility.

Challenges converting opportunities into wins

Late last year, as the A-League Women’s season was set to kick off, former Socceroos and A-League coach Postecoglou warned Australia still lacked serious financial investment in the sport.

When you look at what the Matildas did at the World Cup: unbelievable. But you still won’t see an influx of resources to the game. You won’t, I guarantee it.

Asked about football in Australia again this week, before Tottenham’s friendly match at the MCG, Postecoglou said “I don’t think too much has changed”.

Another challenge for the A-League is the global nature of the sport.

More often than not, Australia’s best talent heads offshore. Most of the star Matildas – like Kerr, Mary Fowler, Steph Catley and Ellie Carpenter – play in the United Kingdom or Europe, just as male players like Craig Johnston, Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka did before them.

The domestic game can’t attract and keep homegrown talent, with notable exceptions like Sydney FC championship player and World Cup penalty hero Cortnee Vine.

And what about the fans? Is the global nature of “the world game” a mixed blessing? After all, some fans are more interested in how Liverpool or Barcelona are going than Western United or Melbourne City.

Streaming and the digital revolution has changed viewing habits – supporters of overseas teams can watch their games easily, meaning fans in Australia don’t have to engage with the local leagues to get their soccer fix if they don’t want to.

Some observers who love the game point to the need for domestic soccer to get its own house in order, as well as celebrating the global journey of our Matildas and Socceroos stars abroad.

They also believe the sport doesn’t need to engage with “code wars” with other Australian sports.

As leading sports journalist Michael Cain once told me:

We need to look after our own game at home at the local level, as well as on the big stage, and the beauty of Australia is that we coexist with other football codes. Infighting within the sport has always been the code’s Achilles heel. Maybe if soccer in Australia worried about cleaning up its own civil wars, it would never have to look left or right at rivals ever again.

Tim Harcourt 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 Matildas and Socceroos are soaring, while participation is growing – but the A-League is missing its moment to shine – https://theconversation.com/the-matildas-and-socceroos-are-soaring-while-participation-is-growing-but-the-a-league-is-missing-its-moment-to-shine-230407

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Wellings, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, Monash University

Assuming a Labour win in the UK general election – always a risky assumption given Labour’s proclivity for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory – the “Global Britain” bombast emanating from the United Kingdom will cease.

Good relations with Australia will continue, however, due to AUKUS, the Australia–UK free trade agreement and the diplomatic groundwork laid by governments of both major parties in Canberra and London.

In truth, the “Global Britain” rhetoric has already been quietly dropped. Developed during the UK’s protracted withdrawal from the European Union, the idea of repositioning the country as a world leader (for example in trade, security, vaccines and just about everything) was always too closely associated with the boosterism of former prime minister Boris Johnson and the record-breakingly brief premiership of Liz Truss to survive a switch to a more “sensible” form of government under Rishi Sunak.

However, the fundamentals of the Australia–UK relationship remain solid. There was a time when British and Australian ministers would meet, say how well the two countries got on, make jokes about cricket and then struggle to find anything meaningful to discuss. But times have changed.

The UK Conservative government actively courted a revived relationship with Australia even before Brexit. The UK’s withdrawal from the EU provided an opportunity for Australia to sign another free trade agreement – widely but quietly assumed to work in Australia’s favour – and do so while asserting what great mates the two countries are. AUKUS then put the relationship on a renewed strategic footing.

Labour’s path to victory

This brings us to the electoral geography of Labour’s chances of gaining the keys to 10 Downing Street. The submarine-building program of AUKUS is good for jobs in the north of England. Winning back working-class votes in the so-called “Red Wall” of northern English constituencies, after Labour’s disastrous showing in 2019, is central to Labour’s hopes of victory.

Under Sir Keir Starmer, party leader since 2020, Labour has worked hard – too hard, some might say – to win back socially conservative voters who abandoned the party due to its equivocation on Brexit under the unpopular Jeremy Corbyn.

In contrast to the left-wing Corbyn, Starmer has embraced the Union Jack, broken his silence on Brexit to quash hopes of the UK ever rejoining the EU, and rolled back pledges for green initiatives.

This will no doubt cost Labour some support from progressive voters. Starmer’s handling of the party’s response to the conflict in Gaza has already lost some support among Muslim voters who typically vote Labour. Nevertheless, the electoral calculation is that progressives cannot bring themselves to vote for the Conservatives, so their vote can be banked.

But people can choose not to vote at all in the UK, and many may decide to stay away on election day. This could depress the vote for both major parties.

The rise of minor parties

This leaves the door open for minor parties to have an outsized effect on July 4.

The Conservatives may lose votes to their right and left. Socially conservative right-wing voters, energised by the anti-woke tactics of the evermore right-leaning Tories, can vote for Reform UK.

This party is the successor to the radical populist UK Independence Party and the Brexit Party, both formerly led by Nigel Farage. At the previous election, Farage did the Tories a huge favour and declined to run candidates against Brexit-supporting Conservatives. With Brexit done, Farage’s successor at the head of Reform, Richard Tice, is unlikely to be so generous.

On their left, the Conservatives may also lose support from moderate voters (those put off by their anti-woke tactics) in the so-called “Blue Wall” of usually Conservative-voting constituencies in the south of England. These people, if they vote at all, may vote for the centrist Liberal Democrats.

And in Scotland, the pro-independence Scottish National Party is having struggles of its own. It’s been in government since 2007 and is plagued by leadership problems. Its loss may well be Labour’s gain as it seeks to win back votes it lost to the SNP after the independence referendum in 2014.

New soundtrack for an old friendship

So, if Labour does get back into Downing Street there will be a change of mood music in the Australia–UK relationship.

When the Conservatives were in power in London and the Coalition was in power in Canberra, the two governments saw eye-to-eye ideologically. There was talk in the media of the Anglosphere shaping international relations and even saving the West (from itself).

Assuming the current shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, stays in his post if Labour forms the next government, the UK will be much more focused on repairing relations with the EU in general and France in particular (see AUKUS) than directly focused on the Indo-Pacific. It may be the UK’s capabilities in this region have been overstated by the Conservative government.

Labour is far less enamoured with the supposed benefits of unfettered free trade than the “Global Britain” wing of the Conservative Party. Nonetheless, the UK–Australian free trade agreement is in place and here to stay.

All in all, it would take a lot to push Australia and the UK apart, although it’s happened in the past. The major threat to AUKUS will not be from a change of government in London, but from a different president in Washington.

If Labour wins government on July 4, some of the inflated hopes for the Australia–UK relationship will recede. But the two countries will still be great mates, and the jokes about cricket will be back for another innings, just with a different captain.

Ben Wellings 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 British election is Labour’s to lose. What would the UK–Australia relationship look like under Keir Starmer? – https://theconversation.com/the-british-election-is-labours-to-lose-what-would-the-uk-australia-relationship-look-like-under-keir-starmer-230775

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna Kemp, Professor and Director, Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, The University of Queensland

The Australian mining industry was promised billions of dollars in last week’s federal budget to boost critical minerals such as lithium, copper and rare earth metals. This includes tax incentives, an innovation fund and money for Geoscience Australia to map these resources.

Local investment in critical minerals mining and processing also feeds into the new National Battery Strategy, announced this week.

But despite all this funding, virtually nothing has been allocated to help local communities engage with new mining activities. There are social and economic risks and opportunities, all of which need to be considered.

We mapped Australia’s critical minerals deposits against socio-economic data to identify the communities most at risk. Our study shows some of our most disadvantaged areas have the most abundant critical minerals. This means they are highly likely to come under pressure from mining activities. But they may also have more to gain.

Why is the government supporting critical minerals?

Critical minerals include aluminium, cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, nickel and rare earth elements.

We need much more of these minerals to scale up renewable energy. Critical minerals are also used in defence, space, computing, telecommunications and transport.

Australia is rich in these resources. Supporting the sector could stabilise global supply and boost the Australian economy.

The A$22.7 billion Future Made in Australia package includes support for “green metals” and $8.8 billion for critical minerals.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also promised to fast-track low-risk foreign investment to unlock new projects.

The Albanese government has already announced support for two major critical minerals projects. This includes $400 million in new loans to Australian company Alpa HPA for a high-purity alumina processing facility in Gladstone, Queensland. It also includes conditional approval of $185 million to Renascor Resources to expedite the development of its Siviour Graphite Project in South Australia.

Earlier announcements include $840 million in loans and grants for Arafura, a Gina Rinehart-backed rare-earth refinery in Western Australia.

The Minerals Council of Australia has welcomed the government’s strategy.

What’s the problem?

Mining more minerals at a greater rate will put some of Australia’s poorest and most remote communities under enormous pressure.

Unless we understand how critical minerals mining will affect people in these locations, the strategy could drive social inequality rather than reduce it. Australia already struggles with inequality. We don’t want to make a bad situation worse.

Our research shows Australia’s most disadvantaged areas have the highest number of critical minerals mines and mineral deposits.

People in these areas live in smaller communities. They also have poorer school completion rates and lower levels of qualifications than their counterparts in capital cities. These areas are also home to a higher proportion of Indigenous people than elsewhere in the same states.

We found 57.8% of critical minerals projects in areas where Indigenous peoples have a legally recognised right to negotiate. Including native title claims, these rights are available at 79.2% of these projects.

Following the Future Made announcement, local communities and Land Councils began telling us all this new activity is adding to the pressure around consultation with mining companies. More applications for minerals exploration and mining projects means more community input is required. This should include careful consideration of potential risks and impacts. These processes are complex and take time to do well.

State and territory governments have promised to partner with local communities and First Nations people and share the benefits of critical minerals mining. But these commitments are not accompanied by any tangible support for research or for communities, or a clear strategy for avoiding negative impacts.

But doesn’t mining bring local benefits to remote areas?

Mining can create local jobs and business opportunities, but it can also cause harm. The downsides include land and water contamination, loss of biodiversity, destruction of cultural heritage and liabilities after mines cease production. Some of these impacts last for generations.

Our data shows that despite the promises made, remote communities and regions don’t always see the benefits from mining.

Another challenge is many of these new mines are expected to be deeper, with lower cutoff grades, thereby producing more waste at the surface.

Building complex mines in environmentally fragile or culturally sensitive areas, where people haven’t benefited from mining in previous decades, will be a huge challenge.

Unless these issues are better acknowledged and addressed, opposition to mining is likely to increase. If critical minerals mining fails to proceed, economic gains will be lost and the transition to renewable energy becomes more difficult.

These issues need to be a central part of Australia’s future critical minerals strategy.

What can be done?

There is an opportunity to map and better understand the distribution of mining’s social and economic risks and potential benefits. Here are three ideas.

First, the federal and state governments could commit to a minimum spend of their critical minerals and energy research budgets for independent social science and public policy research. Given the large overlap with Indigenous peoples lands, this must include First Nations people.

Second, as critical minerals deposits are mapped, governments also need to explore any overlap with local social and economic issues. In our work, we overlaid critical minerals project data with Australian Bureau of Statistics data on social disadvantage, employment, household income and population characteristics, to highlight issues policymakers and industry need to consider.

This kind of early and pre-emptive analysis, conducted before project approval applications are lodged, would put companies and communities in a better position. Together they can discuss how to protect local people and the environment – and equitably share benefits.

Third, governments should support researchers to make these studies publicly available and engage local communities, media and civil society groups to discuss the results. Communities may also have questions of their own. This kind of open exchange would help to level the playing field in agreement negotiations and project approval processes – particularly when small communities are faced with multiple projects moving quickly.

Mining is the backbone of the Australian economy. We can’t overlook social impacts and inequalities in the race to mine more critical minerals.

Deanna Kemp is a chief investigator of an ARC Linkage grant on public-private inquiries in mining. The Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland conducts applied research with mining companies, governments and mine-affected communities globally. She is a trustee of the Institute for Human Rights and Business.

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

– ref. A rush on critical minerals is coming for our most remote and disadvantaged communities – https://theconversation.com/a-rush-on-critical-minerals-is-coming-for-our-most-remote-and-disadvantaged-communities-230768

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University

OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, and News Corp, the international media conglomerate, have signed a deal that will let OpenAI use and learn from News Corp’s content.

In practical terms, this means when a user asks ChatGPT a question, the results might be informed by previous reporting in News Corp outlets, including Australian mastheads such as The Australian and The Daily Telegraph. It’s unclear whether the agreement includes only editorial or also opinion content.

OpenAI has licensed News Corp content because generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a ravenous beast: it needs data to learn from and generate useful outputs in return. Its ability to do this is impacted by the size and quality of its training data.

But could the media be signing its own death warrant by sharing its journalism? Or do we all benefit from the wider availability of reliable information?

Work with AI, or fight it?

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s major service, has learned from consuming books, articles and publicly available web content. This includes online news articles from across the internet.

However, there are unresolved questions over who owns the content. The New York Times, for example, is suing OpenAI over alleged copyright infringement. By inking deals with media companies, generative AI services like ChatGPT can ensure they stay clear of legal questions by paying to learn from their content.

The quality and provenance of the training data also matter and can lead to biases in what generative AI produces. So it is notable that while some news media organisations are trying to stop their content from being used, others, including Associated Press, are signing deals.

ChatGPT is a complex technical system. Just because some outlets opt in to licensing deals and others don’t won’t mean the technology will sound more like The Australian than The New York Times.

However, at a broader level, where ChatGPT gets its news content from may affect how it responds to questions about current events.

Working out what sort of news content gets included from each publication may also have an impact on how ChatGPT answers queries. Opinion articles are often more sensationalist than straight news, for example, and sometimes do not accurately reflect current issues.

Jobs on the chopping block?

It also remains to be seen how deals like these will affect the human labour of journalists and editors.

On one hand, since generative AI needs more and better content to provide better answers, journalists and content creators will be needed to ensure there is ongoing training data for AI to learn from.

On the other hand, it’s not clear how many journalists organisations like News Corp think are necessary to do that job as further cuts at the organisation are expected next week.

At the same time, the ability for AI to “hallucinate,” or make things up, is well-known. The role of editors in fact-checking content, and critical thinking among those consuming content, is paramount.

In all this, small and medium-sized players in the media landscape seem once more to be pushed to the side, as the big players battle for lucrative content deals while smaller organisations fight for scraps or are left hungry.

Proceeding with caution

These deals also raise questions about the role of ABC and SBS in a changing media environment. Australians pay for public service media through their taxes, but OpenAI is not rushing to do deals with these organisations.

