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

The first test of the 2023 Ashes is well underway at Edgbaston in Birmingham, featuring England’s aggressive “Bazball” style of play (named after New Zealand-born coach Brendan “Baz” McCullum) and a surprise early declaration by the hosts at the end of the first day. This invited an Australian fightback inspired by Usman Khawaja, who notched a 141-run haul before being bowled by paceman Ollie Robinson (whose expletive-laden send-off is making headlines).

England currently leads by 35 runs on the end of day three, and it all sets the scene for an exciting series.

It comes just a week after Australia won the World Test Championship, defeating India in comprehensive style at The Oval in south London.

The Ashes always excites the traditionalists, as the Australia-England rivalry is the oldest in cricket.

But while playing the old enemy for the Ashes is, for many, the pinnacle of Australian cricket, Australia-India is developing as a modern rivalry.

This is significant because when it comes to the economics of cricket, it’s India that’s in the box seat, not England.

India is the new cricket powerhouse

The 2023 season of the Indian Premier League drew more than 500 million viewers, a 32% growth in television ratings on last season.

The very first IPL game of the 2023 season in fact attracted more viewers than the Super Bowl, the climax of the NFL’s American football season and one of the biggest dates on the world sporting calendar.

The first IPL match attracted 130 million viewers, compared with a record 115.1 million for the 2023 Super Bowl.

The 2023 IPL champions the Chennai Super Kings are valued at about US$1.15 billion (A$1.67 billion), according to Forbes in 2022. They’ve been touted as the “Manchester United of the IPL”, and may one day become one of the top global sporting franchises like the Dallas Cowboys (A$11.7 billion) and Real Madrid (A$7.4 billion).

So how did India do it?

When T20 took off in England and spread to the cricketing nations, everyone thought test cricket would die. But it didn’t. In fact, it’s stronger than ever.

If anything, it’s the game in between T20 and test cricket, the 50-over game, that’s likely to become obsolete – with only the World Cup played every four years attracting significant attention (although now the T20 World Cup overshadows that too).

India acted fast to surf the T20 wave. The IPL was formed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) following India’s victory in the 2007 World Cup, after a breakaway league had been mooted to break the BCCI’s grip on the game.

According to the BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi, at the time the IPL was

designed to entice an entire new generation of sports fans into the grounds throughout the country. The dynamic Twenty20 format has been designed to attract a young fan base, which also includes women and children

Part of India’s success is its size, overtaking China this year to have the largest population of any country with 1.4 billion people, as well as its economic success in recent decades with a growing middle class. By 2025, India’s middle class will number 583 million, or 41% of the country’s projected population.

This has been supercharged by the digitisation of the Indian economy, with televisions and smart phones giving the average cricket lover access to their favourite teams.

The IPL has attracted the top cricketers from around the world, mainly off the back of private franchises, many of which are owned by billionaires. This gives teams deep pockets when buying players from all over the globe, with the TV broadcast rights topping up IPL coffers too.

This has also boosted women’s cricket, including their pay packets, with the launch of the Women’s Premier League in India earlier this year.

Cricket diplomacy

It just shows the power of India in world cricket, and more generally the power of sport in today’s global economy.

Indeed, sport is no longer about small talk, but an intrinsic part of the global economy and geopolitics.

I was in India last month hosting the “Cricket, Collaboration and Commonwealth” conference for the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in New Delhi. There was a robust discussion on the economics of the IPL and the role of “cricket diplomacy” in Australia-India relations.

While I was in New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Australia speaking to packed houses of India diaspora in Sydney. Modi wanted to build on the momentum of the blossoming India-Australia partnership, after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited India in March.

Cricket diplomacy was on display then too, spawning now famous images of Prime Ministers Modi and Albanese on a chariot before the fourth test match in Ahmedabad.

Albanese used the trip to announce a new education deal with India. Nearly 50% of Indians are under the age of 25, and only 21% of Indians aged 25-34 have a tertiary qualification, so there are immense opportunities for Australian universities and TAFEs.

Read more:
Albanese visit hopes to strengthen ties with India amid China’s rise. But differences remain

Cricket diplomacy has been central to the Modi-Albanese partnership, which highlights the role of sport in political and economic relationship building.

And the rise of the IPL has boosted India’s ascendancy as a superpower in world cricket. Its economic power has been as important as the improved on-field performance of Team India.

What’s more, the large attendances at The Oval for the ICC World Test Championship and now the raucous crowds at the Ashes shows the supposed death of test cricket has been greatly exaggerated.

Tim Harcourt 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. Ashes rivalry is as alive as ever. But when it comes to the economics of cricket, India is in the box seat – https://theconversation.com/ashes-rivalry-is-as-alive-as-ever-but-when-it-comes-to-the-economics-of-cricket-india-is-in-the-box-seat-207812

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philippa Burne, Lecturer, BFA Screenwriting, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, The University of Melbourne

Twenty-two years after the original UK television series The Office was released, and 18 years after the highly successful US remake (2005-2013), Australia is getting its own version of The Office. This will be the 14th remake of the concept by Ricky Gervais, which has included adaptations in Chile, France, Finland, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Germany and other countries.

It’s an interesting move by Prime Video when there are already two highly rewatched English language versions available – highlighting the ongoing relevance of the workplace comedy.

It also speaks to the relative safety of remaking a known series concept rather than an original, in a time of expensive television production. Starting from an idea that has already proven hugely popular with audiences worldwide can seem to minimise the financial risk of making a new TV show – if it’s done right.

A history of remakes

There has been a long history of remakes on television. Ugly Betty (as it is known in the US version) is one of the most recognised. Originally a Colombian telenovela, Yo Soy Betty, la Fea (1999-2001), the concept has been remade in other languages around 20 times to date. Other versions include Na Daj Se, Nina (Croatia, 2007-2008) and Lotte (The Netherlands, 2006-2007), both of which I worked on adapting from the Colombian original.

Australian television concepts from the 1970s and 1980s travelled remarkably well. Sons and Daughters has versions in Germany (Verboten Liebe, 1995-2015) and Croatia, (Zabranjena Ljubav, 2004-2008). The Australian classic Prisoner became the highly popular Hinter Gittern (1997-2007) in Germany. And long-running soap opera Neighbours has been the basis of shows in Poland, Sweden and Slovakia.

A common factor in all of these is the internationally successful Grundy Television and creator Reg Watson.

What Grundy Television realised and honed was that to give an international remake the best chance of success, writers and producers need to be willing to pull a series back to its foundational concept – such as twins separated at birth meet and fall in love, a women’s prison, neighbours becoming good friends – and then to build culturally informed stories and characters from that.

Localising is not just changing a few small details, it requires driving characters and stories from deep within a local culture and storytelling tradition. It requires a deep commitment to developing a show as if it was a new idea, even if it is based on an existing series. Audiences are savvy and want nuance, history, politics, issues.

Read more:
Bluey was edited for American viewers – but global audiences deserve to see all of us

Recently, many international dramas have formed the basis for successful US shows, such as Israel’s Prisoners of War (2010-2012) becoming Homeland (Showtime, 2011-2020), and the Danish/Swedish Noir series The Bridge (2011-2018) spawning The Bridge (US/Mexico), as well as The Tunnel (UK/France), The Bridge (Russia/Estonia), The Bridge (Malaysia/Singapore), Der Pass (Germany/Austria) and Gefyra (Greece/Turkey).

These shows incorporated a deep socio-political angle within the familiar thriller or crime genre, giving audiences a new depth and breadth to the stories.

Mistakes and flops

Less successful have been US attempts to remake Australian comedies such as Kath & Kim (2008-2009) and dramas such as The Slap (2015). Perhaps their Australian contexts, social mores and comedy did not translate – or were not translated well.

Reviewers said of the American Kath and Kim that the humour was unfunny, the characters unlikeable and unrelatable. Variety’s Brian Lowry said, “If this was a major hit in Australia,” he said, “then something has been seriously lost in translation.”

Ironically, one of the greatest mistakes screenwriters make is sticking too closely to the original. No matter how popular it was, how good the writing is, how funny the jokes are, translating scripts very rarely works due to cultural differences in humour, socio-economic circumstances and workplace politics.

The Dutch version of the Yo Soy Betty, la Fea began shooting Dutch translations of Colombian scripts: the production shut down one week in as it became clear that none of the circumstances, relationships, tone, rhythm or humour made sense in a Dutch context.

That’s when I was brought in to work with the Dutch writers to completely redevelop the show for the local context. (I brought television storytelling experience and relied on the Dutch writers for character specifics, local stories, cultural specificities, etc.)

Read more:
Noice. Different. Unusual. Watching Kath and Kim as a (locked down) historian

An Office in Australia?

The Office Australia might seem a simple prospect, given there have been two preceding series in English. Plus, culturally, Australia has been well-informed of and by the UK and US. What could possibly go wrong?

Humour and social mores will have changed: the world is a very different place in 2023 compared to 2001. Many of David Brent’s 2001 exploits and jokes would see him quickly fired by any 2023 risk-averse company no matter how apathetic and downtrodden his staff might be.

Also when The Office came out, mockumentary felt fresh to television, now we’ve had Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, and our own The Games and Utopia. Plus, of course, we’ve had reality TV shows where things quickly spiral beyond any inappropriate awkwardness The Office ever came up with – think about Vanderpump Rules or Selling Sunset.

Australia is different to the UK and the US, in the way we live, work, joke, date and play. Australian comedy has a different rhythm, pace and flavour to that of anywhere else.

One of the most important things a good adaptation understands is that specificity is key. For instance, the character Gareth/Dwight is less likely to be territorial army or army reserve and more Steve Irwin; an office party probably involves backyard cricket not bowling alleys. This provides a great opportunity to add a fresh edge to familiar characters, plus a cultural specificity intriguing to international audiences.

For example, the US adaptation Ugly Betty brought in the story of Betty’s family’s immigration issues, highlighting a relatable problem for many immigrant Americans and deepening the difference in class, power and privilege between Betty and the other characters in her workplace.

The Office Australia is making one major change from the UK and US versions: the office boss is a woman, Hannah Howard (played by Felicity Ward). This is a potentially brilliant, timely change, which will differentiate it as a series. But beware the scriptwriter who thinks you can simply swap a gender and keep all the traits, insecurities, worries, jokes and dynamics the same.

There’s the potential for wonderfully rich, new comedy material – if the writers and producers are willing to pull The Office apart, go back to its key concept, characters, themes and its story engine – and then rebuild it, for a new time, place and gender.

The Office Australia launches in 2024 into 240 countries and territories. It will be interesting to see if they understand us. And whether we understand ourselves well enough to make a compelling new version of this popular show.

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

– ref. The Australian remake of The Office has the potential to be great – if the writers remember how unique our humour is – https://theconversation.com/the-australian-remake-of-the-office-has-the-potential-to-be-great-if-the-writers-remember-how-unique-our-humour-is-207614

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad E Tucker, Astrophysicist, Australian National University

Over the past eight years, I have been asked to submit astronomical evidence for court cases all over Australia.

Normally when we think of evidence in court, we think of eyewitnesses, DNA or police reports. Often, this evidence requires an expert to explain it – to be able to communicate the findings and data to the members of the court to make an informed decision. These experts are typically in medicine, engineering, psychology, or other fields.

Expert astronomers usually are not what one pictures in court, but that is exactly what I do.

The first time I was asked by police to do it came as a bit of a surprise. I had never thought about applying astronomy to the courtroom. Once the first group knew I can do it, more and more requests came in, from colleagues in the same police force or division, or investigators having seen my evidence elsewhere.

Now, I’m asked to submit evidence for roughly 1–2 cases per week. Usually this requires submitting a statement of evidence to the court. But sometimes I am asked to attend court and explain what the evidence means.

When I’m needed as an expert in court, it tends to be for matters of consequence. My evidence is either critical to a part of the case, or the case itself is fairly major and all the details are being checked and verified.

But what exactly am I providing evidence for?

Tracking the Sun and the Moon

Most court evidence from an astronomer involves calculating the positions and lighting from an astronomical body – the Sun or Moon. Luckily, the tools we use to calculate the positions of celestial bodies are very accurate, and can be calculated hundreds to thousands of years into the past or future.

An obvious example is when someone claims the Sun was in their eyes, causing a glare, and they get into a car accident. Someone needs to say where the Sun was, its position, and how it aligned with the street and direction of travel. At certain times and in certain directions, the Sun may indeed hinder someone’s vision.

There is also the situation where someone sees something, but it happened around sunrise or sunset. An expert is needed to say what the lighting level was – as there are very clear definitions based on the Sun’s position below the horizon, and how much you can see. For instance, what if the event occurred five minutes after sunset? The light level depends on the time of year, the location and other factors. It is not a clear-cut case of daytime versus nighttime.

The Moon can feature in court evidence as well. Especially in dark locations away from city lights, an astronomer can provide evidence on how much light the Moon provided on a given night.

There are also historical cases or times when people note the view or phase of the Moon as a way of defining when something happened. The full Moon has a precise definition, but the day before or after may appear to look like a full Moon, despite it not technically being full.

The limitations of expertise

Of course, like any part of science, there are limits to what I can say. If someone was looking through a window – how refractive was the window? Were there clouds blocking the Moon or Sun? It is up to other experts, and other parts of the legal system to sort out these factors.

Just like many fields, space technology is changing, and so too is its impact on law and crime. Satellites are being used more and more in cases to help track things as they happen. For example, the space technology company Maxar operates some of the highest-resolution commercial satellites to image Earth. For a small cost, people can task these satellites to look at certain areas and/or times.

Lately, we have seen the impact of satellites on Russia’s war in Ukraine, and how they have been instrumental in looking at troop movements, and even evidence of some of the alleged war crimes.

Read more:
Ukraine war: offensive use of satellite tech a sign of how conflict is increasingly moving into space

Satellite images have been used for a range of criminal investigations, such as people smuggling or illegal mines.

They are also being used in Australia for criminal matters. This is yet another situation where an expert is needed to explain the satellite imagery and what it may mean, or even help access it altogether.

Experts are vital

Working as an expert witness has given me hope, because I see the extent to which the justice system will sometimes go to get all the details right – like taking into account the phase of the Moon or the position of the Sun. It is also the perfect example of the importance of experts in our society.

In science, we are actively encouraging people to go to sources of accurate and trustworthy information, especially in an era of rife misinformation.

Through experts, fields like space and astronomy can impact people’s lives directly – even in the court room.

Read more:
Servant or partner? The role of expertise and knowledge in democracy

Brad E Tucker 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. Where was the Sun? Here’s why astronomers are more useful in court cases than you’d think – https://theconversation.com/where-was-the-sun-heres-why-astronomers-are-more-useful-in-court-cases-than-youd-think-204276

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Breadon, Program Director, Health and Aged Care, Grattan Institute

Today independent MP and former GP Sophie Scamps will introduce a bill into federal parliament that would restrict junk food advertisements aimed at children.

The bill would target advertising for unhealthy foods Australia’s health ministers have previously defined, including sugar-sweetened drinks, confectionary and unhealthy fast food meals. Advertising for these foods and drinks would be banned on television, radio and streaming services from 6am to 9.30pm, and banned altogether online and on social media. The proposal highlights one of our biggest health challenges and does something about it.

