Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

A national Essential poll, conducted August 2–6 from a sample of 1,150, gave “no” to the Indigenous Voice to parliament a 47–43 lead, reversing a 47–43 lead for “yes” in this poll in early July. While Newspoll and Resolve polls had given “no” a lead in June, this is the first time “no” has led in Essential.

Here is an updated graph that I first published in July of Voice polls from Essential, Newspoll, Resolve and Morgan (which hasn’t conducted a Voice poll since May). It’s bleak for the Voice that Essential, clearly the most favourable pollster for “yes”, now has “no” ahead.

In more bad news for the Voice, a Redbridge national Voice poll, conducted July 21–27 from a sample of 1,022, had “no” leading by 56–44 in a forced choice question. The Essential poll had hard “no” leading hard “yes” by 38–31.

Labor’s voting intention lead increases in Essential

In Essential’s two party measure that includes undecided, Labor led by 52–42, an increased margin from a 50–45 lead last fortnight. Primary votes were 33% Labor (up two), 30% Coalition (down two), 12% Greens (down two), 8% One Nation (up one), 2% UAP (up one), 8% for all Others (down one) and 6% undecided (steady).

Respondent allocated preferences appear to have increased Labor’s lead, with Labor’s gain on primary votes compensated by a fall for the Greens, while the Coalition’s losses were gains for One Nation and UAP.

This term Essential polls have been better for the Greens than other polls. This is the Greens’ equal lowest primary vote in Essential, tying 12% in March.

Respondents were asked to rate the government’s performance on various issues on a five-point scale going from excellent to poor. The government received its worst ratings for cost of living (44% poor) and housing affordability (38% poor). By 67–26, respondents thought the government could make a meaningful difference to the cost of living.

On sports betting, 43% (steady since May) wanted sports betting advertising banned outright, 25% (down one) said it should be allowed, but not during sports events and 16% (steady) said it should always be allowed.

By 50–26, respondents agreed that marijuana should be taxed and regulated like alcohol and tobacco, but they disagreed on other currently illegal drugs, in most cases with over 50% disagreeing.

Morgan poll and seat entitlements

In this week’s Morgan weekly federal poll, conducted July 31 to August 6 from a sample of 1,391, Labor led by 53.5–46.5, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since the previous week. After four successive moves to the Coalition had reduced Labor’s lead from 57–43 to 52–48, Labor has made two successive gains. Primary votes were 35% Coalition, 33.5% Labor, 13% Greens and 18.5% for all Others.

On July 27, the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the House of Representatives would drop from 151 to 150 seats at the next election, with Western Australia gaining a seat and Victoria and New South Wales each losing one. I covered this in June when the latest population statistics were released.

Read more:
Woeful Victorian poll for state Coalition; Victoria and NSW to lose federal seats as WA gains

Labor holds WA Rockingham byelection easily despite huge swing to Libs

At the July 29 byelection for former WA Labor premier Mark McGowan’s seat of Rockingham, Labor defeated the Liberals by 65.2–34.8, a huge 22.5% swing to the Liberals since the 2021 WA election. Primary votes were 49.4% Labor (down 33.5%), 17.7% Liberals (up 7.8%), 15.9% for independent Hayley Edwards (new), 6.8% Legalise Cannabis (new) and 4.9% Greens (up 1.8%).

On the distribution of preferences, Edwards overtook the Liberals as minor candidates were excluded, and the seat finished as a contest between Labor and Edwards, with Labor winning by 61.4–38.6.

While this was a huge swing, there are extenuating circumstances for Labor. The 2021 WA election was a record landslide for a state or federal Australian election, with Labor winning the statewide two party vote by 69.7–30.3 on a primary vote of 59.9%. It’s reasonable to expect a big swing against Labor from these levels.

When an MP retires, the party loses that MP’s personal vote. McGowan was very popular, and his seat was the strongest for Labor at the 2021 election partly owing to his popularity. The loss of such a popular MP enhanced the swing against Labor.

Analyst Kevin Bonham said Labor’s two party percentage in Rockingham at this byelection exceeded Rockingham results at three general elections that Labor won with an incumbent MP. The byelection suggests that Labor is still well ahead statewide against the Liberals, in contrast to a recent WA poll that gave the Liberals a 54–46 lead.

Read more:
Voice support slips again in national Resolve poll; massive swing in WA puts Libs ahead

In other WA electoral news, The Poll Bludger covered a draft redistribution of WA’s 59 lower house seats on July 21. This redistribution eliminates one rural seat and replaces it with a metro seat. The abolished seat was won by the Nationals in 2021, while the new seat should be fairly safe for Labor at a normal election.

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.

– ref. ‘No’ to the Voice takes lead in Essential poll; huge swing to Libs at WA state byelection – https://theconversation.com/no-to-the-voice-takes-lead-in-essential-poll-huge-swing-to-libs-at-wa-state-byelection-210685

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katharine Kemp, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice, and Deputy Director, Allens Hub for Technology, Law & Innovation, UNSW Sydney

Millions of people worldwide are lining up to stare into a silver sphere about the size of a bowling ball so their irises can be scanned in exchange for online identity verification and “free” cryptocurrency.

The silver spheres, known as “Orbs”, are part of the Worldcoin platform, which officially launched in July 2023 after an 18-month testing phase. Led by Sam Altman (chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT) and entrepreneur Alex Blania, Worldcoin offers users a “digital passport” known as World ID and small allocations of a cryptocurrency token also called Worldcoin (WLD), “simply for being human”.

Worldcoin aims to provide a “proof of personhood” to distinguish humans from artificial intelligence (AI) systems online.

However, critics say the company is essentially bribing people to hand over highly sensitive biometric data. Governments are taking note: the Worldcoin platform has already been suspended in Kenya, and is under investigation in several other countries.

Gaze into the Orb

Users can download the WorldApp on their mobile phone, then find their “nearest Orb”. The Orb uses iris scans to uniquely identify a person.

Once the person has their iris scanned, they receive a World ID which will function as an online ID much like a Google or Facebook login. World ID is meant to be different because it can prove the user is human – and more private, because it does not link to other personal information about the user.

Despite the “digital passport” label, World ID is not intended to reveal or verify a user’s identity in the conventional sense. It merely establishes the user as “a unique and real person”, rather than a bot.

In most countries, the user is also entitled to units of WLD cryptocurrency once their iris scan is complete.

The Worldcoin website currently lists 60 Orb locations worldwide, particularly in Europe, Asia, North America and South America, and notes there will also be Orb “pop-ups”.

At the time of writing, there appear to be no Orb locations in Australia, so people in Australia cannot earn WLD tokens “for being human”. But they can purchase the WLD cryptocurrency via certain cryptocurrency exchanges and download the World App, which also functions as a cryptocurrency wallet.

Cash for eyeballs jeopardises human rights

Altman is a key player in the AI boom that supposedly makes Worldcoin necessary, so critics have suggested he is “simply profiting from both AI’s problem and solution”.

When the Worldcoin platform officially launched, after signing up some 2 million users in a testing phase, Altman said the Orbs were scanning a new user every eight seconds.

In Kenya, the launch saw “tens of thousands of individuals waiting in lines over a three-day period to secure a World ID”, which Worldcoin attributed to “overwhelming” demand for identity verification.

Independent reporting suggests the promise of “free” cryptocurrency was a more common motive. In most locations, Worldcoin offers a “genesis grant” of 25 units of its WLD cryptocurrency when users scan their irises. (The value of WLD fluctuates, but the grant has been worth around US$50, or $A75, over the past month.)

People queuing for the Orb in Kenya told the BBC “I want to register because I’m jobless and I’m broke,” and

I really like Worldcoin because of the money. I’m not worried about the data. As long as the money comes.

Orb operators are also paid for each user they sign up.

Critics have labelled this strategy of paying people to scan their irises as dystopian and equivalent to bribery.

Offering money for sensitive data arguably makes privacy – a human right – a luxury only the wealthy can afford. People experiencing poverty may risk future harms to meet their immediate survival needs.

‘Cataloguing eyeballs’: the risks of using biometric data

Worldcoin uses irises for verification because every iris is unique and therefore difficult to fake. But the risks of handing over such data are very high. Unlike a driver’s licence or a passport, you cannot replace your iris if the data is compromised.

Surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden has criticised Worldcoin for “cataloguing eyeballs”, and tweeted about the unacceptable risks:

Don’t use biometrics for anything. […] The human body is not a ticket-punch.

Worldcoin claims the iris scans are deleted after being converted into a unique iris code, which becomes the user’s World ID. The World ID is then stored on a decentralised blockchain, with the aim of preventing fakes or duplicates.

However, the iris scan is only deleted if the user opts for the “Without Data Storage” option (which may mean they need to return to an Orb to re-verify in the future). If the user selects the “With Data Storage” option, Worldcoin states the iris scan is sent via encrypted communication channels to its distributed data stores where it is encrypted at rest.

In either case, the user must simply trust the company to delete the biometric data, or appropriately secure it against misuse.

There have been many instances in which Silicon Valley companies have promised to secure data and to strictly limit its use, only to break those promises by disclosing the data to other companies or government agencies or failing to secure it against attack.

Journalist Eileen Guo also points out that Worldcoin has not yet clarified whether it still uses stored biometric data to train AI models and whether it has deleted biometric data collected during its test phase.

And despite the supposed security of biometric scanning, there have already been reports of fraudulent uses of the Worldcoin system. For example, black market speculators are alleged to have persuaded people in Cambodia and Kenya to sign up for Worldcoin and then sell their World IDs and WLD tokens for cash.

Regulatory action

Regulators in several countries are taking action. The Kenyan government has now suspended Worldcoin’s activities, stating regulatory concerns surrounding the project “require urgent action”.

The Communications Authority of Kenya and Office of the Data Protection Commissioner say they are concerned about the offer of money in exchange for consent to data collection; how securely the data are stored; and “massive citizen data in the hands of private actors without an appropriate framework”.

The German privacy watchdog is investigating Worldcoin’s business practices with support from the French privacy regulator, which called Worldcoin’s data practices “questionable”. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has announced it will investigate Worldcoin, referring to the high risk of processing special category biometric data.

While there are no Orbs in Australia yet, the federal privacy regulator has previously found some companies in breach of the privacy law for failing to obtain valid consent for the use of biometric data and collecting it when it was not reasonably necessary.

Katharine Kemp receives funding from the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation. She is a Member of the Expert Panel of the Consumer Policy Research Centre, and the Australian Privacy Foundation.

– ref. Worldcoin is scanning eyeballs to build a global ID and finance system. Governments are not impressed – https://theconversation.com/worldcoin-is-scanning-eyeballs-to-build-a-global-id-and-finance-system-governments-are-not-impressed-210980

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Dawes, Research Fellow in Medico-Legal History, Australian National University

Losing weight conveniently, cheaply, safely. That’s been the holy grail of weight-loss ever since 19th century English undertaker and weight-loss celebrity William Banting’s 1863 Letter on Corpulence spruiked his “miraculous” method of slimming down.

Since then, humans have tried many things – diet, exercise, psychotherapy, surgery – to lose weight. But time and again we return to the promise of a weight-loss drug, whether it’s a pill, injection, or tonic. A “diet drug”.

The history of diet drugs is not a glowing one, however.

There have been so many popular drug treatments for excess weight over the years. All, however, have eventually lost their shine and some have even been banned.

Read more:
Some Ozempic users say it silences ‘food noise’. But there are drug-free ways to stop thinking about food so much

Ozempic is a recent arrival

Ozempic and its sister drug Wegovy, both manufactured by Novo Nordisk, are the latest offerings in a long history of drug treatments for people who are overweight. They contain the same active ingredient – semaglutide, which mimics a hormone, GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) that acts on the hypothalamus (the brain’s “hunger centre”) to regulate appetite.

As an obesity treatment, semaglutide appears to work in part by reducing appetite.

These are injections. And there can be side effects, most commonly nausea and diarrhoea.

Although marketed as treatments for chronic obesity and diabetes, they have exploded in popularity as diet drugs, largely thanks to social media.

This has helped drive a shortage of Ozempic for diabetes treatment.

From ‘gland treatment’ to amphetamines

But Ozempic is not the first weight-loss drug. For example, organotherapy (gland treatment) was hugely popular in the 1920s to 1940s.

It rode on a wave of enthusiasm for endocrinology and specifically the discovery that “ductless glands” – such as the thyroid, pituitary and renal glands – secreted chemical messengers (or “hormones”, as they came to be known).

These hormones coordinate the activities and growth of different parts of the body.

Doctors prescribed overweight people extracts of animal glands – either eaten raw or dried in pill form or injected – to treat their supposedly “sluggish glands”.

For slaughterhouse companies, this was a lucrative new market for offal.

But organotherapy soon fell from favour. There was no evidence excess weight was usually caused by underperforming glands or that gland extracts (thyroid in particular) were doing anything other than poisoning you.

Amphetamines were first used as a nasal decongestant in the 1930s, but quickly found a market for weight-loss.

Why they worked was complex. The drug operated on the hypothalamus but also had an effect on mental state. Amphetamine is, of course, an “upper”.

The theory was it helped people feel up to dieting and gave pleasure not found on a plate. Amphetamines too, fell from treatment use in the 1970s with Nixon’s “war on drugs” and recognition they were addictive.

Another decade, another drug

Each decade seems to produce its own briefly popular weight-loss drug.

For example, the popular diet drug of the 1980s and 90s was fen-phen, which contained appetite suppressants fenfluramine and phentermine.

During the height of its craze, vast numbers of users testified to dramatic weight loss. But after users experienced heart valve and lung disease, fen-phen was withdrawn from the market in 1997. Its producer allocated a reported US$21 billion to settle the associated lawsuits.

The hormone leptin aroused excitement in the mid-1990s. Leptin seemed, for a brief moment, to hold the key to how the hypothalamus regulated fat storage.

Pharmaceutical company Amgen wagered millions buying the rights to the research in the hope this discovery could be turned into a treatment, only to discover it didn’t translate from mice into people. Far from not having enough leptin, people with obesity tend to be leptin-resistant. So taking more leptin doesn’t help with weight-loss. Amgen sold the rights it had paid so much for.

Ephedra was popular as a weight-loss treatment and as a stimulant in the 1990s and 2000s, finding buyers among athletes, body builders and in the military.

But the US Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of dietary supplements containing ephedra in 2004 after it was linked to health problems ranging from heart attacks and seizures to strokes and even death, and in Australia ephedra is prescription-only.

Now we have Ozempic. Just because the history of diet drugs has been so dire, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about new ones – Ozempic is not a drug of the 1920s or 1960s or 1990s.

And as history recognises, multiple complexities can combine to push a drug into popularity or damn it to history’s rubbish bin.

These include patients’, physicians’ and industry interests; social attitudes about drug treatment; evidence about safety and efficacy; beliefs and knowledge about the cause of excess weight.

One noticeable contrast with past diet drug experiences is that now, many people are happy to talk about using Ozempic. It seems to be increasingly socially acceptable to use a drug to achieve weight-loss for primarily aesthetic reasons.

(Due to Ozempic shortages in Australia, though, doctors have been asked to direct current supplies to people with type 2 diabetes who satisfy certain criteria. In other words, it’s not really meant to be used just to treat obesity).

Our enduring search for weight-loss drugs

Ozempic is predicted to earn Novo Nordisk US$12.5 billion this year alone, but it’s not just industry interests stoking this enduring desire for weight-loss drugs.

Patients on an endless cycle of dieting and exercise want something more convenient, with a more certain outcome. And doctors, too, want to offer patients effective treatment, and a drug prescription is a workable option given the constraints of appointment times.

The body positivity movement has not yet ousted anti-fat bias or stigma. And despite decades of recognition of the major role our physical and social environment plays in human health, there’s little political, public or industry appetite for change.

Individuals are left to personally defend against an obesogenic environment, where economic, cultural, social, health and urban design policies can conspire to make it easy to gain weight but hard to lose it. It is no wonder demand for weight-loss drugs continues to soar.

Read more:
Folbigg pardon: science is changing rapidly, and the law needs to change with it

Laura Dawes 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.

– ref. Ozempic is in the spotlight but it’s just the latest in a long and strange history of weight-loss drugs – https://theconversation.com/ozempic-is-in-the-spotlight-but-its-just-the-latest-in-a-long-and-strange-history-of-weight-loss-drugs-209324

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Neale, Senior Research Fellow, Deakin University

Protesters rallied at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday, railing against Darwin’s controversial Middle Arm venture which critics say would benefit the gas industry.

The project has been thrust into the headlines of late. Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles drew the ire of critics last week in a speech to the National Press Club where she insisted her government was “not for turning” on the project.

Fyles describes Middle Arm as a “sustainable development precinct”. But that claim is highly questionable. The site is already home to two gas facilities, and more are planned. Meanwhile, the NT is pursuing a goal of net zero emissions by 2050 and has committed to “no net increase” in emissions from fracking. So what’s going on?

It comes down to a new buzz-term in policymaking: “circular economy”. We’ve heard it applied to realms such as plastics and food waste. It’s increasingly being applied to carbon emissions, to describe an imagined scenario where carbon released from one source is used or stored by others to create a “closed loop” system.

But as our new research finds, this path is a massive gamble. Such offsetting relies on projects and technologies that do not yet exist, or are not yet feasible at scale. In effect, the Middle Arm project, and others like it, are grand experiments with our climate.

The ‘circular’ economy

Over the past two decades, international climate policy has increasingly shifted towards a circular model of managing carbon emissions. We’ve seen this happening not just in Australia, but places such as Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Saudi Arabia.

The strategy doesn’t seek to reach net-zero simply by pumping less carbon into the atmosphere – for example, by deploying renewable energy. It also involves activities that remove, capture, store or use carbon, therefore “offsetting” or cancelling out emissions from other sources.

Proponents of the strategy characterise it as a simple matter of inputs (emissions) and outputs (offsets) cancelling each other out. But implementing the model is actually very messy, as our new paper shows.

We analysed how the federal and NT governments have sought to implement circular carbon policies, including through the Middle Arm development.

Due to its existing gas infrastructure and proximity to Darwin, this peninsula has long been the target of grand development plans. In July 2020, the NT government announced it would create an industrial petrochemical precinct there to use gas from the Beetaloo and offshore fields.

The following year, the hub was rebranded as a “sustainable development precinct”. References to “petrochemicals” were abandoned. The NT government now frequently talks up the site’s potential for hydrogen and carbon-capture facilities, and says the precinct will be:

largely powered by renewables, master-planned to achieve a circular economy approach of sustainable and responsible production and will use technology to achieve low-to-zero emissions.

The federal government has committed more than A$1.5 billion to the development.

‘Sustainable’ claims called into question

There are serious doubts over Middle Arm’s environmental credentials.

For example, internal government documents make clear the precinct is “seen as a key enabler” of the gas industry.

One confirmed future tenant will be Tamboran Resources, which plans to frack and drill for gas in the Beetaloo Basin. Tamboran intends to build a gas plant in the precinct. Federal crossbenchers, including Warringah MP Zali Steggall, have questioned why public money is being spent on infrastructure “for a private gas company to make record profits from exports”.

What’s more, low-emissions projects planned for the precinct rely on highly speculative technologies.

A carbon-capture and storage facility has been mooted at the site. Announcing the project in 2021, the NT government called it a “a game-changer”. But it neglected to mention that the project relies on unproven technology and has no timeline or guarantee of delivery.

For examples of this, we need only look to Chevron’s Gorgon gas project in Western Australia. The project was supposed to capture at least 80% of CO₂ from the gas it produces. After a three-year delay, carbon capture and storage began in 2019 but has consistently failed to reach its targets.