However, companies like OpenAI are gradually accepting the principle that producing quality news costs money and that they need to secure licences to use content. If they want to be consistent, there is strong case to be made that such companies should not just include public service media content in their models, but recompense these organisations in the process, much like Google and Meta organised deals with the ABC through the News Media Bargaining Code.

Where you get your news matters. More people may use AI services for news in the future, but right now it is an underwhelming source of reliable information. Signing content-sharing agreements with companies like News Corp may help improve the quality of answers and increase the relevance of ChatGPT outputs for Australian users.

News Corp also doesn’t have journalists in every community, so supporting independent media in your local area can help you get quality information and prevent news deserts from increasing.

At the end of the day, generative AI doesn’t always get it right (and often gets it wrong) so treat outputs with a healthy level of caution and compare results with those from reputable sources before using AI-generated content to make decisions.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

James Meese has received funding from the Australian Research Council, Meta, the International Association of Privacy Professionals and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

– ref. What OpenAI’s deal with News Corp means for journalism (and for you) – https://theconversation.com/what-openais-deal-with-news-corp-means-for-journalism-and-for-you-230773

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jaimon Kelly, Senior Research Fellow in Telehealth delivered health services, The University of Queensland

For many Australians the emergency department (ED) is the physical and emblematic front door to accessing urgent health-care services.

But health-care services are evolving rapidly to meet the population’s changing needs. In recent years, we’ve seen growing use of telephone, video, and online health services, including the national healthdirect helpline, 13YARN (a crisis support service for First Nations people), state-funded lines like 13 HEALTH, and bulk-billed telehealth services, which have helped millions of Australians to access health care on demand and from home.

The ED is similarly expanding into new telehealth models to improve access to emergency medical care. Virtual EDs allow people to access the expertise of a hospital ED through their phone, computer or tablet.

All Australian states and the Northern Territory have some form of virtual ED at least in development, although not all of these services are available to the general public at this stage.

So what is a virtual ED, and when is it appropriate to consider using one?

How does a virtual ED work?

A virtual ED is set up to mirror the way you would enter the physical ED front door. First you provide some basic information to administration staff, then you are triaged by a nurse (this means they categorise the level of urgency of your case), then you see the ED doctor. Generally, this all takes place in a single video call.

In some instances, virtual ED clinicians may consult with other specialists such as neurologists, cardiologists or trauma experts to make clinical decisions.

A virtual ED is not suitable for managing medical emergencies which would require immediate resuscitation, or potentially serious chest pains, difficulty breathing or severe injuries.

A virtual ED is best suited to conditions that require immediate attention but are not life-threatening. These could include wounds, sprains, respiratory illnesses, allergic reactions, rashes, bites, pain, infections, minor burns, children with fevers, gastroenteritis, vertigo, high blood pressure, and many more.

People with these sorts of conditions and concerns may not be able to get in to see a GP straight away and may feel they need emergency advice, care or treatment.

When attending the ED, they can be subject to long wait times and delayed specialist attention because more serious cases are naturally prioritised. Attending a virtual ED may mean they’re seen by a doctor more quickly, and can begin any relevant treatment sooner.

From the perspective of the health-care system, virtual EDs are about redirecting unnecessary presentations away from physical EDs, helping them be ready to respond to emergencies. The virtual ED will not hesitate in directing callers to come into the physical ED if staff believe it is an emergency.

The doctor in the virtual ED may also direct the patient to a GP or other health professional, for example if their condition can’t be assessed visually, or if they need physical treatment.

The results so far

Virtual EDs have developed significantly over the past three years, predominantly driven by the COVID pandemic. We are now starting to slowly see assessments of these services.

A recent evaluation my colleagues and I did of Queensland’s Metro North Virtual ED found roughly 30% of calls were directed to the physical ED. This suggests 70% of the time, cases could be managed effectively by the virtual ED.

Preliminary data from a Victorian virtual ED indicates it curbed a similar rate of avoidable ED presentations – 72% of patients were successfully managed by the virtual ED alone. A study on the cost-effectiveness of another Victorian virtual ED suggested it has the potential to generate savings in health-care costs if it prevents physical ED visits.

Only 1.2% of people assessed in Queensland’s Metro North Virtual ED required unexpected hospital admission within 48 hours of being “discharged” from the virtual ED. None of these cases were life-threatening. This indicates the virtual ED is very safe.

The service experienced an average growth rate of 65% each month over a two-year evaluation period, highlighting increasing demand and confidence in the service. Surveys suggested clinicians also view the virtual ED positively.

What now?

We need further research into patient outcomes and satisfaction, as well as the demographics of those using virtual EDs, and how these measures compare to the physical ED across different triage categories.

There are also challenges associated with virtual EDs, including around technology (connection and skills among patients and health professionals), training (for health professionals) and the importance of maintaining security and privacy.

Nonetheless, these services have the potential to reduce congestion in physical EDs, and offer greater convenience for patients.

Eligibility differs between different programs, so if you want to use a virtual ED, you may need to check you are eligible in your jurisdiction. Most virtual EDs can be accessed online, and some have direct phone numbers.

I am lead author of the Metro North Virtual ED evaluation mentioned in this article. I do not work for the Virtual ED nor have received any funding for my collaboration and evaluation of their services.

– ref. What is a virtual emergency department? And when should you ‘visit’ one? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-virtual-emergency-department-and-when-should-you-visit-one-228098

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Trelease, Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology

Following the hugely successful recent season of Married At First Sight (MAFS) Australia, fans of the format – and the reality romance genre in general – will be wondering if the rebooted New Zealand version can live up to expectations.

The new season (the first New Zealand version since 2019) begins this Sunday on Three, with the trailer warning New Zealanders to “prepare for the chaos of love”. But viewers will also be preparing for something different, and uniquely local, from the show’s return after five years: a little less Aussie, a bit more Kiwi.

Getting that differentiation right within a licensed reality format is key to the success of MAFS. It must be faithful enough to the franchise to attract an established audience, but different enough to set it apart from other versions available in the same territory.

This tactic – sometimes dubbed “glocalisation” – is similar to recognising a McDonald’s restaurant in another country but seeing menu variations: there may be many regional versions of MAFS, but there is a unique ingredient to each one.

Hard realities

MAFS began as a Danish reality experiment in 2013. The format involves strangers paired by relationship experts, then meeting for the first time at the altar. Each season follows these newlyweds as they receive therapy and advice from an expert panel, with the goal being to remain “married” once the season ends.

The format immediately rolled out across Europe and beyond, with 24 licensed versions of the format so far, including in the United Kingdom, United States and South Africa.

One key regional variation involves whether these TV marriages are, in fact, legally binding. In the US they are, in Australia and New Zealand they are not. Various regional versions also feature different experts, who may be a clinical neuropsychologist, an anthropologist, a financial expert, a sex therapist or even a pastor.

The new season of MAFS NZ is launching in a turbulent TV and media culture. Three’s parent company, Warner Bros Discovery, is closing its Newshub division but has said it would “still create content and would continue to invest in high profile and popular shows like MAFS Australia and the Block Australia”.

The decision to continue with local and imported reality shows while axing a news service is perhaps unsurprising in a ratings-driven commercial industry. The most recent season of MAFS Australia outrated both Newshub’s and rival TVNZ’s main news bulletins.

But not all reality formats are created equal, as the recent cancellation of The Block NZ demonstrated. So the pressure is certainly on MAFS NZ to get it right.

Non-fiction soap opera

The first MAFS NZ season in 2017 was memorable for the success of couple Angel and Brett who went on to have a baby. But the season also featured only six couples, which allowed viewers to spend more time with each narrative thread, and invest in their success during and after the show.

In effect, the format is something like a non-fiction soap opera – right down to screening across consecutive nights (Sunday to Tuesday for the forthcoming season). Fans are drawn into the lives of “supercouples” who must defy the odds and work towards their happy ending.

It’s why Art and Matilda from the first season of The Bachelor NZ still feature in the news, from their engagement and marriage to having three children. Indeed, setting the bar so high at the outset might explain why it was necessary to tweak the format for the next season, “moving from lusty abs on horseback to a mysterious Casanova”.

Unfortunately, the third season of MAFS NZ was memorable for different reasons, when one groom was edited out for having faced domestic violence charges in the US. Similar issues have dogged other romance formats.

The importance of casting, then, is vital. Past seasons have made efforts to educate audiences on the dangers of toxic partners, alpha males and gaslighting. MAFS Australia panel expert John Aiken (who will also appear on MAFS NZ) maintains the show has “a huge duty of care, service and focus for [participants] before, during and after”.

Only this week, however, a former Australian contestant declared she was “struggling” and has entered a mental health retreat. There is even a movement in the US to unionise participants under the motto “Cast members are people, not live props”.

Capturing the Kiwi essence

Of all of the regional versions, MAFS Australia is best at generating scandalous drama in a reality romance setting. Previous seasons have seen participants manipulate, cheat and even swap partners.

Schadenfreude – taking pleasure in the misfortune of others – is encouraged. Viewers have permission to react along with those on screen, and to continue the conversation online, at work or with family – generally at the expense of the participants.

But having been a reality romance participant myself (on The Bachelor NZ in 2016), I have seen how the pressure to deliver bigger, better or more outrageous scenarios can result in a deficit of the show’s essential elements – romance and love.

International locations or edited narratives that play up scandal or infighting do not necessarily provide the things that make audiences fall for reality romance.

If this season of MAFS NZ succeeds it will be by creating a uniquely local perspective on the format, one that reflects recognisably Kiwi characteristics: not too wholesome, not too mean, not too melodramatic.

Rebecca Trelease was a participant on The Bachelor NZ, 2016, produced by Warner Bros International Television NZ.

– ref. Married at First Sight NZ pops the question: can the relaunch put a winning Kiwi spin on the global format? – https://theconversation.com/married-at-first-sight-nz-pops-the-question-can-the-relaunch-put-a-winning-kiwi-spin-on-the-global-format-230764

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic Redfern, Associate Professor, School of Art, RMIT University

At this week’s launch of Beings by Universal Everything, ACMI board member Ian Forsyth noted that ACMI’s last exhibition, Marshmallow Laser Feast: Works of Nature, exceeded audience targets by 40–50%. This is an enormous success by any measure. It proves ACMI’s vision for its premiere exhibition space is working.

Exhibitions like Beings and Marshmallow Laser Feast are designed as fun-for-the-whole-family experiences. This assumption was supported by the reference to kindness as the core of creativity by Universal Everything collective member Joel Gethin Lewis, who spoke at the launch. Lewis went on to conjure the late anthropologist and activist David Graeber with the assertion that play and care were the only two sustainable activities developed by the human race.

Let me say at the outset, kids will probably love it. It looks like the distilled essence of Pixar’s Monster’s Inc visual appeal. Essence is the wrong word though; to be honest this is more like pastiche.

In the end, Beings is yet another example of spectacle being substituted for substance at great expense.

Beings and nothingness

Upon our arrival we are greeted by variously “skinned” bobbing 3D lumps. Skins are textures that wrap a 3D object like wood grain, dots, freckles etc. The bouncing forms of these lumps, reminiscent of the rubber hose period of American animation, occupy a white void, which appears to flow directly and seamlessly off the room’s architecture.

The effect is of a digital trompe l’oeil accompanied by melodic snippets of voice that cycle in rounds to create a looping crowd noise. It’s reminiscent of the hypnotically polyphonous music of the Aka Pygmies.

Moving on, we encounter a passing parade of what look like virtual soundsuits by the visual artist Nick Cave. Technically, what we have is the recording of human movement transposed onto polymorphous 3D figures in various skins.

Various points on the figures’ bodies are extruded into hair or tentacles, with virtual gravity and inertia acting on them to give them bounce and drag. But this is Drag minus the transgression. Drag and the carnivalesque are premised on the usurping of norms and the social moirés of the everyday, but this work hollows out these important traditions.

Just as these 3D models have no interior, so, too, this work seems all surface; it is an effect at the service of nothing.

In the next room along we are greeted by a much larger curving screen, which once again features the motif of the parade. One can’t help but think of voguing and Mardi Gras, but there is no life here. Granted, the real-time rendering is incredible: computer power and programming have come a long way. However, technology and indeed technique must be at the service of something.

What we have here is the Muppets minus the spicy lurking threat of the monstrous.

The third room contains a milling crowd, a murmuration of men seen from above. Once again, I had the distinct impression of a lack of direction. The exhibition lacked the overarching skill of a writer, animateur, choreographer or director to put all this breathtaking tech at the service of something other than a generic cuteness.

Seeing a dancer in the subsequent space I felt the thrill of just such a possibility. My ideal version of the exhibition could certainly have been fulfilled by putting these walk cycles at the service of a choreographer (as in Chunky Move’s Mortal Engine of 2008). But this was one moment of transcendence for technology that was otherwise left soaking in its own demo loops.

Adjacent to the dancer was a vertical screen populated by hyper-feminised, hip-rolling robots, possibly riffing on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s turn as L3-37 in the movie Solo. But these lacked Waller-Bridge’s arch sass, let alone the thrill of Lee Bowery, of which they also seemed a pale echo.

Who is it for?

As I have said, this show is one for the kids and they will probably love it, including the interactive dimensions that allow their movement to be skinned by various fantastic creatures in real time.

And, if it wasn’t clear to those invited to the launch that they were not the target audience, it was reinforced by Ian Forsyth’s stated distinction between “real people living in suburbs” and those present for the launch. Such a classist distinction is yet another example of the anti-intellectual tradition in Australia (yawn).

But I am also troubled by this apparently either/or choice being made for a world-class institution. ACMI’s curatorial drive for broad appeal overlooks the possibility that the culture of cute can be critical and appealing.

In Beings we experience an automated (albeit virtuosic) system that reduces the explosive creative exuberance of camp and drag to an algorithm. In the process it becomes vacuous, despite its psychedelically cheerful enthusiasm.

Dominic Redfern 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. All surface, no substance. Kids will probably love Beings at ACMI. Pity about the rest of us – https://theconversation.com/all-surface-no-substance-kids-will-probably-love-beings-at-acmi-pity-about-the-rest-of-us-228279

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Wake, Associate Professor, Journalism, RMIT University

The news media play a vital role in shaping the public conversation and covering complex issues such as war, the economy, climate change and technology.

Yet our new research has found the news media in Australia have failed to meet the news coverage needs of those often most affected by these issues.