The share of Australian adults who are overweight or obese has tripled since 1980. Today, about a quarter of Australian children are overweight or obese. The consequences are serious. Obesity increases the risk of a range of illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, setting children up to develop chronic disease. The health care costs of obesity run into the billions of dollars each year, not to mention all the years of life lived with illness and disability, or lost to early death.

This isn’t the first time a ban on junk food advertising has been floated. But there is more reason than ever to make it happen.

Why now?

Unhealthy diets are the main cause of Australia’s obesity epidemic, and restricting advertising for unhealthy foods could help improve what we eat.

That’s why experts have been calling for advertising restrictions for years. Back in 2009, the Australian National Preventive Health Agency recommended them, and they have long been recommended by the World Health Organization. They’re supported by evidence that advertising influences children’s diets and preferences, driving cravings and feelings of hunger.

Even without this evidence, it would be a safe assumption that junk food advertising works. Otherwise, companies wouldn’t spend money on it, and they certainly do.

One study found Australian advertising on sugary drinks alone costs nearly five times more than government campaigns promoting healthy eating, physical activity and obesity prevention. And companies carefully design advertising to entice children. Their strategies include promotional characters, gifts, and games and shifting advertising online to follow changing viewing habits.

Most parents don’t need any persuading to know advertising works, having seen younger children employ “pester power” and older children spend their pocket money on unhealthy options. That’s probably one reason two thirds of Australians support bans on junk food advertising during children’s viewing hours.

Read more:
Are you living in a food desert? These maps suggest it can make a big difference to your health

What’s taking so long?

So why haven’t governments acted? When health bodies started calling for advertising restrictions nearly 15 years ago, the industry promptly came up with a plan of its own. Optional codes of conduct were drawn up for “responsible advertising and marketing to children”. But there are significant loopholes and gaps in these codes, which are voluntary, narrow, vague, and consequence-free.

Predictably, self-regulation hasn’t reduced junk food advertising to children. While countries with mandatory policies have seen junk food consumption fall, it has increased in countries where the industry sets the rules.

In the meantime, Australia and its children have been left behind. Since Quebec in Canada introduced the first ban back in 1980, more than a dozen countries around the world have followed and more are planning to. The proposals being debated in our parliament are modelled on policies adopted in the United Kingdom in 2021.

This isn’t the only area where Australia has fallen behind when it comes to setting sensible food rules. We are not among the 43 countries with rules to reduce trans-fats, which cause cardiovascular disease, or one of the 85 countries with a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, which are linked to diabetes.

Our policies to reduce salt consumption and improve food labelling are weaker than those in leading countries too.

Read more:
How to save $50 off your food bill and still eat tasty, nutritious meals

It’s time to make healthy choices easier

Unhealthy diets need to improve, but the simple answer of blaming the individual is the wrong one. Unhealthy food choices are shaped by things like time pressures, cost of living pressures, the availability of fresh food and the marketing adults and children are constantly bombarded with.

That’s why governments need to make healthy choices cheaper, more convenient and more appealing, so that they can compete with unhealthy options. Taking advertising aimed at children out of the equation would be a good first step.

Peter Breadon’s employer, Grattan Institute, has been supported in its work by government, corporates, and philanthropic gifts. A full list of supporting organisations is published at www.grattan.edu.au.

– ref. Is it finally time to ban junk food advertising? A new bill could improve kids’ health – https://theconversation.com/is-it-finally-time-to-ban-junk-food-advertising-a-new-bill-could-improve-kids-health-207906

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

The legislation to enable the Australian people to vote in a referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament has passed the Senate by 52 to 19.

The vote took place with the public gallery crowded with supporters, and was greeted with prolonged applause. Those watching included prominent leaders of the “yes” campaign, including Megan Davis, Pat Anderson and Thomas Mayo.

But Indigenous crossbencher Lidia Thorpe labelled it “assimilation day” and interjected repeatedly during the debate on the bill’s third reading, and during the applause.

Those who voted against the legislation will be involved in preparing the no case for the yes/no pamphlet that will be sent to all voters.

Earlier, Nationals leader David Littleproud told the ABC he did not support having the claim the Voice would “re-racialise” Australia – a claim Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has made – included in the pamphlet’s no case. “I don’t support those sort of words. I’m not prepared to put my weight behind those words,” he said.

The government has not announced a date for the vote yet.

The referendum legislation required an absolute majority, so every vote was recorded.

In the final round of speeches in the Senate, shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash said “we are opening up a legal can of worms. The proposed model […] is not just to the parliament but to all areas of executive government. It gives an unlimited scope.”

Opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the Voice would divide the country.

Greens Senator Dorinda Cox said the Greens “remain committed to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, truth, treaty and voice. The referendum is the first important step.”

ACT crossbencher David Pocock said the Voice was “about ensuring that First Nations people, Australia’s first peoples, have a say on issues that affect them”.

Thorpe declared: “Happy assimilation day”. She said the Voice was “appeasing white guilt in this country by giving the poor little blackfellas a powerless advisory body”. She would be voting no to something that gave no power.

“”There is not one law in this country that has ever, ever, ever been good for us, not one. And now we’re meant to accept a powerless voice. It is truly assimilating our people so we’ll fit nicely as your little Indigenous Australians, it’s what you want us to be, right?”

She was asked by Senate President Sue Lines to cover her T-shirt, which had “gammin” in it, used in Aboriginal slang to mean fake.

Pauline Hanson said many people were still very confused about the proposal.

Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said “this is a critical moment in our country’s history. It is the right thing to do.” McCarthy paid tribute to Senator Patrick Dodson, who is on extended leave due to illness.

Murray Watt, representing the attorney-general, called for the coming debate to be respectful, saying there was an onus on people to “tell the truth” and accusing no supporters of misinformation.

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. Referendum legislation passes 52-19 to applause but Lidia Thorpe condemns ‘assimilation day’ – https://theconversation.com/referendum-legislation-passes-52-19-to-applause-but-lidia-thorpe-condemns-assimilation-day-208006

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Gaston, Co-Director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, University of Auckland

The crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand’s university and wider research sector did not happen overnight. While funding shortfalls and sweeping redundancies are now making headlines, the underlying problems have been evident for years.

As I wrote after last year’s budget, financial support for research across our universities and crown research institutes “is steadily eroding and has been doing so for some time”, given the impacts of inflation.

The year before was no better. “The 2021 budget is not the investment we needed to see,” I wrote then. “Anything other than an increase in line with inflation is rather a slap in the face.”

And of 2020’s COVID-dominated budget, I could only say: “Under normal conditions, I might describe this as a disappointing budget for science […] missing not merely in action, but in aspiration.”

It was a similar story in 2019, with a 1.8% increase to tertiary tuition subsidies only slightly alleviating inflation pressure; and in 2018, when the government restated its intention to lift research funding to 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) over ten years.

That 2% of GDP target has been around for a long time now, with little significant movement and a current spend of 1.47%. The lack of new funding for science and research in recent successive budgets might once have been explained by sector reform being a work in progress. But time is running out.

With redundancies wreaking havoc across the university sector in particular, getting new funding into the system should have been a priority in this year’s budget. The opportunity cost of not doing this is simply too great.

Challenge and capacity

The university sector is now undeniably in crisis, with the scale of the cuts – most seriously at Otago and Victoria University of Wellington, but also at Waikato and Massey – becoming clearer in the past few weeks.

The prime minister and minister of education refuse to interfere in what they see as operational matters, saying universities need to adapt to changing realities.

And there is little doubt universities face real challenges, from the changing nature of work, to increased expectations of digital learning, and the implications of artificial intelligence tools.

Read more:
University funding debates should be broadened to reflect their democratic purpose

But cutting staff undermines the sector’s capacity to deal with those challenges in the first place – because capacity lies at the heart of this issue. As former prime minister Helen Clark said last week:

It has taken decades to build the current capacities of our universities. That should not be destroyed by short-term budgetary considerations. The money required to maintain viable and comprehensive universities is small in the overall scheme of things.

The missing money may indeed be small. But a lack of inflation adjustment over multiple years has created real problems – especially given universities did not qualify for any financial support during COVID-19, and have cut or not replaced staff over the past three years already.

A system at odds with itself

This year, the key budget hole is traceable to a dip in student numbers, likely related to sub-optimal student experiences during the pandemic, and perhaps the relatively strong job market. It’s easy to sympathise with this, and to hope those students return to tertiary education in future. The question is, what will our universities look like if and when they do?

That research funding target of 2% of GDP – reiterated again in this year’s budget – has been with us since 2017.

Patience was encouraged on the basis that, while government funding was below target, business expenditure on research and development (R&D) was even worse. We needed to wait for R&D tax credits to move that dial before government funding would increase.

Read more:
The arts helped us through the pandemic – NZ’s budget should radically rethink how and why they’re funded

But the reverse is now true. As last year’s white paper from science sector reform programme Te Ara Paerangi-Future Pathways made clear, it was no longer business R&D capacity that was holding us back – it was capacity on the public side:

The current [research, science and innovation] system is poorly placed to utilise increased funding to prepare us for [the] future.

That the loss of capacity threatened by current university cuts seems not to have raised concerns in government about the viability of its own research strategy suggests something is profoundly wrong.

Simple funding solutions

The immediate solution shouldn’t be that hard. As has been pointed out elsewhere, money to cover projected higher student enrolments was originally budgeted for by the government.

The decision not to allocate that money due to lower than expected enrolments is really a question of funding priorities and structures.

The research activities of universities are supported first through baseline funding to ensure there is available capacity; and secondly through contestable grants that allow governments to invest in research areas on strategic grounds (such as health or economic development).

A shift in the balance between baseline and per-student funding is not a dramatic structural change. An alternative might be to set a floor on how much per-student funding can be cut from one year to the next – just like the government sets a cap on raising student fees, for example.

Read more:
Are New Zealand’s universities doing enough to define the limits of academic freedom?

A coordinated national strategy

In the longer term, it would also be good to see stronger coordination and collaboration between universities at both governance and academic levels.

Perhaps a “supercouncil” composed of representatives of each university council could provide the forum for this. It would help ensure individual university strategies were complementary, making the most of their distinctiveness and responsibilities to local communities.

And to address those concerns about adaptation to modern realities, a ministry of education initiative to develop strategic plans for disciplines and programmes (with academic input) would be welcome.

The relationship between university research and teaching, mandated in the Education Act, should mean that changing research realities have implications for how and what we teach.

It is a matter of academic freedom that universities and academics make these decisions themselves. But having national strategic thinking available to support those decisions could only be a good thing.

At the very least, it would be rather more strategic than making these decisions based on the order in which staff apply for redundancy.

Nicola Gaston receives funding from the Tertiary Education Commission, as Co-Director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. She also receives funding from the Marsden Fund, administered by the Royal Society Te Aparangi.

– ref. Starved of funds and vision, struggling universities put NZ’s entire research strategy at risk – https://theconversation.com/starved-of-funds-and-vision-struggling-universities-put-nzs-entire-research-strategy-at-risk-207708

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ayesha Scott, Senior Lecturer – Finance, Auckland University of Technology

When it comes to money, are you a big spender or a fearful saver? Do you give away all your money or ignore financial demands until they become urgent?

After decades of focus on financial literacy, it has become clear there is more to how we manage our money than access to information. Now new research has identified five distinct money personalities that drive how we spend.

Commissioned by Te Ara Ahunga Ora (Retirement Commission) for their free, independent personal finance site Sorted, our study included an extensive review of the research on personality traits, values and attitudes. We then created an online survey, completed by nearly 500 New Zealanders, exploring how people engaged with their money.

The research findings form the backbone of a new online money personality quiz designed to help people understand their money personality and inform their financial decisions and behaviour.

With New Zealand officially in a recession, it has never been more important to understand money management. Despite our best intentions, we often struggle to make “good” financial decisions consistently – including saving enough, using debt wisely, and staying on top of insurance policies and KiwiSaver.

Doing better with our money

According to Te Ara Ahunga Ora, New Zealanders are good with the basics of financial capability – budgeting and keeping track of money. But we score lower than comparable countries like Canada, Norway, Australia and Ireland on more advanced financial capabilities like long-term savings. We also lack confidence when it comes to our cash.

There is a growing body of evidence that personality traits, money values and attitudes each play a crucial part in either aiding or hindering us making those “smart” financial decisions.

Read more:
The coming storm for New Zealand’s future retirees: still renting and not enough savings to avoid poverty

Attitudes towards saving, the degree to which we value material possessions, and how comfortable we are with risk, will all affect the financial decisions we make – and, as a result, our financial wellbeing.

The 5 money personalities

We identified five distinct money personalities, each with their own strengths and weaknesses: the enterpriser, socialite, minimalist, contemporary and realist.

An enterpriser is a financially confident, future-orientated planner who enjoys looking after their finances and is proud of being money savvy. Their strengths include self-control, financial knowledge and making their money work for them.

An enterpriser is unlikely to make impulsive or emotional purchases. However, their aspirational approach – viewing money as a priority and a symbol of success – may pair badly with materialism, causing them to spend money to gain status rather than for value or utility. Enterprisers benefit from learning about investing and planning for the future.

The minimalist is frugal, confident with their saving ability, and on top of their financial situation. Minimalists value a simpler life, scoring low on materialism and are not prone to impulsive or emotional purchases.

Their weakness is not always making their money work as hard for them as it could, as they are less likely to take financial risks – even where there is a potential for higher investment returns. Low-cost, passive investment strategies may appeal to minimalists.

A socialite is a joyful risk taker, outgoing, and confident with their money handling. A generous extrovert, they are more likely to be materialistic than other personality types and tend to live for today rather than plan for tomorrow.

Their high tolerance for risk suggests some socialites may take on unwise levels of financial risk. Those in this group who are also impulsive or prone to emotional purchases may find themselves overspending or vulnerable to over-extending themselves with consumer debt.

Socialites may like to explore active investment strategies and riskier investment classes, however. Taking calculated risks and building financial resilience is an important focus for them.

A contemporary doesn’t enjoy managing their money and they lack confidence when it comes to financial matters. They are likely to say they’re a spender despite being less materialistic than others; living for today, they tend to engage in impulsive emotional spending and are generous to a fault.

For contemporaries, the focus is increasing financial resilience by paying down debt and building an emergency savings fund, enabling them to share their wealth with others without affecting their own financial well-being. Working on their money mindset and general financial knowledge may allow them to build confidence and savings, then take a passive or “set and forget” approach to their financial life.

Read more:
A $400-a-week shortfall: people in their 40s face a bleak retirement on KiwiSaver’s current trajectory

A realist is future-focused, very conservative with risk, and values money highly. But they are not confident with their money handling, despite paying close attention to their financial situation.

The most introverted personality type, a more aspirational realist may be materialistic but is unlikely to make impulsive or emotional purchases a habit. This suggests building confidence and encouragement to take appropriate investment risks is important. Given they do not like making money decisions, automation of bill payments and savings may appeal.

Know thy money self

Each money personality offers different challenges when it comes to making financial decisions.

