Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jared Mondschein, Director of Research, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

Congress appears to be on the cusp of passing legislation that would not only avoid an unprecedented US government default – and economic catastrophe – but also provide some much-needed political stability in Washington.

Both Republicans and Democrats are claiming victory in the deal and a loss for the other.

From the Republican point of view, the deal will bring

historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty […] and rein in government overreach.

Key Republican demands included:

• new work requirements for those seeking federal government assistance, meaning more Americans will enter the workforce instead of being paid not to work

• fewer government regulations around infrastructure projects

• a US$20 billion (A$30.5 billion) cut to the Internal Revenue Service budget in 2024

• a cap on non-defence government spending and federal relief of student loans.

From the Democratic point of view, the agreement raises the debt ceiling beyond the 2024 elections, does not cut discretionary spending and contains a fraction of the cuts the Republican-controlled House of Representatives had passed in their earlier proposals.

And on the concessions mentioned previously, Democrats are touting:

• the new work requirements are minimal and will not affect Medicare recipients

• the streamlining of regulations around infrastructure projects is far more limited than what Republicans had initially sought

• the cuts to the IRS budget are a fraction of the recently passed US$80 billion (A$122 billion) budget increase

• government spending was likely to face limits due to appropriation processes anyway, and student loan payments were already due to restart.

Washington maybe isn’t broken

US President Joe Biden campaigned in the 2020 elections as a unifier who prioritised his ability to reach across the aisle and lower the levels of political animosity.

As a result, these are the sorts of political arguments – in which both sides argue over who won – that he is all too glad to have.

In today’s political climate, where polarisation has resulted in decreasing levels of bipartisanship, it can feel like the only thing both sides can agree on is that disagreements are too great to be overcome.

Most US citizens and politicians will agree that Washington is broken and the government does not function as well as it should.

The nature of the debt-ceiling agreement makes clear there is, at least in this instance, bipartisan political leadership in favour of specific legislation instead of endless rhetoric that everything in Washington is broken.

Few, if any, US presidents have assumed office with more political experience than Biden. Having arrived in Washington half a century ago, he is acutely familiar with how to negotiate in a manner that allows both sides to claim victory.

Biden has also remained consistently confident about his ability to do so despite bipartisan pessimism. As much as it pays political dividends to campaign on the idea that Washington is so broken only an outsider can fix it, Biden would argue instead that a president with five decades of experience as a “Washington insider” actually makes government function better, not worse.

Crafting a deficit agreement that allows both Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden to claim victory – in the wake of other bipartisan legislation ranging from infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing to veteran health care – is the sort of proof of results that Biden would say comes from such experience.

Biden made his approach to the budget negotiations clear. The agreement is a compromise, he said, in which “no one got everything they want, but that’s the responsibility of governing”.

The president believes these sorts of compromises help restore trust and optimism about the US government actually being capable of responsible governing.

Read more:
Voters want compromise in Congress — so why the brinkmanship over the debt ceiling?

Why does this matter to the world?

As the world’s largest economy with a debt that is foundational to the global economy, a default would do far more than create chaos in the US$24 trillion Treasury debt market. It would ultimately upend financial markets and create international turmoil.

Indeed, the catastrophic economic consequences of a default would be so widespread that it is difficult to quantify. It would have almost certainly led to a recession.

But aside from the most dire of scenarios, these budget negotiations have had direct implications for the rest of the world – far larger than the mere cancelling of Biden’s planned trip to Australia this month.

As my colleagues recently argued, the last US debt-ceiling negotiations, during the Obama administration in 2011, resulted in the Budget Control Act. This law constrained US defence strategy in the Indo-Pacific to such an extent that US foreign policy has still not entirely recovered.

As the then US secretary of defence, James Mattis, said:

No enemy in the field has done as much to harm the readiness of the US military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act’s defence spending caps.

Read more:
Biden’s cancelled Australia-PNG trip was a missed opportunity – but a US debt crisis would hurt a lot more

What to expect next?

Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously only allowed legislation to be voted on that she knew had the requisite Democratic votes to get passed.

With one of the slimmest possible majorities in the House, McCarthy only won his role as speaker after more than a dozen votes. Few had complete confidence he would ultimately get the job. As a result, McCarthy will rarely – if ever – be able to take a Pelosi-like approach to voting during his speakership.

With the debt-ceiling legislation, McCarthy may again be forced go to the House floor without complete confidence in Republican support. He and centrist Republicans will instead be relying on some centrist Democrats voting in favour of the legislation.

This reality has forced McCarthy to simultaneously tout the proposal to Republicans as exceedingly conservative, but still enough of a compromise to win over some Democrats. Even then, there may once again be symbolic votes against the legislation the first time it is put to the floor in order for some representatives to register a protest with their constituents.

Biden and McCarthy will now need to weather the storm from their respective left and right flanks to secure the agreement’s passage. But they are ultimately hoping this deal will remove one more obstacle to a better-functioning Washington, where political brinkmanship has continued to challenge an otherwise significant resurgence of US strength at home and leadership abroad.

While failure to raise the debt limit would have been unprecedented, a lowering of Washington’s political antagonism increasingly feels unprecedented, too.

Jared Mondschein 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. Can high-stakes debt-ceiling brinkmanship in the US lead to unprecedented political unity? – https://theconversation.com/can-high-stakes-debt-ceiling-brinkmanship-in-the-us-lead-to-unprecedented-political-unity-206586

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

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan has announced he is quitting as premier and leaving parliament.

In a shock announcement, McGowan told a news conference in Perth on Monday he had “loved the role. But the truth is I’m tired, extremely tired – in fact I’m exhausted. The role of political leadership doesn’t stop – it’s relentless.”

The 55-year-old said he was confident WA Labor could win the 2025 state election, but he did not have “the energy or drive” to fight the campaign.

He has been premier since 2017, and was re-elected in 2021 in a stunning victory that almost wiped out the parliamentary WA Liberal party.

McGowan, whose popularity reached stratospheric levels – earlier this year it was at 88% – shot to national prominence during the pandemic when he shut the WA border, avoiding prolonged lockdowns and keeping the state’s economy strong.

His stance on the border was vindicated when the High Court rejected a challenge brought by businessman Clive Palmer, initially supported by the Morrison government.

The pandemic, and McGowan’s handling of it, brought out the historical separatist sentiments among Western Australians.

McGowan’s popularity was a factor in federal Labor picking up several seats at last year’s election, and his departure is an indirect blow for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

McGowan said he had been considering his decision to leave parliament for some time but had needed to bring down the state budget, which had a strong surplus. McGowan is treasurer as well as premier.

He listed the government’s achievements, saying the state has “the strongest economy in Australia” and one of the strongest in the world. He noted the very good deal WA extracted from the Morrison government to get a bigger share of the nation’s goods and services tax.

McGowan said this would be his final week in his role.

He has been in parliament 26 and a half years and has led Labor, in opposition and government, for 11 and a half of those.

McGowan said he wasn’t naturally a combative person but every day he had to engage in confrontation and “I’m tired of it”.

He wanted to be seen as “an achiever”. “I just wanted to leave the state better than I found it, and do good things along the way […] improve the place in the long term.”

McGowan said he did not have any plans for what he would do “but I don’t want to stop work”.

He said he had wanted to give his successor, whoever it is, time to cement themselves in the role.

McGowan served in the navy before going into politics. He originally came from New South Wales but has since become known for his strong affinity for Rockingham, the often-derided city where he lives and which he has represented in parliament since 1996.

Albanese said in a statement: “Mark leaves office as he led, on his own terms and as his own man. He has been a great Premier of his proud state, an extraordinary leader for WA Labor and a trusted friend.

“Above all, Mark will be remembered for seeing the people of Western Australia safely through one of the most challenging crises in our nation’s history. In unprecedented times, Mark always held to his convictions and always sought to do the right thing by his state.”

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. WA Premier Mark McGowan quits in shock announcement, declaring he is ‘exhausted’ – https://theconversation.com/wa-premier-mark-mcgowan-quits-in-shock-announcement-declaring-he-is-exhausted-206611

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dee Ninis, Earthquake Geologist, Monash University

Last night at 11:41pm local time, the greater Melbourne region was shaken by a magnitude 4.0 earthquake – as calculated by the Seismology Research Centre – centred near Sunbury, approximately 30km north of the CBD.

Geoscience Australia have so far received more than 25,000 reports from people who felt this earthquake, some as far as Hobart, which is 620km away from the epicentre.

In the Melbourne region, the earthquake reportedly produced shaking which lasted roughly 10–20 seconds, according to witness reports on social media. It was followed two minutes later by a magnitude 2.8 aftershock, which was reported by some people in the epicentral region between Sunbury and Cragieburn.

Are earthquakes becoming more common in Melbourne?

In September 2021, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake rattled Melbourne, its epicentre being at Woods Point to the east of the city. This earthquake was felt as far away as Brisbane and Adelaide.

Last night’s earthquake follows a magnitude 2.5 earthquake near Ferntree Gully, to the east of Melbourne, two weeks ago on May 16. Another one with a magnitude of 2.0 was felt by about 1,300 people in roughly the same region on May 22, according to Geoscience Australia.

Although this means some Melbournians have experienced two or even three earthquakes in the last two weeks, earthquakes are not becoming more common in Melbourne. It is not unexpected for there to be 10–12 felt earthquakes a year somewhere in the greater Melbourne region – these need not occur at regular intervals.

Earthquakes in Australia occur as a result of stresses at our surrounding tectonic plate boundaries – where different plates collide, grind past one another, or are being forced apart. These stresses make their way towards the middle of the plate, too.

In southeast Australia, the forces at the Pacific-Australian plate boundary to the east of us – the same plate boundary which passes through Aotearoa New Zealand – produce a buildup of strain. This is eventually released in the form of earthquake ruptures at weak zones or “faults” in the crust.

As a result of all this, earthquakes occur in the greater Melbourne region about once a month. Many of these – typically more than three quarters – are too small to be felt.

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

What determines if you feel an earthquake?

Generally speaking, a larger magnitude earthquake is more likely to be felt than those of smaller magnitudes. But other factors play a part, too.

Earthquake depth affects how strong the associated ground shaking is – the shallower the earthquake, the stronger the shaking. Last night’s magnitude 4.0 near Sunbury was a relatively shallow earthquake at just 3km depth. Because shallow earthquakes produce stronger ground-shaking, they’re also more likely to cause damage. Minor damage, such as cracked plaster and fallen pictures, were reported as a result of last night’s earthquake.

Read more:
Why are shallow earthquakes more destructive? The disaster in Java is a devastating example

The closer you are to the earthquake epicentre, the more likely you are to feel it. You’re also more likely to experience an earthquake if you’re stationary, rather than jogging or riding a bike or driving. Some people reportedly slept through last night’s earthquake.

The earthquakes reported as felt by those near the epicentre are mostly ones above a magnitude 2.0–2.5, although smaller events can be felt especially at shallow depths, and in populated areas. If an earthquake happens in a remote region, there are often no people to report having felt it.

Booms and aftershocks

Very small, shallow earthquakes sometimes do not produce any shaking closest to the epicentre, but instead produce a sound akin to an explosion – a short, sharp, loud “boom”. This occurs when the seismic waves reach the surface and transform into sound waves.

This is different to the rumbling sound which is more commonly heard, and is often described as a train approaching. It’s the result of the shaking of the built environment as the seismic wave passes through.

In addition to the magnitude 2.8 aftershock from last night’s earthquake, there have been additional aftershocks less than magnitude 1.0. These are still being examined by seismologists. There may still be aftershocks large enough to be felt in the coming days, weeks, and months, though the likelihood of these diminishes with time.

Occasionally, a larger earthquake may occur, in which case the magnitude 4.0 will be considered a foreshock.

Read more:
The earthquake that rattled Melbourne was among Australia’s biggest in half a century, but rock records reveal far mightier ones

Dee Ninis works for the Seismology Research Centre. She is affiliated with the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University, and is Vice President of the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society.

– ref. Melbourne earthquake 2023: are they becoming more common? A seismology expert explains – https://theconversation.com/melbourne-earthquake-2023-are-they-becoming-more-common-a-seismology-expert-explains-206589

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Fuller, Charles Perkins Centre Research Program Leader, University of Sydney

When people decide it’s time to lose weight, they’re usually keen to see quick results. Maybe they have an event coming up or want relief from health problems and discomfort.

But expert guidelines typically recommend slower weight loss for the treatment of obesity. This tallies with a a widely held opinion that fast weight loss is more quickly regained. Slow weight loss is generally perceived as better for your health and more sustainable. Many programs offering “the fastest way to lose weight” are considered fad diets that severely restrict calories or eliminate some foods.

But does slow and steady really win the weight-loss race? Or is fast weight loss just as effective and safe?

Read more:
Is menopause making me put on weight? No, but it’s complicated

What’s the difference between slow and fast weight loss?

Governing bodies typically recommend a weight loss of 0.5 to 1 kilogram each week, which would be defined as slow weight loss.

So fast weight loss – also termed “rapid weight loss” – is losing more than 1 kilo a week over several weeks.

What does the research say about fast weight loss?

There are several well-conducted studies examining differing approaches.

One study of 200 people randomly assigned them to fast or slow weight loss – 12 weeks versus 36 weeks – aimed at a 15% reduction in weight.

The fast weight loss group was put on a very low energy diet using meal replacements, including shakes, bars and soups, three times per day. The slow weight loss group was advised on the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating with the goal to eat 500 calories less than they used for energy (creating a calorie deficit) each day. They also used one to two meal replacements daily.

Some 50% of the slow weight loss group and 81% of the fast weight loss group achieved 12.5% or more weight loss during this time.

After this initial phase, those who had lost 12.5% or more were then placed on a weight maintenance diet for approximately 2.75 years.

By the three-year mark, 76% of those in the slow weight loss and the same percentage of those in the fast weight loss group had regained their lost weight.

So, it didn’t matter if they had lost it slow or fast, they still regained the weight.

However, another study on 101 postmenopausal women found fast weight loss resulted in better outcomes than a slow weight loss group at the three-year mark.

But there are other factors to consider, aside from weight loss, when it comes to the differing ways of losing weight – such as changes in body composition and bone mineral density.

This is best highlighted by a large meta-analysis. These type of studies combine the results of all previous well-conducted studies on the topic.

While this analysis found the magnitude of weight loss was similar for both approaches, slow weight loss resulted in better outcomes than fast weight loss with respect to metabolism or how many calories we burn at rest.

There were no differences in the amount of fat-free mass or muscle mass lost between the slow and fast weight loss groups. But slow weight loss resulted in greater reductions in fat mass and therefore a better fat-to-muscle ratio.

Slow weight loss also seems better for bone density, because rapid weight loss results in a twice as much bone loss and puts a person at increased risk of brittle bones or osteoporosis.

What about other diet approaches?

Research shows it doesn’t matter what type of macronutrient diet you follow – moderate or high-protein diet, low or high-carbodyrate diet, low or high-fat diet. All diet approaches achieve similar weight loss outcomes.

The same can be said for fashionable ways of cutting calories from the diet, such as intermittent fasting. Research has shown such diets don’t result in any better weight loss results than any of its predecessors. This is because our body is extremely good at protecting against weight loss.

When you want to lose weight consider …

Your metabolism
When you lose large amounts of weight, you resting metabolic rate – the energy you burn at rest – will lower. Keeping your resting metabolic rate high is essential for keeping the weight off. Unfortunately, once it slows down, your resting metabolic rate doesn’t recover to the level it was pre-dieting even after you regain weight.

However, research has confirmed slow weight loss preserves your resting metabolic rate compared with rapid weight loss. As does a weight loss program that includes exercise rather than one that focuses on diet alone.

Side effects
While restrictive diets can achieve rapid results, studies suggest they can come with adverse effects. This includes a higher risk of gallstones and deficiencies that can result in poor immune function, fatigue and a decrease in bone density. Such restrictive diets can make it challenging to meet your nutritional needs.

Sustainability
Many fast weight loss diets restrict or exclude foods required for long-term health. Carbohydrates are often banned, yet wholegrain carbohydrates are an essential source of nutrition, helping with weight loss and prevention of disease. Including meal replacements as part of a restrictive diet is also not sustainable for long.

Read more:
Does exercise help you lose weight?

The bottom line?

Regardless of how you lose the weight, it’s very difficult to maintain losses. Our bodies work to keep our weight around a set point by adjusting our biological systems and imposing a series of physiological changes within the body to ensure we regain weight we lose. This stems from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, whose bodies developed this survival response to adapt to periods of deprivation when food was scarce.

Successful long-term weight loss comes down to:

1. following evidence-based programs based on what we know about the science of obesity

2. losing weight under the supervision of qualified health-care professionals

3. making gradual changes to your lifestyle – diet, exercise and sleep – to ensure you form health habits that last a lifetime.

At the Boden Group, Charles Perkins Centre, we are studying the science of obesity and running clinical trials for weight loss. You can register for free here to express your interest.

Dr Nick Fuller works for the University of Sydney and has received external funding for projects relating to the treatment of overweight and obesity. He is the author and founder of the Interval Weight Loss program.

– ref. Is it true the faster you lose weight the quicker it comes back? Here’s what we know about slow and fast weight loss – https://theconversation.com/is-it-true-the-faster-you-lose-weight-the-quicker-it-comes-back-heres-what-we-know-about-slow-and-fast-weight-loss-198301

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Speck, Emerita Professor, Art History and Curatorship, University of Adelaide

Milton Moon (1926-2019) was not your regular potter. He was deeply imbued with Zen Buddhism and once said each vessel is a container for thoughts, “a fundamental expression of life’s forces”.

His work produced over six decades is on show in a new exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia that calls for close looking.

