Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Wingrove, PhD Candidate at the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre, University of Wollongong

New Australian homes are being designed bigger and so require more energy for heating and cooling, wiping out potential gains in energy efficiency, according to our new research. The increasing energy demand is inconsistent with global efforts to tackle climate change and suggests Australia’s housing energy policy requires a radical rethink.

For more than 20 years, Australia’s building energy regulations have focused on energy efficiency. This reflects policy trends around the world.

In building regulations, energy efficiency is measured as the energy required to heat or cool one square metre of floorspace. Energy efficiency can be improved with features such as good orientation, insulation and double-glazing on windows. Homes designed to a higher energy efficiency standard do indeed require less energy for heating and cooling.

But what happens if we build a bigger house, or more houses: does energy efficiency policy still encourage less energy use in homes? Our research shows in Australia, the answer is no. A policy focus on energy efficiency has not led to falls in the predicted energy requirements for heating and cooling – either for individual homes or the new home sector as a whole.

Increasing floor areas

Around the world, apartment living is becoming more common. But detached homes remain the dominant housing type in many developed nations, including Australia, the United States and Canada.

House size differs markedly around the world, ranging from 9m² per person in India, to about 84m² per person in Australia. Globally, floor area per person is increasing.

Our study set out to examine the significance of this increase when it comes to home heating and cooling energy requirements in Australia.

Read more:
Future home havens: Australians likely to use more energy to stay in and save money

What we found

Our study involved more than 580,000 new homes in Australia designed between 2018 and 2022.

First, we looked at official dwelling approval data. We then examined certificates issued under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme or NatHERS. This gave us the thermal performance star-ratings of the new homes, their energy efficiency for heating and cooling and their conditioned floor areas – that is, floor areas typically heated and cooled, excluding spaces such as laundries and garages.

From this, we calculated the predicted energy each home would require each year for heating and cooling.

We found a home designed in 2022 had a 7.6% larger conditioned floor area than a home designed in 2018. And a home designed in 2022 was predicted to require 10% more energy for heating and cooling than a home designed four years earlier.

This differed between jurisdictions. For example, predicted energy requirements for a new home in Western Australia fell by 11% over the period, while in Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory it increased by 17%.

Collectively, we found the predicted energy requirement for heating and cooling of all new homes in Australia was 5.6% more in 2022 than in 2018. This figure ranged from a fall of 21% in the Northern Territory to an increase of 34% in South Australia.

These increases occurred despite 97.5% of new homes meeting the state-based minimum energy efficiency regulations.

Understanding the star-rating system

Between 2018 and 2022, new homes had to be designed to a minimum 6-star energy rating under the NatHERs scheme. However, the policy is implemented by state-based regulations, which in some jurisdictions allows homes to be designed below 6-stars.

In the study period, 18% of new homes in Australia were designed to a 5-5.9 star rating, as permitted within the jurisdictions of Queensland, the Northern Territory and New South Wales. In all other states and territories, the majority of new homes were designed at 6-star or above.

Nationally, just 11% of new homes were designed at a higher standard of 7-10 stars. This ranged from 35% in the Australian Capital Territory to just 5% of new homes in Victoria.

Improvements to Australia’s housing energy efficiency policy came into effect in 2023. However these do not directly address the impact of floor area on heating and cooling energy requirements, and state-based regulations remain inconsistent.

Aussie homes are getting bigger

Our analysis showed new Australian homes continue to get bigger. New homes in Victoria and NSW had the largest conditioned floor areas, while Tasmania had the smallest.

New homes with lower a star-rating tended to be bigger: the average 5-star home in NSW had more than double the conditioned floor area of the average 7-star home in Tasmania.

Larger homes also inherently require more materials to build than smaller homes – and these materials require energy to produce. However this concept, known as embodied energy, was beyond the scope of our study.

Time for a rethink

Our research showed at a household, state and national scale, the emission reduction benefits of improving a home’s energy efficiency may be undermined if policy does not consider floor area.

Demand for new housing in Australia will continue to rise as the population grows. So it’s even more important to ensure we get the settings right on home energy policy. Such an overhaul will be complex, involving building regulations, urban planning and social policies.

Renewable energy can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy used by new homes. However, to make our net-zero goals feasible, achieving reductions in the energy required by each home is a crucial first step.

Work is also needed on how to encourage people to build smaller homes – a home sufficient for their needs, but no larger. Unless Australia re-examines the scale of its new homes, energy efficiency policy will fail to deliver genuine reductions in energy use.

Read more:
All-electric homes are better for your hip pocket and the planet. Here’s how governments can help us get off gas

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

– ref. Australian homes are getting bigger and bigger, and it’s wiping out gains in energy efficiency – https://theconversation.com/australian-homes-are-getting-bigger-and-bigger-and-its-wiping-out-gains-in-energy-efficiency-224741

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Leslie, Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy with a focus on Educational Psychology, University of Southern Queensland

From March 13, NAPLAN testing for 2024 will begin. Over the following two weeks, all Australian students in years 3,5,7 and 9 are expected to sit tests in literacy and numeracy.

Results are then aggregated for schools and other demographics and made public. Students also get their individual results.

For students in Year 3, this will be their first experience of a formal test. For others, they will be sitting the test among school and media hype about the “importance of NAPLAN”.

Read more:
How to avoid annoying your kids and getting ‘stressed by proxy’ during exam season

The NAPLAN debate

Since it was introduced in 2008, NAPLAN has polarised the community. Some education experts see it as counterproductive (with too much emphasis on test performance rather than learning). Others emphasise the importance of the data collected, and how this informs teaching practice and school funding.

One of the prevailing concerns relates to the impact on student wellbeing.

While many students do not feel any anxiety, one 2022 study of more than 200 high school students found 48% felt worried about what the test would be like and how they would perform. A 2017 study of more than 100 primary students revealed up to 20% of children had a physical response to the test, such as feeling sick, not sleeping well, headaches or crying.

For parents, the stress and anxiety their child experiences in the lead up to NAPLAN can cause them to worry and even withdraw their child from the assessment.

But test anxiety is not inevitable. Here are some simple things parents and teachers can do to support students, not just for this assessment, but into the future.

Read more:
NAPLAN results inform schools, parents and policy. But too many kids miss the tests altogether

1. Talk about the purpose of the test

NAPLAN is not just about individual student results and whether you are a “good” at maths or “bad” at reading. It’s about informing teaching and learning.

The results help teachers do their jobs by identifying areas of reading, writing and maths that need more attention. This can help individual students, classes or entire schools.

When the results are collected at state and national levels, they also help tell governments where to put more efforts and funding to help support students.

Read more:
Are Australian students really falling behind? It depends which test you look at

2. Talk about how the test is a journey (not a destination)

Children learn from experience. This enables them to predict what might happen in similar future events.

Talk about NAPLAN as “practice” for future tests. So if you sit NAPLAN test in your younger school years this will help you handle other tests in senior school or maybe even university.

Emphasise that sitting the test is not about a particular outcome or result. It’s about embarking on an experience and learning what it is like to do a standardised tests. In this way, NAPLAN can help students build resilience.

3. Teach your child to manage anxiety

Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to be successful in addressing anxiety symptoms in children.

Mindfulness can teach children to recognise anxiety symptoms such as a fast heart beat, shortness of breath or racing thoughts. By encouraging children to focus on the present moment, mindfulness can help children through improved concentration, better emotional regulation and fostering a sense of calm.

Smiling Mind is an Australian app designed to teach children to be mindful in a developmentally appropriate and guided way. The app is free to download and use. You could sit or lie down with your child and do a “body scan” (where you scan your entire body and notice how it feels) or a listening practice (where you pay attention to the sounds around you).

If your child is experiencing significant test anxiety, such as headaches, tummy pains or a racing heart, there may be more to it than just concerns about NAPLAN. For children aged 12–18, Headspace – Australia’s mental health foundation for young people – offers a range of services.

For younger children, or if you are still concerned, speak to your child’s teacher, the school counsellor or your GP.

Rachel Leslie 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. NAPLAN testing is about to start. How can you support an anxious child? – https://theconversation.com/naplan-testing-is-about-to-start-how-can-you-support-an-anxious-child-225085

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here.

With most economists expecting interest rates to start falling later this year, prospective home buyers might be weighing up whether to buy now for fear of strong competition for stock, or waiting until repayments are lower.

The financial markets and private sector economists expect the Reserve Bank to start cutting interest rates later this year. But the average forecaster is expecting just one cut in the next 12 months, of 0.25%.

While rates have risen 13 times since May 2022, the drop won’t be so far nor so fast.

Even by the end of 2026 rates will probably only be around 1% lower than now.

And this may be as low as interest rates go. The interest rates we saw during the COVID recession were arguably the lowest in human history.

We are highly unlikely to return to these lows.

Neutral interest rates

In normal times, we would expect interest rates to be higher than inflation. People can reasonably expect to be compensated for delaying spending. The margin by which interest rates exceed inflation in the medium-term is known as the neutral real rate of interest.

This Goldilocks rate would apply when the Reserve Bank is neither trying to squeeze inflation nor stimulate demand.

The Reserve has used nine different approaches to estimate this neutral real rate. The average result is that it may have dropped from around 3% in the 1990s to around 1% in the 2020s.

This is also around the average value estimated in comparable countries. In these days of global financial markets, it could be expected that there would be similar trends across countries. The decline in the global neutral real rate may be due to a reduction in the global economic growth rate associated with population ageing and higher global savings.

The Reserve Bank aims for inflation to average around the midpoint of its 2-3% target range. So if the neutral real rate is around 1%, this would imply that the Reserve’s cash rate (at which banks lend to each other overnight) would be around 3.5%.

This is about what the forecasters are expecting by the end of 2026.

Commercial banks set the interest rates they charge on their loans by adding a margin to the Reserve Bank’s cash rate.

Read more:
The government’s Help to Buy scheme will help but it won’t solve the housing crisis

They set the interest they pay on deposits by subtracting a margin from the cash rate. The difference between the two (and any fee income) meets the costs of running the bank such as wages and premises, allows for some loans not being repaid and provides some profits. The margins will be smaller if the banking market is very competitive.

Banks generally move their mortgage interest rates in line with the cash rate. If by the end of 2026 the cash rate is 1% lower, it is likely home loan interest rates will also be around 1% lower. This would reduce the monthly repayment on a 30-year loan for $1 million by $700.

The impact of (somewhat) lower interest rates on house prices

If the housing market is reasonably efficient, these broadly expected decreases in interest rates should largely be already “priced in” by investors. This would suggest relatively little impact as the expected cuts materialise.

But some potential homebuyers will be able to borrow more once interest rates drop. And many of them will choose to do so. They may then bid house prices up.

This is why most economists are forecasting house prices to rise further during 2024. The average expected increase is 5% in Sydney and 3% in Melbourne.

The increases are comparable to the expected rises in incomes so affordability will not significantly worsen. But buying a home will not be getting any easier.

A similar pattern of expected easing interest rates leading to higher house prices is being observed around the world.

Renters may be hoping landlords will pass on interest rate decreases to them. But they are likely to be disappointed. Rents have risen not due to interest rate rises but because the vacancy rate is low. With strong population growth, this is unlikely to change soon.

Read more:
Urbanisation and tax have driven the housing crisis. It’s hard to see a way back but COVID provides an important lesson

What to do?

Trying to out-think the market is unlikely to work.

Not buying your dream home and instead waiting for a drop in interest rates may be a mistake. But so might panic-buying something that’s not what you want out of fear of further rises in house prices.

John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist at the Reserve Bank and the Australian Treasury and was secretary to the Senate Select Committee on Housing Affordability in Australia in 2008.

Craig Applegate 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. Interest rates are expected to drop but trying to out-think the market won’t guarantee getting a good deal – https://theconversation.com/interest-rates-are-expected-to-drop-but-trying-to-out-think-the-market-wont-guarantee-getting-a-good-deal-224060

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

The government will pay superannuation on its paid parental leave from July 1 next year. This will benefit about 180,000 families annually.

Minister for Women Katy Gallagher will announce the move on Thursday when she releases Working for Women, a national strategy to achieve gender equality.

The commitment will be costed in the May budget.

Eligible parents with babies born or adopted from July next year will receive an extra 12% of their government-funded paid parental leave as payment to their super fund.

July 2025 is when employers’ compulsory contributions climb to 12% of salary after climbing from 11% of salary to 11.5% in June this year.

Paid parental leave can be taken flexibly, in blocks as little as a day, until the child turns two, and can be shared between two parents.

The superannuation move follows earlier announced changes to parental leave including expanding the payment to six months by 2026.

Paying super was recommended by the government’s Women’s Economic Equality taskforce.

Gallagher said the data showed clearly that “when women take time out of the workforce to raise children it impacts their retirement incomes with women retiring, on average, with about 25% less super than men”.

Read more:
Boosting paid maternity leave would help the economy, not just parents

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said parental leave was “not a welfare payment – it is a workplace entitlement just like annual and sick leave”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said more economic inclusion of women was “at the centre” of the government’s agenda.

The Working for Women strategy says: “Equality cannot be achieved without addressing who takes on and who is expected to take on caring responsibilities. Nor can it be achieved without valuing the substantial contribution unpaid and low paid care makes to families, the community and – notably – the Australian economy”.

Funding to spur takeup of electric vehicles

On Thursday the government will also announce the provision of $55 million for electric vehicles and associated infrastructure from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC)

Energy Minister Chris Bowen will commit the CEFC to make up to $50 million available to Anglo Auto Finance to enable it to get 20,000 new electric vehicles onto Australian roads in the next two years.

Anglo Auto will give short-term loans to car dealers to help them buy vehicles from manufacturers. The loans will have a shorter turnaround time than traditional auto finance.

ARENA will advance $4.76 million to car rental company Europcar to enable it to add 3100 new electric passenger vehicles to its Australian fleet over three years, in a transition the government values at $110.6 million

Europcar will team up with Ampol to install 256 chargers across 41 hire care sites.

Electric vehicle sales have increased 70% over the past year and now account for 5.4% of all new vehicles sold, with hybrids making up another 10.9%.

The move comes on top of plans to introduce a national fuel efficiency standard from January 2025 that would require manufacturers to increase the average fuel efficiency of the cars they sold each year until 2029.

Manufacturers would be able to meet the target by either making the vehicles they sold more efficient or changing the mix of vehicles they sold to include a greater number of electric vehicles.

Some progress on Closing the Gap

Also on Thursday, the Productivity Commission releases new data on eight of the Closing the Gap data targets and nine supporting indicators.

Five of the 19 targets for Indigenous Australians are now on track compared to four previously.

The proportion of Indigenous babies born with a healthy weight has improved. It is now on track to meet the target of 91% by 2031.

The target of a 15% increase in land and sea covered by Indigenous people’s legal rights is also on track.

But on the downside, there has been no improvement in closing the life expectancy gap. Indigenous males are expected to live 8.8 fewer years than other Australians. For women, the gap is 8.1 years.

The target of reducing the number of children in out-of-home care remains not on track. The target is to reduce the rate of over-representation by 45% by 2031.

Also not on track is the target of reducing adult imprisonment – in fact the situation is worsening. The target is a cut of at least 15% by 2031.

The Productivity Commission will release a further update in July.

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. Government to pay super on paid parental leave, benefitting 180,000 families a year – https://theconversation.com/government-to-pay-super-on-paid-parental-leave-benefitting-180-000-families-a-year-225178

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

Last week, ASIO boss Mike Burgess gave his annual assessment of threats to Australia’s domestic security. In his speech, Burgess sensationally revealed that a former politician had “sold out their country” to a foreign regime.

Burgess’s refusal to name the person, citing the need to protect ASIO’s tradecraft, invited speculation and debate. Nor would he specify the country, but a subsequent report said it was China.

In this podcast, we’re joined by Professor John Blaxland, Professor of International Security & Intelligence Studies at the Australian National University. He was a co-author of the multi-volume history of ASIO; recently, he co-authored Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence & the Advent of Cyber. Blaxland is currently the Director of the ANU’s North America Liaison Office.

On the issue of Burgess staying mum about the former politician’s identity, Blaxland says there is good reason for keeping it secret.

So there’s a question mark now, as to whether the […] nation involved actually knows how effective ASIO has been at disrupting, because […] one of the things that good espionage agencies do is they try and flip their targets so that they become a double agent.

On AUKUS, under criticism from some experts who argue the agreement won’t necessarily protect Australia because the Americans might step back from the region and its allies, Blaxland says:

The great irony, of course, is that’s half the reason why we’re doing this. We want this technology. We want all this kit. We want all this manufacturing capability onshore just in case they’re not going to come if we need them.

He’s very critical of Paul Keating, who this week attacked Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Canberra’s national security establishment.

What is interesting and a little bit unsettling, in my view, is the consistency with which Paul Keating slams our principal ally and major foreign direct investor and principal economic partner, let’s face it, the United States. And yet, screamingly silent when it comes to criticism of China.[…] And it’s Shakespearean even in terms of perhaps about the level of protest.

Based in Washington DC, Blaxland describes the atmosphere as the 2024 presidential election kicks into gear:

It’s an unhappy place. It’s a bit tense. People are worried about what the future might look like.

This is an overwhelmingly Democrat town. And, you know, President Trump’s talked about draining the swamp. And that’s a deeply, deeply unsettling prospect.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: John Blaxland on spies, AUKUS, and an unsettled Washington – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-john-blaxland-on-spies-aukus-and-an-unsettled-washington-225172

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University

The National Broadband Network may offer a significant speed boost to many users, if a plan from NBN Co, the operator of the network, is implemented. NBN Co’s proposed upgrade would provide download speeds up to five times faster for users on its three fastest home services (Home Fast, Home Superfast and Home Ultrafast).

The speed boost would come at no extra wholesale cost to retailers. On its face, this is an exciting announcement that aims to meet consumer demand for higher speed broadband connections to the internet.

NBN Co has highlighted the rationale for this move. The average Australian household now has around 22 internet-connected devices, and this is expected to grow to 33 by 2026. Data usage per household has doubled in the past five years, and now averages 443 gigabytes per month.

Why do people want more data?

Higher data usage is being driven by new applications, entertainment and online gaming. For example, game updates can be as large as 30 or more gigabytes today. If games update regularly, the amount of data used each month increases quickly.

Entertainment too is using more data. Most streaming video today is provided in a 720p format, but newer televisions can display content at the higher-resolution 4K format. With faster broadband speeds becoming more common, consumers should anticipate more 4K content becoming available.

Likewise, virtual reality and augmented reality are relatively new technologies that are slowly becoming integrated with gaming and business systems. These high data usage technologies are likely to become more present in our daily lives over the next decade.

When would the upgrades happen?

NBN Co has indicated it would like to start providing the new higher speed products later this year, or early next year. The upgrade would be achieved by increasing the overall capacity of the NBN, which could then be “shared out” to consumers.

The NBN Co announcement is something the service providers should have expected at some point soon.

NBN Co’s announcement, coming only months after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) approved a proposal for major annual price increases, may not be welcomed by all broadband retailers.

Read more:
NBN upgrades explained: how will they make internet speeds faster? And will the regions miss out?

A spokesperson for the second largest broadband retailer, TPG Telecom, told CommsDay yesterday:

It took more than two years to finalise [the new pricing approved by the ACCC] and only three months for NBN Co to undermine the certainty it was supposed to create. We will always welcome opportunities to deliver greater service and speed to our customers, but NBN’s monopolistic whims make genuine collaboration with them very difficult.

Retailers understandably want certainty in wholesale pricing. One difficulty in achieving this is the high cost of “backhaul” in Australia: this is an intermediate connection between service providers and the NBN itself. Larger retailers have their own backhaul infrastructure, but smaller retailers must pay a third party.

If the NBN offers higher speed broadband connections, smaller retailers may end up paying more for backhaul – and will be faced with a dilemma over whether to pass these extra costs to consumers.

Telstra and Optus have broadly supported the plan by NBN Co to move to new technologies that offer the higher speed capabilities.

A faster network may entice consumers

Aussie Broadband Group managing director Phillip Britt told Gizmodo Australia:

Aussie Broadband is still understanding the detail of NBN Co’s speed proposal, but on the face of it, it could represent one of the most exciting steps in technology adoption for Australian households and businesses.

