After the brutal conflict in Gaza flared yet again in the past month, and the end of Benyamin Netanyahu’s 12 years as prime minister of Israel, attention is again focused on the apparently intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Australia has been one of Israel’s staunchest supporters, but this is increasingly being questioned, particularly within the Labor Party. The Queensland branch recently passed a resolution condemning Israel for the “ethnic cleansing” and “oppression and dehumanisation of Palestinian people”. The party’s federal leadership immediately disavowed the resolution.
H.V. ‘Doc’ Evatt was instrumental in the establishment of Israel. National Archives of Australia
This is not a new debate within Labor, nor is it likely to disappear. While there is less obvious dissent within Coalition ranks, there is growing public scepticism about Australia’s consistent support of Israeli governments. What data we have suggests less enthusiasm for Israel’s position than is reflected in mainstream media, with younger Australians less supportive of Israel’s current position.
Australia played a significant role in the formation of Israel after the second world war. As president of the United Nations General Assembly, Herbert “Doc” Evatt, then Labor’s foreign minister, shepherded through the resolutions that led to the partition of the British mandate of Palestine and the recognition of the state of Israel.
Support for Israel continued under successive governments. In the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Menzies government stood with Britain and France in backing Israel’s attack on Egypt. In the United Nations, Australia is one of a dwindling number of American allies that have supported Israel in a series of votes condemning Israel.
Disputes over Palestine split the National Union of Australian Students in the mid-1970s. In her memoir, Julia Gillard writes that these debates contributed to her strong sympathies for Israel. Her sympathies were tested when Bob Carr, then foreign minister, pushed for Australia to modify its automatic support for Israel in United Nations votes. Carr mobilised considerable support within caucus, and Australia abstained on a General Assembly vote on Palestinian recognition.
By 2012, attitudes within Labor had begun to shift. When he was foreign minister in the Hawke and Keating governments, Gareth Evans had written of the dilemmas facing Israel if it refused to acknowledge the claims of the Palestinians.
In his memoir he argues Israel “could not be simultaneously a Jewish state, a democratic state, and a state occupying the whole of biblical Judea and Samaria”.
Labor’s shift is due to both ideological and pragmatic reasons. Carr is very explicit about the growing importance of Lebanese and other Arab-Australian voters to the Labor cause, as against the already influential, though smaller, Jewish community.
As foreign minister, Bob Carr pushed for Labor to modify its automatic support of Israel. AAP/Alan Porritt
But he also saw a shift in Australia’s position as a necessary recognition of the Palestinian case against continuing Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Traditionally, Australians have felt a sense of identity with Israel. It represented for several generations a chance to atone for the horrors of the Holocaust, and Australia has been largely free of the sort of unreflective anti-Semitism that colours much debate about Israel.
The first Australian-born governor-general, Sir Isaac Isaacs, was Jewish. Stories of settling the land had particular resonance for many Australians; reflecting on whose land was being dispossessed was too uncomfortable for most of us to consider.
It’s not surprising the strong government and media support for Israel finds a reaction in pro-Palestinian sympathies among many Australians, predominantly on the left. Supporters of Israel claim this is selective indignation and complain there is far less condemnation of equally or more repressive regimes closer to home. But as both Evans and Carr point out, Israel claims to be a democratic state and must be held to account by the norms of Western liberal democracies.
Australian debate on Israel/Palestine too often becomes ritualistic. It is either totally supportive of one side or the other, or resorts to vague talk of a “two-state solution”, which has long ceased to be meaningful given the scope of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The current government has quietly shelved Scott Morrison’s suggestion of moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem, a thought bubble aimed at pleasing both Donald Trump and the electors of Wentworth.
a halt to actions that increase tensions, including land appropriations, forced evictions, demolitions and settlement activity.
It is doubtful the new government in Israel will change the dynamics of the conflict. While the coalition government straddles the political spectrum, new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett opposes any concessions to the Palestinians.
One might expect both domestic and international pressure on Australian governments to adopt a more critical position of Israel.
Dennis Altman 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jay Marlowe, Associate Professor, Co-Director Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, University of Auckland
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern marks World Refugee Day 2020 at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland.GettyImages
When COVID-19 forced New Zealand to shut its borders, it left refugees we had committed to resettle in precarious circumstances with shattered hopes.
The latest United Nation figures put people forcibly displaced by conflict at nearly 80 million — a near doubling from ten years ago. Each minute of every day last year 21 people were separated from their friends, family and communities because of who they are or what they believe.
As we approach World Refugee Day this Sunday, we need to reflect on what is fair as we contemplate reopening those borders.
COVID restrictions aside, New Zealand accepts 1,500 refugees per year. While that’s an increase on the previous quota of 1,000, this only keeps track with population growth since the quota began in 1987.
With COVID under control for now, New Zealand accepted 35 refugees in February, with 242 expected to have arrived by the end of our intake year — far short of our total commitment.
All will be required to quarantine for 14 days before starting their five-week orientation program at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland.
Refugees from Syria, arrivals under an extra quota during the Syrian crisis in 2016, eat lunch at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre. www.shutterstock.com
NZ’s refugee record
While New Zealand does a relatively good job supporting refugees who manage to make it here, we accept small numbers.
According to the latest pre-COVID statistical yearbook from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), New Zealand has one of the lowest numbers of refugees per capita internationally: 0.3 refugees per 1,000 people, putting us 95th in the world.
By comparison, Sweden ranks sixth by accepting 23.36 refugees per 1,000 people, Canada 49th (2.68), United Kingdom 55th (1.83), Australia 59th (1.74) and the United States 77th (0.84).
Norway and Ireland, with similar populations to New Zealand, are placed 15th (11.29) and 69th (1.22) in the world respectively.
To put this in context, if we were to fill Eden Park to its capacity of 50,000, about 15 people from refugee backgrounds would be there. We have plenty of space for more.
On the other hand, 2% of students enrolled at the University of Auckland identify as coming from a refugee background. Fill Eden Park with students, then, and there would be 1,000 students from refugee backgrounds. That shows to what extent these people are invested in their futures — and New Zealand’s.
There is no ‘queue’
All of these numbers, however, pale in comparison to countries closest to refugee movements, where the majority of refugees (around 85%) live.
Lebanon, for instance, has about 170 refugees per 1,000 people. Typically, these countries are far less well resourced to support and protect those displaced people.
Over the past ten years, the Refugee Status Unit in New Zealand has approved an average of 106 asylum seekers a year for refugee status (from an average of 375 applicants). These are people who apply for refugee status from within New Zealand due to fears of persecution if they were to return home.
It’s often said asylum seekers should “join the queue” — but there is no queue. Fewer than 1% of the world’s refugees will have opportunities to resettle in places like New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the UK and US.
This often leaves the one person fortunate enough to receive the opportunity reflecting on the 99 people left behind.
The right to be a refugee
It’s worth noting New Zealand has never had a boatload of asylum seekers arrive on its shores in modern times. Despite this, the fear of asylum seekers remains. This is largely thanks to highly politicised representations of overloaded boats heading for Australia and crossing the Mediterranean into Europe.
Political parties in the UK, North America, Europe and Australia routinely stir up fear and spread misinformation on refugee and migrant issues at election times.
Even in New Zealand people have been unjustly and inaccurately stigmatised, moved from being “at risk” to “a risk”.
But seeking refuge is a human right. New Zealand is a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, which assert the right to have a claim of refugee status considered and, if successful, to remain in New Zealand.
commit to resettling those who missed the opportunity to come (including from the refugee family support category) during our border closures, as well as the current annual intake
ensure equal support for people seeking asylum or consideration under the family reunification program, regardless of how they arrive in New Zealand
provide adequately resourced services for refugees during the first several years of resettlement, supporting health, education, employment, housing, language acquisition and a sense of belonging
provide opportunities for people from refugee backgrounds to participate equally in employment, education and wider society.
We can all can play a part in helping refugees feel they belong here. A genuine welcome is about ensuring they receive a fair go.
Jay Marlowe receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi as part of a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Bartlett, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle
Jessica Hill/AP/AAP
Bookings for the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine have been halted in Victoria this week, amid shortages of the vaccine.
Some Victorians who’ve had their first Pfizer dose already will need to wait six weeks to get their second.
Some people are wondering if it’s OK to get their second Pfizer shot beyond the recommended three week gap between their first and second dose.
And yesterday, the federal government recommended the Pfizer vaccine as the preferred vaccine for people under 60. Previously, it was only recommended for people below 50. This will place even more pressure on our currently limited supply of Pfizer vaccine, and could lead to wait times being longer than three weeks for some.
The good news is, you can wait up to 12 weeks between your first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. In fact, some preliminary evidence suggests you might get even stronger immunity with a longer wait time.
The only downside is you’re at risk from the virus the longer you wait for your second dose.
So the improved immunity conferred from waiting longer must be weighed against the risk of contracting COVID in the meantime.
You can wait longer than three weeks
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommends a minimum of three weeks between the first and second Pfizer dose. However it says this gap can be extended to up to six weeks.
The minimum time to establish immune memory following first exposure to a new vaccine is roughly three weeks. This is the minimum time, but waiting longer between the first and second jab is absolutely fine in terms of efficacy.
This makes sense based on what immunology experts understand about our immune response to vaccines.
By about two weeks after vaccination, adaptive immunity has kicked in. This involves immune cells called T and B cells working together to produce antibodies that target the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and are able to block infection.
At this stage, some of these become “memory” immune cells, and by about the third week they have established immune memory. This means these virus-recognising cells are on hand to rapidly respond if we are exposed again.
If that exposure is via a second immunisation, this will boost the immune response to the vaccine and increase immune memory, which in turn enhances protection against the virus.
The secondary immune response is faster and bigger because you have a pool of memory immune cells primed and ready to jump into action. The memory response is also faster, so by two weeks after the second jab, protection has significantly increased.
You’re not fully protected against COVID until about seven to 14 days after the second Pfizer dose.
Waiting longer might be even better
Many vaccines confer improved protection with longer gaps between doses, and preliminary data suggests this seems to be the case with Pfizer too.
One pre-print study, yet to be peer reviewed, suggests waiting 11-12 weeks for the second Pfizer dose actually produces an even more potent antibody response in people over 80.
The levels of antibodies in people who waited 12 weeks for their second dose were 3.5 times higher than those whose gap was three weeks.
What are the risks of waiting?
We must remember the level of protection isn’t the only consideration. The time it takes to get there is also important. Delaying the second dose increases the time it takes for you to achieve a high level of immunity, and therefore increases your susceptibility to infection, and risk of COVID.
One dose does provide some protection from severe COVID, but not enough, which means you can still become infected and transmit the virus to others. Preliminary data suggests one Pfizer dose provides only 33% protection against the Delta variant, while two doses confers 88% protection.
However, this risk must be weighed against the risk of contracting COVID in Australia currently. Community outbreaks are relatively contained, so the risk in between doses is not as high as it is during periods of rampant transmission.
In saying that, as we’ve seen from Victoria’s recent lockdown and new cases in Sydney this week, COVID transmission is still smouldering in Australia and we must not let our guard down yet. In this context it’s important everyone who can get vaccinated does, and as soon as possible.
Nathan Bartlett 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.
The wild storms that recently raged across eastern Victoria caused major property and environmental damage, and loss of lives. They’ve also triggered serious water contamination incidents.
Yarra Valley Water issued an urgent health warning to not to drink tap water — not even if it’s boiled — in three affected suburbs: Kalista, Sherbrooke and The Patch.
So what caused this incident? Yarra Valley Water says the severe weather led to an equipment failure, with potentially unsafe water entering the drinking water system.
I spoke to the water authority about the nature of the contamination, and they did not provide any more detail. But based on my three decades of experience in the water industry, I can offer some insight into how disasters create contamination crises, and Australia’s vulnerabilities.
Does boiling water help?
Despite recent health warnings, it’s worth pointing out that Australia’s water supply is generally safe and reliable, with few exceptions. Still, this is hardly the first time disasters have disrupted water supply, whether from droughts, storms and floods, or bushfires.
For example, the Black Summer bushfires damaged water supply infrastructure for many communities, such as in Eden and Boydtown on the south coast of New South Wales. The Bega Valley Shire Council issued a boil water notice, as the loss of electricity stopped chlorinating the water supply, which is needed to maintain safe disinfection levels.
In inland and remote communities, drinking water contamination can be more common and very difficult to resolve.
For example, many remote Western Australian towns have chronic water quality problems, with drinking water often failing to meet Australian standards. And in 2015, the WA Auditor General reported the water in many Indigenous communities contains harmful contaminants, such as uranium and nitrates.
The source of this contamination is often naturally occurring chemical compounds in the local geology of ground water supplies.
One of the biggest contamination incidents in Australia occurred in August and September in 1998. A series of extreme wet weather events after a long drought triggered the contamination of Sydney’s drinking water with high levels of protozoan parasites, which can cause serious diseases such as gastroenteritis or cryptosporidiosis. It resulted in boil water alerts across much of the Sydney metropolitan area.
But what makes this latest incident in Victoria so concerning is that authorities have warned even boiling will not reduce contamination. This suggests contamination may be due to the presence of a harmful chemical, or high levels of sediment particles.
Sediment in water — measured as “turbidity” — can be hazardous because these particles can hold other contaminants, or even shield pathogens from disinfection.
Yarra Valley Water’s advice for the affected suburbs is to avoid using water in any cooking, making ice, brushing teeth or mixing baby formula, and for people to take care not to ingest water in the shower or bath. Emergency drinking water is being supplied by Yarra Valley Water in some locations.
So why do disasters threaten our drinking water?
This latest incident is another reminder that our drinking water is vulnerable to disruption from extreme weather.
This is almost certain to continue, and worsen, as the the Bureau of Meterology’s State of the Climate 2020 report predicts more extreme weather — including drought, heatwaves, bushfires, storms, and floods — in Australia’s future.
As these disasters become more frequent and extreme under climate change, impacts on water supplies across Australia are likely to become more destructive.
A good example of how this can unfold was the impact on Canberra’s water supply after the destructive 2003 bushfires.
Fire burned most of the region’s Cotter River catchments, which hold three dams. After fires went out, massive storms eroded the weakened ground, and washed ash, soil and organic debris into the storage reservoirs. It took years for the water supply system to fully recover.
Physical damage to water infrastructure is also a big risk, as modern water supplies are large and complex. For example, a fallen tree could break open the roof of a sealed water storage tank, exposing water to the elements.
Interruptions of electrical supplies after extreme weather are also common, leading to failures of water supply technology. This, for instance, could stop a water pump from operating, or break down the telemetry system which helps control operations.
As difficult as these hits to Australia’s water security are, and will be in future, it’s even more problematic in the developing world, which may not have the resources to recover.
How can we withstand these challenges?
To maintain optimal water quality, we must protect the integrity of water catchments — areas where water is collected by the natural landscape.
For example, damaging logging operations along steep slopes in Melbourne’s biggest water catchment threatens to pollute the city’s drinking water because it increases the risk of erosion during storms.
There’s also merit in Australian cities investing in advanced treatment of wastewater for reuse, rather than build infrequently used desalination plants for when there’s drought.
Australia could follow the US state of California which has ambitious targets to reuse more than 60% of its sewage effluent.
And it’s completely safe — Australia has developed guidelines to ensure recycled water is treated and managed to operate reliably and protect public health.
If you’re concerned about water quality from the tap and haven’t received any alerts, you might just not like its taste. If in doubt, contact you local water supplier.
This story is part of a series The Conversation is running on the nexus between disaster, disadvantage and resilience. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay foundation. You can read the rest of the stories here.
Ian Wright has received funding from industry, local and state government agencies.
Incivility is on the rise in university culture. If you are an academic you’ve likely seen or experienced instances of bullying, incivility or mobbing in department meetings, in hallways and in seminars.
Of course, academics have been socialised to be contentious, to ask critical questions and engage in intellectual sparring. But sometimes these exchanges can become an intellectual battlefield characterised by vitriolic attacks, sarcastic innuendo and intellectual one-upmanship. Ideological convictions spill over into personal attacks, creating a fractured and toxic work environment.
Challenging times for university leaders
Public universities in Australia are challenged to develop strategies to lessen the impacts of reductions in government funding and international student fee revenue and unforeseen events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. University leaders face tough decisions about restructuring, program rationalisation and staff redundancies to ensure the long-term viability of their institution. It is their responsibility to engage stakeholders in forming strategies and ensure faculty, staff and students understand the intended outcomes.
These changes and platforms for consultation have fuelled ideological clashes among academic staff and administration. Combative attacks on administrators by tenured academics aiming to reveal the shortcomings in their plans and undermine their credibility as leaders are increasingly common. Untenured faculty are less likely to contribute in these forums, particularly if their views don’t align with dominant group perspectives.
Of course, there should always be space for debate in universities. The concern is when it escalates to the point of aggression and uncivilised conduct. It’s then an obstacle to achieving clarity and understanding of the issue and engaging staff in solutions.
These exchanges can have lingering impacts on workplace culture and well-being of staff, students and administration. We see this in low morale, absenteeism, increased health issues and faculty disengagement.
Typically, the aggressive behaviour isn’t overt bullying. As one dean said:
“Bullying, the aggression, or yelling, it doesn’t happen much because this is a university.”
There are policies, workshops and procedures to deal with harassment and bullying. She went on to say it was the “smart bullies” she found most difficult to contend with as a leader.
Bullying is defined as repeated patterns of negative behaviour, by a single person or group, that results in pressure, provocation or intimidation of the victim causing psychological harm. Smart bullies are adept at working around workplace policies. Instead, they draw upon a full arsenal of uncivilised behaviours such as acts of rudeness, demeaning comments and creating or spreading gossip and rumours.
Smart bullies use micro politics to create allies. They infiltrate committee structures and decisions to camouflage and insulate themselves as the real bully or instigator. Their behaviour is tolerated and often chalked up to expressions of academic freedom.
Smart bullies are adept at deflecting responsibility for their behaviour. Shutterstock
Incivility can stand alongside bullying, but is more insidious because it occurs in day-to-day interactions. Because these types of behaviours are part of most workplaces it makes incivility difficult to categorise and create policies to prevent and combat.
Victims of incivility seldom seek organisational assistance. The usual reason is they lack confidence in the process and outcome.
Human resources departments and their policies are rarely adequate to combat the unpatterned behaviours of incivility. The onus is on the victim to document these behaviours and actions. There is also little precedent for other academics to get involved in calling out bullying.
The stress of repeated exposure to intentional acts of micro-aggression can harm mental and physical health. When left unchecked it becomes part of the accepted norm of an increasingly hostile and toxic work environment.
In our study, deans described the emotional labour of maintaining composure and professional demeanour in dealing with micro-aggressions from smart bullies and their allies. These behaviours put them on edge, mindful of their words and actions. They became alert to the possibility of being blindsided at any time.
Deans describe being on edge about the risk of being unsettled by acts of micro-aggression at any time. Shutterstock
While part of being a dean is dealing with management and performance issues that involve difficult conversations, deans felt ill-prepared for the intensity and impacts on their mental and emotional well-being. They mostly suffered in silence, unable to discipline subordinates for behaviour that did not technically breach codes of conduct.
Deans who confront perpetrators risk sparking grievance complaints or rows over academic freedom. The alternative of appealing to provosts can appear weak and incompetent.
It’s near-impossible under current policies to stop or prevent incivility, but incivility is happening, the consequences are real and can have serious health and personal implications for the victims. For a sector that claims to be increasingly aware of the well-being and mental health of staff, incivility is quickly coming to the forefront of issues confronting HR researchers and departments.
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.
Strong community opposition to a proposed waste facility in regional New South Wales madeheadlines earlier this year. The A$3.9 million facility would occupy 2.7 hectares of Gunnedah’s industrial estate. It’s intended to process up to 250,000 tonnes a year of waste materials from Sydney.
Much of this is construction waste that can be used in road building after processing. Construction of the plant will employ 62 people and its operation will create 30 jobs. Yet every one of the 86 public submissions to the planning review objected to the project.
Residents raised various concerns, which received widespread local media coverage. They were concerned about water management, air quality, noise, the impact of hazardous waste, traffic and transport, fire safety and soil and water. For instance, a submission by a local businessman and veterinary surgeon stated:
“The proposed facility is too close to town, residences and other businesses […] Gunnedah is growing and this proposed development will be uncomfortably close to town in years to come.”
The location of the proposed waste recycling facility in Gunnedah. Source: Google Maps (2021), Author provided
The general manager of the applicant said descriptions such as “toxic waste dump” were far from accurate.
“It’s not a dump […] Its prime focus is to reclaim, reuse and recycle.”
He added: “[At present] the majority of this stuff goes to landfill. What we’re proposing is very beneficial to the environment, which is taking these resources and putting them back into recirculation. The reality is the population is growing, more waste is going to get generated and the upside is we’re much better processing and claiming out of it than sending it to landfill.”
According to the latest data in the National Waste Report 2020, Australia generated 27 million tonnes of waste (44% of all waste) from the construction and demolition (C&D) sector in 2018-19. That’s a 61% increase since 2006-07. This waste stream is the largest source of managed waste in Australia and 76% of it is recycled.
Public opposition to new infrastructure in local neighbourhoods, the Not-in-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) attitude, is a global phenomenon. Australia is no exception. We have seen previous public protests against waste facilities being established in local areas.
The academic literature reports the root causes of this resistance are stench and other air pollution, and concerns about impacts on property values and health. Factors that influence individuals’ perceptions include education level, past experience of stench and proximity to housing.
Local communities around the world have protested against local waste management plants that they see as a threat to their health. United Workers/Flickr, CC BY
What are the other challenges of recycling?
Our research team at RMIT University explore ways to effectively manage construction and demolition waste, with a focus on developing a circular economy. Our research shows this goal depends heavily on the development of end markets for recycled products. Operators then have the confidence to invest in recycling construction and demolition waste, knowing it will produce a reasonable return.
A consistent supply of recycled material is needed too. We believe more recycling infrastructure needs to be developed all around Australia. Regional areas are the most suitable for this purpose because they have the space and a need for local job creation.
To achieve nationwide waste recycling, however, everyone must play their part. By everyone, we mean suppliers, waste producers, waste operators, governments and the community.
Today we are facing new challenges such as massive urbanisation, shortage of virgin materials, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and bans on the export of waste. These challenges warrant new solutions, which include sharing responsibility for the waste we all generate.
Government has a key role to play in educating the public about the many benefits of recycling construction and demolition waste. These benefits include environmental protection, more efficient resource use, reduced construction costs, and job creation.
Government must also ensure communities are adequately consulted. A local news report reflected Gunnedah residents’ concern that the recycling facility’s proponent had not contacted them. They initiated the contact. One local said:
“I do understand the short-term financial gains a development like this will bring to the community, but also know the financial and environmental burden they will cause.”