He took to his craft in his early 30s from the base of a successful career in ABC radio.

Once his hands were working with clay, he never looked back.

On show are some of his earliest ceramics, made and exhibited in 1959 when living in Brisbane. His influences were artists living or showing in Brisbane then, including David Boyd, son of Merric Boyd, and Hermia Boyd whose studio ceramics were on show in July 1959 at the progressive Johnstone Gallery.

Studio ceramics – with its hallmark folk tradition, figurative form and applied decoration – appears briefly in some early Moon work such as his Sculptural vase, 1960. Owl-like, the eyes at the top look down on viewers, while the decorative markings double as plumage and drawing on clay.

More elemental even, but in the same style, is his Antipodean head, 1962, whose rough torso looks hewn from a rock-face.

The art of Zen

While the earthy nature of some of Moon’s pots are in response to the Australian landscape, he had a deep interest in matters philosophical, formally studying philosophy in the mid-1960s. This was greatly extended by a year in Japan in 1974.

It wrought changes to Moon himself. He studied meditation in the Zen style with Kobori Nanrei Sōhaku, Abbot of the Rinzai sect, whose teachings influenced his life course, and his ceramics.

As Moon said, “no one ever leaves Japan unaltered”. In his 2006 book The Zen Master, the Potter and the Poet, he explores this journey.

On display are a series of ceramic landscape platters that point to those deep changes such as Plate with blossom pattern, 1978. Its abstract marks meld an Australian landscape base with finely drawn blossom, while the calligraphic gestures on his Dish, 1982, point to a deep infusion of a Zen way of thinking and making.

Read more:
Friday essay: how the West discovered the Buddha

A painterly potter

Moon was a painterly potter. He saw little difference between painting on a canvas and painting with glazes on the surface of a pot, and two of his abstract paintings, mark making on canvas, are in the exhibition.

Moon’s delicate, refined Fairweather pot, 1966, made in homage to his friend Ian Fairweather, is very much a painted pot. Its calligraphic lines, inspired by the artist’s paintings, sweep around and down the rounded pot with grace and beauty.

Moon, though, observed at the time “it is difficult to achieve the fragility and impermanence Fairweather gives his paintings”.

Some ceramic pieces are functional. Others, like the early 1970s Folded pot, have their functionality denied.

The allure lies in the harmony of the shape, the gradation of glazes, and its changing texture governed by a sense of restraint: not too much, not too little.

Read more:
A new study of artist Ian Fairweather considers how Chinese ideas influenced this wanderer and adventurer

‘Let nature take its course’

Moon was fascinated by the geological nature of clay itself.

What stands out is the texture of much of the work on show such as his Platter, 1962-64, which Moon achieved by the quality of the clay he used, his mode of firing the pots and his innovative application of glazes. The word “experimentation” comes to mind.

In the accompanying catalogue, his son Damon (also a master potter), talks about the technical aspects of his father’s work and how he applied glazes to clay like an artist – drawing or painting onto the surface with a brush, a stick or his fingers, scratching back layers of oxides and adding wood ash to achieve the colours and textures of the landscape he was after.

The quirks in the firing process were yet another element in Milton Moon’s experimentation, Damon observing:

in this funny business of mud and water and fire, he was willing to let nature take its course. I think he liked that aspect of ceramics.

Hybrid space

While the curatorial intent in Crafting Modernism is to contextualise Milton Moon’s ceramics in the broader narrative of Australian art, his location in that narrative is more complex.

This stands out when looking at his impressively large floor pots such as his Yourambulla landscape pot, 1990, standing close on a metre high with its earthy tones, and inscribed, scratched-in lines to convey the dense scrubby nature of the bush.

Over and above the obvious references to the landscape is an underlying sense of the calligraphic gestures to evoke the bush.

In this and many other works he dances between two worlds and two cultures, crafting a hybrid space. That is what is so alluring about his work.

Moon was a prolific potter. He spoke through his ceramics, once writing making marks on the surfaces of pots “are my words”; they are a “whispered secret”.

The beauty of the exhibition curated by Rebecca Evans is its distilling of his output over 60 years to a coherent and poetic display. Its framing in a white space, in a top-lit gallery with natural light augmented by artificial light, makes the works sing.

A Zen-Buddhist vision lives on in works of great beauty.

Milton Moon: Crafting Modernism is on display at the Art Gallery of South Australia until August 6.

Read more:
How Japanese avant-garde ceramicists have tested the limits of clay

Catherine Speck has, with Joanna Mendelssohn, Catherine De Lorenzo and Alison Inglis, received funding from the ARC to investigate exhibitions of Australian art.

– ref. Milton Moon: the Australian artist who brought a Zen Buddhist, modernist and painterly sensibility to pottery – https://theconversation.com/milton-moon-the-australian-artist-who-brought-a-zen-buddhist-modernist-and-painterly-sensibility-to-pottery-205480

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University

When the National Party’s transport spokesperson, Simeon Brown, questioned the logic of bilingual traffic signs, he seemed to echo his leader Christopher Luxon’s earlier misgivings about the now prevalent use of te reo Māori in government departments.

Genuine concern or political signalling in an election year? After all, Luxon himself has expressed interest in learning te reo, and also encouraged its use when he was CEO of Air New Zealand. He even
sought to trademark “Kia Ora” as the title of the airline’s in-flight magazine.

And for his part, Brown has no problem with Māori place names on road signs. His concern is that important messaging about safety or directions should be readily understood. “Signs need to be clear,” he said. “We all speak English, and they should be in English.” Adding more words, he believes, is simply confusing.

It’s important to take Brown at his word, then, with a new selection of proposed bilingual signs now out for public consultation. Given the National Party’s enthusiastic embrace of AI to generate pre-election advertising imagery, one obvious place to start is with ChatGPT, which tells us:

Bilingual traffic signs, which display information in two or more languages, are generally not considered a driver hazard. In fact, bilingual signage is often implemented to improve safety and ensure that drivers of different language backgrounds can understand and follow the traffic regulations.

ChatGPT also suggests that by providing information about speed limits, directions and warnings, bilingual traffic signs “accommodate diverse communities and promote road safety for all drivers”.

Safety and culture

With mounting concern over AI’s potential existential threat to human survival, however, it’s probably best we don’t take the bot’s word for it. Fortunately, government transport agency Waka Kotahi has already examined the use of bilingual traffic signs in 19 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It’s 2021 report states:

The use of bilingual traffic signage is common around the world and considered “standard” in the European Union. Culture, safety and commerce appear to be the primary impetuses behind bilingual signage.

Read more:
Bilingual road signs in Aotearoa New Zealand would tell us where we are as a nation

Given Brown’s explicit preference for the use of English, it’s instructive that in the UK itself, the Welsh, Ulster Scots and Scots Gaelic languages appear alongside English on road signs in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

More to the point, on the basis of the evidence it reviewed, Waka Kotahi concluded that – providing other important design considerations are attended to – bilingual traffic signs can both improve safety and respond to cultural aspirations:

In regions of Aotearoa New Zealand where people of Māori descent are over-represented in vehicle crash statistics, or where they represent a large proportion of the local population, bilingual traffic signage may impart benefits in terms of reducing harm on our road network.

‘One people’

Politically, however, the problem with a debate over bilingual road signs is that it quickly becomes another skirmish in the culture wars – echoing the common catchcry of those opposed to greater biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: “we are one people”.

It’s a loaded phrase, originally attributed to the Crown’s representative Lieutenant Governor William Hobson, who supposedly said “he iwi tahi tātou” (we are one people) at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

Read more:
‘You can’t speak what you can’t hear’ – how Māori and Pacific sports stars are helping revitalise vulnerable languages

Whether or not he said any such thing is up for debate. William Colenso, who was at Waitangi on the day and who reported Hobson’s words, thought he had. But Colenso’s account was published 50 years after the events in question (and just nine years before he died aged 89).

Either way, the assertion has since come to be favoured by those to whom the notion of cultural homogeneity appeals. It’s a common response to the increasing public visibility of te ao Māori (the Māori world).

But being “one people” means other things become singular too: one law, one science, one language, one system. In other words, a non-Māori system, the one many of us take for granted as simply the way things are.

Any suggestion that system might incorporate or coexist with aspects of other systems – indeed might benefit from them – tends to come up against the kind of resistance we see to such things as bilingual road signs.

Read more:
Putting Aotearoa on the map: New Zealand has changed its name before, why not again?

Fretful sleepers

The discomfort many New Zealanders still feel with the use of te reo Māori in public settings brings to mind Bill Pearson’s famous 1952 essay, Fretful Sleepers.

In it, Pearson reflects on the anxiety that can seep unbidden into the lives of those who would like to live in a “wishfully untroubled world”, but who nonetheless sense things are not quite right out here on the margins of the globe.

Pearson lived in a very different New Zealand. But he had his finger on the same fear and defensiveness that can cause people to fret about the little things (like bilingual signs) when there are so many more consequential things to disrupt our sleep.

Anyway, Simeon Brown and his fellow fretful sleepers appear to be on the wrong side of history. Evidence suggests most New Zealanders would like to see more te reo Māori in their lives, not less. Two-thirds would like te reo taught as a core subject in primary schools, and 56% think “signage should be in both te reo Māori and English”.

If the experience in other parts of the world is anything to go by, bilingual signage will be just another milestone on the road a majority seem happy to be on.

Richard Shaw 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. Slow down Simeon Brown – bilingual traffic signs aren’t an accident waiting to happen – https://theconversation.com/slow-down-simeon-brown-bilingual-traffic-signs-arent-an-accident-waiting-to-happen-206579

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University

Recep Tayyib Erdogan will remain president of Turkey for another five years after winning Sunday’s run-off election over his long-time rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. If he serves the full five-year term, he will have held power for 26 years – almost the entire history of Turkey in the 21st century.

What is astonishing is how the majority of Turkish people elected Erdogan despite a worsening economy and now chronic hyperinflation that would likely bring down any government in a democratic country.

So, how did Erdogan win the election and, more significantly, what is likely to happen in the country in the foreseeable future?

Read more:
How Erdoğan framed his science and tech ‘great achievements’ as part of election campaign

Free but far from fair

The election was free in that political parties could put forth nominees on their own and carry out campaigns. Parties also had the right to have representatives in every polling station to ensure the votes were counted correctly. And voters were free to vote.

However, the election was far from fair.

First, a potential leading rival in the race, Ekrem Imamoglu, was sentenced in December to more than two years in prison on a charge of “insulting public figures”.

Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, dealt Erdogan’s party a rare defeat in the 2019 Istanbul elections. Polls had shown he could win against Erdogan in the presidential election by a comfortable margin.

Some argue the court ruling was politically motivated. With Imamoglu out of the picture, the opposition had to coalesce behind Kilicdaroglu, the weakest of all possible high-profile candidates.

Erdogan also has an almost ubiquitous grip over the Turkish media, engineered through Fahrettin Altun, the head of media and communication at the presidential palace.

Turkish media are either directly owned by Erdogan’s relatives, such as the popular Sabah newspaper managed by Sedat Albayrak, or controlled through managing editors appointed and monitored by Altun. Some independent internet news sites such as T24 practice self-censorship in order to remain operational.

With this massive media control, Erdogan and his men ensured he had the most television airtime. Erdogan was depicted in the media as a world leader advancing Turkey by building airports, roads and bridges. He was put in front of dozens of journalists on TV, but all the questions were prepared in advance and Erdogan read his answers through a prompter.

Altun also orchestrated a massive smear campaign against Kilicdaroglu. The opposition leader received minimal airtime, and when he was in the media, he was depicted as an inept leader unfit to rule the country.

Altun not only controlled the conventional TV channels and print media, but also social media. On Twitter, a very influential platform in Turkey, Altun used bots and an army of paid trolls and influencers to seek to control the dialogue.

And it worked. Sufficient number of voters were swayed through confusion and fear that the country would be far worse if Kilicdaroglu was elected.

Lastly, there was the potential for fraud due to the non-transparent way the election results are processed. Once each ballot box is counted, the ballot and result sheet are transported by police in cities and the military in regional areas to the electoral commission. Both the police and military are under Erdogan’s tight control.

The results are then reported only through the state-owned Anadolu Agency, while in the past they were reported by multiple independent agencies.

Even if no evidence of fraud emerges in this election, the spectre could put in doubt the integrity of the entire electoral process.

Staunch support from religious voters

There are two other factors that were decisive in the elections.

The first is the support Erdogan received from Sinan Ogan, who was third in the first round of the presidential election two weeks ago, with 5.2% of the votes. Erdogan persuaded Ogan to throw his support to him.

The second and most important factor was the way Erdogan was viewed in an almost mythical fashion by conservative and religious voters. For them, Erdogan is a religious hero and saviour.

The religious population in Turkey has long suffered persecution in the name of secularism. For them, Kilicdaroglu and his Republican People’s Party symbolised that persecution. Although Kilicdaroglu abandoned the party’s previous strict secular policies, these voters never forgave it for preventing Muslim women from wearing the head scarf in educational and state institutions and keeping religion out of public life and politics for decades.

The conservative and religious right in Turkey sees Erdogan as a world leader and a hero who struggled against ill-intentioned forces, both internally and externally, to make Turkey great again.

What is likely to happen in Turkey post-election?

Turkey desperately needed a change of government and a breath of fresh air. Now the social, political and economic suffocation is likely to get worse.

Erdogan had promised a Turkish revival by 2023, which is the 100th anniversary of the republic’s founding. Turkey was supposed to enter the top 10 economies in the world by then. However, Turkey barely sits in the top 20, at 19th.

The economy has experienced a significant downturn in the past three years. The Turkish lira has plummeted in value, leading to a dollar-based economy.

But dollars are hard to come by. The Turkish Central Bank kept the economy afloat by emptying its reserves in the last few months for the elections. The Central Bank has been running a current account deficit of US$8-10 billion dollars every month, and its reserves last week fell into the negative for the first time since 2002.

Now Erdogan has to find money. He will resort to high interest foreign loans and embark on a diplomatic spree of the oil-rich Muslim countries to draw some of their funds to Turkey. The uncertainty around how successful these endeavours will be and their likely short-term gain may throw the Turkish economy into recession.

For the people of Turkey, this could mean massive unemployment and a reduced cost of living. The inflation rate had reached a 24-year high of 85.5% last year, and may go even higher, as the cash-strapped government continues to print digital money to pay for its large bureaucratic workforce.

On foreign policy, Erdogan will continue to try to become a regional power independent of NATO, the European Union and the US. He will likely continue to strengthen Turkey’s ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has been a worry for Turkey’s Western allies.

What does the future hold?

This will be Erdogan’s absolute last term in office, according to the Turkish constitution, and it could possibly be cut short.

The 69-year-old president has many health problems. He is becoming increasingly physically frail, finding it hard to walk, and his speech often slurs. In coming years, his health may get worse and he may have to hand over his presidency to a trusted deputy.

The other possibility is that potential leaders in his party could decide to carry out a party coup to topple Erdogan before his term is up, so they can garner public support ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

While there may be some political stability in post-election Turkey for now, the country will be in economic, social and political turmoil for the foreseeable future.

Read more:
Turkey’s Erdoğan took a page from US presidents and boosted reelection campaign by claiming to have killed a terrorist

Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy Limited.

– ref. Free but unfair election: how Erdogan held onto power in Turkey, and what this means for the country’s future – https://theconversation.com/free-but-unfair-election-how-erdogan-held-onto-power-in-turkey-and-what-this-means-for-the-countrys-future-206293

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacquie Rand, Emeritus Professor of Companion Animal Health, The University of Queensland

Stray cats are a longstanding problem in Australian towns and cities. Common complaints about roaming cats include nuisance (fighting and urinating), disease risks to humans and other animals, and predation of native wildlife. The huge numbers of cats and kittens taken in by animal shelters and council pounds are a challenge to manage, leading to an estimated 50,000 being killed each year – most of them young and healthy.

Our newly published research reveals Australian council pounds, rescue groups and animal welfare shelters took in 179,615 cats and kittens in 2018-2019. Of these animals, 5% were reclaimed by owners, 65% rehomed and 28% killed.

Council-operated pounds killed 46% of all cats and kittens admitted. Shelters killed 25%. One in four council pounds in New South Wales and Victoria killed a staggering 67-100%.

Despite the scale of this killing, Australia’s stray cat numbers are not decreasing. The evidence shows an urgent need for proactive community cat programs offering free desexing of cats in targeted problem areas.

Killing so many cats is bad for people too

High cat-killing rates also have a significant human cost. Many council, shelter and veterinary staff suffer devastating psychological impacts when required to kill large numbers of healthy cats and kittens, often repeatedly. These impacts include trauma, depression, substance abuse and increased suicide risk.

Members of the public can also be traumatised when the stray cats they are feeding are trapped and killed.

Current approaches are failing

To make matters worse, trapping and killing stray cats and kittens is costly and has not worked. This reactive approach has not reduced the stray cat population over the decades it has been applied. Therefore, the potential nuisance, disease risks and native wildlife predation have not been reduced.

Our research shows cat intakes actually increased at municipal pounds in NSW from 2016-17 to 2018-19 (pre-COVID data are most accurate). Attempts to adopt and kill our way out of the stray cat problem have failed.

Read more:
Cats that are allowed to roam can spread diseases to humans and wildlife

Australian councils are increasingly adopting mandatory cat containment (curfews). It seems like a logical solution, but based on the evidence it is not effective. It doesn’t reduce stray cat numbers in the short or long term, as shown by the experience of councils such as Casey and Yarra Ranges in Victoria.

RSPCA Australia acknowledges:

Overall, councils with cat containment regulations have not been able to demonstrate any measurable reduction in cat complaints or cats wandering at large.