Claims that Middle Arm would substantially be powered by renewable energy are also in doubt. The Sun Cable solar project – once billed as the largest solar energy development in the southern hemisphere – was planning a battery at the site. But in 2023 the company went into administration and its future is unclear.

Questions also surround Middle Arm’s two proposed green hydrogen projects. Neither company involved has ever built a green hydrogen facility. One of the companies, Total Eren, intends to use solar energy from a facility that has not yet been assessed let alone approved for construction.

Read more:
Opening 10 new oil and gas sites is a win for fossil fuel companies – but a staggering loss for the rest of Australia

Offsets won’t save us, either

As part of its “decarbonisation” plan, the NT is set to grow its carbon offset industries.

And in 2021, the then Coalition government released a climate plan in which more than half the carbon savings would be achieved via carbon offsets, as well as unspecified “technology breakthroughs”.

Carbon offsets are used by polluters to compensate for their emissions. It involves buying “carbon credits” from organisations that have undertaken activities to reduce emissions.

Carbon offsets are contentious because they allow companies to keep pumping out carbon. And ensuring carbon credits represent genuine emissions reduction can be difficult.

We’ve seen this in Australia, where the integrity of certain carbon methods has been questioned. An independent review of the overall scheme concluded it was essentially sound, but critics say key questions remain. Further, there are signs we do not have enough credits to meet market demand.

Looking ahead

The goal of Australian governments to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 increasingly relies on gambits such as the Middle Arm precinct and speculative methods for offsetting and burying emissions.

Meanwhile, the world has just experienced its hottest month on record. And in temperate Australia, a hot, dry El Nino summer is approaching.

At a time like this, we must focus on achieving genuine emissions reductions, rather than playing risky games with our climate.

Read more:
‘Limitless’ energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots

Timothy Neale receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Natural Hazards Research Australia, and the Country Fire Authority.

Kari Dahlgren receives research funding from CitiPower, Powercor, and United Energy.

Matthew Kearnes receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the NSW Geographical Society.

– ref. Darwin’s ‘sustainable’ Middle Arm project reveals Australia’s huge climate policy gamble – https://theconversation.com/darwins-sustainable-middle-arm-project-reveals-australias-huge-climate-policy-gamble-206000

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gavin Moodie, Adjunct Professor, Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, OISE, University of Toronto

One of the headline ideas floated by the Universities Accord interim report is a second national university. This would be on top of the existing Australian National University in Canberra.

The report says it wants to explore the idea of a “National Regional University” to support “high-quality regional education [and] deliver excellence in regional research”.

The basic idea is regional universities could opt in to become part of the new national university.

This is not a new idea

Australia’s last major review of higher education proposed a national regional university in 2008. The Bradley review recommended “a study to examine the feasibility of a new national university for regional areas”. But as the interim report notes, this never happened.

The Bradley review suggested a new national university to redress a lack of participation of regional students. This is an issue that rightly still concerns the accord panel today.

But this time, the accord panel’s main rationale for a new national regional university is to

facilitate and encourage change and evolution in the type, diversity, size and number of tertiary education institutions.

Not (yet) supported by regional unis

So far, the new national university has not attracted much support.

The Regional Universities Network includes seven (though not all) of Australia’s regional universities. The network was “encouraged” by several key ideas in the accord panel’s interim report.

But any mention of the national regional university idea was conspicuously missing from its media statement in response to the report.

Other university models

The accord report says there are comparable international models for a national regional university, and points to the University of California system. This includes ten campuses in the US state, each with its own local identity and leadership.

But this example is not helpful. The University of California has a significantly different political, educational and social environment. It also has much more funding than Australian institutions.

A closer example of a national multi-state university is the Australian Catholic University. This has campuses in Ballarat, Blacktown, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, North Sydney and Strathfield.

But it is doubtful whether this would be a good model for a national regional university.

When the Australian Catholic University was formed in 1991, its constituent colleges would not have qualified separately for research status and funding. In contrast, all the obvious candidates for membership of a national regional university are already fully fledged self-contained universities.

Even if a regional university were to consider amalgamation, it would be more likely with a near neighbour, not another more distant regional university.

Meanwhile, the name “national regional university” invokes the name of the existing Australian National University. It was not an easy process to set up the ANU. It took decades** to achieve a coherent internal structure.

Read more:
The Job-ready Graduates scheme for uni fees is on the chopping block – but what will replace it?

Worrying ‘synergies’

The accord panel envisages a national regional university would provide opportunities to “find academic synergies and operational efficiencies across existing institutions”.

This is likely to worry university staff and students as “synergies” and “efficiencies” can often lead to cost cutting and job losses.

There is also substantial evidence the strongest synergies in teaching, research and service happen when people and organisations are within commuting distance of each other.

There is a risk that a new national regional university will lead to remote, unsuitable, inflexible and unresponsive systems.

As James Cook University has noted place-based differences define the roles of regional universities. For example, James Cook positions itself as a “university of the tropics”.

And a “regional” university in north Queensland is substantially different from a “regional” university in western NSW.

Read more:
Australian unis could not function without casual staff: it is time to treat them as ‘real’ employees

TAFEs provide more opportunities

If we want to improve opportunities for regional students, the accord should consider a bigger role for TAFEs in a national regional university and more generally.

They are widely dispersed in regional and outer metropolitan areas.

The federal government has already announced more regional and outer suburban study hubs. These could be boosted if they are turned into joint TAFE-university ventures.

Several regional universities have told the accord review vocational and higher education should be more strongly aligned and connected.
For example, the University of the Sunshine Coast argues, along with changes to regulation and funding, there should be

more opportunities for physical co-location of education and training facilities.

Indeed, Australia already has six highly distinctive “dual sector” universities, which provide both university and vocational qualifications.

These include RMIT, Charles Darwin University and CQ University but have been largely overlooked by people advocating for more diversity for Australian universities.

What now?

The interim reports contains more than 70 “areas for further consideration” by the accord panel.

Many of these – including the idea for a national regional university – will not necessarily make it into the final report in December.

If Australia is to have a new university there needs to be more careful thought about where it should be and what its ultimate structure and purpose should be.

Gavin Moodie has worked at two Australian dual sector universities and has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Centre for Vocational Education Research to investigate relations between vocational and higher education.

– ref. A national university for regional Australia isn’t necessarily a smart idea. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/a-national-university-for-regional-australia-isnt-necessarily-a-smart-idea-heres-why-210909

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edith Jennifer Hill, Associate Lecturer, Flinders University

The one constant the internet offers us is a continual rotation of trends. Months ago, the trend was people exhibiting “main character energy”. People were imagining themselves as main characters in their own life show: they were the ones who knew everyone’s name in the coffee shop, they were having the whirlwind romance, they were only accepting the best.

Now, the trends have moved on, and people are NPCs.

Non-playable characters, or NPCs, are taking TikTok by storm. NPCs originate in video games. They are the background characters, the ones with repetitive movements and sayings, and no storylines. The main, playable, character can interact with them but only in limited ways. They are tools in someone else’s story.

People pretending to be NPCs on TikTok are not new. Creator @loczniki, Nicki Loczek, has been acting like a video game character on her TikTok page for two years. Her videos regularly get millions of views.

NPC content rapidly gained popularity in recent months when creators like @pinkydollreal have been live streaming as NPCs. NPC creators perform scripted lines and reactions to purchased “gifts” from their fans that then appear on screen as emojis.

Giving diamonds, coins and other gifts to creators has a very low cost to fans. However, when creators accumulate large audiences, the profits can add up significantly, especially when the streams can go for hours. Creator @glam_with_dee tried out the trend and shared that she made $99 in a two-and-a-half-hour stream.

Some people are calling the NPC trend a fetish – more often that not it is beautiful women performing actions and sounds on command for an audience. Others, however, disavow this sentiment, stating that people always claim women making money from the absurd is a fetish, when it is often far from the truth.

People watch NPCs on TikTok for a variety of reasons. Nicki Loczek’s popularity came from her funny videos pretending to be a video game character in public. Many streamers also dress up in elaborate cosplay costumes, feeding into the gaming and fantasy aesthetic.

Others, myself included, watch for the absurdity. It is uncanny watching people be NPCs.

Read more:
A new TikTok trend has people drinking toxic borax. An expert explains the risks – and how to read product labels

Commodifying the self

People online have been commodifying themselves since social media platforms introduced creator fund programs and brands recognised the income potential of content creators. For years, creators have been participating in brand deals for anything from health products to home decor, with some going as far as deals for free cosmetic surgery.

One of the key principles of being successful online is a consistent personal brand. Traditionally, when we think about people becoming successful online, we attribute this to authenticity.

Audiences want consistent posts, a clear authorial voice, and a person and brand where they know what they’re getting. While NPCs cannot technically be “authentic” as they are characters rather than people, they still fulfil these attributes on TikTok. They do what we think they will do. Their reactions are expected, if not delivered at the specific times we ask for them.

NPC live streamers have planned reactions to the “gifts” they receive while they stream. Bigger gifts usually have bigger reactions. Christine Tran, a PhD candidate from the University of Toronto, states: “NPC streamers are just the latest genre of creators who divide their bodies into marketplaces of intimacy.”

The NPC trend fits in with other forms of online commodification. Pretending to be an NPC on TikTok live is not too far removed from popular YouTubers maintaining an “online persona” for the purposes of creating a marketable, brand-friendly channel.

Monetisation online

TikTok is one of many social media platforms where users create and sell a personal brand for money. Tobias Raun, an assistant professor in communications, states: “YouTube as a platform plays a crucial role by persistently encouraging users to compete for attention and status and rewarding them economically for promoting themselves.”

TikTok pays its users far less than YouTube does. While the real numbers differ depending on video length and the creator themselves, TikTok is known to pay $0.03 per 1,000 views, compared to multiple dollars on YouTube. The most money to be made on TikTok, outside of brand deals, is through live streams.

Read more:
From being mildly late to sucking on people’s tears – what is a ‘beige flag’ on TikTok?

The creator fund on TikTok is limited to creators with over 10,000 followers who have amassed a minimum of 100,000 views in the last month. It is also available in limited countries. Australia is not included.

Alternatively, any creator with over 1,000 followers can live stream and can cash out in-app “gifts” for real money. This system is available to far more people.

The NPC trend has shown us how the self-branding online we are more familiar with, people being so authentically themselves, can be surpassed by people playing a character. The rise in live videos on TikTok is linked to the platform’s monetisation policies. If content creators want to make money from their content, they either need an incredibly large following or must find brand deals or do live streams.

I couldn’t call myself an autoethnographic researcher without trying to go live myself. I did.

TikTok is a strange, strange place. I went live for 15 minutes while writing some of this article, and 320 people watched me. I talked to some of them. Someone said I typed too hard. Someone else asked me to sing Black Sabbath.

I closed my TikTok app with a new-found appreciation (and a little bit of fear) of how hard it must be to maintain a character for hours during a live stream.

Someone did say they liked the sound of my typing. If I found a way to do my marking on an ASMR live stream, you would find me on TikTok tomorrow.

Edith Jennifer Hill 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.

– ref. People are pretending to be ‘NPCs’ on TikTok and it’s not just weird, it’s also lucrative – https://theconversation.com/people-are-pretending-to-be-npcs-on-tiktok-and-its-not-just-weird-its-also-lucrative-210795

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracy Clelland, Lecturer in Health Education, University of Canterbury

Relationship and sexuality education has, yet again, become a political talking point ahead of this year’s election.

National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis recently told a public meeting that sex education was a job for her and her husband, “based on our values and our views of the world […] I want my education system focused on teaching my children how to read, how to write and how to do maths”.

While Willis may have had a receptive audience, interviews with parents of children between the ages of 11 and 14 show she may be in the minority. As contentious as the topic can be, many parents want to work with schools to educate their children about relationships and sexuality.

My research offers a glimpse into just how complicated, yet important, the topic of sexuality education can be – and why it it so vital we ensure all young people have access to quality relationships and sexuality education.

From sex to sexuality education

For much of the 20th century, sex education in New Zealand centred on population control and Christian moral norms.

It wasn’t until 1985 that sex education became part of the school curriculum. But parents were able to pull their children out of the classes, pointing to a general acceptance that sex education was a controversial topic. With the scare of HIV/AIDS, classes focused on physical aspects of sex and how to practice safe sex.

Read more:
Five important things you should have learned in sex ed – but probably didn’t

In 1999, sex education became sexuality education. The shift was meant to introduce a more holistic view of the topic, which includes physical, social, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects. This was much broader than sex education, which related only to the physical aspects of sexual and reproductive knowledge.

A 2015 guide from the Ministry of Education said sexuality education should take a “positive view of sexual development as a natural part of growing up”. This frames sexuality first and foremost as a source of human potential and pleasure.

Since then, the curriculum has evolved and broadened further – with sexuality education becoming relationships and sexuality education (RSE).

Introduced in 2020, RSE starts from year one and includes learning to be a good friend, sense of identity, how we care for other people, and consent. Older students develop knowledge and skills to negotiate positive intimate relationships and to critique media messages harmful to wellbeing.

The contested ground of sexuality education

My research examined the complicated and evolving role of the parent as sexuality educator – particularly in the digital age. But I also looked at how parents felt about the role of schools in teaching children about sexuality.

International research has found that teachers overestimate parental opposition to
sexuality education.

In New Zealand, conservative and religious lobby groups, as well as some media, frame parents and schools in opposition to each other over who is the “best” provider of sexuality education.

Read more:
‘I always get horny … am I not normal?’: teenage girls often feel shame about pleasure. Sex education needs to address this

But the parents who participated in my small group interviews were, in fact, supportive of relationship and sexuality education in schools. As one parent said:

There is a role for schools to play in the sexual education of children, but there’s also a role that parents play. And it’s defining where and how the two work together.

Another parent commented:

I’ve always seen teachers as an extension of parenting, personally. So if my child can come and ask me something I’d like to believe that they could go and ask a teacher the same.

A third parent highlighted the importance of the classroom setting:

I actually think it’s really good for kids to be sitting in a room with kids their own age […] all hearing the same thing and talking about it to each other and just demystifying it.

These parents also understood how important it was to ensure young people have multiple sources of sexuality education – both at home and in the classroom.

One parent discussed just how lacking her own sex education had been harmful:

Talking about the good stuff would have really helped me with those bad decisions. It would have been like, “Yeah, actually this isn’t supposed to hurt. This is supposed to be nice.” Because I didn’t talk about it with anyone, so I didn’t have anyone telling me, actually it’s not supposed to be like that.

While supportive of sexuality education in schools, parents wanted schools to consult more so parents could understand what was being taught.

A 2018 Education Review Office report found only 25% of schools were rated “good” at connecting with their communities on the relationships and sexuality curriculum. The majority of schools tended to use surveys with low response rates from parents.

What young people want

During separate research I did for the the new app Te Puāwaitanga: Beyond the Birds and the Bees, young people told us they wanted a safe, reliable platform to access information and open up conversations about sexual health, relationships, gender and sexuality.

In the absence of open discussions at home on relationships and sexuality, friends or pornography become the default sex educator. Research from the Classification Office found one in four New Zealanders first see porn
by age 12, and most are not seeking it out when they first see it. A majority of
young people (75%) have seen porn by age 17.

Read more:
Schools urgently need to tackle rape culture by educating pupils about online world

Many of the young people we spoke with said they have limited opportunities to talk to their parents about sexuality and so school becomes a safe space. School is also a place for them to hear a range of views about relationships, sex and diverse sexualities.

As one student said:

I trust my parents to tell me what they think, but school allows us to hear what other people think.

In a complex world, relationships and sexuality education aims to give young people the critical skills to navigate the uncertainty around them. It needs to be a combination deal with parents and schools working together.

But this can only happen after listening to the voices of young people. After all, isn’t education about relationships and sexuality meant for them in the first place?

Tracy Clelland received a Lotteries Grant to undertake research for Te Puāwaitanaga: Beyond the Birds and Bees.

– ref. Ignore the politics – many parents want to work with schools on sexuality education – https://theconversation.com/ignore-the-politics-many-parents-want-to-work-with-schools-on-sexuality-education-210968

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Quilty, Purple House Medical Advisor. Honorary ANU., Australian National University

When it’s hot outside, it’s safer to head for air-conditioned shelter – right?

Not always.

In northern Australia’s intensely hot climate, air conditioners were once luxury items. Houses were built to catch the breeze, and everything slowed down when the hot weather arrived. But over the last few decades, most people in hot cities like Darwin started spending much more time in air-conditioned comfort.

But our new research has found Territorians have become more likely to die from heat over the last 40 years, even as cooling has become more widely available. Why? If people spend all day in air conditioning set at 21℃, not only are they living more socially isolated and less active lives, but their bodies may not acclimatise to the heat – and that can make them more vulnerable when they do emerge into a steamy wet season afternoon.

An even more interesting finding is that the Northern Territory’s First Nations people are no more vulnerable to heat despite higher burdens of chronic disease, extreme poverty and very poor housing conditions for most. In many communities, air conditioning is expensive or unavailable.

How can that be? In part it is because First Nations people are protected by their culture, as co-author and Warumungu elder Norman Frank Jupurrurla knows firsthand. “When we look at the road crews working in 45℃ heat, we think – why are you killing yourself for your job?,” he says. “Why not stay in the shade, have a nap, and come out later?”

In countries such as Spain, the traditional siesta – a similar cultural method of coping with heat – has been all but extinguished because of the impact on the economy. But as the world grapples with ever-hotter temperatures, we may well need to relearn the art of the afternoon nap.

What’s the risk of living in constant cooling?

The Northern Territory is one of the hottest places on Earth, compounded by intense coastal humidity during the October-to-April wet season.

Heat can kill quickly, especially if you have pre-existing health conditions. Many heat-related deaths come from heart attacks, as the heart has to work harder in intense heat. Others come from dehydration, renal disease and frailty. The impact of intense heat builds, as well – if you don’t get a chance to cool down, you’re more at risk.

This is one reason people in hot countries often take a nap or siesta. As the world heats up, even siesta sceptics such as Germany are rethinking their opposition. Siestas aren’t about avoiding heat entirely – they’re about getting out of direct sun and resting.

Leer más:
Many First Nations communities swelter without power. Why isn’t there solar on every rooftop?

But what happens if you swap cultural practices of gentle heat exposure like the siesta for air-conditioned offices, cars and homes? You miss out on the physiological adaptations your body is capable of. It takes us around 15 days to acclimatise to a new heat regime.

The way we sweat, how our kidneys filter, even the way our hearts pump will change with acclimatisation. Our bodies are capable of adapting to hotter weather, to a point. That’s why Australia’s athletes went to Darwin before the Tokyo Olympic – to get ready for the to the humidity of the Japanese summer.

How can you tolerate life without cooling?

Co-author Norman Frank Jupurrurla lives in Tennant Creek, between Katherine and Alice Springs. In the wet season, it’s stifling.

As he says:

During the day, it gets up to 45℃. You can’t do anything when it’s that hot. You’d never start walking or working outside. You want to do that, do it early in the morning or late in the afternoon or night. Otherwise you’ll just kill yourself.

In the heat, you have a nap – that’s the only thing you can do, in the shade. Roadworkers, fencers, workers – when we see them working, it’s like a machine that can’t stop even if its destroying itself. Is it their job? The money? If you have to do it, do it before the sun. Or wait for a cooler season.

Climate change is making it hotter still:

It’s getting warmer and warmer. We live here, we notice it. The weather is changing. My nanna, my grandfather, told us it was never this hot. We never felt the sun coming down like this.

Mr Jupurrurla grew up on the town’s outskirts, living in tin sheds. Only recently, at the age of 44, was he able to get decent housing. His upbringing would not have been possible now, as intensifying heat means informal housing is no longer safe. Even some formal housing isn’t safe.