Our multidisciplinary team gathered by RMIT’s Innovation Catalyst used machine learning techniques to examine 114,739 articles on financial wellbeing (including personal and family finance) published since 1990. We unearthed new insights on how Australian media coverage leaves behind key groups – particularly women and those struggling financially – when covering society’s big issues.

The findings, published this week, are detailed in a report focused on how the media has covered financial wellbeing.

Read more:
Australia is rich with religious diversity. So why are our newsrooms falling behind?

What we did

Data scientists working with the team at RMIT accessed the Dow Jones database of all news stories printed or published online in the Australian media in the past three decades. They employed a machine learning technique called topic modelling.

This method groups articles into topics, which are then interpreted by subject matter experts from the research team. This approach allowed us to examine a much larger data set than human researchers could alone.

We found the news media have consistently allowed their coverage to be dominated by male voices and high and middle income earners.

Coverage has also tended to overlook a range of equity issues impacting women, financially disadvantaged people, and the environment.

Financial coverage focused on high earners

Our team was particularly interested in how the media covered financial wellbeing. This includes people’s ability to manage day-to-day and future expenses, and to live free from financial stress. It also means having resilience to cope financially with life’s unexpected events.

Stable housing is one vital component of financial wellbeing.

We found media coverage of household financial issues over the past 30 years has focused overwhelmingly on the needs of middle and upper income earners. Three topics tended to dominate Australia’s financial coverage: property, investment advice and retirement funds.

General investing advice (on issues such as the stock markets, exchange traded funds or bonds) was the most dominant topic covered by the financial media articles we studied, until September 2016 when it was overtaken by property as the dominant topic.

Social services, welfare and financial services coverage made up a very small proportion of Australia’s financial journalism.

Coverage of investment advice peaked at 140 articles in February 2013, constituting almost 45% of the total number of financial wellbeing articles we analysed from that month.

Coverage of retirement funds peaked at 72 articles per month in May 2015. That topic constituted almost 22% of the total number of financial wellbeing articles we analysed from that month. The top financial wellbeing topic for that month was investment advice (at 37%).

Property articles peaked at almost 175 per month in May 2022, constituting almost 51% of all financial wellbeing articles we analysed for that month.

Our analysis also showed the media can play an important role in providing trusted information when trust in financial institutions is low.

As trust in financial institutions was eroded during the banking royal commission and financial services inquiries of the 2010s, the media stepped up their coverage of money matters to help people negotiate complex financial decision-making.

But as we note in the report:

There is lots of room for the financial media to report more on the financial wellbeing of a greater range of people in our communities, not just women and gender minorities, but First Nations people, cultural and racial minorities, people with disabilities, and many others. The healthiest economies are those in which all citizens enjoy financial wellbeing, not just the wealthy.

Reporting on workplace gender equality in the context of financial wellbeing peaked at a meagre 13 articles in December 2017, according to our study.

And Australian media coverage has, over the past 30 years, largely missed the critical financial and social issues associated with financial abuse and family violence. However, this has started to change.

An intersection of issues

We presented our data to a roundtable of academics and community groups, which included Good Shepherd, Infoxchange and Brotherhood of St Laurence. The resulting discussion revealed an intersection between various topics not readily seen in general media coverage.

For example, as lower income Australians struggle to afford insurance in areas affected by storms, floods and fire disasters (which have become more frequent and more severe as the climate changes), agencies and governments are increasingly called on to support people who have lost everything. Lower income people are disproportionately affected by natural disasters.

The rising costs of energy are making it harder (or, for some, impossible) to cool houses during heatwaves built to standards based on outdated temperatures. This means higher living costs and a more pronounced burden on the health system. This impact, however, is not generally felt by wealthier Australians, whose issues and interests are more often represented in the news media.

This analysis showed issues such as financial wellbeing, media coverage and climate change do not exist in silos. They are interconnected. And the media has a role to play in promoting financial wellbeing for all, not just the already wealthy.

The data was obtained from Dow Jones content available via the Data News and Analytics (DNA) platform.

Alexandra Wake was just one team member in this work which was led by the RMIT Innovation Catalyst’s Campbell McNolty, Sai Ram Gitte, Mondo Kad and Dr Brad Crammond  and Infoxchange’s Dr Kristen Moeller-Saxone . The financial wellbeing data was then examined by The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership: Dr Gosia Mikołajczak and Dr Morgan Weaving;  Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand: Professor Roslyn Russell and Dr Jozica Kutin  and the climate change data was examined by: The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Dr Elise Stephenson; The Victorian Circular Activator: Dr Akvan Gajanayake; Centre for Urban Research’s Professor Wendy Steele – Sustainability and Urban Governance .

– ref. We analysed 30 years of Australian media articles – and unearthed some glaring gaps in the coverage – https://theconversation.com/we-analysed-30-years-of-australian-media-articles-and-unearthed-some-glaring-gaps-in-the-coverage-223466

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aviroop Gupta, PhD Candidate, Curtin University

Narendra Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has resorted to religious polarisation as it tries to rally its Hindu nationalist base in India’s ongoing general election, which ends on June 1.

Just days after voting started last month, the leading opposition party accused Modi of using hate speech when he called Muslims “infiltrators” at a campaign rally.

He also repeated a conspiracy theory that Muslims would someday outnumber India’s majority Hindu population by having more children. If the opposition Congress returns to power, he added:

[it] will gather all your wealth and distribute it among those who have more children.

The Congress party has made no such commitments. But this claim has been repeated by BJP politicians during the campaign and featured in a video on the party’s Instagram account.

Many argue Modi’s openly anti-Muslim speeches reflect a sense of nervousness about the opposition gaining traction in the election. But there is no denying the fact the BJP has successfully created a perception of invincibility around itself. Why has it long had such a powerful image despite widespread economic distress?

To understand this, we need to look a bit closer at the history of right-wing populism in India.

How Hindu society has been formed

In my research, I have studied the way the modern “Hindu nation” has been constructed. In my view, there is a three-layered pyramid underpinning Modi’s popularity.

India’s centuries-old caste system serves as the base. This system survives on a principle of exclusion for the so-called lower castes and minorities.

The second layer is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP. A Hindu nationalist paramilitary organisation, it was founded in 1925 as part of a movement to unite all Hindus.

On the topmost tier is Modi’s personality cult. The social legitimacy of Modi’s government is drawn from the base upwards, while the commands for his political project come from the top down.

The RSS plays an important role in this structure. It reinforces the cult of Modi by invoking Hindu scriptures and depicting him as the great redeemer of the Hindu religion. And the lower castes serve as the foot soldiers to do the RSS’s bidding.

Early influences of European fascism

The RSS was founded by upper-caste Hindus, led by a physician and Hindu nationalist, K.B. Hedgewar. While the stated aim was to strengthen Hindu values, Hedgewar consistently refused to participate in India’s freedom struggle against the British.

In the 1930s, Hindu nationalist leaders repeatedly expressed their admiration for Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The Hindu supremacist B.S. Moonje, Hedgewar’s mentor, even travelled to Italy in 1931 to meet Mussolini and members of a fascist youth organisation. Once back in India, Moonje wanted to militarise Hindu society using fascist models.

The RSS was never in agreement with Mahatma Gandhi’s efforts to reconcile the differences between Hindus and Muslims. In January 1948, an RSS member, Nathuram Godse, assassinated Gandhi. Although the organisation claimed Godse had quit before the shooting, the RSS was briefly banned by the government.

Growing power in Gujarat

Since its early days, one of the remarkable qualities of the RSS has been its methodical approach to its long-term vision.

It began establishing “shakhas”, or cells, in Gujarat, the present-day BJP stronghold, in the early 1940s. Its membership tripled from around 20,000 to 60,000 from 1943–48.

In the 1960s, the leaders of these cells began to preach about the virtues of an aggressive form of masculinity among Hindu men and alleged atrocities committed by Muslims against Hindu women. According to historian Megha Kumar, this “ideal Hindu man” was implicitly encouraged to commit sexual violence against Muslim women.

In December 1968, provocative speeches were given at a massive rally in Ahmedabad, presided over by M.S. Golwalkar, the second RSS chief, and attended by future Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the leader of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the BJP. The group recruited another 8,600 men in the next few months.

With resentment against the Muslims growing, violent riots broke out in September 1969, resulting in a large number of sexual assaults against Muslim women. Hundreds were killed.

This hardline religious nationalism started shaping Modi’s worldview after he joined the RSS in Gujarat at the age of eight. Having remarkable skills as an organiser, he rose through the ranks. By 1987, Modi’s responsibility was to act as the bridge between the RSS and the BJP, then a new political party.

Modi played key roles in facilitating roadshows to capitalise on Hindu-Muslim tensions, including a procession in 1990 in support of a new temple on the site of the historic 16th-century Babri Mosque. The mosque was destroyed by Hindu nationalists two years later.

Once the BJP came to power in Gujarat in 1995, the state machinery began recruiting RSS sympathisers to important posts. Backed by the RSS, Modi became chief minister in 2001.

This was followed by violent anti-Muslim riots in 2002, in which more than 1,000 people were killed. Modi was accused of complicity in abetting the riots, though a Supreme Court panel acquitted him later. He has denied accusations he failed to stop the rioting.

The BJP has not lost a Gujarat election since then.

The mass reach of the RSS today

Once considered a fringe group, the RSS and its ideology started to be accepted into mainstream Indian politics in the 1970s.

The BJP, in particular, needed the massive network of RSS cadres to mobilise Hindu voters. Even BJP candidates get selected based on feedback from RSS workers at the grassroots level.

Since coming to national power in 2014, the BJP has ensured that vice chancellors and professors appointed to public universities and universities in BJP-ruled states have come from the RSS.

And the organisation has penetrated almost every aspect of Hindu society. It runs a vast network of around 12,000 schools across the country, with more than three million students. These schools promote Hindu majoritarian values.

Textbooks are being revised at other schools with visible influence of the RSS. Darwin’s theory of evolution, a chapter on democracy and references to the 2002 Gujarat riots have been removed, for instance, as well as a chapter on the Mughals – the powerful Muslim dynasty that ruled India for three centuries.

Modi himself consults the RSS on important policy matters, too. When he presided over the inauguration of the controversial Ram Temple at the former Babri Mosque site in January, cricketing heroes and film actors shared the stage with RSS members.

In a surprise shift, however, the BJP has tried to distance itself from the RSS in recent weeks, suggesting that it doesn’t need it to win elections anymore. But it’s unlikely the party can do without the organisation’s network of grassroots workers.

The future of the world’s largest democracy seems to be in the firm hands of a group that believes it can establish a monolithic Hindu state. Only India’s multicultural ethos and secular traditions can stop this from happening.

Aviroop Gupta 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. How Narendra Modi’s cult of personality was formed by a powerful Hindu nationalist group with a dark history – https://theconversation.com/how-narendra-modis-cult-of-personality-was-formed-by-a-powerful-hindu-nationalist-group-with-a-dark-history-225280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paola A. Magni, Associate Professor of Forensic Science, Murdoch University

When you think of a criminal investigation, you might picture detectives meticulously collecting and analysing evidence found at the scene: weapons, biological fluids, footprints and fingerprints. However, this is just the beginning of an attempt to reconstruct the events and individuals involved in the crime.

At the heart of the process lies the “principle of exchange” formulated by the French criminologist Edmond Locard in the early 1900s, which states that “every contact leaves a trace”. The transfer of materials between the parties involved in a crime (the victim, the perpetrator, objects, the environment) forms the basis for reconstructing the events.

In Locard’s time, these traces were typically things you could see with a magnifying glass or microscope, such as pollen, sand and fibres. However, such evidence is limited because much of it is not directly associated with a specific individual.

In our latest research, we have shown how the population of bacteria on a person’s skin leaves traces on the clothes they wear – and how these traces last for months and can be used to uniquely identify the wearer.

Microbial traces

Imagine a crime scene where an investigator finds a victim and a piece of clothing that doesn’t belong to them. Pollen or grains of sand might help the investigator find out where it came from, but what about identifying the owner of the clothing?

Skin cells, hairs and biological fluids are good contenders. However, another thing very specific to an individual is the unique community of microorganisms on and within their body.

These microbes are specific to different parts of the body, can persist over long periods of time and can be transferred to other people and to the environment. This makes them useful to address a variety of questions in forensics.

“Forensic microbiology” got its start in the early 2000s, as scientists set out to find ways to defend against bioterrorism. Today forensic microbiology is used to identify individuals after death, understand what their health was like before they died, determine how and why people have died, how long it has been since they died, and where they came from.

In a nutshell, today’s update on Locard’s principle is that “every contact leaves a microbiological trace”.

The ‘touch microbiome’

While this principle has been established, we still want to know more about how much of an individual’s microbiome is transferred to their surroundings. We also need to know how long it persists, and whether certain microbes may be more useful than others for identification.

We also want to understand how microbial traces may be contaminated by other items or the environment, and how different receiving surfaces affect microbial populations.

In 2021, two of the authors (Procopio and Gino) and colleagues at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK and the University of Eastern Piedmont in Italy first described the “touch microbiome” – the unique bacterial populations on individuals’ skin. This work also studied how these bacteria could be transferred and persist for up to a month on non-porous surfaces, such as a glass slide, in uncontrolled indoor surroundings.

This team also analysed DNA from samples belonging to dead bodies from old cases, which had been frozen for up to 16 years. They were able to identify specific populations of microbes linked to the manner of death and the decomposition stage of the bodies. This showed the microbial signature can be used to improve our understanding of cold cases when DNA extracts are still available.

Tracing T-shirts

In our most recent work, the third author (Magni) joined the collaboration to improve the potential of individual identification from clothes, items often collected as evidence at the crime scene.

In our study, cotton T-shirts were worn by two individuals for 24 hours in Australia. The T-shirts were then placed in a controlled environment for up to six months, alongside unworn items used as controls. Samples from both worn and unworn T-shirts were taken at various points in time and frozen.

The samples were then shipped (still frozen) to Italy for microbial DNA extraction. Next, sequencing was conducted in the UK, with the goal of identifying the microbial species present in the samples.

Results showed the two volunteers transferred distinct and recognisable microbes onto the clothing, each unique to the respective individual. Additionally, we could distinguish between worn and unworn items even after an extended period of time. The microbiome remained stable on the worn garments for up to 180 days.

We also observed the transfer of specific bacteria from the worn items to the unworn ones stored closest to them, showing the possibility of microbe transfer between items.

Learning more from clothes

Clothes at any crime scene can provide key evidence for the investigation process.