Feedback from residents triggered a series of consultation sessions involving all parties.
A robust framework for consulting the community, engaging stakeholders and providing information should be developed to accompany any such development. Community education programs should be based on research.
For instance, research indicates that, unlike municipal waste recycling facilities, construction and demolition waste management facilities have negligible to manageable impact on the environment and residents’ health and well-being. This is due to the non-combustible nature of most construction materials, such as masonrt.
Such evidence needs to be communicated effectively to change negative community attitudes towards construction and demolition waste recycling facilities. At RMIT, through our National Construction & Demolition Waste Research and Industry Portal, we continue to play our part in increasing public awareness of the benefits.
Even before COVID-19 hit, Australia was experiencing slow growth in GDP per capita and real wages.
There has been a distinctly lower rate of both economic and real wages growth since the financial crisis of 2008-09.
Advanced economies around the world have, to varying degrees, witnessed the same trends. If anything, Australia has done slightly better than other countries.
Why has growth slowed globally? That’s a real question.
What theory tells us
Basic economic theory tells us GDP per capita is driven by technological progress.
The so-called “neoclassical growth model”, developed in the 1950s by
American Robert Solow and Australian Trevor Swan, saw technological progress as exogenous – attributable to an external cause. In a sense, the idea was that innovations just drop from the sky at some fixed rate.
In the early 1990s Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, and Paul Romer pioneered “endogenous growth theory” – that the causes are internal to the economic system. In particular their theory emphasised the development of ideas as crucial to technological progress.
Romer’s contribution was to highlight that producing ideas has large set-up costs but potentially low marginal costs of replication. Think pharmaceutical development, where R&D is very expensive but producing extra pills is cheap.
To make the development of new pharmaceuticals viable, therefore, some degree of monopoly power is required, so others who didn’t invest in developing them can’t simply copy the product. This suggests a crucial role for government policy, such as intellectual property rights and subsidies for basic research.
Developing pharmaceuticals is expensive, while making them is cheap. Zhang Yanlin/AP
Aghion and Howitt highlighted the role of “creative destruction”. Innovation can render old technologies obsolete.
Thus innovations come with externalities – costs or benefits for other parties.
Romer’s research emphasised the positive externalities – namely that ideas are non-rivalrous. For example, we can all use Pythagoras’s Theorem now it has been discovered.
The Aghion-Howitt framework emphasised the negative externalities. New ideas can render old ideas obsolete, thereby deterring innovation in the first place – why invest in R&D now if future R&D will render it all obsolete? But market power protects the rents earned by innovators.
This means, as Aghion and Howitt put it, the average growth rate “depends on the size and likelihood of innovations resulting from research and also on the degree of market power available to an innovator”.
What does this mean for wages?
Since wages are the returns to labour from economic value created economy-wide, technological progress is needed to drive real wage increases.
Real wage growth, per cent, 2003-2021
Annual real wage growth = annual growth in total hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses minus annual growth in underlying consumer price index. ABS
Productivity isn’t everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.
Or, to paraphrase legendary American political strategist James Carville: “It’s the productivity, stupid!”
In the foreword, chairperson Michael Brennan writes:
The decade ending 2019-20 was the worst decade of growth in 60 years, and even if the last year of growth is excluded then this nine-year period still compares unfavourably to past decades. This mainly reflects a global productivity slowdown and the end of the mining investment boom, which has subdued investment and, through lower terms of trade, reduced the purchasing power of Australian incomes.
That’s a pretty good summary of the concerning trends documented in the rest of the report.
Let’s take Brennan’s second observation first.
The end of the mining boom – you have to squint a little to ignore the current iron-ore price – has seen the Australian dollar drop from about parity with the US dollar to the range of 75-80 US cents. This makes buying goods largely denominated in US dollars – from mining equipment to point-of-sale terminals to computers – more expensive for Australian businesses and households.
It is a good reminder that the oft-mentioned claim a lower Australian dollar is good for exports, while true, ignores the fact we buy lots of capital equipment and consumption goods from overseas. A weaker dollar is bad news for buyers of those goods.
Now to Brennan’s first observation – that the productivity slowdown is a global phenomenon.
It has been clear for many years that we live in an age of “secular stagnation” – a term former US Treasury head Larry Summers popularised in 2013.
Simply put, there is a huge volume of global savings chasing fewer big investment opportunities.
Desperately seeking investment opportunities
Once capital was quite scarce. Now there are now massive sovereign wealth and retirement savings funds all looking to put their money to work. There are also many more billionaires with money to invest.
But where? Once it required huge amounts of capital to build the US railroads, or big oil and steel companies. Now some of the most valuable companies in the world have been created by brilliant students with a laptop in a dorm room.
An even more pessimistic view is that modern technologies are just not that revolutionary.
The leading proponent of this “techno-pessimism” is Robert Gordon of Northwestern University in Illinois. He argues in The Rise and Fall of American Growth (Princeton University Press, 2017) that the information technolgy revolution is a footnote compared to the prosaic inventions of the second industrial revolution, such as electricity, motor vehicles and aircraft.
There are, also, techno-optimists who point to the revolutionary potential of machine learning and other innovations.
Wherever one lands on this spectrum, it’s hard to get away from the idea that to drive living standards upward we need to harness technologies to relentlessly improve productivity.
The Productivity Commission is on the case. Now we just need Australia’s policy makers to embrace the type of economic reforms pulled off in the 1980s and 1990s, under governments of both political stripes.
Richard Holden is president-elect of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland
An aerial view of an Aboriginal stone arrangement in the Channel Country of Central Australia. Such arrangements may be associated with initiation ceremonies and exchange of marriage partners, as well as trade. The main structure is around 30 metres long. Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation
Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu is in the news again, with the publication of a new book critiquing Pascoe’s arguments. Dark Emu builds on an earlier, less known work by archaeologist Rupert Gerritsen, who argued a number of regions across Australia should be considered centres of Aboriginal agriculture.
Historians Billy Griffiths and Lynette Russell, and now anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe, have argued Pascoe has fallen into a trap of privileging the language of agriculture above hunter-gatherer socioeconomic systems.
We have been working in a landscape that provides an important test of the Dark Emu hypothesis. In partnership with the Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, who occupy the Channel Country in Central Australia, we have begun investigating Aboriginal settlement sites, pit dwelling huts (known as gunyahs) and quarries.
Our landscape study, published in the journal Antiquity, has found over 140 quarry sites, where rock was excavated to produce seed grinding stones. We have also developed a method to locate traces of long-lost village sites.
Were First Australians farmers or hunter-gatherers? Contemporary archaeological research suggests it’s not such a simple dichotomy. Understanding the Mithaka food production system may well tell us whether such terms are a good fit for defining socio-economic networks in Aboriginal Australia.
The location of Mithaka country within the trade network of Pituri. Pituri leaves (some of which are from the Mulligan river region) are a narcotic and highly valued. This map shows the direction of trade and market centres and also the location of other important items of exchange. Illustration by Nathan Wright
An extraordinary landscape
The Channel Country spreads across the Lake Eyre Basin, found in parts of Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia. It is the world’s last unregulated desert channel system (meaning there has been no intensive irrigation or damming) and one of Australia’s richest beef cattle areas. The meandering channels are fed infrequently by monsoonal rains from the north, which transform large sections of the desert into a lush, green landscape.
In 2017, Mithaka Elder George Gorringe led a small expedition to an ancient clay-pan (an old lake bed) where one of us had recorded a burial site some years before. But the plan dramatically changed when monsoonal rains in the tropics flooded the land, diverting the expedition from north to the south.
The extensive flood plains turned green as life-giving water irrigated native grasses and other plant species. George led the expedition to a series of sites he knew about from his father, Bill Gorringe, and from his previous work on numerous stations and as a council road works foreman. They included massive sandstone quarry sites, stone arrangements and the remains of Aboriginal pit dwelling huts (gunyahs): excavated structures with branches constructed over the top.
A gunyah, believed to be from the 19th century, on the floodplains. Nathan Wright
This largely intact archaeological landscape has the largest seed grinding quarry sites in the country. Archaeologist Mike Smith has discussed the importance of seed grinding implements for the economy of this region. Grinding stones were used to process native grasses and produce a form of bread. Axes scattered across the area also indicate trade with the Kalkadoon people from the Mount Isa quarries in the north.
It became clear from this first trip that this extraordinary landscape had enormous potential to investigate questions relating to Aboriginal trade and exchange, settlements systems and food production.
Excavating a quarry site known as the Ten Mile. Michael Westaway
Reconstructing the past
When Europeans first stumbled across this landscape in the 1870s, as historian Ray Kerkhove discovered in the archives, they observed “civilised blacks” living in villages and maintaining intensive fishing industries. In 1871, for example, a sub inspector of the Queensland Native Police, James Gilmour, came across a “village” of 103 huts at the southern end of Thunderpurty lagoon while looking for evidence of the missing explorer Ludwig Leichardt.
History also records practices in the region including cultivation associated with ceremony, and fish trap and storage systems equating to aquaculture.
This landscape was very different to other areas in arid Australia well documented by historians and modern anthropologists. Unlike the more marginal desert environments in the centre, Channel Country could support large numbers of cattle. This indicated it was also able to support larger populations of Aboriginal people.
Higher population numbers and the economic value of Channel Country to European pastoralists resulted in significant conflict, devastating the traditional Mithaka economic system. Archaeology thus plays a prominent role in reconstructing the past here.
Some cultural stories from Mithaka country were documented from the early 1900s by amateur ethnographer Alice Duncan Kemp, who lived on Mooraberrie Station until the late 1920s. An innovative researcher, trusted and respected by senior Aboriginal informants, Alice provides an important account of the complexity of the Mithaka social system, tying it into the landscape.
We are now using drones to record in 3D enormous quarries, which appear to be on an industrial scale. Archaeologist Doug William’s excavations, supported by the work of dating expert Justine Kemp, show quarrying at one site may have begun more than 2,000 years ago.
Josh Gorringe, a trained helicopter pilot, operates a small quadcopter drone over quarry sites at Glengyle. A range of fixed wing and smaller drones have enabled documentation of the cultural landscape . Michael Westaway
If this is the case, the transcontinental trade system referred to by pioneering Australian archaeologist John Mulvaney as the “Chain of Connection” (extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Flinders Ranges) may be at least twice as old as previously thought.
Could this trade system have played a role in the development of more intensified quarrying activity and more sedentary settlement systems? We are working on understanding the relationship between the archaeology and this remarkable social and economic network.
Seasonal or permanent village sites?
We have investigated eroding burial sites to see if the remains of the Mithaka ancestors themselves can provide clues to the past.
Limited analysis so far provides evidence of bio-mechanical stress to the upper limbs, likely a result of intense seed grinding. By studying geochemical signatures (isotopes) in human teeth we hope to establish if people maintained a large foraging range or were more sedentary, living in more restricted clan boundaries.
We have built a background isotopic map to help us understand people’s mobility in the past. When people live in a landscape they ingest its isotope signature. Investigating the mobility of the Mithaka populations through isotopes will be an important test of whether documented village sites were seasonal or permanent.
One logical place to start an investigation of past food production systems is to look where people once lived. Early historic accounts record large village sites, so we have developed a methodology to find these places.
Kelsey Lowe identifies a series of magnetic anomalies during her geophysical survey of the Ten Mile quarry site. Michael Westaway
Geoarchaeologist Kelsey Lowe has used a magnetometer, designed to detect magnetic anomalies beneath the earth surface, to search for signs of ancient houses (gunyahs). By investigating standing gunyahs, dating back to the 19th century, we have detected distinct magnetic signatures for these dwellings.
Fish and plants
Archaeobotanists Nathan Wright and Andrew Fairbairn are carefully sifting through deposits to identify wood charcoal and evidence of plant use. Expertise in recovering not only ancient seeds and plant remains, but importantly, burnt plant remains in ancient fireplaces will play a key role in telling the past economic story.
Zooarchaeologist Tiina Manne has begun a study of recovered animal bones, which also include the inner ears (otoliths) of fish (yellowbelly). These may provide insights into past aquaculture systems hinted at in the historical record.
Archaeologist Jason Kariwiga and archaeobotanist Nathan Wright discuss the excavation of the gunyah site. Cemre Ustunkaya
We have started to document fish traps in the landscape. And geoarchaeologist Mike Morley has taken molds of excavation pits to analyse microscopic evidence of hut floors and the areas in front of the gunyahs.
Botanist Jen Silcock is working with Mithaka Elders to understand more about plant use. Important food and medicinal plants such as native millet, sorghum and different species of desert shrubs will be investigated by plant geneticist Robert Henry. He will see if we can find evidence of people deliberately moving plants and identify traits of domestication within the genomes of important species.
Palynologist Patrick Moss has taken cores from lake sediments to recover ancient pollen sequences associated with known village site locations. He will examine how the environment changes over time and whether he can detect any shifts in pollen, which may represent more intensified use of plants.
Historian Tom Griffiths, meanwhile, has begun to investigate the history of conflict in the landscape, as Europeans and Native Police raged a war with the traditional owners of Mithaka country in the late 1800s.
This is important to understand because elsewhere in the country, archaeologists have suggested the development of village settlements may have been a response to colonial violence, rather than representing a traditional settlement system.
For one of us (Michael), the ideas generated through Gerritsen’s research and Pascoe’s popularised account have inspired and stimulated a different way of thinking about Aboriginal food production systems, and how we might investigate an archaeological record for Aboriginal village settlements.
And for the other (Josh), Dark Emu provides a different account of the Aboriginal past, written by an Aboriginal person outside of the academy, which challenges us to think differently about how we might define Aboriginal people. Josh believes it is up to archaeologists now to test Pascoe’s hypothesis.
Elder Betty Gorringe and archaeobotanist Andy Fairbairn survey a complex of eight mound sites and numerous earth ovens in a landscape rich with artefacts. Michael Westaway
Hidden in the Mithaka landscape is a cultural narrative with great power to tell new and important stories. Multidisciplinary research involving traditional owner knowledge, even when fragmented by the ravages of past conflict and displacement, can re-energise landscapes.
It can provide a context for a richer, more nuanced and more comprehensive understanding of ancient Australia, creating a space for cultural learning, education and respect.
Participants in the Mithaka field research project include: Doug Williams (Austral Archaeology and Griffith University), Kelsey Lowe (University of Queensland), Nathan Wright (University of New England), Ray Kerkhove (University of Queensland), Andrew Fairbairn (University of Queensland), Tiina Manne (University of Queensland), Mike Morley (Flinders University), Tom Griffiths (Australian National University), Justyna Miszkiewicz (Queensland University of Technology), Justine Kemp (Griffith University), Patrick Moss (University of Queensland) and Robert Henry (University of Queensland).
Michael Westaway receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Joshua Gorringe works for Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation (MAC) a registered native title body corporate. MAC has received funding from the QLD state government through the Looking after Country grant scheme to fund field research and conservation.
Many observers have been assuming Scott Morrison’s strategy is to creep towards endorsing the 2050 target of net zero emissions, finally embracing it before the Glasgow climate conference in November.
But this week’s developments suggest the prime minister might have to adopt another course.
He could stay with his present position, which has the target as an aspiration he surrounds with a web of subsidiary policies, such as the multiple bilateral technology agreements he announced while he was overseas.
Morrison’s present commitment, reiterated in his major speech in Perth before leaving Australia, is to reach net zero “as soon as possible, preferably by 2050”.
In London British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in an intriguing but unexplained moment at their joint news conference, stated Morrison had “declared for net zero by 2050”. Of course he hadn’t, and Johnson was aware of that – he has been urging him to do so. We don’t know whether there was intent in Johnson’s comment, or just sloppiness.
In the mouth of a politician, the word “preferably” is like that handy phrase “the government plans to …” (or “has no plans to …”). It is cheap coinage. It certainly wouldn’t buy much in Glasgow.
But it is useful and it may be the coinage Morrison will need to continue to deal in. Remember we are talking here about political reality, not what is the best policy, which clearly would be to sign up to the target.
We’ve thought Morrison would want to shift before Glasgow so Australia would have a more credible position internationally, respond to the pressure from the US and Britain, and minimise isolation. That’s apart from the electoral implications surrounding an issue many voters feel strongly about.
But Morrison this year has already worn the awkwardness of taking Australia’s weak position through Joe Biden’s “virtual” climate summit and maintaining it during his trip to the G7 meeting.
And even if he changed for Glasgow, other countries wouldn’t be convinced. There’d be no foreign applause. The sharp point of the debate has moved from 2050 to the medium term, and Morrison won’t make Australia’s 2030 targets more ambitious (though he’ll argue it will exceed them and possibly even project to 2035).
The US and the UK have leaned on Morrison, and he hasn’t firmed his 2050 stand. Now, at home, it’s increasingly looking dangerous for him to do so, even though work is under way to map out Australia’s emissions technology plans and what that means for reductions.
It’s a risk-benefit judgment for Morrison, and the risk of moving could be high.
Not all the Nationals oppose the 2050 target but enough of them do – and very strongly – to create a serious obstacle for the PM. The opponents within the minor party are bolshie and willing to fight.
Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie was a minister until she became the fall girl in the sports rorts affair. She doesn’t owe anything to Morrison or her leader, Michael McCormack.
McKenzie was on Sky with Alan Jones this week. “The National Party is the second party in this Coalition government. [It] has not signed up to net zero anything at any time and we’ll take a lot of convincing that that is actually the destination we need to get to,” she said. “Because we know it’ll be our miners, our farmers, our manufacturers that will be paying the price for all this posturing.
“We will not let our people be put under the bus to chase some fake ambition to appease overseas masters.”
In normal circumstances, Morrison might expect the Nationals’ leadership to be able to get a desired result – by pointing out there could be benefits for farmers – regardless of noisy dissidents.
But nothing is normal in the Nationals. It’s a wasps’ nest. Poke a stick in and anything could happen. McCormack, with a tenuous grip on the leadership, could easily be stung to death.
McCormack knows this. Pressed in a Wednesday podcast with The Conversation, he said the Nationals wouldn’t be agreeing to the target this year. When it was put to him, “we can be sure that the Nats would not embrace that target?”, he replied, “Correct”.
Resources Minister Keith Pitt told the ABC on Thursday that for the government policy to change to endorsing net zero would require the Nationals’ agreement “and that agreement has not been reached or sought”. Asked what the mood of their party room would be now, he said: “I think they’d be unsupportive, but we are yet to have that discussion.”
If Morrison wants to trigger “that discussion”, it could be very messy and divisive in the latter months of this year.
Failing to embrace the target would not do the Coalition any harm in regional seats in Queensland – in fact it would maximise the difference with Labor. But what about climate-sensitive southern seats, such as Higgins in Melbourne and Wentworth in Sydney?
It would obviously be unhelpful. But many of those for whom climate is a major vote-changing issue may have shifted their vote anyway.
The prospects of independent Zali Steggall retaining Warringah would probably be assisted by the government failing to endorse 2050. But the Liberals are not reckoning on regaining this seat unless former NSW premier Mike Baird runs, and he has resisted that.
So while there would be clear costs in staying with the weasel words, “as soon as possible” and “preferably”, they are arguably not as great as a potential blow-up in the Nationals that could have unforeseen consequences.
How embarrassing would failure to have a firm target be for Morrison at Glasgow? Greater if he were there than if he just sent Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who wouldn’t be noticed. But will he go?
He’d remember Kevin Rudd’s presence at Copenhagen in 2009 played badly for him. He’d note Tony Abbott did not attend the 2015 Paris conference. Julie Bishop, as foreign minister, led the Australian delegation.
Morrison has said he hopes to go to Glasgow. Could he find a way to avoid an engagement that would have no upside for him? It would be a matter of scheduling.
He’ll be in Rome for the G20 at the end of October. The Glasgow conference, which runs from November 1-12, is expected to have a leaders’ segment at the start, facilitating them going straight from the G20.
If he attends, Morrison will be armed with a heap of policy on technology and how it will cut emissions. But he still mightn’t have that hard and fast 2050 target in his kit bag.
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.
Australians aged under 60 will no longer receive first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to the rare risk of a serious blood clotting disorder among people aged 50 to 59.
The government has accepted the advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), which recommends those aged under 60 now receive the Pfizer vaccine. It previously recommended Pfizer to those aged under 50.
The change is based on the advisory group’s assessment of the risks of the clotting disorder, called thrombosis and thrombocytopenia syndrome or TTS, versus benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in protecting against COVID-19.
While the risk of TTS is still very low overall, it is more common in younger age groups. And younger people are less likely to die or become seriously ill from COVID-19.
What is the clotting disorder and how common is it?
Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) is a rare clotting problem that can occur after vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
We don’t fully understand why TTS occurs, but we know it’s caused by an overactive immune response. This is a very different mechanism to clots people might get after travelling or being immobile for lengthy periods.
The condition involves blood clots as well as a depletion in blood clotting cells known as platelets. The clots associated with TTS can appear in parts of the body where we don’t normally see blood clots, like the brain or the abdomen.
Of the 12 recent cases, seven occurred in people aged between 50 and 59.
Sadly, two people have died.
The risk of TTS reduces with age. For people aged under 50, there are 3.1 cases of TTS per 100,000 doses. This reduces to 1.9 cases for those aged 80 and above:
As awareness of TTS grows, clinicians’ ability to detect and diagnose the condition has also improved. This means the risk of becoming severely ill and dying from this condition has fallen dramatically.
How does this compare to the chance of dying from COVID-19?
Globally, 177 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported, with around 3.83 million deaths, or just over 2%.
The risk of dying from COVID-19 increases with age. The rates depend on the country you live in and your sex. In China, for instance, the death rate was reportedly:
for under-50s, less than 1%
50 to 59 years, 1.3%
60 to 69 years, 3.6%
70 to 79 years, 8%
80 and above, 14.8%.
In terms of data from Australia, in 2020, for every 600 people with COVID-19 aged in their 50s, one person died and 18 required admission to a hospital intensive care unit (ICU).
For every 600 people aged in their 70s with COVID-19, 24 died and 42 were admitted to ICU.
So the benefits of vaccination to prevent severe COVID-19 are greater among older age groups.
If you’re aged 50 to 59 and have already had one dose, and didn’t have a significant reaction, the advice is for you to return for your second dose.
Relatively few Australians have received a second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. But data from the United Kingdom shows TTS appears much less commonly after second doses – 1.5 cases per million doses.
If you have concerns about the risk of TTS, talk to your doctor or vaccine provider.
In the future, as more evidence emerges and is assessed by Australia’s regulators, we may use other vaccines for follow-up doses. But this is not currently the recommendation.
