Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Fougerouse, Research Fellow, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and The Institute for Geoscience Research (TIGeR), Curtin University

Thirty-seven years ago, on April 26 1986, the reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered a catastrophic meltdown. In the weeks that followed, the deadly event drove hundreds of thousands of people to relocate from the surrounding area, which is still a deserted “exclusion zone” today.

The Chernobyl nuclear accident was caused by an unfortunate cocktail of human error and flawed reactor design. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, releasing more than 400 times as much radioactive material as the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

An uncontrollable chain reaction inside the reactor caused a sharp increase in temperature that ultimately resulted in the fusion of the fuel rods, a steam explosion and a fire. The melted fuel rods pooled temporarily at the bottom of the reactor chamber before making their way into the deeper levels of the power plant.

This hellish molten soup has proved an unexpected source of insight for geologists like me. In new research published in American Mineralogist, my colleagues and I show tiny zircons formed at Chernobyl change our understanding of how these crystals behave – and what they tell us about Earth’s past.

Corium and the elephant’s foot

Molten reactor material is called corium, and it’s a serious contender for the most dangerous substance on Earth.

Nearby radiation exposure to corium can kill within minutes, but that is not all. Corium is extremely hot and generates its own heat from radioactivity. It’s very difficult to cool it down.

The corium at Chernobyl reached 2,600℃, almost twice as hot as the surface temperature of the space shuttle during atmosphere re-entry or half the temperature at the surface of the Sun. For comparison, the temperature of natural lava from volcanoes ranges from 500 to 1,000℃.

Read more:
Forget Fukushima: Chernobyl still holds record as worst nuclear accident for public health

Corium is so hot, it eats everything in its way. It can dissolve steel, sand and concrete, and it transforms water into radioactive steam almost instantly.

At Chernobyl, it was estimated 1,500 tons of corium was generated, flowing like lava and eating its way through metres of concrete in the basement of the power plant.

A second, even more devastating explosion was only just avoided by pumping the water used to extinguish the fire from the basement levels. Ultimately, the corium incorporated enough foreign building materials that it could not generate enough heat to keep its liquid state, and solidified into a lump that looks like the foot of an elephant.

Zircon and geologists: a love story

Uranium fuel rods are made of enriched uranium oxide, clad in zirconium alloy. Corium dissolved sand and concrete, which have a high silicon composition.

Zirconium, silicon and oxygen: all the ingredients were present in the Chernobyl melt to crystallise zircons (ZrSiO₄) about the width of a human hair.

Geologists and Earth scientists love zircon, because studying it can reveal the age when rocks formed and what geological process formed them. It is also very resilient to harsh geological conditions and is stable for billions of years.

Read more:
A disappointing earring, and the world’s hottest rock: zirconia

Zircons sampled from the solidified corium at Chernobyl are special because we know a lot about the conditions in which they formed and their history.

In many ways they can be considered analogous to controlled experiments, but from an extremely dangerous setting that cannot be reproduced safely in a laboratory environment. On the contrary, zircons from natural rocks have long, convoluted histories that are hard to untangle.

Surprisingly, the zircons from Chernobyl displayed features called “re-equilibration textures”, which are also found in many natural zircons. Until now, these features were attributed to the action of water dissolving the mineral.

However, the Chernobyl melt contained little or no water. This tells us the features were created by the melt directly, without the influence of water.

The zircons from Chernobyl taught geologists that zircons are not as resilient as they thought and this should be considered when studying complex rocks.

Nuclear forensics: CSI for nuclear safety

Studying the aftermath of nuclear incidents is a kind of detective work called nuclear forensics. It’s not just useful for geologists.

Nuclear power plant reactor meltdowns have happened only three times in history: at Chernobyl, at Three Mile Island in the USA in 1979, and at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.

Modern nuclear power reactors have incorporated more safety features to avoid another Chernobyl disaster.

Using extremely complex instrumentation, it is possible to measure the exact composition of uranium and other radioactive elements found at the site of an incident.

By measuring the proportion of the isotopes of uranium and plutonium, information about the type of fuel used in the reactor can be determined.

This is not only useful for understanding accidents and improving safety. Answering questions about the kind of fuel in use can help us draw many other conclusions as well, including the causes of the accident and how to mitigate them.

Nuclear forensics is also helpful in controlling nuclear facilities overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), promoting the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.

Denis Fougerouse is affiliated with the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and The Institute for Geoscience Research at Curtin University. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Chernobyl was history’s worst nuclear disaster. Now it’s teaching geologists about the history of our planet – https://theconversation.com/chernobyl-was-historys-worst-nuclear-disaster-now-its-teaching-geologists-about-the-history-of-our-planet-201227

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Hayward, Professor of Politics, University of Canterbury

This decade is the critical moment for making deep, rapid cuts to emissions, and acting to protect people from dangerous climate impacts we can no longer avoid, according to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The synthesis report is the culmination of seven years of global and in-depth assessments of various aspects of climate change.

It reiterates that the world is now about 1.1℃ warmer than during pre-industrial times. This already results in more frequent and more intense extreme weather, causing complex disruption and suffering for communities worldwide. Many are woefully unprepared.

The report stresses our current pace and scale of action are insufficient to reduce rising global temperatures and secure a liveable future for all. But it also highlights that we already have many feasible and effective options to cut emissions and better protect communities if we act now.

Many countries have already achieved and maintained significant emissions reductions for more than ten years. Overall, however, global emissions are up by 12% on 2010 and 54% higher than in 1990. The largest rise comes from carbon dioxide (from the burning of fossil fuels and industrial processes), followed by methane.

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

The world is expected to cross the 1.5℃ temperature threshold during the 2030s (at the current level of action). Already, the effects of climate change are not linear and every increment of warming will bring rapidly escalating hazards, exacerbating more intense heatwaves and floods, ocean warming and coastal inundation. These complex events are particularly severe for children, the elderly, Indigenous and local communities, and disabled people.

But in agreeing to this report, governments have now recognised that human rights and questions of equity, loss and damage are central to effective climate action.

This report also breaks emissions down to households – 10% of the highest-emitting households contribute 40-45% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while 50% of the lowest-emitting households (including small islands communities), contribute less than 15% of overall greenhouse gases.

Climate-resilient development

The report points to solutions for climate-resilient development, a process which integrates actions to reduce or avoid emissions with those to protect people to advance sustainability. Examples include health improvements that come from broadening access to clean energy and contribute to better air quality.

But the choices we make need to be locally relevant and socially acceptable. And they have to be made urgently, because our options for resilient action are progressively reduced with every increment of warming above 1.5℃.

This report is also significant for recognising the importance of Indigenous knowledge and local community insights to help advance ambitious climate planning and effective climate leadership.

Read more:
Floods, cyclones, thunderstorms: is climate change to blame for New Zealand’s summer of extreme weather?

Cities can make a big difference

Cities are key drivers of emissions. They generate around 70% of carbon dioxide emissions globally, and this is rising largely through transport systems relying on fossil fuels, building materials and household consumption.

But this also means urban spaces are where we can really exercise climate leadership. Decisions made at the level of local councils are going to be significant globally in terms of bringing national and global emissions down and protecting people.

Cities are sites for solutions where we can decarbonise transport and increase green spaces. While tackling climate risks can feel overwhelming, acting at the city level is a way communities can have more control over reducing emissions and where local action can really make a difference to our quality of life.

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We’re building harder, hotter cities: it’s vital we protect and grow urban green spaces – new report

We know there is much more money flowing into mitigation than adaptation. But we have to do both now, and move beyond adaptation focused on physical protection (such as sea walls). We also need to be thinking really carefully about green infrastructure (trees and parks), low-carbon transport and social protection for communities, which includes income replacement, better healthcare, education and housing.

This report was particularly difficult to negotiate because we now live in a changed reality. More and more countries are experiencing very significant losses and damages. As countries face increasingly extreme weather events, the stakes are higher.

Governments everywhere, in my view as a political scientist, are now facing hard choices about how to protect their own national interests while also making significant efforts to tackle our global climate crisis. In negotiations, larger countries can dominate debate and it can take a long time to get to agreement. This puts enormous pressure on smaller nations, including Pacific delegations with fewer people and diplomatic resources. This is yet another reason to ensure action is inclusive, fair and equitable.

For authors of the IPCC core writing team, the past 18 months have been intense. We all felt significant responsibility to accurately summarise years of work, completed by hundreds of our global scientific colleagues, who contributed to six reports in this assessment cycle: on physical science, adaptation and vulnerability, mitigation, and special reports on land, global warming of 1.5℃, and ocean and cryosphere.

These reports show the choices we make in this decade will impact current and future generations, and the planet, now and for thousands of years.

Bronwyn Hayward is a member of the IPCC Core Writing Team, coordinating lead author of Cities and Instrastructure IPCC adapation Report 2022 and a lead author of the Special Report 1.5. She had been funded by the UK Conomic and Scocial research council and Deep South Science Challenge

– ref. IPCC report: the world must cut emissions and urgently adapt to the new climate realities – https://theconversation.com/ipcc-report-the-world-must-cut-emissions-and-urgently-adapt-to-the-new-climate-realities-202129

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Heim, PhD researcher, University of Southern Queensland

Since time immemorial, humans around the world have gazed up in wonder at the night sky. The starry night sky has not only inspired countless works of music, art and poetry, but has also played an important role in timekeeping, navigation and agricultural practices in many traditions.

For many cultures, the night sky, with its stars, planets and the Milky Way, is considered just as important a part of the natural environment as the forests, lakes and mountains below. Countless people around the world gaze at the night sky: not only amateur and professional astronomers, but also casual observers who enjoy looking up at the stars to contemplate our place in the cosmos.

However, the night sky is changing. Not only is ground-based light pollution increasing rapidly, but growing numbers of satellites and space debris in orbit around Earth are also impacting the night sky.

Earlier research showed that satellites and space debris may increase the overall brightness of the night sky. In a new paper in Nature Astronomy, my colleagues and I applied this knowledge to predicting the performance of a major astronomical sky survey. We found this phenomenon may make the survey 7.5% less efficient and US$21.8 million more expensive.

A brighter sky

As a cultural astronomer, I am interested in the role of the night sky in cultural traditions around the world. In particular, I am interested in how light pollution and increasing satellite numbers affect different communities.

The number of satellites in orbit is growing rapidly. Since 2019, the number of functional satellites in orbit has more than doubled to around 7,600. The increase is mostly due to SpaceX and other companies launching large groups of satellites to provide high-speed internet communications around the world.

By the end of this decade, we estimate, there may be 100,000 satellites in orbit around the Earth. Collisions that generate space debris are more likely as space fills with new satellites. Other sources of debris include the intentional destruction of satellites in space warfare tests.

Increasing numbers of satellites and space debris reflect ever more sunlight towards the night side of Earth. This will almost certainly change the appearance of the night sky and make it harder for astronomers to do research.

Read more:
Thousands of satellites are polluting Australian skies, and threatening ancient Indigenous astronomy practices

One way satellites impact astronomy is by appearing as moving points of light, which show up as streaks across astronomers’ images. Another is by increasing diffuse night sky brightness. This means all the satellites that are too dim or small to be seen individually, as well as all the small bits of space debris, still reflect sunlight, and their collective effect is to make the night sky appear less dark.

Hard times for astronomers

In our research, we present the first published calculations of the aggregate effects of satellites and space debris in low-Earth orbit on major ground-based astronomy research facilities.

We looked at the effect on the planned large-scale survey of the night sky to be carried out at the Vera Rubin Observatory starting in 2024. We found that, by 2030, reflected light from objects in low-Earth orbit will likely increase the diffuse background brightness for this survey by at least 7.5% compared to an unpolluted sky.

This would diminish the efficiency of this survey by 7.5% as well. Over the ten-year lifetime of the survey, we estimate this would add some US$21.8 million to the total project cost.

Read more:
Starlink, Amazon and others are racing to fill the sky with bigger satellites to deliver mobile coverage everywhere on Earth

Brighter night skies mean longer exposures through telescopes are needed to see distant objects in the cosmos. This will mean that for projects with a fixed amount of observing time, less science will be accomplished, and there will be increased competition for telescope access.

In addition, brighter night skies will also reduce the detection limits of sky surveys, and dimmer objects may not be detected, resulting in missed research opportunities.

Some astrophysical events are rare and if researchers are unable to view them when they occur, there might not be an opportunity to easily see a given event again during a survey’s operational period. One example of faint objects is near-Earth objects – comets and asteroids in orbits close to Earth. Brighter night skies make it more likely such potentially hazardous objects may remain undetected.

A dramatic and unprecedented tranformation

Increases in diffuse night sky brightness will also change how we see the night sky with the unaided eye. As the human eye cannot resolve individual small objects as well as a telescope can, an increase in satellites and space debris will create an even greater increase in the apparent brightness of the night sky. (When using a telescope or binoculars, one would be able to make out more of the dimmer satellites individually.)

The projected increase in night sky brightness will make it increasingly difficult to see fainter stars and the Milky Way, both of which are important in various cultural traditions. Unlike “ground-based” light pollution (which tends to be the worst near large cities and heavily populated areas), the changes to the sky will be visible from essentially everywhere on Earth’s surface.

Our models give us a conservative lower limit for a likely increase in night sky brightness. If numbers of satellites and space debris continue to grow at the expected rate, the impacts will be even more pronounced.

As we note in our paper, “we are witnessing a dramatic, fundamental, and perhaps semi-permanent transformation of the night sky without historical precedent and with limited oversight”. Such a transformation will have profound consequences for professional astronomy as well as for anyone who wishes to view an unpolluted night sky.

Jessica Heim 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. Satellites and space junk may make dark night skies brighter, hindering astronomy and hiding stars from our view – https://theconversation.com/satellites-and-space-junk-may-make-dark-night-skies-brighter-hindering-astronomy-and-hiding-stars-from-our-view-202047

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Marks, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Strategy, Government and Alliances, Western Sydney University

A gambler would probably feel the odds favour a Labor win at the upcoming New South Wales election. But, as Scott Morrison proved in 2019, underdog status is prized in politics. Favouritism brings its own challenges, especially when the game takes an unanticipated twist. In this setting, the wide path to victory can quickly become a narrow track to defeat.

NSW voters go to the booths on March 25 with Premier Dominic Perrottet seeking to lock in 16 years of Liberal-National incumbency. The Labor opposition under Chris Minns is polling well. Despite this, Perrottet isn’t playing to type.

Read more:
NSW Resolve poll has narrow lead for Labor five days before election

This campaign is recasting the state’s typically combative political culture. Peace has broken out. Major campaign promises, from both sides, are converging on a shared political centre. Be it toll relief, health infrastructure, energy vouchers or other rebates, only strategic nuances separate the two.

Funding commitments, too, are broadly on par. The Coalition’s “future fund” promises education and housing co-investment to individuals, while Labor’s “education future fund” directly targets the schools system.

On public sector wages, neither side is promising increases. Both leaders will thin the ranks and freeze the pay of senior public servants. And Perrottet has ruled out further privatisation, ending nearly a decade of “asset recycling” and bringing the Coalition into line with Labor.

With commonality abounding, real difference is emerging on unanticipated terrain. The NSW cabinet’s decision to introduce cashless gaming within five years is providing Perrottet a moral profile that typically takes time for a new leader to build. It also acts as a reset following revelations of his Nazi costume choice at his 21st birthday.

In contrast, Labor won’t back gambling reform, seemingly untroubled by the issue from a campaign standpoint. These divergent stances could weigh on undecided voters wondering what kind of a premier Minns might be. Would he stand up to powerful lobbyists? It’s not an insignificant question given Labor’s past in NSW. It may be a factor in marginal electorates.

Several seats in western Sydney are shaping as tight contests. With roughly one-third of total votes cast at the election to be lodged in Sydney’s west, there is no path to victory for the Coalition or Labor without the region’s support.

East Hills, which the Liberals hold by just 0.1%, is a campaign focal point. In an announcement confined almost entirely to social media, the premier committed $1.3 billion to construct a hospital in the electorate.

Ordinarily, a hospital pledge would be a widely promoted commitment. Keeping it local may be a deliberate strategy to emulate isolated success at last year’s federal election. In the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, the federal Liberals bucked the national trend and secured a positive swing. Hyper-local, street-by-street campaigning fuelled that unexpected surge.

Lindsay overlays the marginal NSW seat of Penrith, where former minister Stuart Ayres is defending a margin of just 0.6%. Here, too, the Liberals are upending wider campaign tactics for a local pitch, with the help of former premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Continuing his moral stance, Perrottet endorsed the Independent Commission of Corruption’s investigation of her and continues to disavow her it’s “not illegal” rationale for pork-barrelling.

Other factors ramp up the unpredictability. The new seat of Leppington – nominally Labor (1.7%) – takes in many highly mortgaged areas of Campbelltown, Liverpool and surrounds. The pace of housing development has far eclipsed the construction of education, health and transport links.

Similar growing pains are evident in electorates like Riverstone, where existing services are unable to cope with surging housing estates. Labor is, accordingly, promising to address these challenges, committing to a range of investments such as a $700 million hospital for Rouse Hill.

The retirement of several senior Liberal members brings additional opportunities for Labor in key seats. Kevin Connolly in Riverstone and Geoff Lee in Parramatta are departing, along with cabinet members David Elliott, Brad Hazzard and Rob Stokes.

Stokes’ seat of Pittwater is among a clutch of northern Sydney electorates facing challenges by independent candidates. However, a repeat of the federal “teal wave” is unlikely, given the optional flow of preferences, and mitigating budget measures from Treasurer Matt Kean with a focus on women and sustainability.

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Antony Green, Professor Andy Marks and Ashleigh Raper on the NSW election

In the regions, the transition to clean energy is challenging the Nationals’ hold on the Upper Hunter, while the retirement of Liberal Shelley Hancock has put the seat of South Coast in the frame for Labor. And the Nationals’ grip on the bellwether electorate of Monaro will be closely watched, with former Labor representative Steve Whan making a comeback.

This is an unusual election. Conventional analysis – and the bookies – suggest a Labor win, likely in minority government. But the Coalition are rolling the dice in narrowly targeted areas and on atypical issues.

While the heat has gone out of NSW politics, many voters will struggle to make sense of the peace. Others are understandably sceptical it will last.

Andy Marks 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. Labor is odds-on for a narrow victory in NSW election, but it is far from a sure bet – https://theconversation.com/labor-is-odds-on-for-a-narrow-victory-in-nsw-election-but-it-is-far-from-a-sure-bet-201174

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University

Vaping regularly makes headlines, with some campaigning to make e-cigarettes more available to help smokers quit, while others are keen to see vaping products banned, citing dangers, especially for teens.

So just how dangerous is it? We have undertaken an evidence check of vaping research. This included more than 100 sources on tobacco harm reduction, vaping prevalence and health effects, and what other countries are doing in response. Here’s what we found.

How does vaping compare to smoking?

Smoking is harmful. It’s the leading preventable cause of death in Australia. It causes 13% of all deaths, including from lung, mouth, throat and bladder cancer, emphysema, heart attack and stroke, to name just a few. People who smoke regularly and don’t quit lose about ten years of life compared with non-smokers.

Nicotine, a mild stimulant, is the active ingredient in both cigarettes and nicotine vaping products. It’s addictive but isn’t the cause of cancer or the other diseases related to smoking.