They can aid in profiling individuals by revealing indicators of gender, occupation, income, social status, political, religious or cultural affiliations, and even marital status.

Additionally, they can provide clues regarding the manner of death, the location of the crime, and in certain cases, even support the estimation of the time since death.

Clothes play a crucial role in reconstructing events associated with the crime and establishing the identity of individuals involved.

Our research shows clothing can provide even more evidence. The discovery of unique microbiomes capable of identifying individuals from clothing marks a significant stride forward.

We acknowledge all the volunteers and students involved in the mentioned studies.

Noemi Procopio receives funding from UKRI via a Future Leaders Fellowship.

Sarah Gino receives funding from University of Eastern Piedmont, FAR2017

– ref. You leave a ‘microbe fingerprint’ on every piece of clothing you wear – and it could help forensic scientists solve crimes – https://theconversation.com/you-leave-a-microbe-fingerprint-on-every-piece-of-clothing-you-wear-and-it-could-help-forensic-scientists-solve-crimes-229203

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Mintzes, Professor, School of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney

Drug companies are paying Australian doctors millions of dollars a year to fly to overseas conferences and meetings, give talks to other doctors, and to serve on advisory boards, our research shows.

Our team analysed reports from major drug companies, in the first comprehensive analysis of its kind. We found drug companies paid more than A$33 million to doctors in the three years from late 2019 to late 2022 for these consultancies and expenses.

We know this underestimates how much drug companies pay doctors as it leaves out the most common gift – food and drink – which drug companies in Australia do not declare.

Due to COVID restrictions, the timescale we looked at included periods where doctors were likely to be travelling less and attending fewer in-person medical conferences. So we suspect current levels of drug company funding to be even higher, especially for travel.

What we did and what we found

Since 2019, Medicines Australia, the trade association of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry, has published a centralised database of payments made to individual health professionals. This is the first comprehensive analysis of this database.

We downloaded the data and matched doctors’ names with listings with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra). We then looked at how many doctors per medical specialty received industry payments and how much companies paid to each specialty.

We found more than two-thirds of rheumatologists received industry payments. Rheumatologists often prescribe expensive new biologic drugs that suppress the immune system. These drugs are responsible for a substantial proportion of drug costs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

The specialists who received the most funding as a group were
cancer doctors (oncology/haematology specialists). They received
over $6 million in payments.

This is unsurprising given recently approved, expensive new cancer drugs. Some of these drugs are wonderful treatment advances; others offer minimal improvement in survival or quality of life.

A 2023 study found doctors receiving industry payments were more likely to prescribe cancer treatments of low clinical value.

Our analysis found some doctors with many small payments of a few hundred dollars. There were also instances of large individual payments.

Why does all this matter?

Doctors usually believe drug company promotion does not affect them. But research tells a different story. Industry payments can affect both doctors’ own prescribing decisions and those of their colleagues.

A US study of meals provided to doctors – on average costing less than US$20 – found the more meals a doctor received, the more of the promoted drug they prescribed.

Another study found the more meals a doctor received from manufacturers of opioids (a class of strong painkillers), the more opioids they prescribed. Overprescribing played a key role in the opioid crisis in North America.

Overall, a substantial body of research shows industry funding affects prescribing, including for drugs that are not a first choice because of poor effectiveness, safety or cost-effectiveness.

Then there are doctors who act as “key opinion leaders” for companies. These include paid consultants who give talks to other doctors. An ex-industry employee who recruited doctors for such roles said:

Key opinion leaders were salespeople for us, and we would routinely measure the return on our investment, by tracking prescriptions before and after their presentations […] If that speaker didn’t make the impact the company was looking for, then you wouldn’t invite them back.

We know about payments to US doctors

The best available evidence on the effects of pharmaceutical industry funding on prescribing comes from the US government-run program called Open Payments.

Since 2013, all drug and device companies must report all payments over US$10 in value in any single year. Payment reports are linked to the promoted products, which allows researchers to compare doctors’ payments with their prescribing patterns.

Analysis of this data, which involves hundreds of thousands of doctors, has indisputably shown promotional payments affect prescribing.

US research also shows that doctors who had studied at medical schools that banned students receiving payments and gifts from drug companies were less likely to prescribe newer and more expensive drugs with limited evidence of benefit over existing drugs.

In general, Australian medical faculties have weak or no restrictions on medical students seeing pharmaceutical sales representatives, receiving gifts, or attending industry-sponsored events during their clinical training. They also have no restrictions on academic staff holding consultancies with manufacturers whose products they feature in their teaching.

So a first step to prevent undue pharmaceutical industry influence on prescribing decisions is to shelter medical students from this influence by having stronger conflict-of-interest policies, such as those mentioned above.

A second is better guidance for individual doctors from professional organisations and regulators on the types of funding that is and is not acceptable. We believe no doctor actively involved in patient care should accept payments from a drug company for talks, international travel or consultancies.

Third, if Medicines Australia is serious about transparency, it should require companies to list all payments – including those for food and drink – and to link health professionals’ names to their Ahpra registration numbers. This is similar to the reporting standard pharmaceutical companies follow in the US and would allow a more complete and clearer picture of what’s happening in Australia.

Patients trust doctors to choose the best available treatments to meet their health needs, based on scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness. They don’t expect marketing to influence that choice.

Barbara Mintzes is general secretary of the International Society of Independent Drug Bulletins (ISDB), a global network of bulletins and journals on drugs and therapeutics that are financially and intellectually independent of the pharmaceutical industry. The journals Australian Prescriber and Prescrire International, whose publications are cited in this article, are members of ISDB. She is also on the editorial board for Drug & Therapeutics Bulletin, and is a member of Health Action International (HAI-Europe), the Therapeutics Initiative, and of Association Mieux Prescrire. Professor Mintzes is also an expert witness for Health Canada on a legal case involving marketing of an unapproved drug product.

Malcolm Forbes receives a Psychiatric Treatment Discovery Postgraduate Research Scholarship from Deakin University and is supported by Dr Roth Trisno and family through the Trisno Family PhD Research Scholarship, awarded by the RANZCP Foundation. He has previously received funding from Avant Mutual, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

– ref. Drug companies pay doctors over A$11 million a year for travel and education. Here’s which specialties received the most – https://theconversation.com/drug-companies-pay-doctors-over-a-11-million-a-year-for-travel-and-education-heres-which-specialties-received-the-most-230303

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trivess Moore, Associate Professor, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University

The Victorian government is planning Australia’s largest urban renewal project. The plan is to knock down and rebuild 44 large public housing towers in Melbourne. The government says these towers, built in the 1960s and ’70s, are no longer fit for purpose and will cost more to maintain and upgrade than to replace.

Rebuilding will allow 20,000 more people to live on these sites. However, most of the extra housing will be for private renters or owners. It will not add much more public or affordable housing.

Rebuilding involves breaking up public housing communities. Many tenants have already been forcibly displaced. Removing stock from the system to make way for future housing reduces the capacity to house people in need amid a housing crisis.

Tearing down so much concrete and other materials and rebuilding in a carbon-constrained world also raises concerns about the public value for money and the loss of embodied carbon in these old buildings. The materials and energy needed to erect a new building create a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. Construction produces almost a fifth of Australia’s emissions.

Some industry experts say the housing towers are structurally sound. They and other sustainability researchers argue that retrofits can bring the buildings up to modern standards.

This approach would improve thermal comfort, cut energy bills and produce fewer emissions. Some retrofitted buildings could have half the embodied energy of newly built ones. And communities could largely remain in place while the work is done.

Public housing complexes across Australia face similar renewal proposals. In each case, there are valid questions about the balance of public and private benefit.

So, how should decisions on public housing account for environmental, social and economic costs and benefits for all the people and interests involved? We draw on our recent research on life-cycle impacts and public housing tenant relocations to answer this question. Our research shows decisions on each tower that are underpinned by a proper process – one that considers all the evidence – could go either way: demolish and rebuild, or retrofit.

What are the options for ageing buildings?

Broadly, there are three options for older high-rise housing:

1. maintain
2. retrofit
3. knock down and rebuild.

The first option is increasingly unviable. This is because of the urgent need to decarbonise our building stock and the impacts of decades of under-maintenance on such buildings.

In 2017, the Auditor-General’s Office found the Victorian government lacked the capacity to “reliably assess the condition of its stock, and consequently whether it is deteriorating at a rate faster than it is ageing”. Maintaining the current stock, while not knowing its condition, would require a massive policy shift and repair effort.

That leaves us with retrofits or demolition and rebuilding. The government has chosen the third option for all 44 towers.

The table below sums up the broader costs and benefits of demolition and rebuilding.

There has been pushback against the impacts on housing tower communities since the plans were announced last September. Two towers are already empty. Other tenants will be relocated in the coming year.

Tenants claim their human rights were not considered and launched a class action in the Victorian Supreme Court. The action was recently dismissed, but the judge allowed for a revised argument to be put forward in the future.

The table below shows the costs and benefits of retrofitting. Clearly, for each project, there’s a lot to consider in deciding on the best option.

Current decision-making is skewed

Proposals for public high-rise buildings often focus on direct, short-term economic costs and benefits. Typically, the equation centres on the costs of retaining buildings versus the windfalls from redevelopment, such as unlocking the latent value of land.

Proposed changes to the site, such as providing more dwellings and shifting management of public housing to non-government landlords, often alter this equation. Amid a housing crisis, housing supply is understandably high on the policy agenda. Decision-makers often neglect the environmental and social impacts.

Research has found retrofitting reduces embodied carbon, waste and other environmental impacts by up to 50% compared to rebuilding.

On top of this are the social impacts of redevelopment that demolishes people’s homes and breaks up communities. This leads to poorer health, economic and social outcomes for public housing tenants.

In considering all these impacts, the lack of publicly available information on the government’s decision-making is a glaring problem. This comes back to process.

In particular, there’s a need for transparency about the metrics and evidence used to make decisions, and for accountability for those decisions. At a minimum, independently verified studies of the environmental, social, health and economic costs and benefits over the buildings’ life cycle should be made public before decisions are made.

Retrofitting is a viable option

There are a number of examples where older high-rise housing has been retained and improved.

For example, in the Cité du Grand Parc in France, 530 apartments in three blocks needed renovation once demolition was ruled out. In this case, sustainability considerations held sway.

As well as improving the interior, winter gardens and balconies were added. This work extended living spaces and provided more natural light.

The award-winning project was planned so residents didn’t have to move out. Each flat was completed in around 12 to 16 days.

Closer to home, not-for-profit design agency OFFICE found the Victorian government could save more than A$88 million by refurbishing and including infill development rather than rebuilding the Barak Beacon public housing estate in Port Melbourne. Some 238 social housing dwellings could be added around the existing buildings.

The OFFICE report estimated not having to relocate the community would save $16 million. This approach could also reduce embodied energy by 54% and impacts of land use to produce building materials by 273%.

The Victorian government’s plans intensify the twin challenges of overcoming housing shortages and decarbonising buildings. As Australia’s high-rise housing stock ages, we need a co-ordinated, accountable and fair process for deciding the future of these buildings. This means balancing environmental, social, health and economic costs and benefits across all affected people and interests, based on the best information available.

Trivess Moore has received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Victorian Government and various industry partners. He is a trustee of the Fuel Poverty Research Network.

David Kelly has received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and various industry partners.

Ralph Horne has received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Victorian Government and various industry partners.

Robert Crawford has received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Why knock down all public housing towers when retrofit can sometimes be better? – https://theconversation.com/why-knock-down-all-public-housing-towers-when-retrofit-can-sometimes-be-better-229186

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karen Scott, Professor in Law, University of Canterbury

In a significant development for small island nations threatened by rising seas, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has found greenhouse gases constitute marine pollution.

The tribunal handed down a unanimous advisory opinion this week in its first climate-related judgement. It declared countries must take measures to combat climate change in order to preserve the marine environment under the law of the sea.

The ruling responds to a request from the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS). The commission sought to clarify whether obligations to prevent pollution and protect the marine environment under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) apply to climate change and ocean acidification.

The tribunal’s answer was an emphatic yes. This means countries, including New Zealand, must now address climate change under both the law of the sea and international climate agreements.

This represents a significant step forward under international law. It clarifies that nation states have obligations beyond the current climate change regime to cut emissions and to take adaptation measures.

Background to the request

Members of COSIS are largely Pacific and Caribbean small island states. They are disproportionately vulnerable to climate impacts on the ocean. Threats include sea-level rise, severe weather events and the depletion of fish and other ocean resources.

The tribunal also received written submissions from 34 other states, including New Zealand and nine international and non-governmental organisations.

COSIS asked two questions:

1. What are the specific obligations on state parties under UNCLOS to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment resulting from climate change or ocean acidification?

2. What are the specific obligations under UNCLOS to protect and preserve the marine environment in relation to climate change and ocean acidification?

Preventing pollution and protecting the ocean

The obligations to prevent marine pollution and to protect the marine environment are key objectives under UNCLOS. But none specifically refer to climate change or ocean acidification. This is unsurprising since the convention was adopted in 1982.

Some institutions associated with UNCLOS, such as the International Maritime Organization, have taken steps to address climate impacts on the ocean. But countries have been reluctant to do so. They have often asserted the primary mandate regarding emissions reductions and climate adaptation lay with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The tribunal’s advisory opinion confirmed, for the first time, that the 168 UNCLOS parties must address climate change and ocean acidification in order to comply with their obligations under the law of the sea.

First, ITLOS confirmed that greenhouse gas emissions and the heat generated by a warming climate meet the definition of “pollution” under Article 1(4) of UNCLOS. This is important because under Part XII of UNCLOS, states have obligations to prevent, control and mitigate pollution of the marine environment from any source.

Second, the tribunal confirmed the obligation under Article 194 of UNCLOS to prevent and control pollution applies to greenhouse gas emissions. This includes emissions already accumulated in the atmosphere. States therefore must take all necessary measures to address climate change pollution and ocean acidification.

The tribunal adopted a broad definition of “necessary”. It includes indispensable measures but “also other measures which make it possible to achieve that objective”.

Such measures must be underpinned by science, international rules relating to climate change, and the capacity of individual states.

The tribunal said states could draw on relevant rules and standards developed by the UNFCCC. But, importantly, it said complying with UNFCCC obligations was “not necessarily sufficient” for states to meet their obligations under UNCLOS.

