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

March 17, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Jean Baker, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Monash University

Kathleen Hanna yells like she did in the 1990s, pushing the toxic male patriarchy out of the moshpit at Melbourne’s The Forum on the eve of International Women’s Day.

Hanna’s band Bikini Kill rampages through hits such as Suck My Left One, thrilling a happy, bopping crowd of parents with their teenaged children laced with a mixed gender of preppie and diehard punks, goths and curious spectators.

Across town at the Northcote Theatre the next day, Peaches comes out with a walking frame, wearing breast-shaped slippers with bright red erect nipples.

The popular sexual exhibitionist is still hoarsely rapping about abortion, and now the debate over the end of Roe vs Wade, with songs like Boys Wanna Be Her. She later wades into the beloved audience inside a large inflatable penis.

In Perth, a few days later, Björk’s echo-filled, childlike voice is as harrowing and powerful as ever.

These artists, all now aged in their 50s, are popular provocateurs, pulsating with rage. Feminism, ageism, sexism, transphobia, racism, capitalism and environmentalism are their musical agenda.

Do-it-yourself ethos

As Gen X, third-wave feminist icons, Peaches (Merrill Nisker), Bikini Kill and Björk grew up during the punk movements of the 1970s and ‘80s.

Based in Olympia in Washington State, Bikini Kill was part of the Riot Grrrl movement in the early 1990s, funnelling the do-it-yourself punk ethos into zines, songs like Rebel Girl, and confrontational live shows.

Bikini Kill encouraged women and girls to start bands as a form of “cultural resistance”, challenging masculine toxicity long before #MeToo.

During the 1990s in Canada, Nisker formed a Riot Grrrl band, Fancypants Hoodlum.

By 2000, aged 33 and recovering from cancer and a heartbreak, she renamed herself Peaches. Her solo electro-pop album The Teaches of Peaches became a feminist classic, with singles like Lovertits.

Peaches, Mona Sessions at Mona, Mona Foma 2023.
Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma

Recording music since the age of 11 in Iceland, in 1992 Björk left The Sugarcubes, the alternative rock band she co-formed in 1986.

Björk’s first solo album came out in 1993, with huge hits like Human Behaviour about the way humans act and interact.

Thirty years on, they are all still making music.

Women supporting each other

Bikini Kill are killing it during their all-ages gigs at The Forum.

The Forum’s iconic roman statues look down from the ceiling. Lead singer Hanna wears a khaki green, girly dress with pink punky tights, backed up by Kathi Wilcox on bass and Sara Landeau (from The Julie Ruin) on guitar. Drummer Vail is sick tonight, so Lauren Hammel from Victoria’s Tropical Fuck Storm is filling in.

Bikini Kill, Mona Sessions at Mona, Mona Foma 2023.
Photo Credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma

Hanna tells us she has “a gratitude journal” now, but remains Riot Grrrl-fuelled about the Trump era, rape, abortion, trans rights and Black Lives Matter.

She tells how during the 1990s audiences once spat in her face and threw things at the band on stage. These days they rarely do.

Hanna’s demeanour softens when a young female audience member gives her a carboard sign reading “Kathleen please draw my next next tattoo based on [the song] Feels Blind”.

At Peaches’ performance, the eclectic crowd is enthusiastically cheering her on.

Peaches, Mona Sessions at Mona, Mona Foma 2023.
Photo Credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma

Leaning towards us, Peaches asks what The Teaches of Peaches meant to everyone when it was released, “and what does it mean collectively together now?” The crowd cheers louder as if their favourite footy team has won the grand final.

Her encore Fuck the Pain Away, with Melbourne feminist punk singer Amy Taylor, has the floorboards of the colonial theatre thumping.

For Perth Festival, Björk is performing her sci-fi pop extravaganza Cornucopia in a purpose-built 5,000-seat stadium.

Presented only a few times globally, Cornucopia is Björk’s most elaborate performance to date. Based on her 2017 album Utopia, she has described the show as “about females supporting each other”, our connection to Earth, and a plea to act on climate change.

In Perth, we have IMAX-sized visuals and a 54-channel surround system to garner an immersive multimedia experience in an Eden of bird sounds.

Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel directs the futuristic screens of lush green plants, live organisms, expanding fungus and blooming blood red and pink-tinged flowers.

An 18-person Australian choir, Voyces, opens and closes the concerts. Björk is also joined on stage by harpist Katie Buckley and the multi-talented Manu Delago on the Aluphone percussion instrument, keyboards, other electronics and water drums.

For Body Memory, the seven female flautists of Viibra are dressed in fairy costumes, circling Björk. A hula-hoop-like circular flute descends over Björk and down to the flautists, requiring four of them to play it.

A woman plays the flute — The flautists play a circular flute surrounding Björk.
Santiago Felipe/Perth Festival

The sound is spellbinding.

Two songs, Ovule and Atopos from her new album Fossora have their live global premiere at the concerts. They pay tribute to her mother, the Icelandic environmental activist Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir, who died in 2018.

Towards the end of the concert, a video of 20-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg looms before us:

We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity. If the solutions in the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself.

Much as Hanna and Wilcox from Bikini Kill said during their All About Women talks at the Sydney Opera House, Björk is optimistic in the young people advocating for change.

Changing the script

When I heard Bikini Kill, Peaches and Bjork were performing almost in the same week, I grabbed tickets immediately. I scored a trifecta of my favourite female artists.

It had been many years since I saw them perform live. Seeing them this time was an empowering reminder that women in their 50s are still out there, oozing with vibrant creativity, worthiness and relevance.

We are about the same age: creative, rebellious youths who grew under the shadow of the boy’s club in the punk movement.

Their performances continue to challenge a male-dominated industry defined by fleeting talent, youthful beauty and voyeurism.

Their voices are stronger than ever. Their musicianship is tight, and the onstage antics are imaginative, playful, colourful and fun. Their messages are uplifting and clear, intelligent and thought provoking, now tinged with a softened version of empathetic rage about social injustice.

I have been seeing music gigs for more than 35 years, but these performances left me breathless.

Andrea Jean Baker 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. Sexual exhibitionism, Riot Grrrl and climate change activism: 30 years of raging by Peaches, Bikini Kill and Björk, still going strong – https://theconversation.com/sexual-exhibitionism-riot-grrrl-and-climate-change-activism-30-years-of-raging-by-peaches-bikini-kill-and-bjork-still-going-strong-201388

As Australia signs up for nuclear subs, NZ faces hard decisions over the AUKUS alliance

By The Conversation -

March 17, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Khoo, Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Otago

Australian PM Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden seal the AUKUS deal in San Diego, March 13. Getty Images

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating’s recent strident criticism of the A$368 billion nuclear-powered submarine deal announced under the AUKUS security pact
will have little effect on Australian policy. Canberra’s deepening level of security cooperation is underpinned by a deep political consensus.

But the clarity of Australian policy stands in stark contrast with New Zealand’s position on AUKUS, the trilateral technology-sharing agreement between Australia, the UK and US. In fact, New Zealand’s AUKUS policy can be summed up in one word – ambiguity.

The establishment of AUKUS in September 2021 was met with an equivocal endorsement by New Zealand. On the one hand, the prime minister at the time, Jacinda Ardern, was “pleased to see” the initiative, declaring she “welcome[d] the increased engagement of the UK and the US in our region”.

On the other hand, Ardern noted the country’s longstanding nuclear-free policy meant any nuclear-propelled submarines developed by our Australian ally would be prohibited from New Zealand waters.

After Tuesday’s joint AUKUS leaders’ statement in San Diego by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, it’s time to start counting the opportunity cost to New Zealand of maintaining this ambiguous policy posture.

Bets both ways

It may be surprising to hear, but Wellington’s AUKUS policy is ambiguous by design, reflecting a broader policy of “hedging”. This deliberately seeks to maximise the economic gains from trade with China, while supporting a US-constructed international order that aligns with New Zealand’s interests and values.

Unfortunately for New Zealand, the geopolitical environment that underpinned this policy has been torpedoed by the deterioration in US-China relations. It began during the Obama administration and has escalated during the Trump and Biden administrations.

The creation of AUKUS is a reflection of this broader strategic environment. And it has a direct effect on New Zealand’s security in two respects.

First, New Zealand’s leading trade partner, China, views AUKUS as contributing negatively to regional security dynamics. And Beijing cannot be expected to placidly accept this démarche.

China responded to the formation of AUKUS with the China-Solomon Islands security agreement in April 2022. What will its response be this time? It’s likely to involve some attempt to reduce Australian security, such as a Solomon Islands-style partnership with any number of states in the Pacific Islands Forum. This will have knock-on effects for New Zealand’s own security.

Regional instability

The possible scenarios are limited only by China’s capabilities and level of resolve to respond to AUKUS. As it stands, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, reacted critically to the AUKUS leaders’ statement. According to Wang:

The latest joint statement from the US, UK and Australia demonstrates that the three countries, for the sake of their own geopolitical interests, completely disregard the concerns of the international communities and are walking further and further down the path of error and danger.

To put it mildly, such criticism is misplaced. Truth be told, while there is clearly an interactive dynamic at work, AUKUS is much more an effect of a deteriorating security environment than a cause of it.

Like all countries, China has legitimate security concerns and interests. And it is clearly misleading, as many hawks in the US are doing, to paint China as an unvarnished threat to regional stability in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

But it’s equally misleading to overlook China’s role in the increased regional instability over the past decade or more, which has led to the creation of AUKUS and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) involving Australia, India, Japan and the US.

Historic turning point

Second, the latest AUKUS developments have clear implications for New Zealand’s alliance with Australia, which is at a historic turning point. The principle at play here is clear – investment signals commitment, while lack of investment signals lack of commitment.

What is New Zealand’s level of commitment to the alliance? We will soon find out. The New Zealand Ministry of Defence is conducting a major review that will release its report after the 2023 general election.

It’s a fair bet Canberra is open to a serious discussion with Wellington on investing in a retooled ANZAC alliance. This would secure both countries’ national interests, not least their maritime, cyber and regional security.

Australia has chosen to invest in AUKUS. As Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles stated at a press conference in Canberra timed to occur immediately after Albanese’s joint ceremony with Biden and Sunak:

This is an investment in our nation’s security. It is an investment in our economy. And it is an investment that we cannot afford not to make.

AUKUS is both a catalyst and a mirror reflecting a swiftly changing strategic environment. New Zealand now needs to make some considered decisions on how to respond.

Nicholas Khoo has received funding from the Asia New Zealand Foundation, the Australian National University, Columbia University, the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre, and the University of Otago.

– ref. As Australia signs up for nuclear subs, NZ faces hard decisions over the AUKUS alliance – https://theconversation.com/as-australia-signs-up-for-nuclear-subs-nz-faces-hard-decisions-over-the-aukus-alliance-201946

Iraq war, 20 years on: how the world failed Iraq and created a less peaceful, democratic and prosperous state

By The Conversation -

March 17, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Isakhan, Professor of International Politics, Deakin University

Two decades ago, Australia joined the US-led “coalition of the willing” that staged a major military intervention in Iraq.

To justify the war, leaders like US President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard argued that Iraq had developed weapons of mass destruction and was harbouring terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. Neither could be tolerated in a post-9/11 world.

However, when evidence for Iraq’s weapons program or links to terrorism failed to emerge, the coalition partners were forced to re-frame the war. The goals were threefold:

to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and bring peace to the Iraqi people
to replace the autocratic Baathist regime with a democratic government
to transform Iraq into a prosperous state governed by a free-market economy.

Twenty years on, the legacy of the war still looms large in Iraq. Despite the enormous human and financial costs, the coalition abjectly failed to achieve its central goals. Today, Iraq is not more peaceful, democratic or prosperous than it was in 2003.

The costs of war

Any reflection of the war must first address the staggering costs.

Although estimates vary, approximately 186,000 Iraqi civilians died and an untold number were injured. And more than nine million Iraqis were internally displaced or forced to flee the country.

Beyond such figures are a series of very real, but far less tangible, costs such as the damage done to much of Iraq’s rich cultural heritage or the deep emotional scars that come with two decades of war.

On the coalition side, 4,487 US military and 238 other coalition troops died during the operation.

The war effort also came at an enormous cost to US taxpayers: US$756 billion (A$1.15 trillion) in military spending from 2003-18. (The true cost, however, is likely far higher.) Over the same period, the cost of Australia’s military operations in Iraq has surpassed A$4 billion.

Goal 1: Peace at the barrel of a gun

On the purported aims of the invasion, Iraq has clearly gone backwards on many metrics.

On the first goal of bringing peace to Iraq, it is true the coalition forces toppled Hussein and his entire Baathist regime in just six short weeks. He was later captured, put on trial and finally hanged in December 2006.

However, the coalition forces failed to adequately secure the nation after his regime was toppled. This created a security vacuum that was rapidly filled by a host of different militant groups. From 2006 onward, Iraq descended into a dark and unprecedented period of horrific sectarian violence.

This worsened considerably after the US troop withdrawal at the end of 2011. By 2013, the Islamic State had begun to conquer vast swathes of territory across both Syria and Iraq, eventually capturing the city of Mosul in mid-2014.

The group went on to impose strict Sharia law in the territory it controlled and enacted mass genocidal pogroms that included the slaughter, enslavement and forced exodus of thousands of innocent civilians.

Today, Iraq remains one of the most violent places on earth. Since the expulsion of the Islamic State from Mosul in July 2017, over 10,000 civilians have been killed in across Iraq.

The irony here barely needs to be stated: there was no credible terrorist presence in Iraq before the coalition forces staged their invasion, but by mid-2014 roughly a third of the country was controlled by terrorists who remain a threat today.

Goal 2: Democracy as a pathway to authoritarianism

The second key goal of the war was to bring liberal democracy to Iraq.

It, too, has a complicated legacy. On the one hand, the Iraqi people are to be admired for having embraced democracy. Millions of Iraqis vote in the nation’s regular provincial and federal elections.

Iraq is also now home to a strong culture of dissent, as is evidenced by the frequent protests that were not permitted under the former regime.

However, one of the unfortunate consequences of the war has been that many ethno-religious political factions viewed it as an opportunity to pedal their own relatively narrow and divisive political rhetoric.

This led the political elite to tighten their stranglehold on power and frequently crack down hard on Iraqi media and civil society.

According to the annual Democracy Index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Iraq has been consistently ranked as among the worst political regimes in the world. And the situation is actually getting worse. By 2022, Iraq had been downgraded to an “authoritarian regime” and was ranked 124th out of 167 countries in the democracy rankings.

So, while Iraq holds regular elections and allows mass protests, it fails to meet the minimum criteria by which we would normally measure a democracy. This speaks volumes about the merits of imposing a top-down model of democracy by force.

Goal 3: Prosperity at any cost

Third, the goal of turning Iraq into a beacon of prosperity driven by a free-market economy has only benefited a handful of corrupt elites.

On the one hand, Iraq’s real GDP (based on purchasing power parity) has skyrocketed in recent years on the back of its oil wealth, reaching an estimated US$390 billion (A$583 billion) in 2021. This is the 50th largest economy in the world.

Yet, this cash flow is not filtering down to the Iraqi people. In 2022, Iraq ranked 157th (out of 180 countries) on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Index.

Also in 2022, the Sustainable Development Report ranked Iraq as 115th (out of 163 countries) on progress towards achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals. It was the worst-performing middle-income country in the world.

In other words, while corrupt Iraqi political elites and major Western oil companies extract billions of dollars in revenues from Iraq’s rich natural resources, millions of Iraqis continue to live in destitution in a country with crumbling and insufficient infrastructure.

Iraq may well be a free-market economy, but what use is that if ordinary Iraqis have sporadic electricity, limited potable water, few working sewage systems and inadequate health care and education?

Australia’s obligations 20 years on

All of this raises deep questions about the political responsibilities and moral obligations of the United States and its key coalition partners such as Australia.

While various Australian organisations run a handful of important programs across Iraq – especially in agriculture, human rights and mine-clearing – these fall well short of meeting the needs of the Iraqi people.

Australia could do much more. Politicians and policy-makers, for instance, could use the 20-year anniversary of the Iraq war to launch a renewed effort on three pragmatic and achievable fronts: education, security and democracy building.

Iraq’s education sector has been crippled by the legacy of war, autocratic leadership and international sanctions. This has left the schools and universities decades behind international standards.

The Australian government could do much more to train Iraqi teachers, fund schools and streamline the process of knowledge-sharing and exchanges between the Iraqi and Australian education sectors.

In terms of security, the Australian government and military must continue to work closely with Iraq’s security forces on training programs. This is needed to prevent
Iraq from returning to the grim days of sectarian violence or, worse still, the emergence of a new terrorist threat.

Finally, Australia should stick to its stated goal of supporting universal human rights and fostering democratic participation in the region.

By setting up capacity-building initiatives for Iraq’s media, unions and civil society movements, Australia could greatly enhance Iraq’s fledgling democracy and ensure it does not slip further into authoritarianism.

In fact, Australia is in a unique position to achieve these three goals. Its role as part of the “coalition of the willing” was generally perceived as being less heavy-handed than the US or UK.

This is a moment of consequence. Making good on our commitment to the initial goals of the war will influence how Australia is perceived in Iraq, the Middle East and across the world. And we owe the Iraqi people that much at least.

Benjamin Isakhan has received research funding from the Australian Department of Defence and the Australian Research Council. The views expressed in this article do not reflect those of Defence or Government policy.

– ref. Iraq war, 20 years on: how the world failed Iraq and created a less peaceful, democratic and prosperous state – https://theconversation.com/iraq-war-20-years-on-how-the-world-failed-iraq-and-created-a-less-peaceful-democratic-and-prosperous-state-200075

Grattan on Friday: History will judge Keating’s assessments of AUKUS and China, but his performance went over the top

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

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

As the old adage goes, time will tell whether Paul Keating’s scepticism about AUKUS and his extremely benign view of China’s intentions turn out to be justified.

That judgment could be many years away.

History’s reading can be very different from contemporary assessments. Looking back, we know the American (and Australian) commitment to the Vietnam war was futile. The years of combat in Afghanistan achieved nothing (as distinct from the initial invasion, which was a necessary response after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States). The Iraq war was counter-productive.

From the opposite vantage point, those in the 1930s who thought Hitler could be appeased were wrong.

Keating’s claims that the AUKUS plan for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines is a bad and dangerous deal and that China is not the threat the government and many others believe it to be, are opinions shared by a number of critics.

Despite the bipartisanship over both the China threat and AUKUS, the views of experts are divided.

But Keating in his Wednesday National Press Club appearance undercut his own case by taking his argument too far.

Even those who are doves on China would struggle to accept his condition of a China threat to be an invasion of our continent by troops brought by an armada of ships. China isn’t a threat to us because it could not invade, he insisted. The ships would be sunk along the way.

That sounded distinctly old-fashioned, on almost any criteria of modern warfare.

As for China’s intentions, no one can be sure of what they will be. Just as they have changed in the last decade, as China has become more assertive and aggressive, so they may evolve in future, according to that country’s domestic developments and the external environment it faces.

As things stand, the strategic outlook in the region has become distinctly more dangerous with China’s growing power and ambition, which is driving the present response in terms of upgrading defence capability.

On the submarine deal, we are also looking into a crystal ball when we are talking about three decades.

Australia has had repeated missteps over the last decade in trying to get together a successful submarine program. It will be a miracle if this one goes smoothly. And that’s apart from the matter of changing governments in the three countries and whatever develops in the international strategic situation.

Nothing can be foreseen with the degree of precision that the plan outlined this week might suggest. Governments can only operate on what seem reasonable calculations at the time.

Keating not only attacked the AUKUS agreement (as he did when it was announced in 2021) but personalised his assault by targeting Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles (although Marles was credited with being “well-intentioned”).

He painted Albanese as someone who hadn’t previously shown any “deep or long-term interest in foreign affairs” but then “fell in with” Wong and Marles to lead this “great misadventure”.

Keating has long been critical of Wong privately. Wednesday’s comments about her had a particularly sharp edge.

He declared that “running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy”.

Well, it actually is, at least up to a point. The Albanese government has worked hard on improving Australia’s standing among small Pacific countries, helped by its climate policy and a great deal of travel by Wong.

That’s not to say Australian influence will prevail in the long run, given China’s intense courtship of these countries. It’s another of those longer-term imponderables.

The government is keeping its reaction to the Keating missiles as low-key as practicable. It’s holding the line on the issues of substance about AUKUS and strategy, and defending Wong; it is casting Keating as being in the past, while trying to avoid hitting back at him in personal terms.

Albanese said on Thursday: “He’s entitled to put his views, he’s put them. They’re not views I agree with in this case. But Paul Keating was a great treasurer, a great prime minister, he has my respect, and I have no intention of engaging in a public argument with Paul Keating.

“The Labor Party, we praise our heroes for the contribution that they’ve made. But my responsibility in 2023 is to give Australia the leadership that they need now, not what they might have needed in the 1990s.”

With AUKUS having Coalition support, the extent to which the opposition can exploit the Keating attack is limited. Instead, it is saying what senior ministers can’t. Peter Dutton called them “unhinged comments” and said the government should rebuke the former PM.

Keating is obviously hoping he’ll motivate the Labor base – he said he expected branch members to react against the government’s policy. The government, which so far had not had a revolt in the ranks over AUKUS, will hope it can deny enough oxygen to the story that it blows over relatively quickly.

It wasn’t only Albanese and his ministers who received a serve from Keating. His attacks on journalists, including questioners at the National Press Club event, were bitter.

Generally, I take the view that we in the media dish out a lot of criticism and so, when we’re on the receiving end, we should suck it up.

But there is a line (or should be) between what is acceptable and unacceptable, for both journalists and public figures. Keating was on the wrong side of that line.

It should not be acceptable to call an author of a recent series of anti-China articles in the Nine newspapers a “psychopath”. Or to tell the co-author, who asked Keating a question, “You should hang your head in shame […] you ought to do the right thing and drum yourself out of Australian journalism.” The insults just took attention off his condemnation of the substance of the “Red Alert” articles.

Even worse was his putdown of a young journalist who asked a reasonable question that suggested Keating might be out of date on the China issue because he hadn’t been briefed since the mid-1990s.

“I know you’re trying to ask a question, but the question is so dumb, it’s hardly worth an answer,” Keating replied, before suggesting the reporter was trying to ingratiate herself with her employer.

Keating has always had a rough tongue. One reason he was against the televising of parliament decades ago was he knew invective, effective when he deployed it against opponents in the theatre of the House of Representatives, came across badly when viewed in the suburban lounge room.

Just as some of those gratuitous insults looked ugly to many viewers of Wednesday’s performance.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: History will judge Keating’s assessments of AUKUS and China, but his performance went over the top – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-history-will-judge-keatings-assessments-of-aukus-and-china-but-his-performance-went-over-the-top-201949

Former treasury head Ken Henry says we need ‘big bang’ tax reform rather than incremental change

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

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

Former treasury secretary Ken Henry has declared the Australian taxation system is in “a parlous state” and called for “big bang” tax reform.

Henry, who headed a major inquiry into the tax system launched by the Rudd government, says recent discussions of superannuation concessions, multinational tax avoidance, and the Stage 3 tax cuts, while important, “don’t scratch the surface” of the conversation that’s needed.

No doubt knowing Treasurer Jim Chalmers, a staffer to then treasurer Wayne Swan during the inquiry, would never contemplate another one, Henry says a fresh review isn’t needed and instead advocates “a process” for reform.

Little came of the Henry review after the Labor government faced a massive backlash when it moved to implement its recommended mining tax.

Addressing a Tax Institute event on Thursday, Henry said the Australian tax system “is not capable of raising sufficient revenue to fund the activities of government. Certainly not today. Far less at any time in the future.”

He said for those who understood the fiscal challenge Australia faced, the noise around the Albanese government’s superannuation tax change, designed to raise about $2 billion extra revenue, “sounds shrill”.

“Right now, Commonwealth tax revenue should be at least 2% of GDP higher. That’s about $50 billion a year in today’s money.

“And, given the pressures of accelerating spending on defence, health care, aged care, and disability support, among others, we are clearly going to have to raise the tax-to-GDP ratio even higher over the decades ahead.

“The state of the budget demands large scale structural reform, on both the spending and revenue sides.”

Henry said the only tax base in the federation budgeted to produce revenue growth at a faster rate than GDP was personal income tax – and that was through fiscal drag.

The “tax mix switch” made by the Howard government when it introduced the GST had been completely undone, with the GST base eroding and fuel excise at risk with the electrification of the vehicle fleet.

“We are back to where we were in the four decades between the end of WWII and the reformist period that commenced in the mid-1980s,” Henry said.

“Those four post-war decades were characterised by ill-disciplined
public spending, with a heavy reliance upon fiscal drag that punished innovation, enterprise, and effort; distorted the pattern of saving; and rewarded tax avoidance and evasion.”

He said fiscal drag would naturally be governments’ “tax raiser of choice” because it was “taxation by stealth”.

But relying on it was “much more dangerous, economically, socially, and politically, than at other times in our history.

“Whilst government spending is growing strongly, the share of
government spending being directed to the non-working, low tax
paying, aged is also growing.

“At the same time, and in stark contrast to the post-war period,
because of population aging, a shrinking proportion of the
population, made up of relatively young workers, will have to
shoulder a rapidly accelerating share of the burden of financing
government.

“And this generation of young workers, weighed down with HECS debt, burdened with the responsibility of repaying a mountain of public debt and dealing with the costs of climate change, is finding it increasingly difficult to buy a home,” he said.

These people had been “priced out of the market by those who have already retired or are now moving into retirement, those who are sitting on tax-free capital gains in houses that are exempt from the pension assets test, those who are receiving refundable franking credits on share portfolios and a blend of publicly funded and tax-free private pensions from assets accumulated in lightly taxed self-managed superannuation funds.

“At some point, perhaps even already, the intergenerational social
compact must surely fracture.”

Henry rejected the argument for incremental tax reform, instead favouring a “big bang” approach, as was taken following the Hawke government’s 1985 tax summit and by the Howard government.