For NBN Co, the boost for the higher-speed plans may entice consumers to move from basic 50 Mbps plans to the upgraded Home Fast plan (which will offer download speeds of 500 Mbps, up from the current 100 Mbps).

NBN Co may also hope this encourages the remaining consumers with copper “fibre to the node” connections to move to “fibre to the premises” by taking advantage of one of the low or no cost upgrade offers available through retailers.

NBN Co has issued a consultation paper to retailers, asking for their feedback on the proposed changes to the high speed products by April 19 2024.

Mark A Gregory 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. NBN upgrade: what a free speed increase for fast broadband plans would mean for consumers and retailers – https://theconversation.com/nbn-upgrade-what-a-free-speed-increase-for-fast-broadband-plans-would-mean-for-consumers-and-retailers-225168

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

Wednesday’s national accounts show economic activity barely grew during the three months to December, climbing just 0.2%. That’s the lowest growth rate in four quarters, each of which was lower than the one before it.

Australia’s annual rate of economic growth – 1.5% – is the lowest in 23 years, excluding the COVID-induced 2020 recession.

In response, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the balance of economic risks had changed.

While it was not “mission accomplished” on inflation, Chalmers’ May budget would mark a shift from what had been “almost a sole focus on inflation, a successful focus” to the “trickier terrain” of supporting growth.

Strong population growth meant economic activity per person shrank for the third consecutive quarter, in what some commentators are calling a continuing per capita recession.

Household spending was anaemic, climbing an inflation-adjusted 0.1% over the quarter and only 0.1% over the year after earlier falls.

Adjusted for population growth, spending per person shrank sharply.

The Bureau of Statistics reported a big fall in discretionary spending (down 0.9% over the quarter) offset by an increase in essential spending (up 0.7%).

Cooking at home

Spending on food and on electricity drove the rise in essential spending. The fall in discretionary spending was driven by a slide of 2.8% in spending on hotels, cafes and restaurants. This fall suggests, in the bureau’s words, that Australians “substituted cooking at home for eating out”.

Imports slid 3.4% in the quarter as wholesalers satisfied demand by running down inventories rather than importing as many goods.

A briefing to investors by Myer chief executive John King in February suggests this has been a deliberate strategy. King spoke about “controlling intake to match trading conditions”.

Saving a bit more

Australians saved a bit more in the three months to December after reducing saving during the three months to September in order to pay bigger-than-usual tax bills following the axing of the temporary low-and-middle-income tax offset.

While some of the saving might be cautionary (concern that worse times might come), the good news is that on average consumers are still saving rather than running down their savings.

The stage three tax cuts due in July will shore up pay packets, further helping to shore up savings.

The weaker tax take in the quarter gave Australians a reprieve on real household disposable income per capita, one of the best measures of the standard of living.

It grew 0.9%, after falling for most of the previous eight quarters.

Productivity bouncing back

After sliding since early 2022, labour productivity has climbed for two quarters.

In part, this is a mathematical outcome of the definition of labour productivity, which is GDP per hour worked. In recent quarters hours worked have been falling.

Chalmers said while the productivity news was “encouraging”, reported quarterly movements could be volatile and it would take some time to reverse the decline.

Where to from here?

The good news for the May budget is Australia’s terms of trade (the ratio of the prices received for exports to prices paid for imports) slipped only 3.9% during 2023. That compares to forecasts of much bigger falls for 2022-23 in the 2023 May budget and December update of 13.25% (budget) and 6.5% (update).

The better-than-expected terms of trade suggest mining companies will be in a position to pay more tax than had been expected.

This both increases the chances of a second (and even a third) consecutive budget surplus and gives the treasurer a bit more room to reorient the budget toward measures that support economic growth.

Read more:
We know how to boost productivity and lift wages – but it will take time and much tougher tax reform

Chalmers is probably hoping the Reserve Bank is thinking along the same lines.

The annual increase in gross domestic product of 1.5% for the year to
December is exactly the increase that the bank forecast in its most recent update.

This means it is likely to conclude the economy is slowing as expected and leave rates on hold for some time. Asked what he thought the Reserve Bank would do, Chalmers said he wouldn’t comment but pointed to financial market forecasts.

Trading on the Australian Securities Exchange points to an even-money chance of a rate cut by June and a 100% chance of a rate cut by November.

John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist with the Reserve Bank and the Australian Treasury,

– ref. Chalmers changes tack as economic growth sinks to a new post-pandemic low – https://theconversation.com/chalmers-changes-tack-as-economic-growth-sinks-to-a-new-post-pandemic-low-224357

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

Donald Trump’s political obituary has been written many times. His dominant performance in the Super Tuesday Republican primaries marks one more instance of him outlasting those who counted him out.

While Trump has yet to officially clinch the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential contest, his near-sweep of the Super Tuesday primaries indicates there’s no further electoral pathway for Nikki Haley, his last remaining GOP challenger.

Since Trump first ran for the presidency in 2015, there have been many moments that could have ended his political career, including:

• the 2016 release of the Access Hollywood tape in which he appeared to brag about sexually assaulting women

• his antagonism towards war hero John McCain in 2015 and the families of slain American soldiers and disabled veterans

• his comments after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 when he said there were “very fine people” among a group of white supremacists

• his first impeachment in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress

• his handling of the COVID pandemic, which killed 400,000 Americans while he was in office

• and his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, which led, most notably, to charges that he incited the January 6 Capitol insurrection – and his second impeachment.

The latter stands out, in particular, because many observers thought Trump’s political career was over after January 6, 2021. This was particularly true for Republican elites who may have publicly praised Trump while he was in office, but privately longed for his departure from public life.

Even one of the shrewdest congressional leaders of the last century, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, could not foresee the ironclad grasp that Trump would maintain over the Republican Party for nearly a decade.

Indeed, McConnell and other Republicans lambasted Trump after the 2021 insurrection, but ultimately decided not to vote to convict him in the second impeachment trial over his conduct on January 6. The reason: they assumed Trump’s departure from politics was a foregone conclusion.

A vote to convict him, Republicans appear to have concluded, would not only be redundant because Trump was never expected to return to prominence, but would also cause unnecessary damage to their own political careers.

Why Trump is winning the GOP nomination again

Trump’s departure from the White House in 2021 and time out of office brought yet another opportunity for his detractors to perform hasty last rites for his political prospects.

For example, many of the Republican candidates he endorsed in the 2022 midterm elections performed poorly, contributing to one of the GOP’s worst midterm performances in modern history.

This led many Republican and conservative elites to conclude that irrespective of any moral objections to Trump, he was an electoral loser who merited abandonment.

Many conservatives pivoted to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as the heir apparent to the former president. Others pined for South Carolina Senator Tim Scott or Haley, a former UN ambassador and governor, as the next face of the Republican Party.

But ultimately none of these potential successors was able to garner anywhere close to the support of the former president. Haley’s lacklustre performance on Super Tuesday is one more clear piece of evidence of that.

Tellingly, nearly all of Trump’s GOP rivals in 2024 have – at one point or another – warmly endorsed him, denounced the criminal indictments against him, and even pledged to support his 2024 campaign regardless of whether he is convicted.

It should come as no surprise, then, that despite short periods of opposition to Trump – such as Haley’s increasingly direct attacks on his mental acuity and her shifting attitude on whether she will still endorse him – his approval among Republicans has never seriously wavered.

Very few GOP leaders have been willing to go on the record with their criticisms of him – and not walk it back later.

Indeed, since Trump’s election in 2016 through to today, his aggregate approval rating among Republicans has rarely dipped below 74% despite – or perhaps because – he is currently facing 91 separate criminal charges.

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Views of Trump remain largely unchanged

As much as Trump’s platform and positions may have changed over the course of three presidential campaigns, there has been strikingly little difference in the candidate himself. To the chagrin of his detractors – and the delight of his supporters – his time in the White House did not change him.

And his time out of the White House does not appear to have changed him or the public’s view of him, either.

Trump’s opponents assumed scandals that would doom the political careers of conventional politicians would also doom him. On the contrary, the scandals have in many ways only emboldened Trump’s base. His famous mugshot was paraded by both Trump’s supporters (as evidence of what they believe is a politicised justice system) and his detractors (as evidence of what they believe is Trump’s criminal behaviour).

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Trump is unlike any other politician in modern American history. His political resilience with GOP voters makes clear the country is in the midst of a historical change to party alignments. No longer will low taxes and business-friendly, Ronald Reagan-inspired policies work for Republican politicians.

Indeed it’s not clear that even policies themselves are what his supporters want as much as a fighter with whom they can identify. The Super Tuesday results show Haley is not that person to most Republicans.

Yet, while Trump’s supporters remain fiercely loyal, the Biden campaign is hoping the polarising former president activates the diverse “Never Trump” coalition even more.

Biden has famously said “don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative”. Biden is now hoping the alternative in the 2024 presidential election is a man who energises a base of “Never Trumpers” just big enough to tip the scale by a few thousands votes in swing states. Haley’s losses today increase that likelihood.

Jared Mondschein 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. Donald Trump’s third presidential nomination has never been in doubt. He’s made an art of political survival – https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-third-presidential-nomination-has-never-been-in-doubt-hes-made-an-art-of-political-survival-224146

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shirleen Campbell, Co-coordinator of Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group, Indigenous Knowledge

The Indigenous Voice to Parliament could have been a chance to address issues First Nations people often face, such as domestic and family violence, racism and discrimination, and inequalities in education, health, and the flaws in the justice system. A lot of us saw the Voice as a potential forum where future generations could step up as advocates and drive meaningful change on many issues that impact First Nations communities in the Northern Territory.

These hopes were dashed by the referendum’s result. “No” was disheartening for many, but left a particularly deep emotional impact on individuals and communities here in the NT. Virtually all remote Aboriginal communities in the NT voted with a profound “Yes”, so the feeling of being unrecognised and unheard was painful. For us, the result was especially heartbreaking and we felt a sense of disillusionment with broader Australia.

The result symbolised a missed opportunity for recognition and understanding. We feel the “No” vote exposed a part of Australia that has a history of being ignorant to issues impacting First Nations people. We wrote of this with the alleged crime wave in Mparntwe Alice Springs and the silence surrounding Blak women being murdered.

Despite this, strong Indigenous-led movements have held a mirror up to the injustices faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. These include movements calling for an end to Blak Deaths in Custody, to commit to truth-telling, and to end violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women through dedicated initiatives and plans led by First Nations women.

These movements have faced often extreme backlash, often from people and politicians who out of discomfort would rather erase the history of Australia in preference of something more serving to the nationalist sentiment.

This is why it’s an important time to revisit the Uluru Statement’s call for Truth. Government and policy bodies need to engage with First Nations organisations and communities as this is essential for understanding and addressing the needs of First Nations peoples’ needs and concerns. If Australia wants to walk with us on this journey, the truth must first be told – and it must be heard.

Read more:
The political subjugation of First Nations peoples is no longer historical legacy

The role of truth-telling

The impact of such a loud “No” on communities in the NT has been significant. Many First Nations community organisations and people responded to the result with a week of silence and mourning, with some turning their social media profile pictures black and refraining from posting.

Some organisations closed their doors to respect a mourning period. Others raised their voices even louder, continuing their advocacy and fight for First Nations justice. For instance, SNAICC – National Voice for Our Children continued its tireless work to advocate for First Nations children and young people.

In the absence of the Voice, First Nations communities and organisations continue to work. While we didn’t get a representative body in federal parliament, government and policy bodies could still do more to collaborate with First Nations voices. A recent example of this is First Nations women’s advocates and organisations pushing the government to commit to a separate national plan to address the high rates of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children.

This resulted in the government appointing a steering committee of First Nations women to lead these efforts. To change the political landscape in this country so it is more representative and just, this requires deep listening and truth-telling with First Nations organisations and communities.

Many First Nations organisations in the NT continue to drive forward positive change in our communities. This includes organisations such as Galiwin’ku Women’s Space, Central Australian Family Legal Unit, Darwin Aboriginal & Islander Women’s Shelter, and NPY Women’s Council.

Through this work, we are so often reminded it is First Nations women who lead their communities through troubled times, and many go unacknowledged. Our group, The Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group, continues to focus on ending family violence and creating visibility for Aboriginal women’s experiences. We do this in our home, Mparntwe Alice Springs.

Truth-telling and deep listening offers a pathway for addressing the issues with and alongside First Nations communities. Most of our elected representatives have spent very little time in Aboriginal communities like ours – this must change. Governments must dedicate more meaningful time to spending time and truly listening to First Nations communities. First Nations justice cannot be done from the concrete of Canberra, it must be done from the red dust of communities.

Truth-telling makes a pathway for two-way learning. Yolŋu use the metaphor of Ganma to explain two-way learning – Ganma is where the salt and fresh water meet and mix, and it is in this environment that unique flora and fauna thrive. Similarly, two-way learning brings people together as equals to listen, share, and bring together the strengths of two worlds.

The current approach of regarding First Nations peoples and communities as blank slates, upon whom knowledge is bestowed and whose capacity is “built”, is the complete opposite of two-way learning, which is a practice of reciprocity and collaboration.

Read more:
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Looking ahead

Looking ahead, we need increased collaboration and support between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people and communities. To bring this country together requires a commitment to two-way learning, deep listening and a national commitment to truth-telling.

The referendum also showed the strength and resilience of First Nations communities. There are so many upcoming voices who are ready to shape our futures. We look to our own young women’s group, and we know the future is bright. Aboriginal people and communities will guide the way forward and we will determine our own futures.

Shirleen Campbell is an Employee of Tangentyere Council and receives funding from NTG and federal funding for Tangentyere Programs. She is affiliated with Tangentyere Council as an Employee.

Chay Brown is affiliated with Her Story Mparntwe, Alice As One, and Tangentyere Council.

Connie Shaw is an employee of Tangentyere council and receives funding from the NTG and federal funding for Tangentyere programs she is affiliated with Tangentyere council as an employee.

– ref. The ‘No’ Voice result showed us we need to prioritise truth-telling in Australia – https://theconversation.com/the-no-voice-result-showed-us-we-need-to-prioritise-truth-telling-in-australia-218518

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Renee Kam, PhD candidate and research officer, La Trobe University

Many new mothers worry about their milk supply. For some, support from a breastfeeding counsellor or lactation consultant helps.

Others cannot make enough milk no matter how hard they try. These are women whose breasts are not physically capable of producing enough milk.

Our recently published research gives us clues about breast features that might make it difficult for some women to produce enough milk. Another of our studies shows the devastating consequences for women who dream of breastfeeding but find they cannot.

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Some breasts just don’t develop

Unlike other organs, breasts are not fully developed at birth. There are key developmental stages as an embryo, then again during puberty and pregnancy.

At birth, the breast consists of a simple network of ducts. Usually during puberty, the glandular (milk-making) tissue part of the breast begins to develop and the ductal network expands. Then typically, further growth of the ductal network and glandular tissue during pregnancy prepares the breast for lactation.

But our online survey of women who report low milk supply gives us clues to anomalies in how some women’s breasts develop.

We’re not talking about women with small breasts, but women whose glandular tissue (shown in this diagram as “lobules”) is underdeveloped and have a condition called breast hypoplasia.

We don’t know how common this is. But it has been linked with lower rates of exclusive breastfeeding.

We also don’t know what causes it, with much of the research conducted in animals and not humans.

However, certain health conditions have been associated with it, including polycystic ovary syndrome and other endocrine (hormonal) conditions. A high body-mass index around the time of puberty may be another indicator.

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Could I have breast hypoplasia?

Our survey and other research give clues about who may have breast hypoplasia.

But it’s important to note these characteristics are indicators and do not mean women exhibiting them will definitely be unable to exclusively breastfeed.

Indicators include:

• a wider than usual gap between the breasts

• tubular-shaped (rather than round) breasts

• asymmetric breasts (where the breasts are different sizes or shapes)

• lack of breast growth in pregnancy

• a delay in or absence of breast fullness in the days after giving birth

In our survey, 72% of women with low milk supply had breasts that did not change appearance during pregnancy, and about 70% reported at least one irregular-shaped breast.

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The effects

Mothers with low milk supply – whether or not they have breast hyoplasia or some other condition that limits their ability to produce enough milk – report a range of emotions.

Research, including our own, shows this ranges from frustration, confusion and surprise to intense or profound feelings of failure, guilt, grief and despair.

Some mothers describe “breastfeeding grief” – a prolonged sense of loss or failure, due to being unable to connect with and nourish their baby through breastfeeding in the way they had hoped.

These feelings of failure, guilt, grief and despair can trigger symptoms of anxiety and depression for some women.

One woman told us:

[I became] so angry and upset with my body for not being able to produce enough milk.

Many women’s emotions intensified when they discovered that despite all their hard work, they were still unable to breastfeed their babies as planned. A few women described reaching their “breaking point”, and their experience felt “like death”, “the worst day of [my] life” or “hell”.

One participant told us:

I finally learned that ‘all women make enough milk’ was a lie. No amount of education or determination would make my breasts work. I felt deceived and let down by all my medical providers. How dare they have no answers for me when I desperately just wanted to feed my child naturally.

Others told us how they learned to accept their situation. Some women said they were relieved their infant was “finally satisfied” when they began supplementing with formula. One resolved to:

prioritise time with [my] baby over pumping for such little amounts.

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Where to go for help

If you are struggling with low milk supply, it can help to see a lactation consultant for support and to determine the possible cause.

This will involve helping you try different strategies, such as optimising positioning and attachment during breastfeeding, or breastfeeding/expressing more frequently. You may need to consider taking a medication, such as domperidone, to see if your supply increases.

Read more:
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If these strategies do not help, there may be an underlying reason why you can’t make enough milk, such as insufficient glandular tissue (a confirmed inability to make a full supply due to breast hypoplasia).

Even if you have breast hypoplasia, you can still breastfeed by giving your baby extra milk (donor milk or formula) via a bottle or using a supplementer (which involves delivering milk at the breast via a tube linked to a bottle).

More resources

The following websites offer further information and support:

• Australian Breastfeeding Association
• Lactation Consultants of Australia and New Zealand
• Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne
• Supply Line Breastfeeders Support Group of Australia Facebook support group
• IGT And Low Milk Supply Support Group Facebook support group
• Breastfeeding Medicine Network Australia/New Zealand
• Supporting breastfeeding grief (a collection of resources).

Shannon Bennetts, a research fellow at La Trobe University, contributed to this article.

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

– ref. Some women’s breasts can’t make enough milk, and the effects can be devastating – https://theconversation.com/some-womens-breasts-cant-make-enough-milk-and-the-effects-can-be-devastating-224858

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Baumann, Sessional Lecturer, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University

Every three months, Australian economists, analysts and commentators anxiously await the new gross domestic product (GDP) figures, a key measure of economic performance and growth. The latest figures, released today, show GDP growth of 0.2% in the December quarter.

But our dependence on such growth is destroying our planet. Humans are consuming resources faster than they can be replenished, and disrupting vital Earth systems through pollution, deforestation and other damage.

Why are we so reliant on an ever-expanding economy? The answer can be found in our economy’s first building block: the privatisation of land. The high and rising cost of land for housing has monumental, often lifelong implications. It influences the work we do, our available time, our need for a car, and so on. We’re made reliant on growth, while care for the planet often falls by the wayside.

There are alternatives. Innovative examples of public housing offer hope – and a chance to move away from endless growth towards a more sustainable future.

The foundation of the problem

Before land was broadly privatised, people in many parts of the world survived through subsistence farming, hunting and gathering on land commons.

Much changed during the 16th century, starting in Europe and spreading through colonisation. The turning point was the shift to larger-scale agriculture, which made it increasingly profitable for the nobility and merchant classes to enclose land.

Once land was privatised, many people had no real option but to enter the market to sell their labour. They now had to rent or buy land for shelter and food.

Broadly speaking, the privatisation of land serves as the cornerstone for an economy tethered to economic growth.

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Green growth has limits

Some proponents of economic growth argue a that rapid transition to renewable energy will make this growth environmentally sustainable.