ATAGI is a group of experts that closely monitors vaccines both in Australia and internationally for side effects, as well as how well they are working.
It also considers the amount of disease circulating that the vaccine is designed to protect from.
These factors are considered at the time of initial approval, and then monitored continuously. When some of these factors change, the way we use vaccines also needs to change.
Today’s change demonstrates the strength and robustness of the ongoing surveillance of adverse events of vaccines and our regulators’ commitment to ensure the safety of the community receiving these vaccines.
We’re fortunate to have excellent control of COVID-19 in Australia and low rates of severe disease. We’re also fortunate to have an alternate vaccine in the form of Pfizer, albeit still in relatively short supply.
Out of an abundance of caution and considering all of these and other factors, it makes sense to increase the age cut-off for the use of this vaccine in our country at present.
This may be subject to further changes in the future, in either direction, as the situation around us continues to evolve.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Associate Professor, National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Patrick Semansky/AP
Much speculation surrounded the lead up to the just concluded summit in Geneva between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
Coming after a NATO meeting where Biden reaffirmed his commitment to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sought to bolster the alliance against information warfare, it would have been fair to anticipate a relatively bellicose stance from the American leader.
By the same token, Putin had recently voiced some robust rhetoric that Russia would vigorously confront any threat to its sovereignty, alongside making a number of provocations, including massing troops on the border with Ukraine and lamenting the defeat of Donald Trump in the US presidential election.
All of this could have pointed to a feisty exchange between the two leaders.
In the end, the summit was a relatively calm affair. This was no doubt aided by the fact there were low expectations on both sides: they were merely hoping the hostile relationship could be ratcheted down a notch or two.
Red lines in the so-called grey zone
Despite the very low bar, it is likely both leaders marginally exceeded what they hoped to achieve.
The highlight was the announcement of a strategic dialogue between the two nations focused on arms control. That is comforting to an extent, but it was not a great stretch for either Putin or Biden to confirm that nuclear war was something each wished to avoid.
Arms control was already one of the few things Moscow and Washington could agree on — as witnessed by the New START nuclear weapons treaty extension that was concluded soon after Biden took office, at the height of tensions between the two leaders. So, there should be little enthusiasm this dialogue will break much new ground.
Instead, the key takeaway from the summit was that both the US and Russia remain determined to confront and compete with one another, albeit in a slightly more controlled way than the free-for-all of the Trump era.
A good indication of this was the identification by the US side of 16 components of critical infrastructure that it deemed off limits to Russian meddling. That was an interesting development in itself, since it thrust cybersecurity (which is key to the maintenance of critical infrastructure in an automated age) to the forefront on high-level, strategic interactions between adversaries.
But more to the point, it also signified a desire by the Biden administration to stabilise the relationship by identifying areas of the American society, economy and political system that it would not tolerate Russia attacking.
In other words, the US is seeking to draw red lines in the so-called grey zone.
The main question from this is whether Putin is at all interested in the type of strategic stability the US has offered.
One could make the argument the Russian state is at its most effective in its rivalry with the West in general (and the US in particular) when it acts unpredictably and seeks to exacerbate existing divisions within and between states. It has also used a variety of instruments, from repression to energy diplomacy, to successfully bolster its image as a great power, albeit a capricious one.
In fact, Putin is already the winner from the summit simply by virtue of the fact the Biden administration agreed to it. Images of the two leaders adopting a relaxed posture, seemingly at ease with one another, does much to salve Putin’s need for recognition and status.
Domestically, it helps him show Russians that he is still influential globally. And internationally, it supports the Kremlin narrative that Russia should be treated as a leading pillar of an emerging multi-polar order.
In an interview before the summit, Putin called Trump ‘colorful’ and said he felt he could work with Biden. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Where to from here?
It is true both leaders scored points against one another. Biden’s references to the treatment of Russian dissident Alexey Navalny and his condemnation of Russian influence operations were tailored for his domestic audience.
These messages focused attention on US core values, which sharply distinguished his presidency from the messy transactionalism of Trump’s. It sent the same message to America’s allies, in an attempt to reassure them the US was once again prepared to lead on such matters.
Biden said after the summit, ‘I did what I came to do.’ Patrick Semansky/AP
For his part, Putin engaged in some customary “whataboutism” when chiding the US as hypocritical in castigating others but not looking to its own deep internal problems. And given the opportunity in an NBC interview to deny he was a “killer”, as Biden had labelled him in March, Putin quite deliberately didn’t take it.
Ultimately, the Biden-Putin summit was certainly not a full “reset” of the relationship. Yet, neither was it an attempt to simply hit snooze on it, with Putin extracting concessions from Washington while Biden pauses US confrontation with Moscow to focus on the bigger challenge of a rising China.
Whether it is truly successful in returning some strategic stability to the relationship, though, will not be clear for some time. If Russia-US relations slide back into chaotic competition, at least Biden can say he tried.
And for his part, Putin will likely hint that he didn’t.
Matthew Sussex does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Fossilised bones belonging to enormous long-necked sauropod dinosaurs have been known from western Queensland since the 1930s, when Austrosaurus mckillopi was discovered on Clutha Station near Maxwelton. Since then, western Queensland has yielded many more sauropod bones and skeletons, particularly in the past two decades.
But the footprints of these behemoths, which can reveal much about how they behaved in life, remained elusive until 2016 when we and our colleagues at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum were informed about sauropod tracks dating back some 95 million years at Karoola Station, northwest of Winton.
Harry Elliott, Bob Elliott, and Stephen Poropat at the Snake Creek Tracksite on June 10th, 2016. Trish Sloan/AAOD
The tracksite, which we named “Snake Creek”, comprises a layer of siltstone less than a metre thick, as wide as a basketball court and twice as long. Ninety-five million years ago, this was a silt flat situated between a billabong and a meandering river.
Over the course of more than two years, the tracksite was excavated and moved in its entirety to a purpose-built facility at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum in Winton, where it is now open to the public.
A snapshot of a prehistoric menagerie
Close up of the Snake Creek Tracksite showing the direction of the various animals. Several crocs and all of the small theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs moved from northeast to southwest (and, therefore, in the opposite direction to the sauropods). Other crocs crossed the tracksite perpendicular to the rest. Stephen Poropat/AAOD
The largest footprints at the Snake Creek Tracksite were made by sauropod dinosaurs. Sauropods walked on all fours, and the front and back feet left very different prints.
The front footprints are crescent-shaped, whereas the back feet are oval with a front taper. At least four individual sauropods walked across the tracksite in the same direction within a very narrow time frame.
The sauropod footprints appear to have been made when the tracksite was not underwater. They are surrounded by concentric ridges that imply brittle deformation of the silt, and many have blobs of siltstone in the middle (called “adhesion traces”) that show where sediment pooled after the animal lifted its foot.
One of the sauropod footprints had a surprise in store: a single three-toed footprint preserved within. This appears to have been made by a medium-sized, meat-eating theropod dinosaur, similar to Winton’s own Australovenator wintonensis, that crossed the tracksite before the sauropod when the silt was still fairly wet at depth.
Sauropod footprints at the Snake Creek Tracksite. The front footprint (towards the top of the page) is crescent-shaped, whereas the back footprint is oval but tapered to the front and indented behind. The blob in the middle of the back footprint is a solidified mass of silt. Ridges encircle the footprints, which are also surrounded by footprints from smaller animals. Stephen Poropat/AAOD
Most of the other footprints at the tracksite appear to have been made after the sauropod footprints, by animals buoyed up in water. Parallel to the sauropod tracks but running in the opposite direction are several trackways of small, three-toed footprints.
Initially, we thought all of these footprints were from small-bodied theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs, similar to those at the nearby LarkQuarryConservation Park. However, closer examination of the relative lengths of the toes and the width of the trackways revealed that some were not — at least four of the trackways were made by ancient relatives of modern crocodiles called crocodyliforms.
The absence of belly or tail drag marks, coupled with the scarcity of front footprints, means it is likely the crocodyliforms were swimming in shallow water, pushing off the bottom periodically with their back feet to propel themselves along.
A three-toed crocodyliform footprint (right) overprinting a three-toed small theropod dinosaur footprint (left). Stephen Poropat/AAOD
Other footprints at the Tracksite appear to be those of swimming turtles that touched down very rarely. Perhaps the most unusual traces are not footprints at all: they are horseshoe-shaped divots that appear to have been left by bottom-feeding lungfish.
Possible lungfish feeding trace. Stephen Poropat/AAOD
Protecting the Tracksite
Fossilised footprints require conservation if they are to be protected from weathering and erosion. They are often moulded with latex and cast in plaster or resin to create replicas for further study.
Much more rarely, fossilised footprints or trackways may be removed wholesale to a museum. The most notable example before now was the relocation of a relatively small section of a tracksite from the Paluxy River in Texas to the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1940s.
In 2018, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum set out to relocate and preserve the entire Snake Creek Tracksite, which was at risk of erosion from periodic flooding in Snake Creek.
Anna Tzamouzaki, Christine Heller, and Judy Elliott formed the core of the team that relocated the Snake Creek Tracksite. Each of these women spent more than a year on site, painstakingly removing sections of Tracksite piece by piece, loading them for transport, then reassembling them at the AAOD Museum. AAOD
In May 2021, the new home of the Snake Creek Tracksite was opened to the public: a temperature-controlled, 885-square-metre building at the AAOD Museum in Winton, set up with the help of funding from the Queensland Government. The tracksite will now be accessible to future researchers, and offers a glimpse of a long-lost ecosystem in Australia’s deep past to any visitors to town.
An inside view of the March of the Titanosaurs exhibition at the AAOD Museum. Steven Lippis/AAOD
Stephen Poropat works for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, and a substantial portion of his research on the Snake Creek Tracksite was conducted while he was working for Swinburne University of Technology.
Adele Pentland is affiliated with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. She has benefited from funding awarded to Stephen Poropat in 2017 by the Paleontological Society (Arthur James Boucot Research Grant).
Fossilised bones belonging to enormous long-necked sauropod dinosaurs have been known from western Queensland since the 1930s, when Austrosaurus mckillopi was discovered on Clutha Station near Maxwelton. Since then, western Queensland has yielded many more sauropod bones and skeletons, particularly in the past two decades.
But the footprints of these behemoths, which can reveal much about how they behaved in life, remained elusive until 2016 when we and our colleagues at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum were informed about sauropod tracks dating back some 95 million years at Karoola Station, northwest of Winton.
Harry Elliott, Bob Elliott, and Stephen Poropat at the Snake Creek Tracksite on June 10th, 2016. Trish Sloan/AAOD
The tracksite, which we named “Snake Creek”, comprises a layer of siltstone less than a metre thick, as wide as a basketball court and twice as long. Ninety-five million years ago, this was a silt flat situated between a billabong and a meandering river.
Over the course of more than two years, the tracksite was excavated and moved in its entirety to a purpose-built facility at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum in Winton, where it is now open to the public.
A snapshot of a prehistoric menagerie
Close up of the Snake Creek Tracksite showing the direction of the various animals. Several crocs and all of the small theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs moved from northeast to southwest (and, therefore, in the opposite direction to the sauropods). Other crocs crossed the tracksite perpendicular to the rest. Stephen Poropat/AAOD
The largest footprints at the Snake Creek Tracksite were made by sauropod dinosaurs. Sauropods walked on all fours, and the front and back feet left very different prints.
The front footprints are crescent-shaped, whereas the back feet are oval with a front taper. At least four individual sauropods walked across the tracksite in the same direction within a very narrow time frame.
The sauropod footprints appear to have been made when the tracksite was not underwater. They are surrounded by concentric ridges that imply brittle deformation of the silt, and many have blobs of siltstone in the middle (called “adhesion traces”) that show where sediment pooled after the animal lifted its foot.
One of the sauropod footprints had a surprise in store: a single three-toed footprint preserved within. This appears to have been made by a medium-sized, meat-eating theropod dinosaur, similar to Winton’s own Australovenator wintonensis, that crossed the tracksite before the sauropod when the silt was still fairly wet at depth.
Sauropod footprints at the Snake Creek Tracksite. The front footprint (towards the top of the page) is crescent-shaped, whereas the back footprint is oval but tapered to the front and indented behind. The blob in the middle of the back footprint is a solidified mass of silt. Ridges encircle the footprints, which are also surrounded by footprints from smaller animals. Stephen Poropat/AAOD
Most of the other footprints at the tracksite appear to have been made after the sauropod footprints, by animals buoyed up in water. Parallel to the sauropod tracks but running in the opposite direction are several trackways of small, three-toed footprints.
Initially, we thought all of these footprints were from small-bodied theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs, similar to those at the nearby LarkQuarryConservation Park. However, closer examination of the relative lengths of the toes and the width of the trackways revealed that some were not — at least four of the trackways were made by ancient relatives of modern crocodiles called crocodyliforms.
The absence of belly or tail drag marks, coupled with the scarcity of front footprints, means it is likely the crocodyliforms were swimming in shallow water, pushing off the bottom periodically with their back feet to propel themselves along.
A three-toed crocodyliform footprint (right) overprinting a three-toed small theropod dinosaur footprint (left). Stephen Poropat/AAOD
Other footprints at the Tracksite appear to be those of swimming turtles that touched down very rarely. Perhaps the most unusual traces are not footprints at all: they are horseshoe-shaped divots that appear to have been left by bottom-feeding lungfish.
Possible lungfish feeding trace. Stephen Poropat/AAOD
Protecting the Tracksite
Fossilised footprints require conservation if they are to be protected from weathering and erosion. They are often moulded with latex and cast in plaster or resin to create replicas for further study.
Much more rarely, fossilised footprints or trackways may be removed wholesale to a museum. The most notable example before now was the relocation of a relatively small section of a tracksite from the Paluxy River in Texas to the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1940s.
In 2018, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum set out to relocate and preserve the entire Snake Creek Tracksite, which was at risk of erosion from periodic flooding in Snake Creek.
Anna Tzamouzaki, Christine Heller, and Judy Elliott formed the core of the team that relocated the Snake Creek Tracksite. Each of these women spent more than a year on site, painstakingly removing sections of Tracksite piece by piece, loading them for transport, then reassembling them at the AAOD Museum. AAOD
In May 2021, the new home of the Snake Creek Tracksite was opened to the public: a temperature-controlled, 885-square-metre building at the AAOD Museum in Winton, set up with the help of funding from the Queensland Government. The tracksite will now be accessible to future researchers, and offers a glimpse of a long-lost ecosystem in Australia’s deep past to any visitors to town.
An inside view of the March of the Titanosaurs exhibition at the AAOD Museum. Steven Lippis/AAOD
Stephen Poropat works for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, and a substantial portion of his research on the Snake Creek Tracksite was conducted while he was working for Swinburne University of Technology.
Adele Pentland is affiliated with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. She has benefited from funding awarded to Stephen Poropat in 2017 by the Paleontological Society (Arthur James Boucot Research Grant).
Selwyn Manning and Paul G. Buchanan present A View from Afar.
A View from Afar
PODCAST: Buchanan and Manning on G7 NATO EU Get Behind US for the Biden-Putin Summit
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A View from Afar: Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan present this week’s podcast, A View from Afar, where they analyse how leaders of the G7, NATO and EU juxtapositioned behind the United States to form a consensus-pact immediately prior to the Biden-Putin Summit.
United States President Joe Biden spoke of this in an impromptu media stand-up after the US-Russia bilateral. He said he owes G7, EU and NATO leaders a “debt of gratitude”, adding that it made a difference in that he (that is Biden, but also significantly Putin) knew he was representing a powerful global bloc at the US-Russia summit. And, that the USA was again accepted as the leader of western nations.
But with a grouping of the world’s strongest countries creating a new ‘consensus pact’, where does that leave small and regional powers like New Zealand, Australia, and many within the Indo-Asia-Pacific region?
The outcome of the series of summit meetings in Europe this week confirm; the world is being divided into blocs, one Western centric, the other not.
It is now clear, the US has re-committed to multilateralism, acknowledges there’s strength in numbers, and is revitalising the European alliance system.
It is also important to note, the G7 leaders (and those addressing Biden at the European Union) all focused on strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation.
However, for small and medium states outside these multilateral fora, how does the stark-rhetoric of the summit statements impact on China’s ‘traditional’ trade partners?
New Zealand stands at the fault-line of this challenge.
How does NZ navigate a stable path forward – a transition that’s designed to ease its trade-dependency on China – while schmoozing the western geo-demographic, so as to cut trade deals with the EU and UK?
Western multilateralism may indeed pose a problem to small powers. So what solutions do such countries have at their disposal?
WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:
You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:
Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
AAP/Luis Ascui
A Victorian Resolve poll for The Age gave Labor 37% of the primary vote (42.9% at the 2018 election), the Coalition 36% (35.2%), the Greens 9% (10.7%) and independents 12% (6.1%).
This poll was presumably conducted at the same time as Resolve’s federal May and June polls, from a sample of 1,103. As usual with Resolve polls, no two party figure was provided, but The Poll Bludger estimated 53-47 to Labor, about a 4% swing to the Coalition since the election.
On the high vote for independents, it appears some voters are dissatisfied with the three main options, and are parking their vote. It’s unlikely independents would get 12% at an election, as those who say they will vote for independents may not like the actual independents in a particular seat.
Incumbent Daniel Andrews led Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien as preferred premier by 49-23. Andrews had a net +10 likeability rating (42% positive, 32% negative), and O’Brien a net -8 rating (14% positive, 22% negative). Acting Premier James Merlino had a net +15 rating (30% positive, 15% negative).
The Age is comparing the Victorian ratings with the ratings for NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian in May’s NSW Resolve poll. Berejiklian was at a net +33 (51% positive, 17% negative).
In questions on the recent COVID crisis that were presumably asked in just the June sample, by 46-36 voters agreed that the government was too quick to lockdown large parts of the state. However, voters agreed 46-34 that the government has handled this outbreak well so far.
There is other evidence of a backlash against the Victorian government over its handling of COVID. In last week’s Essential federal poll, 48% gave the Victorian government a good rating on COVID, down from 63% in the late May Essential before the current crisis.
It’s likely that the 2018 election landslide was a high water mark for Labor in Victoria, and that they would fall from that position even with better perception of handling of COVID. However, Labor is still comfortably ahead and the clear favourites for the November 2022 election.
Federal Resolve poll: flawed question on carbon price
In a federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted June 8-12 from a sample of 1,600, the Coalition had 40% of the primary vote (up one since May), Labor 36% (up one), the Greens 10% (down two) and One Nation 3% (up one).
No two party vote was provided, but The Poll Bludger estimated a 50.5-49.5 lead for Labor from these primaries, a 0.5% gain for the Coalition.
55% supported the government adopting a net zero emissions target by 2050, with just 12% opposed. However, when offered a choice between new technologies and putting a cost on emissions to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions, 61% supported new technology and just 13% the cost on emissions.
The problem with the second question is that voters were given a choice between something that sounds free (new tech), and something that has a cost (carbon price). It is completely unsurprising, given this framing, that voters massively prefer new tech. A better framing would be to ask whether the government should invest money in new tech, or put a price on carbon.
However, voters are reluctant to spend money on emissions reduction. In a February 2020 Newspoll, 50% said they were prepared to pay nothing more on electricity to meet emissions targets, and a further 23% just $100 more a year. This poll was taken after the 2019-20 summer bushfires, and before COVID. Voters are unlikely to be so concerned about climate change now.
In other Resolve questions, Scott Morrison had a 48% good, 41% poor rating for his performance in recent weeks, with his +7 net rating down eight points since May. Anthony Albanese had an unchanged -13 net rating, and Morrison led Albanese by 46-23 as preferred PM (48-25 in May).
The Coalition and Morrison continued to hold large leads over Labor and Albanese on the economy and COVID. They led by 43-20 on the economy (46-20 in May) and by 40-20 on COVID (46-20).
In last week’s Essential poll, Morrison had a net approval of +21, down five points since May, and Albanese a net approval of +3, down one point. Morrison led Albanese by 48-28 as better PM (50-24 in May).
53% gave the federal government a good rating on COVID and 24% a poor one, well down from the 58-18 rating in late May. In all states, the state government was ahead of the federal government, with the largest gap in WA (75% good for state government, just 49% for federal government).
In a Morgan poll, conducted May 29-30 and June 5-6 from a sample of over 2,800, Labor led the Coalition by 51-49, a 0.5% gain for Labor since March. Primary votes were 40% Coalition (down one), 35.5% Labor (up one), 11.5% Greens (down one) and 3% One Nation (up 0.5%).
Netanyahu ousted in Israel, and other international politics
I wrote for The Poll Bludger on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been ousted in a confidence vote, ending his 12 successive years as PM. Also covered: a German state election and federal polls ahead of the September 26 election; two UK byelections that occur in the next fortnight; and the far-left’s narrow win over the far-right in Peru.
Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Six infants who tested positive to covid-19 are in stable condition at Lautoka Hospital in the west of Fiji.
Health Secretary Dr James Fong confirmed this to The Fiji Times this week. The infants and their mothers were from a community in lockdown in Nadi.
They were recently assisted with basic supplies by the Foundation of the Rural Integrated Enterprises and Development (FRIEND). A post on the FRIEND Fiji official social media page said they responded to a request for assistance from the community in lockdown in Nadi.
FRIEND Fiji then facilitated the request after a donor purchased baby essential packs.
The packages were delivered to the mothers in need last Thursday.
“We pray for the speedy recovery of infants and their mothers,” FRIEND Fiji said in a recent Facebook post.
“Please keep them in your prayers.”
Mothers, babies transferred Meanwhile, Dr Fong also confirmed that some mothers and babies from the Colonial War Memorial Hospital’s (CWMH) Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit in Suva had been transferred to Lautoka Hospital because of escalating covid-19 cases at the CWMH.
While he could not confirm the numbers, he said, however, that the ministry had activated that contingency protocol.
RNZ Pacific reports there have been 121 new covid-19 cases confirmed in Fiji as health officials identify two new clusters.
The total number since the outbreak started in April is now 1373.
Dr Fong said a new cluster had been identified within the Rewa Emergency Operations Centre, possibly linked to the Vunimono cluster.
A new cluster is also at the Town House Hotel in Suva where Colonial War Memorial (CWM) Hospital and Incident Management Team (IMT) staff are being accommodated.
Two key issues In an editorial about lockdowns and sticking to the covid rules, The Fiji Times stressed that two issues stood out in the face of the announcement of new covid-19 cases.
While there was great importance placed on the announcement of the daily figures, other issues had also been raised on different platforms, the Times said.
“For instance, the Head of Health Protection, Dr Aaalisha Sahukhan, said lockdowns [had] not contained the spread of covid-19 in the Lami-Suva area,” the newspaper said.