Third, the tribunal interpreted the more general obligations under UNCLOS to protect and preserve the marine environment to apply specifically to climate change and ocean acidification. This includes the duty to cooperate, to carry out environmental assessments, and fulfil obligations in the context of fisheries management.

Global importance

Although only advisory and technically addressed to COSIS and its members, this decision is important for all states.

It clarifies that parties to UNCLOS have a duty under the law of the sea to address climate change impacts on the ocean. It also confirms that it is not sufficient to rely solely on measures under the UNFCCC to meet those obligations.

This means countries must explicitly consider their obligations under the law of the sea and the UNFCCC regime when authorising activities contributing to global climate change, such as offshore oil production, and when adopting climate adaptation measures.

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

– ref. A new ruling says countries – including NZ – must take action on climate change under the law of the sea – https://theconversation.com/a-new-ruling-says-countries-including-nz-must-take-action-on-climate-change-under-the-law-of-the-sea-230420

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pi-Shen Seet, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Edith Cowan University

Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of any innovative economy.

New business creation has been shown to have a significant and positive impact on economic growth, innovation and job creation. But it isn’t easy, and most new businesses fail.

When someone starts a business, they usually aren’t doing it alone – their whole family forms part of the journey. All of them can experience the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship.

This obviously flows in the other direction as well – founders’ personal lives have their own big ups and downs.

Big positive changes in a family – including job promotions, weddings and new babies – and negative changes – such as when someone sadly passes away – can really shake things up for someone trying to start a business.

Yet only minimal research has looked into the extent of these effects on new venture creation.

In a recently published study, we looked at how big family events affect the success of new ventures.

Surprisingly, our findings reveal that by making entrepreneurs overconfident, certain kinds of positive family events can have a bigger detrimental effect on new venture survival than negative ones.

Emotions have complicated effects

We used data from the Australian Household, Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) survey to analyse the emotions caused by major family events that entrepreneurs experience.

Our study found that many of these family events had the influence you’d expect based on both intuition and past research – positive events typically helped and negative events typically harmed new venture survival.

But existing research may oversimplify this connection. The structure of a family – their relationships, emotions and goals – can affect an entrepreneur’s mental state and decision-making in complicated ways.

The effect on founders’ confidence levels is particularly important. Confidence is necessary to start a business, but can become a problem in excess when entrepreneurs overestimate their own abilities.

Notably, some positive events can lead to overconfidence, which could take the form of being overly optimistic about the extent of one’s abilities, or overestimating the accuracy of one’s own beliefs.

And perhaps counter-intuitively, we found that overconfidence resulting from positive family events had a negative impact on new venture survival. This impact was bigger than the impact of explicitly negative events.

Why might this be happening?

Two key theories from psychology may help explain why overconfidence ends up being harmful.

First “affect-as-information theory” suggests that our emotions serve as a kind of compass, guiding us to understand whether a situation is beneficial or harmful.

When entrepreneurs feel good due to a positive family event, like marriage to a childhood sweetheart, they may lean on their existing knowledge and heuristics.

Second, entrepreneurs may succumb to “affect priming”, which suggests that emotions influence decision-making by automatically bringing up related ideas and memories.

Such priming may not just influence what they think, but also how they think. For example, if entrepreneurs are in a good mood, their mind will offer up memories linked to positive emotion – whether relevant or not – to help them make decisions.

These theories suggest that major family events can influence an entrepreneur’s confidence by subtly and automatically adjusting how they evaluate opportunities and risks in decision-making.

Read more:
Emotional intelligence is the key to more successful entrepreneurs

On the one hand, positive family events may lead to a more holistic thinking style and rapid decision-making. This can be beneficial for entrepreneurs who need to make quick and efficient decisions under time and resource constraints.

However, if entrepreneurs are too confident, believing that their abilities alone can make up for any lack of information, positive family events may just reinforce this overconfidence.

Like other people, when entrepreneurs think they’re better at things than they actually are, they may begin to believe tasks are easier than they really are.

This can lead to errors in judgement that seriously harm new ventures.

How does the research help entrepreneurs?

Our study highlights the embeddedness of family in the entrepreneurial process.

Entrepreneurs need to be aware of the need to carefully manage their own emotional state, particularly their confidence levels.

Entrepreneurship training and support programs often focus solely on business strategies to make new ventures succeed. This research suggests it is also important to incorporate elements like maintaining emotional health, managing major family events and accessing support.

Read more:
Entrepreneurs are facing a mental health crisis — here’s how to help them

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. Life’s big moments can impact an entrepreneur’s success – but not always in the way you’d expect – https://theconversation.com/lifes-big-moments-can-impact-an-entrepreneurs-success-but-not-always-in-the-way-youd-expect-230436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains names, images and stories of deceased people.

Around the world, fashion researchers, designers and artists are exploring the links between clothing, adornment and wellbeing.

“Enclothed cognition” considers the psychology of clothing, and designers are exploring how to create garments to heal the wearer.

First Nations people understand the power of connection to cultural clothing and adornment. Items like possum and kangaroo skin cloaks can contribute to healing and cultural practice.

But it’s not only traditional clothing that can lead to healing. In Australia, there is a rise of designers and artists creating and fashioning painful Protectionist-era clothing on the runway and in the galleries.

By recreating clothing tied to painful and traumatic memories and histories, these designers and artists hope to share these horrific policies, rewrite the meaning behind them, and move forward in healing.

A history of missions, reserves and trauma

First Nations peoples living in controlled reserves, missions and stations were forced to wear plain clothing and expected to keep them well-maintained and clean. Often, garments were forms of payment and punishment.

In some institutions, First Nations people generated clothing and adornment for interstate and international exhibitions and tourist trades.

These regimes and power through clothing significantly impacted those living there, including their cultural practice, identity and wellbeing.

There are two national days to pause, acknowledge and remember the Stolen Generation and their families and communities – National Sorry Day on May 26 and the Anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations on February 13.

Healing and wellbeing involve a holistic approach, and art contributes to this.

Using clothing as art or designing garments with a transformative and positive spin can benefit members of the Stolen Generation and their families.

Healing through fashion design

The Queensland Yarrabah community has been experimenting with fashion to tell Yarrabah Mission stories.

The 2019 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair invited the Djunngaal Yarrabah Elders Group to work on a collection for the Buwal-Barra fashion show. The collection, named ByDaBell, represents the significance of the bell at the Yarrabah Mission, which strictly controlled their day.

Yarrabah Elders recreated three significant dresses worn in the mission: an everyday casual dress, a church formal dress and a punishment potato sack dress. In doing so, the Elders told a powerful story about their mission experiences and how clothing was used to punish or control.

For the Yarrabah community and many First Nations people, truth-telling is a form of healing and reminder of resilience.

Healing through truth-telling was also seen weaved within a commissioned wedding dress made for the 2020 Queensland Museum exhibition I Do! Wedding Stories from Queensland.

As a collaborative effort by fashion designer and artist Simone Arnol (Gunggandji), artist and curator Bernard Singleton (Umpila, Djabugay/Yirrgay) and Djunngaal Yarrabah Elders, the garment told stories about mission experiences and the colonial wedding practices within it.

Based on mission-style wedding dresses, the gown featured a five-metre-long circle train embedded with a powerful image of a mission imprisonment. The stained lining from traditional materials represented the suppression of First Nations culture.

Healing through art garments

Artist Yhonnie Scarce (Kokatha/Nukunu) created a piece about the experiences of her grandmother Fanny and great-great-grandmother Florey as domestic servants in the early 1900s.

The work features two linen aprons, depicting those worn by Flora and Fanny, and 16 hand-blown glass bush plums placed inside and poking through the pockets. Their names were also carefully hand stitched onto each apron.

The piece represents the strength of Flora and Fanny in their roles as matriarchs caring for family and holding onto their cultural identity.

Shellworked Slippers by Esme Timbery (Bidjigal) contains 200 pairs of tiny, adorned shoes to represent the children of the Stolen Generation and the shell craft practice of Aboriginal women at La Perouse, Sydney.

Made from fabric and encrusted with glitter and shells of various sizes, colours and designs, the slippers speak to the experiences of the children who were forcibly removed and the strength and resilience of First Nations families and communities.

While not a uniform of children who were removed and placed in institutions, the large quantity of small and empty shoes reminds the viewer of the suffering and trauma experienced under the Protectionist policies.

Sharing stories, remembering history

First Nations fashion designers and artists are transforming Protectionist-era fashions on the runway and in exhibitions. In doing this, they aim to speak back to racist and colonial policies and heal.

We need to keep sharing these stories about the true history of this country and how garments repressed and controlled First Nations people.

The movement toward healing painful memories and intergenerational trauma through garments positively contributes to First Nations people’s wellbeing.

First Nations peoples are resistant and, through clothing, will continue to explore and celebrate culture and identity.

Treena Clark has received funding through the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellowship scheme.

– ref. How First Nations fashion design can rewrite painful memories and be a powerful method of healing – https://theconversation.com/how-first-nations-fashion-design-can-rewrite-painful-memories-and-be-a-powerful-method-of-healing-227679

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

While federal politics often seems “top down”, some issues are pushed onto the national agenda from lower levels. We’re seeing this with the increasing concern to protect kids from the harmful effects of social media.

This week Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sympathised with calls for limits on children’s access to social media, while last week’s budget allocated funds for a trial of age verification, originally recommended by the eSafety Commissioner. The government in November also brought forward by a year the scheduled review of the Online Safety Act.

But on the whole, the federal government has been lagging behind the states and activist parents on an issue that has immense ramifications for a young generation that has been recording increased levels of stress and mental health problems.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has recently said his government will legislate, if feasible, to prohibit children under 14 accessing social media accounts. For those aged 14-15 parental consent would be needed.

This week Malinauskas had talks in Washington with the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about the issue. The premier later told the Adelaide Advertiser Murthy had endorsed the SA plan. “He (Dr Murthy) was essentially saying, governments don’t have time to waste because this is now creating almost a mental health emergency among young people.” Murthy also told him young people were more open to the idea of relinquishing social media than often thought, if their friends were off it too.

In New South Wales, Premier Chris Minns this week announced a summit, to be held in October, “to address the increasing harm online platforms are having on children and young people”.

In Minns’ electorate of Kogarah, in Sydney’s south, there’s been intense activity on the issue. A group of parents with children at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School and St Ursula’s College got together a few years ago to discuss delaying their kids getting onto smartphones and social media.

Parent Dany Elachi, whose daughter was ten at the time, told me they thought concerted action gave them the best chance of “staying the course” against the pressure from their children’s complaints, or pleas, that “everyone else” had a smartphone.

The group of parents had no connection with Minns, then opposition leader, until reading an article by him in their local paper. His concerns chimed with their own and they reached out to him.

The Heads Up Alliance is now a national movement of thousands of Australian parents delaying smartphones and social media for their children.

The group lobbied Catholic authorities, and there is now a widespread ban on mobile phones in Sydney Catholic schools.

Minns, as premier last year, implemented a ban on mobile phones in NSW public schools. All states and territories have acted on phone bans, with Queensland and the ACT falling into line earlier this year.

These have been important steps, but perhaps the easy ones. More robust action involves greater challenges to big tech and their revenue and customer streams. Capturing the kids is central to their business models.

The Albanese government has already had a taste of what taking on big tech can look like in its fight with Elon Musk over the eSafety Commissioner’s demand that X (formerly Twitter) remove a post showing the stabbing of a bishop at a Sydney Assyrian church.

Tougher action in dealing with social media is one area where potential bipartisanship should be possible. Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman has been a strong proponent of protecting children and age verification.

The NSW summit will be attended by senior officials, academics, representatives from other jurisdictions, and people from leading social media platforms.

The idea of age-limited access to social media – the next logical step – is guaranteed to be a hot topic.

While states have been leading the way, to have a prospect of working properly, any legislated ban on young people accessing social media sites needs to be national. There are likely also constitutional constraints to be overcome. Minns has expressed doubt a ban would be enforceable at the state level.

Some social media companies argue they don’t accept children under 13 setting up accounts. But this has been unenforceable, even assuming the companies wanted to enforce it.

Albanese said: “We want to make sure that any changes that are made actually work. You don’t want them being circumvented around the side door, if you like.”

That’s right – up to a point. It should not be an excuse for avoiding action. In reality, no ban is likely to be absolutely watertight.

Critics of a ban cite privacy, concerned about the sort of information that would be handed to tech companies to establish a user’s age. But age has to be proven in many circumstances, and various methods could be used to minimise the privacy problem.

Also, some critics say social media is important especially for young people who need connection; they say there would be harm in denying this to them. Here it’s a question of weighing one side against the other: the negatives of social media against the positives for young people.

In his recent widely-publicised book, The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues Gen Z (born after 1995) have been “rewired”. He dubs them the “the anxious generation”.

With a combination of over-protective parents and the ubiquity of modern tech, Haidt says we’ve seen a move from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood”.

“Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and […] unsuitable for children and adolescents,” Haidt writes.

This had serious consequences for their mental health, he argues, with girls adversely affected in particular by social media, and boys more by pornography and addiction to video gaming.

While Haidt primarily writes of the American scene, he includes findings from other western countries, which he says show similar trends.

Haidt prescribes four lines of action. Parents should not give their children smartphones before high school. Children should not be on social media before 16. Schools should be phone-free. Children should have more unsupervised play and childhood independence.

Those who fear that social media, for all its pluses, can be a serious threat to young people, will believe a lot more needs to be done than we’re doing now. The burden is not one that can be carried by government, schools, or other authorities alone. Parents must also do their part. But parents need help from the institutions to do it.

Back at ground zero in the battle to curb harm from social media, Dany and his wife have “stayed the course”. Their daughter, now almost 15, doesn’t have a smartphone or a social media account. “We bought her a basic phone,” Dany says. “But it’s so unappealing she rarely uses it.”

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Growing momentum for governments to fight social media’s grip on children – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-growing-momentum-for-governments-to-fight-social-medias-grip-on-children-230771

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katharine Balolia, Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, Australian National University

Of all the monkey species around the world, one stands out with its large, bizarre nose. In male proboscis monkeys, their bulbous noses will often hang past their mouths.

But why evolve such a strange feature? Are they a visual sign of health and status to potential female mates, and to other males? Or did they evolve to help the monkeys make honks and other loud sounds?

In our new study, published in Scientific Reports, we have deepened our understanding of these enlarged nasal structures by investigating what lies beneath: the structures in the skull.