But there’s increasing evidence that key industries – such as retail, construction and tourism – are just too environmentally intensive. Even with optimistic uptake of renewables, continued growth will surpass planetary boundaries, such as the extent of global warming and biodiversity loss Earth’s systems can withstand.

We cannot separate increases in GDP from dire environmental consequences.

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The survival paradox

Altering our dependence on economic growth is not easy. We all rely on the opportunities it provides.

Take me, for example. I’m a sustainability academic and my employment relies on the government to subsidise education. But a large proportion of these funds come from taxing unsustainable commodities such as iron ore, coal and gas.

Universities also depend on international students who fly in from overseas, contributing to aviation emissions. And the university’s business model ultimately relies on student employment in a perpetually growing economy.

This dependence does not sit well with me. But bills have to be paid. The biggest and most unavoidable bill is the cost of keeping a roof over my head.

I’m not alone. For most people, the pressures of paying for housing far outweigh other survival concerns, such as those related to the environment. And those pressures are increasing.

Given this, it’s not surprising that environmental concerns also take a back seat in government priorities. To remain electable, governments must foster jobs through economic growth.

For instance, the Labor government has rejected the United Nations’ call for a moratorium on fossil fuel projects, citing mass job and revenue losses as primary reasons.

Read more:
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A practical way forward

How do we escape this vicious cycle? A modern urban commons land arrangement, developed through a revitalised public housing sector, offers a way forward.

A noteworthy precedent can be found in Vienna, where public housing and rent controls mean 80% of residents spend only 20-25% of their income on housing.

This policy redefines land and housing as social or common goods, rather than just as market commodities. After all, land, like air and water, is not a market good but part of our collective natural heritage. Such policies can significantly free people from economic growth reliance. As Peter Pilz, a Viennese social housing tenant, told The New York Times:

If people don’t have to struggle all day long to survive — if your life is made safe, at least in social conditions — you can use your energy for much more important things.

These “more important things” could be activities that promote collaborative, sustainable ways of living such as self-help housing, “share and repair” programs and local food production.

Such housing models are not confined to Europe. In Singapore, as many as 80% of residents are publicly housed.

And what about Australia? The seeds are sewn in this nation’s long heritage of public housing and tenant participation. This includes activities such as producing food, hosting community events and managing tenancy issues.

The Emoh Ruo housing cooperative in Sydney is a public tenant housing cooperative, where tenants are active in roles such as managing their tenancies.

Centrelink’s voluntary work option for unemployed people – intended to partially fulfil their obligations for income support – also provides an Australian policy precedent.

A catalyst for change

Of course, many barriers to such urban commons arrangements exist.

The main barrier is inadequate funding of public housing. But as the housing crisis deepens, public housing is attracting more funding which could be applied to innovative housing models.

The right model of public housing could eventually be expanded toward the high levels seen in places such as Vienna and Singapore.

Not everyone wants to live in public housing, and there will likely always be a mix of housing tenure types. But widespread global adoption of public forms of housing could help balance the downsides of our current absolute reliance on economic growth.

Information in this article is drawn from a chapter written by the author and others in the Handbook of Degrowth.

Alex Baumann is affiliated with the NTW project (www.ntwonline.weebly.com). This project is working on a reframing of public housing policy settings – to provide an example of local collaborative development on public land. This association is voluntary and involves no financial interests.

– ref. Huge housing costs make us slaves to our jobs and unsustainable growth. But there’s another way – https://theconversation.com/huge-housing-costs-make-us-slaves-to-our-jobs-and-unsustainable-growth-but-theres-another-way-203144

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra

Football Australia has been engulfed in a crisis it never saw coming.

Global football superstar Sam Kerr – captain of the hugely popular Matildas national women’s team – has been charged in England with the racially aggravated harassment of a police officer. She stands accused of using insulting, threatening or abusive words that caused alarm or distress to the officer, who was responding to a taxi dispute in London in January 2023.

Kerr has pleaded not guilty, with Judge Judith Elaine Coello quoted as saying to the player’s barrister:

I understand that the defence is that she didn’t intend to cause alarm, harassment or distress to the officer, [her behaviour] did not amount to it and it was not racially aggravated.

If found guilty, the public order act she has been charged under carries a prison sentence of up two years and/or a substantial fine, given the racially aggravated nature of the allegations.

Short of waiting for next February’s criminal hearing to be determined, what can – or will – Football Australia do now as the sport’s governing body?

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Immediate challenges for Football Australia

Kerr’s decision not to inform her employers of the criminal charge against her is questionable. While individuals are entitled to privacy, the celebrity status of athletes blurs that line, particularly when behaviour outside of the sport itself impacts on it.

The Matildas team has built its reputation on inclusion – and Kerr. They are proud, vocal advocates for football’s zero tolerance to racism or discrimination of any kind. Against such a backdrop the shock news of Kerr’s criminal charge was even more pronounced.

Football Australia CEO James Johnson and Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson have both admitted to not knowing anything about the charge until media reporting of it. It soon became evident they had as many questions as the journalists who were peppering them for answers.

Until the criminal trial reaches its conclusion, with a four-day hearing set down for February 2025, the case will hang over Kerr who is currently out of action for club and country as she recovers from ACL reconstruction.

While Kerr is entitled to the presumption of innocence as she prepares for her trial almost a year away, Football Australia’s challenges are more immediate, as it decides how to navigate a serious event involving the captain of its most adored team.

No one other than the involved parties know the full extent of what happened that night in January 2023, when police were called to a dispute over a taxi fare in Twickenham and the alleged racial harassment occurred. What is known, however, is that the employer of Sam Kerr – one of the world’s most recognised athletes – appears not to have been made aware of the incident.

Professional athletes are aware of the heightened responsibility they shoulder given their public profile and their role model status. Kerr is revered by the Australian public. Her name is a key driver that has seen Matildas merchandise currently outselling that of the Socceroos two to one.

Difficult questions

For many of Kerr’s fans, it is the presumption of innocence that trumps all other considerations.

But for a sports governing body, there is not just the accused’s personal reputation at stake. There’s also a sport’s image and integrity carefully crafted over many years, seemingly so easily pierced.

The National Rugby League (NRL) has a controversial “no-fault standdown” policy, allowing the rugby league to suspend a player facing serious criminal charges until the legal case is finalised.

Take the case of NRL player Jack de Belin, who was stood down while he fought charges (he was not convicted). This case shows why the policy has been questioned, given an athlete cannot get back the time lost during a period of suspension, nor, it can be argued, their reputation when charges are dropped or they are found to be not guilty.

Football Australia’s national code of conduct and ethics says the organisation can issue a “no-fault interim suspension” in any circumstance where,

in the reasonable opinion of Football Australia, the reputation of Football Australia or football generally would be damaged if the Constituent was not suspended on an interim basis.

But will they?

Football Australia must consider difficult questions like:

• how do they balance supporting their player’s welfare and respecting the victim of the alleged racially aggravated harassment?

• is it suitable for a team built around a zero-tolerance policy on racism to have as its captain a player charged with racial abuse?

• although Kerr is injured and unlikely to play at the Olympics in Paris this year, should she still be welcomed to play a role motivating the team?

• when Kerr has recovered from her injury, should she automatically resume her captaincy – or be considered for selection – if the trial has not yet reached its verdict?

• what will be the impact on sponsorship and support of the Matildas brand if Kerr remains as captain prior to the trial?

• what ramifications will there be if Kerr is stood down, as the policy allows, and she is later found not guilty of the charges?

A matter of trust

At a pre-scheduled press conference to announce details of a two-match pre-Olympics series against China (which was ambushed by the Kerr news), Johnson said:

We’ve got our own questions that we’d like to know, we’ve got to find out what actually happened.

That he doesn’t know means Johnson has two problems when it comes to Kerr: one a matter of law, and the other a matter of trust.

The court will decide one. Football Australia must decide the other.

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Tracey Holmes 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. Sam Kerr’s racially aggravated harassment charge puts Football Australia in a tricky place – https://theconversation.com/sam-kerrs-racially-aggravated-harassment-charge-puts-football-australia-in-a-tricky-place-225090

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Cole, Composer and Lecturer in Screen Composition, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

Industrial. Mechanical. Brutal. These are the words acclaimed electro-acoustic composer Hans Zimmer uses to describe his music for Dune: Part Two, released in Australia on Thursday.

Dune: Part One (2021) showcased Zimmer’s expertise in manipulating sound to create timbres that uniquely fit an onscreen environment. The new film is no exception.

By carefully considering the Dune universe and drawing on a range of audio production and editing techniques, Zimmer creates a rich score that breathes life into author Frank Herbert’s fantasy world.

Creating a rich, textured sound world

Zimmer looks to the film’s visual world – such as the costume colour palette, or the way the cinematographer shoots the film – to inform his sound and instrument choices.

“It starts off with creating that sonic world that I want the tunes or the motifs to live in,” Zimmer said in an interview.

He uses several tools to achieve this, drawing on plugins and audio editing tools to fragment, granulate, stretch, shorten, reverse, repeat and feature certain parts of a sound’s frequency range. He also processes distinct sounds such as metallic scrapes, or sand falling into a metal bowl.

The result is a unique soundscape in keeping with the war-footing narrative at the heart of the film. The militaristic feel of the score is created through the use of deep drums and percussion, repetitive (and at times delicate) vocals and ominous synthesisers that range from warm tones to uncomfortable screeching metallic tonalities.

All combine to draw the viewer into both a deep human narrative and the treacherous environment in which the tensions play out.

Unrelenting and otherworldly

Zimmer is very familiar with processing sound to design unique sound worlds – an approach that stems from his lifelong fascination with electronic music. For Dune: Part Two, he composes a sonic landscape that feels as unrelenting as the planet Arrakis itself.

There are several familiar components, such as synthesised real-world elements, vocals and a repeat of melodies used in the first film. Both Paul’s and the Kwisatz Haderach melodies are repeated, as is the House Atreides theme.

In the track Eclipse – which repeats elements of the Holy War cue – ominous deep brass, deep percussion, unnerving vocals and synthesisers work to create a sinister mood.

Added on is an evocative blend of bagpipes, synthesisers and processed sounds invoking an otherworldly atmosphere. Combined with soloist Loire Cotler’s ethereal vocals, these disparate musical elements intertwine to build a memorable ambience.

The lines are blurred between the soundtrack and the film’s sound design to create moments of building tension. For the viewer, the dynamic use of these musical elements creates an almost visceral experience.

A masterful soundtrack

Compared to the first film, Dune: Part Two expands the atmospheric musical world in a far more foreboding and dramatic style – brought to life by woodwinds and synths.

The soundtrack, which is worth listening to as a complete album, is both a dynamic continuation and expansion of the first film’s quieter, moodier score. There’s a significant shift in tone and a deliberate weaving of melodic themes from the first film.

The first track, Beginnings Are Such Delicate Times, expands on a theme we hear briefly in the first film – played in the bagpipes as the Atreides first arrive on the landing fields of Arrakis. In Dune: Part Two, this theme stands out as Zimmer has transformed it from a military announcement to a moment of pure emotion.

A Time of Quiet Between the Storms develops this same bagpipe melody with a new purpose: as the romantic love theme between Chani and Paul Atreides.

The track opens with a single wind instrument, synthesisers and percussion. The percussion transports the viewer back to Zimmer’s Dream of Arrakis from the first film’s opening. The weaving of this foreboding theme contrasts with a feeling of hope.

The new Emperor and the Bene Gesserit themes are threaded with a return of the first film’s Holy War theme, which has now been transformed into the theme we hear at the point of Paul’s victory in the film.

By exploring the relationship between a film’s soundtrack and sound design, Zimmer creates a sound world full of personality and new timbral possibilities.

Alison Cole 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. Bagpipes in space: how Hans Zimmer created the dramatic sound world of the new Dune film – https://theconversation.com/bagpipes-in-space-how-hans-zimmer-created-the-dramatic-sound-world-of-the-new-dune-film-224854

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Regina Featherstone, Social Justice Practitioner in Residence/Senior Lawyer, University of Sydney

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) came into public consciousness during the #MeToo movement after multiple women spoke out with sexual harassment allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Weinstein systematically used NDAs to silence victim-survivors. It’s a major reason it took years for his behaviour to be made public. Because of the secrecy involved, it’s also how he was able to continue perpetrating harm against so many women.

We’ve been researching how NDAs are used in out-of-court sexual harassment settlements here in Australia. We’ve found NDAs remain the default resolution practice for most lawyers, despite guidelines advising against it.

Given one in three Australian workers have been sexually harassed in the past five years and that many incidents are not reported, the pervasive use of confidentiality agreements means we know very little about what is happening in our workplaces and the cultural drivers of sexual harassment. It also means victim-survivors may agree to terms that prevent their psychological healing because they are bound to confidentiality.

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What is a non-disclosure agreement?

NDA is the universal description for what we call confidentiality agreements or confidentiality contractual terms.

Most sexual harassment complaints are resolved out of court and are subject to a “settlement agreement”. These are contractual agreements that release respondents from any liability in exchange for a benefit to the applicant, such as money.

In Australia, confidentiality and non-disparagement terms are usually part of this settlement, so it’s effectively a NDA.

There is no doubt these agreements can be beneficial, and certainly some victim-survivors seek these terms. However, the Australian Human Rights Commission recognised that they’ve become standard and misused in the Respect@Work Report.

The Respect@Work Council was set up to implement the recommendations in that report. The council released guidelines in December 2022 on the use of NDAs in workplace sexual harassment settlements. The guidelines say confidentiality clauses should not be seen as standard terms. They say that if NDAs must be used, scope should be limited, with exceptions allowing victim-survivors to speak to people in their support network, such as doctors or family.

We surveyed 145 sexual harassment lawyers to see how the guidelines are working in practice.

Are the guidelines being followed?

Even after those guidelines were released and after social movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp, our research shows 75% of legal practitioners have never resolved a sexual harassment settlement without a strict NDA. This means blanket confidentiality with no carve-outs for disclosures to doctors or other supports.

We found the guidelines are not, at least yet, used as an effective resolution mechanism. In fact, 25% of sexual harassment practitioners have not read the guidelines and they are rarely provided to the other side in negotiations.

We also found there is no cohesive approach in the legal profession to how confidentiality agreements are used in sexual harassment settlements. We identified three themes:

• some advocates told us the “standard” NDA practice is having carve-outs for victim-survivors to speak to doctors or family

• other advocates spoke of usually having confidentiality around settlement terms only, allowing victim-survivors to otherwise speak about their experience

• many advocates told us that exhaustive or strict agreements are standard practice, which mean a victim-survivor cannot speak to anyone about their experience.

Read more:
Companies need confidentiality clauses – but not to muzzle sexual abuse victims

As an example of the third point, one solicitor said:

If you propose a non-standard clause which is anything but broad confidentiality there’s such a lot of pushback from the respondents that it just it feels like you both have to advocate for your client and also educate the respondent simultaneously.

NDAs are not mandatory but their use is so entrenched that many practitioners do not advise of the option of not having one. Close to 30% of applicant practitioners and 50% of respondent practitioners have never provided this advice to clients.

It is a basic premise that lawyers provide advice and clients instruct. It’s spelled out in our Solicitors Conduct Rules. How can a client provide an instruction if they do not know all their options? If clients aren’t being advised on the nuances of NDAs, including possible carve-outs or reduction in scope, they are not empowered as active participants in their own legal matter.

What are other countries doing?

In Canada and the United States, legislation has been introduced to limit the use of NDAs and move away from these clauses being “standard”. A key aim of many of these proposed reforms is to provide the complainant with true choice, including proposed laws being considered in Victoria.

While new legislation is one way to tackle the problem, an effective response may exist already within the regulation of legal conduct.

Until recently in Australia, the conduct of lawyers in negotiations was not commonly considered a disciplinary or professional conduct issue. But in September 2023, the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner published advice on how lawyers should use NDAs when resolving workplace sexual harassment complaints.

It advised lawyers they must be mindful to maintain the professional duty to act with independence and integrity when also upholding their duty to act in the best interest of their client. This requires careful consideration of clients’ short- and long-term interests.

Read more:
Banning non-disclosure agreements isn’t enough to stop unethical workplace leader behaviour

A confidentiality clause may be useful in the short term to protect an employer from reputational damage. The same clause, however, may operate against a client’s long-term interests if the same perpetrator sexually harasses another person and it becomes public knowledge that the business had been using NDAs to hide this conduct.

Our research found lawyers for alleged victim-survivors who advocate on this issue routinely are achieving settlements without strict NDAs. We had many lawyers who act for both employees and employers tell us they have settled multiple matters in the past 12 months without strict NDAs, in ways that are tailored to their client’s needs.

But the advocacy of lawyers can be limited if outdated practices remain entrenched. Ultimately, the entire profession needs to be better educated to ensure these agreements aren’t misused. In turn, we’ll see greater transparency around sexual harassment.

Regina Featherstone was a 2023 Social Justice Practitioner-in-Residence at the University of Sydney and is a senior lawyer at the Whistleblower Project, Human Rights Law Centre.

Sharmilla Bargon was a 2023 Social Justice Practitioner-In-Residence at the Univeristy of Sydney and is a senior solicitor at Redfern Legal Centre

– ref. Non-disclosure agreements are commonplace in sexual harassment cases, but they’re being misused to silence people – https://theconversation.com/non-disclosure-agreements-are-commonplace-in-sexual-harassment-cases-but-theyre-being-misused-to-silence-people-221592

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Lorrey, Principal Scientist & Programme Leader of Southern Hemisphere Climates and Environments, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

As the austral summer draws to a close, we are preparing to fly over the Southern Alps to survey glaciers. This annual flight supports the longest scientific study of Aotearoa New Zealand’s icescapes – and it shows that all of our glaciers have retreated since 1978.

This year’s survey comes on the heels of the warmest year on record globally and the second warmest for New Zealand, which produced extreme weather events and impacts that still cut deep for many local communities.

Despite strong El Niño conditions in the Pacific this season, which typically boost ice volume, we expect the recent heat grilling the glaciers will have had a grim effect.

The 46-year record of end-of-summer glacier images is incredibly valuable because it contains irrefutable visual evidence of climate change. We can see how glaciers are changing from year to year, with extremely hot years such as 2023 standing out clearly.

But our insights aren’t limited to images of glaciers taken from light aircraft. We can also learn from historic paintings of New Zealand’s mountain landscapes.

Portraits of past climate

Old paintings with glaciers are common for the European Alps, where many artists lived and visited. But similar offerings are relatively rare for our part of the world.

What’s remarkable for New Zealand is that some of these works of art were produced without the artist ever seeing the glaciers.

We recently scrutinised the artistic vistas painted by John Gully to see if they were true to the real landscapes. Gully based his works on field sketches by Julius Haast, one of the first scientists to formerly recognise widespread glaciation in New Zealand.

Gully’s paintings show features that can be linked to glacial landforms we can see today, including moraines (rocks deposited by a glacier, typically at its edges), outwash fans (sediment deposited by braided rivers fed by a melting glacier) and trimlines (lines that mark a glacier’s earlier, higher position in a valley).

Many of those features in the paintings have ice in direct contact with them, showing how accurately field scientists and artists depicted glaciers at the time.

Gully’s paintings were intended to convey the dramatic scale of a mysterious land located far away from industrialised 19th-century society. Serendipitously, for contemporary scientists, comparing these artworks with current photos vividly shows the magnitude of ice loss that has occurred since the mid-1800s.

The perspective we get from Gully’s paintings concurs with studies that place the timing of ice retreat as being already underway in the mid-1800s. Prior to this time, known commonly as the Little Ice Age, New Zealand experienced cooler temperatures between about 1450 and 1850.

Modelling ice volume loss using these Little Ice Age landforms provides a benchmark. It illustrates that recent changes have occurred in a geological instant and that the peak summer flows from glaciers that helped create the braided river systems so typical of the South Island landscape are in the past.

Read more:
How climate change made the melting of New Zealand’s glaciers 10 times more likely

Accelerating pace of glacier retreat

Recent glacier changes are occurring ever more quickly. The long-term photographic record from the Southern Alps shows an acceleration of the pace at which snowlines rise due to climate warming.

For a glacier to exist, average summer temperatures must be cool enough for the summer snowline to remain below mountain tops so ice can accumulate. We now observe that ice is disappearing from mountains which held small amounts during the late 1970s. Glaciers there are going extinct.

