Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolina Loch, Senior Lecturer in Oral Biology, University of Otago

The diet of early anthropoids – the ancestors of apes and monkeys – has long been debated. Did these early primates display behaviours and diets similar to modern species, or did they have much humbler beginnings?

Research on early anthropoids has often suggested a diet high in soft fruits. But some species seem to have had a more varied diet, containing harder foods such as seeds and nuts.

Our latest research reveals a different story, one that highlights the dominant role of soft fruits. This likely encompassed various types that were ripe and high in sugar, as evidenced by the presence of tooth decay in some individuals.

This has important implications for understanding how our earliest ancestors adapted and evolved.

Tracking anthropoid evolution

When discussing the primate family tree, it is crucial to address the common confusion arising from the everyday use of terms such as “ape” and “monkey”.

Humans, for instance, are typically excluded from the ape category, and apes are not generally considered monkeys. Yet humans are nested within the ape family tree, which in turn is nested within the broader monkey group, however this is defined.

Read more:
Revelations from 17-million-year-old ape teeth could lead to new insights on early human evolution

All of these primates (humans, apes, and monkeys) are collectively called anthropoids, and we all share a common anthropoid ancestor that lived around 40 million years ago.

Genetic and molecular studies, along with fossil evidence, indicate the period from 40 to 25 million years ago was a critical phase for the evolution and spread of anthropoid primates.

The early portion of this period marks when Afro-Eurasian monkeys and apes (Catarrhini) diverged from monkeys native to the Americas (Platyrrhini). The latter part of this period witnessed further divergence between Afro-Eurasian monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) and apes (Hominoidea).

Fossils of our earliest ancestors

The Fayum Depression in the Western Desert of Egypt offers one of the largest and best-preserved collections of fossil primates from this time frame. Between 35 and 29.2 million years ago (when the fossils used in this study were deposited), the Fayum sat on the lush northern coast of Africa.

The terrestrial rocks of the Fayum preserve the remnants of ecosystems that laid the groundwork for Africa’s modern biodiversity. They also capture a pivotal window in primate evolution.

Several of the anthropoid primates from the site may represent either the direct ancestors of all (or some) living anthropoids. Or they were close relatives of this common ancestor.

Fossils of these early anthropoids are relatively abundant in the Fayum, with some species known from dozens of partial skulls and jaws. Because of this, the Fayum offers a fascinating glimpse into the behaviour and life of our early ancestors.

Dietary interpretations

Dental evidence is a powerful tool in palaeontology. Our new study examined dental wear and disease in fossilised teeth from five Fayum anthropoid primates: Aegyptopithecus, Parapithecus, Propliopithecus, Apidium and Catopithecus.

We focused on tooth chipping patterns and dental caries (also known as cavities), key indicators in fossils of dietary habits.

Our findings indicate a predominantly soft fruit diet in early anthropoids, different to some earlier research suggesting a more varied diet, including hard foods.

Read more:
Human ancestors had the same dental problems as us – even without fizzy drinks and sweets

A mere 5% of teeth show chipping (minor enamel fractures). This is substantially lower than the frequency observed in most modern anthropoids, where chipping frequencies range from 4% to 40% of teeth.

Additionally, the presence of dental caries, notably in Propliopithecidae (the extinct primate family that includes Aegyptopithecus and Propliopithecus), is consistent with the regular consumption of soft, sugary fruits.

This research also lends support to previous studies suggesting an arboreal (tree-living) lifestyle for early anthropoids. Terrestrial primates often exhibit higher chipping prevalence due to more varied diets and accidental grit consumption when feeding on the ground, none of which was evident in our findings.

Adaptation and evolution

The preference for soft fruits likely had significant impacts on exploration of ecological niches, and even in the development of eyesight in anthropoid primates. This includes colour vision that likely evolved as a need for finding ripe fruit among the foliage.

It would have also influenced the shape of their teeth, social behaviours and foraging strategies, setting the stage for an adaptive radiation, leading to the global spread and diversification of monkeys and apes.

This rapid evolution of diverse species from humble anthropoid beginnings was likely in response to new ecological opportunities opening up.

Other primates more distantly related to us, in the primate suborder Strepsirrhini, which includes lemurs and lorises, split off from the ancestors of anthropoids millions of years earlier.

Unlike anthropoids, Strepsirrhini show a large variation in diet during the same time interval. The diets of fossil lemurs and lorises likely consisted of hard and tough foods, insects, gum, leaves and fruits.

In contrast, our own ancestors took a long time to move away from a diet based on soft fruits. Our journey into the past to unravel the lives of our ancestors continues, with each fossil adding a new piece to the puzzle of early primate evolution.

Matthew Robert Borths receives funding from the United States National Science Foundation and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Carolina Loch and Ian Towle 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. Our ancient primate ancestors had an appetite for soft fruits – and their diet shaped human evolution – https://theconversation.com/our-ancient-primate-ancestors-had-an-appetite-for-soft-fruits-and-their-diet-shaped-human-evolution-220218

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Grose, Climate Projections Scientist, CSIRO

In 2023, we saw a raft of news stories about climate tipping points, including the accelerating loss of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the potential dieback of the Amazon rainforest and the likely weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation.

The ice sheets, Amazon rainforest and the Atlantic ocean circulation are among nine recognised global climate tipping elements. Once a tipping point is crossed, changes are often irreversible for a very long time. In many cases, additional greenhouse gases will be released into the atmosphere, further warming our planet.

New scientific research and reviews suggest at least one of Earth’s “tipping points” could be closer than we hoped. A milestone review of global tipping points was launched at last year’s COP28.

What will these tipping points mean for Australia? We don’t yet have a good enough understanding to fully answer this question.

