Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cornelia Koch, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide

Australia will go to the polls later this year to decide whether to enshrine an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice in the Constitution. Meanwhile, South Australia created its own First Nations Voice in March.

South Australia used ordinary legislation rather than a referendum. But just like the proposed federal Voice, the South Australian Voice is a response to the call for structural reform in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

What is the South Australian Voice to Parliament, and what can it tell us about how a national Voice might work?

Read more:
The Voice is a simple and enduring idea with a past – and a promise

Who are the members of the South Australian Voice?

The First Nations Voice Act 2023 (SA) actually creates multiple Voices: a state First Nations Voice and several local First Nations Voices. South Australia is divided into six regions, each with a local First Nations Voice.

First Nations people who live in South Australia will vote for members of their Local First Nations Voice. Only First Nations people can stand for election to these Voices.

“First Nations person” is defined using the well-established test from the Mabo High Court case: a person who is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, regards themselves as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person, and is accepted as such by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community.

Each local Voice will have two presiding members of different genders, with those presiding members forming the state Voice. This means the state Voice will have 12 members drawn from the local Voices.

The state First Nations Voice will be informed by advisory committees for Elders, Youth, Stolen Generations, and Native Title bodies.

The first elections for the Local Voices will take place on March 16 2024. The state and local Voices will commence their work later in the year.

What will the South Australian First Nations Voice do?

The South Australian Voice will present its views to the state parliament and executive in a range of ways. This may be useful when thinking about how a national Voice might interact with the federal parliament and executive.

The proposed new section 129(ii) of the Commonwealth Constitution provides that the national Voice

may make representations to the parliament and the executive government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

However, the exact form and process of those representations are to be determined in future legislation. The South Australian Voice provides a concrete example of what those interactions might look like.

The South Australian Voice will engage with the South Australian parliament by:

• delivering an annual report and address to a joint sitting of both houses of parliament

• receiving notice of each bill introduced into parliament and having the right to address either, but not both, house of parliament in relation to that bill

• providing parliament, at any time, with “a report on any matter that is, in the opinion of the state First Nations Voice, a matter of interest to First Nations people”. In a process familiar from the operations of some parliamentary committees, the relevant minister must, within six months of receiving such a report, table a report detailing their response and any action taken in response

• providing a report or address on a specific bill if requested by the speaker of the House of Assembly or the president of the Legislative Council.

The South Australian First Nations Voice will engage with the executive government of South Australia by:

• meeting with cabinet at least twice a year

• attending a briefing with the chief executives of relevant government departments at least twice a year

• participating in an annual “engagement hearing”, reminiscent of the budget estimates process, in which presiding members of the Voice can ask questions of relevant ministers and chief executives about the “operations, expenditure, budget and priorities” of administrative units.

The South Australian government will be under no obligation to follow the Voice’s advice – just like the situation for the proposed national Voice.

Read more:
10 questions about the Voice to Parliament – answered by the experts

What does this mean for the federal Voice?

The state Voice is completely separate from the proposed national Voice. The state Voice will commence its operations next year, regardless of the result of this year’s referendum.

Having said that, the state Voice helps us to imagine what a national Voice could look like. It is not the only model on the table; guidance can also be drawn from the Calma-Langton Report, existing bodies such as Victoria’s First Peoples Assembly and the Voice Design Principles adopted by federal cabinet.

Critically, while lessons may be drawn from these examples, the design of any First Nations representative body must be led by genuine, meaningful engagement with First Nations communities. The dialogues that culminated in the Uluru statement are an outstanding example of such engagement.

Cornelia Koch receives funding from the Law Foundation of South Australia for community education relating to the Voice referendum. She is affiliated with Heart to Heart, a group of Adelaide Law School students undertaking community education relating to the Voice referendum.

Anna Olijnyk receives funding from the Law Foundation of South Australia for community education relating to the Voice referendum. She is affiliated with Heart to Heart, a group of Adelaide Law School students undertaking community education relating to the Voice referendum.

– ref. How does the South Australian Voice to Parliament work and what does it tell us about how a national Voice might work? – https://theconversation.com/how-does-the-south-australian-voice-to-parliament-work-and-what-does-it-tell-us-about-how-a-national-voice-might-work-210465

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Livingstone, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University

A juicy burger is a staple in many Australians’ diet. Yet research shows regularly eating red meat can increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

But is eating a beef burger worse for your health than eating a lean grass-fed steak? And how much red meat should we really be eating?

Read more:
Talking about eating less red and processed meat provokes strong feelings. That’s why this new evidence-based report is welcome

Types of red meat

First of all, it’s good to clarify that red meat refers to all mammalian muscle meat. So that includes beef, lamb, pork, veal, mutton and goat.

Then we can distinguish red meat types by how the animal has been raised and how the meat is processed. Here are some key terms to know.

Conventional meat, also called grain-fed, is meat from animals that are grass-fed for part of their lives and then given a grain-based diet for the remainder. Most red meat available in major supermarkets is grain-fed.

Grass-fed meat comes from animals that have grazed on pasture for their entire lives. This means grass-fed meat tends to have higher levels of unsaturated fats than conventional meat, and is why some research suggests it’s healthier. Grass-fed meat is also likely to cost more.

Organic meat is seen as a premium product as it has to meet government standards for organic produce. For example, meat labelled as organic cannot use synthetic pesticides or use hormones or antibiotics to stimulate growth.

Processed meats have been preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or by adding chemical preservatives. Examples include sausages, ham, bacon and hot dogs.

What is the nutritional value of red meat?

Red meat contains many nutrients that are important for health, including protein, vitamin B12, iron and zinc. Red meat is a good source of iron and zinc as they are more easily absorbed by the body from meat than from plant foods.

Red meat is often high in saturated fats, but this can range widely from less than 1% to over 25% depending on the cut and whether it’s trimmed of fat or not. Minced meat typically ranges from 2% to 9% saturated fat depending on whether its extra lean or regular.

To limit intake of saturated fats, opt for leaner mince and leaner cuts of meat, such as pork tenderloins or beef steak with the fat trimmed off.

Wagyu beef (which simply translates to Wa = Japanese and Gyu = cow) has been touted as a healthier alternative to conventional red meat, as it tends to be higher in unsaturated fats. But research is limited, and ultimately it still contains saturated fat.

Processed meats, such as bacon, salami and sausages, contain beneficial nutrients, but they are also high in saturated fat, sodium and contain preservatives.

Read more:
Here’s a meaty question – are barbecues bad for your health?

Is red meat bad for your health? And does the type matter?

It’s widely reported eating too much red meat is bad for your health, because it can increase your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

But most of the evidence for this comes from observational studies, which cannot determine whether red meat intake actually causes the condition.

Most evidence is observational because it’s simply not ethical or feasible to ask someone to eat large amounts of meat every day for many years to see if they develop cancer.

So let’s take a look at the evidence:

Heart disease and type 2 diabetes

In a review of 37 observational studies, the authors found weak evidence of an association between eating unprocessed red meat and heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

But for processed meat, a recent review showed that for each additional 50g of processed meat consumed per day, the risk of heart disease increased by 26% and the risk of type 2 diabetes increased by 44%, on average.

Cancer

Leading international organisations have declared there’s strong evidence consumption of red and processed meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer.

For example, in a study of nearly 500,000 people, each additional 50g of red meat consumed per day increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. And each additional 25g of processed meat consumed per day, equivalent to a slice of ham, increased the risk by 19%.

While research has linked consumption of red and processed meat with increased risk of other types of cancer, such as lung, pancreatic and breast, the evidence is not consistent.

It also matters how red meat is cooked. For example, cooking a steak over a high heat, especially an open flame, chars the outside. This causes chemical compounds to form that have been shown to cause cancer in very high doses in animal models, and some studies in humans have found an association with increased cancer rates.

When it comes to how the animal was raised or its breed, based on current evidence, it’s unlikely the nutritional differences will have a substantial impact on human health. But research is limited in this area.

Read more:
Yes, we still need to cut down on red and processed meat

How much red meat should you eat?

Our national dietary guidelines recommend the average adult eats a maximum of 455g of cooked lean red meat per week (or less than 65g a day, equivalent to one small lamb chop). This is also what’s recommended by the national Cancer Council.

For heart health specifically, the national Heart Foundation recommends eating less than 350g of cooked, unprocessed red meat per week (or less than 50g a day).

Many dietary guidelines around the world now also recommend limiting red meat consumption for environmental reasons. To optimise both human nutrition and planetary health, the EAT-Lancet commission recommends consuming no more than 98g a week of red meat and very low intakes of processed meat.

Read more:
Should we eat red meat? The nutrition and the ethics

So what does all of this mean for your diet?

The bottom line is that red meat can still be enjoyed as part of a healthy diet, if not eaten in excess. Where possible, opt for unprocessed or lean cuts, and try to grill less and roast more. Consider swapping red meat for lean chicken or fish occasionally too.

If you are looking for alternatives to meat that are better for your health and the environment, minimally processed plant-based alternatives, such as tofu, beans and lentils, are great options.

Read more:
How to get the nutrients you need without eating as much red meat

Katherine Livingstone receives funding from a National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Grant (APP1173803) and a National Heart Foundation of Australia Vanguard Grant (ID106800).

– ref. Is red meat bad for you? And does it make a difference if it’s a processed burger or a lean steak? – https://theconversation.com/is-red-meat-bad-for-you-and-does-it-make-a-difference-if-its-a-processed-burger-or-a-lean-steak-207927

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Narayan, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, The University of Queensland

Earth has just experienced its hottest month since records began and Australia is now gearing up for an El Niño-fuelled summer. Extreme heat isn’t just challenging for humans – it brings suffering to our beloved pets, too.

Research I was involved in examined how climate change affects the welfare of animals, including pets. My colleagues and I used a concept for assessing animal welfare known as the “five-domains model”. It’s a science-based structure for examining an animal’s:

• nutrition
• environment
• physical health
• behaviour
• mental state.

The model evaluates the complete physiological and behavioural responses of animals to environmental stressors. While the effects of climate change on animals have been studied before, ours is the first study to apply the model to animal welfare specifically.

We examined the academic literature and found climate change will harm animals across all five welfare domains. This applies to both wild and domesticated animals, including pets. So let’s take a look at how various types of pets will fare in a warming world – and how we can help them.

Fish

Fish are “ectotherms” – that is, they use external sources of heat to regulate their body temperature. So pet fish are vulnerable to changes in the water temperature of your home aquarium, which may occur during a heatwave.

Extreme water temperatures can cause physical harm to fish. For example, it can increase a fish’s metabolic rate – meaning it needs more oxygen to breathe . It can also cause changes such as slowed growth and reduced feeding.

According to official advice, water in an indoor aquarium should generally be kept at between 20℃ and 25℃ (unless you are keeping tropical fish).

Depending on your budget and aquarium size, you could opt to use a device to control the water temperature. Either way, it’s important to monitor the water temperature regularly.

Also make sure the aquarium isn’t located near a window where it’s exposed to direct sunlight.

Leaving your aquarium unattended for days or weeks in summer can be dangerous, due to the risk of heatwaves. If you’re going on a summer holiday, consider organising a fish sitter to check on the animal regularly.

Birds

Heat stress can change the physiology of birds. For example, research into a wild population of small Australian robins showed during a heatwave, the birds lost body mass and abandoned their nests, and some died.

Heat stress can also cause abnormal behaviour in pet birds such as feather picking, when one bird repeatedly pecks at the feathers of another.

In hot weather, regularly check your bird’s cage to make sure it’s clean and stocked with food and water. If the bird is in an outdoor cage or aviary, ensure it is shaded. And a shallow bird bath will help your feathered friend cool off.

Read more:
Wild bird feeding surged worldwide during lockdowns. That’s good for people, but not necessarily for the birds

Dogs

Dogs and cats can suffer on hot days. That’s especially true if they are:

• older or overweight
• have thick coats
• have short snouts/flat faces (which restricts air flow and makes it harder for them to cool down).

Heat stress can cause canine hyperthermia, which means the dog’s body temperature becomes dangerously hot.

Watch for early warning signs of heat stress such as excessive panting and erratic movements. These symptoms can quickly escalate, leading to heat stroke and possible death.

More than 80% of dog owners report exercising their dogs less vigorously, or for shorter periods, during hot weather. That can help avoid heat-related illness. But don’t reduce your dog’s activity levels too much, as that may lead to other health problems. Just time the walks to avoid the heat of the day.

Refrain from leaving dogs unattended in vehicles, because they can easily overheat. In fact, it’s better to leave your dog inside home on a hot day, as long as they have a cool place to rest and plenty of water – perhaps even with ice cubes in it. And dogs love to cool off in a kiddie pool or under a sprinkler.

If you take your dog out on a hot day, carry a container of fresh, cool water for them. And don’t forget to slip-slop-slap: apply a sparing amount of pet sunscreen to your dogs’ exposed pink skin such as ear tips and nose.

Cats

Like other animals, cats can overheat in hot weather. Symptoms include panting heavily, drooling and a rapid pulse. Like with other animals, if you suspect your cat is suffering from heatstroke, call a vet immediately.

Climate change and associated heat and floods is likely to aid the spread of parasites and illness including tick-borne diseases, flea infestations and heartworm. This puts both cats and dogs at risk.

In hot weather, the advice for cat owners is similar to that of dog owners: ensure your cat has plenty of shade and water, and put pet sunscreen on their ear tips and noses, especially if the cat is white.

If possible, keep the cat inside during the hottest part of the day. Ensure at least one room is cool and ventilated. And in a heatwave, play with your cat either in the early morning or evening, when the temperature has cooled.

A helping human hand

While humans have the capacity to understand and prepare for climate change, pets will need our help to cope. This includes not just the pets listed above, but others too, including reptiles, guinea pigs and rabbits.

As heatwaves and other extreme weather events become more common, the onus is on us to keep our pets safe.

Read more:
How cats and dogs affect the climate — and what you can do about it

Edward Narayan 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. How climate change will affect your pet – and how to help them cope – https://theconversation.com/how-climate-change-will-affect-your-pet-and-how-to-help-them-cope-210724

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Collins, Professor of Geology, University of Adelaide

Earth was not always so hospitable. Evidence of how it came to be so beautiful and nurturing is locked in the rocks of South Australia’s Flinders Ranges – a site now vying for World Heritage listing.

Our new research seeks to better understand this near billion-year-old story. We discovered immense planetary upheaval recorded in the ranges.

In two related research projects, we’ve mapped how the continent that later became Australia responded to the most extreme climate change known in Earth’s history. We then dated this event.

The changes gave rise to algae. Their legacy is the oxygen we breathe and the evolution of the first animals more than 500 million years ago. The soft bodies of these animals have been exceptionally preserved at the new Nilpena-Ediacara National Park, which opened in April 2023.

Read more:
Friday essay: histories written in the land – a journey through Adnyamathanha Yarta

A superbasin on the shores of the Pacific

The rocks of the Flinders Ranges formed at the same time as the Pacific Ocean basin. The plate tectonic “dance of the continents” tore North America away from Australia 800 million years ago. This created a valley that became an ocean where sand and mud was deposited.

Geologists call this the Adelaide Superbasin. “Super” because it is huge, and “basin” because it formed a depression where sediment could accumulate.

The superbasin stretches from Kangaroo Island in the south, to north of the Flinders Ranges and from Coober Pedy in the west to the Barrier Ranges of New South Wales in the east.

At special places such as Arkaroola and the national parks of Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges and Ikara-Flinders, rocks of the Adelaide Superbasin tell us how our planet came to be the way it is today.

Read more:
A map that fills a 500-million year gap in Earth’s history

Land of fire and ice

Until about 800 million years ago, Earth was an oxygen-poor but stable planet. So stable, in fact, this time has been nicknamed the “Boring Billion”.

That all changed 716 million years ago. The planet plunged into an 80-million-year Ice Age, the likes of which has never been seen again. It’s known as the Cryogenian Period.

The Cryogenian contains a least two global glaciations when the planet became covered in ice – an occurrence earth scientists refer to as “Snowball Earth”. What caused this incredible cooling is still a mystery. But many researchers think it relates to huge volcanic eruptions that directly preceded the icy conditions. The heavily worn remains of these volcanoes have recently been discovered in Arctic Canada and Alaska.

We know lava from volcanoes reacts with CO₂, dragging it out of the atmosphere. Scientists believe this reversed the pre-historic greenhouse effect and the planet cooled.

Read more:
Ancient volcanic eruptions disrupted Earth’s thermostat, creating a ‘Snowball’ planet

Part One: Picturing the world before the first animals

The first part of our new research reconstructs the shores of the balmy Pacific as this climate shock hit, causing vast ice sheets to lumber north and smother the region for millions of years.