In contrast, Hume, Hobsons Bay and Merri-bek councils in Victoria have rejected mandatory containment. Their decisions cited reasons such as it is ineffective and unenforceable because most stray cats don’t have an owner to contain them.

Cats may be owned, semi-owned (people feed them intentionally) or (uncommonly) unowned. In the latter case they get food unintentionally provided by people, such as from bins.

Even for owned cats, containment is sometimes not achievable due to factors such as housing limitations, cost – containment systems typically cost $700-$2,000 – and concerns about the welfare of confined cats. Mandatory containment creates a barrier to semi-owners adopting the stray cat they are feeding and also potentially criminalises cat ownership for disadvantaged families, particularly those in rental properties.

Containment to their owners’ properties should be strongly encouraged where cats’ physical and mental needs can be met. But mandatory containment should be rejected. It will not protect native wildlife, the commonly cited justification, because it does not measurably reduce the number of free-roaming cats.

Read more:
Research reveals why pet owners keep their cats indoors – and it’s not to protect wildlife

Stray cats are not feral cats

Based on RSPCA and government definitions, stray cats in urban and urban fringe areas are all domestic cats.

They are not feral cats. Feral cats live and breed in the wild, not in cities or towns or near people, are not the subject of nuisance complaints and are not admitted to shelters or pounds. Stray cats are sometimes mislabelled as feral cats, which prevents effective solutions to the stray cat problem.

Stray cats account for 80-100% of admissions to council pounds and 60-80% to animal welfare agencies. The rest are mostly cats given up by their owners.

Most stray cats entering pounds and shelters are from poorer areas and are likely semi-owned cats. The people who feed them do not see themselves as owners of the stray cat but have an emotional bond with the cat.

Read more:
Why do our dogs and cats bring us dead animals?

So what’s the long-term solution?

Assisting semi-owners and owners in disadvantaged areas to desex their cats is the best long-term solution to the stray cat problem. The Community Cat Program is an evidence-based approach that supports cat owners and semi-owners with free desexing and microchipping of the cats they are caring for. These efforts should be focused on areas of high cat intakes and complaints.

Proactive community cat programs are scientifically proven to reduce the number of stray cats and unwanted kittens in targeted areas. They thereby reduce nuisance complaints, cat intake and killing, trauma to people, costs, disease risks and wildlife predation.

Banyule in Victoria set up a free program to desex, microchip and register owned and semi-owned cats, with a focus on suburbs with high cat-related calls. In just three years, the council reduced impoundments by 61% and numbers killed by 74%. In contrast, after Yarra Ranges Council implemented mandatory containment in 2017, there was a 68% increase in impoundments in the third year.

The 2022 NSW Rehoming Practices Review recommended community cat programs, consistent with a “One Welfare” approach. The aim is to optimise and balance the wellbeing of people, animals and their social and physical environment. Earlier this year, the NSW government announced $8.3 million in funding for community cat programs and facilities.

At least 50% of cats entering pounds and shelters are kittens less than six months old. These figures highlight why community cat programs are urgently needed across Australia to protect cats, native wildlife and people.

Diana Chua, a veterinarian and masters student at The University of Queensland, is lead author of the research paper on the numbers of cats being taken in by Australian pounds and shelters, and contributed to this article. Jade Norris, a veterinarian working at the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation and a masters student at The University of Queensland, and Andrea Hayward PhD, a volunteer researcher with the APWF examining social issues associated with cat management following a background in clinical genetic counselling, reproductive medicine and genetic paternity testing, also contributed to this article. Jacquie Rand is a registered specialist veterinarian in small animal internal medicine and Emeritus Professor of Companion Animal Health at the University of Queensland. She is also the Executive Director and Chief Scientist of the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation, which provides a consultancy service on urban cat management to local governments. APWF receives funding from the Queensland Government Gambling Community Benefit Fund and from many state, national and international granting bodies, not-for-profits and donors. She is affiliated with the Australian Veterinary Association, Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists, American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and the Society of Comparative Endocrinology.

John Morton is affiliated with the Australian Veterinary Association and the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists. Dr Morton provides an epidemiological consulting service through Jemora Pty Ltd.

– ref. Australian shelters and pounds kill 50,000 mostly healthy cats and kittens in a year. There’s a way to prevent this pointless killing – https://theconversation.com/australian-shelters-and-pounds-kill-50-000-mostly-healthy-cats-and-kittens-in-a-year-theres-a-way-to-prevent-this-pointless-killing-201947

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Falconer, Lecturer, T.C. Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland

Australia’s housing crisis is no secret. What many people don’t realise is that there’s another, less visible housing crisis. Australia’s urban cemeteries are running out of space to house the dead.

In Sydney, for example, a 2020 report found all of the city’s existing public cemeteries would be full by 2032. This will leave the communities they serve without a place to bury their dead.

We know how to solve this crisis. A few key changes can make Australia’s cemeteries more sustainable and viable for generations to come.

But these changes require political will to act. That’s because the solutions involve changes to the state-based laws that govern cemeteries. We can start with Victoria’s Cemeteries and Crematoria Regulations 2015, which must be updated by 2025.

Read more:
Housing the dead: what happens when a city runs out of space?

Make renewable grave tenure the default option

Most Australians assume graves last forever. This system of perpetual tenure is mandatory in Victoria and the ACT. It’s the (near-universal) default in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania.

But this system makes our burial space a “single use” resource. Overseas, perpetual tenure is the exception rather than the rule. Almost all European and East Asian countries have limited tenure for burial, or actively encourage cremation.

Where grave renewal occurs in Australia, it happens a long time after burial, typically between 25 and 99 years. By this time, the physical remains of the grave’s previous occupant have significantly degraded. Any remnants are preserved in an ossuary or dug deeper into the soil.

Cemeteries in South Australia and Western Australia already have renewable grave tenure. Families have an option to extend tenure, should they wish to do so.

By making renewable tenure the default option across Australia, cemeteries will greatly increase future capacity. If all of Sydney’s public cemeteries adopted a 35-year renewable tenure system, for example, it has been estimated the city’s burial needs over the next 99 years would require 38% less land.

Read more:
Losing the plot: death is permanent, but your grave isn’t

Create dedicated natural burial grounds

One simple, more environmentally friendly option is “natural burial”. Natural burial eschews embalming, caskets made from hardwood or metal, and monumental headstones. Instead, the body is buried in biodegradable materials, such as wicker or cardboard.

Green burial grounds are popular in the United Kingdom and Europe. They require less irrigation and maintenance. They also offer a way to conserve natural woodlands and so help foster biodiversity.

Some Australian cemeteries offer natural burial as an option next to traditional grave plots. There are, however, few dedicated natural burial grounds. Legislating natural burial grounds as distinct entities will allow specific regulations that give priority to regular grave renewal and positive environmental impact.

Natural burial grounds may also make “better neighbours” than traditional cemeteries if communities are going to be asked to live alongside new cemeteries. Overcoming resistance to new cemetery developments is essential to secure future burial capacity.

Read more:
Buried beneath the trees: a plan to solve our shortage of cemetery space

Legalise alternative disposal methods

We are all familiar with burial and cremation. But what about dissolving bodies in an alkaline solution – known as “water cremation” or “alkaline hydrolysis” – or transforming them into compost (“natural organic reduction”)?

These options have robust environmental credentials. They require less space than burial, as they produce portable remains in the form of ashes or soil. Several US states now permit these options.

In most of Australia, these options exist in a legal grey area. In Victoria, authorisation must be sought from the Department of Health to dispose of a body other than by burial or cremation. Queensland has no comprehensive cemeteries legislation, and thus no guidance on the legality of these alternatives.

New South Wales legalised water cremation (but not natural organic reduction) in 2011. The state now has two such facilities.

Other states and territories should follow NSW in explicitly legalising viable alternative disposal methods. This will ease pressure on cemeteries and provide greater choice to families.

Read more:
Ashes to ashes, dust to … compost? An eco-friendly burial in just 4 weeks

Invest in cemeteries as multi-use green spaces

Current regulatory frameworks emphasise the cemetery as a space of sombre reflection and remembrance. Victoria, for example, prohibits a wide range of activities, including dancing, fishing and sport.

However, as green space becomes scarce in Australia’s major cities, public opinion and current practices are falling out of alignment with such regulations. In a recent national survey, two-thirds of respondents disagreed with the sentiment that cemeteries were solely spaces for memorialisation. They supported the use of cemeteries as public green space.

Read more:
Visions of future cemeteries: 5 models and how Australians feel about them

Historic cemeteries, where new burials and visits are rare, offer even greater potential as multi-use public space. In cities overseas, jogging, walking the dog and picnics are common in these cemeteries.

Australia is yet to feel the full effects of the impending crisis of cemetery space. While big changes are needed to avert this crisis, at least the path forward is clear.

Hannah Gould has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council, through the Discovery Projects and the Linkage Projects schemes, with Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust as Linkage Project research partner.

Kate Falconer 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. Our cemeteries face a housing crisis too. 4 changes can make burial sustainable – https://theconversation.com/our-cemeteries-face-a-housing-crisis-too-4-changes-can-make-burial-sustainable-205987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University

As Australia heads towards the fourth winter of the pandemic, we have once again started seeing an increase in the level of COVID circulating. With this comes an increased risk of infection and serious illness.

Elderly people living in aged care are one of the groups facing the greatest risk.

But the latest figures from the federal health department show that to May 24 just over 40% (42.9%) of aged care residents estimated eligible for a booster vaccination have had their latest shot and are fully vaccinated.

If we also take into account immunity gained through recent infection in the past six months, just over half (50.4%) of aged care residents are estimated to have adequate levels of immunity.

Although numbers have increased considerably in the past few weeks, this is plainly far from ideal.

It’s been heartbreaking

Earlier in the pandemic, I was briefly part of the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre, set up to coordinate the response to the COVID surge in residential facilities. I was part of the team that collected, collated and interpreted COVID data used to inform the public health response.

What we witnessed in aged care then, and since, has been nothing short of heartbreaking.

Our inability to adequately protect aged care residents in the early part of the pandemic was undoubtedly one of our biggest pandemic failures.

I saw firsthand that this was not due to a lack of effort. The reality was there were just too many factors thwarting our ability to bring outbreaks under control in this uniquely challenging setting.

Since then, aged care residents have continued to die from COVID during the Omicron era. Since January 2022 COVID has accounted for about 5% of all deaths in residential aged care.

Read more:
4 in 10 nursing homes have a COVID outbreak and the death rate is high. What’s going wrong?

Why booster shots are so critical

Maintaining high levels of immunity by being up to date with COVID boosters is vital for protecting this vulnerable cohort from serious outcomes this winter.

Age, existing chronic illnesses and weaker immune systems are just some of the reasons why this group is most vulnerable.

Not only do vaccines protect against severe illness, they reduce the likelihood of passing COVID on to others in this high-risk environment.

And with higher rates of COVID transmission in the community, we’ll likely see more active outbreaks in residential aged care facilities. This highlights how important it is to see more residents receive their booster shots.

Read more:
Haven’t had COVID or a vaccine dose in the past six months? Consider getting a booster

COVID fatigue, vaccine distribution

It’s not entirely clear why COVID booster rates in aged care are so low.

There may be some COVID vaccine fatigue. Residents and their families may have tuned out to public health messages about the importance of vaccination and keeping up to date with booster shots. But how much of an issue this is in aged care is hard to measure.

Changes in the way COVID vaccines are delivered to aged care may have also played a role. Early in the pandemic, vaccine delivery was coordinated federally. However, now aged care centres are responsible for ensuring residents have access to the recommended COVID vaccine, with primary health-care providers, such as GPs and pharmacists, administering the shots.

Read more:
COVID vaccine consent for aged-care residents: it’s ethically tricky, but there are ways to get it right

We’ve tried incentives

Health departments and health workers are well aware of the need to adequately protect aged care residents as we head towards winter.

In February 2023, incentive payments for eligible health workers to go into residential aged care facilities to administer COVID vaccines were streamlined and increased.

In April 2023, the federal health department’s chief medical officer, and the aged care quality and safety commissioner issued a joint letter to aged care providers with advice on preparing for winter, including a reminder about COVID vaccination.

The federal government has also called on Primary Health Networks – bodies responsible for coordinating delivery of primary health care in their regions – to encourage them to support residential aged care homes across Australia to arrange COVID vaccination clinics.

This is all positive and sensible. Yet, we still haven’t seen a huge spike in COVID booster rates as we reach the end of May. That is concerning.

We mustn’t forget flu vaccines

As we enter the colder months, influenza also poses a significant threat for aged care residents.

So promoting COVID and influenza vaccination in aged care should go hand-in-hand this year, and for the foreseeable future.

Read more:
Should I get a flu vaccine this year? Here’s what you need to know

Hassan Vally 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. Over half of eligible aged care residents are yet to receive their COVID booster. And winter is coming – https://theconversation.com/over-half-of-eligible-aged-care-residents-are-yet-to-receive-their-covid-booster-and-winter-is-coming-205403

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pascal Scherrer, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business, Law and Art, Southern Cross University

This week in Paris, negotiators from around the world are convening for a United Nations meeting. They will tackle a thorny problem: finding a globally binding solution for plastic pollution.

Of the staggering 460 million tonnes of plastic used globally in 2019 alone, much is used only once and thrown away. About 40% of plastic waste comes from packaging. Almost two-thirds of plastic waste comes from items with lifetimes of less than five years.

The plastic waste that escapes into nature persists and breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually becoming microplastics. Plastics now contaminate virtually every environment, from mountain peaks to oceans. Plastic has entered vital systems such as our food chain and even the human blood stream.

Governments and industry increasingly acknowledge the urgent need to reduce plastic pollution. They are introducing rules and incentives to help businesses stop using single-use plastics while also encouraging collection and recycling.

As a sustainability researcher, I explore opportunities to reduce plastic waste in sectors such as tourism, hospitality and meat production. I know how quickly we could make big changes. But I’ve also seen how quick-fix solutions can create complex future problems. So we must proceed with caution.

Read more:
Here’s how the new global treaty on plastic pollution can help solve this crisis

Plastic avoidance is top priority

We must urgently eliminate waste and build a so-called “circular economy”. For plastics, that means reuse or recycling back into the same type of plastic, not lower grade plastic. The plastic can be used to make similar products that then can be recycled again and again.

This means plastics should only be used where they can be captured at their end of life and recycled into a product of the same or higher value, with as little loss as possible.

Probably the only example of this to date is the recycling of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) soft-drink bottles in Norway and Switzerland. They boast recovery rates of 97% and 95% respectively.

The waste management pyramid below shows how to prioritise actions to lessen the waste problem. It is particularly relevant to single-use plastics. Our top priority, demanding the biggest investment, is prevention and reduction through redesign of products.

Where elimination is not yet achievable, reuse solutions or recycling to the same or higher-level products can be sought to make plastics circular.

Read more:
With better standards, we could make plastics endlessly useful – and slash waste. Here’s how

Unfortunately, a lack of high-quality reprocessing facilities means plastic waste keeps growing. In Australia, plastic is largely “downcycled”, which means it is recycled into lower quality plastics.

This can seem like an attractive way to deal with waste-plastic stockpiles, particularly after the recent collapse of soft-plastics recycler RedCycle. But downcycling risks doing more harm than good. Here are three reasons why:

1. Replacing wood with recycled plastics risks contaminating our wildest natural spaces

An increasing number of benches, tables, bollards and boardwalks are being made from recycled plastic. This shift away from timber is touted as a sustainable step – but caution is warranted when introducing these products to pristine areas such as national parks.

Wood is naturally present in those areas. It has a proven record of longevity and, when degrading, does not introduce foreign matter into the natural system.

Swapping wood for plastic may introduce microplastics into the few remaining places relatively free of them. Replacing wood with downcycled plastics also risks plastic pollution through weathering or fire.

2. Taking circular plastics from their closed loop to meet recycled-content targets creates more waste

Clear PET bottles used for beverages are the most circular plastic stream in Australia, approaching a 70% recovery rate. When these bottles are recycled back into clear PET bottles, they are circular plastics.

However, the used PET bottles are increasingly being turned into meat trays, berry punnets and mayonnaise jars to help producers meet the 2025 National Packaging Target of 50% recycled content (on average) in packaging.

The problem is the current industry specifications for plastics recovery allow only downcycling of these trays, punnets and jars. This means that circular PET is removed from a closed loop into a lower-grade recovery stream. This leads to non-circular downcycling and more plastic sent to landfill.

3. Using “compostable” plastics in non-compostable conditions creates still more plastic pollution

Increasingly, plastics are labelled as compostable and biodegradable. However, well-intended use of compostable plastics can cause long-term plastic pollution.

At the right temperature with the right amount of moisture, compostable plastics breakdown into soil. But if the conditions are not “just right”, they won’t break down at all.

For example, when a landscape architect or engineer uses a “compostable” synthetic fabric instead of a natural alternative (such as coir or jute mats) they can inadvertently introduce persistent plastics into the environment. This is because the temperature is not hot enough for the synthetic mat to break down.

We must also differentiate between “home compostable” and “commercially compostable”. Commercial facilities are more effective at composting because they operate under more closely controlled conditions.

Learning from our mistakes

Clearly, we need to reduce our reliance on plastics and shift away from linear systems – including recycling into lower-grade products.

Such downcycling may have a temporary role in dealing with existing plastic in the system while circular recycling capacity is being built. But we must not develop downcycling “solutions” that need a long-term stream of plastic waste to remain viable.

What’s more, downcycling requires constantly finding new markets for their lower-grade products. Circular systems are more robust.

So, to the negotiators in Paris, yes the shift to a circular plastics economy is urgent. But beware of good intentions that could ultimately make things worse.