Our report, released overnight, includes conclusions in three categories: we need to do more research; tipping points must be part of climate projections, hazard and impact analyses; and adaptation plans must take the potential impacts into account.

Read more:
Climate tipping points are nearer than you think – our new report warns of catastrophic risk

What are climate tipping points?

Climate scientists have known for a while, through paleoclimate records and other evidence, that there are “tipping elements” in the climate system. These elements can undergo an abrupt change in state, which becomes self-perpetuating and irreversible for a very long time.

An example is the loss of Greenland ice. Once ice is lost, climate feedbacks lead to further loss, and major ice loss becomes “committed”. It becomes unlikely the ice sheet will reform for tens of thousands of years and only if the climate cools again.

Triggering climate tipping points would lead to changes in addition to those commonly included in climate projections. These changes include a significant rise in sea level at double the rate (or even more) of usual projections, as well as extra warming, altered weather systems, climate variability and extremes.

Triggering one tipping point may trigger other tipping points. If that happens, the cascading impacts would push many systems outside their adaptive capacity.

Cutting fossil greenhouse gas emissions is the most important thing we can do to limit warming and the risk of triggering tipping points. The faster we reduce emissions, the better our chances.

But as the planet continues to warm, we must consider the consequences of triggering some, or several, tipping points for Australia and the resulting risks for society. We need to have the right tools for adaptation planning to consider these risks.

Read more:
Antarctic tipping points: the irreversible changes to come if we fail to keep warming below 2℃

Grappling with deep uncertainties

There’s a major gap in the research literature around the implications of tipping points for the southern hemisphere and Australia. Researchers from Australian science agencies and universities came together last year to consider what global climate tipping points could mean for Australia.

We launched our report last night at the national conference of the Australian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society. We identified several priority areas for the research community, risk analysts and policymakers.

We considered the nine global climate tipping points – and one of the most relevant regional tipping points for Australia, coral reef die-offs – as defined in a recent scientific review.

Read more:
What will happen to the Greenland ice sheet if we miss our global warming targets

For almost all tipping points, we don’t understand all the relevant processes. There are deep uncertainties about what conditions would trigger tipping points, how they would play out and their likely impacts.

Along with recognising the most urgent point – that deep emission cuts will limit the chances of triggering tipping points – our conclusions cover three areas.

1. We need more research

We need to expand research on paleoclimate records, theory and process understanding, observations, monitoring and modelling. Australia leads world-class research, including on Antarctica, the Southern Ocean, the carbon cycle, weather processes and ecosystems. It is essential we support and expand the work, bringing a southern hemisphere perspective to global efforts.

2. Climate projections, hazard and impact analyses must include tipping points

Triggering some climate tipping points would have direct impacts on our coasts, ecosystems and society. In an interconnected world, other tipping points would have major indirect impacts – through climate migration, conflict, disrupted trade and more.

We need credible projections of what the climate looks like if tipping points are triggered. Our climate impact and risk analyses should illustrate what it really means for us. Given the limited state of knowledge, the “storyline” approach – linking past, current and future unfolding of events in a narrative or pathway framework – is particularly useful, informed by all the available evidence.

3. We need to consider what it means for adaptation

We can consider where, when and how we can act to reduce potential impacts if tipping points are triggered. Appropriate risk management accounts for likelihood, consequence and timeframe.

For example, planning for major coastal infrastructure with a long lifetime and low tolerance for failure could draw on the sea-level projections of “low likelihood, high impact” storylines that include the west Antarctic ice sheet collapsing. This would safeguard critical infrastructure against one worst-case risk. Of course, there is much more to adaptation than this.

We still have much to learn, but we cannot wait for perfect knowledge before we start planning. It’s clear the risks are real and cannot be ignored.

We need to focus on what we can do to avoid triggering tipping points, manage risk and build our climate resilience. There are also positive tipping points in technology, economy and society that are part of the solution. If we get it right, positive change can happen more rapidly than we might think.

Read more:
Climate ‘tipping points’ can be positive too – our report sets out how to engineer a domino effect of rapid changes

Michael Grose receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program and the Australian Climate Service.

Andy Pitman receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

– ref. Dangerous climate tipping points will affect Australia. The risks are real and cannot be ignored – https://theconversation.com/dangerous-climate-tipping-points-will-affect-australia-the-risks-are-real-and-cannot-be-ignored-222282

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

The Albanese government decision to revise the Stage 3 tax cuts has ignited a political firestorm.

The government argues revising the plan to give bigger tax cuts to low-and middle-income earners struggling with the cost of living justifies breaking an election promise.

The opposition says the changes will make bracket creep worse in the long term because they will increase tax revenue by $28 billion over 10 years, relative to the original Stage 3 tax cuts.

The short-term winners and losers from the new tax plan are well documented.

People with taxable incomes of less than about $146,486, or nearly 90% of all taxpayers, will get either the same or a larger tax cut under the new plan.

Whereas the 10% with the highest incomes will get smaller tax cuts than under the original Stage 3 plan. The tax cut for people who earn more than $200,000 a year will be roughly halved, from $9,075 to $4,529 a year.

Read more:
Stage 3 stacks up: the rejigged tax cuts help fight bracket creep and boost middle and upper-middle households

Bracket creep will reduce the value of these tax cuts over time

Australia’s tax scales are not indexed to wages growth or inflation. That means as our incomes rise, Australians pay a higher proportion of their income in tax.

Even if wage growth doesn’t push a taxpayer into a new tax bracket, most taxpayers will still end up paying more tax, because a larger share of their income will be subject to their highest income tax rate.

Over time, this so-called “bracket creep” increases average tax rates across the income distribution as wages grow.

And one consequence of keeping the 37% tax bracket for incomes between $135,000 and $190,000 is average tax rates will rise more quickly for some upper-income earners than they would have under the original Stage 3.

