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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss whether Labor needs to panic about a polling decline in support for the Voice, the Quad meeting on skates, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s celebrity welcome.

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. Word from The Hill: On the Voice, the Quad, and Indian PM Modi’s visit – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-on-the-voice-the-quad-and-indian-pm-modis-visit-206305

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute

Major state tax reforms are few and far between in Australia, which is what makes Tuesday‘s Victorian budget very, very significant.

Victoria’s government announced it will abolish stamp duty for commercial and industrial properties and replace it with an annual property tax.

The Victorian model shows how state governments could abolish all property stamp duties once and for all – including stamp duties on homes.

Stamp duty is a bad tax

Originally intended to be abolished as part of the deal to introduce the goods and services tax back in 2000, stamp duty on commercial and industrial properties accounts for about one-fifth of all stamp duty revenues collected in Victoria.

They are one of the most economically harmful taxes Australia has.

Stamp duties on commercial and industrial properties act as a brake on new businesses, stop many businesses from shifting premises as they grow and ultimately mean we don’t use scarce urban land as efficiently as we should.

Read more:
Finding the losers (and surprising winners) from phasing out stamp duty

Economists estimate that stamp duties on commercial property cost the economy between 50 cents and 60 cents for every dollar of revenue they raise – more than any other state tax.

So far, only South Australia has fully phased out stamp duty on commercial properties, although it never replaced it with a land tax.

The Australian Capital Territory is well on the way to abolishing them as part of its broader property tax reforms, which will see stamp duty replaced with a broad-based land tax for all types of property over two decades.

The ACT is just over half-way through that transition.

Victoria’s bold moves

From July 2024, buyers of commercial and industrial properties will have the option of paying stamp duty upfront or the same amount (with interest) stretched out over a decade.

A decade after that purchase, the property will attract an annual land tax of 1% of the property’s unimproved land value.

If the new owners sell again, even within the first decade, no stamp duty will be charged and the same deadline for the introduction of the land tax will apply.

Land tax won’t be charged on properties bought before July 2024 until they are sold. After they have switched to land tax, they can’t switch back.

How quickly things transition will depend on how quickly these properties turn over, and it might take decades.

But once the transition is complete, the budget predicts a long-term payoff to the state economy of as much as $50 billion over some decades.

Abolishing homebuyer stamp duty is the big prize

Abolishing stamp duty on commercial properties is a big step forward. But the main game remains abolishing stamp duties on homes, which raise four times as much for state governments.

Economists hate stamp duties on homes because they discourage homeowners from moving house as their lives change. Doing so would mean having to pay stamp duty a second time.

It’s also unfair because it punishes younger households that move around more, while rewarding older residents who tend to stay put for decades.

Read more:
Victoria bites $117 billion bullet, begins the long march of land tax reform

Stamp duty even acts as a tax on divorce. It’s a big reason why more than half of divorced women who lose their home don’t buy again. Divorced women are already three times more likely to rent in retirement than married women.

Removing stamp duty would lead to better use of the existing housing stock: first homebuyers could buy smaller homes knowing they could more easily upgrade later, and more retirees would downsize. Past NSW Treasury calculations suggest this could result in rents and house prices falling by up to 6% in the long term.

In 2018, the Grattan Institute found a national shift from stamp duties to land tax would add up to $17 billion per year to gross domestic product.

Victoria’s approach could inspire others

Broader stamp duty reform has stalled. Despite the obvious benefits, only one Australian government, the ACT, has made the move from stamp duties to a broad-based property tax.

Adopting the ACT model – by gradually phasing down stamp duty while lifting land tax – would ensure Victoria could transition without losing revenue.

But it would impose land tax on those who haven’t moved homes, which would make the politics harder.

The former NSW Perrottet government tried to give homebuyers a choice between paying stamp duty and land tax as a way around forcing existing home buyers to start paying land tax, but the reform fell flat once the true cost to the state budget became apparent.

Read more:
Axing stamp duty is a great idea, but NSW is doing it wrong

Victoria’s model provides an alternative for weaning homes off stamp duty. No one would be forced to pay land tax until they moved, which would make the politics much easier. But it would take longer to reap the economic benefits than the ACT’s approach.

It would still cost the budget money as the government would collect less in land tax than it would from the stamp duty during the transition. But the budgetary cost would be much less than adopting the failed NSW model, especially if the federal government committed to filling part of the (smaller) revenue hole.

Ditching stamp duty for land tax for all property could be a game-changer across Australia. The ACT showed one path. Victoria has opened up another.

Brendan Coates 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. Victoria shows Australia how to finally abolish stamp duty once and for all – https://theconversation.com/victoria-shows-australia-how-to-finally-abolish-stamp-duty-once-and-for-all-205646

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By KB Heylen, PhD Candidate, Macquarie University

More than 6 million Australians have used the “buy now, pay later” lending services offered by Afterpay, Zip and more than a dozen other companies.

Buy now, pay later offers an easy and convenient alternative to credit card services. You can sign up and have your loan approved almost immediately. One reason for this is that buy now, pay later companies aren’t regulated by the same consumer-protection rules that apply to other credit providers.

But now the Australian government is going to change that – at least partly, in response to concerns the unregulated sector will lead to more people get caught in debt traps.

“BNPL looks like credit, it acts like credit, it carries the risks of credit,” federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said this week.

The government will bring the industry in line with with other credit products by amending the National Consumer Credit Protection Act to include buy now, pay later companies, defining buy now, pay later companies as credit providers.

Here’s what this means, for you and the sector.

What is a buy now, pay later service?

First, let’s recap what exactly makes buy now, pay later companies different to other forms of credit.

The crucial difference is that buy now, pay later companies don’t charge interest, which is how the National Consumer Credit Protection Act defines a credit service. Instead buy now, pay later companies charge retailers a commission on transactions and charge customers late fees if they fail to make repayments on time. Some also charge monthly account keeping fees.

This has enabled buy now, pay later lenders to pitch their products as “interest free”, as well as avoid the regulatory requirements of the federal credit law.

Read more:
What’s the difference between credit and debt? How Afterpay and other ‘BNPL’ providers skirt consumer laws

One of these is the requirement to perform a credit check, which involves assessing a customer’s financial history and capacity before lending money, although some buy now, pay later companies already do so voluntarily. This is why financial regulators such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission have warned of the risk of buy now, pay later products contributing to financial stress and
hardship.

More credit checking

The changes to the Credit Act will require all buy now, pay later providers to hold an Australian Credit Licence, like other credit providers, and to improve their dispute resolution, hardship, product disclosure and marketing practices.

Most importantly it will impose credit-check requirements.

The comprehensive credit-reporting framework currently requires credit providers such as banks to report on consumers’ loan, repayment, overdue and default histories. This data is used by providers when assessing a person’s affordability and suitability for credit.

Afterpay and others have argued they don’t need this credit-reporting system because they use their own algorithmic checks. The problem is no one knows what data they are using or how they are making decisions.

While the credit reporting system is not perfect, it is better to have all providers working from the same data set than individual companies making up their own rules.

As credit services, buy now, pay later providers will gain full access to this data, covering consumers’ repayment and hardship history for other credit products such as loans and credit cards.

This means that when you apply for a buy now, pay later loan, the process may take longer, with a greater possibility of rejection if you have a history of late or overdue loan or credit card repayments.

However, unlike banks, provider will not necessarily have to report your data into the credit-reporting system. This is because the government doesn’t regard them as risky as the likes of pay-day loans or consumer leases.

So a buy now, pay later provider won’t know your history with other buy now, pay later providers. This means you could theoretically continue to have multiple services, which is a known contributor to debt stress.

Spending limits and fee caps

The new regulations will put cap on fees for late or missed payments.

Currently, Afterpay, Zip, Humm and others having very different approaches to how they charge fees, making it hard for customers to compare and assess. While the lure of “no interest” may seem appealing, these late fees can add to a huge effective rate.

For example, research from Curtin University shows falling behind over ten fortnightly repayments for a small purchase results in an effective annual interest rate of 28.25% for Afterpay, 29.32% for Zip and 177.44% for Humm’s “Big Things” loans. These annualised rates are higher than most credit cards.

The new cap should help bring the fees in line with similar charges on other credit products.

Another changes to the Credit Act will mean your credit limit can no longer be increased unless you explicitly ask for it. Currently services like Zip and Afterpay start first-time users with a low credit limit and automatically increase it based on good repayment history.

This could mean buy now, pay later providers will offer larger credit limits to users up front, just like credit cards. This could be risky for some customers, but it also presents a higher risk for buy now, pay later services.

Read more:
90% of young people had financial troubles in 2022, and 27% used ‘buy now, pay later’ services

What this means for the industry

Greater protection from consumers will likely result reduce revenue for buy now, pay later providers.

Restricting the ability to automatically increase credit limits means buy now, pay later companies must either offer higher starting limits and accept higher default risks or contend with lower transaction totals overall.

The cap on fees and charges will likely bring in less revenue. More rigorous credit checks may result in fewer new customers.

Bringing all providers into the regulated system will allow for greater transparency around how credit decisions are made and create a more level playing field between credit providers.

The government will now work with industry and consumer groups to refine the details. The new laws are expected to be introduced to Parliament later this year.

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

– ref. The rules for Afterpay, Zip and other ‘buy now, pay later’ providers are changing. What it means for you, and them – https://theconversation.com/the-rules-for-afterpay-zip-and-other-buy-now-pay-later-providers-are-changing-what-it-means-for-you-and-them-206184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University

The Andrews government’s ninth budget is its toughest. The bill from Victoria’s COVID experience, as well as the state government’s ambitious infrastructure spending, has finally come due.

The pandemic has added more than $30 billion to the state’s total net debt, bringing the total to a whooping $117 billion. (New South Wales’s state debt, by comparison, is about $80 billion.)

Victoria’s floods in 2022 have added to the debt. But so too has the Andrews goverment’s borrowing for its $90 billion “Big Build”, encompassing projects from removing Melbourne’s level crossings, extending Melbourne’s underground rail network and building a suburban rail loop.

The state’s debt load was manageable when interest rates were low. But with borrowing rates now almost 4% and rising, interest payments are swallowing increasing amounts of the government’s budget. Interest payments on the debt are expected to be $5.5 billion in the 2023-24 financial year, rising to $8 billion by 2026-27.

There are only two ways to fix this: reduce spending or increase taxes. Andrews and his treasurer Tim Pallas have chosen to do a bit of both, with a ten-year plan to pay down the $30 billion COVID debt.

Less infrastructure spending, more taxes

The Victorian government has already announced it will delay several infrastructure projects. The Melbourne Airport rail link and the Geelong rail upgrade have been put on ice due to the federal government’s ongoing review of infrastructure projects. If they are delayed, as seems likely, they will lower the debt burden of the state.

This will be a shame for Melbourne’s frequent flyers, but is probably the right call. Infrastructure Australia says the construction sector is already at capacity on large infrastructure projects. This significantly increases the likelihood of cost and time blowouts. Infrastructure Australia expects the (recently widened) Tullamarine Freeway won’t reach capacity for at least another decade, so delaying the rail link is probably the best course of action.

To help pay down the debt, a suite of tax hikes has been implemented, primarily rises in payroll tax (falling predominantly on large businesses) and land tax (which is largely paid by landlords).

The measures are expected to raise more than $8 billion over the next four years, although they will be put in place for a decade.

Reforming land tax

Beyond the immediate task of paying down debt, the Victorian government has taken on the task of land tax reform, proposing to eliminate stamp duty on all industrial and commercial land in favour of an annual land tax.

No changes affect residential land, at least for now. But this could change if the reform proves popular.

Land taxes are the most efficient, and hardest to dodge, form of taxation.

Taxes on labour, such as income tax, can discourage work. Taxes on company profits can discourage investment and lead businesses to set up shop elsewhere. Land cannot be moved, and taxing it does not discourage its use.

The biggest problem with replacing stamp duty with land tax is that it often takes a lot of time and money for a fair transition to occur. In the Australian Capital Territory, a transition that began in 2012 is taking 20 years. The Victorian government proposes doing it in ten years, with further details to be released later this year.

The next transaction to occur after July 2024 will still attract stamp duty, but transitions after that initial one will be shifted to an annual land tax model.

The Andrews government also has a plan to phase out taxes on business insurance over the next ten years.

This small, but highly inefficient, tax has long been criticised by economists as it has punished businesses that seek to mitigate risk by buying public liability or professional indemnity. Removing it, albeit slowly over the next decade, will help the Victorian economy grow over the coming years.

Budgets are all about choices. The Victorian government has no easy choices.

Faced with a mountain of debt, it has outlined a plan for paying down the debt with a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts. The job remains far from complete, but this budget is a decent first step to get Victoria’s finances back on track.

Isaac Gross 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. Victoria bites $117 billion bullet, begins the long march of land tax reform – https://theconversation.com/victoria-bites-117-billion-bullet-begins-the-long-march-of-land-tax-reform-206066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Dale, Lecturer, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland

Australian entertainer and artist Rolf Harris has died at the age of 93.

After a prominent career as an artist, particularly in the UK, in 2014 Harris was convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault.

For his victims, his death might help to close a painful chapter of their lives.

However, what will become of the prodigious output of the disgraced artist?

Jack of all trades, master of none

Harris developed an interest in art from a young age. At the age of 15, one of his portraits was selected for showing in the 1946 Archibald Prize. Three years later, he won the Claude Hotchin prize.

These would be among the few accolades he would collect in the art world. In truth, he was never really recognised by his peers.

The Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, from where he hailed, never added any of his artworks to its collection.

Harris rose to prominence primarily as a children’s entertainer and then later as an all-round television presenter. There is a generation of Australians and Britons who grew up transfixed to their TV sets as Harris transformed blank canvases into paintings and cartoons in the space of just 30 minutes.

His creativity also extended to music. He played the didgeridoo and his own musical creation, “the wobble board”. He topped the British charts in 1969 with the single Two Little Boys. However, he is probably more famous for the song Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.

Perhaps the ultimate recognition came in 2005, when he was invited to paint Queen Elizabeth II. His audience with the queen was filmed for a BBC documentary starring Harris. His portrait of her majesty briefly adorned the walls of Buckingham Palace, before being displayed in prominent British and Australian galleries.

Baca juga:
Dealing with the happy memories of a disgraced Rolf Harris

Criminal conviction and the quick retreat from his art

In 2014, Harris was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault against three complainants, aged 15, 16 and 19 years at the times of the crimes. These incidents occurred between 1978 and 1986.

Before sentencing Harris to five years and nine months imprisonment, the sentencing judge commented:

You took advantage of the trust placed in you, because of your celebrity status, to commit the offences […] Your reputation now lies in ruins.

What followed was a public retreat from his artwork.

It is worth asking why this was the public response, when the subject matter of his artwork was innocuous and unremarkable. Among his visual artworks were portraits and landscapes. None of them depicted anything particularly offensive or controversial.

Nevertheless, many of those who owned his works felt the need to dissociate themselves with Harris. His portrait of the queen seemed to vanish into thin air. In the wake of his convictions, no one claimed to know of its whereabouts.

Harris had also painted a number of permanent murals in Australia. Many these were removed or permanently obscured.

Baca juga:
Rolf Harris guilty: but what has Operation Yewtree really taught us about sexual abuse?

The roles of guilt and disgust

Guilt seems to play a prominent role in explaining why owners remove such artworks from display.

Art is inherently subjective and so it necessarily forces the beholder to inquire into the artist’s meanings. When an artist is subsequently convicted of a crime, it is perhaps natural to wonder whether their art bore signs that there was something untoward about them.

Some artists even promote this way of thinking. In fact, Harris authored a book entitled Looking at Pictures with Rolf Harris: A Children’s Introduction to Famous Paintings.

In it, he wrote:

You can find out a lot about the way an artist sees things when you look at his paintings. In fact, he is telling us a lot about himself, whether he wants to or not.

When facing the artwork of a convicted criminal, our subjective feelings of guilt persist because we have, in some tiny way, shared a role in their rise and stay as an artist. This makes it difficult to overcome the feeling that the artwork contains clues to the artist’s criminality. We can also feel guilty deriving pleasure from a piece of art whose maker caused others great pain.