Combining long-term snowline observations with direct field measurements of glacier mass balance and 3D models of ice volume change gives a good synopsis of how things have changed and a sense of things to come.

Read more:
COP28: Earth’s frozen zones are in trouble – we’re already seeing the consequences

We estimate at least 13 trillion litres of water (in the form of ice) has been lost from the Southern Alps since 1978. This is equivalent to the basic water needs for all New Zealanders during that time.

The regions around the central Southern Alps that hold many small glaciers are experiencing accelerated ice loss. Some areas, like Southland and Otago, have small glaciers that are rapidly approaching an extinction horizon. And once they pass it, we are not likely to see them again.

The central North Island also hosts a number of small glaciers on Mt. Ruapehu that feed into the headwaters of the Waikato and Whanganui rivers. Glaciers there were originally mapped in the mid-20th century, and again in 1978, 1988 and 2016. A recent photographic capture of Mt Ruapehu reflects a dire situation, indicating glaciers are fast approaching extinction.

Environments and ethics

New Zealand’s diminishing glaciers and loss of ice across Earth are largely carrying on unabated. These changes are primarily caused by rising temperatures driven by human activities that produce greenhouse gas emissions.

The global increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide continues undiminished. This needs to change soon and rapidly to protect many of our glaciers.

We face particularly serious ethical questions with respect to Mt Ruapehu’s glaciers. They help sustain the Whanganui River Te Awa Tupua, which has been granted the rights of a living entity. The glaciers’ ongoing retreat – and possible extinction – highlights our collective responsibilities for doing simultaneous harm to the environment and people.

The authors acknowledge Rebekah Parsons-King at NIWA for her work on the Glacier Extinction Horizons video. We also thank Brian Anderson for his long-term leadership on the Brewster Glacier snowstakes programme, and Pascal Sirguey for his work calculating mass balance for Brewster Glacier.

Andrew Lorrey receives funding from NIWA’s Strategic Science Investment Fund, which supports the annual Southern Alps glacier and snowline survey.

George Hook, Lauren Vargo, and Shaun Eaves 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. Frozen in time: old paintings and new photographs reveal some NZ glaciers may soon be extinct – https://theconversation.com/frozen-in-time-old-paintings-and-new-photographs-reveal-some-nz-glaciers-may-soon-be-extinct-224373

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Conrad Sanderson, Research Scientist & Team Leader, CSIRO

As the world rushes to make use of the latest wave of AI technologies, one piece of high-tech hardware has become a surprisingly hot commodity: the graphics processing unit, or GPU.

A top-of-the-line GPU can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and leading manufacturer NVIDIA has seen its market valuation soar past US$2 trillion as demand for its products surges.

GPUs aren’t just high-end AI products, either. There are less powerful GPUs in phones, laptops and gaming consoles, too.

By now you’re probably wondering: what is a GPU, really? And what makes them so special?

What is a GPU?

GPUs were originally designed primarily to quickly generate and display complex 3D scenes and objects, such as those involved in video games and computer-aided design software. Modern GPUs also handle tasks such as decompressing video streams.

The “brain” of most computers is a chip called a central processing unit (CPU). CPUs can be used to generate graphical scenes and decompress videos, but they are typically far slower and less efficient on these tasks compared to GPUs. CPUs are better suited for general computation tasks, such as word processing and browsing web pages.

How are GPUs different from CPUs?

A typical modern CPU is made up of between 8 and 16 “cores”, each of which can process complex tasks in a sequential manner.

GPUs, on the other hand, have thousands of relatively small cores, which are designed to all work at the same time (“in parallel”) to achieve fast overall processing. This makes them well suited for tasks that require a large number of simple operations which can be done at the same time, rather than one after another.

Read more:
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Traditional GPUs come in two main flavours.

First, there are standalone chips, which often come in add-on cards for large desktop computers. Second are GPUs combined with a CPU in the same chip package, which are often found in laptops and game consoles such as the PlayStation 5. In both cases, the CPU controls what the GPU does.

Why are GPUs so useful for AI?

It turns out GPUs can be repurposed to do more than generate graphical scenes.

Many of the machine learning techniques behind artificial intelligence (AI), such as deep neural networks, rely heavily on various forms of “matrix multiplication”.

This is a mathematical operation where very large sets of numbers are multiplied and summed together. These operations are well suited to parallel processing, and hence can be performed very quickly by GPUs.

What’s next for GPUs?

The number-crunching prowess of GPUs is steadily increasing, due to the rise in the number of cores and their operating speeds. These improvements are primarily driven by improvements in chip manufacturing by companies such as TSMC in Taiwan.

The size of individual transistors – the basic components of any computer chip – is decreasing, allowing more transistors to be placed in the same amount of physical space.

However, that is not the entire story. While traditional GPUs are useful for AI-related computation tasks, they are not optimal.

Just as GPUs were originally designed to accelerate computers by providing specialised processing for graphics, there are accelerators that are designed to speed up machine learning tasks. These accelerators are often referred to as “data centre GPUs”.

Some of the most popular accelerators, made by companies such as AMD and NVIDIA, started out as traditional GPUs. Over time, their designs evolved to better handle various machine learning tasks, for example by supporting the more efficient “brain float” number format.

Other accelerators, such as Google’s Tensor Processing Units and Tenstorrent’s Tensix Cores, were designed from the ground up for speeding up deep neural networks.

Data centre GPUs and other AI accelerators typically come with significantly more memory than traditional GPU add-on cards, which is crucial for training large AI models. The larger the AI model, the more capable and accurate it is.

To further speed up training and handle even larger AI models, such as ChatGPT, many data centre GPUs can be pooled together to form a supercomputer. This requires more complex software in order to properly harness the available number crunching power. Another approach is to create a single very large accelerator, such as the “wafer-scale processor” produced by Cerebras.

Are specialised chips the future?

CPUs have not been standing still either. Recent CPUs from AMD and Intel have built-in low-level instructions that speed up the number-crunching required by deep neural networks. This additional functionality mainly helps with “inference” tasks – that is, using AI models that have already been developed elsewhere.

To train the AI models in the first place, large GPU-like accelerators are still needed.

Read more:
Clampdown on chip exports is the most consequential US move against China yet

It is possible to create ever more specialised accelerators for specific machine learning algorithms. Recently, for example, a company called Groq has produced a “language processing unit” (LPU) specifically designed for running large language models along the lines of ChatGPT.

However, creating these specialised processors takes considerable engineering resources. History shows the usage and popularity of any given machine learning algorithm tends to peak and then wane – so expensive specialised hardware may become quickly outdated.

For the average consumer, however, that’s unlikely to be a problem. The GPUs and other chips in the products you use are likely to keep quietly getting faster.

Conrad Sanderson 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. What is a GPU? An expert explains the chips powering the AI boom, and why they’re worth trillions – https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-gpu-an-expert-explains-the-chips-powering-the-ai-boom-and-why-theyre-worth-trillions-224637

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University

With the rise of disinformation, third-party fact checking has grown into a billion-dollar global industry. But debunking false claims is time-consuming and costly, and recent developments suggest it may have hit its peak and is slowing down.

The ABC’s recent announcement that it will dissolve its third-party fact-checker partnership with RMIT University, known as ABC RMIT Fact Check, and replace it with an in-house unit called “ABC News Verify”, suggests Australia is not immune to global trends.

Duke Reporters’ Lab’s most recent census of third-party fact-checking units across the world found the number of active units fell from 424 in 2022 to 417 in 2023. While this is a small drop, it signals the first contraction in the sector since its initial census in 2014, which recorded a mere 59 units.

Is this cause for concern?

Many studies have shown that third-party fact checking works to disabuse people of false claims in the media and online.

“Third party” refers to the external verification of controversial claims by an organisation independent of the initial publishing outlet.

But a growing number of studies also show the limitations of fact checking in countering the spread of mis- and disinformation.

Read more:
Misinformation: how fact-checking journalism is evolving – and having a real impact on the world

Our recently published study found that Australian third-party fact checkers were highly trusted. However, even after receiving and trusting a fact check – in this case about a false social media post involving former prime minister Scott Morrison during the 2022 floods – a third of respondents said they would engage with the false information anyway.

They did so mostly for political reasons, known as motivated reasoning. It tells us that presenting facts alone is not enough to stop people sharing falsehoods, and it may be one reason why global momentum behind third-party fact checking is slowing.

The Australian fact checking industry has a short and rocky history, beginning in 2013 – a decade after the United States. Early adopters like PolitiFact Australia, ABC Fact Check and The Conversation’s FactCheck have come and gone, in part because the work is both time- and resource-intensive.

In the case of the ABC, its original in-house unit was axed following 2016 Coalition budget cuts. It then got a new lease of life in partnership with RMIT University in 2017.

Our study tested public trust in four current Australian fact checkers: RMIT ABC Fact Check, RMIT Factlab, AAP and Reuters Fact Check – an international fact checker operating in Australia.

Overall, trust was highest in the soon to be disbanded RMIT ABC Fact Check. But there was one important exception: respondents who strongly identified as right-wing on the political spectrum.

These voters regarded ABC RMIT Fact Check as the least trusted. This finding mirrors studies about media trust in Australia, which also finds the ABC is ranked highest overall, but lower for right-wing partisans.

Our study’s findings suggest that accusations of left-wing bias levelled at the ABC, particularly by right-wing partisans, may intersect with its fact-checking role with RMIT, and foreshadows criticisms that its new unit might encounter.

This is because the politicisation of fact checking – a longstanding feature of the sector in the US – has reached Australia.

To counter concerns of fact-checking bias, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) was established in 2015 to try to ensure standards of impartiality and rigour. Meta has since made IFCN accreditation a requirement of partnership when it signs up third-party fact-checkers to test doubtful claims on its social media sites.

Read more:
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During the referendum campaign, the impartiality of third-party Australian fact checkers drew headlines.

In its report titled the “Fact Check Files”, Sky News Australia accused RMIT FactLab (a separate entity from RMIT ABC Fact Check) of working with Meta to “censor Voice debate”. As reported by The Conversation at that time, the story was the second most-shared article on social media involving the referendum according to Meltwater data, reaching millions of users.

The story focused particularly on RMIT FactLab’s fact-checking of Sky’s own reports, which is found to contain falsehoods. The Sky report also revealed the factchecker’s IFCN accreditation had expired – a breach of Meta’s own terms and conditions. This led the social media giant to temporarily suspend RMIT FactLab from its paid role fact checking Meta’s social media content.

The conservative Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) later added to the controversy, releasing a report in November 2023 arguing that RMIT ABC Fact Check, RMIT FactLab and AAP FactCheck had all unduly focused their efforts on the “no” campaign’s claims, resulting in a form of censorship.

In a soon to be published survey of 3,825 Australians after the referendum in late November, we found trust in RMIT FactLab had suffered as a result?. The survey also showed about a quarter of respondents reported using third-party fact checkers during the Voice campaign, and overall public trust in fact checkers was high.

However, among self-identified right-wing supporters, we see a different story with increased levels of distrust, particularly in response to RMIT FactLab – the central target of the Sky News reports.

RMIT FactLab recorded the highest levels of distrust among conservatives, followed by RMIT ABC Fact Check.

The claims of bias against RMIT FactLab follow the path of politicisation and polarisation seen in the well-established US fact-checking sector. This trend further underscores the role of motivated reasoning in opinion formation and the insufficiency of relying solely on fact-checkers – whether external or internal – to combat fake news.

Effective mitigation of misinformation and disinformation requires a multifaceted approach. This includes fact checkers, but also measures such as bolstering public media literacy, regulating platforms, supporting quality journalism, and fostering collaboration among policymakers, politicians, academics, technology platforms, and civil society to promote responsible discourse.

Andrea Carson receives funding from the Australian Research Council to research media and political trust DP230101777 and has had research grants with Meta examining fact checking, fake news, future newsrooms and the Voice to Parliament. She serves as an academic expert on Meta’s global misinformation advisory group, and is also on the research advisory body for Australia’s Public Interest Journalism Initiative.

– ref. Is Australia’s golden age of third-party fact checking over? – https://theconversation.com/is-australias-golden-age-of-third-party-fact-checking-over-224502

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

It can be normal to wake up once or even twice during the night to wee, especially as we get older.

One in three adults over 30 makes at least two trips to the bathroom every night.

Waking up from sleep to urinate on a regular basis is called nocturia. It’s one of the most commonly reported bothersome urinary symptoms (others include urgency and poor stream).

So what causes nocturia, and how can it affect wellbeing?

Read more:
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A range of causes

Nocturia can be caused by a variety of medical conditions, such as heart or kidney problems, poorly controlled diabetes, bladder infections, an overactive bladder, or gastrointestinal issues. Other causes include pregnancy, medications and consumption of alcohol or caffeine before bed.

While nocturia causes disrupted sleep, the reverse is true as well. Having broken sleep, or insomnia, can also cause nocturia.

When we sleep, an antidiuretic hormone is released that slows down the rate at which our kidneys produce urine. If we lie awake at night, less of this hormone is released, meaning we continue to produce normal rates of urine. This can accelerate the rate at which we fill our bladder and need to get up during the night.

Stress, anxiety and watching television late into the night are common causes of insomnia.

Effects of nocturia on daily functioning

The recommended amount of sleep for adults is between seven and nine hours per night. The more times you have to get up in the night to go to the bathroom, the more this impacts sleep quantity and quality.

Decreased sleep can result in increased tiredness during the day, poor concentration, forgetfulness, changes in mood and impaired work performance.

If you’re missing out on quality sleep due to nighttime trips to the bathroom, this can affect your quality of life.

In more severe cases, nocturia has been compared to having a similar impact on quality of life as diabetes, high blood pressure, chest pain, and some forms of arthritis. Also, frequent disruptions to quality and quantity of sleep can have longer-term health impacts.

Read more:
Why do I need to pee more in the cold?

Nocturia not only upsets sleep, but also increases the risk of falls from moving around in the dark to go to the bathroom.

Further, it can affect sleep partners or others in the household who may be disturbed when you get out of bed.

Can you have a ‘small bladder’?

It’s a common misconception that your trips to the bathroom are correlated with the size of your bladder. It’s also unlikely your bladder is smaller relative to your other organs.

If you find you are having to wee more than your friends, this could be due to body size. A smaller person drinking the same amount of fluids as someone larger will simply need to go the bathroom more often.

If you find you are going to the bathroom quite a lot during the day and evening (more than eight times in 24 hours), this could be a symptom of an overactive bladder. This often presents as frequent and sudden urges to urinate.

If you are concerned about any lower urinary tract symptoms, it’s worth having a chat with your family GP.

There are some medications that can assist in the management of nocturia, and your doctor will also be able to help identify any underlying causes of needing to go to the toilet during the night.

A happy and healthy bladder

Here are some tips to maintain a happy and healthy bladder, and reduce the risk you’ll be up at night:

• make your sleep environment comfortable, with a suitable mattress and sheets to suit the temperature

• get to bed early, and limit screens, or activites before bed

• limit foods and drinks that irritate the bladder, such as coffee or alcohol, especially before bedtime

• sit in a relaxed position when urinating, and allow time for the bladder to completely empty

• practice pelvic floor muscle exercises

• drink an adequate amount of fluids during the day, and avoid becoming dehydrated

• maintain a healthy lifestyle, eat nutritious foods and do not do anything harmful to the body such as smoking or using illicit drugs

• review your medications, as the time you take some pharmaceuticals may affect urine production or sleep

• if you have swollen legs, raise them a few hours before bedtime to let the fluid drain.

Read more:
Men have pelvic floors too – and can benefit when they exercise them regularly

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

– ref. Why do I need to get up during the night to wee? Is this normal? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-i-need-to-get-up-during-the-night-to-wee-is-this-normal-224160

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Hewson, Senior Lecturer Geography, CQUniversity Australia

Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, North and South America, Europe – and the Maritime Continent.

Never heard of the last one? That’s because it’s not a continent made of land. In fact, it’s the largest warm tropical sea in the world, lapping against the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and smaller countries.

Why call it a continent? The name comes from the way the seas and land in this region interact. This single region is the main heat engine pushing heat around the world. The Maritime Continent is home to large expanses of warm, shallow seas bigger than Australia. Known as the tropical warm pool, these seas – the warmest on Earth – sustain warm sea temperatures and act as a engine for the Earth’s climate system.

As the world heats up under climate change, more heat pours into the seas. That means the Maritime Continent’s warm pool is growing. It’s roughly doubled from 22 million (1900-1980) to 40 million square kilometres (1981-2018).

Why is this area special?

Start with the sun. The midday sun is mostly directly overhead in the tropics. Incoming radiation from the sun is at its peak along the equator, which bisects Indonesia. In this region, the seas are relatively shallow – the Java Sea, for instance, averages a depth of just 46 metres. Sunlight can penetrate to the seabed and so shallow water depths allow for more efficient heating of the water. As a result, the surface temperatures of this enormous warm pool of water are over 28°C.

Then there’s the wind. The prevailing winds here are the southeasterly trade winds, which blow along the surface of the Pacific near the equator. As they blow, they push the water below, pooling warm water in the western Pacific and around the islands of the Maritime Continent. These waters are usually the warmest oceans in the world.

Heat is energy, and energy makes things happen. Some of the heat leaves the seas and enters the atmosphere in a process known as convection. As the Earth rotates, the rising hot air spins away from the equator towards the poles. In this way, it spreads heat around the planet. The heat also drives evaporation, leading to high humidity rates and making the region climatically unstable. Intense storms driven by convection – rising hot air from the seas – can form at any time of the year.

Land heats and cools faster than water. As the land surface heats up, it can drive the development of convective storms on a near daily basis in some places. Other large storms can form as warm, moist air is blown over terrain and pushed upwards when it hits mountains.

This potent combination of heat, moisture and wind act to transfer huge amounts of heat to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, which then spreads around the world.

Keeping a lid on it

You might not know it, but the atmosphere has a lid of sorts. You and I spend our lives in the troposphere, the lowest part of the atmosphere where ground and air meet. Here, the temperature generally falls as you get higher, which is why mountains are colder. In the stratosphere, by contrast, the air usually gets warmer with height.

Between the troposphere and the stratosphere lies the tropopause. This “lid” acts to keep most clouds and rain closer to Earth.

In Melbourne, the tropopause is about 11km above the city. But the warm, expanding atmosphere of the Maritime Continent pushes the tropopause as high as 18km above the surface.

This means there’s more space for heated and unstable air to rise and give birth to huge and seriously energetic cumulonimbus stormclouds. From here, heat is diverted towards the poles in global air circulation currents within the troposphere.

But when you’re at sea level in the Maritime Continent, you can have a totally different experience. Because so much of the heat rises, low atmospheric pressure develops and the equatorial winds at the surface can be very calm. In the age of sail, sailors called these conditions “the doldrums”.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology pays close attention to the Maritime Continent, because it has great influence over our weather – and not just for the tropical north.

When sea surface temperatures change up here, we know changes are coming to Australia’s weather patterns. Like India, northern Australia is monsoonal. Little rain falls during the dry season, April to October. When the wind patterns change in tropical Australia and freshening westerlies converge with the trade winds very late in the year, the monsoon arrives, bringing torrential rain.

It’s not just the north – temperature changes in the tropical warm pool can influence atmospheric pressure systems and drive changes in weather patterns in southern Australia too.

Read more:
As seas get warmer, tropical species are moving further from the equator

What does the future hold?

The Maritime Continent is a weather engine, concentrating heat in warm seas and spreading it around the world.

In recent months, sea surface temperatures around the world are higher than ever recorded, and getting higher still. What will happen to it as more trapped heat pours into the oceans?

Certainly, the warm pool of water unpinning the Maritime Continent will keep expanding, as it has for decades. What that means for us isn’t as clear.

We don’t know yet whether a bigger tropical warm pool will allow more tropical cyclones to develop, or whether it will change how intense the monsoon will be.

Some research suggests higher sea temperatures can actually dampen down the formation of clouds from convection, which could mean regional droughts for countries of the Maritime Continent.