Ideally, people wouldn’t be addicted to nicotine, but having a safe supply without the deadly chemicals, for instance by using nicotine patches or gum, is safer than smoking. Making these other sources available is known as “harm reduction”.

Vaping is not risk-free, but several detailed reviews of the evidence plus a consensus of experts have all estimated it’s at least 95% safer to vape nicotine than to smoke tobacco. The risk of cancer from vaping, for example, has been estimated at less than 1%.

These reviews looked at the known dangerous chemicals in cigarettes, and found there were very few and in very small quantities in nicotine vapes. So the argument that we won’t see major health effects for a few more decades is causing more alarm than is necessary.

Is ‘everyone’ vaping these days?

Some are concerned about the use of vaping products by teens, but currently available statistics show very few teens vape regularly. Depending on the study, between 9.6% and 32% of 14-17-year-olds have tried vaping at some point in their lives.

But less than 2% of 14-17-year-olds say they have used vapes in the past year. This number doubled between 2016 and 2019, but is still much lower than the rates of teen smoking (3.2%) and teen alcohol use (32%).

It’s the same pattern we see with drugs other than alcohol: a proportion of people try them but only a very small proportion of those go on to use regularly or for a long time. Nearly 60% of people who try vaping only use once or twice.

Smoking rates in Australia have declined from 24% in 1991 to 11% in 2019 because we have introduced a number of very successful measures such as restricting sales and where people can smoke, putting up prices, introducing plain packaging, and improving education and access to treatment programs.

But it’s getting harder to encourage the remaining smokers to quit with the methods that have worked in the past. Those still smoking tend to be older, more socially disadvantaged, or have mental health problems.

Read more:
My teen’s vaping. What should I say? 3 expert tips on how to approach ‘the talk’

Should we ban vapes?

So we have a bit of a dilemma. Vaping is much safer than smoking, so it would be helpful for adults to have access to it as an alternative to cigarettes. That means we need to make them more available and accessible.

But ideally we don’t want teens who don’t already smoke to start regular vaping. This has led some to call for a “crackdown” on vaping.

But we know from a long history of drug prohibition – like alcohol prohibition in the 1920s – that banning or restricting vaping could actually do more harm than good.

Banning drugs doesn’t stop people using them – more than 43% of Australians have tried an illicit drug at least once. And it has very little impact on the availability of drugs.

But prohibition does have a number of unintended consequences, including driving drugs underground and creating a black market or increasing harms as people switch to other drugs, which are often more dangerous.

The black market makes drugs more dangerous because there is no way to control quality. And it makes it easier, not harder, for teens to access them, because there are no restrictions on who can sell or buy them.

Read more:
Learning about the health risks of vaping can encourage young vapers to rethink their habit

Are our current laws working?

In 2021, Australia made it illegal to possess and use nicotine vaping products without a prescription. We are the only country in the world to take this path.

The problem is even after more than a year of this law, only 8.6% of people vaping nicotine have a prescription, meaning more than 90% buy them illegally.

Anecdotal reports even suggest an increase in popularity of vaping among teens since these laws were introduced. At best, they are not helping.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the way to reduce the black market is to make quality-controlled vapes and liquids more widely available, but restricted to adults. If people could access vaping products legally they wouldn’t buy them on the black market and the black market would decline.

We also know from many studies on drug education in schools that when kids get accurate, non-sensationalised information about drugs they tend to make healthier decisions. Sensationalised information can have the opposite effect and increase interest in drugs. So better education in schools and for parents and teachers is also needed, so they know how to talk to kids about vaping and what to do if they know someone is vaping.

What have other countries done?

Other countries allow vapes to be legally sold without a prescription, but impose strict quality controls and do not allow the sale of products to people under a minimum age. This is similar to our regulation of cigarettes and alcohol.

The United Kingdom has minimum standards on manufacturing, as well as restrictions on purchase age and where people can vape.

Aotearoa New Zealand introduced a unique plan to reduce smoking rates by imposing a lifetime ban on buying cigarettes. Anyone born after January 1 2009 will never be able to buy cigarettes, so the minimum age you can legally smoke keeps increasing. At the same time, NZ increased access to vaping products under strict regulations on manufacture, purchase and use.

As of late last year, all US states require sellers to have a retail licence, and sales to people under 21 are banned. There are also restrictions on where people can vape.

A recent study modelled the impact of increasing access to nicotine vaping products in Australia. It found it’s likely there would be significant public health benefits by relaxing the current restrictive policies and increasing access to nicotine vaping products for adults.

The question is not whether we should discourage teens from using vaping products or whether we should allow wider accessibility to vaping products for adults as an alternative to smoking. The answer to both those questions is yes.

The key question is how do we do both effectively without one policy jeopardising the outcomes of the other?

If we took a pragmatic harm-reduction approach, as other countries have done, we could use our very successful model of regulation of tobacco products as a template to achieve both outcomes.

Read more:
It’s safest to avoid e-cigarettes altogether – unless vaping is helping you quit smoking

Nicole Lee works as a consultant in the health sector and a psychologist in private practice. She has previously received funding by Australian and state governments, NHMRC and other bodies for evaluation and research into alcohol and other drug prevention and treatment.

Brigid Clancy is an Associate at 360Edge, a drug and alcohol consultancy company.

– ref. How bad is vaping and should it be banned? – https://theconversation.com/how-bad-is-vaping-and-should-it-be-banned-197913

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University

As part of its aspiration to be “Tiriti-led”, the University of Otago has embarked on a consultation process to re-brand. The proposed change involves a new logo and a new, deeply symbolic Māori name: Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka.

Universities occasionally change logos, names and marketing strategies. All New Zealand institutions have added te reo Māori to their original titles, often opting for a literal translation – “Te Whare Wānanga” – to describe their status as a university. But Otago is taking it a step further.

Metaphorically, “whakaihu” refers to the university’s place as the country’s oldest university, as well as its Māori students often being the first to graduate from their whanau and communities. And it symbolically includes everyone on the “waka”.

That is exactly what a university is supposed to be, of course – a place for everyone. A place where people are free to think and develop ideas, even contested or unpopular ones. As the Education and Training Act 2020 says, universities must operate as the “critic and conscience of society”.

But being “Tiriti-led” is not as straightforward. It throws into sharp relief where universities sit in relation to the Crown under te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. This, in turn, raises quite fundamental questions about what a university is in the first place.

Read more:
Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi

What is te Tiriti, what is a university?

Essentially, te Tiriti o Waitangi was the Māori language agreement in 1840 between Māori hapu and the British Crown which set out the terms of British settlement. Britain could establish government over its own people, hapu would retain authority over their own affairs.

Māori would enjoy the “rights and privileges” of British subjects, a legal status which continues to evolve as New Zealand citizenship. The Treaty of Waitangi is an English language version of the agreement with different and less favourable emphases for Māori.

By wanting to become “Tiriti-led”, Otago has decided it is part of the Crown party to this agreement. This makes Kai Tahu, as mana whenua (people of the land), the university’s “principal Tiriti partner”.

By contrast, when Massey University says it’s Tiriti-led, it doesn’t explicitly say it’s part of the Crown. Auckland University of Technology’s vice-chancellor has said his university is Tiriti-led, but there’s no definition to be easily found on the public record.

Read more:
Colonial ideas have kept NZ and Australia in a rut of policy failure. We need policy by Indigenous people, for the people

Styling a relationship in this way is significant – but not necessarily in ways that keep faith with te Tiriti o Waitangi, or with the essential purposes of a university.

Universities are owned and principally funded by the Crown. But their obligation to independent scholarship means they can’t be part of the Crown in the same way as a government department. Universities don’t take direction from ministers in the same way, and their staff are not public servants. They are not part of the executive branch of government.

Together with their students and graduates, academics are the university – a community of scholars obliged to contribute to the discovery and sharing of knowledge, but not obliged to serve the government of the day.

Us and them

Parliament and the executive (government ministers) together decide what te Tiriti means to the Crown side of the relationship. Public servants offer advice, but ultimately take ministers’ instructions on giving effect to whatever is the Crown’s Tiriti policy.

Academics, however, can take a different view. They’re not bound by what the Crown side of the agreement thinks. And, as developments in te Tiriti policy show, academic independence makes a difference.

In 1877, New Zealand’s Supreme Court found the Treaty was legally a “simple nullity” because it had not been incorporated into domestic law. It wasn’t the public servant’s role to object, at least not in public. That kind of intellectual freedom belongs elsewhere. Explicitly, it’s one of the reasons universities exist.

Read more:
Putting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here’s how

Academics – Māori and others – have contributed significantly to developments in te Tiriti policy since 1877, especially in more recent years. Their contributions have often contested prevailing political thought. Universities have given Māori academics – and through them, Māori communities – the kind of voice unavailable to public servants working for the Crown partner.

Partnership is one of the “Treaty principles”, developed legally and politically as an interpretive guide to the agreement. But partnership creates a “them” and “us” binary.

In my book, Sharing the Sovereign: recognition, treaties and the state, I show how this binary encourages people to think of the Crown as exclusively Pākehā. Any institution that is not solely Māori is an institution that belongs to “them”.

This reinforces Māori separation from the university as an institution that should belongs to all of us – and to each of us in our own ways.

Academics are not public servants

If an institution represents one side of a partnership, that institution cannot be a “place for everyone”. A Māori student or staff member should be able to say, “I belong here as much as anybody else, with the same rights, opportunities and obligations to contribute to the institution’s culture, values and purpose.”

That includes the right to study and teach te Tiriti with an independence that is not available to public servants.

In 2020, I helped develop “Critical Tiriti Analysis”, a policy evaluation method that could be used to assess public policy consistency with te Tiriti. While anecdotally it seems now to be widely used across the public service, it’s not something likely to have been written by a public servant. The Crown is a cautious Tiriti partner.

Thoroughness and objectivity – but not political caution – guide academic contributions to policy debate. Such contributions are different in style and purpose from the kind of policy making that it is the duty of the public service to undertake.

Universities are not the Crown in the same sense, and this is why they are not Tiriti partners.

Dominic O’Sullivan 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 universities are not normal Crown institutions – they shouldn’t be ‘Tiriti-led’ – https://theconversation.com/nz-universities-are-not-normal-crown-institutions-they-shouldnt-be-tiriti-led-202037

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emily Brayshaw, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

In 2017, Julia Hobbs of British Vogue declared Crocs “have an unrivalled ability to repel onlookers and induce sneers”.

But over the two decades since the notoriously ugly shoes were released, the clogs seem to be going from strength to strength.

No longer just the comfortable, easy-to-wear boat shoes they were designed as, now they’re being worn by celebrities like Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Whoopi Goldberg and Drew Barrymore, who has her own collection.

Bedazzled white Crocs are being worn with wedding dresses, #crocs has more than 7.3 billion views on TikTok, and diehard fans can buy mini Crocs to decorate their Crocs with.

Even supermodel Kendall Jenner admitted on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that she is not ashamed of her comfy Crocs.

But the most common place you’re likely to see Crocs today is on the feet of Generation Z. They grew up with ugly fashion, and are now making it their own.

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A brief history

Crocs’ ancestors are the clog: a cheap, comfortable, lightweight, practical wooden shoe popular in medieval Europe and Scandinavia.

Traditional wooden clogs were easy to clean, non-slip, protected the wearer’s feet and kept them warm and dry.

The oldest surviving pair found in Holland date to 1230.

Crocs premiered their shoe at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in 2002. Made from a tough form of injection-moulded ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, which moulds to the wearer’s foot, all 200 pairs at the show sold out.

Crocs were easy to clean, non-slip, could easily be pulled on and off, and would not suffer from continued exposure to water.

But they weren’t popular in all corners. Time magazine included Crocs in their 2010 list of the 50 worst inventions.

And from the outset, even Crocs’ cofounders considered them ugly.

Ugly fashion

The 21st century’s love of deliberately ugly fashion can be traced to 1996, with Miuccia Prada launching her “Bad Taste” collection.

The early 2000s gave us ugly comfort dressing in the form of the bright, velour Juicy Couture tracksuit. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s iconic matching double denim moment at the 2001 American Music Awards embodied the era’s ugliness.

Generation Z grew up in this ugly fashion world. Many rocked their first brightly coloured pair of Crocs as toddlers.

This generation also learned to express themselves online, where Internet Ugly – a deliberately grotesque, anti-authoritarian and amateurish aesthetic – is a key look of memes.

Memes celebrate ugliness as a relatable, authentic foil against the slickly perfect images generated by filters, Hollywood and self-serious corporate design. Memes evolve, but the images, templates and looks of memes stays similar and the ugly aesthetic continues to spread and be enjoyed.

Crocs are, in a sense, wearable memes for Gen Z.

Like memes, Crocs have changed and returned through nostalgic affectation.

In the two decades since their launch, Crocs have constantly reinvented themselves. There have been new colours and collaborations with popular brands, including computer games and high fashion houses like Liberty of London.

Each generation rediscovers the objects of its youth and replicates these objects in new ways. The resulting objects – in this case, Crocs – are passed around and either made uglier or beautified in the eye of the beholder. Every pair of Crocs can be customised with “Jibbitz”, a small ornament that fits into the holes throughout the shoe to beautify Crocs for their owner.

In the United Kingdom, Crocs paired with fast-fashion retailer Primark and high-street bakery Greggs to create ugly, fur-lined, black £9 Crocs with Greggs’ logo.

At the other end of the budget, you can buy Balenciaga’s lime green Crocs with a black sole and black stiletto heel.

Read more:
The history of shoes has been frivolous, ridiculous and extreme

Crocs and the pandemic

Ugliness lets viewers laugh and release tensions in situations where they are helpless to act.

Adrian Holloway, Crocs’ general manager, told Vogue:

In times of stress and uncertainty, consumers seem to want comfort […] Everything was so heavy and scary, it felt good to treat yourself to something cheerful and inexpensive, but also practical and comfortable.

The COVID pandemic left Gen Z unable to participate in important social rites of passage like graduations, milestone birthdays, weddings and funerals.

Global lockdowns also left people feeling a strange blend of shock, boredom and irritation.

Like laughing at ugly memes, laughing at cute, ugly Crocs helped release feelings of powerlessness.

Here to stay

Popular predictions of post-pandemic fashions suggest there are two options: we will continue to dress for comfort, or we will embrace eye-catching colours and patterns and strange silhouettes.

The popularity of Crocs among Gen Z suggests a third option: a combination of the comfortable with the crazy.

Worn today, these shoes signal the wearer’s capacity for casualness, irony, rebellion, and a desire to forge their own fashion rules in an Internet Ugly world.

Crocs are here to stay.

Read more:
What your shoes say about you (quite a lot, actually)

Emily Brayshaw 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. Gen Z grew up in a world filled with ugly fashion – no wonder they love their Crocs – https://theconversation.com/gen-z-grew-up-in-a-world-filled-with-ugly-fashion-no-wonder-they-love-their-crocs-200718

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Jotzo, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy and Head of Energy, Institute for Climate Energy and Disaster Solutions, Australian National University

The world is in deep trouble on climate change, but if we really put our shoulder to the wheel we can turn things around. Loosely, that’s the essence of today’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC is the world’s official body for assessment of climate change. The panel has just released its Synthesis Report, capping off seven years of in-depth assessments on various topics.

The report draws out the key insights from six previous reports, written by hundreds of expert authors. They spanned many thousands of pages and were informed by hundreds of thousands of comments by governments and the scientific community.

The synthesis report confirms humans are unequivocally increasing greenhouse gas emissions to record levels. Global temperatures are now 1.1℃ above pre-industrial levels. They’re likely to reach 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels in the early 2030s.

This warming has driven widespread and rapid global changes, including sea level rise and climate extremes – resulting in widespread harm to lives, livelihoods and natural systems.

It’s increasingly clear that vulnerable people in developing countries – who have generally contributed little to greenhouse gas emissions – are often disproportionately affected by climate change.

Intergenerational inequities are also likely. A child born now is likely to suffer, on average, several times as many climate extreme events in their lifetime as their grandparents did.

The world is up the proverbial creek – but we still have a paddle. Climate change is worsening, but we have the means to act.

So much at stake

Over the past week in Interlaken, Switzerland, several hundred representatives from most of the world’s governments scrutinised the IPCC report’s 35-page summary.
The scrutiny happens sentence by sentence, often word by word, and number by number. Sometimes it’s subject to intense debate.

We were both involved in this process. The role of the reports’ authors and IPCC bureau members is to stay true to the underlying science and chart a way between different governments’ preferences. It is a unique process for scientific documents.

The approval process usually goes right to the wire, in meetings running through the night. This Synthesis Report was no exception. The scheduled time for the meeting was extended by two days and nights, wearing down government representatives and the IPCC teams.

The process reflects how much is at stake. The IPCC’s assessments are formally adopted by all governments of the world. That in turn reverberates in the private sector – for example, in the decisions of boards of major companies and investment funds.

Read more:
What can we expect from the final UN climate report? And what is the IPCC anyway?

The latest on greenhouse gas emissions

The Synthesis Report confirms both emissions and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are now at record highs.

To keep warming within 2℃ above pre-industrial levels, global greenhouse gas emissions must decline by around 21% by 2030 and around 35% by 2035. Keeping warming below 1.5℃ requires even stronger emissions reduction.

This is a very tall order in light of emissions trajectories to date. Annual global emissions in 2019 were 12% higher than in 2010, and 54% higher than in 1990.

But success in reducing emissions has been demonstrated. The IPCC says existing policies, laws, technologies and measures the world over are already reducing emissions by several billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, compared to what would otherwise be the case.

Most importantly, it’s clear global emissions could be reduced deeply if existing policy instruments were scaled up and applied broadly. The report shows large potential for emissions-reduction options across all parts of the world economy.

Many of these come at low cost. And many bring side benefits, such as reduced air pollution. If all technically available options were used, global emissions could be at least halved by 2030, at manageable costs.

As today’s report states, the global economic benefit of limiting warming to 2℃ exceeds the costs of emissions reduction. That’s without even taking into account the avoided damages of climate change or the side benefits that sensible action could generate.

We have the collective experience to turn the corner. As the report spells out, a great many regulatory and economic policy instruments have been used successfully. And we know how to design climate policies to make sure they’re politically acceptable and do not disadvantage the poorer parts of society.

The report also draws out the importance of good institutions for climate change governance – such as laws and independent bodies – and for all groups in society to be meaningfully involved.

Read more:
Global carbon emissions at record levels with no signs of shrinking, new data shows. Humanity has a monumental task ahead

Adaptation falls short

Rapid action on climate change is the economically sensible thing to do. If we fail to rein in emissions, adapting to the damage it causes will be more difficult and expensive in future. What’s more, our existing adaptation options will become less effective.

Every increment of warming will intensify climate-related hazards such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, fires and cyclones. Often, two or more hazards will occur at the same time.

Unfortunately, overall global adaptation has not kept up with the pace and degree of increasing impacts from climate change. Most responses have been fragmented, incremental and confined to a specific sector of the economy. And most are unequally distributed across regions and vary in their effectiveness.

The barriers to more effective adaptation responses are well-known. Chief among them is a widening gap between costs of adaptation and allocated finance. We can, and should, do a lot better.

As today’s IPCC report confirms, there are ways to make adaptation more effective. More investment in research and development is needed. So too is a focus on long-term planning as well as inclusive, equitable approaches that bring together diverse knowledge.