“Incrementalism sets up a single target on a battlefield occupied by well-resourced attack forces.

“More importantly, incrementalism cannot address our budget and
broader economic challenges. No amount of incrementalism is going to meet our fiscal challenges, far less turn around two decades of declining average living standards.

“There is no point planting a seed in a desert when what is needed is continental scale reforestation.”

Henry urged an “inclusive, cooperative Commonwealth-State process” for reform.

It should look at trends, and risks, in spending pressures at all levels of government, considering which could be trimmed and which level of government should have responsibility for policy design and program delivery.

The process should identify “the tax bases upon which increasing
reliance can be placed and those that should be avoided to boost
growth prospects, and with acceptable implications for distributional equity.

“That means examining the tax, transfer, and retirement
income systems in concert. And then it should determine the allocation of taxing powers,” Henry said.

“To any political leader, tackling tax reform is going to present like a mountain range covered in ice, ” Henry conceded.

“And today’s tax reformers do not enjoy the political luxury available to the Howard government, to craft a revenue-negative reform package, nor even a politically challenging revenue-neutral package, such as that constructed by Treasurer Keating in the mid 1980s.

“The package needed on this occasion must be revenue positive.
So, this is going to be hard.”

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

– ref. Former treasury head Ken Henry says we need ‘big bang’ tax reform rather than incremental change – https://theconversation.com/former-treasury-head-ken-henry-says-we-need-big-bang-tax-reform-rather-than-incremental-change-201962

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

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

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

Voters in New South Wales are heading to the polling booths on March 25. For both Premier Dominic Perrottet and Labor leader Chris Minns, it is their first election as leader. The Coalition government has held power since 2011. Labor needs to gain a net nine seats to form majority government. If Labor wins, the party will be in power in every state and territory except Tasmania.

There are 10 seats in this election that are on a margin of less than 6%, including Minns’ seat of Kogarah on 0.1%. In several contests the fate of “teal’ candidates will be watched. Spending and donation caps, and optional preferential voting make the teals’ path to victory more difficult than in the federal election.

In this podcast, Michelle Grattan speaks with Antony Green, the ABC’s election analyst, Professor Andy Marks, from the University of Western Sydney, and Ashleigh Raper, the ABC’s NSW state political reporter.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Antony Green, Professor Andy Marks and Ashleigh Raper on the NSW election – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-antony-green-professor-andy-marks-and-ashleigh-raper-on-the-nsw-election-201957

Why are electricity prices going up again, and will it ever end?

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ariel Liebman, Ariel Liebman Director, Monash Energy Institute and Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University

Households and businesses are set for more hip-pocket pain after regulators on Wednesday released draft details of electricity price rises in four Australian states.

The Australian Energy Regulator revealed residential customers on standard plans should brace for price increases of up to 24% in the next financial year. The price rises apply to households in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.

The Victorian regulator also flagged an electricity price hike of up to 30% in that state.

It’s another blow in an already difficult financial situation for many, as interest rates continue to rise and inflation soars. Consumers are justified in asking: why is this happening? And is there an end in sight?

Lit-up city skyline at night — Regulators on Wednesday signalled more electricity price rises.
Jono Searle/AAP

The basics, explained

The regulator released a draft of what’s known as the “default market offer”. It’s basically the maximum amount energy retailers can charge customers on default energy plans.

So what’s a default energy plan? It’s the standard plan you’re on if you didn’t negotiate a special deal with your energy retailer, or if a deal you were on has expired.

According to the ABC, around one million electricity customers in the four states mentioned above are on default market offers.

Many consumers are on default plans because they don’t have the time or inclination to engage with their electricity retailer to negotiate a better deal. Others, quite understandably, find the whole process too confusing to navigate.

That’s why default market offers were introduced. Both the federal and Victorian policies were developed after reviews found competition in retail electricity markets was not leading to lower prices for households or small businesses.

The Victorian default offer began in 2019. The federal measure was applied in 2020.

The regulators release a draft determination ahead of a final decision, expected soon.

So why the price hike?

Your electricity bill comprises several different charges. The biggest ones are:

– wholesale energy costs: the price generators such as coal and gas plants charge your retailer for the electricity delivered to you

– network costs: the price charged by companies that own the “poles and wires” – transmission lines, transformers, electricity poles and the like – needed to get the electricity to your home

– retail costs: the total amount needed by an electricity retailer to operate – such as issuing bills, providing customer service, marketing themselves – as well as to make a reasonable profit.

Regulators calculate the default market offer by considering each of these price components.

electricity pole and wires — Network costs – or the ‘poles and wires’ charges – form part of your electricity bill.
Shutterstock

The increased default market offers are mostly due to increases in wholesale prices.

Wholesale prices increased in recent months almost entirely as a result of sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. It led to a global shortage of natural gas. This was exacerbated when Russia withdrew gas supplies from the European market.

Even though the energy shocks were happening half a world away from Australia, it affected domestic gas prices here. Why? Because most of Australia’s east coast gas is exported, which means its price is largely determined by the global price.

This could have been avoided if the federal government has a mechanism to keep some of that gas for the domestic market – in other words, if it had a so-called “gas reservation policy”. But the current and previous governments have refused to implement this.

The federal regulator said the planned retirement of AGL’s ageing Liddell coal-fired power station in the NSW Hunter Valley contributed to its decision. Liddell is one of the biggest coal-fired generators in the national electricity market, and the closure is likely to lead to a short-term tightening of supplies.

Another factor affecting the regulators’ decision relates to a strategy electricity retailers use to protect themselves against volatile wholesale prices in future. The strategy, known as hedge contracts, fixes the wholesale price retailers pay for electricity over a long period – up to several years.

The price set in hedge contracts struck over the past year or so was influenced by Australia’s domestic gas crisis in 2022, which caused massive rises in wholesale electricity prices.

gas burner — AUstralia’s gas proces are linked to global markets.
Shutterstock

What to expect down the track

Australian Energy Regulator chair Clare Savage on Wednesday said the price increases could have been much higher, if not for intervention by the Albanese government late last year to cap prices in Australia’s gas and coal markets.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen says those price caps have saved households between A$268 and $530.

The caps are likely to cause further falls in the default market offer in coming years. But the policy appears to be only an interim measure until the global supply shortage eases.

In the longer term, renewable energy offers a ray of hope.

The federal government has set a target of 82% renewable electricity by 2030. But of course, a few significant complementary measures – such as more investment in transmission networks and energy storage – are needed.

This investment would support the transition to a zero-emissions electricity sector. Importantly, it would also insulate long-suffering consumers from volatile fossil fuel prices.

Ariel Liebman has provided occasional advice to, and has received funding from, companies across the energy sector. He currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Why are electricity prices going up again, and will it ever end? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-electricity-prices-going-up-again-and-will-it-ever-end-201869

Unemployment rate back down to 3.5%. It’s anyone’s guess when things will turn

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Borland, Professor of Economics, The University of Melbourne

The latest labour force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows employment in February increasing by 64,600, and the (seasonally adjusted) unemployment rate declining from 3.7% to 3.5%.

It’s confirmation that it’s still too early to declare that the labour market has reached a turning point, after which we can expect the rate of unemployment will rise for some time.

Employment growth has been slowing over the past year, but ups and downs from month to month make it difficult to work out how fast that is happening. Meanwhile, the rate of unemployment is stubbornly resisting moving too far from 3.5%.

Predictions have been hard

Making any predictions for the labour market since mid-2022 has been more difficult than usual.

In the first six months of 2022, employment grew by 56,600 per month, while the rate of unemployment fell from 4.2% to 3.5%. But for the next three months, average employment growth was only 11,700, and the unemployment rate ticked up slightly. It looked like, maybe, the end of the expansion.

But no. In the months to October and November, employment growth was back to 47,700 a month, and the jobless rate moved down.

December and January brought decreases in employment. But it’s always difficult to draw predictions from these months. This year’s January numbers also came with an asterisk from the Australian Bureau of Statistics: a much larger number of persons than usual were classified as waiting to start work, raising the prospect of a healthy boost in employment in February, which is what has happened.

So if a labour market slowdown is underway, it is gradual and slow, rather than the “falling off a cliff” variety. For that reason, it’s likely to take a while longer to know exactly where we are heading.

But more young people are in jobs

Not everything about the labour market is unpredictable, however. On the contrary, most of the changes we’ve seen since mid-2021, once the Australian labour market started recoverng from the initial impact of COVID-19, are exactly what we would have expected.

When the labour market is growing strongly, we expect this will benefit most of the groups who usually face the biggest difficulties getting into work: those with lower skill levels, who live in regions with less employment opportunities, and young people. This is indeed what has happened.

The likelihood of those without a post-school qualification being employed has increased 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2022, double the 1-point increase for those with a Bachelor’s degree or above.

In the 25% of regions with the lowest rates of employment, the proportion with jobs in 2022 was 2.2 percentage points higher than 2019. That increase was about three times more than in the 25% of regions with the highest employment rates.

Since immediately before the onset of COVID, the proportion of people aged less than 25 in employment has grown by 6.3 percentage points, compared with a 1.9 percentage point increase for those aged 25 to 64 years.

And educational enrolments have fallen

For the young, there has been another consequence of the strong labour market that we’ve learned to expect: more in jobs means fewer studying. Between February 2021 and December 2022 the proportion of those aged 15-24 in full-time tertiary education fell from 24.3% to 21.6%.

Employment vs education

Proportion employed vs proportion in full-time tertiary education.
ABS Labour Force

A similar withdrawal was observed in the late 2000s, during the mining boom, in the states of Western Australia and Queensland.

It’s having this past experience to draw on that, of course, makes it easier to see patterns in the impact of recovery, than to know where the rate of unemployment is about to head in coming months.

Jeff Borland receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Unemployment rate back down to 3.5%. It’s anyone’s guess when things will turn – https://theconversation.com/unemployment-rate-back-down-to-3-5-its-anyones-guess-when-things-will-turn-201859

Evolution not revolution: why GPT-4 is notable, but not groundbreaking

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcel Scharth, Lecturer in Business Analytics, University of Sydney

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) research company behind ChatGPT and the DALL-E 2 art generator, has unveiled the highly anticipated GPT-4 model. Excitingly, the company also made it immediately available to the public through a paid service.

GPT-4 is a large language model (LLM), a neural network trained on massive amounts of data to understand and generate text. It’s the successor to GPT-3.5, the model behind ChatGPT.

The GPT-4 model introduces a range of enhancements over its predecessors. These include more creativity, more advanced reasoning, stronger performance across multiple languages, the ability to accept visual input, and the capacity to handle significantly more text.

More powerful than the wildly popular ChatGPT, GPT-4 is bound to inspire an in-depth exploration of its capabilities and further accelerate the adoption of generative AI.

Improved capabilities

Among many results highlighted by OpenAI, what immediately stands out is GPT-4’s performance on a range of standardised tests. For example, GPT-4 scores among the top 10% in a simulated US bar exam, whereas GPT-3.5 scores in the bottom 10%.

This table from the OpenAI technical report shows the performance of the model on a range of simulated standardised tests. GPT-4 often performs in the top 20% range.
OpenAI

GPT-4 also outperforms GPT-3.5 on a range of writing, reasoning and coding tasks. The following examples illustrate how GPT-4 displays more reliable commonsense reasoning than GPT-3.5.

An AI model that sees the world

Another significant development is that GPT-4 is multimodal, unlike previous GPT models. This means it accepts both text and image inputs.

Samples provided by OpenAI reveal GPT-4 is capable of interpreting images, explaining visual humour and providing reasoning based on visual inputs. Such skills are beyond the scope of previous models.

GPT-4 can explain the meaning behind funny memes.
OpenAI

This ability to “see” could provide GPT-4 a more comprehensive picture of how the world works – just as humans acquire enhanced knowledge through observation. This is thought to be an important ingredient for developing sophisticated AI that could bridge the gap between current models and human-level intelligence.

In fact, GPT-4 isn’t the first language model with these capabilities. A few weeks ago, Microsoft released Kosmos-1, a language model that accepts visual inputs the same way GPT-4 does. Google also recently expanded its PaLM language model to be able to take in image data and sensor data collected from robots. Multimodality is a growing trend in AI research.

Longer texts

GPT-4 can take in and generate up to 25,000 words of text, which is much more than ChatGPT’s limit of about 3,000 words.

It can handle more complex and detailed prompts, and generate more extensive pieces of writing. This allows for richer storytelling, more in-depth analysis, summaries of long pieces of text and deeper conversational interactions.

In the example below, I gave the new ChatGPT (which uses GPT-4) the entire Wikipedia article about artificial intelligence and asked it a specific question, which it answered accurately.

GPT-4 answers a question relating to a Wikipedia article on artificial intelligence.
Author provided

Limitations

Even though the GPT-4 technical report controversially provides no details about how the model was developed, all signs indicate it’s essentially a scaled-up version of GPT-3.5 with safety improvements. In other words, it’s not a new paradigm in AI research.

OpenAI has itself said GPT-4 is subject to the same limitations as previous language models, such as being prone to reasoning errors and biases, and making up false information.

That said, OpenAI’s results on GPT-4 suggest it’s at least more reliable than previous GPT models.

OpenAI used human feedback to fine-tune GPT-4 to produce more helpful and less problematic outputs. GPT-4 is much better at declining inappropriate requests and avoiding harmful content when compared to the initial ChatGPT release.

Its arrival will continue a crucial debate among critics. That being whether alternative approaches are required to fundamentally solve issues of truthfulness and reliability, or whether throwing more data and resources at language models will eventually do the job.

One could argue GPT-4 represents only an incremental improvement over its predecessors in many practical scenarios. Results showed human judges preferred GPT-4 outputs over the most advanced variant of GPT-3.5 only about 61% of the time.

GPT-4 also shows no improvement over GPT-3.5 in some tests, including English language and art history exams.

Bing AI

Soon after GPT-4’s launch, Microsoft revealed its highly controversial Bing chatbot was running on GPT-4 all along. The announcement confirmed speculation by commentators who noticed it was more powerful than ChatGPT.

This means Bing provides an alternative way to leverage GPT-4, since it’s a search engine rather than just a chatbot.

However, as anyone looped in on AI news knows, Bing started to go a bit crazy. But I don’t think the new ChatGPT will follow since it seems to have been heavily fine-tuned using human feedback.

In its technical report, OpenAI shows how GPT-4 can indeed go completely off the rails without this human feedback training.

Commercial applications

One notable aspect of GPT-4’s release has been that, in addition to Bing, it’s already being used by companies and organisations such as Duolingo, Khan Academy, Morgan Stanley, Stripe and the Icelandic government to build new services and tools.

Its commercial deployment will further heat up competition between major AI labs, and fuel investors’ appetite for generative technologies.

Marcel Scharth 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. Evolution not revolution: why GPT-4 is notable, but not groundbreaking – https://theconversation.com/evolution-not-revolution-why-gpt-4-is-notable-but-not-groundbreaking-201858

Evolution, not revolution: GPT-4 is notable – but not groundbreaking

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcel Scharth, Lecturer in Business Analytics, University of Sydney

GPT-4 is a large language model (LLM), a neural network trained on massive amounts of data to understand and generate text. It’s the successor to GPT-3.5, the model behind ChatGPT.

More powerful than the wildly popular ChatGPT, GPT-4 is bound to inspire an in-depth exploration of its capabilities and further accelerate the adoption of generative AI.

Improved capabilities

GPT-4 also outperforms GPT-3.5 on a range of writing, reasoning and coding tasks. The following examples illustrate how GPT-4 displays more reliable commonsense reasoning than GPT-3.5.

An AI model that sees the world

Another significant development is that GPT-4 is multimodal, unlike previous GPT models. This means it accepts both text and image inputs.

Longer texts

GPT-4 can take in and generate up to 25,000 words of text, which is much more than ChatGPT’s limit of about 3,000 words.

In the example below, I gave the new ChatGPT (which uses GPT-4) the entire Wikipedia article about artificial intelligence and asked it a specific question, which it answered accurately.

Limitations

OpenAI has itself said GPT-4 is subject to the same limitations as previous language models, such as being prone to reasoning errors and biases, and making up false information.

That said, OpenAI’s results on GPT-4 suggest it’s at least more reliable than previous GPT models.

GPT-4 also shows no improvement over GPT-3.5 in some tests, including English language and art history exams.

Bing AI

This means Bing provides an alternative way to leverage GPT-4, since it’s a search engine rather than just a chatbot.

However, as anyone looped in on AI news knows, Bing started to go a bit crazy. But I don’t think the new ChatGPT will follow since it seems to have been heavily fine-tuned using human feedback.

In its technical report, OpenAI shows how GPT-4 can indeed go completely off the rails without this human feedback training.

Commercial applications

Its commercial deployment will further heat up competition between major AI labs, and fuel investors’ appetite for generative technologies.

Marcel Scharth 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. Evolution, not revolution: GPT-4 is notable – but not groundbreaking – https://theconversation.com/evolution-not-revolution-gpt-4-is-notable-but-not-groundbreaking-201858

Why robodebt’s use of ‘income averaging’ lacked basic common sense

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

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

The practice of “income averaging” to calculate debts in the robodebt scheme was completely flawed. This is what I confirmed in my new report conducted for the robodebt royal commission published last Friday, the final day of the commission’s public hearings.

This process effectively assumed many people receiving social security benefits had stable earnings throughout a whole year.

But this is unlikely to be accurate for the many people who don’t work standard full-time hours, and particularly for students, since the tax year and the academic year don’t coincide.

My report finds averaging of incomes is completely inconsistent with social security policies that have been developed by governments since the 1980s.

Since 1980, social security legislation has been amended more than 20 times to encourage recipients to take up part-time and casual work. These include the Working Credit for people receiving unemployment and other payments, and a similar but more generous Income Bank for students.

These measures are specifically designed to encourage people to take up more work, including part-time and irregular casual work, and keep more of their social security payments.

Robodebt’s lack of consistency with long-standing policies should have been obvious from the start.

What is income averaging?

In the robodebt scheme, income averaging involved data-matching historic records of social security benefit payments with past income tax returns, identifying discrepancies between these records.

It reduced human investigation of the discrepancies. The automatic calculation of “overpayments” for many people was based on a simple calculation that averaged income over the financial year.

The “debts” were based on the difference between this averaged income and the income that people actually reported while they were receiving payments.

I wrote an article for The Conversation on this in 2017. At the time, I thought, Centrelink couldn’t possibly have done that.

Well, as the royal commission has found, that’s precisely what it was doing.

A victim of robodebt, Deanna Amato, brought a test case to the Federal Court in 2019, which caused the government to admit robodebt was unlawful.

Amato also gave evidence at the royal commission in late February this year. She described how it was obvious her debt was in error:

It was averaged over the […] whole financial year. Study usually starts at the beginning of a calendar year. So I had been working full-time for the first six months of that year and then I had stopped working full-time to study. So it was really obvious that they had averaged out over the whole year rather than the six months I was actually only claiming Austudy for.

What I found

It’s well known Australia has a high proportion of casual workers.

Because they’re employed on an “as needed” basis, their hours can vary substantially. Therefore, their income can too.

ABS data showed that in 2014 nearly 40% of casual workers didn’t work the same hours each week. Also, around 53% had pay that varied from one pay period to another. These figures have been broadly stable since 2008.

My report analyses new data provided by the Department of Social Services to the royal commission. It looks in detail at the circumstances of people who received social security payments between 2010-11 and 2018-19. These payments included Austudy, Newstart, Parenting Payment Partnered, Parenting Payment Single and Youth Allowance.

These payments accounted for around 91% of the people subject to the reviews that identified discrepancies and potential “overpayments” between 2016 and 2019 under the different phases of robodebt.

For Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients – who accounted for 75% of those affected by robodebt – between 20% and 40% had earnings while receiving these benefits.

The share of people with income who had stable incomes over the course of the financial year was extremely low. In the Department of Social Services data, it ranged from less than 3% of people receiving youth payments, to around 5% of those receiving Newstart or Austudy, and 5%-10% of those receiving Parenting Payments.

Share of people on social security payments with stable income over the course of each financial year, 2010-11 to 2018-19

For most of these people with variable income, the variations were large. More than 90% had periods when their income was more than $100 per fortnight different from their average, and more than 80% had variations greater than $200 per fortnight.

Average earnings varied substantially for people receiving social security payments for only part of a financial year. Receiving social security benefits for many people is a short-term and sometimes recurring experience.

To take the example of Newstart, in 2015-16 there were around 783,000 people who received payments at the start of the financial year. About 500,000 people entered the payment system during the year, and 325,000 exited the system. So, in total, nearly 1.2 million people received Newstart payments at some point during the financial year. Flows into and out of the other social security payments were similar.

For the unemployed and students, most people received payments for only part of the year. Almost nobody who received income had completely stable income over the robodebt period. What’s more, significant numbers of people who received social security payments were on such payments for only part of any financial year.

It’s completely inaccurate to assume that income over the course of a financial year can be averaged to produce an accurate figure for the actual patterns of people’s earnings.

Using this to then calculate “overpayments” isn’t only inconsistent with the social security policy directions adopted by government for decades, it also lacks basic common sense.

Peter Whiteford receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. This report for the Royal Commission into Robodebt was prepared without charge.

– ref. Why robodebt’s use of ‘income averaging’ lacked basic common sense – https://theconversation.com/why-robodebts-use-of-income-averaging-lacked-basic-common-sense-201296

Why do sports keep changing their rules? We count 4 main reasons

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Encel, Sessional Academic and UNESCO Consultant, Deakin University

The Australian Football League’s 2023 season is kicking off with changes afoot. Three rule changes, in fact, which may either please or infuriate commentators and fans.

One change will prevent players awarded a free kick or mark from attempting to win a 50-metre penalty by feigning a handball, in the hope an opposition player will move off their mark and violate the “stand” rule.

Another aims to prevent time-wasting by penalising players with a 50-metre penalty if they change their mind about standing a mark or leaving the protected area.

The third concerns the 30 seconds allowed to players when taking a set shot on goal; umpires will now give a time warning at 25 seconds but not at 15 seconds.

Rule changes like these never cease to spark debate among diehard fans about “leaving the sport alone”.

Australian Rules football has consistently changed its rules throughout its history. But it’s also true that rule changes or tweaks are becoming increasingly common. This is a trend in professional sport around the world. The US National Basketball Association, for example, changes rules almost every year.

Why? Sometimes the reason is to reduce injuries. But often it’s to do with the bottom line – which is that professional sport is a business that depends on delivering an audience to broadcasters. In a competitive media market there are big incentives to change rules to make the sport more exciting for fans and more conducive to commercial sponsors.

Four reasons for rule changes

Our research points to professional sport leagues changing rules for four main reasons: to reduce the risk of injury; to make games easier to officiate; to enhance the sport’s spectacle; and to create space for advertising during broadcasts.

The US National Football League, for example, has explicitly said it champions “changes that promote more scoring and more exciting plays”.

Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs watch the NFL's Super Bowl 57 game against the Philadelphia Eagles, February 12, 2023. — Spectacle attracts spectators: fans of the Kansas City Chiefs watch the NFL’s Super Bowl 57 game against the Philadelphia Eagles, February 12, 2023.
Colin E. Braley/AP

In the AFL, scoring is often the focus for rule changes, because more goals make the sport more exciting to watch while allowing for more advertising breaks. In 2021, for example, advertising breaks immediately following a goal were extended from 45 seconds to one minute to allow for increased commercial airtime.

A short history of ‘Aussie Rules’ rules

The first documented Australian Rules football code was instituted by the Melbourne Football Club in 1859. There were ten simple rules, such as “tripping and pushing are both allowed” and “a goal must be kicked fairly between the posts”. Some of these original rules remain. Others have changed dramatically. Now there are more than 100 “laws of the game”.

The rules of the women’s competition, the AFLW, have been changed more than 16 times since it began in 2017. In the same time there have been more than 20 rule changes in the men’s competition.

Changing rules and regulations in complex environments such as professional sport is challenging, and professional leagues don’t always get it right.

Trialling a change before permanently implementing it is crucial to avoid negative or unintended consequences.

In 2016, before the inaugural AFLW season, the AFL trialled three different rules it hoped would make the game as exciting as possible.

These were the “last-touch” rule whereby a free kick would be awarded to the opponent of the player last touching the ball before it went out of bounds; a “density” rule requiring players to spread out more evenly across the field; and having 16 players per side instead of 18, to reduce the scrimmages that lead to more stoppages.

These rule modifications were trialled in exhibition matches. But based on data analysis and feedback from spectators, players, coaches and managers, the AFL concluded most of the changes added nothing to the spectacle of the game.

As a result just one on-field rule change was made in the first AFLW season: the 16-a-side rule.

Rule changes are made to benefit the sport, but introducing them will never be an easy process. Getting the balance right between evolving commercial needs and tradition will always be tricky, and some people will never be happy.

But if attention has been paid to the process, with feedback from all stakeholders, it’s more likely new rules will be accepted and quickly integrated into the fabric of the sport.

The AFLW research outlined in this article was partially funded by the AFL.

Pamm Phillips has received funding from the AFL for research not related to this topic. She is Editor in Chief of Sport Management Review, a leading academic journal in the field of sport management.

– ref. Why do sports keep changing their rules? We count 4 main reasons – https://theconversation.com/why-do-sports-keep-changing-their-rules-we-count-4-main-reasons-201861

Bruce Edwards’ Political Roundup: Stuart Nash’s resignation shows our leaders need a lesson in civics

By Bryce Edwards -

March 16, 2023

Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards.

Political Roundup: Stuart Nash’s resignation shows our leaders need a lesson in civics

I teach a first year course at Victoria University of Wellington about government and the political process in New Zealand. In “Introduction to Government and Law”, students learn there are rules preventing senior public servants from getting involved in big political debates – as we have recently witnessed with Rob Campbell – and that government ministers aren’t allowed to interfere in some functions of the state, such as telling the Police where to make prosecutions.

It’s essentially a civics course about how our political system works, and hopefully the 1300 students who take the course each year will go off to work in government departments, businesses and other careers understanding the rules of our political system.

