Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Macfarlane, Head of Clinical Services, Dementia Support Australia, & Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Monash University

There was disagreement on social media recently after a story was published about an aged care provider creating “fake-away” burgers that mimicked those from a fast-food chain, to a resident living with dementia. The man had such strict food preferences he was refusing to eat anything at meals except a burger from the franchise. This dementia symptom risks malnutrition and social isolation.

But critics of the fake burger approach labelled it trickery and deception of a vulnerable person with cognitive impairment.

Dementia is an illness that progressively robs us of memories. Although it has many forms, it is typical for short-term recall – the memory of something that happened in recent hours or days – to be lost first. As the illness progresses, people may come to increasingly “live in the past”, as distant recall gradually becomes the only memories accessible to the person. So a person in the middle or later stages of the disease may relate to the world as it once was, not how it is today.

This can make ethical care very challenging.

Is it wrong to lie?

Ethical approaches classically hold that specific actions are moral certainties, regardless of the consequences. In line with this moral absolutism, it is always wrong to lie.

But this ethical approach would require an elderly woman with dementia who continually approaches care staff looking for their long-deceased spouse to be informed their husband has passed – the objective truth.

Distress is the likely outcome, possibly accompanied by behavioural disturbance that could endanger the person or others. The person’s memory has regressed to a point earlier in their life, when their partner was still alive. To inform such a person of the death of their spouse, however gently, is to traumatise them.

And with the memory of what they have just been told likely to quickly fade, and the questioning may resume soon after. If the truth is offered again, the cycle of re-traumatisation continues.

A different approach

Most laws are examples of absolutist ethics. One must obey the law at all times. Driving above the speed limit is likely to result in punishment regardless of whether one is in a hurry to pick their child up from kindergarten or not.

Pragmatic ethics rejects the notion certain acts are always morally right or wrong. Instead, acts are evaluated in terms of their “usefulness” and social benefit, humanity, compassion or intent.

The Aged Care Act is a set of laws intended to guide the actions of aged care providers. It says, for example, psychotropic drugs (medications that affect mind and mood) should be the “last resort” in managing the behaviours and psychological symptoms of dementia.

Instead, “best practice” involves preventing behaviour before it occurs. If one can reasonably foresee a caregiver action is likely to result in behavioural disturbance, it flies in the face of best practice.

Read more:
When someone living with dementia is distressed or violent, ‘de-escalation’ is vital

What to say when you can’t avoid a lie?

What then, becomes the best response when approached by the lady looking for her husband?

Gentle inquiries may help uncover an underlying emotional need, and point caregivers in the right direction to meet that need. Perhaps she is feeling lonely or anxious and has become focused on her husband’s whereabouts? A skilled caregiver might tailor their response, connect with her, perhaps reminisce, and providing a sense of comfort in the process.

This approach aligns with Dementia Australia guidance that carers or loved ones can use four prompts in such scenarios:

• acknowledge concern (“I can tell you’d like him to be here.”)

• suggest an alternative (“He can’t visit right now.”)

• provide reassurance (“I’m here and lots of people care about you.”)

• redirect focus (“Perhaps a walk outside or a cup of tea?”)

These things may or may not work. So, in the face of repeated questions and escalating distress, a mistruth, such as “Don’t worry, he’ll be back soon,” may be the most humane response in the circumstances.

Different realities

It is often said you can never win an argument with a person living with dementia. A lot of time, different realities are being discussed.

So, providing someone who has dementia with a “pretend” burger may well satisfy their preferences, bring joy, mitigate the risk of malnutrition, improve social engagement, and prevent a behavioural disturbance without the use of medication. This seems like the correct approach in ethical terms. On occasion, the end justifies the means.

Steve Macfarlane works for Dementia Support Australia, a service led by HammondCare.
He is a member of the Royal Asutralian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

– ref. Is it OK to lie to someone with dementia? – https://theconversation.com/is-it-ok-to-lie-to-someone-with-dementia-236229

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rajeev Varshney, Professor, Food Futures Institute, Murdoch University

Food security is shaping up as one of the biggest challenges we face globally. In some places, access to food has steadily deteriorated in recent years, due to wars, inflation and climate-driven extreme weather. The cost of basic foods such as eggs and vegetables has made news worldwide.

Food price inflation is now ahead of overall inflation in over half the world’s nations. The obvious answer is to grow more crops, especially the energy-dense top six – rice, wheat, corn, potatoes, soybeans and sugarcane.

Unfortunately, it’s getting harder to produce food due to conflict, more extreme weather such as flash droughts and floods and a surge in plant diseases and pests.

For farmers to keep producing in an uncertain future, we need better crops. But much cutting edge agricultural research focuses on improving specific aspects of a plant – better drought resistance, or a better ability to tolerate salt in the soil. This may not be enough to cope with future shocks.

Our research suggests a way to accelerate the creation of stronger crops by drawing on the full genetic strength of crop species.

Crops that don’t stop

Humans have greatly modified the plants which give us the lion’s share of our food, using tools such as selective breeding and genetic manipulation.

But much agricultural research is done in isolation. Researchers dive deep into solving specific problems – how to make wheat resilient against a specific fungus, for example.

The growing challenges to food security across many fronts means a new approach is needed. The changing climate will throw many different threats at our crops. Parts of the world might endure flash droughts while extreme rain floods others. Some pests and diseases will thrive in a hotter world.

That’s why we’re looking to another approach – pangenomics, which attempts to capture every gene a species has access to.

You might think a species has a unified set of genes, but this is not true. Yes, all rice plants have a set of shared genetic sequences. But individual plants and strains have distinct genetic differences too. The pangenome covers all of these.

The idea of a pangenome only emerged in 2005, when microbiologist Hervé Tettelin and his collaborators were looking for a vaccine against the streptococcus bacteria. As they examined different strains, they realised how much additional genetic information was held in them.

It was a breakthrough, and showed how much we missed by focusing closely on a single isolate of a species. Before their discovery, we had assumed an individual of a species carried enough information to accurately represent the genomic content of that species. But this isn’t correct.

This realisation has changed how we see our crops. Rather than trying to perfect a single cultivar (cultivated variety) using only its own genetic package, the pangenome offers a way to reinfuse lost vigour from the wider gene pool.

In 2019, we took the pangenome approach further by considering the entire gene pool of a crop, including its domestic cultivars – and their wild relatives. Many wild relatives of domesticated crops still exist. These plants have huge genetic diversity, and often harbour superior genes or gene variants (alleles) lost to crop plants through domestication and breeding.

We dubbed this approach the “super-pangenome” to recognise the capture of domesticated and wild gene pools.

How can this help shore up food supplies?

For more than 10,000 years, humans have domesticated and selectively bred crops. But wild relatives have thrived over the same timeframe.

There are good reasons these wild relatives have not been domesticated, from poor taste to difficulty of storage to low yields. But what they do have are desirable traits in their genetic code we can identify, isolate and infuse back into the domesticated species.

Once we have genetic data from across a species and its wild relatives, we can begin looking for particularly useful genes. What we’re after are the ones responsible for adapting to or surviving environmental stresses likely to get worse in the future, such as drought, saline soils and extreme temperatures. We can identify genes responsible for disease resistance and determine why certain varieties offer other desirable traits such as better taste or higher yields.

Around the world, a number of promising research projects use this approach, from American researchers using the genes of wild grapes to boost the yield of domesticated grapes to Chinese researchers doing similar work on tomatoes.

We and our colleagues are focused on the humble chickpea, a highly nutritious legume of particular importance to India’s 1.4 billion people. Chickpeas, like other legume crops, take nitrogen from the air and fix it in the soil, which improves fertility and helps offset emissions of nitrous oxide, a lesser-known greenhouse gas.

But chickpeas lack of genetic diversity due to several evolutionary bottlenecks, domestication and selective breeding. This is already causing problems, because low genetic diversity makes species more vulnerable to pests and disease. Chickpea farmers in Western Australia still remember the outbreak of a fungal blight which almost wiped out production in the late 1990s and left the crop unpopular – even while other states expanded exports.

The solution: look to the wild relatives. In the genomes of relatives such as Cicer echinospermum, we found several promising genes which helped resist this fungus.

These genes can now be incorporated into domesticated species through modern approaches – such as genomics-assisted breeding and gene editing – to develop disease-resistant and high-yielding chickpea varieties.

Once we seek out and capture the full gene stock of our most important crops, both wild and domesticated, it will become easier and faster to supercharge these essential plants – and equip them with the genes they need to survive the uncertainties the future holds.

Rajeev Varshney receives funding from the Grains Research & Development Corporation, Australia, for pulses research at Murdoch University.

Vanika Garg receives funding from the Grains Research & Development Corporation, Australia for pulses research at Murdoch University.

– ref. Wild genes in domestic species: how we can supercharge our crops using their distant relatives – https://theconversation.com/wild-genes-in-domestic-species-how-we-can-supercharge-our-crops-using-their-distant-relatives-233437

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Esther Willing, Associate Professor of Hauora Māori, University of Otago

We are being told the health system is in crisis, “on the brink of failure” – spending beyond its budget, waiting times getting longer, suffering from widespread staff shortages.

The government has responded by dismissing the board of Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) and appointing Lester Levy as commissioner, with the task of reducing “overspending”. Levy himself has called the system “bloated” and said a “reset” is needed.

However, claims of overspending downplay the most significant external contributors to our stressed health system, while attempting to shift the focus internally. We are concerned the overspending narrative may be a precursor to doubt being cast on the viability of the publicly-funded system in general.

Many of the challenges faced by our health system are not unique to New Zealand. Global workforce shortages have been building since the 2000s, affecting most health systems.

COVID-19 exacerbated these trends. Many healthcare workers experienced burnout during the pandemic and left the health system. Many who remain are stressed and overworked.

Workforce pressures combine with a number of other factors: increased demand for health services, ageing populations (of patients and the health workforce), ever-growing treatment options and rising patient expectations, and an increasing prevalence of chronic health conditions needing ongoing, long-term care.

NZ underspends on health

The health systems of most high-income countries are under stress. But by far the biggest local factor contributing to New Zealand’s stressed health system is historical and current underfunding. Rather than overspending, it has been incredibly frugal for a long time.

Throughout the 2010s, just over 9% of the country’s GDP was spent on health, when most comparable countries were spending between 10% and 12%. According to OECD data, in 2020 New Zealand spent the equivalent of US$3,929 per capita on health – far less than Canada (US$6,215) and Australia (US$5,802).

That gap drives salary differences with comparable countries for health workers, exacerbating our workforce shortages as valuable trained staff leave for better pay elsewhere. While there is scope for productivity improvement in parts of the system, any such gains would be small compared to the cumulative extent of past underfunding.

Also important is the two-tiered nature of the New Zealand health system. The 1938 Social Security Act, which created the publicly-funded system, aimed to ensure health services would be free and accessible to all citizens. Now, however, primary health care is not affordable for around one in eight New Zealanders.

The problem goes back to the original compromise between the government and the medical profession. GPs retained the right to operate as private businesses, receiving government subsidies while also charging patients consultation fees. Doctors in public hospitals became salaried, but were allowed to operate a parallel private practice.

Consequently, better-off people could access health services more quickly in the private sector. No government since has been able to shift these arrangements, despite the considerable inequities of access they entail.

Would other funding models work?