Many adaptation options bring significant side benefits. Better home insulation, for instance, can help us deal with extreme weather as well as reduce heating and cooling costs and related greenhouse gas emissions.

Moving people off flood-prone areas and returning these areas to more natural systems can reduce flood risk, increase biodiversity and store carbon dioxide in plants and soil.

And climate adaptation policies that prioritise social justice, equity and a “just transition” can also help achieve other global ambitions, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Read more:
Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns

We can close the gap

On both climate change mitigation and adaptation, a massive gap remains between what’s needed and what’s being done.

Countries’ current climate commitments do not add up to the shared ambition to keep temperature rise to below 2℃. And for many countries, current trajectories of emissions would also overshoot their targets.

What’s more, current total investments in low-emissions technology and systems is three to six times lower than what would be needed to keep temperatures to 1.5℃ or 2℃, according to modelling.

Likewise, on the whole not nearly enough effort is being made to understand, prepare and implement measures to adapt to climate changes. The gaps are generally biggest in developing countries, which can much less afford to invest in climate change action than rich parts of the world.

Read more:
IPCC says the tools to stop catastrophic climate change are in our hands. Here’s how to use them

Developing countries are calling for large-scale climate finance to be provided by developed countries, and this is not happening to anywhere near the extent needed.

Predictably, issues of international equity and justice were among the thorniest in the approval of the Synthesis Report. The final version of the report frames the issue not as an irresolvable conflict, but as the opportunity for “shifting development pathways towards sustainability”.

The vision of most governments is for all the world to attain high standards of living, but to do so with “climate neutral” technologies, systems and patterns of consumption. And systems must be built so they’re robust to future climate change, including the nasty surprises that may come.

It must be done. It can be done. By and large, we know how to do it – and it makes economic sense to do so. In this report, the governments of the world have acknowledged as much.

Frank Jotzo is a Lead Author of the IPCC’s latest assessment report on climate change mitigation and member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report. Mark Howden is a Vice Chair of the IPCC Working Group on climate impacts and adaptation and a Review Editor of the synthesis report. Both were involved in the government approval session for the IPCC Synthesis Report.

Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It will take you inside the IPCC’s era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it. The first episode drops on March 23. Learn more here, or subscribe on your favourite podcast app via the icons above.

Frank Jotzo is a lead author of the IPCC’s latest Assessment Report and member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report. There are no conflicts of interest for him regarding this article.

Mark Howden is a Vice Chair of the IPCC Working Group II covering climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability and was a Review Editor on the IPCC Synthesis Report. There are no conflicts of interest for him regarding this article.

– ref. ‘It can be done. It must be done’: IPCC delivers definitive report on climate change, and where to now – https://theconversation.com/it-can-be-done-it-must-be-done-ipcc-delivers-definitive-report-on-climate-change-and-where-to-now-201763

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

The first arrest has been made following the Brereton inquiry into allegations that Australians committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

Former SAS soldier, Oliver Schulz, 41, has been remanded in custody after his arrest by police in regional NSW.

He is expected to appear in Downing Centre Local Court.

The arrest follows a joint investigation between the Office of the Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police.

The man is charged with the war crime of murder under the Criminal Code Act. In a joint statement the OSI and the AFP said: “It will be alleged he murdered an Afghan man while deployed in Afghanistan with the Australian Defence Force.” The maximum penalty is life in prison.

The OSI was set up in 2021 as part of the response to the Brereton report. The OSI and the police are jointly investigating allegations of criminal offences by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

The Brereton inquiry into Australian Special Forces” misconduct in Afghanistan reported in 2020. It found “credible information” of 23 incidents in which one or more non-combatants or prisoners of war “were unlawfully killed by or at the direction of members of the Special Operations Task Group, in circumstances which, if accepted by a jury, would be the war crime of murder”.

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

– ref. First Australian charged with war crime of murder in Afghanistan – https://theconversation.com/first-australian-charged-with-war-crime-of-murder-in-afghanistan-202148

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Park, Judith and David Coffey Chair in Sustainable Agriculture, Plant Breeding Institute, University of Sydney

Some 70% of the World Heritage-listed Lord Howe Island has been closed to non-essential visitors in response to a recurrence of the plant disease myrtle rust.

Myrtle rust, native to South America, was first detected in Australia on the Central Coast of NSW in April 2010. It is caused by a fungus that belongs to a group of plant pathogens known as the rusts.

Rusts are among the most feared of all plant pathogens. They spread rapidly over thousands of kilometres on wind currents and can cause huge losses in plant production.

For example, wheat rust research over the past 100 years at the University of Sydney has shown clear evidence of wind-borne rust spores travelling from central Africa to Australia. Wheat production losses due to rust have at times totalled hundreds of millions of dollars.

Myrtle rust rapidly invaded the entire east coast of Australia in the years after it was first detected. It has caused the near extinction of at least three rainforest species, including the native guava (Rhodomyrtus psidioides) and the scrub turpentine (Rhodamnia rubescens).

The disease was detected at Lord Howe Island in 2016, and eradicated. Now it has managed to spread there once again. There are concerns if the disease is left unchecked, it could seriously alter the unique ecology of the island. Lord Howe is home to some 240 native plant species, of which more than 100 are not found anywhere else.

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How can the disease be controlled?

Rust diseases in agriculture are controlled by the cultivation of genetically resistant plants, or by use of fungicides. These fungicides can kill existing recent infections and provide protection for up to four weeks. In other situations, such as horticulture and native plant communities, fungicides are used together with removal and destruction of infected plants.

The 2010 detection of myrtle rust in Australia followed its detection in Hawaii in 2005 and China in 2009. It was later found in New Caledonia (2013) and New Zealand (2017). Research has shown the same strain – known as the “pandemic strain” – has appeared in all of these countries. Several other strains occur in South America.

It is likely the fungus spread to Lord Howe Island from eastern Australia on wind currents. The especially wet conditions along the east coast of much of Australia in 2022 led to an increase in the disease there. This, in turn, increased rust spore load and hence the chance of long-distance spore dispersal.

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In addition to being spread on the wind, the rusty coloured spores produced by these fungal pathogens stick readily to clothing. These spores remain viable for at least two weeks under ambient conditions. Several wheat rusts of exotic origin are believed to have been accidentally brought in to Australia on travellers’ clothing from North America and Europe.

The chance of inadvertent spread of myrtle rust on contaminated clothing is why access to Lord Howe island has been restricted since last week.

The second incursion into the island clearly shows how incredibly difficult rust diseases are to manage once they reach a new region. It points to possible recurrences of the disease there in years to come even should current efforts to eradicate it succeed.

On top of the ability of rust diseases to spread rapidly over large distances, a further complication in controlling myrtle rust is it infects a wide range of native plants. Some of these species hold great cultural significance and/or are endangered.

Endemic species of the myrtle plant family Myrtaceae that are dominant in many of the plant communities on Lord Howe Island are highly vulnerable to myrtle rust infection. Of critical concern are two species that occur only on the island: the mountain rose (Meterosideros nervulosa) and the rainforest tree scalybark (Syzigium fullagarri). The rust infects young leaves and also flowers, where it causes sterility.

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Australia brings expertise to the battle

Australia has some of the best plant pathologists in the world and has long been a leader in controlling rust diseases in agriculture. This expertise, combined with world-leading scientists in the ecology of Australian native plants, has enabled solid progress in understanding myrtle rust in the Australian environment. Australian scientists have joined hands with New Zealand scientists to boost efforts to control the pathogen in both countries.

Research is also under way at the University of Sydney and Australian National University to develop new DNA-based diagnostics to allow rapid identification of the different strains of the pathogen. These tests are especially important given only one strain of myrtle rust occurs in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania regions.

The success of managing the impact of myrtle rust on the region’s iconic flora against a backdrop of climate change will rely heavily on undertaking the research needed to gain a much better understanding of this damaging plant pathogen. Recognising this, staff at the University of Sydney have convened a conference for June 21-23 this year. It will bring together myrtle rust experts to exchange their latest research findings and identify priority areas for research.

Robert Park no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. What is myrtle rust and why has this disease closed Lord Howe Island to visitors? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-myrtle-rust-and-why-has-this-disease-closed-lord-howe-island-to-visitors-202045

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suranga Seneviratne, Senior Lecturer – Security, University of Sydney

Are you tired of receiving SMS scams pretending to be from Australia Post, the tax office, MyGov and banks? You’re not alone. Each year, thousands of Australians fall victim to SMS scams. And losses have surged in recent years.

In 2022 SMS scam losses exceeded A$28 million, which is nearly triple the amount from 2021. This year they’ve already reached A$4 million – more than the 2020 total. These figures are probably much higher if you include unreported losses, as victims often won’t speak up due to shame and social stigma.

Last month, the federal government announced plans to fight SMS-based scams by implementing an SMS sender ID registry. Under this system, organisations that want to SMS customers will first have to register their sender ID with a government body.

What kinds of scams would the proposed registry help prevent? And is it too little, too late?

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Sender ID manipulation

One of the more concerning types of SMS scams is when fraudulent messages creep into legitimate message threads, making it difficult to differentiate between a legitimate service and a scam.

SMS is an older technology that lacks many modern security features, including end-to-end encryption and origin authentication (which lets you verify whether a message is sent by the claimed sender). The absence of the latter is the reason we see highly believable scams like the one below.

There are two main types of SMS:

• peer-to-peer (P2P) is what most people use to send messages to friends and family

• application-to-person (A2P) is a way for companies to send messages in bulk through the use of a web portal or application.

The problem with A2P messaging is that applications can be used to enter any text or number (or combination) in the sender ID field – and the recipient’s phone uses this sender ID to group messages into threads.

In the example above, the scammer would have simply needed to write “ANZ” in the sender ID field for their fraudulent message to show up in the real message thread with ANZ. And, of course, they could still impersonate ANZ even if no previous legitimate thread existed, in which case it would show up in a new thread.

Web portals and apps offering A2P services generally don’t do their due diligence and check whether a sender is the actual owner of the sender ID they’re using. There are also no requirements for telecom companies to verify this.

Moreover, telecom providers generally can’t block scam SMS messages due to how difficult it is to distinguish them from genuine messages.

How would sender ID registration help?

Last year the Australian Communications and Media Authority introduced new rules for the telecom industry to combat SMS scams by tracing and blocking them. The Reducing Scam Calls and Scam Short Messages Industry Code required providers to share threat intelligence about scams and report them to authorities.

In January, A2P texting solutions company Modica received a warning for failing to comply with the rules. ACMA found Modica didn’t have proper procedures to verify the legitimacy of text-based SMS sender IDs, which allowed scammers to reach many mobile users in Australia.

Although ACMA’s code is useful, it’s challenging to identify all A2P providers who aren’t following it. More action was needed.

In February, the government instructed ACMA to explore establishing an SMS sender ID registry. This would essentially be a whitelist of all alphanumeric sender IDs that can be legitimately used in Australia (such as “ANZ”, “T20WorldCup” or “Uber”).

Any company wanting to use a sender ID would have to provide identification and register it. This way, telecom providers could refer to the registry and block suspicious messages at the network level – allowing an extra defence in case A2P providers don’t do their due diligence (or become compromised).

It’s not yet decided what identification details an Australia registry would collect, but these could include sender numbers associated with an organisation, and/or a list of A2P providers they use.

So, if there are messages being sent by “ANZ” from a number that ANZ hasn’t registered, or through an A2P provider ANZ hasn’t nominated, the telecom provider could then flag these as scams.

An SMS sender ID registry would be a positive step, but arguably long overdue and sluggishly taken. The UK and Singapore have had similar systems in place since 2018 and last year, respectively. But there’s no clear timeline for Australia. Decision makers must act quickly, bearing in mind that adoption by telecom providers will take time.

Remaining alert

An SMS sender ID registry will reduce company impersonation, but it won’t prevent all SMS scams. Scammers can still use regular sender numbers for scams such as the “Hi Mum” scam.

Also, as SMS security comes under increased scrutiny, bad actors may shift to messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Viber, in which case regulatory control will be challenging.

These apps are often end-to-end encrypted, which makes it very difficult for regulators and service providers to detect and block scams sent through them. So even once a registry is established, whenever that may be, users will need to remain alert.

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Australians lost more than $10 million to scammers last year. Follow these easy tips to avoid being conned

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. Scammers can slip fake texts into legitimate SMS threads. Will a government crackdown stop them? – https://theconversation.com/scammers-can-slip-fake-texts-into-legitimate-sms-threads-will-a-government-crackdown-stop-them-200644

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Misha Ketchell, Editor, The Conversation

Thanks in no small part to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), today few people would be foolish enough to dispute the scientific consensus on the climate crisis.

But as recently as a decade ago that wasn’t the case. The IPCC is a vast scientific enterprise that has transformed public understanding of global warming, but much of its work remains hidden from view.

Can you name any of the thousands of scientists who contribute to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? Do you know what fields they work in, or how they gather their data, or how they know they what they know?

And what is it like to be an expert working on something so incredibly consequential?

Fear & Wonder is a new climate podcast, brought to you by The Conversation. It will take you inside the United Nations’ era-defining climate report via the hearts and minds of the scientists who wrote it.

It is hosted by Joelle Gergis, a climate scientist and lead author for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and her friend Michael Green, an award-winning journalist.

Green says the podcast came about after he visited Gergis on New Year’s Day 2020, right in the middle of Australia’s Black Summer bushfires. She was hard at work on an IPCC report at the time.

“My in-laws’ house had burned down in the fires the day before and it was kinda lucky that they both escaped with their lives,” says Green. “Seeing Joelle at such an intense moment made me realise that I never actually talk to her about the nitty gritty of the science, and that I actually have no idea how we know what we know about global warming. I wanted to find out.”

“It’s terrifying and fascinating to be a climate scientist at this critical moment in history,” says Gergis. “And the science itself – how we know what we know – it’s just so interesting.”

Fear & Wonder will unpack the IPCC Synthesis Report which draws together the findings of the previous IPCC Working Groups and Special Reports. There couldn’t be a better time to learn about how climate scientists do their vital work, and what it feels like to carry that knowledge.

The first episode will be released on March 23. Listen and subscribe by clicking on your favourite podcast app in the graphic above.

Fear and Wonder is sponsored by the Climate Council, an independent, evidence-based organisation working on climate science, impacts and solutions.

– ref. Introducing Fear and Wonder: The Conversation’s new climate podcast – https://theconversation.com/introducing-fear-and-wonder-the-conversations-new-climate-podcast-200066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eric Windholz, Senior Lecturer and Associate, Monash Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies, Monash University

Inadequate, inequitable, and in some cases possibly in breach of workers’ compensation laws. That’s how bad the current insurance arrangements are for Australia’s professional sports people, who get less support for long-term injuries than other workers, and less support than if they’d been playing in New Zealand.

That is part of what I told the current Senate inquiry into concussion and repeated head trauma in sport, speaking as a researcher in work health and safety law in professional sport, and as a former general counsel and general manager with the Victorian WorkCover Authority and WorkSafe Victoria.

The AFL has been in the spotlight following news of a class action led by retired Geelong premiership player Max Rooke, on behalf of more than 60 former Australian Football League players. The law firm leading the class action claims Rooke suffered “permanent, life-altering injuries” from concussion.

The lawsuit comes as the AFL prepares to follow the NRL and Rugby Australia in appearing before the Senate inquiry.

However, as my submission to the inquiry pointed out, the issue of workplace safety and injury support affects far more than just Australia’s football codes.

Players are employees – who aren’t covered for long enough

Last month, I told the Senate inquiry that professional sporting organisations were employers, and their players employees.

Under work health and safety law, employer sporting organisations have a statutory duty to do what is reasonably practicable to prevent injuries to their employees.

Because eliminating all injuries is not a realistic expectation, employers provide insurance to support injured players.

The first symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) take years to decades to develop, by which time the players who have them are usually no longer playing professionally and no longer insured.

Read more:
What does concussion do to the brain?

Their employer-supported insurance arrangements usually lapse either when their contracts expire or shortly after. This means they don’t adequately support the treatment of injuries that become evident years after the athlete’s career ends.

There are many stories of former AFL players and players in other leagues who suffer such severe memory loss that they can no longer recall their achievements and their clubs and leagues won’t help.

No workers’ compensation, unlike NZ

Worse still, exemptions from state and territory employer-funded workers’ compensation schemes deny professional sportspeople the fallback protection afforded to other workers.

In the absence of workers’ compensation, the primary medical obligation transfers to Medicare, shifting it from employers and state governments to taxpayers and the federal government.

The exemptions were introduced in the 1970s at a time when athletes first started to be paid well and leagues and clubs were concerned about their financial capacity to pay workers’ compensation premiums.

There also were perceptions that sport was not “normal” work, and (part-time) athletes were not workers. The arguments are redundant in a world in which sport has been corporatised and commercialised.

Read more:
Is the NRL legally liable for the long-term impacts of concussions?

Confusing things still further is that some of the exemptions from workers’ compensation are ineffective, failing in NSW and Tasmania to exclude professional players whose contracts remunerate them for activities other than sport such as promotions.

In the Northern Territory, players who earn more than 65% of average weekly earnings are not excluded. There, the intention is to ensure coverage for professional players who derive a substantial part of their livelihood from sport, the opposite of the intention in other jurisdictions.

The exemptions stand in stark contrast to New Zealand, where its accident compensation scheme draws no distinction between sport and other injuries.

Sporting organisations with operations in NSW, Tasmania and the Northern Territory that have not taken out workers’ compensation policies for their players may be operating in breach of their obligations.

This should not come as a total surprise. Sporting organisations have a history of failing to comply with their obligations as employers.

For many, the reality is even worse

Down the hierarchy from elite sports, to sports where professionals are part-time (including many women’s sports), the insurance offered shrinks.

It has time limits to payments for lost income – the highest I have seen is 104 weeks. It has excesses. For payment of medical expenses, it often requires the athlete to take out private health insurance. And while many sports pay out-of-pocket gap fees, that obligation usually expires on, or shortly after, termination of the contract.

The longest obligation I’ve seen after the termination of a contract – and these contracts are generally not public – is 18 months.

That’s shorter than it takes for many traumatic brain injuries to become evident, and those injuries last a lifetime, well beyond 18 months after playing.

Legal action isn’t the best solution

The rationale for the continued exclusion of professional players from workers’ compensation rests on the assumption that employers are making alternative arrangements, and that they are adequate.

This clearly isn’t the case for long-term and long-latency injuries arising from concussions and repeated head trauma. Expensive, time-consuming and unpredictable litigation of the kind now underway is a poor substitute for properly compensating athletes for injuries suffered in their line of work.

The insurance and compensation arrangements for professional players ought to be no less than that provided to other Australian workers. The starting point should be their inclusion in workers’ compensation schemes.

The Senate inquiry presents an opportunity to construct a scheme tailored to the unique circumstances of professional sport – one that is no less generous than those applying to other Australian workers.

Read more:
Concussion risks aren’t limited to the AFL. We need urgent action to make sure our kids are safe, too

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

– ref. Why sports stars get less support than other injured workers – and how we can fix it – https://theconversation.com/why-sports-stars-get-less-support-than-other-injured-workers-and-how-we-can-fix-it-200702

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Kingsford, Professor, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney

Millions of dead fish float on the surface of the river. Native bony herring and introduced young carp, as well as a few mature Murray cod and golden perch. History is repeating on the Darling River at Menindee. This new fish kill is even worse than the enormous 2018–2019 fish kill. And it’s in almost the same location.
But how can so many fish die when we’ve been having so much rain and floods? What’s killing them?