Politicians are fond of complaining about a lack of this type of political education amongst the voting public but, as we’ve seen in the last few weeks, so many of our leaders are themselves unaware of basic political rules.

As with Rob Campbell and other wayward senior public servant appointees like Steve Maharey and Ruth Dyson, Nash has pleaded it was just a mistake and, in defending his actions, he showed his ignorance of the rules. But shouldn’t we expect our leaders to have a much better understanding of the political rules about integrity? After all, Nash is no newbie – he’s been a minister since 2017, and an MP for 15 years.

The Rules Stuart Nash broke

The Minister of Police texted his resignation to the Prime Minister yesterday at about 2pm. Up until that point, he had been publicly defending the indefensible, which suggests that, in all likelihood, his resignation was a forced one.

So, what led to this? Two years ago Nash called Police Commissioner Andrew Coster about a decision a judge had made. The case involved a Southlander who had lost his firearms license in 2017, subsequently ignored the gun buyback scheme, and in 2021 was found to possess numerous firearms including an AR-15. On conviction, he was given a sentence of community detention.

Nash believed this judgement was terrible and the offender should have been jailed, so he phoned the Police Commissioner and asked “surely you’re going to appeal this?” Effectively, Nash’s question to the Commissioner about appealing can be seen as an instruction to the Police.

This is a very clear violation of constitutional rules in which government ministers are not allowed to in any way direct the Police in how they carry out their operations, including prosecutions. As Herald political editor Claire Trevett has written, “there are strict rules about not interfering in decisions undertaken by police”, and “there is no such thing as a friendly chat with a Police Commissioner when you’re a minister. It is one of the most politically sensitive relationships that there is.” She says his actions raise “questions about the separation of powers between the three branches of government”.

The Cabinet Manual – the rules for Ministers in how they govern – is very clear about this. Here’s the key section: “Ministers should bear in mind that they have the capacity to exercise considerable influence over the public service. Ministers should take care to ensure that their intentions are not misunderstood, and that they do not influence officials inappropriately, or involve themselves in matters that are not their responsibility.”

Nash has also criticised the judiciary’s decisions, saying on Newstalk ZB yesterday that, in the case of the firearms sentence, “I think that was a terrible decision by the judge.” He also sent a message on the radio to the judiciary, saying judges need to “read the room” on public attitudes to law and order.

The Cabinet Manual is also black and white on this issue, explaining ministers should not comment “adversely on the impartiality, personal views, or ability of any judge”.

By his actions and statements, Nash has shown that he doesn’t understand the constitutional independence of the police and the courts. He doesn’t understand the key rule that ministers cannot interfere with the police.

As Stuff’s political editor Luke Malpass writes today, “citizens deserve to know their justice will be not be influenced by ministers of the Crown calling up the police commissioner and suggesting to them, in any manner, to go harder on someone.”

1News’ Felix Desmarais elaborates on the importance of this, arguing that “ministerial influence over police operational matters is the first step on the long road to a police state. There must be a separation of powers, both real and perceived. It’s one of the fragile and precious threads upholding democracy. That’s why it’s codified – the Cabinet Manual is painfully, explicitly clear”.

Mateship problem in New Zealand politics

There is a cosiness in New Zealand politics that arises partly from the fact that we are a small and intimate society. It means close connections between powerful people are common, including between politicians, businesspeople, and public servants. It makes for a relaxed politics, in which integrity rules aren’t as strongly observed as in other countries.

The problem is that many of our leaders are “mates” with each other – across the many different spheres of power and influence.

Ironically this mateship was even advertised by Stuart Nash in his defence of his violation of the rules. When confronted by the media about his phone call to the Police Commissioner, Nash explained: “I was chewing the fat with a guy who was a mate”.

Nash elaborated on how this wasn’t a big deal to get a call from a “mate”: “The Police Commissioner is a very enabled, very smart man who can make his own decisions, when he gets a mate calling him, questioning about the veracity of a case, it’s up to him to determine.”

Furthermore, the Commissioner himself essentially backed this up yesterday, downplaying the whole conversation: “I regarded the phone call as a venting of that frustration, and nothing more. I felt this was a rhetorical question, not a request, and I did not take any action following the phone call.”

Nash should be fired from Cabinet

The Prime Minister has decided not to fire Nash from Cabinet completely, allowing him to keep his other ministerial roles of economic development, forestry and oceans and fisheries. Hipkins has defended keeping Nash on as a minister saying that the loss of the Police portfolio is “proportionate” enough as a punishment.

But it won’t be enough to satisfy others, because Nash’s mistake wasn’t made in his role as Police Minister, but as a minister in general.

Leading constitutional academic Andrew Geddis has therefore come out this morning with a call on the AM Show for Nash to be fired from Cabinet: “I think he breached ministerial standards and… he doesn’t seem to understand what those rules are or why they’re there… Frankly, I think he’s also ruled himself as being suitable to be a minister. I think he probably should be gone from Cabinet altogether.”

Former minister Peter Dunne also went on the AM Show to say that Nash has to go: “I think he should’ve resigned altogether for this simple reason: the Cabinet manual makes it clear that you don’t interfere with court decisions and the police have constabulary independence – he breached both those counts”.

Dunne credits Hipkins with moving with speed on Nash’s Police portfolio, but says that “the timidity of the judgment” in leaving Nash in his overall job, will distract from that and won’t allow the Government to “move on” from the issue.

Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan also argues today that Nash is turning into a liability for the Labour Government, pointing out that recently, and especially since the cyclone, he’s “done some weird stuff”.

Here’s du Plessis-Allan’s list of Nash’s mistakes: “He took umbrage at the warning that power might be out for two weeks after the cyclone, he said it was alarmist and over the top based on who knows what, because some people are without power and it’s been a month. His response to gang crime was to plead with the gangs to pull their heads in. He defended the forestry companies saying most of the slash wasn’t theirs when it actually overwhelmingly is.”

She argues that Nash is likely to create more embarrassment in his other portfolios.

Similarly, Luke Malpass questions whether Hipkins can allow Nash to stay in Cabinet: “His judgement has to be in question, and it is difficult to see how he can continue to function effectively when he was prepared to make the call he did and then not realise he shouldn’t have made it.”

But Malpass points out that although Nash is “not regarded as a particularly effective minister”, he’s been useful for Labour because he’s got a persona as “an important jack-the-lad type figure in a Labour Party that has had issues in the past appealing to men”.

Other commentators say that Nash has become a liability because of his “bravado”. Newshub political editor Jenna Lynch reports: “Beehive sources behind the scenes were in disbelief, saying the now former Police Minister had ‘too much testosterone’ and – brutally – that his actions were ‘dumb as f***’.”

Newsroom political editor Jo Moir argues today that Hipkins would be wise to reconsider keeping Nash on, as he has failed to “kill off” the controversy with his halfway measure of only taking away his Police role. She thinks he needs to go completely, and that the PM should announce another reshuffle: “Hipkins has done nothing to respond to Nash’s inability to identify that his actions were unwise, unprofessional, and made him unfit for any ministerial role. If after almost six years as a minister, Nash still doesn’t know what breaching the Cabinet manual looks like how can Hipkins trust him not to do it again?”

Replacement for Nash

Megan Woods has been temporarily put in charge of the Police portfolio, but is unlikely to continue in it. According to Jenna Lynch, Hipkins is going to make a decision on his permanent replacement before Monday.

It will have to be a very senior Cabinet minister, and one who is up to the challenge of convincing the public that Labour is tough enough on law and order. The leading contender for this is Andrew Little, who is currently without any heavy portfolios.

Lynch reports, “Little’s already got six portfolios – Defence, GCSB, NZSIS, Public Service, Treaty Negotiations and the Terror Attack inquiry – but a lot of those would work well with Police.” She points out that Hipkins will need a very safe pair of hands, as the next appointment will be the fifth Police Minister in less than a year.

Lynch also points to Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty as a possibility but notes McAnulty himself has stated he’s “already got a lot on”, especially with Emergency Management and Three Waters. But if Hipkins really wants to replace Nash with someone with a similar conservative, provincial and straight-talking persona, then McAnulty will be the best choice.

Regardless of who is chosen as the Police Minister, or whether Nash is allowed to stay on in Cabinet, the Opposition will – and should – keep up pressure on the Government’s failings in terms of political integrity.

Of course, this is not a problem that is unique to the current Labour Government. When National was last in government John Key was forced to fire Maurice Williamson in 2014 for also calling the Police to enquire what they were doing about a particular investigation involving a financial donor to the National Party.

What’s more, National’s own integrity is still under question over MP Barbara Kuriger’s misuse of her authority in her campaign with the Ministry for Primary Industries’ in which she has inappropriately been pursuing her family’s own case relating to animal cruelty charges. As Jo Moir points out today, “Luxon will need to give some serious thought to how tough he goes on Hipkins keeping Nash in other roles, when Kuriger’s lapse of judgment was just as serious and over a more prolonged period.”

Conflicts of interest are too often coming up on all sides of politics. Perhaps it’s time for all MPs and senior public officials to sign up for a civics class, so that they can be reacquainted with the rules about integrity in public office.

Further reading on Stuart Nash stepping down as Police Minister

Jo Moir (Newsroom): Nash’s poor judgment only half the story
Claire Trevett (Herald): Stuart Nash quits as Police Minister: Why ‘chewing the fat’ with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster cost him the role (paywalled)
Felix Desmarais (1News): Analysis: Nash’s space cadet moment dents Labour’s poll positivity
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Stuart Nash’s downfall and the dangers of big-dick politics
Herald: Stuart Nash is a controversial minister who isn’t afraid to speak his mind
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): ‘He should go altogether’: Leading law expert, former MP call for Nash to be stripped of all ministerial titles
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Stuart Nash beaten by his own bravado – and who could become the new Police Minister
Glenn McConnell and Thomas Manch (Stuff0: Ruthless Chris Hipkins moves against Stuart Nash and purges another pre-election problem
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): How Stuart Nash went from suiting up NASA astronaut to resigning as Police Minister in just few hours
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Stuart Nash had become a walking liability for Labour anyway
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): Six police ministers in six years fails all of us
James Halpin and Mike White (Stuff): Stuart Nash said a court decision should be appealed – what was the ruling about?
David Farrar (Kiwiblog): Losing a portfolio is not the same as being sacked as a Minister
Jacqui Van Der Kaay (Democracy Project): Integrity issues at the heart of resignation
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says Stuart Nash was ‘venting frustration’ in phone call that led to minister resigning
RNZ: Stuart Nash has resigned as police minister, PM Hipkins says
Glenn McConnell and Luke Malpass (Stuff): Stuart Nash resigns as police minister after encouraging police commissioner to appeal a ruling
1News: Stuart Nash resigns as Police Minister amid interference claims
Felix Desmarais (1News): Nash defiant over asking Police Commissioner about appealing decision
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Stuart Nash says ‘police interference’ claim was just him ‘chewing fat’ with top cop
Adam Pearse (Herald): Opposition parties demand Police Minister Stuart Nash resign after he criticised judge’s decision
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Calls for Police Minister Stuart Nash to resign over ‘interference’

Other items of interest and importance today

PARLIAMENT
Henry Cooke: Why a teal deal wouldn’t work
Peter Dunne: Hapless Greens shafted by Hipkins but have nowhere else to go
Graham Adams (The Platform): Hipkins adopts John Key’s ‘ordinary bloke’ schtick
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Is Labour plotting a tax hike, a tax cut – or both? (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Chris Hipkins’ strategy to win back centrist voters (paywalled)
Gordon Campbell: On the Hipkins cutbacks, banking industry ‘resilience’, and the major Saudi/Iran deal
Karl du Fresne: Hipkins has no time to lose
Ben Thomas (Stuff): Contest for political centre more puzzle than race
Tova O’Brien (Today FM): Fifty days in, Chris Hipkins’ whirlwind start as Prime Minister
Tova O’Brien (Today FM): The Prime Minister’s ‘rule-in/rule-out’ bit is suffocating
Mike Hosking (Herald): Crime, economy and health stats against the Govt (paywalled)
1News: National still have ‘100% confidence’ in Luxon after poll – Willis
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Nicola Willis sits down with Stuff to talk the political week
Guy Trafford (Interest): Tails to wag the dogs?
Waatea News: Polls missing election issues – Shane Jones
Herald: Max Key on ‘hating’ father Sir John Key, pressures of growing up as PM’s son

CLIMATE CHANGE, CYCLONE GABRIELLE
Basil Sharp (Stuff): When the storms strike: balancing social costs with private interests
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): Group appeals to MPs for urgent action to reduce climate change impact
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Revealed: The climate cost of Chris Hipkins’ U-turns and fossil fuel subsidies
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): What $500m could do for climate and cost of living
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Greens want Minister for Zero Waste, take more shots at Labour’s policy ‘error’
Seni Iasona (Newshub): Greenpeace protesters turn Fonterra’s Auckland HQ into flood zone in climate protest
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): Niwa scientist in ‘no doubt’ climate change behind Cyclone Gabrielle’s intensity
Michael Neilson (Herald): Cyclone Gabrielle: Grant Robertson announces another $25m for affected businesses as Government support tops $100m
Denise Piper (Stuff): Government doubles cyclone recovery funding for businesses
RNZ: Cyclone Recovery Unit appoints chief executive
Tom Kitchin (RNZ): The Detail: Preventing a communications blackout in the next big disaster
Claudette Hauiti (Waatea News): National keen for Māori to hop on its electric train

EDUCATION
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Why the government is driving a hard bargain as teachers leave the class for the picket line
1News: Jan Tinetti ‘very disappointed’ ahead of teacher strike today
Seni Iasona (Newshub): Education Minister concedes working conditions, pay ‘not good enough’ as teachers prepare to strike
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Nicola Willis says teachers’ pay should keep pace with inflation, but won’t commit to it if National wins
1News: ‘Underpaid and undervalued’: Greens support teachers’ strike
Herald Editorial: Teachers strike about more than money (paywalled)
Sapeer Mayro (Stuff): National teacher strike: What’s going on today – and why
Jayden Holmes (Today FM): Number of teachers decreasing as profession becomes less popular amidst union strikes
Alwyn Poole (Herald): Why I don’t support the teachers’ strike (paywalled)
1News: Education Review Office ‘deeply concerned’ about racism in schools
Akula Sharma (Herald): 1 in 5 ethnic students experience racist bullying at school, report says
Lee Kenny (Stuff): Former polytech boss launches petition to ‘remove Te Pūkenga’s board and CEO’
Robin Averill (Newsroom): Why assessing literacy and numeracy is not so simple
Herald: Otago University takes historic and bold step to becoming a Te Tiriti-led institution
Stuff: New Māori name and symbol proposed for the University of Otago

TRANSPORT
Ben Leahy (Herald): City Rail Link $1b blowout: Wayne Brown says he will hold tough talks with Government over bill
Thomas Couglan (Herald): Transport Minister Michael Wood pours cold water on Government picking up $1b City Rail Link bill
Ben Leahy (Herald): City Rail Link $1.07 billion budget blowout: Auckland rail project requests extra funding
Todd Niall (Stuff): City Rail Link boss blames $1 billion blow-out on Covid-19
RNZ: Auckland’s City Rail Link cost climbs by $1 billion
Erin Johnson (Stuff): Aucklanders to pay higher public transport fares from April
Herald: Auckland public transport fares rise for first time in two years
Richard Harman (Politik): Speed limits hit pot holes (paywalled)
John Minto (Daily Blog): Yes, there is a big double-banger policy which would attack climate change and the cost-of-living crisis simultaneously
Lloyd Burr (Today FM): We just really suck at encouraging public transport use
Georgina Campbell (Herald): ‘Degree of chaos’: Minister says KiwiRail needs to do better on ferry reliability (paywalled)
RNZ: Improving transport sector a big part in dealing with country’s climate challenges – National MP
Tom Hunt (Dominion Post): Bustastrophe’ leaves Wellington transport campaigner on the footpath

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Felix Desmarais (1News): Poll: How well do people understand Three Waters co-governance?
Herald: Three Waters co-governance: More than a third say they don’t know what it means – poll
Todd Niall (Stuff): Wayne Brown paid Topham Guerin $58k for post-flood logos, videos and advice
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): Maurice Williamson, back on the Razor Gang
Bernard Hickey: A challenge to Wayne Brown’s debt crisis excuse
Jonty Dine (RNZ): Floods and cyclone add to Auckland Council’s perfect storm of financial woes
Naida Glavish (Herald): Kaipara mayor should step down and step out
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): Behind the scenes at council after the mayor uses the n-word
Virginia Fallon (Stuff): Nobby, the N-Word and men behaving sadly
Craig Ashworth (Local Democracy Reporting): Water pressure for council and iwi over environment reforms
RNZ: Council to investigate Wellington Water’s process for looking into leaky pipes after landslip
Finlay Dunseath (Dominion Post): ‘100% preventable’: Leak complaints known for months before road washed out
Ruth Hill (RNZ) Family forced from Lower Hutt home by slip says council complicit in extended hardship
Tina Law (Press): Definitely not’: Residents refuse to pay ‘stupid’ excess water charge in Christchurch
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Yay 16 year olds can vote in rigged Auckland Mayoralty elections

HEALTH
Phil Pennington (RNZ): Government denies interest in health public-private partnerships, despite references in documents
Kristie Boland (Stuff): Surgeons forced to decide which patients have ‘the worst cancer and won’t survive’ as crisis deepens
Rowan Quinn (RNZ): Te Whatu Ora still checking health data after ED figures revealed incorrect
RNZ: Health system in Canterbury described as in crisis
Jim Mann (The Conversation): NZ’s evidence-based response to COVID has saved lives – we could do better when it comes to other major diseases
Rachael Kelly (Stuff): Covid-19 cases increase in the South Island, new booster programme due to begin
Jamie Morton (Herald): Why NZ should prepare for another bumper flu season
Jimmy Ellingham (RNZ): Alarm over massive cost overrun for much delayed mental health ward
Pokere Paewai (RNZ): ‘Our rangatahi deserve better’: Experts urge vape shop restrictions to address ‘epidemic’
Magda Rosin and Cliona Ni Mhurchu (Newsroom): Supermarket ‘super deals’ cost less but we pay for it with our health
Jo Cribb (Newsroom): Smile and the world smiles with you (unless your teeth are less than pearly white)

BANKS
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Amid fears for small players, big banks agree to a competition inquiry
Rebecca Stevenson (Interest): A NZ bank with a low-profit approach
Richard Meade (The Conversation): Rising bank profits highlight tensions between competition watchdogs and central banks
Jonathan Mitchell (NBR): What happens if an NZ bank folds? (paywalled)

MOSQUE ATTACKS, CHRISTCHURCH CALL
Adam Pearse (Herald): PM Chris Hipkins: Private commemoration of Christchurch’s March 15 terror attack preferred by community
Katie Scotcher (RNZ): Hipkins hints Ardern could continue Christchurch Call work
Adam Burns (RNZ): Unity Week keeping solidarity strong as mosque attacks commemorated

ECONOMY, COST OF LIVING
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Cost-of-living crunch: How much do we really need to earn to keep up?
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Q&A: What’s really happening with the cost of living?
RNZ: Supermarket prices: How a standard shop compares, from 2022-2023
1News: Recession fears in New Zealand as GDP figures loom
Dan Brunskill (Interest): Stats NZ reports worst current account deficit on record but forecast to narrow as tourism returns
Andy Fyers (BusinessDesk): Record deficit is ’cause for concern’ (paywalled)
RNZ: ‘Worse than unsatisfactory’: RBNZ and Govt criticised over inflation, housing boom

EMPLOYMENT
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Contractor or employee? Disappointment over Govt stalling work to clarify the difference (paywalled)
Conor Knell (Stuff): Port worker deaths spur industry-wide action to improve safety
Alexia Russell (RNZ): The Detail: Silicosis: How engineered stone is killing tradies
Joshua McKenzie-Brown (Attitude): Disability Employment – The Experience

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
RNZ: Minister Andrew Little heads to eight-nation counter-terror meeting
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Aukus alliance ‘won’t shut out NZ’ – US official
Adam Pearse (Herald): Australia reminded of nuclear weapons ban, as it goes on submarine shopping spree
Thomas Manch (Stuff): High-ranking White House official Kurt Campbell to visit New Zealand

We used to think diamonds were everywhere. New research suggests they’ve always been rare

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Walsh, PhD Candidate, Queensland University of Technology

Kimberlite volcanic rock with mantle crystals (green olivine and purple and orange garnet) and fragments of country rock (light grey). Author provided

New research is shedding light on the tumultuous processes that give rise to diamonds, by homing in on a distinct purple companion found alongside them.

Diamonds are highly prized for their qualities but also for their rarity. One way to look for them is to search for associated minerals that occur more commonly, such as the chromium-rich pyrope garnet.

This vibrant purple garnet is easily found by diamond exploration companies, in sediment downstream from potentially diamond-bearing volcanic pipes, and within the pipes themselves. The presence of purple garnet is an indicator diamonds may also be present.

Moreover, this garnet isn’t just found near diamonds, but is also consistently found inside them. So by enhancing our understanding of pyrope garnet, and how it forms, we can also enhance our understanding of diamond formation.

It was previously thought this type of garnet could not form very deep in the Earth. The theory went that it originated from a different chromium-rich mineral, called spinel, which formed at a shallow depth in the mantle and was then pushed down where temperatures and pressures were higher – leading to the garnet’s formation.

Our latest research, published today in Nature, uses a new model to revisit an old theory that suggests these pyrope garnets are actually formed much deeper in the mantle, about 100km-250km below the present surface. It also suggests diamonds may be rarer than we think.

A bright purple pyrope garnet against a great background. — Pyrope garnets range in colour from lilac to violet. Their colour reflects high metal chromium content.
Shutterstock

How diamonds and pyrope garnet form

Diamond is the crystalline form of elemental carbon, stable at very high pressures and relatively low temperatures – accidentally brought to the surface through powerful volcanic eruptions.

The necessary conditions to form diamond at great depth in the Earth’s mantle are only met in a few places. The geographic distribution of diamond is very uneven, with notable concentrations in southern Africa, the Congo, Tanzania, Canada, Siberia and Brazil. All of these places are characterised by ancient continental crust between 2.5 and 3.5 billion years old.

This crust is underlain by deep solid “roots” – like the keel of an iceberg – made of mantle which has become highly chemically depleted through intense melting over time.

It’s here in this depleted mantle, which extends as deep as 250km into the hotter, stirring mantle below it, that diamonds have the best opportunity to form. So what about their chromium-rich companions?

Using a thermodynamic computer model, we were able to demonstrate that pyrope garnets can form very deep in the Earth, at the same depths as diamonds. Specifically, these garnets would have formed during intense heating events with extreme pressures and temperatures in excess of 1,800℃.

How the continents grew their roots

Although this is a very exciting finding in itself, what makes it more relevant is that it informs two other significant theories.

The first relates to why the continents formed the way they did – a point experts have long speculated about.

As mentioned above, pyrope garnets formed in extreme heat upwellings coming from great depths. Our findings suggest these upwellings then melted the upper mantle into place, forming the stable base of the continents.

In other words, the “roots” which help continents remain stable for billions of years are leftovers from the same mantle melting events that produced pyrope garnets.

Diamond rarity

The second major inference relates to the rarity of diamonds.

Some researchers believe diamonds were not originally rare, but that many were destroyed as the mantle root was eroded and modified due to continental plates moving over the globe. Our model offers the alternative perspective that diamonds may have actually always been rare.

How can we evaluate whether the necessary cradles of diamond – bits of very highly depleted mantle in the continental “roots” – were once common and became rare over time, or whether they have always been rare?

This kaleidoscopic image is a diamond cradle rock under a microscope. In this view, the garnet is the black mineral.
Author provided

When intense melting events happened on the early Earth, the melts themselves erupted at the continental surface as very fluid lavas, called “komatiites”. These lavas are preserved and are widely analysed. They have varying compositions, and our model predicts which of these could have formed alongside chromium-rich pyrope garnet.

We know from tens of thousands of chemical analyses of komatiite, that the particular composition associated with this pyrope garnet is very rare. That’s because in order for it to form, magma must interact with exceptionally depleted mantle that has gone through many melting events. Only between 8%-28% of komatiite fits this bill.

From this, we can infer that both the pyrope garnets, and the very depleted mantle domains they come from, have always been rare – even back on the early Earth. And because diamonds have an affinity for these particular rocks, they too must have always been rare – making them all the more remarkable.

Carl Walsh holds a QUT postgraduate research award (PRA) scholarship.

Balz Kamber receives funding from the Australian Research Council for Discovery Grant DP220100136 for work that will build on the model predictions explained in this piece.

Emma Tomlinson receives funding from the European Union through an ERC consolidator grant ERC-COG-2021/101044276 to work Archaean lithosphere formation. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

– ref. We used to think diamonds were everywhere. New research suggests they’ve always been rare – https://theconversation.com/we-used-to-think-diamonds-were-everywhere-new-research-suggests-theyve-always-been-rare-201784

Australia’s extinct giant eagle was big enough to snatch koalas from trees

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ellen K. Mather, Adjunct associate lecturer, Flinders University

A fossil extinct eagle has been found that was twice the size of the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax), Australia’s largest living bird of prey. Michael Lee, Author provided

The year is 1959. Speleologists descend a 17-metre shaft to explore the depths of Mairs Cave in the southern Flinders Ranges. Some 55 metres into the main chamber, they find fossils scattered throughout a boulder pile. Among these fossils are a claw and part of a wing bone that appear to have come from a large eagle.

Over a decade passes. An expedition to the cave, led by naturalist Hans Mincham and palaeontologist and geologist Brian Daily, now arrives with the purpose of retrieving more fossils. Among the many mammal fossils they recover are another talon and most of a large bird breastbone – from the same large eagle.