For more than 80 years, the basic design of the publicly-funded health system has served us well, even with the two-tiered design flaws. Around 80% of the health system is funded publicly through taxation, a model we share with the UK, Spain and Scandinavian countries.

Given 37% of New Zealanders currently have private insurance, would a greater role for private funding reduce pressure on public funding? International experience tells us no.

The private insurance-based US health system is by far the most expensive in the world, soaking up nearly 18% of GDP. The prices paid by private insurers for health services have increased significantly faster than public parts of the US system.

There is also New Zealand evidence that private insurance can burden the public sector, with acute followup care sometimes required in public hospitals. Private insurers manage the pinch of rising healthcare costs by increasing premiums and tightening eligibility restrictions.

Health systems that rely on funding via private insurance are less accessible, less efficient, less equitable and generally have worse health outcomes. Put simply, market-based healthcare doesn’t deliver the expected benefits of markets, but does generate the expected downsides.

Another alternative to the tax-funded system is social insurance, where employers and employees pay into sickness funds, not unlike New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corporation.

In countries with social insurance, such as Germany and the Netherlands, the provision of care is predominantly from non-government providers, rather than government-run hospitals. But research has shown there are higher cost pressures in social insurance systems because they are costlier to administer than tax-based systems.

In tax-based systems, rationing due to funding shortfalls is more visible in the form of waiting times and waiting lists. In private insurance-based systems, rationing is based on affordability and is far less visible.

Protecting access and fairness

Addressing the challenges within New Zealand’s health system requires adequate funding, and investment in the people who make up the system itself.

This includes the healthcare workers who take care of us, and the administrative and support staff who make that healthcare possible.

Short-term belt-tightening will most likely deepen the crisis. In the longer term, a viable publicly-funded system is more efficient and effective than the known alternatives.

This requires a policy commitment to actively address the many drivers of the crisis in ways that align with our values of universal access and fairness.

Meanwhile, we will need to have difficult conversations about how we address this underfunding, and how we train and support healthcare workers. Our publicly-funded health system is needed as much now as when it was first set up, to ensure all New Zealanders have access to healthcare when they need it.

Esther Willing receives funding from the Health Research Council.

Paula Lorgelly receives or has received funding from the Ministry of Health, Health New Zealand and the Health Research Council.

Peter Crampton receives or has received funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Ministry of Health. He is a member of the Public Health Advisory Committee, the Board of Te Tāhū Hauora (Health Quality and Safety Commission), and the Ministry of Health Primary and Community Care Advisory Group. He was a member of the Health and Disability System Review panel.

Tim Tenbensel receives funding from the Health Research Council. He is affiliated with Health Coalition Aotearoa.

Jaime King and Robin Gauld 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. NZ already spends less on health than Australia or Canada – we need proper funding, not ‘crisis’ management – https://theconversation.com/nz-already-spends-less-on-health-than-australia-or-canada-we-need-proper-funding-not-crisis-management-236583

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Lucas, Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary

Municipal politicians often argue that local government is the part of the political world where things actually get done. Other levels of government might be plagued by partisan factionalism and ideological radicalism, they like to say, but municipal government continues to chug along, effective but unrecognized.

In municipal politics, the saying goes, there’s no right-wing or left-wing way to pick up the garbage. This makes the people who are elected to municipal office more pragmatic and ideologically moderate than their provincial or federal cousins.

It’s an appealing vision, especially in our politically polarized age. But is it true?

Comparing politicians

As municipal elections loom in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan this fall, this is a tricky question to answer.

To really understand if municipal politicians are closer to the ideological centre than their provincial or federal counterparts, it’s necessary to compare politicians across all levels of government. It’s rare for politicians in more than one level of government to be included in the same research studies — which is exactly what’s needed to be able to compare across levels.

Fortunately, however, two teams of political scientists have spent the past two years surveying Canadian politicians across all levels of government. These surveys make it possible to actually answer the age-old question: are municipal politicians really ideological moderates?

In a new research article, I combined surveys of provincial and federal politicians (from a project called POLPOP) with surveys of municipal politicians (from a project called the Canadian Municipal Barometer) into a single multilevel mega-survey.

Both survey projects included questions about politicians’ ideological self-understanding — that is, where they place themselves on a left-right spectrum — as well as their policy attitudes.

Policy attitudes

My analysis found that municipal politicians are in fact more likely to think of themselves as ideological moderates. Compared to provincial or federal politicians, municipal politicians tend to place themselves closer to the centre of the left-right spectrum, rather than the extremes.

This is what political scientists call “symbolic” ideology“ — how you think of yourself ideologically — and on this scale, municipal politicians do tend to be more moderate.

But ideology isn’t just about how we think of ourselves. It’s also about our actual policy attitudes. If I have fiercely right-wing views on gun control, immigration, environmental policy and health care, you might reasonably describe me as a “right winger” even if I think of myself as a centrist.

On this second measure — politicians’ actual policy attitudes — I find no important differences among municipal, provincial and federal politicians. When digging into politicians’ views on policy issues like income redistribution, electric vehicle subsidies or euthanasia, it turns out that municipal politicians aren’t any closer to the ideological centre than other politicians.

This means that municipal politicians think of themselves as moderate, but when we measure their actual policy attitudes, they don’t stand out for their ideological moderation.

Read more:
Foreign interference could affect municipal elections, too. Here are 2 ways to reduce it

Genuine non-partisans

There’s a further twist to my findings. In Canadian municipal elections, candidates don’t have to be partisans to get elected; they don’t need to declare themselves as part of the Liberal or NDP or Conservative team.

Many municipal politicians do identify strongly with a political party — some have even been elected to office at the provincial or federal level — but some don’t. In fact, more than a quarter of municipal politicians are genuine non-partisans, with no party affiliation or identity at all.

It turns out that the differences in ideological self-perception between municipal politicians and provincial/federal politicians are driven by these municipal non-partisans. Non-partisanship and ideological moderation go hand in hand: non-partisan local politicians also tend to think of themselves as ideological moderates.

Self-perceptions matter

So even though Canada’s municipal politicians aren’t distinctly moderate in their policy attitudes, many think of themselves as moderates — and the reason for this difference, in large part, has to do with Canada’s distinctively non-partisan municipal elections.

Even if municipal politicians aren’t actually any more moderate than provincial or federal politicians in their policy beliefs, their self-perceptions are still important. They reflect a longstanding norm of ideological moderation in municipal politics — pragmatism, non-partisanship, compromise — which probably shapes how politicians go about their business on council.

But my findings also make it clear that Canadians can’t count on the municipal system to automatically attract more moderate politicians. If Canadians want municipal representatives who are pragmatic, willing to compromise and ideologically moderate, they need to go out into their communities and find them — and then elect them to office.

Jack Lucas receives funding from SSHRC.

– ref. Municipal politicians claim to be ideological moderates. Is it true? – https://theconversation.com/municipal-politicians-claim-to-be-ideological-moderates-is-it-true-236471

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaylee Byers, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences; Senior Scientist, Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society, Simon Fraser University

Rats are present in almost every city in the world, building their own rat settlements in parallel with human urban infrastructure.

Cities are ideal habitats for rats because they offer everything a rat needs to survive: food, water and harbourage — a place to live. For brown rats, also known as Norway rats, any patch of soil can quickly become a home, and their omnivorous diets allow them to thrive on kitchen scraps, backyard gardens, fruit trees and even waste in our garbage bins and sewer systems.

Several North American cities are considering the use of new contraceptive products to address rat infestations. This effort is commendable as it shows that cities are exploring alternative approaches to more established techniques that are known to cause harms, such as poisons that kill non-targeted wildlife.

However, the use of birth control raises the question: Could reducing rat reproduction be the solution to our rat worries?

Putting rats on birth control

Rat birth control products, packaged as sugary bait, reduce the number of offspring rats produce. Given that rats can have about five litters a year, with an average of four to eight pups in each litter, addressing reproduction is an attractive approach to reducing rat numbers. However, there are three important limitations to such a strategy.

First, not all rats will eat the bait. This is a classic problem of rat management strategies that rely on poison and kill-trapping. Numerous studies demonstrate that even with intensive baiting and trapping programs, there will often be some rats left behind. Once the campaign ends, the surviving rats can once again reproduce, and populations can rebound in as little as four weeks.

Second, rat birth control does nothing to address the reason for why rats are there in the first place. Access to food, water and harbourage create environments conducive to rats, and also determine the number of rats that can survive in an area. By reducing the number of offspring of rats that eat the bait, it may increase the likelihood of survival of the offspring of other rats that do not eat the bait, as well as rats from any neighbouring areas where the bait was not applied.

For this reason, these types of approaches will likely be most successful in situations where the resources available to rats can be simultaneously reduced or removed and the immigration of new rats can be avoided, such as in indoor settings.

Third, focusing solely on reducing the number of rats may not, paradoxically, reduce the harms that people are experiencing. For example, in under-resourced neighborhoods, rats are symbolic of social injustice and neglect.

Our research has found that most rat complaints to the City of Vancouver are actually complaints about situations involving poor environmental hygiene, where rats are invoked by complainants to urge the city to respond. In neither scenario will reducing or removing rats address the ultimate problem.

Diversified approaches

The bottom line is that just as a variety of tools are needed to build a house, so are a variety of tools and approaches required to successfully deliver a rat control program.

In addition to contraceptives, these tools could include enforcing bylaws that enshrine the right of low-income tenants to a healthy living environment. Municipalities could also implement the use of rat-proof garbage containers or schedule more frequent garbage collection.

Other approaches include programs that prevent the accumulation of tree fruit that could serve as a food source for rats and divert those fruits for human consumption. Even rebate programs that support home improvements could be used — research shows that home improvements for energy efficiency also help keep rodents away.

Ideally, rat control tools are best used in the context of a broader program developed, implemented, maintained, evaluated and improved by a diverse set of specialists. In addition to extermination interventions run by pest control professionals, such a program might include: surveillance to quantify rats and rat-related harms to prioritize management efforts and measure their success; policies to provide municipalities with the legislative authority to prevent and address infestations; new waste management systems; or urban planning to ensure that new developments are more resistant to infestations.

A complex issue like rat management is unlikely to be solved by a single approach. By combining a variety of rat management tools, we not only improve our attempts to address rat-related issues, but also increase the overall health and resiliency of urban environments.

Kaylee Byers is co-lead of the Vancouver Rat Project and collaborates with the Chicago Rat Project.

Chelsea Himsworth is co-lead of the Vancouver Rat Project.

– ref. Rat birth control programs may not be the most efficient way to address urban rat infestations – https://theconversation.com/rat-birth-control-programs-may-not-be-the-most-efficient-way-to-address-urban-rat-infestations-234335

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

So certain is the Australian government that childcare workers are being poorly paid that it is handing them an extra 15% – 10% this December, followed by a further 5% in December 2025 – and speaking as if there’s more to come.

It is calling the increases “interim” because it expects the Fair Work Commission to offer at least that much. The commission has begun an investigation into what “early childhood education and care workers” are actually worth compared to workers in other occupations.

They’re not paid as much as most. On a list of the average hourly rates for about 100 occupations prepared by the Bureau of Statistics, child carers are the eleventh lowest. They earn an average of $31.20 an hour – less than receptionists, who get $31.50, less than retail workers on $32, and less than data entry workers on $33.10.