Houses weren’t built for the climate. They just burn [with heat]. We have to make them safer.

On especially hot days, traditional methods of coping reach their limits. There’s nothing to do but to find a house with an air-conditioned room and stay in it. The problem is, it’s very expensive.

Norman Frank Jupurrurla’s experience is common. Houses in the Northern Territory have Australia’s lowest energy efficiency despite being exposed to climate extremes.

What should we take from this?

Reducing physical exertion during the hottest part of the day is a powerful mechanism to protect your health. On days that don’t involve extreme heat, siestas are free, carbon neutral and healthy. Policymakers need to engage with cultural adaptations like the siesta as tools to prepare for a hotter future, just as they are in Germany.

Just as important is making sure houses are built for their climate, as we are trying to do in Tennant Creek. Well insulated and well ventilated houses need much less air conditioning to remain comfortable and safe – perfect for a nap.

Leer más:
How climate change is turning remote Indigenous houses into dangerous hot boxes

Simon Quilty is affiliated with a community project, Wilya Janta, that is progressing better housing design with greater Indigenous agency in Tennant Creek.

Aparna Lal receives funding from the Australian Research Council on a Fellowship.
She is a member of the ACT government’s Climate Change Counicl.

Norman Frank Jupurrurla 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.

– ref. Could an afternoon nap help us cope with hotter temperatures? It’s worked for Australia’s First Nations people – https://theconversation.com/could-an-afternoon-nap-help-us-cope-with-hotter-temperatures-its-worked-for-australias-first-nations-people-211186

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Conley Tyler, Honorary Fellow, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne

Why does Australia provide development assistance to other countries? Is it charity or geostrategic self-interest?

Today the government released a new international development policy to answer these questions.

The case the new policy makes is a simple but powerful one: if Australians want our region to be peaceful, stable and prosperous, we have to lift people out of poverty through sustainable development. It’s a bold document that puts development at the heart of Australia’s response to a challenging world.

Politically, the new international development policy is a brave statement. It outlines a strong and unapologetic argument for development aid, even at a time when many Australians are feeling cost of living pressures. Crucially, it makes the case in terms everyone can understand.

We live in a time of interconnected and compounding challenges, including escalating disasters, rising costs and insecurity some have dubbed the “polycrisis”.

If Australians want to live peaceful lives in a globalised world, they need to care about the stability of our 26 neighbours, 22 of which are developing countries. The success of the region is also our success. In difficult times, Australia needs to contribute to global cooperation.

Listening to the region

Released at Parliament House today, the new international development policy is the result of extensive consultation with more than 300 people across the region and in Australia, informed by an expert advisory group. Given it’s been a decade since the last development policy was released, it was keenly anticipated, with more than 200 submissions received.

The focus of the policy is on the Indo-Pacific. A key message of the policy is the importance of listening to Australia’s neighbours and concentrating resources on the issues that matter most to them. It frames the development relationship as one where Australia is not domineering but is a partner of choice. This is achieved by “genuine partnerships based on respect, listening, and learning from each other” – not by a transactional approach.

Read more:
Australia should not overstate the threat of China in the Pacific, and mend relationships in the region

Given the desire to be responsive to the region’s priorities, there’s no surprise it focuses on climate as a major driver of instability. This is presented as responding to the calls of our region and evidence of the accelerating climate crisis by increasing our climate investments and better addressing climate risks.

The policy also prioritises local leadership, and commits to support local solutions and accountability, including by channelling funding to local actors.

At the same time, it aims for “a development program that reflects who we are”. Australians’ desire for fairness is reflected in a focus on gender equality and equity for people with disabilities, while the commitment to embed the perspectives of First Nations Australians into development efforts showcases one of Australia’s strengths.

Key focus areas for a whole-of-nation approach

The policy sets out four focus areas for development support:

• helping partners to build effective, accountable states

• enhancing their resilience to external shocks

• supporting regional structures such as the Pacific Islands Forum and Association of Southeast Asian Nations

• generating collective action on global challenges such as humanitarian crises and economic resilience.

The overarching message is of the importance of development as a tool of statecraft. This is in line with previous government messaging, including the Defence Strategic Review’s focus on a “whole-of-government statecraft effort”.

In the new policy, the importance of a whole-of-government approach is also stressed. This highlights the need for coherence and for coordination across the different departments and agencies that contribute to international engagement.

Beyond this, the new policy moves into a whole-of-nation approach to development that encompasses “all Australian entities engaging with the region”. This includes civil society organisations, diaspora communities, businesses, education, religious and cultural institutions, trade unions, philanthropic organisations, youth organisations, the arts and the media. It’s new for government to focus on working with the wider society in international affairs.

The policy explicitly seeks to articulate a galvanising vision for these non-government actors, stating it

will serve as a signpost to our institutions and entities operating in the region to guide engagement that supports positive development impact.

And the policy offers additional finance to support partnerships with local civil society organisations through a new Civil Society Partnerships Fund to support local civil society organisations.

The challenge now will be in implementation and in sufficient funding to make its commitments a reality. This is why making the case for development aid is so crucial.

Aid is not charity

Contributing to our neighbours’ development is not a form of charity Australians should put up with by virtue of being a developed country. Rather, it’s an investment in our own future and something we should actively value.

In the new policy, both Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong and Minister for International Development Pat Conroy express their desire that Australians be “proud” of the development program.

Read more:
After years of decline, the budget gives more money for diplomacy and development capability. What does this mean in practice?

To help achieve this, there’s a focus on transparency -– including annual performance reports and a new online portal -– so Australians can be confident the development program is producing real results.

There is also a focus on implementation. In line with the central idea of partnerships, this focuses on country and region strategies, and will establish senior responsible officers in each of Australia’s embassies to be guided by Pacific and Southeast Asian priorities.

When he became international development minister, Conroy laid out four arguments for development aid: security, economics, international relations and morality.

Which should we find compelling? All of them.

Credit is due to the government for providing a clear and galvanising vision of why development aid is crucial if Australia wants to influence the world around it for the better. The new international development policy deserves to be widely read.

Melissa Conley Tyler is Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D), a platform for collaboration between the development, diplomacy and defence communities. It receives funding from the Australian Civil-Military Centre and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and is hosted by the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID).

– ref. Australia’s new development aid policy provides clear vision and strategic sense – https://theconversation.com/australias-new-development-aid-policy-provides-clear-vision-and-strategic-sense-210976

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Quilty, Purple House Medical Advisor. Honorary ANU., Australian National University

When it’s hot outside, it’s safer to head for air-conditioned shelter – right?

Not always.

In northern Australia’s intensely hot climate, air conditioners were once luxury items. Houses were built to catch the breeze, and everything slowed down when the hot weather arrived. But over the last few decades, most people in hot cities like Darwin started spending much more time in air-conditioned comfort.

But our new research has found Territorians have become more likely to die from heat over the last 40 years, even as cooling has become more widely available. Why? If people spend all day in air conditioning set at 21℃, not only are they living more socially isolated and less active lives, but their bodies may not acclimatise to the heat – and that can make them more vulnerable when they do emerge into a steamy wet season afternoon.

An even more interesting finding is that the Northern Territory’s First Nations people are no more vulnerable to heat despite higher burdens of chronic disease, extreme poverty and very poor housing conditions for most. In many communities, air conditioning is expensive or unavailable.

How can that be? In part it is because First Nations people are protected by their culture, as co-author and Warumungu elder Norman Frank Jupurrurla knows firsthand. “When we look at the road crews working in 45℃ heat, we think – why are you killing yourself for your job?,” he says. “Why not stay in the shade, have a nap, and come out later?”

In countries such as Spain, the traditional siesta – a similar cultural method of coping with heat – has been all but extinguished because of the impact on the economy. But as the world grapples with ever-hotter temperatures, we may well need to relearn the art of the afternoon nap.

What’s the risk of living in constant cooling?

The Northern Territory is one of the hottest places on Earth, compounded by intense coastal humidity during the October-to-April wet season.

Heat can kill quickly, especially if you have pre-existing health conditions. Many heat-related deaths come from heart attacks, as the heart has to work harder in intense heat. Others come from dehydration, renal disease and frailty. The impact of intense heat builds, as well – if you don’t get a chance to cool down, you’re more at risk.

This is one reason people in hot countries often take a nap or siesta. As the world heats up, even siesta sceptics such as Germany are rethinking their opposition. Siestas aren’t about avoiding heat entirely – they’re about getting out of direct sun and resting.

Read more:
Many First Nations communities swelter without power. Why isn’t there solar on every rooftop?

But what happens if you swap cultural practices of gentle heat exposure like the siesta for air-conditioned offices, cars and homes? You miss out on the physiological adaptations your body is capable of. It takes us around 15 days to acclimatise to a new heat regime.

The way we sweat, how our kidneys filter, even the way our hearts pump will change with acclimatisation. Our bodies are capable of adapting to hotter weather, to a point. That’s why Australia’s athletes went to Darwin before the Tokyo Olympic – to get ready for the to the humidity of the Japanese summer.

How can you tolerate life without cooling?

Co-author Norman Frank Jupurrurla lives in Tennant Creek, between Katherine and Alice Springs. In the wet season, it’s stifling.

As he says:

During the day, it gets up to 45℃. You can’t do anything when it’s that hot. You’d never start walking or working outside. You want to do that, do it early in the morning or late in the afternoon or night. Otherwise you’ll just kill yourself.

In the heat, you have a nap – that’s the only thing you can do, in the shade. Roadworkers, fencers, workers – when we see them working, it’s like a machine that can’t stop even if its destroying itself. Is it their job? The money? If you have to do it, do it before the sun. Or wait for a cooler season.

Climate change is making it hotter still:

It’s getting warmer and warmer. We live here, we notice it. The weather is changing. My nanna, my grandfather, told us it was never this hot. We never felt the sun coming down like this.

Mr Jupurrurla grew up on the town’s outskirts, living in tin sheds. Only recently, at the age of 44, was he able to get decent housing. His upbringing would not have been possible now, as intensifying heat means informal housing is no longer safe. Even some formal housing isn’t safe.

Houses weren’t built for the climate. They just burn [with heat]. We have to make them safer.

On especially hot days, traditional methods of coping reach their limits. There’s nothing to do but to find a house with an air-conditioned room and stay in it. The problem is, it’s very expensive.

Norman Frank Jupurrurla’s experience is common. Houses in the Northern Territory have Australia’s lowest energy efficiency despite being exposed to climate extremes.

What should we take from this?

Reducing physical exertion during the hottest part of the day is a powerful mechanism to protect your health. On days that don’t involve extreme heat, siestas are free, carbon neutral and healthy. Policymakers need to engage with cultural adaptations like the siesta as tools to prepare for a hotter future, just as they are in Germany.

Just as important is making sure houses are built for their climate, as we are trying to do in Tennant Creek. Well insulated and well ventilated houses need much less air conditioning to remain comfortable and safe – perfect for a nap.

Read more:
How climate change is turning remote Indigenous houses into dangerous hot boxes

Simon Quilty is affiliated with a community project, Wilya Janta, that is progressing better housing design with greater Indigenous agency in Tennant Creek.

Aparna Lal receives funding from the Australian Research Council on a Fellowship.
She is a member of the ACT government’s Climate Change Counicl.

Norman Frank Jupurrurla 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.

– ref. Could an afternoon nap help us cope with hotter temperatures? It’s worked for our First Nations people – https://theconversation.com/could-an-afternoon-nap-help-us-cope-with-hotter-temperatures-its-worked-for-our-first-nations-people-211186

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

The Western Australian government, announcing it is backing down on its controversial law to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage, has apologised to the people of the state for getting it “wrong”.

Premier Roger Cook on Tuesday confirmed the retreat, saying the government would now restore the state’s 1972 law, with amendments.

All the additional obligations which the new legislation put on landowners will now go.

The new law, passed with bipartisan support in 2021 in the wake of Rio Tinto’s destruction of 46,000 years old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in 2020, has only been operating several weeks. It has attracted extensive criticism from property owners, farmers and the resource sector.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton immediately drew a contrast with the Voice.

He told the Coalition parties meeting the WA law was well intended but had unintended consequences. “The good news though is that because it was legislation it can be remedied and the harm can be undone. But that’s not the case with The Voice.

“The changes to the Constitution proposed by the Albanese government would be permanent. Unintended consequences would also be permanent. Any notion that a future government could attempt to go back to the Australian public and ask to wind it back are fanciful,” Dutton said.

In his mea culpa Cook, who has been premier only two months, said: “The Juukan Gorge tragedy was a global embarrassment, but our response was wrong. We took it too far, unintentionally causing stress, confusion and division in the community.”

“We got the balance wrong, what we did hasn’t worked – it’s vital we manage cultural heritage in a common sense manner, so we can move forward together as a community,” he said.

“The complicated regulations, the burden on landowners and the poor rollout of the new laws have been unworkable for all members of our community – and for that I am sorry.”

He said the amendments to be made to the revived 1972 law would prevent “another Juukan Gorge”.

Cook rejected suggestion he had been under pressure from the federal government to drop the new law in order to remove a referendum impediment.

Indigenous representatives have expressed dismay at the WA government action. But some in the “yes” campaign for the Voice believe it is helpful for their case.

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. WA Premier Roger Cook says ‘sorry’ as he dumps Aboriginal cultural heritage law – https://theconversation.com/wa-premier-roger-cook-says-sorry-as-he-dumps-aboriginal-cultural-heritage-law-211202

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

I’ve got two questions about blockbuster movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer.

1. Why aren’t the cinemas charging more for them, given they’re so popular?

2. Why are they the same price, given Oppenheimer is an hour longer?

The opening weekend for both films saw an avalanche of Australians returning to the cinema. Extra staff had to be put on (although probably not enough) to manage queues, turn away pink-clad fans who couldn’t get in, and clean up mountains of popcorn trampled underfoot.

An obvious solution to such a rush of demand is to push up prices. Airlines do it when they are getting low on seats. When more people want to get a ride share, Uber makes them pay with “surge pricing”.

Even books are sold at different prices, depending on the demand, their length, their quality and how long they’ve been on the shelves.

But not movie tickets, which are nearly always the same price, no matter the movie. Why? And how much has the cost of a trip to the movies risen over the past 20 years?

Why not charge more for blockbusters?

In suburban Melbourne, Hoyts is charging $24.50 for the two-hour Barbie – the same as it is charging for the three-hour Oppenheimer, even though it could fit in far fewer showings of Oppenheimer in a day. It’s also the same price as it is charging for much less popular movies, such as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

It’s also how things are in the United States, where James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds blames convention and says

it costs you as much to see a total dog that’s limping its way through its last week of release as it does to see a hugely popular film on opening night.

Australian economists Nicolas de Roos of The University of Sydney and Jordi McKenzie of Macquarie University quote Surowiecki in their 2014 study of whether cinema operators could make more by cutting the price of older and less popular films and raising the price of blockbusters.

By examining what happened to demand on cheap Tuesdays, and developing a model taking into account advertising, reviews and the weather, they discovered Australian cinemas could make a lot more by varying their prices by the movie shown. We turn out to be highly price sensitive. So why don’t cinemas do that?

‘There’s a queue, it must be good’

It’s the sort of thing that puzzled Gary Becker, an economic detective of sorts who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in the early 1990s. A few years earlier, he turned his attention to restaurants and why one particular seafood restaurant in Palo Alto, California, had long queues every night but didn’t raise its prices.

Across the road was a restaurant that charged slightly more, sold food that was about as good, and was mostly empty.

His conclusion, which he used a lot of maths to illustrate, was there are some goods for which a consumer’s demand depends on the demand of other consumers.

Queues for restaurants (or in 2023, long queues and sold out sessions, as crowds were turned away from Barbie) are all signals other consumers want to get in.

This would make queues especially valuable to the providers of such goods, even if the queues meant they didn’t get as much as they could from the customers who got in. The “buzz” such queues create produces a supply of future customers persuaded that what was on offer must be worth trying.

Importantly, Becker’s maths showed that getting things right was fragile. It was much easier for a restaurant to go from being “in” to “out” than the other way around. Once a queue had created a buzz, it was wise not to mess with it.

Cashing in from the snack bar

There are other reasons for cinemas to charge a standard ticket price, rather than vary it movie by movie.

One is that it is hard to tell ahead of time which movies are going to soar and which are going to bomb, even if you spend a fortune on advertising as the makers of Barbie did. In the words of an insider, “nobody knows anything.”

Another is the way cinemas make their money. They have to pay the distributor a share of what they get from ticket sales (typically 35-40%). But they don’t have to pay a share of what they make from high-margin snacks.

This means it can make sense for some cinemas to charge less than what the market will bear – because they’ll sell more snacks – even if it means less money for the distributor.

Rising prices, despite some falling costs

But cinemas still charge a lot. From 2002 to 2022, Australian cinemas jacked up their average (not their highest) prices from $9.13 to $16.26 – an increase of 78%.

In the same 20 year period, overall prices in Australia, as measured by the consumer price index, climbed 65% – less than the rise in movie ticket prices.

A 2015 study found Australian cinemas charge more than cinemas in the US.

Yet some of the cinemas’ costs have gone down. They used to have to employ projectionists to lace up and change reels of film. Digital delivery means much less handling.

A now-dated 1990s report to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found the two majors, Hoyts and Greater Union/Village, charged near identical prices except where they were faced with competition from a nearby independent, in which case they discounted.

Whether “by design or circumstance”, the two cinema chains rarely competed with each other, clustering their multiplexes in different geographical locations.

Longer films no longer displace shorter films

I think it might be the multiplex that answers my second question: why cinemas don’t charge more for movies that are longer (and movies are getting longer).

In the days of single screens, a cinema that showed a long movie might only fit in (say) four showings a day instead of six. So it would lose out unless it charged more.

But these days, multiplexes show many, many films on many screens, some of them simultaneously, meaning long films needn’t displace short films.

Although we have fewer cinema seats than we had a decade ago (and at least until the advent of Barbie, we’ve been going less often) we now have far more screens.

Long movies no longer stop the multiplexes from playing standard ones. And because cinemas like to keep things simple, you pay the same price, no matter which movie you chose.

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

– ref. Beyond Barbie and Oppenheimer, how do cinemas make money? And do we pay too much for movie tickets? – https://theconversation.com/beyond-barbie-and-oppenheimer-how-do-cinemas-make-money-and-do-we-pay-too-much-for-movie-tickets-211121

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Isaacs, Associate Professor, Film Studies, University of Sydney

In 1972, American cinema was ablaze with the energy of what later came to be called “The New Hollywood”. This was a group of film directors who were bringing a radical kind of cinema to the movie mainstream – movies with big budgets, edgy content and transgressive politics, all for a mass audience.

A few of them – Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, William Friedkin – even tried to start their own American arthouse studio in San Francisco in the early 70s, making their movies far away from the studio executives.

With the audacity of relative youth on their side, they wanted to bring down the old system and remake Hollywood.

Foremost among these directors was a young Friedkin, who burst onto the Hollywood scene with his searing police drama, The French Connection. Released in 1971, the film galvanised audiences, changed the landscape of Hollywood genre realism, and took home five Oscars – including Best Picture.

I have a giant poster (a 1971 original) of The French Connection on my office wall. Apart from the gorgeous poster art, it’s a reminder to me of what that era of visionary cinema achieved in so short a period of time.

But Friedkin was also that something extra special, even among the Young Turks of the New Hollywood. He remained an unknown quantity, even while enjoying mainstream box office success. The prolific director has died at 87, just one month before his now final film is set to premiere at the Venice International Film Festival.

Read more:
From the Moscow stage to Monroe and De Niro: how the Method defined 20th-century acting

Enduring artistic fascination

The stark realism of The French Connection shouldn’t have worked with the police procedural. Friedkin plays the thriller like something lifted from the French New Wave, say Jean-Pierre Melville’s glorious Le Cercle Rouge of 1970.