Exploring the depths of Mairs Cave, the place where the fossils were found.
Aaron Camens

No more fossils of this animal are found until more than 50 years later. It is December of 2021, and a team of Flinders University palaeontologists and speleologists have travelled to the cave for a single purpose – to find more of this enigmatic bird. As they descend into the cave’s depths, they hope to find a few more bones. Instead, they find a partial skeleton, including leg and wing bones, and a skull. With this last discovery, we were finally able to name and describe this gigantic eagle in the Journal of Ornithology.

History’s third-largest eagle

Dynatoaetus gaffae (Gaff’s powerful eagle) lived during the Pleistocene epoch, perhaps between 700,000 and 50,000 years ago. At twice the size of a wedge-tailed eagle (which it coexisted with) and with a potential wingspan of up to 3m, this species is the largest known eagle to have lived in Australia, and one of the largest continental raptors in the world.

Only two larger eagles ever existed anywhere: Gigantohierax suarezi, which hunted giant rodents in Cuba, and the giant Haasts eagle, Hieraaetus moorei that hunted large moa in New Zealand.

Thanks to the relatively complete skeleton from Mairs Cave, we were able to identify other fossils of Dynatoaetus from the Naracoorte caves in South Australia and the Wellington caves in New South Wales. It appears this species was widespread across most of southern Australia.

A comparison of the tarsometatarsus (foot bone) of Dynatoaetus and a female Wedge-tailed eagle, with scaled silhouettes of the entire animals.
Ellen Mather

A surprising family tree

After discovering the fossils, we investigated how Dynatoaetus was related to other eagles, with surprising results.

Dynatoaetus was not closely related to any modern Australian eagle. Instead, these birds (and another fossil Australian raptor Cryptogyps lacertosus) were related to the old-world vultures and to the serpent-eagles of south Asia and Africa.

Dynatoaetus was clearly not a vulture-like scavenger, as indicated by its large and powerful leg bones and talons, so to infer how it lived, we looked to the serpent-eagles.

Serpent-eagles, as their common name suggests, primarily hunt snakes and other reptiles. Most are small to medium-sized raptors and would have been dwarfed by Dynatoaetus.

However, there is one species in this subfamily that is an exception: the Philippine eagle. This raptor is one of the largest eagles alive today, and unlike its reptile-eating relatives, it prefers to prey on monkeys, flying lemurs, bats, birds, and occasionally young pigs or deer.

The Philippine eagle, depicted above, is a close relative of the extinct Dynatoaetus and one of the largest living eagles.
Sinisa Djordje Majetic

Strong feet for large prey

Much like the Philippine eagle and other very large raptors, the legs and feet of Dynatoaetus were quite robust. This strongly suggests it was suited for killing large prey, perhaps much heavier than itself.

Dynatoaetus shared ancient Australia with giant kangaroos and flightless birds, the young and sickly of which would have been suitable prey. Koalas and possums would have been plentiful in the treetops, and Dynatoaetus was certainly large enough to snatch them up.

This giant eagle was most likely one of Australia’s top predators during the Pleistocene.

We can also find clues to potential prey via fossils found alongside Dynatoaetus. Small mammals have previously been collected from Mairs Cave, but the 2021 trip also recovered bones of short-faced kangaroos, wombats, bettongs, bandicoots, possums and even koalas (the only record of koalas inhabiting the Flinders Ranges), many of which were potential prey for the giant eagle.

We further found fossils of thylacines, Tasmanian devils and Thylacoleo (the marsupial “lion”), indicating Dynatoaetus competed for prey with a cohort of marsupial carnivores. No one has yet identified beak and talon marks left on fossil bones from this giant raptor – but this may simply reflect that, until now, no-one was looking.

The end of Australia’s megafauna

So why did Dynatoaetus become extinct? It appears to have died out around the same time as much of the Australian megafauna, around 50,000 years ago. Perhaps it was specialised to hunt certain large species, and when this preferred prey went extinct it was unable to adapt.

With the demise of specialist raptors like Dynatoaetus and Cryptogyps, the generalist wedge-tailed eagle was left as the sole survivor of the large inland raptors.

Mike Lee has a joint appointment at the South Australian Museum and Flinders University, and receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Trevor H. Worthy has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

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

– ref. Australia’s extinct giant eagle was big enough to snatch koalas from trees – https://theconversation.com/australias-extinct-giant-eagle-was-big-enough-to-snatch-koalas-from-trees-200341

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

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland

Housing intensification in Hamilton. PCE, CC BY-SA

Recent extreme weather events have provided a foretaste of how supercharged storms might threaten our future. So the release today of a new report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) is very good timing.

Titled “Are we building harder, hotter cities? The vital importance of urban green spaces”, the report examines the climate vulnerability of urban Aotearoa New Zealand, and the prospects for building resilience.

To combat the multiple threats to cities of a hotter and wetter future due to climate change, the report suggests two potential pathways. We can take an engineering approach, with more air conditioning and stormwater infrastructure. Or we can make our urban areas greener.

The first option, according to the report, lacks the “biodiversity, recreational and cultural co-benefits that make green space such an important element of a healthy, liveable city”. In other words, green spaces aren’t just pleasant places for a family picnic. They are a vital part of an ecosystem, and a key to making cities liveable as the climate changes.

Housing pressure

Unfortunately, precious urban green space has dwindled over the past six decades. It’s been replaced by paved roads, car parks and larger buildings on smaller sites. Essentially, existing urban green space is in competition with the demand for more housing.

As the authors state, talk of preserving or expanding green space inevitably leads to a central question:

Whether, in the midst of burgeoning demand for housing, the provision and protection of urban green space is really something that warrants attention. After all, every square metre of potentially developable land that is set aside as parks, yards, gardens or lawns cannot be used for housing.

In the wake of the recent Auckland floods, one of the first council policy actions in the city was a call to delay the housing intensification plan. Housing, planning and environmental agencies are clearly in a difficult position, on the front line of climate adaptation.

Higher-density housing can reduce green space: the estimated increase in runoff from a townhouse compared with a conventional dwelling.
PCE, CC BY-SA

Loss of lawns

The three cities analysed in the report – Auckland, Hamilton and Greater Wellington – are greener than some might think. Hamilton’s green space is about 45% of its urban area; Greater Wellington’s is 65%; and Auckland’s was 55% (though Auckland data are over a decade old, so this is likely lower).

But one caveat in the report is that “residential yards and gardens account for slightly more than half of available green space in all three cities”. Since most backyard gardens are mostly grass, they have less to offer environmentally – “limited cooling, no shade provision, low diversity and little support for native species”.

Fewer lawns also appeared to be the biggest driver of urban green space loss. In Auckland and Hamilton, it’s estimated lawns have declined by at least 10-15% as a proportion of the urban area between 1980 and 2016. This is attributed to infill development placing more and larger houses on single sites.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that disappearing private, urban green spaces such as lawns are not being replaced with public green space by councils. The report highlights that “a number of councils – including in Hamilton, Tauranga and Hutt City – have provided no more than a few square metres of new parkland for each additional resident since 2016”.

Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch have done better in setting aside areas larger then ten hectares. But in Christchurch, the report says, this is only because the 2011 earthquake rendered large areas uninhabitable.

Auckland’s Albert Park: urban trees are important but protecting them has become complex and costly.
Getty Images

Threats to trees

Big problems with tree protection are also behind the loss of green space. This is attributed to changes to rules in the Resource Management Act in 2009 and 2013. These removed blanket tree protection, with onerous and costly processes now making it harder for councils to protect trees.

Effectively, trees deserving protections have to be identified in a district plan, requiring “councils to undertake a plan change process every time a protection is considered worthy”. In Auckland, it’s estimated that “adding a tree to the Notable Tree Schedule costs $1,484 and takes between 34 and 42 months”.

The numbers show how bad tree protection has become: “Between 2016 and 2021, Auckland Council failed to process any of the 587 nominations it received for tree protections.”

Auckland’s unitary plan only contains 6,000 to 7,000 scheduled (protected) trees, while in “Hamilton, Tauranga, Upper Hutt, Lower Hutt, Porirua and Wellington City, fewer than 500 trees had been scheduled”.

Overall, the report notes, there is “no requirement to plan for or provide public green space in New Zealand cities”. A lack of guidance “tends to mean that parks and reserves are treated as a discretionary ‘nice to have’ when hard decisions about provision levels and funding are made”.

Keeping a green score

The report offers several recommendations for reversing the trend of lost green space. Primarily, councils should adopt “more explicit provisions on green spaces based on consultation with their communities”. They should also measure green space and use standardised monitoring systems.

Part of this involves improving green spaces where they already exist. The government’s Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) require 20% of a site to be green space. But this is often done in a piecemeal fashion, with less useful strips of grass scattered around a site.

The report suggests using a “green score” accreditation scheme to measure the potential of private green space to host trees and shrubs, and to measure biodiversity.

A few quick implementation ideas are also offered, including lining road corridors (which “account for 15-20% of the surface of our cities”) with more native plants and trees. Parks could also improve by “simply adding patches of larger shrubs and trees”.

Using the evidence

Ultimately, it will come down to how councils can pay for more and better green space. One suggestion is that developers who “go below a certain level of private green space […] pay for the loss” with a development contribution – a fee paid to the council to help defray the cost of infrastructure (in this case more green space).

Councils might impose citywide or more targeted green space rates levies, though the report doesn’t estimate the cost of adding or improving green spaces in any of the studied cities.

In a way, this report tells us many things we intuitively know. New and denser housing developments are sprouting up, we are losing private green space, we have weak tree protections and we should expand and improve our urban green space.

But the commissioner has done a good job backing this up with research. Given recent events, and looking towards a future of climate extremes, we can use this evidence to demand the changes needed to make our cities more resilient and liveable.

Timothy Welch 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. We’re building harder, hotter cities: it’s vital we protect and grow urban green spaces – new report – https://theconversation.com/were-building-harder-hotter-cities-its-vital-we-protect-and-grow-urban-green-spaces-new-report-201753

Minimum viable whale: Antarctic minke whales may be as small as a krill-eating filter feeder can get in our modern oceans

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jake Linsky, Researcher, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland

A group of tagged minke whales forage off the coast of the West Antarctic Peninsula. Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing. Taken under NMFS permit #23095.

Meagre giants hide in the ice-covered bays and fjords of the Antarctic peninsula. Antarctic minke whales spend their summers foraging in these waters, devouring the dense and abundant krill that feed and grow underneath the sea ice.

These sleek and subtle predators are the smallest members of the rorqual family, which includes some of the largest animals known to have existed, such as blue, fin and sei whales. Minke whales are much smaller than their giant relatives (only about one-twentieth the mass of a blue whale), but a typical minke still weighs about five metric tonnes. That’s equivalent to 18 large grizzly bears or 45 Arnold Schwarzeneggers.

Despite their size, remarkably little is known about the behaviour of minkes or their role in rapidly changing Antarctic ecosystems. So, in the summers of 2018 and 2019, my colleagues and I from Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz and Duke Marine Labs teamed up to study minke whale foraging ecology.

Our team, led by David Cade, made an amazing discovery: minke whales are huge (by human standards), but they are about as small as a whale that feeds by filtering large numbers of tiny prey out of the water can be.

Follow the whale

We recovered high-resolution movement data from 29 tagged minke whales around the west Antarctic peninsula. In addition to these new and enlightening behavioural data, the sizes of tagged individuals were studied from drone-based photographs.

The combination of these two datasets allowed us to investigate minke whale feeding strategies in previously unseen detail.

Antarctic minke whales, along with their supersized rorqual cousins, use a technique called engulfment filtration feeding (or lunge feeding) to hunt Antarctic krill. This strategy requires the whale to accelerate to a speed of about 4 metres per second before filling its mouth with prey-laden water that is then filtered through a sieve-like structure known as baleen.

Engulfment filtration feeding is highly efficient, even for the largest individuals, as blue whales continue to increase in feeding efficiency with greater size.

Hunting at night

Compared to blue whales, each lunging gulp a minke takes contains far less food per kilogram of whale. However, the tag data revealed another way that minkes make up for this energy disparity.

Where a 20m blue whale can take up to two minutes to engulf and filter its prey, 7-10m minkes can complete an engulfment cycle in a matter of seconds. By day, minke whales are rarely able to capitalise on their speedy eating habits, as they may have to dive over 100m to reach their prey.

This means much of their daytime foraging is spent at the surface or swimming to depth, as they need air just like any other mammal. But as night falls, the krill move upward in the water column to the surface.

Soon enough, the minke whales no longer need to hold their breath for minutes at a time just to reach their prey. Then, the minkes become like Pac-Man in their polar environment as they accelerate, engulf, filter and repeat as fast as they possibly can. They consume krill at the absolute limit that their body size imposes on their filtering time.

An evolutionary mystery

The smaller the minke, the faster it filters, but it also becomes less efficient with each gulp. By extrapolating the tag data, we found that minkes below a specific size – 5m, or about the length of a newly weaned minke whale – are not able to filter fast enough to meet their basic energetic needs (the cost of living imposed by metabolism and growth).

This tells us that while minke whales are still quite large, they are about as small as they can be in our modern ocean conditions. The specific minimum size limit of these whales is highly dependent on the rorqual foraging strategy, energetically costly lunge feeding and the high costs of heating and maintaining their mammalian bodies.

However, we suspect the basic principle of this minimum size constraint, that only a limited amount of water can be filtered per time, can help crack an evolutionary chicken-or-egg mystery: what came first, filter-feeding or large body size?

Filter feeders have always lived large

Way back in time, when animals first emerged in the early Cambrian era, the first free-swimming filter-feeder was the large (70cm was large for the time) shrimp-like Tamisiocaris borealis, which raked planktonic creatures from the water with its comb-like front appendages.

Over the next 500 million years, the fossil record shows a diverse range of creatures occupying this free-swimming filter feeder role. They include bony fishes, cartilaginous sharks and rays, ancient reptilian ichthyosaurs and the gargantuan mammals we know as modern baleen whales.

While these animals originate from very different branches of the tree of life, they all have one thing in common: they are large. Most often the largest of their kind.

Our minke whales, the diminutive giants, tell us this is no coincidence. Filter feeding requires a large body size to evolve. But when filter feeding does evolve, it can drive large animals to become colossal.

Jake Linsky 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. Minimum viable whale: Antarctic minke whales may be as small as a krill-eating filter feeder can get in our modern oceans – https://theconversation.com/minimum-viable-whale-antarctic-minke-whales-may-be-as-small-as-a-krill-eating-filter-feeder-can-get-in-our-modern-oceans-201772

The housing and homelessness crisis in NSW explained in 9 charts

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

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

Whatever the result of the New South Wales election on March 25, rising housing stress is a problem the new state government will have to confront.

Soaring rents and an extraordinary lack of rental vacancies are intensifying housing stress in Sydney and elsewhere. Many low-income households are spending well over 30% of their income on housing costs.

The numbers of people seeking help are pushing social housing and homelessness systems to the brink.

But how did these sectors end up in such a vulnerable place? And why are some of their problems worse than in other states?

Population has outpaced social housing supply

The stock of social housing in Australia has hardly changed in 25 years. It has fallen further and further behind the supply needed to keep pace with population growth.

Social housing accounted for more than 6% of occupied dwellings in 1996. By 2021, it was barely above 4%. Rather than reflecting active policy – such as large-scale privatisation or demolition – this is mainly a case of simple neglect.

At first sight, NSW did relatively well during the 2010s. Social housing stock apparently rose by 9% compared with 12% for population.

Unfortunately, this is a somewhat misleading impression. It reflects the NSW government’s 2016 decision to widen its definition of social housing to include less-subsidised affordable rental housing managed by community housing providers. While this housing meets an important need for low-paid “essential workers”, it is no substitute for housing that very low-income earners can afford.

If not for this redefinition, the NSW chart would more closely resemble the national post-1996 picture.

Social housing supply

Social housing construction numbers aren’t directly published in any official series but can be estimated from Australian Bureau of Statistics data on housing commencements. The 2010s began with a dramatic spike as the federal Rudd government invested in social housing as part of its emergency response to the Global Financial Crisis.

But then national and state governments largely stepped back from new social housing investment. NSW annual commencements ran at only 500-1,000 for most of the 2010s. This is less than half the minimum number needed to maintain social housing’s share of all housing.

Unlike other states such as Victoria and Queensland, the NSW government resisted calls for state-funded social housing investment as part of pandemic recovery plans in 2020 and 2021. In contrast with those states, NSW expects to achieve only a minimal net increase in social housing in the first half of the 2020s.

Not only is expected construction modest in scale, it is mainly associated with large-scale demolition of “obsolete” public housing to liberate land. Some is then sold to generate investment funds.

Unlike Victoria, the NSW government has continued to insist new social housing cannot be funded from general government revenue.

The trends are even more problematic than stock numbers suggest, because the system’s capacity to generate lettable vacancies continues to decline. Very few newly built properties are coming up for let. And the flow of existing tenancies being ended has dwindled as tenants struggle to find alternatives in the private rental market.

Social housing lettings in 2021-22 were down 13% compared with 2014-15. And a growing share of scarce lettings has to be devoted to priority applicants – those with the most urgent and severe needs. Priority lets grew by 37% over the past four years and made up nearly two-thirds of all lettings (64%) by 2021-22.

Vacancies remaining for non-priority applicants have almost halved since 2014-15 – down 47%.

Homelessness

Many of those assigned priority status are homeless or at imminent risk of becoming homeless. The latest official statistics that directly measure homelessness are from the 2016 census when 38,000 people were homeless in NSW. Relative to population, homelessness was higher than in any other mainland state.

Measured by the average monthly caseload of specialist homelessness services agencies, homelessness has more recently been rising relatively slowly in NSW. It was up 5% in the four years to 2021-22 compared with 8% nationally.

But rising numbers are being turned away – nearly 10,000 people in 2021-22 – up by 22% in three years. This suggests the system is increasingly overloaded.

The wider point is that homelessness is rising while social housing capacity is shrinking.

After several years of stability or slight reductions, the social housing waiting list (excluding existing tenants) grew by 15% in 2021-22 to 52,000 households. But annual snapshot statistics mask large numbers joining and leaving the list each year.

By our calculations, 17,000 households newly enrolled on the NSW social housing register in 2020-21, nearly double the number given a tenancy. That’s another powerful measure of shortage.

Note that the rules on waiting list eligibility are strict. The weekly household income limit in 2022 was $690 – well below the full-time minimum wage of $812.60.

Far greater numbers of people are homeless or living with rental stress than are on the list. Many people who could qualify realise their chances are so slim it isn’t worth the trouble. Others drop off when they realise they face a wait of years or even decades.

Our recent census-based analysis shows there were well over 200,000 NSW households with an unmet need for social or affordable housing in 2021. Some 144,000 of them would probably qualify for social housing.

True, some of these needs could be met in other ways, such as a major increase in rent assistance. But even if that happened and if no-grounds evictions were outlawed in NSW, private tenancies will remain far less secure than social housing. Arguably, that makes them fundamentally unsuitable for vulnerable people and low-income families.

What lies ahead?

The extraordinary rent spike of 2021-2022 has been the main cause of rising housing need. This happened while immigration all but stopped during the pandemic.

With migration rebounding, there is a serious worry rent inflation will continue to rage, placing even more low-income Australians in financial stress.

Somewhere on the horizon is modest help via the Albanese government’s Housing Australia Future Fund. The target is 30,000 new social and affordable dwellings over five years, with NSW likely to get a large share.

However, the HAFF legislation remains under review. Even when new homes begin to flow through, numbers will be quite small relative to need.

In NSW, party leaders are touting rival plans to assist first home buyers, but have long neglected arguably more serious policy challenges at the lower end of the housing market. Hundreds of thousands of households are struggling as a result.

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

– ref. The housing and homelessness crisis in NSW explained in 9 charts – https://theconversation.com/the-housing-and-homelessness-crisis-in-nsw-explained-in-9-charts-200523

Enigmatic ruins across Arabia hosted ancient ritual sacrifices

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Kennedy, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Sydney

A group of three mustatil and later Bronze Age funerary pendants on a rocky outcrop, southeast of AlUla County. AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided

Over the past five years, archaeologists have identified more than 1,600 monumental stone structures dotted across a swathe of Saudi Arabia larger than Italy. The purpose of these ancient stone buildings, dating back more than 7,000 years, has been a puzzle for researchers.

Our excavations and surveys reveal these were ritual structures, constructed by ancient herders and hunters who gathered to sacrifice animals to an unknown deity – perhaps in response to ancient climate change. The study is published in PLOS ONE today.

Desert discoveries

In the 1970s, the first archaeological surveys of northwest Saudi Arabia identified an ancient and mysterious rectangular structure. The sandstone walls of the structure were 95m long, and although it was determined to be unique, no further study of this unusual site was undertaken.

Over the following decades, airline passengers would see similar large “rectangles” dotted across the country. However, it was not until 2018 that one was excavated.

The main architectural features of a mustatil.
AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided

These structures are now known as mustatils (Arabic for rectangle). We have been studying them for the past five years as part of a larger archaeological study sponsored by the Saudi Royal Commission for AlUla.

The smallest mustatils are around 20m long, while the largest are over 600m. Previous work by our team determined that all mustatils follow a similar architectural plan. Two thick ends were connected by between two to five long walls, creating up to four courtyards.

Access to the mustatil was through a narrow entrance in the base. There would then have been a long walk, perhaps in the form of a procession, to the “head”, where the main ritual activity took place.

Previous studies determined that the mustatils are at least 7,000 years old, dating to the end of the Neolithic period.

Cattle remains

In 2019–2020, we undertook excavations at a mustatil site called IDIHA-0008222. The structure, made from unworked sandstone, measures 140m in length and 20m in width.

Excavations in the head of the mustatil revealed a semi-subterranean chamber. Within this chamber were three large, vertical stones. We have interpreted these as “betyls”, or sacred standing stones which represented unknown ancient deities.

The excavated mustatil at IDIHA-0008222.
AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided

Surrounding these stones were well-preserved cattle, goat, and gazelle horns. The horns are so well preserved that much of what we find is the horn sheath, made of keratin – the same substance as hair and nails. We found only the upper cranial elements of these animals: the teeth, skulls, and horns. This suggests a clear and specific choice of offerings.

Further analysis suggests the bulk of these remains belonged to male animals and the cattle were aged between 2 and 12 years. Their slaughter would have formed a significant proportion of a community’s wealth, indicating these were high-value offerings.

Human remains

Current evidence suggests that the mustatils were in use between 5300 and 4900 BCE, a time when Arabia was green and humid. However, within a few generations, the ancient inhabitants of Saudi Arabia began to reuse these structures, this time to bury human body parts.

At IDIHA-0008222, a small structure had been built next to the mustatil. Inside were a partial foot, five vertebrae and several long bones.

Their placement suggests soft tissue was still present when they were buried. Forensic anthropologists were able to determine that the remains likely belonged to an individual aged between 30 and 40 years.

Our work at other mustatils has revealed similar deposits of human remains. Were these remains buried in attempt to claim ownership of the structure or some form of later ritual? These questions remain to be answered.

Pointing to water

The mustatils are changing how we view the Neolithic period not just in Arabia but across the Middle East. The sheer size of these structures and the amount of work involved in their construction suggests that multiple communities came together to create them, most probably as a form of group bonding.

Moreover, their widespread distribution across Saudi Arabia suggests the existence of a shared religious belief, one held over a vast and un-paralleled geographic distance. Currently, fewer than ten mustatils have been excavated, so our understanding of these structures is still in its infancy.

Map of Saudi Arabia showing the locations of the known mustatils. — Mustatil locations in Saudi Arabia, with the location of site IDIHA-0008222 marked in red.
Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, the GIS User Community, USGS, NOAA / AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided

The key question to be answered is “why were they built?” A survey trip by our team may have, in part, solved this mystery.

While recording these structures after rain, we noted that almost all mustatils pointed towards areas that held water. Perhaps the mustatils were constructed and the animals offered to the god or gods to ensure the continuation of the rains and the fertility of the land.

The possibility remains that the mustatils were built in response to a changing climate, as the region became increasingly arid like it is today.

Two mustatil in Khaybar County pointing to standing water after rain.
AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided

Our study of the mustatils is ongoing. Our new project at the University of Sydney is focused on understanding why these monumental structures and others were built and what brought about their end.

We hope future excavations and analyses will reveal further insights into the life and death of the mustatils and the people who built them.

Melissa Kennedy received funding from The Royal Commission for AlUla.

Hugh Thomas received funding from The Royal Commission for AlUla.

– ref. Enigmatic ruins across Arabia hosted ancient ritual sacrifices – https://theconversation.com/enigmatic-ruins-across-arabia-hosted-ancient-ritual-sacrifices-201574

Anxious dogs have different brains to normal dogs, brain scan study reveals

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Starling, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Sydney

Dog ownership is a lot of furry companionship, tail wags and chasing balls, and ample unconditional love. However, some dog owners are also managing canine pals struggling with mental illness.

A newly published study in PLOS ONE has examined the brain scans of anxious and non-anxious dogs, and correlated them with behaviour. The research team at Ghent University, Belgium, found that our anxious dog friends not only have measurable differences in their brains linked to their anxiety, but these differences are similar to those found in humans with anxiety disorders as well.

Anxious friends

Anxiety disorders in humans are varied and can be categorised into several main types. Overall, they represent high levels of fear, emotional sensitivity and negative expectations. These disorders can be difficult to live with and sometimes difficult to treat, in part due to how varied and complex anxiety is.

Researching anxiety in animals can help us to understand what drives it, and to improve treatment for both humans and animals. The new study sought to investigate possible pathways in the brain that are associated with anxiety in dogs. Understanding this could both improve treatment for anxiety in veterinary medicine, and reveal similarities with what we know of human anxiety.

Dogs with and without anxiety were recruited for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of their brains. Dogs have been involved in awake fMRI studies before, but for this one, with dogs that might get easily stressed out, the dogs were under general anaesthesia.

Owners of the dogs also filled out surveys on their pets’ behaviour. The researchers performed data analysis and modelling of brain function, focusing on regions of the brain likely to show differences related to anxiety. Based on previous research on animal and human anxiety, the team dubbed these brain regions the “anxiety circuit”.