While it was an important tool, Dr Sahukhan had pointed out, it had had a socio-economic impact on the population.
She had shared her view during a webinar on covid-19 organised by the Fiji National University.
“We’re coming to a point now where from the health perspective, yes lockdowns are an important tool, but also we have come to a limit of applying those lockdowns because of the impact on the community,” Dr Sahukhan said.
The capital had gone through periods of extreme lockdowns “which we call curfew lockdowns [lasting] as long as four days.
“Unfortunately, even this level of lockdowns and our containment efforts has not contained the effect within the Lami-Suva area.”
Hakeagapuletama Halo walks into the courtroom. He is a head taller than most, dressed in a crisp white shirt. He has a nervous smile and bright, eager eyes.
Known as Hake to his family and friends, this is not the first time he has detailed the abuse he suffered at Lake Alice. But, as part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, it is the first time he’s been able to do so publicly.
He said there was no warning or explanation the first time he received electroconvulsive shock therapy, just one week after arriving at the Lake Alice Institute.
“They called my name out. I went freely and walked up the stairs of Villa 7 because I did not understand, I thought it was something to help us patients, but I had a funny feeling something was not right.
“Dr [Selwyn] Leeks and three other staff members were there. They did not ask me any questions or explain anything to me. They just put me on the bed.”
Halo remembered seeing a bed with a small machine on a trolley, with electric earphones that were wet and placed on the sides of his head.
“I looked up at their faces, they were pretty mean looking and that made me feel something was going to happen. I asked Dr Leeks if this was going to hurt and he said, “yes, it is”. I cried and said, “I don’t want it please”.”
Lost consciousness With no muscle relaxant or anaesthetic, the staff held him down as the volts went through his body and he lost consciousness.
The next time it happened, it was a shock to discover that he remained conscious and felt everything, saying it was like being hit by a sledgehammer.
“The pain was so bad, that when a person was lying down, when they turned it on, I could feel myself actually sitting up. Your body is off the bed… you’re straining to raise your arms but they’re holding you down. And they turn it off, that’s when you’re crying…without the mouthguard, a person would end up biting his tongue off because of the pain.”
The shocks were administered three or four times before the child was taken to a different room to recover, but the effects would be felt for days.
A terrible secret Halo said everyone knew what was going on, but it wasn’t talked about.
“Us kids, we know that somebody’s always getting ECT because you can hear the screams from upstairs coming downstairs to us kids. In the lounge, in the sitting room, TV room, you can hear them screaming, even the workers that are working around there.”
He says while most of the staff and workers were white-skinned, there were a few cleaners that were Pacific Islanders.
“They can hear it. They’re doing their jobs and crying at the same time because they know what’s going on.”
In addition to the electric shock treatment, the children were injected with paraldehyde, a medicine that was used to treat convulsive disorders.
Halo said they had different amounts injected, based on their behaviour, such as not listening or fighting, even laughing too loudly.
“Paraldehyde is just like another way of giving us a hiding. Using the injection, it is painful, the pain is bad. The child is walking like a pregnant lady sometimes, swaying from side to side, coming out of the sick bay with his pants still halfway down, crying his eyes out – and that’s only for 5cc.”
One teacher trusted There was one teacher who he trusted at the school, who will later testify as part of the hearing.
“She said to me, ‘you don’t belong here’. She gave us advice, encouragement and counselling. I had not done anything big or really wrong, just the shoplifting.”
Lake Alice … many buildings have been demolished since the institution was closed in 1999. Image: PMN/Fergus Cunningham 2011
Many buildings have been demolished since the institute was closed in 1999. Photo: Fergus Cunningham 2011
A child’s plea for help Halo wanted to tell his mother about the abuse, and tried to come up with a coded way to tell her.
“I write in my letter in English that everything is alright…they said I have to write my letters in English and take it into the office and leave it open like that for them to read.”
After his earlier attempts to draw a sad face weren’t accepted, Halo learned he had to draw a person with a happy face, but included a speech bubble saying his true feelings.
“I wrote just a short few words in Niuean, saying mum, electric shock, so painful to me. Or, Mum, the people have given me electric shock… injection… I am crying.”
Years later, he would try to recreate these drawings in his journals.
When asked why his mother did nothing at the time, he said there was a language and cultural barrier.
“Because my mum was not an English speaker, she did not know how to get help or intervene…she felt powerless.”
This was not the first time speaking English as a second language had been a barrier.
Misunderstood from the early years Born in Niue, Halo sailed to Sāmoa on the Tofua, then flew to New Zealand with his grandparents, who raised him for many years.
He had epilepsy as a baby but grew out of it as he got older.
When Halo started at Richmond Road Primary in 1968, he could only speak Niuean.
“I did not understand anything the teacher was teaching. I did not do my homework because I did not understand my teacher and I did not speak in class….I felt totally lost. It was pretty hard to find friends, so I just kept to myself.”
The teachers thought Halo had a disability and put him in a class for children with special needs, where he would act up. When he was 8, an incident with a relief teacher at Beresford Primary that would change his life.
“We were practising songs, and I wasn’t singing properly, just trying to sing but not really good and not participating properly and my teacher got upset…so she came and took me out of the classroom.
“I was scared about being locked in this dark room. I tried to push on the door to push it open and let myself back in, and my hand accidentally went through the glass door.”
Cut his hand severely He cut his hand severely and was taken to Auckland Hospital by ambulance.
The school report said he violently punched the window but the scars on the palm of his hand prove he did not punch the glass, but was pushing on it.
After this incident, Halo was seen as being violent, and was referred to St John’s Psychiatric Hospital in Papatoetoe.
From there, he spent a few months in Niue, before returning to New Zealand and moving between several schools, his behaviour worsening after the death of his grandfather when he was 10 years old.
He appeared in the youth court because of a shoplifting offence, and was sent to Owairaka Boys’ Home in October 1975.
“I was put in a secure room for four days. I had to stay there for a long time because I was so upset. They were worried I would run away. I was lonely,” he says.
“In the secure room there was a bed, a toilet, and sometimes another kid was put in the same cell. When that happened, we had to share the toilet and we had to eat in there too. I did not like that room.”
Some children targeted Along with physical violence, the staff were strict and some children were targeted more than others.
“The boys that had to do the cleaning and cooking did not go to school. I was one of those kids. I had to do the jobs. I had no choice.”
He was then referred to Lake Alice, a mental hospital in the Manawatu District that had been converted for youth.
Lake Alice … the abandoned site sat for years after the institution was closed in 1999. Image: PMN: Fergus Cunningham 2011
“My [grandmother] and my birth parents were told they were taking me to Lake Alice to go to a school there. They were not told that it was a mental hospital. They never knew the true story.
“My mum did not speak good English at all and there were no Niuean interpreters. She signed papers because they told her they were taking me to a school.”
Arriving at Lake Alice on 6 November 1975, Halo said he was surprised and scared.
Aerial view of Lake Alice in 1975. Image: Lake Alice Mental Hospital, Whanganui. Whites Aviation Ltd: Photographs. Ref: WA-72417-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22826645
“My first impression was “bloody hell, what is this place? What sort of place? This is not a school, this looks like a prison!”
Some not documented An estimated 300 teenagers were admitted to the institute across the six years it was operating, but there are thought to be at least a hundred more who were not documented, with some children younger than 10.
It wasn’t until after Halo was discharged in 1976, when his grandmother arranged to legally adopt him, they discovered he had been made a ward of the state.
“The interpreter at that meeting explained to my Mum [grandmother] what a State Ward meant. My Mum had not understood, and no one had ever interpreted for her, that the state had the rights of guardianship over me.”
Thinking back to the start of the year when he was referred to Lake Alice, Halo said his Mum had not understood the social worker at the time.
“There were no interpreters there to assist my Mum in this conversation. The social worker thought my Mum wanted social welfare to have full control and have me under their guardianship,” he says.
“However, my Mum was misunderstood. She had asked him to please look after me, while I was in care. The social worker thought she was saying `please take Hake and make him a State Ward’.”
Halo says if a Niuean interpreter had been present, he may not have been returned to Lake Alice, or later referred to Carrington Hospital in Auckland.
Now elder in his church Halo is an elder in his church and attributes his healing and strength to his faith.
His epilepsy returned after his time at Lake Alice, making it difficult for him to hold down a job, although he did work at a facility packing plastic bottles, but found the static electricity a trigger for his traumatic memories.
He is on a benefit, but says the Ministry of Social Development is trying to get him onto the jobseeker benefit.
When asked about whether an apology would help, he said he didn’t need a personal apology, but wanted to see an acknowledgement of how Pacific Islanders were treated.
“The state should have explained to me and my parents what a State Ward was and what happens to a child who is a State Ward. If they could not understand English, they should be offered an interpreter. The state should tell us the truth about where our children are going and what is happening to them.
“Looking to the future, if I was told a grandchild of mine had to go into an institution, I would say ‘no way’. Our children have to be with us, not in institutions.”
At the hearing, a handful of survivors were present to support Halo, Paul Zentveld acknowledged those who could not be there.
“All these many years when no one but a tiny few believed us. Officials of Government did not really care what happened to us as children while in Lake Alice in the 70s. We have done many things over the years, including alerting the United Nations and here we are.
“We stand before the survivors of Lake Alice, ready to tell our story publicly for the first time. Those who cannot be here are here in spirit.”
But the man responsible for the mistreatment of hundreds of children, may never be held to account.
‘I represent a man incapable of instructing me’ – lawyer for Dr Selwyn Leeks
Hayden Rattray, counsel for Dr Selwyn Leeks, appeared via Zoom to deliver the news many were expecting.
“Dr Leeks is 92 years old. He has metastatic prostate cancer … heart disease, chronic kidney dysfunction.
“Dr Leeks is neither aware of the matters of the inquiry nor cognitively capable of responding to them. The reality is I represent a man incapable of instructing me.”
Rattray referenced an assessment in April by neuropsychologist Dr Sarah Lucas, which also reported signs of Alzheimers and dementia.
Lake Alice … a tower overlooking the institution. Image: PM/Fergus Cunningham 2011
As a core participant in the inquiry, Dr Leeks has the right to give evidence and make submissions, however, “by virtue of his age and cognitive capacity, manifestly incapable of doing either”, Rattray explained.
Assisting Counsel Andrew Molloy said, along with Dr Leeks, other parties needed to be held accountable.
“While numerous eyes have been cast over these events over the years, we’ve never previously pulled together the strands to compile as full a picture as we can … While individuals may have spoken of this here and there, their voices have never been heard collectively by us as a society.”
Queen’s Counsel Frances Joychild said the inquiry was exposing a “collective shame”.
“It’s an inquiry into a dark and shameful seven year episode in the history of state care for vulnerable children in this countr …. The damage to the national interest is impossible to calculate.”
The Lake Alice hearing runs for two weeks. Twenty survivors are expected to give evidence, along with former staff members, medical experts and police witnesses.
More information: The Royal Commission will examine abuse and neglect of children and young people in residences run by the state between 1950 and 1999.
The scope of the inquiry covers abuse that happened in State care such as foster care, police cells, court cells or police custody, schools or special schools, disability care or facility, youth justice placement or at a health camp.
They are also looking at abuse that occurred in faith-based settings such as a religious school or church camp.
Witnesses can speak anonymously about sexual, physical and psychological abuse and the effects it has had on them in later life.
The Pacific Investigation encourages Pacific survivors to continue coming forward and engage with the Royal Commission of Inquiry.
In New Zealand, youth climate change movement School Strike 4 Climate Auckland has declared itself as racist, and disbanded, but young activists say going silent is not the answer.
The group had organised large protests in centres throughout the country, becoming the biggest climate protest movement in the country.
The mea culpa announcement came out of the blue — in it the youth-led group acknowledged being a “white-dominated” space.
“School Strike 4 Climate Auckland has avoided, ignored, and tokenised black, indigenous and people of colour voices and demands, especially those of Pasifika and Māori individuals in the climate activism space,” the organisation said in an online statement.
It said it made the move to shut down on advice from people of colour and indigenous people.
But as reporter Mariner Fagaiava-Muller investigated, he found racism within the climate change movement is not new, despite Pasifika being disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change.
The youth climate protest movement was made notable by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl whose poignant speech to the United Nations even landed her as the 2019 Time Person of the Year choice.
But long before Thunberg’s whimsical cover portrait looking out over the ocean took the world by storm, trouble in paradise was ignited.
Climate change affects every country in the world, but its impact in the Pacific has been so unrelenting and for so long, the region faces a real threat of being wiped off the map. However, it seems the very tagata Pasifika who want to stand up for themselves have long been silenced.
Pacific Climate Warriors – Mary Moeono-Kolio to the right. Image: RNZ/350 Pacific
Greens’ Lourdes Vano … “naturally Pākehā. centre their own voices.” Image: Jogai Bhatt/RNZ
The Greens Party’s Lourdes Vano says: “Here in New Zealand, people are only noticing it for the first time because a lot of white kids have decided to strike in the streets and I feel like a lot of privileged people are able to engage in these spaces more, so inherently that’s just going to be a lot more Pākehā.
“And naturally they centre their own voices, and what that does is further perpetuate the systems that we’re trying to fight back against.”
Vano feels there is a tokenistic, tick box culture, and that some just came on-board for another extracurricular activity, as opposed to embracing environmentalism.
The first of three major strikes in 2019 was held on the same day as Polyfest where hundreds of Pasifika youth who would have otherwise attended were overlooked.
Fellow Pasifika activist Helena Fuluifaga Chan Foung (Amaile, Vaimoso, Luatuanu’u, Lalovaea) says shutting the organisation down and leaving the climate conversation altogether washes their hands of any accountability.
She says they should have had the humility to take criticism and work towards competency.
“To disband and to dissolve is really to me like quitting and copping out, because they’re saying the act of disbanding is the action that they see fit as a reparation for something that they’ve done wrong,” she says.
Pacific people marching at the Climate Strike in Wellington. Image: Johnny Blades/RNZ
While it is bad enough that seas are rising across the world, in the Pacific it is happening faster than average.
Lineage and heritage built within the paradigm of the moana is becoming less recognisable. The land is entrenched in cultural tradition and storytelling, as a life source – but is now embattled by increasing damage.
That is why Chan Foung says instead of Palagi being the face of the climate crisis, it is imperative for people from the moana to stand on the frontline.
“It was very eco-centric – a lot of the indigenous ways of living, and so with all of that passed down knowledge and descending from those groups, you would almost think that indigenous groups were leading those conversations,” she says.
Brianna Fruean became a founding member of environmental organisation 350.org’s Samoa chapter at 11 years old, and says racism within the climate change movement was even more rife back then.
Brianna Fruean … simply standing back from racism isn’t good enough. Image: Christine Rovoi/RNZ
She says simply standing back from racism isn’t good enough, and to be anti-racist makes more impact.
She encourages Palagi to undertake to be allies, a role that allows as many hands to help mobilise the climate movement as possible.
“The weight of this crisis is heavy. It will take everyone’s hands and help to carry it,” she says.
“A lot of the times it will be comfortable – because climate change is an intersectional issue, [but] there will be a lot of times when you feel uncomfortable trying to shift and change, and adapt your organising so it’s inclusive and… a safe space.
“But I think it’s important to acknowledge all the hands it will take for us to be able to organise a sustainable future.”
Fruean says it is unfortunate that racism has taken away from the cause at hand.
“Pasifika activists aren’t asking for the climate space to be solely us,” she says.
“We’re just asking for our voices to be valued, and for us to be able to work together in a way that upholds everyone’s dignity and right to their voice to be heard.”
The plea from the Pasifika communities is that they lead the conversation, be listened to, but not be the only ones talking.
School Strike 4 Climate Auckland declined an interview when approached by RNZ Pacific.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Polynesian Panther Party will hold a three-day fonotaga commemoration event this weekend at the University of Auckland’s Fale Pasifika.
Whakaako kia Whakaora – Educate to Liberate. Image: RNZ/Polynesian Panthers
Dawn Raid apology The Panthers’ golden jubilee couldn’t be more forthcoming, given an announcement made this week of a formal government apology for the 1970s Dawn Raids.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the time had come for an apology for a Labour Party immigration policy that targeted Pasifika people who had overstayed their visas by mere fact of their ethnicity.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern … “To this day Pacific communities face prejudices and stereotypes … an apology can never reduce what happened.” Image: Dom Thomas/RNZ
“To this day Pacific communities face prejudices and stereotypes… an apology can never reduce what happened, or undo the decades of disadvantage experienced as a result, but it can contribute to healing for Pacific peoples,” she said.
Ardern was joined at the theatrette lecturn by Pacific Peoples Minister ‘Aupito Toeolesulusulu Tofae Su’a William Sio, who wiped away tears while sharing his own personal story of being raided as a teenager.
“I’m quite emotional… I’m trying to control my emotions today,” he said.
His parents had only just bought a home, taken as an achievement for the family, when a year or two later they’d been woken up to a police officer flashing a torch in their eyes.
“To have somebody knocking at the door in the early hours of the morning with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth,” ‘Aupito recounted.
‘Aupito William Sio … “I don’t think there is any Pacific family who was not impacted on by the events of the Dawn Raids.” Image: Dom Thomas/RNZ
“The memories are etched in my memory of my father being helpless.
“I don’t think there is any Pacific family who was not impacted on by the events of the Dawn Raids, and there is a strong moral imperative to acknowledge those past actions were wrong. Through an apology, they recognise those actions were unacceptable under the universal declaration of human rights, and are absolutely intolerable within today’s human rights protections.
“Come for the ceremony,” ‘Aupito said, welcoming the Panthers to the government apology.
Ardern added “[the Panthers] will probably remind us to ‘educate to liberate’.”
The Prime Minister will make her formal government apology for the Dawn Raids on June 26 at the Auckland Town Hall, 50 years on from the start of the revolution against racial injustices against Pasifika in Aotearoa.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Four fresh indigenous Papuan students have graduated with degrees from Aotearoa New Zealand universities in the past few weeks to fulfil the dreams of Papuan provincial government leaders Lukas Enembe and Dominggus Mandacan.
The two governors of both Indonesian-Melanesian provinces, Enembe (Papua) province and Mandacan (West Papua) made a bold and enterprising decision to send Papuan students to pursue their higher education overseas, especially to English-speaking countries.
The four Papuan students, recipients of scholarships from the provincial governments, have graduated with masters and bachelor degrees in a variety of disciplines.
This article uses the term Papuans to refer to the indigenous people of both provinces which are generally collectively known in Australia and New Zealand as West Papua. Indigenous Papuans are of Melanesian ethnic background and non-Papuans are of other ethnic backgrounds who are living in the Melanesian land of Papua.
Nathan Sonyap (a scholarship recipient of Papua province) has graduated with a Master of International Tourism Management Studies from Waikato University and Yan Wenda (also Papua) has gained a Bachelor of Commerce in Management degree from Otago University.
Gebriella Thenau (a West Papua provincial scholarship recipient) has graduated with a Bachelor of Environmental Management from Lincoln University and Yuliktus Korain (also West Papua) with a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing also at Lincoln.
All four told Asia Pacific Report they were grateful to study and graduate from universities in New Zealand. They dedicated their achievement to their families and the indigenous people of Papua.
Facing cultural barriers Coming from the Melanesian and Pacific region, they said Papuans sometimes faced a lot of cultural barriers and even racial attacks. This put Papuan students under considerable pressure while studying.
However, in New Zealand they found that the “kindness and generosity of Kiwis” at the universities or in the social environment made them feel “safer and peaceful”. They expressed gratitude towards everyone who had helped them on their life and study journey.
The four graduates said that some of the challenges that they encountered included language — as English was a second or even third language for them — weather, the academic system, and culture, and other things.
Gebriella Thenau — “Gebi” as she is known — said that having an opportunity to study in New Zealand had not been even in her dreams, given that it was very expensive. She was so grateful to the government of West Papua province for awarding her the scholarship.
She said her parents always reminded her to study seriously because the government used Papuan people’s money, which her parents called “Blood Money”. She said when she received inquiries from them about when she was going to finish study, she always felt under pressure.
“My parents always reminded me to study seriously. My dad always says remember that you are using indigenous Papuan’s money,” she said.
“Despite having pressure from my family and study, I always believe that having a qualification from one of the top universities in NZ will pay off … And finally, I made it and my parents and family are proud of that,” said Thenau.
Crying for better education Thenau, who completed her elementary to high school studies in Sorong, one of the cities that predominantly hosts non-Papuans from other parts of Indonesia, said that having supportive parents on her journey was very important.
“This is a great opportunity as our parents didn’t have an opportunity like us to study overseas — our mothers are sweating and crying on the street for their kids to get a better education, and women don’t have many opportunities in the public space,” said Thenau.
“So, I hope our success stories will wipe away their tears and sweat.”
Nathan Sonyap … first student from his tribe and church. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Nathan Sonyap, the first student from his tribe and church, said he was extremely grateful to Governor Enembe and the late Vice-Governor Klemen Tinal for the opportunity to study in New Zealand.
“It is truly an honour and privilege for me to study here,” he said.
Sonyap, who did his elementary to high school in Papua and bachelor’s degree in the city of Makasar-Indonesia, said he had learned so many things during his stay in New Zealand.
“Honestly, it wasn’t that easy,” he said.
Many challenges Yuliktus Korain — “Yulko” as he is known — is an exceptional student. He was orphaned but plans to “bring light to his people”. Korain told Asia Pacific Report that in order for him to reach the level where he was now, he had gone through many challenges.
Yuliktis Korain … “I had completely lost hope.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
One of the challenges was because he and his younger brother lost their parents when they were still at a very young age.
“Man…it was extremely hard for me and my younger brother to face the reality when my mom passed away in 2003, just when I started my elementary school and later in 2008 my dad passed away when I was in grade 4.
“I completely lost hope. I decided to stop going to school because of financial difficulties and losing my parents. For one year, I just stayed at home and played with other kids in the village,” he said.
Korain said that he was lucky as his uncle — “an angel of the Lord” as he describes him — offered him study. He stayed with his uncle while completing his grade 4, and during grade 5 and 6, he stayed with an aunt.
Korain continued his middle school to high school while staying in a seminary. He said his groceries, stationery and other needs were looked after by the seminary.
Never celebrated birthdays Yan Piterson Wenda, who is also the president of Papuan Student Association in Oceania, said that celebration of his graduation was something that he would always remember because he had never even celebrated his birthday previously.
Yan Wenda … “my parents and family couldn’t watch the live graduation … because the internet is still blocked in Papua.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
“I pay my tribute firstly to my mom because I was raised by a single mother. She is a great person in my life.
“I wish my mom could have witnessed personally the results of her prayers and hard work of selling cassava, peanuts, and other garden products. But unfortunately, it wasn’t the reality.