In both 2018 and 2023, the immediate answer is the same: the fish ran out of oxygen. Five years ago, it was because the river was almost dry. This time, it’s likely to be factors like the heatwave days earlier, receding floodwaters, bacteria pulling oxygen from the water – and no escape.

But two events like this in five years speaks to a deeper cause. The Darling River – known as the Baaka by Barkandji Traditional Owners – is very sick. Too much of its water is siphoned off for agriculture. Our native fish are hardy. They’re used to extremes. But this is too much, even for them.

Short term pressure, long term pain

I was a member of the expert panel investigating the 2018–2019 Menindee fish kills. Everyone agreed the fish ran out of oxygen. It was a very dry period, and a cool front arriving after a heat wave mixed deep low-oxygen river water with the thin top layer which had oxygen.

But our panel also examined the long-term changes to the river. We found the long-term cause for the river’s decline was simple: too much water was being diverted upstream.

It wasn’t just climate change – it was irrigation. We warned it could happen again. Now it has.

When faced with such environmental disaster, our leaders tend to reach for Dorothea MacKellar’s famous poem, My Country, and its line about a land “Of droughts and flooding rains.” Coalition water ministers at both federal and state level confidently blamed the drought for the first fish kill. Now, NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has linked this kill to the recent floods.

This is part of the reason. But only part. When floodwaters engorged the Darling and its tributaries, it was a bonanza for bacteria that broke down dead wood lying on the floodplain. Unfortunately, this explosion of microorganisms had a devastating side effect: they sucked oxygen out of the water.

This is what’s known as a blackwater event (in reality, more greeny-brown). As the floodwaters moved downstream and the Darling’s flow decreased, millions of fish fled the floodplains and found themselves crammed back in the narrow river channel where they were hit by plummeting oxygen levels.

Desperate, the fish looked to escape. But upstream, their exit was blocked. In December, authorities had fully opened the gates to the Menindee main weir for the first time in a decade to let fish migrate. But now the gates are shut.

They couldn’t get into the main Menindee Lakes, where they might have found water with more oxygen, as they were blocked by the regulators – large taps used mainly to let water out.

Could they escape downstream? Perhaps some did. But for millions of fish, there was no time. Their bodies will only make the problem worse, as tonnes of rotting fish deposit vast quantities of nutrients into the river. That’s great for bacteria, algae and some fish-eating birds. But it’s not healthy for the river, its fish, or its people.

Yes, fish kills have always occurred but not at this scale. The fundamental reason the fish of the Darling keep dying is because there is not enough water allowed to flow.

Read more:
Fish kills and undrinkable water: here’s what to expect for the Murray Darling this summer

Why is the Darling in such trouble?

Since the 1980s, the Darling’s tributaries have steadily shrunk. The Macquarie, the Namoi, the Gwydir, the Border Rivers and the Condamine-Balonne are all shadows of the rivers they once were. Much of their water is captured in large dams, like Burrendong Dam, or intercepted by floodplain harvesting, which was legalised only last year by the NSW Government to the dismay of environmentalists and farmers downstream.

Just last week, before news of the fish kills at Menindee, water allocations in the Namoi and Gwydir Rivers were a staggering 113% and 275% respectively. That is to say, all the water farmers and other users could take from these rivers is well beyond the total flows left in the rivers.

The fish kills at Menindee are the clearest sign yet of how policy and management have failed the Darling. These catastrophes were inevitable. And the pain isn’t limited to fish. We are suffering too.

Taxpayers forked out nearly half a billion dollars for a pipeline from the Murray to Broken Hill, which nearly ran out of water in 2019. Why? Because the Darling was no longer dependable. In 2019, the towns of Wilcannia and Brewarrina ran out of water, significantly affecting Aboriginal communities. Why? Because the Darling was so low.

Fish kills like this one make news for a few days, and then get forgotten. But unless we tackle the fundamental problem of a lack of water in our rivers, there will be many more to come. This is not a natural disaster. It is man-made.

Read more:
Water buybacks are back on the table in the Murray-Darling Basin. Here’s a refresher on how they work

Richard Kingsford receives funding from the Australian Research Council, New South Wales, Queensland, Victorian and South Australian Governments, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and a range of non-government organisations, including World Wide Fund for Nature, The Nature Conservancy and philanthropic sources. He is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and a councillor on the Biodiversity Council. He is also part of the Next Generation Water Management Hub led by Charles Sturt University (funded through the Regional Research Collaboration Program of the Department of Education of the Australian Government), focusing on fish ecology and management.

– ref. How did millions of fish die gasping in the Darling – after three years of rain? – https://theconversation.com/how-did-millions-of-fish-die-gasping-in-the-darling-after-three-years-of-rain-202125

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

Sydney World Pride and Mardi Gras 2023 were a huge success. Sydney was activated in a way rarely seen – block and street parties, cultural festivals and dance parties for all tastes. Now that the beats have diminished and the glitter has settled, viewing Pride (R)evolution at the State Library of New South Wales made it all the more richer and remarkable for me. This show is an astonishing survey of the importance of difference.

Pride (R)evolution is one of just five serious, in-depth exhibitions about queer culture held in Sydney during Pride: the others were curator Margot Riley’s William Yang’s Sydneyphiles Reimagined,
University of New South Wales’ The Party – about the rich seam of Sydney’s club and dance parties from the 1970s to the 1990s, National Art School’s Queer Contemporary, including Richard Perram’s major exhibition, and the Powerhouse’s Absolutely Queer, with a focus on non-binary dressing and the current generation. It was the smaller, more agile spaces that held these significant shows, and not the larger, prominent galleries, such as has been happening in Melbourne.

Libraries and archives are incredibly important spaces as they can actively work to reflect the diversity of their constituents. The State Library of NSW has been collecting and analysing queer stories for decades. As gay life in NSW was criminalised until 1984 and policed much longer, much of the story survives in court records, sensationalist reporting, and traces left behind by queers themselves. Pride (R)evolution is remarkable for seeking out new voices via the queer community and reconnecting a whole series of broken threads.

It also tells the story of “good people” who are queer-friendly or queer-adjacent and who believed these stories deserved to to be saved. At the height of the AIDS crisis, many gay men died without a legal will and their life records were often destroyed. Some of those trailblazers include former Mitchell Librarian Margy Burns, an out lesbian who believed in “voices from below”, and library curator Sally Gray, who developed protocols to preserve the work of creatives.

Read more:
Lidia Thorpe’s Mardi Gras disruption is the latest in an ongoing debate about acceptable forms of protest at Pride

Archives and memories

Since Margot Riley lead-curated Coming Out in the 70s in 2019, State Library staff have been involved in a major push to bring in new collections and voices in time for World Pride. At the same time, the queer community itself has become intent on conserving its archives and memories – such as a major archive building opened in Melbourne in 2021.

A curatorial collective worked with a consultation group of 30 community figures, activists and creators to bring in stories from across Sydney, including western suburbs and South Asian voices.

Curators such as Bruce Carter distilled the most powerful words and images from hundreds of metres of archives and thousands of images.

Queering the State Library

The exhibition opens by queering the whole organisation: we have a section on Ida Leeson, the sapphic-appearing Mitchell Librarian (1932-46) who was the first woman to hold a senior post in an Australian library and who lived openly with Florence Birch, YWCA official – Leeson’s private papers were burned by her family.

A multi-path layout allows visitors to take any path they wish, complex and tracking in different directions like many queer lives. Bright, primary colours reflect the energy and activism of the lives we are about to meet.

How did we meet before apps? We learn about communication in the pre-digital age with the formation of both gay and lesbian presses, examples of classified ads, phone lines, and computer dating services.

Who was present? We learn about Indigenous Australian involvement in Mardi Gras: Malcolm Cole, who featured as Captain Cook in the 1988 Mardi Gras, and who was the first Indigenous man to be commemorated with a death notice in the gay press in 1995.

What about anti-violence initiatives? I had forgotten we were encouraged to wear whistles, as the violence had become so bad by the early 1990s. The whistle necklace became a fashion cue, an example of resistance merged with style politics.

Authentic and domestic lives

How was all this social change cobbled together in the pre-internet age? Original painted and collaged designs for Mardi Gras posters highlight a messy materiality.

There is a strong “Do it yourself” and agitprop aspect to much of the work that meshes with postmodern irreverence and the blurring of boundaries.

Art, craft, design, jewellery, performance, fashion, fun: labels didn’t matter, and no one really cared what they were doing or wearing so long as it enabled them to better live an authentic life.

Read more:
Illegal Sydney warehouse parties, lives lost to AIDS, and gay liberation: photographer William Yang captured it all

Gay lives are also domestic lives. There is that great rarity, a 1938 photo album of the modern furnished Astor apartment of Fred James and George Anderson, a couple who had met in Hollywood and were in the beauty business.

There is also a terrific section on 1970s gay share houses as spaces for “reinvention and kinship”.

Sound and voices

Sound features strongly in the exhibition. There are voices drawn from oral histories and even soundbites from gay community radio and helplines. We can listen to a recreated lecture by important gay activist and historian Garry Wotherspoon. These digital assets allow for intergenerational understanding and transfer.

Drag queens have been called the “social workers” of the gay community for the work they undertook advocating for queer people during the AIDS crisis. Their stories, including of the sex work they often undertook, are told respectfully with reference to figures including famous Whanganui Mâori trans woman Carmen Rupe (I miss her darting around on her motorised scooter, tropical flowers in hair).

Not alone in history

Incredible 1970s photographs of the transfeminine community of Kings Cross taken by the theatrical designer Bary Kay are shown for the first time. We learn about Roberta Perkins, a trans woman who advocated for sex workers’ rights. NSW was the first jurisdiction in the world to decriminalise sex work in 1995.

“Predecessors confirm that you are not alone in history”, notes Archie Barrie. Pride (R)evolution is a live example of how collections and archives enable citizenship.

People have a right to be seen and find themselves in public institutions: “you are each living your own stories”. This intergenerational dialogue permits us to see how far we have come, how the “personal is always political, and the private often becomes public”.

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

– ref. ‘A place to dance and a place to cry’: Pride (R)evolution is an authentic exhibition for queer communities – https://theconversation.com/a-place-to-dance-and-a-place-to-cry-pride-r-evolution-is-an-authentic-exhibition-for-queer-communities-201659

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Pawson, Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

Pandemic-generated pressures have left our rental housing market reeling. Australia-wide, vacancy rates are at rock-bottom levels. Rents are soaring at record rates.

Queensland has been at the epicentre of the post-COVID housing storm. Since the pandemic began, house rents have surged by 23% nationally, but by a punishing (for tenants) 34% in Brisbane. The state’s recent increases in homelessness have likewise outpaced all other states and territories.

Our report for Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS), released today, outlines the huge scale of the state’s housing challenge. Our analysis shows that unmet need for social housing in Queensland now exceeds 100,000 households. That’s five times the official waiting list number.

Little wonder Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk convened an extraordinary housing summit in October 2022. Yet, while partly primed by the pandemic, many current housing policy challenges, for both Queensland and Australia, have been building for decades. Perhaps the most important of these have been the ongoing fall in home ownership rates, especially among younger adults, and our increasingly inadequate social housing system.

Read more:
Homeless numbers have jumped since COVID housing efforts ended – and the problem is spreading beyond the big cities

Recent policies fall far short

None of this is to say that Queensland’s current situation can simply be blamed on state government inaction in the immediate past. Our report recognises the state government has made progress, for example, on significant rental reforms in its current term.

The Queensland treasurer also announced substantial new funding for social housing as part of the state’s 2021 post-pandemic economic recovery package. This investment built on commitments made before the public health crisis.

Then, at the 2022 housing summit, Palaszczuk pledged to double the government’s Housing Investment Fund to $2 billion. This will generate a flow of investment subsidies for social and affordable house-building. This is housing available at subsidised rents to very low-income households and workers on modest incomes respectively.

The 2022 change of government in Canberra means there is also now a prospect of renewed Commonwealth investment in such housing. Some of this funding will flow to Queensland.

But such initiatives follow a decade of generally intensifying housing stress. Only recently have federal and (some) state governments woken up to this policy challenge.

For example, social housing construction in Queensland averaged only around 500 dwellings a year in the decade to 2020. While the state’s population grew by 17% in the decade to 2021, social housing stock expanded by just 2%. So, effectively there has been a big cut in capacity.

Recently-promised Queensland and Commonwealth investments in social housing signal a welcome supply boost in coming years. But there’s a vast amount of ground to make up.

The Queensland government’s expanded use of private rental assistance products, such as bond loans and rental grants, is unlikely to greatly reduce housing need in current market conditions.

Likewise, recently-pledged social housing investment is only a start. By our calculations, even to prevent an increase in the current scale of need, at least 1,500 new units per year – and possibly as many as 2,700 – are needed. Either way, that’s well above annual output expected under existing state commitments.

Read more:
Australia’s social housing system is critically stressed. Many eligible applicants simply give up

How can we make up so much lost ground?

Our report argues that the scale, intricacy and deep-rootedness of Australia’s housing problems demand radical, wide-ranging and sustained action by both levels of government.

In some cases, it’s mainly a matter of building on recent or ongoing state initiatives. For example, Queensland could – and should – further expand the Housing Investment Fund to ramp up social housing construction. It should also extend rental reform.

Some other recommended measures partially echo proposals by construction and real estate industry bodies. The government could, for example, encourage purpose-built – “build to rent” – rental housing. While not directly contributing to low-cost housing, these projects will expand overall housing supply and broaden consumer choice.

Another recommended measure is for Queensland to follow the ACT by phasing in a broad-based land tax to replace stamp duty. Overwhelmingly backed by mainstream economists, this change would remove a barrier to moving house. It would also promote more efficient use of existing housing stock and discourage speculative investment.

We also urge, in line with most of Australia’s top economists, the phasing out of private landlord tax concessions. The budget savings could enable the government to invest more directly in meeting housing need. Such reform would also support a gradual recovery in young adult home ownership rates, as investor landlord advantages over aspiring first home buyers are reduced.

Read more:
The housing wealth gap between older and younger Australians has widened alarmingly in the past 30 years. Here’s why

Importantly, many desirable measures would benefit the housing system, yet at little or no cost to government. For example, regulatory reforms are needed to better protect hard-pressed private renters by reducing insecurity and limiting rent increases. The state could also use its supervisory powers more purposefully to reduce underlying pressure on rents resulting from unchecked flows of long-term rental properties into short-term Airbnb lets.

Another important but near-costless measure for the Queensland government would be to mandate affordable housing contributions by private developers. This is routine practice in the City of Sydney. It’s also applied on a large scale in countries such as the UK and in many American cities. Contrary to the way this approach is sometimes portrayed, it is landowners who bear the cost of such contributions, not builders or consumers.

Read more:
England expects 40% of new housing developments will be affordable, why can’t Australia?

In tackling the complexities of Australia’s housing crisis, governments must recognise that one-off, cherry-picked initiatives are liable to be ineffective or even counter-productive. If they are serious about tackling the problem, they must commit to a coherent package of reforms within a meaningful overarching strategy.

We can only hope the Commonwealth’s National Housing and Homelessness Plan – the first of its kind in Australia – opens up a pathway to rebalancing our housing system. Mobilising all of the many tools at its disposal, Queensland must act in concert.

Hal Pawson receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) and Crisis UK. He is a non-executive director of Community Housing Canberra

– ref. The post-COVID crisis hit Queensland hardest. With 100,000 households needing low-cost housing, here’s how it can recover – https://theconversation.com/the-post-covid-crisis-hit-queensland-hardest-with-100-000-households-needing-low-cost-housing-heres-how-it-can-recover-199514

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

The New South Wales state election will be held on Saturday. I had a preview of both the lower and upper houses last week.

Read more:
NSW election preview: Labor likely to fall short of a majority, which could result in hung parliament

A Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted March 14-19 from a sample of 1,000, gave the Coalition 38% of the primary vote (up six since late February), Labor 38% (steady), the Greens 8% (down three), independents 8% (down five) and others 8% (up one).

No explicit two party estimate was given, but the SMH article talks about a 4.5% swing to Labor from the 2019 election, implying a 52.5-47.5 lead for Labor; this would be a 3.5% gain for the Coalition since the late February Resolve poll.

As I have predicted previously, the use of actual ballot papers in this poll sharply reduced independent support. Not every seat has strong independent candidates.

Read more:
Labor slides in a federal Newspoll; NSW polls give Labor a modest lead

In late February, Resolve was a pro-Labor outlier, with Newspoll, Freshwater and Morgan NSW polls giving Labor between 52 and 53% two party. Since Labor won the May 2022 federal election, Resolve has usually had better results for state and federal Labor than other polls.

As my preview article suggested, Labor would probably not win a lower house majority if this poll were replicated on election day, and a hung parliament would be a strong chance.

Incumbent Liberal Dominic Perrottet led Labor leader Chris Minns by 40-34 as preferred premier (38-34 in late February). Perrottet’s net good rating improved 15 points to +20, with 52% rating his performance good and 32% poor. Minns’ net good rating also improved seven points to +20.

AUKUS and defence federal Resolve questions

A federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers was conducted March 12-16 from a sample of 1,600. So far only questions on AUKUS and defence have been released.

By 50-16, voters supported the specific AUKUS deal to buy nuclear submarines. On generic support for nuclear submarines, 25% said they actively supported them (up three since November 2021), 39% said they didn’t have strong feelings, but nuclear submarines were acceptable (up five), and 17% were opposed (down three).

On defence spending, 39% said we should spend more than our current 2% of GDP on defence, 31% the same amount and 9% less or nothing. By 65-8, respondents thought Taiwan was an independent state over being part of China.

On threats to Australia, 52% thought Russia and/or China are a threat, but one that can be managed with careful relationships over time (up three since January), 28% that they are a major threat that will need to be confronted soon (down three) and 6% they are not a threat at all (down one).

Additional Newspoll question: Voice support drops

In the last federal Newspoll that I covered two weeks ago, an additional question, reported by The Poll Bludger, had 53% supporting the Indigenous Voice to parliament (down three since the early February Newspoll) and 38% opposed (up one).

Early March Essential poll

In the federal Essential poll, conducted before March 7 from a sample of 1,141, voters were asked to rate Albanese and Dutton from 0 to 10. Ratings of 0-3 were counted as poor, 4-6 as neutral and 7-10 as positive. Albanese had a 40-27 positive rating (47-22 in February), while Dutton was at 33-26 negative (35-26 previously).

By 50-19, voters supported the super changes that would limit tax concessions for those with over $3 million in super. By 42-22, voters supported cancelling the stage three tax cuts when told they disproportionately benefit those earning incomes over $180,000.

By 70-23, voters did not think it likely they would have over $3 million in super when they retired. By 51-49, voters said they were financially struggling rather than secure (53-47 in February). By 51-49, they thought they would be struggling when they retire.

WA poll: McGowan’s ratings slump but are still high

The Poll Bludger reported on March 14 that a Painted Dog Western Australian poll of 1,052 respondents gave Labor Premier Mark McGowan a 63% approval rating (down seven since October), and a 24% disapproval (up six). New Liberal leader Libby Mettam had a 24% approval rating, 18% disapproval.