They then analysed whether there were differences between the brain function of anxious and non-anxious dogs, and if those differences actually related to anxious behaviours.

Side by side photos of a black dog with white paws sitting alert in a white round container, and a woman holding up a hand command to the dog — Images from a previous study which scanned dog brains with fMRI while they were awake, showing a dog named Callie learning to sit in a training apparatus.
Berns et al., 2012

Different brains

The researchers found there were indeed significant differences between anxious and non-anxious dogs. The main differences were in the communication pathways and connection strength within the “anxiety circuit”. These differences were linked with higher scores for particular behaviours in the surveys as well.

For example, anxious dogs had amygdalas (an area of the brain associated with the processing of fear) that were particularly efficient, suggesting a lot of experience with fear. (This is similar to findings from human studies.) Indeed, in the behaviour surveys, owners of anxious dogs noted increased fear of unfamiliar people and dogs.

The researchers also found less efficient connections in anxious dogs between two regions of the brain important for learning and information processing. This may help explain why the owners of the anxious dogs in the study reported lower trainability for their dog.

A person in a maroon shirt hugging a golden retriever looking at the camera — Anxious dogs may require more help, since their brains are processing everything around them differently to ‘normal’ dogs.
Eric Ward/Unsplash

A difficult time

Brains are exquisitely complex biological computers, and our understanding of them is far from comprehensive. As such, this study should be interpreted cautiously.

The sample size was not large or varied enough to represent the entire dog population, and the way the dogs were raised, housed, and cared for could have had an effect. Furthermore, they were not awake during the scans, and that also may have influenced some of the results.

However, the study does show strong evidence for measurable differences in the way anxious dog brains are wired, compared to non-anxious dogs. This research can’t tell us whether changes in the brain caused the anxiety or the other way around, but anxiety in dogs is certainly real.

It’s in the interests of our anxious best friends that we appreciate they may be affected by a brain that processes everything around them differently to “normal” dogs. This may make it difficult for them to learn to change their behaviour, and they may be excessively fearful or easily aroused.

Thankfully, these symptoms can be treated with medication. Research like this could lead to more finessed use of medication in anxious dogs, so they can live happier and better adjusted lives.

If you have a dog you think might be anxious, you should speak to a veterinarian with special training in behaviour.

Melissa Starling owns Creature Teacher, an animal behaviour consulting business.

– ref. Anxious dogs have different brains to normal dogs, brain scan study reveals – https://theconversation.com/anxious-dogs-have-different-brains-to-normal-dogs-brain-scan-study-reveals-201775

Stuck in a ‘talking stage’ or ‘situationship’? How young people can get more out of modern love

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland and Senior Lecturer, RMIT University

“Going together” sounds like a romantic term from yesteryear. Today’s young people have a newer label: the “talking stage”. It happens between being introduced to someone and officially dating, and it can involve talking or texting for days – even months.

The purpose of this stage is to have the opportunity to get to know someone before committing to a relationship with them.

But judging by their posts on social media, young people all over the world are struggling with this modern-day dating phase. They can find it drawn-out, repetitive and emotionally draining.

Is it a new thing? And how can potential couples partners make the most of it?

New label, old practice

The talking stage is not a new phenomenon, but instead a new take on what we know as traditional “courting”.

Courting involves getting to know someone and building intimacy, often for an extended period of time, before committing to marriage.

Yet, not all relationships start with a courting or talking phase, some relationships start as a hook-up then progress to dating. This is because how people communicate romantic interest and initiate intimacy depends on personalities and social context.

Neverthless, the global pandemic changed the way people date now. People who might not have chosen to date online previously, started pursing dates via the internet or sometimes teledates via screens.

Dating using online apps spread the love by swapping, matching, and instant messaging – often with multiple partners and in large numbers.

Researchers termed this period “jagged love” and found it didn’t lead to traditional courting and romance. People in this context move quickly between partners, searching for meaningful connections and often feel disappointed with the outcome. There’s a lot of potential for sabotaging a relationship before it even starts.

And there is a significant difference between the talking stage and traditional courting. Today, early conversations are accelerated by the amount of information publicly available about someone on the internet. So, for some people, talking or texting might feel like an unnecessary or tedious step, given what we can glean from Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

But the talking stage may be a way to solidify fragile human bonds.

Is it a ‘situationship’?

In online forums, young people report feeling confused about how long to talk to someone before moving on, or what to discuss with a potential partner. So the talking stage might seem ambiguous, stressful or anxiety-provoking.

Young people are also confused about whether they are in a “situationhsip” – another relationship status with an ambiguous definition, used to describe non-committed but emotionally charged intimate engagements. This one is similar to recent labels like “friends with benefits”, “booty calls”, or one-night stands.

Being in an undefined stage or relationship can impact mental health and wellbeing. Relationship difficulties are one of the most prominent reasons why people seek counselling and a significant contributor to anxiety, depression, and thoughts of self harm. Counselling services in Australia report the most common reasons for seeking counselling include relationship conflict, inadequate interpersonal skills to initiate or establish significant relationships, family violence, and sexual assault.

Fear of being hurt, abandoned, rejected or trapped can be a barrier to forming and maintaining healthy long-term intimate engagements.

Being in a committed romantic relationship decreases the incidence of mental health issues when compared to ambiguous or casual engagements. This why my research focuses on increasing people’s skills and confidence to navigate intimate partnerships.

Good practice

Many people lack relationship skills such as insight, flexibility, maturity, confidence, effective communication and how to manage expectations. Being able to improve relationship skills is a strong predictor of relationship satisfaction and long-term relationship success.

Working out how to navigate an intimate relationship, by communicating needs honestly and creating opportunities to develop and explore a sense of self, can help people feel more confident.

So, the talking stage is an opportunity to get to know a potential partner, explore compatibility, and improve relationship skills.

There is talking and then there is the talking stage …
Pexels/Pavel Danilyuk, CC BY

5 ways to make the talking stage better

It may be a bit confusing and open-ended, but there are ways to make the talking stage more helpful than stressful.

1) Open communication – make sure to express your needs, expectations, and be willing to also understand the needs and expectations of others in an honest way

2) Explore compatibility – the talking stage is an opportunity to explore whether a potential partner shares interests, values and morals

3) Define the relationship – this stage is an opportunity to discuss the potential relationship and the type of romantic engagement. It is important all parties understand what the relationship is and where it is headed

4) Acceptance – this insightful step involves understanding the talking stage or “situationship” might fizzle out and not turn into a relationship (which may hurt) and that this is a natural part of the process

5) Establish boundaries – self-protection and safety are basic human instincts. So, it is important to know how to navigate this process in a healthy way by establishing boundaries for the intimate engagement early.

Humans are hardwired to search for intimate connections from birth. Modern times may might have changed how we pursue and communicate love, but this innate instinct remains truly unbreakable and the talking stage can be an important part of it.

Raquel Peel 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. Stuck in a ‘talking stage’ or ‘situationship’? How young people can get more out of modern love – https://theconversation.com/stuck-in-a-talking-stage-or-situationship-how-young-people-can-get-more-out-of-modern-love-200914

NZ’s evidence-based response to COVID has saved lives – we could do better when it comes to other major diseases

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Mann, Professor of Medicine and Director, Healthier Lives–He Oranga Hauora National Science Challenge and Co-Director, Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre, University of Otago

As we emerge from the COVID pandemic, we’re grateful research evidence was there to guide us.

Years of immunology and molecular research facilitated the rapid development of new vaccines. Modelling expertise helped predict and plan our pandemic response. Research on medications and antiviral drugs enabled them to be adapted to combat the new virus.

The government’s pandemic response resulted in far fewer deaths in this country than in other parts of the world. This is in part because the latest research evidence informed the response.

There are few similar structures to advise government about the ongoing burden of non-communicable diseases, including heart disease, obesity and diabetes. This leaves Aotearoa New Zealand with large gaps in the pathways for translating research evidence into health policy and practice for our major causes of death and disability.

World Health Organization data from 2019 show non-communicable diseases caused 90% of all deaths in New Zealand. Better use of research evidence could save lives and healthcare dollars, as shown by a 2021 report on the cost of type 2 diabetes.

Four evidence-based interventions to prevent or treat type 2 diabetes were modelled and, if implemented, were predicted to save hundreds of millions of dollars. But only one has been implemented so far.

Lack of expertise and transparency

The current disconnect between research evidence and its uptake into policy and practice hasn’t always existed. Several entities once played important roles in translating evidence into policy, including the New Zealand Guidelines Group, the Public Health Commission, the National Health Committee and the Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit. They have all been disbanded.

In some cases they have been replaced by ad hoc advisory processes, which often lack transparency.

Of course, not all research can, or should, be implemented. But New Zealand researchers have become increasingly frustrated with the difficulty of bringing their own and relevant international research to the attention of policymakers.

Recognising this problem, the Healthier Lives National Science Challenge produced a report that reflects the experiences of leading researchers and community health providers who attended an earlier workshop.

The report identifies elements required for bringing research innovation into our healthcare system.

These include:

the use of data to identify the most pressing health priorities
continuous reviews of local and international research findings
cost–benefit analyses to assess which research evidence should be prioritised for implementation
funding streams for implementing evidence-informed improvements to healthcare.

This diagram shows ways of improving the translation of research into parctice. — This diagram shows ways of improving the translation of research into practice.
Author provided, CC BY-SA

It is centrally important that policymakers have access to expertise. This must include not only the expertise of researchers but also of health professionals and people with lived experience of using the healthcare system.

Evidence is available

Several research groups in Aotearoa are trying hard to make evidence as accessible as possible to policymakers. The recently launched Public Health Communication Centre, led by Professor Michael Baker at the University of Otago Wellington, aims to improve communication of public health research findings to support good policy responses.

A former director-general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, was recently appointed to lead the University of Auckland’s new Public Policy Impact Institute. Its aim is to support the application of research into policies that directly impact communities.

Healthier Lives has established an implementation network to bring researchers and community-based health providers together to help take innovative health programmes from research into community practice.

Despite these and other initiatives, it is still unclear what mechanisms there are within government to receive and assess all this evidence and to prioritise it for implementation.

Researcher in a laboratory — Researchers are often finding it difficult to bring relevant research to the attention of policymakers.
Healthier Lives National Science Challenge, CC BY-SA

Using evidence to improve New Zealanders’ health

How do other countries use evidence to inform health decision-making processes?

In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) produces evidence-based recommendations developed by independent committees with both professional and lay membership. In Finland, a country of similar size to New Zealand, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare carries out extensive research on population health and provides evidence-based information to support government decision-making.

A significant amount of New Zealand taxpayers’ money is spent on health research ($140 million per year). According to the 2020 Kantar NZHR opinion poll, New Zealanders consider this investment a high priority. They want to see it leading to improvements in the healthcare system and preventive programmes.

New Zealand researchers produce high-quality evidence that could improve people’s health here and around the world. Conversely, a lot of international research is relevant here. We should be taking full advantage of this.

As Aotearoa New Zealand continues reforming its health system, we’re hopeful that transparent and adequately resourced mechanisms will be put in place within government to assess and prioritise research evidence. The recently established Public Health Advisory Committee is a step in the right direction.

To make sure research informs health policy is not a trivial undertaking. But it is necessary if we are to maximise our investment in health research and ultimately improve the health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

Jim Mann receives National Science Challenge funding from MBIE, and research funding from The Riddet Institute Centre of Research Excellence.

– ref. NZ’s evidence-based response to COVID has saved lives – we could do better when it comes to other major diseases – https://theconversation.com/nzs-evidence-based-response-to-covid-has-saved-lives-we-could-do-better-when-it-comes-to-other-major-diseases-193933

Cultural burning is safer for koalas and better for people too

By The Conversation -

March 16, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Romane H. Cristescu, Researcher in Koala, Detection Dogs, Conservation Genetics and Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast

Koalas are an iconic endangered species living in a fire-prone environment. This makes them an ideal subject when investigating solutions to wildfires.

We explored how koalas fared before and after cultural burns on Minjerribah island (also known as North Stradbroke Island), near Brisbane on Quandamooka Country.

We used heat-seeking drones to assess population density and collected koala droppings to check hormone levels. We found cultural burns had no detectable effect on these parameters.

The project also found the benefits of cultural burns extended far beyond landscape management. We hope this research further highlights the practice of cultural burning as a strategy to help us manage the risk of wildfire in a warming world.

Dr Romane Cristescu crouches over a dead koala in a burnt area during the 2019-20 bushfires — Wildlife rescue teams, some with specifically trained detection dogs, were deployed after the 2019-20 megafires. But sometimes they were too late. Dr Romane Cristescu, pictured, was part of the koala rescue effort after the Black Summer fires, which underlined the need for more cultural burning research.
Kye McDonald.

Menacing megafires

The Australian Black Summer bushfires shocked the world. But nothing brought home the terrifying ferocity of the megafires – and our vulnerability to them – more than scenes of dead, dying or distressed koalas in an apocalyptic landscape.

Unfortunately, there’s overwhelming evidence that megafires are part of the new normal. Climate change will continue to create the exceptionally dry fuel loads and dangerous fire weather that lead to catastrophic events. So we need to find ways to minimise the damage.

Ancestral practices of cultural burning hold great promise all over the world. The California Fire Science Consortium says fire fuel control, such as that derived from cultural burning, can limit the severity of future wildfires.

A Minjerribah koala looks down at the camera while climbing a tree — Koalas on the island of Minjerribah are disease free and precious, both to locals and for koala conservation.
Asitha Samarawickrama.

Minjerribah is a haven for wildlife. Half of the land is already national park and there are plans to increase the protected area.

Cultural burns have been a significant part of Minjerribah’s history. However, in recent times, large and intense fires have swept across the island, causing considerable damage to property, ecosystems and cultural resources. A megafire on Minjerribah in January 2014 burned more than 70% of the island – the largest fire in memory there.

Living on the edge

There is scant research on wildfires and koalas. That’s largely because wildfires are dangerous and unpredictable, making them difficult to study. And when monitored koalas happen to be in the path of a wildfire, researchers tend to try to save them.

Koalas are particularly vulnerable, suffering long after the fire has passed. They have limited energy reserves and require continuous access to food.

That’s a problem when trees lose their edible leaves. These trees typically require months to produce enough new foliage. After a fire, koalas are also vulnerable to overheating, because they rely on shade and cooling from healthy trees with thick canopies to regulate their body temperature.

The koalas on Minjerribah are virtually disease-free, making this a rare and precious population in southeast Queensland. Wildfires pose the greatest threat to their survival, according to the Quandamooka Native Title rights administrators, Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation (QYAC). It is hoped restoring cultural fire practices will reduce the occurrence of large bushfires.

A QYAC Ranger in protective overalls hoses down trees and areas of value to protect them from the planned burn — Specific trees and places are identified and protected from burning by QYAC Rangers.
Romane Cristescu.

Cultural burning on Quandamooka Country

If cultural burning was a person, one might describe her as patient, slow-moving, calm and quiet. A cultural burn will snake slowly through a site, missing some patches. This creates a burn mosaic.

The fire is not too hot and does not burn high into the tree canopy.

Use of fire in the landscape varied across Australia, between different First Nations groups. Uses for fire can include: fuel and hazard reduction, regeneration of habitat, generation of and management of particular sources of food, fibre and medicines, facilitation of access and movement, protection of cultural and natural assets, or healing Country’s spirit.

Quandamooka people have the oldest published archaeological occupation site on the east coast of Australia. Their use of fire is a deliberate and integral part of caring for Country. That includes burning and prevention of burning.

As leaders and practitioners of cultural burns on Minjerribah, the Quandamooka people wanted to establish standard practices for wildlife management during burning – specifically, whether thermal imaging drones could establish where koalas and other animals are present in areas to be burnt. This could inform actions to reduce risk.

QYAC Ranger vehicle in the foreground while a cultural burn is underway on the hillside in the background — The cultural burn is closely monitored by QYAC Rangers.
Romane Cristescu.

Studying koalas and cultural burning

Koalas are difficult to study, as they are exceptionally good at hiding. That has prompted researchers to find more innovative survey methods.

We used heat-seeking drones to establish koala density, and koala droppings to study their hormone levels. We established a baseline of both measures through repeat surveys prior to the burns.

We also compared sites with and without cultural burns, accounting for seasonal variations that are not due to the burns. We found cultural burns had no detectable impact on either koala density, or hormone levels.

Two drones used in research to assess koala numbers — Koala surveys often require specific methods to be accurate, here we used drones, and multiple sensors (including Hovermap Lidar courtesy of Emescent)
Romane Cristescu.

Multiple benefits of more feet on Country

A perfect cultural burn is lit the right way, at the right place and time of year. Some years, only some places can be burnt, based on the fire interval and soil moisture levels. This requires local knowledge and constant observation all year round, not just during a single pre-burn site visit.

A person in protective green overalls with their back to the camera during a blanned burn — Cultural burns require many feet on the ground to monitor sites all year round and choose the right conditions and places to start a burn.
Romane Cristescu.

Having people on Country throughout the year also improves social connections between generations, and protects stories and sacred sites on Country. Other benefits include:

employment
reducing the risk of megafires
supporting low-carbon economies
improving biodiversity
increasing water protection
improving forest resilience and adaptation to climate change
reducing air pollution
fostering reconciliation.

Of course, this needs to be financially supported and done right – following the guiding principles of Responsibility, Respect and Recognition. It’s crucial that First Nations people of the specific land are involved. The process should also be embedded within contemporary natural resource management and supported by government agencies.

Large group of people from various agencies, in uniform, standing at an intersection for a pre-burn meeting. With vehicles nearby — Collaboration is key to keep koalas safe during burns. On Minjerribah, various agencies and stakeholders are involved, as shown here at a pre-burn meeting.
Romane Cristescu.

Teamwork vital to success

As the world warms, we must become increasingly resilient and work together to find solutions. We can draw on past successes as we shape new and better ways of managing landscapes.

Compassion will play an important role, including the need to listen and respect all contributions even as the world around us is increasingly stressful, so we can create a better future for all.

Cultural burns can help protect koalas.

Romane H. Cristescu has received funding from WWF-Australia and the Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES) for this research.

QYAC received funding from WWF and the Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES) to undertake this work.

Kye McDonald has received funding from WWF-Australia and the Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES) for this research.

– ref. Cultural burning is safer for koalas and better for people too – https://theconversation.com/cultural-burning-is-safer-for-koalas-and-better-for-people-too-200997

Australia hasn’t figured out low-level nuclear waste storage yet – let alone high-level waste from submarines

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Science, Griffith University

Within ten years, Australia could be in possession of three American-made Virginia-class nuclear submarines under the AUKUS agreement with the United States and United Kingdom. The following decade, we plan to build five next-generation nuclear submarines.

To date, criticism of the deal has largely focused on whether our unstable geopolitical environment and China’s military investment means it’s worth spending up to A$368 billion on eight submarines as a deterrent.

But nuclear submarines mean nuclear waste. And for decades, Australia has failed to find a suitable place for the long-term storage of our small quantities of low and intermediate level nuclear waste from medical isotopes and the Lucas Heights research reactor.

With this deal, we have committed ourselves to managing highly radioactive reactor waste when these submarines are decommissioned – and guarding it, given the fuel for these submarines is weapons-grade uranium.

Where will it be stored? The government says it will be on defence land, making the most likely site Woomera in South Australia.

What nuclear waste will we have to deal with?

Under this deal, Australia will not manufacture nuclear reactors. The US and later the UK will give Australia “complete, welded power units” which do not require refuelling over the lifetime of the submarine.

In this, we’re following the US model, where each submarine is powered by a reactor with fuel built in. When nuclear subs are decommissioned, the reactor is pulled out as a complete unit and treated as waste.

An official fact sheet about this deal states Australia “has committed to managing all radioactive waste generated through its nuclear-powered submarine program, including spent nuclear fuel, in Australia”.

What does this waste look like? When Virginia-class submarines are decommissioned, you have to pull out the “small” reactor and dispose of it. Small, in this context, is relative. It’s small compared to nuclear power plants. But it weighs over 100 tonnes, and contains around 200 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which is nuclear weapons-grade material.

So, when our first three subs are at the end of their lives – which, according to defence minister Richard Marles, will be in about 30 years time – we will have 600kg of so-called “spent fuel” and potentially tonnes of irradiated material from the reactor and its protective walls. Because the fuel is weapons-grade material, it will need military-scale security.

Australia has no long-term storage facility

There’s one line in the fact sheet which stands out. The UK and US “will assist Australia in developing this capability, leveraging Australia’s decades of safely and securely managing radioactive waste domestically”.

This statement glosses over the tense history of our efforts to manage our much less dangerous radioactive waste.

For decades, the Australian government has been trying to find a single site for disposal of low-level radioactive waste. These are the lightly contaminated items produced in nuclear medicine and laboratory research. The low levels of ionising radiation these items produce means burying them under a few metres of soil is enough to reduce the radiation until it’s little more than the background radiation we all receive from the rocks under our feet, the buildings we live and work in and the technologies we use.

Even though these wastes are comparatively benign, every single proposal has run into strong local opposition. The most recent plans to locate a dump at Kimba, on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula is still bogged down in the legal system due to opposition by local communities and First Nations groups

And we’re still dithering about what to do with the intermediate level waste produced by the OPAL research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. At present, spent fuel is sent to France for reprocessing while nuclear waste is now being returned to Australia, where it is held in a temporary store near the reactor.

This waste needs to be permanently isolated from ecosystems and human society, given it will take tens of thousands of years for the radiation to decay to safe levels.

Our allies have not figured out long-term waste storage either

But while Sweden and Finland are building secure storage systems in stable rock layers 500 metres underground, neither the UK nor the US have moved beyond temporary storage.

UK efforts to manage waste from decommissioned nuclear submarines is still at the community consultation stage. At present, high-level waste from sub reactors is removed and taken to Sellafield, a long-established nuclear site near the border with Scotland. But each submarine still holds around one tonne of intermediate level waste, which, according to the UK government, has to be temporarily stored until a long-term underground storage facility is built some time after 2040.

In the US, spent fuel and intermediate waste from nuclear submarines is still in temporary storage. After the Obama administration scrapped the long-debated plan to store waste underneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada, no other option has emerged. As a result, nuclear waste from their military and civilian reactors is just piling up with no long-term solution in sight. Successive administrations have kicked the can down the road, assuring the public a permanent geological disposal site will be developed some time in the future.

This should be concerning. To manage the waste from our proposed nuclear submarines properly, we’ll have to develop systems and sites which do not currently exist in Australia.

In 2016, South Australia’s Royal Commission on nuclear fuel suggested Australia’s geological stability and large areas of unpopulated land would position us well to act as a permanent place to store the world’s nuclear waste.

This hasn’t come to pass in any form. An almost intractable problem is that any proposed site will be on the traditional land of a First Nations group. Every site suggested to date has been opposed by its Traditional Owners.

What if we send the high-level waste overseas for processing and bring it back as less dangerous intermediate waste? It’s possible, given it’s what we already do with waste from the OPAL reactor. But that still leaves us with the same problem: where do you permanently store this waste. That’s one we haven’t solved in the 70 years since Australia first entered the nuclear age with our original HIFAR reactor at Lucas Heights.

Ian Lowe was a member of the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory council for twelve years and was a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for the South Australia Royal Commission on the Nuclear Industry

– ref. Australia hasn’t figured out low-level nuclear waste storage yet – let alone high-level waste from submarines – https://theconversation.com/australia-hasnt-figured-out-low-level-nuclear-waste-storage-yet-let-alone-high-level-waste-from-submarines-201781

New data shows 1 in 3 women have experienced physical violence and sexual violence remains stubbornly persistent

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Director, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre; Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University

Eight million Australians have experienced violence since the age of 15, according to new findings of the fourth Personal Safety Survey released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The results confirm that domestic, family and sexual violence remain a national crisis in Australia.

Headline findings show that since the age of 15 years old:

one in four women, and one in 14 men, have experienced intimate partner violence
one in five women, and one in 16 men, have experienced sexual violence
one in three women, and two in five men, have experienced physical violence
one in five women, and one in 15 men, have experienced stalking.

The Personal Safety Survey collected data from 12,000 Australian women and men on the form and extent of violence they had experienced since the age of 15. Only Australians over the age of 18 were surveyed.

This survey is unique because it captures people’s experiences from March 2021 and May 2022, during the height of the pandemic. Schools were closed across the country and many cities had extensive lockdown periods with work-from-home mandates that reduced interactions between colleagues.

The gendered nature of violence

The findings provide further evidence that violence in Australia is gendered. Women are more likely to experience all forms of violence within an intimate partner relationship, including physical, sexual, emotional and economic abuse. Men are more likely to experience violence from strangers.

Women are more likely to experience childhood abuse, both physical and sexual, with 18% of women and 11% of men reporting such an experience during their childhood.

How is violence changing in Australia?

The pandemic means the survey findings should be interpreted with caution, and context is key. Many questions, for instance, focused on experiences of violence in the previous 12 months, which for many Australians will have included lockdown periods.

The findings do indicate a reduction in physical and emotional violence experienced by men and women compared to the 2016 findings. There was also a reduction in the prevalence of sexual harassment and stalking.

However, we need to remember the reduced use of public spaces and workplaces during the pandemic, as well as changes in people’s lifestyles. This could be a reason why victimisation rates were lower during this time.

The survey shows, however, that rates of sexual violence remained stubbornly persistent. This highlights the importance of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children’s commitment to bring “addressing sexual violence out of the shadows”.

For the first time, the survey also captured economic abuse by partners who lived together, which is defined as behaviours or actions “aimed at preventing or controlling a person’s access to economic resources, causing them emotional harm or fear”.

The survey shows that one in six women and one in 13 men have experienced this type of abuse since the age of 15.

Hidden victimisation: what we don’t know

Among the limitations of the survey is that it does not collect data specifically on the experiences of First Nations people. Budget commitments have been made for the Australian Bureau of Statistics to develop the first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Personal Safety Survey. This is critically needed.

The findings today also do not capture the rate of violence specifically experienced by Australians with diverse gender and sexual identities, as well as people with disability.