Taking Sorted’s money personality quiz is fun, but it’s also a useful financial decision you can make right now.

It’s not just about the label. Knowing your money personality can help you understand your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to financial decision making, giving you tools to improve your financial resiliency and security.

Te Ara Ahunga Ora commissioned this research project in partnership with Sorted. Ayesha Scott has received funding from the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and AUT Business School. Ayesha collaborates with Good Shepherd NZ and BNZ and has consulted for KiwiSaver providers as an independent expert reviewer.

Te Ara Ahunga Ora commissioned Aaron Gilbert to conduct this research project in partnership with the Sorted team. He has also received research funding from the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and AUT Business School.

– ref. Know thyself, know thy finances: which of the 5 money personalities are you? – https://theconversation.com/know-thyself-know-thy-finances-which-of-the-5-money-personalities-are-you-207621

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Biteau, Maître de conférence en physique des astroparticules, Université Paris-Saclay

As dawn rose over the German city of Bremen on May 7 1823, Heinrich Olbers put the finishing touches to an article that left his name in history. After the deaths of his wife and daughter, Dr Olbers had recently given up his work as an opthalmologist to devote himself to his nocturnal passions: the stars, the Moon, meteorites and comets.

Like many of his peers, Olbers trained himself in astronomy. He gained a solid reputation in the academic world and spent long nights observing the sky from the observatory on the second floor of his house.

On that morning, Olbers had come to a strange conclusion: based on all that was known about the Universe at that time, the night sky should not have been dark. In fact, the entire heavens should have been glowing as brightly as the Sun.

Olbers was not the first to note this paradox. But his name is the one we attach to it today. The enigma of the night sky’s darkness has echoed down the centuries from Olbers and the poet Edgar Allan Poe to 20th-century astronomers and space probes today.

Finite light in an infinite Universe

Like many of his contemporaries, Olbers followed Isaac Newton and René Descartes in believing the Universe was infinite.

If the Universe were finite and static, the force of gravity should draw all the stars together at a central point. But if the Universe stretched on forever, gravitational forces would on average be balanced in all directions.

But Olbers realised this model of the cosmos was inconsistent with observations. In a limitless Universe filled with an infinite number of stars, wherever we look at night our gaze should land on the surface of a star, in much the same way as every line of sight in a forest ends at a tree.

This is the problem Olbers raised in his paper of May 7 1823: the cosmological model of the time suggested every point in the sky should be as bright as the surface of the Sun. There should be no night.

Olbers proposed a solution: the light from more distant stars was absorbed by dust or other material floating in space. The English astronomer John Herschel later pointed out this couldn’t be right, because anything absorbing that much light would eventually heat up enough to glow.

When Olbers died on March 2 1840, at the age of 81, the riddle we know today as Olber’s paradox was unsolved.

A poet’s intuition

Eight years later, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe thought he had found an answer. On February 3 1848, he gave a public lecture about his ideas to 60 people at the New York Society Library.

Veering between metaphysics and science, Poe argued the cosmos had emerged from a single state of matter (“Oneness”) that fragmented and dispersed under the action of a repulsive force.

This meant the Universe was a finite sphere of matter. If the finite universe is populated by a sufficiently small number of stars, then we won’t see one in every direction we look. The night can be dark again.

Even if we assume the Universe is infinite, if it began at some point in the past then the time taken by light to reach us would limit the size of the amount of the Universe we can see. This travel time would create a horizon beyond which distant stars would remain inaccessible.

Poe’s audience at the New York Society Library did not give him the rapturous reception he had hoped for. Later the same year, he published his theories in the prose poem Eureka, which was little circulated.

The following year, on October 7 1849, Poe died at the age of 40. It would be more than a century before scientists confirmed his intuitions about the enigma of the dark night sky.

Two and a half facts

In the first half of the 20th century many new theories of the cosmos were developed, spurred on by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which explained gravity, space and time in new ways. In the second half of the century, these cosmological theories began to be tested with observations.

In 1963, British astronomer Peter Scheuer argued that cosmology was based on only “two and a half facts”:

• fact 1: the night sky is dark, which had been known for some time
• fact 2: galaxies are moving away from each other, as shown by Hubble’s observations published in 1929
• fact 2.5: the content of the Universe is probably evolving as cosmic time unfolds.

Strong controversies on the interpretation of facts 2 and 2.5 agitated the scientific community in the 1950s and 1960s. Was the Universe essentially stationary, or had it begun in an enormous explosion – a Big Bang? Supporters of both sides conceded, however, they needed to explain the darkness of the night sky.

The lifetime of stars

British cosmologist Edward Harrison resolved the conflict in 1964. He showed that the main factor determining the brightness of the night sky is actually the finite age of the stars.

The number of stars in the observable Universe is extremely large, but it is finite. This limited number, each burning for a limited time, spread over a gigantic volume, lets darkness manifest itself between the stars.

Harrison later realised this solution had already been proposed not only by Edgar Allan Poe, but by British physicist Lord Kelvin in 1901.

Observations in the 1980s confirmed the resolution proposed by Poe, Kelvin and Harrison. Olber’s paradox had finally been put to rest.

Fossil light

Or perhaps not quite. Viewed from a different angle, there is another resolution to the paradox: the night sky is not actually so dark after all.

After the discovery of the expansion of the Universe in the late 1920s, scientists realised the Universe could have started off extremely compact, dense and hot. This is the “hot Big Bang” model we have today.

One core prediction of this model is the existence of “fossil light” released in the cosmic dawn. This fossil light should be observable today – but not with the naked eye, as the expanding Universe would have shifted it to longer wavelengths.

This radiation – the cosmic microwave background – was detected in 1964. Now measured with exquisite accuracy, the cosmic background radiation is the most common light in the Universe.

We now know the cosmos is also illuminated by a second, much fainter background light, produced by galaxies as they form and evolve. This light is referred to as the cosmic ultraviolet, optical and infrared background.

So we can also answer Olber’s paradox by saying the sky is not dark, but faintly glimmers with the dim relic radiation of all that has been over the finite lifetime of the Universe.

New answers, new questions

In 2023, Olber’s paradox has evolved into a rich field of research. In our own work, we carry out ever-more precise measurements of the brightness of the night sky, and simulate the stars of the cosmos with supercomputers. We can now determine the number of stars in the sky with great accuracy.

Nevertheless, puzzles remain. Last year the New Horizons space probe, out beyond the orbit of Pluto and away from the dust of the inner Solar System, found the sky is twice as bright as we expected it to be.

And so the question of the darkness of the sky lives on, crossing ages and cultures.

Jonathan Biteau receives funding from University Paris-Saclay, CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche) and ANR (Agence National de la Recherche).

Alberto Domínguez receives funding from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain) and Banco Santander – Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

David Valls-Gabaud receives funding from the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales).

José Fonseca receives funding from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.

Juan Garcia-Bellido receives funding from MICINN (Spain) through various research projects.

Simon Driver receives funding from the Australian Research Council which supports studies of the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL). Simon is also a member of the Hubble Space Telescope SkySURF program (measuring the EBL) and a member of the Messier team (a potential space mission which includes, as part of its science case, studies of the EBL).

Hervé Dole 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. Why is the sky dark at night? The 200-year history of a question that transformed our understanding of the Universe – https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-sky-dark-at-night-the-200-year-history-of-a-question-that-transformed-our-understanding-of-the-universe-206575

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Appleby, Professor, UNSW Law School, UNSW Sydney

As we start to see the campaign for the Voice referendum gather momentum, there are a lot of Australian voters with genuine questions, trying to understand the proposal and wade through the information – including misinformation and active (that is, intentional) disinformation – that is out there in this public debate.

This type of information can manipulate people’s understanding of the issues, distort their vote and the result. It can also cause enormous harm to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Those looking for answers that avoid misinformation and disinformation often – with good reason – turn to experts. And there are lots stepping up and trying to help, including those writing for The Conversation, and most recently @ReferendumQandA, a group of public, human rights and international lawyers answering common questions as the referendum approaches. When you read this information, you should always be wary of people speaking outside of their expertise and experience, and anonymous accounts where these points can’t be checked.

With that in mind, we are a group of three non-Indigenous and Indigenous academics, providing our answers to ten key questions arising in the Voice debate, where the answers are often confused and distorted by misinformation.

Read more:
We now know exactly what question the Voice referendum will ask Australians. A constitutional law expert explains

1. Do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people support the Voice?

While there is not a single view among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, there is significant – indeed extraordinary – levels of support among them for the Voice.

First, Indigenous support is demonstrated by the deliberative processes that sits behind the Uluru Statement from the Heart. This involved more than 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from across the country (the claim that non-Indigenous people attended the dialogues is false).

From this process, delegates were able to arrive at a national consensus position, prioritising the reforms of Voice, towards Makarrata (Treaty and Truth).

Second, polling confirms the Voice continues to receive overwhelming Indigenous support. Two polls from 2023 confirm that 80% and 83% of Indigenous people support the Voice.

Further, Indigenous organisations across the country have indicated their support for the Voice. This includes land-based representative bodies such as the Northern Territory Land Councils and the Kimberley Land Council, and peak service organisations such as the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association.

2. Will the Voice insert race into the Constitution?

The concept of race is already in section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution, which gives the Commonwealth parliament the power to legislate for “people of any race for whom it is deemed to be necessary to make special laws”.

That section was originally included so as to give effect to the White Australia Policy, and Aboriginal people were excluded from it. But since the section was amended in 1967, following a nationwide campaign for change, it has included the power to make such laws “for people […] of the aboriginal race in any State”.

As was intended in 1967, the power has been exercised for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (such as in relation to native title and cultural heritage protection laws). On the other hand, the same power could also arguably be used to pass laws that operate to their detriment. Its existence and breadth underscores the need for a mechanism – the Voice – to listen to the very people to whom those laws would apply.

3. How will the Voice make a practical difference?

The Voice will give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a constitutionally guaranteed right to speak to government and the parliament about what’s needed for practical improvements to people’s lives. This in turn would help address disadvantage and systemic discrimination.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have answers to many pressing issues confronting their communities, but all too often are not heard. The positive impact of listening to Indigenous voices is supported by research such as that conducted in Australia led by Fiona Stanley and Marcia Langton, and internationally at the Harvard Project on American Indian Development.

4. How can the Voice represent the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander views?

Claims that the Voice will be a “Canberra Voice”, unrepresentative of the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and their views, misrepresents the proposal.

The constitutional provision requires only that the Voice is an “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”, and leaves the rules governing its composition to be determined by parliament. It is appropriate that parliament is responsible for determining the composition of the Voice, because the identity, experience, culture and views of First Nations across Australia are complex and diverse. This means it will need to be done in close consultation with local Indigenous communities, and will require ongoing monitoring, input and evaluation in cooperation with those communities. The parliament is best placed to undertake that sort of ongoing negotiation.

The government has committed to exactly that form of consultation in the design principles that have been set in collaboration with the Referendum Working Group, a group of Indigenous leaders. These principles indicate how the government intends the Voice to represent the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and their views. These principles commit the government to a Voice that is chosen based on the wishes of local communities, is not appointed by government, reflects gender balance and youth perspectives, and all members must be Indigenous.

These principles are informed by the recommendations of the 2021 Indigenous Voice Co-Design process as well as the design and proposed reforms of ATSIC.

Importantly, however, the government recognises the need for further consultation with Indigenous people on the specific design of the Voice.

These commitments will ensure the Voice is representative of the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander views.

5. Is the Voice in breach of international human rights standards?

No. In fact, the Voice is supported under international human rights law as it recognises Indigenous peoples’ rights to political representation and is consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In human rights and international law, equality and anti-discrimination means more than just treating people exactly the same. Indeed, this type of formal equality will often result in ongoing discrimination against people who have been historically marginalised because it doesn’t redress institutional and structural discrimination, or recognise difference.

The Voice has been endorsed by several UN treaty bodies, which have also expressed serious concern about the human rights violations Indigenous people in Australia continue to experience.

6. Don’t Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people already have lots of ‘voices’ to government and parliament?

No. There is currently no representative body to provide, in a nationally coordinated way, the government and parliament with the views and experience of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who will be affected by their decisions.

To the extent there are other Indigenous organisations working with government and parliament, the Voice will complement, not detract, from their work. For instance, peak service organisations working in areas such as health, education and law, offer important Indigenous specific services and advice to government in service delivery, they are not representative.

And while there may be more Aboriginal parliamentarians than ever – and this should be celebrated – these individuals do not primarily represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They are party members bound by party policy, or individual MPs, who represent the whole of their constituencies. Further, Indigenous representation in the parliament is not guaranteed – it will rise and fall depending on party selection, and election results.

Finally, while individual traditional owners might be able to negotiate land claims and native title rights with government, they do not have a nationally representative voice to speak to parliament and government in a coordinated way about the laws and policies that will apply to these negotiations. There is no one to make sure the rules of the game are fair.

7. Will the Voice give rise to High Court litigation and clog up parliamentary work?

No. According to the prevailing weight of informed legal opinion, the establishment of the Voice does not pose any abnormal risk of excessive litigation.

Any suggestion the Voice would clog up the parliament or the government ignores the parliament’s ability to determine its own business, and the parliament’s legislative power to determine how the Voice will engage with the government.

Read more:
What happens if the government goes against the advice of the Voice to Parliament?

8. How does the Voice affect sovereignty?

Sovereignty is a complex idea, referring at a general level to ultimate political authority within a community. However, people talk about it in different ways. The Voice proposal interacts with sovereignty at three different levels.

First, the call for the Voice reform is based on the strong assertion in the Uluru Statement from the Heart of the continuing and unceded sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Second, there is nothing in the Voice proposal which alters the British Crown’s assertion of sovereignty at settlement, nor the fact that First Nations people have never consented to the forceful transfer of sovereignty to the Australian nation as we now know it.

Read more:
What we mean when we say ‘sovereignty was never ceded’

The third is under international law, which requires the agreement or consent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to cede sovereignty. This is not what is happening under the Voice proposal. Indeed, international treaty bodies have repeatedly confirmed that the Voice would be a positive step for the recognition and political participation rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within the state.

9. Why do we need to put the Voice in the Constitution?

There are two key parts to this answer. The first is that the Voice has a number of objectives, one of which is the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of the land. First Nations people, through the Uluru Statement from the Heart, indicated they wished for recognition in the form of the Voice. If we are serious about recognition, we should do it in a way that accords with the wishes of those to be recognised.

The second part of the answer relates to the operation of the Voice. If the Voice is in the Constitution, it can only be abolished by another referendum, rather than by a change of government policy. This gives it independence and stability, so it can fulfil its function of speaking about matters that might not be politically popular.

10. Do Australians have enough detail to vote at the referendum?

Yes. There’s often a lot of confusion about this question, which is because there are two types of detail that people talk about.

The first is the detail about the constitutional change. This is the bit Australians are being asked to vote on, and the bit that is “permanent” (subject to a future referendum). There is heaps of detail in relation to the constitutional change, including the wording of the amendment, the referendum question, the explanatory memorandum to the amendment, a parliamentary inquiry’s report, and the government has even taken the extraordinary route of releasing the solicitor-general’s advice on the legal soundness of the amendment.