To help find out, I helped other researchers operate an instrument-packed aircraft fly many measurement missions from Cairns earlier this year, including heading for the seas into the Maritime Continent. We measured concentrations of atmospheric molecules. The data we gathered will, we hope, help weather modellers better gauge what hotter tropical seas mean for the world.

This uncertainty means the Maritime Continent is worth watching.

Read more:
Why predicting the weather and climate is even harder for Australia’s rainy northern neighbours

Michael Hewson 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. Ever heard of the Maritime Continent? It’s not far from Australia – and channels heat around the world – https://theconversation.com/ever-heard-of-the-maritime-continent-its-not-far-from-australia-and-channels-heat-around-the-world-221988

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kellie Burns, Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney, University of Sydney

Cranbrook in Sydney’s east is one of the most elite boys schools in Australia. On Monday night, the ABC’s Four Corners program aired claims some female teachers had been bullied by male staff and sexually harassed by students.

Amid the school’s decision to go fully co-ed by 2028, there are concerns about whether Cranbrook will be a safe space for girls.

In a statement to the ABC, Cranbrook said its “current staff, including female staff, overwhelmingly support the School, its values and its culture”. It also said it has appointed teacher Daisy Turnbull to prepare for coeducation and “support the furtherance of gender equality” at the school.

What do schools need to do in order to be genuinely gender inclusive?

Sexist school cultures

In the last few years, a number of boys private schools have faced allegations of unacceptable gendered cultures. This includes sexual assault perpetrated by students, offensive behaviour online and in public and woefully inadequate responses to sexual assault and violence between students.

Previous Australian research has also found elite boys schools can be hostile places for women and girls, trans and gender diverse students, as well as boys who don’t conform to traditional norms of masculinity.

Read more:
Why do we have single sex schools? What’s the history behind one of the biggest debates in education?

It’s not enough to simply go co-ed

Simply enrolling girls will not automatically make a boys school more inclusive, less sexist or safer.

Schools aiming to truly welcome a wider range of students will need to significantly reshape the structures and culture of the school itself, both within and beyond the classroom.

The World Health Organization has developed a framework to ensure schools are healthy and safe. It addresses three overlapping areas:

1. teaching and learning

2. the broader school environment

3. partnerships with parents and the community.

This approach can be applied to gender equity and inclusivity.

Teaching and learning

The first component of a healthy school involves what students learn and the approaches and strategies used to teach it.

Schools that are gender equitable provide diverse curricula and equally diverse extra-curricular opportunities accessible to all students, regardless of gender.

There are all kinds of boys and all kinds of girls. So even single sex schools should be catering to students with a wide range of skills, interests, preferences and experiences. Likewise, there are students who are trans and non-binary, who may be excluded from school activities divided along narrow gender lines.

Some co-ed schools still segregate boys and girls for certain subjects. This approach upholds the idea that boys and girls learn differently and that some topics (such as menstruation) are too awkward to discuss in mixed-gendered groups.

Some schools choose to segregate classrooms to improve girls’ opportunities in areas they have been traditionally underrepresented in. While this can spring from feminist recognition of gender inequalities, it reaffirms the very divides it is attempting to challenge.

Read more:
As another elite boys’ school goes co-ed, are single-sex schools becoming an endangered species?

Gender equity across the curriculum

The current Australian Curriculum provides opportunities to engage young people in discussions about gender stereotypes and power in age-appropriate ways, in both primary and high school.

In English, students should meet diverse characters that challenge traditional gender roles and inequality.

Science, technology, engineering and maths subjects can foster enthusiasm for STEM-related content and careers, through hands-on classroom activities that encourage critical thinking and build confidence.

In health and physical education, comprehensive sexualities and relationships education should be a priority and include discussions of gender, power, violence, consent and healthy relationships.

Teachers’ values and attitudes about gender will also be reflected in their everyday teaching routines and practices. This includes whether or not they address students through gendered language, divide students into gendered groups for activities or discipline boys and girls differently.

So teachers also need support and quality professional development to keep pace with evolving understandings of gender and gender diversity.

The broader school environment

The second component of a healthy school is the school culture. School leaders should use respectful and inclusive language and there should be strong policies to deal with child-protection concerns, gender-based discrimination and violence at school.

Research indicates that, unlike other forms of bullying, gender-based violence is often overlooked or ignored by staff. Sexist language and behaviours can be dismissed as “just a normal part of growing up” and so become a routine part of young people’s schooling experiences.

School staff should also feel valued, respected and safe in their workplace regardless of their sex, gender or sexuality. Unfortunately, evidence indicates this is not always the case. A 2018 survey found 43% of NSW LGBTIQA teachers reported experiences of discrimination in the workplace. Australian research published in 2020 found women teachers were experiencing unacceptably high rates of sexual harassment in elite boys schools.

School leaders have a duty to ensure their schools have robust policies and processes for responding to disclosures of harassment and discrimination from staff. They also need to pursue evidence-informed cultural change to ensure a safe work environment.

Read more:
There are reports some students are making sexual moaning noises at school. Here’s how parents and teachers can respond

Involve students

Students can be active partners in developing an inclusive school community and can even help co-design curricula relating to gender, overcoming biases and developing healthy relationships.

Student diversity should also be reflected through gender-balanced representation in student leadership roles. Student initiatives around gender equality and LGBTQIA+ visibility, such as gender and sexuality alliances, should also be supported.

School uniforms should provide options so all young people feel safe and comfortable in what they wear at school.

Read more:
‘Why can’t I wear a dress?’ What schools can learn from preschools about supporting trans children

Partnerships and services

The third and final part of a healthy school looks beyond the school gates. Schools should see parents as partners and celebrate diversity in the community.

Parents should be invited to ask questions about curriculum and school culture and to raise concerns or lend expertise. School policies should be publicly available and regularly reviewed with student and parent input.

Schools can also work with organisations that promote gender equity, diversity and promote healthy relationships such as Our Watch, Family Planning and Twenty10.

These organisations can support schools’ counselling and pastoral care services and provide resources and training for teachers.

All schools can adopt this model

While boys schools have been the focus of recent media attention all schools should be called upon to evaluate and reflect on their gendered culture.

Co-ed and girls schools are not immune to gender-based violence, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.

A whole-of-school review of curricula, school culture and partnerships can help schools ensure they are creating inclusive and respectful environments. This work is urgent if we aspire to a society where all students and teachers are safe in our schools.

Kellie Burns has previously received funding from the University of Sydney Equity Prize

Jessica Kean receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Special Research Initiative ‘Australian Boys: Beyond the Boy Problem’.

– ref. What do schools need to do to have a good culture and healthy approach to gender? – https://theconversation.com/what-do-schools-need-to-do-to-have-a-good-culture-and-healthy-approach-to-gender-225073

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Cull, Associate professor, Western Sydney University

This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here.

Australia’s housing crisis is putting the Australian dream to own one’s home out of reach for many.

But it’s not just home ownership that has been affected. Rental affordability has also become a serious issue. This has reignited the debate about negative gearing; whether or not it is fair and whether it holds the key to fixing the housing crisis.

What is negative gearing?

Negative gearing refers to using borrowed money to invest in an asset so it results in a loss which can be claimed as a tax deduction against other income. For example, a property investment is negatively geared if the net rental income received is lower than the mortgage interest. The loss is then offset against other income, such as wages and salaries, which reduces the amount of income tax payable.

Read more:
Urbanisation and tax have driven the housing crisis. It’s hard to see a way back but COVID provides an important lesson

Negative gearing is commonly used for property investments but also applies to other investments (such as shares). Investments can also be positively geared when net income from the investment is more than the interest on borrowings.

The attractiveness of negative gearing in Australia is mainly due to its ability to reduce the amount of income tax. For this reason, it can be more beneficial to individuals who are on higher marginal tax rates. However, capital gains tax must be paid on any gain when the asset is sold.

How does negative gearing work?

Let’s look at a simple example of negative gearing. Say an investment property was rented to tenants at A$500 a week ($26,000 a year), and associated expenses (such as agent fees, rates, mortgage interest, maintenance) were $40,000 for the year. This leaves a shortfall of $14,000.

Read more:
Think curbing overseas migration will end the housing crisis? It won’t – and we can’t afford to do it

The property owner can deduct the $14,000 from their taxable income to reduce their liability. For example if they received $100,000 from wages, they would pay tax on only $86,000 (saving $4,550 in income tax). Individuals on higher incomes and therefore higher marginal tax rates would receive larger tax deductions (for example, someone earning over $180,001 would pay $6,300 less tax).

While negative gearing an investment property can reduce tax while it is being rented, it can also result in a large capital gains tax bill once the property is sold (even though capital gains tax is halved for assets held for more than 12 months).

For example, if the cost base for a property purchased ten years ago was $400,000 and it sells for $900,000 today, capital gains tax would be calculated on half of the $500,000 difference. At a marginal rate of 45%, the tax bill would be $112,500.

How widespread is it in Australia?

According to the Australian Taxation Office, about 2.25 million individual tax payers (21% of all individual tax payers) claimed deductions against rental income for a total 3.25 million properties in 2020-21 financial year.

Of these, 47% negatively geared their properties, claiming a net rental loss. This is equivalent to just less than 10% of all taxpayers. Investors with fewer properties were more likely to be using negative gearing with over 71% of property investors having only one investment property.

The largest group of property investors (524,220) had one investment property and a total annual taxable income between $50,001 and $100,000. The chart above shows the proportion of property investors by age group.

From 2016-2017 to 2020-2021, the total net rental income on property investments in Australia went from a loss of $3.3 billion to a gain of $3.1 billion (as you can see from the chart below).

For the same period, the proportion of investors negatively gearing their properties dropped from 58% to 47%, as lower interest rates reduced losses.

Negative gearing is also becoming less attractive with the government’s recent changes to tax brackets and marginal tax rates. According to a study conducted by LongView and PEXA, 60% of property investors would be financially better off if they instead put their money into a superannuation fund.

When was it introduced?

Negative gearing has been allowed under tax laws since 1936. It was thought it would encourage investment in housing and increase supply.

However, debate around its impact on housing affordability led the government to partially abolish it in 1985 by not allowing rental property losses to reduce tax on other sources of income.

There was a shortage of housing and rents rose during the two years it was abolished. As a result, in 1987, negative gearing was reinstated and capital gains tax legislation was introduced.

Is it used in other countries?

Canada, Germany, Japan and Norway use negative gearing. In Finland, France and the United States, rental losses can offset future rental income only. In the US, home owners are entitled to claim a tax deduction for mortgage interest on their own home.

The use and benefit of negative gearing depends upon all aspects of a country’s tax system. So although it may be attractive in countries with high marginal tax rates, other taxes such as capital gains tax, land tax and stamp duties may reduce its appeal.

Negative gearing’s impact on housing affordability

Many factors affect the cost of housing, including interest rates, inflation, employment, the overall taxation system and population growth, making housing affordability a complex issue.

In New Zealand, negative gearing is being phased out due to its impact on housing prices.

However, unlike Australia, New Zealand does not have capital gains tax, making negative gearing more popular and more likely to impact housing prices. In addition to phasing out negative gearing, the New Zealand government increased the supply of public housing and relaxed zoning regulations to provide more affordable housing.

Read more:
Ageing in a housing crisis: growing numbers of older Australians are facing a bleak future

In Australia, however, there are concerns abolishing negative gearing will cause rents to rise, as they did in the 1980s. More innovative approaches to housing affordability are needed to ensure ample supply of property for first home buyers and tenants.

Some consideration could be given to allowing first home buyers to claim a tax deduction for mortgage interest, increasing capital gains tax, limiting the number or type of investment properties held, capping rent increases, or more infrastructure investment from the government for first home buyers and social housing.

One or more of these measures would be a step in the right direction. Negative gearing on its own is not the answer to housing affordability. The whole system needs an overhaul, with a combination of measures needed to adequately address affordability, for now and for future generations.

Taking no action will put home ownership out of reach for even more Australians.

Michelle Cull is co-founder of the Western Sydney University Tax Clinic that receives funding from the Australian Taxation Office as part of the National Tax Clinic Program.

Michelle Cull is a member of CPA Australia and the Financial Advice Association Australia. Michelle is also an academic member of UniSuper’s Consultative Committee and volunteers as Chair of the Macarthur Advisory Council for the Salvation Army Australia.

– ref. What is negative gearing and what is it doing to housing affordability? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-negative-gearing-and-what-is-it-doing-to-housing-affordability-223823

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

Although the notion of a government’s “first 100 days” in office is constitutionally meaningless, it has become part of the modern political lexicon.

Ever since US president Franklin D. Roosevelt used the phrase to usher in an era of unparalleled congressional activity in 1933, it has been adopted by administrations the world over to signal intent and energy.

As New Zealand’s coalition government approaches its 100-day milestone this Friday, then, much has been made of its 49-point action plan.

While billed as a platform to “rebuild the economy and reduce the cost of living”, “restore law and order”, “improve healthcare and education” and “deliver better housing and infrastructure”, many of the points begin with words such as “repeal”, “cancel” or “start reducing”.

In short, much of the first 100 days has involved undoing the former government’s initiatives. Nonetheless, some of this has still been substantive and significant.

Repealing fair pay agreements or taking action to “curb the surge in welfare dependency” are standard centre-right approaches to economic stimulation.

But other measures – notably the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora (the Māori Health Authority), the repeal of world-leading smokefree legislation, or the cancellation of the cultural reports used during court sentencing – signal real change. How they will improve healthcare and economic growth, or restore law and order is another matter.

Tone and character

The real purpose of the first 100 days, of course, is to signal the government is “laser-focused” on what matters to its supporters. As lawyer Dennis Denuto put it so memorably in The Castle, “it’s the vibe” that matters.

On that count, the government will be reasonably pleased with recent polls indicating growing support for Christopher Luxon as preferred prime minister and for the administration he leads (the recent furore over Luxon’s short-lived insistence on claiming the MP’s accommodation supplement notwithstanding).

Read more:
Do the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi really give Māori too much power – or not enough?

Missteps aside, the most important aspect of the opening period of this (or any other) administration is not what was done, but how it was done.

Shortly we will all stop talking about the first 100 days. But the tone and character of a government are established early on, and continue to shape its demeanour for the duration of its time in office.

The most consequential things that took place in the coalition’s first 100 days, in other words, were not in the action plan.

Tails wagging the dog

The first had to do with who made the early political running. For weeks David Seymour’s ACT party dominated the political agenda. Specifically, its proposed Treaty Principles Bill sucked the wind out of National’s sails.

There is a lull in proceedings for now, and the bill will probably not survive beyond select committee. But when it gets there, ACT will once again be front and centre – a good return on the party’s 8.6% share of the election vote and enough to carry Seymour through to his turn as deputy prime minister.

For a time, too, National’s other coalition partner was dominating headlines. NZ First will claim credit for the repeal of smokefree legislation and will be unfazed by the criticism this has attracted
at home and abroad. All it will care about is a big win for its supporters.

Read more:
After the election, Christopher Luxon’s real test could come from his right – not the left

If this seems more about a perception of two tails wagging the government dog, it has also undoubtedly created early tensions between Luxon and Seymour, in particular.

Cabinet collective responsibility is holding so far. But it’s not unreasonable to anticipate future challenges to the prime minister’s authority, and to the internal stability of his coalition administration.

The question will be whether Luxon can govern as first amongst equals, as is generally the case in parliamentary democracies, or is forced by Seymour and Winston Peters into something resembling a triumvirate.

New Deal or Waterloo?

Other challenges will move to centre stage, including a looming stand-off with local government over infrastructure funding, and the impacts of back-office public service cuts.

Luxon will also find it hard to square his narrative about reducing the cost of living with the announcement this week of increases in car registration fees and fuel taxes. That extra NZ$9.20 in the tank of an Auckland Hilux, delivered by the axing of the Auckland regional fuel tax, didn’t last long.

Read more:
Nicola Willis warns of fiscal ‘snakes and snails’ – her first mini-budget will be a test of NZ’s no-surprises finance rules

Questions of governing style are also starting to emerge, particularly around the influence of lobbyists over government policy in the fisheries and health sectors. The identities of those with swipe-card access to parliament, including lobbyists, are now not publicly available under new rules set by the Speaker of the House.

The first real test of the government, of course, will be its first budget in late May. Finance minister Nicola Willis will need to demonstrate how her government’s electoral commitments will be paid for – and how it intends to improve what Luxon has called the “fragile” state of the nation.

It is also worth noting, perhaps, that while the “first 100 days” is usually associated with Roosevelt, its roots are actually in France. “Les Cent Jours” refers to the period following Napoleon’s triumphant return from exile on Elba. Roosevelt’s first hundred days delivered the New Deal. Napoleon’s ended at Waterloo.

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

– ref. The government’s first 100 days have gone largely to plan – now comes the hard part – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-first-100-days-have-gone-largely-to-plan-now-comes-the-hard-part-224935

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

Australians are set to find out if we are on the edge of a so-called “official” recession.

Due out mid-Wednesday, the national accounts will either show spending, incomes and production continued to grow in the three months to December, or show they fell.

If they fell, it would be the first of the two strikes needed for what some people call an “official” recession. (Though surprisingly, there’s no such thing here in Australia, as I’ll explain later.)

The second strike would be a fall in the following three months, the so-called March quarter. If we get two quarters in a row, all manner of people – probably including the treasurer – will declare it a recession.

But whatever Wednesday’s data shows, the truth is we are already experiencing the biggest dive in living standards in half a century – and have been for two years.

How to spot a genuine recession

The figures due out on Wednesday will give us an indication of whether ordinary Australians are better or worse off, if we know where to look.

The first thing to do is to put to one side the headline increases or falls in gross domestic product (GDP). Those are spending, income and production over the entire economy each three months.

Those figures show GDP growth was weak before the pandemic, very weak during lockdowns (shrinking for two successive quarters), then strong as lockdowns ended. It’s been exceedingly weak since.

But this tells us little about spending and income per person, which is how each of us experiences daily life.

Adjusted for our current very high rate of population growth, GDP per person is extremely weak. It’s been falling, or barely growing, for three quarters now.

And even this doesn’t tell us enough.

What matters most for each one of us – in the view of Chris Richardson, formerly of Deloitte Access Economics – is real household disposable income per capita.

Unfortunately, the bureau of statistics doesn’t display this on its website. But it’s easy enough to calculate from the bureau’s spreadsheets.

It’s the income accruing to households, adjusted for the prices paid by households, and then adjusted some more.

The bureau also subtracts taxes paid (which have climbed because of the expiry of the temporary tax offset in mid-2023). And it subtracts net interest payments, most of which are mortgage payments.

In his public presentations, Richardson says he refers to real household disposable income per capita as “living standards”, because that’s what it measures.

It shows weak spending, rising prices, a greater tax take, and much greater payments on mortgages have been shrinking living standards for two years.

That’s how it has felt for two years, even if the way the pain has been spread has been different than in the past.

The biggest dive in living standards in half a century

Previous dips in household disposable income per capita have been accompanied by high unemployment, concentrating the pain in the unlucky group looking for work at the time.

In contrast, this dip in living standards has been accompanied (so far) by low unemployment, pushing more of the burden onto working taxpayers.

Looked at through a longer-term lens (the longest the bureau’s spreadsheets allow) the latest dive in real household disposable income per capita is the biggest in half a century.

The broad picture is of fairly steady living standards until the mid-1990s, accelerating living standards during the 2000s mining boom, and then fairly flat (rising slowly) after the 2008-2009 global economic crisis.

They jumped for a bit during the COVID lockdowns, because of all the government assistance. But they’ve been diving since.

There’s no such thing as an official recession

Perhaps surprisingly, given how much we talk about “official” recessions, even the Reserve Bank of Australia says “there is no single definition of recession” here.

Many people talk about a recession meaning two quarters in a row of shrinking spending and income. This appears to date back to a 1974 New York Times article, written by a US business cycle expert Julius Shiskin.

He said two quarters of shrinking economic activity was one of the criteria you could use to decide whether or not an economy was in recession.

Shiskin’s pronouncement was subsequently latched on to by journalists all over the world, who made it the definition because it was simple.

But it has led to nonsensical conclusions.

How Australia and the US differ

Three decades ago, after the release of the September 1990 national accounts on November 29, Treasurer Paul Keating declared they showed Australia in recession.