There are also limits in the data collected in very remote areas of Australia. The findings do not provide information about differences in urban and non-urban victimisation rates. In a country as geographically dispersed as Australia, we need these insights.

Findings from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, for instance, reveal the lifetime prevalence rate of domestic violence is higher in rural, regional and remote areas than in cities.

Also absent are the voices of Australians under the age of 18. Given the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children’s call for children to be recognised as victim-survivors in their own right, this is a notable gap.

Survey participants do reflect on prior experiences of child abuse and witnessing parental violence before the age of 15. It found:

one in six women, and one in nine men, experienced childhood abuse
one in six women, and one in nine men, witnessed parental violence during childhood.

Engaging children in this type of data collection can be challenging, but we need to improve our understandings of their experiences of violence and make space for their voices in national conversations.

It’s encouraging to see the survey now including a wider range of harms. For future iterations, however, we also need information about technology-facilitated abuse, including using digital media and devices to abuse, harass and stalk and non-consensual sharing of images.

We must also ensure the survey captures different forms of intimate partner violence that happen within the one abusive relationship. Presently, the survey only records discrete acts and incidents of violence. However, research shows that many abusive behaviours are interconnected and occur as a pattern of abuse.

The need for more investment

The survey provides evidence of the scale of the problem of violence in the country. There is an urgent need to bolster funding and initiatives that prevent and respond to all forms of gender-based violence.

Advocates have critiqued the government’s commitment of A$386 billion for nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS deal. In comparison, less than 1% of that has been invested in tackling violence against women, despite the national plan’s pledge last year to eliminate gender-based violence in one generation.

Personal Safety Surveys will continue to document the gendered dimension of violence in Australia and the insecurity of women’s lives unless we tackle the underlying causes of violence. This survey must be a call to increase our focus on preventing violence and dismantling gender inequality in all settings across Australia.

Kate receives funding for family violence related research from the Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Criminology, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, the Victorian Government and the Department of Social Services. In 2021 Kate led the National Plan Stakeholder and Victim-Survivor Advocates Consultation Projects. This piece is written by Kate Fitz-Gibbon in her capacity as Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre and are wholly independent of Kate Fitz-Gibbon’s role as Chair of Respect Victoria.

Bridget Harris receives funding for family violence and technology-facilitated abuse research from the Australian Research Council and Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communication and the Arts and has previously received funding from The eSafety Commissioner and the Australian Institute of Criminology.

– ref. New data shows 1 in 3 women have experienced physical violence and sexual violence remains stubbornly persistent – https://theconversation.com/new-data-shows-1-in-3-women-have-experienced-physical-violence-and-sexual-violence-remains-stubbornly-persistent-201758

Rising bank profits highlight tensions between competition watchdogs and central banks

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Meade, Senior Research Fellow, Auckland University of Technology

With soaring mortgage rates expected to strain household budgets, there are calls – including from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – for the Commerce Commission to investigate bank profits.

But rising profits and the widening margin between lending and borrowing rates mean the Reserve Bank is doing its job as much as it’s a sign of anti-competitive conduct.

The Reserve Bank’s overarching goals are to fight inflation and ensure financial stability. To achieve these, it does two things that the commission would normally frown upon.

First, the Reserve Bank runs the country’s largest legal price-fixing operation.

It does this by setting the official cash rate and by influencing banks’ expectations about its future changes. The official cash rate sets the interest rates on the deposits and loans registered banks have with the Reserve Bank, in turn affecting banks’ own lending and deposit rates.

Raising the official cash rate, and therefore the cost of borrowing, is one of the RBNZ’s principal tools for reducing inflation. However, higher interest rates can increase bank profits, not least because a low official cash rate shrinks profit margins by making it harder for banks to reduce the interest rates paid on deposits.

If ordinary competitors manipulated prices like this, the commission would investigate them for price fixing.

Price fixing to avert a meltdown

Until the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), deposit rates were closely in step with the official cash rate. When the Reserve Bank responded to the crisis by slashing the rate, mortgage and deposit rates followed suit.

But during the same period, deposit interest rates continued to track higher than the official cash rate and margins between lending and deposit rates fell significantly.

When COVID-19 stuck in early 2020, the official cash rate fell to historic lows. But deposit rates fell harder than lending rates, with banks’ lending margins jumping dramatically.

Soaring house prices bolstered demand for loans. Meanwhile, the banks’ need to offer competitive deposit rates was dampened due to the Reserve Bank’s support of cheap wholesale funding.

Hence the Reserve Bank’s price fixing averted financial meltdowns by, in part, preserving bank profitability.

Clamping down on competition

The second thing the Reserve Bank does that the commission normally dislikes is that it restricts the entry of another competitor, by setting and enforcing the rules on which entities are able to operate as banks.

The Reserve Bank also imposes conditions on how banks operate, such as requiring them to maintain minimum levels of capital.

That way the Reserve Bank limits risk in the financial sector by stopping unsafe operators from becoming banks and ensuring existing operators operate prudently.

As in other sectors, limiting competitive entry can make existing banks more profitable. The required minimum reserves of capital can also increase profits. Indeed, limiting bank sector competition has long been, until recently at least, considered important for financial stability. It reduces banks’ incentive to boost profits by taking risky bets using depositors’ money.

As for price fixing, the commission would normally take enforcement action if an organisation deliberately restricted competitive entry. But, as discussed above, the RBNZ has solid policy rationales for its approach.

Providing a ‘reference price’

In this regard, the Reserve Bank is not alone. Governments fix medicine prices to ensure accessibility and set minimum wages to support low-wage workers. The competitive impact of pricing focal points – such as those created by minimum wages or the official cash rate – can also be seen in other sectors.

In 2017, I co-authored a study into fuel pricing that recommended a reference fuel price published on one firm’s website be removed, which promptly happened. The commission subsequently undertook its own fuel sector study, providing evidence that removing this reference price resulted in reduced fuel margins.

The official cash rate is similarly a reference price for banks to use to set their own interest rates rather than openly compete for customers. So its use by the Reserve Bank can be expected to affect banks’ profit margins.

Finding a balance

Clearly a balance is required between effectively fighting inflation and maintaining financial stability on the one hand, and promoting greater competition on the other. Strengthening bank sector competition should lead to sharper interest rates. But it will also affect how official cash rate changes feed through to wider interest rates and could lead banks to take greater risks.

So, before the commission is charged with scrutinising bank competition, consider the following questions. First, are growing bank profits due to banks acting anti-competitively, the Reserve Bank fighting inflation and preserving financial stability, or both?

Second, if bank profits are indeed excessive and due to anti-competitive behaviour, are there measures the commission could recommend and practically implement that would improve outcomes?

Finally, if bank profits are excessive, and at least partly due to the Reserve Bank doing its job, would interventions by the commission to improve competition worsen financial stability or frustrate the fight against inflation?

Answering these questions will need both the commission and the Reserve Bank to have serious conversations about how competition policy and banking regulation can be made to work together to achieve better outcomes for both bank customers and the wider economy. Little would be gained by improving bank competition if that reduces financial stability or worsens inflation.

Dr Richard Meade is a Senior Research Fellow at Auckland University of Technology, Principal Economist at Cognitus Economic Insight, and President of the Law & Economics Association of New Zealand. The views expressed in this article are his and not those of the institutions with which he is affiliated.

– ref. Rising bank profits highlight tensions between competition watchdogs and central banks – https://theconversation.com/rising-bank-profits-highlight-tensions-between-competition-watchdogs-and-central-banks-201851

Tasmanian devil whiskers hold the key to protecting these super-scavengers

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna C. Lewis, PhD Candidate, UNSW Sydney

Despite the damage humans cause to the planet, in some cases wildlife can benefit from the presence of people. The Tasmanian devil, for example, frequently feeds on roadkill left by humans.

But our new research suggests this apparent benefit can come at a cost.

We compared the diets of Tasmanian devil populations living in three types of habitat, by examining their whiskers. We found in many cases, Tasmanian devils may be mostly eating foods inadvertently provided by humans. Accessing this food changed the behaviours of Tasmanian devils – and potentially put them in harm’s way.

Our findings are especially important given the risks to Tasmanian devils posed by an aggressive facial tumour disease. If we’re to protect this endangered species, we must conserve environments untouched by humans.

a woman releases a Tasmanian devil from a bag — The author releases a Tasmanian devil into the wild after sampling for diet analysis.
Ariana Ananda, Author provided

What are Tasmanian devils eating?

The Tasmanian devil is the biggest carnivorous marsupial in the world. It used to be found on mainland Australia but now wild populations are only found in Tasmania.

Tasmanian devils rarely hunt prey. But they’re highly effective scavengers, thanks to their sharp sense of smell, bone-crushing jaws and energy-efficient movement.

Animals that scavenge for food are “opportunistic feeders” – in other words, they eat whatever they happen to find. This usually means scavengers have a varied diet.

But our previous research found Tasmanian devils have remarkably restricted diets. To find out why, we examined Tasmanian devil whiskers. A single whisker can provide a window into the animal’s past.

We used a technique called “stable isotope analysis”, which enabled us to measure nitrogen and carbon incorporated into the devil’s whiskers as it grows. We matched the chemical composition of the whiskers with potential food items, to determine what the devil ate weeks or months ago. Then we looked at how this varied between individuals living in different habitats.

The technique has been used to describe the diets of early humans and extinct species. It’s also been used to study the migration patterns of wide-ranging birds and marine mammals.

A whisker is collected from a Tasmanian devil for stable isotope analysis, a technique used to analyse diet over time.
Caitlin Newton, Author provided

And the results?

We found devil populations in highly disturbed landscapes, such as cleared farmland, fed on just one type of food – medium-sized mammals such as the Tasmanian pademelon.

This is perhaps unsurprising. Pademelons are very common in farming areas, and often end up as roadkill. So Tasmanian devils have little reason to scavenge for any other types of food.

We also examined the diets of devils in eucalypt forest which had been logged and regenerated. These animals also had relatively restricted diets. The result suggests these forests may not have had time to develop mature features such as tree hollows to shelter bird life, a process which can take up to 140 years.

However, the results were different for devil populations in old-growth rainforest habitats which have never been logged. There, devil diets were diverse. Larger devils tended to eat mammals such as Tasmanian pademelons and brushtail possums, and smaller devils consumed birds such as green rosellas.

These populations may offer insight into what devil foraging behaviour was like before European settlement.

Saving wild landscapes

You might think reliable access to food inadvertently provided by humans would benefit Tasmanian devils. But in fact, it can come with hidden dangers.

The presence of roadkill poses risks to devils; they can be attracted to roads and become roadkill themselves. In 2021, more than 100 devils were reportedly killed by motorists on just one stretch of road in north-west Tasmania.

sign warning of the dangers vehicles pose to Tasmanian devils — Tasmanian devils eating roadkill can be killed by vehicles.
Barbara Walton/EPA

And if members of the same species are interacting around a smaller number of carcasses – or in the case of roadkill, the largest and most desirable carcasses – this could encourage the spread of devil facial tumour disease.

Tasmanian devils are endangered. Pictured, an individual with devil facial tumour disease.
Blake Nisbet, Author provided

Over the past 25 years the disease – an aggressive, transmittable parasitic cancer is – has caused Tasmania’s devil population to fall by 68%. And this year the disease was detected for the first time in Tasmania’s north-west, from the same population as many devils in our study.

A vaccine distributed by edible baits is being developed. But in the meantime, a more diverse diet could reduce a devil’s risk of transmitting the disease to others, or catching it.

Only in old-growth rainforests did devils have a diverse diet that lived up to their reputation as opportunists. The results suggest conserving these wild landscapes is vital to protecting Tasmanian devils.

Anna C. Lewis receives funding from The Winifred Violet Scott Charitable Trust and The Carnivore Conservancy.

Tracey Rogers receives funding from Australian Research Council and The Winifred Violet Scott Charitable Foundation

– ref. Tasmanian devil whiskers hold the key to protecting these super-scavengers – https://theconversation.com/tasmanian-devil-whiskers-hold-the-key-to-protecting-these-super-scavengers-201468

If AUKUS is all about nuclear submarines, how can it comply with nuclear non-proliferation treaties? A law scholar explains

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Sanders, Senior Research Fellow on Law and the Future of War, The University of Queensland

The issue of nuclear non-proliferation is back in the headlines, thanks to details announced yesterday at a US navy base of a deal involving Australia’s purchase of nuclear submarines.

The AUKUS plan, which may cost Australia upwards of A$300 billion over the next 30 years, involves Australia purchasing three Virginia-class nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines by the early 2030s. Australia will also build its own nuclear powered submarines using US nuclear technology by the 2050s.

Australia, the US and the UK have said the deal complies with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

But China has said the AUKUS deal represents “the illegal transfer of nuclear weapon materials, making it essentially an act of nuclear proliferation.”

So what are Australia’s obligations under the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime and does this deal comply?

To answer this question, you need to know a bit more about two key treaties Australia has signed up to: the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (sometimes shortened to NPT) and the 1986 Raratonga Treaty.

What is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty essentially requires nuclear weapon states who are a part of the treaty (US, UK, China, Russia and France) to not pass nuclear weapons or technology to non-nuclear weapons states. Of course, other countries do have nuclear weapons but they are not part of the treaty.

Crucially, the treaty only relates to the use of nuclear materials associated with nuclear weapons. It has a specific carve-out in it for the provision of nuclear materials for “peaceful purposes” (in Article 4).

The treaty also outlines processes to ensure the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors nuclear programs and nuclear materials even if used for peaceful purposes (including uranium and the technology to use it).

Australia has a number of subsidiary arrangements with the International Atomic Energy Agency that outline how these safeguard arrangements work.

Despite what critics may say, Australia’s nuclear-powered engines under AUKUS comply with the written rules of the treaty and these subsidiary agreements.

On the face of it, you might think the term “peaceful purposes” would rule out use for military submarine propulsion. But the definition focuses on using nuclear material for purposes that don’t involve the design, acquisition, testing or use of nuclear weapons.

All AUKUS partners have emphasised the nuclear-powered submarines Australia is to acquire will only carry conventional weapons (not nuclear weapons).

Australia’s agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency clarifies what is covered by the treaty and the concept of peaceful purposes.

Article 14 of this agreement says “non-proscribed military purposes” are allowed.

Effectively, the Australian government has interpreted this to mean nuclear materials can be used for naval nuclear vessel propulsion. That is a usage unrelated to nuclear weapons or explosive devices.

Some have suggested this argument creates a risky precedent that nuclear materials – beyond the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency – could be used to make weapons.

But Australia has undertaken to comply with its safeguard obligations with the International Atomic Energy Agency for the AUKUS deal.

This builds on its existing practice around nuclear materials held for other “peaceful purposes” (like research and medical purposes).

What does the Raratonga Treaty require?

Australia is also a signatory to the Raratonga Treaty (also known as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty).

This treaty is a regional agreement that supports the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Signatories to the Raratonga Treaty have effectively agreed to maintaining a nuclear weapon-free zone in the South Pacific.

The Raratonga Treaty entered into force in 1986. It provides that no “nuclear explosive devices” can enter the nuclear-free zone outlined in the agreement. It also includes other limitations on the distribution and acquisition of nuclear fissile material (which are materials that can be used in a nuclear bomb) unless subject to specific safeguards.

The Raratonga Treaty accounts for differences in opinion regarding Australia and New Zealand’s approach to vessels carrying nuclear weapons (New Zealand does not allow nuclear-weapons carrying vessels to visit its ports, while Australia does).

But more importantly for the AUKUS deal, this treaty does not strictly exclude a signatory from using nuclear propulsion. That’s as long as the engine is not considered

a nuclear weapon or other explosive device capable of releasing nuclear energy, irrespective of the purpose for which it could be used.

Providing the engines meet this definition, the AUKUS deal complies with the Raratonga Treaty as well.

Australia will have particular obligations under this treaty to deal with the nuclear waste.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has outlined that waste from the vessels will be kept on Department of Defence land on Australian territory (and not disposed of at sea).

In accordance with international law

More detail is still to come. But the US and UK have decided the risks involved in sharing nuclear propulsion technology with Australia are worth it to hedge against more aggressive China.

On the face of the announcements made so far, the deal complies with international law, despite accusations to the contrary from China and other critics.

In addition to her role as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Lauren Sanders works as a legal consultant with a law firm, advising Defence industry on international humanitarian law and weapons law issues. Any comments made here are in her personal capacity and do not represent the views of the Australian government or the Australian Defence Force.

– ref. If AUKUS is all about nuclear submarines, how can it comply with nuclear non-proliferation treaties? A law scholar explains – https://theconversation.com/if-aukus-is-all-about-nuclear-submarines-how-can-it-comply-with-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaties-a-law-scholar-explains-201760

Hollywood, memory and family: how The Fabelmans and Babylon both use music to evoke nostalgia

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Camp, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland

This year has seen the release of a varied collection of nostalgic films about film making. Damien Chazelle’s Babylon looks at the excesses of 1920s and 30s Hollywood; Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans explores the position of film in the director’s own childhood in the 1960s, and Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light is about a cinema in 1980s England.

These cinematic looks back offer film composers a challenge: how should they musicalise the past of their medium while adhering to the expectations of contemporary audiences? Two of these films’ composers were nominated for Academy Awards for best score: Justin Hurwtiz for Babylon and John Williams for The Fabelmans. Neither won, but Hurwitz and Williams take opposing yet equally successful approaches to this challenge.

Both scores have been met with largely positive critical reception, the music being one of many points of excellence critics have found with The Fabelmans but one of the few they have found with Babylon.

Nostalgia and the score

While both films use music to evoke nostalgia for the times in which they are set, the effects are very different.

Hurwitz’s massive score for Babylon goes along with the excess of every other aspect of the film, while Williams’s modest work for The Fabelmans adds subtle emphasis to a delicate story. Hurwitz’s score plays through well over half of the three-hour Babylon, while Williams’ for The Fabelmans only takes up 20 minutes (including the end credits).

Notably, neither Hurwitz or Williams write in the currently dominating style of soundscape-based film music best exemplified by the work of Hans Zimmer, a style to which last year’s set of Oscar nominees adhered more consistently.

Of the other nominated scores, Son Lux’s for Everything Everywhere All At Once is a kitchen-sink pop extravaganza and Carter Burwell’s for The Banshees of Inisherin is a finely-wrought chamber score. One might have hoped that the fact that only one nominated score this year, Volker Bertelmann’s for All Quiet on the Western Front, is in the Zimmer style presages greater variety in film scoring in the years to come. That it went on to win suggests otherwise.

Hybrid music

In Babylon, Hurwitz places tropes and topics of 1920s popular music into a 21st century context. From the 1920s, we have choirs of saxophones, muted trumpets, the syncopations of early jazz, and honky-tonk pianos. From the 2020s come cyclical melodic modules, chord-based harmonic gestures, and trance-like repetition – all recorded in clean multi-channel audio.

Hurwitz also throws in a healthy dose of the 1960s jazz-based film scoring style of Michel Legrand, Henry Mancini, and Lalo Schifrin.

This hybrid of ‘20s, ‘60s, and “today” has frequently been used in American films and television shows about films and television. The recent Netflix series Hollywood was scored (by Nathan Barr) in much the same way, although it is set in the late 1940s.

I date the popularity of this style to the innovative and influential backstage TV show 30 Rock, where composer Jeff Richmond took a postmodern approach to the big band styles of earlier decades to musicalise the fast-paced and absurd goings-on in the New York late night TV comedy world.

Past and emotion

Williams’s score for The Fabelmans could hardly be more different. Piano and celesta solos feature with a small orchestra playing Williams’ rich and subtly shifting chromatic harmonies.

This is the kind of music that, if not so carefully arranged with every note in the right place, could have quickly become saccharine. But Williams’s score only enters the film at a few key moments. The film’s soundscape consists primarily of music from the 1960s when the film is set (a technique of place-making more frequently used by Martin Scorsese than by Spielberg) and the piano music played by lead character Sammy Fabelman’s mother Mitzi (Michelle Williams), a character based strongly on Spielberg’s own mother Leah, who trained as a concert pianist.

As Sammy becomes a filmmaker his actions and the films he makes are accompanied by pop songs and excerpts from other film scores of the time, while the home atmosphere is largely connected to Mitzi’s own piano playing. The score is used primarily for emotionally charged moments between mother and son.

Spielberg and Williams on The Fabelmans.

I read the presence of the score as Spielberg reflecting on these moments from his past – Williams scores the director’s emotional memory, while the pop songs and piano pieces are more literal nods to the years in which the film is set. All of the film’s music is about personal nostalgia shared with the audience by the director (compared to Babylon, where the nostalgia is not linked to personal memories of filmmaking and family but rather to the medium of film itself).

Williams’s most poignantly scored scene takes place during a family camping trip, where Mitzi spontaneously and lyrically dances for the family. The music provides focus to the scene, creating a sonic link between the mother as she dances and the son as he films her. The rest of the world seems to melt away as the filmmakers centre on music, light, and movement.

Hurwitz and Williams both musicalise the film-making process in both its procedural and emotional aspects. Both show excellent technical skill, Williams at the golden age end of his career and Hurwitz still at the beginning of his.

Gregory Camp 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. Hollywood, memory and family: how The Fabelmans and Babylon both use music to evoke nostalgia – https://theconversation.com/hollywood-memory-and-family-how-the-fabelmans-and-babylon-both-use-music-to-evoke-nostalgia-201658

PFAS might be everywhere – including toilet paper – but let’s keep the health risks in context

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Victoria’s Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has announced new limits on the toxic “forever chemicals” – perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – in drinking water.

The announcement comes amid rising concern about PFAS, which persist in the environment, are ubiquitous and do not break down over time.

The carbon and fluorine PFAS compounds have been used in myriad domestic and industrial products from non-stick cookware to cosmetics to firefighting foams and fabric treatments. This week, a group of researchers said toilet paper should be considered a potential source (but more on that later).

Every household is more likely than not to have dusts containing PFAS chemicals at low concentrations; forming a route of exposure for the people living there. But how worried should we be about the risks to our personal health linked to these forever chemicals?

Harmful impacts

Three specific PFAS chemicals of concern: perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) are listed on the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The convention is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from chemicals that remain intact in the environment for long periods, become widely distributed geographically, accumulate in the fatty tissue of humans and wildlife, and have harmful impacts on human health or on the environment.

To address PFAS risks and set acceptable limits, Australia has environmental and health guidelines for food, drinking water and recreational water exposures – like those just announced in the US.

The effects of PFAS exposure remain a matter of debate, specifically around the causal links between exposure and poorer human health. Nonetheless, there are clear associations to health outcomes including low fetal weight, impaired immune response, thyroid function abnormalities, obesity, increased lipid levels and liver function and impaired vaccine response.

These associations to disease have been disputed, but it nevertheless remains prudent to minimise exposure to all potentially harmful chemicals.

pan with cooked eggs sliding off — Non-stick pans may expose people to PFAS.
Shutterstock

What about toilet paper though?

The issue in regard to the PFAS in toilet paper study is that consumers do not know the products they are buying contain PFAS. Toilet roll PFAS may have entered the paper as an additive as part of the pulping and manufacturing process. Toilet paper with PFAS adds to the total burden found in wastewater and biosolids. But should we really give a crap?

Yes and no. Yes because it’s not unreasonable for consumers to demand to know if the products they are buying (and rubbing on their nether regions) contain potentially toxic compounds. Some chemicals such as BPA (Bisphenol-A, an an industrial chemical used in plastics manufacturing) have been voluntarily phased out and products that are BPA-free are labelled accordingly.

One concern when swapping out chemicals is that subsitutions are actually more acceptable and are not replaced by something equally concerning. And we should do everything we can to minimise adding persistent, bioaccumalative and toxic chemicals to our environment that are hard to remediate.

On the other hand, we should not worry overly because dermal exposure to PFAS is negligible even from wiping your bum. Most assessments show food and water are the primary sources of PFAS exposure for humans.

And harm from exposure is determined by the dose. Although for some chemicals there is no safe acceptable threshold, ultra low concentrations are typically present in the wider environment away from PFAS sources such as fire stations and training grounds and airports.

plastic containers labelled BPA free — BPA-free plastic is now widely available.
Shutterstock

Levels are falling

Australian population exposure levels to regulated PFAS chemicals – PFOA, PFOS and PFHxS – have been falling over the last 20 years despite the fact these chemicals are still present in cosmetics, food packing, cookware, clothes and carpets.

In addition, the Australian Total Diet Study showed only PFOS was detected in five of 112 food types and in less than 2% of all samples. The daily intake of PFOS in the population was identified as being well below public health and safety concerns. Australian food PFAS values were consistently lower than those reported from Europe, the US, United Kingdom and China.

Population exposure concentrations – outside of known contamination hotspots – are low and the risks have been reducing over time. Our prime focus should be improving modifiable social determinants of health such as income, education, employment security, relationships with friends and family. These will result in tangible beneficial health outcomes.

Mark Patrick Taylor is a full-time employee of EPA Victoria, appointed to the statutory role of Chief Environmental Scientist. He is also an Honorary Professor at Macquarie University.

– ref. PFAS might be everywhere – including toilet paper – but let’s keep the health risks in context – https://theconversation.com/pfas-might-be-everywhere-including-toilet-paper-but-lets-keep-the-health-risks-in-context-201785

Killing dingoes is the only way to protect livestock, right? Nope

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr. Louise Boronyak, Research Affiliate, University of Technology Sydney

Since European colonisation, farmers have often viewed dingoes as the enemy, waging war against them to protect their livestock. Farmers felt they had no option but to eradicate dingoes using traps, shooting, poisoned baits (such as 1080) and building a 5,600km long dingo fence, the world’s longest.

Killing dingoes costs millions of dollars each year. But it hasn’t resolved the conflict. In many cases it has made the threat to livestock worse by breaking up dingo families and removing experienced adults which hunt larger, more mobile prey.