The second is the detail about what the legislation establishing the “nuts and bolts” of the Voice will look like. To be clear, this detail is not part of the constitutional amendment – and it is entirely normal for constitutions to leave this type of detail to be worked out in future by the parliament. It would be misleading to release the full detail of the Voice, because this detail would need to be passed through parliament, and would be subject to future change.

However, there is some detail about what the Voice will look like. The government has taken the sensible option of indicating what it will do following a successful referendum, and how it will go about setting up the Voice. It has worked with the Referendum Working Group to finalise a set of design principles that provide the outline of what the voice will look like – how it will represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the country, what functions it will have, and how it will be accountable.

Gabrielle Appleby was a pro bono constitutional consultant to the Regional Dialogues and First Nations Constitutional Convention that delivered the Uluru Statement from the Heart. She is a member of the Indigenous Law Centre (UNSW Law & Justice) and supports the work of the Uluru Dialogues.

Geoffrey Lindell has provided pro bono assistance to the UNSW Indigenous Law Centre on the Voice.

Hannah McGlade is a member of the Referendum Engagement Group, the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issue and supports the work of the Uluru Dialogues.

– ref. 10 questions about the Voice to Parliament – answered by the experts – https://theconversation.com/10-questions-about-the-voice-to-parliament-answered-by-the-experts-207014

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yaqoot Fatima, Associate Professor, UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, The University of Queensland

Adolescence is a sensitive life stage when emerging independence, changing social roles, excessive screen time, academic pressures, and significant biological changes can lead to emotional and behavioural problems.

The current generation of teens is chronically sleep-deprived and, unfortunately, considered the most sleep-deprived group in human history.

In teenagers, irregular bedtimes, short sleep duration and poor sleep quality are commonly reported sleep issues. These problems can cause emotional regulation issues, risky behaviour and academic disengagement. In the longer term, poor sleep can lead to obesity, health conditions (including diabetes), mental health problems, and risk taking behaviour.

The issue of poor sleep and its impact on life outcomes needs particular attention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers who experience disproportionately high rates of poor outcomes in health, social and emotional well-being and education.

Sleep vulnerability

The ongoing effects of colonisation, intergenerational trauma, and other social determinants of health increase the vulnerability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers to poor sleep. While some poor sleep issues are transient, continued exposure to racism, discrimination, household overcrowding and lack of safe sleeping spaces lead to chronic sleep issues.

Sleep health data for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is limited. Still, some studies suggest one in three young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people struggle with poor sleep, significantly higher than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

The impact of poor sleep on the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people is a major concern for community members, service providers and policymakers.

Despite this, services focused on sleep health promotion in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are non-existent. This could be because although the need for healthy sleep is universal, the meaning of sleep health is shaped by cultural and societal factors. These include the acceptability of co-sleeping, living in multi-family housing or the role of dreaming.

Mainstream programs that don’t draw together the principles of health and cultural knowledge offer limited effectiveness for sleep health promotion in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. But a new program could change that.

A co-designed approach

In response to community needs, Australia’s first sleep health program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers – Let’s Yarn About Sleep – was co-designed in Mount Isa, Queensland.

Community members were vocal about wanting to harness the potential of sleep as part of efforts to improve health outcomes, reduce teenage contact with the criminal justice system and improve academic engagement. Community yarns also identified the need to strengthen local sleep health service delivery and train Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as “sleep coaches”.

The co-design and evaluation of the program involved consultations with more than 200 community members, integrating Traditional and Western knowledge on sleep health and offering ideas for improving sleep.

The ten-week program includes data collection before and after delivery, including questionnaires, sleep diaries and actigraphy (a non-invasive method of monitoring human rest and activity cycles).

Read more:
Drinking fountains in every town won’t fix all our water issues – but it’s a healthy start

What the program involves

The program empowers young people to identify their sleep health goals and work with coaches to achieve them. At the beginning of the program, participants identify a group and an individual goal they would like to attain.

The group goal focuses on making sleep health a priority. For example, group members agreeing not to use their phones after 10pm. Individual goals are focused on reponses to personal circumstances. So, individual goals included de-cluttering or going to bed at least 30 minutes earlier.

While the program’s key focus is to improve participants’ knowledge, understanding and awareness of sleep health, one of the key objectives is to support participants in developing sustainable sleep hygiene practices (healthy habits for a good night’s sleep). During the program, participants learn about sleep hygiene practices such as following a consistent bedtime, reducing screen time and practising Indigenous relaxation training before bedtime.

The program has also led to the training of two Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australia’s first Indigenous sleep coaches. Clinical staff at the local Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and hospital have since expressed interest in gaining these skills.

Read more:
To reduce harm from alcohol, we need Indigenous-led responses

What happened as a result of improved sleep

So far, 35 teenagers in the community have been enrolled in the program and 13 have graduated. The program has also been integrated into the Emerging Leaders program at the local high school.

The program data shows the majority of the program participants were staying up until very late at the night. However, participants achieved their self-identified goals and believe this program gave them tools to improve their sleep. The program has received support from community Elders, parents and carers, service providers and young people.

The project team and community members are working to co-design a sleep health program for adults and extend the youth sleep program to other communities.

Roslyn Von Senden, a Kalkadoon woman from Mount Isa, who is training to become a sleep coach, reflected on the cultural importance of the program.

Dreams are an important part of our life, a medium to connect with our ancestors to be guided, foresee things, connect with others, and get inspiration and ideas to express our artistic talent. Sleep loss deprives us of opportunities to connect with our culture, ancestors, and who we are as traditional custodians of the world’s oldest surviving culture.

While the initial program was funded through the Medical Research Future Fund and focused on Mount Isa, additional funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and industry partner Beyond Blue supports the program in other remote communities.

The resulting community-led sleep health movement aims to leverage the untapped potential of sleep health in improving academic and sporting performance, reducing crime, improving health outcomes and empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people.

Yaqoot Fatima is supported by funding from the NHMRC Partnership Grant, MRFF Indigenous Health Research Grant, MRFF-EMCR grant, and Beyond Blue for sleep health research.

Azhar Potia’s research is supported partially by the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Project ID CE200100025).

James Ward and Mina Kinghorn 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. The first sleep health program for First Nations adolescents could change lives – https://theconversation.com/the-first-sleep-health-program-for-first-nations-adolescents-could-change-lives-206286

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Esther Suckling, Research Associate, Grattan Institute

If every Australian household that uses gas went all-electric today, we would “save” more than 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the next ten years. That’s because there are more than 5 million households on the gas network, and the avoided emissions per home ranges from 5-25 tonnes over the coming decade, depending on the location.

Most people would spend less money on energy too. Electric appliances use less energy than gas appliances to do the same job, making them cheaper to run.

Our new report shows how much most households can save by switching from gas to electricity for heating, hot water and cooking. The extra cash couldn’t come at a better time: about a quarter of Australian households say they found it difficult to pay their energy bills this year.

But many households face hurdles that stop them, or make it hard for them, to go all-electric. Governments could make it easier for people and bring emissions-reduction targets closer to reality.

Read more:
Want an easy $400 a year? Ditch the gas heater in your home for an electric split system

Most households save by upgrading to electric

Households in Melbourne tend to use more gas than those in other mainland capitals, mainly because the winter is so cold. Our report found Melburnians who replace broken gas appliances with electric ones, or move into an all-electric home, could save up to A$13,900 over ten years. Households with rooftop solar will save even more.

It’s a similar story in most parts of Australia except the west, where gas is relatively cheap. This mainly reflects differences in the historical development of the gas markets between the west and east coasts.

Getting off gas could also be good for your health. Several studies link cooking with gas to childhood asthma.

Read more:
Gas cooking is associated with worsening asthma in kids. But proper ventilation helps

Households face a series of hurdles

Renters make up nearly a third of all households, and they have little or no control over the appliances that are installed. As most electric appliances cost more to buy than gas ones – and the subsequent bill savings flow to tenants – landlords have little incentive to upgrade their properties from gas to all-electric.

Apartment living can increase the level of complexity. Multi-unit dwellings often bundle gas bills into body-corporate fees, limiting the occupants’ incentive to go all-electric. There can also be space constraints in these buildings. Centralised electric heat pumps, for example, take up more space than centralised gas water heaters.

Then there are households that simply can’t afford the upgrade. Induction stoves and heat pumps are more expensive than their gas equivalents, by up to a combined $2,000. This initial outlay will soon be recovered by cheaper energy bills, but that doesn’t help households that don’t have the cash up front. The 12% of households that skipped meals to pay their energy bills in the past year are the most likely to remain locked into high gas bills.

Some people also simply prefer cooking with gas. Some think induction cooktops will be no better than the poor-performing electric cooktops they may have used in the distant past. Others haven’t ever heard of a heat pump for hot water.

Read more:
Heat pumps can cut your energy costs by up to 90%. It’s not magic, just a smart use of the laws of physics

Here’s how governments can help

Governments, both state and federal, should lower the hurdles on the path to all-electric homes -– to reduce people’s cost of living and to cut carbon emissions.

As a first step, state governments should ban new gas connections to homes. In 2021, more than 70,000 households joined the gas network. Trying to shift households off gas while allowing new connections is like pouring water into a bucket with a hole.

Then, governments should provide landlords with tax write-offs on new induction stoves and heat pumps for hot water, for a limited time. After that, they should require every rental property to be all-electric. Governments should pay to upgrade public housing to all-electric, where they are the landlords. And they should pay not-for-profits managing community housing to do the same.

The federal government should help all households to spread the cost of electric appliances over time. It should subsidise banks to offer low-interest loans for home electrification, via the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

And governments should set out to change people’s preferences, from gas to electric. They should embark on a multi-decade communication campaign, not unlike the campaign to upgrade from analogue to digital television in the early 2000s.

A key challenge will be shifting people’s ideas about the best way to cook. There are precedents. In Gininderry, a new all-electric suburb of Canberra, one developer recruited chefs to run demonstrations on induction cooktops at the display village. The proportion of potential homebuyers willing to consider buying an all-electric home rose from 67% to 88%.

‘Green gas’ is no panacea: electricity is cheaper

The gas industry has another solution in mind: instead of switching from gas to electricity, it suggests using “green gas” -– biomethane or “green” hydrogen. Biomethane is chemically identical to natural gas, but is derived from biological materials such as food waste, sewage or agricultural waste. Green hydrogen is made by using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

But both options are too expensive and too far away. Under the most generous of assumptions, green hydrogen will only become cost-competitive with electricity after 2045. And there is not enough biomethane commercially available to replace gas in households.

Meanwhile, more than three million Australian homes already run on electricity alone.

Getting the five million homes that use gas to the same point won’t be easy. But with good policy, it is doable. For households, and the climate, there is much to be gained.

Read more:
Kicking the gas can down the road: why a gas price cap is the worst way to protect energy consumers.

Esther Suckling 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. All-electric homes are better for your hip pocket and the planet. Here’s how governments can help us get off gas – https://theconversation.com/all-electric-homes-are-better-for-your-hip-pocket-and-the-planet-heres-how-governments-can-help-us-get-off-gas-207409

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pablo Guillen, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

This article is part of our series on big ideas for the Universities Accord. The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”. A review team is due to finish a draft report later this month, with a final report in December 2023.

Every year thousands of students around Australia sit their final high school exams. The performance in these exams will help determine their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). For many, it will also determine whether they can attend university, which university, and which undergraduate degree they can enrol in.
The Universities Accord review team has called for advice on the role admissions systems play in “matching learners to pathways” and supporting an increase in participation and success at university. The accord also has a broader focus on improving access to a quality higher education.

When discussing equity issues around university entry, most attention is usually paid to perceived school quality, exam preparation and assessment design.

Less attention is paid to the crucial process by which each student is allocated a place in a particular degree at a particular university.

Our research shows design flaws in this process can see school leavers miss out on studying their most preferred degree, even if they are eligible to enrol in it based on their academic performance.

This can have significant ramifications for a students’ lifetime earnings, career progression and professional satisfaction.

The NSW admissions system

We studied the New South Wales admissions system, which is managed by the Universities Admissions Centre. Although there is some variation, other Australian states and territories have similar systems.

Undergraduate applicants are asked to submit an ordered list of five degrees for which they would like to be considered.

The Universities Admissions Centre then puts each student’s preference information into an algorithm that accounts for their individual score and the entry cut-off scores determined by each university for each of their degrees.

Obviously, an applicant’s choice of which five degrees to list is of critical importance to them.

The centre provides students with advice to help them optimise their preferences. At the time of our study it was:

List your ‘dream preference’ at number one but follow that with realistic preferences. At the bottom of the preference list you should include one or two ‘safe’ options to ensure that you get an offer.

(The Universities Admissions Centres website now says: “First on your list should be the course you’d most like to do, followed by your second, third and fourth preferences and so on.”)

So students need to make a sophisticated gamble to determine their future careers. They need to “dream” but also be realistic. It may not be in their best interests to list the five degrees in the order in which they truly prefer them.

If they only include dream degrees, with high cut-off marks, they may miss out on a university offer. But if they only include safe options, with low cut-off marks, they may miss out on doing what they truly want to study.

Read more:
Students think the ATAR is ‘unfair’ but we need to be careful about replacing it

Our study

To assess these theoretical concerns, in 2019, we ran an experiment with students experienced in applying through the actual NSW admissions system.

More than 800 participants were provided with the advice they would have typically received from the Universities Admissions Centre (that is, list a “dream” preference first, then include more realistic options).

All participants were given a fictitious ATAR and a set of six degrees. They then had to make a preference list of five degrees.

Participants were rewarded with money depending on the outcome of the experiment. They received more money when offered a place in a degree they preferred more highly.

Our findings

Our process was designed to mimic – but be more simple than – the University Admission Centre. Despite this, 75.5% of participants failed to report their preferences in order of their best interests. That is, list what they really wanted to do.

We also found students from comprehensive public high schools were at least 6.9% more likely to make a “mistake” (by not telling the truth about their preferences) than peers from public selective high schools and private schools.

Our research shows the system is not only inefficient but confusing to applicants.

Students can also be exposed to conflicting advice when applying to university. Some universities have been known to advise students to list their “safe” choice first to make sure they get in.

Read more:
‘They don’t expect a lot of me, they just want me to go to uni’: first-in-family students show how we need a broader definition of ‘success’ in year 12

A redesign is needed

We believe the current process needs a thorough redesign.

Limiting the number of applicants’ preferences to five degrees is a problem. A very risk-averse applicant would include too many safe options and likely miss out on better ones for which they would have a chance to get in. Meanwhile, a risk-loving applicant might list only hard-to-get-in degrees and completely miss out.

A better solution would be to allow applicants to list as many degrees as they want, up until they are indifferent between their least preferred degree and not going to university at all.

Given there are hundreds of degrees to choose from, it would be very difficult to come up with a complete and exhaustive list. However, a practical solution is readily available: applicants first submit their five most favoured degrees. If they don’t get an offer – and only if they don’t get an offer – they submit a second batch of five degrees.

Most will be matched in their first or second batch. Applicants who are not matched can keep submitting further batches. As is the case now, they only need to think in “fives”, but once they have an offer, they are removed from the applicant pool.