Read more:
Plastic action or distraction? As climate change bears down, calls to reduce plastic pollution are not wasted

Pascal Scherrer currently works on a plastic waste reduction project funded by the Australian Meat Processor Corporation. He recently completed a secondment with the ANZPAC Plastics Pact team. He is also a former member of the Northcoast Regional Advisory Committee by the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service.

– ref. 3 little-known reasons why plastic recycling could actually make things worse – https://theconversation.com/3-little-known-reasons-why-plastic-recycling-could-actually-make-things-worse-206060

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard F. Heller, Emeritus Professor, University of Newcastle

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 in June and a final report in December 2023.

As part of the federal government’s bid to overhaul higher education, the Universities Accord discussion paper is seeking to “widen” opportunities for people to access university. It also wants to “grow a culture” of lifelong learning in Australia. As the review team note, most people in Australia who study at university are under 35.

Lifelong learning can help to ensure that workforce skills are up to date and that jobs in high demand can be filled, as well as enabling people to create new job opportunities through innovation.

These issues need to be approached in many ways. And will inevitably include proposals for shorter forms of learning as well as addressing the financial cost of attending university.

My proposal – also outlined in this journal article – is that a proportion of educational resources generated by publicly funded universities should be made public and freely available.

This could radically expand opportunity and flexibility and potentially allow students to design their own degrees, by doing multiple different units from different universities.

This idea is not completely new

There is a precedence for this idea. The international Plan S initiative is led by a group of national research funding organisations. Since 2018, it has been pushing for publicly funded research to be published in open-access journals or platforms.

Australian chief scientist Cathy Foley similarly wants all Australian research to be “open access, domestically and internationally, and for research conducted overseas to be freely available to read in Australia”.

When it comes to university learning, a 2019 UNESCO report encouraged member states to make higher education educational resources developed with public funds free and freely available.

In a March 2023 report, the Productivity Commission recommended the federal government require “all universities to provide all lectures online and for free”. The commission said this would increase transparency in teaching performance and encourage online learning.

Read more:
These 5 equity ideas should be at the heart of the Universities Accord

But this also has the ability to make to higher education more accessible.

There is already plenty of international experience sharing educational materials online – including the global Open Educational Resources public digital library. This includes resources from early learning through to adult education.

The Productivity Commission says universities would not lose income by making educational resources open access. This is because universities “sell” credentials, not resources. It is also argued overworked academics can save time by using materials created by others.

But there is resistance from institutions and academics, including a perception free resources will be poor quality and take a lot of time to create. There is also a lack of technological tools to adapt resources. This may explain why open education has not yet taken off in Australia.

How would this work?

My plan would require open online sites to host educational materials produced by academics. These would need to be moderated or curated and published under an open access license.

It would include a peer review system for educational materials like the one already used for research publications. Academics could get credit for publishing, updating or reviewing resources and the publication of education output would be included in the university metrics.

This could also help reverse the current downgrading of teaching in Australian universities in favour of research.

There could be three types of users:

1. students who access materials through the university that produced them, as per current practice

2. individual students outside the university that created the materials who access materials for their own learning at whatever stage of life they are relevant to them

3. other organisations, including other universities, that then contextualise and deliver the materials to their students.

What kind of materials are we talking about?

The Productivity Commission has talked about “lectures” being made available for free. But lectures are not a good way of transmitting information, especially online. For one thing, they do not promote critical thinking.

My plan proposes whole courses or at least sections of courses with assessments, would be provided. This includes text, videos and software and can include course planning materials and evaluation tools.

An indication of the academic level to which the course speaks, and the amount of possible credit, should also be provided.

Read more:
We need to change the way universities assess students, starting with these 3 things

What about accreditation?

Accreditation of learning should be considered as part of this.

The OERu is an international organisation where partner universities (including Penn State in the US and Curtin University in Australia) offer free access to online courses. Students pay reduced fees if they want to submit assignments, which can earn them microcredits towards a degree offered by one of the partners.

A more radical option would be to develop a system where students collect microcredits from whatever source they wish and present them to an accrediting body for an academic award rather than enrolling in a particular degree course.

Suggested recommendations

As it prepares its draft report, the accord review team should recommend:

• most university-generated educational material should be public and free

• as an interim goal, within three years, 10% of all public university courses should be freely available online

• an organisation should be created to develop the infrastructure needed to do this. This includes, open repositories, a peer review system for open educational materials, and systems for offering microcredits to students and academic credit to academics who take part.

Why is this a good idea?

The Productivity Commission says making this material public will encourage higher quality teaching, empower students and assist in lifelong learning. On top of this, there is the potential for true reform of the educational landscape.

Read more:
Higher education must reinvent itself to meet the needs of the world today. Enter the distributed university

It provides opportunities for collaboration between universities, rather than a competitive business model. And it would make teaching more important, rather than an “inconvenient task” by those seeking academic advancement through research.

Finally, it would genuinely make learning more accessible and more affordable, no matter who you are or where you live.

Richard F. Heller 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. DIY degree? Why universities should make online educational materials free for all – https://theconversation.com/diy-degree-why-universities-should-make-online-educational-materials-free-for-all-205564

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kerrie Sadiq, Professor of Taxation, QUT Business School, and ARC Future Fellow, Queensland University of Technology

Australia’s federal government has a plan to discourage companies from shifting profits to tax havens. The idea is to impose a “global minimum tax” on large Australian and foreign-owned companies with subsidiaries in low or no-tax countries.

Australia’s largest mining companies are notorious for shifting profits to avoid the 30% company tax rate. It is common to use marketing hubs in Singapore, where the headline tax rate is 17% but various incentives often lower the effective rate to about 5%. Paying Singaporean subsidiaries for “services” performed, such as marketing or to use trademarks or patents owned by the group, can reduce a company’s Australian profits, and its tax bill.

The Albanese governent’s proposal, announced in the federal budget, embraces an OECD/G20 program to reduce profit shifting by multinationals through a uniform global 15% tax on all companies. Almost 140 countries have agreed to implement the tax, though to date only a handful have enacted it.

Read more:
$1 trillion in the shade – the annual profits multinational corporations shift to tax havens continues to climb and climb

Any locally or foreign owned company in Australia that has overseas subsidiaries and annual global group revenue of more than €750 million (about A$1.2 billion) will be taxed the difference between the rate paid by the associated entities overseas and the 15% rate.

A 15% minimum tax rate will also apply to domestic companies with revenue of €750 million. Currently generous tax concessions – such as generous deductions or credits for activities like research and development – allow Australian businesses to reduce their tax burden from the headline 30% rate to less than 15%.

At first glance, these new taxes seem like a good idea. Proponents argue that putting a floor on corporate tax rates will slow “the race to the bottom”, which has seen governments lower corporate tax rates to attract or keep corporate capital.

However, for Australia it is likely to accelerate the problem. By implicitly accepting the legitimacy of profit shifting, the government does nothing to address the fundamental problem that enables multinationals to exploit the global tax system.

Recouping a pittance

The budget papers don’t say how many companies will be affected, but globally the OECD says no more than 100 corporations will have to pay the tax.

The budget estimates the Australian government will raise an extra $160 million in 2025-26, and $210 million in 2026-27. This is less than 0.5% of the $93 billion in company tax revenue in 2023-24, and a pittance compared with the tax lost through profit shifting by multinationals

For example, in the Australian Taxation Office’s most recent settlement with a company over disputed profit shifting, fuel company Ampol agreed to pay $157 million for avoided taxes dating back to 2014. This arose from Ampol Australia unnecessarily paying for oil imports acquired through a related Singapore procurement hub, instead of buying oil directly.

Rio Tinto, the world’s second-biggest mining company, agreed in 2022 to pay almost $1 billion to the tax office over money channelled to its Singapore marketing hub.

BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, agreed in 2018 to pay the tax office $529 million in extra taxes for profit-shifting arrangements between 2003 to 2018. This dispute also related to transactions between its Australian headquarters and marketing operations in Singapore.

In each of these settlements the companies admitted no wrongdoing. Details are confidential, so it is impossible to know how tax the Australian Tax Office claimed was due. But it seems likely Australian taxpayers got less than the tax avoided.

Read more:
The Pandora Papers show the line between tax avoidance and tax evasion has become so blurred we need to act against both

Fundamental problem remains

Rather than ending the race to bottom from international profit shifting, the 15% tax is likely to entrench it. It ensures companies that successfully shift profits out of Australia will pay no more than a 15% tax rate.

This will continue so long as different parts of a multinational corporation are treated as if they are separate entities for tax purposes. This is nothing more than a legal fiction.

The only way to prevent this is through real and substantive changes in the way governments tax multinationals.

The obvious solution is to treat multinationals as the global entities they are. Then allocate profits for tax purposes to the countries in which real activities creating those profits take place.

In the case of Australian mining companies, that should be where they dig their riches out of the ground.

Kerrie Sadiq receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Richard Krever receives funding from the Australian Reseach Council.

– ref. Why taxing the world’s biggest companies at 15% won’t fix the gaping hole in global tax rules – https://theconversation.com/why-taxing-the-worlds-biggest-companies-at-15-wont-fix-the-gaping-hole-in-global-tax-rules-206400

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Pryke, Honorary Research Associate, University of Sydney

Mermaids are multicultural mythical figures, reflecting the continuing human fascination with the sea in stories echoing thousands of years into the past. Mermaids are found in cultures across the globe.

In Australia, special water spirits appear in the rock and bark art of First Nations people in Arnhem Land.

Across the continent of Africa, mermaid-like water deities such as Yemaya and Mami Wata reflect the powerful connection between human communities and their environment.

Among the most well-known mermaid narratives is Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, now a live-action film from Disney.

By the time of its publication in 1837, The Little Mermaid was already a relative latecomer to the genre. Indeed, Hans Christian Anderson himself was raised with much earlier stories involving mermaids.

His childhood bedtime reading included the works of Shakespeare and the Tales of the Arabian Nights.

Shakespeare’s mermaids from A Midsummer Night’s Dream are noted for their song. Oberon observes beautiful mermaid melodies could calm the sea and draw down the stars:

Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music.

Anderson’s other bedtime book, the Arabian Nights, is a collection of Indian and Persian stories assembled over many centuries. Among these are narratives about merfolk, some of whom live in wonderful undersea palaces.

In one story, a human fisherman visits his merman friend under the sea. There he finds communities of Jewish, Christian and Muslim merfolk, before their friendship ends over religious differences.

Read more:
The Little Mermaid has always been a story about exclusion – and its author was an outsider

Ancient wisdom from the deep

Images of human-fish hybrid creatures can be found from the third millennium BCE in ancient Mesopotamia, a geographical area relating roughly to modern day Iraq.

The Apkallu, or the seven divine sages of Mesopotamian myth, can take the shape of human-fish hybrids. This is particularly interesting due to their connection to ancient wisdom traditions predating the great flood. In Mesopotamian literature, as in the Bible, a great flood event destroys most of humanity.

As human-fish hybrids, the Apkallu were well-equipped to survive the flood and carry forward their wisdom traditions. According to Mesopotamian literature, the useful information given to humanity by the Apkallu included knowledge of medicine and building cities.

The connection of mermaids to wisdom and medicine extends to other ancient traditions. In Southern Africa, mermaids play a complex role in ages-old healing rituals.

The ancient Near Eastern connection between mermaids and Flood traditions can be seen in the illustrated Nuremberg Bible of 1483, where merfolk are depicted swimming around the ark with their merdog.

Seafaring friends

Across the world and across traditions, mermaids have been accompanied by many different creatures. Their close connection to the sea extends to animals who share their home.

As in the Nuremberg Bible, mermaids and seadogs are said to swim together in Inuit mythology from North America.

In folklore from the Orkney Islands in Scotland merfolk are instead accompanied by seals, and are described milking whales.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mermaids are accompanied by dolphins. In myths from East Asia and South America, they are friendly with turtles.

Similarities with the Danish fairy tale can be found in a famous story from South Korean folklore, dating to the 13th century CE.

In the story, the mermaid Princess Hwang-Ok (also known as Topaz) marries a prince and becomes more human.

The princess is homesick for her underwater life, so her turtle companion helps her to use the moon to turn back into a mermaid and regain her wellbeing.

Turtles and whales appear with mermaids as helpers to the Mesoamerican storm deity Tezcatlipoca. The myth is an aetiological tale about the creation of music in the world.

Read more:
Mermaids in Japan – from hideous harbingers of violence to beautiful enchantresses

Captivating creatures of song

Another theme shared by many mermaid myths is that of music. Powerful and persuasive song is a feature of numerous folkloric tales containing mermaids, including varieties of the Little Mermaid tale and Shakespeare.

In his fairy tale, Anderson’s mermaid uses her special abilities with music to win a contest in the royal court. In a disturbing scene, the voiceless mermaid participates in a song and dance contest against decoratively attired enslaved women, all competing for the prince’s attention.

In 1989, the animated Disney film’s soundtrack won both a Grammy award and two Oscars.

In Shakespeare, mermaids are sometimes conflated with the Sirens of Greek myth by the poet. The two mythical figures were commonly viewed as interchangeable from the medieval times.

Sirens in ancient epics such as Homer’s Odyssey were known for their ability to lure people to their death with their sweet-sounding songs – and their promise to share secret wisdom with their listeners. Sirens, like merfolk, are known as hybrid creatures with powerful voices, but are usually depicted with bird-like, rather than fish-like, qualities.

The power of merfolk to seduce with their charms may reflect the ability of the sea to capture the hearts of seafarers, and keep them away from their homes on land – by accident or design.

Mysterious depths

The dynamic nature of mermaid mythology contributes to their continuing popularity in the 21st century.

Mermaids build bridges between land and water (at times in Southeast Asian and South American myths, quite literally), between human and animal, and between wilderness and civilisation, giving a human face to the mysteries of the deep.

Read more:
Disney’s Black mermaid is no breakthrough – just look at the literary subgenre of Black mermaid fiction

Louise Pryke 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. A long and fishy tail: before Disney’s Little Mermaid, these creatures existed in mythologies from around the world – https://theconversation.com/a-long-and-fishy-tail-before-disneys-little-mermaid-these-creatures-existed-in-mythologies-from-around-the-world-204677

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

The Voice to Parliament is supported by nearly 90% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and provides an opportunity for an intergenerational solution to Indigenous problems, Anthony Albanese will say in a Monday address.

Delivering the Lowitja O’Donoghue Oration in Adelaide the Prime Minister will say the coming referendum, to be held later this year, “can be a moment of Australian unity”.

It will be “an extraordinary opportunity for every Australian to be counted and heard – to own this change and be proud of it, and truly live the spirit of the fair go,” Albanese says in his speech, issued ahead of delivery.

“After the tumult of colonisation, we have lived through a silence, a long tide of denial gnawing away at the shores of our spirit,” he says.

“And an entire people have been kept so long in the margins, surviving against the odds, surviving even against misguided good intentions.”

The Prime Minister’s speech comes ahead of a vote in the House of Representatives this week on the legislation to enable the referendum. The Liberal party, while advocating a no vote in the referendum, will not oppose the bill to hold that referendum. Some Liberals have broken ranks and are advocating for a yes vote in the referendum.

The debate about the Voice is becoming increasingly divisive – including among some high profile Indigenous leaders. But Albanese says it is supported by nearly 90% of Indigenous people.

In his address he ridicules the fearmongers saying, “It’s only a matter of time before they tell us that the Voice will fade the curtains”.

Albanese says Australia has “to come to grips with the past because a country that does not acknowledge the full truth of its history is burdened by its unspoken weight.

“But we learn. We acknowledge. And bit by bit, as we each admit each truth into our midst like a shaft of light, we are easing that burden. Moments of truth that include the Freedom Rides, the 1967 referendum, Mabo, Wik, the Redfern Speech, the Apology to the Stolen Generations and the red sand that was captured in a photograph on that brightest of days, forever flowing from Gough Whitlam’s hand into Vincent Lingiari’s.

“None stands as an answer in itself, but each step forward sees us narrowing the distance between reality and our perception of ourselves – and the people we aspire to be.

“We’ve always been at our best when we’ve looked to the future with excitement and hope – that’s when we make progress. 

“And we are saying not just to each other but to the world that we are a mature nation coming to terms with our history, assured of our values, and shaping our own destiny.”

Albanese repeats his often-used line that the Voice referendum is not about politics or politicians but “about people”.

“People striving to make themselves heard across our great nation. In the regions and beyond in the remotest corners of our vast continent.

“All those voices rising across Australia like the headwaters of a thousand creeks and rivers joining into a mighty and wonderful current that will converge around each one of us as we step into the booth on referendum day.”

The referendum is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for change, he says.

“We are fortunate to be here in this moment in history, where we have within our hands the chance to make a positive change that will last for generations.”

Meanwhile Indigenous crossbencher Lidia Thorpe, who defected from the Greens, indicated she may abstain when a vote is taken on the referendum bill in the Senate.

She told the ABC she is definitely not in the no camp and never had been.

But the yes vote was to allow “for a powerless Voice to go into the Constitution. We don’t know what this looks like. It could be one person. It’s up to the
parliament to decide what the Voice looks like. So I can’t support
something that gives us no power.

“And I certainly cannot support a no campaign that is looking more like a white-supremacy campaign that is causing a lot of harm.”

She said Indigenous people wanted a treaty, and they wanted the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody implemented.

“The government have an opportunity to show good faith and
implement those recommendations. They might get my vote if they do.”

Thorpe also flagged she planned to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission about alleged racism she had experienced in the Greens.

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. Albanese says nearly 90% of Indigenous people support the Voice, which embodies the ‘spirit of the fair go’ – https://theconversation.com/albanese-says-nearly-90-of-indigenous-people-support-the-voice-which-embodies-the-spirit-of-the-fair-go-206581

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Changlong Wang, Research fellow, Monash University

The race to net zero is accelerating. Just last week, United States President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled a climate pact to boost cooperation. The move signifies Australia is becoming a global leader in the renewable energy roll-out and critical mineral supply.