“My parents and family couldn’t watch the live graduation on Facebook … because the internet is still blocked in Papua,” said Wenda.
While paying tribute to the Papua provincial government, Wenda said his presence in New Zealand was the result of an enlightened “crazy programme” based on social justice to give underprivileged students a chance to study.
“I am academically not so good, but as you can see, I am granted this opportunity because the government of Papua province wants to give us an equal chance for those who come from underprivileged families and affluent families,” said Wenda.
Wenda who is now preparing himself to continue his Masters in International Business at Otago University said he followed three guiding principles — believing in God, having a firm motivation for being in NZ, and having supportive people around him.
All four Papuan graduates said they hoped the programme would continue as it would help raise the dignity of indigenous Papuans who have struggled through painful moments.
Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan Masters in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology who has been studying journalism. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report.
As the New Zealand government confirmed it would apologise for the 1970s Dawn Raids against Pacific Islanders, memories have surfaced for those traumatised by them, including one elderly man.
The politically-driven crackdown on overstayers from the Pacific Islands involved special police squads raiding homes and workplaces, often in the early morning.
Savelio Ikani Pailate, 93, remembered being chased by dogs in the middle of the night.
He said they had to run to away to Manurewa, to places “where there were no houses”, with some being injured because they fled in bare feet.
Pailate’s case was before the court at the end he was allowed to work, but the police ignored it and deported him anyway.
He dreamt of buying his family a home and getting his children educated
He achieved that after returning to New Zealand and working until age 82, refusing to listen to the many voices against him.
Racially profiled Racially profiled and picked up randomly by police, workplaces were raided and homes stormed.
“They’d call it the Dawn Raids but they actually raided just after midnight cause our families would be up and gone before dawn because that’s what they did, they worked at the crack of dawn,” Pakilau Manase Lua of the Pacific Leadership Forum said.
Pacific People’s Minister ‘Aupito William Sio wiped away tears as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed she would apologise for the Dawn Raids next week.
‘Aupito described what the apology would mean, and the significance of restoring mana for the victims of the raids.
The Pacific People’s Minister, whose family moved to New Zealand in 1969 from Samoa, spoke of being raided, having “memories about my father being helpless”.
“We bought the home about two years prior. To have someone knocking at the door at the early hours with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth wanting to come in without any respect for the people living there.”
‘Aupito described it as “quite traumatising”.
“The apology is about helping people heal. People who have been traumatised.”
Ardern and the government will formally apologise for the 1970s Dawn Raids that targeted the Pacific community on June 26 in the Auckland Town Hall.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Buchanan, Professor, Discipline of Business Information Systems, University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney
Australia has a serious wage problem. Over the past decade wages for all but the top 20% of income earners have flat-lined.
This is part of the longer-term problem concerning productivity and wages identified by groups like the OECD – namely, workers have not shared in productivity gains, with “labour market flexibility” experiments mostly to blame.
So the decision of the Fair Work Commission – the guardian of what’s left of Australia’s historical approach to ensuring decent pay – to increase the minimum wage by 2.5% is significant.
The commission reviews the minimum wage annually. Last year it granted a 1.7% increase – the lowest in 12 years. This year’s 2.5% is less than the 3.5% wanted by unions, but more than the 1.1% sought by employer groups.
The increase directly affects only about a fifth of Australian employees. It will, however, have indirect benefit for workers earning more, and aid economic renewal.
Higher wages are good for employment
The 2.5% increase is more than what Treasury and the Reserve Bank forecast for average wages over the coming year, but also something these conservative institutions would welcome.
Sluggish wage growth does not just result in greater wage inequality. It effectively retards demand, a key determinant of employment.
Unemployment and underemployment have affected about one Australian worker in eight (12-13%) for more a decade. Only expansive monetary, fiscal and wages policy offer any hope of boosting employment.
Most immediately, the decision will benefit up to 200,000 workers paid the national minimum wage rate (which will increase to $20.33 an hour) and about 2.2 million employees that rely on awards whose conditions reflect the minimum conditions (that is, they aren’t covered by an enterprise agreement or other contract that guarantees them more).
The commission has ruled the increases won’t apply to most retail workers before September, and for those in aviation, tourism, fitness and a few retail sectors before November.
With these exceptions, the flow-on will be immediate for workers employed by reputable employers subject to union scrutiny. It may be slower in more informal enterprises where award compliance is more variable.
There will be flow-on affects to other workers, though less than in the past.
Up to the early 1990s, movements in one part of the award system rippled through to other job classifications in a very direct way. This has not been the case since workers – especially those on middle and upper incomes – have been required to bargain at enterprise level for wages.
Such “bargaining”, however, has been supressed for more than a decade, due to:
chronic and significant unemployment and underemployment
the crippling of union bargaining capacity through restraints on collective industrial action entrenched in the Fair Work Act
the imposition of legislated caps on wage increases for public-sector workers since the early 2010s, which have also helped suppress private-sector wages.
That said, having a publicly defined wages norm of 2.5% is helpful to all workers. It provides a benchmark for what is reasonable to claim in enterprise bargaining or negotiating an individual contract.
A hint of prices and wages accord
The Fair Work Commission tacitly noted it could have granted more.
Its decision, it said, was influenced by legislated changes to income tax that have benefited low and middle income earners. It also acknowledged the importance of the Superannuation Guarantee Levy increasing by 0.5% from July.
In weighing these factors there are elements of a tacit incomes policy – something Australia hasn’t had since the Hawke-Keating era of the 1980s and early 1990s.
During that period the federal government made agreements (known as prices and incomes accords) with the trade union movement to explicitly coordinate “industrial wages” (that is, actually wages) and the “social wage” (that is, provisions such as Medicare and superannuation that effectively increased living standards). In exchange for increases in the social wage, unions curbed their demands for industrial wage rise, which helped the government tackle inflation.
There are echoes of those ideas in this decision. Indeed Fair Work Commission president Ian Ross, who was in charge of the wage review, was a key official at the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the last years of the accords.
Getting the balance right
Institutions like the Fair Work Commission and its annual wages review are rare globally. It is the legacy of Australia’s pioneering system of regulated wages and employment conditions that began in 1904 with the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. The court’s first landmark decision in 1907 (known as the Harvester decision) was to define and set a “living wage”.
Over the decades this arbitration system has adjusted wages in light of changes to economic and social conditions. More often than not it has got the balance right – ensuring improved labour standards for workers in economically sustainable ways.
Even with the push for “labour market flexibility” since the 1980s, things – especially at the bottom of labour market – would certainly be worse were it not for the award system and its current custodian, the Fair Work Commission.
This decision reveals the commission can still provide important leadership in supporting recovery from a deep economic crisis. More will be needed if we are to “build back better”.
John Buchanan 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.
With its emissions budgets, the Climate Change Commission’s final advice to the government charts a course towards a low-emissions economy. But its comprehensive policy package is arguably the more decisive element — targets can only be achieved if the right policies are in place.
For many years, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has been the government’s primary policy response to climate change. It puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions, but given New Zealand’s failure to cut emissions, its efficacy has been called into question.
In part, this failure is circumstantial. The ETS was deliberately hobbled by the fifth National government to “moderate” its impact on the economy in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.
But recent changes to the ETS settings, especially the introduction of a flexible cap on the total emissions allowed in the scheme, make it more rigorous than ever. The price of New Zealand units (NZUs) has risen correspondingly and, presumably, behaviour change will follow. Or will it?
The commission has taken a clear position that emissions pricing, while necessary for driving the low-emissions transition, is not sufficient. To drive down emissions, the ETS needs complementary policies and tools. Hence the commission’s endorsement of a comprehensive policy package.
This has proven controversial domestically, but it is the standard view in international climate policy circles, including among many economists. A recent expert workshop in the US concluded that:
Carbon pricing cannot stand alone. Politically feasible carbon pricing policies are not sufficient to drive emissions reductions or innovation at the scale and pace necessary.
Why is this the case? Because the real world is more complicated than economic models typically allow.
Not just market fixing
There are many finicky obstacles to behaviour change, even when an adequate carbon price is in place.
Consumers may lack adequate information, or lack access to capital to purchase cleaner technology (such as electric cars), or lack the authority to respond to the price signal (such as a building tenant who carries the cost of electricity but cannot undertake energy efficiency improvements to a building she does not own). Not every such barrier will require a regulatory solution, but sometimes this will be just the ticket.
Beyond market fixing, there are deeper challenges to market-based approaches such as emissions pricing.
In theory, an emissions price enables markets to identify the least-cost emissions reductions. This is valuable because the more cost-effective the climate policy, the more resources are left over to do further good.
But there are instances where more expensive options make sense, especially from the perspective of long-term strategy. It is well known that investing in expensive technologies lowers their cost over time, such that steeper upfront costs are justified in the long run.
For example, Germany drove down the price of solar panels through feed-in tariffs, which meant Germans overpaid for electricity but also accelerated the global shift to renewable energy.
When Germany introduced feed-in tariffs, the price of solar panels dropped. Shutterstock/Hennadii Filchakov
Similarly, in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are opportunities, especially in agriculture and land use, to make future solutions more cost competitive by investing now.
Take investing in native forests — it’s exactly what will reduce the relatively higher costs of establishment (compared to commercial pine plantations that have enjoyed decades of investment already). The higher cost is currently seen as a reason not to plant native forests.
Another complication is that some sectors are more sensitive to a carbon price than others. For example, the planting of exotic forest has proved very sensitive to carbon price. So too has electricity because costs are direct and alternatives are available.
But sectors such as agriculture and transport tend to be less sensitive, because costs are diffuse, cultural norms are entrenched, and alternatives are lacking.
An analysis of transport found an emissions price of NZ$235/tonne — about six times higher than today’s price — would be needed to align transport emissions with New Zealand’s international commitments. This is because, in order to change transport behaviour, we ultimately need to change the transport system.
To cut emissions from transport, the system needs to change to reduce people’s dependence on cars. Jason Oxenham/Getty Images
Existing infrastructure creates a lock-in effect which keeps people in their cars even as the emissions price rises, because alternative means of mobility are inadequate. This is known as “price inelasticity” and has likely been significantly underestimated in economic modelling. It is also the source of political pushback because people have no choice except to bear higher costs.
Consequently there is a case for starting early, rather than attempting an expensive transformation of the transport system only once the carbon price reaches a certain threshold. As others have said:
Carbon taxes stimulate a search for low-hanging fruit. That ceases to matter when we know we must eventually pick all of the apples on the tree.
A paradigm shift ahead
It is time to take seriously the notion that climate policy cannot only be about correcting the status quo, but undertaking a major technological transition. What is required isn’t only market-fixing, but a mission-oriented approach which embraces people’s capacity to find solutions and put them into action.
It also involves more than just allocating costs efficiently by emissions pricing, but searching for policy levers that trigger systems change over time, especially through technological tipping points that cascade upwards into a global-scale impact.
It bears emphasising that, even though there is a case for complementary policies, this does not mean every complementary policy is justified. A new way of evaluating policy options, which accounts for the risks and opportunities of the low-emissions transition, is seriously overdue.
Cost effectiveness ought to retain its place as an instrumental value, alongside other principles of justice. But the purpose of the exercise is risk mitigation — that is what climate action should be judged against. Getting that wrong will be more costly and more unjust than the burdens of the transition.
David Hall received funding from Biological Heritage National Science Challenge.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW
Almost a year ago, in July 2020, our calls for the government to urgently upgrade the guidelines to protect health workers from airborne SARS-CoV-2 fell on deaf ears.
The existing guidelines said health providers working around COVID-19 patients should wear a surgical mask. It restricted use of the more protective P2 or N95 masks, which stop airborne particles getting through, to very limited scenarios. These involved “aerosol-generating procedures”, such as inserting a breathing tube. This was expanded slightly in August 2020 but still left most health workers without access to P2/N95 masks.
More than 4,000 Australian health workers were infected by COVID-19 during the Victorian second wave. Health authorities denied the importance of airborne transmission and blamed clinical staff for “poor habits” and “apathy”. Health workers expressed despair and a sense of abandonment, cataloguing the opposition they faced to get adequate protection against COVID-19.
Last week, 15 months after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the Australian guidelines on personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers, including masks, were finally revised.
What do the new guidelines say?
The new guidelines expand the range of situations in which P2/N95 masks should be available to staff – essentially anywhere where COVID-19-infected people are expected to be – and remove all references to “aerosol-generating procedures”.
This recognises that breathing, speaking, sneezing and coughing all generate aerosols which can accumulate in indoor spaces, posing a higher risk than “aerosol-generating procedures”.
“Fit testing” is an annual procedure that should be done for all workers wearing a P2/N95 mask or higher grade respirator, to ensure air can’t leak around the edges.
The new guidelines unequivocally state fit-tested P2/N95 masks are required for all staff managing patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. This means health workers can finally receive similar levels of respiratory protection to workers on mining and construction sites.
The new guidelines leave ambiguity around which workplaces are within the scope by stating that health care:
may include hospitals, non-inpatient settings, managed quarantine, residential care facilities, COVID-19 testing clinics, in-home care and other environments where clinical care is provided.
The guidelines also allow employers to decide what comprises a high risk and what doesn’t, allowing more wiggle room to deny workers a P2/N95 mask.
N95 masks (top) protect against airborne transmission, while surgical masks (bottom) don’t. Shutterstock
The guidelines say when a suitable P2/N95 mask can’t be used, a re-usable respirator (powered air purifying respirators, or PAPRs) should be considered.
But the guideline’s claim that a PAPR may not provide any additional protection compared to a “well-sealed” disposable P2/N95 mask, is not accurate. In fact, re-usable respirators such as PAPRs afford a higher level of protection than disposable N95 masks.
The new guidelines should also apply to workers in hotel quarantine – both health care and non-clinical staff. This will help strengthen our biosecurity, as long as they’re interpreted in the most precautionary way.
That means not using the wiggle room that allows workplaces to deem a situation lower risk than it actually is or that their workplace is exempt. When working around a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case, all workers must be provided with a fit-tested P2/N95 mask. Otherwise they are not protected from inhaling SARS-CoV-2 from the air.
In aged care and health care, where cases linked to quarantine breaches can be amplified and re-seeded to the community, the new guidelines go some way towards better protecting our essential first responders and their patients.
The guidelines fail to explicitly acknowledge COVID-19 spreads through air but nonetheless recommend the use of airborne precautions for staff.
Airborne particles are usually less than 100 microns in diameter and can accumulate indoors, which means they’re an inhalation risk.
The old guidelines focused on “large droplets”, which were thought to fall quickly to the ground and didn’t pose a risk in breathed air. This was based on debunked theories about airborne versus droplet transmission.
The new guidelines fail to comprehensively address ventilation, which is only mentioned in passing with a reference to separate guidelines for health-care facilities. This may not cover aged care or hotel quarantine.
We must ensure institutions such as hospitals, hotel quarantine facilities, residential care, schools, businesses and public transport have plans to mitigate the airborne risk of COVID-19 and other pandemic viruses through improved ventilation and air filtration.
Australia could follow Germany, which has invested €500 million (A$787 million) in improving ventilation in indoor spaces.
Cleaning shared air would add an additional layer of protection beyond vaccination and mask-wearing. Secondary benefits include decreased transmission of other respiratory viruses and improved productivity due to higher attention and concentration levels.
No updated advice on hand-washing
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now acknowledges exposure to SARS-CoV-2 occurs through “very fine respiratory droplets and aerosol particles” and states the risk of transmission through touching surfaces is “low”.
Yet this is not acknowledged in the latest Australian health-care guidelines.
Australians have been repeatedly reminded to wash or sanitise their hands, wipe down surfaces and stand behind near-useless plexiglass barriers.
The promotion of hand hygiene and cleaning surfaces is not based on science, which shows it is the air we breathe that matters most.
Revised public messaging is needed for Australians to understand shared air is the most important risk for COVID-19.
C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from NHMRC and Medical Research Futures Fund. She has consulted for mask manufacturers Detmold and Ascend Performance Materials in the past 12 months, and for Cleanspace in the past five years.
Benjamin Veness co-founded Health Care Workers Australia.
Michelle Ananda-Rajah is a past recipient of a MRFF TRIP Fellowship (2019-2020) and co-founder of Health Care Workers Australia, a grass roots advocacy group for health professionals.
New Zealand faces two enormous challenges if it is to meet its international climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement: biogenic methane emissions from agriculture, and carbon emissions from industry and transport.
For now, there seems little prospect of significantly reducing agricultural emissions, short of reducing actual livestock numbers, because the technology is currently not available. The same can’t be said for decarbonising industry and transport.
The question is, how best to do that. Carbon emissions are currently priced by the emissions trading scheme (ETS), but in its present form this can’t provide the financial incentives to decarbonise within the timeframe recommended by the Climate Change Commission.
To meet the government’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, other market mechanisms will be required. Hence the recently announced “feebate” scheme to encourage a transition to electric and cleaner hybrid or conventional vehicles.
There’s no doubt the technology exists to transition industry and transport to a low-carbon future. For industry, electricity and possibly hydrogen are the obvious substitutes for coal and gas.
Decarbonising transport is also technically feasible, but creating the right incentives remains a challenge. While taxes on petrol and diesel already include a price on carbon, demand is relatively insensitive to price, regardless of global costs and local taxes.
The new rebate policy simply switches the focus from fossil fuel energy for internal combustion-powered transport to electricity-powered transport.
Ironically, this reverses what happened when hybrid electric vehicles were first produced in the late 19th century. Mass production of cars and cheap oil put an end to that early form of EV. Back to the future!
How will consumers respond?
Reducing the price of EVs by lowering the government’s tax take and increasing the levy on certain classes of fossil-fuelled vehicles is a bold initiative — but also something of an experiment. The outcome will depend on the extent to which the rebate increases consumer demand.
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of car ownerships in the world — close to 0.8 vehicles per person. EVs are becoming more popular but still account for less than 1% of the market. Higher uptake depends on a range of variables.
Most car manufacturers are moving into the production of EVs. Although this will occur at scale, we can’t be sure the vehicles will become cheaper, particularly if recent price spikes in raw material markets continue.
New Zealand is also at the end of the supply chain, making us price takers in the global market for new EVs. The supply of second-hand EVs from Japan will depend on how often owners replace their vehicles.
On the demand side, the feebate initiative will change the relative price of cars and should increase sales. By how much and over what period is harder to predict.
New Zealanders’ ability to pay for EVs is perhaps more significant. New Zealand is not a high-income economy, and this will probably have a greater bearing on uptake. Even a second-hand vehicle at NZ$25,000 is beyond the reach of many households.
If demand turns out to be relatively insensitive to a change in price, further policy adjustments will be needed. This, of course, opens up the possibility of future governments altering the entire course of transport decarbonisation policy.
Economies are complex interdependent systems. The rebate scheme is a policy “nudge”, but clearly public transport, cycling and walking should be part of a broader set of policies aimed at getting people out of private motor vehicles.
Furthermore, the impact on electricity prices remains unclear. About 80-85% of New Zealand’s electricity comes from renewable sources. Timely investment in wind, geothermal and stored hydro can add to supply in the future, and the current government wants to see 100% renewable electricity generation by 2030.
Paradoxically, however, transitioning to a low-carbon economy will most likely result in higher electricity bills. Bringing additional generation capacity on line, increased demand from transitioning industry and transport to electric, and the prospect of producing green hydrogen from renewable sources, will all drive up prices.
Nevertheless, New Zealand’s endowment of renewable resources positions it well to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement. But achieving the 2030 target remains a huge challenge. The rebate scheme is but a step in that direction.
Basil Sharp 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.
A View from Afar: Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan present this week’s podcast, A View from Afar, where they analyse how leaders of the G7, NATO and EU juxtapositioned behind the United States to form a consensus-pact immediately prior to the Biden-Putin Summit.
United States President Joe Biden spoke of this in an impromptu media stand-up after the US-Russia bilateral. He said he owes G7, EU and NATO leaders a “debt of gratitude”, adding that it made a difference in that he (that is Biden, but also significantly Putin) knew he was representing a powerful global bloc at the US-Russia summit. And, that the USA was again accepted as the leader of western nations.
But with a grouping of the world’s strongest countries creating a new ‘consensus pact’, where does that leave small and regional powers like New Zealand, Australia, and many within the Indo-Asia-Pacific region?
The outcome of the series of summit meetings in Europe this week confirm; the world is being divided into blocs, one Western centric, the other not.
It is now clear, the US has re-committed to multilateralism, acknowledges there’s strength in numbers, and is revitalising the European alliance system.
It is also important to note, the G7 leaders (and those addressing Biden at the European Union) all focused on strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation.
However, for small and medium states outside these multilateral fora, how does the stark-rhetoric of the summit statements impact on China’s ‘traditional’ trade partners?
New Zealand stands at the fault-line of this challenge.
How does NZ navigate a stable path forward – a transition that’s designed to ease its trade-dependency on China – while schmoozing the western geo-demographic, so as to cut trade deals with the EU and UK?
Western multilateralism may indeed pose a problem to small powers. So what solutions do such countries have at their disposal?
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Let me introduce you to Ophiojura, a bizarre deep-sea animal found in 2011 by scientists from the French Natural History Museum, while trawling the summit of a secluded seamount called Banc Durand, 500 metres below the waves and 200 kilometres east of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean.
Ophiojura is a type of brittle star, which are distant cousins of starfish, with snake-like arms radiating from their bodies, that live on sea floors around the globe.
Being an expert in deep-sea animals, I knew at a glance that this one was special when I first saw it in 2015. The eight arms, each 10 centimetres long and armed with rows of hooks and spines. And the teeth! A microscopic scan revealed bristling rows of sharp teeth lining every jaw, which I reckon are used to snare and shred its prey.
Bristling teeth poke out from all eight jaws, ready to pierce and shred prey. The colour in this micro-CT scan reflects the density of the skeleton. J. Black/University of Melbourne, Author provided
As my colleagues and I now report in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Ophiojura does indeed represent a totally unique and previously undescribed type of animal. It is one of a kind — the last known species of an ancient lineage, like the coelacanth or the tuatara.
We compared DNA from a range of different marine species, and concluded that Ophiojura is separated from its nearest living brittle star relatives by about 180 million years of evolution. This means their most recent common ancestor lived during the Triassic or early Jurassic period, when dinosaurs were just getting going.
Since then, Ophiojura‘s ancestors continued to evolve, leading ultimately to the situation today, in which it is the only known survivor from an evolutionary lineage stretching back 180 million years.
Amazingly, we have found small fossil bones that look similar to our new species in Jurassic (180 million-year-old) rocks from northern France, which is further evidence of their ancient origin.