We believe it is possible for Universities Admissions Centre’s current process to be changed so it is easier to understand.

This would eliminate the need for strategising by applicants and advice on how to strategise. If you understand how our method works, we believe high school leavers will too.

Pablo Guillen receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Mark Melatos receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the NSW HSC Standards Committee.

Onur Kesten 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. Our research shows how students can miss out on their preferred uni degree – but there’s a simple fix – https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-how-students-can-miss-out-on-their-preferred-uni-degree-but-theres-a-simple-fix-207415

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Humphery-Jenner, Associate Professor of Finance, UNSW Sydney

When was the last time you got a pay increase? Was it anywhere near the rate of inflation?

If it feels as if your wage is shrinking and cost of living pressures are growing, you’re in good company. And it might just be harming productivity. Here’s why.

Labor productivity (measured as gross domestic product per hour worked) has been shrinking for a year now, after decades of reasonable, albeit declining, productivity growth throughout the 1980s, 1990s and the first two decades of the 2000s.

All sorts of reasons have been suggested. One is working from home. Commonwealth Bank chief Matt Comyn has ordered staff to return to the office saying there are “certain types of work that are done more effectively in person”.

Reserve Bank research says it might be a resurgence in the proportion of wages set by industry awards rather than workplace agreements, meaning there’s less scope for rewarding performance.

Another is weak wage growth itself.

Shrinking real wages are demotivating

We must also look at wages. Wages are falling in inflation-adjusted (“real”) terms.

Adjusted for inflation, Australians are being paid less than they were in 2020.

Shrinking real wages are demotivating. While this is hardly a new insight, a bemusing number of people seem shocked by the idea that someone might be less keen to work when the real value of what they are paid is falling.

Research on executive compensation established this as long ago as the 1970s.

The whole field of compensation contract theory is based on the insight that a person’s sense of wellbeing goes up with money but down with perceived effort and risk. Money can induce people to work in ways they otherwise would not.

Company boards have long used incentives to encourage otherwise-cautious executives to take risks. They even tailor compensation contracts to executives’ behavioral traits.

How do workers produce less?

Consciously or otherwise, workers whose real wages are falling might care less about their jobs. They might work more slowly, or they produce worse-quality goods or services. And their attitude might permeate to other workers and to clients, undermining productivity more broadly.

If this happens at enough corporations – and certainly real wages are falling at enough corporations – it will harm GDP per hour worked throughout the entire economy.

Sluggish wage growth can also affect the number of observed hours worked.

When wage growth and incentives are strong, ambitious workers will work more than their contracted hours, and won’t claim for it.

They might work on weekends and nights, easing staff scheduling and time zone issues, helping the firm do what it needs to do.

Uncounted extra hours don’t increase the “hours” in GDP per hour, but they do increase the GDP, increasing measured productivity.

When people stop doing unpaid overtime, while their recorded hours mightn’t much change, the GDP they produce declines.

There are reasons to believe Australian workers are no longer going above and beyond to produce more to the extent that they used to.

One is an increase in the number of Australians holding multiple jobs.

Over the past five years, the proportion of Australian workers holding more than one job has climbed from 6% to 6.7%, which appears to be an all-time high.

These official figures understates the extent to which Australians are turning their focus away from their main jobs for three reasons:

• they exclude side hustles not counted as “jobs”

• they exclude jobs in the cash economy

• they exclude workers whose “new” second job is spending time with their family rather than working overtime.

The rise in multiple job holders is likely to both increase the total number of hours worked, and reduce the effort workers put into their main jobs.

And, as these second jobs are often more junior, it can mean highly-skilled workers producing less per hour than they would have had they put the hours in their main job.

The overall picture is one of a demotivated workforce realising there is no longer much point in “going the extra mile”, “going above and beyond”, or buying into whatever the latest euphemism is.

Returning to the office might make things worse

Although returning to the office might is touted as a way to boost productivity by building collaboration, it might well do the reverse.

There is ample evidence to show that workers hate commuting. In capital cities, commuting can consume two hours per day driving, parking and allowing time for unexpected delays.

It is also costly. Workers will tolerate it if there is no other choice or it is a clear path to more money.

But if companies reinstate a two-hour commute and associated costs without paying more money, they are likely to further demotivate their workers, further undermining their willingness to “go above and beyond”, produce more, and be more efficient.

What’s needed are incentives

A straightforward solution is to create incentives that make it clear that workers who care more will get cared for more.

The incentives need to be in addition to standard raises. Using them as a cynical ploy to hold wages constant unless employees work ever harder will backfire.

The incentives must also be credible. It isn’t enough to create the vague possibility of promotions. Employers have to demonstrate that if their workers produce more they will be paid more. And the extra pay needs to be enough to matter.

Read more:
Don’t blame workers for falling productivity – we’re not the ones holding it back

An even better solution would be job-hopping.

Australians have long been lethargic about changing jobs, allowing themselves to be hit with a “loyalty tax” for staying put.

The most recent Bureau of Statistics survey, for the year to February 2022, shows an overdue uptick in the proportion of workers switching jobs, from 7.5% to 9.5%.

The 2023 update will be released at the end of this month.

The importance of job-hopping (switching jobs to get better reward) as a means of incentivising both workers and employers makes Labor’s proposed expansion of industry-wide enterprise bargaining a bad idea.

If employers set wages together, they are unlikely to set them differently.

In any event, there is little sign that employers are interested in motivating their workers to produce more. It’s easier to blame workers and make a case for low pay rises.

Mark Humphery-Jenner 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. Tired of shrinking pay? The real drain on Australians’ productivity is falling wages – https://theconversation.com/tired-of-shrinking-pay-the-real-drain-on-australians-productivity-is-falling-wages-207807

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

Federal parliament enters its last week before the winter break ready to approve legislation for the Voice referendum but with the government’s proposed $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund still in the balance.

After marathon debates in both houses, a vote in the Senate early Monday will see the parliamentary process for the referendum done.

With concern in the government the “yes” campaign is struggling, Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney said on Sunday: “We always knew that this was going to be difficult. This is a marathon, it’s not a sprint.

“Now that we have almost finished the work in the parliament, the campaigns will kick in,” she told Sky. No date has yet been announced for the vote.

As it battles for Greens support for its housing fund, the government announced at the weekend an immediate $2 billion for an accelerated social housing program.

The Greens are still calling for action on rents as a condition for support, but will be under considerable pressure to compromise. They will meet on Monday to consider their position, but may not make a decision then.

The housing money will be delivered to the states and territories in the next fortnight. Anthony Albanese spoke with first ministers on Friday.

Albanese and housing minister Julie Collins said there could be “some flexibility” in how the money is spent. It could include “new builds, expanding programs, renovating or refurbishing existing but uninhabitable stock”.

Albanese at the weekend lashed out at the Greens, telling the Victorian Labor conference they were “a party of protest – happy to promise the world, while organising a petition against every new apartment building that’s proposed”.

Parliamentarians return to Canberra still shell-shocked by last week’s drama, that saw the re-raising of the Brittany Higgins matter and culminated in Peter Dutton tossing Victorian senator David Van out of the Liberal Party’s party room. Van is now a crossbencher.

That followed allegations of his inappropriate behaviour from crossbencher Lidia Thorpe, former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker and an identified third woman.

Dutton has also said Van should leave parliament.

Van at the weekend resigned from the Liberal Party, still rejecting the allegations and complaining about the party’s “wholesale disregard for due process and natural justice”. The Victorian administrative committee had been due to meet about the allegations.

Van will not be in parliament this week.

After their pursuit of Finance Minister Katy Gallagher over what she knew ahead of time about the Higgins matter backfired, triggering the allegations against Van, the Liberals have to decide whether to continue to press Gallagher. Liberal sources on Sunday expected they would.

Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said she had heard “rumours” about Van but “I wasn’t aware of any specific allegations”.

She told the ABC Thorpe “was absolutely within her right to use parliamentary privilege to raise those issues as she did”.

Meanwhile controversial right-winger Teena McQueen was dumped as a Liberal federal vice-president, when the party’s federal council voted for positions on Friday. McQueen caused outrage among many Liberals last year when she said: “The good thing about the last federal election is a lot of those lefties are gone. We should rejoice in that”.

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

– ref. Referendum bill to pass on Monday while government pulls out stops to try to secure housing fund – https://theconversation.com/referendum-bill-to-pass-on-monday-while-government-pulls-out-stops-to-try-to-secure-housing-fund-207988

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

Peter Dutton on Friday declared Victorian Liberal senator David Van should leave parliament ASAP.

The opposition leader told Sydney radio: “I think it’s in everyone’s best interests that he resign from the parliament and I hope he’s able to do that sooner than later and seek the help that he needs. And I think that would be an appropriate next step.”

As yet, there is no sign of Van – who won’t be in parliament next week – complying. He protests his innocence, despite three separate women alleging inappropriate behaviour. His current Senate term doesn’t run out until 2025.

Dutton showed political savvy in tossing Van out of the Liberal party room, and pressuring him publicly to quit parliament.

Van says he is “stunned that my good reputation can be so wantonly savaged without due process or accountability”.

There’s no doubt that this is rough justice, dispensed before the independent parliamentary authority investigates the allegations. Dutton himself says he is not making a judgement on these allegations.

But politics is not the law. If Dutton had said he would wait until after the investigation, that would have been extremely damaging for the Liberal Party and for him personally. Dutton has put protection of the party’s reputation, and his own, ahead of process.

The policeman in Dutton came usefully to the fore as he dealt with the Van issue on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Following the allegations made by crossbencher Lidia Thorpe late Wednesday, Dutton received more information about Van’s alleged inappropriate behaviour. He probed the evidence.

If the claims had only come from Thorpe, Dutton likely would not have acted in the way he did. But the addition of two more women, one of them former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker, was compelling.

We haven’t heard from the other woman, but Stoker’s account, which she later released publicly, was detailed and precise.

She accused Van of “squeezing my bottom twice” at a function in 2020. She also said she had raised the matter with him at a meeting the next day and he “apologised and said he would never do it again”.

This doesn’t match Van’s all-round denials. But Stoker has contemporaneous notes and says she promptly told a senior female colleague.

Dutton insists that he had not previously heard of Van’s reputation for alleged bad behaviour. But others, including Liberals, did and yet it was kept under wraps.

Van’s parliament house office was moved after an earlier complaint by then-neighbour Thorpe (he rejects the substance of that complaint).

Stoker says that at the time of the incident involving her she “used the internal process for his behaviour to be addressed, whilst asking for it to be kept confidential”.

“Obviously, this was not a good experience. I took it very seriously but did not want his misbehaviour to define me or any other woman,” she said in her statement.

Even the Greens, dealing with the earlier Thorpe complaint about Van, agreed to the matter being settled privately (although Thorpe subsequently made references, without a name).

One can understand the considerations that see these things settled behind closed doors. But there is a price to keeping those doors shut. The individual may not deterred from repeating the behaviour with someone else. And there is not a wider deterrent message sent out.

While Van is out of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, he remains a member of the Liberal Party at large. What happens with his membership is a matter for the Victorian division of the party.

A Liberal Party spokesperson said on Friday the party “has taken action to suspend all organisational resources and support from Senator Van. There will be an urgent meeting this weekend of the Party’s Victorian Administrative Committee to further consider the allegations raised.”

If the Victorian party doesn’t expel him, that would be a slap in the face for Dutton.

If Van does decide to leave parliament, his Senate spot would be filled by the Liberals – there would be no byelection.

If he stays, he will be getting the cold shoulder from a lot of colleagues. But he would still be paid a good salary. After this week’s publicity his job prospects in the outside world could look pretty bleak.

Michelle Grattan ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. View from The Hill: Victorian Liberal Party to meet about allegations against Senator David Van – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-victorian-liberal-party-to-meet-about-allegations-against-senator-david-van-207931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn MacKay, Senior Lecturer in Bioethics, University of Sydney

Researchers have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, according to media reports. Remarkably, these embryos have reportedly been created from embryonic stem cells, meaning they do not require sperm and ova.

This development, widely described as a breakthrough that could help scientists learn more about human development and genetic disorders, was revealed this week in Boston at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

The research, announced by Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But Żernicka-Goetz told the meeting these human-like embryos had been made by reprogramming human embryonic stem cells.

So what does all this mean for science, and what ethical issues does it present?

Read more:
World’s first ‘synthetic embryo’: why this research is more important than you think

What did the researchers do?

Each of these synthetic human embryos is created from a single stem cell. Żernicka-Goetz described how her team grew the synthetic embryos to a stage of development called “gastriculation”, which is a stage just beyond the 14-day developmental mark for a human embryo.

The current legal limit to how long a human embryo can be permitted to develop in a lab is 14 days.

This is approximately the length of time from fertilisation of the egg to implantation in the uterine wall, if conception has taken place within a human womb.

So, synthetic embryos have – for the first time – been allowed to develop past this point.

Initially, the 14-day rule was both a moral and a practical limit; scientists didn’t have the technology to keep embryos alive longer than this.

But the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s 2016 guidelines also suggested the 14-day limit was morally appropriate, as past this point the cells within the embryo begin to differentiate to form important body systems like the gut, brain and lungs.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research’s updated 2021 guidelines now say we should reconsider the 14-day rule, via public debate, to perhaps allow research on embryos later into development in some cases.

From what has been reported about Żernicka-Goetz and her team’s research, the creation of synthetic human-like embryos is a significant advance.

It’s further remarkable they seem to behave, in terms of development, like a human embryo would in some ways.

Żernicka-Goetz reported the human-like embryos began to develop placenta and yolk sacs, but not a beating heart or the beginning of a brain.

Despite the role of the placenta in pregnancy, and its importance to the health of mother and fetus, we know surprisingly little about this vital but temporary organ.

If it was possible to observe placenta in a lab via these synthetic embryos, this could yield valuable knowledge.

Moral quandaries

However, just as there are real possibilities for gaining knowledge from synthetic human-like embryos, there are also real moral quandaries.

One of these quandaries arises around whether their creation really gets us away from the use of human embryos.

Robin Lovell-Badge, the head of stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the Francis Crick Institute in London UK, reportedly said that if these human-like embryos can really model human development in the early stages of pregnancy, then we will not have to use human embryos for research.

At the moment, it is unclear if this is the case for two reasons.

First, the embryos were created from human embryonic stem cells, so it seems they do still need human embryos for their creation. Perhaps more light will be shed on this when Żernicka-Goetz’s research is published.

Second, there are questions about the extent to which these human-like embryos really can model human development.

At the moment, animal models of similar synthetic embryos suggest they are not capable of developing into a full living being. Studies in mice and monkeys have so far shown that the synthetic embryos die a short while after being implanted into a female’s womb, which means they are not viable.

There could be significant limits to the usefulness of these synthetic embryos for learning about human developmental issues, if human-like synthetic embryos aren’t capable of developing into full human babies and do not form important body structures like a beating heart and a brain.

One of the reasons researchers want to use these embryos is for research into miscarriage and developmental anomalies. This is very important, but will these synthetic embryos be “close enough” to real human embryos to reveal useful answers?