Australia’s rich iron ore deposits and cheap solar offer yet another way we can lead. If we locate green hydrogen plants near green steel facilities, we can shift the highly polluting steel industry away from fossil fuels.

Our new research shows co-locating plants in sun-rich, iron-rich places like Western Australia’s Pilbara and South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula can help overcome the “first mover problem” for green hydrogen: you can’t have a hydrogen industry without buyers for it and can’t have buyers without hydrogen.

How would it work? Cheap solar power would be used to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen. This green hydrogen would be piped a short distance to a green steel plant, which uses hydrogen and electricity to produce iron from the ore, and then an electric arc furnace to smelt steel.

As we grapple with ways to decarbonise the steel sector, which uses 8% of the world’s energy and produces 7% of all energy-related carbon emissions, we should urgently look for opportunities like this. As a bonus, cheap power from solar and wind could make Australian-made iron and steel more competitive globally.

Why is Australia so well placed?

We’re the world’s largest iron ore exporter. Under our red dirt lies an estimated 56 billion tonnes of iron ore, as of 2021. Export earnings reached A$133 billion in 2021–22. We also profit from the current emissions-heavy way of making steel, by exporting $72 billion worth of metallurgical coal.

Australia’s potential as a green hydrogen provider is often promoted. This year’s federal budget allocated $2 billion to help make it a reality. But our distance from the rest of the world makes pipelines prohibitively expensive, and shipping hydrogen is difficult.

Read more:
Cooperation with the US could drive Australia’s clean energy shift – but we must act fast

One solution is to use it here. Green hydrogen could make it possible to onshore more iron and steel production.

Clean steelmaking will bring major change to our iron ore exports if other countries take it up. Traditionally, 96% of our exports are the most common type of ore, hematite. But this is currently not suited to green steelmaking.

By contrast, magnetite ore only accounts for 4% of exports but can be used in hydrogen-based green steelmaking.

Australia has vast reserves of magnetite ore, which previously hasn’t been in as much demand. But these ore bodies will become valuable under the right economic conditions.

And while we can solve steel’s carbon problem with much better recycling of this valuable material, we’ll still need new steel equivalent to about 50% of the current rate of production in 2050, due to issues with converting scrap to reusable steel and removing contaminants.

Where should we co-locate these plants?

Major iron ore centres in the Pilbara and Eyre Peninsula already have ports, a workforce and other infrastructure. That makes them the logical first choice to co-locate solar, wind and hydrogen with iron and steelmaking.

We modelled what would happen if these sites expanded wind and solar power to make hydrogen and found the cost of green steel could drop substantially to around $900 per tonne by 2030 and $750 per tonne by 2050.

Read more:
Red dirt, yellow sun, green steel: how Australia could benefit from a global shift to emissions-free steel

By exporting green iron and steel, Australia could boost trade value, reduce global greenhouse emissions, and link our exports with global decarbonisation efforts. Steel will become even more important given it’s so vital to manufacturing solar and wind.

Our recent modelling has found key benefits in linking hydrogen hubs and future iron ore operations.

First, it avoids the problem of transporting hydrogen, which, especially in liquid form, can be expensive and energy-intensive to transport.

And second, co-locating green hydrogen gives an immediate boost to the industry. At present, green hydrogen is at the early stage before increased scale and knowledge drives costs down.

To compete with coking coal, green hydrogen must get cheaper. Part of this will come from falling renewable energy prices, better electrolysers to make hydrogen, and carbon pricing. But part of it will be locating hydrogen production where it can be used.

Choosing a site is the most important consideration. While access to infrastructure and cheap ore are important, the cost of green steel largely depends on low-cost hydrogen and cheap renewables.

Australia’s state and federal governments are backing hydrogen as an industry of the future. To go from paper to reality will require policy incentives, low-interest loans, research and development funding, and investment in infrastructure.

Policies to boost renewable energy and develop the hydrogen economy will create a more conducive environment for green steel production.

If we combine our wealth of solar, hydrogen and iron ore, we can help make global steel production green, and also create the conditions for a green hydrogen export industry.

Read more:
Australia’s main iron ore exports may not work with green steelmaking. Here’s what we must do to prepare

Changlong Wang is currently funded by Geoscience Australia through the Exploring for the Future program. He is affiliated with the Monash Energy Institute at Monash University and Melbourne Climate Futures at the University of Melbourne. Changlong participates in IEA Hydrogen TCP Task 41.

Stuart Walsh receives funding from Geoscience Australia through the Exploring for the Future program. He is affiliated with the Monash Energy Institute and the Monash Hydrogen Energy Research Node at Monash University.

Andrew Feitz, Marcus Haynes, and Zhehan Weng 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. Picture this: green hydrogen plants next to green steelworks to boost efficiency and kickstart both industries – https://theconversation.com/picture-this-green-hydrogen-plants-next-to-green-steelworks-to-boost-efficiency-and-kickstart-both-industries-205845

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney

Sydney has awoken to the smouldering ruins of its largest city fire in 55 years.

The “abandoned building” in Randle Street, Surry Hills, adjacent to Central Station was once the R.C. Henderson Ladies Hat factory, a six-storey brick structure built in 1912.

Empty for some time, the space was slated to become a boutique hotel. Full of wooden trusses and likely old machinery oil, the building collapsed in a spectacular bonfire.

How did Surry Hills come to be the centre of the fashion manufacturing industry, or “rag trade”, for New South Wales?

Dressing in New South Wales

Ready-made clothing developed in 1860s Australia with the uptake of Isaac Singer’s sewing machine. As the population became more prosperous, it needed better clothes.

The New South Wales fashion industry was one of the most locally concentrated in Australia. Apart from some large men’s suiting and shirt factories, most men’s, women’s and children’s clothes and hats were made in or near Surry Hills.

Electric-powered machines that sped up production were introduced from 1914.

David Jones assembled its garments in a modern purpose-built factory in Marlborough Street, Surry Hills in 1915.

Until the 1980s, most Australians wore Australian-made clothes. High import duties meant there was enormous impetus for local production. Although many women made their own clothes, they rarely made men’s outer clothes.

As more women worked, they had less time and needed to buy store-bought clothes.

From 1928-68, the clothing and footwear sector was marked by small plants, low levels of capital investment, a rate of profit nearly 65% above the average for all industries, high risk, uncertainty and, of course, regularly changing fashions.

As a result, the industry favoured those with fashion and style knowledge: skilled owner-managers who understood craft skills and production. In 1939, 94% of establishments were operated by working proprietors.

Personal interactions between boss and worker were close. The shop floor was often set up as a “family”, with all the tensions that entails.

The large CBD retailers enjoyed close relationships with the manufacturers. Buyers made frequent visits, sometimes daily.

In the 1940s, half of the women working in manufacturing in Sydney were working in the rag trade.

Read more:
Dressed for success – as workers return to the office, men might finally shed their suits and ties

The look and feel of Surry Hills

Surry Hills was covered in cheap terrace houses built as worker’s rentals from the 1850s. The new Central Station opened in 1906 on the site of a former cemetery.

As the terraces deteriorated, the area was widely considered a “slum”, finely captured in Ruth Park’s novel The Harp in the South (1948).

Multi-storey factories allowing for multiple occupancies were the norm.

Women’s fashion was made in small batches with frequent variation. The goods were light and compact, meaning lifts and staircases could be used for deliveries. Equipment used in the industry was also light and easily installed on floors above ground level.

Surry Hills was the main buying centre for fashion; department store, suburban and country buyers would walk from factory to factory to inspect the goods.

Labour for the Surry Hills industry was drawn from the entire metropolitan area. Women immigrants made up 70% of employees.

Labour became less skilled as detailed hand-tailoring and dressmaking were superseded by machines in the 1950s.

Post-war Surry Hills

Between 1947 and 1966, 1.8 million migrants arrived in Australia.

Many worked in factories. A large proportion of the Jewish Europeans who arrived in the 1930s and 1940s worked in the clothing industry; in turn they employed many southern-European migrant women who arrived with little or no English.

Fashion and clothing knowledge enabled many Jewish migrants to re-establish their livelihoods and identities across the globe. Between 1938 and 1961, Sydney’s Jewish population doubled.

Low rents due to deteriorating building stock and the lack of demand for office space in Surry Hills meant clothing manufacturing continued. Factory buildings replaced some terrace houses from 1958, when Surry Hills was zoned for “B class” industry.

European Jews, mainly from Poland and Czechoslovakia, acquired old properties and redeveloped them as two-storey factories. The owners occupied only a portion of the building and rented out the remaining space to fellow countrymen. The capital required to enter the industry was small; machines could be hired and floor space rented on a weekly basis. The average Sydney clothing factory employed 15 workers.

The number of married women working in Australia rose to around 30% by 1966. Fewer had time to do home sewing. This created opportunities for cheaper ready-to-wear lines that could keep pace with rapid fashion changes.

The household spend on clothing, footwear and drapery climbed dramatically, tripling from 1946 to 1960.

The shift to this ready-to-wear trade was amplified by Jewish entrepreneurship and retailing. Jewish migrants introduced new and brighter colours into everyday clothing. They helped to create the demand for lighter clothes, such as finely knitted garments of contemporary European fashion, modern lines in coats, and the Swiss machine-lace that adorned the short mod-dresses of the 1960s.

Read more:
Global shift: Australian fashion’s coming of age

End of the rag trade

The Whitlam Government cut tariffs by 25% in 1973 to reduce inflation and as a new approach to national industry planning. At the time, fashion amounted to 10% of Australia’s total manufacturing employment.

The reduction of tariffs and subsidies, price gouging, discounting and off-shore production decimated the industry. Employment fell by nearly one third in two years after 1973. The market share of imports doubled. Business people moved their capital from manufacturing into property.

Clothing production moved to areas such as Marrickville, with Vietnamese entrepreneurs and workers replacing the Greeks who had once worked in the trade there. By 1985, one third of workers in the local clothing industry were Asian.

If we time travelled back to 1950 in Randle Street, the scene would be very different from today.

Rather than urban professionals and baristas, we would see rag trade seamstresses, finishers, designers, managers, retailers, salespeople and promoters.

We might see bundles of the new synthetic corded fabrics, satin lastex miracle yarn, sanforised shrunk fabrics and fiesta nylons. Or reps showing the new Goldner Triflex zipper, Perkal brothers shoes, Rain’N Shine coats, or Hestia bras.

We would see many of Sydney’s 9,000 workers in clothing and tailoring, 4,300 in dress and hat-making, and 8,000 in shirt-making who spent their working lives in Surry Hills. With this fire, another piece of Sydney’s rag trade and workers’ history is lost.

Peter McNeil received funding from UTS and the Sydney Jewish Museum for a large collaborative project ‘Dressing Sydney: The Jewish Fashion Story’ (2011). Many of the findings were published with the Sydney Jewish Museum as ‘Dressing Sydney’ (2012). The project also benefited from a UTS Grant ‘Culture, Work and Economy in the Surry Hills Clothing Trade, 1900-1990’. Participants: Peter McNeil, Paula Hamilton, Paul Ashton, Giorgio Riello, Roslyn Sugarman (SJM), Norman Seligman (SJM), Cameron White, Charles Rice. The publication received additional support from Dr Gene Sherman.

– ref. Surry Hills was once the centre of New South Wales’ ‘rag trade’: a short history of fashion manufacturing in Sydney – https://theconversation.com/surry-hills-was-once-the-centre-of-new-south-wales-rag-trade-a-short-history-of-fashion-manufacturing-in-sydney-206490

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis B. Desmond, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast

This week the Five Eyes alliance – an intelligence alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States – announced its investigation into a China-backed threat targeting US infrastructure.

Using stealth techniques, the attacker – referred to as “Volt Typhoon” – exploited existing resources in compromised networks in a technique called “living off the land”.

Microsoft made a concurrent announcement, stating the attackers’ targeting of Guam was telling of China’s plans to potentially disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the US and Asia region in the future.

This comes hot on the heels of news in April of a North Korean supply chain attack on Asia-Pacific telecommunications provider 3CX. In this case, hackers gained access to an employee’s computer using a compromised desktop app for Windows and a compromised signed software installation package.

The Volt Typhoon announcement has led to a rare admission by the US National Security Agency that Australia and other Five Eyes partners are engaged in a targeted search and detection scheme to uncover China’s clandestine cyber operations.

Such public admissions from the Five Eyes alliance are few and far between. Behind the curtain, however, this network is persistently engaged in trying to take down foreign adversaries. And it’s no easy feat.

Let’s take a look at the events leading up to Volt Typhoon – and more broadly at how this secretive transnational alliance operates.

Uncovering Volt Typhoon

Volt Typhoon is an “advanced persistent threat group” that has been active since at least mid-2021. It’s believed to be sponsored by the Chinese government and is targeting critical infrastructure organisations in the US.

The group has focused much of its efforts on Guam. Located in the Western Pacific, this US island territory is home to a significant and growing US military presence, including the air force, a contingent of the marines, and the US navy’s nuclear-capable submarines.

It’s likely the Volt Typhoon attackers intended to gain access to networks connected to US critical infrastructure to disrupt communications, command and control systems, and maintain a persistent presence on the networks. The latter tactic would allow China to influence operations during a potential conflict in the South China Sea.

Australia wasn’t directly impacted by Volt Typhoon, according to official statements. Nevertheless, it would be a primary target for similar operations in the event of conflict.

As for how Volt Typhoon was caught, this hasn’t been disclosed. But Microsoft documents highlight previous observations of the threat actor attempting to dump credentials and stolen data from the victim organisation. It’s likely this led to the discovery of compromised networks and devices.

Living-off-the-land

The hackers initially gained access to networks through internet-facing Fortinet FortiGuard devices, such as routers. Once inside, they employed a technique called “living-off-the-land”.

This is when attackers rely on using the resources already contained within the exploited system, rather than bringing in external tools. For example, they will typically use applications such as PowerShell (a Microsoft management program) and Windows Management Instrumentation to access data and network functions.

By using internal resources, attackers can bypass safeguards that alert organisations to unauthorised access to their networks. Since no malicious software is used, they appear as a legitimate user. As such, living-off-the-land allows for lateral movement within the network, and provides opportunity for a persistent, long-term attack.

The simultaneous announcements from the Five Eyes partners points to the seriousness of the Volt Typhoon compromise. It will likely serve as a warning to other nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Who are the Five Eyes?

Formed in 1955, the Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence-sharing partnership comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

The alliance was formed after World War II to counter the potential influence of the Soviet Union. It has a specific focus on signals intelligence. This involves intercepting and analysing signals such as radio, satellite and internet communications.

The members share information and access to their respective signals intelligence agencies, and collaborate to collect and analyse vast amounts of global communications data. A Five Eyes operation might also include intelligence provided by non-member nations and the private sector.

Recently, the member countries expressed concern about China’s de facto military control over the South China Sea, its suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, and threatening moves towards Taiwan. The latest public announcement of China’s cyber operations no doubt serves as a warning that Western nations are paying strict attention to their critical infrastructure – and can respond to China’s digital aggression.

In 2019, Australia was targeted by Chinese state-backed threat actors gaining unauthorised access to Parliament House’s computer network. Indeed, there is evidence that China is engaged in a concerted effort to target Australia’s public and private networks.

The Five Eyes alliance may well be one of the only deterrents we have against long-term, persistent attacks against our critical infrastructure.

Read more:
Deterring China isn’t all about submarines. Australia’s ‘cyber offence’ might be its most potent weapon

Dr Desmond previously received funding through an ARC Linkage Grant and has worked with the US intelligence community and Five Eyes partners in the past.

– ref. The highly secretive Five Eyes alliance has disrupted a China-backed hacker group – in an unusually public manner – https://theconversation.com/the-highly-secretive-five-eyes-alliance-has-disrupted-a-china-backed-hacker-group-in-an-unusually-public-manner-206403

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Lullfitz, Research Associate, The University of Western Australia

Noongar Country of southwestern Australia is home to the world’s largest parasitic plant, a mighty mistletoe that blooms every December. That’s why it’s commonly known as WA’s Christmas Tree. But it also goes by other names, mungee and moodjar. And it holds great significance for Noongar people including the Merningar people of the south coast.

While the unique biology and charisma of the species (Nuytsia floribunda) has been recognised by Traditional Owners for millennia, such rich Indigenous knowledge is barely known to Western science. Our research team includes three generations of Merningar alongside non-Indigenous scientists. In our new research, we set out to explore mungee’s physiology, ecology and evolution from both Indigenous and Western science perspectives.

The plant’s ability to access a wide array of resources is remarkable, enabling it to prosper in the hostile, infertile, but biologically rich landscapes of southwestern Australia. This is also the case for Noongar people, whose traditional diet reflects the biological richness of their Country.

Mungee is a revered teacher to Noongar people, with lessons for us all about living sustainably and in harmony with one another.

Read more:
Ancient knowledge is lost when a species disappears. It’s time to let Indigenous people care for their country, their way

A sand-loving parasite

Nuytsia floribunda is widespread across Noongar Country (Boodja) and known to most Noongar as moodjar. But it’s also called mungee by Merningar and other southern Noongar groups. Being mostly Merningar, we call it mungee and use that term here.

Mungee is a mistletoe tree that grows up to 10m tall in sandy soils. It’s endemic to southwestern Australia, but widespread throughout. The parasitic capability of the plant comes from highly modified, ring-shaped roots (haustoria) that act like secateurs to mine other plants for water and nutrients.