Disgust also plays a central role in our retreat from the criminal’s artwork.

Disgust is a powerful emotion that demands we withdraw from an object whose mere presence threatens to infect or invade our bodily integrity.

Related to disgust is a anthropological theory known as the “magical law of contagion”. An offensive person leaves behind an offensive trace that continues to threaten us. It is not based on reason but instinct.

In essence, the criminal has left their “negative” traces on their artwork.

This explains why Harris’ paintings, although of innocuous images, suddenly became eyesores and their market value dropped. Owners of such artwork might also feel compelled to show their disgust openly, to publicly extricate themselves from the artist.

No one wants to be seen to condone the behaviour of a sexual offender.

Even after his death, Harris’ artwork will continue to stand as reminders of his criminal acts.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. In an emergency call 000.

Gregory Dale tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.

– ref. Even after his death, Rolf Harris’ artwork will stand as reminders of his criminal acts – https://theconversation.com/even-after-his-death-rolf-harris-artwork-will-stand-as-reminders-of-his-criminal-acts-206282

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Ryan, Lecturer in Criminology, Deakin University

The use of a Taser to subdue a 95-year-old dementia patient at an aged care home in Cooma, New South Wales, last week is yet another sickening example of what can go wrong when police rely too heavily on force to resolve challenging situations.

Although the senior constable who used the Taser on Clare Nowland has now been suspended from duty, calls are growing for an independent investigation into the incident, as well as police treatment of people with dementia.

It is crucial for any investigations that follow to also include a thorough examination of the use of Tasers by police in Australia. Why do general duties police officers need to carry Tasers? What purpose do they serve and do they improve outcomes in any way? If so, for whom?

Lack of reporting on Taser use

When Tasers were introduced in Australia in the early 2000s, the public was told they would replace firearms and reduce the need for police to resort to using lethal force. In fact, the opposite has occurred – fatal police shootings reached an all-time high in 2019-20.

Given this, it is presently not clear what benefit Tasers offer over other less-lethal weapons, such as OC spray, except to protect police officers themselves from coming into close proximity to people armed with weapons.

The problem is a lack of transparency and accountability around their use. There is no public reporting on Taser use by police in any state or territory (except in the ACT where minimal detail is provided).

Taser use has been formally reported to the public in New South Wales only once, in a report by the state ombudsman in 2012.

This analysis of more than 600 Taser incidents in a six-month period in 2010 found a third of people tasered by police were believed to be suffering from mental health issues. Three-quarters of the people were unarmed.

More recent internal police figures obtained by the media showed NSW police used Tasers almost 3,000 times from 2014-18. More than 1,000 of those incidents involved people with mental health conditions.

In other comparable countries, like the United Kingdom and New Zealand, reporting on Taser use by police is mandated. Statistics show Tasers in these countries are used disproportionately against minority groups and other vulnerable populations.

By comparison, the Australian public does not know how many times Tasers are drawn, fired or misfired by police. We know virtually nothing about their real efficacy and impacts. We only learn about their potential harms from the media or the coroner’s reports that follow tragic outcomes.

In 2018, for example, a 30-year-old Sydney man, Jack Kokaua, died during an altercation with police in which a Taser had been deployed three times. The coroner found multiple factors, including the use of a Taser, positional asphyxia and a heart condition, had caused his death.

After the incident, civil liberties groups called for more transparency around how and when NSW police use Tasers. These calls went unheeded.

Read more:
Why the taser-related death toll is rising

Why transparency matters

In Nowland’s case, there are other fundamental questions beyond Taser use that speak to a broader problem of inappropriate use of force by police, particularly against vulnerable people in distress.

For example, one retired officer has suggested police could have thrown a blanket over Nowland, who weighed just 43 kilograms and was just 160 centimetres tall.

Read more:
When someone living with dementia is distressed or violent, ‘de-escalation’ is vital

Reports of previous settlements in civil cases involving inappropriate use of force in aged care settings show the extent of the problem.

Body-worn cameras are helpful in providing insight into the various situations that police encounter. But in the Kokaua case, the cameras were not turned on. And oftentimes, the footage rarely finds its way into the public domain, as complainants fight for access in the courts.

This means the public is under-informed about the problematic incidents that do occur in police interactions with the public. This is especially the case with Tasers.

For example, there is body-camera footage of the tasering of Nowland, but NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb has not only said she would not watch the footage, she also won’t release it to the public unless there was “a process at the end of this that would allow it”.

She suggested there was no value in reviewing the footage until she knew “what else happened pre and post that incident”.

Questions must be asked

In the absence of greater transparency and reporting on Taser use by police, it is unlikely much will change.

Asking the right questions about the patterns of Taser use in all jurisdictions is now vital if we are to learn anything from the events that unfolded in Cooma and ensure Tasers are not disproportionately used against vulnerable and marginalised people.

Read more:
Police body cameras may provide the best evidence – but need much better regulation

Emma Ryan is affiliated with the Labor Party having worked in a voluntary capacity during various state and federal elections.

– ref. Why doesn’t Australia have greater transparency around Taser use by police? – https://theconversation.com/why-doesnt-australia-have-greater-transparency-around-taser-use-by-police-206085

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

A new pact between Australia and the United States highlights the pivotal role our nation’s mineral wealth will play in the clean energy transition. But it also underscores the massive effort now required from Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden inked the landmark deal in Japan over the weekend. It cements cooperation between the two nations on climate action, including sharing resources and coordinating on clean energy policy and investment.

Australia and the US have been allies since the end of the Second World War. The new agreement adds climate action as a “third pillar” of the alliance between the two nations, along with defence and economic cooperation.

The enhanced partnership could accelerate Australia’s transition from major fossil fuel exporter to clean energy powerhouse. But success is far from assured. Australia must act fast to seize the opportunity now before us.

Allies in a warming world

The Australia-US alliance was not established with a warming planet in mind. However, the climate crisis is now recognised as a national security threat in both Australia and the US.

In both countries, defence agencies have been increasingly involved in disaster relief operations following unprecedented extreme weather events supercharged by climate change. They include the Black Summer bushfires in Australia and Hurricane Ian in the US.

Climate change continues to worsen – and Australia and the US must share some blame. The emissions targets and broader climate policies of both nations are not consistent with achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃.

Both Australia and the US need to accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy technologies. This includes ending coal-fired power, moving beyond gas and investing in renewables infrastructure. It also requires re-thinking personal transport and decarbonising heavy industries such as steel and cement.

The new climate pact between the two countries recognises the urgent task at hand. It could enable Australia and the US to develop a shared response that matches the scale of the climate crisis.

The deal aims to drive ambitious action on climate change and clean energy this decade, both domestically and across the world. Australia and the US will now formally work together to expand and diversify clean energy, and develop the supply of critical minerals used in low-emissions technologies.

Biden was effusive when announcing the deal. Taking hold of Albanese’s arm, he said the agreement was testament to the close relationship between the two countries. “And I mean that: close”, he said.

Importantly, Biden will ask the US Congress to designate Australia as a “domestic supplier”, essentially linking the industrial bases of both nations. This would means Australian companies may be eligible for billions of dollars worth of subsidies available under the US Inflation Reduction Act – the biggest climate spend in US history.

Read more:
We want more climate ambition in our foreign policy
– here’s how we can do it

The race for tomorrow’s economy

The Inflation Reduction Act allocates $US369 billion (A$555 billion) in subsidies to drive investment in renewable energy infrastructure and clean energy technologies. The investment is equal to about a quarter of the Australian economy.

Already the act has stimulated more than $A220 billion in private investment in clean energy projects in the US, driving a boom in new solar, battery, and electric vehicle manufacturing facilities. Ultimately, the policy is expected to:

• spur more than 1,000 new clean tech companies
• catalyse more than A$3 trillion in investment
• create nine million new jobs by 2030.

When the world’s largest economy makes such a move, it changes the game for everyone. Already, other major economies – including the European Union, Japan and South Korea – have responded with industry policy and stimulus packages to support their own clean energy industries.

Effectively, the US has turbo-charged the global clean energy transition.

Read more:
6 reasons 2023 could be a very good year for climate action

Australia’s moment

The pact signed between Albanese and Biden at the weekend was scant on detail. However, given the billions the US is throwing at clean energy, Australia can expect to benefit from the pledge to formalise co-operation on policy and investment.

The Inflation Reduction Act is a major opportunity to expand Australia’s critical mineral exports. Consider lithium, a key component in batteries. Australia is already the world’s biggest lithium supplier. US battery manufacturers wanting to access subsidies must use minerals sourced domestically, or from countries with which the US has an existing free trade agreement, such as Australia.

So the US policy will stimulate demand for Australian lithium. As early as 2028, the value of Australia’s lithium exports is set to overtake our thermal coal exports – a sign of the times.

However the Inflation Reduction Act also presents a challenge for Australia. Its sheer scale threatens to draw investment and talent away from Australia’s own emerging clean energy industries to the US instead in areas such as green hydrogen and steel.

The federal government is taking steps to address this. The May budget, for instance, contained A$2 billion to support the development of a renewable hydrogen industry in Australia. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen described it as a “down payment” on a more fulsome response to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

This response must match the scale of this once-in-a-century opportunity to become a clean energy powerhouse. It should include targeted support to develop new green export industries and help Australia move past a “dig and ship” approach to our resources. By processing minerals here, using Australia’s competitive advantage in renewable energy, we can create more benefits at home.

Clean energy commodities and critical minerals could drive investment and jobs at a scale comparable to the recent mining boom. But the race is on, and we need to act fast. If we don’t, other nations – including our US allies – will eat our lunch.

Wesley Morgan is a senior researcher with the Climate Council

– ref. Cooperation with the US could drive Australia’s clean energy shift – but we must act fast – https://theconversation.com/cooperation-with-the-us-could-drive-australias-clean-energy-shift-but-we-must-act-fast-206199

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Professor of Cyber Security Practice, Edith Cowan University

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has just been hit with an eye-watering €1.2 billion fine (about A$1.9 billion) for breaches of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Unfortunately for Meta and its shareholders, earlier penalties mean it now faces a total fine amount close to A$4 billion.

Meta is often used as an example of how not to do privacy, but this isn’t a simple case of organisational greed or disregard for legislation. As is the case with most events of this nature, there’s a lot more going on.

Why was Meta fined?

The GDPR legislation, introduced in 2018, governs how data relating to citizens of the European Economic Area (which includes EU countries, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) can be used, stored and processed. In many cases this means undertaking all data-related activities within the European Economic Area.

Exceptions are allowed, providing the protections for individuals’ privacy are aligned with those under the GDPR. This is referred to as an “adequacy decision”.

This sounds relatively simple; if you’re a German citizen, then your data should not be exported outside the EU. But organisations such as Meta operate on a global scale. Considering users’ nationality and residential status are often changing, managing their data can be challenging.

In 2016, the EU-US Privacy Shield legal framework was introduced, enabling large organisations such as Meta to continue to process data for EU citizens in the US. This framework replaced the previous International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, which were invalidated in 2015 after a complaint by Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems.

Read more:
Privacy Shield replaces Safe Harbour, but only the name has changed

However, in 2020 the EU-US Privacy Shield also became invalidated following a determination by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The court essentially ruled the US did not offer personal data protections that were comparable to those offered under the GDPR.

One significant issue was that US surveillance laws allowed for the potential interception of, or access to, data relating to European Economic Area citizens. In particular, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333.

Some concerns related to disclosures made by Edward Snowden in 2013. These leaks identified a secretive US program code-named PRISM, which allowed the US National Security Agency to collect data across a range of popular consumer platforms.

Although the Court of Justice determination was delivered in 2020, it took until 2023 for the outcome to be announced due to legal challenges and conflicting viewpoints on the penalties.

The outcome led the Irish Data Protection Commission, the entity which regulates Meta across the EU, to impose the fine. The commission initially did not intend to impose the penalty, but was overruled by the European Data Protection Board, which acted on objections raised by yet another body – the EU/EEA Concerned Supervisory Authorities.

Apart from the €1.2 billion fine, it was determined Meta should stop transferring any personal European Economic Area citizen data to the US within five months, and ensure EU/EEA user data stored within the US is compliant with the GDPR within six months.

What happens now?

While the reports may seem dramatic, it’s possible nothing will really happen (at least for a while) as Meta has lodged an appeal against the decision. Meta highlighted that even the Irish Data Protection Commission acknowledged the company was acting in good faith.

Once the appeal is under way, Meta and the EU may face court hearings lasting months. By the time a decision is made, a newly proposed EU-US Data Protection Framework could be in place (although a recent vote by members of European Parliament may further delay things).

In a worst-case scenario for Meta, the tech giant could be forced not only to pay the fine, but also address the large volume of European Economic Area user data held on US servers, and establish a fully EU-based infrastructure to deliver Facebook functionality. This is a mammoth task, even for an organisation of Meta’s size.

It might prove impossible to extract years of data from Meta’s global network of servers and distribute it to appropriate regional locations. Imagine a Spanish citizen who currently lives in the US, for whom ten years of data were collected while in Germany, and who also spent time in the UK before and after Brexit!

If Meta does have to move data to different servers around the world, this may impact its ability to use these data to profile users. This could decrease its advertising effectiveness and the relevancy of users’ Facebook feeds.

As for simply pulling Facebook services from the European Economic Area, it’s unlikely Meta will do this as this would entail walking away from the billions of dollars of advertising revenue it receives from European users. As Markus Reinisch, Meta’s Vice President for Public Policy in Europe, has stated, “Meta is not wanting or ‘threatening’ to leave Europe”.

Why does it matter where data are kept?

The reality is most of us have neither awareness, nor interest, in where our personal data are stored for the services we use. Yet, where a company chooses to store our data can end up having a major impact on how the data are accessed and used.

Meta has chosen to store large volumes of data in the US (and elsewhere) for commercial reasons. This choice could be based on cost, convenience, technical requirements, or countless other reasons.

Some organisations deliberately distribute data in regional data centres that are geographically closer to their customers. This can help reduce the time it takes for customers to access their services.

For others, hosting data in a specific country can be a good selling point. For example, offering a guarantee of data sovereignty will appeal to those wanting to keep their data out of sight of foreign governments (or perhaps away from their own).

The EU has taken responsibility for ensuring the safe and secure processing of personal data belonging to citizens of the European Economic Area. In Meta’s case we’re yet to see how, or if, this will ultimately be done. While the company’s focus on privacy has improved in recent years, perhaps its next few steps will reveal how far this commitment goes.

Read more:
Feed me: 4 ways to take control of social media algorithms and get the content you actually want

Paul Haskell-Dowland 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. Meta just copped a A$1.9bn fine for keeping EU data in the US. But why should users care where data are stored? – https://theconversation.com/meta-just-copped-a-a-1-9bn-fine-for-keeping-eu-data-in-the-us-but-why-should-users-care-where-data-are-stored-206186

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ray Tobler, Postdoctoral fellow, Australian National University

Most scientists agree modern humans developed in Africa, more than 200,000 years ago, and that a great human scattering across much of the rest of the world occurred between perhaps 60,000 and 50,000 years ago.

In new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we have uncovered dozens of distinctive historical changes in the human genome to reveal a new chapter in this story.

Our work suggests there may have been a previously unknown phase of humanity’s great migration: an “Arabian standstill” of up to 30,000 years in which humans settled in and around the Arabian Peninsula. These humans slowly adapted to life in the region’s colder climate before venturing to Eurasia and beyond.

The legacy of these adaptations still lingers. Under modern conditions, many genetic changes from this period are linked to diseases including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disorders.

History in our genomes

Since the first human genome was published in 2000, the amount of human genomic data available has grown exponentially. These rapidly growing datasets contain traces of key events in human history. Researchers have been actively developing new techniques to find those traces.

When ancient humans left Africa and moved around the globe, they likely met new environments and challenges. New pressures would have led to adaptation and genetic changes. These changes would subsequently have been inherited by modern humans.

Previous research on genomic data shows ancient humans most likely left Africa and spread across the planet between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago.