Yet the Fair Work Commission says childcare workers are required to

• provide a nurturing environment and interact with the children in such a way
  that each individual child’s emotional needs are met

• provide environments and experiences which are appropriately stimulating and
  engage with the children in such a way that each child’s cognitive, language and creative development is stimulated

• observe babies and children sensitively and accurately and use a
  developmental analysis of those observations to assist in planning and caring
  appropriately for each child

• plan appropriate programs for individual children and groups of children for all areas of their development and wellbeing

• guide children’s behaviour and manage situations where a child’s behaviour
  is difficult and challenging

• communicate appropriately and sensitively with families in a way that is
  supportive of the child’s well-being and development

The commission has given an indication of what it will do. It says it won’t start its investigation with a “blank slate”. It will piggyback on the research it used to address the undervaluation of aged care work.

That may be a good sign for childcare workers – in March, the commission awarded most aged care workers more than 20%, and some as much as 28.5%.

Why is childcare so poorly paid?

If you guessed that gender was one of the reasons childcare workers are so poorly paid, the commission’s research suggests you’re right. About 96.6% of childcare workers are women. It’s one of the most highly feminised industries there is.

Australian parents come into it too. As childcare customers, we are reluctant to pay too much more.

And when it comes to nurses employed by governments, as taxpayers we seem to be reluctant to pay too much more.

But much of it isn’t deliberate discrimination. The way the commission tells it, much of what has happened to the pay rates of childcare workers – along with nurses, aged care workers and workers in all manner of other highly feminised occupations – is a series of accidents, each building on the other.

Here’s the commission’s potted history of how we got here, which goes back more than a century.

Wages for those with wives and children

The first tribunal to set a so-called “living wage” was the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in the so-called Harvester decision of 1907.

Sunshine Harvester made grain harvesters at Sunshine, now a western suburb of Melbourne.

Justice Henry Bournes Higgins ruled that even unskilled workers were entitled to live in “frugal comfort”, which he said was enough to allow an unskilled labourer to feed, house and clothe a wife and three children. Skilled workers would get a margin for skill.

Women, often single and not usually needing to support wives and children, got less; in early days about 30% less and later about 25% less.

The 1969 equal pay decision was meant to end that gap. It granted equal pay to women where they were assessed as doing exactly the same work as men.

But women usually don’t do exactly the same work as men. Even today, women are far more likely to be nurses than men, and far more likely to be child carers.

Caring still isn’t seen as ‘equal value’ work

So in 1972, the commission ruled that even women undertaking different jobs than men had to get the same pay rate, so long as the work was of equal value.

Equal value was hard to determine, and for a lot of jobs, it never was. There were a few attempts to link skill levels in feminised industries to the C10 classification in the Metal Industry Award, but they depended on an assessment of skills.

So-called invisible caring skills often weren’t noticed, in part because work similar to nursing and childcare had been traditionally done at home without charge and without training, even though training was later required.

The commission – now called the Fair Work Commission – had shown itself to be slow in updating assessments of the skills required for jobs such as childcare, meaning that female pay has climbed at a snail’s pace relative to men’s for decades.

Four decades ago, the average Australian woman working full time got 82% of what the average man did. Two decades later it was 85%. Last year it was 87%.

What’s being done? And will it be enough?

Responding that glacial change, in 2022 the newly-elected Albanese government rewrote the Fair Work Act to require the commission to “promote job security and gender equality”.

That’s what the commission’s now doing. It is having to do it not only because it has been slow in the past, but also been the ultimate employers have been stingy, forcing childcare workers and nurses to rely on awards.

For childcare workers, the ultimate employers are parents. For nurses, they are largely state governments. Few have been keen to pay over the odds.

The Productivity Commission says the only way to get more workers into childcare is to pay them more, either in our own right as parents, or through our taxes via the government.

There’s little doubt the economy can afford it. Calculations by AMP chief economist Shane Oliver suggest the increase just announced will lift Australia’s overall wages bill by a few tenths of a percentage point.

Figures released Tuesday showed overall wages climbed 4.1% in the year to June, a few points above prices which climbed 3.8%.

A few more points would be welcome, but they wouldn’t contribute to ongoing wage inflation: they would be a one-off correction for an injustice.

If we had it in us, we would help as well. Either as parents or taxpayers, we would pay childcare centres more, so they could pay their workers more. We would act as if their work – nurturing our children – really mattered.

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. Why are child carers still paid less than retail workers? And how can we help fix it? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-child-carers-still-paid-less-than-retail-workers-and-how-can-we-help-fix-it-236563

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toby Murray, Associate Professor of Cybersecurity, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

On Tuesday, Australia’s minister for government services, Bill Shorten, announced the federal government is developing a new digital identity and credential system. Known as the Trust Exchange (TEx), Shorten said the new system will be “world leading” and represents an “exciting step forward for Australia’s digital infrastructure”.

But details about the system are scarce. Shorten admitted it is still something of an “abstract concept” at this point. However, we know it will allow people to prove things about themselves (for example, who they are or whether they are over 18) to organisations, while controlling how much information they share.

The system could make it much easier for people to access government and business services while keeping better control of their sensitive information.

However, its success will depend on a crucial factor: public trust.

And right now, with the ghost of the Robodebt royal commission findings still very much alive, the public has every right to be distrustful of government technology.

So, how should the government address the potential trust and privacy concerns surrounding its new digital identity system?

Why do we need a new digital ID system?

The Trust Exchange system is related to two other existing government systems: MyGov and MyGovID.

MyGov is the central online portal for accessing Australian government services. It includes the MyGov mobile phone app, which has a wallet feature allowing people to show digital versions of their Centrelink concession or Medicare cards.

MyGovID is the government’s current online digital identity system. It allows you to prove who you are to several online services, including MyGov and a range of other government organisations and agencies. You can, for example, log in to MyGov online using your MyGovID.

The new Trust Exchange system is designed to give people much greater control over what personal digital information they share with organisations.

At present, you can show your digital driver’s license if you are requested to prove your identity when entering a sports club. However, that requires you to share not only your age but also your name and street address with club staff.

The new system would allow you to prove that you are over 18 by using your mobile phone, without having to share any other information about yourself.

If successful, the new system could reduce the need for companies to collect and store so much sensitive identity information about their customers.

It therefore holds significant promise in an age in which sensitive data breaches, like those that hit Optus and Medibank in 2022, seem to be an almost everyday occurrence.

Public trust is vital

However, for the Trust Exchange system to succeed, the public will need to have trust in the security and privacy of the system.

The minister has said businesses will be able to trust the information in the system because it will be backed by existing systems like MyGovID.

This makes sense; to create a standard strength MyGovID, you need to upload your valid driver’s license and passport into the MyGovID system. Any business can therefore trust the information you share with it via TEx really is genuine.

However, this raises the obvious concern about how the new system itself will be secured.

At the moment, MyGovID is used by relatively few organisations. However, the Trust Exchange system looks to have much more ambitious goals: to become the de facto method for Australians to prove things about themselves to companies, venues and government agencies.

If that happens, accounts will be exposed to far higher risk of hacking than MyGovID currently is.

Less obvious are potential privacy concerns.

Will MyGov wallets contain a record of each time we prove our age to purchase alcohol? What about to enter adult establishments? Will the government have access to that information? And if so, what will that information be used for?

Finally, it’s not clear whether the government sees the new digital identity system as a means to provide age verification to prevent children from accessing online pornography.

From the government’s perspective, doing so might seem attractive. However, that would raise significant privacy concerns if the system records online interactions.

What can the government do to build public trust?

In the wake of Robodebt, it’s up to the government to assure Australians the Trust Exchange system can be trusted and will keep their sensitive information secure.

This is doubly important given Shorten said the system will be opt-in rather than mandatory.

The government should act now to reassure the public it will protect their privacy and security.

This will require carefully explaining what information the system will and will not collect about individuals, who will have access to that information and how it will be secured.

Crucially, the Trust Exchange system should be designed to limit how much information it records about the organisations individuals interact with. Ideally, it would record none at all. If this information is recorded, the government must carefully explain why that collection is necessary.

In the absence of this kind of careful consideration and explanation, the public will have every right to remain sceptical of this technology.

Toby Murray receives research funding from the Department of Defence. He is the Director of the Defence Science Institute, which receives funding from the state governments of Victoria, Tasmania and the Commonwealth government.

– ref. The government is developing a new digital ID system. It must first gain the public’s trust – https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-developing-a-new-digital-id-system-it-must-first-gain-the-publics-trust-236689

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Thomas, Professor of Public Health, Deakin University

With parliament sitting this week, the federal government is trying to finalise its proposed laws to limit gambling advertising.

The current proposal is a partial ban, with limits to ads during general TV programming. Previously, a parliamentary committee, chaired by late Labor MP Peta Murphy, unanimously recommended banning gambling ads entirely.

The betting industry, unsurprisingly, doesn’t want a full ban. Speaking on ABC Radio, the chief executive of Responsible Wagering Australia (the peak body for the industry), Kai Cantwell, argued bans push gamblers to illegal offshore services. He said this has already happened in parts of Europe. He also rejected suggestions advertising was normalising gambling to children.

But is that true? What does the evidence say about ad bans like this?

Marketing is key

The gambling industry is one of the most innovative health harming industries of modern times. The evidence about the harms from gambling is clear. They include relationship breakdown, physical ill-health, job loss, debt, crime, homelessness, family related violence and suicide.

Technological advances have enabled the industry to develop sophisticated and instantly accessible products. They promote these products using novel marketing strategies that are able to rapidly target individuals through different media channels, including TikTok. The industry is driven by highly profitable and powerful companies, including those who legitimise and facilitate gambling, such as broadcasters and sporting codes.

For the gambling industry to make money, people have to lose. This is also why a continuing customer base is necessary. Marketing is core to the industry’s business model, creating pathways to new products and brands.

As companies compete to spruik their products, children and young people are exposed to saturation gambling marketing in their everyday lives. Evidence from multiple countries shows that marketing is doing its job – contributing to the normalisation of gambling for young people, promoting brand recognition and recall and shaping positive perceptions of gambling. It’s also creating a perception that gambling has limited risk attached to it. As one 11-year-old told us:

When kid’s get to 18, they will want to bet all the time.

Of course the gambling industry disagrees with these conclusions. When asked if he thought that gambling had become normalised for children in recent years, Cantwell said no.

He agreed more could be done to ensure that children were not targeted by advertising, but went on to state that it was the illegal offshore market that was “advertising very heavily towards children and young people”. Cantwell said Australian providers were working with government to ensure that children were not targeted by advertising.

That work doesn’t appear to be preventing children from being exposed to gambling marketing everywhere they go. Sportsbet and the TAB are commonly recalled brand names among young people. Young people have also told us they would bet with a particular brand because of familiarity, they liked the advertisements, or that they had seen a company promote deals or offers. One said:

Sportsbet, because if you bet with them you can get your money back.

What did the inquiry find?

This is why the recent parliamentary inquiry unanimously recommended the need for strong regulatory action on gambling advertising. It proposed legislation to phase in a blanket ban on gambling advertising, with a fundamental aim of protecting children. These calls have been backed by numerous Australian politicians and many others who have stressed that partial bans will only ever get partial results.