Scientists used to call animals like Ophiojura “living fossils”, but this isn’t quite right. Living organisms don’t stay frozen in time for millions of years without changing at all. The ancestors of Ophiojura would have continued evolving, in admittedly very subtle ways, over the past 180 million years.
Perhaps a more accurate way to describe these evolutionary loners is with the term “paleo-endemics” — representatives of a formerly widespread branch of life that is now restricted to just a few small areas and maybe just a single solitary species.
For seafloor life, the centre of palaeo-endemism is on continental margins and seamounts in tropical waters between 200 metres and 1,000 metres deep. This is where we find the “relicts” of ancient marine life — species that have persisted in a relatively primitive form for millions of years.
Seamounts, like the one on which Ophiojura was found, are usually submerged volcanoes that were born millions of years ago. Lava oozes or belches from vents in the seafloor, continually adding layers of basalt rock to the volcano’s summit like layers of icing on a cake. The volcano can eventually rise above the sea surface, forming an island volcano such as those in Hawaii, sometimes with coral reefs circling its shoreline.
But eventually the volcano dies, the rock chills, and the heavy basalt causes the seamount to sink into the relatively soft oceanic crust. Given enough time, the seamount will subside hundreds or even thousands of metres below sea level and gradually become covered again in deep-sea fauna. Its sunlit past is remembered in rock as a layer of fossilised reef animals around the summit.
Voyage of discovery
While our new species is from the southwest Pacific, seamounts occur worldwide and we are just beginning to explore those in other oceans. In July and August, I will lead a 45-day voyage of exploration on Australia’s oceanic research vessel, the RV Investigator, to seamounts around Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean.
These seamounts are ancient – up to 100 million years old — and almost totally unexplored. We are truly excited at what we may find.
Seamounts are special places in the deep-sea world. Currents swirl around them, bringing nutrients from the depths or trapping plankton from above, which feeds the growth of spectacular fan corals, sea whips, and glass sponges. These in turn host numerous other deep-sea animals. But these fascinating communities are vulnerable to human activities such as deep-sea trawling and mining for precious minerals.
Life on a seamount. Feather stars and brittle stars have evolved multiple arms to reach up into passing currents. S. Samadi/MNHN/KANADEEP2, Author provided
The Australian government recently announced a process to create new marine parks in the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) regions. Our voyage will provide the data required to manage these parks into the future.
The New Caledonian government has also created a marine park in offshore areas around these islands, including the Durand seamount. These marine parks are beacons of progress in the global drive for better environmental stewardship of our oceans. Who knows what weird and wonderful treasures of the deep are yet to be discovered.
The federal government has scrambled in recent days to minimise the political fallout from its treatment of the Tamil family from Biloela. After almost two years stuck on Christmas Island, the Murugappans are now being permitted to return to the mainland under community detention while their asylum case is settled.
Last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne raised the prospect of resettling the family in New Zealand or the US, before Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews dismissed the idea, saying they are not eligible because they have not been found to be refugees.
All this talk has caused much confusion, and sparked questions around what Canberra is doing to resolve the plight of other displaced people to whom it has refused entry — namely, the hundreds of refugees who have been held for years in Australia’s system of offshore processing.
Andrews has said the Australian government is exploring resettlement overseas for “broad cohorts” of people. The minister’s focus is apparently on refugees who were held offshore in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and are currently in Australia for medical treatment.
The chance of a resettlement deal with New Zealand for these refugees is reported to be gaining traction — although there are no tangible results yet.
Meanwhile, a deal struck with Washington in 2016 to offer resettlement to the US for up to 1,250 refugees held in PNG and Nauru is still playing out years later.
As of last month, there are approximately 200 refugees who have been approved for entry to the United States and are waiting to depart, and a further 260 pre-approved in advance of final health checks.
Who is eligible for resettlement in another country?
For a start, it helps to understand why Canberra wants other countries to resettle refugees who sought protection in Australia.
On July 19 2013, the Rudd Labor government introduced a hardline ban on entry: people who sought asylum by boat on or after that date, and were transferred to PNG or Nauru, would never settle in Australia. This has been maintained under successive Liberal governments, and a total of 3,127 people were sent offshore.
The ban has been criticised for its “absolutist ambition” — the idea that the admission of any one person would cause the entire system of border control to collapse.
This is despite the fact Australia has obligations under international refugee and human rights law to protect people fleeing persecution or other serious human rights violations.
A central plank of this absolutism is that asylum seekers who arrive by boat, and are found to be refugees, will only ever be able to secure a durable and humane solution in another country – if such an opportunity can be found.
Refugees protesting against Australia’s policies outside the UNHCR representative office in Indonesia in 2019. Tatan Syuflana/AP
For those not subject to the hardline ban on entry — some 30,000 people who sought asylum by boat after mid-2012 and before January 1 2014, and were not transferred offshore — a complex legal regime narrows their path to protection in Australia.
These people are subject to limited-term visas and a lot of uncertainty. The Biloela family have had to deal with this “byzantine” system, having arrived before the ban came into effect.
Deals with third countries
After the ban, successive Australian governments have tried to make deals with third countries to resettle those who were sent to PNG or Nauru.
A 2014 agreement with Cambodia was said to cost A$55 million, and was ultimately taken up by just a handful of refugees. In 2015, the Philippines was reportedly wooed by Australian officials for a potential deal to resettle refugees worth $150 million that never eventuated.
The 2016 deal with Washington promised hope for those held offshore. Negotiated with the Obama administration, the deal was soon subject to the whims of President Donald Trump, with resettlement stalling several times.
In a testy phone call with then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that was leaked to the media, Trump lambasted what he called a “stupid deal” that could allow Australia to export new “Boston bombers” to the US. Turnbull, in turn, provided reassurance that Australia would resettle Central American refugees from the US, telling Trump, “we will take anyone that you want us to take”.
While Trump and Turnbull bickered, the young writer Imran Mohammad, held in detention on Manus Island, said he feared “the Australian government has no proper plans for our future”.
Amid long delays in resettlement to the US, non-profit organisations have recently taken up the cause, with one group securing up to 140 places in Canada last month for refugees still held in limbo under the offshore policy.
Contrary to “common decency”
Resettlement deals aren’t new. On several occasions since the 1960s, Australia has offered to resettle refugees whose journeys to the US were politically contentious. This includes generations of Cubans who have tried to flee their island nation since the early 1970s. As recently as 2017, Australia resettled 17 Cubans found clinging to a lighthouse off the coast of Florida.
Washington has responded in turn. The most recent and well-known example is the 2016 resettlement agreement, but the practice has a longer history, involving refugees held under the Howard government’s version of offshore processing in the early 2000s.
These transfers have been upheld by both governments as a sign of bilateral goodwill and cooperation. But the UN refugee agency UNHCR has been less impressed, noting that Canberra’s insistence on denying entry to Australia for even those refugees who have close family in the country is contrary “to common decency”.
This coming year, Australia will spend around $2 billion to maintain its onshore and offshore detention centres. Many of the people within that system have been held in limbo for years.
The government rhetoric has not softened on the issue, either, not even with Tharnicaa Murugappan marking her fourth birthday in a Perth hospital after contracting a blood infection caused by untreated pneumonia.
To release these two young children and their parents back to Biloela, the argument goes, would reignite the people smuggling trade – what Attorney-General Michaela Cash has called the “consequences of blinking”.
But this approach has a significant human and economic cost, and damages Australia’s reputation abroad. The offshore system, and the treatment of the young family from Biloela, have earned Canberra plenty of criticism in the international press.
With long delays and no guarantees, it is clear that resettlement deals cannot get Australia “off the hook”, either.
Claire Higgins receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This article is part of a series on asylum seeker policy supported by a grant from the Broadley Trust.
With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines accelerating, people are increasingly asking which vaccine is best?
According to Google Trends, more and more people want to know.
Even if we tried to answer this question, defining which vaccine is “best” is not simple. Does that mean the vaccine better at protecting you from serious disease? The one that protects you from whichever variant is circulating near you? The one that needs fewer booster shots? The one for your age group? Or is it another measure entirely?
Even if we could define what’s “best”, it’s not as if you get a choice of vaccine. Until a suite of vaccines become available, the vast majority of people around the world will be vaccinated with whichever vaccine is available. That’s based on available clinical data and health authorities’ recommendations, or by what your doctor advises if you have an underlying medical condition. So the candid answer to which COVID vaccine is “best” is simply the one available to you right now.
Still not convinced? Here’s why it’s so difficult to compare COVID vaccines.
Clinical trial results only go so far
You might think clinical trials might provide some answers about which vaccine is “best”, particularly the large phase 3 trials used as the basis of approval by regulatory authorities around the world.
These trials, usually in tens of thousands of people, compare the number of COVID-19 cases in people who get the vaccine, versus those who get a placebo. This gives a measure of efficacy, or how well the vaccine works under the tightly controlled conditions of a clinical trial.
And we know the efficacy of different COVID vaccines differ. For instance, we learned from clinical trials that the Pfizer vaccine reported an efficacy of 95% in preventing symptoms, whereas AstraZeneca had an efficacy of 62-90%, depending on the dosing regime.
But direct comparison of phase 3 trials is complex as they take place at different locations and times. This means rates of infection in the community, public health measures and the mix of distinct viral variants can vary. Trial participants can also differ in age, ethnicity and potential underlying medical conditions.
It’s tempting to compare COVID vaccines. But in a pandemic, when vaccines are scarce, that can be dangerous.
We might compare vaccines head to head
One way we can compare vaccine efficacy directly is to run head-to-head studies. These compare outcomes of people receiving one vaccine with those who receive another, in the same trial.
In these trials, how we measure efficacy, the study population and every other factor is the same. So we know any differences in outcomes must be down to differences between the vaccines.
For instance, a head-to-head trial is under way in the UK to compare the AstraZeneca and Valneva vaccines. The phase 3 trial is expected to be completed later this year.
How about out in the real world?
Until we wait for the results of head-to-head studies, there’s much we can learn from how vaccines work in the general community, outside clinical trials. Real-world data tells us about vaccine effectiveness (not efficacy).
And the effectiveness of COVID vaccines can be compared in countries that have rolled out different vaccines to the same populations.
For instance, the latest data from the UK show both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have similar effectiveness. They both reliably prevent COVID-19 symptoms, hospitalisation and death, even after a single dose.
So what at first glance looks “best” according to efficacy results from clinical trials doesn’t always translate to the real world.
What about the future?
The COVID vaccine you get today is not likely to be your last. As immunity naturally wanes after immunisation, periodic boosters will become necessary to maintain effective protection.
There is now promising data from Spain that mix-and-matching vaccines is safe and can trigger very potent immune responses. So this may be a viable strategy to maintain high vaccine effectiveness over time.
In other words, the “best” vaccine might in fact be a number of different vaccines.
Variant viruses have started to circulate, and while current vaccines show reduced protection against these variants, they still protect.
Companies, including Moderna, are rapidly updating their vaccines to be administered as variant-specific boosters to combat this.
So, while one vaccine might have a greater efficacy in a phase 3 trial, that vaccine might not necessarily be “best” at protecting against future variants of concern circulating near you.
It is entirely rational to want the “best” vaccine available. But the best vaccine is the one available to you right now because it stops you from catching COVID-19, reduces transmission to vulnerable members of our community and substantially reduces your risk of severe disease.
All available vaccines do this job and do it well. From a collective perspective, these benefits are compounded. The more people get vaccinated, the more the community becomes immune (also known as herd immunity), further curtailing the spread of COVID-19.
The global pandemic is a highly dynamic situation, with emerging viral variants of concern, uncertain global vaccine supply, patchy governmental action and potential for explosive outbreaks in many regions.
So waiting for the perfect vaccine is an unattainable ambition. Every vaccine delivered is a small but significant step towards global normality.
Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.
Tasmanian devils are expert scavengers, with strong jaws and robust teeth that give them the notorious ability to eat almost all of a carcass — bones and all.
Scientists have even found echidna spikes in their poo.
But regularly crunching through bone comes at a cost: extreme tooth wear. In our new study, we analysed the skulls of nearly 300 devils, and show how regularly crunching through bones wears a devil’s teeth down from sharp-edged weapons to blunt nubbins.
Understanding how their food affects their teeth can help us see if captive devils have the same types of tooth wear as their wild counterparts, and look for signs of any unusual or harmful wear.
Is there anything a devil won’t eat?
Tasmanian devils are the largest marsupial carnivore alive today. As scavengers, they occupy a unique niche in the Australian ecosystem by disposing of dead animal carcasses.
Captive Tasmanian devils are given a variety of foods to replicate what they’d find in the wild. This photo was taken during a carcass feed at Healesville Sanctuary. Zoos Victoria, Author provided
Devils are highly opportunistic and can eat many different types of prey. While their favourites are the carcasses of native mammals such as wombats and wallabies, they’ll also eat reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, and even insects.
We know this because we find hair, feathers, scales, small bones, claws and more in their poo.
Almost nothing is off limits to devils — they’ll even have a go at a stranded whale given the chance. Although devils prefer to scavenge, they’re also accomplished hunters.
Right now, 45 Australian zoos and wildlife sanctuaries, plus an island and a fenced peninsula, are collaborating to maintain a healthy population of disease-free devils. It’s important for these institutions to provide captive animals with the right kinds of food for their health and to help make their future release back to disease-free wild locations successful.
Devils naturally wear their teeth down from sharp points and edges to blunt, almost flat surfaces by regularly eating bones. Tahlia Pollock, Author provided
This is especially crucial for carnivores, who rely on tough foods to help them develop strong jaws.
Like hyaenas, but stronger
The types of food an animal eats will wear their teeth down differently. For example, big cats such as lions prefer to eat the softer parts of a carcass, like flesh or organs, and leave the bones behind.
Spotted hyaenas, however, will happily eat the bones. As a result, hyaenas have incredibly high tooth wear compared with lions.
This might not hinder the hyaena or devil as much as you might think. Both have very strong jaws that can compensate for the loss of sharp teeth. In fact, devils have the strongest bite force per body weight of any living mammal.
In the interactive below, you can check out 3D models of devil skulls to get a better idea of how much their teeth wear down.
By comparing the tooth wear of wild and captive devils, we can see if captive animals are encountering enough hard foods in their diets.
In the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program — an initiative of the federal and Tasmanian governments — captive devils are given a variety of small and large foods at different times, replicating what they’d find in the wild.
We found no signs of different or harmful tooth wear in captive devils, and they showed much the same patterns and types of wear as wild devils.
However, we noticed captive devils wore their teeth more slowly than those in the wild. This may be due to eating higher quality food, such as carcasses that were fresh, whole, and yet to be scavenged.
This means captive institutions are doing a good job of providing devils with the right types of food for their teeth and encouraging wild behaviours.
Part of the health check for wild devils involves looking at their teeth. This particular devil has nice sharp tips and edges on their canines and molars. Marissa Parrott/Zoos Victoria, Author provided
Collecting data about Tassie devils after they’ve been released confirms this. In 2012 and 2013, devils were released onto Maria Island in Tasmania after being born and raised for around a year in captivity.
Encouragingly, these devils kept the behaviours required to scavenge and hunt prey, and had diets similar to wild devils.
How you can help save Tasmanian devils
Our research is one small, but promising, piece in the overall puzzle. While captive research and breeding programs help conserve the Tasmanian devil, there are ways you can help, too.
Because they like to scavenge the carcasses of dead animals, road kill is especially tempting for devils. But being so close to the road is dangerous and road mortality is the second-biggest killer of wild devils.
So take care on the roads to help wildlife, especially if driving at night. And if you’re in Tasmania and see a devil that’s been hit on the road, log it in the Roadkill TAS app.
This will help identify road kill hotspots and protect this impressive, but endangered, species.
Tahlia Pollock receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship (RTP stipend), the Monash Graduate Excellence Scholarship (MGE). The research was also funded by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment – Equity Trustees Charitable Foundation & the Ecological Society of Australia.
Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.
David Hocking has received funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University.
Marissa Parrott works for Zoos Victoria, a not-for-profit zoo-based conservation organisation. She works closely with partners from the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program and Zoo and Aquarium Association for the conservation of the Tasmanian Devil. Marissa receives no additional payment or funding from outside Zoos Victoria for any work related to threatened species.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Tham, Research officer at the Centre for International Research on Education Systems, Victoria University
Thousands of primary and secondary students in Sydney and Melbourne are preparing for selective entrance exams. If successful, students will gain entry into a selective secondary school, with other high-achievers, or an “opportunity class”, which is an academic stream for years 5 and 6 in a mixed-ability primary school.
Fully selective and partially selective schools in New South Wales and Victoria are part of the government school sector. They charge minimal fees compared to non-government schools.
But unlike regular government schools that prioritise students living in their catchment zone, selective schools enrol only the highest achieving students based on the outcomes of a competitive entrance exam.
Selective schools are known for being consistently high-performing, producing some of the highest final-year secondary school outcomes. The chances of getting into a selective school depends on yearly demand. But are they actually worth it?
Parents are often drawn to them because their students produce good Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores. These then ensure they can get into the university course of their choice.
Some migrant parents believe their education opportunities were limited or disrupted in their home countries, or during migration. When settled in Australia, these families may be drawn to high-performing schools that select talented and hard-working students.
Parents who have migrated to Australia from overseas also often cite a mix of high aspirations and anxiety about the future — related to university entry, job security and racial discrimination in the workplace — as their main reasons for choosing selective schools.
Selective schools aim to offer opportunities “for all” academically talented students, regardless of their social or cultural backgrounds, or where they live. They seek to enact the ethos of equal opportunity through various practices. For example, the entrance exam comprises aptitude style questions to test students’ natural abilities. And private tutoring to prepare for the entrance exams is discouraged.
Despite this, the types of students enrolled in selective schools are not representative of the population. Selective schools predominantly enrol socially advantaged students from ethnic minority backgrounds.
A recent review of selective schooling in NSW showed the admission processes provide better outcomes for advantaged students — 59% of applicants were from high socioeconomic backgrounds, or have at least one parent with a bachelor degree or above. The gap widens further on selection, with 64% of selected students considered to be in the high socioeconomic group.
So, these schools take hard-working students who have the advantages of extra tutoring. But do the schools, themselves, make a difference to individual students’ scores?
Do selective schools offer academic benefits?
Studies show selective schools are high performing compared to non-selective schools, but the degree to which they stretch the abilities of selective students is relatively inconclusive.
For instance, a study of three of the four fully selective schools in Victoria found selective school students get ATAR scores that are two and a half percentile points higher than the non-selective school students who narrowly missed out on entry into selective schools.
A study showed students who narrowly missed selective school entry scored very close in final exams to students who got in. Shutterstock
A recent working paper from the Centre for International Research on Education Systems explored how selective schools shape the socioeconomic composition and academic performance of non-selective schools in Sydney and Melbourne.
It compared the types of students enrolled in geographical “clusters” with one of each type of school: fully selective, partially selective, private and non-selective government schools. The schools were matched where possible in terms of student composition by sex and year levels to enable fair comparisons. The report included 80 schools — 64 in Sydney and 16 in Melbourne.
The report showed academic selection through selective school entry ends up with schools being stratified based on students’ social background and academic abilities.
Fully selective schools had the highest proportions of high socioeconomic students (89%). Private schools followed, with 81% of high socioeconomic students. In partially selective schools, advantaged students made up 57% of enrolments. Public schools had the lowest attendance of high socioeconomic students, at just over half, or 50.4%.
Students in selective schools were the highest performing in numeracy, reading and writing. Private and partially selective schools had similar levels of academic performance. Public schools were the lowest performing in all three academic domains.
Given socioeconomic status is a significant predictor of academic scores, it’s unclear whether selective schools would actually make a difference to individual students’ grades. What is clear is that academic selection produces social selection in schools, separating students from wealthy families from those who are of lower socioeconomic status.
Does competition make a difference?
Recent research of 14-year-old students in the United States highlighted competitive, stressful entrance exams — and repetitive testing — affects student well-being, confidence and sense of self when they aren’t selected.
For those who are successful, the process of competitive school entry encourages individualistic mindsets and self-protective actions. The study showed it also heightens racialised stereotyping and lowers empathy towards students who miss out on a place or are unable to compete.
Australian research shows selective school students often compare entrance exam results with others after enrolment. Those who are successful through second or third round offers carry a sense of failure with them into schools, knowing they were not picked first. These successfully selected but lower scoring students see themselves as lesser than first-picked students for many years after selection.
Choosing a selective over a non-selective school flows through to sustaining inequalities in society more broadly. In contrast, enrolling into local government schools and ensuring a mix of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds will help reduce social inequalities, ensuring fairer life outcomes for everyone.
Melissa Tham no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.
Portrait of Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (no date), colour photograph of oil painting Wollombi Endeavour Museum
In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.
Eliza Hamilton Dunlop’s poem The Aboriginal Mother was published in The Australian on December 13, 1838, five days before seven men were hanged for their part in the Myall Creek massacre.
About 28 Wirrayaraay people died in the massacre near Inverell in northern New South Wales. Dunlop had arrived in Sydney in February, and the Irish writer was horrified by the violence she read about in the newspapers.
Moved by evidence in court about an Indigenous woman and baby who survived the massacre, Dunlop crafted a poem condemning settlers who professed Christianity but murdered and conspired to cover up their crime. It read, in part:
Now, hush thee—or the pale-faced men
Will hear thy piercing wail,
And what would then thy mother’s tears
Or feeble strength avail!
Oh, could’st thy little bosom
That mother’s torture feel,
Or could’st thou know thy father lies
Struck down by English steel
The poem closed evoking the body of “my slaughter’d boy … To tell—to tell of the gloomy ridge; and the stockmen’s human fire”.
The graphic content depicting settler violence and First Nations’ suffering made Dunlop’s poem locally notorious. She didn’t shrink from the criticism she received in Australia’s colonial press, declaring she hoped the poem would awake the sympathies of the English nation for a people who were “rendered desperate and revengeful by continued acts of outrage”.
An early life as a reader
Dunlop, the youngest of three children, was born Eliza Matilda Hamilton in 1796. Her father, Solomon Hamilton, was an attorney practising in Ireland, England and India. Her mother died soon after Dunlop’s birth, and she was brought up by her paternal grandmother.
Part of a privileged Protestant family with an excellent library, Dunlop grew up reading writers from the French Revolution and social reformers such as Mary Wollstonecraft.
In her teens, Dunlop published poems in local magazines. An unpublished volume of her original poetry, translations and illustrations written between 1808 and 1813 reveals her fascination with Irish mythology and European literature. She was deeply interested in the Irish language and in political campaigns to extend suffrage and education to Catholics.