Our findings help to explain how these noses function as visual and acoustic signals of health and status. They also add to a growing body of evidence that shows researchers can use close examinations of skulls to glean information about primate social behaviour.

A battle of noses

One of the largest monkey species in Asia, proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus) are endemic to the island of Borneo. They live in coastal mangroves, peat swamps and riverine forests, and have an unusual diet made up mostly of leaves.

They can swim quite well and have webbed fingers and toes. They typically live in harem groups, made up of a single adult male (who tends to have a large, bulbous nose), some adult females and their offspring.

Males don’t often get the opportunity to attract a harem until they reach middle age. These older, dominant and large-nosed males don’t easily tolerate other large-nosed males, often trying to ward them off aggressively with deep honks and “nasal roars” – loud calls they make using their noses.

Young adult males with smaller noses often live in all-male bachelor groups, and don’t tend to fight aggressively with each other. When these bachelor males get older and become large (and large-nosed) enough to compete with males that are part of a breeding group, they are in a position to overthrow the tenured male. Females then often choose to form a harem group with this new, high-status male.

What’s behind the nose?

We investigated the size and shape of the proboscis monkey nasal cavity. That’s the bony chamber of the skull that sits behind the fleshy nose. Our goal was to find out if the size and shape of the nasal aperture – the front part of the cavity, where the fleshy nose tissue attaches – can tell us more about why these peculiar appendages evolved.

Previous research that looked at the bulbous nose in males suggests it evolved to advertise status. In our new research, we wanted to better understand how this could be the case, this time using data taken from the skull.

We used 3D surface models, downloaded from a public repository, to take size and shape measurements from 33 adult proboscis monkey skulls. We compared these with the adult skulls of king colobus monkeys, blue monkeys and crab-eating macaques, three old world monkey species.

We chose some measurements to quantify the nasal cavity, and others to quantify the nasal aperture in all the species. We also looked at tooth wear, since older adult monkeys have more worn teeth than younger adults. That would allow us to find out if older adult males had a larger nasal aperture than younger adult males.

Better honks

If male proboscis monkeys have a different nasal cavity shape to females, and a unique shape compared to the other monkey species, it would support the idea these enhanced nasal structures – both the fleshy nose and the cavity behind it – evolved to allow for more effective honks and nasal roars.

That was indeed what we found. The shape of the male nasal cavity was low and long compared to females. This allows males to build up resonance (sound vibration) in their nasal cavities, allowing them to emit deeper and louder calls through their noses.

The nasal aperture shape was also different between the sexes. In males, it looks a bit like an eggplant, while in females it looks more like an upside-down pear. This unique opening shape in males allows for higher intensity sounds to be emitted through the nose.

The sex differences in cavity shape were also larger than what we found in other old world monkey species. This further supports the idea that the nasal cavity of male proboscis monkeys underwent an evolutionary change for the purpose of making certain sounds.

Lastly, the age. Older proboscis monkey males really do have larger nasal apertures than younger adult males, but the cavity itself didn’t increase with age. This supports the idea that the large noses act as a visual signal. It’s also consistent with the fleshy nose size increasing in middle-aged or older adult males, which we know from behavioural studies in the wild.

Our evidence from the skull allows us to better understand how nasal structures in male proboscis monkeys evolved for both acoustic and visual signalling.

The more we know about how regions of the skull function as social signals, the better chance we have of reconstructing extinct primate social behaviour using fossilised skull remains.

The author would like to acknowledge the paper’s co-author, former ANU Masters student Pippa Fitzgerald.

Katharine Balolia 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. Honk! These monkeys have truly legendary noses – now we better understand why they evolved – https://theconversation.com/honk-these-monkeys-have-truly-legendary-noses-now-we-better-understand-why-they-evolved-230012

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC L3 Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney

The first human case of avian influenza (bird flu) in Australia was reported yesterday in Victoria. A child acquired the H5N1 strain of the virus in India and became ill upon returning home to Australia in March this year.

Based on information made available yesterday on the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), we can ascertain the child is a two-year-old girl. She tested positive in early March and was reportedly very unwell but has since fully recovered.

According to the Victorian Department of Health, contact tracing revealed no additional cases, and the risk to others is very low.

Humans who acquire H5N1 generally have close contact with infected poultry; H5N1 does not spread easily between people. But the fatality rate in human cases is about 50%.

So what should we make of this latest development, as bird flu makes news locally and around the world?

H5N1

There’s no publicly available information on how this child became infected in India, or even where in India this case came from. However, the country is currently facing significant avian flu outbreaks in the states of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

H5N1 is a strain of influenza A, which is further divided into variants called clades. GISAID data shows the virus the child was infected with belongs to the H5N1 clade 2.3.2.1a. The South Asian clade 2.3.2.1a was first identified in 2009 and is still circulating in birds in Bangladesh and India.

This is different from the clade behind outbreaks in dairy cattle making headlines in the United States (H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b). A second human case in the US associated with this outbreak has just been reported – a dairy worker in Michigan. Globally, a total of 14 human cases have been linked to this clade.

What about the poultry farms?

On the same day we heard about the child with H5N1, a bird flu outbreak was reported at an Australian egg farm in Meredith, Victoria.

This was a different strain, influenza A H7N3. H7 outbreaks are not new to Australia. The earliest H7 outbreak in Australia was an H7N7 outbreak in Melbourne, Victoria in 1976. The three most recent outbreaks occurred in free-range farms in Lethbridge, Victoria, in 2020.

While some strains of avian flu tend to produce mild or no visible disease (called low pathogenic), H5N1 and H7N3 are both highly pathogenic viruses. This means they cause severe illness in poultry and wild birds.

Wild birds are the source, and can infect farmed or domestic poultry. They can also infect animals such as pigs and horses.

Free range farms are at risk of avian flu, as they are outdoors and may be exposed to infected wild birds. But overall there have been very few highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in Australian poultry, summarised in the table below.

The strain dominating Europe and the Americas, H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, began in 2020 and spread globally to infect more than 300 avian and 40 mammalian species.

This is the most worrying clade, as it has spread further and more widely than any other avian flu virus. In mammals and birds it causes severe respiratory disease but also affects the brain.

Some good news

To date, H5N1 has not been detected in birds in Australia. It’s positive news that the egg farm outbreak is H7N3 rather than H5N1. The unrelated H5N1 infection in the child showed no evidence of spread, and the child recovered.

Australia has historically been protected from highly pathogenic avian flu because it’s spread by migrating ducks, geese and swans (known as waterfowl) from Asia. Their flyways bypass Australia.

However, with a range of different wild birds now infected by H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, including in Antarctica, there may be new bird migration routes by which the virus could enter Australia.

The egg farm outbreak should be controlled quickly by culling infected birds. There are vaccines for poultry, but they are only partially effective and can mask outbreaks, so tend not to be used. France, which has had widespread outbreaks of H5N1 in its farms, began vaccinating poultry recently, but has experienced continued outbreaks.

What needs to happen now?

Past H7 outbreaks have been controlled rapidly in Australia, but we must remain vigilant. Meanwhile, an outbreak of low-pathogenic avian influenza virus H9N2 has been reported in a poultry farm in Western Australia today. The situation is being closely monitored.

There are often delays in reporting and sharing of avian flu data. Information on the child in Victoria was reported almost three months after the event, which is not ideal for preparedness.

Open source surveillance using publicly available data and intelligence, such as our Epiwatch platform, can provide more rapid information where there may be delays in updates to international reporting databases.

Avian influenza is a global concern, so heightened and timely surveillance in animals, birds and humans is crucial, as is global data sharing. The impact of avian flu on farming and the economy is substantial, but we also worry about a human pandemic arising.

H5N1 is so widespread globally now that the chance of it mutating to a point where it’s able to spread between humans is higher than ever.

C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from NHMRC (L3 Investigator grant and Centre for Research Excellence) and MRFF (Aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 experimentally and in an intensive care setting) currently. She currently receives funding from Sanofi for research on influenza and pertussis. She is the director of EPIWATCH®️, which is a UNSW, Kirby Institute initiative.

Haley Stone receives funding from The Balvi Filantropic Fund. Haley Stone would like to acknowledge the support through a University International Postgraduate Award from the University of New South Wales.

– ref. Bird flu is hitting Australian poultry farms, and the first human case has been reported in Victoria. Here’s what we know – https://theconversation.com/bird-flu-is-hitting-australian-poultry-farms-and-the-first-human-case-has-been-reported-in-victoria-heres-what-we-know-230691

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

The energy debate has ramped up, with government and opposition trading blows over their respective plans to secure Australia’s energy future.

The budget announced big tax incentives for green energy projects. Earlier the government embraced the importance of gas up to 2050 and beyond. The Coalition is still promising its yet-to-be-announced nuclear policy, but that took a hit from a sceptical CSIRO report this week.

On the podcast Resources Minister Madeleine King pushes back against Coalition claims the green energy projects – developing green hydrogen, processing critical minerals – should stand on their own feet:

I think the opposition’s being a bit disingenuous in that regard, given when they were in government they also provided various forms of support to critical minerals projects. It’s very important to acknowledge that they’re not the same resources as the resources we might be used to in Australia. So it’s not iron ore, it’s not coal, which is a huge commodity export of this country.

King is confident tax-payer money will be going to the right places:

I don’t think there has been any bad money going into the critical minerals sector. They’re projects that have been supported by the former government and I. Some of them, of course, have had their challenges, but they are all projects that are progressing well, and even with some of the international challenges around pricing and market manipulation and, there will be guardrails, of course.

Whilst [the government assistance] incentivises investment and we want to international investment in this story, we want local investment in this story. For each dollar we put in we get more dollars out in terms of the jobs that are created right across the country.

King defends the government’s future gas strategy as a back-up to renewable’s and distances it from the Morrison government’s “gas-led recovery”:

The future growth strategy doesn’t come with any giveaways to gas companies or any funding at all. It was never intended to and actually never did and never will. It’s a million miles from the gas-led recovery. People [who] want to make that kind of comparison […] should perhaps read the future gas strategy and just look at what it’s based on, which is a thorough analysis.

Hopefully, there are other technologies like hydrogen that can supplant gas, and that would be great. And that’s what this government is investing in.

The responsibility of the federal government [is] to make sure we have a back up plan. So gas is the insurance on this.

While the opposition points to countries like Canada’s use of nuclear power as a model for Australia, King says it isn’t viable:

I went to Canada recently, and they’re only just sort of getting to the stage of […] disposing of [nuclear waste] permanently. And these reactors have been going for a number of decades. So, it’s hard to underestimate the challenge of nuclear power. I think the CSIRO have estimated the extraordinary cost, and why would you go down that path when it’s simply not needed?

Canada went down the nuclear path a long time ago, so they continue to use it, and that was their choice. They have a different establishment, they’re closer to North America, they’re able to have the technical cooperation, and I think they also don’t have the access to renewables like we do, given the weather there and the different geography. So it’s just a different story for a different place.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Madeleine King on investment incentives and the pivotal role of gas – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-madeleine-king-on-investment-incentives-and-the-pivotal-role-of-gas-230772

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Englezos, Lecturer, Griffith Law School, Griffith University

OpenAI will be removing access to one of its ChatGPT voices, following objections by actor Scarlett Johansson that it sounds “eerily similar” to her own.

Earlier this week, the company said it was “working to pause” the voice of Sky, which is one of a few options users can choose when conversing with the app.

Johannson said OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, had approached her in September and again in May, asking if she would allow her voice to be used in the system.

She declined, only to hear a voice assistant that sounded uncannily like her only days after the second request. She was, in her own words, “shocked, angered and in disbelief”. OpenAI replied by saying:

AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice – Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice.

Johansson is known to have voiced an AI in the past, for a role in the fictional 2013 film Her – which Altman has declared himself a fan of. He also recently tweeted the word “her” without much further explanation.

Johansson said she had to hire legal counsel to demand the removal of Sky’s voice and information on how the company created it.

This dispute provides a prescient warning of the future identity harms enabled by AI – harms that could reach any of us at any time.

Identity is a slippery subject

Artificial intelligence is developing at an incredible pace, with OpenAI’s ChatGPT being a game-changer. It’s very likely AI assistants will soon be able to meaningfully converse with users, and even form all sorts of “relationships” with them. This may be why Johansson is concerned.

One thing has become unassailably clear: we can’t out-legislate AI. Instead, we need a right to identity, and with that a right to request the removal, deletion (or otherwise) of content that causes identity harm.

But what exactly is “identity”? It’s a complex idea. Our identity may say nothing about our specific personal traits or qualities, yet it is fundamental to who we are: something we build through a lifetime’s worth of choices.

But it’s also about more than how we see ourselves, as celebrities demonstrate. It’s linked to our image. It is collaborative – cultivated and shaped by how others see us. And in this way it can be tied to our personal traits, such as our voice, facial features, or the way we dress.

Minor attacks against our identity may have limited impacts, but they can add up like death by a thousand cuts.

Legal defences

As AI democratises access to technologies that can manipulate images, audio and video, our identities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to harms not captured by legal protections.

In Australia, school students are already using generative AI to create sexually explicit deepfakes to bully other students.

But unlike deepfakes, most identity harms won’t breach criminal law or draw the ire of the eSafety Commissioner. Most legal avenues afford ill-fitted and piecemeal remedies that can’t heal the damage done. And in many Western democracies, these remedies require legal action that’s more expensive than most can afford.

AI can be used to manipulate or create content that shows “you” doing things you haven’t (or would never do). It could make you appear less competent, or otherwise undermine your reputation.

It could, for example, make you appear drunk in a professional setting, as with former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It could show “you” vaping, when doing so would disqualify you from your sports team, or place you inside a pornographic deepfake video.

Australian law lags behind

The United States Congress recently proposed an actionable right to privacy. But even without this, US protections exceed those offered in Australia.

In the US, privacy is defended through a combination of legal claims, including the publication of private facts, presenting a subject in a false light, or the misappropriation of likeness (as in, co-opting some part of another’s identity and using it for your own purposes).

Based on the limited facts available, US case law suggests Johansson could succeed in action for misappropriation of likeness.

One pivotal case from 1988 featured American singer Bette Midler and the Ford Motor Company. Ford wanted to feature the singer’s voice in an ad campaign. When Midler declined, Ford hired a “sound alike” to sing one of Midler’s most famous songs in a way that sounded “as much as possible” like her.

Midler won, with one court likening Ford’s conduct to that of “the average thief” who simply takes what they can’t buy.