However, we still don’t know much about genetic adaptations during this crucial time period.

Ancient adaptation events

Our team of evolutionary and medical researchers has shed new light on this period. By studying both ancient and modern genomes, we have shown genetic selection was probably an important facilitator of this ancient human diaspora.

Using ancient human genomes makes it possible to recover evidence of past events in which specific genetic variants were strongly favoured over others and swept through a population. These “hard sweep” events are surprisingly rare in modern human genomes, most likely because their traces have been erased or distorted by subsequent mixing between populations.

Read more:
Ancient DNA reveals a hidden history of human adaptation

However, in earlier work we identified 57 regions in the human genome where an initially rare beneficial genetic variant effectively replaced an older variant in ancient Eurasian groups.

In our new study, we reconstructed the historical spread of these genetic variants. We also estimated the temporal and geographical origins of the underlying selection pressures.

Further, we identified the gene in each hard sweep region most likely to have been selected for. Knowing these genes helped us understand the ancient pressures that may have led to their selection.

Coping with cold

Our findings suggest early humans went through a period of extensive adaptation, lasting up to 30,000 years, before the big diaspora between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. This period of adaptation was followed by rapid dispersal across Eurasia and as far as Australia.

We call this period the “Arabian standstill”. Genetic, archaeological and climatic evidence all suggest these ancient humans were most likely living in and around the Arabian Peninsula.

The genetic adaptations involved parts of the genome related to fat storage, nerve development, skin physiology, and tiny hair-like fibres in our airways called cilia. These adaptations share striking functional similarities with those found in humans and other mammals living in the Arctic today.

We also detected similar functional similarities with previously identified human adaptive genes derived from historical mixing events with Neanderthals and Denisovans. These distant relatives of humans are also thought to have adapted to cold Eurasian climates.

Overall, these changes seem likely to have been driven by adaptation to the cool and dry climates in and around prehistoric Arabia between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago. The changes would also have prepared the ancient humans for the cold Eurasian climates they would eventually encounter.

Old adaptations, modern diseases

Many of these adaptive genes have links to modern diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disorders. The adaptations around the human expansion from Africa may have established genetic variations that, under modern conditions, are associated with common diseases.

Read more:
We found traces of humanity’s age-old arms race with coronaviruses written in our DNA

As we have suggested in another study, genes that were adaptive in the past might contribute to modern human susceptibility to various diseases. Identifying the genetic targets of historical adaptation events could help the development of therapeutic approaches and preventive measures for contemporary populations.

Our findings contribute to a new but growing literature highlighting the importance of adaptation in shaping human history. They also show the growing potential of evolutionary genetics for medical research.

Ray Tobler receives funding from Australian Research Council.

Shane T Grey receives funding from NHMRC, ARC, MRFF, JDRF and NIH.

Yassine Souilmi is supported by funding from the ARC and NHMRC.

– ref. Ancient humans may have paused in Arabia for 30,000 years on their way out of Africa – https://theconversation.com/ancient-humans-may-have-paused-in-arabia-for-30-000-years-on-their-way-out-of-africa-206200

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Patterson, Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing, University of Wollongong

Hallucinations are often depicted in the movies as terrifying experiences. Think Jake Gyllenhaal seeing a monstrous rabbit in Donnie Darko, Leonardo DiCaprio experiencing the torture of Shutter Island, Natalie Portman in Black Swan, or Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker.

Each character experiences some form of psychological distress. Scenes connect to, or even explain, a decline into chaos and violence.

Experiencing hallucinations can be distressing for some people and their loved ones. However, focusing solely on such depictions perpetuates myths and misconceptions about hallucinations. They also potentially perpetuate harmful stereotypes of mental distress.

Movies such as Joker use a broad, arguably incorrect, brush to connect hallucinations, mental health issues and violence. This reinforces the misconception that hallucinations always indicate mental health issues, when this is not necessarily true.

Read more:
The Joker’s origin story comes at a perfect moment: clowns define our times

What are hallucinations?

Hallucinations are perceptions that occur without a corresponding external stimulus. They can involve any of the human senses.

Auditory hallucinations involve hearing things that aren’t there, such as voices or sounds. Visual hallucinations involve seeing things that aren’t there, such as lights, objects or people. Tactile hallucinations involve feeling things that aren’t there, such as a sensation of something crawling on your skin. Gustatory hallucinations involve taste and smell.

People often confuse hallucinations and delusions. The two can be related, but they are not the same thing. Delusions are false beliefs, firmly held by a person despite evidence to the contrary. A person might believe someone is following them (a delusion), and see and hear that figure (a hallucination).

Before the 17th century, hallucinations were commonly thought to be of cultural and religious significance.

However, between the mid-1600s and 1700s, hallucinations began to be understood as medical concerns, related to both mental and physical illnesses. This medical lens of hallucination remains. Now we know which parts of the brain are activated when someone has a hallucination.

Read more:
Scientists have found how to make people hallucinate, and how to measure what they see

What causes hallucinations?

Hallucinations can be a sign of serious mental health issues. The presence or experience of hallucinations is, for example, one of the criteria used to diagnose schizophrenia (delusions are another).

Hallucinations may also provide insight into mental health issues such as bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

However, hallucinations can also be linked to other medical conditions.

Hallucinations can be caused by fever, as well as disease or damage impacting the brain or optic nerves. Parkinson’s disease causes visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations in up to 75% of people. Epilepsy and migraine headaches are also linked to hallucinations, and can cause perceptual disturbances, sometimes for days. Substance use, particularly of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD or ketamine, can also cause hallucinations.

Hallucinations can also occur in people without any underlying medical conditions. For example, some people may experience hallucinations during times of extreme distress or grief.

Environmental factors such as sleep deprivation can cause a range of perceptual disturbances, including visual and auditory hallucinations. Sensory deprivation, such as being placed in a soundproof room, can also cause hallucinations.

But still, the common image that hallucinations are connected only to mental health issues persists.

Read more:
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Hallucinations can be frightening, but not always

Hallucinations can be frightening for people, and their families. And the stigma and misconceptions surrounding hallucinations can have a significant impact on someone who experiences them.

People who have hallucinations may be afraid or embarrassed of being considered “bizarre” or “unsafe”, and therefore may avoid seeking help.

But hallucinations are not always scary or disturbing. Some hallucinations can be neutral or even pleasant. People have been sharing on social media their positive and empowering experience of hallucinations. In the example below, we see one person’s positive experience of hearing voices. Yet we rarely see such depictions of hallucinations in the movies.

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How to support someone having hallucinations

If you are with someone who is having hallucinations, particularly if these are new or distressing for them, here are several ways you can support them:

• ask the person if they want to talk about what they are experiencing and listen to them without judgment: “I cannot hear what you are hearing, can you tell me about it?”

• listen. Don’t argue or blame. Acknowledge that hallucinations are real to the person, even if they are seemingly unusual and not based in reality: “I cannot see what you see, but I do understand you see it.”

• empathise with how the person feels about their experiences. “I cannot feel or taste it, but I can imagine it would be a difficult experience. I can see how much it is concerning you.”

• support someone to seek care. Persistent or distressing hallucinations should always be evaluated by a qualified health professional. Establishing potential causes is important: “I cannot hear it like you, but let’s talk to a health professional about it. They can help us understand what might be happening.”

• encourage the person to reach out to their peers as well as to hearing voices groups for ongoing support.

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We’d like to acknowledge Tim Heffernan, Deputy Commissioner of the Mental Health Commission of New South Wales, who contributed to this article.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency dial 000.

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. Hallucinations in the movies tend to be about chaos, violence and mental distress. But they can be positive too – https://theconversation.com/hallucinations-in-the-movies-tend-to-be-about-chaos-violence-and-mental-distress-but-they-can-be-positive-too-204547

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scarlett Howard, Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University

Varroa mites – notorious honey bee parasites – have recently reached Australian shores, detected at the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales last year. If they establish here, there would be significant implications for agricultural food security, as honey bees are heavily relied on for the pollination of many crops.

However, while Australia is the last continent to be invaded by the mite, it has an opportunity to be the first to eradicate it.

Varroa destructor is a small mite that attaches to bees and eats their “fat body”. The fat bodies of honey bees are the insect equivalent of a liver. Varroa weakens bees, reduces their lifespan and increases the spread of deadly viruses.

Scientists need to be ready: this might be Australia’s best chance to collect important data on the spread and evolution of this parasite. Our new paper published today in Biology Letters outlines what questions scientists need to ask and what data they need to collect if Varroa spreads in Australia.

Such data could help us understand how parasites evolve, why Varroa are so damaging for honey bees, and how Varroa mites impact other insects and the environment.

Read more:
Explainer: Varroa mite, the tiny killer threatening Australia’s bees

Will Varroa establish in Australia?

Australia is in close proximity to countries that have the mite, including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Indonesia.

This probably explains why invasive honey bee swarms are frequently intercepted at our ports, many of these carrying Varroa. Australia currently bans importation of honey bee colonies due to the biosecurity risk, so these interceptions are typically due to stowaway swarms taking up residence in shipping containers.

Previous invasions of Varroa have been successfully eradicated before establishing, but this time Varroa circumvented the biosecurity surveillance near Newcastle and spread locally.

The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries has been contact-tracing and culling hives in contaminated areas, and the spread has been slow so far. Australia has large populations of feral honey bees, which could potentially act as a reservoir for Varroa and are much harder to trace and control, so the department is tackling this with a wild honey bee baiting program.

What threats does Varroa pose?

Varroa mites are a threat to food security. Although Australia has an abundance of food and exports it to other nations, the price of food is likely to increase if Varroa escapes confinement.

Currently, pollination of crops in eradication zones such as berries in Coffs Harbour is at risk due to the removal of all honey bees in the region, which may lead to short-term increases in food costs.

However, establishment and spread of Varroa will lead to lower pollination and lower crop production across the country, which will raise the price of most fruit and vegetables that depend on bee pollination.

This could worsen the food affordability crises caused by the current inflation, affecting the ability of low income households to buy nutritious and fresh produce. Almond pollination has already noted a deficit of 80,000 hives in the last season.

Many of the honey bee colonies that pollinate our crops are thought to be feral, living in tree hollows or nest-boxes designed for native animals. These feral bees are not managed by beekeepers and so won’t be saved by the use of Varroa treatments, meaning they will most likely disappear.

Varroa may be a threat to wild pollinators including native bees. Varroa often spreads viruses, which can jump between species and may threaten our wild native pollinators. Of particular concern are viruses that deform insect wings and cause paralysis. Fortunately, these viruses have not been detected in the current Varroa incursion.

How can we secure Australia’s agricultural industry?

Australia’s agricultural industry relies mostly on pollination by European honey bees. This choice has been risky.

In Europe, pollination services are also provided by diverse species like bumble bees, mining bees and mason bees (e.g. Osmia rufa), many of which are un-managed wild species that nest alone.

If Varroa escapes confinement, beekeepers will still be able to maintain colonies of honey bees but at greater costs, due to colony losses and the need for chemicals to treat Varroa mites in the hives. These costs have the potential to sink businesses, and affect the livelihoods of beekeepers.

Australia needs to decrease its reliance on the European honey bee in agriculture and improve pollinator diversity via the use of other native pollinator species such as native stingless bees, blue banded bees, or even flies. For example, native Australian stingless bees aid in the pollination of macadamia and capsicum crops and could be used for the pollination of other crops.

Australia’s unique situation

Australia is different from other Varroa infected regions of the world. Our incursion was smaller, it was identified early and the management zone is small enough to be feasibly eradicated.

Even if Varroa spreads in Australian landscapes, hopes are that the pace of the spread may be slower in Australia than it was in other regions due to the smaller incursion, the colossal eradication effort and large tracts of land that are inhospitable to honey bees. Managed honey bee populations are concentrated around coastal regions, or in Australia’s major rural food bowl regions where pollinator-dependant crops (such as almonds, blueberries and apples) are located.

This gives us a chance to prevent the spread of Varroa across inland Australia, where there are no honey bees.

Luckily for us, most of the world has already spent the last few decades trying to minimise Varroa mite management costs. As a nation, we now have the chance to initiate a fresh and coordinated management response. Australia could organise state-wide integrated pest management approaches and treatment regimes to prevent Varroa’s resistance to chemical treatments from developing rapidly.

In short, there are good reasons to remain positive about the future of Australian beekeeping and horticultural industries, but there is still much work for our research community to do.

Read more:
Bees can do so much more than you think – from dancing to being little art critics

Scarlett Howard has received funding from Australian Government, RMIT University, Fyssen Foundation, L’Oreal-UNESCO, Australian Academy of Sciences, Hermon Slade, Deakin University, and Monash University. She has been affiliated with Pint of Science Australia.

Alexander Mikheyev receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Agrifutures Australia.

Emily Remnant has received funding from The University of Sydney, Horticulture Innovation Australia, Agrifutures Australia, the Australia and Pacific Science Foundation, the Australian Government and the NSW Government. She has volunteered for the NSW Apiarists Association.

Simon Tierney has received funding from Australian Entomological Society, Centre for Biodiversity Analysis, Flinders University, Hort Innovation, National Geographic Society, Royal Entomological Society, Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, The University of Adelaide, Tokyo Metropolitan University and Western Sydney University.

Théotime Colin receives funding from Macquarie University, the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, the Eldon & Anne Foote Trust, Hort Innovation Australia, the Innovation Connections program, the The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and Agrifutures Australia. He is a member of the New South Wales Apiarists’ Association.

– ref. Australia is in a unique position to eliminate the bee-killing Varroa mite. Here’s what happens if we don’t – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-in-a-unique-position-to-eliminate-the-bee-killing-varroa-mite-heres-what-happens-if-we-dont-205926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Prendergast, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Political Science, University of Canterbury

It isn’t often people get a free ride, but last week’s budget offered just that: free public transport fares for children aged five to 12 and permanent half-price fares for people under 25.

The free public transport, along with other initiatives outlined in New Zealand’s latest budget, are part of a growing effort to join the dots between financial decision making, community wellbeing and climate resiliency. It is a good start – but young people want more.

As part of a global study into the lives of young urban citizens, we had heard from local Christchurch children who “hoped” buses could be free but “never imagined it could happen”. This budget makes that hope a reality.

Christchurch was one of seven cities in the study exploring the lives of young urban citizens aged between 12 and 24. The aim was to identify and share their experiences and ideas for living well within environmental limits.

This is about more than just curiosity. Urban areas cover just 2% of the world’s land area, but they account for up to 72% of global carbon emissions. Given that by 2050, seven out of ten young people will live in an urbanising area, it’s vital we understand and anticipate how that might play out in reality.

Climate positives in Budget 2023

Investment in young people’s use of public transport is a transformative step. But the impact of free public transport for children is less about an immediate increase in bus patronage and more about the far-reaching effect such policies have on family budgets and long-term behaviour change.

Read more:
Would you ditch your car if public transport was free? Here’s what researchers have found

There was more good news for climate in what was a deceptively simple budget. It signals a long-term shift towards thinking that connects wellbeing, equity and climate policy. The budget allocated a sizeable NZ$1.9 billion to the climate, alongside the $1 billion pledged for cyclone recovery.

This funding, as well as the support for warmer homes and for school lunches, contributes to the social infrastructure that young people and their communities badly need when facing ongoing climate risk.

Public transport investment makes a difference

Policy initiatives that support free bus and train travel can make a big difference. Some 72% of the Christchurch youth we surveyed were worried about money. Participants spoke of wanting more affordable, accessible and independent ways to move around their city.

They expressed frustration with an “unaffordable” and “unreliable” bus service that left most “relying on parents” to chauffeur them around the city in private cars. Not only does car dependence “lock in” high carbon travel but many participants also viewed this dependence as “quite isolating”.

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City-by-city analysis shows our capitals aren’t liveable for many residents

Overseas research shows scrapping youth bus fares increases social connections and independence, helping youth access the people and places that support their wellbeing.

Free fares also enable youth the freedom to shape their own travel, facilitating the development of new skills, increasing confidence and providing friends a way to travel together.