The French Connection was followed by perhaps the most notorious film of the Hollywood 1970s: The Exorcist (1973). The stories told about the film’s gargantuan run in Hollywood cinema chains are legendary: audiences running from theatres unable to stomach the content, screaming about the intensity of images of good and evil.

The Exorcist remains the apotheosis of the Christian horror, imitated a thousand times across the decades that followed. On its original release, the film took more than US$190 million on a US$11 million budget, cementing Friedkin’s place in the New Hollywood pantheon of visionary filmmakers.

Whereas Spielberg, Coppola and Scorsese found their niche in the mainstream Hollywood industry, Friedkin remained the enfant terrible and something of an outsider.

Alongside other directors such as Brian De Palma and his longtime friend Bogdanovich, Friedkin assured audiences Hollywood would not lose its tenuous grip on arthouse, experimental genre cinema.

Friedkin’s style was routinely unconventional. His material pushed the boundaries of the classical Hollywood system, traversing that line between mainstream and independence.

Like so many of the New Hollywood auteurs, Friedkin’s output after the 1980 masterpiece, Cruising, is patchy.

There were misses, such as The Guardian (1990) and Rules of Engagement (2000), and Friedkin shows his discomfort with Hollywood’s aesthetic and political constraint in the erotic thriller, Jade (1995).

But there many works from the last 40 years of enduring artistic fascination: the synth-oozing To Live and Die in LA (1985), which sets the template for Michael Mann’s Collateral (2004); Jade, Friedkin’s 1995 attempt to outdo Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), a perverse pleasure precisely for its manic unevenness; and 2011’s stylised, hyper-violent domestic drama, Killer Joe.

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My personal top five

I want to close this reflection with my William Friedkin top five, which I’ll be revisiting across the next week:

5. To Live and Die in LA (1985)

If The French Connection is the epitome of the New York Crime film, To Live and Die in LA is pure Los Angeles. It’s gritty, yes, and violent; but the film exudes cool, and in spite of its relative obscurity, was a major influence on a new generation of genre filmmakers.

4. Sorcerer (1977)

Many commentators on Friedkin’s career regard The Sorcerer as Friedkin’s last great auteur film. Of course, that’s not my opinion (see below). But it is true to say that Sorcerer (a remake of sorts of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s wonderful Wages of Fear from 1953) remains a stunningly experimental film in Hollywood of the late 1970s.

It tanked at the box office (opening a month after Star Wars!) and cast Friedkin as an unreliable director.

3. Cruising (1980)

Has Cruising – a film about a serial killer within New York’s homosexual subcultural community – been cancelled? I don’t know. I so desperately hope not.

What a stunning thriller in the tradition of the realist urban cinema, setting the scene for one of Al Pacino’s best and most unhinged performances. It first appeared with an X-rating and a mess of notoriety. It remains a brilliant film of this era.

2. The Exorcist (1973)

Simply put, the milestone that brought one of the most distinctive artistic visions to a classical possession genre story.

Adapted from William Peter Blatty’s novel (its own cultural phenomenon of the early 70s), Friedkin demonstrates the way in which audio-visual form can surpass its source material. Not for the squeamish!

1. The French Connection (1971)

Even if this film was one sequence – the car/subway chase through New York’s gritty underpasses – it would be a masterpiece. This is glorious action montage before the excesses of digital post-production hijinks. The film oozes a place and time unlike any other film shot in New York in the 1970s.

One of the best films ever made by a Hollywood studio.

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

– ref. The incredible creativity of William Friedkin: Oscars, box-office hits – and arthouse, experimental genre cinema – https://theconversation.com/the-incredible-creativity-of-william-friedkin-oscars-box-office-hits-and-arthouse-experimental-genre-cinema-211185

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Tang, PhD Scholar in Climate Governance, Australian National University

Right now, people in coastal China are fleeing successive typhoons. Parts of the Philippines are awash.

Typhoons are intense circular storms, which Australians know as tropical cyclones and Americans call hurricanes. Damage from cyclones has increased sevenfold since the 1980s, even as death tolls fell dramatically. In the 2010s, tropical cyclones did A$872 billion worth of damage globally.

Why? Our world has more heat in the oceans and atmosphere, which can supercharge cyclones. A cyclone is a heat engine, transferring heat from warm ocean water up into colder layers of the atmosphere. More heat in the system means more intense heat engines.

No wonder there’s been renewed interest in Cold War era experiments in weather control. While early efforts had little success, our new research evaluates other methods of weakening these storms by pumping up cold water from the depths or spreading particles in the lower atmosphere to reduce incoming heat and encourage early rainfall. But these techniques could have unexpected – or even dangerous – side effects.

Why are researchers even looking into this?

Tropical cyclones are lethal. In 1970, an enormous cyclone struck Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). Meteorologists knew it was coming, but they had no way to communicate to people in its path. The storm killed up to 500,000 people.

Since then, we’ve invested in far better early warning systems. Deaths have fallen substantially now that people have time to evacuate.

But in developing countries in particular, deaths still happen. And then there’s the damage to farms, houses, roads and livestock. You may well survive the storm only to be forced into poverty.

Scientists are exploring ways of preventing natural disasters, from bushfires to floods to hailstorms. So why not cyclones?

Can we really turn a cyclone into a normal storm?

It is certainly possible. But it’s not easy.

In the 1960s, the United States explored the use of cloud seeding to stop hurricanes from forming. During Project STORMFURY, planes flew high above cyclones out at sea and sprayed them with silver iodide, a chemical which could encourage water droplets to clump together and fall as rain. This, the theory ran, would disrupt the hurricane from forming. While some seedings seemed to correlate with weaker hurricanes, the link was never adequately found and the project was eventually abandoned.

Instead, researchers are exploring two new options.

Cyclones need hot sea surfaces to form. If we could cool the surface – such as by piping chilled water from depths below 200 metres – we could prevent the cyclone from ever forming.

The problem is it’s expensive. Norwegian cyclone-busting startup OceanTherm estimates it would cost about A$750 million to develop the technology, and another $105 million every year to keep it going.

And worse, cooling one area of the sea does nothing to stop cyclones from forming elsewhere. Models suggest ocean cooling will, at best, have only a limited dampening effect on cyclones.

There’s a more likely option – aerosol injection. Scientists already know that dust blown from the Sahara into the Atlantic reduces cyclone formation. We could use planes or drones to inject hygroscopic (water-attracting) particles into the lower atmosphere, where they would reflect and scatter sunlight and trigger rainfall and energy release.

This method has a stronger scientific pedigree, given it already occurs naturally. But we don’t know what side-effects it would have and we still aren’t sure what happens to energy redistributed by the intervention.

Other research has found aerosols could reduce cyclone intensity while boosting rainfall on the rotating outer edges of cyclones. More intense rain could still cause substantial damage.

As you’d expect, it’s easier and more effective to intervene early in a cyclone’s life, before too much energy builds up. Making the call to try to stop a cyclone means taking decisions early. That’s a challenge, because cyclones can become stronger faster in a hotter world.

Difficult politics, difficult policy

Cyclone control missions might conjure up the image of Hollywood action heroes off to save the world.

Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that.

Let’s say the Philippine government spots a extremely dangerous cyclone forming and decides to disrupt it. But the heat doesn’t magically go away. It just moves. Suddenly, another storm reappears, heading straight for China, a country you have a testy relationship with, and who may blame you for weather manipulation.

Far-fetched? Not at all. When Cuban dictator Fidel Castro heard of Project STORMFURY, he feared it was an attempt to turn the weather into a weapon.

Only three years ago, China’s neighbours sounded the alarm about the Middle Kingdom’s plans to reroute an atmospheric “sky river” to dry northern regions. This, according to nations like India, could take water away from their rivers.

So who would decide how or when to snuff out a cyclone? How would they decide? Should private companies be allowed to run their own field tests or should these large-scale interventions be government-only? Who would be responsible for any side-effects?

There are more thorny questions. If cyclone control is perfected, what would stop a country trying to redirect cyclones towards a rival? Could cyclone technologies be misused, following similar fears with large-scale geoengineering? Most importantly, are these technological risks worth the potentially reduced risks of cyclones?

What’s next?

We’ll need to find answers for questions like these. As cyclones get stronger, we will urgently need new institutions to help tackle scientific uncertainties, develop monitoring capabilities and find ways of making collaborative decisions at speed. That won’t be easy – most international agreements move slowly, and most don’t meet their intended goals.

Technologies like particle injection are promising, but not ready for deployment. As the technology matures, so should our institutions. It’s why we’re researching the science and policy of these interventions. We must hash out how and when to use technologies like these – before we need to respond urgently.

Read more:
Trying to cool the Earth by dimming sunlight could be worse than global warming

Jack Miller was formerly employed as a research assistant by the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at The Australian National University.

Mark Howden is the Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at The Australian National University.

Roslyn Prinsley is the Head of Disaster Solutions at the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions.

Thao Linh Tran is a Research Fellow at the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions and Research School of Earth Sciences.

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

– ref. In the future, we could snuff out cyclones. But weather control comes with new risks – https://theconversation.com/in-the-future-we-could-snuff-out-cyclones-but-weather-control-comes-with-new-risks-210788

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Farrelly, Professor and Head of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania

In a general amnesty announced on military television last week, Myanmar’s military junta removed six years from the jail term of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 78-year-old leader of the government removed by a coup in February 2021. This came a week after the junta moved her into house arrest following a year in solitary confinement.

But it still leaves Aung San Suu Kyi facing a 27-year jail term on bogus charges.

The junta also lopped four years off former president Win Myint’s sentence, and reportedly released more than 7,000 other prisoners.

But we shouldn’t be persuaded that the junta has changed its stripes. It regularly uses mass amnesties in attempts to cultivate goodwill, either at home or abroad. But any major figures released in these amnesties shouldn’t have been locked up in the first place.

The day before the amnesty, the junta extended its state of emergency for a fourth time, further delaying elections, due to relentless opposition to its February 2021 coup.

The coup sparked ongoing and widespread violence, and shredded the military’s last claims to social esteem. This has left Myanmar impoverished, largely friendless, and without any clear plan for a positive future.

Determined resistance

The army’s top decision-makers, currently bunkered in the capital, Naypyidaw, struggle to maintain control of enough territory to seriously contemplate even a heavily stage-managed nationwide poll.

Under these volatile conditions, people have been voting with their feet by fleeing abroad or taking up arms in a revolutionary mobilisation.

The junta’s leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, reportedly told the National Defence and Security Council that elections couldn’t be conducted due to continued fighting in several regions.

The reality for the generals in their fortified compounds is that any poll could further embarrass them – they cannot even reliably rig the national vote.

Read more:
As Myanmar suffers, the military junta is desperate, isolated and running out of options

Many areas are off-limits to government forces, perhaps as much as half the country – which is Southeast Asia’s second-largest by land area. While aerial bombardments by regime aircraft might set back the resistance, the strategy is hardly a way to win hearts or minds. Inch by inch, the diminution of central government control raises questions about the country’s future.

There’s increasing concern across the Southeast Asian region. An intractable civil conflict presents significant challenges for neighbours Thailand, China, India and Bangladesh.

Diplomatic efforts to maintain Myanmar’s territorial integrity jostle with the discomfort felt almost everywhere about doing business with a blood-splattered regime.

The regime tries to play the politics of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to its advantage. But even there, sometimes in the company of other autocrats, Myanmar now faces the ignominy of an “empty seat” at the political level. And almost nobody wants to shake hands with regime representatives.

An unnecessary crisis

It’s a precipitous erosion of what was, until the coup, a relatively positive story for most Myanmar people.

Before the coup, the most problematic issue was the military’s abuses of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority living in westernmost Myanmar.

Other issues – such as longstanding ethnic grievances and yawning economic inequality – were, at the very least, subject to open debate in the media and sometimes in the country’s 16 regional and national legislatures.

That political and social infrastructure, and the emerging civil society it helped sustain, has now crumbled. It’s been replaced by violence, mistrust, terror and martial chauvinism.

Read more:
Military violence in Myanmar is worsening amid fierce resistance and international ambivalence

Myanmar’s young talent now banned from universities, bravely disobedient in the faces of tanks and bullets, face dismal options: the mountains, the jungle, the border. Some lie low. Others still seek to fan the revolutionary spark. Many are now in jail, others dead.

The military, of course, blames its opponents for the devastation its coup unleashed. That sad fact hides a tremendous political and cultural miscalculation.

It’s unclear whether Myanmar can recover from the army’s self-inflicted wounds. Some speculate the whole system will collapse, making it impossible for powerbrokers to keep up the increasingly flimsy charade of state power. It has all the ingredients of a failed state.

No way out

The decision to abandon the proposed elections, followed by last week’s amnesty, is hardly a surprise. But it does reveal the fragility of the military system and the paranoia of the men in charge.

It’s also further evidence that nobody can trust the junta. Not only has it broken the faith of the Myanmar people, it constantly tests the patience of foreign governments, even those that offer some sympathy for its self-sabotage.

With Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior members of the democratically elected government still locked up, the reality facing the generals is they will never beat her at any election. They are still betting that eventually the world – and, most importantly, their near neighbours – will lose interest and allow some type of partial rehabilitation. Maintaining links with China and Russia is a key strategy.

Still, there’s no obvious path to fuller inclusion in ASEAN while the generals unleash such violence against their own people.

The extension of the state of emergency and postponement of hypothetical elections will further invigorate resistance forces hoping to steadily weaken the army’s grip on power.

A pointless reduction in the jail sentences for Myanmar’s democratically elected leaders is unlikely to quell the fires of opposition now burning across the country.

Nicholas Farrelly has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council for Myanmar-focussed work. He is on the board of the Australia-ASEAN Council, which is an Australian government body. These are his personal views.

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

– ref. Myanmar junta reducing Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence is an empty gesture from a failing state – https://theconversation.com/myanmar-junta-reducing-aung-san-suu-kyis-sentence-is-an-empty-gesture-from-a-failing-state-210809

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marie-Claire Seeley, PhD Candidate, Australian Dysautonomia and Arrhythmia Research Collaborative, University of Adelaide

POTS or “postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome” is a poorly recognised condition we’ve been hearing more about recently.

When people stand up, get out of bed or off the sofa, their heart races and they feel dizzy and fatigued, severely impacting their quality of life. Everyday tasks, such as washing their hair in the shower or working, become challenging because people cannot stay upright.

Before COVID, this debilitating condition was not widely talked about. But during the pandemic, we’ve been learning about the strong similarities with long COVID.

In fact, our recent research shows more than three-quarters of people with long COVID we studied had POTS.

Read more:
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What triggers it?

Multiple studies, including our own, have shown viral infection is the most common trigger for POTS.

Then came the pandemic, with almost 800 million people infected so far with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. The World Health Organization says 10-20% of people infected with COVID are likely to develop long COVID – when unexplained symptoms persist three months or more after the infection.

Now, more research is showing how long COVID resembles POTS. Many people with long COVID show similar symptoms.

What we and others have found

Our recent study found nearly 80% of people with long COVID had POTS. In people who had both and were of similar age, symptoms were indistinguishable from those who got POTS from other causes.

The people in our study either attended a specialist cardiology clinic for people with POTS or long COVID, or came via a long COVID support group on social media. So we cannot generalise our results to people managing their long COVID at home or with their GP.

Earlier this year, a review said about 30% of people with people with “highly symptomatic” long COVID also had POTS. Most (73%) met criteria for POTS and other types of dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.

Taken together, we can conclude that many, but not all, cases of long COVID can be explained by POTS – a condition we’ve known about for years and know how to manage.

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What happens if you have POTS?

We suspect some cases of POTS result from a hyper-vigilant immune response to an invading pathogen, such as a virus. This, or another trigger, affects the autonomic nervous system.

This part of the nervous system balances a vast array of functions including maintaining blood flow to vital organs, digestion, temperature control, sweating and even sexual function.

Even if the autonomic nervous system is marginally disturbed, it leads to the physiological equivalent of anarchy.

The simplest of daily tasks – such as washing your hair in the shower – can result in profound symptoms of dizziness, a racing heart, breathlessness, brain fog and general exhaustion.

In other research published earlier this year, we found people with POTS have a poor quality of life – poorer than people with chronic illnesses such as HIV, cancer, or cardiovascular and kidney disease.

A long path to diagnosis

Many patients are also forced to negotiate a diagnostic odyssey littered with tales of disbelief and dismissal by medical professionals, friends and family. Diagnosis can take years.

In our submission to the parliamentary inquiry into long COVID, we shared the experiences of people with POTS symptoms and their frustration at the lack of recognition by the medical profession. One health worker said:

I am a nurse myself and specifically brought up that I believed I had POTS after COVID infection. I was treated like a hypochondriac and told I had anxiety, which was absolutely ludicrous as I had physical symptoms […] I had many presentations to [the emergency department] with no help or diagnosis whatsoever.

Read more:
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We can do better

Prompt diagnosis is vital in the face of what we suspect are rising numbers of newly diagnosed cases associated with long COVID.

Although many people with POTS report they were referred to multiple specialists before they were diagnosed, this is not always necessary.

GPs can ask you to do a ten-minute standing test to help diagnose it. They can also exclude other common causes of POTS symptoms, such as lung and heart conditions.

There is no known cure for POTS. However, once diagnosed, there are multiple things that can improve and manage the condition. A questionnaire your GP can give you can help prioritise which symptoms to manage. You then work with your trusted GP to manage these.

Increasing fluid and salt intake (under the supervision of your GP), and using full-length compression tights is recommended. These help control heart rate and blood pressure, and reduce dizziness.

Avoiding triggers is important. These include avoiding standing still for extended periods, hot showers, large meals high in carbohydrates, and hot environments.

Many people also benefit from medicines to help control their blood pressure and heart rate.

Read more:
What should my heart rate be and what affects it?

How about referral?

If referral to specialist services are required, this can be complex and expensive. There are no specialised clinics for POTS in public hospitals. Instead, POTS is mainly managed in the private sector.

Referral options can be overwhelming. People may benefit from referral to a range of health professionals to manage their symptoms, including a physiotherapist, psychologist, occupational therapist or exercise physiologist – ideally ones familiar with POTS.

All these barriers means access to diagnosis and treatment largely depends on someone having sufficient money, or being confident enough to navigate the health system.

If you have symptoms such as those we’ve described, see your GP for assessment. For more information about the condition, see the Australian POTS Foundation website, which also lists doctors and allied health professionals who are “POTS aware”.

Marie-Claire Seeley receives funding from The Australian Government Research Training Scholarship and Standing up to POTS .

Celine Gallagher receives funding from The University of Adelaide and the Australian POTS Foundation.

– ref. What is POTS? And how is it related to long COVID? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-pots-and-how-is-it-related-to-long-covid-208280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Duffy, Director of the Space Technology and Industry Institute, Swinburne University of Technology

The first hours after a fireball sighting are like a detective mystery. Last night around midnight, people across Melbourne took to social media to report sightings of a bright light slowly streaking across the sky.

Video footage clearly shows the fireball break apart, with these fragments in turn burning up, meaning this object was big.

An unexpected piece of space junk

There have been reports across Victoria of a loud explosion. Known as sonic booms, such sounds imply the pieces survived long enough to enter the lower atmosphere – otherwise they wouldn’t be audible from the ground. In turn, this tells us at least a part of this fireball was dense.

Additionally, the glow of the fireball had clearly discernible colours, particularly orange, in some videos. This tells us the object isn’t a space rock, but is human-made, with a significant amount of plastics or metals burning up (familiar to anyone in high school chemistry class burning materials in the Bunsen burner).