Read more:
The government is under pressure to ban gambling ads. History shows half-measures don’t work

It is perhaps not surprising that gambling companies, and those that profit from gambling, strenuously oppose significant restrictions on gambling marketing. They use a range of strategies to delay, distract, and deflect calls for evidence-based regulation that would disrupt pathways to their products.

In his interview, Cantwell advocated for a “balanced, nuanced approach” and “sensible reforms”: in other words, nothing that would cause the industry any discomfort. He also stated a blanket ban on advertising would “run the risk of driving Australian consumers into online illegal offshore providers”.

However, experts have cast doubt on these claims. A focus on protecting young people overshadows any claims about the impact of advertising restrictions on driving people to unregulated markets. Financial counsellors, who are at the forefront of helping those recover from gambling related harms have said:

In financial counselling casework, we observe that the dominant harm comes from those licensed in Australia [who can advertise heavily]. We observe only a very small amount of gambling with the unregulated, overseas operators […]

The parliamentary inquiry also looked closely at illegal offshore gambling. They cited evidence from the regulator in Spain. The gambling industry, television and advertising sectors lobbied against reforms there too. After implementing advertising restrictions, the regulator found:

None of the dire predictions have occurred […] The TV stations said that they would go broke without gambling revenue and this has not happened […] Spanish sports teams said that they wouldn’t be competitive if they were the only ones not allowed sponsorship, and this hasn’t happened either […] The threat of gamblers migrating to illegal operators had not occurred either.

The inquiry acknowledged that continued action on illegal offshore gambling was an important part of preventing gambling harm. It is worth noting that since November 2019, the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) has actively blocked 995 illegal offshore gambling and affiliate websites.

While there will always be means for some determined people to access these sites, increased resourcing for the regulator would help ensure people are prevented from accessing them where possible.

In her foreword to the parliamentary inquiry report, Peta Murphy thanked those with lived experience of gambling harm who had testified to the inquiry. She stated:

It took incredible courage and strength for you to come forward, and it is your experiences, described in your own words that have provided the foundation for this report and its recommendations.

We now wait to see if the government will show the political courage and strength to go up against powerful vested interests.

Samantha Thomas has received research funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant Scheme, the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, Healthway and the New South Wales Office of Responsible Gambling. She is a board member for the International Confederation of Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drug Research Associations (ICARA). She is the Editor in Chief for Health Promotion International.

– ref. The gambling industry is pulling out all the stops to prevent an ad ban, but the evidence is against it – https://theconversation.com/the-gambling-industry-is-pulling-out-all-the-stops-to-prevent-an-ad-ban-but-the-evidence-is-against-it-236679

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Tingay, John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University

Launched in 2011, NASA’s NEOWISE mission operated in Earth’s orbit until late last week. It detected more than 3,000 near-Earth objects or NEOs – asteroids or comets whose orbits can bring them close to Earth, even with the possibility of a collision. NEOWISE was shut down on August 8.

Surveying the population of NEOs is central to the emerging concept of planetary defence. That is, understanding and mitigating the risk of collision from asteroids large enough to do significant damage to Earth.

NEOWISE has made fundamental contributions to establishing the knowledge base for planetary defence, with more than 200 of the 3,000 objects it studied not known to us previously.

Now at mission end, and commanded by NASA to shut itself down, NEOWISE will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere before the end of this year. Where does that leave us with defending our planet?

From astrophysics to planetary defence

NEOWISE started life as a different mission, simply called WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer). It was designed to study the infrared radiation from distant galaxies in the universe.

Infrared means “beyond red” – infrared light sits just past the red end of the spectrum of colours humans can see. We know infrared radiation better as the heat from the Sun, for example, or from a radiator keeping us warm in winter.

When the coolant on the WISE mission ran out and these sensitive observations of galaxies couldn’t be carried out any more, NASA granted a mission extension under the NEOWISE name. They realised the telescope system was still sensitive enough to detect asteroids and comets that come close to Earth and the Sun, thereby having a very strong infrared signal.

NASA has an extraordinary history of squeezing extra life out of missions that reach completion. In this case, NEOWISE represented an entire second life, in an entirely different area of research.

How will we defend Earth now?

As well as the discovery and study of thousands of NEOs, NEOWISE established the foundation of knowledge that has informed a new, dedicated planetary defence mission. NASA’s NEO Surveyor will be launched in 2027.

NEO Surveyor’s goal is to discover approximately two thirds of all NEOs larger than 140 metres in diameter, over a five year baseline survey. This is a big step toward fulfilling the mandate United States Congress has provided to NASA: to discover 90% of all NEOs in this size range.

If they hit Earth, asteroids of this size could cause mass casualties if the impact were over a large metropolitan region.

You might think this poses a bit of a risk – shutting down NEOWISE three years before launching NEO Surveyor. What happens if one of these big asteroids comes our way in the next few years?

The risks are very small, as estimates show asteroids 140 metres in diameter impact Earth only approximately every 20,000 years. So, we would have to be extremely unlucky to have one in any given three-year period, especially impacting a place that would cause a large amount of damage. Only around 3% of Earth’s surface is occupied by urban areas.

Read more:
‘City killers’ and half-giraffes: how many scary asteroids really go past Earth every year?

NASA doesn’t really have much of a choice with the end of NEOWISE. The Sun’s 11-year activity cycle is picking up and causing Earth’s upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, to thicken. NEOWISE is flying through this ionosphere and can’t raise its orbit, so the ionosphere is inevitably dragging NEOWISE back to Earth.

NEO Surveyor started construction in 2023, so a 2027 launch is pretty impressively rapid, which is minimising the gap between NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor.

NEOWISE is scheduled to enter Earth’s atmosphere before the end of the year, but we don’t know precisely when.

Weighing almost 700kg, some of NEOWISE itself is likely to impact the surface of Earth. Hopefully it stays away from populated areas in the process – some recent re-entry events have resulted in space debris falling reasonably close to populated areas.

An asteroid is coming! What next?

Knowing about an asteroid on a collision course with Earth is one thing. Doing something about it is another thing altogether.

Huge steps toward planetary defence occurred two years ago, when the DART mission flew to an asteroid, impacted it, and changed its trajectory. This demonstrated it’s possible to change the course of asteroids, which could be used in the future to protect Earth from a collision.

Read more:
NASA’s asteroid deflection mission was more successful than expected. An expert explains how

Predicting potential Earth impacts as far as possible in advance, years preferably, gives the DART-style technology approach a chance.

The pioneering work of NEOWISE, and the upcoming comprehensive observations of NEO Surveyor, will place an enormous amount of information in our scientific bank, which will never go out of date and will be the basis for planetary defence for perhaps hundreds of years into the future.

Steven Tingay is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party.

– ref. NASA just shut down a planetary defence mission that tracks asteroids. Now what? – https://theconversation.com/nasa-just-shut-down-a-planetary-defence-mission-that-tracks-asteroids-now-what-236515

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Walker, Visiting Fellow, National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University

The Australian government has updated the nation’s science and research priorities, and released a National Science Statement. This marks the first wholesale update on Australia’s vision and plan for the future of science and technology in nearly a decade, with the last set of priorities being handed down by the Abbott government in 2015, and the last science statement in 2017.

Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic has announced five key priorities:

• transitioning to net zero
• support for healthy and thriving communities
• elevating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge systems
• protection and restoration of Australia’s environment
• building a secure and resilient nation.

Given the policy impact of these commitments, it’s worth examining what they mean – and how they should guide Australia’s progress on a number of fronts.

1. Transitioning to a net zero future

While Australia’s emissions per person have been falling, we still emit more than double the carbon dioxide of comparable countries such as the United Kingdom or New Zealand.

Australia is a research leader in battery technology, solar cell technologies and green metals. However, our overall investment in clean energy research, already behind our peers, is falling.

Focused investment in green energy research is needed to cut emissions in hard-to-decarbonise sectors, such as air transport and agriculture.

2. Supporting healthy and thriving communities

Australia is a world leader in medical discoveries – anyone who’s been given the “green whistle” pain reliever by paramedics has felt the effects of Australian medical research. But too often Australian discoveries don’t stay here for development.

Researchers often find they need to move their discoveries to the United States or the European Union to get them into production and into hospitals, ambulances and pharmacies.

Australian health and medical researchers need more support to apply and commercialise their findings here at home. More work is also needed on preventative care, so we can stop illnesses before they start.

Of course, “thriving communities” need more than the best available medical care. They also need connection and resilience. This too can be supported by research – such as findings that show what helps communities bounce back after devastating bushfires.

3. Elevating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge systems

Historically, and to everyone’s detriment, Australia has not done well at recognising, respecting and celebrating the knowledge systems of its First Nations peoples.

But Australia has much to gain by fully embracing Traditional Knowledge as part of its science. This must be done with respect and equity at the forefront: our next steps in weaving together knowledge systems must be led with and bring empowerment to, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.

One recent example is the collaboration between Nyikina Mangala man John Watson and Professor Ron Quinn, who have been turning bark from the Mudjala tree into natural treatments for severe pain.

4. Protecting and restoring Australia’s environment

Australia’s lands and waters are home to an estimated 700,000 native species. Many of these remain undiscovered and many are at risk of extinction.

The last 20 years has seen threatened plant populations decline by 72%, and populations of threatened mammals and birds fall by 38% and 52% respectively.

We need to stop this decline and protect Australia’s natural inheritance, through science-informed measures such as conservation reserves, controlling invasive species, restoring degraded ecosystems and breeding endangered plants and animals.

5. Building a secure and resilient nation

Security and resilience come in many forms. It means protecting our crucial digital infrastructure from cyber attacks. It also means making sure our buildings, roads and energy systems can survive disasters and a changing climate. Protecting our agriculture from pests and diseases also falls under this heading.

Focusing on this priority means broad investment in research across disciplines, bringing together industry and academia.

So, how do we put these priorities into practice?

To meet these priorities, Australia will need greater investment in science and research across the board. While international collaborations are fantastic, we can’t rely on other countries to do this vital research for us.

We’ll need more highly skilled people to do this research – people bringing unique perspectives, ideas and training with them. That means bringing people into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers from more diverse backgrounds.

Unfortunately, we are still conditioning girls to have lower confidence in science than boys. They’re more likely to avoid subjects such as physics and engineering.

In 2021, only 0.5% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had a STEM degree, compared with 4.9% of the Australian population, according to the recent Diversity in STEM Review. This needs to change if we are to advance our science and research priorities.

We’ll also need more long-term investment in research infrastructure, and in STEM education and training.

Making a future in Australia

The national science priorities dovetail with the government’s Future Made in Australia initiatives in modern manufacturing, renewable energy and more.

Pulling this off will require partnerships between industry, education and governments. To properly harness the ideas and innovations of researchers, we need to make it easy for them to move from academia to industry and back again.

A review of Australia’s research and development funding was announced in this year’s federal budget.

The government could use this to put Australia on a path towards investing 3% of our GDP into Australian research and development – something countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan already do.

Sustained investment in Australian research and development can make the ambitious goals of the new national science statement a reality.