Keating famously added:

the most important thing is this is the recession that Australia had to have.

Those words live on, but the so-called “recession” didn’t. It vanished soon after. What had been a small decline in economic activity, followed by a big decline, got revised to become a small increase, followed by a big decline.

How? The Australian Bureau of Statistics revises the national accounts as a matter of course, each time new information comes in.

Its revisions moved Australia’s early 1990s recession to the March and June quarters of 1991.

Read more:
Per capita recession as Chalmers says GDP ‘steady in the face of pressure’

A “recession” even briefly appeared after revisions to the 2000 national accounts, under Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello. Then it disappeared, after further revisions.

In the United States, they’re not nearly as mechanical. There, there isn’t an official recession until a committee of elders convened by the National Bureau of Economic Research says so. Its proclamations have broad support.

If Wednesday’s figures show Australia’s economic activity shrinking, we will hear a lot more about an “official” recession. But it will make little difference to Treasurer Jim Chalmers as he prepares this year’s May budget.

Just like the rest of us, he knows things are going backwards.

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. Prepare to hear about an ‘official recession’. Unofficially, we’ve been in one for some time – https://theconversation.com/prepare-to-hear-about-an-official-recession-unofficially-weve-been-in-one-for-some-time-224963

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

Sometimes it’s hard to decide whether Peter Dutton is a gambler at heart or ultra cautious.

On the policy front, the Opposition Leader is overseeing the development of a radical plan for Australia to use nuclear power in its energy transition. But in reshuffling his frontbench team on Tuesday, Dutton took a very careful path.

In its substance the nuclear policy, expected to be released before the budget, is based on a premise that this route is needed if Australia is to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The latest polling shows Australians’ attitudes to nuclear power are becoming more favourable.

A Newspoll published last week found 55% approved when asked their attitude to building “several small modular nuclear reactors […] to produce zero-emissions energy on the sites of existing coal-fired power stations once they are retired.” Among those aged 18-34, approval was 65%.

In the Essential poll, in 2019 support for Australia developing nuclear power plants was 39%; last October it was 50%.

Nevertheless, given most experts insist nuclear wouldn’t be cost effective in any realistic timeframe, and scare campaigns are easy to run, why would Dutton go out on this shaky limb?

One theory is he’s seeking to bridge the gulf between, on the one hand, the resistance by Nationals (or many among them) to transmission lines and wind farms and, on the other hand, the moderate Liberals, who are totally committed to the 2050 target.

Pragmatically, looking at the politics, there is a lot of opposition in regional areas to the transmission network. How harvesting that discontent would weigh against the uncertainty, even alarmism that could be whipped up is another matter.

Despite the movement in public opinion, Labor can be expected to hold firm to its complete dismissal of the nuclear option. Apart from anything else, this is a red line for the Labor rank and file.

Dutton said on Tuesday the nuclear proposal was “a way of transitioning out of coal and into zero emissions technology.

“We’ve said that we’re interested in looking at sites where you’ve got an end-of-life coal fired generation asset. So that means that you can use the existing distribution network.”

While Dutton isn’t shying away from a big fight on nuclear, when it comes to his team, he has studiously avoided any boat-rocking.

He had two vacancies: shadow assistant treasurer, left by Stuart Robert, and shadow cabinet secretary, previously held by Marise Payne, who also quit parliament.

Luke Howarth, who like Robert is a Queenslander, has been promoted to shadow assistant treasurer. Previously he had defence industry and defence personnel.

Senator James Paterson, from Victoria, becomes shadow cabinet secretary, in addition to his existing responsibility as home affairs spokesman. Dutton described this as “a critical role” in the Coalition’s shaping of its policy agenda.

With an eye to the cost of living and his strategy of targeting outer suburbia, Dutton has brought the MP for the marginal Sydney seat of Lindsay, Melissa McIntosh, previously an assistant shadow minister, into the shadow ministry. She’ll be shadow minister for energy affordability and for Western Sydney. The elevation should help in a preselection battle she faces.

“Western Sydney is an economic powerhouse, but it’s a region that the Albanese government has ignored,” Dutton said, announcing his reshuffle.

With the opposition preparing its housing policy, Andrew Bragg moves from the backbench to shadow assistant minister for home ownership, the issue du jour.

Among other limited changes, South Australian backbencher James Stevens’ appointment as shadow assistant minister for government waste reduction signals the Coalition is on the hunt for cuts. The public service will be alert and alarmed. Senator Paul Scarr becomes shadow assistant minister for multicultural engagement, increasing the opposition’s attention on this area at a challenging time for community harmony..

Meanwhile, the Liberals are saddling up for another byelection, with a Monday preselection ballot choosing Simon Kennedy, a former McKinsey consultant, as the candidate for Cook, vacated by Scott Morrison.

Cook is a safe Liberal seat and Labor is highly unlikely to contest it.

Kennedy ran unsuccessfully in Bennelong at the election. The criticism of his endorsement for Cook was immediate and predictable: the Liberals need more women in the parliament, and here they’ve chosen a man. Kennedy, who had an overwhelming vote, beat two other men and a woman.

While Liberals had to defend their position in the gender wars, Anthony Albanese, celebrating Jodie Belyea’s win in the Dunkley byelection, is able to crow that his caucus has a majority of females.

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. View from The Hill: Peter Dutton talks up nuclear replacements for coal-fired generators – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-peter-dutton-talks-up-nuclear-replacements-for-coal-fired-generators-225082

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University

In an unprecedented legal development, senior Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have been referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation into whether they have aided or supported Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The referral, made by the Sydney law firm Birchgrove Legal on behalf of their clients, is the first time any serving Australian political leaders have been formally referred to the ICC for investigation.

The referral asserts that Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and other members of the government have violated the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that established the ICC to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Specifically, the law firm references:

• Australia’s freezing of aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the aid agency that operates in Gaza

• the provision of military aid to Israel that could have been used in the alleged commission of genocide and crimes against humanity

• permitting Australians to travel to Israel to take part in attacks in Gaza, and

• providing “unequivocal political support” for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

A key aspect of the referral is the assertion, under Article 25 of the Rome Statute, that Albanese and the others bear individual criminal responsibility for aiding, abetting or otherwise assisting in the commission (or attempted commission) of alleged crimes by Israel in Gaza.

At a news conference today, Albanese said the letter had “no credibility” and was an example of “misinformation”. He said:

Australia joined a majority in the UN to call for an immediate ceasefire and to advocate for the release of hostages, the delivery of humanitarian assistance, the upholding of international law and the protection of civilians.

Read more:
There has been much talk of war crimes in the Israel-Gaza conflict. But will anyone actually be prosecuted?

How the referral process works

There are a couple of key questions here: can anyone be referred to the ICC, and how often do these referrals lead to an investigation?

Referrals to the ICC prosecutor are most commonly made by individual countries – as has occurred following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – or by the UN Security Council. However, it is also possible for referrals to be made by “intergovernmental or non-governmental organisations, or other reliable sources”, according to Article 15 of the Rome Statute.

The ICC prosecutor’s office has received 12,000 such referrals to date. These must go through a preliminary examination before the office decides whether there are “reasonable grounds” to start an investigation.

The court has issued arrest warrants for numerous leaders over the past two decades, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova; former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir; and now-deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Why this referral is unlikely to go anywhere

Putting aside the merit of the allegations themselves, it is unlikely the Australian referrals will go any further for legal and practical reasons.

First, the ICC was established as an international court of last resort. This means it would only be used to prosecute international crimes when courts at a national level are unwilling or unable to do so.

As such, the threat of possible ICC prosecution was intended to act as a deterrent for those considering committing international crimes, as well as an incentive for national authorities and courts to prosecute them.

Read more:
Why is accountability for alleged war crimes so hard to achieve in the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

Australia has such a process in place to investigate potential war crimes and other international crimes through the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI).

The OSI was created in the wake of the 2020 Brereton Report into allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. In March 2023, the office announced it first prosecution.

Because Australia has this legal framework in place, the ICC prosecutor would likely deem it unnecessary to refer Australian politicians to the ICC for prosecution, unless Australia was unwilling to start such a prosecution itself. At present, there is no evidence that is the case.

Another reason this referral is likely to go nowhere: the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, is currently focusing on a range of investigations related to alleged war crimes committed by Russia, Hamas and Israel, in addition to other historical investigations.

Given the significance of these investigations – and the political pressure the ICC faces to act with speed – it is unlikely the court would divert limited resources to investigate Australian politicians.

Increasing prominence of international courts

This referral to the ICC, however, needs to be seen in a wider context. The Israel-Hamas conflict has resulted in an unprecedented flurry of legal proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s top court.

Unlike the ICC, the ICJ does not deal with individual criminal responsibility. The ICJ does, however, have jurisdiction over whether countries violate international law, such as the Genocide Convention.

This was the basis for South Africa to launch its case against Israel in the ICJ, claiming its actions against the Palestinian people amounted to genocide. The ICJ issued a provisional ruling against Israel in January which said it’s “plausible” Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent acts of genocide.

In addition, earlier this week, a new case was launched in the ICJ by Nicaragua, alleging Germany has supported acts of genocide by providing military support for Israel and freezing aid for UNRWA.

All of these developments in recent months amount to what experts call “lawfare”. This refers to the use of international or domestic courts to seek accountability for alleged state-sanctioned acts of genocide and support or complicity in such acts. Some of these cases have merit, others are very weak.

As one international law expert described the purpose:

It’s […] a way of raising awareness, getting media attention and showing your own political base you’re doing something.

These cases do succeed in increasing public awareness of these conflicts. And they make clear the desire of many around the world to hold to account those seen as being responsible for gross violations of international law.

Donald Rothwell receives funding from Australian Research Council

– ref. Why have Anthony Albanese and other politicians been referred to the ICC over the Gaza war? – https://theconversation.com/why-have-anthony-albanese-and-other-politicians-been-referred-to-the-icc-over-the-gaza-war-225079

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

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has accused Foreign Minister Penny Wong of rattling “the China can” and declared the chief of ASIO, Mike Burgess, runs “a goon show”.

In a fresh assault on Wong, and one of his repeated denunciations of the national security establishment, Keating also said this week’s special ASEAN summit in Melbourne “makes it clear Australia and Australian policy is at odds with the general tenor of ASEAN’s perceived strategic interests. That is, interests which relate to China and the United States and relations between them.”

Wong told a summit event on Monday the region faced “the most confronting circumstances […] in decades”.

“We face destabilising, provocative and coercive actions, including unsafe conduct at sea and in the air and militarisation of disputed features,” she said.

In a Tuesday statement Keating, who has previously criticised Wong over her China stand, said: “It doesn’t take much to encourage Penny Wong, sporting her ‘deeply concerned’ frown, to rattle the China can – a can she gave a good shake to yesterday”.

But, he said, before she did so, “the resident conjurer, Mike Burgess, who runs ASIO, gave us a week’s worth of spy mysteries – only for us to find via a leak to the [Sydney Morning] Herald and the Age that the mysterious state running the spying was, you guessed it, China”.

Burgess said last week that a former politician, whom he declined to name,
had “sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests” of a foreign country, which he also would not name. He has argued to name the person would compromise ASIO’s sources and methods.

Keating said: “The kabuki show runs thus: Burgess drops the claim, then out of nowhere, the Herald and The Age miraculously appear to solve the mystery – the villain, as it turns out, is China after all.

“The anti-China Australian strategic policy establishment was feeling some slippage in its mindless pro-American stance and decided some new China rattling was overdue.”

Keating said when the Albanese government came in, it should have dismissed Burgess, the director-general of the Office of National Intelligence, Andrew Shearer and then-head of the Home Affairs Department, Mike Pezzullo.

“In the event, Pezzullo [dismissed last year over breaching the public service code of conduct] shot himself but, unbelievably, Burgess and Shearer still remain at the centre of a Labor government’s security apparatus. This says more about the government than it says about them.

Read more:
Pezzullo story points to serious systemic problems in the Australian Public Service

“These people display utter contempt for the so-called stabilisation process that the Prime Minister had decided upon and has progressed with China. And will do anything to destabilise any meaningful rapprochement. Burgess runs the primary goon show while Shearer does all in his power to encourage Australia into becoming the 51st state of the United States.”

Keating said that on Monday the Malaysia prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, had “dropped a huge rock into Wong’s pond by telling Australia not to piggyback Australia’s problems with China onto ASEAN.

“Anwar is making it clear, Malaysia for its part, is not buying United States hegemony in East Asia – with states being lobbied to ringfence China on the way through.

“That difficult task, the maintenance of US strategic hegemony, is being left to supplicants like us.”

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. Paul Keating lets fly at Foreign Minister Penny Wong and ASIO chief Mike Burgess – https://theconversation.com/paul-keating-lets-fly-at-foreign-minister-penny-wong-and-asio-chief-mike-burgess-225087

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charitha Pattiaratchi, Professor of Coastal Oceanography, The University of Western Australia

It has been ten years since Malaysia Airlines passenger flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 2014. To this day it remains one of the biggest aviation mysteries globally.

It’s unthinkable that a modern Boeing 777-200ER jetliner with 239 people onboard can simply vanish without any explanation. Yet multiple searches in the past decade have still not yielded the main wreckage or the bodies of the victims.

At a remembrance event held earlier this week, the Malaysian transport minister announced a renewed push for another search.

If approved by the Malaysian government, the survey will be conducted by United States seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity, whose efforts were unsuccessful in 2018.

Read more:
Lessons to learn, despite another report on missing flight MH370 and still no explanation

What happened to MH370?

The flight was scheduled to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Air traffic control lost contact with the aircraft within 60 minutes into the flight over the South China Sea.

Subsequently, it was tracked by military radar crossing the Malay Peninsula and was last located by radar over the Andaman Sea in the northeastern Indian Ocean.

Later, automated satellite communications between the aircraft and British firm’s Inmarsat telecommunications satellite indicated that the plane ended up in the southeast Indian Ocean along the 7th arc (an arc is a series of coordinates).

This became the basis for defining the initial search areas by the Australian Air Transport Safety Bureau. Initial air searches were conducted in the South China Sea and the Andaman Sea.

To date, we still don’t know what caused the aircraft’s change of course and disappearance.

What have searches for MH370 found so far?

On March 18 2014, ten days after the disappearance of MH370, a search in the southern Indian Ocean was led by Australia, with participation of aircraft from several countries. This search continued until April 28 and covered an area of 4,500,000 square kilometres of ocean. No debris was found.

Two underwater searches of the Indian Ocean, 2,800km off the coast of Western Australia, have also failed to find any evidence of the main crash site.

The initial seabed search, led by Australia, covered 120,000 square kilometres and extended 50 nautical miles across the 7th arc. It took 1,046 days and was suspended on January 17 2017.

A second search by Ocean Infinity in 2018 covered over 112,000 square kilometres. It was completed in just over three months but also didn’t locate the wreckage.

What about debris?

While the main crash site still hasn’t been found, several pieces of debris have washed up in the years since the flight’s disappearance.

In fact, in June 2015 officials from the Australian Air Transport Safety Bureau determined that debris might arrive in Sumatra, contrary to the ocean currents in the region.

The strongest current in the Indian Ocean is the South Equatorial Current. It flows east to west between northern Australia and Madagascar, and debris would be able to cross it.

Indeed, on July 30 2015 a large piece of debris – a flaperon (moving part of a plane wing) – washed up on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean. It was later confirmed to belong to MH370.

Twelve months earlier, using an oceanographic drift model, our University of Western Australia (UWA) modelling team had predicted that any debris originating from the 7th arc would end up in the western Indian Ocean.

In subsequent months, additional aircraft debris was found in the western Indian Ocean in Mauritius, Tanzania, Rodrigues, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa.

The UWA drift analysis accurately predicted where floating debris from MH370 would beach in the western Indian Ocean. It also guided American adventurer Blaine Gibson and others to directly recover several dozen pieces of debris, three of which have been confirmed to be from MH370, while several others are deemed likely.

To date, these debris finds in the western Indian ocean are the only physical evidence found related to MH370.

It is also independent verification that the crash occurred close to the 7th arc, as any debris would initially flow northwards and then to the west, transported by the prevailing ocean currents. These results are consistent with other drift studies undertaken by independent researchers globally.

Read more:
Ocean currents suggest where we should be looking for missing flight MH370

Why a new search for MH370 now?

Unfortunately, the ocean is a chaotic place, and even oceanographic drift models cannot pinpoint the exact location of the crash site.

The proposed new search by Ocean Infinity has significantly narrowed down the target area within latitudes 36°S and 33°S. This is approximately 50km to the south of the locations where UWA modelling indicated the release of debris along the 7th arc. If the search does not locate the wreckage, it could be extended north.

Since the initial underwater searches, technology has tremendously improved. Ocean Infinity is using a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles with improved resolution. The proposed search will also use remotely controlled surface vessels.

In the area where the search is to take place, the ocean is around 4,000 metres deep. The water temperatures are 1–2°C, with low currents. This means that even after ten years, the debris field would be relatively intact.

Therefore, there is a high probability that the wreckage can still be found. If a future search is successful, this would bring closure not just to the families of those who perished, but also the thousands of people who have been involved in the search efforts.

Read more:
MH370: New underwater sound wave analysis suggests alternative travel route and new impact locations

Charitha Pattiaratchi receives funding from Integrated Marine Observing System research institute, the Australian Research Council and the West Australian Marine Science Institution.

– ref. MH370 disappearance 10 years on: can we still find it? – https://theconversation.com/mh370-disappearance-10-years-on-can-we-still-find-it-224954

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kei Owada, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

Australian authorities are on high alert amid the spread of lumpy skin disease in cattle and buffalo across South-East Asia. While Australia remains free of the disease, the virus is likely to breach our borders at some stage.

Detection of the disease in Australia’s livestock industries would lead to restrictions on cattle, meat and dairy exports, with serious consequences for the economy.

The federal government has a plan to detect and respond to an outbreak. But we need to go one better – to predict where the disease is likely to appear and how it might spread.

Our team is developing a model we hope will provide this vital information. It will help Australia prepare and respond not just to the current threat, but to any future biosecurity breach.

Read more:
Stop killing brown snakes – they could be a farmer’s best friend

What is lumpy skin disease?

Lumpy skin disease is a viral disease that affects cattle and buffalo, not humans. The incubation period is up to 28 days.

First reported in Zambia in 1929, the disease has spread across Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia. It reached Indonesia in 2022.

Early symptoms include fever and increased tear production. Lumps then appear on the skin and can cover the entire body, gradually hardening as the disease develops. Sometimes the lumps slough off, leaving holes on the skin that are susceptible to infections.

Typically only 1-5% of cattle die from the disease, but those that recover may not return to full health.

Milk production is reduced in cows. Meat yield from infected cattle is likely to be reduced, although it does not contain lumps and is safe to eat. Temporary or permanent infertility in both cows and bulls can also develop during the first month of infection.

The virus is mainly spread by biting insects such as mosquitoes, stable flies and ticks. Higher temperature and increased rainfall can increase insect populations and activity, and have triggered outbreaks of disease overseas.

The disease can also be transmitted by close contact between cattle, such as exposure to body fluids.

A testing time with Indonesia and Malaysia

In July last year, Indonesian authorities claimed 13 cows from Australia had tested positive days after arrival. At the time, Australian authorities demonstrated that the nation was free of the disease.

Nonetheless, trade between Indonesia and four of Australia’s cattle export holding yards was suspended immediately. Then Malaysia went further and stopped accepting any Australian live cattle and buffalo.

Malaysia and Indonesia each lifted their restrictions in early September, after more than 1,000 cattle were tested across Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. The Australian government also agreed to boost surveillance and biosecurity measures, including testing on farms and disinfecting departing export vessels.

Since the lifting of restrictions, the Indonesian government has reportedly rejected Australian cattle with skin blemishes – in some cases, this comprised up to 30% of cattle in a shipment.

How could lumpy skin disease enter Australia?

The Australian government has introduced strict biosecurity measures at international ports to minimise the risk of infected animals entering the country. These include disinfection and disinsection (spraying to remove insects) of vessels and cargo.

However, there’s a high risk of infected insects entering Australia through international ports or by travelling across the sea to northern Australia. Some infected flying insects may be able to cover long distances, aided by strong winds.