The glaciers ploughed through hills and valleys, planing off the country and leaving behind vast swathes of boulder clay that now forms rocks over much of the Flinders Ranges.

Our research analysed unusual magnesium-rich sedimentary rocks in part formed by microscopic bacteria. Hundreds of millions of years later, small variations in the concentration of critical elements are still preserved. We used these variations to build a picture of highly saline shallow seas rich in bacterial life, but devoid of much else.

Part Two: Dating Snowball Earth

Dating sedimentary rocks is challenging. The grains of sand and pebbles that make up the rock formed elsewhere. They were carried by wind or water to the beach, or river, where they were deposited. Then, gradually, new rock formed.

Using established methods we can date one of the minerals in the sand (zircon). This uranium–lead method gives us the oldest possible age for sedimentary rock. That’s a reliable maximum age, but the true age of the rock could be much younger.

In the second part of our research we combined this established method with a new technique called “in-situ rubidium–strontium dating”. This enabled us to more accurately date the Snowball Earth rocks in the Flinders Ranges called the Sturt Formation.

The new technique attempts to directly date the “glue” that holds the grains of sedimentary rocks together. So we’re using a laser to date minerals that form as the sediment turns to rock. Some of these “authigenic” minerals (minerals that form “in place”) contain tiny amounts of radioactive rubidium. Over time, rubidium changes to strontium by radioactive decay.

Our study dates mudrock deposited within the glaciation. It is the first study to directly date sedimentary rocks that formed during the Snowball Earth event. This mudrock (a part of the Sturt Formation) formed around 684 million years ago.

Our “detrital zircon” method also gave us maximum ages of about 698 million years for a boulder clay below the mudrock, and about 663 million years from a boulder clay above the mudrock. These dates fit with estimates from elsewhere on the globe, suggesting the icy time likely lasted 50 million years.

Put together, the results of these two projects suggest the “Sturtian” glaciation took place between 716 and 663 million years ago and may have been more dynamic than previously thought. It’s likely there were at least two ice-advance and ice-retreat events, or two separate glacial times. So the planet experienced more of a cold period rather than a completely frigid snowball.

The rise of the algae

These two research projects using rocks within the proposed World Heritage area, along with work from many other researchers, develops a picture of the world that led to the evolution of the first animals. The geological processes and their timing helps us understand how the Earth system came to be.

The frozen world of the Cryogenian stressed the microbial life that dominated the oceans way back then. Glaciers ground rock to powder and this powder turned the oceans of the day to a nutrient soup.

So when warmer times came, a previously minor player in the biosphere bloomed. This newcomer was algae, life with cells containing a nucleus. Essentially, seaweed.

They were larger than the life that existed before and better at photosynthesising. They pumped their oxygen waste into the oceans and atmosphere, inadvertently providing the fuel for microbes to combine to form more complex multicellular life forms (metazoans) and ultimately, the first animals.

A place of true world heritage

The rocks of the Flinders Ranges preserve so many stories, from the Dreamtime-formed shapes of the ranges, to the scars of the early mining history.

Our research into these rocks links the interdependence of Earth systems. Here we find stories about how plate tectonics and volcanoes control the climate, how the climate helps feed life with nutrients and how the resulting life changes the chemistry of the ocean and atmosphere, feeding back into powering new forms of life.

The stories locked in the hills of the Flinders Ranges undoubtedly give the region a heritage value to the world. We eagerly await news of world heritage listing, which is not expected until 2025 at the earliest.

Alan Collins receives funding from the Australian Research Council, MinEx CRC, BHP, Santos, Empire Energy, Teck Resources and the NT, SA and WA Governments. He is affiliated with the Geological Society of Australia and the Australian Institute of Geoscientists.

Georgina Virgo received funding from the Geological Survey of South Australia as part of her PhD project at The University of Adelaide.

Jarred Lloyd receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the Australian Critical Minerals Research Centre at the University of Adelaide, and his research position is also supported by the SA Government. He is affiliated with the Geological Society of Australia.

– ref. How algae conquered the world – and other epic stories hidden in the rocks of the Flinders Ranges – https://theconversation.com/how-algae-conquered-the-world-and-other-epic-stories-hidden-in-the-rocks-of-the-flinders-ranges-207152

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Cain, Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education and Arts Education, Australian Catholic University

There is increasing concern about Australian students falling behind in numeracy and literacy.

NAPLAN results show 16.2% of Year 3 students are at or below the national minimum standards in numeracy and 12.9% are at or below the minimum standards in reading. By Year 9, this climbs to 20.4% and 25.1% respectively.

The 2021 early development census also found 22% of Australian children were developmentally vulnerable in their first year of school.

Federal and state governments are currently working on the next National School Reform Agreement, which ties funding to school reforms and starts in 2025. The consultation paper released last month notes with concern:

too many students are starting school behind or are falling behind in minimum literacy and numeracy standards.

It also asks, what can schools do to help those most at risk of falling behind?

Why do students fall behind?

Students can fall behind for a many reasons and these can be complex.

This may be due to a student’s abilities or perhaps they have a developmental issue or impairment. A student may have missed essential concepts through illness or changing schools. Or they may not have a home environment that helps them learn, such as as healthy food, access to books and adequate sleep.

As the consultation paper notes, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students in regional, rural and remote locations, students with disability and students whose parents have low levels of educational attainment are three times more likely to fall below minimum standards.

The learning gap can also increase over time. Early difficulties with learning can quickly become compounded if they are not addressed.

Students who are behind can lose motivation to learn because they have missed essential concepts and find lessons frustrating. They can also start to exhibit challenging behaviours.

However, learning gaps do not necessarily increase. Australian research published this year shows effective teaching can compensate for early learning difficulties.

How do schools identify students?

Identifying students can happen informally and may occur at any age. At preschool a teacher may notice a student has indistinct speech and recommend hearing testing, language support or both. The assessment of cognitive skills – such as literacy and numeracy – will usually happen when students begin school.

At school teachers might observe children playing counting games and sharing out counters to identify which students have difficultly counting up to five.

More formal assessments might involve a young student reading a short list of real and made-up words. They can also include work samples or individual tests for older students. The results can be compared with others of their age or year level.

Teachers also look at students’ engagement in educational activities and school attendance. Pre-COVID figures from 2019 showed at least 25% of Australian students missed at least one month of school per year.

Read more:
School attendance rates are dropping. We need to ask students why

How can students catch up?

How a student catches up will depend on a number of factors. For those with disability, an inclusion plan can make sure students have the right adjustments and supports to learn. This needs to be updated regularly.

For other students, the process of catching up might begin with meeting their basic needs through providing meals, uniforms and communication in home languages.

More generally, catching students up starts with the principle “know students and how they learn”. Teachers aim for a strength-based approach, which values the knowledge and skills students bring to school.

This draws from home knowledge, interests, and learning preferences to make the curriculum more engaging. For example, if a student has a great interest in sport, maths problems can incorporate data from games.

Students will not learn effectively if they do not feel valued, comfortable and safe.

Literacy and numeracy help

Approximately 20% of students require some additional teaching and support to acquire fundamental language, literacy and numeracy skills.

This may involve classroom, small group or individual support. It is easier and more effective to provide extra support early in students’ schooling, but older students can also benefit from intervention.

Due to teacher shortages, there has been an increase in teachers teaching out of their field of specialisation. We don’t yet know what impact this has had on intervention programs.

Most students can catch up

A 2023 study by the Australian Education Research Organisation and Monash University found approximately 95% of students should be able to meet academic benchmarks with quality classroom programs and research-supported interventions. But students with a history of learning difficulties should be carefully monitored as they may require additional support in the future.

About 5% students will need more nuanced interventions and different teaching approaches. For example, a student with a physical disability might be disadvantaged when asked to write by hand. Working on a laptop instead of persisting with hand writing can help.

Read more:
As students return to school, small-group tutoring can help those who are falling behind

We need a more consistent approach

Australia has a national curriculum but there are differences between what is taught and how it is taught across the states and territories. There are also considerable differences between schools.

This means students who move schools can be disadvantaged. Figures from 2016 show in New South Wales, 7% of all school children changed school at least once during a year.

We need a more nationally consistent approach to the national curriculum. Jurisdictions’ and schools’ have varied philosophies, priorities and needs. But core standards around appropriate teaching approaches and effective interventions are possible.

There is also a need for increased sharing of information with parents and between schools. National student numbers could be used to track enrolment and core national assessment data.

Some parents and schools may be opposed to this idea for reasons of student privacy. Parents may want their children to have a “fresh start” if they change schools.

We acknowledge these concerns, but sharing key assessment data would reduce time re-assessing students in their new school and support strong teaching from day one.

Joanne Quick is a member of Learning Difficulties Australia and the Dyslexia Association Australia.

Melissa Cain 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. Too many school students are falling behind: how do we help those most at risk? – https://theconversation.com/too-many-school-students-are-falling-behind-how-do-we-help-those-most-at-risk-210886

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Horan, Economic Anthropologist, and contract lecturer, University of Auckland

Aotearoa New Zealand is home to 28,560 registered charities and some 90,000 not-for-profits without charitable registration. From disability advocacy groups and local theatres to sporting clubs, all do vital work in our communities.

Around 89,000 of these are “small” not-for-profits, which means they have under NZ$2 million operating expenses.

My new research found these smaller groups are finding it difficult to open bank accounts, change signatories, get onto online banking, access bank cards, or deposit and withdraw cash, among other issues.

As people from 130 small charities and not-for-profits made clear, accessing effective banking services is too often a matter of luck – but they occasionally stumble across a “golden unicorn” within a bank. Here’s what they said needs to change.

A lack of specialists

Not-for-profits are generally charitable trusts, incorporated societies, or other types of non-profit legal structures. Think your local sports club with a roster of volunteer leaders and support staff that can change each year.

My research included survey data from 120 of those organisations, in-depth interviews with people from 37 different not-for-profits, and 14 stakeholder interviews.

Almost all reported lengthy, unpredictable “runarounds” to get any type of necessary banking process done.

With fewer branches and more basic tasks pushed online, many New Zealanders are finding it harder to do their banking.

But the very nature of small not-for-profits runs counter to normal commercial banking practice. This, combined with a lack of specialised staff at bank branches who understand not-for-profits, means banking is too often really difficult for these organisations.

Read more:
What if we expected financial services to be more like health services?

Research participants reported the majority of front line banking staff weren’t familiar with the banking processes required by small organisations. At the same time, many of the volunteers weren’t familiar with what they needed to do themselves. But they found the rules keep changing and information from banks to guide the process was incredibly difficult to find.

Those interviewed also said banks made it difficult for not-for-profits to comply with anti-money laundering and countering of financing of terrorism legislation. The identification process required by these laws, which should be straightforward, is too often a nightmare.

Interviewees also found bank staff misinterpreted the rules. Bank errors, like missing or misplaced paperwork, were repeated over and over again. This created a number of issues which required repeated visits to the bank branches to sort out.

Banking ‘shouldn’t be the hardest part of saving the world’

One organisation, a small sports club, needed to add a signatory to its accounts.
Achieving this required multiple visits to three different branches of the bank, multiple emails, and long wait-times on calls to the bank’s helpline.

Each interaction was with a different bank representative and resulted in inconsistent information about how to change or add signatories.

Around 60% of survey respondents and organisations we interviewed reported similar frustrations when they wanted to change the signatories on their account.

Another arts and performance organisation lost access to its bank accounts after issues around updating the trustee list were not resolved in the time frames imposed by the bank.

Read more:
Say goodbye to the branch — the future for banking is upwardly mobile

While the not-for-profit was trying to sort out the issue, there appeared to be a lack of communication between the different divisions within the bank. Those who had authority to close the accounts at the bank were not aware of the frantic efforts by the organisation to find a bank person who knew what to do. The arts group was forced to stop operating for a time.

In another case, a new advocacy organisation set up by people with disabilities took months to get its new bank account working.

This group had a basic account after five months. But trouble finding someone to oversee the account setup, along with unclear communications from the bank, meant it took much longer to organise online banking and to have credit and debit cards issued.

This organisation said doing banking “shouldn’t be the hardest part of saving the world”.

But this is how it can feel for smaller not-for-profits.

Relying on a ‘golden unicorn’

My research found most organisations got their banking issues sorted – eventually. This was achieved through sheer determination and perseverance by not-for-profit personnel – and the emergence of a “golden unicorn”.

Golden unicorns are bank staff who understand the inner workings of not-for-profits and their banking needs. They know how to move through the bank’s different silos and are a point of contact for organisations – and other bank staff – who need help solving issues.

Golden unicorns are rare, but all the banks have them. The problem is, banks may not know which of their staff have this capability. As more bank branches close, it is critical banks identify the “unicorns” in their midst and create digital pathways linking them with not-for-profits and other staff.

Once the not-for-profits found their golden unicorn, issues which had already consumed hundreds of hours were quickly resolved. Harnessing these specialists’ capacity gives hours and hours back to the not-for-profit sector. This is also more efficient for banks – freeing up resources to serve other customers.

One research participant said he would love his bank to have this attitude to his and other organisations. “You didn’t create a not-for-profit to spend all this time in the bank; let’s work together to get this done.”

This research was commissioned by Community Networks Aotearoa (CNA) and was funded by grants from J R McKenzie Trust and the Todd Foundation.

– ref. Hunting for a ‘golden unicorn’: how NZ charities find banks constantly get in the way of them helping people – https://theconversation.com/hunting-for-a-golden-unicorn-how-nz-charities-find-banks-constantly-get-in-the-way-of-them-helping-people-209024

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Harris, ARC Future Fellow, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

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

“No Fred – No Lawrence – No Corroboree” ran the February 16 1951 headline in the Darwin newspaper The Northern Standard.

Performers from Northern Territory’s Daly region and Tiwi Islands unanimously agreed to withhold their planned public dance show in solidarity with Aboriginal workers’ rolling strikes in Darwin for equal pay and civil rights.

In the weeks before, the strike leaders, Wadjiginy man Lawrence Wurrpen (Urban) and Larrakia man Fred Nadpur Waters, had been detained under the Aboriginals Ordinance Act of 1918 – laws that did not apply to non-Aboriginal people.

From thousands of kilometres away there was further support for the Darwin strike leaders. In Sydney, New Theatre members supported the Darwin strikers by leafleting performances of the ballet Corroboree. In Victoria, members of the Australian Aborigines’ League condemned the “intimidation of the Northern Territory Aborigines” in a protest letter sent to Prime Minister Robert Menzies.

Our new article in The Australian Journal of Politics and History shows how Aboriginal people in 1951 framed cultural practice as labour and as a tool for advocacy for Aboriginal rights stretching across the continent.

Read more:
Fusing traditional culture and the violin: how Aboriginal musicians enhanced and maintained community in 20th century Australia

Aboriginal workers in 1951

The corroboree strike of 1951 followed months of action led initially by Lawrence Wurrpen (Urban), a Wadjiginy man from Delissaville Native Settlement (now known as Belyuen).

Wurrpen led three strikes of Aboriginal workers in Darwin over 1950–51. The strikers demanded fair pay and access to civil rights, particularly the freedom to move about Darwin and the Northern Territory.

At the third strike, on January 24 1951, Wurrpen was arrested and sentenced to four months in jail. On his release under appeal, he was directed to stay within Bagot Compound Reserve in Darwin.

He defied these orders and was arrested for leaving the compound, for disorderly behaviour, and for drinking alcohol.

As the press reports highlighted at the time, no non-Aboriginal person could have been charged with defying orders restricting their movement, nor for drinking alcohol.

Senior Larrakia man Fred Nadpur Waters led a fourth strike in February. A leader of the Larrakia community on whose Country the settlement of Darwin had been built, Waters was keenly aware of the potential of the union movement to support Aboriginal workers’ demands for better pay and working conditions.

But after the strike, the Director of Native Affairs ordered Waters be removed from Darwin. He was sent to the remote Central Australian community of Haasts Bluff (Ikuntji), 1,700 km away.

The corroboree strike emerged in response to the banishment of Waters, drawing further attention to discriminatory treatment of the Aboriginal strike leaders.

Read more:
Enforcing assimilation, dismantling Aboriginal families: a history of police violence in Australia

Ripples in the southeast

In the southeast, leaders of the Australian Aborigines’ League collaborated on performances and protest actions. In solidarity in Sydney, New Theatre members distributed leaflets to audiences of the non-Indigenous ballet Corroboree, being performed at the Tivoli theatre.

The leaflets highlighted the Darwin performers’ refusal to “put on a corroboree,” stating:

the idea of human rights […] demands that we do something more than admire aborigines from the safe distance of the Tivoli auditorium.

This local action linked condemnation of the treatment of Darwin strikers with local struggles for justice.

Other protests linking Aboriginal rights and the arts were also taking place across 1951.