Scientists may still rely on the use of human embryos if we do need human embryos for the creation of these models, or there are research questions that these synthetic embryos can’t address.

Is it morally permissable?

This leaves us with the important moral question about whether it is permissible to use human embryos for research.

Further, if the human-like synthetic embryos are capable of developing into full living beings, then we must consider whether it is morally permissible to create them just for research.

It could be that they are not currently capable of developing much further than the 14-day mark.

Scientists might decide that this is a problem that needs to be fixed, partly for practical reasons about the limits to their usefulness. Scientists might then fix these synthetic embryos so that they could continue to develop. However, this would create a huge moral quandary.

We should think carefully about whether it is ethical to create living human-like beings only to conduct research on them.

Read more:
Researchers have grown ‘human embryos’ from skin cells. What does that mean, and is it ethical?

Kathryn MacKay 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. Scientists have created synthetic human embryos. Now we must consider the ethical and moral quandaries – https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-created-synthetic-human-embryos-now-we-must-consider-the-ethical-and-moral-quandaries-207911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne

The Adelaide Festival Centre is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. Opened in 1973, the building was completed before the Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre.

South Australia was regarded as a leader of the arts in Australia for around three decades from 1970 to the 1990s and dubbed internationally the “Athens of the South”.

Since the early 21st century, other states have woken up to the benefits of the arts and are now supporting lively creative industries within their midst. South Australia though has done the opposite.

The arts are no longer seen as a priority.

Arts in the budget

In 2018, under the previous Liberal state government, the arts and cultural portfolio Arts South Australia was broken up and sent to different government departments.

Youth arts were put into the Education Department. The SA Film Corporation, the Adelaide Film Festival and the Jam Factory were relocated to the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. The North Terrace cultural institutions such as the state art gallery, museum and library – while administered by the Premier’s department – are now overseen by a generic arm of the department who are not arts or cultural specialists.

The few remaining staff left from Arts South Australia were placed within a sector of the Department of Premier and Cabinet called “Communities and Corporate”, one of ten portfolios within the department.

Read more:
Cuts and restructures send alarm through South Australia’s arts sector

The South Australian state budget was handed down this week. The only mention of the arts in the budget was within the major events fund where there is a commitment of $2 million over four years to the Adelaide Film Festival’s investment fund.

Within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, “Arts and Cultural Policy and Support” receives a reduction of $1.2 million from the amount actually spent on the arts in 2022–23.

There was a 6% drop in cultural spending in South Australia in 2019, and a further 3% drop in 2020.

The continued reductions in arts funding seem counter intuitive given the negative impact of COVID on the arts and cultural sector.

Adelaide’s stalled new gallery

In 2016, the Labor government and the Art Gallery of South Australia commissioned a report and undertook a design competition for the development of a new contemporary art space at the old location of Royal Adelaide Hospital on North Terrace, known as Lot Fourteen.

The new gallery became an election issue in 2018, with the Liberal party running on a platform of developing a national Indigenous arts centre.

After the Liberal party won the election, the gallery was named Tarrkarri (“future” in Kaurna language) and was due to be completed in 2023.

After Labor got back into government in early 2022, the development of Tarrkarri was put on hold while the project was reviewed by a committee appointed by the government.

As of June 2023, the site remains a hole in the ground with a potential cost blow out of $400 million while the government reviews the committee’s recommendations.

Significantly, there is no additional money promised for the project in the 2023–24 state budget, although there is a forecast completion date of 2027.

Read more:
Perth already has a museum of Indigenous art and culture. With proper funding, it could be our national centre

A critical lack of infrastructure

There has been a critical lack of cultural infrastructure in South Australia for many years across all artform areas.

There has been a call for a dedicated concert hall in Adelaide for many years. Despite a scoping study completed in 2021, nothing has happened so far, and the state’s music audience continues to miss out on many music groups and individuals touring the country.

In May 2023, the Malinauskas Government shelved plans to build a new storage centre for the state collections housed at the state museum, library and art gallery, citing insufficient funds.

Given the monetary and cultural value of these collections, it might be argued that not storing them appropriately is, to misquote Oscar Wilde, rather careless.

Sports are the big winners

Arts funding in South Australia has not seen any noticeable increase for several years and many agencies and arts organisations are struggling to survive.

While most other states have acquired new concert halls, new art galleries and theatre spaces over the past two decades, South Australia has remained culturally static. The only updated space is the refurbished Her Majesty’s Theatre.

South Australia is now a long way behind all the other mainland states in terms of actual expenditure on arts and culture – although it sits fourth on per capita support.

When Labor was elected in 2022 there was hope there would be an immediate revival of a government entity focusing on the arts. It was also hoped Labor would be proactive about increasing arts support and build much needed new cultural infrastructure.

Since its election in early 2022, the state Labor government has spent $35 million on reviving a car race, around $14 million on the AFL Gather Round, unknown millions on LIV Golf and committed $135 million towards the development of a new swimming centre.

Sports events are a winner under the Malinauskas Labor government. The arts do not get a mention.

Read more:
LIV Golf: Sportwashing vs. the commercial value of public attention

Jo Caust has previously received funding from the Australia Council. She is a member of the Arts Industry Council (SA) and NAVA.

– ref. Cuts in the state budget, a gallery on hold and millions on sports: the decline of arts support in South Australia – https://theconversation.com/cuts-in-the-state-budget-a-gallery-on-hold-and-millions-on-sports-the-decline-of-arts-support-in-south-australia-207612

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University

Do you sit or stand? That is the question about 7,000 men around the world have been asked about how they pee.

We’ll get to their answers soon. But the media interest that followed prompted one urologist to recommend some men sit to urinate, especially as they age.

What is the best way to urinate? Does that apply to women? We research the bladder and lower urinary tract. Here’s what the evidence says.

Read more:
Health Check: what can your doctor tell from your urine?

Do most men stand to pee?

The survey found men in different countries differ in how they pee.

In Germany, 40% of men report sitting while they pee every time, as do 25% of Australians. In the United States, it’s just 10%.

Some people even view standing to pee as “superior” and sitting inferior. In German, the word Sitzpinkler means
someone who sits to pee; it can also be used as an insult.

But habits may be changing. In Australia, for instance, the survey found younger men are more likely to sit down than older men. Some 36% of younger men sit down most or every time, while only 20% of men aged 55 and older report doing so.

So should men stand or sit?

When it doesn’t matter

In general, the literature suggests it doesn’t matter if a healthy man stands or sits when he pees.

Regardless of the position, there seems to be no difference in the time taken to pee, the flow rate, and how completely the bladder is emptied.

So long as there are no urinary concerns, men are free to choose their preferred position. If you chose to stand, just be sure to aim well.

Read more:
Is urine sterile? Do urine ‘therapies’ work? Experts debunk common pee myths

When it can

Recommendations for sitting or standing become less clear for men with lower urinary tract symptoms. These include issues such as having poor stream (for example, a dribble rather than a steady flow of urine), straining while urinating or feeling the bladder has not completely emptied after finishing.

For some of these men sitting is preferred to help increase the flow and empty the bladder. Others find the same relief comes from standing.

For men with benign prostatic hyperplasia, otherwise known as an enlarged prostate, there is evidence standing may help fully empty the bladder. But this advice may not work for all. That’s because how much the prostate has become enlarged, and the impact this has on urinary flow, can be different between people.

As standing or sitting can matter, for some men, it’s worth having a chat with your doctor about what’s best for you.

Read more:
Do men really take longer to poo?

How about women?

The structure of the female pelvic area is quite different to males, as it accommodates the vagina, uterus and reproductive structures. And the female anatomy is just not designed to pee standing up. So, making a habit of, say, peeing in the shower, is not advised.

Females do not have a prostate, which helps supports the male bladder while standing. This lack of support can place extra strain on the bladder region when not sitting down, making it harder for the bladder to fully empty.

The structure of the pelvic floor muscles are also different in females. For females, it is particularly important to allow these muscles to fully relax to allow the urine to flow freely.

If the bladder doesn’t empty fully, it can lead to increased infections, bladder stones, and even impact kidney health in the long term.

Even with one leg up, the pelvic floor does not rest properly, so the bladder may not be able to fully empty. As such, sitting down is usually the best position to let these muscles relax.

Standing and “hovering” over the loo may keep these muscles slightly constricted, making it hard to fully empty the bladder. A contracted pelvic floor can also cause the urine to spray more than usual, which is why you might often find drops of urine on a toilet seat after someone before you has tried to hover over it.

How about peeing in the shower?

Peeing in the shower not only makes it harder for your muscles to relax, it can be unhygienic. It might also cause an association between water and urination, leading to issues where hearing water might make you need to rush to the bathroom.

So, for both males and females, peeing in the shower is a clear no-no.

If you or someone you know has bladder or bowel issues, the Continence Foundation of Australia has online resources and a helpline (1800 33 00 66).

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. Does it matter if you sit or stand to pee? And what about peeing in the shower? – https://theconversation.com/does-it-matter-if-you-sit-or-stand-to-pee-and-what-about-peeing-in-the-shower-206869

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

For most voters, the cost of living is their major current concern. Rising interest rates and high prices for power, groceries and other necessities are hurting in particular lower and middle income people.

Nowhere is this more the case than in Sydney’s western suburbs.

Independent Dai Le, who holds the seat of Fowler in Sydney’s west, managed to pull off the unthinkable at last year’s federal election. Le, who financed her campaign with a very modest budget, defeated Labor’s Kristina Keneally, who was attempting to move from the Senate to the lower house.

Fowler has traditionally been Labor heartland. Le is the first non-Labor MP to represent the area, one of Australia’s most multicultural electorates.

In this podcast, Le canvasses the challenges her constituents are facing with the cost of living crisis and the aftermath of the curfew during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Le has seen an uptake in her constituents reaching out to her for help.

“Concerns have heightened in terms of the cost of living, interest rate rises, housing affordability, grocery prices, petrol, travelling. Obviously where we are in western Sydney, people travel a lot. We use the cars a lot. It has been a real challenge for the community.”

One issue people haven’t been talking about is the Voice to Parliament.
“My community has not raised the issue with me, has not come to me, has not emailed me about any of the issues we’ve heard around the Voice.

Dai Le does not have a public stand on the Voice.

Culturally, Fowler is highly diverse. Le herself is Vietnamese, moving to Australia with her mother after fleeing the war. She says the community lives “very harmoniously together”, is “very cohesive”. “Of course, you have to encourage that cohesion because we are so different. There are so many different cultures in that one city.”

“I love this line, ‘we are one, but we are many’.”

In her maiden speech, she slammed the curfew placed on Western Sydney during the 2021 lockdown, likening the laws to a “communist dictatorship”.

“In one case, a young man got COVID and was so scared because of what he read in the media. […] He was too scared to get out of his bedroom because he didn’t want to kill his family. He thought what he’s got will kill his family.

“He felt so guilty he had this virus that he refused to eat and refused to drink. I knew they escaped the Khmer, the Pol Pot regime, and they were so scared about the police coming to the house because he’s got COVID.

“This triggered a community that had fled tyrannical and communist regimes. So that’s why I liken it. I remember hearing helicopters hovering around midnight and I was anxious, I remember telling my husband: ‘I’m not in Vietnam. Why am I feeling like this?’

“I then told myself, don’t be silly. You’re in Australia. We’re here. We are safe. This is just the police helicopters.”

In a week dominated by discussion of issues of sexual assault and harassment, there are new fears women may be dissuaded from coming forward with complaints.

Le says: “My message to them is that while this whole public political thing is happening, they should still have the courage to reach out to the right avenue when it happens to them and not lose faith.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Community Independent Dai Le on what voters are saying – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-community-independent-dai-le-on-what-voters-are-saying-207832

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

A reader of The Conversation recently wrote in to ask:

Why does grass grow slower in winter?

It is a great question and at first the answer might seem obvious. There is less sunlight and it is colder in the winter months. This affects grass and plant growth in general.

However, there is more to it than meets the eye. Different grasses respond to and cope with winter in different ways.

Read more:
I’ve created a monstera! How to care for the ‘Swiss cheese plant’ in your life

Grass: a recent arrival

Grasses are relatively recent arrivals in plant evolution, first appearing in fossil records about 65 million years ago and becoming widespread in parts of Asia by about 30 million years ago.

Geologically, and in plant evolutionary time scales, this is quite recent. It means much of grass evolution has occurred under modern geological, environmental and climatic conditions. So, more than most plants, grasses have adapted to a modern, if pre-human, world. This affects their climatic responses.

Some of our best-known grasses evolved from ancestors that first appeared on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.

Their physiology developed to cope with an Earth that had a very different atmosphere from that of today.

These plants have a type of photosynthesis called C3 metabolism.

What is C3 metabolism?

C3 metabolism is about how the plant does the job of turning light, water and air into food (photosynthesis).

About 95% of all plants you can think of – trees, shrubs, annuals, fruits, vegetables and many traditional (often called cool season) grasses – have C3 metabolism.

Plants with this form of photosynthesis tend to grow well in a wide range of environmental conditions, even if the temperature is cooler and there are higher than usual levels of carbon dioxide in the air.

They tend to remain green all year round if water is available, and may continue to grow well through late autumn. Many are frost-tolerant, but they may become dormant in hot dry weather.

C3 grasses, such as ryegrass, do slow their growth for the winter months as sunlight becomes less intense. Their metabolic processes (in this case, photosynthesis) slow down when the temperature drops.

Biological reactions are chemical reactions, after all. The rate of a reaction is temperature-dependent – speeding up when it’s warmer and slowing down or even stopping when it gets colder.

But they tend to do better in winter than their cousins, the C4 grasses.

I’ve heard many lawn grasses are C4 grasses. What does that mean?

As the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere declined and geological events led to the development of tropical regions around the equator, a different group of plants evolved. These plants used a form of photosynthesis called C4 metabolism.

C4 plants grow very well under lower CO₂ levels in the atmosphere, use water more efficiently, and can cope with poor soils better than C3 grasses.

But they struggle in the cold. They grow best in warmer, wetter conditions.

While only about 5% of all plants have C4 photosynthesis, some of them are important grass species, such as:

• bermuda grass

• buffalo grass

• paspalum

• kangaroo grass

• couch grass, and

• zoysia grass.

So if your lawn is sown with one of these grasses, you will definitely see a slowdown in winter, when they become dormant.

Their leaves tend to turn from bright green to a dull pale green or even yellow. Their growth slows quickly and dramatically in early autumn as the light levels fall, temperatures cool and chlorophyll production starts to decline.

The upside, of course, is they usually grow very well when the weather warms up again.

Read more:
Trees can be weeds too – here’s why that’s a problem

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

– ref. Why does grass grow more slowly in winter? – https://theconversation.com/why-does-grass-grow-more-slowly-in-winter-206616

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Vivienne Bentley, Research Scientist, Responsible Innovation, Data61, CSIRO

The launch of ever-capable large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 has sparked much interest over the past six months. However, trust in these models has waned as users have discovered they can make mistakes – and that, just like us, they aren’t perfect.

An LLM that outputs incorrect information is said to be “hallucinating”, and there is now a growing research effort towards minimising this effect. But as we grapple with this task, it’s worth reflecting on our own capacity for bias and hallucination – and how this impacts the accuracy of the LLMs we create.