In the longer term, shifting dependence away from car travel helps reduce carbon emissions and improves air quality, leading to improved health and wellbeing. But moving away from cars will also require ongoing central and local government investment in public transport, safe footpaths and protected cycleways.

Decent housing matters

Initiatives that increase access to decent housing matter for our collective wellbeing, and Budget 2023 sets aside funding for improved housing.

But during our focus groups it was disheartening to hear young people talk about the serious housing problems they face. Some told us their homes had been “flooded more than once”, while others said their houses were “still earthquake damaged”.

Read more:
Free public transport is great news for the environment but it’s no silver bullet

Interviewees also described the struggles of their families to heat their homes. Unaffordable heating left some families relying on “blankets and stuff”, wearing “puffer jackets inside”, and using “hot water bottles” to keep warm.

These housing challenges, especially when combined with climate-related events, have the potential to disrupt home life and risk affecting the relationships young people value for their wellbeing.

Youth want greater climate action

Investing in transport and housing is an important step, but critics will argue Budget 2023 fell short of delivering climate-resilient futures. The reality is that the wellbeing of youth now and in the future also depends on bolder, wide-reaching investment in climate mitigation and adaptation.

Research shows young people around the world are increasingly anxious about climate change. For many, failure by governments to respond to the climate crisis increases that distress.

In Christchurch, an earlier survey of youth indicated a third of all respondents had joined School Strike 4 Climate protests calling for more action from the government on climate change.

So, while this year’s budget made steps towards addressing our climate future there are many more steps required before young people are satisfied. What is needed is a long-term plan that really addresses the impact of our agricultural industry and the need for wider reductions in urban-related carbon emissions.

Until then, budgets – and the governments that deliver them – will continue to disappoint.

Kate Prendergast received funding through an Economic and Social Research Council (UK). She also receives funding through a Deep South National Science Challenge grant awarded for the Mana Rangatahi project.

Bronwyn Hayward receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). She also receives funding from the Deep South National Science Challenge grant, and is involved with the 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Synthesis and the IPCC 2022 Adaptation and Vulnerability Report.

– ref. Free public transport is a great start – but young people won’t give NZ governments a free ride on climate change – https://theconversation.com/free-public-transport-is-a-great-start-but-young-people-wont-give-nz-governments-a-free-ride-on-climate-change-205989

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Finn Cameron Gillies Parker, PhD candidate, University of Sydney

For as long as humans have grown our own food, we have battled pest animals that destroy crops and take food for themselves.

The traditional approach has been to try to kill the pests, typically with poisons. Too often, however, this fails to kill enough pests, harms native animals, and only minimally reduces damage.

We tackled this problem in a different way by asking: how do we stop hungry animals finding our crops in the first place?

In a research paper published today, we show how “chemical camouflage” can prevent house mice finding newly sown wheat seeds. The method reduced mouse damage to wheat crops by more than 60% even during plague conditions, without killing a single mouse.

The rodent menace

Rodents are responsible for an estimated 70 million tonnes of grain lost worldwide each year. Even a 5% reduction in these losses could feed more than 280 million people.

In Australia, the 2021 mouse plague cost farmers in New South Wales alone upwards of $1 billion, according to an industry association estimate. A mouse plague occurs somewhere in Australia at least every four years.

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Currently, the only management option to reduce mouse numbers is broad-scale baiting. However, baiting is often ineffective and has led to calls for more lethal poisons, which carry major risks for native wildlife.

The relationship between baiting effort and crop yield is not well understood, and mouse numbers typically crash in plague years even without intervention. A better approach is to focus on reducing mouse impacts, rather than mouse numbers.

How to fool a mouse

Mouse damage to Australia’s most valuable crop, wheat, occurs mostly in the two-week period between sowing and germination. During this time, mice are attracted to the smell of the wheat germ – the nutritious and fatty part of the seed – beneath the ground, and they learn to dig up seeds with pinpoint accuracy, leading to significant crop losses.

This led to our question: can we hide the seeds so mice can’t find them?

Like many animals, mice primarily use their sense of smell to find food. The world is full of odours, and hungry foragers must prioritise important smells and disregard useless ones.

When a food is too difficult to find, or an odour is not a useful indicator of food, foragers must give up and search for something else to avoid wasting energy.

Because hungry animals can’t afford to waste effort on odours that don’t lead to food, they are vulnerable to olfactory misinformation and chemical camouflage. As with visual camouflage, if the background, in this case smell, appears the same as the item we are trying to hide, the target item cannot be distinguished.

Animals can also learn about the usefulness of information, making them vulnerable to another form of misinformation – odour pre-exposure. By deploying food odours before food is available, foragers initially attracted to the odour repeatedly receive no reward and learn to ignore it.

When the food does become available, foragers don’t follow the odours because they know they’re unrewarding. We recently used this technique to dramatically improve nest survival for threatened shorebirds at risk from by predation by invasive predators in New Zealand.

A test under tough conditions

Until now, these techniques have been tested on relatively widely dispersed food items with fewer foragers over a larger area. Whether olfactory misinformation could protect a crop with more than 300 mice and 1.6 million seeds per hectare was unclear.

We worked on a 27-hectare wheat paddock in southwest NSW, using 60 plots to test our two olfactory misinformation techniques. We used wheat germ oil to provide the odour background, as it is made from the part of wheat seeds that mice seek out and is a relatively cheap byproduct of the wheat-milling process.

Both techniques involved spraying a fine mist of wheat germ oil solution onto the plots. Each application was equivalent to the smell of around 50 times the number of seeds on the plot.

Read more:
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Our first technique, odour camouflage, began immediately after the crop was planted and was reapplied several times until seedlings appeared. This created a blanket of wheat odour to hide seeds from detection.

Our second technique, odour pre-exposure, had wheat germ oil applied six days before the wheat crop was planted and continued for the week after. We predicted that mice attracted to the odour before seeds were planted would begin to ignore wheat odour after repeatedly finding no seeds.

We also had three control treatments: one sprayed with canola oil to control for an oil effect, one we walked on without spraying to control for seed loss due to trampling, and one that remained totally untouched.

One and two weeks after sowing, we counted mouse damage in the form of diggings where seeds had been extracted by mice. After two weeks, we also estimated the number of seedlings that were lost to mice. The results were staggering.

After two weeks, our camouflage and pre-exposure treatments had reduced mouse damage by 63% and 74% respectively, compared to the control. We also estimated that 53% and 72% fewer seedlings, respectively, were lost to mice on these plots.

The difference in the effect of pre-exposure to wheat odour and the effect of camouflage treatments was not statistically significant, and we concluded the camouflage effect is the most likely reason for the reduction in damage.

Working with the animals

In an increasingly populated world where food security is becoming a priority, we need new ways to tackle pest problems sustainably and safely.

Our methods are simple, safe and highly effective, even during a mouse plague. They carry no risks for native wildlife and involve no killing. Mice don’t go hungry either – they simply eat the foods they ate before the wheat was planted.

We believe simple behavioural interventions like ours, which work with animals’ motivations rather than against them, are the way of the future in wildlife management and conservation.

We believe this new approach has the potential to manage pest impacts without the side effects that come from using lethal pest control.

Finn Cameron Gillies Parker receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Catherine Price receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jenna Bytheway receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Peter Banks receives funding from the Australian Research Council and The Hermon Slate Foundation. He is an external member of CSIRO’s Rodent Research Advisory Panel

– ref. How to fool a mouse: ‘chemical camouflage’ can hide crops and cut losses by over 60% – https://theconversation.com/how-to-fool-a-mouse-chemical-camouflage-can-hide-crops-and-cut-losses-by-over-60-202042

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaya Klop-Toker, Conservation Biology Researcher, University of Newcastle

For the past 40 years, a devastating fungal disease has been ravaging frog populations around the world, wiping out 90 species. Unlike the global COVID-19 pandemic, you may not even be aware of this “panzootic” – a pandemic in the animal world. Yet it’s the world’s worst wildlife disease.

Recently published in the journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, a multinational study has now developed a method to detect all known strains of this disease, caused by the amphibian chytrid fungus. This breakthrough will advance our ability to detect and research this disease, working towards a widely available cure.

An extreme mortality rate

Chytridiomycosis, or “chytrid” for short, has driven severe declines in over 500 frog species and caused 90 extinctions, including seven in Australia.

The extreme rate of mortality, and the high number of species affected, makes chytrid unequivocally the deadliest animal disease known to date.

Chytrid infects frogs by reproducing in their skin. The single-celled fungus enters a skin cell, multiplies, then breaks back out onto the surface of the animal. This damage to the skin affects the frog’s ability to balance water and salt levels, and eventually leads to death if infection levels are high enough.

Read more:
Before The Last of Us, I was part of an international team to chart the threat of killer fungi. This is what we found

Chytrid originated in Asia. It’s believed that global travel and trade in amphibians led to the disease being unwittingly spread to other continents.

Frogs in regions such as Australia and the Americas did not have the evolutionary history with chytrid that could grant them resistance. So, when they were exposed to this new pathogen, the results were devastating.

Many species’ immune systems were simply not equipped to defend against the disease, and mass mortalities ensued. In the 1980s, amphibian biologists began to notice sharp population declines, and in 1998, the chytrid fungal pathogen was finally recognised as the culprit.

Since then, much research has focused on infection trends and how to protect vulnerable frog species. To track such trends, we need a reliable way to detect chytrid in the first place.

An imperfect swab

To find out if a frog is carrying chytrid, researchers swab the animal and run the same type of test you might recognise from COVID-19 testing – a qPCR. It stands for quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and simply put, is a way to measure the volume of DNA from a species of interest. The test was developed at CSIRO in 2004; unlike a COVID test, however, scientists swab the frog’s skin, not the nose.

Because this test was developed from chytrid in Australia, decades after the pathogen’s arrival in the country, a divergence between the Australian and Asian strains meant this test could not detect chytrid in its region of origin. This has been a major limitation to the past two decades of chytrid research.

Read more:
‘Vaccinating’ frogs may or may not protect them against a pandemic – but it does provide another option for conservation

Over the past several years, a team led by researchers at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in India has been working on a new qPCR test that can detect strains of chytrid from Asia. In collaboration with researchers in Australia and Panama, we have now verified the new test also reliably detects chytrid in these countries.

Furthermore, the test can detect another closely related species of chytrid that infects salamanders. The test is also more sensitive, meaning it can detect very low infection levels – thereby broadening the scope of species we can study.

Natural immunity?

The most puzzling thing about chytrid is that some amphibian species – even those that have not evolved with the pathogen – don’t become sick when they carry the fungus. These species have some form of natural immune resistance.

However, frog immunity is extremely complex. Immunity might come from anti-microbial chemicals within the skin, symbiotic bacteria on the skin, white blood cells and antibodies in the blood, or combinations of these mechanisms.

So far, no clear trend has been found between resistance and immune function. To make matters more complicated, there is also evidence chytrid can suppress a host’s immune response.

Because there haven’t been any observed chytrid declines in Asia, and because detecting chytrid in Asia has been difficult, Asia is lagging behind the rest of the world in chytrid research. Yet the new qPCR test detected high levels of chytrid in a range of amphibian species across India.

Having the ability to study chytrid in its region of origin may help us understand how Asian species evolved resistance – research that may hold a key to help researchers develop a cure for those species in Australia, North and South America, and Europe that are now on the brink.

While the new qPCR test was successful at detecting chytrid in samples from India, Australia, and Panama, we will need to validate and promote the method so it becomes the new gold standard for chytrid testing. Future work will involve using the test to analyse samples from Europe, and samples from Brazil where genetic studies show that chytrid has diverged.

In time, this new way to detect chytrid could be the first step in helping to save frogs – the hidden gems of our forests and wetlands.

Kaya Klop-Toker received funding from the Australian Academy of Science.

Karthikeyan Vasudevan receives funding from Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, India.

– ref. The world’s worst animal disease is killing frogs worldwide. A testing breakthrough could help save them – https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-worst-animal-disease-is-killing-frogs-worldwide-a-testing-breakthrough-could-help-save-them-205872

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Corben, Research Fellow, Foreign Policy and Defence, University of Sydney

The Quad leaders’ meeting was meant to take place in Sydney today, with the Sydney Opera House as the picturesque setting. Instead, US President Joe Biden has rushed back to Washington from the G7 summit in Japan to deal with the looming debt ceiling crisis in Congress.

Biden’s sudden cancellation of his travels to Australia and Papua New Guinea has unsurprisingly ruffled feathers. But for America’s regional partners, the costs of a bad resolution to the debt crisis in the US far outweigh those of a cancelled trip.

Whichever way you look at it, this is a clear reminder of the importance of US domestic politics in setting the terms for US strategy and credibility in the Indo-Pacific region.

The best of bad options

Those complaining about Biden’s absence have good reason. Turning up to regional meetings matters a lot in Asia, and for America’s partners in the Pacific especially.

Indeed, Biden was due to meet with leaders from the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s premier multilateral forum, in PNG this week. The symbolism of cancelling further engagements with leaders of a region that has become a new focal point of strategic competition with China is hard to ignore.

Still, the president could be forgiven due to the difficulty of the choice he faced. On the one hand, there’s the potential short-term hit to US regional credibility from a cancelled trip. On the other hand, there’s the risk the debt crisis at home could boil over into a full-blown default, with ruinous, long-term consequences for US strategy in the region.

This is also not the first time a US president has missed key meetings in the Indo-Pacific due to domestic politics.

Faced with a government shutdown in 2013, President Barack Obama skipped a host of major Asian summits. In response, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted the region’s preference for

a US president who is able to travel to fulfil his international duties to one who is preoccupied with domestic issues.

More recently, regional powers grew accustomed to President Donald Trump’s absence from meetings, though he tended to forego travel for reasons less pressing than a looming default. Polling of regional elites and and the general public showed Trump’s approach had considerable consequences for people’s trust in the United States.

The Biden administration, by comparison, has been a reliable diplomatic partner. Research from the United States Studies Centre has shown that Biden and his senior appointees have an almost unblemished attendance record at key regional summits and consistently show up for bilateral meetings with allies.

As for the Quad, the Biden administration is hardly throwing in the towel. A condensed version of the Quad meeting was held during the G7 summit. With the leaders’ announcement of a suite of new initiatives, a last-minute venue change had little bearing on the Quad’s progress.

Why the debt crisis matters to the Indo-Pacific

By contrast, the outcome of debt ceiling negotiations between the White House and Congress will have far greater repercussions for US Indo-Pacific strategy.

With cuts to Medicare and Social Security – a third of the US budget – reportedly off the table, the US defence and state departments face likely cutbacks. In short, the Republicans’ existing proposal to cut top-line discretionary government spending to 2022 levels would mean a 9% reduction to defence and non-defence programs.

Many in Congress are loath to reduce defence spending, but the narrow majorities of the Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate – as well as the House speaker’s calls for “efficiencies” and an end to “blank cheques” – leaves the Pentagon budget open to scrutiny.

In a worst-case scenario, unsuccessful negotiations could lead to another significant clampdown on government spending on foreign policy priorities.

In 2011, similarly stalled negotiations over the debt ceiling nearly resulted in default, forcing Obama to sign the Budget Control Act. This effectively placed nearly US$1 trillion in restrictions on discretionary government spending for a period of ten years.

Even this failed to resolve the crisis, with automatic spending cuts triggered in 2012 after Congress failed to agree on additional deficit reduction measures.

Though lawmakers found ways to mitigate some impacts of the Budget Control Act in subsequent budgets, the consequences for US defence spending were nonetheless profound. In the words of former US Secretary of Defence James Mattis:

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.

United States Studies Centre research from 2019 showed the Budget Control Act had a significant impact on America’s ability to fund its Asia-Pacific strategy, particularly its defence component. It has still not entirely recovered from this position, meaning further cuts could set ambitious US defence plans in the region back even further.

Read more:
A brief history of debt ceiling crises and the political chaos they’ve unleashed

Compared with the Pentagon, the State Department appears to have comparatively little political support in Congress, meaning it could be especially vulnerable to cuts.