NT Labor easily holds Arafura at byelection

A byelection in the Northern Territory occurred on Saturday in the NT seat of Arafura owing to the death of the previous Labor member. Labor defeated the Country Liberal Party (CLP) by an emphatic 68.9-31.1 (53.6-46.4 at the 2020 NT election). Primary votes were 66.3% Labor, 29.6% CLP and 4.1% Federation Party.

Arafura has a large Indigenous population, and has been held by Labor since its creation in 1983, except for one term in 2012, when the CLP gained it. Labor is the incumbent NT government, and this is a great result for a government in a government-held seat at a byelection.

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

– ref. NSW Resolve poll has narrow lead for Labor five days before election – https://theconversation.com/nsw-resolve-poll-has-narrow-lead-for-labor-five-days-before-election-201944

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynne Chepulis, Associate Professor Health Sciences, University of Waikato

The controversial 2021 decision by the government drug-buying agency Pharmac to prioritise Māori and Pacific patients in its funding of two game-changing new diabetes drugs appears to have paid off.

At the time, Pharmac wanted to restrict funding to those diabetes patients who met certain health criteria. The Diabetes Foundation, however, warned that hundreds of New Zealanders would die earlier than they should without full funding for everyone.

After sustained lobbying, Pharmac decided to prioritise funding for Māori and Pacific patients without needing to meet additional criteria. It described the decision as an important step forward in improving equity for these groups.

Our recent research, to be published later this year, shows Pharmac has indeed been able to significantly improve access for these communities, which are over-represented in diabetes statistics.

Health costs of old medicines

An estimated 11% of New Zealand’s annual health budget goes towards treating diabetes. Māori are three times more likely to be affected by diabetes than Pākehā, and Pacific people are five times more likely.

Mortality rates for Māori with type 2 diabetes are also seven times higher than for non-Māori. And it is predicted that one in four Pacific people will have the disease within 20 years.

Read more:
Bandaid or cure: a major health review remains split on how to reduce persistent inequalities for Māori

Traditional approaches to managing diabetes in New Zealand include medications such as metformin and insulin. These are both relatively cheap and fully funded.

However, despite the fact they are both affordable and accessible, they’re not always sufficient to maintain optimal long-term blood sugar levels. This puts patients at a much higher risk of diabetes-related complications, including cardiovascular disease and hospitalisation.

Costly but effective

Insulin also tends to lead to weight gain, which can be frustrating beacuse maintaining a healthy weight is important to managing diabetes.

However, the two new diabetes drugs approved for use in New Zealand have both been shown to cause dramatic improvements in blood glucose levels and weight. They also protect the heart and kidney from diabetes-related damage.

These drugs are relatively expensive, with the approved options in New Zealand costing approximately NZ$58 a pill (Jardiance and Jardiamet, for example) or $115 per injection pen (Trulicity).

But these treatments have the advantage of not only optimising diabetes management and quality of life for patients, but also potentially reducing the likelihood of diabetes-related hospital costs down the track.

The decision to fund the drugs for some

With a limited annual budget of just over $1 billion, Pharmac has declined to fund these new diabetes medications for everyone. It’s an understandable position. Across the board, many lifesaving drugs are extremely expensive. Just 10% of people receiving subsidised medications account for over 80% of the money spent.

Initially, Pharmac opted to fund the new diabetes drugs by special authority, requiring funded patients to meet specific clinical criteria. However, this would not have addressed health inequality for Māori and Pacific patients.

Eventually, Pharmac agreed to focus its funding on the groups hit hardest by the illness. In a first for the agency, all Māori and Pacific patients with current type 2 diabetes could access these drugs without the need to meet any further clinical criteria.

The decision was not without criticism, with the Diabetes Foundation accusing Pharmac of “penny pinching” on drugs. There is also the concern that some patients can only get funding for one of the drugs, when a combination of both might achieve better results.

Targeted funding works

But has the decision to fund with ethnicity as a criterion worked? Have we seen more Māori and Pacific patients prescribed these drugs?

Long story short – yes. Pharmac’s decision does appear to have made a significant difference in the number of Māori and Pacific patients accessing the new medications.

In a 2021/2022 review of over 50,000 patients with type 2 diabetes from Auckland and Waikato – 20% of whom were Māori and 20% Pacific peoples – the proportion of Māori and Pacific patients with cardiovascular and renal disease who were prescribed these drugs was significantly higher than other groups (42% versus 30%).

Read more:
100 years after insulin was first used, why isn’t NZ funding the latest life-changing diabetes technology?

In those without cardiovascular and renal complications, the rates were even higher (55% versus 30%). These figures are a big step towards ensuring equitable health outcomes for our tangata whenua and Pacific peoples.

The next step to assess the efficacy of this new funding model will be to look at whether there has been a reduction in hospitalisations and GP visits. While it is too soon to tell, data from overseas – where these drugs have been available for around 15 years – suggest this will be the case.

Of course, this does not solve the issues around longstanding inequities in healthcare in Aotearoa New Zealand. But the targeted funding appears to have achieved some improvements in the management of diabetes. Considering this success, will Pharmac consider ethnicity as a criterion for other medicines as well?

Lynne Chepulis receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand. She is an executive member of the New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes.

– ref. Pharmac prioritised Māori and Pacific patients for access to new diabetes drugs – did they get it right? – https://theconversation.com/pharmac-prioritised-maori-and-pacific-patients-for-access-to-new-diabetes-drugs-did-they-get-it-right-201759

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab, The University of Melbourne

You’ve probably heard about the “great resignation” which saw large numbers of people resigning from their jobs in the US in 2021 and 2022.

We didn’t see resignations over and above what is normal in Australia. However, we did see workers resisting the post-COVID return to the office.

To better understand these trends, we conducted a study of 1,400 employed Australians in 2022 to see how they were faring two years after the start of the pandemic.

And the answer is: not great.

Australian workers are in poorer physical and mental health since the pandemic across all ages and stages. And prime-aged workers – those between 25 and 55 – are reporting the greatest burn-out.

Some 50% of prime-aged workers in our survey feel exhausted at work. About 40% reported feeling less motivated about their work than pre-pandemic, and 33% found it more difficult to concentrate at work because of responsibilities outside of work.

They also see fewer opportunities for advancement than older workers and are more likely to feel like they don’t have enough time at work to do everything they need to do.

It’s perhaps no surprise 33% of this prime-aged workforce is thinking about quitting. These workers may be showing up to their jobs but they are definitely burnt out. They are the “quiet quitters” and they are sounding the alarm bell.

Read more:
Extinguished and anguished: what is burnout and what can we do about it?

Why are workers burnt out?

The pandemic, particularly lockdowns, took a significant toll on the mental health of the Australian workforce. Although we’ve been desperately waiting for life to return to “normal”, pandemic-related disruptions remain.

Our previous research during the pandemic showed women and parents were particularly vulnerable. We found mothers stepped into the added childcare and housework driven by pandemic lockdowns. We discovered fathers also did more housework and child care over the first year of the pandemic.

The consequence of all of this added work was poorer mental health – worse sleep, less calm, more anxiety.

We also showed this intensified women’s economic precarity, leading to reduced contributions to superannuation and fear of jobs being lost without the skills to re-enter employment.

Women are increasingly concentrated in industries such as nursing, childcare workers and primary school teachers, all of which were particularly impacted by the pandemic. Young prime-aged women were particularly impacted during the early period of the pandemic and lockdowns.

The pandemic was unforeseen, severe and detrimental to our working lives. Many Australia workplaces and workers continue to be impacted as the pandemic continues. Higher numbers of workers are taking sick leave, which may in part be driven by exhaustion and other COVID-related reasons.

Where do we go from here?

Australian workers in our survey have some clear solutions. They found access to flexible work particularly valuable for their working lives. In our study, we found flexible workers had more energy for their work and a greater motivation to do their jobs. They reported more time to complete their tasks.

Around 40% of all flexible workers reported feeling more productive since the start of the pandemic, compared to around 30% of non-flexible workers.

And 75% of workers under the age of 54 reported that a lack of flexible work options in their workplace would motivate them to leave or look for another job.

Flexible work is working for many in the Australian workforce. Australian employers would do well to identify ways to expand its reach to a larger segment of the workforce or risk suppressed productivity and loss of their workers.

Read more:
We’re all exhausted but are you experiencing burnout? Here’s what to look out for

2 important take-aways

As we rush to return to pre-pandemic “normal”, our report identifies two critical points.

1. The Australian workforce is burnt-out and exhausted. We need to acknowledge the trauma of the pandemic is lingering and identify clear solutions to support this exhausted, fatigued and overexerted workforce.

2. We must understand pre-pandemic ways of working didn’t work for many. It especially didn’t work for mothers. It didn’t work for caregivers. It didn’t work for people living with chronic illness. It didn’t work for groups vulnerable to discrimination at work. It didn’t work for people forced to commute long distances. So, going “back to normal” means continued disadvantage for these groups.

This means creating new ways of working, including flexible work, is essential to ensuring the Australian workforce has the energy for tomorrow and the next major challenge we will face.

Read more:
Are you burnt out at work? Ask yourself these 4 questions

Leah Ruppanner receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Brendan Churchill receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

David Bissell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. The ‘great resignation’ didn’t happen in Australia, but the ‘great burnout’ did – https://theconversation.com/the-great-resignation-didnt-happen-in-australia-but-the-great-burnout-did-201173

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Beckett, Senior Lecturer (Food Science and Human Nutrition), School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle

You’ve probably heard about the medication Ozempic, used to manage type 2 diabetes and as a weight loss drug.

Ozempic (and the similar drug Wegovy) has had more than its fair share of headlines and controversies. A global supply shortage, tweets about using it from Elon Musk, approval for adolescent weight loss in the United States. Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel even joked about it on film’s night of nights last week.

But how much do we really need drugs like Ozempic? Can we use food as medicine to replace them?

How does Ozempic work?

The active ingredient in Ozempic is semaglutide, which works by inducing satiety. This feeling of being satisfied or “full”, suppresses appetite. This is why it works for weight loss.

Semaglutide also helps the pancreas produce insulin, which is how it helps manage type 2 diabetes. Our body needs insulin to move the glucose (or blood sugar) we get from food inside cells, so we can use it as energy.

Semaglutide works by mimicking the role of a natural hormone, called GLP-1 (glucagon like peptide-1) normally produced in response to detecting nutrients when we eat. GLP-1 is part of the signalling pathway that tells your body you have eaten, and prepare it to use the energy that comes from your food.

Read more:
Ozempic helps people lose weight. But who should be able to use it?

Can food do that?

The nutrients that trigger GLP-1 secretion are macronutrients – simple sugars (monosaccharides), peptides and amino acids (from proteins) and short chain fatty acids (from fats and also produced by good gut bacteria). There are lots of these macronutrients in energy-dense foods, which tend to be foods high in fat or sugars with a low water content. There is evidence that by choosing foods high in these nutrients, GLP-1 levels can be increased.

This means a healthy diet, high in GLP-1 stimulating nutrients can increase GLP-1 levels. This could be foods with good fats, like avocado or nuts, or lean protein sources like eggs. And foods high in fermentable fibres, like vegetables and whole grains, feed our gut bacteria, which then produce short chain fatty acids able to trigger GLP-1 secretion.

This is why high fat, high fibre and high protein diets can all help you feel fuller for longer. It’s also why diet change is part of both weight and type 2 diabetes management.

Read more:
Thinking about bariatric surgery for weight loss? Here’s what to consider

Not so fast …

However, it’s not necessarily that simple for everyone. This system also means that when we diet, and restrict energy intake, we get more hungry. And for some people that “set point” for weight and hunger might be different.

Some studies have shown GLP-1 levels, particularly after meals, are lower in people with obesity. This could be from reduced production of GLP-1, or increased breakdown. The receptors that detect it might also be less sensitive or there might be fewer receptors. This could be because of differences in the genes that code for GLP-1, the receptors or parts of the pathways that regulate production. These genetic differences are things we can’t change.

So, are injections the easier fix?

While diet and drugs can both work, both have their challenges.

Medications like Ozempic can have side effects including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and issues in other organs. Plus, when you stop taking it the feelings of suppressed appetite will start to go away, and people will start to feel hungry at their old levels. If you’ve lost lots of weight quickly, you may feel even hungrier than before.

Dietary changes have much fewer risks in terms of side effects, but the responses will take more time and effort.

In our busy modern society, costs, times, skills, accessibility and other pressures can also be barriers to healthy eating, feeling full and insulin levels.

Dietary and medication solutions often put the focus on the individual making changes to improve health outcomes, but systemic changes, that reduce the pressures and barriers that make healthy eating hard (like shortening work weeks or raising the minimum wage) are much more likely to make a difference.

It’s also important to remember weight is only one part of the health equation. If you suppress your appetite but maintain a diet high in ultra-processed foods low in micronutrients, you could lose weight but not increase your actual nourishment. So support to improve dietary choices is needed, regardless of medication use or weight loss, for true health improvements.

Read more:
Stop hating on pasta – it actually has a healthy ratio of carbs, protein and fat

The bottom line

The old quote: “Let food be thy medicine” is catchy and often based on science, especially when drugs are deliberately chosen or designed to mimic hormones and compounds already naturally occurring in the body. Changing diet is a way to modify our health and our biological responses. But these effects occur on a background of our personal biology and our unique life circumstances.

For some people, medication will be a tool to improve weight and insulin-related outcomes. For others, food alone is a reasonable pathway to success.

While the science is for populations, health care is individual and decisions around food and/or medicine should be made with the considered advice of health care professionals. GPs and dietitians can work with your individual situation and needs.

Emma Beckett has received funding for research or consulting from Mars Foods, Nutrition Research Australia, NHMRC, ARC, AMP Foundation, Kellogg, and the University of Newcastle. She also works for Nutrition Research Australia. She is a member of committees/working groups related to nutrition or the Australian Academy of Science, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Nutrition Society of Australia.

– ref. Ozempic helps weight loss by making you feel full. But certain foods can do the same thing – without the side-effects – https://theconversation.com/ozempic-helps-weight-loss-by-making-you-feel-full-but-certain-foods-can-do-the-same-thing-without-the-side-effects-201870

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Menna Elizabeth Jones, Associate Professor in Zoology, University of Tasmania

Human life on Earth is utterly dependent on biodiversity but our activities are driving an increase in extinctions. Yet some extinct species continue to hold our fascination. New methods in genetics and reproductive biology hold the promise that de-extinction – resurrecting extinct species – could soon be possible.

But bringing back extinct species is costly. Shouldn’t our focus be on preventing further extinctions?

Almost 20 years ago, for instance, it was looking like impending doom for the Tasmanian devil. It’s the world’s largest surviving marsupial carnivore after the loss of the thylacine. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “to lose both looks like carelessness”.

The enigmatic thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, continues to capture people’s attention. The size of a wolf, it was officially declared extinct in its last stronghold in Tasmania. Lost before it was ever appreciated or studied, the thylacine is known only from anecdotes.

An iconic symbol of extinction for many but also a symbol of hope, the thylacine has high cultural significance. This iconic animal might still be here if the European colonisers of Tasmania had appreciated a few decades earlier just how unique the thylacine was, as the last member of the marsupial carnivore family Thylacinidae, and stopped persecuting it.

A new book, Thylacine: The History, Ecology and Loss of the Tasmanian Tiger, presents new evidence-based knowledge about the thylacine in 78 contributions (I wrote the introduction). New scientific and historical methods and large databases mean we can learn much about the ecology and history of this animal from remains it left behind – bones, DNA in skin and bones, rock art, oral histories and historical records.

Read more:
Can we resurrect the thylacine? Maybe, but it won’t help the global extinction crisis

We can learn from extinctions to prevent more

To stem the rate of extinctions we need to better understand the processes of extinction and the species we have lost. To restore species and ecosystems, we need to know the context of how loss of species and their ecological functions has already changed the natural world.

Preventing further extinctions and recovering threatened species need to be the priority. Even common species can slip away rapidly before we notice.

The Tasmanian devil was widespread and abundant before a unique transmissible cancer emerged, cause unknown. Within 30 years of its appearance in the mid-1990s, it spread across the devil’s island range. The population was reduced by 80%.

The final demise of the thylacine in the early 1900s appeared rapid and is not easily explained by persecution for alleged sheep killing or disease.

Many of us still hold out hope the thylacine will be found again. We rarely know the exact date and time of a species extinction. And more than half of Tasmania is remote and unchanged – rugged country that would have supported low numbers of thylacines.

The thylacine’s former strongholds in productive parts of Tasmania are now farmed and humans have dramatically altered the landscape in other ways. People still report seeing thylacines, but sightings are subject to psychological biases. In other words, we need a verifiable record of an actual live thylacine to confirm its existence.

Still, despite the compounding odds against its rediscovery, the thylacine offers hope.

Read more:
Tasmanian tigers were going extinct before we pushed them over the edge

To restore ecosystems, we need to understand what’s lost

To conserve species and restore ecosystems effectively we have to understand historical context.

The thylacine was an apex predator, at the top of the food chain, albeit one that hunted smaller prey relative to its size. This meant it competed for prey with smaller carnivores. Thylacines may have shaped the behaviour and reduced the abundance of devils and quolls and their prey, wallabies and pademelons. This competition thus affected how the devil and quolls evolved in terms of prey size and the size of their canine teeth.

Wedge-tailed eagles are probably the closest analogue now to the thylacine.

Losing one species can have cascading effects on the loss of others. The significance of the co-extinction of the single known host-specific parasite of the thylacine is unknown. However, the important role of parasites in ecosystems is generally under-appreciated.

Read more:
The Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a ‘large predator’ – but it was only half as heavy as we thought

The thylacine lives on in culture

Thylacines were part of the place-based cosmologies of Aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal peoples hold long intergenerational knowledge of thylacines, even 3,000 years after their extinction on mainland Australia.

In some places, this knowledge is associated with rock art depictions, which may be regarded as being made by ancestral beings. Oral or written stories are important in maintaining a connection to the animal and for reimagining the future. They nourish the hope of seeing the animal again and imagining a connection to its legacy.

In Tasmania, there are constant reminders of the thylacine, which features on logos and the Tasmanian coat of arms.

Read more:
Should we bring back the thylacine? We asked 5 experts

We still dare to hope for its return

The thylacine might be gone but, in our enthusiasm for seeking knowledge of its ecology, there is still hope it will turn up once again.

The thylacine played an important role in Tasmanian ecosystems and on the Australian mainland. Understanding this role and the factors leading to its extinction provides important context for saving other species and for restoring ecosystems.

Menna Elizabeth Jones wrote the introduction to the book discussed in the article, Thylacine: The History, Ecology and Loss of the Tasmanian Tiger.

– ref. Extinct but not gone – the thylacine continues to fascinate us – https://theconversation.com/extinct-but-not-gone-the-thylacine-continues-to-fascinate-us-201865

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kidson, Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership, Australian Catholic University

Australian schools have been under huge pressures in recent years. On top of concerns about academic progress and staff shortages, schools have faced significant, ongoing disruptions due to COVID and major flooding disasters.

In response, there has been considerable attention rightly given to students, families and classroom teachers. But what about the people tasked with leading their schools through these unprecedented times? We have been surveying Australian principals and other school leaders – such as deputy principals and assistant principals – for more than a decade.

Previous reports from this project have highlighted ongoing challenges for school leaders, even during the first difficult year of COVID. But while there are some consistent themes, this year’s report shows there has been a significant, worrying shift.