Another possible mode of entry for infected insects is through illegal fishers landing on the Australian coast.

What can be done to prevent the spread of lumpy skin disease?

In countries where lumpy skin disease is common, live vaccines have been used to control the disease. However, this is not practical in disease-free countries such as Australia, because vaccinated animals cannot be distinguished from infected animals. This means Australia could not be confirmed free of disease, leading to international trade restrictions.

The Australian government secured a supply of lumpy skin disease vaccines in October. These are being securely stored overseas in case of an outbreak. The vaccines will also be available to neighbouring Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.

Preventing the spread of lumpy skin disease requires early detection of the disease, isolation of potentially infected animals and restrictions around their movement. Once initial diagnosis is confirmed, culling of infected animals and insect control would likely follow.

What can be done to prepare Australia?

Australia has a veterinary emergency response plan to enact if the disease enters the country. The federal government has also boosted surveillance and begun offering training for veterinarians, industry and government staff on how to prevent and control the spread of the disease.

However, innovative models are needed to assess the likely introduction and spread of the disease in Australia. Our team is developing a framework to carry out such modelling. Our model will include data describing the current status of reports of the disease outside of Australia, Australia’s landscape and climate, distribution and movement of cattle, and local insect populations.

These models will produce maps that can be used to identify areas in Australia more suitable to receiving the disease, such as areas with favourable environmental conditions for the survival of imported infected insects. These maps will inform decisions around surveillance and response plans, and help farmers prepare for a potential outbreak of the disease.

Maintaining a high level of preparedness and awareness of the disease among cattle producers, farmers, veterinarians and other relevant individuals is paramount if we are to maintain our disease-free status as an international exporter.

Read more:
Australia’s shot-hole borer beetle invasion has begun, but we don’t need to chop down every tree under attack

Kei Owada works for the University of Queensland. The research team at the University of Queensland working on lumpy skin disease modelling is jointly supported by the Queensland Government Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the University of Queensland.

Ben Hayes receives funding from the University of Queensland and the Queensland Government Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Ricardo J. Soares Magalhaes receives funding from the University of Queensland and the Queensland Government Department of Agriculture and Fisheries..

Timothy J. Mahony works for the University of Queensland. The research team at the University of Queensland working on lumpy skin disease modelling and vaccine development is jointly supported by the Queensland Government Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the University of Queensland.

– ref. Lumpy skin disease is a threat to Australia and could decimate our cattle industries – we need to know how it could enter and spread – https://theconversation.com/lumpy-skin-disease-is-a-threat-to-australia-and-could-decimate-our-cattle-industries-we-need-to-know-how-it-could-enter-and-spread-215989

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

A bit over 30 years ago, I met Arthur Boyd, and we talked about art. At the time the Art Gallery of NSW was preparing a huge retrospective exhibition of his life’s work. It was not uncommon for curators and art dealers to call him a “genius”. His response to this adulation was acute embarrassment.

He described his artistic career as “selfish” and saw his own art as ephemeral. The true value of his contribution to Australia, to the world, he said, was in the gift of the 1,000 hectares named Bundanon he and his wife Yvonne were donating to the people of Australia. The Boyds were determined no developer would turn this earthly paradise into real estate.

Arthur Boyd understood the tragedy of loss of place. In the 1960s the much loved Boyd family home, The Grange, Harkaway, had been demolished to become a quarry. His art – and that of generations of his family – had been nourished by its pastoral beauty, which was turned to rubble. Bundanon has been created in the spirit of The Grange, a place for artists and others to create and perform, surrounded by pastoral beauty.

The three separate exhibitions that come together in Tales of Land & Sea, speak to Boyd’s sense of justice, his desire to break down barriers between class and cultures, and his deep love of the ancient myths that still speak to humanity.

Read more:
‘An odd work that has borne the brunt of my grief’: the serenity and the grit of Stanislava Pinchuk’s The Theatre of War

An exquisite exhibition

The year Arthur and Yvonne Boyd gave Bundanon to the Australian people, 1993, was also the year Arthur Boyd collaborated with a young Indonesian art student, Indra Diegan, on a visual retelling of one of the great West Javanese myths, Sankuriang.

It is a tale of gods who become animals, of love and jealousy, of incest and guilt.

Boyd had been introduced to collotypes, a photographic mode of printmaking, by Diegan’s father some years before, and collaborating on her honours project was a natural outcome of the friendship.

Their final outcome was a book, whose beauty lies in this collaboration. Boyd’s intense, passionate prints work in harmony to create a visual conversation with Diegan’s delicate woodcuts. Only 12 copies were printed. The three in the Bundanon collection form the core of this small, exquisite exhibition.

Of life and death

In the adjoining large gallery is ayang-ayang, showing the work of the artist Jumaadi. Echoes in the form of shadows are at the heart of the exhibition.

In both Indonesia and Australia, colonisation led to mass displacement, exploitation and death. Jumaadi’s paintings draw both on the visual iconography and materials from traditional folk art, a connection emphasised by a separate display of historical Javanese artefacts, including exquisitely carved elaborate hair pieces displayed to throw deep shadows on the gallery wall.

The main exhibition space is dominated by a screening of a performance of wayang Kulit, Indonesian shadow puppetry.

In The Sea is Still a Mystery, a fisherman first catches an abundance of fish, but then his line draws up a bizarre array of sea creatures, a wrecked ship, strange objects (including old beds and a wedding dress) body parts, plants, ships carrying sheep and a head that looks like Captain Cook. The sea may give us life, but it is also the home of the dead.

Some of the subjects and themes in the wayang kulit are repeated and expanded in the paintings and buffalo hide pieces that fill the gallery. These include a series of large works he made during the COVID lockdown. Lovers are shown together, or separated by migration. A large wedding dress has many embryos growing at its base. The artist flies under the wing of a plane across the volcanic islands.

As an artist he can fly free, but the confined passengers may well be indentured labour, facing an uncertain future.

Of labour and loss

The third exhibition, Sancintya Mohini Simpson’s par-parā / phus-phusā (“to speak incessantly / to whisper”) is an exploration of the legacy of the artist’s maternal ancestors who were Indian indentured labourers, gulled into travelling to South Africa to work on the sugar fields.

Simpson makes the point that the great 19th century migration of Indians to the sugar fields of Africa, Fiji and the West Indies was hardly voluntary. The colonial powers saw them as a substitute for the recently freed slaves, and treated them accordingly.

The main installation, Vessel (4) consists of mounds of earth from Bundanon, scattered with ash from caramel-smelling sugar cane. These hold a series of earthenware lotas, vessels used in sacred ceremonies, smeared with sugar cane ash to make them a dull grey.

This is the site for a sound installation piece Simpson performs with her sibling, Isha Ram Das. The lotas vibrate with an amplified sound when gently tapped by both artists in an echoing rhythm.

Their art speaks of labour and loss, of salt for the sea that divided the people from their homelands, and for the tears they shed when they realised they could never return.

As I was looking at the three exhibitions, by artists whose connections to Australia are via different parts of Asia, I thought of Arthur Boyd, and the way his family were also in transit between Australia and England. He knew, as they know, the yearning for the other, the distant ancestral land.

The Boyds’ vision of Bundanon has been fulfilled. Not only has the land been preserved and nourished, but at its heart there is a hub, a meeting place where artists in transit can stop, consider, and create.

Read more:
The video art of Arthur Jafa: a counterpunch to anyone who wants to put people of colour in their place

Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from the Australian Research Council

– ref. Bundanon’s Tales of Land & Sea: three exhibitions working in harmony to discuss loss, migration and colonisation – https://theconversation.com/bundanons-tales-of-land-and-sea-three-exhibitions-working-in-harmony-to-discuss-loss-migration-and-colonisation-222499

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirsty Ross, Associate Professor and Senior Clinical Psychologist, Massey University

As a clinical psychologist, I often have clients say they are having trouble with thoughts “on a loop” in their head, which they find difficult to manage.

While rumination and overthinking are often considered the same thing, they are slightly different (though linked). Rumination is having thoughts on repeat in our minds. This can lead to overthinking – analysing those thoughts without finding solutions or solving the problem.

It’s like a vinyl record playing the same part of the song over and over. With a record, this is usually because of a scratch. Why we overthink is a little more complicated.

Read more:
Why do we wake around 3am and dwell on our fears and shortcomings?

We’re on the lookout for threats

Our brains are hardwired to look for threats, to make a plan to address those threats and keep us safe. Those perceived threats may be based on past experiences, or may be the “what ifs” we imagine could happen in the future.

Our “what ifs” are usually negative outcomes. These are what we call “hot thoughts” – they bring up a lot of emotion (particularly sadness, worry or anger), which means we can easily get stuck on those thoughts and keep going over them.

However, because they are about things that have either already happened or might happen in the future (but are not happening now), we cannot fix the problem, so we keep going over the same thoughts.

Who overthinks?

Most people find themselves in situations at one time or another when they overthink.

Some people are more likely to ruminate. People who have had prior challenges or experienced trauma may have come to expect threats and look for them more than people who have not had adversities.

Deep thinkers, people who are prone to anxiety or low mood, and those who are sensitive or feel emotions deeply are also more likely to ruminate and overthink.

Also, when we are stressed, our emotions tend to be stronger and last longer, and our thoughts can be less accurate, which means we can get stuck on thoughts more than we would usually.

Being run down or physically unwell can also mean our thoughts are harder to tackle and manage.

Acknowledge your feelings

When thoughts go on repeat, it is helpful to use both emotion-focused and problem-focused strategies.

Being emotion-focused means figuring out how we feel about something and addressing those feelings. For example, we might feel regret, anger or sadness about something that has happened, or worry about something that might happen.

Acknowledging those emotions, using self-care techniques and accessing social support to talk about and manage your feelings will be helpful.

Read more:
How to be kind to yourself (without going to a day spa)

The second part is being problem-focused. Looking at what you would do differently (if the thoughts are about something from your past) and making a plan for dealing with future possibilities your thoughts are raising.

But it is difficult to plan for all eventualities, so this strategy has limited usefulness.

What is more helpful is to make a plan for one or two of the more likely possibilities and accept there may be things that happen you haven’t thought of.

Think about why these thoughts are showing up

Our feelings and experiences are information; it is important to ask what this information is telling you and why these thoughts are showing up now.

For example, university has just started again. Parents of high school leavers might be lying awake at night (which is when rumination and overthinking is common) worrying about their young person.

Knowing how you would respond to some more likely possibilities (such as they will need money, they might be lonely or homesick) might be helpful.

But overthinking is also a sign of a new stage in both your lives, and needing to accept less control over your child’s choices and lives, while wanting the best for them. Recognising this means you can also talk about those feelings with others.

Let the thoughts go

A useful way to manage rumination or overthinking is “change, accept, and let go”.

Challenge and change aspects of your thoughts where you can. For example, the chance that your young person will run out of money and have no food and starve (overthinking tends to lead to your brain coming up with catastrophic outcomes!) is not likely.

You could plan to check in with your child regularly about how they are coping financially and encourage them to access budgeting support from university services.

Your thoughts are just ideas. They are not necessarily true or accurate, but when we overthink and have them on repeat, they can start to feel true because they become familiar. Coming up with a more realistic thought can help stop the loop of the unhelpful thought.

Read more:
Why do I remember embarrassing things I’ve said or done in the past and feel ashamed all over again?

Accepting your emotions and finding ways to manage those (good self-care, social support, communication with those close to you) will also be helpful. As will accepting that life inevitably involves a lack of complete control over outcomes and possibilities life may throw at us. What we do have control over is our reactions and behaviours.

Remember, you have a 100% success rate of getting through challenges up until this point. You might have wanted to do things differently (and can plan to do that) but nevertheless, you coped and got through.

So, the last part is letting go of the need to know exactly how things will turn out, and believing in your ability (and sometimes others’) to cope.

What else can you do?

A stressed out and tired brain will be more likely to overthink, leading to more stress and creating a cycle that can affect your wellbeing.

So it’s important to manage your stress levels by eating and sleeping well, moving your body, doing things you enjoy, seeing people you care about, and doing things that fuel your soul and spirit.

Distraction – with pleasurable activities and people who bring you joy – can also get your thoughts off repeat.

If you do find overthinking is affecting your life, and your levels of anxiety are rising or your mood is dropping (your sleep, appetite and enjoyment of life and people is being negatively affected), it might be time to talk to someone and get some strategies to manage.

When things become too difficult to manage yourself (or with the help of those close to you), a therapist can provide tools that have been proven to be helpful. Some helpful tools to manage worry and your thoughts can also be found here.

When you find yourself overthinking, think about why you are having “hot thoughts”, acknowledge your feelings and do some future-focused problem solving. But also accept life can be unpredictable and focus on having faith in your ability to cope.

Read more:
New year’s resolutions: how to get your stress levels in check

Kirsty Ross 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. How can I stop overthinking everything? A clinical psychologist offers solutions – https://theconversation.com/how-can-i-stop-overthinking-everything-a-clinical-psychologist-offers-solutions-223973

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kelsey, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

The 13th World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi has failed to resolve any issues of significance, raising the inescapable question of whether the global trade body has a future.

The three-day meeting was due to end on February 29. But late into a fourth extra day, the 164 members were struggling to even agree on a declaration, let alone the big issues of agriculture, fisheries and border taxes on electronic commerce.

The closing ceremony was sombre, and the ministerial declaration bland, stripped of the substantive content previously proposed. Outstanding issues were kicked back to the WTO base in Geneva for further discussions, or for the next ministerial conference in 2026.

Briefing journalists in the closing hours, an EU spokesperson noted how hard it would be to pick up the pieces in Geneva after they failed to create momentum at the ministerial conference. She predicted:

[Trade] will be more and more characterised by power relations than the rule of law, and that will be a problem notably for smaller countries and for developing countries.

Restricted access

That imbalance is already evident, with power politics characterising the conference from the start.

There were accusations of unprecedented restrictions on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) registered to participate in the conference. These bodies are crucial to bringing the WTO’s impacts on farmers, fishers, workers and other communities into the negotiation arena.

A number of NGOs have submitted formal complaints over their treatment by conference host the United Arab Emirates. They say they were isolated from delegations, banned from distributing papers, and people were arbitrarily detained for handing out press releases.

Critical negotiations were conducted through controversial “green rooms”. These were where the handpicked “double quad” members – the US, UK, European Union, Canada, China, India, South Africa and Brazil – tried to broker outcomes to present to the rest for “transparency”.

Read more:
Privilege or poisoned chalice? As deputy chair at next week’s WTO meeting, NZ confronts an organisation in crisis

Influence of power politics

These powerful countries largely determined the outcomes (or lack of them). The US, historically the agenda-setter at WTO ministerial conferences, appeared largely disinterested in the proceedings, with trade representative Katherine Tai leaving early.

The final declaration says nothing about restoring a two-tier dispute body, which has been paralysed since 2019 by the refusal of successive US Republican and Democratic administrations to appoint new judges to the WTO’s appellate body.

The EU failed to secure progress on improvements to the appeal process. Likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has already announced he would impose massive WTO-illegal tariffs on China if elected.

China, Japan, the US and EU – all big subsidisers of distant water fishing fleets – blocked an outcome aiming to protect global fish stocks, an issue already deferred from the last ministerial meeting.

The six Pacific Island WTO members lobbied tirelessly for a freeze and eventual reduction in subsidies. But the text was diluted to the point that no deal was better than a bad deal.

The EU, UK, Switzerland and other pharmaceutical producers had already blocked consensus on lifting patents for COVID-19 therapeutics and diagnostics, sought by 65 developing countries. A deal brokered in 2021 on COVID vaccines is so complex no country has used it.

Domestic and global agendas

India’s equally uncompromising positions also reflected domestic priorities. The 2013 Bali ministerial conference promised developing countries a permanent solution to prevent legal challenges to India’s subsidised stockpiling of food for anti-hunger programmes.

A permanent solution was a red line for India, which faces an election next month and mass protests from farmers concerned at losing subsidies.

Agricultural exporters, including New Zealand, tabled counter-demands to broaden the agriculture negotiations. The public stockpiling issue remains a stalemate, without any real prospect of a breakthrough.

India and South Africa formally objected to the adoption of an unmandated plurilateral agreement on investment facilitation.

The concerns were less with the agreement itself and more with the precedent it would create for sub-groups of members to bypass the WTO’s rule book. This would allow powerful states to advance their favoured issues while developing country priorities languish.

Read more:
Why developing countries must unite to protect the WTO’s dispute settlement system

Crisis and transformation

The face-saver for the conference was the temporary extension of a highly contested moratorium on the right to levy customs duties at the border on transmissions of digitised content.

Securing that extension (or preferably a permanent ban on e-commerce customs duties) on behalf of Big Tech was the main US goal for the conference. Developing countries opposed its renewal, so they could impose tariffs both for revenue and to support their own digital industrialisation.

The moratorium will now expire in March 2026, so the battle will resume at the next ministerial conference scheduled to be held in Cameroon that year.

But there is every likelihood the current paralysis at the WTO will continue, and the power politics will intensify. As the previously quoted EU spokesperson also mused:

Perhaps the WTO needed a good crisis, and perhaps this will lead to a realisation that we cannot continue like this.

Ideally, that would result in a fundamentally different international institution – one that provides real solutions to the 21st century challenges on which the WTO is unable to deliver.

Jane Kelsey attended the WTO ministerial as a representative of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), and as an invited Guest of the Chair. She advises a number of developing country governments on these issues. She is not paid by, and this is not written on behalf of, any of them.

– ref. WTO conference ends in division and stalemate – does the global trade body have a viable future? – https://theconversation.com/wto-conference-ends-in-division-and-stalemate-does-the-global-trade-body-have-a-viable-future-224948

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Fujak, Senior Lecturer in Sport Management, Deakin University

With the winter AFL and NRL seasons about to start, Australia’s sporting calendar is once again transitioning from its quietest to busiest period.

For many, the return of the AFL and NRL competitions is highly anticipated. But there is one group whose experience is very different: the approximately 20% of Australians who hate sport.

We are currently conducting research to better understand why people feel this way about sport and what their experiences are like living in a nation where sport is so culturally central. We have completed surveys with thousands of Australians and are now beginning to interview those who have described themselves as “sport haters”.

Australia, a ‘sports mad’ nation

Australia has long been described as a “sports mad nation”, a reasonable assertion given the Melbourne Cup attracted crowds of more than 100,000 people as far back as the 1880s.

Australia’s sport passion is perhaps most evident today from the number of professional teams we support for a nation of 26 million people, one of the highest per capita concentrations in the world.

In addition to our four distinct football codes – Australian rules football, rugby league, rugby union and soccer – we have professional netball, basketball, cricket and tennis. In all, there are more than 130 professional sport teams in Australia today (across both genders).

Australia also hosts – and Australians attend – major sport events at a rate wildly disproportionate to the size of our population and economy. Formula One, the Australian Open, the National Basketball League, the National Rugby League and Matildas have all recently broken attendance or television viewership records.

Read more:
The Barassi Line: a globally unique divider splitting Australia’s footy fans

Why people hate sport

The ubiquity of sport in our culture, however, conceals the fact that a significant portion of people strongly and actively dislike sport. Recent research by one of the co-authors here (Heath McDonald) has begun to shine light on this cohort, dubbed “sport haters”.

Sport haters account for approximately 20% of the Australian population, according to two surveys we have conducted of nearly 3,500 and more than 27,000 adults. Demographically, this group is significantly more likely to be female, younger and more affluent than other Australians.

Their strong negative sentiments are reflected in the most common word associations study participants used to describe sport. In the case of AFL, these were: “boring”, “overpaid”, “stupid/dumb”, “rough”, “scandal” and “alcohol”.

While the reasons for disliking sport vary from person to person, research shows there are some common themes. The first is in childhood, where negative experiences participating in sport or attending games or matches can lead to a life-long dislike of all sport. As one professed sport hater said in an online forum devoted to men who don’t like sport:

My brother would force me to play soccer against my will all the time as children. I think that is where my resentment for physical sport comes from because the choice was taken away from me by my twat of a brother.