The department is still reeling from cuts to the tune of 30% under the Trump administration. Further reductions would hamstring the Biden administration’s efforts to put forward a robust and consistent diplomatic presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

At a time where Australia is reinvigorating its own diplomatic statecraft in the region, a capable US partner is more valuable than ever.

Shoring up US credibility

Even short of cuts, the risk of default is already damaging US credibility in Asia.

Comments to that effect from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defence secretary and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee have framed these risks primarily in terms of Chinese views of American resolve. The subtext is the same goes for America’s allies and partners in the region.

Ultimately, it is more critical the US ensure its regional strategy is reliably resourced than for Biden to attend a handful of important meetings. Both of his options were bad, but he may have picked the least damaging option in the long run.

Read more:
Could Joe Biden be the most consequential American president of our times?

Tom Corben is a Research Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre, which receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence, Thales Australia, and Northrop Grumman Australia.

Alice Nason is a Research Associate in the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre, which receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence, Thales Australia and Northrop Grumman.

– ref. Biden’s cancelled Australia-PNG trip was a missed opportunity – but a US debt crisis would hurt a lot more – https://theconversation.com/bidens-cancelled-australia-png-trip-was-a-missed-opportunity-but-a-us-debt-crisis-would-hurt-a-lot-more-206079

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Charles Skinner, Senior Research Fellow, Indigenous Health, Macquarie University

Water plays a significant role in Aboriginal culture. The Fish Traps in Brewarrina, Baiame’s Ngunnhu, for example, were built by eight clan groups and continue to sustainably fish the Barwon River.

Respect for and understanding of water has enabled Aboriginal people to thrive for millennia in very hot and remote places. The impacts of colonisation including introduced species of plants and animals, farming and overuse of rivers and ground water, compounded by global warming, has dramatically reduced water access and quality, and in some places threatened the water supply.

Recent coverage of the quality of drinking water in Walgett in New South Wales again highlights that clean, safe drinking water is not a right in Australia. Walgett residents say the water is unsafe to drink and they’re backed by scientists from the George Institute who report an urgent need to address drinking water quality.

Read more:
Countless reports show water is undrinkable in many Indigenous communities. Why has nothing changed?

Supply is only half the issue

The reasons for poor or limited water supply vary. They include river flows and environmental health issues, infrastructure, and insufficient skilled, credentialed staff available to conduct water quality checks. But understanding the causes is one thing. Taking active steps to address them is another.

When clean, safe water doesn’t flow to communities, they are more likely to drink sugar-sweetened beverages. Our 2020 study visited three remote schools with high proportions of Aboriginal students. Our initial results, gathered in 2014, found 64% of children regularly drank sugary drinks. Some 5% thought drinking water was “unhealthy”. In some places in Australia that’s true at least some of the time.

The availability of safe drinking water impacts tooth decay, obesity and diseases like diabetes. Australia has drinking water quality guidelines but they are not mandatory.

We installed cold, filtered water fountains through a structured, collaborative process and, as a result, found in 2018 that 84% of children at those same schools drank water every day. The percentage who regularly drank sugary drinks shrank to 33% in the intervening four-year period.

Our follow up study found towns of lower socioeconomic status were less likely to have access to community drinking water and more likely to have a high Aboriginal population. So, Aboriginal people are particularly disadvantaged by this issue. It also found that in many towns the cheapest drink is soft drink.

Making a difference through codesign

We have been working with NSW communities to install refrigerated water fountains in rural and remote places. We collaborate with local Aboriginal land councils, traditional owners, and local government using codesign principles. Together we confirm the need, identify a suitable location and then select the right model of water fountain. We also negotiate local responsibility for ongoing maintenance and provide water bottles, education resources and spare filters.

In most cases we work with schools and preschools to embed positive health messages and reinforce water as the best drink. As Kim Cooke, Director Little Yuin Preschool in Wallaga Lake says,

The water fountain is a wonderful asset to the preschool outdoor learning environment. For us, as educators, it is central to the children’s health to be able to hydrate their bodies ready for learning; and having access to fresh water to drink everyday has led to an increase in their independence and learning about the importance of drinking water throughout the day.

Read more:
Travelling around Australia this summer? Here’s how to know if the water is safe to drink

Meeting local need

We recently conducted a survey of towns across Australia with a population of fewer than 5,000 people and Aboriginal population greater than 3%. We estimated that 222 places out of 612 small towns nationally do not have community drinking water.

Providing drinking water to every Australian town requires a place-by-place approach so that communities get a say about how and where fountains are installed and they meet local needs. Schools and preschools can participate in health promotion too. A national approach that overcomes the policy “ping pong” of responsibility for water safety, quality and infrastructure between local, state and the federal governments is also required. A national approach would enable:

• high quality infrastructure to be purchased at reasonable price

• professional and timely installation

• local responsibility for maintenance

• codesign so that each town gets the infrastructure they need, where it’s needed.

We estimate it would cost A$5 million to solve this problem nationally, based on our installation costs in NSW communities to date – a small investment in the prevention of chronic disease.

Water fountains in every town won’t solve all of our water issues. But they could ensure everyone can access free, cold drinks and reduce sugar consumption.

As community member, Brewarrina and Brewarrina Shire Councillor Aunty Trish says:

Having cold water available after you finish your sports or on our hot days will mean a lot for the community, fresh water helps with the health and wellbeing of the community.

Read more:
Drinking water can be a dangerous cocktail for people in flood areas

The authors wish to acknowledge Uncle Boe Rambaldini and Professor Chris Bourke, our project ambassadors. Aboriginal communities and local government authorities that have participated in our research and the implementation of water fountains. Our partners at the Alliance for a Cavity Free Future, Australian Dental Association NSW Branch, NSW Council of Social Service, Public Interest Advocacy Centre and Australian Red Cross.

John Charles Skinner has consulted to Colgate Palmolive Pty Ltd and the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW. He receives funding from Asthma Australia for research. He is affiliated with Charles Sturt University.

Kylie Gwynne receives funding from NHMRC and various charities/foundations for research. She is affiliated with the Resolution Institute.

Tom Calma receives funding from a consultancy on tackling Indigenous smoking from the Department of Health and Aged Care, an academic appointment with the University of Sydney and various other consultancies. He is affiliated with the University of Canberra and University of Sydney.

– ref. Drinking fountains in every town won’t fix all our water issues – but it’s a healthy start – https://theconversation.com/drinking-fountains-in-every-town-wont-fix-all-our-water-issues-but-its-a-healthy-start-204912

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sofía López-Cubillos, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne

Bees are crucial for producing many of our beloved foods and beverages. Coffee is one crop that benefits from bee pollination.

Unfortunately, pollinator numbers are falling worldwide. Many are facing extinction. This decline is due in part to ever-expanding farmland covered by a single kind of crop plant – agricultural monocultures.

Restoring pollinators’ habitat is essential, both to stop their decline and to maintain food production. Calls for large-scale restoration, such as the UN Decade of Restoration, are ambitious and may compete with other land uses. In addition, restoration often has an upfront cost, while its benefits could take time to obtain.

However, our new research shows that coffee farmers who restore patches of forest across their properties can nearly double their profits with just a 15% increase in natural habitat over five years. The benefits, a result of higher pollinator numbers, continue to increase for both farmers and forest over the long term (40 years). This is the first study that assessed such benefits in the long term and at a large scale.

Read more:
How the birds and the bees help coffee plants

Finding a sweet spot

Planting trees without planning that takes all factors into account may lead to poor conservation or economic outcomes. For instance, tree planting in unsuitable arid areas of China ultimately led to further environmental degradation, although the aim was to combat desertification.

For our study, we set up two clear objectives:

1. to maximise coffee profitability
2. to maximise restoration of forest that pollinators could use.

We used Costa Rica as a case study because of the wealth of information on pollination services for coffee in this region. One study found forest-based pollinators increased coffee yields by 20% within 1 kilometre of forest. So the presence of a healthy population of pollinators has a big impact on farmers’ revenue.

Read more:
Boosting bee diversity can help stabilise crop production – new research

A common practice to increase profits is to expand cropland by clearing forest. Therefore, restoring coffee lands to forest may involve trade-offs. To account for this, we considered two different planning contexts:

1. only restoration and no agricultural expansion
2. a mix of restoration and agricultural expansion.

We also compared multiple scenarios to assess the trade-offs between focusing solely on coffee profitability (objective one) versus giving more priority to restoring habitat for bees (objective two), and everything in between. Our mathematical modelling then selected the best locations to restore habitat (or expand agriculture) for each scenario.

There was a sweet spot between both objectives when practising only restoration. We found coffee farms can increase economic benefits by 98% after five years by increasing forest area by 15%. After 40 years, the economic benefits increase by about 109% with a 19% increase in forest area.

We also found that if farmers restore habitat without expanding agriculture, profits are steadier. When farmers restore and expand at the same time, this adds an element of volatility.

Read more:
Restoring forests often falls to landholders. Here’s how to do it cheaply and well

Small or big patches?

We found restoring many small patches throughout the farmed area maximised pollination services. Bees can only travel fairly short distances, ranging from 40 metres to 3 kilometres. Dispersed forest patches allowed the bees to reach more coffee plants.

However, while smaller patches are generally suitable for pollinators, other species have different needs. Restoring large areas is important for species that travel longer distances, such as the jaguar (Panthera onca), or for forest specialists that need dense forest to thrive.

However, having only a big patch of restored forest in an area of farmland may isolate species that have a large home range. In contrast, restoring small patches of land can provide important corridors for mammals.

In our study, we found other solutions that restored a mix of big and small patches at the same time. These solutions can still can deliver good economic and restoration outcomes. Having a mix is important because it allows biodiversity conservation and farming to co-exist.

Ideally, farmers who have large patches restored on their land would receive financial compensation. This could make up for the farmers’ upfront and ongoing costs, such as sapling cost and labour to maintain plants throughout some years. At the same time, neighbouring farms will benefit from bees travelling to and pollinating their crops, even if habitat isn’t restored on this land.

Read more:
Tropical forests can recover surprisingly quickly on deforested lands – and letting them regrow naturally is an effective and low-cost way to slow climate change

Importantly, these findings support solutions for farmers with different environmental outlooks. Some farmers may be generally supportive of conservation, leading to more proactive restoration actions and no clearing of forest. Other farmers may place a high importance on expanding agricultural production to improve their livelihoods.

Our study takes into account both contexts. Our findings show strategic habitat restoration for pollinators produces win-win outcomes for farming and the environment in both cases.

Sofía López-Cubillos is affiliated with Fundación Manigua desde la Tierra in Colombian and the Institute for Capacity Exchange in Environmental Decisions in Australia.

Rebecca K. Runting receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Coffee, brought to you by bees: a case study in how restoring habitat is a win-win for forests and farmers – https://theconversation.com/coffee-brought-to-you-by-bees-a-case-study-in-how-restoring-habitat-is-a-win-win-for-forests-and-farmers-205932

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margaret Kristin Merga, Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of Newcastle

Reading is a critical skill for school and life beyond it.
Young people need strong reading skills to learn and demonstrate their learning. Reading skills are not just about performing well in subjects such as English. They are related to performance in subjects like science and maths.

When it comes to reading, girls typically do better than boys.
This was highlighted by the results of a major international test on reading skills, released last week.

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) test, found Australian girls in Year 4 scored on average 17 points higher than Australian boys in the same year.

There was also a gap in terms of attitudes to reading. While more than a third of Australian girls “very much like reading” according to the PIRLS study, less than a quarter of boys feel the same.

Attitudes toward reading matter

Research consistently makes a link between students’ reading skills and their attitudes toward reading. If students are more motivated to read, they read more often and build their reading comprehension skills and vocabulary.

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released last month, girls (aged five to 14 years) are also more likely than boys to read for pleasure (77% compared with 68%).

To close the gender performance gap and enhance the performance of boys, we need to get more boys reading for fun.

Why is there an attitude gap?

One reason is boys and girls are brought up differently when it comes to reading.

A 2016 study of Canadian, US and UK parents found they spend more time reading with pre-school daughters than sons. So, while we teach young girls to see themselves as lifelong readers, many boys miss out.

Then as children move into primary school, even though boys read less often, they also receive less parental encouragement to read than girls.

Some boys think that reading is no longer important for them once they know how to do it.

What can we do?

Parents, guardians and relatives can play an important role in helping boys see themselves as readers, but once boys can read on their own, this role can be unclear.

Like any skill, sustained reading experiences are needed for reading skills to be both maintained and developed.

We cannot assume boys have opportunities for sustained reading for pleasure at school, as even when silent reading is timetabled in the school day.

Read more:
School phone bans seem obvious but could make it harder for kids to use tech in healthy ways

Ten tips to encourage reading

Here are some steps you can take to encourage the boys in your life to read, and improve their attitudes toward reading.

1. Take your boys to the local library

Joint library visits can encourage children to read more often, and as children move through the years of schooling, boys are less likely than girls to visit the library in their free time.

2. Encourage reading, even after they learn to read

Make sure your child knows reading is still important even after they can do it by themselves. Keep up the encouragement, and encourage boys as well as girls.

3. Keep reading together

Don’t stop reading aloud just because he can read by himself. Opportunities to read with parents can lead boys to have a positive attitude toward reading, and value shared time spent reading together.

4. Talk about books and share book recommendations

Keeping reading for pleasure in focus rather than reading for testing. Some children begin to see reading is something purely done for testing, making reading seem like a chore.

5. Show them you read for fun

The PIRLS report also found a positive link between parents liking books and their child’s reading achievement. So, show your children you read and read for fun.

6. Encourage holiday reading

Encourage boys to read during the school holidays. During these times, children’s reading skills may decline as they are not being sustained and developed.

7. Go to the experts

Not sure what your child might like to read? Ask the teacher librarians at your school. They are experts at connecting struggling and disengaged readers with books that meet their interest and ability levels.

8. Fiction and non-fiction are both great

The stereotype that all boys prefer to read non-fiction is not true. Fiction books offer literacy benefits as well as building social skills such as empathy.
That being said, non-fiction is great, too. Reading non-fiction books for pleasure was also recently linked with “high reading performance, especially among the male students”.

9. Dads especially need to read

Fathers and male influences need to play a greater role in encouraging boys to read. While 49% of teens felt their mother encouraged them to read, only 25% of fathers were playing this role.

10. Have lots of books around the house

Having a home with many books (more than 200) is related to reading achievement, and access to books in the home is linked to improved attitudes toward and frequency of reading, particularly in boys.

It’s not ‘just boys’

Finally, it’s important to note while the gender gap in performance and attitudes exists, there are also many girls who are disengaged from reading. More than one in five Australian girls do not like reading. There are also other concerning gaps that deserve our attention related to First Nations background, geographic location and socioeconomic status.

We should encourage all children to regularly read for pleasure so that they can build the strong literacy skills needed to understand and critically evaluate the large volumes of written material they will encounter in their lives today and in the future.

Margaret Kristin Merga has received past funding from the BUPA Health Foundation, the Ian Potter Foundation, the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund, Edith Cowan University and the Collier Foundation. She is the Patron of the Australian School Library Association and the Western Australian School Library Association. She also runs Merga Consulting, working with schools, Departments and professional associations to deliver parent seminars, staff professional development and planning advisory support.

– ref. 10 ways to help the boys in your life read for enjoyment (not just for school) – https://theconversation.com/10-ways-to-help-the-boys-in-your-life-read-for-enjoyment-not-just-for-school-205997

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ursula Kennedy, Lecturer of Wine Science, University of Southern Queensland

The martini cocktail has existed in a range of guises throughout its ice-cold, crisp life.

Several stories exist as to its origins. The “classic” martini is made with gin and vermouth (a fortified wine infused with spices) and garnished with an olive or a twist of lemon. It is quintessentially American.

The contested origins of the martini

Many believe the martini was invented in the 1860s at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco by bartender Jerry Thomas.

Thomas evolved a one part sloe gin, two parts sweet vermouth, maraschino and a dash of bitters with a lemon concoction into a drink he called the Martinez, which he made for passengers departing on the ferry to the town of the same name. It was said to also be prepared for miners celebrating striking gold.