The share of taxpayers with a taxable income between $135,000 and $190,000 is expected to rise from 7% in 2024-25 to 13% in 2033-34 due to bracket creep.

Middle Australia still wins in the long term too

Grattan Institute’s analysis shows the vast bulk of Australian taxpayers will benefit from the revised tax package, despite the impact of bracket creep over the next decade.

For example, the typical (that is, median) taxpayer, with a taxable income of about $59,000 in 2024-25, can expect to pay $804 less in tax next year. As will someone on the average taxable income of about $79,000 in 2024-25.

And both can expect to pay cumulatively $8,040 less in tax over the next decade, compared to if the original Stage 3 tax cuts remained in place.

Overall, we estimate about 83% of taxpayers can expect to pay the same or less tax over the next decade than they would have under the original Stage 3 plan, despite the impact of bracket creep.

While the share of taxpayers facing a higher average tax rate each year under the new tax plan will grow over time – rising about the top 10% today to around 22% by 2033-34 – the accumulated savings over time means many higher-income earners will still be better off over the next decade.

But high-income earners will pay substantially more tax over the next decade under the government’s plan than under Stage 3.

Someone with a taxable income higher than 95% of all Australians – or about $197,000 in 2024-25 – will pay about $45,000 more in tax over the decade than if the Stage 3 tax cuts remained in place.

The budget is the biggest loser

But the biggest loser from the new tax plan may end up being the federal budget.

The government’s tax plan is expected to cost the budget more than $20 billion a year, or 1% of GDP. The Stage 3 plan would have cost about the same.

And the budgetary cost will be larger still if a future Coalition government were to keep the Stage 3 tax cuts for high-income earners and keep the bigger tax cuts for low and middle-income earners under Labor’s revised package.

That would increase the cost of the tax plan from $20 billion a year to up to upwards of $30 billion a year, and by up to an extra $115 billion over the decade.

The government’s tax plan will make it harder for this and future governments to meet community demands for more spending in areas such as healthcare, aged care, disability care, and defence.

These tax cuts could cost middle Australia more than it thinks.

Read more:
The 2 main arguments against redesigning the Stage 3 tax cuts are wrong: here’s why

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

Joey Moloney 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. Middle Australia wins from the government’s tax plan, but the budget is the biggest loser – https://theconversation.com/middle-australia-wins-from-the-governments-tax-plan-but-the-budget-is-the-biggest-loser-222383

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

A national Newspoll, conducted January 31 to February 3 from a sample of 1,245, gave Labor a 52–48 lead, unchanged since the previous Newspoll in mid-December. Primary votes were 36% Coalition (steady), 34% Labor (up one), 12% Greens (down one), 7% One Nation (steady) and 11% for all Others (steady).

Anthony Albanese’s net approval dropped one point to -9, while Peter Dutton’s net approval was down four points to -13. Albanese led Dutton as better PM by an unchanged 46–35. The Poll Bludger has the Newspoll figures.

On the stage three tax cut modifications, 62% thought the government did the right thing by changing the tax cuts to give lower- and middle-income people a greater share, while 29% thought the government should have kept its promise and implemented the tax cuts without changes.

On whether voters would be personally better or worse off under the changes, 38% said they would be better off, 37% about the same and 18% worse off.

Here is a graph of Albanese’s net approval in Newspoll. His net approval is still well below zero, and hasn’t recovered to its level before the Voice referendum defeat.

In economic news, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the December 2023 quarter inflation report last Wednesday. Headline annual inflation was 4.1%, down from a peak of 7.8% in December 2022. The December quarter inflation was 0.6%, down from 1.2% in the September quarter, and the lowest quarterly inflation since March 2021. Lower inflation should assist Labor.

Essential poll: 48–46 to Labor

In last week’s federal Essential poll, conducted January 24–28 from a sample of 1,201, Labor led by 48–46 including undecided (49–46 in December). Labor has led by one-to-three points in all Essential polls since late October.

Primary votes were 34% Coalition (steady), 32% Labor (up one), 13% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (up one), 2% UAP (steady), 7% for all Others (down two) and 5% undecided (steady). Analyst Kevin Bonham said Labor would have about a 53–47 lead in this poll by 2022 election preference flows. Essential’s respondent preferences have favoured the Coalition.

Albanese had a 47–41 disapproval rating (47–42 in November), while Dutton was at 43–38 disapproval (42–39 previously).

On the stage three tax changes, 47% (up six since November) said they should be revised so they mostly benefit those on low and middle incomes, 22% (up two) go ahead as originally planned, 19% (down three) deferred for those earning over $200,000 and 13% (down three) thought they should be cancelled altogether. I had more on these questions in November.

On the Israel-Palestine conflict, 67% (up five since November) said Australia should stay out entirely, 17% (steady) said it should provide active assistance to Israel while 16% (down five) believed Australia should provide active assistance to Palestine.

By 47–12, respondents thought things had improved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the past ten years (42–10 in January 2023). On a separate national day to recognise Indigenous Australians, 40% (up seven since January 2023) did not support a separate day, 31% (down two) supported a separate day and keeping Australia Day and 18% (down eight) supported replacing Australia Day.

On the ABC, 39% thought news reporting and comment independent and unbiased, and 39% thought otherwise. On artificial intelligence (AI), 65% thought regulation should be mandatory. On AI opportunities and risks, 45% thought it carries more risk than opportunity, 21% more opportunity than risk and 33% that risk and opportunity are about the same.

Morgan poll and a second Queensland byelection

In last week’s federal Morgan poll, conducted January 22–28 from a sample of 1,688, Labor led by 50.5–49.5, a two-point gain for the Coalition since the previous week. Primary votes were 37.5% Coalition (up 1.5), 31% Labor (down 1.5), 13% Greens (up 0.5), 5.5% One Nation (up 0.5) and 13% for all Others (down one).