In January, the league protested the exclusion of Melbourne Aboriginal people from programming of the Jubilee Festival and Centenary of Melbourne. Led by Doug Nicholls, the league threatened to parade a float through the streets with:

a chained aborigine guarded by a white man with a whip [to] represent the introduction of Western ‘civilisation’.

Within days, Nicholls was invited to join the Melbourne Centenary Celebrations Committee. He went on to produce the Aboriginal Moomba with Bill and Eric Onus, featuring singing stars Harold Blair and Georgia Lee (Dulcie Pitt), alongside a cast of performers from up and down the east coast.

In March, an article reported on a meeting aiming to create a Council For The Advancement of Aborigines. This Australia-wide organisation would support civil rights for Aboriginal people, advocate for “Jubilee justice” and object to the intimidation of Northern Territory Aboriginal protesters.

Strike action continued in June 1951 when Wiradjuri man Ray Peckham attempted to travel with Melbourne’s Unity Dance Group to East Berlin and was denied a passport.

The Australian Aborigines’ League’s Bill and Eric Onus mobilised Melbourne dockside workers, threatening to “tie up every ship that’s in port and round the shores of Australia”. Peckham’s passport was quickly delivered to the ship.

Read more:
Ablaze review: a powerful, personal portrait of Aboriginal activist and filmmaker Bill Onus

Performing culture for equal rights

Aboriginal performances in the far north and southeast were acts of interconnected resistance to state-based discriminatory policies. We have now mapped these connections in a new website showing how bonds of history and kinship enabled public displays of culture, music and dance.

Through performance and protest, Aboriginal people publicly asserted their continued presence and maintenance of culture even as they fought for equal pay, freedom of movement and citizenship.

The 1951 incidents in the Northern Territory, NSW and Victoria contained the seeds of united national campaigns for citizenship rights that would change the Australian political landscape in years to come.

Performance – when it was staged, and when it was withheld – played a key role in asserting these rights.

Amanda Harris receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Linda Barwick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Tiriki Onus receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is the grandson of Bill Onus.

– ref. In 1951, corroboree dancers in Darwin went on strike: their actions would reverberate as far as Melbourne – https://theconversation.com/in-1951-corroboree-dancers-in-darwin-went-on-strike-their-actions-would-reverberate-as-far-as-melbourne-208023

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

An extensive federal government crackdown on misconduct will increase maximum penalties for advisers and firms promoting tax exploitation schemes from the present $7.8 million to more than $780 million.

Sparked by the PwC scandal, which involved the consultancy’s use of confidential government information for commercial gain, the planned measures will also expand tax promoter penalty laws to make it easier for the Australian Taxation Office to apply them to advisers and firms who promote tax avoidance.

The time limit for the Tax Office to bring court action on promoter penalties will be increased from four to six years.

Announcing the measures on Sunday, the government said the present tax promoter penalty laws had remained largely untouched since being created in the 2000s and had only been applied half a dozen times.

It described its initiatives, involving multiple ministers, as the “biggest crackdown on tax adviser misconduct in Australian history”.

The reforms are designed to strengthen the integrity of the tax system, boost the powers of the regulators, and make the regulatory arrangements “fit for purpose”.

The government said the PwC scandal had exposed “severe shortcomings” in the regulatory framework, and it wanted to “rebuild people’s faith in the systems and structures that keep our tax system and capital markets strong”.

The legislation will be introduced this year, with consultations starting soon.

The changes will remove limitations in the tax secrecy laws that were a barrier to regulators responding to the PwC affair.

They will enable the Tax Office and the Tax Practitioners Board to refer ethical misconduct by advisers to professional associations for disciplinary action.

Whistleblowers will get protection when they report tax agent misconduct to the Tax Practitioners Board.

The board will have more time – up to two years – to complete complex investigations. Its public register of practitioners will be improved to give more transparency to misconduct by firms and agents.

The government is also homing in on the governance obligations of large consulting, accounting and auditing firms.

Treasury will co-ordinate a whole-of-government response to the PwC affair and the systemic issues raised. Options will be delivered to the government progressively over the coming two years. Consultations will begin in coming months.

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

– ref. Tax advisers who promote exploitation schemes to face $780 million penalty – https://theconversation.com/tax-advisers-who-promote-exploitation-schemes-to-face-780-million-penalty-211096

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

The ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, has resigned in the wake of an independent inquiry’s sweeping criticisms of his conduct in the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann.

The report from the inquiry by Walter Sofronoff, a former Queensland judge, commissioned by the ACT government, accuses Drumgold of serious misconduct and dishonesty.

Sofronoff says: “It became clear to me that, at times, Mr Drumgold lost objectivity and did not act with fairness and detachment as was required by his role”.

Lehrmann, at the time a Liberal staffer, was accused of raping his then colleague Brittany Higgins in a ministerial office in 2019. He has consistently denied the allegation. A trial was aborted after misconduct by a juror. A plan for a second trial was then abandoned in light of Higgins’ mental health.

The ACT Attorney-General, Shane Rattenbury, said in a Sunday statement that on Thursday he and Drumgold discussed the report. “In light of the commentary in the report, Mr Drumgold and I agreed that his position as Director of Public Prosecutions was no longer tenable.

“On Friday, Mr Drumgold sent a letter advising me that he would be vacating his position as ACT Director of Public Prosecutions.”

The Sofronoff report, while not yet released (although sent by the inquiry on an embargoed basis to certain media outlets), has been extensively reported.

Drumgold has been provided with the report. The ACT government will make a detailed statement in response to it early this week.

Sofronoff is strongly critical of Drumgold’s intense efforts to keep from Lehrmann’s defence team police material it was entitled to have.

Drumgold “kept the defence in the dark about steps he was taking to deny them the documents,” Sofronoff says.

He added: “Criminal litigation is not a poker game in which a prosecutor can hide the cards.”

Sofronoff says had the defence not managed to obtain the police documents “despite the improper obstruction they faced, and had the documents come to light after a conviction, in my opinion, the conviction would have been set aside on the ground of a miscarriage of justice”.

The report says during his efforts to prevent disclosure, Drumgold sidelined a more senior member of his staff who had raised a query and “procured a youngster to do the job”.

He required “his fledging staff member, newly admitted”, to unknowingly swear an affidavit that failed to comply with the rules.

Sofronoff found Drumgold had lied to the ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum, who was conducting the trial, over what he had said to journalist Lisa Wilkinson about the speech she subsequently made when she won a Logie for her interview with Higgins.

Drumgold claimed on the basis of notes said to have been made at the time that Wilkinson was given a warning before the speech. Wilkinson denied this and it came out during the inquiry that Drumgold had later added to the notes. McCallum delayed the trial because of the Wilkinson speech.

“I find that Mr Drumgold knowingly lied to the chief justice,” Sofronoff says.

“I do not accept that Mr Drumgold’s misstatements about the nature of the note were a mere mistake that he made,” he says.

“On any version of the conversation, Mr Drumgold’s response to Ms Wilkinson was wholly inadequate.”

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

– ref. Shane Drumgold resigns after sweeping criticisms of his conduct in the Lehrmann case – https://theconversation.com/shane-drumgold-resigns-after-sweeping-criticisms-of-his-conduct-in-the-lehrmann-case-211095

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Nelson, Plant Geneticist, CSIRO

If you walk into a bar in Italy, you might be served a dish of salty, nutritious snacks: lupin beans, a legume that has been eaten around the Mediterranean and in parts of the Middle East and Africa for thousands of years.

Lupins are very high in protein and fibre, low in carbs, have a low glycaemic index, and they’re easy to grow in a variety of climates. However, some varieties also contain high levels of unpleasantly bitter alkaloids.

In new research, an international team of researchers has for the first time identified the “sweetness gene” responsible for low alkaloid levels. This discovery may make it easier to reliably produce more palatable plants.

The search for sweetness

Around 100 years ago, plant breeders in Germany found natural mutations that produced “sweet lupins” with far lower levels of bitter alkaloids. They produced sweet varieties of white lupin (Lupinus albus), narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius, the main type grown in Australia), and the less common yellow lupin (Lupinus luteus).

Over the past 50 years or so, lupins have become more common as food for farm animals. Sweet lupins are good for this, as they don’t require extensive washing to be usable. They are also increasingly eaten by humans – and we are very sensitive to bitterness.

To find the genetic basis for “sweet” lupins, we used a few approaches.

A genetic search

Our colleagues in Denmark studied the biochemistry of the different alkaloids in both bitter and sweet varieties. By looking at the changes in the composition of the alkaloids, we could get an idea of the genes involved.

My own work was on the genetics end. We analysed 227 varieties of white lupin and tested their alkaloid levels.

Then, with colleagues in France, we looked at markers across the lupin genome and tried to associate high and low alkaloid levels with the genetics.

We had clues about where we thought the gene would be, in a certain region of a few dozen genes. There was one we thought looked the most promising, so we designed a lot of DNA markers to work out what sequence varied in that gene.

Eventually we found a very strong link between a change in alkaloid levels and a variation of a single sequence in our gene.

Read more:
Pulses are packed with goodness: Five cool things you should know about them

The final test was to find out whether a variation in this gene would also produce sweetness in other types of lupin. In some other plants we would be able to use genetic modification tools to do this, but for various reasons this is difficult in lupins.

Instead, we went to a company called Traitomic who screened a huge number of seeds of narrow-leafed lupin until they found one which naturally had exactly the mutation we were looking for. And when we tested that plant, it had low alkaloids – confirming we really had found the “sweetness gene”.

A reliable marker

In practice, growing sweet white lupin can be a bit tricky. There are several different strains that have different low alkaloid genes, and if these strains cross-pollinate, the result can be bitter lupin plants once again.

The research gives a reliable genetic marker for plant breeders to know what strains they are dealing with. This means it will be much easier to consistently grow sweet white lupin.

At the moment most of what is grown in Australia is narrow-leafed lupin, in part because the industry had a hard time keeping the white lupin sweet (and in part because white lupin was plagued by a fungal disease called lupin anthracnose). So perhaps in future we’ll see white lupin make a comeback.

Our vision is more cultivation of the high-protein, hardy lupins for consumption by humans.

Read more:
Plant-based patties, lab-grown meat and insects: how the protein industry is innovating to meet demand

Matthew Nelson received funding from Innovate UK to conduct this research while working at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Three co-authors of the research are employed by biotech company Traitomic, whose technology was used to screen for candidate mutations.

– ref. Is this the protein plant of the future? New study finds ‘sweetness gene’ that makes lupins tastier – https://theconversation.com/is-this-the-protein-plant-of-the-future-new-study-finds-sweetness-gene-that-makes-lupins-tastier-210985

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz proclaimed a “Zeitenwende”, or historical turning point. It resulted in Germany’s first ever official national security strategy.

The equivalent wake-up call in New Zealand was the 2019 Christchurch terror attack. This hammered home, in the most horrific way, that geographic distance and small size no longer protected the country in ways they might have once.

While some countries, such as the United States and Britain, have had serious national security strategies in place for a long time, for others it takes a shock. In 2018, before the Christchurch atrocity, New Zealand’s national threat level was set at “low”.

The Defence Policy Statement from the same year, although far from naïve, reflected a simpler world. This changed with the more sober 2021 Defence Assessment, followed by the defence policy review announced last year into whether current policy, strategy and capability were fit for purpose.

The suite of documents released today – including a first ever national security strategy – provides the answer. In short, New Zealand now faces a very different and rapidly changing world. Business as usual is no longer considered an option.

A new security strategy

In July, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released its strategic foreign policy assessment, Navigating a Shifting World-Te whakatere i tētahi ao hurihuri. It looks ahead to 2025 and is “intended as a contribution to the national conversation on foreign policy”.

The national security strategy, Secure Together-Tō Tātou Korowai Manaaki, along with a new defence policy and strategy statement, rounds out this revised New Zealand worldview. A soon-to-be-released threat assessment from the security intelligence agencies will complete the picture.

Announcing the new strategy, Defence Minister Andrew Little said: “In 2023 we do not live in a benign strategic environment.” He went on to say:

Aotearoa New Zealand is facing more geostrategic challenges than we have had in decades – climate change, terrorism, cyberattacks, transnational crime, mis- and disinformation, and competition in our region which, up until recently, we thought was protected by its remoteness.

While the new assessments and strategic statements come from different state agencies, they nonetheless speak clearly and coherently about the risks to New Zealand’s security. The national wake-up call, then, rests on four broad pillars of understanding.

1. Geopolitical uniqueness

The first consistent theme concerns New Zealand’s uniqueness. It is a liberal, multicultural democracy based on a bicultural relationship and te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. The nation’s strong sovereign identity is anchored in the Pacific, and it speaks with a strong and independent voice.

The New Zealand people and their socially cohesive society are the country’s most valuable assets. The obligation of guardianship over these, for both present and future generations, means being better prepared for potential external and internal threats.

Ensuring national resilience and security underpins the government’s unprecedented (at least for this century) planning for and prioritising of that preparedness.

Read more:
Approach with caution: why NZ should be wary of buying into the AUKUS security pact

2. Times are changing

The new strategy identifies 12 national security issues, ranging from terrorism and climate change to attempts to subvert New Zealand democracy. While no one challenge is expressly prioritised, there is a clear emphasis on geostrategic competition and the threats to a rules-based international system.

Many of the assumptions about global and regional affairs that have underpinned New Zealand’s foreign policy for a generation or more are coming under real and sustained pressure.

The rules-based order that has allowed the country to thrive peacefully is under stress. The risk of open conflict is heightened, with the wider Indo-Pacific region at the centre of geopolitical contests.

There are also unpredictable but significant risks – especially economic ones – from those tensions, even without a descent into military conflict. And there is the potential for more than one negative event to occur at the same time.

Read more:
The most significant defence review in 40 years positions Australia for complex threats in a changing region

3. Partnerships matter

New Zealand’s security has to be collective, and there is no lurching towards isolationism. More collaborations are likely to address shared security challenges.

The most important relationship is with Australia, which is also rapidly upgrading its defence capabilities. As New Zealand’s closest partner and only formal ally, Australia is “indispensable to New Zealand’s national security”.

The US relationship is also very important, of course. Throughout the new documents, the US is variously described as a “crucial” defence partner in general, and “critical for New Zealand’s security” in the Indo-Pacific and Pacific regions.

Other less immediately obvious security relationships are also noted, including with Singapore, Japan and NATO. The Five Eyes intelligence network (which also includes Britain and Canada) is cast as “an invaluable support to our understanding and ability to respond to emerging and complex security issues”.

The newer multinational security partnerships – namely AUKUS and the “Quad” (US, India, Japan and Australia) – are mentioned. But none of the new documents explicitly state whether New Zealand will or will not join them in the future – other than to say they “may” provide the opportunity for New Zealand to further pursue its interests.

But the Defence Force needs to improve its combat readiness and effectiveness, as well as other military capabilities, and increase its presence in the Pacific. It’s clear greater investment is needed in both the short and medium term, but no dollar figures are attached.

Read more:
ANZUS at 70: Together for decades, US, Australia, New Zealand now face different challenges from China

4. Realism over China

The damage Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused to the international legal framework is clear. But the new strategies and assessments repeatedly highlight the challenge of China.

While peaceful cooperation in areas of shared interest is deemed desirable, China is also recognised as being major driver of geopolitical change, especially in its willingness to be more assertive and willing to challenge existing international rules and norms.

Finally, aspects of China’s operations in the Pacific threaten to fundamentally alter the regional strategic balance. New Zealand must plan and be prepared for this.

Overall, the new assessments and strategy represent a turning point: a recognition security threats are rising and will require new approaches. While the detail is not fleshed out, and no doubt there will be partisan debate as the October election nears, the need for real change has rarely been made so clear.

Alexander Gillespie 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. NZ’s first national security strategy signals a ‘turning point’ and the end of old certainties – https://theconversation.com/nzs-first-national-security-strategy-signals-a-turning-point-and-the-end-of-old-certainties-210885

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bartholomew Stanford, Lecturer (Indigenous Knowledges) , Charles Darwin University

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article mentions people who have passed away. Names have been withheld out of respect for Sorry Business.

The Garma Festival in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory begins today. The annual event brings Indigenous and non-Indigenous people together in celebration of Yolgnu culture, tradition and knowledges.

Garma draws leaders from business, industry, research, education and politics. Over the four-day event there a range of scheduled activities for guests. These include cultural workshops, art exhibits, dance performances, Indigenous cinema, and forums.

Over the years, Garma has grown to include greater focus on important political and social issues relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders communities. Matters such as land rights, truth-telling, and constitutional recognition.

The political significance of Garma cannot be understated with sitting prime ministers often attending (Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Anthony Albanese), as well as First Nations leaders such as Marcia Langton, Noel Pearson, and a senior Gumatj leader, who started the festival, who passed away earlier this year.