Kylie Walker is CEO of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) which receives funding from the Department of Education and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

– ref. From net zero to Indigenous knowledge, Australia has finally set new science priorities. How can we meet them? – https://theconversation.com/from-net-zero-to-indigenous-knowledge-australia-has-finally-set-new-science-priorities-how-can-we-meet-them-236573

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dylan Gaffney, Associate Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology, University of Oxford

In the deep human past, highly skilled seafarers made daring crossings from Asia to the Pacific Islands. It was a migration of global importance that shaped the distribution of our species – Homo sapiens – across the planet.

These mariners became the ancestors of people who live in the region today, from West Papua to Aotearoa New Zealand.

For archaeologists, however, the precise timing, location and nature of these maritime dispersals have been unclear.

For the first time, our new research provides direct evidence that seafarers travelled along the equator to reach islands off the coast of West Papua more than 50 millennia ago.

Digging at the gateway to the Pacific

Our archaeological fieldwork on Waigeo Island in the Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua represents the first major international collaboration of its kind, involving academics from New Zealand, West Papua, Indonesia and beyond.

We focused our excavations at Mololo Cave, a colossal limestone chamber surrounded by tropical rainforest. It stretches a hundred metres deep and is home to bat colonies, monitor lizards and the occasional snake.

In the local Ambel language, Mololo means the place where the currents come together, fittingly named for the choppy waters and large whirlpools in the nearby straits.

Excavation uncovered several layers of human occupation associated with stone artefacts, animal bones, shells and charcoal – all physical remains discarded by ancient humans living at the cave.

These archaeological findings were rare in the deepest layers, but radiocarbon dating at the University of Oxford and the University of Waikato demonstrated humans were living at Mololo by at least 55,000 years before the present day.

Foraging in the rainforest

A key finding of the excavation was a tree resin artefact that was made at this time. This is the earliest example of resin being used by people outside of Africa. It points to the complex skills humans developed to live in rainforests.

Scanning-electron microscope analysis indicated the artefact was produced in multiple stages. First the bark of a resin-producing tree was cut and the resin was allowed to drip down the trunk and harden. Then the hardened resin was snapped into shape.

The function of the artefact is unknown, but it may have been used as a fuel source for fires inside the cave. Similar resin was collected during the 20th century around West Papua and used for fires before gas and electric lighting was introduced.

Our study of animal bones from Mololo indicates people hunted ground-dwelling birds, marsupials and possibly megabats. Despite Waigeo Island being home to small animals that are difficult to capture, people were adapting to using rainforest resources alongside the coastal foods islands readily offer. This is an important example of human adaptation and flexibility in challenging conditions.

Seafaring pathways to the Pacific

The Mololo excavation helps us to clarify the precise time humans moved into the Pacific. This timing is hotly debated because it has major implications for how rapidly our species dispersed out of Africa to Asia and Oceania.

It also has implications for whether people drove Oceanic megafauna like giant kangaroos (Protemnodon) and giant wombats (Diprotodontids) to extinction, and how they interacted with other species of hominins like the “hobbit” (Homo floresiensis) that lived on the islands of Indonesia until about 50,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have proposed two hypothetical seafaring corridors leading into the Pacific: a southern route into Australia and a northern route into West Papua.

In what is today northern Australia, excavations indicate humans may have settled the ancient continent of Sahul, which connected West Papua to Australia, by 65,000 years ago.

However, findings from Timor suggest people were moving along the southern route only 44,000 years ago. Our work supports the idea that the earliest seafarers crossed instead along the northern route into West Papua, later moving down into Australia.

West Papua: an archaeological enigma

Despite our research, we still know very little about the deep human past in West Papua. Research has been limited primarily because of the political and social crisis in the region.

Importantly, our research shows early West Papuans were sophisticated, highly mobile and able to devise creative solutions to living on small tropical islands. Ongoing excavations by our project aim to provide further information about how people adapted to climatic and environmental changes in the region.

We know from other archaeological sites in the independent country of Papua New Guinea that once humans arrived in the Pacific region, they kept venturing as far as the New Guinea Highlands, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands by 30,000 years ago.

It was not until about 3,000 years ago that seafarers pushed out beyond the Solomon Islands to settle the smaller islands of Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Their descendants later voyaged as far as Hawaii, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa.

Charting the archaeology of West Papua is vital because it helps us understand where the ancestors of the wider Pacific came from and how they adapted to living in this new and unfamiliar sea of islands.

The authors acknowledge the contribution of Abdul Razak Macap, a social anthropologist at the Regional Cultural Heritage Center in Manokwari.

Dylan Gaffney received funding for this research from the National Geographic Society, the Leakey Foundation, the Royal Anthropological Institute, Magdalene College, the University of Cambridge, Gates Cambridge, the Quaternary Research Association, and the National Environment Research Council UK. The research also received funding from the Max Planck Society and the DFG in Germany.

Daud Aris Tanudirjo is affiliated with Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, which provides funding, facilities and in-kind support for this West Papua research.

– ref. New evidence from West Papua offers fresh clues about how and when humans first moved into the Pacific – https://theconversation.com/new-evidence-from-west-papua-offers-fresh-clues-about-how-and-when-humans-first-moved-into-the-pacific-231686

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy Rouse, PhD Candidate and Casual Academic in English Literatures , University of Wollongong

This piece contains spoilers.

It Ends with Us, by Colleen Hoover, is a novel TikTok loves to hate, gaining a lot of criticism for the stark contrast between its marketing and its subject matter. Marketed – and shelved – as a romance novel, between its pink, floral covers, It Ends with Us is a novel about domestic violence.

On sites like Goodreads, readers call the novel “confronting”, “triggering”, and “NOT romance”, warning future readers the novel is “not what [they] expect”.

The film attempts to rectify the issues of its deceptive categorisation by making some major changes to its marketing. The abuse plot is revealed in the trailer, changing the way viewers will approach the narrative. It Ends with Us becomes a tale of resilience, rather than a romance.

What makes a romance?

Hoover’s 2016 novel follows 23-year-old Lily Bloom and her “too-good-to-be-true” relationship with Ryle Kinkaid, a charming neurosurgeon seven years her senior.

Simultaneously Lily reminisces on her first love, a homeless boy named Atlas, who she has not seen since he was violently bashed by Lily’s abusive father.

Ryle and Lily’s relationship becomes turbulent when Ryle begins getting aggressive in arguments. To further complicate matters, Lily bumps into Atlas.

Ryle’s insecurity simmers, and eventuates in him pushing Lily down a set of stairs and attempting to sexually assault her. After being hospitalised due to the abuse, Lily finds out she is pregnant.

Although only occurring in three chapters, the novel’s violence is shocking, yet strategically obscured. Readers do not know if Lily has been purposely hit, or if it was – as Ryle keeps telling her – “a mistake”.

Hoover showers readers with apologies and steamy scenes between Lily and Ryle following the abuse, reminding readers that the novel is, technically, a romance. Ryle is a stereotypical romantic hero, with his career being its own subgenre of romance fiction.

Readers want a happy ending, and (TikTok critics notwithstanding) are willing to forgive Ryle’s violence to get it.

The novel ends with Lily asking Ryle for a divorce, and, after a time-jump, Lily reunites with Atlas, telling him she is ready to fall in love again.

The largely accepted definition of romance fiction, outlined by the Romance Writers of America, is a narrative with a central love story, and an “emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending”. By this definition, It Ends with Us fulfils the genre.

However, as a novel largely about domestic violence, It Ends with us is far from “satisfying”.

Reworking the narrative

The film takes a more mature approach than the novel by casting 36-year-old Blake Lively as Lily and 40-year-old Justin Baldoni (who also directs) as Ryle.

In the novel, Hoover partly justifies the abuse by the young age of its protagonists. Lily forgives Ryle even after he has hurt her multiple times, which the novel positions as naivety.

The film changes this, instead stressing the difficulty of leaving an abusive relationship.

Baldoni’s aggressive and domineering tone hangs over the film, making Ryle an unnerving character from his first appearance. While Ryle is an intense character in the novel, being described as “an intimidating presence”, his violence is offset by the novel’s position in the romance genre.

Readers do not have to acknowledge his violent tendencies because they believe it will be fixed by the novel’s conclusion.

The film does not allow audiences to justify Ryle’s character. We see the lead up to the abuse unfolding.

Ryle speaks down to Lily, ordering her around. Visually, Ryle overpowers Lily in most scenes, standing over her – a manifestation of the looming violence audiences know is approaching.

These visual cues from Baldoni’s portrayal distance the watcher from the whirlwind relationship between Lily and Ryle.

Ryle’s off-putting nature is starkly contrasted by how the film focuses on Atlas (Brandon Sklenar). When Lily reunites with Atlas, the screen blurs around him and music swells. The narrative was never about Ryle – it was always Atlas.

While the film contains romance, it is not a romance film. The marketing of It Ends With us worked to foreground its violent twist. While watching the film, audiences are not wondering “if” Ryle will hurt Lily, it is a matter of “when” it will happen.

Narratives about domestic violence are essential to understanding and empathising with victims, but authors must handle abuse with sensitivity. While there may be a place for domestic violence in romance stories, It Ends with Us is not an example to follow.

The changes made to the film indicate the novel’s shortcomings. By revealing the novel’s twist in the trailer, hopefully the film will catalyse a change in how we market It Ends with Us, and move the novel from the romance section, into its rightful place in adult fiction.

The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

Lucy Rouse receives an AGRTP scholarship from the Australian Government for her PhD studies.

– ref. It Ends with Us was never a romance novel – thankfully the film understands this – https://theconversation.com/it-ends-with-us-was-never-a-romance-novel-thankfully-the-film-understands-this-236492

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Dempsey, Associate professor, University of Canterbury

The coalition government recently announced its plan to reverse a ban on new oil and gas exploration to deal with an energy security challenge brought on by rapidly declining natural gas reserves.

But this assumes, rather optimistically, that repealing the ban will prompt companies to invest in new gas fields.

In practice, those companies will be carefully considering whether there is anyone to sell their gas to, or whether a future government could change the rules again.

Investors don’t love political volatility or market risk, and New Zealand currently has both.

The coming gas crunch

Modelling by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) suggests the ban repeal would result in an additional 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted by 2035.

This estimate is based on an assessment of climate impacts resulting from the policy reversal, compared to a baseline.

The usual baseline used for such assessments was set in 2022 by the Climate Change Commission. But the government argued it was already out of date and instead proposed a different one, with 15% fewer emissions from gas, because the country is running out much faster than expected.

In one sense, New Zealand is perpetually running out of gas. Energy companies estimate how much is left underground and how long that resource will last. At the same time, they are drilling new development wells – $350 million worth between 2016 and 2020 – which adds more gas to the reserves and pushes out the ultimate end date.

What has changed is that all the extra drilling hasn’t turned up much extra gas in the past few years. This is despite record amounts spent on new wells – nearly $1.3 billion between 2020 and 2024. Energy companies now think there’s less gas than previously thought.

It seems the end date is much closer, which is why the government has shifted to a new baseline to reflect less gas (and lower emissions). This is a good result for the climate – but it might not be great for New Zealand’s economy in the near term.

When gas runs low

As an island nation, New Zealand can’t easily import more gas from overseas. There is no pipeline to Australia, and liquefied natural gas terminals are expensive to build.

Macroeconomics tells us that when a resource becomes scarce in a closed market, the following things happen.

First, with a fixed amount of gas to go around, its use has to be prioritised. This means some users might miss out. As it happens, the government has been struggling to renew a contract to supply schools, prisons and hospitals with gas.