Eliza Hamilton Dunlop, King John’s Castle on Carlingford Bay, Juvenile notebook, watercolour and ink. Milson Family Papers – 1810, 1853–1862, State Library of New South Wales, MLMSS 7683
In 1820, she travelled to India to visit her father and two brothers. The journey inspired poems about colonial locations — from the Cape Colony (now South Africa) to the Ganges River — that explored the reach and impact of the British Empire.
In Scotland in 1823, she married book binder and seller David Dunlop. David’s family history inspired poems such as her dual eulogy, The Two Graves (1865), about the bloody suppression of Protestant radicals in the 1798 Rebellion, during which David’s father Captain William Dunlop had been hanged.
The Dunlops had five children in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, where they were engaged in political activity seeking to unseat absentee English landlords, before leaving Ireland in 1837.
Settler poetry and politics
When The Aboriginal Mother was published as sheet music in 1842, set to music by the composer Isaac Nathan, he declared “it ought to be on the pianoforte of every lady in the colony”.
The cover of the music score of The Aboriginal Mother. Trove
Dunlop often wrote about the Irish diaspora in poems which were alternatively nostalgic and political. But she also brought her knowledge of the violence and divisiveness of colonisation, religion and ethnicity to her writing on Australia.
Her optimistic vision for Australian poetry encouraged colonial readers to be attentive to their environment and to recognise Indigenous culture. This reputation for sympathising with Indigenous people — and her husband’s arguments with settlers in Penrith about the treatment of Catholic convicts — were widely criticised in the press.
This affected David’s career as police magistrate and Aboriginal Protector: he was soon moved to a remote location. There, too, local landholders campaigned against his appointment and undermined his authority.
Indigenous languages
When David was posted to Wollombi in the Upper Hunter Valley, Dunlop sought to expand her knowledge of Indigenous culture, engaging with Darkinyung, Awabakal and Wonnarua people who lived in the area.
She attempted to learn various languages of the region, transcribing word lists, songs and poems, and acknowledging the Indigenous people who shared their knowledge with her.
Some of Dunlop’s transcription between English and the language of the Wollombi people, dated from 1840. State Library of New South Wales
She wrote a suite of Indigenous-themed poems in the 1840s, publishing poems in newspapers such as The Eagle Chief (1843) or Native Poetry/Nung-ngnun (1848). These poems were criticised by anonymous letter writers, questioning her poetic ability, her knowledge and her choice of subject.
Some critics were frankly racist, refusing to accept the human emotions expressed by Dunlop’s Indigenous narrators.
The Sydney Herald had railed against the death sentences of the men responsible for the Myall Creek massacre, and Dunlop condemned the attitude of the paper and its correspondents. She hoped “the time was past, when the public press would lend its countenance to debase the native character, or support an attempt to shade with ridicule”.
Dunlop would publish with one outlet before shifting to another, finding different editors in the volatile colonial press who would support her.
Poetry of protest
Dunlop wrote in a sentimental form of poetry popular at the time, addressing exile, history and memory. She published around 60 poems in Australian newspapers and magazines between 1838 and 1873, but appears to have written nothing more on Indigenous themes after 1850. This popular writing also contributed to poetry of political protest, galvanising readers around causes such as transatlantic anti-slavery.
The plight of Indigenous people under British colonialism inspired many writers, including “crying mother” poems that harnessed the universal appeal of motherhood.
Dunlop’s poems The Aboriginal Mother and The Irish Mother are linked to this literary trend, but her experience of colonialism lent her poetry more authority than writers who sourced information about “exotic” cultures from imperial travel writing and voyage accounts.
In the early 1870s, Dunlop collated a selection of poetry, The Vase, but she was never able to publish. Family demands and financial constraints precluded it.
Eliza Hamilton Dunlop, Title page, ‘The Vase’, paper. State Library of New South Wales, B1541
Dunlop died in 1880. Like many women of the time, her writing was neglected and forgotten, until it was rediscovered by the literary critic and editor Elizabeth Webby in the 1960s.
Webby identified Dunlop as the first Australian poet to transcribe and translate Indigenous songs, and as among the earliest to try to increase white readers’ awareness of Indigenous culture. Webby published the first collection of Dunlop’s poems in 1981.
Today, communities and linguists regularly use Dunlop’s transcripts for language reclamation projects in the Upper Hunter Valley.
Last year, 140 years after Dunlop’s death, Wanarruwa Beginner’s Guide — an introduction to one language of the Hunter River area — was published.
At the launch, language consultant Sharon Edgar-Jones (Wonnarua and Gringai) movingly recited one of the songs Dunlop transcribed: revitalising the words of the Indigenous women and men to whom Dunlop listened, when so few white Australians were listening at all.
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) Italy 1571–1610
The Musicians 1597
Oil on canvas
92.1 x 118.4cm
Rogers Fund, 1952 / 52.81
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Review: European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Thanks to the pandemic, exhibitions such as European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which opened at QAGOMA on the weekend, are fraught with logistical difficulties. Quarantine rules and social distancing requirements, not to mention the actual health effects of COVID, have dramatically affected the ability of gallery and museum staff to plan, oversee and shepherd high profile exhibitions into existence.
The fact they are open at all stands as an extraordinary demonstration of trust between institutions and their commitment to the power of masterworks to speak to the human condition.
Vincent van Gogh.
The Netherlands 1853–90
The Flowering Orchard 1888
Oil on canvas
72.4 x 53.3cm
Signed (lower left): Vincent
The Mr and Mrs Henry Ittleson Jr Purchase Fund,
1956 / 56.13
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The excuse for this exhibition was a major refit of the European Galleries at the Met. Planned long before the pandemic, exhibitions like this one take on new meaning in current times. None of us are going to be able to travel with ease to New York any time soon. These exhibitions remind us of what we are missing. So, as our memories of the joy of visiting international galleries fade, what impression of the Met emerges from this show?
Certainly, the quality and depth of its collection shines through. This exhibition doesn’t give us all the Met’s greatest hits. Everyone will have a favourite painting that didn’t make the cut. However, the curatorial choices are clever.
It is fun to play the mental game of which of an artist’s pictures from the Met you would choose to include. Time and again, it proves to be on the walls in Brisbane.
Lost in the interplay of glances among the figures in Georges de La Tour’s The Fortune Teller, you don’t regret for a moment that we didn’t get his darkly moody The Penitent Magdalen.
Georges de La Tour.
France 1593–1653
The Fortune-Teller c.1630s
Oil on canvas
101.9 x 123.5cm
Signed and inscribed (upper right): G. de La Tour Fecit Luneuilla Lothar: [Lunéville Lorraine]
Rogers Fund, 1960 / 60.3
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fans of French neoclassical painting are extremely well served by Marie Denise Villers’ portrait of Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes — a luminous, arresting portrait whose sitter is painted with breathtaking clarity and intensity.
Marie Denise Villers.
France 1774–1821
Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (died 1868) 1801 Oil on canvas
161.3 x 128.6cm
Mr and Mrs Isaac D Fletcher Collection, Bequest of Isaac D Fletcher, 1917 / 17.120.204
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The exhibition plays up the advantages of distance. Second-tier works gain new life separated from their more famous siblings.
In New York, Poussin’s Saints Peter and John Healing the Lame Man is overshadowed by the riotous profusion of bodies in his Abduction of the Sabine Women. In Queensland, away from the noise of the Sabine painting, it is possible to appreciate the elegant structure of this religious picture.
Nicolas Poussin.
France 1594–1665
Saints Peter and John Healing the Lame Man 1655 Oil on canvas
125.7 x 165.1cm
Marquand Fund, 1924 / 24.45.2
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Connoisseurs of technique will not be disappointed by the works on display. Fra Angelico’s The Crucifixion rightly occupies an important place in the history of perspective. One can trace the story of the treatment of light from Caravaggio through to Cézanne.
Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro) Italy c.1395–1455.
The Crucifixion c.1420–23 Tempera on wood, gold ground 63.8 x 48.3cm
Maitland F Griggs Collection, Bequest of Maitland F Griggs, 1943 / 43.98.5
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Venice is expertly evoked with Turner’s characteristically soft, wispy brushstrokes; a perfect contrast to the thickness of paint found in El Greco’s The Adoration of the Shepherds or Rembrandt’s Flora. The Fragonard (The Two Sisters) looks like a Fragonard.
More than this, what makes these works so exciting is the way they brim with ideas. Vermeer’s Allegory of the Catholic Faith is a good example. It’s one of his cleverest paintings. One could spend a week in front of the work unpacking its symbolism and theological ideas.
Johannes Vermeer.
The Netherlands 1632–75
Allegory of the Catholic Faith c.1670–72
Oil on canvas
114.3 x 88.9cm
The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931 / 32.100.18
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The works not only reflect ideas, they stage deliberate interventions. Titian’s Venus and Adonis is a case in point. It shows the couple in a passionate embrace, the moment before Adonis is about to head off on the ill-fated hunt that will cost him his life.
The accompanying label describes this work as “re-imagining” Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Latin epic about mythological transformations. This fails to capture the dynamism of the relationship. This is a painting desperately keen to escape its origins in Ovid’s work. In Ovid, you never forget that Adonis is the product of incest, the offspring of a mother who burned with unnatural desire for her father.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) Italy c.1485/90–1576 Venus and Adonis 1550s Oil on canvas.
106.7 x 133.4cm
The Jules Bache Collection, 1949 / 49.7.16
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
It is a tale so monstrous that Ovid even warns his readers (or at the very least their daughters) not to read it. Ovid makes you feel uneasy about love. His epic is full of rape and violence. This painting rewrites Ovid’s story and invites you to devote yourself to the pleasures of love, even if they have tragic consequences.
Equally compelling is Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Pygmalion and Galatea. Critics have not been kind to Gérôme. His great crime was to be born so late and live so long. He jumped the wrong way on Impressionism, railing against the “junk” of modern art, and few have forgiven him.
Jean-Léon Gérôme.
France 1824–1904
Pygmalion and Galatea c.1890
Oil on canvas
88.9 x 68.6cm
Signed (on base of statue): J.L. GEROME.
Gift of Louis C Raegner, 1927 / 27.200
Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Yet at the same time, Gérôme was engaged in arguably his most important sequence of works, his series of paintings and sculpture depicting the moment when the fantasies of the sculptor Pygmalion are realised and the statue he has been carving — with whom he has passionately fallen in love — comes to life.
Gérôme’s sequence is uneven. The sculpture is terrible, now perfectly at home in that temple of kitsch, Hearst Castle in California. The reason why that sculpture fails is why this painting succeeds. In the sculpture, despite a bit of added paint, we see only marble.
Here, in an example of virtuoso painting, Gérôme plays with the transition of stone to flesh. We see a miracle unfolding before our eyes. It is a painting inviting us to contemplate art’s ability to imitate, perfect, mediate and complicate our relationship with the world. In this, it is a perfect emblem of this exhibition.
European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is showing at QAGOMA Brisbane until October 21.
Alastair Blanshard 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.
With Scott Morrison overseas, Nationals leader Michael McCormack has been Acting Prime Minister this week. In this podcast, he speaks about the free trade agreement with the UK, climate change, coal, the Nationals, and China.
With speculation about whether Morrison will embrace a 2050 net zero target before the Glasgow climate conference, the attitude of the Nationals is critical and McCormack is under pressure from a vocal group in his party that is strongly against the target.
McCormack says the National party will not supporting signing up to the target this year.
When it is put to him, “we can be sure that the Nats would not embrace that target?” his reply is definite. “Correct”.
On coal, unlike many in the government, McCormack believes the controversial proposal for a coal-fired power station at Collinsville in Queensland can be a goer. A feasibility study is being conducted for the project. (It is understood a draft report has been produced already.)
McCormack says the study is “very much on its way”. Shire Energy CEO Ashley Dodd “texts me every day of every week and highlights the progress. And last week there were some really, really positive news.”
Asked whether he thinks the government will be able to support the project, McCormack says, “provided every box [including environmental ones] is ticked, yes”.
“If the proponents come forward with everything that they’re required to do, then I can see no reason why it wouldn’t be supported. And of course, it’s not just the federal government. It’s other entities, too, which need to come on board.”
Transcript (edited for clarity)
Michelle Grattan: Michael McCormack, leader of the Nationals and deputy prime minister, is acting PM this week while Scott Morrison is overseas.
The Labor Party is relishing giving McCormack heat in question time. But McCormack himself seems to be equally relishing the limelight. And this week he had some good trade news to sell to farmers. Michael McCormack joins us today to talk about the Tamil family, the Australian-UK free trade agreement, climate change, coal and the Nationals.
Michael McCormack, can we start with the Biloela family? The government is taking quite a hard line, refusing to allow them to return to the town, which is in the National seat of Flynn. But your member for Flynn, Ken O’Dowd, supports the families return. Mr. O’Dowd is retiring at the election, would you expect your candidate next time round to say the family should be returned or to support the government’s line that they shouldn’t be?
Michael McCormack: Well, Ken has done a marvellous job for Flynn, for Gladstone, Emerald and every other town in that electorate in central Queensland. But the next candidate for Flynn hasn’t been decided. The ultimately the person who will run for the LNP and sit with the National Party, hopefully after the next election has not been determined. And that will be up to that person. But what we’ve done as far as the Biloela family, every step of the way is stick to our clear and steadfast policy. And that is that if you came to Australia via an unauthorised vessel, then you would not be settled in this country. And we’ve stuck by that. And by sticking to that policy, which was made clear at the election when we returned to power in 2013 and continued at the subsequent elections in 2016, 2019, is that we’ve stopped the boats and that has saved lives. Now, under Labor’s watch, under those six years of labour from 2007 when they dismantled John Howard’s clear policy on boats and on illegal immigrants to 2013, when they finished government, Labor saw, sadly, 1,200 people lost at sea. Now we don’t want to go back to those bad dark days. We want to make sure that at every step of the way that people know our clear immigration policies and that if they do attempt to board a vessel via a people smuggler and try to get to Australia, then they will not be settled here.
MG: Let’s move on to the free trade agreement, which was agreed in principle this week between Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson. Its got concessions and advantages for Australian farmers, but they do seem a long way off. A decade, at least 10 to 15 years for our beef and sheep meat exports.
MM: Well, there’s immediate access for 35,000 tonnes tariff free for beef, 25,000 tonnes of sheep meat, 80,000 tonnes of sugar, 24,000 tonnes for dairy produce. This is a good outcome. And trade equals jobs. More trade equals more jobs. So we can look at those things. And as it’s also eight years for beef and sheep and 10 years for the sugar cane produce. And yes, there are elements that do go out to a further period. But this is a good outcome for Australian farmers and for Australians in general. Regional Australia has grown despite Covid-19 and despite every other thing that’s been thrown against it and agriculture has grown to a $66 billion enterprise, we want to make it $100 billion by 2030. Only by doing trade deals such as this are we going to realise that outcome.
MG: In the talks that Scott Morrison has had with the British prime minister, climate change was, of course, one of the elements, and that’s been a theme of the G7 leaders. Now, your Senate leader, Bridget McKenzie, this week warned that it would be against the Nationals’ policy to sign up to net zero by 2050, to sign up to that firmly. What would be the Nationals’ position if the prime minister wants to embrace that target?
MM: Well, we’re not going to sell our coal miners out, no way, shape or form, as Nationals. And nor is Scott Morrison. I was pleased to see overnight that Japan said individual countries should set their own targets and their own pathway to lower emissions. And Japan, of course, has 14 of its 53 power stations are coal-fired power stations. And so they’ve also set a clear pathway to continuing exports. And Australia is the best coal exports in the world. But Australia is not a signatory to the G7 plus or G7 communique. And Scott Morrison hasn’t signed away anything and nor would he. We’ve actually lowered our emissions by 20%, which is, from 2005 levels, which I haven’t seen those sorts of emissions being lowered to that extent, by the US, by Canada or many of those other countries that often make statements about climate, and so, you know, you look at our rooftop solar capacity, it is the highest take-up in the world. And so we’re doing our part, we’re meeting and beating our international obligations for 2030 big time. And we’ll continue to do that. And regional Australia will lead the way in that process.
MG: So if I can just clarify this, the Nationals would not embrace the 2050 target as a firm commitment this year.
MM: Well, how do we get there? That’s the question. Well, it’s technology, not taxes. That’s always been what we’ve said. And we’re not signing, we’re not signing up to anything. We’re not signing up to any international agreements, again, to see farmers and factories and households paying more for energy.
MG: So we can be sure that the Nats would not embrace that target.
MM: Correct.
MG: Right. So, you mentioned coal, the study of a possible coal fired power station at Collinsville. That was set up, what, before the last election?
MM: Part of the underwriting new generation investments.
MG: Around the last election. Now, where is that up to? Is that finished?
MM: Well, Ashley Dodd, who is the proponent of Shine Energy, which is the company that is exploring that possibility, they received some very good news last week. The business case is actually at the moment being reviewed. If it all stacks up, then I can’t see why you wouldn’t have such a facility in Gladstone, which needs the energy. Now Gladstone, I’m not sure whether, Michelle, you visited in more recent times, but it is booming and you’ve got so many companies looking to set up there. And looking to establish there and the port is expanding – it’s a very deep water harbour. We want to see Gladstone be its best self, we want to see it be the industrial manufacturing powerhouse of central Queensland, of the nation. But we’re not going to do it if we don’t have the power. So Shine Energy, forging on, they’re getting that help through that UNGI [Underwriting New Generation Investments] process. And measures are going well.
MG: So that means the study is nearly finished or?
MM: Very much on its way. Yes. And Ashley Dodd…
MG: And you think…
MM: Texts me every day of every week and highlights the progress. And last week there were some really, really positive news. He’s in a good frame of mind. Shine Energy, stand ready to to do what they need to do. But of course, it also needs to meet all the environmental implications. Yes, it does. And yes, it will.
MG: So you think that the government will be able to support this enterprise.
MM: Well, provided every box is ticked, yes.
MG: But nevertheless, you get the feeling that Scott Morrison has now turned away from coal and he’s putting more emphasis on gas. You don’t think that times have just passed by the possibility of this project going ahead?
MM: Well, there’s also diversification of the energy market. And we’ve always said that we believe in a range of energy options. Gas, yes, it’s a big part of it. I’m delighted that Keith Pitt has been so forward leaning with Beetaloo Basin and we’re supporting that project. Massive project, huge numbers of jobs, with the right road infrastructure, with the right amenities in that regard. In the Northern Territory, and even the, even the Gunner government which realises that this might be a way out of their economic malaise, and they’re in a bit of strife at the moment with debt. But this can only help that process of the Northern Territory government getting to some way back to where it needs to be and also addressing the energy needs and export requirements of this nation.
MG: So just to be clear, on Collinsville, it is quite feasible you think that we could have a new coal fired power station there
MM: If everything stacks up. Yes. If everything… Because that’s part of the UNGI process. That’s part of what we put in place prior to the 2019 election. And if the proponents come forward with everything that they’re required to do, then I can see no reason why it wouldn’t be supported. And of course, it’s not just the federal government. It’s other entities, too, which need to come on board. But this is a process that will be worked through.
MG: Now, turning to China, obviously Australian farmers have taken quite a lot of the brunt of China’s ire with Australia generally because it’s their products that are running into obstacles. Do you have any concerns that Australia is going too far in its criticisms of China, so far that we’re really doing ourselves damage?
MM: We trade a $149.6 billion with China. It’s our largest trading partner and I’ve been very, very careful with my comments around that, because what I don’t want to see is the barley grower in South Australia or Western Australia, the meat worker in a boning room in Casino, lose their job or lose their market because in some way, Beijing misinterpreted anything or any support that I have for our trade continuing. And it’s important. It’s important for our growers. It’s important for our workers. It’s important for our nation. That trade continues with China. Yes, I appreciate there are difficulties, but there are always difficulties in a, in a competitive market. And this is one of the reasons why we’re working through this process diligently, respectfully, pragmatically, practically, as you would expect. But that’s also why one of the reasons I’m pleased that Dan Tehan is working so hard to diversify our markets as well in the UK-Australia free trade agreement in principle is one of those recently, of course, opened up a trade arrangement with Indonesia that grew and expanded what we had before and 35,000 tonnes of barley going to Mexico for the very first time recently. That’ll help there. The beer production and everything else and indeed the sheep meat going to Saudi. These are important diversifications of our markets that are good.
MG: But do you think we need to be more careful? The government needs to be more careful with its language about China?
MM: We’ll always do and say what’s in Australia’s national interests first and foremost.
MG: Do you think there’s any possible threat to iron ore exports?
MM: I would like to think not, because Australia’s iron ore is the best in the world.
MG: But what do you think?
MM: Well, I mean, these are matters for others to decide. But I say again that the mills and the production processes in China need our metallurgical coal, need our iron ore. China knows that if it wants to build a better future, then Australia’s resources are one way to be able to enhance and provide that.
MG: Now, just turning to the Nationals. These days, there always seems to be a good degree of angst in the Nationals – more than there used to be – at least in my memory. Is this mainly to do with issues or is it a question of personalities and ambitions?
MM: Oh well, there’ll always be personalities and ambitions in Canberra. That’s why, that’s why the place is like it is. But I’m focused on making sure that our $110 billion of infrastructure is rolled out supporting 100,000 workers. I’m focused on making sure that the regions can get the best deal that they can get in every way, shape or form, whether it’s through infrastructure, whether it’s through water resources, whether it’s through agriculture. That’s my only focus. You’ll only ever get me commenting publicly and privately about the things that will be good for regional Australia. I’ll leave the politics to others if they so choose to go down that path. People out in regional Australia, particularly through Covid and particularly when they’re catching mice in greater numbers than they ever expected. People who are looking to the skies to see that the next shower is going to provide them with that subsoil moisture, to be able to give them hope when they’re planning a crop. They’re not worried. They’re not worried about the internal goings on, the machinations of a federal parliament. They want what’s best for them. And the bread and butter issues are my issues as well. Their concerns are my concerns.
MG: Just finally, because we can hear the bells ringing…
MM: I think that’s just the start of parliament, so a little bit of time…
MG: For parliament to start. I just wonder what it feels like as acting prime minister, sitting in that question time hot seat, being peppered with questions which are well-outside your normal field of the questions you need to answer?
MM: Funnily enough, it’s actually not because when you are the deputy prime minister, you get asked questions from every which way, every angle, every topic. When you’re out at a Bathurst roadside on the Great Western Highway, you’ll get questions about every topic under the sun.
MG: Not so many people are listening, though.
MM: Sure. And for those people who are listening to question time, I’m always amazed by the number of truckies who are listening in as they deliver the goods around the nation, and good on them, they they keep the wheels of the economy turning.
MG: So what’s their feedback?