So, it’s likely we just witnessed several tonnes of space junk – anything humans have put into orbit that isn’t under our control any longer – re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. However, nothing was predicted for reentry on the global space debris tracking site SatView.

According to an early analysis by US-based astronomer Jonathan McDowell, the fireball may have been the third stage of a Soyuz 2 rocket carrying the navigation satellite GLONASS-K2. This was launched by Roscosmos (the Russian space agency) on August 7 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome about 800km north of Moscow.

The incredible brightness of the fireball is thanks to the tremendous speed at which objects re-enter Earth’s thin upper atmosphere, 25,000 kilometres per hour or more.

When you rub your hands together, they get warm from the friction between them. Do that a thousand times faster and you can start to imagine them glowing white hot from the heat. If the friction is between the metal of the space junk and Earth’s thin atmosphere at an altitude of 100km, we can get a very bright glow.

Read more:
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You can help astronomers with the details

To help us confirm what the fireball was and where it came from, we need witnesses to download the Fireballs in the Sky App and recreate the passage of that trail as best they can.

From all those sightings we can triangulate the trajectory and determine where any surviving pieces might have landed and try to collect them. Reports so far are conflicting and we need more data. It appears it came into the atmosphere from the north-west across Victoria to Tasmania in the south-east, but it’s too soon to tell what its exact path was.

Most space junk doesn’t make it to Earth. The incredible heat of 5,000 Kelvin or greater generated by the re-entry burns up almost all such pieces.

Some hardier engine blocks can make it to the ground, however, which is why alerts about space junk re-entering the atmosphere are sent out to aircraft in particular.

However, space junk travels so fast, even a very small mistake in the calculation of the re-entry will have it show up hundreds of kilometres away instead. For most purposes, such warnings are not as helpful as they could be.

Read more:
Airplanes face a growing risk of being hit by uncontrolled re-entries of rockets used to launch satellites

To improve this system, we need better tracking stations on the ground and advances in the modelling of the interaction between space junk and the upper atmosphere to improve our forecasts.

Thankfully buildings, let alone people, are tiny targets relative to the vast unpopulated reaches of land and sea. While there have been reported hits, these are thankfully incredibly rare, making space junk hardly a danger for us on Earth.

As astronomers now rush to work out the details of this beautiful fireball, it also marks a spectacular opening for Australia’s National Science Week, with thousands of live talks explaining science as widely as possible, just like this event.

Alan Duffy receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is employed at Swinburne University of Technology

– ref. A spectacular fireball just streaked across Melbourne – but astronomers didn’t see it coming – https://theconversation.com/a-spectacular-fireball-just-streaked-across-melbourne-but-astronomers-didnt-see-it-coming-211184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll, Senior Lecturer Above the Bar, University of Canterbury

It seems clear that adoption law reform won’t be a priority before the October general election. This will be bitterly disappointing for many New Zealanders.

Despite some significant progress, the Ministry of Justice has revised its timeline for delivering final proposals from the first half of this year to “in due course”. This means there is still no clear end in sight to what has already been a prolonged and frustrating process.

Most importantly, those touched by adoption – including extended families – continue to feel the enduring effects of the antiquated and outmoded Adoption Act 1955.

At the heart of the need for reform lies the “closed” form of adoption the law introduced. This has meant those adopted between 1955 and 1985 were prohibited from knowing their biological parents and family.

It wasn’t until the passing of the Adult Adoption Information Act in 1985 that adopted people (aged 20 or above) gained the right to seek identifying information about their biological parents.

But this still didn’t alter the fact that, regardless of when they were born, the Adoption Act itself legally extinguishes the relationship between an adopted person and their biological parents.

More than 100,000 adoption orders have been made since 1955, with a resulting stigma and secrecy that extend well beyond the adopted person themselves. Biological and adoptive parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, partners, children and grandchildren are all touched in some way.

Some estimates suggest upwards of two million New Zealanders may have a direct link to adoption within their extended family. Law reform cannot come soon enough for many of them.

Legal fictions

Legal adoption emerged in Aotearoa in the 1880s as a response to the growing problem of children born out of wedlock. Closed adoption went a step further, attempting to legitimise the illegitimate child through a kind of legal fiction.

By pronouncing the adopted person “as if born to” their married adoptive parents, it was thought they would be spared moral and social condemnation.

In the process, however, it created a legal legacy that contravenes the right to one’s birth origins and identity, something now taken as a given and asserted in both the United Nations’ Convention for the Rights of the Child and Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Read more:
Adoption and fostering: matching children to parents from same religion and ethnicity makes for happier families

These agreements assert the right to ongoing connections with biological parents and to cultural heritage. As a signatory, New Zealand is in breach of both due to its current adoption legislation.

It is widely agreed the Adoption Act is outdated – including by the Ministry of Justice. In 1985, legal academic Iain Johnston noted that “the basic statutory concept was no longer appropriate for most situations”.

This included how Māori felt about the law. In 1988, the Puao-te-ata-tu (Daybreak) report for the Department of Social Welfare (as it was then) stated that closed adoption “is a totally alien concept, contrary to the laws of nature in Māori eyes”.

And in 2000, the Law Commission found the legal fiction of closed adoption was “a repugnant and unnecessary distortion of reality”.

Read more:
Ireland’s shame: reforming an adoption system marked by secrecy and trauma

A history of inaction

The current attempt at law reform is only one of several over the 68 years since the Adoption Act was first introduced. In the past 40 years there have been six formal reviews, two select committees, four cabinet committees and a draft bill.

There have also been several sponsored bills placed in the parliamentary ballot, a Human Rights claim, five reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child promising to review the law, and no fewer than ten ministers have pledged their commitment to reform.

In the meantime, the courts have been creating or “patching” law to fill some of the gaps where the Adoption Act conflicts with modern rights – for example, ruling that de facto couples (including same-sex couples) can jointly adopt a child.

Social work practice has also become more open, enabling birth parents, adoptive parents and the adopted child to be known to each other. And other legislation has dealt with related issues.

The Care of Children Act 2004, for example, modernised guardianship but overlooked adoption. Surrogacy is being addressed separately in Labour MP Tamati Coffey’s member’s bill, which the present government has adopted.

And because of the need for further consultation and discussion, the Māori customary practice of whāngai has been removed from the scope of the current law reform proposals.

Taken together, these changes have reduced the all-encompassing impact once envisaged for adoption law reform.

Read more:
‘We’re her real mum’: lesbian parents face healthcare challenges

The adoption paradox

There is also the simple fact that adoption law reform is only one of the Ministry of Justice’s many competing priorities, including efforts to reduce crime. Given this, the question must be asked whether the ministry is the right agency to lead adoption reform.

Ultimately, however, there is an unfortunate paradox at the centre of this issue. The emotional and polarising nature of adoption – as evidenced in the stories of those who have given children up, those who have adopted children, and those who have been adopted – is compelling, but also potentially politically unappetising.

Adoption reform pits the interests of some against others – typically, those who have been wronged by adoption, and those who want to adopt but fear reform will make the process even more difficult.

Read more:
Who are my parents? Why New Zealand’s ‘creaky’ surrogacy laws are overdue for major reform

The risk of adverse public opinion or media attention may well act as a powerful political deterrent. As researcher Isla Mirren Doidge concluded in 2016, the very thing that makes law reform so necessary – the hurt and loss of closed adoption – may actually work against it.

For all these reasons it is hard to say what might add impetus to the drive for reform – let alone how the process will fare under a new government after October 14.

What is certain, however, is that this is now an intergenerational issue. Current adoptee activists have picked up the mantle of previous reform lobbyists, and the impacts of this outdated law now extend to their children, and their children’s children.

Adoption law reform has been nobody’s child for too long now. Whichever parties form the next government, they will have the power to make a critical change for the better.

Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, and has received funding from the Marsden fund for adoption/whāngai research. She is affiliated with the Crown Response Unit redress design work, responding to the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry, and has participated in adoption law reform processes as an adopted person.

– ref. ‘Nobody’s child’ – despite a compelling case for reform, NZ’s adoption laws remain stuck in the past – https://theconversation.com/nobodys-child-despite-a-compelling-case-for-reform-nzs-adoption-laws-remain-stuck-in-the-past-210887

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carlos Diaz Ruiz, Assistant Professor, Hanken School of Economics

In 2017, Louis Vuitton caused a stir in the luxury industry by partnering with the New York skateboarding brand Supreme.

This collaboration became a milestone in the luxury industry, showcasing the potential of unexpected partnerships between luxury brands and an unconventional partner seemingly at the opposite end of the design spectrum, a street wear brand.

The iconic brand raised interest again when, in 2019, it partnered with the video game franchise League of Legends.

It may appear odd for a renowned French luxury design house and a game developer to team up. After all, their audiences are quite different. Whereas anyone with an internet connection can jump into a “free-to-play” game, few can afford a luxury brand.

So why are luxury brands collaborating with street brands, cartoons and video games? Part of the reason is their success with young Asian consumers, who are driving demand for luxury consumer goods.

Given their growing importance for the luxury industry, we conducted a study of unconventional luxury brand collaborations. We wanted to investigate why this strategy appeals to Chinese luxury consumers of the post-1990s generation.

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Luxury fashion brands are making a splash in the art world

The study reveals potential opportunities for Australian brands, for instance, through partnerships with old-world luxury brands.

The luxury strategy

Luxury typically brings to mind ultra-expensive products such as yachts and private jets that are not within most people’s reach. However, there is another kind of luxury in which products that are not inherently expensive, like cosmetics, perfume or even chocolate, can be luxurious through their brand’s prestige.

Business managers call this approach the luxury strategy. It has specific rules that luxury managers must follow. One of them is that luxury brands must remain above controversy, using aesthetics and tradition to signal exclusivity. Luxury brands are timeless because they resist the whims of fashion and don’t date.

New ways to convey exclusivity and uniqueness in digital and experiential contexts are emerging. For example, consumption experiences can feel like “a moment of luxury” if they convey a pleasurable escape from day-to-day routines.

As a result, new forms of luxury consumption, like second-hand luxury markets, are popping up.

While luxury brands are known to collaborate with artists, they have been pushing the boundaries of the luxury strategy by teaming up with unexpected non-luxury partners. One early example was between the Swedish fast-fashion retail outlet H&M and designer Karl Lagerfeld in 2004.

A partnership between a designer house and a fast-fashion retailer builds upon each other’s strengths, brand prestige and mass distribution. However, luxury brands are growing more creative with their partnerships.

There are renowned luxury pairings like Fendi x Versace but also pairings with streetwear brands including Adidas x Gucci, with celebrities such as Kanye West x Louis Vuitton, anime characters like Doraemon x Gucci, and now video game franchises like Fortnite x Balenciaga.

These collaborations are becoming increasingly popular, especially with Chinese consumers.

Why do young Chinese consumers love luxury collaborations?

Australian designers and producers of high-end goods must keep young adult Chinese consumers top of mind given the growing importance of Asian consumers in the luxury industry.

Reports by consulting agencies Bain & Company and McKinsey predicted that, by 2025, East Asia can become the world’s largest personal luxury goods market. China alone will consume about half the global market value of luxury goods.

In 2019, McKinsey reported that “Chinese consumers are now the engine of worldwide growth in luxury spending,” driven in part by consumers “born between 1980 and 2015 [who] are reshaping global luxury”.

Our study focused on the generational divide that is a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.

The 1990s economic reforms and China’s one-child policy shaped the generation. In 1979, a government program restricted (most) Chinese families to having one child each. The policy was updated to two children per family in 2016 and three in 2021.

During the 1990s, the media called lone children “little emperors” because they became the sole recipient of the family’s attention and financial support.

Analysts often subdivide the cohort into an affluent post-1980s generation consolidating their careers and a post-1990s generation characterised by urban lifestyle and social media savviness.

The post-1990s cohort of Chinese young adults, now in their 20s or early 30s, is characterised by their economic prowess, always-online presence, international mobility, and taste for luxury brands.

We find that Chinese luxury consumers of the post-1990s generation appreciate when luxury brands collaborate with non-luxury partners seemingly at the opposite spectrum of design, image and values. These collaborations are exciting when they are ephemeral, trendy and playful.

Ephemeral collaborations are transitory, existing only for a limited time, and will not reappear. Trendy collaborations help consumers navigate the ebbs and flows of social media to capture novelty and hype. Playful collaborations appeal to a youthful audience by mocking traditions and not being too serious.

In the words of one of our respondents, “Most of my friends in China like these collaborations […] Sometimes they are like: ‘Oh! Wow, your limited edition! Where? How did you get this? Oh my gosh! You must have connections.”

Collaborations are instantly recognisable in social media. When asked why purchase a collaboration, a respondent said: “Selfies (giggles). I mean, I am going to take a selfie with it. You must post it! (giggles). Others will see it and ask me how I got it.”

A rising opportunity for Australian firms

The popularity of unconventional luxury brand collaborations among young adult Chinese consumers opens timely strategic opportunities for Australian designers and producers of high-end goods.

The young adult Chinese segment remains important in Australia because of its purchasing power and influence in redefining luxury. By seeking collaborations that are ephemeral, trendy and playful, Australian brands can meet this segment’s preferences and adapt to the changing rules of luxury.

Read more:
Consumers in Asia buy luxuries for different reasons to the West

Australian brands can also position themselves as attractive partners for fresh collaborations. As global luxury brands seek partners who, in the words of one of our study participants, “bring something new to break through old-fashioned limits”, Aussie brands can offer just that.

Upcoming Australian designers are known for their effortless elegance, down-to-earth aesthetics and their values of sustainability and ethics, making them great potential partners for luxury brands.

Aussie brands and consumers are intrepid innovators in outdoor gear and adventure activities, like water sports, offering hype, trendiness and authenticity.

This sets Aussie brands up well to enter the coveted luxury market, gaining a foothold in the fast-growing Chinese market and opening opportunities worldwide.

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

– ref. Unconventional luxury brand collaborations are everywhere. What is the appeal? – https://theconversation.com/unconventional-luxury-brand-collaborations-are-everywhere-what-is-the-appeal-210382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Ireland, Senior Research Scientist at the Australian E-Health Research Centre, CSIRO

Chronic or persistent pain is the main reason people seek medical care in Australia. Yet, most chronic pain is incurable and relies on education, exercise and other interventions for management, making it a complex, common and expensive health challenge.

The challenge is more pronounced in the treatment of children and people with diverse needs, such as those with language deficits and varying learning abilities.

Our team of researchers from CSIRO, RECOVER Injury Research Centre, the Tess Cramond Pain and Research Centre and the Queensland Interdisciplinary Paediatric Pain Service are exploring how therapeutic chatbots can help improve communication between people with chronic pain and health professionals.

To do this, we built a chatbot called Dolores, with a unique feature: a canvas for users to describe their pain with drawings, sketches and doodles. We found that in this case, a picture truly is worth a thousand words.

About Dolores

Dolores’s main function is to help users report data on their own pain and provide personalised education. This can be used to enhance communication between users and health professionals and improve pain management.

Dolores is designed to prompt the user for more information, ask follow-up questions, and generally lead the conversation.

The chatbot tailors its responses to the user. It will respond to children with short answers and a limited vocabulary, and responses will gradually increase in complexity with the user’s age.

As the app often captures sensitive data, it was designed with privacy and ethical considerations in mind.

The technology behind Dolores is very different from the large language models behind chatbots such as ChatGPT. It works from a knowledge base and conversation flow built by occupational, speech and physio therapists, based on diverse experience with clients of different ages.

Read more:
Aristotle and the chatbot: how ancient rules of logic could make artificial intelligence more human

Dolores’s “brain” was built with help from hackathons and industry experts to ensure its responses are always focused on meeting the needs of users. Importantly, it will not give incorrect information or “hallucinate” responses.

Pain history

One thing Dolores is used for is to administer what is called a “pain history interview”.

In this process, Dolores asks questions about the onset, location and duration of the user’s pain. It also asks about the sensations and emotions associated with the pain and its impact on daily life, as well as the user’s understanding of pain and their perceptions of different kinds of treatment.

The user can respond to Dolores by talking, typing or drawing. Dolores then produces a transcript which the user can choose to share with their medical professional.

The transcript below was generated using speech recognition from a conversation with an individual living with chronic pain.

Dolores: Could you describe or draw what your pain physically feels like?

Client: Sometimes it’s different … it’s not all the same … then all the days it’s burning tingling

Dolores: Could you tell me or draw how your pain makes you feel? Physically and mentally.

Client: Shit makes me feel like shit

Dolores: And how long have you been in pain for?

Client: Since I was about 15 years old

Dolores: Can you tell me or draw how your pain began?

Client: I am not sure it just began

Dolores: And how does your pain affect your day-to-day life?

Client: It affects everything even down to driving, shopping, taking my kids to school. Even just making a cup of tea

Dolores: What do you believe is the cause of your pain?

Client: Autoimmune disease and follow on disorders from that

Dolores: What do you believe are the best treatments for managing your pain?

Client: Nothing really helps it’s just a matter of learning to deal with it and manage it

While this example was verbal and detailed, some users – particularly children and adolescents – preferred to doodle. For example, a volcano erupting symbolised a pain flare-up; lightning strikes symbolised sharp, sudden pain; and swirls and waves symbolised cyclic pain.

When asking about the impact of pain on daily life, we received an abundance of stick figures and faces depicting sorrow and loss of identity.

The future

In its present state, Dolores can interpret the colours used in a drawing, but not the drawing itself. Research shows red and black, for example, are commonly used when “painting pain”.

So when soliciting more information about a doodle, Dolores might say things like “That’s a lot of red. What is it?”

The next version of Dolores will have sketch recognition, which we believe will give her more insight and provide extended engagement with clients.

Read more:
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Dolores was received positively in cohorts of patients across different age groups. It will soon be used in the broader chronic pain intervention platform, Pain ROADMAP.

Dolores is a step forward in catering for clients and communities whose language may differ from the clinician and for children and individuals with language disorders, who often have higher rates of chronic pain and have difficulties communicating about their pain.

We believe a chatbot that identifies and conveys the symbols of pain to a clinician can be an effective tool for enhanced communication, leading to more effective pain management.

Nicole Andrews is affiliated with RECOVER Injury Research Centre, The University of Queensland and the Tess Cramond Pain and Research Centre, Metro North Hospital and Health Service.

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

– ref. Pictures of pain: how a visual chatbot can help people with chronic pain – https://theconversation.com/pictures-of-pain-how-a-visual-chatbot-can-help-people-with-chronic-pain-210810

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Morris, Professor, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney

Nationally, about 175,000 households are on the social housing waiting list. An individual usually has to be in “greatest need” to get on the list. Even then, being listed does not mean you will be given the keys to a home any time soon.

This is especially so if an applicant is put on the general waiting list and not the priority list. In New South Wales in June 2022, for example, 57,550 were on the waiting list: 51,031 on the general waiting list and 6,519 on the priority list. The NSW government website indicates people on the general waiting list can expect to wait ten years or more in most locations.

Even people on the priority list can wait a long time, especially if they have special requirements, such as housing with no stairs.

For our research, we interviewed people on waiting lists in NSW, Queensland and Tasmania. Thirty interviewees were on the general waiting list and 49 on the priority list. The interviews covered various themes, but all of the interviewees were asked: “What words would you use to describe your wait for social housing?” This article focuses on their responses to this question.

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Lives on hold

Most interviewees found the endless waiting extremely challenging. It commonly left them feeling powerless, extremely stressed and unable to plan ahead.

Tania* in Queensland, who had escaped domestic violence, powerfully captured the perception of her life being put on hold:

It sucks. […] They [state government housing department] just give you no answers […] It’s stopped our whole life. Running from him [her ex-partner] was hard enough, but asking them [the housing department] for help is ten times worse […] They don’t care. It’s pure and simple. They don’t care. Yeah, as I said, it’s like jail and they’re the screws, whatever they’re called. They’re the ones that run the jail.