Garma has become an important arena for meaningful dialogue, and the discussions that happen at the event reverberate around Australia for the weeks and months following. Recognise, Reconciliation Australia’s constitutional recognition campaign arm, attended Garma in 2013 to garner support for constitutional recognition for Indigenous peoples.

As we wait for the announcement on the referendum date, there is interest about what might emerge from this year’s Garma event.

The history of Garma

Garma was first held in 1999. It was conceived by the Yothu Yindi Foundation, a group formed by the five regional Yolgnu clan groups; Gumatj, Rirratjingu, Djapu, Galpu and Wangurri.

The festival started small but grew into Australia’s largest Indigenous event, bringing thousands of people to remote North East Arnhem Land. A location, 40km from Nhulunbuy, that is culturally significant for the Yolgnu people.

One of the features of Garma is the Key Forum Conference.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Trying to dodge talking about ‘treaty’ could do the Voice campaign more harm than good

The Key Forum Conference

The Key Forum Conference is running again this year and is being facilitated by

• Mayatili Marika, a Rirratjingu Traditional Owner and Yolŋu woman

• Shelley Ware, an AFL and media presenter

• Sean Bowden, a Nortern Territroy lawyer

This conference provides space for Indigenous and non-Indigenous political leaders to engage on important issues and “about the future of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian nation”.
Over the last few events, the Key Forum Conference has been focused on constitutional recognition and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

It was at the conference in 2017, where then opposition leader Bill Shorten announced:

Labor supports a Voice for Aboriginal people in our Constitution, we support a declaration by all parliaments, we support a truth-telling commission.

At 2018’s event, Deputy Chair of the Yothu Yindi Foundation Djunga Djunga Yunupingu, called for the government to engage in truth-telling and reconciliation, to embrace an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and to move towards treaty-making.

In 2019, a senior Gumatj leader reiterated the Yolgnu’s wishes for greater recognition.

And at last year’s event, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared in his keynote address the “Government’s solemn promise to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart, in full”.

Momentum has been building around constitutional recognition and Garma’s Key Forum Conference has played a major role in bringing this issue to the forefront of public discussion.

So what is happening at Garma this year?

There will certainly be a focus on the Voice to Parliament and the upcoming referendum this year at Garma.

The prime minister and Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney will be in attendance this year. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, however, declined the PM’s invitation to attend.

Dutton explained on 2GB:

I’m not going up there to pretend that I’m somebody that I’m not. I’m a genuine person, I’m straightforward, I’ve looked at this meticulously. I’m not supporting the Voice.

However Dutton’s fellow party member, Julian Leeser, will be in attendance. Leeser will be participating in a panel discussion with MP Marion Scrymgour. In April this year, Leeser stood down from the opposition frontbench to campaign for the Voice, clashing with his party on the issue.

With the announcement of the date for the referendum nearing, this year’s Garma event is sure to foster robust discussions about the Voice to Parliament.

In the coming days we will see what topics were covered at the event, and potentially get a clearer picture of the direction the government is taking on the referendum and other key areas such as truth-telling, Treaty and reconciliation.

Bartholomew Stanford 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. Garma is a festival of political discussion and celebration of culture. Will the Voice be a central theme? – https://theconversation.com/garma-is-a-festival-of-political-discussion-and-celebration-of-culture-will-the-voice-be-a-central-theme-210715

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Md Safiullah (Safi), Senior Lecturer in Finance, RMIT University

Islamic banks have become an integral part of the financial system in many Muslim-majority countries, as well as in nations with sizeable Muslim minorities such as the United Kingdom, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Australia is poised to join them. From mid-2024,
Islamic Bank Australia is set to offer Australia’s 813,000 Muslims a banking service aligned with their religion’s strictures against profiting from interest or investing in harmful industries such as alcohol or gambling.

The fundamental distinguishing feature of an Islamic bank is its adherence to Islamic, or Sharia, law. As such, Islamic banks differ from their counterparts in four main ways: they do not charge or pay interest; they don’t engage in property speculation or activities such as derivatives trading; they do not invest in businesses that are deemed unlawful by Islam; and they typically appoint a second board specifically to oversee their compliance with these rules.

Why do these rules and conventions exist, and how do they work in practice?

1. No interest

For devout Muslims, conventional banking services are problematic because of the main way most banks make profit – by charging interest on loans.

Islam’s holy book, the Quran, prohibits all transactions associated with interest. The third chapter (the Surah Al-Imran, verse 130) says:

O’ you who have Faith! Do not devour usury, doubled and multiplied, and be in awe of Allah; that you may be prosperous.

Usury refers to lending money at unreasonable interest rates, but the term is sometimes used to mean any charging of interest at all. Judaism and Catholicism have also traditionally outlawed usury, although historically they have allowed more wiggle room in how this is applied.

Sharia law prohibits banks from charging any interest on loans at all. But that doesn’t mean Islamic banks are opposed to earning profit.

To comply with Sharia law, an Islamic bank enters into a joint venture or partnership agreement with depositors and borrowers, which allows sharing of profit and loss between bank and customers.

Islamic banks provide loans under a profit-and-loss contract rather than one involving interest-based repayments. In this arrangement, borrowers pay an agreed share of their profits to the bank.

Similarly, deposits with the bank don’t earn interest, but instead they earn a return that will rise or fall in line with the bank’s overall profits.

Read more:
Islamic finance provides an alternative to debt-based systems

One potential pitfall of this model is it might encourage borrowers to take unnecessary business risks, knowing their bank will share the losses. This, in turn, would potentially reduce the returns to those who have deposited funds with the bank and also increase the credit risk for banks.

To help guard against this risk, borrowers typically agree to allow the bank to act as a partner in the business, rather than simply as a creditor. This lets the bank monitor the business’s performance more closely, and share directly in its profits and losses.

2. No speculative assets

The Quran (Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 275) says:

…Allah has permitted trading and forbidden usury.

From this, Islamic scholars infer that purchasing land or property purely for speculation is not permissible, but buying it to undertake economic activities is allowed. This means Islamic banks cannot engage in the kind of debt-based financing that underpins the home or business loans offered by many Australian banks.

Instead, an Islamic bank can finance a home purchase by taking part-ownership of the property, according to the proportion of the purchase price that was provided by bank finance rather the buyer’s own funds.

Similarly, Islamic banks can provide loans to buy land that will be used for economic activities, but cannot profit purely from land price appreciation.

Shariah law also prohibits Islamic banks from engaging in derivatives trading (trading in financial products such as futures contracts, options or swaps) because this involves speculating on an asset’s market performance, rather than on economic activity itself.

3. No ‘socially harmful’ business

Sharia law does not allow an Islamic bank to finance economic sectors that are deemed harmful to people’s wellbeing, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment, pork products, or arms production.

4. Islamic corporate governance

Islamic banks typically appoint two boards: a regular board of directors similar to those that govern most banks, and a Sharia supervisory board to oversee compliance with Islamic laws.

What are Islamic Bank Australia’s prospects?

The main challenge for Islamic Bank Australia will be to gain accreditation from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA), which regulates Australia’s commercial banking industry. The bank says it is planning to apply for this in mid-2024, after which it can open to the public.

Next, it will need to attract a significant client base. As of October 2022 it reportedly had almost 8,000 prospective customers on its waiting list.

The arrival of Sharia-compliant banking will bring some new issues for Australia’s banking sector more broadly.

Australia does not yet have any supervisory body for monitoring Sharia-compliant banking, meaning all responsibility in this area would fall to the bank’s own supervisory board. In many Muslim-majority countries, such as Malaysia for example, a separate Sharia Advisory Council, typically appointed by the country’s central bank, oversees the Islamic finance industry.

Islamic Bank Australia’s Sharia committee has three members: Malaysia-based Ashraf Md Hashim, who also sits on that country’s Sharia Advisory Council; Mohamed Ali Elgari, an Islamic economics academic in Saudi Arabia; and Australia-based Islamic banking scholar Rashid Raashed.

Many other Islamic banks worldwide also have overseas Sharia scholars sitting on their boards. But given the complexity of the role, these appointees will need to be familiar with current practices in Australia’s financial landscape too.

Read more:
Is Islamic banking more risky compared to conventional banking?

A related issue is the question of how Islamic Bank Australia will interact with Australia’s existing banks. Besides adhering to Sharia law, it will also need to comply with all of Australia’s banking regulatory requirements. In doing so, it will inevitably come across interest-based transactions.

For example, Islamic Bank Australia must maintain an account for settling any transactions with the Reserve Bank, and will have to refer to existing benchmarks, such as the underlying interest rate, as references for the dividends and charges applied to customers under its profit-and-loss contracts.

Islamic Bank Australia and existing banks will have to get used to adapting to the rules and customs, but it has been done successfully in other Western countries and so Australia should be no exception.

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. Australia will soon have its first Islamic bank. What does this mean, and what are the challenges? – https://theconversation.com/australia-will-soon-have-its-first-islamic-bank-what-does-this-mean-and-what-are-the-challenges-201867

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samar Aoun, Perron Institute Research Chair in Palliative Care, The University of Western Australia

Although it is associated with dying, palliative care is an approach focused on improving quality of life – or how people feel about and respond to facing a life-threatening illness.

Palliative care aims to prevent and relieve physical, social, emotional, spiritual and existential distress. Palliative care also supports family caregivers during the disease journey and bereavement phase. You might have heard it mentioned for cancer, but it is beneficial for the majority of life-limiting conditions. It has been shown to reduce health-care costs by preventing unnecessary hospital admissions.

Palliative care is not voluntary assisted dying. It does not aim to hasten or prolong death. It is not just for people who are about to die and seeking palliative care does not mean “giving up”. In fact, it can be a profound and positive form of care that the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised as a basic human right. But what does it involve?

Read more:
How to choose a legal decision-maker as you get older – 3 things to consider

Not just for someone’s final days

Palliative care is often seen as a “last resort” rather than a service that empowers terminally ill people to live as well as possible for as long as possible.

The full benefit of this holistic approach can only be realised if people are referred early to palliative care – ideally from the time they are diagnosed with a terminal illness. Unfortunately, this rarely happens and palliative care tends to blur with end-of-life care. The latter is for people who are likely to die within 12 months but is often left to the last few weeks.

Read more:
We all hope for a ‘good death’. But many aged-care residents are denied proper end-of-life care

Palliative care can involve difficult conversations

Palliative care provides a time to ask some usually taboo questions. What kind of death do you want to experience? Who is in your personal network? How will they respond to your life ending? What kind of support can they offer?

Palliative care can be provided at home, hospital, hospice or residential aged care facility, depending on the preference and circumstances of patients and their family carers.

In general, patients are referred by their treating specialist, health professional or GP. Patient preferences for care and what matters most to them are discussed with their doctor or other health professionals and with their loved ones with advance care planning. These discussions can include information on their preferred place of care, preferred place of death, personal care needs such as dietary preferences and religious and spiritual practices.

This helps those caring to make decisions about the patient care when the patient cannot anymore. However, advance care planning can start at any time in life and without a diagnosis.

How palliative care delivery has changed

Once upon a time, we were born at home and we died at home. Death was a social event with a medical component. Now it is close to the opposite. But research indicates a solely clinical model of palliative care (mainly symptom management funded through the health system) is inadequate to address the complex aspects of death, dying, loss and grief.

A public health palliative care approach views the community as an equal partner in the long and complex task of providing quality health care at the end of someone’s life. It promotes conversations about patients’ and families’ goals of care, what matters to them, their needs and wishes, minimising barriers to a “good death”, and supporting the family post-bereavement.

These outcomes require the involvement of family carers, friendship networks and not-for-profit organisations, where more detailed conversations about life and death can happen, instead of the “pressure cooker” rushed environment of hospitals and clinics. Investment could develop stronger death literacy and grief literacy in the community and among health professionals, who may be reluctant to raise or discuss these topics. This would likely see the take up of advance care planning increase, from the current low levels of less than 15% of Australians (25% of older Australians accessing health and aged-care facilities).

One such successful approach is the Compassionate Communities Connectors Program in Western Australia, using trained community volunteers to enhance the social networks of terminally ill people.

Our research trial trained 20 community volunteers (“connectors”) and 43 patients participated over 18 months. In sourcing others to help (who we called “caring helpers”), connectors built the capacity of the community and social networks around patients in need. Caring helpers assisted with transport, collecting prescriptions, organising meals and linked clients to community activities (such as choirs, walking groups, men’s shed). And they helped complete advance care planning documentation. About 80% of patients’ needs were social, particularly around reducing feelings of isolation.

Patients in the trial had fewer hospital admissions and shorter hospital stays.

Read more:
Passed away, kicked the bucket, pushing up daisies – the many ways we don’t talk about death

Tailored to need

Palliative care should be tailored to each person, rather than a one-size-fits-all clinical model that doesn’t respect autonomy and choice.

Many people are dying in a way and a place that is not reflective of their values and their end-of-life is interrupted with preventable and costly admissions to hospital where control and even dignity are surrendered. Palliative care hospitalisations have increased in recent years compared to all hospitalisations, with 65% of such admissions ending with the patient dying in hospital.

It is unrealistic and unaffordable to have a palliative care service in every suburb. There needs to be a shift to a more comprehensive, inclusive and sustainable approach, such as Compassionate Communities, that recognises death, dying, grief and loss are everyone’s business and responsibility.

Samar Aoun is voluntary chair of the South West Compassionate Communities Network, chair of the MND Association in WA and national chair of MND Australia.

– ref. What actually is palliative care? And how is it different to end-of-life care? – https://theconversation.com/what-actually-is-palliative-care-and-how-is-it-different-to-end-of-life-care-205488

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

Asteroids are chunks of rock left over from the formation of our Solar System. Approximately half a billion asteroids with sizes greater than four metres in diameter orbit the Sun, travelling through our Solar System at speeds up to about 30 kilometres per second – about the same speed as Earth.

Asteroids are certainly good at capturing the public imagination. This follows many Hollywood movies imagining the destruction they could cause if a big one hits Earth.

Almost every week we see online headlines describing asteroids the size of a “bus”, “truck”, “vending machine”, “half the size of a giraffe”, or indeed a whole giraffe. We have also had headlines warning of “city killer”, “planet killer” and “God of Chaos” asteroids.

Of course, the threats asteroids pose are real. Famously, about 65 million years ago, life on Earth was brought to its knees by what was likely the impact of a big asteroid, killing off most dinosaurs. Even a four-metre object (half a giraffe, say) travelling at a relative speed of up to 60 kilometres per second is going to pack a punch.

But beyond the media labels, what are the risks, by the numbers? How many asteroids hit Earth and how many can we expect to zip past us?

What is the threat of a direct hit?

In terms of asteroids hitting Earth, and their impact, the graphic below from NASA summarises the general risks.

There are far more small asteroids than large asteroids, and small asteroids cause much less damage than large asteroids.

So, Earth experiences frequent but low-impact collisions with small asteroids, and rare but high-impact collisions with big asteroids. In most cases, the smallest asteroids largely break up when they hit Earth’s atmosphere, and don’t even make it down to the surface.

When a small asteroid (or meteoroid, an object smaller than an asteroid) hits Earth’s atmosphere, it produces a spectacular “fireball” – a very long-lasting and bright version of a shooting star, or meteor. If any surviving bits of the object hit the ground, they are called meteorites. Most of the object burns up in the atmosphere.

How many asteroids fly right past Earth?

A very simplified calculation gives you a sense for how many asteroids you might expect to come close to our planet.

The numbers in the graphic above estimate how many asteroids could hit Earth every year. Now, let’s take the case of four-metre asteroids. Once per year, on average, a four-metre asteroid will intersect the surface of Earth.

If you doubled that surface area, you’d get two per year. Earth’s radius is 6,400km. A sphere with twice the surface area has a radius of 9,000km. So, approximately once per year, a four-metre asteroid will come within 2,600km of the surface of Earth – the difference between 9,000km and 6,400km.

Double the surface area again and you could expect two per year within 6,400km of Earth’s surface, and so on. This tallies pretty well with recent records of close approaches.

Read more:
Asteroid 2023 BU just passed a few thousand kilometres from Earth. Here’s why that’s exciting

A few thousand kilometres is a pretty big distance for objects a handful of metres in size, but most of the asteroids covered in the media are passing at much, much larger distances.

Astronomers consider anything passing closer than the Moon – approximately 300,000km – to be a “close approach”. “Close” for an astronomer is not generally what a member of the public would call “close”.

In 2022 there were 126 close approaches, and in 2023 we’ve had 50 so far.