The situation is more serious and pressing than previously reported: many Australian principals are on the verge of a crisis.

Read more:
Australian teachers are dissatisfied with their jobs but their sense of professional belonging is strong

Our research

Our survey has collected data every year since 2011 and is now the most significant and longest-running survey of its type in the world.

Each year we have been able to survey around 2,000 school leaders about what is happening in their jobs. This includes tracking their health and wellbeing.

To date, the project has collected data from over 7,100 individual school leaders across government, independent and Catholic schools, all around the country. Given there are around 10,000 schools across Australia, this is a major source of evidence.

Three major findings stand out from the 2022 report.

1. Sources of stress are changing and growing

Each year, participants rate 19 sources of stress on a scale of one (not stressful) to ten (extremely stressful). We then rank all 19 based on the average score for each stressor.

Unsurprisingly, sheer workload and lack of time to focus on teaching and learning have been the two top stressors every year.

This year, however, the impact of teacher shortages has risen from a ranking of 12 in 2021 to three in 2022. On top of this, and for the first time, supporting the mental health of students and teachers combined to make the top five.

The average scores also continue to increase to the highest levels we have seen. For example, in 2021, student mental health scored an average of 7.0. In 2022 its average was 7.3. Teacher mental heath rose from an average of 6.7 to 7.2.

For the first time in the history of the survey, there are seven sources of stress with an average score higher than 7.0. On top of work levels, lack of time, teacher shortages and student and teacher mental health, this includes “student-related issues” and “expectations of employers”.

Seeing so many significant stressors clustered together is new. And their cumulative impact is highly concerning.

2. Parents are harassing and abusing principals

In trying to manage these complexities, school leaders are facing increasing levels of abuse and threatening behaviour.

Sadly, school leaders in our survey have historically suffered much higher levels of threatening and violent abuse than the general population. Prior to COVID-19, in 2019, nearly 50% of school leaders reported being threatened with violence. While this dropped to 43% during the first phases of COVID-19 (2020-2021), it now exceeds 50%.

Concerningly, school leaders reported parents as a major source of bullying and threatening behaviour.

In the 2022 survey, one third of participants report being subjected to bullying. When asked to say “from whom”, the highest result was “from parents” (19%). Conflicts and quarrels are reported by 60% of participants, mostly with parents (36%).

Gossip and slander was reported by 50% of participants, again, with most of these from parents (31%).

Read more:
‘They phone you up during lunch and yell at you’ – why teachers say dealing with parents is the worst part of their job

3. More principals need help

Part of our survey includes a “red flag” process. Because participants are telling us about their wellbeing, we will email them directly and confidentially if their responses suggest they should seek further professional help to protect their mental health.

These emails are intended to warn school leaders they are experiencing high stress levels and direct them to sources of support.

In 2022, an alarming 48% of school leaders received red-flag warnings. This is an enormous increase of 18% points in 2021 and the highest level since the start of the survey in 2011. Across 2017–2021, red-flag warnings averaged 29%, highlighting the significance of the 2022 result.

What can we do about it?

Principals and school leaders have spent the past three years steering their communities through a global pandemic and in some cases, devastating flooding and bushfires.

We know the teaching workforce is under stress and many teachers are leaving or intending to leave. We also know families and communities have been stressed and stretched by the pandemic and what this has meant for their work and home lives.

Read more:
Australia has a plan to fix its school teacher shortage. Will it work?

But we cannot forget school principals in our responses. Our research shows they are enduring more and different stressors on top of already huge workloads. But they are not getting the support they need, rather, in too many cases, they are enduring abuse and bullying from parents.

Our red flag process shows this is taking a highly concerning toll on the health and wellbeing of school leaders, just when we need them most.

This year’s survey results show, more than ever, school leaders need urgent and significant support.

Federal and state governments have recently responded to teacher shortages with a National Teacher Workforce Action Plan. It’s an important start, but our report shows the problem will compound if comparable strategies are not also developed for school leaders.

We now call on governments to specifically address the health and wellbeing of Australian school principals. We cannot acheive anything meaningful in education if our school leaders are not better supported to do their work, which is so critical to keeping teachers, students and school communities happy, safe and engaged.

Herb Marsh has received funding from ARC for this research in the past and currently receives funding from several Australian non-profit educational organisations and principal associations to continue the research on Principal Health and Wellbeing.

Theresa Dicke has received funding from ARC for this research in the past and currently receives funding from several Australian non-profit educational organisations and principal associations to continue the research on Principal Health and Wellbeing.

Paul Kidson 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. School principals are reaching crisis point, pushed to the edge by mounting workloads, teacher shortages and abuse – https://theconversation.com/school-principals-are-reaching-crisis-point-pushed-to-the-edge-by-mounting-workloads-teacher-shortages-and-abuse-201777

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yvonne Breitwieser-Faria, PhD Candidate and Academic in Law, The University of Queensland

Throughout Russia’s war against Ukraine, there have been countless reports of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Now, there are also allegations of genocide involving the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.

The International Criminal Court has just issued two arrest warrants in connection with the transfer of Ukrainian children for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights.

While this is a significant legal milestone, the warrants might not necessarily lead to an arrest – due to a lack of enforcement mechanisms and the likely reluctance of the Russian state and potentially other states to cooperate.

Re-education and forced adoptions

There have been many reports on the forced transfer of Ukrainian children, ranging in age from infants to teenagers, to various locations in Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea. These transfers date back to the beginning of February 2022; in the case of occupied Crimea, transfers of orphans and children without parental care commenced as early as 2014.

Russia is now believed to be operating a large-scale, systematic network of at least 40 “recreational” re-education camps for thousands of Ukrainian children. The primary purpose of most of these camps appears to consist of pro-Russian indoctrination and, in some instances, military training.

While Russia does not deny the evacuation of children or that they are now in Russia, the government claims it is part of a humanitarian project for war-traumatised orphans.

However, not all of these children are orphans. According to an investigation by Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, children with living relatives in Ukraine have been “recruited” to attend camps in Russia for ostensible holidays. Consent from families is given either under duress or routinely violated.

Once the children are in Russia or Crimea, their communication with family members is either restricted or nonexistent. Most children have been unable to return home.

Troublingly, Putin’s “patriotic patronage campaign” is also strongly encouraging Russian families to adopt purported Ukrainian orphans. There have been legislative changes to expedite the adoption of Ukrainian children and financial incentives for Russian families who do this.

The exact number of Ukrainian children being sent to Russia is unclear. The Ukrainian government has officially identified 16,221 deported children as of early March.

Other estimates suggest the real number may be as high as 400,000.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba recently said the forced transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children constituted “probably the largest forced deportation in modern history” and “a genocidal crime”.

Is the forced transfer of children an act of genocide?

International law dictates what types of crimes constitute an act of genocide. These acts are exhaustively listed in the Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948. The legal definition of genocide has not changed in 75 years, and is accepted by and applicable to all states worldwide.

Article II of the Genocide Convention lists the forcible transfer of children of a group to another group as one of the acts which may amount to genocide if it is done with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Read more:
Civilians are being killed in Ukraine. So, why is investigating war crimes so difficult?

Ukrainian children would be protected under this legal definition as a national group. The evidence, to date, also suggests the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia for the purposes of potentially “integrating”, or indoctrinating, them into pro-Russian culture has taken place.

While definite proof of this specialised intent is required, the removal of children from their families, homes and culture suggests the purpose of Russia’s “evacuation” of children may be to erase Ukraine’s identity.

Whether or not Russia succeeds is irrelevant; the attempt to commit genocide is also a crime.

Russia’s actions are comparable to the Nazis’ “Germanisation program” in the second world war, in which hundreds of Polish children were transferred to Germany and subsequently adopted by German families.

In addition to being a potential act of genocide, the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia may also be a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as a crime against humanity.

Russia is a party to all of these international instruments and is therefore legally obligated to adhere to them.

Who is investigating this?

To date, separate investigations into the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia are being carried out by:

• the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, whose report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on March 20

• Amnesty International

• Yale’s Humanitarian Research lab, in collaboration with the US State Department

• the Ukraine-based Regional Centre for Human Rights, in cooperation with the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.

The arrest warrants just issued by the International Criminal Court are the first related to alleged crimes committed during the Ukraine war. The judges of the responsible chambers agreed there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Putin and Lvova-Belova bore responsibility for the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.

Why evidence is crucial

Successful criminal proceedings would require proof that the alleged perpetrators have committed genocide beyond a reasonable doubt. Conclusive evidence to this end will be crucial; the court will not be satisfied with a lesser standard.

The types of evidence that could support a prosecution could include everything from witness testimonies to satellite imagery or video recordings. Any evidence must meet international standards and protocols for criminal prosecutions.

Importantly, prosecutors would also have to demonstrate that not only did the transfer of Ukrainian children take place, but also that the perpetrators acted with the intent to destroy Ukrainians as a national group.

This evidence, in particular, will be difficult to collect – but not impossible with modern technology. This allows for the collection of evidence in real time and the preservation of otherwise perishable evidence through, for example, social media.

Read more:
I am a Ukrainian American political scientist, and this is what the past year of war has taught me about Ukraine, Russia and defiance

Yvonne Breitwieser-Faria 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. Are Russian transfers of Ukrainian children to re-education and adoption facilities a form of genocide? – https://theconversation.com/are-russian-transfers-of-ukrainian-children-to-re-education-and-adoption-facilities-a-form-of-genocide-200995

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

Australian governments have a long and generally dismal history of using defence procurement, and particularly naval procurement, as a form of industry policy.

Examples including the Collins-class submarines, Hobart-class air warfare destroyers and, most recently, the Hunter-class “Future Frigates”.

The stated goal is to build a defence-based manufacturing industry. But there is also a large element of old-fashioned pork-barrelling involved.

In particular, South Australia has nursed grievances over the shutdown of local car making, centred in the state, following the withdrawal of federal government subsidies. The closure of the Osborne Naval Shipyard in north Adelaide would be politically “courageous” for any government.

So the projects roll on, despite technical problems (the six Collins-class subs were plagued by problems with their noise signature, propulsion and combat systems) and cost overruns (the three Hobart destroyers cost $1.4 billion more than the $8 billion budgeted). The $35 billion plan for nine Hunter-class frigates may yet be abandoned given budget constraints.

All these previous ventures are dwarfed by the AUKUS agreement, which involves projected expenditure of up to $368 billion.

Read more:
AUKUS submarine plan will be the biggest defence scheme in Australian history. So how will it work?

As Richard Denniss of The Australia Institute has noted, the precision implied by this number is spurious. The cost could come in below $300 billion, or easily approach $500 billion.

Military case lacking

The case for such a massive investment in submarines has proved hard to make in a simple and convincing way. The “Red Alert” articles published this month by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age has helped to raise alarm about China. But the warning Australia could find itself at war with China in the next few years (over Taiwan) isn’t a persuasive argument for submarines that won’t be delivered until the 2030s.

Other questions have emerged.

In different ways, former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull have questioned the sense of a renewed alliance with the United Kingdom. The UK in a state of obvious decline, and Labour leader Keir Starmer, likely to be Britain’s next prime minister, has been noticeably lukewarm in his support for AUKUS, saying: “Whatever the merits of an Indo-Pacific tilt, maintaining security in Europe must remain our primary objective.”

Then there’s the view, held by many experts, that what has made submarines such potent weapons in the past – stealth – is unlikely to endure. Underwater drones and improved satellite technology could make our subs obsolete even before they are launched.

Read more:
Progress in detection tech could render submarines useless by the 2050s. What does it mean for the AUKUS pact?

What about the jobs?

In these circumstances, the easiest political strategy to sell the AUKUS package is to present it as a job-creation program.

This is an appealing path for the federal government, given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s yearning for “an Australia that make things”. Albanese’s Twitter account has published tweets extolling the economic benefits of the deal, but none about what the submarines will actually do to make Australians safer.

The obvious response is that the 20,000 jobs the government says the program will directly create over the next 30 years will cost more than $18 million apiece.

But that actually understates how bad the case is.

Where will we find the skilled workers?

Australia already has a shortage of the type of skilled workers required to build the nuclear-powered subs: scientists, technicians and trade workers. Our existing training programs are unlikely to fill the gap. So, the new jobs will mostly be filled either by diverting skilled workers from other industries or by additional immigrants.

The government is grappling with the policies that can meet this existing shortage. Our migration program, for example, allocates extra points for technical skills in short supply, putting skilled workers ahead of people whose motive for migration is to be with their families and friends.

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

The “Job Ready Graduates” policy introduced by the Morrison government subsidises science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees, at the expense of humanities and social sciences. This policy is now under review, but may well be maintained in some form.

Such is the scale of the problem that the government’s pre-election commitment to deliver a White Paper on Full Employment (inspired the Chifley government’s 1945 White Paper) has been sidelined by a focus on how to increase the supply of skilled labour, through vocational education, immigration and delayed retirement. Hence the title of the “Jobs and Skills Summit” in September 2022.

There is no indication the shortage of skilled tech workers is going to be resolved any time soon. It is, then, a mistake to boast about the number of technical jobs that will be created by AUKUS.

It would be more accurate to say that, just as the massive financial cost of the submarines will come at the expense of spending on social needs, the workers required to build them will divert skills from addressing needs such as decarbonising the economy.

Perhaps, like previous submarine deals, this plan will be scrapped before consuming the stupendous sums of money now projected. But in the meantime it will divert the Australia’s government from addressing urgent domestic problems.

John Quiggin has worked with Richard Denniss on a variety of policy issues.

– ref. $18 million a job? The AUKUS subs plan will cost Australia way more than that – https://theconversation.com/18-million-a-job-the-aukus-subs-plan-will-cost-australia-way-more-than-that-202026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nerilie Abram, Chief Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes; Deputy Director for the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, Australian National University

After all the talk on the need for climate action, it’s time for reality check. On Monday the world will receive the latest United Nations climate report. And it’s a big one.

Hundreds of scientists, forming what’s known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have been working hard behind the scenes. They’ve produced a series of reports in the latest round, which began in 2015. But on Monday it all comes together in what’s called the Synthesis Report.

It will explain how greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet, then delve into the consequences. There’s a focus on where we are most vulnerable, as well as efforts to adapt. And then, how we’re acting to reduce emissions and mitigate climate change.

Gathering all the evidence, from every corner of the globe, is an enormous undertaking, let alone reviewing the science to achieve consensus. It’s a process that has been repeated several times since it began, more than three decades ago.

This is the sixth round of reports. And it won’t be the last. But this is a crucial moment, because the chance to limit warming and avert dangerous climate change is slipping away.

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

What is the IPCC and why do we need it?

The IPCC is comprised of 195 member countries charged with producing comprehensive and objective assessments of the scientific evidence for climate change.

The World Economic Forum ranks climate action failure as the number-one risk on a global scale over the next decade. And several other top-ten global risks – extreme weather, biodiversity loss, human environment damage and natural resource crises – are made worse by climate change.

Governments, industries and communities are becoming increasingly aware of the need to tackle climate change, especially as predictions become reality.

The scientific effort to understand the causes, effects and solutions is vast and growing. Every year tens of thousands of new peer-reviewed scientific studies on climate change are published. There has to be a way to identify key messages across this enormous body of scientific evidence, and use this information to make better decisions. This is what IPCC reports do.

The IPCC process also provides a framework for the scientific community to organise and coordinate their efforts. Each reporting cycle is matched with an international scientific effort, where standardised experiments are run to test the reliability of current climate models.

The experiments include multiple possible scenarios for how atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations could change in the future, depending on choices made today. The range of results produced by different models across these sets of experiments helps to determine how confident we are in the climate change impacts expected in the future.

A key aspect of IPCC reports is that they are co-produced between scientists and governments. The summary of each report is negotiated and approved line by line, with consensus from all of the IPCC member governments. This process ensures the reports remain true to the underlying scientific evidence, but also pull out the key information governments need.

What can we expect from Monday’s report?

The Synthesis Report will draw on all six reports released in the current cycle.

It includes three so-called “working group reports”:

• The Physical Science Basis

• Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

• Mitigation of Climate Change.

In addition, three special reports cut across these working groups and tackled focused topics, where governments requested rapid assessments to aid in their decision making:

• Global Warming of 1.5℃

• Climate Change and Land

• The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.

The headline statements from this cycle of IPCC reports have been clearer than ever. They leave absolutely no room for disputing human-caused warming and the need for urgent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, this decade. We can expect similarly strong and clear headlines from Monday’s report.

How have IPCC reports changed?

Looking back over IPCC reports from the past 33 years demonstrates how our understanding of climate change has improved. The first report in 1990 stated: “the unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely for more than a decade”. Fast forward to 2021 and the equivalent assessment now states: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”.

In some cases, the pace of change has dramatically exceeded expectations. In 1990 West Antarctica was a region of concern but not expected to lose major amounts of ice in the next century. But by 2019 our observations show glaciers in West Antarctica retreating rapidly. This has contributed to an accelerating rise in global sea level.

There are also emerging concerns for the stability of parts of the East Antarctic ice sheet once thought to be protected from human-caused climate warming.

This demonstrates the tendency for IPCC assessments to understate the scientific evidence. Climate science is often accused of being alarmist – particularly by those trying to delay climate change action – but in fact the opposite is true.

The production of IPCC reports by consensus with governments means that statements that appear in the report summaries are justified by multiple lines of scientific evidence. This can lag behind current climate science discoveries.

Read more:
Friday essay: ‘I feel my heart breaking today’ – a climate scientist’s path through grief towards hope

What’s next?

Plans are already underway for the next assessment cycle of the IPCC, which is to begin in July this year. It’s hoped the next round of reports will be produced in time to inform the Global Stocktake in 2028, where progress towards the Paris Agreement will be assessed.

The current (sixth assessment) cycle has been gruelling. Scientists have stepped up their commitment to work with governments to provide the clear and robust information required.

Writing and approving reports amid a global pandemic added to the challenges. So too did the inclusion of three special reports in addition to the usual three working group reports.

The evidence for human-caused climate change is now unequivocal. This has prompted calls for future IPCC reports to more efficiently assess rapidly changing areas of science and cut across the working groups. This would bring together assessments of the causes, impacts and solutions for key aspects of climate change in one report, rather than always separating them into individual working group reports.

The establishment of the IPCC signalled climate change was an important global problem. Despite this recognition more than three decades ago, and the increasingly concerning reports produced by the IPCC in this time, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise year-on-year.

However, there is some hope we may be nearing the peak in global emissions. By the time the next IPCC reports are released, global climate action may have finally started to move the world onto a more sustainable pathway.

Time will tell. Let’s hope policy makers will stand with the science on the right side of history.

Read more:
IPCC says the tools to stop catastrophic climate change are in our hands. Here’s how to use them

Nerilie Abram receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. What can we expect from the final UN climate report? And what is the IPCC anyway? – https://theconversation.com/what-can-we-expect-from-the-final-un-climate-report-and-what-is-the-ipcc-anyway-201762

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Booy, Hon Prof, Dept of Child & Adolescent Health, University of Sydney

Alarming headlines and media coverage have said we’ve had 100 times as many influenza cases in the first two months of 2023 compared with the same time the previous year.

The coverage suggested we’re in for a bumper flu season, starting early and your best protection was to get a flu vaccine, when available.