Read more:
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Zeynep, in her mid-70s, had been on the waiting list in Queensland for 13 years. Her response was particularly expansive:

Yes, I’ve got a few words. Frustration, disappointment, nerve-racking, just being beside myself sometimes. Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to keep moving and packing and finding places? It’s soul-destroying, really.

A traumatising wait

Single parents found the waiting particularly hard. Thea was in a shelter in Tasmania with her three children. The uncertainty of waiting had shaken her confidence.

It’s been painful […] My anxiety has gone through the roof. It’s affected my mental health […] It makes me feel like I’m not good enough as a parent because I can’t provide a stable home for my children […] If it was just me, I could survive. But when I’ve got three little people that I’ve got to care for and provide for, that’s when it gets hard.

Kylie’s description was similar. She has a child with a disability and had been on the NSW general waiting list for several years.

It’s quite nerve-wracking. It’s quite depressing just for the uncertainty of everything, you know. I feel like so many thoughts that I have in my head I’m just trying to pick the best one. I would say […] it’s kind of traumatic as well, quite traumatic […] why can’t you support me to better my life in order for a child to have a better life and break that cycle, that generational cycle of poverty.

Read more:
Focus on managing social housing waiting lists is failing low-income households

In Tasmania, Basma and her three children were living in crowded transitional housing attached to a women’s shelter. She also described the waiting as traumatic.

It’s trauma. It’s made my health go down. My children and I are always angry. […] It’s terrible.

Read more:
‘Getting onto the wait list is a battle in itself’: insiders on what it takes to get social housing

Losing self-esteem and hope

Interviewees said the endless waiting affected how they saw themselves. Jacqui was living in her car in regional NSW.

I think it just it robs you of your pride and your dignity, your peace of mind and it leaves you psychologically exhausted […] being on that waiting list thinking that is today the day […] and then the call doesn’t come. It is like that loss of, you know, self-esteem and loss of hope […] So I think my words [to describe the wait] is my continual shame. You feel shame every day and other than that […] you have to deal with a loss of control over […] your position on the wait list. You have no control over anything.

Many described a sense of hopelessness. Geoff in Sydney has to use a wheelchair and the house he was renting was totally unsuitable. He was despondent about ever getting suitable housing:

I think the word is hopeless. You feel hopeless because you’ve done as much as you can to get the housing [department] to expedite your application, assuming that they have approved my application for priority housing, but there’s no interpretation of that as to what they mean by the priority.

Read more:
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After 20 months on the priority list, Lily was blunt about the impact on her sense of self:

Yeah, you feel deficient. You feel forgotten. You feel really forgotten, yeah, and if you ring up and it’s about a number and even once they’ve got your file open I can’t remember being addressed by my name very much […] You feel a bit like an outcast.

Josie also talked about being made to feel like a second-class citizen:

Demoralising, because you’ve been trying to do the right thing and do everything that you’re asked. You try so many different approaches and you’re getting brick walls everywhere. And demeaning, because your situation is not properly recognised or catered for. So you almost start feeling like well, we can’t help you, but if you were good enough you wouldn’t be in this situation. [It’s] a nightmare, dreadful. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Like never, ever, ever.

Clearly, the long wait for social housing is devastating for many people. Day after day of not knowing makes everyday life extremely challenging. The shocking aspect is that the huge shortage of social housing means a substantial proportion of people on the general waiting list could be waiting forever.

* Pseudonyms have been used to protect the confidentiality of participants in the study.

Alan Morris receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘It’s soul-destroying’: how people on a housing wait list of 175,000 describe their years of waiting – https://theconversation.com/its-soul-destroying-how-people-on-a-housing-wait-list-of-175-000-describe-their-years-of-waiting-210705

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Woods, Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney

Aged-care services will cost taxpayers more than A$35 billion this year. Treasurer Jim Chalmers argues it’s one of the government’s biggest ongoing funding challenges. The last intergenerational report, which looked out over the next 40 years, came to the same conclusion.

In a search for answers, the government has set up an aged-care taskforce to report on how aged care should be funded, and by whom. Its report is due by the end of the year.

The aged-care funding system is complex and covers a wide range of services delivered to older people in their own home, in the community and in aged-care homes. Some services are generally funded by governments, such as health care. Others are more of a private responsibility, such as housing, food, transport and other everyday living expenses.

Even for private expenses, however, there are publicly funded safety nets for people in need. There are also caps which limit the total aged care fees older people pay each year and during their lifetime.

We all agree older people deserve high quality and safe care and support. But for the system to be sustainable, we need to ensure everyone is paying their fair share.

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How is care in the home means tested?

Older people living at home may be assessed as needing health services and personal care. They may also need help with everyday living activities.

Depending on their needs, they become eligible for either Commonwealth Home Support (which provides mainly basic help, including meals, transport, domestic services and social activities) or a Home Care Package (which provides more complex and coordinated health and personal care at one of four levels, depending on the client’s requirements).

For home support, the government has developed fee guidelines which encourage providers to consider the cost of the services and the financial and social circumstances of the clients. Generally, people pay a higher proportion of the cost of their meals and transport and very little for nursing and allied health services such as physiotherapy.

Client contributions have amounted to a little under 10% of total funding each year for the Home Support program.

People receiving home care packages are subject to an income test to see how much they should contribute (though full age pensioners are exempt from the fee). All clients may also be asked to pay a basic daily fee, which can be up to 17.5% of the single basic age pension. While these fees are not mandatory, the government expects people receiving government-subsidised home care to help with the cost by paying fees if they can afford to.

However, research from my colleagues and I at the University of Technology Sydney found older people have been paying only about 2% of the total funding for these packages.

Two factors may account for this. First, there is strong competition in the sector, with providers unwilling to charge up to the level of permissible fees. Second, there is a high and rising level of unspent funds across the packages, creating resistance to paying fees when even the government contribution is not being fully used.

How could this be fairer?

There is an opportunity for change to fairer funding as part of the government’s development of a new Support at Home Program, which will replace the two existing programs in 2025.

At a recent aged care funding summit, my colleagues and I proposed reforms that would keep a strong safety net for those in need. However, new clients with significant income and wealth would be required to make mandatory contributions, rather than the more “optional” current fee arrangements.

The annual and lifetime caps should also be raised. The lifetime caps for income tested home care fees and means tested residential care fees are currently set at a little over $76,000, but there is scope for some older people with considerable means to make greater contributions over the years they are receiving subsidised care services.

Further, we propose that the financial contributions from new Support at Home clients should vary according to the type of support they receive.

Under this model, the costs of health and personal care would be largely publicly funded by taxpayers, similar to universal health-care principles for the general community.

However, people should take greater private responsibility for funding their everyday living costs. Again, this would be subject to a safety net (including for those receiving the age pension).

Read more:
I’ve been approved for a home care package but how do I choose a provider – and what if I want to switch?

What about means testing in aged-care homes?

Currently 63% of aged-care homes are operating at a loss. But those losses are not spread equally across the three main activities of diect care, everyday living and accommodation.

So the funding and means-testing reforms must be tailored to the specifics of each type of activity.

Health and personal care

Direct health and personal care are funded according to the assessed needs of the residents in each home. The care services include nursing, medication management, showering and help with feeding.

The financial returns for providers are, on average, just above the break-even point for providing this direct care. While nearly 95% of the funding comes from taxpayers, this is consistent with the general principles underlying other health policy.

Everyday living

Everyday living services, in contrast, are akin to activities that are a private responsibility for people living in their own homes. This includes the preparation of meals, cleaning, laundry, power and other utilities.

These services have a long history of loss-making for aged-care home providers and yet all residents, irrespective of their means, pay the same Basic Daily Fee (capped at 85% of the single basic age pension).

We argue that, for new residents, the amount charged should be increased to a level where providers can break-even, while leaving the cap in place for those on a pension.

Accommodation

The largest source of losses for providers of aged care homes is from the costs of providing the accommodation itself (the land and building, fit-out, maintenance and periodic refurbishment).

Taxpayers pay providers for the accommodation costs for those in need, which is not dissimilar to providing public housing and rental assistance for those in need in the community.

However, for those with significant income and assets, the current accommodation payments – whether by way of fully refundable lump-sum payments or rental-style daily accommodation fees – are on average both below the cost of providing the accommodation and below the general housing market rates.

There is a strong argument that the cost of their accommodation in aged care homes should be closer to the housing market rates – so long as the quality is also similar.

The government’s Home Equity Access Scheme, including its guarantee of no negative equity, is one way of helping older people with substantial means to meet higher accommodation and other consumer contributions by enabling them to draw down some of the equity of any housing they may own.

The government’s establishment of an aged care taskforce suggests it’s willing to have difficult conversations about how to make aged care funding more sustainable over the longer term. It’s in the interests of the whole community to take this opportunity and ensure subsidised, high quality and safe aged care can be available for our senior citizens when it’s needed.

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Michael Woods is a Professor of Health Economics at the University of Technology Sydney and former Deputy Chair of the Productivity Commission. He has had various government appointments and has received funding from government and stakeholder bodies to undertake research into the reform of aged care.

– ref. Aged-care funding reforms must ensure users pay their fair share – https://theconversation.com/aged-care-funding-reforms-must-ensure-users-pay-their-fair-share-210962

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

Our climate is changing, and airlines are under pressure to reduce emissions from air travel. For many of us, especially in Australia, flying is an essential form of transport, so how can we reduce its environmental impact? Getting to and from the airport is an overlooked aspect of air travel that offers an immediate way to cut total carbon emissions from the trip by a surprisingly large amount.

Our newly published research shows for an average economy passenger flying from Sydney to Melbourne, the carbon emissions from using a fossil-fuelled car to get to and from the airports make up a staggering 13.5% of the total door-to-door emissions. At a global scale, this number reaches 12.1% for long-haul flights and up to 22.8% for short-haul air journeys.

For comparison, in the International Air Transport Association’s 2050 net-zero emission roadmap, 13% of global airline decarbonisation will come from electric and hydrogen propulsion. A further 65% is to come from mass adoption of sustainable aviation fuel. This is fuel produced from non-petroleum-based renewable sources such as some municipal solid waste, woody biomass, fats, greases and oils.

Each of these big lifters requires a mammoth level of investment and technological breakthroughs, and comes with limitations and risks. Some solutions might make air travel prohibitively expensive. Airlines are moving mountains to decarbonise, but there are increasing concerns their net-zero plans might not stack up.

In contrast, a 13.5% emission reduction on a Sydney-Melbourne door-to-door journey today may sound like a dream. Yet our research shows it’s easily achievable if travellers can be persuaded to change how they get to and from the airport.

Read more:
There’s a buzz about ‘sustainable’ fuels – but they cannot solve aviation’s colossal climate woes

So how can travellers be convinced to switch?

Research has shown carbon “labelling” helps shift consumer behaviour towards greener choices. It’s a bit like how the nutrition label on the back of our cereal box helps us choose healthier options.

For instance, when searching for a flight on online travel platform Skyscanner, all flight options are displayed with carbon emissions, so consumers can make a more informed choice.

Two recent studies at the University of California, Davis, suggest showing consumers the emission outcomes of different gate-to-gate flight choices, such as aircraft types and transit stops, can prompt them to choose greener flights, reducing emissions by up to 3.8%.

But air journeys don’t start or end at airports. They start at home and end at destinations, or vice versa. Our air-travel carbon emissions are divided into ground and air segments and counted as airport and airline emissions respectively. While airlines focus on gate-to-gate decarbonisation through future technologies, the door-to-door emissions produced by travel to and from airports can be reduced immediately.

Let’s look at an example of a Sydney-to-Melbourne trip. Say you travel from North Sydney to Sydney Airport by car, then fly to Melbourne Airport and catch a taxi to the city centre. That trip emits 82 kilograms of CO₂ door-to-door. But if you use a train, bus or electric vehicle (charged from a renewable source) to travel to and from the airport, the emissions from your trip drop to 71kg: a 13.5% fall door-to-door.

Although travel platforms are increasingly communicating gate-to-gate emissions to consumers, we’re not aware of any that are including door-to-door emissions. Helping climate-conscious consumers understand the door-to-door carbon impact of airport ground connections could drive them to choose greener options such as public transport and electric vehicles.

Read more:
Bucking the trend: Is there a future for ultra long-haul flights in a net zero carbon world?

Give airlines an incentive to inform passengers

Governments and airports have long collaborated in driving consumers towards greener ground transit options. For instance, Transport for NSW has set a 50% emission-reduction target for 2030.

However, consumer adoption of these options has remained low. Most airport trips in Australia today are still made by conventional car.

As consumers, we have relationships with airlines that we don’t have with airports. When it comes to flying, we choose our airline carefully. Yet we rarely think about how we get to the airport.

Airlines are experts in customer communication and engagement. They operate some of the largest frequent-flyer programs in the world. Last time we checked, Qantas had 15 million program members and Virgin had 11 million.

Through these channels, airlines learn about us and how we tick when it comes to making flying choices. This puts them in an ideal position to keep us informed about door-to-door travel and drive the transition towards greener airport ground-connection options. To give them an incentive to do so, their efforts should be recognised through emission accounting.

Read more:
Blue-sky thinking: net-zero aviation is more than a flight of fantasy

A cost-effective way to cut emissions

Travellers using the Sydney Airport train station must pay an access fee, which adds A$15.74 to the cost of the journey. As our paper highlights, the average customer using the airport train removes 2.7kg of CO₂. Achieving the same amount of decarbonisation during the flight using more sustainable aviation fuel – which is more expensive – would cost the customer about the same: between $10 and $16.

So there is an opportunity for airlines to highlight this decarbonisation outcome as a way to persuade travellers to reconsider driving a car or catching a taxi, and instead take the airport train or bus. Airlines could also consider collaborating with airports to build airport charging facilities for electric vehicles as uptake in Australia approaches a double-digit share of new vehicle sales.

This overlooked opportunity to cut door-to-door emissions from air travel has a substantial upside. It deserves far more attention from airlines, airports and consumers.

Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners.

David Li’s research has received financial supported from iMOVE Australia and in-kind support from Air New Zealand.

– ref. How air travellers can cut their door-to-door emissions right now – by as much as 13% on the Sydney-Melbourne route – https://theconversation.com/how-air-travellers-can-cut-their-door-to-door-emissions-right-now-by-as-much-as-13-on-the-sydney-melbourne-route-211099

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Wilson, PhD Candidate in Nanotechnology & Innovation Governance, University of Technology Sydney

There’s growing global concern about potential risks to human health and the environment from a group of industrial chemicals commonly known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals”.

While the full extent of harm from PFAS is still emerging, the fact these chemicals persist in the environment and accumulate in the body is alarming enough. Some scientists believe they will never break down.

Until now, Australia has not restricted the trade or use of most PFAS chemicals. But that’s about to change.

The federal government intends to stop the import, manufacture and use of some types of PFAS within two years. We want to raise awareness and encourage industry to be proactive about finding alternatives. The sooner industry acts on this, the faster we can eliminate PFAS from the products we use and our waste. With untold benefits for people and our planet.

Read more:
PFAS might be everywhere – including toilet paper – but let’s keep the health risks in context

Hang on, what is PFAS again?

PFAS (or per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) are a group of around 9,000 individual chemical compounds found in many everyday products.

These complex substances are made by joining carbon and fluorine atoms, creating one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry. As a result, they are stain-resistant, water-resistant, grease-resistant and heat-resistant. That makes them enormously useful in products such as food packaging, non-stick cookware, semiconductors and other electronics, refrigerants, stain or waterproof textiles and cosmetics. PFAS has even been found in toilet paper.

But PFAS chemicals also appear to be toxic. They have been linked to a range of human and environmental health problems.

The use of potentially hazardous chemicals such as PFAS also undermines recycling and the circular economy. Compost made from food and garden organics may be contaminated through packaging and other sources. PFAS in sewage also challenges the use of biosolids as fertiliser on farms.

Read more:
‘Forever chemicals’ have made their way to farms. For now, levels in your food are low – but there’s no time to waste

What is changing and what will this mean?

The federal government recently reviewed the industrial chemical regulatory frameworks protecting human and environmental health. As a result, the federal, state and territory governments established the new Australian Industrial Chemical Environmental Management Standard in 2021.

Chemicals with industrial applications are placed into one of seven categories or “schedules”, according to the level of environmental risk they represent. The standard sets out the measures required to manage such risks.

Schedule 7 is reserved for industrial chemicals likely to cause serious or irreversible harm to the environment.

Last month, the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water announced its intention to regulate three groups of PFAS chemicals and pentachlorobenzene (PeCB) under Schedule 7.

This means businesses will have to stop importing, manufacturing or using these PFAS groups, either as bulk chemicals or in consumer products.

Schedule 7 also states “no essential uses”. This means the chemicals cannot be used, even when it is necessary for the health, safety or functioning of society, or when there are no other available alternatives.

The timing of the proposed Australian restrictions aligns with the EU phase-out. The United States and Canada are also pursuing similar action.

Increasingly, countries are pursuing coordinated regulatory actions that will shift market standards around industrial chemical use and management.

What should business do?

At this stage, research indicates low levels of industry awareness and action globally. Industry risks being caught short, facing the economic and administrative consequences of compliance when new rules come into effect.

Phasing out potentially hazardous chemicals such as PFAS will require careful consideration of both risk and technical function. In many cases, products have been designed around these chemicals. This means substitutions will need to be found. However, businesses also need to be aware of the potential for “regrettable substitution”, where a potentially hazardous chemical is replaced by a similar, but lesser-known chemical that also threatens human health and the environment.

There are some tools available to help find safe alternatives. For example, the European non-government organisation ChemSec has compiled a database of hazardous chemicals that are likely to be regulated in future, if not already, and a marketplace for safe substitutions.

In some cases, avoiding regrettable substitution will necessitate rethinking how the function of a product can be delivered in an entirely new way.

Market-leading businesses are experimenting with recent advances in engineering, material sciences, and technology to redesign products without hazardous chemicals.

For example, outdoor-wear companies have redesigned textiles to deliver waterproof products without PFAS chemicals. The North Face has started using an advanced material called “FUTURELIGHT”, which uses nanotechnology to create a waterproof nano-fibre structure. Helly Hansen introduced “Lifa Infinity Pro” that uses advanced textile engineering to create a hydrophobic (water-hating) material, without having to add chemicals.

Emerging new services design-out problematic products entirely. For example, reusable food packaging services, intended to address the environmental impacts of single-use-packaging, generally use reusable materials such as stainless steel that do not require hazardous chemicals to function.

In support of industry action, governments industry, universities and non-governmental organisations are helping support better chemical management.
For example, ChemSec has convened an Investor Initiative on Hazardous Chemicals to help reduce the impacts of hazardous chemicals, while also reducing financial risks to investors. Or in Australia, the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence is providing tools for business and government to ensure safe, clean supply chains.

Governments also have a role to play in helping business transition away from hazardous chemicals. They can encourage business to take a whole-of-system approach to reducing chemicals across supply chains. This might involve tracking and tracing mechanisms, certification and labelling, or supporting research into safer alternatives.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is inviting feedback on the proposed scheduling decisions before submissions close on September 1 this year. The government says feedback will help Australian governments and businesses to better manage the environmental risks of these chemicals.

Read more:
You’ve read the scary headlines – but rest assured, your cookware is safe

Rachael Wakefield-Rann receives research funding from various government and non-government organisations. She does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would financially benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond her academic appointment.