I covered the March 16 Queensland state byelection in Inala last fortnight. A second Queensland byelection will also occur on March 16 after Ipswich West’s Labor member Jim Madden resigned to contest the Ipswich local government elections on March 16.

At the 2020 state election, Labor defeated the Liberal Nationals by a 64.3–35.7 margin in Ipswich West. One Nation had finished second in 2017. While normally a safe Labor seat, One Nation won Ipswich West in 1998 and the LNP in 2012.

Biden wins 96% in South Carolina Democratic primary

At Saturday’s United States Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina, Joe Biden won 96.2% of the vote, Marianne Williamson 2.1% and Dean Phillips 1.7%. This result makes it all but certain that Biden will be the Democratic presidential nominee.

In the Republican presidential contest, Donald Trump leads Nikki Haley nationally by 73.6–17.2 in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate. The next important contest is the February 24 Republican primary in South Carolina, Haley’s home state. Trump leads by 61.8–31.7 in South Carolina polls.

Trump is very likely to effectively seal the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday March 5, when many states vote. By this date, 47.4% of Republican delegates to their July nominating convention will have been determined.

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

– ref. Labor’s Newspoll lead unchanged since December as 62% support stage three changes – https://theconversation.com/labors-newspoll-lead-unchanged-since-december-as-62-support-stage-three-changes-222257

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology

Child sexual abuse is common in Australia. The best evidence of this comes from the 2023 Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS), which surveyed 8,500 Australians aged 16 and over. The ACMS found 28.5% of the national population has experienced sexual abuse before age 18 by any person (adult or adolescent). Women were twice as likely as men to have experienced sexual abuse (37.3%-18.8%). Among 16-to-24-year-olds, prevalence was slightly lower (25.7%), but again with a massive gender disparity (35.2%-14.5%).

Reducing child sexual abuse is a major challenge for public health and gender equality. Its health outcomes depend on many factors, including the identity of the perpetrator and the nature of the abuse. This means not everyone who experiences child sexual abuse has the same outcomes.

However, the abuse is often devastating and uniquely traumatic throughout life. It is strongly associated with mental disorders (for example, major depressive disorder) and health risk behaviours (such as self-harm and suicide).

Despite all the attention given to the issue, there has not been high-quality research on who the main perpetrators are, their relationship to the victim, and whether strategies put in place to end such abuse have been effective. Our latest research offers the best evidence to date of important trends.

Who inflicts child sexual abuse?

Our analysis identified four different types of adult who inflict child sexual abuse:

1. parents or adult family members
2. institutional adult caregivers such as teachers
3. other known adults
4. unknown adults.

We also identified four classes of perpetrators aged under 18:

1. siblings
2. known adolescents (not in romantic relationships)
3. known adolescents (in romantic relationships)
4. unknown adolescents.

This is important because while it is well understood that adults inflict child sexual abuse, discussions about its prevention often overlook that it is often inflicted by people aged under 18, and do not consider perpetration by specific groups.

Read more:
Major study reveals two-thirds of people who suffer childhood maltreatment suffer more than one kind

Child sexual abuse by adults

Child sexual abuse by adults has always been and remains a major problem. The ACMS found a devastating 18.5% of all Australians aged 16 and over had experienced child sexual abuse by an adult.

Nearly 12% of Australians aged 16-24 have experienced child sexual abuse by an adult. The vast majority of adult perpetrators are known to the child. This continued prevalence today is deeply concerning and demands we renew our efforts to reduce it.

However, child sexual abuse by adults has declined, especially by parents/adult family members and institutional adults. This is likely the result of increased awareness and parental supervision, school-based prevention programs, and laws and policies regulating institutions. This is an immense achievement, and we must intensify our efforts to reduce sexual abuse of children by adults.

Child sexual abuse by adolescents

Worryingly, child sexual abuse by adolescents aged under 18 has increased in recent years. The ACMS found 18.2% of Australians aged 16-24 (nearly 1 in 5) experienced sexual abuse by an adolescent before age 18. The majority is inflicted against girls by:

1. male adolescents the victim knew, and who were not their current or former boyfriend

2. current or former boyfriends.

Increased adolescent perpetration reflects a culture that lacks understanding of respectful relationships and consent. These conditions have driven major initiatives such as Teach Us Consent and have galvanised other new approaches to reduce teen sexual violence.

This increase may also be influenced by perceived pressure to have sexual experiences, media representations of gender norms, lower parental supervision (especially at occasions involving alcohol) and access to violent pornography online.

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

From evidence to opportunity

It is horrifying to learn of continued adult-perpetrated child sexual abuse and increased teen-on-teen sexual violence. But this evidence provides an opportunity for those involved in its prevention and the community to reduce sexual violence in the next generation.

Prevention efforts directed towards teens have great preventive potential. Much child sexual abuse by teens is influenced by lack of empathy, a desire for immediate sexual gratification, and male sexual entitlement. This is obviously not to demonise all young adolescent males, as the data indicate most do not inflict sexual violence.

However, increased child sexual abuse perpetration by males in this age group highlights a contemporary normalisation of sexual violence. This shows there is still a long way to go in teaching young people about respectful relationships.

What more can be done?

Parents are integral in reducing child sexual abuse. Educating children about their bodies, healthy relationships, consent, sex, empathy and gender equality instils key prosocial attributes required to reduce sexual violence.

Governments also play a huge role in implementing preventive public health approaches. Recent progress by Australian government agencies, program efforts and policy frameworks are extremely encouraging. Their continuance will embed prevention in the long term.

School-based sexual abuse prevention programs have been shown to increase children’s protective behaviours and knowledge. Emerging scientific consensus indicates age-appropriate sexuality education from early childhood through secondary school builds social and emotional skills that minimise the likelihood of perpetration.