Now, consider really big asteroids, bigger than one kilometre in diameter. The same highly simplified logic as above can be applied. For every such impact that could threaten civilisation, occurring once every half a million years or so, we could expect thousands of near misses (closer than the Moon) in the same period of time.

Such an event will occur in 2029, when asteroid 153814 (2001 WN5) will pass 248,700km from Earth.

How do we assess threats and what can we do about it?

Approximately 95% of asteroids of size greater than one kilometre are estimated to have already been discovered, and the skies are constantly being searched for the remaining 5%. When a new one is found, astronomers take extensive observations to assess any threat to Earth.
The Torino Scale categorises predicted threats up to 100 years into the future, the scale being from 0 (no hazard) to 10 (certain collision with big object).

Currently, all known objects have a rating of zero. No known object to date has had a rating above 4 (a close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers).

So, rather than hearing about giraffes, vending machines, or trucks, what we really want to know from the media is the rating an asteroid has on the Torino Scale.

Finally, technology has advanced to the point we have a chance to do something if we ever do face a big number on the Torino Scale. Recently, the DART mission collided a spacecraft into an asteroid, changing its trajectory. In the future, it is plausible that such an action, with enough lead time, could help to protect Earth from collision.

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

Steven Tingay is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party.

– ref. ‘City killers’ and half-giraffes: how many scary asteroids really go past Earth every year? – https://theconversation.com/city-killers-and-half-giraffes-how-many-scary-asteroids-really-go-past-earth-every-year-208838

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Mary Clancy, Lecturer, School of Psychology, Deakin University

The sending and receiving of intimate images and videos is increasingly becoming a part of people’s sexual relationships – particularly for teenagers and young adults.

Image-based “sexting” has steadily increased over the past few years. Aggregated data from population-representative studies in the United States, which included 110,380 teenage participants, found about one in five teenagers had either sent or received nudes online. Australian studies report similar rates.

The figures are slightly higher among lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals. However, minimal data have been collected from the broader queer community, including from trans and gender-diverse people.

Research shows there is little harm associated with sexting when all parties involved have consented, including for teenagers. That said, consent isn’t always properly given and received. In such cases there are increased risks of abuse and sexual violence.

Harm from sexting occurs when there are breaches of consent. At the same time, our work in this space shows navigating consent online is much more complex than it might initially seem.

When sexting can lead to harm

People sext for numerous reasons, such as to flirt, to maintain intimate relationships, or for body image reinforcement. But this act can also be weaponized. Non-consensual forms of sexting include:

• coerced sexting, where someone is forced or manipulated into sexting
• receiving unwanted sexts (also known as “cyberflashing”)
• non-consensual sharing of someone’s sexts with others.

These examples of image-based abuse are highly problematic and harmful to victims. Those who have had their intimate images distributed without their consent (sometimes problematically referred to as “revenge porn”) are more likely to experience stigma, shame, reduced employment prospects, suicidal thoughts or self-harm as a result.

Yet, in two studies published in 2019 and 2021, we found people who share these intimate images are usually either unaware or dismissive of the potential concerns.

These people nominated a range of motivations which could be considered relatively harmless, such as sharing pictures because the person depicted was “hot” (according to 44% of respondents), or seeing it as “not a big deal” (48%), or as a joke (31%).

A case of crossed wires?

Our latest study, published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, found a stark difference between the proportion of people who said they had given consent to have their intimate images shared, and those who said they’d received consent to do this.

Specifically, from our survey of 2,126 young cisgender adults, 8% said they had knowingly given permission for their sexts to be shared. Men (17.7%) were almost six times more likely than women (3.4%) to have consented to this.

In contrast, of those who indicated they had shared another person’s sexts, 20% said they had received prior consent (with no substantial differences between men and women).

When it came to unwanted or unwelcome sexts, women were more likely to non-consensually disseminate these images. This suggests at least some non-consensual forwarding of nudes may relate to not having wanted to receive them in the first place.

We don’t yet have a large enough sample to determine the rates for people outside the gender binary. However, preliminary data from our work suggest their experiences may be similar to those of cisgender women.

Overall, our findings raise important questions about how people conceptualise “consent” when navigating digital spaces. The discrepancy between those who said they received permission to forward someone’s sexts and those who said they gave it suggests something is amiss.

Read more:
It’s time we aligned sexual consent laws across Australia – but this faces formidable challenges

Progress is pending

There is currently little research and minimal legislative clarity regarding how we define and apply digital consent, both in Australia and globally.

Navigating consent online isn’t as straightforward as in face-to-face situations. While the initial exchange of intimate images between two people is often consensual, questions of consent tend to become murkier over time.

For example, what happens if you shared your intimate images happily at the start of a relationship, but it has since gone sour and ended?

Also, since consent can be revoked at any time, should we enforce the deletion of intimate images once the sender revokes their consent? How would this process be managed and monitored?

Further, how would affirmative consent (which has been introduced via legislation in several states) play out online? How do we define “enthusiastic consent” in an online interaction?

This is clearly a topical issue. A federal parliamentary inquiry is under way to address current and proposed consent laws.

Ideally, the concept of online consent would be included within respectful relationship education. Young people should know how to have clear conversations about how their intimate images may be used – both in the present, and in the future when a relationship has ended.

Our ongoing research is focused on finding ways for people to articulate their expectations around consent realistically and effectively. In the meantime, if your intimate images have been uploaded online, or otherwise shared without your permission, there are steps you can take.

If the individual responsible won’t respond or willingly withdraw the images, you can contact the e-Safety Commissioner to have them taken down from online.

There are also legal implications for those who share someone’s intimate images without consent – or threaten to do so. If you’re in this situation, contact your state or territory police as a first step.

Read more:
Mandatory consent education is a huge win for Australia – but consent is just one small part of navigating relationships

Elizabeth Mary Clancy has previously received funding from the Geelong Football Club for the review and evaluation of their CyberCats program, a school-based cyberbullying and sexting prevention program for Yr 7s.

Bianca Klettke has previously received funding from the Geelong Football Club for the review and evaluation of their Cyber Cats program, a school-based cyberbullying and sexting prevention program for Year 7s in the Geelong region.

– ref. 20% of young people who forwarded nudes say they had permission – but only 8% gave it. Why the gap? – https://theconversation.com/20-of-young-people-who-forwarded-nudes-say-they-had-permission-but-only-8-gave-it-why-the-gap-207913

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurel Fox, PhD candidate, The University of Queensland

The Voice is a simple idea. The proposed amendment to Australia’s Constitution is short and sweet.

Yet the referendum debate is at risk of inundation, and too often misses the point. While there are many things the Voice cannot do, there is one thing it can do.

It offers a permanent, public and culturally distinct way forward for Indigenous consensuses to develop and find their rightful place in national politics.

Read more:
Solicitor-general confirms Voice model is legally sound, will not ‘fetter or impede’ parliament

The past as prologue to the present

The Voice is rehearsed rather than radical. National Indigenous representative bodies have been on and off the agenda for 50 years. Australia has had three formalised national Indigenous representative bodies between 1973 and 2005. The history of this is significant.

Colonialism radically disrupted traditional governance. While country and culture remain a bedrock of Indigenous identities, from the 1920s an Indigenous-led movement developed an agenda that favoured commonwealth over state power and lobbied for input at the national level.

This occurred alongside the Commonwealth’s increasing involvement in Indigenous affairs, a dynamic entrenched by the 1967 referendum. By 1967, the Commonwealth could not be seen to countenance the formulation of law and policy without Indigenous input.

National governments needed a way to obtain advice from Indigenous peoples. Liberal Prime Ministers Holt, Gorton and McMahon all acknowledged this.

But it was Gough Whitlam who established the first such representative body: the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (1973–1977). Malcolm Fraser replaced this with the National Aboriginal Conference (1977–1985) and Bob Hawke legislated the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (1989–2005).

At their core, these bodies involved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders choosing their own representatives to proffer advice to the Commonwealth. While the first two bodies were clipped, each collected Indigenous viewpoints and formulated national agendas.

A smattering of topics covered from the 1970s include land rights, treaty, recognition of colonisation without consent, police brutality, and the forced removal of children from their families.

Yet as much as government needed Indigenous input and advice, without constitutional entrenchment these bodies could be (and were) terminated for political expediency. This insecurity was not just existential; it inhibited the potential of these bodies.

The Voice as constructive

Much debate about the Voice has focused on either party politics, or the desirability of the Voice in improving tangible outcomes. This has come at the expense of considering its potential to construct a “national” Indigenous politics, out of regional and sectoral voices.

Politics is protean. But, at its root, democratic politics is about governing society through representation and compromise. This means a representative Voice is also about constructing a system where mainstream government – executive and parliament – and wider society listens to Indigenous concerns.

John Howard’s recent comments against the Voice unwittingly highlight how it can be positively differentiated from previous representative bodies. He argued the Voice would not “produce anything other than regular stand-offs between what the Voice is asking for and what the government of the day is willing to do”.

Leaving aside disingenuous phrasing (the Voice we are voting on can only offer advice, there is no power to “stand off” against governments), the telling words are “what the government of the day is willing to do”.

Compromise is the essence of politics. If a government or parliament is not willing to accommodate reasonable positions of a representative Voice, then that is a failure of our politics. Not of the Voice.

A core ‘no’ argument is a reason to vote ‘yes’

The official “no” case also unwittingly highlights a key reason to support the referendum, come October. In a classic conservative move, the absence of detail about the internal structure of the Voice is taken to be a reason to be cautious and vote “no”.

But that detail is not important to the principle of a national representative Indigenous body. Excess detail at this point would contradict the principle of parliamentary supremacy, of which conservatives are most protective.

Worse, it would pre-empt the right of Indigenous peoples to hammer out the balance between regional and urban voices or established Indigenous structures and an elective principle.

That is significant, given the 1970s bodies mentioned above were very much constructs of executive governments. Each of the three earlier bodies became, if anything, unduly sensitive to regionalism. Such diversity is important; but a “national” Voice cannot be just a confederation of local concerns.

The Voice proposal does not undercut or establish a body to talk over local voices. These voices were central to its drafting, through consultation processes.

On the contrary, the 2021 Indigenous Voice Co-Design Report (which consulted widely to assay aspirations and models) plumps for two-way interaction between local, state and territory, and the national Voices.

Read more:
Regional communities were central to Uluru Statement, and they must also be for the Voice to Parliament

An enduring idea

The Voice proposal is simple. There are a thousand things it cannot do, and one significant thing that it promises to be.

As an embedded but flexible institution, it would channel an evolving national Indigenous politics, as a representative conduit of many voices speaking up to the behemoth that is the Commonwealth of Australia.

Importantly, it would also put an end to a long political process that has always intended to constitutionally recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in a way that is meaningful to them – through a constitutionally enshrined Voice.

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

– ref. The Voice is a simple and enduring idea with a past – and a promise – https://theconversation.com/the-voice-is-a-simple-and-enduring-idea-with-a-past-and-a-promise-210640

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anam Bilgrami, Research Fellow, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University

Moving yourself or a loved one to a nursing home can be emotional and difficult. While some have their nursing home accommodation costs fully covered by the government (based on a means test), most will have to pay their own way.

The average lump sum room value is A$334,000. Choosing how to pay can make this time even more challenging, particularly for those with low financial literacy.

This is an important and complex decision. It can affect your income, wealth, means-tested aged care fee, and bequests. Here are some things to consider before you decide.

Read more:
Would you pass this financial literacy quiz? Many won’t – and it’s affecting expensive aged care decisions

3 ways to pay

You can pay for a nursing home room in three ways.

You can pay the entire room price as a one-off, refundable lump sum (a “refundable accommodation deposit”, sometimes shortened to RAD). This lump sum is refunded to the resident or their estate when the person leaves the nursing home (if they move or pass away).

The refund is guaranteed by the government, even if a provider goes bankrupt.

People who don’t want to pay a lump sum can instead choose rent-style, “daily accommodation payments” (sometimes shortened to DAP).

These are fixed, daily interest-only payments calculated on the total room price. The rate at which they are calculated is known as the “maximum permissible interest rate” or MPIR.

The maximum permissible interest rate is set by the government and is currently 7.9% per annum. The formula for a daily accommodation payment is (RAD × MPIR) ÷ 365.

Unlike lump sums, daily accommodation payments are not refunded.

The third option is a combination payment. This means paying part of the room price as a lump sum, with daily payments calculated on the remaining room amount. On leaving the home, the part lump sum is refunded to the resident or their estate.

With a combination payment, the consumer can choose to pay whatever amount they like for the lump sum.

The table below shows three different ways someone could pay for a room priced at $400,000.

So which is best? It’s impossible to say. It depends on a person’s circumstances, family situation, finances, preferences and expected length of stay.

Why do some people choose a lump sum?

One downside of a lump sum (or part lump sum) is that choosing this option means this money is not invested elsewhere.

By handing over the lump sum, for example, you forgo returns you could have made by investing this same money into property or stocks over the period of your nursing home stay.

On the other hand, paying lump sum means you get to avoid the daily interest payments (the 7.9% in the table above).

So you could potentially be better off paying a lump sum if you think there’s no way you could make investment returns on that money that are substantially higher than the interest you’d be charged through daily payments.

One advantage of choosing a lump sum is it’s considered an exempt asset for pension purposes; some people may get more pension if they pay the lump sum.

The lump sum, however, does count as an asset in determining the means-tested care fee.

And if you sell your house, remember any money leftover after you pay the lump sum will be counted as assets when you’re means-tested for the pension and means-tested care fee.

Why might some people prefer daily payments?

Not everyone can can afford a lump sum. Some may not want to sell their home to pay one. Some may want to hold onto their house if they think property prices may increase in the future.

Daily payments have recently overtaken lump sums as the most popular payment option, with 43% of people paying this way. However, recent interest rate rises may slow or reverse this trend.

And if a spouse or “protected person” – such as a dependant or relative that meets certain criteria – is still living in the house, it’s also exempt from assets tests for the pension and other aged care fees.

If the home is vacated by a protected person, its value is still excluded from the pension means test for two years (although rental income is still assessed).

If you do not anticipate a lengthy nursing home stay, daily payments may potentially be the easiest option. But it’s best to consult a financial adviser.

What does the research say?

My research with colleagues found many people choose the lump sum option simply because they can afford to.

Those owning residential property are more likely to pay a lump sum, mostly because they can sell a house to get the money.

People who consult financial advisers are also more likely to choose lump sums. This may be due to financial advice suggesting it’s tough to earn investment returns higher than what you’d save by avoiding the interest charged in the daily payment option.

Some aged care providers prefer lump sum payment since they use these to renovate or refurbish their facilities. But providers are not allowed to influence or control your decision on how to pay.

The recent Royal Commission into Aged Care recommended phasing out lump sums as a payment option, leaving only daily payments. While that would reduce the complexity of the payment decision and remove the incentive for providers to sway decisions, it would also reduce consumer choice.

Is there anything else I should know?

Some 60% of people we surveyed found the decision complex, while 54% said it was stressful.

It is best to seek professional financial advice before you decide.

Services Australia also runs a free Financial Information Service that can help you better understand your finances and the payment decision. But it does not give financial advice or prepare plans.

You have 28 days to choose a payment method after admission, and six months to pay if you choose a lump-sum payment.

In the interim, you will be charged daily interest payments on the room price.

Read more:
The private health insurance rebate has cost taxpayers $100 billion and only benefits some. Should we scrap it?

Anam Bilgrami 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. Lump sum, daily payments or a combination? What to consider when paying for nursing home accommodation – https://theconversation.com/lump-sum-daily-payments-or-a-combination-what-to-consider-when-paying-for-nursing-home-accommodation-207405

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Blakers, Professor of Engineering, Australian National University

Vast arrays of solar panels floating on calm seas near the Equator could provide effectively unlimited solar energy to densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa.

Our new research shows offshore solar in Indonesia alone could generate about 35,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar energy a year, which is similar to current global electricity production (30,000TWh per year).

And while most of the world’s oceans experience storms, some regions at the Equator are relatively still and peaceful. So relatively inexpensive engineering structures could suffice to protect offshore floating solar panels.

Our high-resolution global heat maps show the Indonesian archipelago and equatorial West Africa near Nigeria have the greatest potential for offshore floating solar arrays.

Read more:
Despairing about climate change? These 4 charts on the unstoppable growth of solar may change your mind

Solar power rules by mid-century

On current trends, the global economy will be largely decarbonised and electrified by 2050, supported by vast amounts of solar and wind energy.

About 70 square kilometres of solar panels can provide all the energy requirements of a million affluent people in a zero-carbon economy. The panels can be placed on rooftops, in arid areas, colocated with agriculture, or floated on water bodies.

But countries with high population densities, such as Nigeria and Indonesia, will have limited space for solar energy harvesting.