Second, when a resource becomes scarce, its price tends to rise. This tracks with the experience of Pan Pac, a forestry owner and processor in Hawkes Bay which reported a three-fold increase in gas costs, from $3 million a year to potentially $9 million at current prices.

Now, some would say the cure for high prices is exactly that: high prices. A gas crunch could ultimately shift demand to other sources such as heat pumps for home and industry. Some of this was subsidised through the previous administration’s Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund.

But until the switch happens, resource scarcity means you can’t produce as many goods, and this could have an effect on GDP. Methanex, a major exporter of methanol produced from natural gas, is a key concern here. Less methanol would mean fewer exports and, potentially, job losses.

Methanex is already operating at reduced capacity, and it recently initiated high court proceedings against Nova Energy, which uses natural gas to produce electricity. Nova cut gas supply to Methanex and the companies disagree on whether their contract allows for this.

Tough decisions ahead

A new gas field could take a decade or longer to find, develop and bring online. At the same time, if there are no new reserves (regardless of whether the government goes through with the repeal of the ban), we can expect gas supply to drop to half within six years, according to MBIE forecasts.

This means there might not be enough gas to simultaneously maintain synthetic (ammonia-based) fertiliser production, peak electricity generation and methanol exports. What should get prioritised?

Ammonia is essential to the farming sector and food production. In the future, we might replace natural gas used to make ammonia with green hydrogen produced from ultra cheap solar. But that’ll take investment and intention.

Methanex exports are worth $800 million a year and the company is a significant contributor to the economy. A transition to a green methanol industry is possible, but would need a huge amount of green hydrogen (made using renewable energy) and green carbon dioxide (sourced from biomass or direct air capture).

This would be transformative to the economy but also take a lot of financial support.

Lastly, we burn a lot of gas to keep heat pumps running in winter when hydro lakes are low. And we almost ran out earlier in the year.

A future energy system with abundant solar, grid-scale batteries and smarter use of hydro storage might avoid this as gas is phased out. The problem is that these solutions cost a lot of money and take time to implement. New Zealand apparently doesn’t have much of either.

David Dempsey receives science funding from MBIE to work on topics related to the energy industry.

Jannik Haas receives science funding from public institutions like MBIE to work on topics related to energy systems and holds clean energy stocks.

Rebecca Peer receives science funding from MBIE to research topics related to energy transitions and future energy systems.

– ref. NZ is running out of gas – literally. That’s good for the climate, but it’s bad news for the economy – https://theconversation.com/nz-is-running-out-of-gas-literally-thats-good-for-the-climate-but-its-bad-news-for-the-economy-235645

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ambrose, Research Team Leader, CSIRO

Winter is now well upon us, and many of us – especially those living in old homes – are discovering just how draughty they are. In fact, Australia has some of the least air-tight homes in the world.

But there’s good news. New research by CSIRO, which I led, shows Australia’s newly built homes are far less permeable than they used to be.

We tested the air-tightness of 233 new dwellings in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide, and found a significant improvement compared to homes built nine years ago. We also identified where most leaks occur.

Our results show a few simple steps – which we outline below – can dramatically improve the energy performance of a home, and ensure occupants don’t shiver through winter unnecessarily.

What exactly is air-tightness?

Air-tightness refers to the amount of air filtering uncontrolled into or out of a building – such as through gaps or cracks in floors, ceilings and walls, or around windows and doors.

The level of air-tightness is especially important when a home is heated or air-conditioned. The more draughty a building, the greater the energy required to maintain the internal temperature. This can lead to higher energy bills.

In fact, air leaks can cause 15−25% of winter heat loss in buildings.

Draughty homes can also let in dust, pollen and pollutants, affecting the health of occupants. Conversely, a building that is too air-tight – in other words, poorly ventilated – can also lead to problems such as condensation and mould.

Ideally, a building should find the right balance between air-tightness and controlled ventilation.

What we did

We wanted to determine air-tightness levels in new dwellings. They had to be less than four years old and built using typical techniques – which excluded the use of alternative construction materials such as straw bales.

CSRIO commissioned air tightness tests on 105 apartments and 128 detached houses. Before a dwelling was tested, systems such as air-conditioning and extraction fans were turned off. Doors, windows and closable vents were shut.

A fan was used to adjust air pressure inside each dwelling to a set level, ensuring consistency with all homes being tested. Then air flow in and out of the home was measured using specialised equipment.

We then compared the results to similar air-tightness testing CSIRO undertook on 129 new homes in 2015.

What we found

Overall, we found a 65% improvement in the air tightness of newly constructed dwellings in Australia.

In particular, new apartments were well-sealed and recorded the lowest overall average air leakage. Single-storey houses were the next best performing, followed by two-storey houses.

We expected that as dwellings got larger they would become less air-tight, because the increased area creates more opportunity for leaks. The average results show this was generally true.

However, some large homes were very air-tight, while some small homes were leaky.

Although new homes are much less permeable than older homes, air leaks still exist. In two-thirds of apartments and houses, bathroom fans were identified as a leakage point, while sliding glass doors were an issue in 63% of apartments.

Sliding doors were also a major issue in half the houses tested. But the biggest issue in houses was poor or missing door seals. This was identified in 65% of houses tested.

These sources of leaks are also common in older homes.

A few simple tips

There are simple ways to rectify leaks in both new and old homes.

Hoods can often be fitted to existing exhaust fans to stop air passing through unintentionally. Or the fan can be swapped out for one fitted with a “damper”, which closes the fan when it’s not in use.

Sealants can be used to fill gaps in walls, and sealing strips can be fitted around doors and windows. Even the classic door snake will help stop draughts under the door.

Our report also makes the following recommendations:

• air tightness standards to be incorporated into the building code
• a requirement for continuous mechanical ventilation in new dwellings, especially apartments
• the use of “building wraps” – layers of material that seal homes from water and air
• more specific air-tight specifications in the national energy star-rating tool
• develop relevant education resources for the building industry.

Overall, our research shows the air-tightness of new Australian homes is the best it’s been. This is great news.

The above recommendations, if adopted, would help ensure even more Australians enjoy comfortable homes that require less energy and money to run.

Michael Ambrose received funding from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to undertake this research project,

– ref. Bathroom fans and sliding glass doors: new research shows how those cold draughts sneak into your home – https://theconversation.com/bathroom-fans-and-sliding-glass-doors-new-research-shows-how-those-cold-draughts-sneak-into-your-home-236242

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

The minister for government services, Bill Shorten, will unveil a new initiative that would allow people to have more control over the personal information they share.

The scheme, called the Trust Exchange (TEx), would allow people to verify their identities and credentials based on official information already held by the federal government.

The plan is still in its very early developmental stage.

Shorten will tell the National Press Club on Tuesday that the scheme would mean “sharing only the personal information to get the job done – and in some cases, not handing over any personal information at all.

“It can all be done via the digital wallet on your phone – the TEx technology does the rest.”

In his speech, partially released ahead of delivery, Shorten gives the example of paying for a hotel room. Currently, a person may be asked for a driver’s licence or passport to do this.

“With TEx, instead of handing over those documents and having them taken to the back office to be photocopied, you will scan a QR code on the front desk – or use technology similar to tap-to-pay machine – which digitally shakes hands with your myGov wallet.

“You choose which information to share from your digital wallet and consent to its use.

“You will have a record in your myGov wallet of what you shared and with whom you shared it.”

Shorten says there are numerous advantages of the TEx system:

• a person would give their consent every time their information was shared
• they would choose what information to share
• the shared information would be trusted because of the rigorous privacy and security standards of the system.

A person starting a new job, for example, would be able to verify their identity via myGov or the government digital ID, and then through their wallet, share attributes of their identity with their employer – but only the ones they agreed to.

“It could be date of birth, address, citizenship or visa status, or qualifications, occupational licences or working with children check. You control what details are exchanged.”

In another example, TEx could be used for a person to prove they are old enough to enter a club.

“They’d just hold their phone up to a QR code or tap-to-pay machine, and a digital token will be sent to the club vouching for their identity, and they are over 18.

“None of that information needs to be kept by the club. The token will be a valuable promise to the club but of zero value to a cybercriminal.

“Because the confirmation token will not contain any personal information.”

Shorten says TEx could be used in exchanges between governments and businesses, as well as between consumers and governments and consumers and businesses.

“Whatever the case, online or in person, you choose what is shared, you consent to it being shared and you can trust it is safe.”

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

– ref. Albanese government developing proposal for new digital ID system to protect personal information – https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-developing-proposal-for-new-digital-id-system-to-protect-personal-information-236603

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Hammond, Research Assistant, Department of Social Work, The University of Melbourne

For those experiencing fertility issues, cost can be a major barrier to becoming a parent.

Rebates and other public funding aim to make access to fertility health care fairer. Australia’s first public fertility clinics in Victoria, for example, were announced in 2021 to ensure “bank balance is no barrier” to fertility treatment.

But money is not the only barrier. Muslims who experience fertility issues also face specific cultural and religious barriers – but they are often overlooked.

Our recently published review of international evidence highlights how common aspects of fertility treatment – such as using donated eggs and masturbating to get a sperm sample – may be inappropriate for some Muslim patients.

So what cultural and religious barriers do Muslims face when dealing with fertility issues? And how can they be addressed?

The costs and challenges of fertility treatment

Infertility is a stressful and sometimes heartbreaking condition. It is also common. In Australia, an estimated one in nine couples require medical treatment to achieve pregnancy.

Some people experiencing fertility issues can treat them with medication or lifestyle adjustments, such as quitting tobacco and alcohol, or trying to decrease stress. Others require more intensive procedures, such as artificial insemination or in vitro fertilisation, better known as IVF.

Artificial insemination is a procedure which inserts sperm into the uterus during ovulation to achieve pregnancy. IVF involves a more invasive surgical procedure. Eggs are extracted from a woman’s ovaries and fertilised with sperm provided by a partner or donor. The resulting embryo is then inserted into the uterus.

Both artificial insemination and IVF can be unreliable procedures. In Australia, success rates for these treatments vary widely, depending on factors such as age, quality of eggs/sperm, and overall health. Many people require multiple rounds to achieve pregnancy – with private clinic costs of A$3,000 and $10,000 per round respectively.

For many who experience infertility, accessing these treatments is the last stop – and often the last hope – in a long journey.

Some treatments are incompatible with certain interpretations of Islam

When it comes to receiving appropriate fertility care, Muslim couples face specific challenges. These have not been researched in Australia.

Our research explored these barriers by analysing international evidence about Muslim communities’ access to, and experience of, fertility treatment. The studies we reviewed documented experiences in countries including Lebanon, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Egypt.

We found Muslim patients face faith-specific challenges when receiving fertility care. For example, depending on specific Islamic sect and interpretation, the use of donated eggs and/or sperm in treatments can be considered impermissible.

For couples who are able to use their own eggs and sperm for IVF or artificial insemination, the challenges don’t stop there. Providing a semen sample usually requires masturbation, which some Muslims consider religiously impermissible. This can therefore leave men questioning the appropriateness of the process, and can trigger feelings of guilt and shame.

Another complexity is that, according to some interpretations of Islam, adoption is not always allowed. That may leave fertility treatments – which are lengthy, expensive and invasive – as the last option to achieve parenthood.