In a landmark advance, the Australian government recently committed to mandating consent education in the National Curriculum.

This is a promising response to the outpouring of testimony by Australian teenagers on Teach Us Consent. Effective implementation of this policy, and mature engagement in this conversation by parents and wider society, will be pivotal to reducing child sexual abuse. This is particularly necessary given the constant battle between positive healthy relationships education and the media consumed by teens in TV, movies, social media and pornography that promote problematic attitudes to gender and sexuality.

Shaping our future

As a society, it is time to further prioritise the prevention of sexual violence, and instil in boys and young men the knowledge, dispositions and skills required for healthy sexual development. We must change the still too-common sense of entitlement to girls’ and women’s bodies. Instead, we must help boys and men develop more empathy and respect for girls and women.

Prioritising prevention and building sexual and emotional literacy is our best chance of reversing the recent trend in adolescent-perpetrated child sexual abuse and sustaining reductions in adult-perpetrated abuse.

Ben Mathews is the Lead Investigator of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS). The ACMS received research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, and additional funding and contributions were provided by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Social Services, the Australian Institute of Criminology.

Chanel Contos is the founder of Teach Us Consent.

– ref. New research shows some gains but fresh difficulties in combating child sexual abuse – https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-some-gains-but-fresh-difficulties-in-combating-child-sexual-abuse-221402

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hart, Emeritus Faculty, Australian National University

The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this week in former President
Donald Trump’s appeal against the decision to exclude him from the ballot in the Colorado Republican primary for this year’s presidential election.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump was disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution because he engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Because the Republican primaries have already begun (Coloradoans vote on March 5) and the US Supreme Court’s current term ends on June 30, the nine justices have very little time to consider such a momentous dispute with so many constitutional issues to be clarified.

So, what will happen this week and how might the court rule?

How does the Supreme Court operate?

Each side is usually allotted 30 minutes to present their case in oral arguments, but the lawyers are almost always interrupted by questions from the justices. The questioning can provide clues as to how the justices might be leaning.

The justices then meet in private to discuss the case and form a preliminary opinion. The chief justice, John Roberts, has the power to determine which of the justices will draft the written opinion, but only if he is in the majority. If not, that power transfers to the next most senior justice in the majority.

The draft opinion will be circulated to the other justices and is subject to their suggestions and possible alterations. This is almost a political exercise because the justice writing the opinion needs to get four other justices to sign the draft, or, at least, support the decision.

He or she would also want to minimise the number of dissenting or concurring opinions that would, inevitably, undermine the force of the court’s majority opinion. It is an exercise in coalition-building to forge that majority, which is never certain until this final stage of the process.

What are the constitutional issues?

The justices face a seemingly intractable choice between two fundamental values: defending the rule of law and protecting democracy.

For most of its life, the insurrection clause has been regarded by constitutional scholars as of historical interest only and consequently ignored.

Trump’s appeal raised three major constitutional questions the Supreme Court will have to decide:

• whether Section 3 applies to Trump as a sitting president

• what it takes to determine if someone is guilty of insurrection

• and whether the states have the power to enforce Section 3 without prior approval from Congress.

Read more:
Trump defends himself to the Supreme Court, saying he called ‘for peace, patriotism, respect for law and order’ on Jan. 6 and is not an insurrectionist

On the first issue, Trump believes Section 3 doesn’t apply to him because it doesn’t specifically refer to the president or the presidential oath. He also claims the president is not an “officer of the United States”, as the clause reads.

In his petition, Trump offers several unconvincing reasons why this is so and it will probably be a difficult argument for his lawyers to sustain. As the Colorado Supreme Court said pointedly in its judgement,

The Constitution refers to the presidency as an “office” 25 times.

The second issue is whether the Colorado court erred in grounding its judgement on the fact Trump had been guilty of insurrection (based on the House Select Committee report). One of the dissenting justices argued that Trump was entitled to the “due process of law” before being disqualified from the ballot.

So far, Trump has not been found guilty of insurrection, nor is he facing any specific charges of insurrection in the court cases under way.

The respondents seeking to remove Trump from the ballot point to the findings of the trial court in Colorado detailing his actions on January 6 as the central issue in the case. They claim Trump has failed to show why the trial court was wrong.

In effect, then, they are asking the Supreme Court to validate the charge that Trump engaged in an insurrection.

The third major issue is whether Section 3 is self-executing, as the Colorado Supreme Court decided. This means the Constitution does not require legislation by Congress in order to disqualify a candidate for office under Section 3.

The US Supreme Court will have to decide whether Congress must legitimise any action under Section 3, or whether Congress merely has the power to invoke the insurrection ban should no other body do so.

How will the court likely respond?

The Supreme Court has a solid six-to-three conservative majority, with three of the conservative justices nominated by Trump. But there isn’t a clear “liberal” or “conservative” position on the Colorado court’s opinion. Liberal and conservative lawyers alike have provided legal rationales for excluding Trump’s candidacy based on the 14th Amendment.

The last time the Supreme Court entangled itself in a presidential election – the Bush v. Gore decision in 2001 – it was a judicial dog’s breakfast. The ruling was widely seen as a political decision reflecting the partisan preferences of the five conservative justices in the majority.

In a blistering dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote:

Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

The court should be mindful of the public and legal backlash to that decision and its current low level of public approval. The court’s embarrassing ethical problems and unpopular decisions, such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade, have already clouded its legitimacy and reputation.

Whatever its decision, the court risks once again being seen as politically partisan. If it overturns the Colorado decision, it saves Trump’s political ambitions. If it upholds the decision and bars Trump from the ballot, it could trigger protests from Trump supporters, as Trump has already intimated.