We used “two way science” (cross-cultural ecology) methods – including a literature review, shared recording of visits on Country, and an author workshop – to investigate mungee more thoroughly than would be possible through Western science alone.

Read more:
To address the ecological crisis, Aboriginal peoples must be restored as custodians of Country

A revered teacher offering divine guidance

Like other Indigenous Australian knowledge systems, Merningar lore is place-based. It inextricably links people, specific places, other organisms and non-living entities of Country. Mungee tells specific stories through where it lives, the plants it lives with, and when it flowers.

The species is widely held as sacred among Noongar peoples. For Merningar, it has the highest status of all plants. Mungee holds important lore about how we as humans relate to each other and with the world around us, similar to a cornerstone religious text such as the Christian Bible.

For Merningar, mungee is a powerful medium that helps restless spirits move on to the afterlife, known to us as Kuuranup. This enables those of us still living to be untroubled by their presence.

Senior elder Lynette describes mungee as her teacher, providing guidance on how to exist in Merningar Boodja. The annual summer flowers represent her ancestors returning to their Country, reminding her to cherish and respect both her old people and her Boodja.

Lynette calls the ring-shaped haustoria of mungee her “bush lolly”. Under Merningar lore, digging for these sweet treats is not allowed when mungee is flowering. This is when bush lollies are scarce, so the rule is about living within seasonal constraints.

An example of living sustainably

Mungee primarily reproduces by cloning, sending out suckers up to 100m from the parent plant to produce identical copies. This results in patches of mungee clones gathered together in tight-knit populations.

We saw parallels between patches of mungee and the communal kinship structures of Noongar society, where family is more important than individuals.

Before European settlement, extended Noongar families lived in largely separate groups, interconnected with other family groups as part of a wider geopolitical system. We see mungee as a botanical exemplar of putting community before individuals, for the greater good.

Mungee accesses water and nutrients by tapping into a wide range of host plants. This diversity of hosts enables mungee to live in many different landscapes. This parallels with the sophisticated, but often place-specific knowledge of Noongar peoples across their botanically rich Boodja, which has enabled use of a wide range of traditional plants.

Living a prosperous life within environmental boundaries is achieved by conservatively drawing upon a wide range of resources. It provides a lesson for all who live in dry and infertile regions such as southwestern Australia.

A tree to be celebrated

Mungee’s bright orange flowers bring joy to all who witness their display during the celebratory summer months in southwestern Australia. The plant’s unique biology, ingenuity and charisma has long been recognised by Noongar peoples and their lore.

Prolific annual flowers are a memorial to the many old people who have cared for their Boodja through millennia. They also remind us to protect the old peoples’ legacy.

To Merningar, mungee is a valuable teacher and exemplar of prosperous biological (including human) existence in the southwest Australian global biodiversity hotspot. It has much to teach the rest of us, too.

Read more:
Connecting to culture: here’s what happened when elders gifted totemic species to school kids

All authors work on the Walking Together project, which is delivered by UWA in partnership with South Coast NRM and supported financially by Lotterywest. A second project worked on by Alison Lullfitz and Steve Hopper is funded by an ARC Discovery Indigenous grant.

Please see statement under Alison Lullfitz

Please see statement under Alison Lullfitz.

– ref. ‘WA’s Christmas tree’: what mungee, the world’s largest mistletoe, can teach us about treading lightly – https://theconversation.com/was-christmas-tree-what-mungee-the-worlds-largest-mistletoe-can-teach-us-about-treading-lightly-205568

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Blackwell, Research Fellow (Indigenous Diplomacy), Australian National University

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the Uluru Statement From the Heart, and National Sorry Day.

The statement is a powerful document that speaks of the opportunity for true and meaningful change between First Nations peoples and the rest of the country that will benefit generations to come. The key document in the journey towards a First Nations Voice to Parliament, it invites Australia to “walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.”

The statement represents a coming together of First Nations peoples from across the country, through a process that focused on our communities, especially from the regions, and what matters on the ground at a local level. Regional and remote areas are where the decisions of government play out most acutely for our peoples, where decisions about funding, regulation, and rights have the most immediacy. Our communities know what issues we face, and often they know what solutions we need.

In creating the Uluru Statement, the Referendum Council in 2017 designed a process that sought the opinions of Indigenous peoples across the country, including regional and remote areas. However, dialogues in these areas are still needed in the lead-up to the Voice referendum.

Having regional voices heard was essential in designing and advancing the idea of a Voice to Parliament. These voices will be equally essential in this upcoming referendum.

Read more:
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Listening to regional peoples was essential to the Uluru Statement

Major cities often get much of the attention in national policy, and communities outside cities get left behind. As of 2022, 61% of Indigenous people live in regional areas, with major cities having an average Indigenous population of only 1.09%, with 32% living in remote and very remote areas.

To reflect this, the Referendum Council during 2015 and 2016 held Regional Dialogues with Indigenous peoples, to find out what we wanted to see achieved through constitutional reform. The dialogues were held in 13 locations around the country, with invited members of different communities, including traditional owners and community organisations.

This process sought to include those who may not previously have had their voices represented in government processes. Our voicelessness as Indigenous peoples, and the voicelessness of our communities, was raised at these dialogues. It has continued to be raised in the years since.

Not all Indigenous peoples, including some from regional and remote areas, support the Voice to Parliament. There are those in our communities who believe it either goes too far, or, does not go far enough, and want to pursue things such as Treaty. Some communities, while supportive, have expressed concerns about remote and regional voices potentially being unheard, and are wanting more detail about how their voices will be represented. These views are understandable; a lot of First Nations peoples’ faith in government and the Australian people is not built on strong foundations.

However, an overwhelming majority of Indigenous peoples support a Voice to Parliament. A Yougov poll from April this year, one of the most representative samples to date, shows 83% of Indigenous peoples support a Voice. The 2022 Reconciliation Barometer Report shows this number as even higher, though arguably with less representative samples.

Is anyone listening to regional people?

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has stated the Voice would be incapable of representing regional and rural peoples. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says supporting pre-existing bureaucracies would be more effective for local people.

Yet the Central Land Council, representing traditional owners in central Australia,has repeatedly rebuked comments from Price, stating she has been misrepresenting their views on the Voice, and that she doesn’t “speak for them” or their communities.

Indigenous people in NSW’s regional town of Orange have also expressed strong support for the Voice. While speaking to SBS, Orange’s Aboriginal Medical Service chief executive Jamie Newman stated,

It’d be remiss of us not to take this opportunity now to say we need a change in direction, if we’re going to get services on the ground, going to get outcomes for our people, if we’re ever going to close the gap.

The Voice to Parliament is supported by major land councils and community controlled organisations, as well as other non-Indigenous regional institutions, including universities, many local Country Women’s Association (CWA) branches, and, according to the Guardian in 2022, 66% of regional voters.

We need better engagement with regional people

Much of the discussion in the referendum campaign has been focused on the major cities and their suburbs. Less attention has been put to Indigenous peoples in the regions.

Referendums are about all Australians having a say about our constitutional democracy. Failing to seek the active participation of regional and rural peoples is doing them a disservice. It is this neglect that forms much of the problems and resentments regional peoples have towards Canberra.

In addition, the Voice to Parliament is about making sure Indigenous peoples from across the continent are heard effectively. Are we truly doing politics and media differently if we don’t actively engage 30% of Australians and 60% of Indigenous peoples? The referendum could be won or lost on these voters.

As someone who lives in a small town in country NSW of less than 2000 people, I see the problems faced out here, the lack of involvement from government, and the strong need to engage with voters from these parts of the country, not just in the cities and suburbs.

Read more:
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Giving regional people enough information

Many communities are taking their own initiative to be informed. Wagga Wagga City Council has held forums on the Voice, alongside state MP Dr Joe McGirr, to inform and engage people. Independent federal MP Andrew Gee has been holding events across Calare, and campaigning on the issue of the Voice with Linda Burney.

Fellow Independent Helen Haines has begun outreach campaigns with local elders, seeking to take in the views of her community. Before taking leave for illness, Labor Senator Pat Dodson had been speaking at a number of forums for regional peoples, including one in Ballarat, where he noted,

people in the regions are really wanting to do the right thing and they want information […] if they get that, they will do the right thing and they will vote positively for this referendum.

Local councils, regional MPs, organisations from our rural communities such as the CWA, all have roles to play in this referendum campaign. Even if they are undecided on the Voice, we must ensure regional and remote peoples are included in the nation’s dialogues about the Voice.

It’s what the Voice has always been about for Indigenous peoples – ensuring our people are heard, even if we’re far away.

James Blackwell is a member of the Uluru Dialogue at UNSW.

– ref. Regional communities were central to Uluru Statement, and they must also be for the Voice to Parliament – https://theconversation.com/regional-communities-were-central-to-uluru-statement-and-they-must-also-be-for-the-voice-to-parliament-206288

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arjun Burlakoti, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy and Neuroanatomy, University of South Australia

How does your brain know how to move your body? – Ivy, age 8, Victoria

Hi Ivy, thanks for asking such an interesting question!

To answer it, we’ll need to look at some different parts of the brain and what they do.

First, the brain collects information

The front part of the brain plans and makes decisions. It does this after considering the different types of information it receives from “nerve cells”.

This information is called “sensory” information. It comes from touch, pain, temperature, hearing, seeing, and so on.

This is what happens when, for example, we spot someone giving out chocolate on the street, we turn our heads to look at them and walk towards the chocolate.

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So how do the messages get from the brain?

The brain lives in the brain box in our head. The spinal cord lives in the spinal canal, in the back part of our body.

Tiny nerve fibres that come out of the lower part of the brain and the spinal cord connect many muscles. When they tighten, they make things move.

Some nerve fibres connect to muscles that cross the joints. Others attach to the tongue and eyeball and make them move.

Nerve cells send signals among each other, and between all the muscles and glands, including those responsible for making saliva in the mouth and digestive juices in the stomach.

A human brain has more than 100 billion nerve cells and sends messages to make us do things like walk, skip or stand up from a chair.

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Different jobs for different parts of the brain

The brain has many regions that coordinate how we move.

One part helps us work out how much force is necessary in making the movement. It also tells the brain to start the movement.

Another part plays a role in the timing of movements.

Different types of nerves also have different roles. Some help us move voluntarily – when we choose to. These nerves connect to the muscles responsible for moving our joints in different body parts, like our arms and legs.

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Another group of nerves work automatically. They sense what is happening inside our body without us consciously knowing. These nerves control the muscles in our heart, blood vessels, stomach, intestines, kidneys and other organs, helping them work properly.

What’s the answer in a nutshell?

So Ivy, to sum up, the brain receives information from our senses and uses this to control our body movements.

Different parts of the brain send messages to different parts of the body to get these movements right.

Our brain can also store movements into memories that will be recalled for future use. That’s why you can remember how to ride a bike, even if you haven’t ridden one for months.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

Arjun Burlakoti 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. Curious Kids: how does your brain know how to move your body? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-does-your-brain-know-how-to-move-your-body-200544

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ivan Maksymov, Principal Research Fellow, Charles Sturt University

Can a computer learn from the past and anticipate what will happen next, like a human? You might not be surprised to hear that some cutting-edge AI models could achieve this feat, but what about a computer that looks a little different – more like a tank of water?

We have built a small proof-of-concept computer that uses running water instead of a traditional logical circuitry processor, and forecasts future events via an approach called “reservoir computing”.

In benchmark tests, our analogue computer did well at remembering input data and forecasting future events – and in some cases it even did better than a high-performance digital computer.

So how does it work?

Throwing stones in the pond

Imagine two kids, Alice and Bob, playing at the edge of a pond. Bob throws big and small stones into water one at a time, seemingly at random.

Big and small stones create water waves of different size. Alice watches the water waves created by the stones and learns to anticipate what the waves will do next – and from that, she can have an idea of which stone Bob will throw next.

Reservoir computers copy the reasoning process taking place in Alice’s brain. They can learn from past inputs to predict the future events.

Although reservoir computers were first proposed using neural networks – computer programs loosely based on the structure of neurons in the brain – they can also be built with simple physical systems.

Reservoir computers are analogue computers. An analogue computer represents data continuously, as opposed to digital computers which represent data as abruptly changing binary “zero” and “one” states.

Representing data in a continuous way enables analogue computers to model certain natural events – ones that occur in a kind of unpredictable sequence called a “chaotic time series” – better than a digital computer.

How to make predictions

To understand how we can use a reservoir computer to make predictions, imagine you have a record of daily rainfall for the past year and a bucket full of water near you. The bucket will be our “computational reservoir”.

We input the daily rainfall record to the bucket by means of stone. For a day of light rain, we throw a small stone; for a day of heavy rain, a big stone. For a day of no rain, we throw no rock.

Each stone creates waves, which then slosh around the bucket and interact with waves created by other stones.

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At the end of this process, the state of the water in the bucket gives us a prediction. If the interactions between waves create large new waves, we can say our reservoir computer predicts heavy rains. But if they are small then we should expect only light rain.

It is also possible that the waves will cancel one another, forming a still water surface. In that case we should not expect any rain.

The reservoir makes a weather forecast because the waves in the bucket and rainfall patterns evolve over time following the same laws of physics.

So do many other natural and socio-economic processes. This means a reservoir computer can also forecast financial markets and even certain kinds of human activity.

Longer-lasting waves

The “bucket of water” reservoir computer has its limits. For one thing, the waves are short-lived. To forecast complex processes such as climate change and population growth, we need a reservoir with more durable waves.

One option is “solitons”. These are self-reinforcing waves that keep their shape and move for long distances.

For our reservoir computer, we used compact soliton-like waves. You often see such waves in a bathroom sink or a drinking fountain.

In our computer, a thin layer of water flows over a slightly inclined metal plate. A small electric pump changes the speed of the flow and creates solitary waves.

We added a fluorescent material to make the water glow under ultraviolet light, to precisely measure the size of the waves.

The pump plays the role of falling stones in the game played by Alice and Bob, but the solitary waves correspond to the waves on the water surface. Solitary waves move much faster and live longer than water waves in a bucket, which lets our computer process data at a higher speed.

So, how does it perform?

We tested our computer’s ability to remember past inputs and to make forecasts for a benchmark set of chaotic and random data. Our computer not only executed all tasks exceptionally well but also outperformed a high-performance digital computer tasked with the same problem.

With my colleague Andrey Pototsky, we also created a mathematical model that enabled us to better understand the physical properties of the solitary waves.

Next, we plan to miniaturise our computer as a microfluidic processor. Water waves should be able to do computations inside a chip that operates similarly to the silicon chips used in every smartphone.

Read more:
What was the first computer?

In the future, our computer may be able to produce reliable long-term forecasts in areas such as climate change, bushfires and financial markets – with much lower cost and wider availability than current supercomputers.

Our computer is also naturally immune to cyber attacks because it does not use digital data.

Our vision is that a soliton-based microfluidic reservoir computer will bring data science and machine learning to rural and remote communities worldwide. But for now, our research work continues.

Ivan Maksymov 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. Researchers built an analogue computer that uses water waves to forecast the chaotic future – https://theconversation.com/researchers-built-an-analogue-computer-that-uses-water-waves-to-forecast-the-chaotic-future-205842

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Dare, Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland

When Jason Paris, head of the company that sponsors the New Zealand Warriors NRL team, complained recently about Australian referee bias, more than a few heads will have nodded in agreement.

Sports fans often think the ref is biased against their team – penalising them for the very same actions the other side is getting away with.

But taking the element of trans-Tasman rivalry out of the argument for the moment, it’s worth asking whether it’s even possible for referees to operate without being unconsciously influenced by factors beyond their immediate control.

The honest answer is probably not – despite most professional sporting bodies regularly rejecting claims of bias.

It’s clear from a wide range of research that, while it’s unlikely professional referees consciously cheat, they are likely to be affected by unconscious biases. In fact, referee bias has been reported in pretty much every aspect of most sports, including the use of yellow cards, red cards and penalty kicks.

None of this is surprising, or even particularly critical of referees. Humans are all subject to unconscious bias, and it’s very difficult to overcome.

Confirmation bias is real

We all use a range of reasoning shortcuts – also known as “heuristics” – to make decisions and assessments. While useful, many of these shortcuts can lead us astray, despite our best efforts.

For example, one such heuristic leads us to notice evidence that confirms positions we already hold and to overlook evidence that is inconsistent with those views.

This tendency – known as confirmation bias – has its uses. It lets us make quick decisions when we don’t have the time to consider all the evidence. And it may reduce mental conflict and increase self-esteem, since it reduces how often we have to acknowledge we were wrong.

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However, confirmation bias can also be problematic. In one striking non-sports experiment, researchers asked five fingerprint experts to say whether a suspect’s fingerprints matched those from a crime scene. They didn’t tell the experts that they’d seen those same fingerprints five years earlier.

The experts had no reason to remember them, and they didn’t realise that five years earlier, they’d said they were a match. This time they were told they were looking into a probable case of mistaken identity; that the prints taken from the crime scene probably didn’t match those taken from the suspect.

Now only one of the five experts said they matched. Given exactly the same prints, but primed to look for evidence that the fingerprints didn’t match, their judgement changed.

Expectations influence outcomes

What does all this have to do with referees? Well, they’re only human. Even if not consciously biased, they will have expectations about how players and teams will perform, and there is evidence that this influences their judgements.

In one experiment, researchers took advantage of the common practice in gymnastics of coaches ordering their competitors from weakest first to strongest last.

Films of competitors were reordered and the judges asked to rank them. Where in this lineup the the competitors appeared significantly affected the scoring, with the same routine receiving a higher or lower score depending on where it was positioned.

We suspect those expectations are one reason dominant teams and players tend to have close calls go their way.