Australian public figures have no equivalent action. In Australia and the UK, the law will intervene where one party seeks to profit by passing off lesser quality look-alikes or sound-alikes as “the real thing”. But this applies only if consumers are misled or if the original suffers a loss.

Misrepresentation might also apply, but only where consumers believe a connection or endorsement exists.

Australia needs a rights-based approach akin to that in the European Union, which has a very specific goal: dignity.

Identity or “personality” rights empower those affected and impose an obligation on those publishing digital content. Subjects may receive damages or may seek injunctions to limit the display or distribution of material that undermines their dignity, privacy or self-determination.

Johansson herself has successfully sued a writer in France on the basis of these protections (although this win was ultimately more symbolic than lucrative).

With AI, it’s now child’s play to impersonate another’s identity. Identity rights are immensely important. Even where these rights co-exist with free speech protections, their very presence enables people to protect their image, name and privacy.

Elizabeth Englezos 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. Scarlett Johansson’s row with OpenAI reminds us identity is a slippery yet important subject. AI leaves everyone’s at risk – https://theconversation.com/scarlett-johanssons-row-with-openai-reminds-us-identity-is-a-slippery-yet-important-subject-ai-leaves-everyones-at-risk-230677

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Yue Zhang, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Globalisation is on shaky ground. As China rises, the United States and its allies are moving to reduce their reliance on the world’s factory.

The rivalry between the US and China is wide-ranging, from competition in technology over silicon chips and artificial intelligence to the critical minerals essential for green energy technologies such as grid batteries, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

At present, China dominates critical minerals. Beijing has secured supplies of rare earth elements and lithium, which have enabled it to take the lead in many green tech sectors, from solar to EVs. This has heightened geopolitical volatility.

But it also offers Australia a new pathway to export success – as well as fresh risks. A key part of the government’s flagship Future Made in Australia Act is an effort to fast-track mining of critical minerals – elements such as cobalt and lithium essential to the green energy transition.

That’s great. But who will buy them? If tensions between the US and China force us to pick a side, we might not be able to export our wealth of critical minerals to China, our largest customer.

What’s so important about Australia’s critical minerals?

Thermal and metallurgical coal, iron ore and gold have long dominated our mining exports. But this is changing. Under Australian soils are some of the world’s largest recoverable critical mineral deposits, including cobalt, lithium, manganese, rare earth elements, tungsten and vanadium.

Two years ago, the US government introduced the Inflation Reduction Act, an enormous stimulus bill aimed at speeding up the green transition. But it also contains nationalistic elements, prioritising American industries, workers and technologies over foreign competitors. The US also spearheaded a new multilateral Minerals Security Partnership aimed at reducing reliance on China.

Australia is one of the few mineral suppliers in the partnership. Most members are on the demand side, each with distinct mineral priorities for their industrial, technological and defence needs.

On budget night last week, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the A$22.7 billion Future Made in Australia package “will help make us an indispensable part of the global economy”.

The framing is clear: Australia will mine and supply critical minerals for nations such as America, which is increasingly integrating us into its plans to reduce reliance on China.

About $7 billion of the Future Made funding will go to downstream refining and processing of the 31 critical minerals we have in deposits worth mining over the medium term.

These plans do not stand alone. They’re in part a response to other nation’s plans to boost processing and production, especially America, which will need reliable mineral sources to go green.

Who else is rich in critical minerals? Other middle-power, mineral-rich countries such as Argentina, Chile, Indonesia and Malaysia. These nations, by contrast, do not align their interests as closely with US strategies as Australia does.

China plays a critical role here as a technology and investment partner, enabling these nations to keep a larger share of economic benefits.

Mineral-rich countries in Africa and other parts of the global south are focused on attracting investment for mineral extraction and mining to achieve immediate economic returns and infrastructure development. Here, too, China has secured access to many important mines in these regions.

Both groups are competitors to Australia.

Over the past two decades, China has secured diverse sources of minerals and developed advanced mineral recycling technologies to reduce its reliance on the global supply of these resources.

It has also advanced its processing capabilities for most of these minerals.

China’s dominance of downstream green tech sectors has given it overcapacity. This enables Beijing to use its market power to significantly influence global supplies of critical minerals.

In response, nations like the US have slapped tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and batteries.

The risk for Australia

Politically, Australia’s decision to align closely with the US on critical minerals presents substantial risks.

For instance, to qualify for US government green subsidies, Australian mining companies must ensure Chinese companies or funds hold less than 25% ownership. The world’s largest hard-rock lithium mine, Greenbushes in Western Australia, is 26% owned by China’s Tianqi Lithium Energy.

As a result, such mining firms are having to reassess their relationship with Chinese companies and entities.

Chinese battery giants such as CATL and BYD that have partnerships or supply deals with Australian miners may respond by shifting their sourcing

For decades, Australia has tried to walk a tightrope between America, our military backer, and China, our top customer for minerals and ore. This is becoming less and less possible, as US-China tensions increase.

If Australia has to pick a side and decouple from China, it will hit our export revenues hard. Finding alternative markets with ore-processing capacities comparable to China’s will be challenging.

China remains a key export destination for Australia’s critical minerals. For instance, 97% of its lithium is exported to China. Lithium exports earned A$11.7 billion in the first half of 2023. Lithium has now overtaken liquefied natural gas (LNG) as Australia’s second-biggest export to China by revenue, behind iron ore.

What about processing the minerals here? To match China here would require massive investment, a large skilled workforce, huge scale and prolonged effort.

And even if we do, we might end up stuck being able to export these minerals to America and other partnership nations only when supplies from China are disrupted. If that happens, we might be confined to a niche role.

Can we think differently?

So what should we do? Rather than just competing for a share of green manufacturing, Australia should focus on developing enabling technologies, such as automated production lines and robotics for solar panel and battery manufacturing, as well as next-generation fireproof battery materials.

If the government takes the lead on building shared-use infrastructure such as laboratory facilities, transport and mineral processing hubs, it will help attract investors, inventors and entrepreneurs by reducing upfront capital costs and operational risks.

Success in these general-purpose technologies will position Australia as a unique and irreplaceable player in the global critical mineral supply chain.

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. Critical minerals for the world – or just for the US? Turning Australia into a green minerals powerhouse comes with risks – https://theconversation.com/critical-minerals-for-the-world-or-just-for-the-us-turning-australia-into-a-green-minerals-powerhouse-comes-with-risks-230212

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Furger, Graduate Researcher and Teaching Fellow in International Law, The University of Melbourne

This week, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, in connection with the ongoing war in Gaza.

The reaction of the United States, Israel’s main backer, was swift. President Joe Biden condemned the prosecutor’s action against Israel’s leaders as “outrageous” and accused the ICC of drawing false moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel.

While it is not yet clear if the ICC’s judges will decide to issue the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Biden administration has already hinted at the possibility of imposing US sanctions against ICC officials.

Yet, just a year ago, when the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another Russian official for alleged international crimes in the Ukraine war, US officials were full of praise for the court. Biden welcomed the action, calling it “justified”.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in fact, the US has continually displayed its support for the ICC. One top US official, the ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, said the ICC “occupies an important place in the ecosystem of international justice”.

The US’ apparent about-face when the court targeted its ally is nothing new. Nor is it surprising.

Rather, this vacillating approach is merely symptomatic of the US’ complicated relationship with the ICC since its creation in 1998. Its hostile reaction to the Israel-Palestine situation will certainly have been expected by court officials.

Wariness from the court’s inception

I worked for many years as a cooperation advisor at the ICC’s office of the prosecutor. During that time, Washington’s position towards the court shifted several times – it supported the court at certain times and criticised it at others.

This has largely been tied to a broader assessment of US foreign policy goals and the anticipated costs and benefits that supporting the court could bring.

The US was initially a keen supporter of the creation of a permanent international criminal court and was an active participant in the ICC treaty negotiations in the 1990s.

But it ultimately voted against the Rome Statute that created the court in 1998 due to concerns with the court’s jurisdictional framework. The US feared it could allow for the prosecution of Americans without US consent.

Although the US still signed the Rome Statute, President George W. Bush later effectively unsigned it, saying the US would not ratify the document and had no legal obligations to it.

The US remains a non-member state to the ICC today.

Once the ICC was created, the US adopted laws to restrict its interactions with the new court. Most importantly, it passed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act of 2002 (ASPA) that prohibited providing any support to the ICC.

This law also allowed the US president to use “all means necessary” – a phrase understood to include armed force – to free American officials or servicemembers should they ever be detained for prosecution in The Hague, the seat of the ICC. This earned it the nickname of “The Hague Invasion Act”.

That same year, however, an amendment was passed to the law allowing exceptions for when the US could assist international courts to bring to justice:

Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosovic, Osama bin Laden, other members of al-Qaeda, leaders of Islamic Jihad and other foreign nationals.

The amendment created significant flexibility, demonstrating that the US was ready to assist international justice efforts as long as they targeted designated US “enemies” or other foreign nationals.

US support in African cases

The US soon adopted a pragmatic approach towards the court, supporting its activities depending on the circumstances and its interests.

In 2005, Washington allowed a UN Security Council referral to the ICC in relation to possible genocide and war crimes committed in Darfur, Sudan. The conflict was among the US’ top foreign policy priorities in Africa at the time.

Later, the Obama administration formally adopted a “case-by-case” strategy to cooperate with the ICC when it aligned with US interests.

Under this policy, the US played an important role in the 2011 referral of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Libya to the ICC. This was, again, in line with US foreign policy interests.

US diplomats also provided vital support in the arrest of Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda, who was later sentenced to 30 years in prison by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity. And the US assisted with the arrest of Dominic Ongwen of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, who was later sentenced to 25 years.

Another falling out over Afghanistan

The relationship between the US and the court soon soured again, though, during the Trump administration.

This was in part because of developments in the ICC’s investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan, which marked the first time the court probed possible crimes committed by US forces.

In 2020, ICC judges authorised an investigation into US, Afghan and Taliban forces. Soon after, the US imposed sanctions on the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and another senior ICC official.

After some delays, the investigation is continuing again, with a focus solely on crimes allegedly committed by the Taliban and Islamic State Khorasan Province. Other aspects of the investigation have been “deprioritised”, an implicit reference to the US and its allies.

Soon after taking office, the Biden administration lifted the sanctions against the ICC officials, returning to a seemingly more collaborative period in US-ICC relations.

These relations became closer following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the adoption of new laws that broadened the possibilities of US cooperation with the court. The goals of the US and ICC had seemingly aligned again, at least for the time being.

But this week’s request for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders demonstrates yet another shift in the US approach to the court. It continues the pattern of the US supporting the court when it suits it, prioritising its own foreign policy goals over wider international criminal justice efforts.

I have previously worked for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (2010 – 2015 and 2017 – 2021).

– ref. US hostility towards the ICC is nothing new – it has long supported the court only when it suits American interests – https://theconversation.com/us-hostility-towards-the-icc-is-nothing-new-it-has-long-supported-the-court-only-when-it-suits-american-interests-230663

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vita Pilkington, Research Assistant, PhD Candidate, The University of Melbourne

Retiring from professional sport can be anguishing for some athletes.

In Australia, high-profile athletes such as Brendan Cannon, Nathan Bracken, Stephanie Rice and Lauren Jackson have spoken about the loss of identity, purpose and goals for the future, as well as depression and thoughts of suicide after retirement.

More recently, the death of former Australian Football League (AFL) player Cam McCarthy – who battled mental health issues during his career – brought on calls for more support for athletes during retirement, including from Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir.

Meanwhile, the sentencing of former St Kilda footballer Sam Fisher for drug offences has driven similar conversations about “life after footy”, as has become the go-to phrase for headline writers.

These discussions about the mental health challenges at the end of an athletic career are important – but there’s a missing piece of the puzzle.

The danger of the athlete identity

Reaching and maintaining peak performance as an athlete requires immense dedication and discipline.

As a result, athletes’ identities often become closely linked to their status as sportspeople. This means when something disrupts their ability to play sport, like injury or retirement, serious mental health problems can follow.

The good news is, sporting organisations are increasingly investing in retirement transition programs that support mental health during and after the end of athletes’ careers.

Programs typically aim to encourage athletes to develop more well-rounded identities, consider future careers and encourage help-seeking when needed.

Such programs are currently being delivered by the AFL, Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and National Rugby League, among others.

This investment is encouraging. These programs can play important roles in preventing and responding to serious mental health problems among retiring athletes.

But more needs to be done to support athletes’ mental health at the start of their careers.

The importance of early intervention

As with all illnesses, early intervention is key. Taking preventative approaches to mental health is essential to build resilience and prevent symptoms from becoming severe.

There is a need for greater focus on prevention and early intervention for mental health issues in elite sport.

Elite athletes often have to navigate significant pressures and responsibilities from an early age. For example, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics showcased athletes such as Sky Brown, who competed in skateboarding and won bronze at the age of only 13.

Importantly, athletes are at the most vulnerable age for mental health problems when they enter elite sport settings, given 75% of these issues develop by age 24.

Coupled with this, the pressures young athletes face – performance pressure, high training loads, strict lifestyle demands and public and media scrutiny – exist alongside the normal challenges of adolescence: academic pursuits, increasing independence from caregivers, developing a sense of identity and navigating peer relationships and early romantic relationships.

This is clearly a lot for young people to be managing.

And yet so far, little emphasis has been given to promoting athlete mental health during this transition.

Importantly, these efforts need to start from entry into the high-performance system, rather than late in athletes’ careers.

What more can be done?

Our research team at Orygen – a youth mental health organisation – recently developed a framework for promoting mental health during the transition into elite sport. This highlights ways people in sport settings (such as coaches, teammates and staff) can support athlete mental health and wellbeing.

One recommended strategy is ensuring athletes understand the key challenges they’re likely to face throughout their careers. This can be complemented by helping them develop healthy strategies for overcoming these challenges.

Across the whole-of-sport system, there’s a need to ensure all athletes are valued as people – not just sportspeople. This requires building meaningful relationships in sport and preparing athletes for life beyond the athletic career.

Importantly, opportunities for mental health support should be provided regularly. Athletes need to know seeking help is part of maintaining optimal health and may even support performance.

Sports organisations are starting to make strides in this area. For example, the AFL delivers a curriculum to all Talent Pathways players on mental health literacy, resilience, stress management and coping, and skills to contribute to a safe and inclusive team culture.