Read more:
US Supreme Court decision on Trump-Colorado ballot case ‘monumental’ for democracy itself, not just 2024 presidential election

The general view among constitutional commentators is the Supreme Court would probably not want to give 50 different states and the District of Columbia the freedom to decide who is qualified or disqualified to be president. This could lead to Trump appearing on the ballot in some states, but not others.

If so, it would need to make the Colorado decision apply to all states, or craft an opinion that overturns the Colorado decision without being seen as overtly pro-Trump. It would have to seek some mid-point between upholding the rule of law (some would argue the Colorado decision does that very effectively) and permitting people to be able to vote for the candidate of their choice.

There’s not much legal precedent to guide the court in resolving the appeal. And the liberal-conservative divide on the court is probably not going to be a reliable predictor of the outcome. How the court settles this dispute is anyone’s guess.

Given the current fragile state of American democracy, the country can ill-afford a repeat of Bush v. Gore.

John Hart 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. Should Donald Trump be disqualified from state ballots in presidential election? Here’s how the US Supreme Court might rule – https://theconversation.com/should-donald-trump-be-disqualified-from-state-ballots-in-presidential-election-heres-how-the-us-supreme-court-might-rule-221209

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

If you’re one of the one in three Australians whose New Year’s resolution involved losing weight, it’s likely you’re now contemplating what weight-loss goal you should actually be working towards.

But type “setting a weight loss goal” into any online search engine and you’ll likely be left with more questions than answers.

Sure, the many weight-loss apps and calculators available will make setting this goal seem easy. They’ll typically use a body mass index (BMI) calculator to confirm a “healthy” weight and provide a goal weight based on this range.

Your screen will fill with trim-looking influencers touting diets that will help you drop ten kilos in a month, or ads for diets, pills and exercise regimens promising to help you effortlessly and rapidly lose weight.

Most sales pitches will suggest you need to lose substantial amounts of weight to be healthy – making weight loss seem an impossible task. But the research shows you don’t need to lose a lot of weight to achieve health benefits.

Read more:
Can you be overweight and healthy?

Using BMI to define our target weight is flawed

We’re a society fixated on numbers. So it’s no surprise we use measurements and equations to score our weight. The most popular is BMI, a measure of our body weight-to-height ratio.

BMI classifies bodies as underweight, normal (healthy) weight, overweight or obese and can be a useful tool for weight and health screening.

But it shouldn’t be used as the single measure of what it means to be a healthy weight when we set our weight-loss goals. This is because it:

• fails to consider two critical factors related to body weight and health – body fat percentage and distribution

• does not account for significant differences in body composition based on gender, ethnicity and age.

How does losing weight benefit our health?

Losing just 5–10% of our body weight – between 6 and 12kg for someone weighing 120kg – can significantly improve our health in four key ways.

1. Reducing cholesterol

Obesity increases the chances of having too much low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol – also known as bad cholesterol – because carrying excess weight changes how our bodies produce and manage lipoproteins and triglycerides, another fat molecule we use for energy.

Having too much bad cholesterol and high triglyceride levels is not good, narrowing our arteries and limiting blood flow, which increases the risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke.

But research shows improvements in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels are evident with just 5% weight loss.

2. Lowering blood pressure

Our blood pressure is considered high if it reads more than 140/90 on at least two occasions.

Excess weight is linked to high blood pressure in several ways, including changing how our sympathetic nervous system, blood vessels and hormones regulate our blood pressure.

Essentially, high blood pressure makes our heart and blood vessels work harder and less efficiently, damaging our arteries over time and increasing our risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke.

Like the improvements in cholesterol, a 5% weight loss improves both systolic blood pressure (the first number in the reading) and diastolic blood pressure (the second number).

A meta-analysis of 25 trials on the influence of weight reduction on blood pressure also found every kilo of weight loss improved blood pressure by one point.

3. Reducing risk for type 2 diabetes

Excess body weight is the primary manageable risk factor for type 2 diabetes, particularly for people carrying a lot of visceral fat around the abdomen (belly fat).

Carrying this excess weight can cause fat cells to release pro-inflammatory chemicals that disrupt how our bodies regulate and use the insulin produced by our pancreas, leading to high blood sugar levels.

Read more:
Can I actually target areas to lose fat, like my belly?

Type 2 diabetes can lead to serious medical conditions if it’s not carefully managed, including damaging our heart, blood vessels, major organs, eyes and nervous system.

Research shows just 7% weight loss reduces risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 58%.

4. Reducing joint pain and the risk of osteoarthritis

Carrying excess weight can cause our joints to become inflamed and damaged, making us more prone to osteoarthritis.

Observational studies show being overweight doubles a person’s risk of developing osteoarthritis, while obesity increases the risk fourfold.

Small amounts of weight loss alleviate this stress on our joints. In one study each kilogram of weight loss resulted in a fourfold decrease in the load exerted on the knee in each step taken during daily activities.

Focus on long-term habits

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight but found the kilos return almost as quickly as they left, you’re not alone.

An analysis of 29 long-term weight-loss studies found participants regained more than half of the weight lost within two years. Within five years, they regained more than 80%.

When we lose weight, we take our body out of its comfort zone and trigger its survival response. It then counteracts weight loss, triggering several physiological responses to defend our body weight and “survive” starvation.

Read more:
What’s the ‘weight set point’, and why does it make it so hard to keep weight off?

Just as the problem is evolutionary, the solution is evolutionary too. Successfully losing weight long-term comes down to:

• losing weight in small manageable chunks you can sustain, specifically periods of weight loss, followed by periods of weight maintenance, and so on, until you achieve your goal weight

• making gradual changes to your lifestyle to ensure you form habits that last a lifetime.

Setting a goal to reach a healthy weight can feel daunting. But it doesn’t have to be a pre-defined weight according to a “healthy” BMI range. Losing 5–10% of our body weight will result in immediate health benefits.