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

– ref. Controversial ‘forever chemicals’ could be phased out in Australia under new restrictions. Here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/controversial-forever-chemicals-could-be-phased-out-in-australia-under-new-restrictions-heres-what-you-need-to-know-210697

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Zunica, Lecturer in Secondary Maths Education, University of Sydney

There is a scene in the film Incredibles 2 where young Dash asks his dad Bob for help with his maths homework. Bob obliges and begins to scribble on a notepad. But Dash quickly points to his textbook and says, “that’s not the way you’re supposed to do it, Dad”.

Frustrated, Bob exclaims

I don’t know that way! Why would they change math? Math is math!

Many parents trying to help their children with maths may be asking the same sort of question.

Pythagoras’ Theorem is as accurate today as it was when it was discovered millennia ago, and it will continue to remain so. But teachers today also teach maths very differently from when parents were at school.

Mental connections not procedures

The teaching and learning of maths has undergone a transformation in past 30 years.

In the past there has been a focus on teaching students procedures, such as times tables and how to work out the circumference of a circle or solve an equation.

We now appreciate the importance of forming mental connections between concepts. For example, when students understand the connection between similar triangles and trigonometry they understand the definition of trigonometric ratios at a much deeper level.

This is because we know today’s learners need to be able to transfer their mathematical understanding to complex, unfamiliar situations.

This means they need to be able to do more than apply a formula and get an answer right. They need to be able to solve problems as they arise.

Problem solving and reasoning

Today, the shift in mathematics education is reflected in key mathematical proficiencies in the Australian school curriculum. These include:

• understanding mathematical concepts and procedures

• being fluent in applying mathematical concepts efficiently and accurately

• drawing on mathematical skills and knowledge to solve challenging questions where solutions are not immediately obvious, and

• developing skills in logical thought, and justifying the use of strategies and conclusions reached.

Read more:
Will I ever need math? A mathematician explains how math is everywhere – from soap bubbles to Pixar movies

Encouraging inventiveness

One practical way teachers are developing students’ mathematical proficiency is by encouraging students to be inventive in the way they solve mathematical problems.

They are deliberately showing students different and multiple ways to represent mathematics problems to give students the space to develop understanding. This also give them an opportunity to reason, model and engage in mathematical thinking.

For example, your child might bring home problems to solve using the area model for multiplication, which looks quite different to a traditional method. For example, we teach how 8×27 can be modelled in parts – 8×20 and 8×7.

When adding numbers, we teach students to deeply understand the place value of each number. Doing so makes our calculations efficient and supports the development of mental strategies for computation.

For example, to add 27 and 5, we can consider that 27 is made of 20 and 7.
Now 7 and 5 can be easily added to get to 12, and the final 20 can be added to obtain an answer of 32.

The world is changing

Maths teaching has also shifted to keep pace with the development of computer technology. This is influencing maths instruction from early childhood, right through to Year 12.

Apart from anything, we know proficiency in information and communications technology is key to educating students for the world they will live and work in.

As an example, the use of dynamic geometry software means teachers can quickly show transformations of graphs, giving students a deeper understanding of how variables work, allowing students to apply these concepts to a wide range of graphs.

Animation is also helping in maths classrooms. The video below shows how the formula for solids of revolution – which are formed by taking an enclosed area and rotating that area about an axis to form a solid – is derived more clearly than could be done using pens and a whiteboard.

How can parents help?

For parents, resist the temptation to react like Bob and get angry about how maths has changed. Instead expect the way children are taught today will be different to how you were taught and that is completely OK.

Knowing this, ask questions of your child, such as can you tell me about the thinking behind this method? Or, how do you know that gets the correct answer?

This will allow your child to show their understanding, reasoning, and communication skills. It will also help you find areas that need addressing, which you can investigate together. Who knows, you might learn some new maths and enhance your own skills!

Read more:
‘Maths anxiety’ is a real thing. Here are 3 ways to help your child cope

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

– ref. ‘Why would they change maths?’ How your child’s maths education might be very different from yours – https://theconversation.com/why-would-they-change-maths-how-your-childs-maths-education-might-be-very-different-from-yours-207030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Siminski, Professor of Economics, University of Technology Sydney

Economics is about organising markets in ways that contribute to social welfare, which means anyone interested in anything from inequality to housing affordability, to health and education systems, or climate change to gender gaps ought to be interested in it.

But economists are far from the most trusted professionals. We are apparently among the least-trusted in the US and midway down the ranking in the United Kingdom.

In Australia, such surveys on our most trusted professions don’t include economists, which itself is noteworthy.

Nevertheless, it’s worth reflecting on why Australians may distrust economists, and the ways in which economics can better serve Australia.

1: Weak diversity and reflexivity

Diversity is imperative for a field that helps make decisions about the allocation of resources.

At high school, economics students are increasingly male, and concentrated in metropolitan and high socio-economic status locations.

Only 0.5% of Indigenous graduates identified economics or econometrics as their main discipline in the 2021 census.

Two-thirds of the Australians employed as economists are male, and although university economics departments have improved recently, they are still notoriously male-dominated.

Compounding this is that – unlike other social sciences – mainstream economics is not a tradition where reflexivity is encouraged.

Reflexivity involves reflecting on one’s background and environment.

Nor are economists often encouraged to reflect on the role of power in the promotion of the ideas they and others espouse, including in the media.

2: The media and conflicts of interest

Economists span academia, government, private and not-for-profit sectors.

But those appearing in the media appear to come disproportionately from banks, other financial institutions, management consultancies and think tanks. Particularly worrying is that some think tanks do not disclose the identity of their donors.

The media seems uninterested in holding them to account for this. In contrast, all reputable academic journals (and The Conversation) require authors to declare any potential conflicts of interest as a condition of publication.

Also worrying is that some think tanks seem particularly ideologically driven.

In my view, the media should be much more critical and discerning in its engagement with economists and potential conflicts of interest.

And more space should be made for academic and public-sector economists.

Choices as to who is quoted should be guided by informed attempts to identify genuine expertise, as well as by diversity considerations. The opposite approach, sensationalism, is irresponsible and detrimental to the public good. And it contributes to distrust in economists.

Equally, academic economists should strive to contribute more to national economic debates. A realignment of incentives within universities would help.

3: Efficiency preferred to equity

Decisions made by governments usually affect both the “size of the pie” (loosely, what economists call efficiency) and how it is shared (equity).

How to balance this trade-off is a question of values, about which economists have no special insight. But we are well placed to summarise the likely distributional implications of policies.

It is true that many economists are at the forefront of research on inequality, but it is also true that economists often focus too much on efficiency.

It is rare for economists to explicitly discuss the implications of government decisions for both. Recent examples are debates about increases to the minimum wage and to JobKeeper payments in the context of containing inflation.

Read more:
The case for boosting JobSeeker for all: younger people report greater financial hardship

4: A heavy international focus

Most of our best and most prominent economists were trained overseas, which is a double-edged sword.

We should continue to help top students to study at the world’s best institutions, and continue to recruit top economists globally. But we should accept that this can come with the price of reduced interest and engagement in Australian issues.

In my view we should balance this by also creating a truly world-class Australian postgraduate training system, perhaps through cross-institutional collaboration, drawing on strengths and creating economies of scale.

Such programs run successfully in Europe. This has been discussed many times by academics in Australia, but it requires government resolve to happen.

5: Declining economics training

It’s also hard to trust economics if you don’t understand it.

Year 12 enrolments in economics have fallen by about 70% since the 1990s. In New South Wales at least, economics has been mostly replaced by “business studies”.

The study of economics has also declined strikingly compared to other fields at universities.

Census data shows that only 1% of university graduates under 40 specialised in economics, compared to 2.5% of those now in their 70s.

Management and commerce degrees are much more popular, producing 23% of graduates across all ages.

While these degrees do include some economics, it is usually in only one or two compulsory units.

6: Overconfidence

While it was once said that every two economists had at least three opinions, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in the discipline, economists seem very sure of themselves in the media.

A large dose of humility would help, and it would help build trust.

The media and consumers of the media should seek out the voices that acknowledge the necessary uncertainties.

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

– ref. 6 reasons Australians don’t trust economists, and how we could do better – https://theconversation.com/6-reasons-australians-dont-trust-economists-and-how-we-could-do-better-208833

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University

The past decade has been a golden one for Australian horror, bookended by The Babadook in 2014 and the current sensation Talk to Me.

The global premiere of Jennifer Kent’s groundbreaking supernatural bogeyman film at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival caused ripples that became a wave.

The Babadook attracted international acclaim, winning the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best First Feature. The Exorcist’s director, William Friedkin, called it the most terrifying film he’d ever seen.

Talk to Me, the directorial feature debut of brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, also premiered internationally at Sundance, where it sparked a bidding war.

Now in cinemas, Talk to Me has surpassed industry projections to gross more than US$10 million (A$15.2 million) in North America on its opening weekend, and opened at number four in Australia. Talk to Me’s success story is not just commercial but critical: the film currently has a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

This horror high water mark carries the legacy of Australia’s strong horror history, while signalling the shedding of some cultural biases that have constrained our culture of innovation in spookery.

The Australian New Wave

Australia’s golden horror decade has roots in the Australian New Wave, a particularly productive period for Australian film from the 1970s to the late 1980s dominated by two key horror subgenres on opposing ends of the taste spectrum.

The high-brow Australian Gothic includes critically esteemed dramas Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Walkabout (1971). These films are structured by enigmatic narratives with horror-tinged edges, in which the ethereal beauty of the bush also bears quasi-supernatural menace.

Read more:
Australian Gothic: from Hanging Rock to Nick Cave and Kylie, this genre explores our dark side

Low-brow Ozploitation films were popular in drive-in theatres, but often critically derided for their “tasteless” violence and sex and for cribbing flagrantly from Hollywood horror.

Classics of the genre include Razorback (1984), pitched as “Jaws on trotters” (the film features a murderous bush hog), and Patrick (1978), about a man in a coma with psychokinetic (and psychosexual) powers.

Ozploitation is often seen as the rebelliously gory, commercially oriented antagonist to the Australian Gothic’s highbrow works of art.

Read more:
Our enduring love of Mad Max’s Australian outback: an anarchic wasteland of sado-masochistic punk villains and ocker clowns

Destroying the high/low culture binary

This binary persisted into the early 21st century. The international commercial success of homegrown horror hits such as Saw (2004) and Wolf Creek (2005) was often accompanied by domestic critical derision: Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton refused to review Wolf Creek 2 (2013).

The horror films of the past decade tend to trample over this high/low genre binary.

These films experiment with art cinema aesthetics and deploy narrative strategies of prestige drama, echoing the Australian Gothic. However the supernatural elements are an explicit narrative structuring device, unashamedly emphasising their horror identities.

The ghosts and bogeymen of films like The Babadook, Relic (2020) and Talk to Me provoke shock and disgust, while also poetically expressing psychological turmoils that evade coherent explanation.

In The Babadook, this turmoil erupts from shared grief between mother and son. In Natalie Erika James’ debut feature Relic, a grandmother’s descent into dementia impels the reverberation of spectral traumas across three generations. In Talk to Me, a blossoming teen friendship is possessed by the unquiet spirit of the protagonist’s dead mother.

Alongside this nuanced dramatic core, Talk To Me pushes the boundaries of good taste with gleeful abandon in true Ozploitation style. It features gruesome possession-induced self-harm and more than 100 swear words. The narrative centres on a darkly comic analogy (instead of drug-taking, the teens become addicted to the occult pleasures of the talismanic hand) that would be at home in a grindhouse drive-in.

This play with high/low culture boundaries filters into Talk To Me’s play with audience emotions and expectations.

At times while watching, my body was tensely primed for a gory eye-gouging; instead I was met with a gentle moment of connection between two characters. At other moments, tender sequences give way unexpectedly to viscous spurts of blood.

The ghouls of this golden decade are at home on the red carpets of festivals such as Sundance, yet they also drip with the blood and bodily fluids of their Ozploitation forebears.

A collective energy

Our current golden age of horror has grown out of a collective creative energy.

The Philippou brothers worked on The Babadook as 19-year-olds and credit Kent’s influence as key to their creative approach.

The Babadook was the debut film from Australian production company Causeway Films, and Talk To Me is their latest picture, led by producer Samantha Jennings.

Jennings and Causeway have been critical to the collective currents that have propelled our golden horror decade. They also produced the conceptually layered zombie horror-drama Cargo (2017) and witch folk horror You Won’t Be Alone (2021), Australia’s submission for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature.

This decade of ingenuity has demonstrated Australian horror films can find international success blending the highbrow and lowbrow, yet the constraining thinking of the New Wave-era continues to haunt the local screen sector.

Kent’s The Babadook received a limited release on only 13 screens in Australia after being deemed too “art-house”. James’ internationally acclaimed Relic was not screened theatrically on home soil until three years after its Sundance premiere (a screening I co-organised with ACMI). You Won’t Be Alone might have been Australia’s Oscars submission, but it did not receive a single nomination at our local AACTA Awards.

The last decade has showcased that Australian horror can be worthy of domestic and critical attention and a gory good time with commercial appeal. Perhaps the success of Talk to Me both at the box office and with critics will encourage us to listen.

Read more:
We’re in a golden age of black horror films

Jessica Balanzategui receives funding from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

– ref. 10 years of homegrown horror hits: Talk To Me and the golden age of Aussie horror – https://theconversation.com/10-years-of-homegrown-horror-hits-talk-to-me-and-the-golden-age-of-aussie-horror-211031

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jude McCulloch, Emeritus Professor Monash University, Monash University

The ACT government on Monday officially released the report from the inquiry into the prosecution of former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann over the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019. Lehrmann has consistently denied the allegation.

The inquiry is only one of at least seven legal proceedings linked to the high-profile, politically-charged case.

The report’s findings have been reported in the media for several days after the inquiry’s chair, former Queensland judge Walter Sofronoff, provided the report under embargo to selected media without the knowledge of the ACT government. One journalist received the report before it was handed to Chief Minister Andrew Barr.

The ACT government said it’s considering charging Sofonoff in relation to releasing the report to journalists ahead of the embargo.

What did the report find?

The report makes “several serious findings of misconduct” against former Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold.

Despite this, the report found the prosecution was properly brought – in other words, that the decision to prosecute was appropriate. This is significant because whether there was sufficient evidence to charge Lehrmann was a central issue of tension between the police and Drumgold.

The negative findings against Drumgold include that he:

• publicly released the controversial letter he sent to the ACT police chief after receiving a freedom of information request, without consulting with the ACT police chief about its release

• failed in his duty of disclosure to the defence by not providing it with an executive briefing note by Detective Superintendent Scott Moller, who led the police investigation into Higgins’ allegations, and Detective Inspector Boorman’s evidence analysis

• improperly questioned Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds. It was found, among other things, that it was improper to put to Reynolds that she was politically invested in the outcome of the trial

• made public statements of support in relation to Higgins in the wake of the aborted trial that were inappropriate because they “gave rise to a reasonable inference that Mr Drumgold was stating his opinion that he thought that Mr Lehrmann was guilty”

• “knowingly lied” to the chief justice in the lead-up to the trial about the extent of the warning he gave journalist Lisa Wilkinson about a speech she planned to give at the Logies, if she won an award for her reporting relating to Higgins. On winning a Logie, the speech she gave, and its ability to prejudice Lerhmann’s right to a fair trial, led to proceedings being temporarily halted.

The report makes no such negative findings against the police. However, Sofronoff does state:

although I think that police investigators accomplished a thorough investigation, I have found that they made some mistakes. None of these mistakes actually affected the substance of the investigation and none of them prejudiced the case. Some of them caused unnecessary pain to Ms Higgins and others.

Likewise, the report finds the victims of crime commissioner acted appropriately, and her support of Higgins didn’t undermine Lehrmann’s presumption of innocence.

The report makes ten recommendations. Significant among these are:

• the formulation of a policy to define the “threshold to charge” and the “considerations which should inform a police officer’s application of the threshold to a given case”

• that the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions and the ACT police review the Collaborative Agreement between the two agencies, with a view to including a complaints mechanism between the agencies

• that the government enact legislation to codify the scope and content of the obligation of disclosure owed by the prosecution in criminal proceedings

• update policy to provide a process for recording retrial decisions.

Why was the inquiry established?

The inquiry was established last year after a public airing of conflict between ACT police and Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold regarding the Lehrmann case.

Drumgold criticised police attitudes as backwards in their response to Higgins, while detectives believed Drumgold was hostile towards them.

Lehrmann was tried on one count of sexual intercourse without consent in the ACT Supreme Court in October 2022. After all evidence had been heard, and a week into jury deliberations, a mistrial was declared due to juror misconduct.

The charges against Lehrmann were subsequently dropped because of fears about the detrimental impact of a second trial on Higgins’ mental health.

The inquiry’s terms of reference gave it a broad remit, including investigating whether police or the director of public prosecutions had breached their duties.

Read more:
Lehrmann inquiry: what’s a director of public prosecutions or DPP? A legal expert explains

It finds Drumgold breached his duties on multiple occasions. These breaches were partly seen to be motivated by a loss of objectivity in that Drumgold was concerned to protect Higgins.

Drumgold maintained, for example, that his motivation for withholding the Moller report from the defence was that it would have been crushing to Higgins to the extent that it may have meant she was unable to participate in the trial.

Drumgold, who has now resigned, rejects many of the findings, maintaining:

While I acknowledge I made mistakes, I strongly dispute that I engaged in deliberate or underhanded conduct in the trial or that I was dishonest

In my mind, the handling of the case was reflective of the chronic problem in Australia with the way our legal institutions deal with allegations of sexual violence.

Rape myths and the criminal justice system

In all criminal trials, victims are witnesses rather than parties to the action. As such, they have no legal advocate in court. The prosecutor formally acts for the community, not the victim.

The inquiry’s terms of reference were broad enough to consider the experience of Brittany Higgins specifically. For example, there has been a steady leak of Higgins’ private communications, which weren’t part of the public trial process.

The inquiry heard little evidence about the source of the leaks. This is despite the likelihood that such leaks would undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and are deeply distressing to Higgins.

Higgins endured days of brutal cross examination, as is common in sexual assault cases. But the inquiry commented on what, to a lay person, might seem rather technical points in relation to the questioning of Senator Linda Reynolds.

A 2021 report showed the ACT laid charges over alleged sexual assaults at a rate six times lower than the national average.

The inquiry heard that few in the ACT’s sexual assault and child abuse team had sexual assault training, including its most senior officer. It also heard the unit included many junior and inexperienced members because it was used as a training ground.

Read more:
Lehrmann retrial abandoned because of ‘a significant and unacceptable risk’ to Brittany Higgins’ life

Public confidence in the criminal justice system

In setting up the inquiry, the ACT government acknowledged “the need for public confidence in the criminal justice system”.

Chief Police Officer for the ACT Neil Gaughan told police colleagues last week that the preemptive publication of the inquiry report would affect the community’s confidence in the justice system.

Indeed the report, and particularly the early publication of its findings in the media, have wrought further damage to the criminal justice system, brought more harm to those involved, and will most likely undermine confidence in the system.

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

– ref. New report into Lehrmann prosecution mires case in yet more controversy – https://theconversation.com/new-report-into-lehrmann-prosecution-mires-case-in-yet-more-controversy-211033

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kwong Ming Tse, Senior lecturer in Department of Mechanical Engineering and Product Design Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology

If you ride a bike and want to cut your risk of traumatic head injury, you should wear a helmet. A major Australian review of 40 different studies and 64,000 injured cyclists worldwide showed wearing a bicycle helmet reduces the risk of serious head injury by nearly 70%.

But there’s a bewildering array of designs out there. How do you know if yours is up to scratch or when it’s time to replace it?

I’m a head injury biomechanics researcher who has researched on bicycle helmet designs. Here’s what you need to know about choosing a bike helmet.