Others believe it was invented in 1911 at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York by bartender Martini di Taggia, served to billionaire John D. Rockerfeller with equal parts London dry gin and dry vermouth. However, recipes for the drink were published as early as 1862, in Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders’ Guide.

Stronger versions of the martini include two parts gin, and even up to five parts gin, to one part vermouth, garnished with olive or lemon.

A “dry” martini has little to no vermouth at all – the focus being gin. Author T.S. Eliot once said:

There is nothing quite so stimulating as a strong dry martini cocktail.

The martini’s rise, fall and rise again

During the Gilded Age (1880-1900), the martini rose in popularity and remained so through to the mid-20th century.

Prohibition in America during 1920 to 1933 did little to harm the martini’s popularity, as backyard gin production was reasonably easy.

In the 1960s the drink’s popularity started to wane due to the burgeoning quality and availability of other beverages such as wines and beers. There were also concerns about alcohol consumption and health.

With the increasing popularity of “retro” style and culture in recent years the martini has made a comeback, with reports of increased demand for the drink among young people.

Martini and its variations

Today, the martini (or a common variation of it) is best known for its identity in popular culture, most famously as the drink of fictional British Secret Service agent, James Bond. The famous phrase “shaken, not stirred” was first uttered on screen by actor Sean Connery playing Bond in the 1964 movie Goldfinger. Bond’s tipple of choice is prepared with vodka rather than gin.

While most purists believe the gin martini is the classic form of the drink, there are myriad variations that use the martini name or are closely related to the original drink, such as the Gibson, a classic martini garnished with cocktail onions instead of olives.

The “dirty” martini is currently popular, which is gin soiled with a generous dash of brine from the olive jar. According to the Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, the practice of adding brine to a martini has been around since at least 1901. The term “dirty martini” seemingly wasn’t coined until the 1980s, however.

US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt may have been an early proponent of using olive brine in cocktails. Allegedly, the president “would shake up a drink at the drop of a hat … and was reported to have splashed a bite of brine in his drinks at the White House,” writes Robert Simonson in The Martini Cocktail: A Meditation on the World’s Greatest Drink, with Recipes.

The story goes that London bartender Dick Bradsell first made the espresso martini, a fusion of espresso, sweet coffee liqueur and vodka, in the late 1980s when supermodel Kate Moss (or sometimes Naomi Campbell) asked for a drink that would “wake me up and fuck me up”.

There are many modern drinks that use the iconic martini glass to justify using martini in their name – however, they bear little resemblance to the original cocktail. An appletini is vodka blended with apple juice, apple cider or apple brandy, while the “French martini” consists of vodka, pineapple juice and raspberry liqueur. The TV show Sex and the City popularised the “flirtini”, containing vodka, champagne and pineapple juice.

Keeping cool

A martini glass – a classic conical bowl on a long straight stem – is one aspect of the drink that does not change.

The glass was formally unveiled at the 1925 Paris Exhibition as an alternative to the classic champagne glass.

The long stem allows the glass to be held while the drink remains cool, not warmed by the drinker’s hands. The wide rim allows the drinker’s nose to be close to the liquid when sipping, so the aromatics can be easily appreciated.

Read more:
The name’s Bond, James Bond … and I’m an alcoholic

Never out of style

While Bond embodied the glamorous side of the martini, studies of writer Ian Fleming’s famous spy indicate that Bond had a severe problem with alcohol consumption. On occasion he may have had a blood alcohol concentration of .36% – almost fatal.

The martini should be consumed with deference … and in moderation.

Ursula Kennedy 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. Alluring, classic, glamorous: the history of the martini cocktail – https://theconversation.com/alluring-classic-glamorous-the-history-of-the-martini-cocktail-195913

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Tookey, Professor of Construction Management, Auckland University of Technology

Do you have gas? It’s a personal question that may cause offence – and not always for the obvious reason. Because the way we choose to cook or heat our homes is increasingly becoming something of a sore point.

Since the Climate Change Commission issued draft advice recommending the banning of new gas installations by 2025, anyone with a gas hob or central heating has been put on notice.

With the government’s gas transition plan due for consultation this year, a long-term plan to phase out gas will require everyone affected to start thinking about the alternatives. But it may not be a simple transition. Moves to cancel the humble gas hob even ignited another culture war in the United Sates.

On one side, some environmentalists and health researchers point to the role of gas in global warming and respiratory conditions like asthma. On the other, conservatives have called it another “woke” outrage. One celebrity chef even taped himself to a stove in protest.

Nevertheless, New York recently became the first US state to ban new residential natural gas connections from 2026. This followed the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which introduced financial incentives for homeowners to switch from gas to electricity.

What are the arguments for a gas ban in Aotearoa New Zealand, then? Will it make a difference to our emissions profile? And are we likely to see something like the New York policy introduced?

Big change for minimal gain?

First the good news. When burned efficiently, natural gas – the stuff that’s piped into your home if you’re on the mains – produces 40% less carbon dioxide than coal, and 30% less than oil.

The amount of contaminants it contains (such as mercury and sulphur dioxide) is insignificant. It creates no soot or dust, and emits minimal particulates when it’s burned. Overall, it’s among the cleanest of the fossil fuels.

But natural gas is primarily methane – an active greenhouse gas which traps 86 times more atmospheric heat than the same amount of carbon dioxide over 20 years.

Read more:
As NZ gets serious about climate change, can electricity replace fossil fuels in time?

A recent study of gas stoves in homes found the appliances can leak unburnt methane and nitrogen oxides even when turned off. This damages indoor air quality and creates more emissions than it saves in carbon dioxide from the cleaner burn.

Given the country’s commitment under the Climate Change Response (Zero Emissions) Amendment Act to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to 50% below gross 2005 levels by 2030, the case against gas may seem clear. Just how urgent the situation is, however, is open to debate.

As of 2017, New Zealand’s natural gas consumption was 0.1% of the global total (putting us 55th in the world). Electricity and heat production accounted for 13% of New Zealand’s gross carbon dioxide emissions in 2020, but domestic consumption of gas and production of CO₂ are relatively low.

By contrast, agriculture-based emissions are very high. Livestock produced 90% of gross methane emissions in 2020.

With natural gas making up such a tiny portion of the country’s overall emissions, does ending home use really add up? Might a ban be seen as tokenism – or become the political hot potato it has in the US?

Invest in alternatives first

In the end, it’s about priorities. But it’s unlikely the supply of natural gas to New Zealand homes can end soon. The Climate Change Commission’s 2023 draft advice recommends the government introduce “targeted support” to help lower-income households replace gas infrastructure (perhaps similar to what is proposed in the US).

This in turn will require significant investment in the electricity sector first. As many have witnessed first-hand, the country’s electricity infrastructure can’t always withstand extreme weather events. The thought of going without hot food or water, especially in winter, might make one think twice about ditching gas.

Read more:
Cyclone Gabrielle: how microgrids could help keep the power on during extreme weather events

Yes, sustainable and renewable sources of power are essential in the long term. But while there are alternatives to relying on an unreliable national grid, those who want to install solar panels and battery storage have to pay from their own pockets.

Moving off-grid is a slow process, too, even for for those who can afford it. And it achieves only incremental change in the wider energy system. Given the marginal reduction in overall emissions from a move away from natural gas, reliable alternatives must be in place first.

Grants to support individuals and communities looking to develop local micro-power generation (such as solar and wind turbines) will reduce demand on overstretched infrastructure. The same applies for hydrogen fuel cells for housing when these are launched commercially.

We need to put the means to develop alternative sources of power in place first, then phase out natural gas. Not before.

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

– ref. NZ’s gas problem: phasing out natural gas in homes demands affordable alternatives first – https://theconversation.com/nzs-gas-problem-phasing-out-natural-gas-in-homes-demands-affordable-alternatives-first-205991

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University

The Andrews government’s ninth budget is its toughest. The bill from Victoria’s COVID experience, as well as the state government’s ambitious infrastructure spending, has finally come due.

The pandemic has added more than $30 billion to the state’s total net debt, bringing the total to a whooping $117 billion. (New South Wales’s state debt, by comparison, is about $80 billion.)

Victoria’s floods in 2022 have added to the debt. But so too has the Andrews goverment’s borrowing for its $90 billion “Big Build”, encompassing projects from removing Melbourne’s level crossings, extending Melbourne’s underground rail network a building a suburban rail loop.

The state’s debt load was manageable when interest rates were low. But with borrowing rates now almost 4% and rising, interest payments are swallowing increasing amounts of the government’s budget. Interest payments on the debt are expected to be $5.5 billion in the 2023-24 financial year, rising to $8 billion by 2026-27.

There are only two ways to fix this: reduce spending or increase taxes. Andrews and his treasurer Tim Pallas have chosen to do a bit of both, with a ten-year plan to pay down the $30 billion COVID debt.

Less infrastructure spending, more taxes

The Victorian government has already announced it will delay several infrastructure projects. The Melbourne Airport rail link and the Geelong rail upgrade have been put on ice due to the federal government’s ongoing review of infrastructure projects. If they are delayed, as seems likely, they will lower the debt burden of the state.

This will be a shame for Melbourne’s frequent flyers, but is probably the right call. Infrastructure Australia says the construction sector is already at capacity on large infrastructure projects. This significantly increases the likelihood of cost and time blowouts. Infrastructure Australia expects the (recently widened) Tullamarine Freeway won’t reach capacity for at least another decade, so delaying the rail link is probably the best course of action.

To help pay down the debt, a suite of tax hikes has been implemented, primarily rises in payroll tax (falling predominantly on large businesses) and land tax (which is largely paid by landlords).

The measures are expected to raise more than $8 billion over the next four years, although they will be put in place for a decade.

Reforming land tax

Beyond the immediate task of paying down debt, the Victorian government has taken on the task of land tax reform, proposing to eliminate stamp duty on all industrial and commercial land in favour of an annual land tax.

No changes affect residential land, at least for now. But this could change if the reform proves popular.

Land taxes are the most efficient, and hardest to dodge, form of taxation.

Taxes on labour, such as income tax, can discourage work. Taxes on company profits can discourage investment and lead businesses to set up shop elsewhere. Land cannot be moved, and taxing it does not discourage its use.

The biggest problem with replacing stamp duty with land tax is that it often takes a lot of time and money for a fair transition to occur. In the Australian Capital Territory, a transition that began in 2012 is taking 20 years. The Victorian government proposes doing it in ten years, with further details to be released later this year.

The next transaction to occur after July 2024 will still attract stamp duty, but transitions after that initial one will be shifted to an annual land tax model.

The Andrews government also has a plan to phase out taxes on business insurance over the next ten years.

This small, but highly inefficient, tax has long been criticised by economists as it has punished businesses that seek to mitigate risk by buying public liability or professional indemnity. Removing it, albeit slowly over the next decade, will help the Victorian economy grow over the coming years.

Budgets are all about choices. The Victorian government has no easy choices.

Faced with a mountain of debt, it has outlined a plan for paying down the debt with a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts. The job remains far from complete, but this budget is a decent first step to get Victoria’s finances back on track.

Isaac Gross 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. Victoria bites a $117 billion bullet, and begins the long march of land tax reform – https://theconversation.com/victoria-bites-a-117-billion-bullet-and-begins-the-long-march-of-land-tax-reform-206066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute

From working 20 to 30 hours of unpaid overtime each week in one of Australia’s fanciest restaurants to picking fruit while being exposed to dangerous chemicals for less than $10 an hour, the underpayment of migrant workers is rife.

The Grattan Institute’s new report, Short-changed: How to stop the exploitation of migrant workers in Australia, show a broad pattern.

We’ve used two nationally representative Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys of employees and employers – Characteristics of Employment and Employee Earnings and Hours – to find out whether employees are paid below the national minimum hourly wage in Australia, currently $21.38 an hour or $26.73 an hour for casuals.

We estimate that recent migrants – those who arrived in Australia within the past five years – are twice as likely to be underpaid as migrants who have been in Australia for at least 10 years, and those born here.

Underpayment is widespread

In 2022, 5% to 16% of employed recent migrants were paid less than the national minimum wage. Between 1% and 8.5% of recent migrants were paid at least $3 less than the hourly minimum.

This compares with 3% to 9% of all employees in Australia being paid below the national minimum wage; with 0.5% to 4.5% paid at least $3 an hour less.

These numbers are likely to under-represent the extent of underpayment because our analysis only counts those being paid less than the national minimum wage.

It does not count cases where workers are underpaid against appropriate award rates, which typically pay more than the national minimum wage, penalty rates, or are not paid their superannuation.

Factors contributing to exploitation

Part of reason recent migrants are more likely to be underpaid is because they tend to work in industries where underpayment is more prevalent, such as hospitality and agriculture.

For example, temporary visa holders account for nearly 20% of workers in hospitality, the industry with the highest reported rate of underpayment.

Migrants also tend to be younger workers. Employees aged 20 to 29 are nearly six times more likely to be paid less than the national minimum wage than workers aged 30 to 39.

But even after accounting for age, industry and other demographic characteristics, migrants are still more likely to be underpaid.

Migrants who arrived in the past five years are 40% more likely to be underpaid than long-term residents with similar skills working in the same job with the same characteristics. Migrants who arrived five to nine years ago are 20% more likely to be underpaid.

Several things explain this.

First are visa rules, which make temporary visa holders more vulnerable to exploitation. For example, many international students put up with mistreatment for fear their visa may be cancelled for working more hours than permitted by their visa rules. Two-thirds of recent migrants are on a temporary visa.

Migrants have less bargaining power than local workers, partly because they have small social networks to help them find a job. They may not know what workplace rights they are entitled to and face discrimination in the labour market.

Read more:
What’s in a name? How recruitment discriminates against ‘foreign’ applicants

Our analysis shows the likelihood of underpayment is also higher among those working less-skilled jobs with fewer qualifications.

Without change, underpayment will rise again

Rates of underpayment for migrant workers and locals alike have fallen since the pandemic began

In 2018, 8% to 22% of recent migrants were paid less than the minimum hourly wage (compared with 5% to 16% in 2022).

This probably reflects the decline in the number of temporary visa holders living in Australia, especially students and working holiday makers, and labour shortages boosting worker’s bargaining power.

But with borders open again and temporary visa holders coming back in big numbers, the rate of underpayment seems sure to rise again without action from government to stamp out exploitation.

The federal government needs to reform the visa rules that make migrants vulnerable, boost resources to enforce workplace and migration laws and make it easier for migrants to claim money owed.

Underpayment has been widespread for too long. Now is the time to put a stop to it.

Read more:
How to improve the migration system for the good of temporary migrants – and Australia

Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities, as disclosed on its website. We would also like to thank the Scanlon Foundation for its generous support of this project.

Trent Wiltshire and Tyler Reysenbach 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. Up to one in six recent migrants are paid less than the minimum wage. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/up-to-one-in-six-recent-migrants-are-paid-less-than-the-minimum-wage-heres-why-206067

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

By the end of the year, Victoria’s trouble-plagued native forest industry will end – six years ahead of schedule. The state’s iconic mountain ash forests and endangered wildlife will at last be safe from chainsaws. And there will be no shortage of wood – there’s more than enough plantation timber to fill the gap.

Today’s announcement by Premier Daniel Andrews is excellent news for forests, the state’s economy, and its threatened species. We congratulate the Victorian government for this decision.

Ending native forest logging is long overdue. For decades, we’ve known of how much damage it does to biodiversity. Logging vast areas of Victoria’s native forests over the past several decades has pushed many once-common animals, such as the greater glider, to become endangered.

Even now, the last remaining logging areas proposed under the state’s Timber Release Plan overlap directly with the areas of highest conservation value for biodiversity.

Our research has catalogued the damage done to produce low-value products such as woodchips and paper pulp. The industry never made economic sense. The state-owned logging company, VicForests, has been running at a loss for many years. The industry can switch to our abundant plantations of eucalyptus and pine.

What damage did native forest logging do?