Their tropical location in the so-called “doldrum” latitudes also means wind resources are poor. Fortunately, these countries – and their neighbours – can harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm equatorial seas.

Floating solar panels can also be placed on inland lakes and reservoirs. Inland floating solar has large potential and is already growing rapidly.

Our recently released paper surveys the global oceans to find regions that didn’t experience large waves or strong winds over the past 40 years. Floating solar panels in such regions do not require strong and expensive engineering defences.

Regions that don’t experience waves larger than 6 metres nor winds stronger than 15m per second could generate up to one million TWh per year. That’s about five times more annual energy than is needed for a fully decarbonised global economy supporting 10 billion affluent people.

Most of the good sites are close to the Equator, in and around Indonesia and equatorial west Africa. These are regions of high population growth and high environmental values. Marine floating solar panels could help resolve land use conflict.

Indonesia has vast solar energy potential

Indonesia is a densely populated country, particularly on the islands of Java, Bali and Sumatra. By mid-century, Indonesia’s population may exceed 315 million people.

Fortunately, Indonesia has vast solar energy potential and also vast pumped hydro energy storage potential to store the solar energy overnight.

About 25,000 square km of solar panels would be required to support an affluent Indonesia after full decarbonisation of the economy using solar power.

Indonesia has the option of floating vast numbers of solar panels on its calm inland seas. The region has about 140,000 square km of seascape that has not experienced waves larger than 4m – nor winds stronger than 10m per second – in the past 40 years.

Indonesia’s maritime area of 6.4 million square km is 200 times larger than required if Indonesia’s entire future energy needs were met from offshore floating solar panels.

The future for offshore floating solar

Most of the global seascape experiences waves larger than 10m and winds stronger than 20m per second. Several companies are working to develop engineering defences so offshore floating panels can tolerate storms. In contrast, benign maritime environments along the equator require much less robust and expensive defences.

We have found the most suitable regions cluster within 5–12 degrees of latitude of the Equator, principally in and around the Indonesian archipelago and in the Gulf of Guinea near Nigeria. These regions have low potential for wind generation, high population density, rapid growth (in both population and energy consumption) and substantial intact ecosystems that should not be cleared for solar farms. Tropical storms rarely impact equatorial regions.

The offshore floating solar industry is in its infancy. Offshore solar panels do have downsides compared with onshore panels, including salt corrosion and marine fouling. Shallow seas are preferred for anchoring the panels to the seabed. And careful attention must be paid to minimising damage to the marine environment and fishing. Global warming may also alter wind and wave patterns.
Despite these challenges, we believe offshore floating panels will provide a large component of the energy mix for countries with access to calm equatorial seas. By mid-century, about a billion people in these countries will rely mostly on solar energy, which is causing the fastest energy change in history.

Read more:
Sunshine by day, water by night: Indonesia could pair its vast solar and hydro storage to decarbonise the country

Andrew Blakers receives funding from ARENA, P4I and similar organisations

David Firnando Silalahi’s ongoing PhD study is funded by the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP).

– ref. ‘Limitless’ energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots – https://theconversation.com/limitless-energy-how-floating-solar-panels-near-the-equator-could-power-future-population-hotspots-210557

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

The Albanese government is at risk of letting down the Voice’s “yes” case by its tactics of excessive caution and control in the referendum debate.

Inside and outside parliament this week, its performance was, for the most part, woeful, only partly redeemed by a strong counter-attack by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Thursday.

The government’s persuasive power in the fight for the Voice is not nearly as effective as it needs to be. Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney struggles constantly. Senator Pat Dodson, dubbed the Father of Reconciliation and a highly respected Indigenous leader for decades, is out of action due to ill health. Albanese has bad days.

The Coalition this week focused its attack on the issue of treaty – the part of the Uluru Statement from the Heart calling for “a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.

The government has already provided A$5.8 million for a Makarrata Commission – yet to be set up – of which some $900,000 has been spent. When Treasurer Jim Chalmers was asked about the spent money, he provided no details.

In successive question times, the opposition pursued Burney about the commission and what it will do. She refused to engage, just repeating her spiel about the Voice (although she did say “progress on Makarrata will not occur until after the referendum”).

Usually Question Time in the House of Representatives is useless, with the government’s questions a series of “Dorothy Dixers” and the opposition failing to embarrass well-prepared ministers. But when a minister is in trouble, they have nowhere to hide. Burney, unconvincingly trying to stick to the narrowest of scripts, was caught in the headlights the oppositon was shining on the issue of treaty.

Meanwhile Albanese was all over the place when quizzed on treaty during an ABC interview on Wednesday. After he pointed out there was treaty-making under way at state level, he was pressed on whether he was still committed to the Commonwealth negotiating treaties.

“It doesn’t even say that in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. […] It doesn’t speak about the Commonwealth negotiating treaties,” he told Patricia Karvelas. She pushed for clarity, asking, “You don’t think the Commonwealth has a role to negotiate treaties?” “No, I didn’t say that,” the PM replied. “I said, that’s not in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.”

Read more:
View from The Hill: It’s just too hard and too late to delay and recalibrate Voice referendum

The expectation is there would be a treaty, or an overarching structure, at the national level, under which state and other treaties would sit.

Albanese in his comments was trying to erect a solid fence around the Voice debate.

The government fears letting the debate widen to any discussion of treaty will frighten voters, setting back the referendum’s chances.

That might be true. But NOT addressing the issue head-on can potentially be equally or more damaging. It can make the government appear paralysed, as it seemed for much of this week, and leave voters wondering what’s being concealed.

There are several arguments for the government being more upfront about where treaty fits.

Albanese has always said Labor supports the Uluru statement in full. Indeed, the just-released Draft Platform for the party’s national conference this month declares Labor supports “all elements” of the Statement, including the Voice, a Makarrata Commission for agreement-making and a truth-telling process. It adds “Labor will take steps to implement all three elements […] in this term of government.”

Trying to dodge the treaty issue will continue to have Labor spokespeople tied in knots. And given what’s happening in at state level, it shouldn’t be impossible to take some of the heat out of it.

Marcus Stewart, a “yes” campaigner, has just finished his term as elected co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria. That assembly will soon begin negotiations for a state-wide treaty.

Stewart says the Uluru statement calls for “Voice, treaty, truth. Plain and simple. We’ve seen both the Liberal and National parties support treaty in both Queensland and Victoria, so clearly the opposition leader is out of touch with what the Australian public want and support, including in his own state of Queensland.

“We’ve also seen governments from all sides of politics negotiating treaties around the world including in British Columbia, Canada. They have the evidence and experienced firsthand how all Canadians benefit from treaty-making – including First Nations communities and wider British Columbians.”

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: ‘yes’ campaigner Thomas Mayo and ‘no’ advocate Derryn Hinch on the Voice

How treaties turn out will obviously depend on their content. Indigenous leaders say they are a long time in the making, even a decade or two. The battles for treaties will be difficult, just as were those over land rights, and in the wake of the Mabo and Wik High Court decisions.

The debate about treaty already goes back decades. In 1979, an Aboriginal Treaty Committee was formed to promote the idea. It was a non-government body chaired by “Nugget” Coombs, one of Australia’s most distinguished public figures who served multiple prime ministers in various capacities and who was a champion of Indigenous rights.

Coombs cast the treaty challenge in upbeat terms. “Whatever the outcome, the coming together of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to work out a constitutional-style basis for their living together in this continent represents, in my view, the most exciting political and social adventure in the history of the continent.”

Treaty is relevant to Voice, despite the government’s efforts to ring-fence them. The government says the Voice would concentrate on health, housing, education and jobs but one would expect, as a nationally representative body, it would also have some views on a treaty process, even though the Makarrata Commission would oversee that process.

The Uluru statement must be looked at as a whole, as Albanese did before he tried to roll the Voice into a small target. The government, and others on the “yes” side, could do best by confronting, rather than running away from, that reality.

Albanese (but not Dutton) is at the Garma Festival this weekend. It will be a celebration of the imminent referendum. But there will be fears too, driven by the polls. No doubt the PM will be getting plenty of advice on how to manage a debate that has become a great deal more complex than he wanted it to be.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Trying to dodge talking about ‘treaty’ could do the Voice campaign more harm than good – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-trying-to-dodge-talking-about-treaty-could-do-the-voice-campaign-more-harm-than-good-210986

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Noel Castree, Professor of Society & Environment, University of Technology Sydney

Last week, United Nations General Secretary António Guterres coined an arresting new term. The era of global warming has ended, he declared dramatically, and the era of “global boiling” has arrived.

You can see why he said it. July was the hottest month on record globally. Searing temperatures and intense wildfires have raged across the Northern Hemisphere. Marine heatwaves are devastating the world’s third-largest coral reef, off Florida. And as greenhouse emissions keep rising, it means many even hotter summers await us.

But critics and climate sceptics have heaped scorn on the phrase. Taken literally, they’re correct – nowhere on Earth is near the boiling point of water.

Is Guterres’ phrase hyperbolic or an accurate warning? Do phrases like this actually help drive us towards faster and more effective climate action? Or do they risk making us prone to climate doomism, and risk prompting a backlash?

Rhetoric and reality

Guterres is rhetorically adept. He uses the moral authority of his position to vividly depict the climate crisis. For instance, he told attendees at last year’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt we are on “a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator”. In many ways, it’s one of the only tools he has, given the UN has global influence but limited real power.

“Global boiling” ups the verbal ante. It’s designed to sound the alarm and trigger more radical action to stave off the worst of climate change.

Guterres chooses his words carefully. But does he choose them wisely?

At one level, “global boiling” is clearly an exaggeration, despite the extreme summer heat and fire during the northern summer.

But then again, “global warming” is now far too tame a descriptor. Prominent climate scientists have pushed for the term “global heating” to be used in preference.

Similarly, phrases such as “the climate crisis” haven’t gained traction with either elites or the ordinary public. That’s because many of us still feel we haven’t seen this crisis with our own eyes.

But that is changing. In the past few years, extreme weather and related events have struck many countries – even those who may have thought themselves immune. Australia’s Black Summer brought bushfires that burned an area the size of the United Kingdom. Germany suffered lethal flooding in 2021. The unprecedented 2022 deluge in Pakistan flooded large tracts of the country. China has seen both drought and floods. Savage multi-year droughts have hit the Horn of Africa. India has banned rice exports due to damage from heavy rain.

Once-abstract phrases are now having real-world purchase – in developed and developing nations alike.

Climate scepticism has also dropped away. Fewer doubters are trying to discredit the fundamental science than during the long period of manufactured scepticism in Western nations.

In this context, we can see “global boiling” as an expression of humanitarian concern backed by rigorous science showing the situation continues to worsen.

The hazards of theatrical language

There are risks in warning of catastrophe. People who don’t pay close attention to the news may switch off if the predicted disaster doesn’t eventuate. Or the warnings can add to climate anxiety and make people feel there’s no hope and therefore no point in acting.

There’s another risk, too. Catastrophic language often has moral overtones – and, as we all know, we don’t like being told what to do. When we hear a phrase like “global boiling” in the context of a prominent official exhorting us to do more, faster, it can raise the hackles.

Read more:
‘It can be done. It must be done’: IPCC delivers definitive report on climate change, and where to now

You can see this in the emerging greenlash, whereby populist-right figures scorn solar and wind farms. Even struggling mainstream leaders like UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak can pivot this way, as evidenced by his recent positioning as pro-car and pro-oil extraction.

Opponents of climate action – who tend to be on the right of politics – often complain about what they see as the overuse of “crisis talk”. If everything is a crisis, nothing is a crisis. This view has some merit.

But even critics such as Danish controversialist Bjørn Lomborg, author of False Alarm, may have more in common with Guterres than one might think. In admittedly different ways, they pursue similar ends: a world where people can live free from harm, with dignity, and with reasonable prospects of a fulfilling life pursued sustainably. The question, as always, is how to get there.

Hot language can motivate us, just as quieter, process-heavy, technocratic language can. It can be folded into a discourse of hope and aspiration for the future, rather than of fear and trembling.

Rethinking calamity

Climate writer David Wallace-Wells has written that the future will be “contested and combative, combining suffering and flourishing — though not in equal measure for every group”.

As the critics Frederick Buell and Rob Nixon remind us, a hotter Earth will worsen existing human vulnerabilities as well as creating new ones. The poor and marginalised, both authors observe, are already living through crises, year-in and year-out. They suffer what Nixon dubs “slow violence”, punctuated by dramatic environmental events such as landslides and failed harvests.

Are there better phrases to capture this? Possibly. Take the challenge yourself: can you think up a pithy, accurate phrase to cover intensifying local and regional-scale droughts, fires, typhoons and floods; damage to crops and food insecurity; water shortages; existential threats to coral reefs and low-lying communities? You can see how hard it is.

When Guterres uses highly charged phrases, he’s not inviting to us to imagine a Hollywood-style apocalypse. What he’s hoping is to make people listen – and act – now we can see what climate change looks like.

What happens if we write off his comments as overblown rhetoric? The risk is it becomes another form of denial. Climate change, global warming, global heating, the climate crisis, global boiling – whatever the phrase, it is now undeniable that it’s upon us.

Read more:
The climate crisis is real – but overusing terms like ‘crisis’ and ’emergency’ comes with risk

Noel Castree 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. Do phrases like ‘global boiling’ help or hinder climate action? – https://theconversation.com/do-phrases-like-global-boiling-help-or-hinder-climate-action-210960

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western Australia

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s hopes of avoiding extradition to the United States, where he’s charged with espionage and computer misuse offences, have taken a blow.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, asked on Saturday about the Australian government’s request that the US end the prosecution, said Assange had been “charged with very serious criminal conduct […] [which] risked very serious harm to our national security”.

He also asked that Australians see the US perspective on the case.

These statements will disappoint Assange’s supporters. Previously, the US hadn’t responded directly to the Australian government’s statements. The Albanese government has repeatedly said it believes the process for prosecuting Assange has gone on too long and should be brought to a conclusion.

From a diplomatic perspective, moving from silence or ambiguity to clearer opposition to the Australian government’s position suggests the US may have decided to prosecute Assange despite Australia’s objections.

However, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that position hadn’t changed, and that Secretary Blinken had merely said in public what had been said in private. He regards the diplomatic process as ongoing – though none can doubt it’s now more challenging.

How’d we get here?

The UK home secretary ordered Assange’s extradition to the US in 2022. Assange’s legal challenge to that order was rejected and is currently under appeal. In parallel, Assange has challenged the order before the European Court of Human Rights.

However, his best chance for freedom is for the US to withdraw the prosecution, or to pardon him.

Under former president Barack Obama, the US declined to prosecute Assange because his case could open the door to prosecution of journalists for espionage. The Trump administration issued an indictment against Assange in 2019, and the Biden administration has continued the extradition process.

Australians detained in foreign countries can access support at the nearest Australian embassy and have the right to communicate with Australian consular officials. At times Assange has rejected assistance, but he has had visits from Australian officials in the UK – including, unusually, High Commissioner Stephen Smith – this year.

Some situations are politically sensitive. Governments deal with those cases directly, and discussions aren’t made public.

The question is whether the US making its position on Assange public indicates it won’t shift that position, meaning further Australian discussions would be pointless.

Assange has enjoyed growing support from Australian parliamentarians. A group of MPs met with US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy in May this year.

But the uncompromising American position on pursuing prosecution is no surprise. The US has been resolute about prosecuting foreign nationals even when allies have objected.

In 1999, Germany took the US to the International Court of Justice because of its failure to grant German diplomats access to two German nationals accused of capital murder. Although the court found in Germany’s favour, the US still prosecuted and executed the brothers.

What if the government’s efforts fail?

Australia’s diplomatic efforts in other cases have produced successful outcomes. It has been effective recently in stopping the prosecution or extradition of persons under its protection. In 2022, Australian pressure led to the return of Professor Sean Turnell from Myanmar, where he had been charged with national security offences.

In 2019, direct engagement by then Foreign Minister Marise Payne with Thailand prevented the extradition of Hakeem Al-Araibi, a refugee and Australian permanent resident, to Bahrain.

Australia, working with the UK, secured the release of British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert from Iran in November 2020. This was a more challenging diplomatic situation because of the less friendly relations between Iran and both the UK and Australia.

The US seems to resist Australian pressure more often than smaller states do. Assange’s supporters hoped a direct request by Australia, a close American ally, would lead to his release.

While the US has resisted Australia’s request, it hasn’t yet formally closed the door. Until Assange is extradited, it’s always possible Australia’s persuasion could yet succeed.

If it fails, Australia would have few options. It could apply symbolic diplomatic measures, such as calling in the American ambassador or bringing the Australian ambassador home from the US for consultations.

These acts would demonstrate concern, but they remain in the sphere of diplomacy.