The alternative? As some farmers are discovering, there are unexpected benefits of learning to coexist with dingoes instead. As Western Australian cattle grazier David Pollock told us:

I reckon my dingoes are worth $20,000 each, probably more. So, killing them would be the last thing that I did.

Can dingoes really help graziers?

Yes. In many cases, they can be allies for graziers by reducing the competition for pasture from wild herbivores such as kangaroos and goats, as well as killing or scaring off foxes and feral cats.

As our understanding of the importance of predators has grown, a new approach has taken root: human-wildlife coexistence. Recently recognised by the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity, this field offers a path to stem the global loss of biodiversity by balancing the costs and benefits of living alongside wildlife.

Our new research lays out seven pathways to shift from the routine killing of dingoes towards coexistence.

What does coexistence look like?

One path to coexistence is supporting graziers to adopt effective tools and strategies to reduce the loss of livestock while capitalising on the benefits of large predators. This is known as predator-smart farming

Our research on this area has led to a new Australian guide. This approach relies on a variety of effective non-lethal tools and practices to protect livestock three main ways:

humans or guardian animals such as dogs and donkeys watch over and defend livestock from dingoes, as well as using fencing to create a physical barrier
using knowledge about dingo biology and behaviour to find better deterrents, such as the use of lights, sounds or smells
stronger land management and livestock husbandry to increase the productive
capacity of pastures and livestock resilience.

This approach helps ensure the livelihoods of farmers remain resilient and makes the most of the benefits of dingoes for productive agricultural landscapes and ecosystem health.

This artist’s impression of a predator smart farm shows many different deterrent methods.
Amelia Baxter

As one New South Wales cattle producer found, these approaches work. He told us:

Three years ago, we were losing 53% of our calves to dingoes. We started looking into alternatives that were cost and time effective and decided to try guardian donkeys. We purchased two jacks (male donkeys) and now we have 94% calving rate. Donkeys saved our business.

guardian donkey — Guardian donkeys are effective dingo deterrents.
Author provided

So what’s stopping us?

We now know it’s entirely possible to live and farm alongside dingoes. So why do we still resort to lethal control?

Inertia is one barrier to change. The default option is to kill dingoes. Laws, policies and funding by government and industry have institutionalised lethal control.

But there are other barriers, such as a lack of funding for different approaches from government and a lack of support from the community and graziers. Despite this resistance the number of graziers adopting predator smart farming is growing.

To overcome these barriers, we believe it’s important to undertake research alongside graziers to field-test and demonstrate how these methods actually work, and which combinations work best.

Changes like this take time. We also have to build connections and rapport through agricultural networks, as well as tackle the institutional infrastructure built up around dingo control.

It’s natural for farmers, graziers and state government representatives to be sceptical of such a big change. But the status quo isn’t working. Living alongside dingoes could help us make some of the fundamental changes needed to stop the loss of biodiversity.

To that end, public awareness and talking about this openly can help bring something which has long gone unquestioned into the spotlight.

Our research emerged from in-depth interviews with Australian livestock producers, ecologists, conservation and animal welfare groups, industry representatives and policy makers as well as field observations and analysis of Australia’s wild dog action plan.

sheep farm australia — Coexisting with dingoes could be a win-win for livestock farmers.
Shutterstock

If we do make progress towards coexisting with dingoes, we could embed predator-smart techniques in the way we farm to boost biodiversity, landscape resilience, food security and livelihoods. We would bring back dingoes as apex predators and regulators of healthy ecosystems. Politics would take a step back, in favour of scientific, evidence-based approaches and First Nations input into environmental policies.

This is not hypothetical. Graziers and landholders already using predator-smart tools and strategies report many benefits. They include:

fewer animals injured or killed by dingoes
less time spent stalking and killing dingoes
lower total grazing pressure from feral grazers such as goats
boosting pasture growth and livestock profitability.

Landholders for Dingoes promotes the work of landholders who are coexisting with dingoes.

It’s time to modernise Australia’s approach to dingoes. This approach offers a potential win-win for farmers and dingoes, as well as significant gains for nature.

But to make this happen, we will have to shift our attitude towards dingoes, gain support from graziers and other stakeholders, and make non-lethal coexistence tools and approaches the new standard practice.

Louise Boronyak was funded by the University of Technology Sydney under the UTS Research Excellence Scholarship. She is is a research affiliate of the University of Technology Sydney and Humane Society International Australia

Bradley Smith is an unpaid director of the Australian Dingo Foundation, a non-profit environmental charity
that advocates for dingo conservation. He also serves as a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) dingo working group, which is part of their Species Survival Commission (Canids Specialist Group).

– ref. Killing dingoes is the only way to protect livestock, right? Nope – https://theconversation.com/killing-dingoes-is-the-only-way-to-protect-livestock-right-nope-200905

Here’s what happens in your brain when you’re trying to make or break a habit

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ashleigh Elizabeth Smith, Senior Lecturer – Exercise Physiology, University of South Australia

Did you set a New Year’s resolution to kick a bad habit, only to find yourself falling back into old patterns? You’re not alone. In fact, research suggests up to 40% of our daily actions are habits – automatic routines we do without thinking. But how do these habits form, and why are they so difficult to break?

Habits can be likened to riverbeds. A well-established river has a deep bed and water is likely to consistently flow in that direction. A new river has a shallow bed, so the flow of water is not well defined – it can vary course and be less predictable.

Just like water down a riverbed, habits help our behaviour “flow” down a predictable route. But what we are really talking about here is learning and unlearning.

What happens in the brain when we form a habit?

During the early stages of habit formation, the decision parts of your brain (pre-frontal cortices) are activated, and the action is very deliberate (instead of hitting snooze you make the choice to get out of bed). When a new routine is initiated, brain circuits – also called neural networks – are activated.

The more often you repeat the new action, the stronger and more efficient these neural networks become. This reorganising and strengthening of connections between neurons is called neuroplasticity, and in the case of building habits – long-term potentiation. Each time you perform the new action while trying to form a habit, you need smaller cues or triggers to activate the same network of brain cells.

Habits strengthen over time as we form associations and earn rewards – for example, not hitting snooze makes getting to work on time easier, so you feel the benefits of your new habit.

Later, as habits strengthen, the decision parts of the brain no longer need to kick in to initiate the action. The habit is now activated in memory and considered automatic: the neural circuits can perform the habit without conscious thought. In other words, you don’t need to choose to perform the action any more.

A hand of a sleeping person hovering over the alarm button on a phone next to their bed — If snoozing your phone in the morning feels like an automatic action, that’s because it is. To unlearn the habit, you need to consciously change your behaviour, and do it consistently.
DGLimages/Shutterstock

How long does it really take to form a habit?

Popular media and lifestyle advice from social media influencers often suggest it takes 21 days to make or break a habit – an idea originally presented in the 1960s. This is generally considered an oversimplification, though empirical evidence is surprisingly sparse.

A seminal study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology is often cited as showing habits take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to form, with an average of about 66 days.

In that study, 96 people were asked to choose a new health habit and practice it daily for 84 days. Of the original 96 participants, 39 (41%) successfully formed the habit by the end of the study period. The level of success in forming a habit, and the length of time to form the habit, appeared to vary based on the type of goal.

For example, goals related to drinking a daily glass of water were more likely to be successful, and be performed without conscious thought faster than goals related to eating fruit or exercising. Furthermore, the time of day appeared important, with habits cued earlier in the day becoming automatic more quickly than those cued later in the day (for example, eating a piece of fruit with lunch versus in the evening, and walking after breakfast versus walking after dinner).

The study was fairly small, so these findings aren’t definitive. However, they suggest that if you haven’t been able to embed a new habit in just 21 days, don’t fret – there’s still hope!

An older man standing on one leg in a park doing yoga while a younger woman in athletic wear guides him — It may take longer than 21 days to establish your new exercise routine – what’s important is to keep it up until your brain forges those new connections.
Verin/Shutterstock

What about breaking unwanted habits?

Most of us will also have habits we don’t like – unwanted behaviours. Within the brain, breaking unwanted habits is associated with a different form of neuroplasticity, called long-term depression (not to be confused with the mental health condition).

Instead of strengthening neural connections, long-term depression is the process of weakening them. So, how do you silence two neurons that previously have been firing closely together?

One popular approach to breaking a bad habit is pinpointing the specific cue or trigger that prompts the behaviour, and the reward that reinforces the habit.

For example, someone might bite their nails when feeling stressed, and the reward is a temporary feeling of distraction, or sensory stimulation. Once the person has identified this connection, they can try to experiment with disrupting it. For example, by using a bitter nail polish, and focusing on deep breathing exercises when feeling stressed. Once disrupted, over time the old behaviour of biting their nails can gradually fade.

Tips on how to form or break a habit

To break a habit:

identify your triggers, and then avoid or modify them
find a substitute: try replacing the old habit with a new and healthier one
practise self-compassion: setbacks are a natural part of the process. Recommit to your goal and carry on.

To form a habit:

start small: begin with a simple and achievable habit that you can easily integrate into your daily routine
be consistent: repeat the habit consistently until it becomes automatic
reward yourself along the way to stay motivated.

If you think of habits like that riverbed, what deepens a river is the volume of water flowing through. With behaviour, that means repetition and similarity in repetition: practising your new habit. Because new habits might be overwhelming, practising in small chunks can help – so that you are not creating a new riverbed, but maybe just deepening parts of the main stream.

Finding meaning in the new habit is critical. Some studies have reported strong findings that the belief you can change a habit is also critical. Believing in change and being aware of its potential, along with your commitment to practice, is key.

Dr Ashleigh Elizabeth Smith receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and Dementia Australia.

Carol Maher receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Heart Foundation, the SA Department for Education, the SA Department for Innovation and Skills, Healthway, Hunter New England Local Health District, the Central Adelaide Local Health Network, and LeapForward.

Susan Hillier receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Fund (NHMRC) and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).

– ref. Here’s what happens in your brain when you’re trying to make or break a habit – https://theconversation.com/heres-what-happens-in-your-brain-when-youre-trying-to-make-or-break-a-habit-201189

Newsletter: March 15 2023 – Items of interest and importance today

By Bryce Edwards -

March 15, 2023

New-Zealand-Parliament — New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.

New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.

Items of interest and importance today

CLIMATE CHANGE
Felix Desmarais (1News): Exclusive poll: After cyclone, do voters want urgency on climate change?
Henry Cooke (Guardian): Ruthless Chris Hipkins backpedals on climate action as New Zealand elections near
Bernard HIckey: This is the rainy day we’ve been saving for
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Labour shafts the Greens, the Greens get mad, and both win. Simple. Right?
Dita De Boni (NBR): Chippie’s bread and butter diet missing greens (paywalled)
Michael Neilson (Herald): Māori Party calls on Greens co-leader to resign after climate policy cull as both parties call out Labour over environmental issues
Anna Whyte (Stuff): James Shaw failed dismally over policy purge and ‘should stand down’, say Te Pāti Māori
Russell Palmer and Anneke Smith (RNZ): Climate policy purge leads to clashes between Greens, Te Pāti Māori
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Red-Green friction heats up as James Shaw says Chris Hipkins ‘prepared to do just about whatever’ to win
Steven Cowan: A weak Green Party is ‘rewarded’ for its loyalty to Labour
RNZ: Scrapped climate policies would make ‘very small’ contribution to reducing emissions – Hipkins
Thomas Coughlan (Guardian): Government insists it’s still committed to climate goals, pointing out axed policies weren’t that great to begin with
Teall Crossen (Stuff): Our climate laws are toothless
Jacqueline Rowarth (Herald): Climate change – the problem with mitigation and adaptation
Jame Renwick (The Conversation): Floods, cyclones, thunderstorms: is climate change to blame for New Zealand’s summer of extreme weather?
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): ‘Rapid reaction force’ of gobal scientists reveal findings on climate change role in Cyclone Gabrielle
Greg Hurrell (BusinessDesk): Climate change prime suspect for Cyclone Gabrielle’s force, say scientists (paywalled)

OPINION POLLS, PARLIAMENT
Andy Fyers (BusinessDesk): PollTracker: Labour hit the lead (paywalled)
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Chris Luxon should use his time in isolation to think about lifting National’s game
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): Is Luxon’s beige persona enough to win the election against Hipkins?
Herald Editorial: Hipkins’ bonfire of the priorities gives Labour a boost in the polls (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Is Labour’s cash bonanza economically smart? No. Is it politically? Maybe
Kris Faafoi (Stuff): Election will be a political drag race to the centre
Russell Palmer (RNZ): National MPs defend Luxon over falling popularity: ‘I see the man that you don’t see’
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Political scientist surprised Labour wasn’t up by more in new poll
Tess McClure (Guardian): New Zealand’s Labour coalition sees best poll result in a year after ‘policy bonfire’
Joseph Los’e (Herald): Te Pāti Māori not looking too far ahead – but having a preferred PM in the team of two is worth a shout out
RNZ: Make It 16 campaigners ‘frustrated’ by voting age bill shelving
Caeden Tipler (Re:News): Lowering NZ’s voting age: Why this shouldn’t go to a referendum
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): What jobs did our MPs do before they were in parliament?
Phil Smith (RNZ): Parliament may fast-track cyclone law without urgency
Moana Maniapoto (Whakaata Māori): ‘Brave, fabulous and a trailblazer’ Politicians and close friends remember Georgina Beyer

WELFARE INCREASES
David Farrar (Kiwiblog): Labour corrects its indexation mistake
Tema Hemi (Whakaata Māori): Davidson disappointed by government welfare policy
Ripu Bhatia (Stuff): Benefit increases will help those struggling with cost of living, Māori advocates say
Brianna Mcilraith (Stuff): Benefit increase will mean more money for emergencies, student says
Herald: NZ superannuation rates 2023 – how much more will you get?

BANKS
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Minister stalls on bank profit study after voting down Parliamentary inquiry
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Nicola Willis calls comment from minister Dr Duncan Webb about National’s loyalties ‘reprehensible’
Rob Stock (Stuff): National’s Nicola Willis says Govt has signalled banking ‘market study’ will be called
Richard Prebble (Herald): There are things much worse than profitable banks (paywalled)

MEDIA
Katie Harris (Herald): RNZ exec knew merger was up in the air weeks before spending thousands on staffer’s US trip (paywalled)
Herald: NZME managing editor Shayne Currie moves into new role

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Voters want councils to have a share of GST, poll shows
Todd Niall (Stuff): Alternative to Auckland Council’s grim budget doesn’t ‘gut’ services
Justin Latif (Local Democracy Reporting): Dear Auckland, thanks for funding our $2.9bn hobby. Regards, golfers
Todd Niall (Stuff): Key Auckland mayoral advisor Matthew Hooton moves on
Herald: Auckland Council splashes out on 45 MG electric cars for head office
Felix Walton (RNZ): Aucklanders say water price hike badly timed, but needed
Catrin Owen (Stuff): Men ordered to pay Auckland Council $10k after fight over cancelled far-right speakers
Laura Smith (Local Democracy Reporting): Free speech union slams council submissions policy as censorship
Brendon McMahon (Local Democracy Reporting): West Coast Regional Council chairman Allan Birchfield to be removed
Oliver Lewis (BusinessDesk): Philip Carter rails against Christchurch council (paywalled)
RNZ: Lower Hutt residents told council months ago leaky pipe could cause a landslip
Georgina Campbell (Herald): A Capital Letter: I’m sick of people saying Wellington is dying

HEALTH
Brigitte Morten (NBR): Has Andrew Little left Ayesha Verrall a lemon? (paywalled)
Public Health Communication Centre: When the first barrier fails: Strengthening protection for drinking water sources
Stephen Forbes (Local Democracy Reporting): Middlemore Hospital: 36% of ED patients waited more than six hours, latest figures show
Cécile Meier (BusinessDesk): Patients before profits: Māori NGO buys GP clinic
Grady Connell (Today FM): Alcohol harm reform bill shelved despite community requests
Kristie Boland (Stuff): Christchurch Hospital slashes surgeries as anaesthetic technicians quit ‘bullying, toxic’ department in droves
Brittany Keogh (Stuff): Parent’s dilemma amid GP crisis: Call an ambulance or wait a week for a doctor?
James Perry (Whakaata Māori): Urgent changes needed to future-proof diverse Aotearoa health workforce

EDUCATION
Lee Kenny (Stuff): Former Te Pūkenga CEO who took ‘special leave’ gets new job leading recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle
Lee Kenny (Stuff): Te Pūkenga tells academics not to say words like ‘staff’, ‘students’ or ‘Treaty of Waitangi’
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Schools told to ramp up efforts to stop racist bullying
Ripu Bhatia (Stuff): One in five ethnic learners face racist bullying at school, research finds
Maryana Garcia (Herald): What pay demands and supports striking teachers are seeking from the Government
Lee Kenny (Stuff): Ministry of Education requests last ditch talks to avert primary teachers’ strike
Herald: Teacher strike confirmed for Thursday after Ministry of Education stalemate
William Hewett (Newshub): ACT leader David Seymour criticises Government’s pay negotiation strategy as 50,000 teachers prepare to strike

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Jayden Holmes (Today FM): Geopolitical Analyst warns Australian nuclear power deal ‘terrible’ for New Zealand
David Farrar (Kiwiblog): The AUKUS submarine deal
Lloyd Burr (Today FM): What does Australia’s investment in nuclear technology mean for everyone else?
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Government analyst Yuan Jason Zhao denies spying for China, wants apology for ‘mistake’

ENVIRONMENT
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Labour puts old-school refund scheme for bottles, cans and containers on ice
RNZ: Water pressure for council and iwi over environment reforms

CYCLONE GABRIELLE, INFRASTRUCTURE
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Cylcone recovery bill to cut ‘red tape’ introduced by Government
Grant Duncan: Infrastructure
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (Herald): Cyclone Gabrielle caught central and local government unprepared
Amy Williams (RNZ): Cyclone-hit homeowners unlikely to get payouts that fully cover rebuild cost, insurance lawyer warns
Matthew Rosenberg (Local Democracy Reporting): Gisborne council not testing for contaminants in industrial areas following cyclone
RNZ: Iwi makes securing housing a major post-cyclone goal
Jemima Huston (RNZ): Soldiers say they disobeyed orders and saved lives in Esk Valley

PRIMARY INDUSTRIES
Paul Hunt (Stuff): Slash is a human rights issue. Forestry companies and the govt must recognise that
RNZ: Plans underway for more live cattle shipments to China before ban takes effect
Andrew Hoggard (Herald): Kiwis are open to GMOs but is the Govt? (paywalled)

ECONOMY, BUSINESS, EMPLOYMENT
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): ‘Minimum wage too close for comfort’: 35% of New Zealanders haven’t had a pay rise
Rebecca Macfie (Newsroom): Govt purge: Contractor law reform dumped
RNZ: Economists say economy already shrinking, but OCR still likely to rise
Brianna Mcilraith (Stuff): Renters more concerned about paying for food than rent, Consumer NZ finds
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Here’s why you won’t really pay ‘extra’ tax on your second job
1News: Supermarket supply costs 10.4% higher compared to a year ago
Paul McBeth (BusinessDesk): IAG bolsters balance sheet in Gabrielle’s shadow (paywalled)

HOUSING
Jonathan Killick (Stuff): The Auckland suburbs where overseas investors are scooping up land
Miriam Bell (Stuff): By the numbers: Here’s the low-down on the post-cyclone housing market
BusinessDesk: National house prices now down 16.2% from Nov 2021 peak (paywalled)
Greg Ninness ((interest): Housing sales down, prices down, listings down, stock levels up as properties sit on the market unsold
Geraden Cann (Stuff): Rental purchase may not make sense even after $165k discount, investor says
Olivia Shivas (Stuff): Kāinga Ora admits accessibility policy is ‘confusing’

TRANSPORT
William Hewett (Newshu): Chris Hipkins argues Kiwis need a ‘cultural change’ in how they drive after scrapping speed limit policy
Newshub: Julie Anne Genter claims proposed fringe benefit tax changes to exempt bicycles, e-bikes as ‘a huge Green win’
Nile Bijoux (Stuff): The Clean Car Discount has saved two million tonnes of emissions
Raphael Franks (Herald): Auckland Transport rolls out screen dividers for bus drivers after stabbings
Matthew Scott (Newsroom): Taxicab regulators ‘asleep at the wheel’ over rogue cabbies

HATE SPEECH, CHRISTCHURCH CALL
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Does Jacinda Ardern’s ‘Christchurch Call’ online hate project have a future now she’s leaving politics?
Jody O’Callaghan (Stuff): Hate speech gone to ‘never-never land’ among concerns held by Muslim umbrella organisation

OTHER
Sharon Brettkelly (RNZ): The Detail: The questions over government contractors and consultants
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Government not ruling out merging spy agencies in national security overhaul
Adam Pearse (Herald): Ram raid offences nearly double due to police data collection complications
Waatea News: No need for co-governance says Nats deputy
Sam Olley (RNZ): Whakaari / White Island eruption: ID Tours fails to get health and safety charge dismissed

Don’t forget play – 3 questions can help balance fun with supports and therapy for autistic children

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Trembath, Associate Professor, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University

Navigating a maze of therapies and supports can be difficult for parents of autistic children.

Often, children have multiple learning needs, and attempting to address them one-by-one can take more hours than there are in a week. Attending lots of appointments – while well meaning – may leave little, or no, time for play.

This is why the new National Guideline that outlines how practitioners should work with autistic children and their families is important.

Along with vital information on goal setting, selecting therapies, and measuring outcomes, it seeks a balanced approach that also lets kids be kids.

What the guideline says

The guideline says practitioners working with autistic children should “honour their childhood”, which includes their play, relationships with family and peers, and personal discovery.

This recommendation – like all 84 presented in the guideline – is based on the evidence we synthesised from 49 systematic reviews and consultation with over 1,000 autistic children, young people, and adults; their families; practitioners; and other community members.

The guideline also says practitioners should be child- and family-centred, provide only evidence-based supports, and individualise the type and amount of support for each child and family based on their individual strengths, needs, and circumstances.

The power of play

Play is arguably the most effective way children learn and the benefits are far reaching.

Play helps children develop their social, cognitive, and communication skills, such as sharing their interests with others, taking other people’s perspectives, and solving problems. Play is fun, sparks and satisfies children’s curiosity, and helps them build positive relationships.

This is not to say that play – in the traditional sense – always comes easy to autistic children. For example, autistic children often show reduced symbolic play, such as pretending a doll is picking up a book to read, or that a block moving along a table is a car.

To be diagnosed as autistic, children need to demonstrate restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities, which can all influence the way they play. A child may have a fascination with numbers or letters, line up toys in a certain order, or show a particular interest in just one part of a toy, rather than the whole.

For this reason, working on play skills has been a common goal of therapies and supports.

However, autistic adults are challenging practitioners to think differently and to value each child’s own way of playing. This might include passions and interests that may appear stereotyped or restricted and repetitive to non-autistic people. They argue these interests, movements, and behaviours can help with self-regulation and should be accepted in society, provided they do not cause the individual harm.

So what can parents do to promote play and find the right balance?

First, the guideline is clear – supports should be individualised. Too little support – or too much – can be equally problematic for children and families.

Second, it doesn’t need to be a case of play versus supports. Naturalistic play-based therapies and supports have been around for a long time, and are supported by research. These include approaches that help parents adapt to their child’s way of playing, making it more fun, rewarding, and engaging for all involved.

Delivering supports in the community can also be effective, such as in playgroups and at libraries. Inclusive sports, such as nippers, dance, and AFL can help children participate in activities many children and families take for granted.

It is also important parents step back and reflect on what is, and is not, working well for their child and family.

Is their child receiving supports for childhood, or has it becoming a childhood of supports?

If the goal has drifted towards accessing as much support as possible, rather than using supports to help the child’s engagement and enjoyment in everyday activities such as play, than a re-think is warranted.

children's hands dig through sand for plastic toys — Play therapy can bring together both worlds.
Getty

What role can clinicians play? 3 questions to ask

The starting point is listening to children and families when setting goals and discussing supports, and ensuring they stay in control of their own decisions. This includes taking the time to talk through all of their options, and to consider how supports will shape a typical week.

Three questions can help guide this:

will there be time to play?
will there be support for play?
can play be the way we provide support?

Practitioners such as speech pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and educators should also constantly check the supports they are providing are the most helpful for the child and family. Goals may change and new supports may become more effective.

The ultimate goal

The guideline states:

Autistic children deserve a childhood full of love, family, fun, learning, and personal discovery.

This is the type of childhood all children deserve, and an outcome practitioners should strive for, in recommending and delivering supports to autistic children and their families.

David Trembath currently receives funding from the Autism CRC, and his position is co-funded by Griffith University and CliniKids, Telethon Kids Institute.

Andrew Whitehouse also holds the position of Research Strategy Director with the Autism CRC. Andrew Whitehouse receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Autism CRC, and the Angela Wright Bennett Foundation. The National Guideline discussed in this article was authored by David Trembath, Andrew Whitehouse, Kandice Varcin, Hannah Waddington, Rhylee Sulek, Sarah Pillar, Gary Allen, Katharine Annear, Valsamma Eapen, Jessica Feary, Emma Goodall, Teresa Pilbeam, Felicity Rose, Nancy Sadka and Natalie Silove.

– ref. Don’t forget play – 3 questions can help balance fun with supports and therapy for autistic children – https://theconversation.com/dont-forget-play-3-questions-can-help-balance-fun-with-supports-and-therapy-for-autistic-children-200920

NAPLAN results inform schools, parents and policy. But too many kids miss the tests altogether

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy Lu, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney

Today the NAPLAN testing window starts for more than a million students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Over the next nine days students will sit literacy and numeracy tests which are designed to measure their reading, writing, numeracy, grammar, punctuation and spelling.

Education decision makers will be holding their breath about how many students turn up for NAPLAN. Last year saw the steepest declines on record in secondary school student participation.

This is an issue because NAPLAN results help inform parents, teachers, schools and education authorities about student learning and can influence decisions about policies, resources and additional supports for students. Declining NAPLAN participation may result in decisions being based on incomplete data.