But that scary sounding 100 figure is misleading. Here’s what’s behind the figures and what we can really expect from the 2023 flu season.

Read more:
You can’t get influenza from a flu shot – here’s how it works

Comparing apples with oranges

In the first two months of 2023, there were 8,474 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza. In 2022, over the same period, there were 79 cases

So it might seem this year’s figures are indeed more than 100 times higher than last year’s. But we shouldn’t be alarmed. That’s because in early 2022, influenza cases were artificially low.

Strict COVID measures almost eliminated influenza outbreaks in 2020 and 2021. Shutting international borders, quarantining, social distancing and mask-wearing stopped influenza coming into the country and spreading.

Many COVID restrictions weren’t relaxed until late February/March 2022. So, in January and February of that year there were fewer opportunities for us to mingle and spread the influenza virus. It’s hardly surprising there were few cases then.

In fact, the rate of flu in 2023 is actually very similar to pre-COVID years (that is before 2020).

As always, the reported cases represent just a fraction of the actual influenza cases. That’s because many people do not seek medical care when infected with influenza or their GP doesn’t always test them for it.

Read more:
Health Check: when is ‘the flu’ really a cold?

How about an earlier flu season?

Every year, it seems, influenza throws a new curve ball making predictions tricky.

Flu rates in the northern hemisphere largely peaked in December 2022, two months earlier than usual.

But there has been some late-season influenza B activity in the northern hemisphere this year. This is one type of influenza that causes seasonal flu. So travellers arriving/returning from the northern hemisphere have been bringing influenza to Australia for several months.

So we expect more cases of influenza. Australia may even have an autumn surge. This occurred last year, where influenza cases rose sharply in May, and peaked by June. That’s two months earlier than the five-year average pre-COVID.

Before COVID, influenza cases usually began to rise in April/May. This progressed to a full epidemic from June to August, often extending into September, before waning in October.

Read more:
Flu, COVID and flurona: what we can and can’t expect this winter

So what can we expect in 2023?

The start, length and severity of influenza seasons vary and are often unpredictable.

Community immunity will be less than in pre-COVID times. That’s because of fewer influenza infections during COVID restrictions plus lower influenza vaccine uptake in recent years.

So the 2023 flu season may be at least moderately severe. This remains speculation. Flu routinely surprises us.

The severity of the coming Australian influenza season will be influenced by the types of influenza that circulate, when the surge starts and when the season peaks. The effectiveness, uptake and timing of vaccinations and the degree of remaining herd immunity will all be important.

Read more:
3 mRNA vaccines researchers are working on (that aren’t COVID)

Plan to get vaccinated

Only about 40% of those eligible were vaccinated against influenza in 2022, according to the Australian Immunisation Register database. Rates were highest in people aged 65 or older.

However, as we saw an early influenza season in 2022 (peaking in May/June) this meant many Australians were not vaccinated during the early stages of the epidemic.

With this knowledge, it’s important to be vaccinated in April/May before influenza becomes common.

Now is a good time to start preparing to get your flu vaccine. Ask your GP or pharmacist when you can book yourself in.

Vaccination is our best defence against influenza and is recommended from the age of 6 months. Younger infants receive protection if their mum was vaccinated during pregnancy.

The 2023 vaccine has been updated to protect against more recently circulating strains. There are also different types of influenza vaccine, some more effective in elderly people, some free under the National Immunisation Program, some not. Other vaccines are available for people with egg allergies and for small children. It’s best to discuss the vaccine options with your GP or pharmacist.

Robert Booy receives funding from and consults to various vaccine companies in Australia. He has been funded by the ARC, NHMRC and industry to do research on influenza. He is a long-standing director of the Immunisation Coalition.

Ian Barr owns shares in an influenza vaccine producing company, and his centre receives funding from commercial groups for ongoing activities.

– ref. Are flu cases already 100 times higher than last year? Here’s what we really know about the 2023 flu season – https://theconversation.com/are-flu-cases-already-100-times-higher-than-last-year-heres-what-we-really-know-about-the-2023-flu-season-201559

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan W. Marshall, Associate Professor & Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University

For the culturally curious, February and March in Perth can be a rich maelstrom, with Perth Fringe and Perth Festival. We have apparently the world’s “third largest” fringe festival (after Edinburgh and Adelaide), but I’m not sure why this is good.

Whatever the case, audiences must plan and be focused in navigating such a cornucopia of competing works in two simultaneous festivals.

My Perth Festival was complicated by a jaunt to Adelaide (in the middle of that city’s festival and fringe) but I was delighted to be able to follow links between works, including afrofuturism, post-classical music and arts offering haunting examples of post-humanism: that which exceeds, replaces or accompanies the human.

Deep listening

Artistic director Iain Grandage’s previous Perth Festivals tended towards light musical programming, both in quantity and emphasis on accessibility – consider the festival obtaining the world record for biggest air guitar ensemble in 2020.

This year, however, had many post-classical music highlights which demanded deep listening.

Anthony Pateras’ compositions for prepared piano, amplified vocals, clarinet, contrabass and flute with A Dread of Voids was an uncompromising night of rich sonic assaults and drone, often with cyclic developmental structures.

Pateras’ masterful performance, on pianos with strings rendered percussive through the addition of bolts, screws, paper and other materials, was followed by Cédric Tiberghien’s performance of John Cage’s suite for prepared piano.

Matthias Schack-Arnott crafted a sounding mobile that rotated over Tiberghien. Spun by fans and motors, it gave the performance an air of the inhuman. Tambours and slates were struck above Tiberghien, adding density and counterpoint.

Schack-Arnott also performed in his Everywhen, intimately offered in the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.

Schack-Arnott circled within a lighter, jewel-like mobile, sometimes dragging along the ground ringing metal tubes, bells, seed-pods and more.

Schack-Arnott animated or removed items, before crouching ritualistically to play stones and other items, again accompanied by mechanically driven devices above.

The music program closed with Gradient from composer/photographer Olivia Davies, performed by Callum G’Froerer on double-bell trumpet. They offered a sort of aggressive chillout room, where G’Froerer’s looped, breathy, clattery and sometimes rhythmic sounds were accompanied by abstract distortions of images taken at the dilapidated Liberty Theatre.

Deconstructing cinema and theatre

Grandage has put First Nations art at the heart of his festivals, together with dance and theatre.

Stephanie Lake’s dance and drumming Manifesto toured from the east. Sadly, it was too wide for Heath Ledger Theatre, with some spectators unable to see the drummers in the wings.

Read more:
‘Innovative and thrilling’: Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto is a joy

I missed Australian Dance Theatre’s The Tracker and Maatakitj (Clint Bracknell) performing with Kronos Quartet.

Local versions of what Bracknell calls “Noongar-futurism” – inspired by afrofuturism and drawing on electronic dance culture – featured in 2023, with the outdoor opening event of Djoondal offering a fleet of synchronised drones evoking celestial Dreamings.

Choreographer/director Laura Boynes’ Equations of a Falling Body offered a beautiful disorder of objects, bodies and things piled and moved about stage in what has become something of a WA tradition, following Emma Fiswick’s 2021 Festival production of Slow Burn, Together.

Aside from Equations of a Falling Body, this year’s theatre and dance highlights were tours of works from the eastern states.

Cyrano, from the Melbourne Theatre Company in association with Black Swan, was an enormously fun vehicle for writer/performer Virginia Gay. The other characters were thespians, so the performance was a cross between Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and romantic melodrama, a celebratory post-COVID work, if perhaps ultimately forgettable.

The mobile screens above the stage for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, from Sydney Theatre Company, produced not so much director Kip Williams’ professed “cine-theatre”, as a deconstructing of the inhuman cinematic machine itself.

This suited Williams’ exploration of distorting mirrors and mediated character doubles, which was so polished as to be all but seamless. In this production, however, Williams lacks any improvisatory fun and sense of exploration in his use of screens. I preferred the take on screen-enhanced theatre from local company The Last Great Hunt, whose exceptional Lé Nør [the rain] in the 2019 festival pointed to the inconsistency between screen image and ludicrous on-stage setups, celebrating cine-theatrical playfulness.

Read more:
A production to satisfy Sydney’s darkest imaginings: Sydney Theatre Company’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

A transcultural museological performance

Black Futurist music was another feature of the 2023 festival.

Franco-Cameroonian Bikutsi 3000 presented an afrofuturist musing on African resistance to Western culture through dance-as-peaceful-combat.

With an African-European cast led by Blick Bassy, Bikutsi 3000 featured selections from the musée du quai Branly’s film archives, framed as a faux lecture combined with projected displays of fantastist African couture.

Voiceover text was paired with monumental living portraits of fictional matriarchs representing Cameroon, Namibia, Togo, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

Accompanied by throbbing house and hip hop, it was punctuated by forceful Afro-fusion dance, mostly performed singly or in pairs, which combined regional forms of voguing, shade, hip hop, krumping and dancehall, alongside Indigenous African dance.

Forceful energies rolled across the dancers’ chests while their limbs dropped and weaved. Legs and arms pumped or flew and circled. Bodies close to the ground flowed like liquid or shook vigorously.

Choreographer/dancers Nadeeya Gabrieli Kalati, Audrey Carlita, Martine Mbock and Mwendwa Marchand were exceptional, while Bassy’s inventive combination of blaring digital tones and bullhorns with African drumming and vocals recalled the best of South Africa’s electronic dance music scene.

As a transcultural museological performance, Bikutsi 3000 was nearly unique. Presented at the Studio Underground in the State Theatre Centre, it is unfortunate it wasn’t hosted at a museum. Presenting Bikutsi 3000 in the quai Branly was an implicit rebuke to the Anglo-European institutions still in charge of colonial heritage.

The Romantic sublime

The festival showstopper was Björk’s Cornucopia. Björk’s recordings are complex, multi-tracked works, and, like Bikutsi 3000, her stadium performance supplemented prerecorded material.

This produced hiccups, as when the on-stage use of bailers in a water tank to make music was inaudible and out of synchronisation.

On the night I saw the performance, Björk was dressed in an unglamorous blue satin blob, which suited her retiring performance persona.

Without a charismatic megastar around which to anchor, Cornucopia became an agglutinated, operatic audiovisual spectacle. It was Björk’s flute septet Viibra who bopped away, not Björk.

But when it gelled, it was magic, as when Björk sat inside a giant “circle flute” played by four women, the singer’s angst-ridden vocals soaring.

Björk describes the show as representing a futuristic human/nature utopia, but it’s a utopia that has little space for humans. Projections for Body Memory showed twisting headless bodies with spines and ridges deforming them, while Cthulhu-like figures ascended as flayed skins.

In Björk’s fantasy, something descended from us will survive, but it won’t be any more human than Schack-Arnott’s mobiles.

Unlike the Black Futurist music theatre of the festival which offers an exuberant critical socio-cultural alternative way of viewing the past and the present, Björk’s alt-classicism and Jekyll echo older European models of the Romantic sublime: something appealing or beautiful because it will soon destroy us.

Read more:
Sexual exhibitionism, Riot Grrrl and climate change activism: 30 years of raging by Peaches, Bikini Kill and Björk, still going strong

Jonathan W. Marshall 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. Björk was the big-ticket name – but Perth Festival’s heart was found in Bikutsi 3000’s afrofuturist musing on African resistance – https://theconversation.com/bjork-was-the-big-ticket-name-but-perth-festivals-heart-was-found-in-bikutsi-3000s-afrofuturist-musing-on-african-resistance-202029

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Mortlock, Senior Analyst at Aon Reinsurance Solutions and Adjunct Fellow, UNSW Sydney

On February 4, a storm off the north-west coast of Australia was named Cyclone Freddy. It rapidly strengthened and headed west across the Indian Ocean, eventually causing devastation in eastern Africa. Hundreds of people died, tens of thousands more were displaced, national energy grids were crippled, flash flooding was widespread and socioeconomic impacts have been severe.

At its peak on February 21, Freddy had wind gusts of up to 270 km/h, making it a category 5 storm, the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale used to measure cyclone intensity. The following day, Freddy was upgraded further to a “very intense tropical cyclone”, which is science-speak for “off the chart”.

Freddy was the most energetic storm on record. It also went through the most cycles of weakening and re-intensifying, and may have been the longest-lived cyclone in history.

So was this megastorm a one-off event, or a harbinger of the global warming–fuelled cyclones of the future? And, either way, what does it tell us about preparing for what lies ahead?

A remarkable journey

Australia has experienced cyclones in the past with comparable strengths to Freddy. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 48 category-5 tropical cyclones have formed in the Australian region since 1975. That’s about one a year, although most do not cross the coast, or weaken by the time they do.

Cyclone Mahina, which hit Queensland in 1899, is widely considered Australia’s strongest recorded tropical cyclone. Further back in the palaeoclimate record, we find evidence of stronger events still.

What was truly remarkable about Freddy was its journey. Freddy was a named tropical cyclone for 39 consecutive days and travelled more than 8,000 kilometres across the entire South Indian Ocean.

It may have been the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record (this is currently being confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization). The 31-day Hurricane John set the previous record in 1994.

Freddy appears to have had an accumulated cyclone energy (the index used to measure the energy released by a tropical cyclone over its lifetime) equivalent to an average full North Atlantic hurricane season.

Was Cyclone Freddy driven by climate change?

It’s no easy task to join the dots between climate change and any given extreme weather event, such as a cyclone or heatwave.

A relatively new area of study called “climate attribution science” attempts to do it by determining how much more likely a given event was in today’s climate compared to the past climate.

The main idea in attribution science is to model extreme weather events under present-day climate conditions, and then do it again when the model is run with no human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This process is repeated many times to try to understand the likelihood of a weather event occurring with and without human-driven warming.

To date, these studies have had most success with large-scale, slow-moving extreme weather events – like the February 2019 European heatwave. The jury is still out on how well we can do this for tropical cyclones.

So we can’t yet say what role climate change may have played in making a cyclone like Freddy more likely, but the science is moving fast.

The future of cyclones: fewer, slower, stronger

Cyclone behaviour is already changing, and our climate models project it will change more in the future.

In many parts of the world, the number of cyclones making landfall is on the rise. In Australia, however, this number is decreasing – and most climate models indicate this decrease will likely continue under a warming climate. This is related to the weakening of Pacific atmospheric circulation, which is less favourable for the formation of tropical cyclones.

Read more:
Research shows tropical cyclones have decreased alongside human-caused global warming – but don’t celebrate yet

This is good news for Australia, although other changes in projected cyclone behaviour may give us less cause for optimism.

While the total number of cyclones may decrease, research indicates those that do make landfall may be stronger. Other research indicates cyclones may be moving more slowly and also roaming farther from the equator. The amount of rain any one cyclone can hold will also likely increase in a warming atmosphere.

All these changes would increase cyclone risk on the east coast of Australia. However, these projections are uncertain. The only discernible trend so far is a reduction in overall cyclone frequency.

The influence of La Nina

Australia is famously a land of droughts and flooding rains. Regardless of underlying trends, large swings in climate conditions are common from year to year.

In Australia, most cyclone (and flood) impacts occur during La Nina periods: over 60% of cyclone losses and 75% of insured flood losses.

The La Nina period that has just ended meant the waters of the tropical East Indian Ocean were warmer than usual. This extra heat may have sustained Freddy in its trans-oceanic journey.

Similarly, a marine heatwave in the Southwest Pacific contributed to the lifetime and amount of rain produced by ex-tropical cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand in February.

Building for the future

Cyclone impacts are traditionally hit-and-miss affairs in Australia. We can get a category 5 cyclone screaming through north-western WA and only a few cattle really know about it.

However, as population increases, the number of people in harm’s way also potentially increases. No matter how cyclones may change in the future, we need to ensure resilience is a core feature in building future housing stock.

In Australia, it is encouraging to see more government emphasis on reducing disaster risk (rather then just cleaning up afterwards), through frameworks such as the Disaster Ready Fund.

Elsewhere, we should throw our support behind resilience programs in the Global South like those in countries hit by Freddy, where vulnerabilities remain high.

Thomas Mortlock works for Aon Reinsurance Solutions

– ref. Cyclone Freddy was the most energetic storm on record. Is it a harbinger of things to come? – https://theconversation.com/cyclone-freddy-was-the-most-energetic-storm-on-record-is-it-a-harbinger-of-things-to-come-201771

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ainsley Hughes, Honorary Associate Lecturer in Geography, University of Newcastle

People with disabilities arguably stand to gain the most from good public transport, but are continually excluded by transport systems that still aren’t adapted to their needs as the law requires. One in six people aged 15 and over with disability have difficulty using some or all forms of public transport. One in seven are not able to use public transport at all.

Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Australia’s public transport systems were expected to be fully compliant with the 2002 Transport Standards by December 31 2022. Not only have many of our bus, train and tram systems failed to meet these targets, but the standards themselves are outdated. The standards are under review and public consultation has begun.

For buses, the standards largely focus on the vehicles themselves: low-floor buses, wheelchair ramps, priority seating, handrails and enough room to manoeuvre. But just because a vehicle is accessible doesn’t necessarily mean a bus journey is accessible.

There are difficulties getting to and from the bus, limited frequency of accessible services, poor driver training, passenger conflict, travel anxiety and a lack of planning for diversity. In all these ways, bus travel excludes people with disabilities.

Infrastructure alone cannot overcomes these issues. On-demand transport, which enables users to travel between any two points within a service zone whenever they want, offers potential solutions to some of these issues. It’s already operating in cities overseas and is being trialled in Australia.

Read more:
1 million rides and counting: on-demand services bring public transport to the suburbs

Accessible vehicles are just the start

Making vehicles accessible is really only the tip of the iceberg. Focusing only on infrastructure misses two key points:

1. our public transport journeys begin before we board the service and continue after we’ve left it

2. accessibility means providing people with quality transport experiences, not just access to resources.

Let’s imagine a typical suburban bus journey. It is industry accepted that passengers are generally willing to walk about 400 metres to a bus stop. That is based, of course, on the assumption that passengers are able-bodied. Long distances, steep hills, neglected pathways, few kerb cuts and poorly designed bus shelters all hinder individuals with disabilities from getting to the bus in the first place.

This issue resurfaced in the 2020 report People with Disability in Australia, by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. More than one in four respondents with disabilities said getting “to and from stops” was a major obstacle to using public transport.

But other barriers to making services inclusive are even more difficult to see. People with disabilities are forced to plan extensively when to travel, how to travel, who to travel with and what resources they need to complete the journey. Even the best-laid plans involve added emotional energy or “travel anxiety”.

Read more:
Don’t forget buses: six rules for improving city bus services

What solutions are there?

On-demand transport offers potential solutions to some of these issues. Its key feature is flexibility: users can travel between any two points within a service zone, whenever they want.

This flexibility can be harnessed to design more inclusive bus services. Without a fixed route or timetable, on-demand services can pick up passengers at their home and drop them directly at their destination. This door-to-door service eliminates the stressful journey to and from a bus stop and their destinations.

And with services available on demand, users can plan their travel to complement their daily activities instead of the availability of transport dictating their daily activities.

The technology behind on-demand transport also helps reduce the need for customers to consistently restate their mobility needs. Once a customer creates a profile, extra boarding and alighting time is automatically applied to all future bookings. This eliminates the exhaustive process of added planning, and enables drivers to deliver a better experience for all of their passengers.