By understanding the link between AI’s hallucinatory potential and our own, we can begin to create smarter AI systems that will ultimately help reduce human error.

How people hallucinate

It’s no secret people make up information. Sometimes we do this intentionally, and sometimes unintentionally. The latter is a result of cognitive biases, or “heuristics”: mental shortcuts we develop through past experiences.

These shortcuts are often born out of necessity. At any given moment, we can only process a limited amount of the information flooding our senses, and only remember a fraction of all the information we’ve ever been exposed to.

As such, our brains must use learnt associations to fill in the gaps and quickly respond to whatever question or quandary sits before us. In other words, our brains guess what the correct answer might be based on limited knowledge. This is called a “confabulation” and is an example of a human bias.

Our biases can result in poor judgement. Take the automation bias, which is our tendency to favour information generated by automated systems (such as ChatGPT) over information from non-automated sources. This bias can lead us to miss errors and even act upon false information.

Another relevant heuristic is the halo effect, in which our initial impression of something affects our subsequent interactions with it. And the fluency bias, which describes how we favour information presented in an easy-to-read manner.

The bottom line is human thinking is often coloured by its own cognitive biases and distortions, and these “hallucinatory” tendencies largely occur outside of our awareness.

How AI hallucinates

In an LLM context, hallucinating is different. An LLM isn’t trying to conserve limited mental resources to efficiently make sense of the world. “Hallucinating” in this context just describes a failed attempt to predict a suitable response to an input.

Nevertheless, there is still some similarity between how humans and LLMs hallucinate, since LLMs also do this to “fill in the gaps”.

LLMs generate a response by predicting which word is most likely to appear next in a sequence, based on what has come before, and on associations the system has learned through training.

Like humans, LLMs try to predict the most likely response. Unlike humans, they do this without understanding what they’re saying. This is how they can end up outputting nonsense.

As to why LLMs hallucinate, there are a range of factors. A major one is being trained on data that are flawed or insufficient. Other factors include how the system is programmed to learn from these data, and how this programming is reinforced through further training under humans.

Read more:
AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton says AI is a new form of intelligence unlike our own. Have we been getting it wrong this whole time?

Doing better together

So, if both humans and LLMs are susceptible to hallucinating (albeit for different reasons), which is easier to fix?

Fixing the training data and processes underpinning LLMs might seem easier than fixing ourselves. But this fails to consider the human factors that influence AI systems (and is an example of yet another human bias known as a fundamental attribution error).

The reality is our failings and the failings of our technologies are inextricably intertwined, so fixing one will help fix the other. Here are some ways we can do this.

• Responsible data management. Biases in AI often stem from biased or limited training data. Ways to address this include ensuring training data are diverse and representative, building bias-aware algorithms, and deploying techniques such as data balancing to remove skewed or discriminatory patterns.

• Transparency and explainable AI. Despite the above actions, however, biases in AI can remain and can be difficult to detect. By studying how biases can enter a system and propagate within it, we can better explain the presence of bias in outputs. This is the basis of “explainable AI”, which is aimed at making AI systems’ decision-making processes more transparent.

• Putting the public’s interests front and centre. Recognising, managing and learning from biases in an AI requires human accountability and having human values integrated into AI systems. Achieving this means ensuring stakeholders are representative of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and perspectives.

By working together in this way, it’s possible for us to build smarter AI systems that can help keep all our hallucinations in check.

For instance, AI is being used within healthcare to analyse human decisions. These machine learning systems detect inconsistencies in human data and provide prompts that bring them to the clinician’s attention. As such, diagnostic decisions can be improved while maintaining human accountability.

In a social media context, AI is being used to help train human moderators when trying to identify abuse, such as through the Troll Patrol project aimed at tackling online violence against women.

In another example, combining AI and satellite imagery can help researchers analyse differences in nighttime lighting across regions, and use this as a proxy for the relative poverty of an area (wherein more lighting is correlated with less poverty).

Importantly, while we do the essential work of improving the accuracy of LLMs, we shouldn’t ignore how their current fallibility holds up a mirror to our own.

Sarah Bentley works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

Claire Naughtin works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

– ref. Both humans and AI hallucinate — but not in the same way – https://theconversation.com/both-humans-and-ai-hallucinate-but-not-in-the-same-way-205754

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Humphries, Associate professor in ecology, Charles Sturt University

In this edited book extract, Paul Humphries describes how a proposal to feed hungry miners on Victoria’s goldfields led to a Murray cod fishery – and the collapse of cod populations, the effects of which are still with us today.

Within months of the discovery of gold in 1851 in the previously sleepy little hamlets of Ballarat, Castlemaine and Bendigo, the Victorian goldfields were out-performing those in California. By 1852, ships hailing from Melbourne were sailing up the River Thames, carrying up to 10 tonnes of gold to London.

Convicts, previously reluctant to be sent out to the colony, now begged for transportation. Immigrants from England, Europe, The United States and China arrived in Melbourne in their hundreds each day. Along with the diggers came those that supplied their wants and needs: store keepers, butchers, bakers, grocers, barbers, printers and other tradespeople. Gold, population and trade boomed.

By 1854, the Victorian population had surpassed that of New South Wales, but the amount of gold extracted, although still substantial, was half it was two years previously. Discontent increased. There were violent clashes between soldiers, police and diggers, which culminated in a full-on battle on 3 December 1854 on Bakery Hill: the Eureka uprising.

Some canny miners who saw the boom was fast fading had an eye out for business opportunities. There was another untapped, seemingly limitless resource – another type of “gold” – waiting within coo-ee of the goldfields for the right person to come along and extract it. Not from earth. From water. The cod rush was about to start.

“We cannot exhaust the fish”

In the 19th century, there was by all accounts an abundance of large Murray cod, some reportedly 1.8 metres-long and weighing perhaps 80 kilograms. These long-lived predators cruised around the main channels of rivers, ate crayfish, mussels, fish and even ducks and mice when they could get them. For hungry gold miners, they must have seemed like a godsend.

In January 1855, an article in The Argus by an unnamed correspondent recorded that a semi-commercial fishery had begun in the Murray, supplying gold miners in Bendigo with fresh fish:

“The Murray abounds in splendid fish of the cod and bream species, varying in weight from an ounce to a hundred weight each,” they wrote.

The article recognised the demand for food from hungry gold miners, along with a supply of fish; the former seemingly insatiable and the latter apparently inexhaustible.

“We have a river unequalled in the colony in its magnitude. It is rich in delicious fish […] with which we intend at no distant period to cram the stomach of the rebellious digger of the Bendigo,” the correspondent wrote two months later.

By May 29th, the correspondent proposed exchanging the “superabundant” nuggets of the diggers with that of the “superfluous luxuries” in the Murray. A transparent pitch for distributing the wealth north of the goldfields. But they weren’t finished.

On 22 June 1855 in The Argus, the unnamed journalist wrote a lengthy proposal and presented a detailed business case – including estimates of outlays, profits and even methods (netting, hook and line, spearing) for catching fish that had been used by local Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years – for a commercial fishery in the Murray, supplying Bendigo.

Soon, a disillusioned miner with ambition recognised the opportunity. At the age of 27, Massachusetts-born Joseph Waldo Rice established the Lake Moira Fishing Company in mid–1855 with five others. Soon, that became the Murray Fishing Company or Murray River Fishing Company.

“We cannot exhaust [the fish],” suggested the Argus journalist, and ten times as many as they proposed could be harvested would not even deplete a small section of river.

The correspondent was grossly mistaken.

Boomtime and collapse

In the early days, a dozen or so men fished Moira Lake and the Murray and Edward rivers nearby, transporting a few baskets of fish to Bendigo by Cobb and Co. coach.

But within a few decades, hundreds of fishermen plied their trade from Albury to Lake Alexandrina with many thousands of fish transported to Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide markets by railway each year.

Intensive fishing, questionable practices such as taking fish during the spawning season, a lack of regulation and the later rise of recreational fishing exhausted the supposedly inexhaustible resource.

Fish stocks fluctuated over time as fishing effort rose and fell, but catches hit rock-bottom in the early 1960s and never recovered. By then, many commercial fishers had already left the industry or retired.

It was only in the early 2000s that the unprofitable fishery was finally banned in all states of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Commercial fishing was largely responsible for the decline in Murray cod stocks over many decades. But the decline was hastened by dispossession of Aboriginal peoples, habitat destruction, the construction of dams and barriers, changes to river flows, the introduction of alien fishes and declining water quality.

And the decline in Murray cod numbers would itself have had far-reaching impacts on river food webs.

The legacy of the commercial fishery is still with us today, as is the sludge still being flushed into our rivers because of gold dredging.

Will the cod ever recover?

Despite widespread stocking campaigns and tight fishing regulations, Murray cod stocks were still “depleted” in the ACT and in South Australia as of 2020, and “undefined” in New South Wales and Queensland due to a lack of data. Only in Victoria were they considered “recovering”.

Across all jurisdictions, stocks are much lower than prior to European colonisation. Recovery of Murray cod stocks to pre-European levels is probably unrealistic and the recovery will be slow. But there is reason to be cautiously optimistic.

Scores of First Nations people, recreational angling and community groups, conservationists, and natural resource scientists and managers have worked hard to understand more about what makes this wonderful species tick. Many have put in place strategies to help ensure the Murray cod and many other native freshwater fish have a future.

There was a public outcry following recent mass fish kills, such as those in the Lower Darling–Baaka in 2018–19 and again in 2023. If this response is anything to go by, people care deeply about our rivers and the fish living in them.

While a commercial fishery in the Murray and its tributaries was probably inevitable following settlement, the Victorian goldrush provided the catalyst for its real beginnings and drove its early development.

The nameless Argus correspondent who started the cod rush would have never dreamt that their descendants would still be living with the consequences 170 years later.

This is an edited extract from The Life and Times of the Murray Cod, CSIRO Publishing, 2023.

Paul Humphries has in the past received funding from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s Native Fish Strategy.

– ref. Hungry gold miners created Victoria’s Murray cod fisheries – and we’re still dealing with the consequences – https://theconversation.com/hungry-gold-miners-created-victorias-murray-cod-fisheries-and-were-still-dealing-with-the-consequences-206768

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

A Victorian state Resolve poll for The Age, conducted with the federal May and June Resolve polls from a sample of about 1,000, gave Labor 41% of the primary vote (down one since April), the Coalition just 26% (down four), the Greens 15% (up five), independents 12% (steady) and others 6% (up one).

Resolve does not give two party estimates until near elections, but The Poll Bludger estimated this would be 62-38 or 63-37 to Labor, a three or four point gain for Labor since April.

The Victorian state November 2022 election result was already bad for the Coalition, when an eight-year-old Labor government was re-elected by a 54.9-45.1 margin. To go backwards by seven or eight points since that election is woeful.

The 11-point primary vote gap is likely to be the narrowest gap between the Coalition and the Greens in any federal or mainland state poll. The 2002 Tasmanian state election had just a 9.2-point gap between the Liberals and the Greens.

Resolve state and federal polls have been the most friendly for Labor since the 2022 federal election. But a Victorian Morgan poll in May gave Labor a 61.5-38.5 lead. It’s likely Liberal infighting, particularly over Moira Deeming, is undermining their appeal as a viable opposition.

There will be a byelection in the Liberal-held seat of Warrandyte later this year after Liberal MP Ryan Smith said he would resign in early July. The Liberals won Warrandyte by a 54.2-45.8 margin over Labor at the last state election. But the current polls imply that Warrandyte is winnable for Labor.

Labor incumbent Daniel Andrews led Liberal leader John Pesutto by 49-26 as preferred premier, a slight widening from 49-28 in April. In questions on the recent state budget, voters supported payroll tax hikes by 40-26, but they were opposed by 39-33 to a land tax increase.

Victoria and NSW to lose federal seats, while WA gains one

ABC election analyst Antony Green said the determination of the number of House of Representatives seats each state or territory is entitled to will be made in late July. On Thursday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the population data this determination will be based on.

At the next federal election, New South Wales will be reduced from 47 to 46 seats and Victoria from 39 to 38, while Western Australia will increase from 15 to 16. Other states and territories will be unchanged, with Queensland on 30 seats, South Australia ten, Tasmania five, the ACT three and the NT two. The total number of House seats will drop from 151 to 150.

We won’t know the political impact of these changes until redistributions of the states with changed seat numbers are at least in draft form. Green said redistributions should be completed by July 2024. If the next election is a normal election for the full House and half the Senate, it will be held between August 2024 and May 2025.

Federal Resolve poll: Labor still has huge lead

I covered the contradictory Voice polls from this week’s Resolve and Essential polls on Tuesday. Voting intentions and other polling are below.

Read more:
Resolve first national poll to have ‘no’ ahead in Voice referendum, but Essential has ‘yes’ far ahead

In the federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted June 6-11 from a sample of 1,606, Labor had 40% of the primary vote (down two since May), the Coalition 30% (steady), the Greens 12% (steady), One Nation 6% (up one), the UAP 2% (steady), independents 8% (steady) and others 2% (steady).

An estimate based on preference flows at the 2022 election gives Labor about a 59-41 two party lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since May. Resolve has been the most pro-Labor pollster.

On Anthony Albanese, 53% said he was doing a good job and 35% a poor job, for a net approval of +18, down nine points. Peter Dutton’s net approval was -20, “similar” to the outcome in May. Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 53-22, a slight narrowing from 53-20.

Labor was thought best on econmic management by 34-31 over the Liberals, a narrowing from 38-29. On keeping the cost of living low, Labor led by 27-23, in from 35-23 in May.

By 56-26, voters thought the Reserve Bank was doing a poor job, instead of a good job, and by 52-17 they thought the government should replace Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe when his term ends in September, rather than extend his appointment.

On real wages, 55% (up four since May) expected their income to stay at the same dollar amount but fall behind inflation this year, 20% (down two) keep pace with inflation, 9% (steady) decrease and 5% (down two) increase above inflation.

Essential poll: Labor leads by 52-42 including undecided

In this week’s Essential poll, conducted June 7-11 from a sample of 1,123, Labor led by 52-42 including undecided (52-43 last fortnight). Primary votes were 32% Labor (down two), 32% Coalition (up one), 16% Greens (up one), 5% One Nation (down one), 1% UAP (down one), 9% for all Others (up two) and 5% undecided (steady).

Labor was trusted over the Coalition to handle six economic issues, with its closest lead a one-point margin on reducing government debt (32-31). On interest rates, 63% thought they would continue to rise, 30% that we have reached the peak but they won’t go down for a while and 7% thought they would start to fall soon.

By 55-15, voters supported a ban on high-risk uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI). On regulation of AI, 48% thought new laws should be created, 40% existing laws should be better enforced and 12% thought it should be left up to the market.

By 79-9 voters thought social classes still exist in Australia. Asked which class they belonged to, 49% said they were middle class, 30% working class and 4% upper class.

Morgan poll: 56-44 to Labor

In Morgan’s weekly federal poll, conducted June 5-11 from a sample of 1,393, Labor led by 56-44, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since the previous week. Primary votes were 35% Labor, 33.5% Coalition, 13% Greens and 18.5% for all Others.