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

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

– ref. How much weight do you actually need to lose? It might be a lot less than you think – https://theconversation.com/how-much-weight-do-you-actually-need-to-lose-it-might-be-a-lot-less-than-you-think-217287

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine E. Wood, Associate Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Swinburne University of Technology

Should my twins be in the same class at school?

As a clinical psychologist specialising in twins, this is one of the most frequent questions parents ask me.

Many schools continue to separate twins due to a deep-seated belief it is better for the development of separate identities. Both research evidence and clinical experience tells us it is not so simple.

How many twins are there?

What happens to twins is not a niche issue. In Australia, twins represent approximately one in every 80 pregnancies. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1.4% (4,286) of pregnancies were multiple births in 2022, with the vast majority of these being twins.

As these statistics suggest, each year there will be many parents who have to navigate what happens to their kids at school and many teachers will have a twin in their classroom.

Old school rules for twins

Traditionally, schools did not tend to ask parents for their views when placing twins in classes.

This approach was based on anecdotal experience, misguided perceptions and beliefs, and/or limited research suggesting that being apart was better for twins’ development and academic performance.

Still today, some parents tell me school principals insist on placing twins in separate classes because they believe it is better for shaping their individual identities. There is also the often unspoken rationale (particularly for identical twins) that it is easier for teachers and students to tell them apart.

Read more:
Curious Kids: why are some twins identical and some not?

What does the research say?

When looking at the research about twins at school, the findings tell us a different story. There is little evidence to suggest twins perform better academically when they are in separate classes. The exception might be when one twin has special needs or when there is an unhealthy amount of competition between the twins.

A Canadian study published in 2022 found teaching primary school-aged twins in the same classroom had some positive impact on their behaviour and how they relate to others. This makes sense when we consider many twins have had limited experience being away from each other before starting school. So they are likely to feel more secure if placed together in these early transition years.

Read more:
Whether it’s a new teacher or class – here’s what to do when your child is not loving it

What parents, schools should be doing instead

In 2022, the Australian Multiple Birth Association (a non-profit organisation) released a policy statement, noting:

• there is no one-sized fits all answer

• parents “are best placed” to determine what will suit their children

• schools should consult parents each year about where their children should go.

Twins may also have a view, particularly as they get older. Therefore, listening to each twin will be an important part of the decision-making process. Although, what one twin says they want might not be what they really want or need (depending on the nature of the twin dynamic). For example, the twin who says they want to be in a separate class to their co-twin might actually be the twin who wants to stay together. Such is the enigma of the twin relationship!

This makes it even more important to gather as much informed information as possible before making a decision. For schools, the message is no fixed policy is best when it comes to welcoming twins into your school.

Catherine E. Wood has presented at the Australian Multiple Birth Association national conference at different times.

– ref. Should twins be in separate classes? Many schools say yes, but the answer is not so simple – https://theconversation.com/should-twins-be-in-separate-classes-many-schools-say-yes-but-the-answer-is-not-so-simple-222279

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick William Smith, Research Officer, Riddet Institute, Massey University

Have you ever looked down at your breakfast, lunch or dinner and considered where the various ingredients travelled from to reach your plate?

A basic sandwich in New Zealand can easily represent five countries: an Australian wheat and Indian sesame seed roll, Danish salami, local lettuce and cheese, seasoned with Vietnamese pepper.

And because your food travels a long way to reach you, so does your nutrition.

Research on global food trade – particularly trade in cereals – has a long history. More recently, researchers have begun considering the nutrients – energy, protein, vitamins, minerals – that move around the world within traded food.

As we learn more about the global trade in nutrients we can build a better picture of how these key dietary ingredients are distributed, and how they affect global population health.

Read more:
Five ways to reboot the global food economy to make it healthier for all

Mapping global nutrient trade

The Sustainable Nutrition Initiative undertakes modelling research on the links between global food production and the nutrition of the global population.

Working with researchers at the University of São Paulo and State University of Campinas in Brazil, we have now published a broader analysis of global nutrient trade over time and its impact on health.

It shows the variation in nutrient trade between countries with differing wealth, and some positive links between nutrient trade and health.

Read more:
What does a healthy diet look like for me and the planet? It depends where you live

Our team built a large data set of all flows of food for human consumption between 254 countries from 1986 to 2020. From this, we worked out the flows of 48 essential nutrients over that period.

As this is too much information for a single scientific paper, the team built an interactive app to let anyone explore the data.

The paper itself focused on a few key nutrients: protein, calcium, iron and vitamins A and B12. These are often used in analyses of food security (having reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food) because of their importance to human health.

Some of these nutrients are under-supplied in many parts of the world, particularly low-income countries. At the same time, nutrient trade over the 35 years we analysed has grown rapidly, as shown in the chart below for vitamin B12.

The wealth and nutrient gap

High-income countries were the biggest importers of vitamin B12, but also the other nutrients analysed, largely from trade with other high-income countries. This is despite those countries having only around 15% of the global population.

In contrast, low-income countries have little involvement in global trade of any nutrients. This limits their ability to improve dietary diversity and quality through food from outside their borders.

Most of New Zealand’s trading partners are in the higher-income brackets. Milk and meat dominate New Zealand protein exports, with China the major partner (see chart below).

The quantity of protein exported would meet the needs of nearly seven times New Zealand’s own population. In a country like China, of course, this is only a small fraction of the population.

In contrast, nearly 60% of New Zealand’s protein imports comes from Australia, largely in wheat and wheat products. And New Zealand imports enough protein to meet around half its population’s need.

We also analysed the socioeconomic, demographic and health outcome data potentially associated with food consumption patterns and nutrient trade.