Sport hatred can also derive from social exclusion or marginalisation. Sport has historically been a male-centric domain that celebrates masculinity and can lead to toxic behaviour, which can exclude many women and some men.

Sport has also had to overcome racism, perhaps most symbolically visible by AFL player Nicky Winmar’s iconic protest in 1993. In addition, individuals with a disability still face barriers that result in lower rates of sport participation.

Here, the current Taylor Swift effect is noteworthy. The singer’s attendance at National Football League games, including the Superbowl, resulted in huge spikes in television viewership. Through her association, Swift helped make the sport more psychologically accessible for many women and girls.

The cultural dominance of sport also fuels its detractors, with many critical of sport’s media saturation and its broader social and even political prioritisation. (The debate in Tasmania over the controversial AFL stadium proposal is a good case in point.)

From a media perspective, Australia’s particularly strict anti-siphoning laws have ensured that sport remains front and centre on free-to-air television programming.

Sport’s cultural dominance also fosters resentment for overshadowing people’s non-sporting passions and pursuits, as well as creating societal out-groups. Journalist Jo Chandler’s 2010 description of moving to Melbourne is no doubt shared by many:

In the workplace, to be unaligned is deeply isolating. Team tribalism infects meetings, especially when overseen by male chiefs. In shameful desperation, I’ve played along.

In life, it’s fairly easy to avoid most products you might dislike. But given sport’s ubiquity, simply tuning out is sometimes not an option.

Read more:
On the eve of an AFLM grand final like no other, can the shadow of the pandemic make us strive for something better?

The Anti-Football League, a club for haters

In 1967, two Melbourne journalists, Keith Dunstan and Douglas Wilkie, launched an anti-sport club in response to this growing cultural dominance. In his founding address to the Anti-Football League, Wilkie made clear who the club was for:

All of us who are tired of having football personalities, predictions and post mortems cluttering our newspapers, TV screens and attempts at alternative human converse – from beginning-of-morning prayers to the last trickle of bed time bathwater – should join at once.

Membership quickly reached the thousands. Soon, a Sydney branch was launched, bringing national membership to a high of around 7,000. According to sport historian Matthew Klugman, members found joy in being “haters”.

…they wanted to find a shared meaning in their suffering, not to extinguish it, but to better enjoy it.

This led to some curious rituals, with members ceremonially cremating footballs or burying them. An Anti-Football Day was also launched, taking place on the eve of the Victorian Football League Grand Final.

The club would go on to experience periods of both prosperity and hiatus over the years, but has been dormant since Dunstan’s death in 2013.

With eight more years to go in Australia’s so-called “golden decade of sport”, which began with 2022 Women’s Basketball World Cup in Sydney and culminates with the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, it may be time sport haters to start a new support group.

If you consider yourself a sport hater, and are interested in contributing your experience to our ongoing research, please provide your contact information here.

Heath McDonald is a consultant to a range of professional sport teams in the AFL, NRL and cricket. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Hunter Fujak 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. Dreading footy season? You’re not alone – 20% of Australians are self-described sport haters – https://theconversation.com/dreading-footy-season-youre-not-alone-20-of-australians-are-self-described-sport-haters-223733

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jay Marlowe, Professor, Co-Director Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

In the looming shadow of a threatened Israeli invasion of Rafah at the onset of Ramadan, New Zealand has the opportunity to extend a lifeline to families trapped in the middle of the war in Gaza.

The dire humanitarian situation has been well-documented: more than 30,000 lives lost, nearly a fifth of buildings destroyed, countless people injured and lacking basic necessities.

Estimates from Palestinian New Zealanders put the number of Gazans with a family connection to New Zealand at approximately 400. Some 40 Palestinian families have already committed to hosting family members trapped in Gaza.

Given New Zealand’s previous responses in similar refugee crises, such family-focused assistance would be possible. The government has yet to commit to an intake. But last December, the immigration minister acknowledged an openness to adjusting the response in light of the escalating conflict. Now is the time to make such adjustments.

Previous examples include the family reunification pathways created for Ukrainian nationals in 2022, and the intake of 200 human rights activists and 1,533 people from Afghanistan after the Taliban returned in 2021.

Further back, previous National or National-led governments have accommodated such intakes: 600 extra places were made available to Syrians when John Key was prime minister, 600 family places were offered to people in Kosovo when Jenny Shipley was in power.

Despite initial estimates of about 4,000 eligible Ukrainian family members, fewer than 1,000 have actually arrived in New Zealand. And it may be that only a fraction of the eligible Palestinians in Gaza would take up the offer. But acting quickly and giving those people a choice should be the priority right now.

Practical compassion

Getting out of Gaza, of course, is not easy. Gazans given a visa to join family in Canada, for example, have been struggling to exit at the Egyptian border.

Infrastructure is seriously damaged, making it difficult to communicate and determine where people are located. Social media platform WhatsApp is often the only way to connect with family trapped in Gaza.

Furthermore, issuing visas will not be enough. There needs to be robust consular assistance to get people out whenever possible. For such an intake to work, it would likely need coordination across diplomatic channels, with potential assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Relief and Works Agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Read more:
Other nations are applying sanctions and going to court over Gaza – should NZ join them?

There is also the question of how to support family members once they arrive, albeit with a vibrant Palestinian community ready to welcome them.

However, as someone who specialises in refugee issues, I work with a team that has looked into the benefits of functioning family reunification pathways. The data is clear that a united family means better settlement outcomes, both for those who arrive and those who receive them.

Beyond the emotional and psychological benefits, reunified families show higher levels of economic participation and educational enrolment, challenging often misguided assumptions about the strain on host countries’ resources.

Read more:
Why Egypt refuses to open its border to Palestinians forcibly displaced from Gaza

Better systems needed

The humanitarian imperative of such a programme can’t be overstated. More than seven decades of political unrest and conflict – 15 wars, five since 2008 – has left countless families in Gaza fragmented and grappling with endless uncertainty.

Even if there’s a temporary ceasefire, given the scale of devastation and time needed for reconstruction, options to resettle families will be needed.

New Zealand’s normal annual commitment to taking in 600 family members in the Refugee Family Support Category reflects the importance of family bonds in the resettlement process.

However, the existing system has real limitations: lengthy processes – including a ten-year backlog – and narrow inclusion criteria. This means a more immediate and flexible approach is required. This is where emergency family intakes can play a pivotal role.

Lessons from the wars in Afghanistan, Ukraine and now Gaza should lead to a more formal and practical pathway for New Zealanders to sponsor families in war zones. Rather than the current case-by-case approach (often at ministerial discretion), an ongoing annual commitment to family reunification in acute crises should be considered.

This would also avoid the discrepancies of helping Ukrainian families, for example, but being silent on other less prominent crises.

Read more:
Gaza war: will Israel respond to US pressure to tread carefully in Rafah? There is a precedent

Matching what others are doing

While the situation in Gaza is making headlines, there are other largely forgotten wars where New Zealand could also step up to protect families. In Myanmar, Sudan, Cameroon and Ethiopia, for example, there are immediate risks to lives and an urgent need for assistance.

By instituting a formalised system of emergency family intake, New Zealand would not only honour its commitments to human rights principles, it would also match initiatives already taken by Australia and Canada.

As one resettled refugee in New Zealand put it: “When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.”

Establishing a fair and functional pathway to protect those families with connections to New Zealand aligns with the country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the global stage.

Jay Marlowe receives funding from Te Apārangi Royal Society New Zealand as a current Rutherford Discovery Fellow.

– ref. NZ can help people fleeing Gaza with emergency family reunification – will the government act? – https://theconversation.com/nz-can-help-people-fleeing-gaza-with-emergency-family-reunification-will-the-government-act-224957

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mohammad Nure Alam, PhD Candidate in Economics, Macquarie University

Around one in six Australians has some form of hearing loss, ranging from mild to complete hearing loss. That figure is expected to grow to one in four by 2050, due in a large part to the country’s ageing population.

Hearing loss affects communication and social engagement and limits educational and employment opportunities. Effective treatment for hearing loss is available in the form of communication training (for example, lipreading and auditory training), hearing aids and other devices.

But the uptake of treatment is low. In Australia, publicly subsidised hearing care is available predominantly only to children, young people and retirement-age people on a pension. Adults of working age are mostly not eligible for hearing health care under the government’s Hearing Services Program.

Our recent study published in the journal Ear and Hearing showed, for the first time, that working-age Australians from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are at much greater risk of hearing loss than those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

We believe the lack of socially subsidised hearing care for adults of working age results in poor detection and care for hearing loss among people from disadvantaged backgrounds. This in turn exacerbates social inequalities.

Read more:
Overcharged for hearing aids? Australia’s audiology industry isn’t rogue, but needs improvement

Population data shows hearing inequality

We analysed a large data set called the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey that collects information on various aspects of people’s lives, including health and hearing loss.

Using a HILDA sub-sample of 10,719 working-age Australians, we evaluated whether self-reported hearing loss was more common among people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than for those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds between 2008 and 2018.

Relying on self-reported hearing data instead of information from hearing tests is one limitation of our paper. However, self-reported hearing tends to underestimate actual rates of hearing impairment, so the hearing loss rates we reported are likely an underestimate.

We also wanted to find out whether people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to develop hearing loss in the long run.

We found people in the lowest income groups were more than twice as likely to have hearing loss than those in the highest income groups. Further, hearing loss was 1.5 times as common among people living in the most deprived neighbourhoods than in the most affluent areas.

For people reporting no hearing loss at the beginning of the study, after 11 years of follow up, those from a more deprived socioeconomic background were much more likely to develop hearing loss. For example, a lack of post secondary education was associated with a more than 1.5 times increased risk of developing hearing loss compared to those who achieved a bachelor’s degree or above.

Overall, men were more likely to have hearing loss than women. As seen in the figure below, this gap is largest for people of low socioeconomic status.

Why are disadvantaged groups more likely to experience hearing loss?

There are several possible reasons hearing loss is more common among people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Noise exposure is one of the biggest risks for hearing loss and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds may be more likely to be exposed to damaging levels of noise in jobs in mining, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture.

Lifestyle factors which may be more prevalent in lower socioeconomic communities such as smoking, unhealthy diet, and a lack of regular exercise are also related to the risk of hearing loss.

Finally, people with lower incomes may face challenges in accessing timely hearing care, alongside competing health needs, which could lead to missed identification of treatable ear disease.

Read more:
Pumping loud music is putting more than 1 billion young people at risk of hearing loss

Why does this disparity in hearing loss matter?

We like to think of Australia as an egalitarian society – the land of the fair go. But nearly half of people in Australia with hearing loss are of working age and mostly ineligible for publicly funded hearing services.

Hearing aids with a private hearing care provider cost from around A$1,000 up to more than $4,000 for higher-end devices. Most people need two hearing aids.

Lack of access to affordable hearing care for working-age adults on low incomes comes with an economic as well as a social cost.

Previous economic analysis estimated hearing loss was responsible for financial costs of around $20 billion in 2019–20 in Australia. The largest component of these costs was productivity losses (unemployment, under-employment and Jobseeker social security payment costs) among working-age adults.

Providing affordable hearing care for all Australians

Lack of affordable hearing care for working-age adults from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may significantly exacerbate the impact of hearing loss among deprived communities and worsen social inequalities.

Recently, the federal government has been considering extending publicly subsidised hearing services to lower income working age Australians. We believe reforming the current government Hearing Services Program and expanding eligibility to this group could not only promote a more inclusive, fairer and healthier society but may also yield overall cost savings by reducing lost productivity.

All Australians should have access to affordable hearing care to have sufficient functional hearing to achieve their potential in life. That’s the land of the fair go.

Mohammad Nure Alam acknowledges funding from Macquarie University.

Kompal Sinha acknowledges funding from Macquarie University.

Piers Dawes receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. Piers Dawes represents the University of Queensland on the Hearing Health Sector Alliance.

– ref. Hearing loss is twice as common in Australia’s lowest income groups, our research shows – https://theconversation.com/hearing-loss-is-twice-as-common-in-australias-lowest-income-groups-our-research-shows-223979

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Hortle, Research Fellow, Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of Tasmania

In the four years since the Black Summer bushfires, Australia has become more focused on how best to prepare for, fight and recover from these traumatic events. But one issue has largely flown under the radar: how the emissions produced by bushfires are measured and reported.

Fires comprised 4.8% of total global emissions in 2021, producing about 1.76 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂). This exceeds the emissions of almost all individual countries except the biggest emitters of China, the United States, India and Russia.

It’s crucial to accurately track the greenhouse gas emissions bushfires produce. However, the modelling and reporting of bushfire emissions is a complex, poorly understood area of climate science and policy.

The University of Tasmania recently brought together leading scientists and policymakers to discuss Australia’s measuring and reporting of bushfire emissions. The resulting report, just released, shows where Australia must improve as we face a fiery future.

Getting a read on bushfire emissions

By the end of this century, the number of extreme fire events around the world is expected to increase by up to 50% a year as a direct result of human-caused climate change.

Emissions from bushfires fuels global warming – which in turn makes bushfires even more destructive. Estimating these emissions is a complicated and technical task, but it is vital to understanding Australia’s carbon footprint.

Australia reports on emissions from bushfires according to rules defined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and as part of our responsibilities under the Paris Agreement.

Countries estimate bushfire emissions in different ways. Some rely on default data provided by the UNFCCC. In contrast, Australia’s modelling combines the area of burned land with highly specific local data on the types of fuel burned (such as leaves, bark and dead wood) and the amount of different types of gas these fuels emit. This makes it among the most sophisticated approaches in the world.

Read more:
Victoria’s fire alert has knocked Australians out of complacency. Under climate change, catastrophic bushfires can strike any time

More transparency is needed

Australia’s modelling may be sophisticated but it can also be confusing – even for those who follow climate policy closely. One reason is the complex way we differentiate between “natural” fires (those beyond human control) and “anthropogenic” or human-caused fires such as controlled fuel-reduction burns.

Emissions from natural fires are reported to the UNFCCC, but do not initially count towards Australia’s net emissions calculations. This is consistent with guidance from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

However, we believe that to improve transparency and accountability, the federal government should work with the states and territories to provide a separate breakdown of natural and human-caused fire emissions. This data should be made publicly available to provide a clearer picture of bushfire emissions and the impact of climate change on large fires.

Read more:
Fire is a chemical reaction. Here’s why Australia is supremely suited to it

Where we must improve

As mentioned above, emissions from natural fires do not initially count towards Australia’s net calculations. Consistent with other countries, our modelling assumes that emissions will be offset after the fires because forest regrowth captures carbon from the atmosphere.

This approach is based on current scientific evidence. For example, within two years of the Black Summer fires, 80% of the burned area was almost fully recovered.

If monitoring of a fire site shows regrowth has not fully offset emissions after 15 years, the difference is retrospectively added to Australia’s net emissions for the year of the original fire.

But this approach may soon need to change. That’s because research sugests we cannot assume forests will recover quickly after bushfires. As bushfires become more frequent and intense, they are more likely to irrevocably change landscapes. Bushfires are also more likely to occur in areas that are not adapted to fire and recover poorly – such as Tasmania’s World Heritage-listed northwest.

This has major implications for Australia’s emissions accounting.

Another significant gap in our modelling is the contribution of soil carbon to bushfire emissions. Large amounts of carbon are present in organic material in soil.

Currently, international rules do not require soil carbon emissions from fire to be estimated. This is despite emerging research showing the release of soil carbon during bushfires in some landscapes, such as peatlands, is likely to create substantial emissions. Other research suggests that depleted soil carbon can slow the recovery of forests after fire.

There is currently insufficient evidence to include soil carbon emissions from bushfires in Australia’s estimates, or to model the effects of soil carbon changes on forest regrowth and carbon capture. More research is urgently needed.

Where to now?

Australia’s approach to estimating bushfire emissions is credible and sophisticated. However, our modelling and reporting must be refined as technology improves and the climate changes.

Australia is a fire-prone continent. Our bushfire emissions will increase unless we significantly improve our fire preparedness and management. We must also rapidly reduce emissions from other sectors, to ensure our country is playing its part in the struggle to avoid catastrophic global warming.

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

– ref. In a dangerously warming world, we must confront the grim reality of Australia’s bushfire emissions – https://theconversation.com/in-a-dangerously-warming-world-we-must-confront-the-grim-reality-of-australias-bushfire-emissions-224745

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

This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here.

The federal government’s Help to Buy scheme is before the parliament. Both the Coalition and the Greens are opposed to it.

If the bill is passed, the government will provide an equity contribution of up to 40% of the purchase price of a new home, and up to 30% for an existing dwelling, with buyers needing a minimum deposit of 2%.

Participants will be restricted to buying cheaper-than-average homes – no more than A$900,000 in Sydney and $800,000 in Melbourne, with lower caps in other capital cities and the regions.

It’s a limited scheme: 10,000 places will be offered each year.

Here’s why it is a good idea.

Help to Buy is a piece of the housing puzzle

The Help to Buy scheme is similar to a scheme Grattan Institute recommended in 2022.

Help to Buy would help level the playing field when it comes to buying a home, which is slipping out of reach for many Australians, largely because it takes much longer these days to save for a deposit.

In the early 1990s it took the average Australian about seven years to save a 20% deposit for a typical dwelling. Now it takes almost 12 years. Unsurprisingly, a growing proportion of Australians now rely on the “Bank of Mum and Dad” to buy a home.

Help to Buy could be particularly helpful for older renters who do have a deposit but who won’t be in the workforce long enough to pay off a home by the time they retire.

Read more:
Urbanisation and tax have driven the housing crisis. It’s hard to see a way back but COVID provides an important lesson

Many older Australians were never able to break into the market as prices far outstripped incomes. Others have found it too hard to get back in after losing the home after a separation. Less than half of women who separate from their partner and lose the house manage to purchase another within 10 years.

Today’s older renters risk joining tomorrow’s renting retirees, nearly half of whom already live in poverty. Help to Buy offers them a pathway back to home ownership and a more secure retirement.

Even if federal and state governments adopt much-needed reforms to boost housing supply and reduce demand, house prices are likely to remain high, relative to incomes.

But Rent to Buy can be improved

Beyond these benefits, there are drawbacks to the government’s plan.

The income thresholds for the scheme – $90,000 for singles and $120,000 for couples – are too high. About 75% of working-age singles earn less than $90,000, and 39% of couples earn less than $120,000.

It’s hard to argue for offering the scheme to people earning above-average incomes, because they have a good chance of buying a home anyway.

Also, requiring borrowers have just a 2% deposit, rather than a minimum of 5% as we proposed, increases the risk of them falling into negative equity if house prices fall.

And the house price caps should be reduced to match those available for stamp duty concessions for first home buyers, which typically begin phasing out in most states for homes valued above $650,000.

Better targeting the scheme in this way would mean the annual cap on the numbers of places could gradually be raised. The current scheme risks becoming a lottery, because the income thresholds are set at such a level that many more people are eligible than the 10,000 places available each year.

The impact on house prices would be tiny

Shared equity schemes can add to house prices, by adding to housing demand. Which is why the main game remains making housing cheaper by building more of it.

But the impact on prices of this capped scheme is likely to be very small. With just 40,000 places on offer over four years, it’ll have close to zero impact on house prices in the context of Australia’s $10.3 trillion housing market.

We estimate that after four years, the 40,000 places on offer could result in overall house prices rising by about 0.016%. That would add $113 to the purchase price of a $700,000 home.

Since participants are limited to buying cheaper homes, it could have a marginally bigger impact on the homes eligible for the scheme.

If the scheme were uncapped, but better targeted as we propose, it would still only have a small impact on house prices.

Our modelling shows that for every 100,000 homes the government helps finance through the scheme, house prices would rise by 0.04%, adding $283 to the purchase price of a $700,000 home.

Parliament should pass the government’s Help to Buy scheme, because it will help some Australians to own their own home. But better still would be a more targeted scheme, which wouldn’t need to be rationed, and which would help more Australians who are struggling to own their own home.

Read more:
‘It was bloody amazing’: how getting into social housing transforms people’s lives

Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities.

– ref. The government’s Help to Buy scheme will help but it won’t solve the housing crisis – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-help-to-buy-scheme-will-help-but-it-wont-solve-the-housing-crisis-224956