The vast majority of areas slated for logging provide habitat for more than 50 threatened and rare species. We know that the more forests are logged, the less likely we are to find species such as the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum. Logging pushes species into decline. Common species become threatened and threatened species move closer to extinction.

The lead author of this article has been part of a team conducting ecological monitoring and research in Victoria’s forests for almost 40 years.

We have seen the damage first-hand. We’ve watched old forests of high conservation value be clearfelled when they should not have been. We’ve watched essential habitat such as large old trees, with their all-important nesting hollows, become rarer and rarer.

We have seen extraordinary animals such as the Southern Greater Glider go from the most common species identified in night surveys to so scarce they’re now endangered.

We have seen once intact landscapes become dominated by highly flammable young forest at risk of extremely severe wildfires.

And we watched in dismay as logging fragmented landscape. Now up to 70% of Victoria’s critically endangered mountain ash forests are either severely disturbed by wildfire and logging or within 200 metres of such areas.

Native forest logging never made sense

Almost all (86%) of felled native forests in Victoria are turned into low-value products such as woodchips, paper pulp and boxliners.

In 2018, we estimated sawn timber equates to just 14% of the volume of logs cut from native forests.

By contrast, more than 80% of all sawn timber in Victoria comes from plantations. Native forest timber does not help build houses.

Read more:
Logged native forests mostly end up in landfill, not in buildings and furniture

Bringing forward the end of native forest logging from 2030 will be a major boost for climate action – equal to removing 730,000 petrol or diesel cars from our roads every year. This single decision gives Victoria – and Australia – a far greater chance of meeting their emissions reductions targets.

In its last annual report, VicForests announced a loss of A$54 million and a loan of $80 million. It’s now propped up only by the Victorian Treasury.

Even before these losses, the Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office showed the state would be $190 million better off without it.

How can we help forests recover?

Ending logging will take pressure off our forests. But we can’t simply walk away from heavily damaged areas. Many areas have never properly regenerated after logging or repeated fire.

In north-eastern Victoria, years of logging have warped the composition of tree species in the forest; many areas are dominated by trees that are largely unsuitable as food sources for koalas and greater gliders.

The urgent task is to restore forests across Victoria while managing fire and invasive species such as deer.

That’s not all. We will still need wood and paper. Ending native forest logging requires getting things right in Australia’s plantations.

At present, we export up to 95% of all plantation eucalypt logs we grow for processing overseas. That’s a missed opportunity for local jobs.

Even now, the plantation sector is crying out for more workers in haulage and processing. This sector offers comparable jobs for workers leaving the native forest sector. But there will be other jobs: forest restoration, firefighting, feral animal control, carbon stock management and more. Getting the transition right is important.

The exit from native forest logging must now be coupled with the declaration of a Great Forest National Park in the Central Highlands region. The region has been a hotspot for native forest logging in recent decades.

It’s almost ten years since the state’s then-environment minister Lisa Neville promised this park would be declared. Once established, the new park should be co-managed with First Nations peoples to ensure Aboriginal self-determination, as well as good opportunities to work on Country.

Today is a day for celebrating. At last, Victoria’s government has acted for the future. Preserving our native forests is worth much more in carbon storage, water production and tourism than they ever were as woodchips.

Victoria’s move is a clarion call for other Australian states still doggedly logging their precious forests.

Read more:
When is a nature reserve not a nature reserve? When it’s already been burned and logged

David Lindenmayer is a member of the Biodiversity Council and Birdlife Australia. He receives funding from Australian Government, the Australian Research Council, and Victorian Government.

Chris Taylor 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. After the chainsaws, the quiet: Victoria’s rapid exit from native forest logging is welcome – and long overdue – https://theconversation.com/after-the-chainsaws-the-quiet-victorias-rapid-exit-from-native-forest-logging-is-welcome-and-long-overdue-206181

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

The proposition that cutting prices will stoke inflation is a hard one to get your head around, even if you are an economist.

Yet it has been seriously put forward as a critique of this month’s budget; the one in which Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced measures that will take the edge off electricity and gas prices, the price of prescriptions and some visits to the doctor, and the out-of-pocket costs faced by low-income renters.

And childcare. Although announced in last year’s budget, measures to take effect in July are set to save a typical family with one child in care about $1,780 per year.

Some of the critics of these measures were participants in this year’s Economic Society of Australia post-budget survey.

What they said was that cutting these prices will give people more free money to spend on other things, pushing up prices elsewhere, and putting more pressure on inflation and the Reserve Bank, which might have to push interest rates higher.

As one of them put it, subsidising bills is “not really all that different” to giving people cash payments that they can use to bid up prices and push up inflation.

As I said, it’s a hard argument to get your head around. It makes sense in theory, but in practice I don’t think it makes much sense at the moment, given the measures actually in the budget.

Correct in theory, if not in practice

Here’s how it might make sense. Imagine a big expense that households had no choice but to pay. If the government introduced measures that increased it by $1,000 a month, those households would be forced to spend a good deal less per month on other things, and would put a good deal less upward pressure on prices.

Actually, we don’t need to imagine. It’s partly why the Reserve Bank has just ramped up interest rates – to increase mortgage payments by up to $1,000 per month, and in doing so take up to $1,000 a month from household budgets to take pressure off prices.

And it’s partly why the Reserve Bank cuts interest rates – to lower mortgage payments and free up money households can use to bid up prices.

The argument is that if a cut in the price of paying off a mortgage can be inflationary, so too can cuts in other prices.

Except that other price cuts are hardly ever anything like as big.

When the price of petrol (and diesel) jumped 40 cents per litre after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, few people doubted it was inflationary. It pushed up the price of nearly everything.

So when the price per litre fell 22.1 cents after the Morrison government temporarily cut fuel excise, few doubted that the measure restrained inflation as it was meant to, even though if the price had been cut by much more the cut might well have fed inflation.

Which is another way of saying that size matters. If I was to spit into the ocean, theory suggests I would lift the sea level. Practice suggests I would not.

A small effect, with a lag

In his post-budget address to Australian Business Economists last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy revealed the government’s calculations on the budget’s effects on inflation.

He said the changes to rent assistance, the price of prescriptions and bulk billing were small and would put only “small downward pressure on prices”, which he conceded might theoretically be offset by a boost to spending.

But he said that offsetting effect would be “largely immaterial”, meaning it would be too small to measure.

Read more:
No, the budget does not make further interest rate rises more likely

The energy price measures will do much more. Kennedy’s department reckons they will cut inflation by three quarters of a percentage point in 2023-24, producing an inflation rate of 3.25% rather than 4% in the year to June 2024.

It says the caps on wholesale prices will do most of the work, cutting the inflation rate by half a per cent, with the consumer and business rebates cutting inflation by a further quarter of a per cent. When the rebates end in mid-2025 their effect will be unwound.

The department says the offsetting effect from extra spending will be measurable but “small”, and will work “with a lag”. So by the time it has had much of an effect, inflation itself should be a good deal lower.

And Kennedy identified three things that should help offset the offsetting effect:

• lower energy prices and inflation will lower the indexation of payments that are linked to inflation, putting less money into the economy to add to inflation

• the expected 0.75 point cut in inflation should help restrain inflationary expectations, making it harder for high inflation to become self-sustaining

• the cuts in the profits of energy companies brought about by the energy price caps will themselves remove money from the economy.

And Kennedy says Australia is well placed to fight inflation in other ways.

All of the budget measures taken together, including the cost-of-living measures, should add just $20 billion to the amount the government pumps into the economy over the next four years – a mere fraction of $11 trillion that Australians will spend and earn over that time.

As well, Australia’s very, very low unemployment rate has pushed the proportion of the population in paid employment to record highs, making Australia better able than ever to call upon workers to respond to shortages as prices rise.

Read more:
Economists award Chalmers top marks for budget, but less for fighting inflation

The faster-than-expected return of migration will help even more, adding to the capacity of the economy to provide services without pushing up prices, all the more so because the migrants Australia selects tend to be young enough not to need many services themselves.

While you can never know what’s around the corner, I’m yet to see a credible argument that inflation won’t do as predicted in the budget: come down swiftly from here on. It’s forecast to fall from 7% to 6% by the middle of this year, and to 3.25% by the middle of next year.

Rather than making inflation worse, it seems to me that by cutting prices for many of us, the budget will help bring down inflation sooner.

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

– ref. Will Jim Chalmers’ budget drive up inflation? Not likely – and here’s why – https://theconversation.com/will-jim-chalmers-budget-drive-up-inflation-not-likely-and-heres-why-206171

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ayesha Jehangir, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Media Transition, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

Pakistan’s former military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. At the end of his tenure, he declared the military would no longer meddle in politics anymore.

However, the recent arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan – once seen as the “army’s blue-eyed boy” – and the army’s intention to prosecute civilian protesters under military laws proves the men in uniform are still very much in politics.

The recent turmoil in Pakistan also serves as a poignant reminder of the considerable power wielded by the military.

Amid the ever-changing political landscape, the only permanent force is the military establishment, while the political parties only coexist to share power with it.

Khan, whose success in the 2018 general elections was engineered by the military itself before the two drifted apart, has more than 100 cases registered against him now. These cases range from corruption and sedition to terrorism and even blasphemy, which is punishable by death.

His arrest was followed by days of violent anti-army protests across the country. Protesters set fire to police vehicles, damaged public property and mobs stormed into the compounds of army commanders in Lahore and Rawalpindi.

However, days after the military’s intention of using army laws on civilians became public, events changed course rapidly. Peaceful rallies expressing solidarity with the army took the centre stage.

How did a military of roughly 140,000 men at the time of partition of India in 1947 become the world’s seventh most powerful army?

An army with a state

Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan has been under military dictatorship spanning a total of 34 years. When not directly in power, the military elite have discreetly engaged in hybrid regimes, exerting influence on civilian governments from behind the scenes.

The British colonial legacy has played a vital role in shaping Pakistan’s military today. British generals continued to head the Pakistan’s military until 1951, when the authority was transferred to General Ayub Khan. Just seven years later, Ayub became Pakistan’s second president through a military coup.

This foundation led to the establishment in 1948 of the spy agency Inter Services Intelligence. It gained remarkable influence in the 1980s, when the US covertly waged a war in Afghanistan using Pakistan as a proxy against the declining Soviet Union.

This period also saw the execution of an elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Then came the era of religious extremism under General Zia-ul-Haq. This consolidated Pakistan’s obsession with the “strategic depth” for interference in Afghanistan.

In later years, Pakistan saw the assassination of an elected prime minister, Benazir Bhutto under the rule of General Pervez Musharraf. This was the time of enforced disappearances of civilian dissidents. Pakistan also became a safe haven for Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden while receiving funds from the US as a frontline ally in the war against terrorism.

Pakistan’s army received substantial financial backing from the US during the Cold War. This bolstered its might domestically while allowing it to undertake adventures abroad for which it was unaccountable.

Traces of the Pakistani military’s involvement could also be seen in the Arab conflicts and the Bangladesh “rape camps”.

Military immune to hyper inflation in Pakistan

Pakistan is on the verge of an economic meltdown, weighed down by harsh pay-back terms from international lenders. With only A$5.2 billion worth of state reserves and a debt of over A$13.5 billion owed to the International Monetary Fund, the army nonetheless received an increased payment of A$11.27 billion in last year’s budget.

Between 2011 and 2015 alone, the army’s assets grew by 78%. By 2016, the armed forces in Pakistan ran over 50 commercial entities, including public sector organisations and real estate ventures worth A$30 billion. Today, their commercial assets are worth over A$39.8 billion.

Top military officers, including former army chief General Qamar Jawed Bajwa and army spokesman, General Asim Saleem Bajwa, have been revealed to have experienced significant financial gains within a relatively short time. Bajwa’s immediate family amassed substantial wealth, transforming into billionaires within six years.

General Asim Saleem Bajwa and his brother established a business empire that included 133 restaurants across four countries, operating under the Papa John’s pizza franchise. An investigation was also launched into real estate corruption by the brothers of former army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who for many years was the most powerful figure in the country.

The Pandora Papers exposed a long list of Pakistan’s former military officers who had accumulated immense wealth through tax evasions and corruption.

Over time, the military’s economic interests have gained prominence. This includes military-owned businesses, significant onshore and offshore land and property holdings, influence over defence contracts, as well as alleged involvement in ventures linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.

The military’s influence in Pakistan extends beyond politics and the economy. To control information dissemination, the military employs a combination of traditional and social media censorship. It also utilises vaguely worded draconian laws.

These laws effectively criminalise any form of “ridicule” directed at the army, carrying severe penalties such as long prison sentences and hefty fines. Slain journalist Arshad Sharif was charged with “sedition” under the same laws for allegedly spreading hate against the military and disrespecting state institutions.

As a nuclear state, Pakistan’s military is much like Voltaire’s description of Frederick II of Prussia: it is a state within itself, benefiting from its sheer size, a great deal of money, and an advantageous geopolitical positioning.

The military’s rise to power in Pakistan is linked to cultivating a collective ethos that portrays politics as inherently corrupt, while positioning itself as the sole bastion of honesty, discipline and nationalism.

It is because of this approach that despite corruption within the military, it has successfully distanced itself from the prevalent political culture, which is characterised by kinship ties, factionalism, patronage networks, and most importantly, corruption.

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

– ref. Explainer: A historical trail of Pakistan’s powerful military enterprise – https://theconversation.com/explainer-a-historical-trail-of-pakistans-powerful-military-enterprise-205749

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Hall, Acting Director, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

Narendra Modi arrives this week for an official visit to Australia. When he first came to Australia in November 2014, the recently elected Indian prime minister was still to find his feet on the global stage. Keen to show the new government meant business, Modi worked hard to establish a rapport with other leaders at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Brisbane.

But in the limelight, Modi appeared nervous, not least in his speech to the Australian parliament.

Almost nine years on, things are very different. India is the focus of world attention, as the 2023 G20 chair, with an economy growing faster than almost all its competitors.

And Modi, now a veteran of dozens of summits and visits, is far more confident abroad.

Indifference and irritations

In the meantime, the relationship between Australia and India has also changed. Twenty years ago, the two countries had very little to do with one another. China’s insatiable hunger for coal and iron ore was the main focus of Australia’s political and business leaders. New Delhi concerned itself with its own economic development and overcoming longstanding differences with the United States.

Things started to shift in the late 2000s, as both Australia and India grew more concerned about Beijing’s burgeoning power and ambition. In 2007, both countries took part in a meeting of the Quad, a diplomatic dialogue also involving the US and Japan. Two years later, Kevin Rudd went to New Delhi and signed a new security agreement.

A little later, Australia dropped a ban on uranium sales to India, removing a longstanding irritant in the relationship.

These actions cleared the air, but weren’t quite enough to push the two sides to build a partnership. It took the shock of Donald Trump’s election as US president to provide the necessary impetus. The prospect of Trump putting “America First”, and the possibility the US might not act as expected if a crisis occurred, led to a flurry of diplomatic activity by Australia and India and the reconvening of the Quad in late 2017.

Indo-Pacific partners

Since then, the Australia-India relationship has advanced in leaps and bounds, despite the disruptions caused by COVID.

The biggest advances have been made in the areas of defence and security. The two countries now hold annual leaders’ summits and talks between their foreign and defence ministers. The Australian army, air force, navy, and special forces regularly exercise with their Indian counterparts.

The economic relationship has also become stronger, assisted by the growing Indian diaspora and concerted effort by the Australian government. Education has been a particular highlight, with more Indian students flowing to Australian universities and Australian institutions opening campuses in India.

The conclusion of an interim trade deal just prior to the 2022 election promises to further boost economic ties.

The Quad is opening up other possibilities for cooperation. Since 2017, it has expanded its agenda to cover everything from artificial intelligence and semiconductors, to infrastructure and maritime security.

Closer collaboration in the mining and processing of critical minerals such as lithium, used in batteries, discussed within the Quad, particularly interests both countries.

Deals and the diaspora

These issues and more are on the agenda for Modi’s visit to Australia this week. Boosting economic ties is a key priority. A comprehensive trade and investment deal is the ultimate aim.