Referees expect to see some players pull off moves that bring them close to infringing but which don’t not cross that line. They are more likely to make a call against a journeyman player who they don’t expect to pull off the miracle play.

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Refs aren’t superhuman

Just like the fingerprint experts, confirmation bias leads them to see the same evidence differently. And if referees do have these kinds of expectations, it would be very difficult for them to factor these out of their decision making.

The fingerprint experts didn’t intend to tailor their judgements to suit the views they’d been primed to hold. Further, they made their judgements under calm laboratory conditions, with the evidence in front of them and plenty of time and equipment to examine and consider it.

It would be truly remarkable if referees – obliged to make calls in the heat of the moment, with pressure from players and crowds – were not at least equally affected. Referees would need to be superhuman to be immune to these dangers.

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There are also more straightforward sources of bias. Recent research into the Bundesliga, German football’s highest division, took advantage of empty stadiums during the COVID pandemic to explore the influence of vocal crowd support on referees. Unsurprisingly, the evidence suggests it does have an influence.

Pre-COVID, referees gave fewer fouls and yellow cards for the home team relative to the away team. These differences changed during the crowd-free matches, so that home teams were treated less favourably than before.

None of this is meant as a dig at referees. They are surely aware of the research on bias, and receive training and support to address it. But confirmation bias is difficult, if not impossible, to beat. Maybe we just have to accept it as part of the game.

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. ‘Whose side are you on mate?’ How no one is free from bias – including referees – https://theconversation.com/whose-side-are-you-on-mate-how-no-one-is-free-from-bias-including-referees-206273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Muhammad Usman, Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader, CSIRO

Artificial intelligence algorithms are quickly becoming a part of everyday life. Many systems that require strong security are either already underpinned by machine learning or soon will be. These systems include facial recognition, banking, military targeting applications, and robots and autonomous vehicles, to name a few.

This raises an important question: how secure are these machine learning algorithms against malicious attacks?

In an article published today in Nature Machine Intelligence, my colleagues at the University of Melbourne and I discuss a potential solution to the vulnerability of machine learning models.

We propose that the integration of quantum computing in these models could yield new algorithms with strong resilience against adversarial attacks.

The dangers of data manipulation attacks

Machine learning algorithms can be remarkably accurate and efficient for many tasks. They are particularly useful for classifying and identifying image features. However, they’re also highly vulnerable to data manipulation attacks, which can pose serious security risks.

Data manipulation attacks – which involve the very subtle manipulation of image data – can be launched in several ways. An attack may be launched by mixing corrupt data into a training dataset used to train an algorithm, leading it to learn things it shouldn’t.

Manipulated data can also be injected during the testing phase (after training is complete), in cases where the AI system continues to train the underlying algorithms while in use.

People can even carry out such attacks from the physical world. Someone could put a sticker on a stop sign to fool a self-driving car’s AI into identifying it as a speed-limit sign. Or, on the front lines, troops might wear uniforms that can fool AI-based drones into identifying them as landscape features.

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Either way, the consequences of data manipulation attacks can be severe. For example, if a self-driving car uses a machine learning algorithm that has been compromised, it may incorrectly predict there are no humans on the road – when there are.

How quantum computing can help

In our article, we describe how integrating quantum computing with machine learning could give rise to secure algorithms called quantum machine learning models.

These algorithms are carefully designed to exploit special quantum properties that would allow them to find specific patterns in image data that aren’t easily manipulated. The result would be resilient algorithms that are safe against even powerful attacks. They also wouldn’t require the expensive “adversarial training” currently used to teach algorithms how to resist such attacks.

Beyond this, quantum machine learning could allow for faster algorithmic training and more accuracy in learning features.

So how would it work?

Today’s classical computers work by storing and processing information as “bits”, or binary digits, the smallest unit of data a computer can process. In classical computers, which follow the laws of classical physics, bits are represented as binary numbers – specifically 0s and 1s.

Quantum computing, on the other hand, follows principles used in quantum physics. Information in quantum computers is stored and processed as qubits (quantum bits) which can exist as 0, 1, or a combination of both at once. A quantum system that exists in multiple states at once is said to be in a superposition state. Quantum computers can be used to design clever algorithms that exploit this property.

However, while there are significant potential benefits in using quantum computing to secure machine learning models, it could also be a double-edged sword.

On one hand, quantum machine learning models will provide critical security for many sensitive applications. On the other, quantum computers could be used to generate powerful adversarial attacks, capable of easily deceiving even state-of-the-art conventional machine learning models.

Moving forward, we’ll need to seriously consider the best ways to protect our systems; an adversary with access to early quantum computers would pose a significant security threat.

Limitations to overcome

The current evidence suggests we’re still some years away from quantum machine learning becoming a reality, due to limitations in the current generation of quantum processors.

Today’s quantum computers are relatively small (with fewer than 500 qubits) and their error rates are high. Errors may arise for several reasons, including imperfect fabrication of qubits, errors in the control circuitry, or loss of information (called “quantum decoherence”) through interaction with the environment.

Still, we’ve seen enormous progress in quantum hardware and software over the past few years. According to recent quantum hardware roadmaps, it’s anticipated quantum devices made in coming years will have hundreds to thousands of qubits.

These devices should be able to run powerful quantum machine learning models to help protect a large range of industries that rely on machine learning and AI tools.

Worldwide, governments and private sectors alike are increasing their investment in quantum technologies.

This month the Australian government launched the National Quantum Strategy, aimed at growing the nation’s quantum industry and commercialising quantum technologies. According to the CSIRO, Australia’s quantum industry could be worth about A$2.2 billion by 2030.

Read more:
Australia has a National Quantum Strategy. What does that mean?

Muhammad Usman receives funding under Australian Army Quantum Technology Challenge (QTC).

– ref. From self-driving cars to military surveillance: quantum computing can help secure the future of AI systems – https://theconversation.com/from-self-driving-cars-to-military-surveillance-quantum-computing-can-help-secure-the-future-of-ai-systems-206177

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kellie Toole, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide

Australian public prosecutors are far less visible than defence lawyers, judges and police, yet they are the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system.

Every Australian state and territory, and the Commonwealth itself, has a Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Their main role is to initiate and conduct prosecutions of serious crimes in the superior courts.

If police charge a suspect for a serious crime, they prepare a brief of evidence and provide it to the office of the DPP. The office of the DPP then assesses whether the charge is appropriate. For example, it may reduce an attempted murder charge to intentionally causing serious harm.

The DPP also has to decide whether to actually prosecute the offence. The main consideration is whether there is evidence from witnesses and the crime scene that can prove the offence. If there’s insufficient evidence, the DPP shouldn’t prosecute.

If the prosecutor decides not to prosecute a serious crime, there’s no role for defence lawyers and judges, the police investigation is of no consequence, and the suspect is free.

If the prosecutor decides to prosecute a serious crime, the lives of the defendant and the victim are changed forever.

The aborted trial of Bruce Lehrmann for an alleged rape in Parliament House in 2019 has raised multiple problems with the prosecution of rape allegations that need to be addressed (Lehrmann has maintained his innocence, and no findings have been made against him).

The resulting inquiry, which is ongoing, has shone a light on the role of the DPP.

The DPP of the ACT, Shane Drumgold, was cross-examined for a week over his handling of Lehrmann’s prosecution. Drumgold expressed concerns with the conduct of police before and after the aborted trial, and even levelled explosive allegations that he thought the case may have been subject to improper political influence. He later walked this back, and instead claimed his concerns with the police were most likely due to “a skills deficit”.

This week, Detective Superintendent Scott Moller alleged Drumgold had “lost objectivity” in the case. Moller said police “were concerned for the presumption of innocence. They were worried about putting Mr Lehrmann before the court when they didn’t believe there was enough evidence.”

Disagreements between police and DPPs are not unusual and are not necessarily a problem. Reasonable minds often differ on prosecutorial decisions, and disagreement can be a healthy “check and balance” within the system.

However, the tension highlights broader issues within the DPP system.

What is a DPP?

Australian DPPs are independent, non-political statutory officers.

They differ from District Attorneys in the United States.

In the US, District Attorneys are elected by the people, and it’s common to see television adverts and posters of candidates spruiking their conviction rates and, in some states, their execution rates. They sell their worth to voters by showing themselves to be “tough on crime” and on the people who commit crime.

Australian DPPs are ministers of justice, appointed by the governor, to prosecute crimes fairly, frankly, and without fear or favour.

They are prosecutors, not persecutors. They work for the good of the whole community, in the interests of justice. They do not represent the police, the government, complainants or victims of crime.

They should only prosecute a case if it’s in the public interest and there’s a reasonable prospect of a conviction.

The popularity of the decision with the public or the government isn’t relevant to whether a prosecution goes ahead.

DPPs generally keep a low public profile – public touting of conviction rates is not acceptable. They explain controversial or complex decisions to the public through their websites, annual reports and media releases.

The outcome of any trial must be fair and just, and not simply a “notch in the belt” of a prosecutor.

Political dilemma

Prosecutions have not always been non-political in Australia, and in some ways they are still not. Until the 1980s and ‘90s, the attorney-general was responsible for prosecutions – but in their capacity as First Law Officer of the Crown, not as an elected party politician.

An increasingly cynical public had trouble accepting that an attorney-general could really make decisions about prosecutions without being influenced by the political consequences for themselves, their party or their government.

The independent, statutory offices of DPP were established so prosecutorial decisions were made at “arm’s length” from politics, and only matters of law and evidence determined whether a prosecution went ahead or was discontinued.

However, there was a dilemma.

Political involvement in criminal prosecutions is not all bad. Having elected representatives involved in prosecutions means that public views and community concerns about cases and trends are heard and considered.

So there’s a balancing issue: how to make sure prosecutorial decisions are not so political that they are made in the short-term interests of governments, but political enough that they reflect community standards.

To put the dilemma in legal terms, how do we achieve independence, accountability and the public interest in prosecutorial decisions?

An odd compromise

The question is answered in Australia by way of a rather odd compromise.

The DPP makes prosecutorial decisions in a statutory office independent of politics, but the DPP is appointed by the governor, who is advised by the government. DPPs are appointed for limited terms (unlike judges who are appointed until retirement), so if they displease the government, they may not be reappointed.

Also, the DPP is overseen by the attorney-general. The attorney-general’s powers differ across the country, but some can direct the DPP to take certain actions or step in and take actions with which the DPP disagrees. These decisions are not made in court, so are not necessarily transparent and they may be politically motivated.

Read more:
Lehrmann retrial abandoned because of ‘a significant and unacceptable risk’ to Brittany Higgins’ life

The decision to prosecute or not raises big political and philosophical questions. But most importantly, it directly affects peoples’ lives in profound and lasting ways.

A person prosecuted for rape or murder may face extreme stigma, even if they are not found guilty.

A victim who reports a serious crime that is not prosecuted may be retraumatised and their faith in the criminal justice system shattered.

The question of who decides whether or not to prosecute is fundamental to our community and democracy. At the moment, our system has not really resolved the question of how much politics we want in prosecutions, if we want any at all.

Kellie Toole is a member of the Australian Labor Party

– ref. Lehrmann inquiry: what’s a director of public prosecutions or DPP? A legal expert explains – https://theconversation.com/lehrmann-inquiry-whats-a-director-of-public-prosecutions-or-dpp-a-legal-expert-explains-206194

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yana Wengel, Associate Professor in Tourism and Geography, Hainan University

Mountains – their height, their mass, their climates and ecosystems – have fascinated humans for thousands of years. But there is one that holds extra-special meaning for many – Mount Everest, or Chomolungma as the Nepalese Sherpa people call it.

A sacred mountain for some, for others the world’s highest peak represents a challenge and a lifelong dream. Seventy years ago, on May 29, 1953, that challenge and dream became reality for two members of a British expedition: New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the 8,848.86-metre summit.

Their achievement was a testament to endurance and determination. It was also the crowning glory of the British expedition’s nationalistic motivations on the eve of the young Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.

From our vantage in the present, it also represents a high point, not just in climbing terms, but in what we now think of as the modern era of mountaineering. Since then, mountaineering has become massively popular and commercial – with serious implications for the cultures and environments that sustain it.

Scaling the heights

The early mountaineering era began in 1786 when Jaques Balmat and Michel Paccard reached the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the European Alps at 4,808 metres. From 1854 to 1899 (known as the classic mountaineering period), advances in climbing technology saw ascending peaks by challenging routes become possible and popular.

During the modern era from 1900 to 1963, mountaineers pushed further into the Andes cordillera in South America, explored polar mountains and began high-altitude climbing in Central Asia.

Read more:
How Mount Everest helped Britain’s post-war bid to burnish global power credentials

Shishapangma, the last of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks to be climbed, was scaled in 1964, marking the start of contemporary mountaineering. Since then, all of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks have been climbed in winter, culminating in the historic winter scaling of the 8,611-metre K2 by a Nepalese expedition in 2021.

The record-setting assault on the world’s 14 highest peaks by Nirmal Puja in 2019 set the stage for a new period of commercial mass mountaineering – involving expectations and conditions that would have stunned the likes of Hillary and Norgay.

Mass mountaineering

The relatively recent influx of what some call novice mountaineers, who may expect luxury packages and a guarantee of summiting, can have dangerous consequences.

Sleeping in heated tents, not preparing their own food or helping to move equipment, does not test mental and physical fitness in such challenging environments. Pushing to the summit may put their own lives, and the lives of other climbers and rescue teams, at risk.

And yet the number of people attempting to climb famous peaks such as Kilimanjaro in Tanzania or Aconcagua in Argentina has increased dramatically. In 2019, there were 878 successful summits on Everest alone.

Read more:
Death on Everest: the boom in climbing tourism is dangerous and unsustainable

The days when true mountaineers were looking for new routes and climbing with minimum support have almost disappeared from commercial peaks like Everest. And many of these commercial climbers would not have a chance without professional support.

In 1992, for example, when the first commercial mountaineering expeditions on Everest began, 22 Sherpas and 65 paying mountaineers summited – one Sherpa for three clients. Nowadays, two or even three Sherpas for each member of a commercial expedition is common.

But the romance and achievements of past mountaineers, combined with social media images and an “all-inclusive” adventure tourism industry, can lull inexperienced climbers into a false sense of security. On Everest, this has led to overcrowding, environmental degradation and increased risks for all climbers.

During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nepal’s Khumbu region – where Everest sits – was effectively shut for climbing. This year, however, some estimate a record of more than 1,000 people could reach the summit.

The next challenge

Experienced mountaineers are responding to the challenges of overcrowding, pollution and socio-cultural impacts on mountain communities by advocating for more responsible and sustainable mountaineering practices.

They want stricter regulations and better training to protect the fragile ecosystems of the Himalayas and other mountain ranges worldwide.

Read more:
Is it time to stop climbing mountains? Obsession with reaching summits is a modern invention

This will require many stakeholders to play their part, including governments, mountaineering organisations, tourism operators and local communities. Ultimately, the future of mountaineering depends on preserving these unique mountain environments in the first place.

Finally, maybe it’s time to introduce minimum skill requirements for climbing the world’s highest peak.

As we mark the 70th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest, we need to reflect on the changes that have taken place in mountaineering since. Paradoxically, while it has become more accessible and popular, it has also become more challenging and complex.

Meeting those challenges and solving the problems will be the best way to honour the extraordinary achievement of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

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. 70 years after the first ascent of Everest, the impact of mass mountaineering must be confronted – https://theconversation.com/70-years-after-the-first-ascent-of-everest-the-impact-of-mass-mountaineering-must-be-confronted-204270

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bjorn Sturmberg, Senior Research Fellow, Battery Storage & Grid Integration Program, Australian National University

Consumers struggling with cost-of-living pressures were dealt another blow on Thursday, when the Australian Energy Regulator confirmed energy price hikes of up to 25% from July.

For the one in three Australian homes with rooftop solar, the bill shock will be reduced – together with their carbon emissions. But households without solar, such as renters and social housing tenants, are missing out on the benefits.

In this month’s federal budget, A$1 billion was allocated to low-interest loans to homeowners for energy efficiency upgrades, solar panel installation and swapping out gas for electric appliances. Details are sketchy so far, but the government says the package “will focus on households that most need support”, including renters.

But do low-interest loans encourage landlords to install solar on rental homes? Our research suggests in many cases, the answer is no. New measures are needed to make sure renters benefit from solar technology – both through lower bills, and more liveable homes.

Solar haves and solar have-nots

Rents in Australia are on the rise. But as of 2017-2018, there was only a 3-4% chance a rental property had solar panels on the roof.

The conventional view is that two main barriers exist to solar being installed on rentals.

The first is that property investors don’t want to pay for the technology when they aren’t directly reaping the benefits of lower bills and a more comfortable home temperature.

But this dynamic is an inherent part of the rental arrangement. And it ignores the fact that landlords routinely make other improvements to investment properties, such as kitchen upgrades, even though they’re not using the kitchen. Instead, landlords benefit by collecting higher rents.

The second perceived barrier is the upfront cost of installing solar. Until now, efforts to increase solar on rental properties have focused on reducing this cost through subsidies and low-interest finance.

But are upfront costs really preventing landlords from installing solar on rental properties? Our research set out to answer that question.

First, we surveyed 931 property investors with all types of buildings. This involved a ranking exercise where landlords selected the most and least important reasons for not yet putting solar panels on their rental home.

We then surveyed 147 owners of stand-alone rental homes. We asked them to choose between hypothetical policy options involving system costs, billing arrangements and interest-free loans.

Read more:
Community batteries are popular – but we have to make sure they actually help share power

Our findings

Our research found landlords are concerned about the upfront cost of solar. They ranked it as one of two top reasons why they hadn’t installed rooftop panels.