MM: Good. Generally good. And question time is a cauldron. It’s a robust debating chamber. And you just have to have read your topic, know your topic, and but also show that you’re human. I don’t think people want politicians to be just reading from script all the time or just sticking to the, to the talking points, and I’ve never been like that, I’m always somebody who yes, you’ll see me as I am. I’m Michael from Marra – little town with, tell you what, when I was when I was born and grew up there in the first four years that dad had the farm there, it had only a population of just over 100. How good is it that we have a nation where a little village of just over 100 people can produce somebody who can go on and be the acting prime minister? That gives hope to every boy and girl out there who ever aspired to open the batting for Australia in the cricket, to be a politician, to be the best nurse or doctor or engineer or scientist that they could be, that providing they work hard, providing they listen to their parents and their teachers and provided they have a bit of luck, you can be anything in this nation.
MG: Also, you’re former journalists, of course. So…
MM: I am, and what a great and noble profession that is!
MG: You’ve seen the process from a different perspective. Michael McCormack, thank you very much for talking with the conversation today. We’ll let you get back to those briefs for the parliamentary day.
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.
Artist’s impression of the view through future night-vision glasses.Lei Xu / NTU, Author provided
It’s a familiar vision to anyone who has watched a lot of action movies or played Call of Duty: a ghostly green image that makes invisible objects visible. Since the development of the first night-vision devices in the mid-1960s, the technology has captured the popular imagination.
Night vision goggles, infrared cameras and other similar devices detect infrared light reflected from objects or rather detect infrared light emitted from objects in the form of heat. Today these devices are widely used not only by the military, but also by law enforcement and emergency services, the security and surveillance industries, wildlife hunters, and camping enthusiasts.
But current technology is not without its problems. Commercial infrared cameras block visible light, disrupting normal vision. The gear is bulky and heavy, and requires low temperatures — and, in some cases, even cryogenic cooling — to work.
Rocio Camacho Morales in the optics lab. Jamie Kidston / ANU, Author provided
We have proposed a new technology that uses ultra-thin layers of nanocrystals to make infrared light visible, addressing many of the longstanding problems with current devices. Our research is published in Advanced Photonics.
Our eventual goal is to produce a light, film-like layer that can sit on glasses or other lenses, powered by a tiny built-in laser, allowing people to see in the dark.
Conventional infrared detection
Commercial infrared cameras convert infrared light to an electric signal, which is then shown on a display screen. They require low temperatures, because of the low energy and frequency of infrared light. This makes conventional infrared detectors bulky and heavy – some security personnel have reported
chronic neck injury due to regular use of night vision goggles .
Another drawback of the current technology is that it blocks the transmission of visible light, thereby disrupting normal vision. In some cases, infrared images could be sent to a display monitor, leaving normal vision intact. However, this solution is not feasible when users are on the move.
There are also some all-optical alternatives, which do not involve electrical signals. Instead, they directly convert infrared light into visible light. The visible light can then be captured by the eye or a camera.
These technologies work by combining incoming infrared light with a strong light source – a laser beam – inside a material known as “nonlinear crystal”. The crystal then emits light in the visible spectrum.
However, nonlinear crystals are bulky and expensive, and can only detect light in a narrow band of infrared frequencies.
Metasurfaces provide the solution
Our work advances this all-optical approach. Instead of a non-linear crystal, we set out to use carefully designed layers of nanocrystal called “metasurfaces”. Metasurfaces are ultra-thin and ultra-light, and can be tweaked to manipulate the color or frequency of the light that passes through them.
This makes metasurfaces an attractive platform to convert infrared photons to the visible. Importantly, transparent metasurfaces could enable infrared imaging and allow for normal vision at the same time.
Our group set out to demonstrate infrared imaging with metasurfaces. We designed a metasurface composed of hundreds of incredibly tiny crystal antennas made of the semiconductor gallium arsenide.
This metasurface was designed to amplify light by resonance at certain infrared frequencies, as well as the frequency of the laser and the visible light output. We then fabricated the metasurface and transferred it to a transparent glass, forming a layer of nanocrystals on a glass surface.
A scanning electron microscope image shows the nanocrystal structures of the metasurface used to make infrared light visible. Mohsen Rahmani/ NTU, Author provided
To test our metasurface, we illuminated it with infrared images of a target and saw that the infrared images were converted to visible green images. We tested this with various positions of the target, and also with no target at all — so we could see the green emission of the metasurface itself. In the images obtained, the dark stripes correspond to the infrared target, surrounded by the green visible emission.
Despite different parts of the infrared images being up-converted by independent nanocrystals composing the metasurface, the images were well reproduced in visible light.
These pairs of images show the shape of the infrared target at left and the visible-light view through the metasurface at right. Rocio Camacho Morales, Author provided
While our experiment is only a proof of concept, this technology can in principle do many things that are not possible with conventional systems, such as a broader angle of view and multi-colour infrared imaging.
The future of metasurfaces in novel technologies
The demand for detecting infrared light, invisible to human eyes, is constantly growing, due to a wide variety of applications beyond night vision. The technology could be used in the agricultural industry to help monitor and maintain food quality control, and in remote sensing techniques such as LIDAR – a technology that is helping to map natural and manmade environments.
In a wider context, the use of metasurfaces to detect, generate and manipulate light is booming. Harnessing the power of metasurfaces will bring us closer to technologies such as real-time holographic displays, artificial vision for autonomous systems, and ultra-fast light-based wifi.
Rocio Camacho Morales would like to acknowledge the support of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) and the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT),
QR code contact-tracing apps are a crucial part of our defence against COVID-19. But their value depends on being widely used, which in turn means people using these apps need to be confident their data won’t be misused.
That’s why this week’s revelation that Western Australian police accessed data gathered using the SafeWA app are a serious concern.
WA Premier Mark McGowan’s government has enjoyed unprecedented public support for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic thus far. But this incident risks undermining the WA public’s trust in their state’s contact-tracing regime.
While the federal government’s relatively expensiveCOVIDSafe tracking app — which was designed to work automatically via Bluetooth — has become little more than the butt of jokes, the scanning of QR codes at all kinds of venues has now become second nature to many Australians.
These contact-tracing apps work by logging the locations and times of people’s movements, with the help of unique QR codes at cafes, shops and other public buildings. Individuals scan the code with their phone’s camera, and the app allows this data to be collated across the state.
That data is hugely valuable for contact tracing, but also very personal. Using apps rather than paper-based forms greatly speeds up access to the data when it is needed. And when trying to locate close contacts of a positive COVID-19 case, every minute counts.
But this process necessarily involves the public placing their trust in governments to properly, safely and securely use personal data for the advertised purpose, and nothing else.
Australian governments have a poor track record of protecting personal data, having suffered a range of data breaches over the past few years. At the same time, negative publicity about the handling of personal data by digital and social media companies has highlighted the need for people to be careful about what data they share with apps in general.
The SafeWA app was downloaded by more than 260,000 people within days of its release, in large part because of widespread trust in the WA government’s strong track record in handling COVID-19. When the app was launched in November last year, McGowan wrote on his Facebook page that the data would “only be accessible by authorised Department of Health contact tracing personnel”.
Screenshot of Mark McGowan’s Facebook Page announcing the SafeWA App. Mark McGowan’s Facebook Page
In spite of this, it has now emerged that WA Police twice accessed SafeWA data as part of a “high-profile” murder investigation. The fact the WA government knew in April that this data was being accessed, but only informed the public in mid-June, further undermines trust in the way personal data is being managed.
McGowan today publicly criticised the police for not agreeing to stop using SafeWA data. Yet the remit of the police is to pursue any evidence they can legally access, which currently includes data collected by the SafeWA app.
It is the government’s responsibility to protect the public’s privacy via carefully written, iron-clad legislation with no loopholes. Crucially, this legislation needs to be in place before contract-tracing apps are rolled out, not afterwards.
It may well be that the state government held off on publicly disclosing details of the SafeWA data misuse until it had come up with a solution. It has now introduced a bill to prevent SafeWA data being used for any purpose other than contact tracing.
This is a welcome development, and the government will have no trouble passing the bill, given its thumping double majority. Repairing public trust might be a trickier prospect.
Trust is a premium commodity these days, and to have squandered it without adequate initial protections is a significant error.
The SafeWA app provided valuable information that sped up contact tracing in WA during Perth’s outbreak in February. There is every reason to believe that if future cases occur, continued widespread use of the app will make it easier to locate close contacts, speed up targeted testing, and either avoid or limit the need for future lockdowns.
That will depend on the McGowan government swiftly regaining the public’s trust in the app. The new legislation is a big step in that direction, but there’s a lot more work to do. Trust is hard to win, and easy to lose.
We’re being told about the new Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement, but not a lot about most of what’s in it.
After an in-principle agreement overnight, Australia released a five-page summary.
Australian farmers will benefit from tariff-free access to the UK for limited amounts of Australian beef, lamb, sugar and dairy products to the UK (but will have to wait ten years for the full elimination of tariffs). Australian consumers will benefit from immediate zero tariffs on products like UK whiskey and cars. Longer working holiday visas may be available for citizens from both countries.
It will take at least a month for the deal to be finalised and signed, and only after the signing will the Australian public see the full text and a parliamentary committee be given the right to inquire into it but not change it.
This secrecy continues what’s become something of a tradition — one that has attracted the ire of the Productivity Commission which in 2010 recommended the government commission and publish an independent and transparent assessment of future free trade agreements “at the conclusion of negotiations but before an agreement is signed”.
The parliament’s joint standing committee on treaties (the same one that will examine this agreement) began inquiring into the system mid last year and took many submissions, but still has not reported.
As many as 30 unseen chapters
The timing of the deal is driven by the UK’s post-Brexit desperation to sign one-on-one agreements and the greater prize of being part of the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) including Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Mexico, Chile and Peru which the UK has applied to join.
Like the CPTPP, the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement is likely to have as many as 30 chapters, some of which restrict the ability of governments to regulate in fields including medicines, essential services and data privacy.
UK Trade Minister Greg Hands. Brian Minkoff/Shutterstock
UK trade minister Greg Hands said last month he wants the deal to include investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions of the kind excluded from the Australia-European Union current trade talks, and from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership recently signed with Japan, China, South Korea, New Zealand and the 10 ASEAN countries.
The provisions would allow UK firms to sue Australian governments in international tribunals over decisions they believed infringed on their interests in a way Australian firms cold not.
In return Australian firms could sue UK authorities in a way UK firms could not.
But UK companies are more frequent users of ISDS, having launched 90 recorded ISDS cases, the third most after the US and the Netherlands. Australian companies have launched nine.
Defending the idea in the House of Commons, Hands said the UK had “never lost an ISDS case”.
There are now 1,104, known ISDS cases with increasing numbers against health and environment laws, including laws to address climate change and to protect indigenous rights.
Australians remember that the US Philip Morris tobacco company used an obscure Hong Kong investment agreement to sue Australia for billions over our plain packaging law.
It took the international tribunal almost five years to decide that Philip Morris was not a Hong Kong company as it had claimed. Australia had to pay $12 million in legal costs.
ISDS rules in the Australia-UK treaty would give UK mining companies such as Rio Tinto the right to claim compensation for new laws to protect Indigenous heritage areas, and UK aged care companies such as Bupa the right to claim compensation for new regulations arising from the Aged Care Royal Commission.
Longer pharmaceutical monopolies
The UK has also said in its negotiating objectives that it wants to preserve its “existing intellectual property standards” which include rules that provide for longer data protection monopolies on medicines than Australia has.
The UK also supported this demand as a member of the EU before Brexit when it was published by the EU as part of the ongoing EU-Australia FTA negotiations.
Pharmaceutical companies already have 20 year monopolies on new medicines.
The UK has an additional “data protection” monopoly of up to ten years before data is released enabling production of cheaper competitors.
The current Australian standard is five years. Adopting the UK standard would delay the availability of cheaper medicines, costing Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
Unless the text is released before it is signed, we won’t know whether ISDS and longer medicine monopolies are part of the deal.
The Australian government should release the text for public scrutiny and independent assessment of its costs and benefits before it is signed, so that we are able to see what is being traded away before it’s too late.
Dr Patricia Ranald is an honorary research associate at the University of Sydney and the honorary convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network.
A bush viper slithering out of its skin. Shutterstock
When a snake sheds its skin, why isn’t it colourful? Yahya, aged eight
Thanks for the question Yahya!
Snakes come in all sorts of colours and patterns, especially in Australia. Our prettiest snakes include the Jan’s banded snake, the black-striped snake and the broad-headed snake (but this one is endangered, which means there aren’t very many broad-headed snakes left in the world).
You can see each of these snakes in the photos I’ve taken below.
Snakes are well known for being able to shed their entire skin in one piece. But why isn’t the shed skin of a snake colourful, like the snake itself?
To answer your question, we should explore how snake skin and colour works.
All animals grow new skin over their lifetime. This replaces old skin, heals wounds and lets the animal grow bigger. Most animals, including humans, shed tiny pieces of dead skin all the time.
But snakes have to do it all at once, and this is because snake skin is quite different to a lot of other animals.
Snake skin is actually made up two main layers: the soft, colourful tissue (what scientists call the “dermis”), and hard, mostly see-through scales.
The dermis is filled with nerves, which is what we use to feel things touching us, as well as tiny grains called pigments, which is what gives skin its colour.
Scales sit on top of the snake’s soft dermis. Shutterstock
Scales sit on top of the snake’s soft dermis. These are much harder than the skin because scales are made of “keratin” — the same thing our fingernails and hair are made of.
In mammals, like us, the keratin grows from a single point and keeps on growing — think how your fingernails grow from the end of your finger. But in snakes, keratin grows all over, and is stuck on top of the soft dermis, protecting it like a thin shield.
While the keratin in snake (and lizard) scales is mostly see through, it also holds lots of tiny dark brownish black grains called “melanin”, which protects snakes from harmful sun rays. This means scales themselves are mainly either colourless or dark brownish black, depending on the snake.
But sometimes, like for Australian water pythons, the outer layer of scales can shine rainbow colours when the light hits it at the right angle.
The outer layer of some snake scales, like for Australian water pythons, can shine rainbow colours when the light hits it at the right angle. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
So let’s say it’s time for a snake to shed its skin
First, it’ll grow a new layer of keratin scales underneath the old layer. When the new layer has finished growing, the snake rubs its body along rocks, plants and other rough things to peel the old layer of keratin off — often in a single, snaky piece.
Because all the brightly coloured pigments live in the soft dermis, and not the scales, the colour mainly stays on the snake, not the part it sheds.
But every so often, the shed skin can show dark brownish black stripes or blotches, because of melanin in the scales.
A little bit of melanin sometimes make the shed skin looks black, so it isn’t always see through. Shutterstock
Have you ever touched a snake’s shed skin?
Since it’s made up of both the hard keratin scales and a bit of the softer dermis, it feels both rough and soft. And because it’s so stretchy, it can be much longer than snake itself!
Damian Lettoof will be taking questions from kids at the Perth launch of our new Curious Kids picture book Why Do Tigers Have Whiskers, published by Thames and Hudson.
Price: Free, but space is limited and bookings are essential.
If you’re a Curious Kid with a question you’d like an expert to answer, ask an adult to send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
Damian Lettoof is affiliated with the Australian Society of Herpetologists, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, the Ecological Society of Australia and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
The federal government recently indicated it will launch a new COVID-19 vaccine advertising campaign in July, targeting younger Australians under 40.
To date, federal vaccine promotion efforts have not been particularly engaging, perhaps due to an over-reliance on consulting firms over vaccine social science researchers. But news of a revitalised campaign is welcome, and could offer a chance to change course.
In our recent Victorian COVID-19 Vaccine Preparedness Study, we looked at the vaccine-related intentions, concerns and information needs of people prioritised in phases 1a and 1b of the rollout.
The results are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. But drawing on our findings, as well as peer-reviewed research in this area, here’s what we want to see in any upcoming COVID vaccination campaign.
1. Diverse spokespeople
The diversity of Australia should be reflected in the spokespeople delivering messages around COVID vaccination, through both broad and tailored campaigns. Research shows we’re more likely to trust people who look like us, which means we need spokespeople from different ethnic backgrounds, of different ages, and with different body shapes.
While it was encouraging to see Channel 9 using its platform to promote COVID-19 vaccination, their cast was rightly criticised for being entirely white. They were also all able-bodied and generally homogenous.
Our research also found members of the public wanted to hear about the COVID-19 vaccines from real people — not politicians. They wanted to hear how people like them made the decision to be vaccinated, what it was like getting the vaccine and what the side effects were afterwards.
It seems like the COVID-19 vaccine advertisements that have been shared most widely in Australia are actually from other countries, like the United Kingdom, Singapore, New Zealand and France.
This is a shame, but it’s not surprising, when you compare these funny, entertaining messages with the relatively dry Australian ads. The Singapore ad is colourful, musical and a little bit bonkers. But amid the silliness, it still manages to highlight key messages like “don’t wait and see” and “low cases isn’t no cases”.
The more engaging the messaging is, the more widely it will be shared. And we need information about the vaccine rollout to reach as many people as possible.
3. Avoid scare tactics
Some people have been calling for fear-based campaigns to scare people into vaccinating. This kind of campaign might include, for example, footage of people with severe COVID or scary statistics about COVID-related deaths or serious illness in Australia or overseas.
However, fear-based messages to promote vaccines can actually backfire, increasing fear of vaccine side effects. Fear campaigns can also stigmatise people who have concerns, questions, or simply face challenges accessing vaccines. This makes it harder to bridge the gap with those who are hesitant.
Fear messaging can also make people angry and erode trust in the messengers. Trust in the public health system is crucial to support vaccine uptake — and we can’t afford to damage this as it’s very hard to build and easy to lose.
What else do we need?
Barriers to vaccine uptake for any group are likely to be a mix of acceptance and access factors. So while a diverse, engaging communication campaign is clearly needed, this should be implemented alongside other evidence-based strategies to bolster vaccine acceptance and uptake.
Nudges
Behavioural “nudges” are simple ways to encourage vaccination. A recent study from the United States found the most effective nudge to increase influenza vaccine uptake was a text message sent to people before a regular GP appointment, indicating a flu vaccine was reserved and waiting for them.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has recently clarified people in Australia could also be offered incentives to vaccinate. In other countries, incentives have included anything from a free beer to a lottery ticket.
Outreach and face-to-face engagement may be more effective than TV or social media campaigns for many groups, particularly culturally and linguistically diverse populations.
Training community, faith and industry leaders to become vaccine champions enables communication messages to reach more people in a targeted, culturally appropriate way. People want to discuss concerns with their community leaders and communities, where there is the greatest trust.
Participants in our study wanted to receive information about vaccines from ‘real’ people. Shutterstock
Support for health-care workers
GPs, nurses and pharmacists are at the coalface of the vaccine rollout, discussing COVID-19 vaccines with people every day. Health-care workers in our study said they wanted resources like decision aids and pictorial representations of risk and benefits to support personalised discussions with people with varying levels of health literacy.
Improving access to COVID-19 vaccines is crucial to increase uptake. In addition to securing adequate vaccine supply and clearly communicating where and when vaccines are available, the booking systems need to be simplified and streamlined. In Victoria, the phone booking system crashed as soon as the government announced people aged 40-49 were eligible.
Data
Finally, we need better data about vaccine uptake, concerns and barriers faced by different groups. This will allow us to better target communication and other strategies.
Jessica Kaufman receives funding from the Victorian Department of Health (C9824) and the National Health and Medical Research Foundation (Vaccine Barriers Assessment Tool, GNT1164200). She is a member of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI) network.
Margie Danchin receives funding from the NHMRC, WHO, Victorian and Commonwealth Departments of Health and holds an MCRI clinician scientist fellowship. She is Chair, Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI).
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has called on Australian universities to “start a conversation about how we can support greater differentiation and specialisation in the university sector. We have 39 comprehensive universities, which may not be an optimal model for the quality of teaching or research in this country.” This is a worthy aspiration, depending on what we mean by differentiation and specialisation.
At its best, seeking to differentiate and specialise can be a way to marshal talent and focus. At worst, such calls can be euphemism and set up a false dilemma of having a simple choice between teaching and research.
A recurring debate
The debate about greater specialisation in Australian universities is not new. As an opposition education spokesman and then Coalition government minister, Christopher Pyne made similar calls for specialisation in the system a decade ago. More recently it was discussed in the context of the 2019 Review of Provider Category Standards.
At different times during the past century governments and university leaders have examined whether teaching and research in some areas should be limited to only a few institutions. From forestry education to legal studies, debate has been common about what is taught where and by whom.
Questioning the need for specialisation and diversity is welcome. Leaving for a moment what benefits it can bring, for some degrees a critical mass of students means it is impractical (and highly costly) to offer them at all institutions.
Not so similar, you and I
Despite Australia public universities often being labelled as “comprehensive”, there is already a lot of specialisation and differentiation in the system.
Medical education is one longstanding example. Only a subset of universities offer it. This is for numerous reasons, not least that it is tightly regulated and requires significant facilities.
Australia has a number of universities for which specialisation is core to their identity and mission. The University of Divinity, for example, offers scholarship in theology, philosophy and ministry.
The idea of specialised institutions in Australia is not new either. The University of New South Wales began life as the New South Wales University of Technology in 1949. This lasted only a few years, though, before it became UNSW, gaining a law school and other faculties.
Yet discussion about greater specialisation and diversification can often be contentious. It can hit a raw nerve when “specialisation” is used as a euphemism for excluding some universities, especially from research activity.
What’s in a name?
The legal definition of an Australian university requires it to undertake research. Australia specifies what a university is and controls the use of the title “university” for good reason.
One case in point is the short-lived Greenwich University on Norfolk Island. In 1999 the quality of the newly established university came sharply into focus. The then education minister, Brendan Nelson, was forced to intervene to ensure it could not continue to offer sub-standard education.
The Greenwich case also hints at preconceived ideas in Australia about what a university should aspire to in terms of quality and offering. For most people this now includes undertaking research.
This is understandable; there are synergies between teaching and research. Students can benefit from their teacher’s research experience and being exposed to the latest research. They can witness an active research culture.
A false dilemma
When the debate is crudely framed, it can be easy to set up a false dilemma.
There are good reasons to specialise. For one, it makes programs with limited demand financially viable.
Equally, specialisation is not always appropriate for legitimate reasons. An important consideration is to ensure core teaching and research are located where local communities can access them.
There is nothing wrong necessarily with having only comprehensive institutions, if that best meets the needs of students, employers and the community.
There is more that unites Australian universities than divides them: they are all part of an international academic community and hold themselves to standards set by peers who are leaders in their fields.
Which is not to argue they all do (or should do) the same thing. Yet it can be easy to erroneously limit what specialisation means or, at worst, set it up as a proxy for debate about other things, such as prestige and privilege.
Gwilym Croucher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