Both countries also want to draw on the connections and capabilities of the Indian diaspora in Australia, now almost a million strong, to advance this part of the relationship. The new Centre for Australia-India Relations, based in Sydney, will be central to this effort.

At the same time, Modi is also looking to the diaspora for more political reasons. His Bharatiya Janata Party (“Indian People’s Party”, or BJP) relies on people of Indian origin across the world, especially in the US, for funds, skills, and influence. With a national election looming in 2024, Modi wants to energise and mobilise this crucial constituency to help the BJP to a third consecutive victory.

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In Australia, however, the diaspora is divided. Some have long opposed the BJP and criticised its policies, especially concerning India’s 200 million strong Muslim minority.

But lately, a new issue has surfaced in Australia and overseas: a campaign by some Sikh activists for a separate Sikh state, “Khalistan”. Unofficial “referendums”, organised to show support for the cause, have been held in Australian cities. Anti-India and anti-Modi slogans have been daubed on Hindu temples.

Only a small proportion of Australian-based Sikhs support the Khalistan movement. But the issue is causing problems for the Modi government and for the relationship between Australia and India.

During Albanese’s recent visit to India, Modi reportedly pressed his counterpart to rein in separatist activism in Australia.

Maintaining the balance

The partnership built between Australia and India is sufficiently robust to manage challenges like the Khalistan movement. And it needs to be.

The security and prosperity of both countries depends on closer cooperation to manage Beijing’s push to reshape our region to serve China’s interests.

Australia and India must work together – and with others across the Indo-Pacific – to maintain the balance of power that allows all countries in the region to determine their own futures.

Ian Hall receives funding from the Department of Defence and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

– ref. Divided Indian diaspora in Australia tops concerns for Narendra Modi visit – https://theconversation.com/divided-indian-diaspora-in-australia-tops-concerns-for-narendra-modi-visit-205993

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isabelle Kingsley, Senior Research Associate at the Office of the Women in STEM Ambassador, UNSW Sydney

It likely comes as no surprise that women receive a smaller share of research funding than men. But untangling the underlying reasons is no small feat.

A recently published international review spanning 45 years found that women accounted for just under a quarter of awards.

But our own study of 48,061 grants awarded in Australia by the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council over 20 years points to a complex issue that extends beyond granting systems: fewer women researchers mean fewer women applicants, in turn leading to fewer women receiving grants.

The international scene

In the recent international review, the authors synthesised evidence from 55 studies from 14 countries including the United States and Canada, and the European Union, from 1975 to 2020. Their analysis explored gender differences in grant award outcomes, success rates and funding amounts.

They found, on average:

• fewer awarded grants were led by women (24%) than men (76%)

• 30% of applicants were women. Success rates for grants led by women (23%) did not differ significantly from those led by men (24%)

• women researchers received about half the amount of research funds per grant than men – an average of US$342,000 compared to men with an average of US$659,000.

But this international analysis only incorporated one year of Australian data, limiting the degree to which those findings might pan out here.

What about Australia?

We, the research team at the Office of the Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador, deployed a statistical model that enabled us to detect nuanced patterns by simultaneously considering not only gender, but also career seniority, field of research and time. This research is currently available as a preprint ahead of peer review.

Echoing findings of the international study, our modelling revealed fewer awarded grants were led by women than men. However, we also found that career seniority mattered – increasingly more male researchers received grants at a senior level. The percentage of grants led by women was 39% among early-career, 33% among mid-career, and 26% among senior-career researchers.

We also found that gender differences in awarded grants varied by field of research. Proportionally fewer awarded grants were led by women in the fields of chemical sciences, mathematical sciences, Earth sciences, technology, engineering and physical sciences.

Read more:
More women are studying STEM, but there are still stubborn workplace barriers

We documented progress towards gender parity over the 20-year period, and the rate of progress depended on career seniority. The percentage of awarded grants led by senior-career women increased by 11% in the span of 20 years, reaching 31% in 2020. The increase was 8% for mid-career and 4% for early-career women researchers.

However, progress is slow and remains well below parity.

Importantly, we found that success rates for grants led by women did not differ significantly from men’s success rates. Based on this, we conclude it’s unlikely the main source of gender disparities in grant outcomes is how the research is assessed.

Unlike the findings from the international review, we found that funding amounts didn’t differ by gender. Women-led grants in Australia were awarded the same amount of funding per grant as men-led grants.

That said, because fewer awarded grants were led by women, the total funds showed a substantial difference: A$19.1 billion awarded to men lead investigators versus A$7.5 billion awarded to women lead investigators.

What about the workforce?

It is important to place these gender differences in the context of research workforce participation. According to available Australian data, there are fewer women than men in the research workforce. In fact, for every 100 men researchers, there are only 75 women researchers on average.

When we considered the number of awarded grants relative to workforce participation, we found the award rate was actually higher for women than men, especially among senior career researchers. For every 1,000 women professors in the research workforce, 11 led a successfully funded grant each year; whereas for every 1,000 men professors, six led a successfully funded grant each year.

Despite award rates apparently favouring women over men (note the workforce data are not as comprehensive as our grant funding data), fewer women researchers mean fewer women applicants, which means fewer women awardees overall.

Pulling all this together, it seems gender differences in Australian research grant programs may primarily arise from unequal workforce participation.

Read more:
It’s not lack of confidence that’s holding back women in STEM

What can we do?

We need to support women entering the research workforce and ensure they remain there and can progress in their careers. Barriers to women’s workforce participation have been extensively documented. The responsibility to remove such barriers rests with several entities.

Higher education and research institutes have social and legal responsibilities to provide environments in which all researchers have an equal opportunity to excel. In Australia, Science in Australia Gender Equity provides an accreditation framework to identify and address inequities and can accelerate the increase of women in leadership positions.

Governments and research funders can incentivise these and other gender-equity initiatives. Options include mandating workplace gender targets, equity plans or relevant accreditation as a condition of receiving government funds. These approaches are shown to progress gender equity.

Only when the whole sector comes together to contribute solutions across the research ecosystem will we see genuine, sustainable progress towards gender equity.

As Senior Research Associate for the Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador, Isabelle Kingsley receives funding from the Australian Government that supports this work.

Emma Johnston currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for her Antarctic research. Professor Johnston has previously received funding from the Department of Industry, Science, and Resources that supported Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador and this research project.

Lisa A. Williams receives funding from the Australian government (Australian Research Council; Department of Industry, Science, and Resources).

As the Australian Government’s Women in STEM Ambassador, Lisa Harvey-Smith receives funding from the Australian Government that supports this work.

Eve Slavich 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. Fewer women receive research grants – but the reasons are more complicated than you’d think – https://theconversation.com/fewer-women-receive-research-grants-but-the-reasons-are-more-complicated-than-youd-think-205649

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Guastella, Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Michael Crouch Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health, University of Sydney

Neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), affect one in ten people. While the primary focus is often on these diagnoses, worrying research shows people with neurodevelopmental conditions are at a much higher risk of experiencing serious mental health concerns. They may also find it particularly challenging to access mental health support.

For instance, when young autistic people seek help from youth mental health organistion headspace, they often present with severe anxiety and depression. Importantly, these mental health symptoms are one of the most important contributors to their disability in daily life.

We wanted to get a better understanding of how early mental health symptoms emerge. Our new study, published this week, assessed mental health symptoms in young children attending their first neurodevelopmental assessment. This study used the Sydney Child Neurodevelopment Research Registry, an ongoing program focused on child development clinical services.

The results surprised us. About half of the children showed clinical levels of mental health symptoms and were in need of support. This risk increased to nearly 70% for children with multiple diagnoses.

So, when children first present with neurodevelopmental concerns, they are also likely to have mental health concerns. More work needs to be done to ensure mental health and neurodevelopment needs are addressed early. Neurodevelopmental assessments may present an opportunity to combine efforts.

Read more:
What is ‘early intervention’ for infants with signs of autism? And how valuable could it be?

Why the high rates?

In our study, 232 families were asked about their child’s mental health when they first attended a broader neurodevelopmental assessment. The reasons for the higher than average mental health concerns in people with neurodevelopmental conditions are complex.

People with neurodevelopmental conditions can face greater challenges related to social determinants of health, such as unstable housing, financial difficulties, family separation and conflict, social isolation and unemployment.

Other social factors, including stigma, discrimination, peer rejection and exclusion in communities, and social, occupational, and educational support services also play a role.

Some neurodevelopmentally specific factors can also increase risk for mental health concerns. Neurodevelopmental conditions can be associated with difficulties with attention, impulsivity, problem solving and working under stress. There may be differences in sensory processing and concrete and repetitive thinking. Such factors can make emotion regulation more challenging.

Finally, some genes that are linked to conditions such as autism and ADHD are also linked to other mental health conditions.

In the ‘too hard’ basket?

So, mental health care should be central to health supports for people with neurodevelopmental conditions. Unfortunately, they experience many barriers to accessing care. These include:

• A lack of professional focus and training in mental health that takes neurodiversity into account.

• Incorrect beliefs from professionals that neurodiverse people may be too complex to benefit from standard assessments and supports for mental health. Yet, common tools for depression and anxiety have been shown to work well.

• Limited evidence with few trials of psychological therapies for mental health focused on or including neurodiverse people.

• A complex government structure and hard-to-navigate referral pathways for funding, services and inclusion that separate disability and mental health care.

• Stigma and discrimination where needs are overlooked because of a neurodiversity diagnosis. Social anxiety or depressive symptoms may be too easily attributed to social interaction difficulties or flatness of expression associated with autism. Anxiety and worry may be too easily attributed to executive function and emotional regulation difficulties associated with ADHD.

• Access and cost can make it very hard to see a mental health professional, such as a psychologist. You might be able to get National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) support for needs specific to autism, but mental health is considered separately.

Read more:
Wondering about ADHD, autism and your child’s development? What to know about getting a neurodevelopmental assessment

Getting in early

A failure to provide mental health supports when symptoms first develop results in more acute and chronic issues. Individuals present more frequently to acute mental health services, have more emergency service presentations and more inpatient admissions for complex and chronic mental health problems.

Sadly, autistic people also have a tenfold higher risk of suicide, compared to people without neurodevelopmental conditions.

That’s why this study is important. Over half of the children in our study had clinically elevated internalising symptoms, including anxiety, depression, loneliness and withdrawal. This increased to nearly 70% of children if they received more than one diagnosis. These symptoms were more common in girls.

Studies show such problems get more frequent as children age.
There is an opportunity to address mental health needs early before these problems become more complex. When children receive their first neurodevelopmental assessment, usually after waiting years, they should have access to the right supports for lifelong development.

The federal government has commissioned a mental health strategy specifically for autism. State-specific supports include New South Wales’ new mental health hubs for people with intellectual disability.

More needed

These latest steps are positive. But a fully integrated strategy needs to include all those with neurodevelopmental conditions. Our research shows children with multiple neurodevelopmental conditions are at greatest risk and there’s a need to provide mental health supports to these children as early as possible.

Individuals, families and the community will need access to supports and resources that help them to navigate, understand and be empowered in their mental health care. This will be likely facilitated by technology, personalised care methods and community engagement in co-design of these pathways. The assessment and support process provides a unique opportunity for education and engagement with other service providers and community hubs that can promote lifelong well being.

It will be critical that state and federal governments work in partnership to ensure mental health care can be provided across disability, education and health systems.

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

– ref. Around half of kids getting neurodevelopmental assessment show signs of mental distress. We can support them better – https://theconversation.com/around-half-of-kids-getting-neurodevelopmental-assessment-show-signs-of-mental-distress-we-can-support-them-better-205225

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jake M Robinson, Ecologist and Researcher, Flinders University

Nurturing a forest ecosystem back to life after it’s been logged is not always easy.

It can take a lot of hard work and careful monitoring to ensure biodiversity thrives again. But monitoring biodiversity can be costly, intrusive and resource-intensive. That’s where ecological acoustic survey methods, or “ecoacoustics”, come into play.

Indeed, the planet sings. Think of birds calling, bats echolocating, tree leaves fluttering in the breeze, frogs croaking and bush crickets stridulating. We live in a euphonious theatre of life.

Even the creatures in the soil beneath our feet emit unique vibrations as they navigate through the earth to commute, hunt, feed and mate.

Eavesdropping on this subterranean cacophony using special microphones can provide researchers with important insights into ecosystem health. Our new study published in Restoration Ecology shows ecoacoustics can provide an effective way of monitoring biodiversity in soil and in the forest it supports.

Read more:
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What did the study do?

Acoustic technology is widely used to survey bats, birds and other creatures. However, scientists who restore degraded ecosystems have yet to make full use of soil ecoacoustics. This is despite its demonstrable effectiveness at detecting small animal vibrations.

Our study applied ecoacoustic tools to measure biodiversity above and below ground in a UK forest. We hypothesised that the soils of forests restored to a healthier state would have a higher diversity of sounds than the soils of recently deforested plots. This is because we assumed more creatures would live in the restored and “healthier” soils, producing a greater variety of sounds that we would detect.

Think of two symphony orchestras. Half of one orchestra’s musicians have fallen ill and can’t play at the concert. This is analogous to a degraded ecosystem. In contrast, the other orchestra has all its members and will therefore be louder, with more complex and diverse sounds.

During the spring and summer of 2022, we collected 378 samples from three recently deforested and three restored forest plots. We created a recording system with special “contact” microphones that we inserted into the ground.

We used a chamber with sound-dampening foam inside to record soil creatures such as earthworms and beetles. This chamber allowed us to block out unwanted signals such as mechanical noise, wind and human activity. The chamber housed the microphone and a 5 litre sample of the soil at each plot.

Our results were exciting. The diversity of sounds was much higher in the soil from the restored plots. This finding confirmed our suspicions that healthier soil would be more tuneful.

Read more:
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Why is monitoring soil health important?

Our preliminary findings suggest ecoacoustics can monitor life underground. But why is monitoring soil biodiversity so important? Soil health is the foundation of our food systems and supports all other life on land. It should be a global priority.

The “unseen” and “unheard” organisms living in the soil maintain its health. Below-ground organisms, such as earthworms and beetles, play a crucial role in nutrient cycling and soil health. Without them, forests can’t thrive.

By using ecoacoustics to monitor below-ground biodiversity, ecologists can better assess the effectiveness of restoration efforts. This will allow them to make more informed decisions about the best ways to protect nature.

Using ecoacoustics in restoration efforts could also have important implications for climate change mitigation. Forests are crucial carbon sinks. They absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it in their woody biomass and soils.

In contrast, degraded or deforested areas are significant sources of carbon emissions. Restoring these areas and monitoring subterranean life can help reduce carbon emissions and improve our ability to reduce the effects of a changing climate.

Read more:
No more excuses: restoring nature is not a silver bullet for global warming, we must cut emissions outright

It’s still an emerging science

The use of ecoacoustics in restoration efforts is still relatively new, but it’s an important step towards a more holistic and effective approach to ecosystem recovery. By embracing new technologies and approaches, we can work towards a healthier and more sustainable planet.

Of course, there are challenges we still have to overcome. For instance, accurately identifying the sources of acoustic signals in a complex soundscape can be challenging. However, as technologies and methods continue to improve, the potential benefits of ecoacoustics are immense.

By monitoring life underground in a non-intrusive and efficient way, we can better understand the effectiveness of our restoration efforts. This will help us make more informed decisions about how to protect nature.

We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface when it comes to the possibilities of ecoacoustics in restoration efforts. It’s an exciting time for those working in this field, as we discover new ways to use sound to heal our planet.

Read more:
Soil abounds with life – and supports all life above it. But Australian soils need urgent repair

Jake M Robinson is affiliated with the UNFCCC Resilience Frontiers think tank.

Carlos Abrahams works for Baker Consultants, an ecological consultancy that specialises in ecoacoustics. He currently receives research funding from the UK Government.

Martin Breed receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies (CRC TiME), Australian Academy of Science, and New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment.

– ref. Good vibrations: how listening to the sounds of soil helps us monitor and restore forest health – https://theconversation.com/good-vibrations-how-listening-to-the-sounds-of-soil-helps-us-monitor-and-restore-forest-health-205223