Fertility practitioners are sometimes unsure how to support patients whose religious, cultural or personal beliefs influence their treatment options. In Western countries, these issues can be even more pronounced.

In countries where Muslim communities are a minority, patients have reported limited understanding of the Islamic faith among some health-care practitioners. They were then insensitive to their religious concerns surrounding treatments. Without the right language supports, some practitioners may also not properly communicate what treatment entails.

Many Muslim couples are therefore navigating a complex decision: to accept treatments they view as violating their religious beliefs, or forego parenthood altogether.

Exploring solutions to nuanced problems

Muslim communities are not a monolith. In Australia, Muslims may have differing views on what types of treatments are acceptable for them in a cultural or religious sense. There is considerable diversity in interpretation, practice and language, as well as interactions between culture and faith. Improving health care for Muslim patients means understanding these nuances.

Structural issues can also play a strong role. For example, some asylum seekers in Australia – both Muslim and non-Muslim – do not have access to Medicare due to visa restrictions. This group is automatically ineligible for Victoria’s new public fertility treatments and medicare IVF rebates.

Addressing these issues is complex, and will require more research. But there are things governments and health-care services can do to make sure Australia’s Muslim communities are not left behind. They include:

• matching patients with practitioners from the same language and cultural background

• embedding language supports more consistently across services

• training health-care professionals to better support diverse communities

• exploring alternatives to common aspects of fertility treatment. (For example, options for those unable to masturbate include surgical removal of sperm or the use of a special condom)

• more research, specific to Australia, to understand Muslim patients’ experiences of fertility care.

Initiatives like public fertility clinics show a clear ambition to make treatments more accessible. But equitable distribution means taking into account barriers beyond cost alone.

Kate Hammond 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. Donated eggs and masturbation are common in fertility treatments. But they may not be OK for Muslim patients – https://theconversation.com/donated-eggs-and-masturbation-are-common-in-fertility-treatments-but-they-may-not-be-ok-for-muslim-patients-233330

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

Australia’s forestry industry raised eyebrows this month when it released plans to remove trees from native forests, potentially including national parks, and claim carbon credits in the process.

Forestry Australia, the industry body behind the plan, claims it would make ecosystems more resilient and help tackle climate change. But decades of research findings clearly suggest the proposal, if accepted, will have the opposite effect.

Scientific evidence shows some proposed practices make forests more fire-prone and undermine forest healthy. And the carbon released when cutting down and processing trees would undercut any climate benefits of the plan.

Australia cannot risk any further declines in its biodiversity resulting from harvesting native forests, or actions that bring further risks to its emissions-reduction goal. On this basis, the Forestry Australia proposal should be rejected.

Understanding Australia’s carbon credit scheme

Under a federal government scheme, people and businesses can undertake projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or store carbon, in exchange for financial rewards known as carbon credits.

Projects can include changing the way vegetation is managed, so it removes and stores more carbon from the atmosphere.

The government has invited proposals for new ways to generate carbon credits under the policy.

Forestry Australia’s proposal involves a number of activities conducted in national parks, state forests and on private land. In return for conducting these activities, land managers – such as government agencies and private landowners – would be granted carbon credits.

One part of the method involves “adaptive harvesting”. Forestry Australia says the approach would reduce carbon emissions and improve carbon storage in forests “while allowing for a level of ongoing supply of wood products”.

Adaptive harvesting purports to reduce environmental impacts but still produce wood products. Techniques can include delaying logging until trees are older, resting areas from harvesting and minimising areas cleared for roads and log landings.

The proposal also involves “forest thinning”, or removing trees. In a statement to The Conversation, Forestry Australia’s acting president William Jackson said thinning involves “selectively reducing the number of trees to enable the healthy trees to grow”.

Forestry Australia says it has not proposed timber production from national parks. However, it did not say what would happen to trees cut down in thinning operations, including whether they would be sold or left on the forest floor.

Forestry Australia has also proposed to change the way harvested wood is used, so it stores carbon for longer.

So, instead of harvesting low-grade logs used for woodchips and paper, it would harvest more valuable logs to be made into longer-lived timber products, such as roof trusses and floorboards.

However, plantation forests already produce about 90% of logs harvested in Australia, raising questions over the demand for native forest logs.

Logging does not make forests resilient

Announcing Forestry Australia’s proposal, its president Michelle Freeman said forests were “more resilient if they are actively managed”.

But several adaptive harvesting practices are scientifically shown to harm native forests.

For example, analyses following the 2009 wildfires and after the 2019-2020 wildfires show thinning generally makes forests more fire-prone. Foresters have themselves highlighted this problem. And the heavy equipment used to log forests disturbs and degrades soil and the understorey.

What’s more, young trees – the usual targets of thinning – provide understorey habitat for many species, including endangered mammals, such as Leadbeater’s Possum and many species of birds.

And thinning undermines a forest’s ability to withstand other threats, such as climate change.

A big climate risk

Forestry Australia’s proposal is problematic if Australia hopes to achieve its emissions-reduction target of 43% by 2030, based on 2005 levels.

First, logging releases carbon stored in trees and soil. So, even if some carbon was stored under the plan – through activities such as regeneration – this would be undermined by carbon released when removing trees.

Second, there is a risk carbon credits may be granted for activities and emission reductions that would have happened anyway.

Take the proposal to provide carbon credits for adaptive harvesting. Most of these activities, such as forest regeneration, are already required by regulation and forestry codes of practice.

And in the case of the proposal to conduct regeneration activities after bushfires, forests will regenerate naturally if they are left alone.

A similar issue arises if forest managers are offered carbon credits to encourage timber to be turned into long-lived wood products. These products are more lucrative than, say, woodchips. So the financial incentive to create them already exists – and there’s a good chance suitable logs would have been used for these products regardless of whether carbon credits were offered.

What’s more, the average life of these longer-lived timber products is still far less than the standing trees.

Rules under Australia’s carbon credit scheme are meant to prevent credits being given for activities that would have occurred anyway. However, serious concerns have been raised over the effectiveness of these rules.

The answer is clear

Australia’s native forest logging industry has long been in decline and operates at a financial loss in most states.

Adding to the industry’s demise, Victoria and Western Australia have called an end to logging in public native forests and southeast Queensland is reportedly set to follow.

The flailing, damaging native forest logging industry is on the way out and plantations already provide almost all our sawn wood supply. Propping up the industry via a badly designed carbon credit method does not make economic or climate sense.

In response to the points raised in this article, Forestry Australia’s acting president William Jackson provided the following statement. It has been edited for brevity.

Adaptive harvesting practices are proposed only for state forests and private native forests, within areas where timber harvesting is expressly permitted and regulated under state-based legislation.

Thinning is conducted for ecological reasons, cultural values or fire management or other reasons. Forestry Australia disagrees with the view that thinning makes forests more fire prone. The inclusion of thinning in native forests in the method is supported by clear evidence from Australian and international research showing that thinning of forests, when combined with prescribed burning to reduce fuel hazards, can significantly reduce wildfire risks and impacts in dry forests.

Not all forests are in the condition to regenerate naturally due to the impacts of climate change, invasive species and wildfire. The method encourages active and adaptive management to assist in restoring the health and resilience of these forests.

This method would maximise carbon market opportunities to more landowners, from state government agencies managing state forests and national parks, as well as community groups, not-for-profits, private landowners and First Nations Peoples.

David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Government, the Victorian Government, and the Australian Research Council. He is a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council and a member of Birds Australia.

Brendan Mackey receives funding from the Australian Government. His is a volunteer board member of the Great Eastern Ranges Ltd.

Heather Keith receives funding from the Australian Government and is a member of the Environmental Economic Accounts and Environmental Indicators Technical Advisory Panel.

– ref. Industry push to earn carbon credits from Australia’s native forests would be a blow for nature and the climate – https://theconversation.com/industry-push-to-earn-carbon-credits-from-australias-native-forests-would-be-a-blow-for-nature-and-the-climate-236245

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Forsyth, Distinguished Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT University

The federal government has bypassed the courts and introduced legislation to fast track the appointment of an administrator to overhaul the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union.

This follows stalled proceedings in the Federal Court where the Fair Work Commission sought administration orders in response to reports of alleged criminal infiltration of the union.

Former workplace relations minister Tony Burke and his successor Murray Watt had signalled the government would introduce legislation, if the CFMEU did not agree to an administrator being appointed by late last week.

When the union didn’t, the government on Monday introduced amendments to Fair Work laws, empowering Senator Watt to place the CFMEU and its state branches into administration.

Melbourne barrister Mark Irving KC is expected to be appointed administrator, a position that can be held for up to three years.

The administrator’s powers

The administrator’s precise powers will be determined by Senator Watt. However the bill indicates these will include powers to:

• suspend or sack elected CFMEU officials and declare their offices vacant

• discipline or expel CFMEU members and disqualify officers for up to five years

• terminate the employment of union employees

• alter the CFMEU’s rules

• engage persons to assist the administrator

• cooperate with inquiries into the conduct of the CFMEU, its officers or employees by any law enforcement agency or regulator

• determine the timing of future elections for union offices. These would likely not be able to occur until the administrator decides the union is clean and can be returned to democratic control in the interests of its members.

The bill would effectively enable the administrator to take over the day-to-day running of the union, and get to the bottom of the corruption and criminal activity alleged against it.

Holding the CFMEU to account

The bill arguably goes further than expected, in also giving the administrator power to ensure the union’s compliance with all laws, including workplace laws, and holding officers and employees accountable for any past non-compliance.

This brings into consideration the union’s history of breaching federal restrictions on illegal industrial action and entry onto building sites.

Exactly how the administrator will be able to hold anyone accountable for past offences is not clear from the bill.

The bill deals with concerns raised by the Business Council of Australia and others last week who called for a royal commission, arguing an administrator would not have compulsory evidence-gathering powers or be able to protect witnesses.

But the administrator will have powers to require officers, employees, former officials or agents of the CFMEU, or service providers to the union, to produce documents or other evidence considered necessary.

Potential penalties

People who breach these provisions without a reasonable excuse could be fined.

Both civil and criminal penalties will apply to broader anti-avoidance provisions in the bill including those prohibiting interference with the administrator’s role.

This includes “destroying business records or membership lists, transferring assets to hide them and other action that could reasonably ‘obstruct or frustrate’ the administration work”, according to the bill’s explanatory statement.

Civil liability under these provisions will be retrospective from 17 July 2024. Criminal liability will apply from when the administration process begins.

In addition, existing whistleblower protections in laws regulating trade unions will be extended to enable people to present information to the administrator.

The bill gives the administrator sweeping powers, and the minister significant discretion to move the CFMEU into administration without going through the usual parliamentary scrutiny.

The government justified this by saying the legislative amendments were urgently needed so an administration could be put in place swiftly if the parliament agreed.

An administration would

… help return the construction and general division (of the CFMEU) to a position where it is democratically controlled by those who promote and act in accordance with Australian laws, including workplace laws.

The proposed legislation is necessary to end ongoing dysfunction within the division and to ensure it is able to operate effectively in the interests of its members.

Where to now?

Attention now turns to whether the bill will be passed swiftly by parliament as the government intends.

The Greens will probably move amendments to certain provisions of the bill which they are likely to view as infringing on civil liberties, such as retrospective civil liability for impeding the administrator.