Adrian Beaumont 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. Woeful Victorian poll for state Coalition; Victoria and NSW to lose federal seats as WA gains – https://theconversation.com/woeful-victorian-poll-for-state-coalition-victoria-and-nsw-to-lose-federal-seats-as-wa-gains-207628

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meghan S. Miller, Professor of Geophysics, Australian National University

Aotearoa New Zealand experiences frequent earthquakes, including destructive ones such as those that struck Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, and near Kaikōura in 2018.

In the South Island, the largest seismic hazard is the 600km Alpine Fault, which runs the length of the Southern Alps and defines the boundary between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates.

Painstaking geological research has revealed it produces very large (magnitude 7-8) earthquakes about every 300 years – with the most recent one in 1717. Scientists estimate there’s a 75% chance of a large Alpine Fault earthquake in the next 50 years. The odds of that earthquake being larger than magnitude 8 are 82%.

Despite the unparalleled quality of the paleo-seismic record of past Alpine Fault earthquakes, the next big earthquake will come without warning.

Read more:
Nobody can predict earthquakes, but we can forecast them. Here’s how

In anticipation of that event, geoscientists are working hard to understand how the Alpine Fault is being loaded prior to rupture and how characteristics of the fault may affect the rupture’s propagation and the resulting ground shaking.

One component of this work is to determine the geometry and internal structure of the Alpine Fault at scales much finer than can be studied using conventional seismometers spaced tens of kilometres apart.

Read more:
New Zealand’s Alpine Fault reveals extreme underground heat and fluid pressure

The Haast DAS experiment

A new experiment in Haast, a small, remote community near the coast in South Westland, is using technology called Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). DAS is a rapidly emerging sensing technique that converts telecommunication fibre-optic cables into thousands of densely-spaced ground-motion sensors.

The Haast DAS experiment is a trans-Tasman collaboration between geophysicists from the Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka. It is the first of its kind across a major, active plate boundary fault, providing an unprecedented opportunity to study the internal structure of the Alpine Fault ahead of an anticipated large earthquake.

Read more:
NZ’s next large Alpine Fault quake is likely coming sooner than we thought, study shows

Between late February and early May this year, we made seismological measurements across the Alpine Fault using a computer-controlled laser system known as an interrogator attached to an unused (“dark”) fibre within a telecommunications cable installed by Chorus to provide broadband connectivity across the South Island. The telecommunications cable crosses the Alpine Fault just east of Haast.

Fibre-optic seismology

Pulses of light emitted by the interrogator are scattered as they travel along the fibre and interact with atomic-scale imperfections in the glass. Some of this scattered light travels backward along the fibre to the interrogator.

Vibrations of the fibre caused by passing seismic waves modulate this scattering and can be detected by recording the scattered light pulses.

The interrogator we have been using makes a thousand measurements per second at each of 7250 locations, spaced four metres apart along the Haast Pass Highway. This produces a staggering volume of data: about 1Gb of new data every minute, or 1Tb of data every day.

The vibrations recorded at Haast include signals produced by nearby earthquakes (most of which are too small to be perceptible to humans) and other, larger earthquakes occurring throughout New Zealand and further afield. In mid-May, for example, we recorded several large earthquakes near New Caledonia, the largest of which prompted a Pacific tsunami warning.

The density of DAS measurements across the Alpine Fault provides an entirely new way of studying the fault’s internal structure. Seismic waves arriving in Haast from different directions and vibrating the fibre have interacted with the Alpine Fault in ways that affect the waves themselves.

The DAS recording below shows two small earthquakes (magnitude 2 and 3), occurring south of Haast about 30 seconds apart.

Big data provides detailed information

By vastly increasing the effective number of sensors, DAS provides a new lens with which to study processes as diverse as the structure of glaciers, the expansion and contraction of volcanoes in response to magma movements, the interaction of ocean waves with the deep seafloor and the effects of groundwater extraction on land subsidence.

Read more:
How cables in glaciers could help forecast future sea level rise

A new challenge for the geophysical community is learning how best to store, share, process and analyse large volumes of DAS data. High-performance computing and artificial intelligence techniques (AI) are being developed and adapted to these data to enable researchers to recognise and distinguish signals of different origins.

At Haast, for example, the records of earthquakes of most interest to seismologists are interspersed with noise produced by highway traffic. Being able to separate out these two types of information is a task well suited to AI. In the future, it is likely AI will help tease apart DAS data to detect otherwise unrecognised signals produced by atmospheric and subterranean processes.

DAS holds enormous promise for acquiring real-time, high-resolution measurements of processes using existing telecommunications infrastructure and rapid developments in AI and signal processing.

At Haast, it is providing fundamental new insights into the Alpine Fault ahead of the next big earthquake, informing the scientific analysis that underpins community preparedness and resilience.

Meghan S. Miller receives funding from the Australian Research Council and from AuScope which is part of the Australian National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

John Townend receives funding from the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and Toka Tū Ake EQC.

Voon Hui Lai receives funding from AuScope which is part of the Australian National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

– ref. Seismology at light speed: how fibre-optic telecommunications cables deliver a close-up view of NZ’s Alpine Fault – https://theconversation.com/seismology-at-light-speed-how-fibre-optic-telecommunications-cables-deliver-a-close-up-view-of-nzs-alpine-fault-206858

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bianca Fileborn, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, The University of Melbourne

As someone who has spent the last decade researching sexual harassment and violence in public spaces, the question I’m commonly asked is:

What advice should I give my teenage daughter about what to do when she’s harassed by men in public?

This question is, of course, completely understandable. We all want our loved ones to feel safe when they’re out in public.

Women and LGBTQ+ people experience high levels of harassment in public (though it is always important to remember gender-based violence is most likely to be perpetrated at home by someone you know). So there is a high likelihood this is something you or your loved ones will experience.

Street harassment is often not taken seriously as an issue. Many forms of this behaviour are not against the law, meaning victims have limited options for reporting or seeking support. This can make it challenging to know what to do if you’ve been harassed.

While it’s tempting to focus on what people can do to “stay safe” or respond effectively to harassers, this is ultimately the wrong question to ask.

Shouting back

In my recent research, I undertook in-depth interviews with 46 people about their experiences of harassment in public spaces. Participants often discussed how they responded to harassers. These responses could take many forms.

Some participants described verbally challenging harassers, often by telling them to “fuck off” or shouting back at them.

Physical acts of resistance were also common – including making gestures and pulling faces at a harasser. One participant described “blowing a kiss” at a group of men who had shouted homophobic abuse at him. “Sarah” described fighting back:

He just kept going. So there was a moment where he grabbed my arm […] and then I just gave him a big slap at that moment.

Resistance also involved participants refusing to limit their lives and actions because of street harassment, perhaps by defiantly continuing to walk home at night or holding a partner’s hand in public despite unwelcome comments.

Read more:
‘I started walking the long way’: many young women first experience street harassment in their school uniforms

Reclaiming power

Challenging harassers could be an important strategy for some participants to reclaim a sense of power and disrupt the normalisation of harassment. One participant reflected on how harassers (mostly men):

Feel so comfortable staring you down, that I don’t want to make them feel comfortable doing that. Sometimes I kind of like yell at them or make a gross face at them or give them the finger. Because it’s not innocent and it’s not innocuous.

Being silent or refusing to acknowledge an harassers’ actions was also commonly raised as a form of resistance, as it denied harassers the satisfaction of a response. However, one participant reflected that while silence could be a safer option because “you don’t get into any conflict with anyone”, it also felt “like I’m getting rid of my power”.

Some people find it takes many years to realise harassment is something that can be resisted, because it is often normalised as being “complimentary” or “flirtatious”. As one participant said:

Just having experienced it so many times that I’ve recognised the patterns and that it’s not just, oh this man’s just lonely and needs to talk. It’s like, no that’s predatory behaviour and I can call it out.

Although some participants talked about acts of resistance as moments of “snapping” in anger, these responses could perhaps best be thought of as a slow build up of rage after years of encountering street harassment.

Read more:
Catcalls, homophobia and racism: we studied why people (and especially men) engage in street harassment

Resistance and safety

There was often a delicate balancing act between resistance and maintaining a sense of safety. One older participant reflected on her life experiences of sexist and homophobic harassment, saying that while she tried to show defiance to harassers, she was also making “quick judgements […] because I don’t know if I’m going to be hit or not”.

Resisting harassers involved significant mental, emotional and physical labour, with participants having to make rapid assessments of how safe they felt to respond. Some people described being “worn down” by years of experiencing harassment.

People said they’d often been in shock or felt unable to process what had happened in the moment. It often wasn’t until hours after an incident they thought of the perfect retort. This could feel intensely frustrating.

While it’s tempting to offer people advice on what they “should” do in the moment, the reality is it is not always safe to “shout back”. It is also normal for people who have experienced sexual and other violence to experience automatic “fight, flight, freeze or fawn” responses.

Focusing on how victims should respond reinforces the myth victims are responsible for preventing and managing the violence of others.

What can we do?

So, what can you do if you’re being or have been harassed? The short answer is: do whatever you feel safe and able to do in the moment. There is no “correct” response.

For some people, it’s helpful to talk to a trusted friend or to share experiences through activist platforms like Right to Be (formally Hollaback!). This can help people recognise they are not alone in their experiences and street harassment is a systemic issue interconnected with other forms of gendered violence.

Self-care strategies including deep breathing, “grounding”, exercising or resting can help.

And we need to shift the focus to how we, as a community, can best support people who’ve experienced harassment. This might include upskilling community members to safely intervene as bystanders and to respond appropriately to disclosures. If someone does share their experience of public harassment with you, it is important to express belief and validation – and to ask them what support they need.

We need to collectively challenge the idea street harassment is “normal” or “not a big deal”, ensuring this behaviour is addressed as part of our efforts to prevent gender-based (and other) violence. This places the focus where it belongs: on the actions of harassers and the structural drivers of their behaviour.

Bianca Fileborn was formally a consultant for L’Oreal. They receive funding from the Australian Research Council, the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety, and ACON.

– ref. ‘He just kept going’ – why you might snap back, freeze or ignore street harassment – https://theconversation.com/he-just-kept-going-why-you-might-snap-back-freeze-or-ignore-street-harassment-207129

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bill Dodd, Knowledge Broker, Centre for Safe Air (NHMRC CRE), University of Tasmania

Imagine a fleet of ageing factories operating in neighbourhoods across Australia.

On most days the smoke from their stacks is hardly noticed. But on cold days when the smog settles in the densely populated valleys and towns, doctors notice unusually high numbers of people suffering from a range of problems, especially asthma.

Air-quality researchers are called in to study the problem in more detail. They confirm that neighbourhoods with these old factories have higher concentrations of fine particles, which are toxic air pollutants.

Invisible to the naked eye, particles are inhaled deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream and cause a range of harms throughout the body. This air pollution is linked to higher rates of heart and lung diseases, strokes, dementia and some cancers. It also increases the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes and poorer learning outcomes in children.

The researchers calculate that each year pollution from the factories causes 269 premature deaths in Sydney, 69 in Tasmania and 14 in Armidale, New South Wales.

While the factories are supposed to be built, maintained and operated to certain standards, the regulations are rarely if ever enforced. There isn’t even a central register to tell authorities how many of these factories exist, how old they are, and where they are located.

As news of this research is made public, how would the affected communities react? What might they demand of government?

Would it matter if they knew we were not talking about factories, but wood heaters?

Read more:
Blame wood-burning stoves for winter air pollution and health threats

Heaters produce much of our air pollution

Every sentence of this story is true if you replace the word “factory” with “wood heater”.

Less than 10% of households own a wood heater, but burning wood for heating is the largest source of air pollution in many Australian cities and towns. While vehicle manufacturers and industry have greatly reduced emissions following tightened government regulations, domestic heating technology has not kept pace.

Today you would have to drive a diesel truck 500 kilometres to emit as much air pollution as a wood heater does in a single day. And that figure is for a wood heater that meets the current regulatory standards in Australia. Most do not.

Furthermore, wood heater pollution can be many times more severe when owners leave logs to smoulder overnight, burn poorly seasoned wood, or close down the air intake immediately after loading more wood.

Of course, particulate pollution is not all that wood heaters emit. When firewood is sourced from land clearing and illegal wood hooking, wood heaters add to net carbon dioxide and methane emissions in much the same as burning coal does because the carbon is no longer locked away in forests.

The best estimates are that less than a quarter of firewood is sourced from sustainable plantation suppliers. Even from those sources, the carbon emissions take many years to be sequestered into growing trees.

One study estimated that, if we stopped burning wood and clearing forest for heating, Australia would reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by 8.7 million tonnes. That’s about one-fifth of Australia’s car emissions.

Read more:
‘Like having a truck idling in your living room’: the toxic cost of wood-fired heaters

The benefits of electrification

Inevitably, as Australia moves towards a zero-carbon future, the electrification of domestic heating will bring widespread health and economic benefits. It will prevent hundreds of premature deaths each year.

Hospitals will benefit from a reprieve in the cooler months, enabling doctors and nurses to better cope with seasonal pneumonia and COVID-19 outbreaks. And even those outbreaks will be less severe with reduced air pollution.

Besides being healthier, Australians will enjoy much lower heating costs as a result of using technologies such as reverse-cycle air conditioners (heat pumps). Remarkably, heat pumps are up to 600% efficient. That means, for every unit of energy they consume, they generate up to six units of heating energy.

Read more:
Air pollution can increase the risk of COVID infection and severe disease – a roundup of what we know

Making the switch

As people learn about the impacts of wood heaters on their neighbours, friends and relatives — on pregnant women, young children and the elderly — many will make the switch.

Governments need to ensure safe and affordable heating technology is available to everyone regardless of their income.

Already, governments in the Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania and New Zealand have programs that reimburse households for the cost of replacing their wood heaters.

Buy-back schemes, home efficiency subsidies, regulation and enforcement, including property market regulation (ensuring wood heaters are removed prior to sale), and restrictions on new installations all have a role to play.

We are conducting economic modelling to determine the most cost-effective policy settings for maximising the benefits of policies to manage the problem of wood heaters.

Fire and smoke will remain important experiences for Australians. They can be savoured primarily outside the city, under bright stars, in open deserts and rugged coastlines, in beach shacks and farm cottages, and as part of Indigenous cultural practices.

One day we will look back in amazement that we once tolerated wood heaters in our cities, right next to schools, homes and hospitals. We’ll regard them in much the same way that we think of polluting factories today.

Bin Jalaludin receives funding from the NHMRC and the ARC.

Fay Johnston is a Director of AirHealth Pty Ltd that supports the AirRater and Melbourne Pollen apps and other pollen prediction services. She receives funding from NHMRC and is the lead Investigator of the Centre for Safe Air, a NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence. She also receives funding from Asthma Australia, The Tasmanian, ACT and NT Departments of Health, the National Environment Research Program, and the NHMRC Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) Network.

Bill Dodd 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. Imagine the outcry if factories killed as many people as wood heaters – https://theconversation.com/imagine-the-outcry-if-factories-killed-as-many-people-as-wood-heaters-207411