Similarly, the AIS’s Start Strong program offers online learning that provides athletes and their parents with important information about the Australian high-performance sport system and topics such as personal values and overcoming obstacles.

Others, such as the Australian Cricketers’ Association, have begun to offer support for alternative education and career pathways earlier in a player’s career, to ensure they have options after retirement.

Next steps for everyone

These investments are the way forward but we need to push on with preventing mental health problems from the outset, ensuring athletes are best prepared to perform their roles and live healthy lives – physically and mentally – during their lifetimes.

And perhaps the rest of us – including sports fans and media – can use recent events and this Olympic and Paralympic year to remember that sportspeople are often in a developmentally critical period of life.

Vita Pilkington works as a researcher in Orygen’s Elite Sport and Mental Health team. She has contributed to a number of research projects and written reports commissioned by leading Australian sporting organisations, including some mentioned in this article.

– ref. It’s not just retiring athletes who need mental health support – young sportspeople need it, too – https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-retiring-athletes-who-need-mental-health-support-young-sportspeople-need-it-too-230296

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland

New norms for differentiating supernatural phenomena from the natural within Roman Catholicism took effect on May 19.

The new norms arise from the need to evaluate as quickly as possible the supernatural origin or otherwise of an array of phenomena occurring increasingly within the Catholic world and spreading quickly via social media.

Possible supernatural phenomena include apparitions – especially of Jesus or the Virgin Mary – interior or exterior voices, writings or messages from the beyond, the weeping or bleeding of sacred images, the bleeding of consecrated eucharistic hosts, and so on. Visions of the Virgin Mary, in particular, continue to occur regularly within Catholic Christendom.

The new document neither endorses supernatural phenomena nor rejects them. Rather, it provides a set of criteria and processes by means of which the church can officially discriminate between them and separate the authentic from the fake. So what do we need to know about these norms?

An old document replaced

The new norms replace an earlier document from 1978.

In this 1978 document, the decision whether to approve a phenomenon as supernatural or not was essentially left in the hands of a local authority – in most cases, a diocesan bishop.

According to criteria, the bishop decided on a choice of two options: supernatural, or not.

In the case of a judgment that a phenomenon was of supernatural origin, he could permit a public manifestation of devotion to the supernatural phenomenon equivalent to his saying, “for now, nothing stands in the way” (“pro nunc nihil obstat”).

Under this document, central control of the Vatican was minimal. Local authorities were in control.

The supernatural is under new management

The new document is intended to more effectively oversee the validation of such events.

It does so by centralising authorisation, management and control of the supernatural within the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, better known as “the Inquisition”. Any decision bishops or any other authority wish to make has to be submitted to the Dicastery for approval.

The new document declares the Holy Spirit may:

reach our hearts through certain supernatural occurrences such as apparitions or visions of Christ or the Blessed Virgin.

But the central authority of the church will now decide where, when and how God works, his wonders or miracles to perform.

Overall, God will be shown to be minimally directly intervening in the world.

Six new criteria to judge whether God is involved

Rather than a relatively simple judgment whether an event is supernatural or not, the church now provides six possible ways an event can be classified.

These range from “nihil obstat” (“nothing stands in the way”) to “declaratio de non supernaturalitate” (“declaration of non-supernaturality”).

But even where a nihil obstat is granted, as a rule, neither a diocesan bishop, nor any conference of bishops, nor the Dicastery itself “will declare that these phenomena are of supernatural origin”.

In short, a clear declaration of a supernatural event having taken place will virtually never happen (or, at least, unless the Pope intervenes).

A declaration of non-supernaturality will be made if it is discovered

the phenomenon was based on fabrication, on an erroneous intention, or on mythomania.

In short, if a fake or a hoax is discovered.

Between these two extremes lie four other possible judgments. Although there are positive signs of divine action in each of these, they each indicate increasing worries about credibility. The first two of these concern increasing doubts about the credibility of the phenomenon. The next two concern increasing doubts about the honesty of the people involved.

What are the new procedures?

If a diocesan bishop, after consultation, believes a supernatural phenomenon requires investigation, he alerts the Dicastery.

He then convenes an Investigatory Commission to carry out a “trial”. This trial will see witness examinations, sworn depositions, expert analysis of written texts, along with technical-scientific, doctrinal and canonical assessments. It is pretty much the traditional method of the Inquisition in modern dress (or vestments).

The commission finally makes a judgment on the truth of the matter based on positive and negative criteria.

Positive criteria include the reputation of persons involved, doctrinal orthodoxy, exclusion of fakery and the fruits of Christian life that have resulted from it.

Negative criteria include the possibility of manifest error, potential doctrinal errors, breeding of division within the church, an overt pursuit of profit, power, fame or social recognition, and the personal and public ethical rectitude of those involved, along with their mental health.

In the light of the commission’s work, the bishop proposes to the Dicastery a judgment following one of the six ways of classification. The Dicastery then makes a final judgment to be delivered to the bishop, who is obliged to implement the decision and make it public

Catholicism ‘disenchanting’ the world

There is deep concern within the Vatican over misinformation and disinformation about the supernatural.

The document informs us:

Now more than ever, these phenomena involve many people […] and spread rapidly across different regions and many countries.

The digital world is a place of multiple meanings where the supernatural occupies a space somewhere between reality and unreality. It is a domain where belief is a matter of choice and disbelief is willingly and happily suspended.

Ironically, the outcome of the new norms will be to minimise the number of phenomena recognised as “supernatural” within the Catholic Church. In effect, it will put stricter limits on God’s action within the world.

The new norms within the church to manage the supernatural are intended more to “disenchant” the world than further to “enchant” it.

Philip C. Almond 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 Vatican is cracking down on miracles. Here are the new rules for ‘supernatural’ occurrences – https://theconversation.com/the-vatican-is-cracking-down-on-miracles-here-are-the-new-rules-for-supernatural-occurrences-230544

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

Debates about infrastructure often turn around money – with good reason. It’s estimated New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit – the amount we would need to spend to modernise, upgrade and build what we need today – is more than NZ$100 billion.

And this will double by 2030 if we don’t significantly increase spending now to avoid the even higher cost of falling further behind and having to catch up.

These are big numbers, but they are just numbers. The real problem is political. No matter which major party is in office, no recent government has seriously addressed the country’s long-term infrastructure needs.

Priorities should include modernising water systems to prevent leaks and contamination, expanding and improving road and rail networks to reduce congestion and support economic growth, and ensuring infrastructure can withstand the impacts of climate change and natural disasters.

Next week’s budget seems likely to continue the trend. Spending and tax cuts, and reducing debt, have already been well signalled. Building a few more big roads and installing tunnels and pipes is no substitute for what is truly required.

A report made available to media today from the Helen Clark Foundation and environmental consulting firm WSP – Bridging the Infrastructure Gap: Funding and Financing Aotearoa New Zealand – argues there is a better way. Central to this will be greater political consensus and longer-term planning.

Wasteful and unproductive

While there are several ways to fund infrastructure, the report argues a significant portion will need debt financing. And it reminds us New Zealand is still a reasonably low-debt nation.

As of 2022, Crown debt sat at around 57% of GDP, compared to an OECD average of 89%. Given the strong Crown balance sheet, there is capacity for further government borrowing for infrastructure projects.

As the report argues, however, money isn’t the real problem – political willpower is. Above all, there is a lack of multiparty support for prioritising a resilient future.

This became starkly evident with the recent change of government. Since the National-led coalition took office, we’ve seen infrastructure project cancellations and a significant shift in funding priorities.

As the Clark Foundation report highlights, the incoming government cancelled the iReX interisland ferry terminal project after $424 million had already been spent. Similarly, the previous Labour-led governments cancelled eight major road projects. Some of these have now been reinstated at a significantly higher cost.

This boom-bust cycle is wasteful and unproductive. The report emphasises the need for a stable, long-term vision supported by consistent investment levels across successive government terms.

Historically, this cycle has also led to many infrastructure assets reaching the end of their lives all at once. The need for substantial repairs or replacement leads in turn to urgent spending that could be avoided with better planning.

Big savings available

The lack of a long-term vision carries other costs, too. The decisions made today will affect multiple future generations. It is irresponsible to make critical, long-term, high-impact decisions about vital infrastructure on a three-year political cycle.

The Clark Foundation report recommends developing a 30-year national infrastructure plan. Not only would this provide greater certainty, it would unlock productivity benefits that could save between 13% and 26.5% on project costs.

But spending more and building more isn’t the only way to sustain infrastructure. We also need to use – and charge for – existing infrastructure more efficiently. There are examples of this already, such as a planned time-of-use charge for some Auckland roads, but far more can be done.

Other possibilities include new highway tolls and more targeted water-use charges. For instance, “volumetric charging” – metering – for water has had significant success on the Kāpiti Coast where it led to a 90% reduction in water lost to leakage, and a 26% decrease in private water use.

Transcending the political cycle

There are also more innovative and equitable ways to fund infrastructure that have long been used globally, including what is known as “value capture”. This is where an increase in rates revenue resulting from an infrastructure investment is used to fund or offset some of the cost of the infrastructure itself.

For example, in the United States, value-capture mechanisms were integral to funding the development of the Atlanta BeltLine, a 35-kilometre walking and cycling path, and eventual light rail route. Capturing the increase in property values along the corridor provided 40% of the project’s US$4.8 billion cost.

Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Corporation has successfully used value capture through land premiums and property development to fund its extensive rail network.

And in London, the Crossrail project (also known as the Elizabeth Line) partially funded its construction through a business rate supplement and a community infrastructure levy targeting properties that would benefit from the new rail line.

In New Zealand, targeted rates – a form of value capture – have been successfully used to fund projects such as the $400 Moa Point Sludge Minimisation Facility in Wellington. Financed through a levy on all city properties (excluding protected Māori land), the cost is spread over the life of the new facility.

It is not that feasible funding solutions for significant infrastructure investments don’t exist. Rather, as the Helen Clark Foundation and WSP report makes clear, it is the lack of a long-term plan transcending the political cycle that is holding the country back.

Bridging the Infrastructure Gap: Funding and Financing Aotearoa New Zealand will be publicly available on June 26.

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

– ref. How to end the wasteful boom-bust cycle driving NZ’s infrastructure gap: new report – https://theconversation.com/how-to-end-the-wasteful-boom-bust-cycle-driving-nzs-infrastructure-gap-new-report-230398

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robin van der Sanden, Postdoctoral Fellow, Public Health, SHORE & Whāriki Research Centre, Massey University

Social media and messaging apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Messenger are increasingly used to buy and sell drugs in many countries. New Zealand is no exception.

This trend is particularly popular among young people, who are often involved in trading recreational drugs such as cannabis and MDMA. These deals are generally small scale, which means people believe the risks of getting caught and facing legal action are low.

But our new research shows how drug-linked “digital trace data” may lead to unexpected consequences in the future. Young people could see their data sold and used against them by job recruiters, insurance companies and others for decades to come.

Data harvesting is the new normal

Social media companies such as Meta are among the largest and most aggressive harvesters of user data.

These companies collect data on users beyond the confines of their platforms, generating profiles on individuals they can use to target advertising or sell to third-parties.

We interviewed 33 people as part of our study of social media drug trading in New Zealand. Participants had varying experiences buying and selling drugs via apps.

A core question we were interested in was how our interviewees navigated security and digital trace data as part of their drug trading.

Many participants were aware of and concerned about the impact a potential criminal record could have on their lives.

They also felt the collection of their digital trace data by social media companies could become another potential source of exposure to police, who can request their data from these companies. As one participant said:

Facebook probably knows I sell drugs.

But concerns went beyond just law enforcement. Some participants accepted their digital trace data could be used by other groups:

my data has been bought and sold 1,000 times by now, I don’t care what company has it anymore.

Some of our interviewees also reported receiving targeted adverts related to drug use on Meta platforms, ranging from cannabis edibles to rehab clinics.

This raises questions around how drug-linked digital trace data may influence different areas of people’s lives as it’s absorbed into the global data trade.

Increasingly, a person’s digital trace data is being accessed by different groups, from recruitment and insurance companies to law enforcement agencies.

Data may become the new criminal record

Criminal records have long had an impact on employment, housing access, insurance, loans and travel opportunities – also known as “collateral consequences”.

The 2004 Criminal Records Act included the clean slate scheme which allows eligible New Zealanders to request their criminal records be concealed from employers and third parties.

The scheme is meant to give hope to people grappling with the consequences of criminal records for minor offences, often committed in their youth. But critics have argued it doesn’t really work as intended in the digital age.

Today, archived digital content, such as media reports of an offence, often remain easily searched and accessible after official records have been removed.

But the rise of big data and the use of algorithms to analyse digital trace data sets and predict consumer behaviour further complicates this picture. Big data analytics are spreading beyond advertising into other private sectors such as insurance. This means the collateral consequences of criminal records – and any illegal behaviour – are expanding.

Collateral consequences in the age of big data

The fact our research participants viewed themselves as having a low risk of being caught by police is unsurprising, given the small scale of their drug trading.

But the collection and sale of digital trace data as part of social media drug deals means we need to broaden the understanding of collateral consequences beyond criminal records.

The spread of big data and predictive algorithms shows how criminal convictions could become just one of many sources of collateral consequences for individuals.

The targeted advertising of drug-related products and services to some participants in our research highlights how labels such as “drug consumer” may be applied to people based on their digital trace data. There is a high likelihood this classification will feed into other data sets as they are sold on to third parties.

And given the long-term storage of data by many public and private groups, it may well be that data gathered about an individual when they were 18 continues to affect them when they are 35.

These data sets may end up causing collateral consequences similar to criminal records, regardless of whether or not there was a criminal conviction.

The global data trade is likely to affect all of us in some form. But it may have a particularly harsh impact on people whose digital trace data links them to behaviours such as drug use or minor offending such as small-scale drug trading.

Robin van der Sanden recieved funding for this research from Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fund grant (MAU1812).

Chris Wilkins received funding for this research from Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fund grant (MAU1812) and from the Health Research Council (HRC) of New Zealand

Marta Rychert receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Monica Barratt has previously received funding from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, National Centre for Clinical Research into Emerging Drugs, and Criminology Research Council, and international funding from New Zealand’s Marsden Fund and U.S. National Institutes of Health.

– ref. ‘Facebook probably knows I sell drugs’ – how young people’s digital footprints can threaten their future prospects – https://theconversation.com/facebook-probably-knows-i-sell-drugs-how-young-peoples-digital-footprints-can-threaten-their-future-prospects-229994