But when offered a choice of hypothetical policy options, about two-thirds opted for upfront payment of solar systems rather than an interest-free loan. So for the majority of landlords, loans don’t seem to be the key tipping point.

And the other top reason landlords don’t install rooftop solar? Because they think renters aren’t willing to pay higher rent in exchange.

However, this perception runs counter to a 2021 study that found Australian renters with solar panels pay about A$19 more in rent each week than non-solar renters. This meant landlords could recoup the cost of installation in about five  years.

So for policymakers wanting to get more solar on rental homes, initiatives must go beyond low-interest loans.

Other research we’ve conducted found many landlords saw energy efficiency measures, such as electric heating, as extremely expensive – and, in the case of insulation, invisible and therefore not valued by renters.

Our research also examined barriers for apartment landlords when it comes to energy efficiency upgrades and installing solar panels. Many worried about issues such as body corporate approval, and physical and legal barriers.

This suggests policies to increase the energy efficiency of the rental housing stock must cater to different dwelling types.

Read more:
Check your mirrors: 3 things rooftop solar can teach us about Australia’s electric car rollout

So what next?

The federal government should be commended for spending on energy efficiency. But further actions are needed.

One potential group that should receive more attention is the real estate industry. Property managers have relationships with both landlords and tenants, and deep knowledge of the rental market.

Resources could, for instance, be invested into teaching property managers about the benefits of rooftop solar and energy efficiency upgrades. Property managers could then include such features in home advertisements and talk about these benefits in discussions with landlords and prospective tenants.

Additional incentives could be provided to investors and property managers who, say, make a home less reliant on gas over time. This would mean as old appliances fail, they’re replaced with efficient electric versions – for hot water, heating and cooking.

What’s more, information about a property’s energy-efficiency performance should be made available to all prospective renters.

The ACT government has made steps towards this. It requires a home’s energy efficiency rating be disclosed to prospective buyers at the time of sale, and be disclosed to renters when a rating is available.

This should occur nationally, and be expanded to include the amount of energy generated by solar panels on a property, and the amount of money to be saved on energy bills.

Lastly, tax breaks for property investing, such as negative gearing, should be conditional on rental properties meeting minimum energy efficiency standards.

It’s good to see rental properties on the federal government’s agenda. But our research shows improving Australia’s rental stock requires far more than low-cost financing.

Bjorn Sturmberg received funding from Energy Consumers Australia for the research on solar for rental properties discussed in this piece (grant number APAPR21003. The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the views of Energy Consumers Australia). He was previously the founder and CEO of SunTenants, a company making solar work for rental properties. SunTenants was aquired by Solar Analytics in 2019. Bjorn Sturmberg remains a shareholder in Solar Analytics.

Lee White received funding from Energy Consumers Australia (APAPR21003) for the research on solar for rental properties discussed in this piece. The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the views of Energy Consumers Australia.

Mara Hammerle received funding from Energy Consumers Australia for the research on solar for rental properties discussed in this piece. She currently works at the Centre for Policy Development.

– ref. Electricity prices are rising again. Here’s how to ensure renters can cash-in on rooftop solar – https://theconversation.com/electricity-prices-are-rising-again-heres-how-to-ensure-renters-can-cash-in-on-rooftop-solar-205928

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathy Gunn, CSIRO

Antarctica sets the stage for the world’s greatest waterfall. The action takes place beneath the surface of the ocean. Here, trillions of tonnes of cold, dense, oxygen-rich water cascade off the continental shelf and sink to great depths. This Antarctic “bottom water” then spreads north along the sea floor in deep ocean currents, before slowly rising, thousands of kilometres away.

In this way, Antarctica drives a global network of ocean currents called the “overturning circulation” that redistributes heat, carbon and nutrients around the globe. The overturning is crucial to keeping Earth’s climate stable. It’s also the main way oxygen reaches the deep ocean.

But there are signs this circulation is slowing down and it’s happening decades earlier than predicted. This slowdown has the potential to disrupt the connection between the Antarctic coasts and the deep ocean, with profound consequences for Earth’s climate, sea level and marine life.

Our new research, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, uses real-world observations to decipher how and why the deep ocean around Antarctica has changed over the past three decades. Our measurements show the overturning circulation has slowed by almost a third (30%) and deep ocean oxygen levels are declining. This is happening even earlier than climate models predicted.

We found melting of Antarctic ice is disrupting the formation of Antarctic bottom water. The meltwater makes Antarctic surface waters fresher, less dense, and therefore less likely to sink. This puts the brakes on the overturning circulation.

Read more:
Torrents of Antarctic meltwater are slowing the currents that drive our vital ocean ‘overturning’ – and threaten its collapse

Why does this matter?

As the flow of bottom water slows, the supply of oxygen to the deep ocean declines. The shrinking oxygen-rich bottom water layer is then replaced by warmer waters that are lower in oxygen, further reducing oxygen levels.

Ocean animals, large and small, respond to even small changes in oxygen. Deep-ocean animals are adapted to low oxygen conditions but still have to breathe. Losses of oxygen may cause them to seek refuge in other regions or adapt their behaviour. Models suggest we are locked in to a contraction of the “viable” environment available to these animals with an expected decline of up to 25%.

Slowdown of the overturning may also intensify global warming. The overturning circulation carries carbon dioxide and heat to the deep ocean, where it is stored and hidden from the atmosphere. As the ocean storage capacity is reduced, more carbon dioxide and heat are left in the atmosphere. This feedback accelerates global warming.

Reductions in the amount of Antarctic bottom water reaching the ocean floor also increases sea levels because the warmer water that replaces it takes up more space (thermal expansion).

Signs of a worrying change

Making observations of bottom water is challenging. The Southern Ocean is remote and home to the strongest winds and biggest waves on the planet. Access is also restricted by sea ice during winter, when bottom water forms.

This means observations of the deep Southern Ocean are sparse. Nevertheless, repeated full-depth measurements taken from ship voyages have provided glimpses into the changes underway in the deep ocean. The bottom water layer is getting warmer, less dense and thinner.

Satellite data shows the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking. Ocean measurements taken downstream of regions of rapid melt show the meltwater is reducing the salinity (and density) of coastal waters.

Read more:
Antarctica’s heart of ice has skipped a beat. Time to take our medicine

These signs point to a worrying change, but there are still no direct observations of the deep overturning circulation.

What did we do?

We combined different types of observations in a new way, taking advantage of each of their strengths.

The full-depth measurements collected by ships provide snapshots of ocean density, but are usually repeated about once a decade. Moored instruments, on the other hand, provide continuous measurements of density and speed, but only for a limited time at a particular location.

We developed a new approach that combines ship data, mooring records, and a high resolution numerical simulation to calculate the strength of Antarctic bottom water flow and how much oxygen it transports to the deep ocean.

Our study focused on a deep basin south of Australia that receives bottom water from several sources. These sources lie downstream of large meltwater inputs, so this region is likely to provide an early warning of climate-induced deep ocean changes.

The findings are striking. Over three decades, between 1992 and 2017, the overturning circulation of this region slowed by almost a third (30%) causing less oxygen to reach the deep. This slowing was caused by freshening close to Antarctica.

We found this freshening reduces the density and volume of Antarctic bottom water formed, as well as the speed at which it flows.

The observed slowdown would have been even greater if not for a short-lived climate event that drove a partial and temporary recovery of bottom water formation. The recovery, driven by increased salinity, further illustrates the sensitivity of bottom water formation to salinity changes on the Antarctic continental shelf.

Worryingly, these observations show that changes predicted to occur by 2050 are already underway.

What next?

Ice loss from Antarctica is expected to continue, even accelerate, as the world warms. We are almost certain to cross the 1.5℃ global warming threshold by 2027.

More ice loss will mean more freshening, so we can anticipate the slowdown in circulation and deep oxygen losses will continue.

The consequences of a slowdown will not be limited to Antarctica. The overturning circulation extends throughout the global ocean and influences the pace of climate change and sea level rise. It will also be disruptive and damaging for marine life.

Our research provides yet another reason to work harder – and faster – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more:
Record low Antarctic sea ice is another alarming sign the ocean’s role as climate regulator is changing

Matthew England receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Steve Rintoul receives funding from the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Kathy Gunn 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. Antarctic alarm bells: observations reveal deep ocean currents are slowing earlier than predicted – https://theconversation.com/antarctic-alarm-bells-observations-reveal-deep-ocean-currents-are-slowing-earlier-than-predicted-206289

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Siostrom, Associate Lecturer in Science Education, University of the Sunshine Coast

Teacher shortages around Australia mean there is an ongoing debate about how to attract, retain and educate more teachers.

One part of the push to increase teacher numbers is encouraging people to swap their current career for a teaching role.

Mid-career or “career change” students are increasingly common in teacher education programs. The most recent Australian data shows as of 2017, one-third of new applicants were 25 or older.

We also know there are plenty of people interested. A 2022 survey by the federal government’s Behavioural Economics Team found one in three mid-career individuals was open to the idea of teaching.

Last August, the Albanese government set up an expert panel on teacher education, in part due to concerns about teacher shortages. Led by Sydney University vice-chancellor Mark Scott (who also chairs The Conversation’s board), the panel is due to submit a report next month. One of the key items it is looking at is how to “improve” teaching degrees to attract mid-career entrants.

What does the research tell us about the people who go into teaching mid-career? And what lessons does it hold for policymakers wanting them to stay in their new job?

Our research

Our new research reviewed studies on career-change teachers from the past two decades.

It examined 29 studies on career-change teachers, to identify who chooses to enter teaching, why they make the switch, and the barriers that can stop them changing careers. This international review explored the experiences of career-change teachers worldwide, including Australian, US, UK and New Zealand studies.

Read more:
A new review into how teachers are educated should acknowledge they learn throughout their careers (not just at the start)

Who enters teaching?

Career-change teachers come from many different backgrounds. We identified more than 140 prior careers.

There were former tradespeople, lawyers and scientists. Others had hospitality, administration or retail experience.

We also found people often chose teaching after experience in teacher-like roles.

Many previously worked in childcare, tutoring, volunteering in classrooms, coaching sports, or working with children in community organisations. Some mentioned work leadership roles such as staff training or mentoring.

These experiences helped career changers see they were suited to teaching. Many realised having skills such as effective communication, organisation, resilience, and being able to build relationships were useful for teaching.

Others chose teaching because they liked working with children or wanted to share expertise in a field they were passionate about, such as science. Several were inspired by role model teachers or had family who were teachers.

What makes someone switch to teaching?

Many had thought about becoming a teacher for a long time, calling it a longstanding interest or “someday” career. This desire often predated their first career choice, but life circumstances played a big role in choosing when to make the switch.

Some had become dissatisfied in their job because of boredom, long hours or poor conditions, or because they wanted a career that felt more meaningful.

Having children made teaching a more attractive option for many. Career changers felt the shorter working days, hours that aligned with children’s school, and regular holidays would allow them to better manage family responsibilities.

We also found global circumstances influenced the choice to teach. Some career changers chose this pathway when their jobs became unstable during industry declines, offshore outsourcing, or due to events such as the global financial crisis.

Read more:
We won’t solve the teacher shortage until we answer these 4 questions

What does and does not support career changers?

Our research also found career changers often faced challenges when choosing to teach.

Career-change teachers reported friends and family usually supported the idea of choosing teaching. However, in some cases when individuals were switching from high-status careers (as scientists or doctors), people questioned the change, seeing teaching as a drop.

Mature entrants sometimes struggled in teacher education programs, because of study costs and lack of financial support, especially during lengthy unpaid professional placements.

Others felt teacher education programs often lacked flexibility or didn’t recognise the unique needs, skills and experiences of mid-career students.

Supports such as scholarships, flexible timetables and mentoring helped them balance teaching studies with their existing life responsibilities.

Read more:
‘We can no longer justify unpaid labour’: why uni students need to be paid for work placements

Expectations vs reality

Once mid-career teachers made it into a job, their ideas about teaching did not always match reality.

Some were shocked by the high workloads, excessive administration demands, continual government-driven changes and lack of professional autonomy.

Indeed, many career-change teachers end up leaving the profession early. An estimated 30-50% of all new Australian teachers leave the profession within the first five years, and for career-change teachers, this figure is estimated to be 25% higher

What can we do differently?

To encourage more mid-career entrants to join the teaching profession, we need to better appreciate the unique strengths and experiences they bring from their previous lives. Mid-career entrants come to schools with new ideas and enthusiasm to make a difference and share their real-world and industry experiences.

One option is to formally recognise extensive industry experiences or advanced subject area qualifications (such as a PhD in chemistry) these career changers bring to schools. This could be done with expedited career progression or specialist roles within schools.

Schools could also offer increasingly flexible employment pathways (such as jobshare arrangements or innovative timetabling) for career changers who want to maintain industry connections.

This could allow for school-industry partnerships that benefit students, and let these teachers use their professional experiences to make a difference. In doing so, this crucial teaching workforce may feel they are making a positive contribution to their students and be more likely to stay.

Read more:
Many teachers find planning with colleagues a waste of time. Here’s how to improve it

Reece Mills receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Theresa Bourke receives funding from the ARC.

Erin Siostrom 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. Working with kids, being passionate about a subject, making a difference: what makes people switch careers to teaching? – https://theconversation.com/working-with-kids-being-passionate-about-a-subject-making-a-difference-what-makes-people-switch-careers-to-teaching-205999

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Koh, Honorary Associate, Faculty of Business, School of Management, University of Technology Sydney

A court judgement handed down last Friday has delivered what years of promises from Australia’s life insurance industry have not – insurance that pays out on what it says it will.

I first raised the issue of outdated medical conditions within the insurance industry almost 15 years ago. Then in 2016, after stepping down as chief medical officer for CommInsure, then owned by the Commonwealth Bank, I spoke on Four Corners about the practice of using outdated definitions of conditions such as heart attacks to refuse payouts.

A random audit conducted of 40 heart attack claims found CommInsure had knocked back more than half by using a threshold for diagnosing substances in the blood that was by then out of date.

This then led to two parliamentary inquiries and an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission that found that while selling policies with outdated medical definitions was not against the law, it was “out of step with community expectations”.

ASIC belatedly got tough

The banking royal commission was critical of ASIC’s performance in this area, and in 2021 ASIC commenced action against the insurer MLC for denying payouts to customers because it had failed to promptly update its definition for the insurance benefit of severe rheumatoid arthritis.

On May 18, Justice Moshinsky of the Federal Court found that MLC’s failure to promptly update the medical definition for severe rheumatoid arthritis had contravened the Corporations Act 2001.

The section of the Corporations Act in which the breach occurred has been in place for a long time, suggesting failure to update medical definitions would have been illegal for a long time.

Tight definitions quickly date

There are generally four types of life insurance in Australia. The most common is death (or more euphemistically, “life”) insurance, which pays a benefit when a policyholder dies. The others are

• total and permanent disability insurance, which pays a sum of money when a person becomes disabled

• income protection, which pays a monthly benefit when someone is sick

• and trauma or critical illness insurance, which pays out a lump sum when a policyholder experiences a defined medical event.

For death insurance (“life” insurance) the definition is usually uncontentious, as it is for income protection insurance, which kicks in after a period of waiting if a treating doctor diagnosed a condition that prevents work in an occupation covered by the insurance policy.

More contentious are the definitions for total and permanent disability insurance and trauma insurance.

The problem with tightly and strictly-worded definitions is they can get out of date very quickly, whereas the policies they are written into can stay in place for decades. Unless updated, they can turn the policies into near-useless; so-called “junk insurance”.

The MLC policies that ASIC took action against required the claimant to develop a level of deformity now uncommonly seen, given available treatments – even for clinically severe cases. In essence what the court has found was that the holders of those policies were holding something close to junk.

Loopholes in the industry’s code

The Code of Practice for life insurers is only voluntary, and is administered by the Financial Services Council.

Insurers who subscribe to it now do have to review medical definitions at least every three years, but only for new policies that are currently on sale – not for existing policies held by existing customers.

The new code due to come into effect in July 2023 continues to leave out existing customers, but adds a commitment that seems to offer new customers more.

It says where a policy

has a medical definition which specifies an obsolete method of diagnosis or treatment that is no longer used in mainstream medical practice in Australia, we will assess your claim, including whether it meets the required degree of severity defined in your policy, using a current method of diagnosis or treatment approved for use in Australia

But for sufferers of severe rheumatoid arthritis the offer is near meaningless.

Whereas rheumatoid arthritis can be diagnosed by various clinical criteria, including blood tests, such diagnostic criteria does not equate to the level of severity.

The outdated definition of “severe” used in insurance policies commonly requires a number of things in addition to a diagnosis.

Read more:
New life insurance code riddled with loopholes

The extra requirements include (and all of them are needed) joint deformity, and bilateral and symmetrical joint soft tissue swelling or fluid.

These extra requirements are in addition to what is required for diagnosis, meaning that code, which refers to methods of “diagnosis or treatment” doesn’t cover them.

They are also obsolete, but the wording of the code only requires the updating of obsolete methods of diagnosis or treatment – not obsolete methods for determining severity.

Thankfully, claimants are now able to rely on more than the code. Friday’s judgement established that outdated medical definitions are a breach of the law regardless of the code, and have been for a long time.

Dr Benjamin Koh was the chief medical officer at two life insurers. He was involved in the media exposé of insurer bad conduct, assisted in the parliamentary and ASIC inquiries into the issue of outdated medical definitions, and advocated for claimants of life insurance policies. He was quoted with approval at the Banking Royal Commission and now works as a class action solicitor at Shine Lawyers.

– ref. I helped expose insurers for denying medical claims. 15 years on, a court has found what they did is illegal – https://theconversation.com/i-helped-expose-insurers-for-denying-medical-claims-15-years-on-a-court-has-found-what-they-did-is-illegal-206078