Read more:
Electric on-demand public transport is making a difference in Auckland – now it needs to roll out further

Examples of on-demand services

Cities around the globe are already using on-demand services to overcome transport disadvantage for people with disabilities.

BCGo is one such service in Calhoun County, Michigan. A recent yet-to-be-published survey of BCGo users shows 51% of respondents face mobility challenges that affect their ability to travel.

Some 30% have “conditions which make it difficult to walk more than 200 feet” (61m). That means the industry’s assumed walkable distance (400m) is 6.5 times the distance that’s realistically possible for many users of the service.

Ring & Ride West Midlands is the UK’s largest on-demand project. It operates across seven zones with over 80 vehicles.

The service, recently digitised using Liftango’s technology, is designed to provide low-cost, accessible transport. It can be used for commuting, visiting friends, shopping and leisure activities.

Ring & Ride serves as an example of how on-demand service can provide sustainable and equitable transport at scale. It’s completing over 12,000 trips per month.

Read more:
What public transit can learn from Uber and Lyft

A call to action for Australian governments

Government policy needs to address not only inadequate bus infrastructure, but those invisible barriers that continue to exclude many people from bus travel. We need a cognitive shift to recognise accessibility is about creating quality experiences from door to destination for everyone.

This needs to be paired with a willingness to explore solutions like on-demand transport. Transport authorities worldwide are already embracing these solutions. We cannot continue to rely on the community transport sector to absorb the responsibility of providing transport for people with disabilities, particularly as our populations age.

Now is the time to have your say. The Transport Standards are open for public consultation until June 2023.

Read more:
Eight simple changes to our neighbourhoods can help us age well

Ainsley Hughes is an Honorary Associate Lecturer in the Discipline of Geography at the University of Newcastle. She also works as a New Mobilities Specialist for Liftango.

– ref. How on-demand buses can transform travel and daily life for people with disabilities – https://theconversation.com/how-on-demand-buses-can-transform-travel-and-daily-life-for-people-with-disabilities-199988

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen King, Professor, Monash University

Australia is a living testament to the benefits of productivity growth.

An average worker today puts in 14 fewer hours per week and takes home a real wage six times that of the average worker in 1901 – all because we are producing more per hour worked.

And yet in the past decade that rate of improvement has slowed.

Over the 60 years to 2019-20, labour productivity (production per hour worked) grew at an average of 1.8% per year, which sounds small but compounds each year.

In the most recent of those decades, the decade to 2020, growth fell to just 1.1% – a drop of one-third.

If it remains that low we will be much worse off in decades to come than we would be if we could get back to the kind of growth we had.

That’s one of the reasons I was excited to work on the Productivity Commission’s second five-yearly productivity report, released today by Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

Victims of our own success

In some ways, Australia has been a victim of its success. It has a robust and highly productive economy, especially in mining and agriculture where it is among the world’s leaders.

But, as productivity growth in mining and agriculture has made us wealthier, we have demanded more services, such as holidays, housecleaning, childcare and after-school care, gyms and home-delivered food.

Now employing 90% of our workers and accounting for 80% of our economy, services are harder to make more productive, and as our population ages they are likely to account for an even greater share of what we do.

In government-funded non-market services such as health, education and public administration, measured labour productivity growth has been close to zero since the turn of the century.

If we want to continue to improve our standard of living, we are going to have to tackle productivity in services as well as in goods, including in human services that are usually provided off market by the government.

How to improve

Our report tackles the problem over nine volumes and 964 pages, coming up with 29 “reform directives” and 71 specific recommendations.

It focuses on five key themes:

• building a skilled and adaptable workforce

• harnessing data and digital technology and diffusing new ideas

• creating a more dynamic economy

• lifting productivity in the non-market sector

• securing net zero carbon emissions at least cost

I’ll give you a taste of our recommendations across three of these themes.

The uptake of telehealth and video conferencing during the pandemic shows how technology can improve productivity and increase access to services. We will need to better leverage these digital technologies, particularly in non-market services such as education and public administration.

Digital services need a strong and ubiquitous internet, covering all of the population, including the population in regional Australia. But Infrastructure Australia has found 23 of the 48 regions in Australia have broadband and mobile connectivity gaps.

In health, better connections can save lives. We need to fill the gaps using the mix of technology that will best allow all Australians to benefit from the digital connectivity revolution.

Data is also crucial. We need better linking of data to improve government-funded services and better rules around cybersecurity to protect that data.

Focus on outcomes rather than inputs

Too often, government funding rules for health, education, public housing and other services focus on inputs (the funding delivered) rather than outcomes (the service delivered).

These rules limit innovations in service delivery that would boost productivity and benefit consumers. The rules need to be more flexible to allow increased innovation, working out what works and spreading best practice to all providers, while ensuring consumer safety.

A more productive economy will increasingly need a more adaptable and better-trained workforce. Most of the new jobs created in the next five years will require tertiary qualifications, particularly university qualifications.

To meet this demand we will need to both better “educate our own” and target our migration system to fill skills gaps.

A road map for reform

This is the Productivity Commission’s second five-yearly productivity report.

The first made explicit that productivity was not about extracting more sweat from the brow of an already hard-working Australian, but was instead about

• promoting better investment in workplaces

• supporting the research and trialling of new ideas

• removing outmoded regulations that prevent consumers and businesses obtaining better services

This report builds on the first to provide a road map, focusing first on the high-impact low-cost reforms. Some are quick and others will take time and planning.

All will face opposition. Vested interests benefit by exploiting economic inefficiencies for their own gain. Without reform, we will all be poorer.

Read more:
Memo Productivity Commission: fixing inequality will boost productivity

Stephen King is a Commissioner with the Productivity Commission

– ref. I helped write the Productivity Commission’s 5-year productivity review: here’s what I think Australia should do – https://theconversation.com/i-helped-write-the-productivity-commissions-5-year-productivity-review-heres-what-i-think-australia-should-do-201378

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

The extraordinary footage of a Russian jet intercepting a US drone over the Black Sea earlier this week demonstrates just how potentially disastrous such encounters outside actual war zones can be.

Released by the Pentagon, the drone’s own video captures the Russian aircraft apparently spraying the drone with fuel, then deliberately colliding with it. The incident matches similar aggressive displays by the Russian air force in the region, the Pentagon claimed.

But beyond such acts of brinkmanship connected to the war in Ukraine, the Black Sea confrontation highlights just how easily these military interactions might lead to war breaking out “accidentally”.

We are seeing these close encounters of the military, naval and aviation kind increasingly often, too. In 2021, it was reported Russian aircraft and two coastguard ships shadowed a British warship near Crimea.

And last year, Australia’s defence ministry said a Chinese fighter jet harassed one of its military aircraft in international airspace over the South China Sea. The risk of these dangerous “games” triggering something more serious is clear – but there are few rules or regulations preventing it.

Reckless behaviour

All militaries must comply with basic international law on questions of safety, but there are large exemptions and separate arrangements that fill the gaps.

Historically, the US and Soviet Union led the way in creating some rules to control incidents on and over the high seas during the Cold War. The basic rule was that both sides should avoid risky manoeuvres and “remain well clear to avoid risk of collision”.

To reduce the risk of collisions, craft in close proximity should be able to communicate and, where possible, be visible. They should not simulate attacks on each other.

Read more:
Ukraine recap: fears of escalation after US drone downed over the Black Sea

Later, Russia copied this agreement with 11 NATO countries, and an Indo-Pacific version – the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea – was added in 2014. While primarily between the US and China, at least half a dozen other countries have promised to abide by it.

Supplementary rules for air-to-air military encounters followed. These usefully added that “military aircrew should refrain from the use of uncivil language or unfriendly physical gestures”. Other rules emphasised professional conduct, safe speeds and avoiding reckless behaviour, “aerobatics and simulated attacks” or the “discharge of rockets, weapons, or other objects”.

The US and Russia added a more specific agreement for Air Safety in Syria during the time they were operating in very close proximity, and when close calls in the air were reported.

But these are all “soft” rules. They’re not treaty obligations with compliance mechanisms, and are only voluntarily adopted by some countries.

Furthermore, there are no precise definitions of “safe” speeds or distances. New technologies – such as drones and other interception techniques – add another level of unregulated complexity.

Read more:
Downing of US drone in Russian jet encounter prompts counterclaims of violations in the sky – an international law expert explores the arguments

Missile tests

Few things are as frightening as missiles travelling towards or over another country without consent or warning. The original Soviet-era rule involved mutual notification of planned missile launches. But this only ever applied to intercontinental or submarine-launched missiles, not short-range weapons or missile defence systems.

Aside from some voluntary UN codes, the only other binding missile notification agreement is between Russia and China. China and the US do not directly share launch notification information, nor do the other nuclear powers.

Some, like North Korea and Iran, even violate the missile prohibitions directly placed on them by the UN Security Council.

War games and hotlines

Militaries need to practise. But this becomes risky when pretend can look very like an actual attack – especially when fear and paranoia are added to the mix.

North Korea is a modern example of this, but there have been incidents in the past of large-scale wargames almost sparking a nuclear exchange. In 1983, for example, misinterpreted military intelligence led to the US going to DEFCON 1 – the highest of the nuclear threat categories – during a tense period of the Cold War.

There were agreements about the notification of major strategic exercises between the US and Soviet Union, but beyond advance warning, even these failed to set out what best practice actually looks like (such as allowing observers or not allowing an exercise to look identical to a full-blown attack).

Read more:
Ukraine: this new cold war must end before the world faces Armageddon

More importantly, there is no international law governing such questions – perhaps most critically, how leaders should be able to communicate directly, quickly and continuously.

A “hotline” was first agreed in 1963 after the Cuban Missile Crisis. While a direct link doesn’t guarantee the phone will necessarily be answered or the subsequent conversation sincere, it does at least offer a channel to avoid confusion and de-escalate quickly.

A second-tier hotline allowing commanders on the ground to communicate directly is also useful, such as the one now linking Russian and American militaries to avoid an accidental clash over Ukraine.

But such dual systems are the exception, not the rule. Nor are hotlines particularly stable – the one between North and South Korea, for example, has been cut and restored numerous times. And they are not mandated by international law – emblematic of a wider situation where the risks of getting it wrong are very real indeed.

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

– ref. The Black Sea drone incident highlights the loose rules around avoiding ‘accidental’ war – https://theconversation.com/the-black-sea-drone-incident-highlights-the-loose-rules-around-avoiding-accidental-war-202030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie Ritson, Research Strategy Project Officer, The University of Melbourne

In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration produced the first-ever image of a black hole, stunning the world.

Now, scientists are taking it further. The next generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) collaboration aims to create high-quality videos of black holes.

But this next-generation collaboration is groundbreaking in other ways, too. It’s the first large physics collaboration bringing together perspectives from natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities.

A virtual telescope spanning the planet

The larger a telescope, the better it is at seeing things that look tiny from far away. To produce black hole images, we need a telescope almost the size of Earth itself. That’s why the EHT uses many telescopes and telescope arrays scattered across the globe to form a single, virtual Earth-sized telescope. This is known as very long baseline interferometry.

Harvard astrophysicist Shep Doeleman, the founding director of the EHT, has likened this kind of astronomy to using a broken mirror.
Imagine shattering a mirror and scattering the pieces across the world. Then you record the light caught by each of these pieces while keeping track of the timing, and collect those data in a supercomputer to virtually reconstruct an Earth-sized detector.

The 2019 first-ever image of a black hole was made by borrowing existing telescopes at six sites. Now, new telescopes at new sites are being built to better fill in the gaps of the broken mirror. The collaboration is currently in the process of selecting optimal places across the world, to increase the number of sites to approximately 20.

This ambitious endeavour needs over 300 experts organised into three technical working groups and eight science working groups. The history, philosophy and culture working group has just published a landmark report outlining how humanities and social science scholars can work with astrophysicists and engineers from the first stages of a project.

The report has four focus areas: collaborative knowledge formation, philosophical foundations, algorithms and visualisation, and responsible telescope siting.

How can we all collaborate?

If you’ve ever tried to write a paper (or anything!) with someone else, you know how difficult it can be. Now imagine trying to write a scientific paper with over 300 people.

Should one expect each author to believe and be willing to defend every part of the paper and its conclusions? How should we all determine what will be included? If everyone has to agree with what is included, will this result in only publishing conservative, watered-down results? And how do you allow for individual creativity and boundary-pushing science (especially when you are attempting to be the first to capture something)?

To resolve such questions, it’s important to balance collaborative approaches and structure everyone’s involvement in a way that promotes consensus, but also allows people to express dissent. Diversity of beliefs and practices among collaboration members can be beneficial to science.

How do we visualise the data?

The aesthetic choices regarding the final black hole images and videos take place in a broader context of visual culture.

In reality, blue flames are hotter than flames appearing orange or yellow. But in the above false-colour image of Sagittarius A* – the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way – the colour palette of orange-red hues was chosen as it was believed orange would communicate to wider audiences just how hot the glowing material around the black hole is.

This approach connects to historical practices of technology-assisted scientific images, such as those by Galileo, Robert Hooke, and Johannes Hevelius. These scientists combined their early telescopic and microscopic images with artistic techniques so they would be legible to non-specialist audiences (particularly those who did not have access to the relevant instruments).

How philosophy can help

Videos of black holes would be of significant interest to theoretical physicists. However, there is a bridge between formal mathematical theory and the messy world of experiment where idealised assumptions often do not hold up.

Philosophers can help to bridge this gap with considerations of epistemic risk – such as the risk of missing the truth, or making an error. Philosophy also helps to investigate the underlying assumptions physicists might have about a phenomenon.

For example, one approach to describing black holes is called the “no-hair theorem”. It’s the idea that an isolated black hole can be simplified down to just a few properties, and there’s nothing complex (hairy) about it. But the no-hair theorem applies to stable black holes. It relies on an assumption that black holes eventually settle down to a stationary state.

Read more:
What would happen if Earth fell into a black hole?

Responsible telescope siting

The choice of locations for telescopes, or telescope siting, has historically been determined by technical and economic considerations – including weather, atmospheric clarity, accessibility and costs. There has been a historic lack of consideration for local communities, including First Nations peoples.

As the struggle at Mauna Kea in Hawai’i highlights, scientific collaborations are obligated to address ethical, social and environmental considerations when siting.

The ngEHT aims to advance responsible siting practices. It draws together experts in philosophy, history, sociology, community advocacy, science, and engineering to contribute to the decision-making process in ways that include cultural, social and environmental factors when choosing a new telescope location.

Overall, this collaboration is an exciting example of how ambitious plans demand innovative approaches – and how sciences are evolving in the 21st century.

Sophie Ritson is a member of the History, Philosophy, and Culture working group in the ngEHT collaboration and one of the authors of the report described in this article.

Niels Martens is a member of the History, Philosophy, and Culture working group in the ngEHT collaboration and one of the authors of the report described in this article. He receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, via a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant (no. 101065772).

– ref. A unique collaboration using a virtual Earth-sized telescope shows how science is changing in the 21st century – https://theconversation.com/a-unique-collaboration-using-a-virtual-earth-sized-telescope-shows-how-science-is-changing-in-the-21st-century-201556

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristin Naragon-Gainey, Associate Professor, School of Psychological Science, and Director, Emotional Wellbeing Lab, The University of Western Australia

Financial stress is affecting us in many different ways. Some people are struggling to pay bills, feed the family, or maintain a place to live. Others are meeting their basic needs but are dipping into their savings for extras.

Financial stress is increasing and, understandably, is causing some distress. In recent months, Lifeline has seen a rise in the number of calls about financial difficulties.

But understanding and finding ways to reduce our financial stress – and its emotional impact on us – can help make this challenging time a bit easier.

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What’s taking the biggest toll on our mental health? Disconnection, financial stress and long waits for care

What is financial stress?

If you’re finding it difficult to meet your current expenses or are worried about your current or future finances, you’re under financial stress. Like other types of stress, financial stress has two components:

• objective financial difficulty, where you don’t have enough funds to cover necessary expenses or debts

• subjective perceptions about your current or future finances, leading to worry and distress.

These two are related. But someone can have trouble meeting their expenses, view this as acceptable, and not be overly worried. Alternatively, someone may be reasonably financially secure but still feel quite stressed about their finances.

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Why are we feeling it?

There is a broad range of factors that can influence your current level of financial stress. These include contextual and personal ones.

Contextual factors are societal-level influences on the current financial landscape. These include rates of economic growth, market performance, governmental and political policy, and distribution of wealth. These factors may vary across cultures and countries.

Personal factors contributing to stress are unique to each person. For example, demographic characteristics such as age, gender, education and ethnic group may influence someone’s access to financial resources.

Other personal factors that can affect financial stress are financial literacy and practices, personality traits that influence behaviour and perceptions, and major life events with financial implications (such as marriage, having a child, or retiring).

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Centrelink debt debacle is bad policy for mental health

The health impacts can be severe

High levels of financial stress can impact people’s wellbeing, raising levels of psychological distress, anxiety and depression.

A review found clear evidence for a link between financial stress and depression, and that the risk for depression was greatest for people on low incomes.

A large survey of adults in the United States also found that greater financial worries were associated with more psychological distress. This was especially the case for people who were unmarried, unemployed, had lower income levels and who were renters.

So people who are more vulnerable financially – in an objective sense – are also most likely to experience negative psychological effects from financial stress.

However, the perception of your financial situation matters here too. In one study of older adults, including Australians, it was not just someone’s financial situation that was linked to their wellbeing, but also how satisfied people were with their wealth.

Severe financial stressors, such as being forced to sell your home if unable to meet mortgage payments, can affect both psychological and physical health.

À lire aussi :
‘We lost the house, we lost everything’: what dealing with financial stress looks like

What can I do about it?

While we can’t change the broader financial landscape or some aspects of our financial situation, there are some simple ways to help reduce financial stress and its impacts.

1. Take small steps

Try to identify elements of your finances you can improve and act on some of them, even if they are small steps. This may include creating and following a budget, cutting some extra costs, applying for available financial assistance, getting quotes for more affordable utilities or insurance, or contemplating a career change. Even little changes can improve your financial state over time. Taking action in a difficult situation can improve wellbeing by giving you a greater sense of agency.

2. Check your take on the situation

Examine your perspective. Are you often seeing the negative aspects of your situation but ignoring the positive ones? Are you worrying a lot about very unlikely catastrophes far off in the future? It’s worth checking whether your perceptions about your financial situation are accurate and balanced.

3. Don’t be too hard on yourself

Your financial state does not reflect your value as a person, and over-identifying with your financial status can lead to further stress. Financial difficulties are the result of many factors, only some of which are under your control. Reminding yourself that your finances do not define you as a person can reduce feelings of sadness, shame or guilt.

4. Take care of yourself

It’s draining dealing with ongoing financial stress. So focus on self-care and coping strategies that have helped you with past stressors. This may mean taking some time out to relax, deep breathing or meditation, talking with others and doing some things for fun. Giving yourself permission to take this time can improve your mood, perspective and wellbeing.

5. Ask for help

If you are struggling financially or psychologically, seek help. This may take the form of financial advice or assistance to reduce financial difficulties. If you notice yourself feeling persistently down, anxious, or hopeless, reach out to friends or family and get help from a mental health professional.

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

Kristin Naragon-Gainey receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.

– ref. How financial stress can affect your mental health and 5 things that can help – https://theconversation.com/how-financial-stress-can-affect-your-mental-health-and-5-things-that-can-help-201557