And the Coalition has raised concerns about the power given to the minister and called for a parliamentary inquiry.

However, the Coalition would be unlikely to oppose the setting up of an administration if it is a choice between that and allowing the bill to be defeated.

Anthony Forsyth is affiliated with the Centre for Future Work (Australia Institute). He has received funding from the Australian Research Council Linkage Program (industry partners: Australian Council of Trade Unions and The Union Education Foundation).

– ref. Labor’s plan to fast track appointment of administrator to CFMEU could be delayed by Greens and Coalition – https://theconversation.com/labors-plan-to-fast-track-appointment-of-administrator-to-cfmeu-could-be-delayed-by-greens-and-coalition-236581

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania

Australia has a proud history at the Summer Olympics. We have won at least one medal in every Summer games all the way back to 1896.

We have secured top-ten finishes on the medals table every Olympics since 1992. The fact there are more than 50 countries with larger populations makes these results ever more impressive.

The 2024 Olympics were no different.

Most gold medals

There are different ways to measure Olympic success, however the International Olympic Committee (IOC) medal tally ranks countries by the number of gold medals won.

By this measure, Paris 2024 was Australia’s most successful Olympics.

Our 18 golds breaks the previous record of 17 set in Athens (2004) and Tokyo (2021).

So how did this happen?

The golden haul was led by our swimmers, particularly the women.

Swimming is Australia’s most successful Olympic sport. We have a strong swimming culture and very demanding national qualifying times.

Importantly, there are a lot of swimming events at the Olympics – in Paris there were 35 golds available in the pool. In comparison, sports such as hockey and handball only had two gold medals on offer.

Australia won 18 swimming medals including seven gold.

Traditionally, when the swimming events finish, Australia starts to slide down the medal tally as other countries with strengths in other sports surge.

This slide did not happen as fast in Paris. Day 12, with four golds and two bronze (none from swimming) was our most successful day in Olympic history.

We also won gold medals in events for the first time. One of those went to Arisa Trew, 14, who became our youngest gold medallist and first gold medallist in women’s park skateboarding.

Other first-time golds included the women’s time trial (Grace Brown), men’s 50-metre freestye (Cameron McEvoy), women’s BMX (Saya Sakakibara), women’s pole vault (Nina Kennedy), women’s canoe slalom (Jess Fox) and women’s kayak cross (Noemie Fox).

One-third of Australia’s gold medals came in less traditional Olympic sports such as canoe slalom, skateboarding and BMX.

In fact, if the Fox sisters, Jess and Noemie, were a country, their combined three gold medals would have ranked them 29th, ahead of countries such as Denmark and Austria.

Comparing to previous results

Comparing medal tallies historically is difficult, as many things have changed.

New sports have been added in recent Olympics, resulting in more medals being available. But the world population has nearly tripled since 1956, which means more competition for medals.

In 1956, Australia won 8.61% (13 out of 151) of the gold medals available and were ranked third on the medal tally.

This is our highest percentage of golds and our highest rank.

So, was this actually our best Olympic performance?

Maybe, but it is important to acknowledge we had a lot less competition.

Australia’s remoteness and international conflicts resulted in many countries not attending the games. China did not compete. Neither did most of Africa.

Only 72 countries competed and nearly 10% (323 out of 3314) of competing athletes were Australian.

In 2000, Australia won its most medals (58, including 16 gold), but were likely advantaged by a vocal home crowd and featuring our biggest team ever (632 athletes).

Athens 2004 probably ranks slightly ahead of Tokyo 2021 as our team won their 17 golds from 301 events, whereas there were 339 events in Tokyo.

But there were slightly more total competitors in Tokyo.

In Paris, 10,714 athletes from 206 countries competed; 462 (4.31%) were Australian.

The 2024 team may have been advantaged by the non-attendance of most Russian athletes. However, Russia’s most successful Olympic sports are wrestling, gymnastics and athletics, not swimming, skateboarding and canoe slalom.

Also, Australia only won four gold medals last time Russia did not attend the games, in 1984. So we don’t know what difference it would have made to our medal tally.

One thing we can all agree on is that Australia has had a very successful Olympics.

What was the secret to Australia’s success in Paris?

A search of the Olympics subreddit provides some plausible (“strong sporting culture”) as well as humorous (“all the slow Aussies got eaten by wildlife”) answers to this question.

But what other reasons are there?

Funding boosts

The Australian Sports Commission directly invested a record $398.3 million in high performance funding for Paris.

This money funded projects such as developing a replica Paris BMX Freestyle track and launching a new canoe slalom kayaking program.

This preparation helped contribute to Olympic success for Australia.

Direct athlete support

Since the Tokyo games, $47 million in direct athlete support grants have been awarded.

The AOC also invested in Indigenous Athletes Support Grants and financial incentives for medal winners.

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart also personally supported our swimming, rowing, volleyball and synchronised swimming teams.

This support allows athletes to train more and work less.

Female role models and inspiration

Some of Australia’s finest recent Olympic performances have been from women. This has included Cathy Freeman’s iconic 400m win and the more recent performances of swimmer Ariarne Titmus.

More media exposure, equal representation, federal funding and presence for female sports has made it easier to inspire and support new generations of elite female athletes.

These developments may have contributed to the success of our female athletes, who won 13 of Australia’s gold medals in Paris.

Science and innovation

Australia has always been at the forefront of sports science.

For example, Australia was the first country in the world to use underwater cameras to extract data from the pool.

They are planning to increase their use of AI in the lead-up to the 2028 Olympics.

Read more:
Why does the Olympics have an ‘AI agenda’ and what does it mean for the future of sport?

Australia also used environmental measurement units in the Olympic village to help athletes avoid the negative effects of hot summer temperatures and humidity during the games.

Australian athletes continue to benefit from state-of-the-art facilities at the Australian Institute of Sport.

The (AIS) European Training Centre in Italy tripled its accommodation in the lead-up to Paris.

It now provides a “home away from home” and competitive advantage for more Australian athletes training or competing in Europe.

Enhanced wellbeing focuses

All major Australian sporting bodies have been committed to the “Win Well 2032 Pledge”.

The pledge focuses on ensuring national sporting organisations are committed to supporting mental, emotional, cultural and physical wellbeing to foster the best chance for athletes to succeed.

Historical precedent

Australian athletes have consistently performed better in the Olympics than other developed countries with bigger populations, like Canada and Spain.

Australians have always had a strong interest in sports, with many of us believing sport contributes to our national identity.

In 1962, Sports Illustrated identified Australia as the best sporting nation in the world per population level.

These foundations set a precedent for modern and future generations, creating an expectation to maintain Australia’s global sporting status.

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 major factors behind Australia’s surge to a record-breaking Olympics – https://theconversation.com/the-major-factors-behind-australias-surge-to-a-record-breaking-olympics-236402

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ausma Bernot, Lecturer in Technology and Crime, Griffith University

Roblox is a hugely popular online gaming platform that contains its own little universe of games. It is primarily targeted at children. Users can create games themselves and play games built by others, and chat with other players. If you’re a parent, you’ve likely heard of it. You might even be bribing your kids with Roblox gift cards to do chores.

Roblox has reported 79.5 million average daily users playing Roblox games in the second quarter of 2024. These users spent 17.4 billion hours on the Roblox platform, which means just over a whopping 200 hours per user per year, or around 40 minutes per day.

While kids can engage in fun digital play and even learn basic programming on Roblox, they may also have troubling encounters, such as seeing sexually explicit content, experiencing grooming or cyberbullying.

Those troubling experiences for children are the official reason why Turkey banned access to Roblox on August 7.

Why did Turkey suddenly ban Roblox?

In a machine-translated statement on X, Turkey’s Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said that “according to our constitution, our state is obliged to take the necessary measures to ensure the protection of our children”.

The block was handled by the Adana 6th Criminal Court of Peace. It cited an internet governance law Turkey enacted in 2007 and last updated in 2020 to immediately ban access to Roblox.

The law outlines quick-moving consequences. If a court determines content on an online platform as unlawful, the president of the Information Technology and Communication Authority then has 24 hours to review the decision. If a ban is decided upon, it has to be implemented within just four hours.

This is likely bad news for Roblox. Turkish authorities determined “the infringement could not be prevented by technically banning access to the infringing content”. They blocked access to the whole site instead.

Roblox issued a statement noting they are working with local authorities with the goal of resolving the ban. Specifically, Roblox will need to prove their content can be moderated in such a way that children would not be harmed.

Turkey also recently banned Instagram, and has discussed plans to also ban TikTok. Instagram was banned for nine days due to allegedly blocking condolence posts following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

How safe are kids playing Roblox?

The scale of the troubling content problem on Roblox and other large tech platforms is hard to quantify. Monitoring and reporting on these large social media and gaming platforms is often opaque.

The real-life accounts of parents about their children’s experiences are sobering, fuelling criticism that Roblox is not sufficiently monitoring the content that ends up in children’s message boxes.

In a BBC report earlier this year, an eight-year-old boy revealed that people he met on Roblox asked him for nude photos. At least 20 people have been detained in the United States since 2018 on charges of harassing or kidnapping people they met on Roblox.

With 42% of Roblox users under the age of 13, it is obvious why the platform is targeted by such offenders. This raises understandable concerns for parents (and Turkey) about the risks posed to children.

Roblox does try to moderate the content on its platform.
In 2023, Roblox made 13,316 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, up from 2,973 in 2022. However, such numbers, when the monthly active user base for the platform exceeds 200 million users, are received with some scepticism.

The problem of grooming and child abuse material is not unique to Roblox, either. There have been recent efforts by other platforms to be more open about their monitoring, and measures to protect children. This includes partnering with trusted third parties to maximise the impact of such initiatives.

Earlier this year Aylo (owner of Pornhub) participated in an evaluation of a deterrence campaign on their platform. In the United Kingdom, Project Intercept by the Lucy Faithful Foundation is working with tech platforms to stop online sexual abuse of children.

What can we do about preventing digital harm to kids in Australia?

Australia’s eSafety Commission holds the view that we “can’t regulate our way out of online harms”. Instead, it demands safety by design, where companies are encouraged to invest in risk mitigation at the front end.

Safety by design, transparency and collaboration with external organisations are key to build trust in the platforms, and to also enable regulators to create effective policy.

Interestingly, Roblox is doing this work already. Roblox has joined the Tier 1 social media program of the Australian eSafety Commissioner, which enables the commission to delete reported information more quickly.

In 2019, Roblox also hired a director of digital civility to figure out how to make the platform a secure place for kids to play. The director has since launched a free digital civility curriculum and a Digital Safety Scavenger Hunt that teaches kids about safe and unsafe in-game interactions, such as account baiting.

However, the current issues speak to the importance of this work, and the need for strong regulator engagement by tech firms. We need continuous improvement of monitoring systems industry wide. The current statutory review of the eSafety Commissioner is an opportunity for expanding the office’s ability to act in relation to platforms at this scale to protect Australians.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

Joel Scanlan has collaborated with the Lucy Faithful Foundation and the Internet Watch Foundation on the evaluation of the reThink Chatbot deployed on Pornhub in the UK.

Ausma Bernot 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. Roblox was just banned in Turkey to ‘protect children’. What’s Australia doing? – https://theconversation.com/roblox-was-just-banned-in-turkey-to-protect-children-whats-australia-doing-236489