Indeed protecting Australian nationals in foreign countries is less about the law than successful diplomatic practice.

While Albanese has said Australia will continue to make representations concerning Assange, the diplomatic road has become rockier.

Holly Cullen is a volunteer for the Australian Labor Party.

– ref. A rocky diplomatic road: Julian Assange’s hopes of avoiding extradition take a blow as US pushes back – https://theconversation.com/a-rocky-diplomatic-road-julian-assanges-hopes-of-avoiding-extradition-take-a-blow-as-us-pushes-back-210806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Austin, Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne

Bloom, the new Australian musical produced by the Melbourne Theatre Company, is proudly billed by the company as born and bred right here in Melbourne/Naarm.

Written by Tom Gleisner (of The Castle fame) with music by Katie Weston, the show follows the story of Rose (Evelyn Krape), who reluctantly arrives at Pine Grove Aged Care Home after being told she can no longer live alone. Finn (Slone Sudiro), a university student studying music, arrives on the same day as Rose as part of a scheme offering students board in exchange for domestic duties.

As both Rose and Finn settle into their new accommodation, we meet the eclectic residents of the home and two dedicated care staff. Gloria (Christina O’Neill) has “accidentally” worked at Pine Grove for eight years. Ruby (Vidya Makan) gave up her communications degree at uni for a job that allowed her to do something more meaningful.

Fault lines soon appear. The frugal and punitive manager of Pine Grove, Mrs MacIntyre (Anne Edmonds), puts profit before people. She refuses requests for outings, fresh food and psychosocial programs designed to improve the residents’ (or as Rose puts it, inmates) lives so she can meet a tight fiscal bottom line.

Each character wrestles with the poignant and relatable idea that there is a gap between who they were and who they have become.

This gap occurs across the spectrum of ageing. Ruby asks herself in song if “maybe it’s time”, contemplating leaving Pine Grove and commencing a masters degree in aged care. Resident Sal (Eddie Muliaumaseali’i) silently looks through old photos to connect with his past and the remnants of his past self.

Dismissing the rights of older Australians

This question of aged care homes as for-profit entities was brought into sharp focus during the pandemic. The final report of a Royal Commission into Aged Care and Safety exposed the deep chasms in the sector. It tabled 148 recommendations to parliament in 2021 and has led to significant legislative reform.

The idea suggested at the core of Bloom – that student boarders in aged care homes may lead to significant innovation, intergenerational and reciprocal learning and subsequently improve the quality of life for our elders – is treated glibly and without much substance in the formulaic model of musical theatre.

Read more:
4 key takeaways from the aged care royal commission’s final report

The story references ideas of the human rights of our elders to have agency to voice complaints, to be treated with respect, to have liberty of movement and the right to social participation.

Specifically, Rose tries to lead an insurrection of residents during an inspection of the facility and refuses pills that make her feel groggy.

Instead of being heard and respected, she is treated as a problem. The suggestion by Mrs MacIntyre is that she is “having a little turn” during her complaints: a moment of insight into how easily we have dismissed the rights of older Australians to exercise choice and be heard on matters that impact them.

Here, Bloom provides an insight into the cruelty inherent in some aspects of the system, and the difference quality care and a good carer can make to someone’s life.

Stark realities and missed opportunities

Toward the end of the play, there is a scene where we watch Rose take her last few breaths in her small hospital bed, in a stark and all-too-familiar room. She is surrounded by Gloria, Ruby and Finn, who provide comfort in her final hours.

In the scene, Finn reflects that Ruby seems very comfortable with death. She responds that both her grandparents lived at her home and she was present when they died.

Ruby’s experience of multi-generational living arrangements that allow for care at home for the elderly is more common in Australian families that include first- or second-generation migrants.

Finn reveals that when his mother died, he was considered too young to be at the hospital.

This scene at Rose’s bedside is a good representation of the missed opportunity in Bloom to starkly represent the realities of our aged care system and our dominant cultural approach to end-of-life care in this country.

Due to the intense staffing shortfall so sharply reflected in the royal commission, unless family were present, it is very possible Rose would have died alone.

I can’t help but imagine how seeing that uncomfortable reality on stage may have been a transformative theatrical moment, seared into the memories of the audience as they make choices about end-of-life and aged care for themselves and those they love.

Instead of tackling the systemic issues around aged care and end of life, Bloom wraps things neatly up in a bow, ending the musical by suggesting the death of Rose led to change at Pine Grove. An unqualified student will now work as a musical therapist and a nice manager has been found to lead the home into a new era.

There is a great track record of musical theatre successfully tackling overtly political material and revealing the gaps in our social fabric and problematising history and power (think of shows like Hamilton, Urinetown and Bran Nue Dae).

Unfortunately, Bloom seems too afraid of its own subject material to truly tackle these issues and reflect their realities back to us.

Bloom is at the Arts Centre Melbourne Playhouse for the Melbourne Theatre Company until August 26.

Read more:
We all hope for a ‘good death’. But many aged-care residents are denied proper end-of-life care

Sarah Austin 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. New Aussie musical Bloom misses an opportunity to interrogate the gaps in aged care – and in our social fabric – https://theconversation.com/new-aussie-musical-bloom-misses-an-opportunity-to-interrogate-the-gaps-in-aged-care-and-in-our-social-fabric-209794

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Osmond, Associate Professor of Sport History, The University of Queensland

One year out from the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic games, Paris has announced it will reopen the River Seine for swimming competition and then allow public swimming, ending a century-long ban. This ban was in place to stop people immersing themselves in river waters polluted by stormwater, sewage and chemicals.

But after many years of stormwater management work, three Olympic and Paralympic events will be held in the Seine in 2024 – the swimming marathon and the swimming legs of the Olympic triathlon and Para-triathlon. The Seine will also feature in the opening ceremony when, instead of the traditional athletes’ parade in a stadium, a parade of boats will carry the teams along the river.

The clean waters of the swimmable Seine are being promoted as a positive legacy of these games. But it’s not the first time Olympic swimming events have been held in the famous river. And with growing commitments to swimmable cities around the world, it is unlikely to be the last.

Read more:
It’s hot, and your local river looks enticing. But is too germy for swimming?

A brief history of river swimming

At the 1900 Paris Olympics, Australia’s Freddie Lane won two swimming events in the Seine. These were the 200 metres freestyle and a 200m obstacle race. This unusual event required the 12 athletes from four countries to climb over a pole, scramble over a row of boats and then swim under another row of boats.

Historians Reet and Max Howell quoted Lane describing his winning strategy: “[Knowing] a bit about boats [I] went over the sterns […] unlike the majority of competitors who fought their way over the sides.”

Following the tradition of linking to classical history that was common in the Games at the time, this event referenced Sequana, the Gallo-Roman goddess of the Seine. She is typically represented standing on a boat: clambering over and swimming under the river’s vessels was clearly for mere mortals.

That was the first and only time the Olympics included an obstacle race. But swimming competitions at the time were often held in rivers, harbours, lakes and other natural water bodies. The swimming races at the first modern Olympics, in Athens in 1896, were held in the Bay of Zea on the Piraeus peninsula. It wasn’t until 1908 in London that swimming moved to landlocked pools.

Swimming in rivers has a very long history related to pleasure and politics. Competitive river swimming remained common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Freddie Lane won the New South Wales mile championship in the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga Wagga in January 1899.

“Professor of swimming” Fred Cavill helped pioneer swimming lessons for the masses in Sydney – including girls and women. He gave promotional swims in the Murray River on his arrival from the United Kingdom in 1880. Later that year he had to abandon a much-touted river swim from Parramatta to Sydney due to strong tides. One of Cavill’s sons, Arthur “Tums” Cavill, emigrated from Sydney to the United States where he introduced an annual winter swim in the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, in 1909.

And while it wasn’t an Olympic feat, in 1918 Alick Wickham made a world record high dive of 205 feet 9 inches (62.7 metres) into the Yarra River in Melbourne.

Read more:
Watered down: what happened to Australia’s river swimming tradition?

Even Chinese leader Mao Zedong used river swimming to promote his health and political image.

More recently, the swim leg of the triathlon for the 2000 Olympic Games was held in Sydney Harbour, where divers were on shark patrol.

However, like the 1900 obstacle race, organised and informal river swimming in cities became uncommon. In rivers such as the Seine in Paris and parts of the Yarra in Melbourne, it was even illegal.

The rise of built pools contributed to this shift, and for good reason. The novelty and modern design of concrete pools might have been part of the reason people abandoned city rivers and natural waterways. However, these new facilities also offered safety from sharks and stormwater, bacteria, chemicals and pollutants. Admittedly, questions of hygiene have also swirled around pools, especially before chlorine was added.

Ocean baths and pools served a similar purpose. As regulated spaces managed by local governments, pools meant swimmers were safer: lifeguards could watch over them and swimmers had access to more discreet changing facilities.

Read more:
A tale of 2 rivers: is it safer to swim in the Yarra in Victoria, or the Nepean in NSW?

The quest for swimmable cities

Pools have remained popular, but river swimming never disappeared. In recent years, a resurgence in interest has been buoyed by the environmental movement’s efforts to rehabilitate waterways and growing research supporting the health benefits of outdoor swimming.

The Seine will reopen for swimming thanks to a €1.4 billion (A$2.3 billion) regeneration project to “reinvent the Seine”. It began in 2017 and includes floating hotels, walkways and other social spaces as well as swimming and diving areas.

The revival of swimming in the Seine is just one example of how outdoor and “wild” swimming is contributing to better caring for rivers. In England, there’s pressure to improve the water of the River Thames in London as well as broader movements to stop sewage outfalls on rivers. In Denmark, Copenhagen harbour has summer swimming sites. In Beijing there is a somewhat subversive outdoor swimming subculture.

Read more:
UK waters are too polluted to swim in – but European countries offer answers

In Australia, too, a number of new swimming sites have opened. In Sydney, sites along the Parramatta River and in the harbour – one spot at Barangaroo opened this year – complement established river and harbour swimming areas, including the famous Dawn Fraser Baths. In Melbourne, there are calls for a chain of city swimming spots along the Birrarung/Yarra.

The growth in awareness of the important role that blue spaces – oceans, rivers, lakes, canals and other waterways – play in human health and wellbeing comes alongside a revival of the popularity of outdoor swimming and immersion. While we know this is good for people, public interest in clean, swimmable waterways for our own health, wellbeing and pleasure can also have great benefits for these environments.

Rebecca Olive receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Gary Osmond 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. Olympic swimming in the Seine highlights efforts to clean up city rivers worldwide – https://theconversation.com/olympic-swimming-in-the-seine-highlights-efforts-to-clean-up-city-rivers-worldwide-210714

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Austin, Chair of Private Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Blockbuster movie brand merchandising is a multi-billion-dollar industry.

That Buzz Lightyear bubble bath, Lightning McQueen bedding or Elemental backpack all contribute to a movie’s overall income stream.

And brand owners are in a constant battle against fake or unlicensed goods. The European Union Intellectual Property Office estimates that counterfeits comprise around 2.5% of all world trade.

But successful brands also inspire well-meaning imitators such as Hobbit-themed pubs, Grinch-themed photoshoots, Harry Potter fan festivals, or, in New Zealand, a cleaning business van painted with “Minion” imagery. Small businesses trying this kind of thing often get “cease and desist” letters from film studios, demanding they stop.

The success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie seems destined to encourage businesses to use elements of the film’s brand – from the distinctive lettering and colours to the doll’s packaging and image.

But businesses in New Zealand and elsewhere need to consider the risk they face by infringing on Mattel’s intellectual property rights.

The rise of Barbie

Barbie was already a juggernaut brand before the release of the film. In 2002, an appellate judge in the United States said “Mattel created not just a toy but a cultural icon”.

Mattel has been vigilant about controlling the Barbie image. It tried to stop conceptual artist Thomas Forsythe from creating artworks depicting Barbie in perilous positions – such as in cocktail blenders and under an oven grill.

And in the late 1990s, Mattel tried to stop Danish pop group Aqua from singing about Barbie.

Recently, Mattel convinced a court in China to stop a local firm called Barbietang from registering “Barbie tang” as a trade mark for veterinarian services – including artificial insemination.

In 2022, Mattel settled a claim against the use of “Barbie-Que” potato chips, apparently driving the product off the market.

Mattel’s legal strategies haven’t always worked. Forsythe won his case, and Mattel’s suit against MCA Records, Aqua’s North American record label, failed.

In 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the fame of the Barbie trademark was not enough to stop a restaurant from using the word “Barbie” in its own branding.

But for local businesses, these cases won’t offer much comfort. Often, just the threat of legal proceedings will be enough.

Read more:
The reaction to ‘X,’ Elon Musk’s rebrand of Twitter, reflects how we feel about brands

Investing in brand protection

Serious concerns lie behind these enforcement efforts. Millions of dollars are spent on creating and sustaining brand images. What if Barbie-themed cruises, brunches, home decorating services and nightclub evenings aren’t any good? Will these poor imitations affect how people feel about the brand?

Mattel’s worldview has matured, as the Gerwig movie shows. It now seems open to some pretty sophisticated social commentary targeting its doll.

Yet it still has a strong interest in the Barbie image – boosted by the success of the film. A lacklustre “Barbie Brunch” could dim the brand’s shine. Brands can die by a thousand cuts.

Read more:
In Greta Gerwig’s Barbie Land, the matriarchy can be just as bad as the patriarchy

There’s another reason: money. As Mattel told the Canadian court, it is in the business of building brand equity – the commercial value that comes from consumer perception of a brand, which supports vast networks of licensing deals. It can be a firm’s most valuable asset.

Warding off unlicensed use of a brand protects new market segments. Sitting back while others enter the market with the same brand risks losing money. It’s not just poor imitations that matter. Any unlicensed use of the brand can take away market share.

What is a brand?

For all its importance, a “brand” is not a distinct legal category. Brand equity is protected by an array of intellectual property (IP) rights. Trademarks, copyrights and business goodwill work together to create and protect the valuable asset known as a “brand”.

The Canadian restaurant wanted only to use the word “Barbie”. The court was not convinced this would cause consumer confusion. This decision might have been different if the restaurant’s goods and services had been more similar to Mattel’s.

Read more:
How I learned to stop worrying and love the doll – a feminist philosopher’s journey back to Barbie

And it would have been a totally different case if the restaurant had also copied Barbie artwork, infringing Mattel’s copyrights.

Importantly, copyright rules protect against copying – brand owners don’t need to show that the copying will damage its reputation or jeopardise its market share.

A global network of IP treaties

Some will bridle at foreign firms using their IP muscle against New Zealand firms.

But international protection of IP has been around since at least the end of the 19th century. Owners of strong trademarks have also had entry into some markets blocked by businesses who used the brand first.

Aotearoa New Zealand is now party to a network of international IP treaties that help prevent this from happening.

These treaties are often linked to trade. Protecting IP is part of the quid pro quo for lowering tariffs for our goods in foreign markets. And it works the other way around: local artists and creative brand developers enjoy reciprocal protections for their IP in foreign markets.

For a small business getting a “cease and desist” letter, this can seem like cold comfort. Repainting a van or rebranding a pub is an irritating expense.

But when the IP system works well, it encourages creativity. To avoid problems, local firms need to come up with their own original brands and imagery. As with any branding strategy, that will require investment and creativity. But these efforts enrich our culture and, it’s hoped, the local businesses that do the hard yards.

Graeme Austin 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. Dolls and dollars: why small businesses should be wary of cashing in on Barbiemania with their branding – https://theconversation.com/dolls-and-dollars-why-small-businesses-should-be-wary-of-cashing-in-on-barbiemania-with-their-branding-210875

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Associate professor of Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong

The lymphatic system has long been considered mysterious.

Unlike blood vessels, lymphatic vessels are not very visible to the naked eye, even during surgery. Because of this, the anatomy and functions of the lymphatic system have historically not been well studied. The fluid in the lymphatic system was named “lymph” after the Greek nymph – a mythical creature associated with clear streams – and the Roman Lympha, goddesses of fresh water.

But the lymphatic system – and the lymph nodes within it – plays fascinating and important roles in health and disease, from fighting off infection to maintain the body’s fluid balance.

Read more:
What can go wrong in the blood? A brief overview of bleeding, clotting and cancer

A major part of our immune system

The lymphatic system protects the body against foreign invaders and enables us to mount an immune response.

Lymphocytes are the cells of the lymphatic system. These are a type of white blood cell and include B cells and T cells. B cells produce antibodies to attack invading pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. T cells destroy the body’s own cells if they become cancerous or infected.

Lymphocytes are mostly contained in about 700 peanut-sized lymph glands in the body. Enlarged lymph nodes, such as after a vaccination or with an infection, are due to lymphocytes mounting a protective immune response. Lymphoma is a cancer that happens when lymphocytes multiply uncontrollably and cause swollen lymph glands throughout the body.