In our new paper for the Australian Education Research Organisation, we look at who is not sitting the tests and why that matters.

Who is not sitting the tests?

While primary school student participation in NAPLAN has been steady at about 95% since 2014, secondary student participation has been in persistent decline. Last year only 87% of Year 9 students sat the tests.

A sharper decline in participation in 2022 was partly due to flooding in regions across Australia, high rates of illness and COVID-19 isolation requirements – circumstances we hope will not be repeated. It is the long-term decline in NAPLAN participation in secondary schools that needs attention.

The participation rate is alarmingly low for some groups of students. The figure below shows 79% of Year 9 students living in remote Australia sat NAPLAN last year. First Nations students and students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds also had low participation rates in 2022; 66% and 75% respectively.

Our analysis reveals low-performing students are also less likely to participate in the tests. Students who performed poorly in NAPLAN in Year 7 were nearly five times more likely to miss the Year 9 tests than high-performing students. These findings were replicated for primary students.

Students who are educationally at risk need the best decisions from schools and education authorities. If NAPLAN participation rates are low for these smaller populations, the data is less reliable and the ability to make informed decisions may be compromised.

Why aren’t students sitting the tests?

Students do not sit NAPLAN for three official reasons: they may be exempt from taking the tests, withdrawn by their parents, or absent on the day.

The main reason for the long-term decline in NAPLAN participation is that more parents have been withdrawing their children from the tests. In 2022 over 11,000 Year 9 students didn’t sit the writing test because they had been withdrawn from it.

Being absent is also a contributing factor in the decline in participation; more so for secondary students than primary. In 2022, more Year 9 students than usual were absent from the writing test (in total over 28,600).

There are many reasons students are absent and withdrawn from NAPLAN. Parents who are worried about how their child may be affected by taking the tests and receiving results may choose to keep them at home or formally withdraw them from the tests. Anecdotally there have also been reports of schools asking low performing students to stay home on testing days, so they don’t “drag down” school averages.

On the positive side, our analysis showed Year 9 students with language backgrounds other than English participated in higher proportions than average (92% compared to 87%). This suggests cultural differences and family attitudes to education and testing might play an important role in participation.

Why is high NAPLAN participation important?

NAPLAN data is used by education authorities to better understand the learning progress of all Australian students to inform system-wide policies and support.

It also helps schools, systems and sectors to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of educational approaches, and identifies schools which need more support.

For example, in NSW, NAPLAN data has been used to understand whether a new teaching role and giving students more practice time have been effective in improving students’ writing skills.

In Victoria, Brandon Park Primary School used its NAPLAN results to inform a whole school change to its teaching of reading, which brought remarkable success.

Given the benefits that good use of NAPLAN data can bring, it is critical the results are representative of the student groups being tested.

While the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority estimates data for withdrawn and absent students, our analysis suggests student proficiency is likely to be overestimated.

That’s because students not sitting the test are more likely to be lower-performing students from their respective demographic groups. Real data is always better than estimates.

What now?

The Australian education system is meant to be about achieving equitable outcomes from education for all students.

Equity is something we should all expect and support.

To achieve it, we need accurate information about student progress on a national scale. NAPLAN is meant to provide that information, so we should support and encourage students to turn up for the tests and try their best.

Lucy Lu is the Senior Manager, Analytics and Strategic Projects for the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO).

Olivia Groves is a Principal Researcher for the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO).

– ref. NAPLAN results inform schools, parents and policy. But too many kids miss the tests altogether – https://theconversation.com/naplan-results-inform-schools-parents-and-policy-but-too-many-kids-miss-the-tests-altogether-201371

Perrottet’s child trust fund policy dusts off an idea last tried by UK Labour

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

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

The “Kids Future Fund” promised by NSW’s Premier Dominic Perrottet if his government is re-elected on March 25 is an idea discussed by social policy experts since the 1990s but rarely embraced by politicians.

Britain’s Blair Labour government introduced a similar policy in the early 2000s but it lasted just eight years before being scrapped as part of budget cutbacks.

Perrottet’s promise is to put $400 into a trust fund for every child aged up to 10 years old (and then for every child born). The government will then match contributions made by the child’s parents (or grandparents) up to $400 a year until the child turns 18.

The trust account can only be accessed after age 18, for two purposes only: to help buy a home; or for education, including tuition fees, learning materials, computers and tools needed to get a qualification.

The estimated cost to the NSW budget over the next four years will be A$850 million.

The Perottet government says this could mean every child born in NSW from this year could have, at age 18, a trust fund worth about $28,500. But this depends on co-contributions and a generous rate of interest. It assumes a 7% return, though the announced policy is that the state government will guarantee a 4% return.

The government’s direct contributions will be:

$200 a year to any family receiving Family Tax Benefit A (normally available to families with one child earning up to $108,892 a year, or more for larger families)
up to $200 more to recipients of Family Tax Benefit A, if matched by the parents (or grandparents)
up to $400 a year for everyone else, if matched.

Parents will be allowed to contribute up to $1,000 a year (presumably to take advantage of the interest rates). Contributions can be made after age 18, but won’t be matched.

Those who only get $200 a year will, using the same formula as the government, have a fund worth a little more than $7,000.

Origins of asset-based social policy

The idea of “trust funds” for children has become more popular since the 1990s, and is most associated with the work of US social researcher Michael Sherraden.

As the Encyclopedia of Social Work puts it, the idea is to build assets complementary to traditional social policy based on income.

“In fact, asset-based policy with large public subsidies already existed (and still exists) in the United States. But the policy is regressive, benefiting the rich far more than the poor. The goal should be a universal, progressive, and lifelong asset-based policy. One promising pathway may be child development accounts (CDAs) beginning at birth, with greater public deposits for the poorest children. If all children had an account, then eventually this could grow into a universal public policy across the life course.”

That this idea emerged in the US may reflect the fact wealth there is more unequally distributed than in most other OECD nations. The least wealthy 60% of Americans own just 3% of total wealth, compared with 17% in Australia.

Britain’s Child Trust Fund

There have been a few experimental programs in Canada and the US. But the program most similar to the NSW government’s proposal is the UK’s Child Trust Fund, introduced by the Blair Labour government in 2003.

This provided every child born after August 2002 with an endowment at birth of £250 and an extra £250 for children in families with household income less than £14,495 (the threshold for receiving the full Child Tax Credit, the UK’s equivalent of the Family Tax Benefit).

In 2006 the UK government announced all eligible children would receive a further £250 at age seven, and those from lower-income families an extra £250 on top of that.

All returns were tax-free, including interest payments and capital gains. Parents could add up to £1,200. Except for a few emergency situations, funds could be withdrawn only after a child turned 18. There were no restrictions on use.

More than 6 million child trust funds were opened between 2003 and 2011, when the scheme was closed to new recipients by the government headed by David Cameron.

Recipients began to access funds in 2020. It remains unclear if the scheme benefited those it was meant to help. As many as 1 million accounts have been classed as “addressee gone away”. Those from poorer families are the most likely to be unaware they have a trust fund.

Issues and challenges

This highlights the greatest uncertainty about the benefits of the Perottet government’s proposal. How long will it last?

Another criticism is that the money could be better spent on families with children now rather than in the future. To be fair, however, the Perottet government is also promising measures including a full year of free preschool, five days a week, for every child.

But important details are lacking. For example, it appears the plan is to hold the money in some form of government-controlled account, with the funds “being invested”. With the UK scheme, accounts simply had to be with an approved financial institution. If the accounts are run by the NSW government, will they count as public assets?

The NSW scheme presumably will not involve tax-free status, since only the federal government has this power.

And even with the contribution paid to families receiving Family Tax Benefit, it is still clearly not as progressive as the UK scheme – where low-income families received deposits twice as much as higher-income families – or as beneficial as the original US proposals.

Peter Whiteford receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.

– ref. Perrottet’s child trust fund policy dusts off an idea last tried by UK Labour – https://theconversation.com/perrottets-child-trust-fund-policy-dusts-off-an-idea-last-tried-by-uk-labour-201662

Tangy apricot Bavarian whip, fried rice medley and bombe Alaska: what Australia’s first food influencer had us cooking

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Samuelsson, Honorary Fellow, University of Wollongong

Our food choices are being influenced every day. On social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, food and eating consistently appear on lists of trending topics.

Food has eye-catching appeal and is a universal experience. Everyone has to eat. In recent years, viral recipes like feta pasta, dalgona coffee and butter boards have taken the world by storm.

Yet food influencing is not a new trend.

Australia’s first food influencer appeared in the pages of Australia’s most popular women’s magazine nearly 70 years ago. Just like today’s creators on Instagram and TikTok, this teenage cook advised her audience what was good to eat and how to make it.

Meet Debbie, our teenage chef

Debbie commenced her decade-long tenure at the Australian Women’s Weekly in July 1954. We don’t know exactly who played the role of Debbie, which was a pseudonym. Readers were never shown her full face or body – just a set of disembodied hands making various recipes and, eventually, a cartoon portrait.

A short blurb on Debbie, and two photos of hands cooking. — Debbie’s first appearance in 1954.
Trove

Like many food influencers today, Debbie was not an “expert” – she was a teenager herself. She taught teenage girls simple yet fashionable recipes they could cook to impress their family and friends, especially boys.

She shared recipes for tangy apricot Bavarian whip, fried rice medley and bombe Alaska. Debbie also often taught her readers the basics, like how to boil an egg.

Just like today, many of her recipes showed the readers step-by-step instructions through images.

An unappetising bowl of rice. — Debbie’s fried rice medley from 1958.
Trove

Teaching girls to cook (and be ‘good’ women)

Debbie’s recipes first appeared in the For Teenagers section, which would go on to become the Teenagers Weekly lift-out in 1959.

These lift-outs reflected a major change taking place in wider society: the idea of “teenagers” being their own group with specific interests and behaviours had entered the popular imagination.

Debbie was speaking directly to teenage girls. Adolescents are still forming both their culinary and cultural tastes. They are forming their identities.

For the Women’s Weekly, and for Debbie, cooking was deemed an essential attribute for women. Girls were seen to be “failures” if they couldn’t at least “cook a baked dinner”, “make real coffee”, “grill a steak to perfection”, “scramble and fry eggs” and “make a salad (with dressing)”.

In addition to teaching girls how to cook, Debbie also taught girls how to catch a husband and become a good wife, a reflection of cultural expectations for women at the time.

Her macaroon trifle, the Women’s Weekly said, was sure to place girls at the top of their male friends’ “matrimony prospect” list!

Food fads and fashions

Food fads usually reflect something important about the world around us. During global COVID lockdowns, we saw a rise in sourdough bread-making as people embraced carbohydrate-driven nostalgia in the face of anxiety.

A peek at Debbie’s culinary repertoire can reveal some of the cultural phenomena that impacted Australian teenagers in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Debbie embraced teenage interest in rock’n’roll culture from the early 1960s, the pinnacle of which came at the height of Beatlemania.

The Beatles toured Australia in June 1964. To help her teenage readers celebrate their visit, Debbie wrote an editorial on how to host a Beatles party.

She suggested the party host impress their friends by making “Beatle lollipops”, “Ringo Starrs” (decorated biscuits) and terrifying-looking “Beatle mop-heads” (cakes with chocolate hair).

A few months later, she also shared recipes for “jam butties” (or sandwiches, apparently a “Mersey food with a Mersey name”) and a “Beatle burger”.

We can also see the introduction of one of Australia’s most beloved dishes in Debbie’s recipes.

In 1957, she showed her teen readers how to make a new dish – spaghetti bolognaise – which had first appeared in the magazine five years prior.

Debbie was influencing the youth of Australia to enthusiastically adopt (and adapt) Italian-style cuisine. It stuck. While the recipe may have evolved, in 2012, Meat and Livestock Australia reported that 38% of Australian homes ate “spag bol” at least once a week.

Our food influences today may come from social media, but we shouldn’t forget the impact early influencers such as Debbie had on young people in the past.

Debbie’s take on the now Aussie favourite, spag bol, in 1957.
Trove

Lauren Samuelsson received funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship when undertaking this research.

– ref. Tangy apricot Bavarian whip, fried rice medley and bombe Alaska: what Australia’s first food influencer had us cooking – https://theconversation.com/tangy-apricot-bavarian-whip-fried-rice-medley-and-bombe-alaska-what-australias-first-food-influencer-had-us-cooking-199987

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

By The Conversation -

March 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The final months of New Zealand’s summer carried a massive sting, bringing “unprecedented” rainfalls several times over, from widespread flooding in Auckland at the end of January to ex-tropical Cyclone Gabrielle dumping record rains and causing devastating floods across the east coast of the North Island.

After all that, New Zealand experienced spells of thunderstorms, bringing repeat floods to parts of Auckland and then Gisborne.

The obvious question is what role climate change plays in these record-breaking rainfalls.

Some answers come from the international World Weather Attribution team, which today released a rapid assessment which shows very heavy rain, like that associated with Cyclone Gabrielle, has become about four times more common in the region and extreme downpours now drop 30% more rain.

The team analysed weather data from several stations, which show the observed increase in heavy rain. It then used computer models to compare the climate as it is today, after about 1.2℃ of global warming since the late 1800s, with the climate of the past.

The small size of the analysed region meant the team could not quantify the extent to which human-caused warming is responsible for the observed increase in heavy rain in this part of New Zealand, but concluded it was the likely cause.

More energy in the atmosphere and ocean

Many factors add to the strength of a storm and the intensity of rainfall, especially for short bursts. A crucial factor is always the amount of energy available.

Climate change is increasing that amount of energy in two main ways. First, everything is getting warmer. Rising sea surface temperatures provide extra fuel for the development of tropical cyclones because they grow by heating from below.

Warmer seas mean potentially faster development of tropical cyclones, and stronger, more vigorous storms overall. Sea temperatures must be at least 26.5℃ to support the build-up of a tropical cyclone. So, as the oceans warm, these storms can reach farther from the equator.

Second, warmer air can hold more water vapour. Every degree of warming increases the maximum amount of water vapour by around 7%. That extra water vapour tends to fall out as extra rain, but it also provides extra energy to a storm.

Driving waves further inland

The energy it takes to evaporate the water from the ocean surface and turn it into vapour is released again when the vapour condenses back into liquid water. A moister airmass heats the atmosphere more when clouds and rain form, making the air more buoyant and able to rise up more. This creates deeper, more vigorous clouds with stronger updrafts, and again more rain.

Stronger updrafts in a storm mean more air will have to be drawn into the storm near the Earth’s surface, ensuring more “convergence” of air and moisture (water vapour). That’s why, even though a degree of warming translates to 7% more water vapour in the air, we can get 20% increases, or larger, in extreme rainfalls.

A Flooded house and paddocks after Cyclone Gabrielle — Every degree of warming translates to 7% more water vapour in the air, but rainfall can increase by 20% or more.
NZDF/via Xinhua, CC BY-ND

All of this extra energy can contribute to making the storm stronger overall, with stronger winds and lower air pressures in its centre. This seems to have happened with Cyclone Gabrielle. Record low pressures were recorded at a few North Island locations as the storm passed.

The low pressures act like a vacuum cleaner, sucking the sea surface up above normal sea level. The strong winds can then drive waves much further inland. Add in a bit of sea-level rise, and coastal inundation can get a lot worse a lot quicker.

As the climate continues to change, storm intensity is likely to increase on average, as sea levels continue to rise. Those effects together are bound to lead to more dramatic coastal erosion and inundation.

Thunderstorms riding warming seas

These processes work for thunderstorms as well. A thunder cloud often starts as a buoyant mass of air over a warm surface. As the air rises (or convects), it cools and forces water vapour to condense back to liquid water, releasing heat and increasing the buoyancy and speed of the rising air.

Again, that allows more moist air to be drawn into the cloud, and that convergence of moist air can increase rainfall amounts well above the 7% per degree of warming, for short bursts of very intense convection. The more intense the convection, the stronger the convergence of moisture and the heavier the resulting rainfall.

Tropical cyclones have rings of thunderstorms around their eye during the time when they are truly tropical storms. As they transition out of the tropics into our neighbourhood, they change their structure but retain a lot of the moisture and buoyancy of the air. An ex-tropical cyclone like Gabrielle, moving over very warm water, can pack a devastating punch.

Why has New Zealand had so much of this very heavy rain during the weeks from late January? Partly it’s the very warm ocean waters around Aotearoa (up to marine heatwave conditions) and farther north into the Coral Sea. That itself is partly related to the ongoing La Niña event in the tropical Pacific, which tends to pile up warm water (and tropical cyclones) in the west.

But it is also related to ongoing global warming. As sea temperatures increase, it becomes easier to reach heatwave conditions. Warmer seas load the atmosphere with water vapour.

Partly, too, the air over the North Island has been unusually “unstable” lately, very warm near ground level but cooler than normal higher up. That makes the buoyance in thunderstorms work even better and more strongly, encouraging very heavy rainfall.

These conditions seem to have eased now, but severe thunderstorms continue to develop. As we move from summer into autumn, as the warmest seas move eastwards away from us and as La Niña fades in the tropics, the chances of a repeat event are diminishing. For now at least.

But if we continue to warm the climate with more greenhouse gas emissions, we will continue to load the dice towards more very heavy rain over Aotearoa. Let us hope those regions and communities so badly affected by recent events have a chance to dry out, rebuild and recover before the next extreme weather.

James Renwick works at Victoria University of Wellington where he is a Professor of Physical Geography. He receives funding from MBIE for climate research. He is affiliated with the Climate Change Commission, as a Commissioner.

– ref. Floods, cyclones, thunderstorms: is climate change to blame for New Zealand’s summer of extreme weather? – https://theconversation.com/floods-cyclones-thunderstorms-is-climate-change-to-blame-for-new-zealands-summer-of-extreme-weather-201161

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

By The Conversation -

March 14, 2023

AUKUS-Joint-Statement-1536x1024 — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Image: United States embassy.

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

The agreement to deliver Australia nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS tripartite security pact was announced today with great fanfare at United States Navy facilities in San Diego, California.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined UK counterpart Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden to announce what will be the biggest defence project in Australia’s history. This momentous decision is premised on an unprecedented level of collaboration between the three countries.

Australia will buy three US “Virginia class” nuclear-powered subs (and potentially two more) as an interim measure from around 2033 onwards.

Australia will then build a new fleet of eight nuclear-powered subs onshore in Adelaide.

It’s an extraordinarily ambitious project. The estimated total cost is between A$268 billion and $368 billion over 30 years.

This plan will supply Australia with nuclear-propulsion submarines more than a decade earlier than previously envisaged.

A major part of the rationale is responding to China’s industrial-scale expansion of its military capabilities, as well as its “wolf warrior” diplomacy, exercise of sharp power (including billions in trade sanctions), and more assertive activities in the South China Sea, East China Sea and South Pacific.

So how will it all work?

The interim plan

The plan involves a number of steps.

Initially, US and UK nuclear-powered subs will visit Australian ports more regularly from 2023 to 2027.

Then, from as early as 2027, the visiting subs will form a rotational force operating out of the HMAS Stirling naval base near Perth (once that facility has been upgraded).

Meanwhile, Australian personnel will be developing their skills to build and operate these boats. Universities and TAFEs are working up from a low base to supply the workforce of up to 20,000 people required across multiple states, but largely South Australia and Western Australia.

The supply of Virginia class submarines will alleviate concerns about the shortcomings of Australia’s current fleet of “Collins class” diesel-electric subs. These are more readily detectable, and thus vulnerable, than nuclear-powered versions.

Even if we get only three Virginia class subs, this will provide a greater level of capability than the current six Collins boats. Apart from the stealth limitations, diesel-electric subs take much longer to transit to station, where their surveillance and patrolling tasks are located, and can remain on station for a shorter time.

The nuclear-powered versions move at a much greater speed underwater and are only constrained by the food supply on board.

Building the next fleet

In the meantime, efforts will focus on establishing a production line in Australia for a new fleet of nuclear-powered subs, to be known as SSN-AUKUS (SSN stands for “sub-surface nuclear”). These subs will leverage design work already done by the UK and the US.

The UK will also build its own fleet of AUKUS class subs.

The separate production lines will provide complementary functions, with input from all three countries.

The new boats will include a US combat system. Australia has long relied on US combat systems for its warships, so there’s already a very high level of interoperability between the Australian and US navies.

But Australians will command the Australian vessels. Albanese was at pains to say they “will be an Australian sovereign capability”.

The UK plans to have its first AUKUS class submarine by the late 2030s. Australia won’t start receiving its locally built submarines until the early-2040s.

A changing world

Experts have raised concerns about the decline in relative power of the US vis-a-vis China. Mindful of this, in a sidebar conversation in Canberra, one senior official explained that the world where the US is less engaged is exactly the world in which we will need this capability.

In other words, the government has committed to bolster reliance on US capabilities to, ironically, bolster Australia’s own self-reliance capabilities.

In agreeing to supply Australia with US nuclear-propulsion technology, the US is acknowledging it needs to share the load, to enlist the support of Australia, in maintaining the international so-called “rules-based order” of which it was the principal progenitor.

Defence Minister Richard Marles explained the nuclear-powered subs plan represents a 0.15% increase in defence spending as a share of GDP.

But he assured us it wouldn’t come at the expense of other major defence capabilities that are in the pipeline.

The Defence Strategic Review is due early in April. It’s expected to address broader defence funding and acquisition plans.

John Blaxland receives funding from the Australian Signals Directorate but that funding was cancelled in 2020.

– ref. AUKUS submarine plan will be the biggest defence scheme in Australian history. So how will it work? – https://theconversation.com/aukus-submarine-plan-will-be-the-biggest-defence-scheme-in-australian-history-so-how-will-it-work-199492

With AUKUS, Australia has wedded itself to a risky US policy on China – and turned a deaf ear to the region

By The Conversation -

March 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University

Much has been made of Australia’s renewed engagement with Asia and the Pacific since Labor came to power.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s “charm offensive” in the Pacific was seen as the beginning of a new process of listening to the region, not dictating to it. Labor’s Asia-Pacific policy has also been hailed as striking a balance between the US and China.

In announcing the AUKUS submarine deal in the US this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese emphasised it was aimed at allowing nations in the region to “act in their sovereign interests free from coercion” and would “promote security by investing in our relationships across our region”.

The reality of the submarine deal is not, however, in that spirit. Instead, it leads Australia towards half a century of armaments build up and restricted sovereignty within a US-led alliance aimed at containing China.

Worse, it hearkens back to a colonial vision of the region as rightfully dominated by Anglophone powers who enjoy a military advantage over others that live there.

In the process, it has also deliberately endangered the spirit – if not the letter of nuclear non-proliferation agreements – and heightened what our neighbours see as a destabilising and unnecessary naval race that can only further provoke China.

Penny Wong in the Pacific. — Penny Wong has promised Australia will be a ‘generous, respectful and reliable’ partner to the Pacific.
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs/AP

Relinquishing sovereignty of foreign policy

The deal confirms two things that nations in the region have long suspected.

First, Australia is incapable of imagining an Asia-Pacific region that is not militarily dominated by the United States.

In addition, the deal suggests we are still politically attached to the United Kingdom – the post-Brexit ghost of a past British empire once again looking east of the Suez Canal towards Asia and the Pacific.

The second is that, despite the window dressing, Australia’s deafness to regional misgivings has not improved since the change to a Labor government.

AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal are far from universally admired in Asia and the Pacific. The ASEAN bloc has repeatedly expressed its wish to avoid an arms race in the region. Regional powers such as Indonesia and Malaysia have made this clear on several occasions.

Other approaches to regional security do exist. And our neighbours have their own sense of how the Asia-Pacific can best balance the growing influence of both the US and China.

Malaysia, for example, has emphasised that so clearly identifying China as an enemy will be a self-fulfilling prophesy. The Pacific states have warned against becoming so clearly aligned with the US and sparking a renewed arms race in the Pacific. New Zealand, too, says it sees no sense in moving towards a nuclear-fuelled foreign policy.

Instead of taking these concerns seriously and engaging in deep regional diplomacy to head off future conflict, Australia seems to have has given up sovereign control of its foreign policy.

Canberra is moving towards what former Prime Ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating have respectively called “shared sovereignty” and “outsourced” strategic sovereignty.

Contrary to the assurances of Defence Minister Richard Marles, Australia has decided to become absolutely central to the US policy of containing and encircling China. Retreating from the assumed military role that comes with this would take the kind of foreign policy courage that has not been seen for many decades.

War with China is not a certainty

Th submarine deal also comes against a backdrop of some dangerously incautious media predictions that Australia could be at war with China within three years.

Scarcely to be heard is the view that if war were to occur, it would be a war of choice, not a war to defend Australian sovereignty, even broadly defined.

Bad assumptions about the future can unfortunately drive bad policy. The assumption of a regional war is in part a consequence of viewing China through the lens of the faulty idea of an inescapable “Thucydides Trap”.

For adherents of this belief, war between the US and China is simply a natural fact dictated by history when a rising power challenges an established power, similar to what happened in the war between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece.

Chinese brinkmanship and assertion of control over disputed territories and waters, however, is not a Greek tragedy. And Australian strategic decision-makers should not take for granted that war is coming either between China and Taiwan, or China and the United States – much less with Australia.

Herein lies the danger of handing over our sovereign foreign policy decision-making to the US and relaxing into the faux security offered by AUKUS.

We are led to the false sense there is no alternative but to be involved militarily wherever the US is in a conflict, whether that be in Iraq, Afghanistan or a future war over Taiwan.

Ceding Australia’s capacity to make serious decisions about war and peace cannot be accepted unless all pretence of Australian sovereignty is abandoned. Australia could have tried to work towards a regional approach with other Asian and Pacific countries. But this week’s agreement makes that all but impossible.

Matt Fitzpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT210100448 – Strategic Friendship: Anglo-German Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region).

– ref. With AUKUS, Australia has wedded itself to a risky US policy on China – and turned a deaf ear to the region – https://theconversation.com/with-aukus-australia-has-wedded-itself-to-a-risky-us-policy-on-china-and-turned-a-deaf-ear-to-the-region-201757