Read more:
Over-the-top policing of bike helmet laws targets vulnerable riders

The parts of the helmet

A typical bicycle helmet consists of a plastic shell, foam-like liner and the straps that keep it on your head.

The shell prevents any sharp penetration. The liner – usually made of expanded polystyrene foam or expanded polypropylene – absorbs the impact energy that would otherwise be colliding dangerously with your head.

In Australia, bicycle helmets must be certified to the mandatory Australian and New Zealand standard (the technical name for this standard is “AS/NZS 2063 — Bicycle helmets”).

This is a very robust safety regulation, and means the helmet has to be tested for:

• impact attenuation (how well it absorbs impact),

• load distribution (how well force is spread out over a larger area, so as to reduce the risk),

• strength, and

• effectiveness of the strap retention system (how well the helmet stays on your head).

So check your helmet to see if it says “AS/NZS 2063” on it somewhere (usually on a sticker inside it).

However, it’s worth noting these tests mostly look at the helmet’s ability to reduce the translational force (a force which causes an object to move in a single direction) of a direct impact.

They don’t properly consider the damage done by what’s called “rotational forces” – when the head is hit at an angle, causing it to shift abruptly.

This can cause the brain to rotate inside the skull, leading to severe and irreversible brain damage.

Bike helmet technology is always changing

A recent review by colleagues and I at Swinburne University of Technology looked at bicycle helmet design technologies that may reduce the risk caused by rotational forces.

The best known one is called a “multi-directional impact protection system” (sometimes abbreviated as MIPS). This design allows the helmet shell to rotate around the inner liner, so the helmet absorbs some of the angular forces that would otherwise be transmitted to your head.

You can tell whether a helmet is MIPS-equipped by looking for a small yellow MIPS logo from the outside or a thin yellow liner beneath the pads on the inside.

Another fancy helmet technology is called an “omni-directional suspension system” (ODS), which has double liner layers connected by special rubbery materials. If you want this feature, look for a white, red and black ODS logo on the helmet shell.

Then there are “shearing pads inside” helmets (also known as SPIN helmets), which features silicone-injected pads in a structure that moves inside the shell.

These help redirect rotational forces when the rider’s head is hit in an accident. Helmets with this feature usually have a SPIN logo on the helmet shell or blue strips on the inside.

A few bicycle helmets use special collapsible liners to reduce the stiffness of shearing in the helmet. Helmets that feature this technology may have words like AIM (which stands for angular impact mitigation), WaveCel and HEXR on them.

My team at Swinburne is developing a bio-inspired flexible structure which can potentially be used as a bicycle helmet liner, and we are currently conducting tests in our Impact Engineering Laboratory. We’re also working on a helmet design featuring an inflatable airbag in a traditional bike helmet.

How to pick a helmet

When choosing a helmet in the shop, pick one that fits comfortably yet firmly on your head and can’t be tilted for more than an inch in any direction.

It should be snug but not annoyingly tight; you’re less likely to wear it if it’s uncomfortable.

Ensure the helmet complies with the national or international bicycle helmet standards, which should be stated on the label inside the helmet.

You may consider buying a helmet featuring one of the advanced protection technologies mentioned earlier (things like AIM, MIPS, SPIN or ODS), as these can help mitigate rotation-induced traumatic brain injury if your head gets hit at an angle.

Pick a helmet with a thicker liner, as long as it’s still comfortable enough to wear properly when riding. Thicker liners tend to absorb more impact energy because they have a longer crushing zone (a bit like how a car with a longer hood in the front has a longer crush zone before the impact hits the driver).

Ideally, choose one just firm enough to minimise impact forces without “bottoming out” (where the impact crushes and flattens the liner).

Denser foams resist very hard impacts better before crushing to their ultimate limit. Once a foam reaches its crush limit, the remaining impact energy is transmitted to your head. Softer foams compress or crush more easily in lighter impacts, giving better protection against milder injuries.

You never know what kind of accident you will have, so it’s better to choose a helmet with both dense and soft foam layers in the liner.

Should you replace your helmet every few years anyway?

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission says it might be prudent replace your bike helmet between five and ten years after you bought it.

But an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) spokesperson told The Conversation the lifespan of a bicycle helmet is not set by time alone; it depends on its use pattern.

The ACCC suggests a bicycle helmet should be replaced if:

• it’s showing obvious signs of wear and tear (a helmet that is used more often is likely to show more wear and tear sooner)

• it’s showing sign of damage (cracks, pieces missing, compression of the foam, frayed straps)

• it has been involved in an accident and has received a severe blow (even if it appears undamaged, you should destroy and replace it).

Read more:
Here’s what bike-sharing programs need to succeed

Kwong Ming Tse receives funding from the Australian government and from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Do I have the right bicycle helmet and how can I tell if it’s any good? A bike helmet researcher explains – https://theconversation.com/do-i-have-the-right-bicycle-helmet-and-how-can-i-tell-if-its-any-good-a-bike-helmet-researcher-explains-207928

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Goodwin, Lecturer, The University of Melbourne

Last month, multi-Grammy winner Lizzo graced stadiums across Australia with her electrifying performances. Glowing five-star reviews celebrated Lizzo, the stage name of Melissa Viviane Jefferson, for attracting audiences of that are inclusive and celebrate love. Over the past three years, Lizzo has shifted from cult performer to a global icon with her fourth album and international tour.

Lizzo is known for her unique blend of self-acceptance and body positivity. Her personal brand radiates “unbridled joy and unapologetic self-confidence.” As a vocal supporter of fat positive language, Lizzo has faced significant criticism and hostility online.

However, a recent revelation has sent shock waves through fans and media circles, demonstrating a potential disconnect between her public persona and the behind-the-scenes music industry culture.

Three former dancers have taken legal action against Lizzo, her dance captain, and her production company, Big Grrrl Big Touring, levelling allegations of sexual harassment and the creation of a hostile work environment.

The legal documents, filed in Los Angeles, outline nine charges against Lizzo and her team, many of which fall under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. The charges allege Lizzo and her management pressured dancers into unwanted sexual situations, weight-shamed employees and failed to prevent religious and sexual harassment in the workplace. The dancers also claim that, as their employment was precarious, they felt they had to comply with requests that made them uncomfortable or risk losing their jobs.

Media and fan commentary has underscored the apparent disconnect between the messages of love and self-acceptance promoted by “brand Lizzo” and the reported experiences of the plaintiffs.

While Lizzo disputes their accounts, the issue will now play out in both the courts and social media. In the middle of this, the dancers’ claims resonate with the experiences of many musicians and arts professionals in Australia.

Sexual harassment and bullying in Australian music

In 2022, an independent review of the Australian music industry exposed rampant instances of sexual harassment and bullying.

More than 1,600 individuals participated in the Raising their Voices study, which revealed pervasive inequalities and poor workplace behaviour within the industry. Women and marginalised communities were most likely to be victims of harassment and bullying. Harassment of those associated with the music industry goes beyond workers, extending to audiences and others such as partners and service providers, pointing to a broader cultural concern demanding immediate attention.

Responding to the report, Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke emphasized:

All Australian artists and arts workers deserve safe and equitable workplaces. Safety doesn’t only encompass physical security, but also entails an environment free from harassment and bullying.

Under the umbrella of the new national cultural policy, the government also established the Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces. This institution is tasked with overseeing improvements in pay, safety, and welfare within the arts sector.

Australia’s legal obligations for workplaces are clear. The Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022, enacted in December 2022, introduced a positive duty for employers to ensure a safe and respectful work environment.

Organisations are required to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and eliminate behaviours that foster a hostile workplace. Importantly, this must be done regardless of any complaints or allegations.

Read more:
Lizzo proudly calls herself a ‘fat’ woman. Are we allowed to as well?

The workplace is more than an office

Two considerations arise when discussing appropriate workplace conduct in the arts. Firstly, the definition of the workplace is crucial. Raising their Voices shows sexual harassment occurs in various settings, including offices, music venues, work-related gatherings, and during tours.

Legally, the concept of a workplace extends beyond the physical location of work. It encompasses “any place where individuals engage in work-related activities associated with their role as a participant.” For touring musicians, this definition goes beyond the stages they perform on, encompassing after-parties and social events.

What you should expect as an artist

Artists should expect an environment free from bullying, harassment and any form of discrimination. All workers must feel safe to exercise their workplace rights and call out any perceived unjust treatment. Some 71% of Raising their Voices respondents felt their career progression was negatively impacted by speaking out.

Workplace behaviours are largely driven by organisational culture, or “the way we do things around here.” A positive culture is one based on respect, clear communication and constructive conflict management.

Leaders are vital in role-modelling acceptable workplace behaviours. In the music scene, where many workers are “gig workers”, leaders play a crucial role. Good leaders demonstrate workplace norms and ensure the organisation has appropriate policies and processes in place.

Read more:
60% of women and non-binary punters and artists feel unsafe in Melbourne’s music spaces

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared at the launch of the national cultural policy, “Arts jobs are real jobs.”

This statement underscores the fact arts workers deserve the same workplace protections as any other industry. Arts leaders must not confuse entertainment with an unrestrained party atmosphere.

It remains crucial for arts workers, whether in management or creative roles, to fully comprehend their rights and responsibilities. Equally important is the recognition that being on tour, despite its allure for audiences, is fundamentally work.

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

– ref. Former dancers have initiated legal action against Lizzo, reminding us arts workers deserve the same workplace protections as any other industry – https://theconversation.com/former-dancers-have-initiated-legal-action-against-lizzo-reminding-us-arts-workers-deserve-the-same-workplace-protections-as-any-other-industry-211101

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

Last week, a special Senate committee released a report on foreign interference through social media.

It makes for scary reading. In addition to widely publicised criticisms of WeChat and TikTok – social media platforms owned by Chinese companies – the committee found US-based platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter), Meta, LinkedIn and YouTube have been targeted by foreign interference campaigns.

Yet no one has been convicted for foreign interference since Australian law reforms on this were passed in 2018. So, what’s going on?

What did the report find?

The inquiry heard evidence of actual interference in Australia carried out using social media, such as fake Russian accounts used to stalk Ukrainians in Australia, and death threats made against foreign journalists.

Among its 17 recommendations, the report proposes transparency standards for social media companies. This includes requiring companies to have a physical presence in Australia (such as offices). A lack of this presence was one of the main reasons WeChat couldn’t be compelled to give evidence during the inquiry.

The report also recommends companies which don’t comply with the transparency standards should face massive fines or even be banned from operating in Australia.

TikTok and WeChat were also called out by the committee, with pressure building to ban those platforms from critical businesses like banks, airports and electricity providers. This is in addition to bans already in place for government-issued devices, as well as some of the large consultancy firms that work for the government.

Read more:
Why was TikTok banned on government devices? An expert on why the security concerns make sense

The report also highlights the threat posed by generative AI in fuelling disinformation. On top of this, it recommends a full review of our espionage and foreign interference laws.

Our current foreign interference system

Australia already has some of the toughest laws in the world when it comes to criminalising threats to our national security, like espionage, foreign interference, and stealing classified information. These reforms were introduced in 2018 specifically to address the rising threat posed by foreign actors.

But foreign interference hasn’t gone away. In 2021, parliament was handed another report, this time by the Joint Committee for Intelligence and Security, which looked at national security risks in universities. That report found Australian universities are at risk of being infiltrated by foreign agents looking to steal scientific research and technology.

In 2022, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) revealed its officers had disrupted an actual attempt to interfere with an election in Australia.

A wealthy individual with deep connections to a foreign government had hired an employee to identify electoral candidates who would support the interests of said foreign government. They then plotted to advance the candidates’ political prospects through generous support and favourable articles on foreign language news platforms. But their plans were disrupted by ASIO before they could act.

Despite clear instances of foreign interference occurring in Australia, only two people have been charged under the 2018 laws. The first case alleged that Di Sanh Duong – a prominent member of the Melbourne business community – was in league with Chinese intelligence officers.

The second charge involved Sydney businessman Alexander Csergo, again alleging he provided reports to Chinese intelligence. Both are still awaiting trial.

Why have there been so few cases?

In part, few people have been charged for foreign interference because the evidence needed to prosecute someone might divulge how Australian law enforcement and spy agencies keep their eyes out for this kind of activity.

This is where the laws designed to keep our national security information confidential in court have been strongly criticised.

Prosecutions of this kind also need to be approved by the Attorney-General. It is entirely possible the Attorney-General has declined to prosecute a person because the evidence didn’t stack up. However, that same law doesn’t prevent a person from being charged or held in remand.

Read more:
Why Australia’s tough national security laws cannot stop foreign interference in our elections

Without more details from our security agencies – which aren’t likely to be forthcoming – we may never know how many people have been charged with a foreign interference offence but aren’t subsequently prosecuted because the Attorney-General did not consent to do so.

Another possibility why few people have been prosecuted for foreign interference is that it can be difficult to obtain the evidence needed to prove a particular person committed foreign interference. This is because it is easy to use anonymising technologies when engaging in foreign interference online, so it may not be possible to actually identify who committed the offence.

Even if the person can be identified, if they are located overseas they would have to be extradited to Australia to face prosecution. This can be a challenging – if not impossible – process.

What needs to be done

Further reforms to Australia’s espionage and foreign interference laws probably aren’t necessary. The laws are already strong enough and, if anything, are too broad as they are. For example, they have the capacity to criminalise the legitimate work of journalists and academics. This can undermine core liberal democratic rights such as press freedom and academic freedom.

Rather than reform espionage and foreign interference laws, the government could focus on making changes to regulate the conduct of social media companies. For example, social media companies could be required to take reasonable steps to prevent foreign interference from occurring via their platforms. Failure to do so could be regulated in a number of ways, such as civil and/or criminal penalties if appropriate.

However, in doing so it is important the government works with social media companies to ensure we get the laws right.

In addition to law reform, government needs to resource law enforcement and intelligence agencies so they can take the actions needed to enforce existing foreign interference laws.

New transparency standards and reformed legislation won’t make a difference if the Australian Federal Police won’t – or can’t – investigate and help prosecute those responsible. If the committee’s recommendations go ahead, putting a banning power in the hands of a minister is only helpful when this power gets used.

We shouldn’t forget the power of users either. Australians could consider whether they should join the 30% of WeChat users who have already ditched the platform over interference and surveillance risks.

Additionally, we all have a role to play in fighting disinformation and social media hatred. Being responsible sharers of content and checking our facts could go just as far in combating disinformation as locking up those responsible.

Read more:
3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Can you sort real from fake?

Brendan Walker-Munro receives funding from the Australian Government through Trusted Autonomous Systems, a Defence Cooperative Research Centre funded through the Next Generation Technologies Fund.

This article was written in Sarah Kendall’s personal capacity as a PhD Candidate at The University of Queensland School of Law. It does not reflect the views of any organisation with which the author is affiliated.

– ref. Foreign interference through social media is an active threat. Here’s what Australia can do – https://theconversation.com/foreign-interference-through-social-media-is-an-active-threat-heres-what-australia-can-do-211036

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Duncan Cook, Associate Professor in Geography, Australian Catholic University

Rocks keep time. Not on our human-scale time, but deep time: the almost unimaginable span of billions of years which have already come and gone.

Let’s say you’re in the far future and you’re looking for evidence of previous civilisations. Where would you look? The first place would be in the rocks.

For decades, experts have debated whether our world-spanning impact on the planet represents the sign of a new geological period, the Anthropocene. Only recently, scientists selected a small lake in Canada as the site that best records our impact.

That’s because the waters of the lake don’t mix, which means sediment falling into the lake is laid down neatly and in incredible detail. Over long periods, the lake’s varved sediments have preserved an excellent, undisturbed record of the Anthropocene.

But what would have to be in those sediments to leave indelible evidence of our presence? Here are five of the markers we’re leaving for the future.

What markers are we laying down in rock?

We break up deep time into parts. Everyone is familiar with periods such as the Jurassic. But what separates them? Usually, a change in the global environment so large it leaves permanent evidence visible in the rock layers. That could be an asteroid strike, gargantuan volcanic eruptions in what is now India or trillions of bacteria injecting oxygen into the atmosphere and making respiration possible.

So to declare that we’re in a new geological epoch – and that we’ve left the balmy post-ice age Holocene behind – requires finding evidence of unmistakably clear markers. Here are five possibilities.

1. Plastics and plastic rocks

Plastics aren’t naturally produced – they’re manufactured from feedstock such as oil, coal, cellulose and fossil gas. Finding plastics in a sediment or rock layer is a clear sign that the layer dates from modern times.

There are also plastiglomerates, the mutant offspring of plastics and rock. These have been found in several places worldwide. They can be produced when plastic is heated, such as in campfires, or in bushfires. But they’re also being found in other places such as creeks.

2. Concrete

Concrete is now the most abundant human-made “rock” on the planet’s surface. Future archaeologists could dig down through mud and detritus to identify when widescale use of concrete first became obvious. This would tell them they’d struck the 20th century. Concrete, of course, has been used for millennia – ancient Roman concrete is still standing in some places. But it didn’t become ubiquitous until recently.

3. Chicken bones

Humans like chicken. As of 2018, we were eating about 65 billion of these birds a year. At any one time, there are 23 billion chickens alive. But why would chicken bones be a telltale sign we were here? Because of how common they are – and because our long reliance on these birds has changed them dramatically. They no longer resemble their sleek jungle fowl antecedents – they’re far larger, grow quicker and eat differently. Broiler (meat) chickens can’t survive without human intervention. These changes are so profound that it’s as if we’ve bred a new species, according to paleobiology and Anthropocene expert Jan Zalasiewicz, who told AFP: “It usually takes millions of years […] but here it has taken just decades to produce a new form of animal.”

4. Plutonium and nuclear residue

Nuclear testing began in the 1940s and accelerated through the 1950s and 60s before being phased out. Testing of new bombs now happens without exploding them. But those decades of testing in the 20th century have left behind a pollution time marker in our environment.

Explosive testing scattered traces of radiation across the entire planet. Plutonium, in particular, makes an excellent marker of 20th century human impact. While it does occur naturally, it’s only at incredibly low levels. The amount of plutonium spread by testing has left a clear spike, like a fingerprint, in the environment. Even now, we can identify samples from the 1950s and 1960s by the presence of plutonium and other radionuclides.

Read more:
A Canadian lake holds the key to the beginning of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch

5. Fossil fuels and climate change

We’ve been digging up and burning fossil fuels for a long time. People were using coal for heat thousands of years ago. But we really got going during what’s been dubbed the Great Acceleration in the mid-20th century, as many countries got richer, populations exploded, and demand for cars, planes and electricity soared. Burning these fuels leaves behind large volumes of fly ash and carbon particles, which fall to Earth, are laid down in rock in some areas. The carbon (CO2) pollution from burning the fuels will also eventually be recorded in rock. Future civilisations would be able to detect our presence because of the remarkably fast spike in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Markers upon markers

There are many more markers, from sudden shifts in distribution of animal species, soil erosion and pollution, to refined metals, to looming mass extinctions of species.

Even so, the Anthropocene has not yet been declared. And it may never be. That’s because there are still many questions to sort out. Will these markers be recognisable long term? And – as some geologists argue – can we even say this is a distinct epoch, given it’s only just begun in geological terms?

All of this will be hashed out in discussions through this year. By the end of next year, we’ll learn the scientific fate of the Anthropocene.

Read more:
Did the Anthropocene start in 1950 – or much earlier? Here’s why debate over our world-changing impact matters

Duncan Cook receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Plastic rocks, plutonium, and chicken bones: the markers we’re laying down in deep time – https://theconversation.com/plastic-rocks-plutonium-and-chicken-bones-the-markers-were-laying-down-in-deep-time-209788