We also have lymphatic tissue in parts our airways and digestive system because these areas are exposed to external bugs via the air we breath or the things we eat and drink. In the digestive system, the lymphatic system also has an essential role in absorbing dietary fat from the intestines.

Some lymphocytes travel around the body conducting pathogen surveillance for invading bugs. They circulate between lymph nodes, lymph and the blood.

A fine balance of fluids

Every day, about 20 litres of fluid is pushed out of capillaries – our smallest blood vessels – into tissues and organs. This is driven by blood pressure and is how tissues get oxygen and energy. About 17 litres of this fluid returns to the veins, alongside carbon dioxide and other waste products.

But what happens to the remaining 3 litres of fluid?

If it stayed in our tissues, it would cause swelling called oedema, sometimes referred to as fluid retention.

Luckily, our lymphatic vessels usually pick up this remaining 3 litres of fluid and return it to the blood circulation.

Starting in the tissues just under the skin and around our organs, the lymphatic system is a one-way circulatory system. Lymphatic vessels carry lymph from the tissues via lymph nodes and then into veins that drain directly into the heart.

A slow flow

Unlike the blood circulation, the lymphatic circulation is not driven by the pumping of the heart. Lymph is moved towards the heart by muscular contractions of the lymphatic vessels and one-way valves.

Movement, exercise and deep breathing all help to move lymph through lymphatic vessels.

It is difficult to move lymph against gravity, and lymph can accumulate and cause swelling or oedema in the legs and feet. Many people have experienced this as swollen feet after standing still for too long or sitting during a long-haul flight.

Too much fluid

Oedema can also occur when too much fluid moves out of the capillaries and overloads the capacity of the lymphatic vessels to reabsorb it.

This can be due to heart failure, chronic venous insufficiency, liver failure or kidney disease. In our research, we found 49% of people with chronic venous insufficiency (or poor blood flow in the veins) had leg oedema.

Lymphoedema is when the oedema is caused by a problem with the lymphatic system. This is commonly due to obstruction of lymph drainage or removal of lymph nodes during cancer treatment.

Treatments can help lymph flow more freely

Lymphoedema treatments include lymphatic massage, compression bandages or stockings, and exercise.

Lymphatic massage requires specialised training and an understanding of the lymphatic vessels. It involves stretching and stroking the skin to move fluid from the swollen region to a location where the lymphatic system is functioning properly.

Lymphatic massage can reduce lymphoedema associated with cancer treatment. An Australian study also reported that lymphatic massage reduced pain, depression and fatigue in cancer patients.

Increasing lymph flow back towards the heart is also essential to prevent complications like cellulitis or skin infection. A proper diagnosis should precede any treatment for lymphoedema.

You might have seen social media posts or services promising to boost lymphatic drainage for relaxation, beauty or health reasons. Lymphatic facial massage and traditional Chinese techniques of gua sha and jade rollers can increase blood flow and lymph flow, but need to be used correctly.

These treatments are best performed by someone who is trained in the anatomy of the lymphatic system and lymph flow. If you do try these yourself, light pressure is needed because the lymphatic vessels are only just under the skin. It is uncommon to have lymphoedema in the face, but increased blood flow to the skin and a nice massage are still beneficial.

To keep your lymphatic system working well, it is important to exercise, maintain a healthy weight and eat a diet that is rich in antioxidants and not high in salt.

Read more:
Why does my back get so sore when I’m sick? The connection between immunity and pain

New promise for patients

New research is examining artificial stimulation of new lymphatic vessel growth.

Better imaging techniques have allowed for clearer visualisation of the lymphatic pathways and increased understanding of the lymphatic system.

The lymphatic system may not be as mysterious as it once was. However, there is still much more to be learnt about the lymphatic system and its roles in health and disease.

Laurencia Villalba is a vascular surgeon in private and public practice.

Alison Tomlin and Theresa Larkin 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. What are lymph nodes? And can a massage really improve lymphatic drainage? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-lymph-nodes-and-can-a-massage-really-improve-lymphatic-drainage-209334

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

Picking your nose is linked to an increased risk of COVID, according to a study out today.

The study was conducted in health workers. This raises two main questions.

One, were these health workers washing their hands at work? Two, what does this study mean for the rest of us nose pickers?

Read more:
When you pick your nose, you’re jamming germs and contaminants up there too. 3 scientists on how to deal with your boogers

What did the study find?

Some 219 Dutch health workers were monitored for COVID infection. They had regular antibody testing, which tells us if they had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. They also reported the results of their own COVID tests.

Some 12-18 months later, the health workers were asked about their nose picking habits, and exposure to COVID via symptomatic workmates or from contacts outside work.

Just over 17% of health workers who reported picking their nose caught COVID versus about 6% of those who did not report nose picking.

At first glance, it might appear feasible that people who pick their noses would be at increased risk of contracting COVID.

That’s because COVID infection relies on the SARS-CoV-2 virus coming into contact with mucous membranes that line the respiratory system, including those in the nose.

So if someone touches a contaminated object or hand, then sticks their finger up their nose, this so-called fomite transmission can occur.

But the risk is comparatively low. The United States Centers for Disease Control estimates about one in 10,000 contacts with a contaminated surface results in SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

Read more:
How clean is your hospital room? To reduce the spread of infections, it could probably be cleaner

Hang on a minute

But there are some odd results. For example, people who picked their noses only monthly had a higher chance of infection than daily nose pickers. Logically, you would expect the daily nose pickers to have a higher risk of infection due to more transmission opportunities.

There were also several aspects of how the study was designed that may have influenced the results.

Just over half of the people approached to participate in the study actually did so, which may cause selection bias. This is where people who choose to participate may differ in some key characteristic from those who don’t. These different characteristics can be “confounders” that influence the results.

This was a cohort study, which followed a defined group of people for a set time and asked them questions about their habits and exposure. This study design may also be subject to bias.

That’s because people tend to answer in ways that are socially desirable, even in anonymous surveys. They tend to under-report behaviours seen as socially unacceptable (such as binge drinking); they over-report those that are socially acceptable.

This study did not control for this type of bias. So we cannot say for certain if someone’s report of whether and how often they picked their nose is a true reflection of what actually happened.

People in the study may also have had trouble correctly remembering past behaviour (picking their nose) or exposures (to symptomatic people with COVID). The long time lag between when the infection data was collected and the retrospective survey increases the risk of recall error.

There is also some level of “guestimating” in the study, particularly when it comes to the risk of COVID exposure. Health workers were asked to note their contact with symptomatic people or working with COVID patients. But we can’t say if these were real “exposures”. That’s because people may not have symptoms and still have COVID (this would have under-estimated their exposure risk). Alternatively, COVID patients may not be that infectious if they don’t shed much virus (which may have over-estimated the COVID risk).

Then, it appears the analysis did not control for gender. This is potentially an issue as female health workers tend to be better at following hand hygiene guidelines. The study reported a higher rate of nose picking in males and doctors, and males and doctors are also worse at hand hygiene.

So the nose pickers may also be worse at sanitising their hands. In other words, we don’t know if nose picking is the reason for the reported increased risk of COVID, the lack of hand hygiene, or both.

Another way of saying this is the researchers reported a correlation between nose picking and an increased risk of COVID. We cannot say one causes the other or if additional factors are involved.

Read more:
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So, what now?

Given the above limitations, the study conclusions seem overly confident. Overall, the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission via nose picking is probably comparatively low, particularly for the general public who are not working in high COVID environments.

But you can definitely decrease your risk through good hand hygiene (and using a tissue that you dispose of afterwards).

Better still, avoid inhaling airborne viral particles, which is the most common mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Wear a good fitting mask or respirator in public, particularly in poorly ventilated or crowded inside spaces.

Thea van de Mortel teaches into the Griffith University Master of Infection Prevention and Control program.

– ref. Does picking your nose really increase your risk of COVID? – https://theconversation.com/does-picking-your-nose-really-increase-your-risk-of-covid-210879

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frederic Gachon, Associate Professor, Physiology of Circadian Rhythms, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland

Early hunter-gatherers faced long periods of fasting. Their access to food relied on successful hunting, fishing, and the availability of wild plants.

Over time, the development of modern agriculture and the transition to industrialised societies changed our regular eating patterns, shifting our dinner time to later in the day to accommodate work schedules.

Today, with access to an abundance of food, we rarely experience prolonged periods of fasting, except for weight loss or religious practices. It’s now common to have four or more meals a day, with the most calories consumed later in the day. Frequent snacking is also common, over a window of around 15 hours.

However, research increasingly shows our health is not only affected by what and how much we eat, but also when we eat. So what does this mean for meal scheduling? And can intermittent fasting help?

Our body clock controls more than our sleep

Our internal biological timekeeper, or circadian clock, regulates many aspects of our physiology and behaviour. It tells us to be awake and active during the day, and rest and sleep during the night. It can also tell us the best time to eat.

Our body is biologically prepared to have food during the day. Food digestion, nutrient uptake and energy metabolism is optimised to occur when we’re supposed to be active and eating.

Working against this default stage, by regularly eating when we’re supposed to sleep and fast, can compromise these processes and impact our health. Erratic eating patterns, including late-night meals, have been linked to weight gain and a greater risk of metabolic disease.

Shift-workers, for example, and people who work evening, night or rotating shifts, have a higher risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

But adopting an eating pattern that aligns with our circadian rhythm can reduce these risks.

Read more:
Why does night shift increase the risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease? Here’s what we know so far

So can intermittent fasting help?

Nutritional interventions are increasingly focused not only on “what” we eat but also “when”. Intermittent fasting is one way to restrict the timing, rather than the content, of what we eat.

There are several types of intermittent fasting, one of which is time-restricted eating. This means eating all our calories in a consistent 8-12 hour, or even shorter, interval each day.

But is it backed by evidence?

Most of what we know today about intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating is from mouse studies, which demonstrate remarkable weight loss and overall health benefits associated with these types of dietary interventions.

However, some aspects of mouse physiology can be different to humans. Mice need to eat more frequently than humans and even a short period of fasting has a more significant physiological impact on mice. One day of fasting in mice leads to a 10% loss of body weight, whereas humans would need to fast for 14 days to achieve similar results. This makes a direct translation from mice to humans more complicated.

While health benefits of intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating have also been observed in humans, the findings in respect of weight loss are less clear. Current data suggest only modest, if any, weight loss in human participants who undergo these diet regimens when compared to calorie-restricted diets.

Drawing definitive conclusions in humans may be more difficult because of the small sample sizes and individual differences in metabolism, variations in study design (such as the use of different protocols with varying times and duration of food restriction), and participants not complying with their instructions.

Health benefits could be due to eating fewer calories

Most studies describing the health benefits of time restricted eating or intermittent fasting also found these diets were accompanied by calorie restriction: reducing the time of food access implicitly leads people to eat less.

Studies that controlled calorie intake did not detect any more benefits of intermittent fasting than calorie restriction alone.

Read more:
Restricting calories leads to weight loss, not necessarily the window of time you eat them in

The weight loss and health benefits observed with intermittent fasting is likely attributed due to the resultant reduction in calorie intake. Similar findings have been reported for time-restricted eating.

Benefit of following our body clock

Nevertheless, time-restricted eating offers additional health benefits in humans, such as improved glucose metabolism and blood pressure, even without differences in calorie intake, in particular when restricted to the earlier part of the day (that is, when having a six-hour eating window with dinner before 3pm).

Restricting food intake to the daytime for shift-workers can alleviate metabolic differences caused by shift-work, whereas this effect is not observed when food intake is restricted to nighttime.

One idea is that consuming food early, in alignment with our circadian rhythm, helps to synchronise our circadian clock. This restores the rhythm of our autonomous nervous system, which regulates essential functions such as breathing and heart rate, to keep our physiology “tuned”, as it was shown in mice.

While there’s much still to learn from research in this field, the evidence suggests that to maintain a healthy weight and overall wellbeing, aim for regular, nutritious meals during the day, while avoiding late-night eating and frequent snacking.

Read more:
Yes, intermittent fasting can boost your health, but how and when to restrict food consumption is crucial

Frederic Gachon is currently receiving funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and has received funding from the French Institute for Medical Research and Health (INSERM: 2006-2008), the Swiss National Science Foundation (2010-2012), the European Research Council (2011- 2015) and the Leenaards Foundation (2012-2014). He also worked for Nestlé (2012-2017) where he received industry funding.

Meltem Weger has received funding from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (PhD fellowship; 2010-2012) and from the European Commission (Marie Curie Curie Postdoctoral fellowships; 2014-2016, 2017-2019).

– ref. Does it matter what time of day I eat? And can intermittent fasting improve my health? Here’s what the science says – https://theconversation.com/does-it-matter-what-time-of-day-i-eat-and-can-intermittent-fasting-improve-my-health-heres-what-the-science-says-203762

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Breheny, Associate Professor of Health Psychology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Sleep may seem straightforward – everyone does it, after all. But as many of us know, getting enough sleep is not necessarily a simple task, despite what you might read in the media.

How to sleep “properly” is a favourite topic of self-help articles, with headlines such as “Expert advice to get a good night’s sleep whatever your age” promising the answer to your nocturnal awakenings.

Older people are commonly the audience of these messages. Our analysis of articles published in the New Zealand media between 2018 and 2021 found sleep is presented as inevitably declining with age.

At the same time, sleep is portrayed as a cure for everything: a good night’s sleep is depicted as a way to maintain productivity, ward off illness and dementia, and ultimately live longer.

But most of these articles are aimed at the individual and what they can do to improve their sleep. Often missing is any reference to the external factors that can contribute to poor sleep.

Personal choice and sleep

A key message in many of the articles we examined is that sleep is a simple matter of making the right choices. So, if you’re not getting enough sleep it’s probably your own fault.

People are lectured about poor “sleep hygiene” – staying up too late looking at their phone, having too many cups of coffee, or not getting enough exercise during the day.

And it’s true, drinking too much caffeine or staring at a screen into the small hours might interfere with sleep. It’s also true that good sleep is important for good health.

But things are a bit more complicated than this. As anyone who has struggled to maintain good sleep knows, simple tips don’t always overcome the complex situations that contribute to these struggles.

Read more:
Sleep deprivation benefited our ancestors, yet harms us now — but staying fit may help us cope

Awake to other factors

Good sleep is not just a matter of “making the right choices”. Internationally, there’s a growing body of research showing sleep is affected by much more than individual behaviour: it’s often shaped by a person’s social and economic circumstances.

New Zealand research is adding to this pool of knowledge. One study, based on survey results from just over 4,000 people, found insufficient sleep was more common among Māori than non-Māori, partly due to higher rates of night work.

International research has also found women are more likely to experience insomnia due to their caregiving roles.

Read more:
How do I stop my mind racing and get some sleep?

One US study found unpaid caregivers for children or parents (or both) reported shorter sleep quantity and poorer sleep quality than paid caregivers or people without such roles. A survey of 526 carers in New Zealand showed two-thirds reported mild or severe sleep disturbance.

We also know lack of sleep is linked to serious disease, including diabetes and heart disease. Sleep duration and quality have been identified as predictors of levels of haemoglobin A1c, an important marker of blood sugar control.

And hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease and irregular heartbeats have been found to be more common among those with disordered sleep than those without sleep abnormalities.

Failure to acknowledge the social context of poor sleep means sleep messages in the media ignore the fundamental causes in favour of the illusion of a quick fix.

The commodification of sleep

Sleep is also increasingly characterised as a commodity, with a growing market for products – such as sleep trackers – that claim to help improve sleep quality.

Sleep trackers promise to measure and enhance sleep performance. However, their reliability may be limited – one study found the tested tracker did not accurately detect sleep, particularly in older adults who had greater levels of nighttime movement.

Framing public health problems as matters of personal choice is common. Alcohol and fast-food consumption, for example, are regularly presented as matters of individual responsibility and poor personal choices. The role of marketing and access to healthy food gets a lot less attention.

Read more:
Explainer: how much sleep do we need?

Of course, simple tips for getting good sleep may be useful for some people. But ignoring the underlying social and economic factors that shape the possibilities for good sleep will not address the problem.

Health promotion messages that focus on individual behaviour miss the structural barriers to better health, including poverty, low levels of education, high rates of incarceration, substandard or crowded housing and racism.

We need to move beyond messages of individual behaviour change and start talking about inequities that contribute to the problem of who gets a decent night’s sleep and who doesn’t.

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. Counting the wrong sheep: why trouble sleeping is about more than just individual lifestyles and habits – https://theconversation.com/counting-the-wrong-sheep-why-trouble-sleeping-is-about-more-than-just-individual-lifestyles-and-habits-210695