The findings suggest higher involvement in nutrient trade networks was significantly associated with improvements in infant mortality rates, lower prevalence of anaemia in women of reproductive age, and greater life expectancy.

Read more:
Hunger is increasing worldwide but women bear the brunt of food insecurity

Food security and nutrition

It is concerning to see the low involvement of low-income countries in nutrient trade, particularly given the benefits it can bring for population health.

Our research provides context for how important traded nutrients are in meeting national population requirements. This knowledge can be used to identify weaknesses in the global food system, and which shocks (climatic, political or biological) might have the greatest consequences for nutrition.

These data can then be combined with other knowledge and modelling of food production, distribution and consumption at national levels to give a more complete view of food systems.

Food trade plays a key role in fostering food security and good nutrition. The trade has grown rapidly in both quantity and economic value over the past 35 years. Understanding its importance for healthy nutrition is essential.

This work was partially funded by the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries.

Andrew John Fletcher is also employed by Fonterra Cooperative Group.

Warren McNabb receives funding from MBIE, MPI, Fonterra, Zespri, Beef & Lamb NZ, HVN and NewFish.

– ref. Where did the ingredients in that sandwich come from? Our global nutrient tracker tells a complex story – https://theconversation.com/where-did-the-ingredients-in-that-sandwich-come-from-our-global-nutrient-tracker-tells-a-complex-story-221978

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

Newspoll has found that more then six in ten Australians (62%) believe the Albanese government did the right thing in reworking the stage 3 tax cuts.

The poll showed no change in two-party vote, with Labor retaining a 52% to 48% lead compared to the last poll, taken late 2023.

It also shows virtually no change in Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings, suggesting his broken promise has not affected his credibility in the public’s mind.

Some 38% of people said they would be better off under the new tax policy.

The opposition is set to declare its stance on Labor’s revamped tax cuts on Tuesday, after the government on Sunday released the legislation for the changes.

Shadow cabinet on Monday will consider the legislation, and it will go to the joint parties on Tuesday, the day it will be introduced into parliament.

The Coalition will try to amend the package but when its amendment fails it is expected to reluctantly wave the legislation through. If it does, that would render irrelevant the Greens, who are demanding changes and other concessions in return for support.

But there is division in Coalition ranks. Former frontbencher Julian Leeser said at the weekend he would be arguing that “we must stand for what we believe and we must oppose Labor’s attempts to ditch the [Coalition] legislated tax cuts”.

Albanese said the government wanted its legislation passed “during this session, which finishes up before Easter”. The new tax cuts will come in on July 1. If the legislation wasn’t passed in time, the old Stage 3 cuts, which favour higher income earners, would start operating from July 1.

The reworked tax cuts, which give all taxpayers a cut but are targeted to lower and middle income earners, are a central pitch by Labor for the March 2 Dunkley byelection.

Labor is buoyed by indications they are going down well in the community, giving the ABC party research showing strong support. The reworked package has the majority of taxpayers better off than the original Stage 3, but a minority get a smaller cut than they would have received.

Appearing on the ABC on Sunday, Albanese fended off questioning about whether breaking his promise to deliver the Coalition’s Stage 3 could be the thin end of the wedge, for example for changes to negative gearing.

Asked whether he thought the existing negative gearing rules were fair, he said: “Well, they make a difference for people. They’ve been there for a long time. There is a whole lot of analysis that says they encourage investment in housing”. He pointed out that “they’re not an equity measure, they are a supply measure”.

Pressed on whether his word was still his bond after the broken promise, Albanese said, “I’m an honest person. I am upfront.

“What I have done here is be very, very clear. And I’ve listened to people who are all saying […] to me, ‘Well, what are you doing about cost of living?’”

The tax cuts are set to be the main issue when federal parliament starts its sitting for the year on Tuesday.

But argument on another front has opened, with the government announcing a fuel efficiency standard for new vehicles. This will work by providing car companies with targets for average emissions per kilometre for new vehicles sold, of the kind that that prevail in Europe, the US and Japan.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Transport Minister Catherine King said by introducing the standard the government was delivering more cars that were cheaper to run, and giving motorists choice.

The new rules would start on January 1 next year.

The opposition said in a statement, “Australian’s favourite vehicles could soon be unaffordable if Labor’s fuel efficiency standard fails to strike the correct balance between minimising costs, reducing emissions and maximising choice for all Australians”.

Read more:
The embarrassingly easy, tax-free way for Australia to cut the cost of electric cars

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. Newspoll shows support for Albanese’s tax decision, as the PM defends his reputation as ‘an honest person’ – https://theconversation.com/newspoll-shows-support-for-albaneses-tax-decision-as-the-pm-defends-his-reputation-as-an-honest-person-222725

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

The opposition is set to declare its stance on Labor’s revamped tax cuts on Tuesday, after the government on Sunday released the legislation for the changes.

Shadow cabinet on Monday will consider the legislation, and it will go to the joint parties on Tuesday, the day it will be introduced into parliament.

The Coalition will try to amend the package but when its amendment fails it is expected to reluctantly wave the legislation through. If it does, that would render irrelevant the Greens, who are demanding changes and other concessions in return for support.

But there is division in Coalition ranks. Former frontbencher Julian Leeser said at the weekend he would be arguing that “we must stand for what we believe and we must oppose Labor’s attempts to ditch the [Coalition] legislated tax cuts”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government wanted its legislation passed “during this session, which finishes up before Easter”. The new tax cuts will come in on July 1. If the legislation wasn’t passed in time, the old Stage 3 cuts, which favour higher income earners, would start operating from July 1.

The reworked tax cuts, which give all taxpayers a cut but are targeted to lower and middle income earners, are a central pitch by Labor for the March 2 Dunkley byelection.

Labor is buoyed by indications they are going down well in the community, giving the ABC party research showing strong support. The reworked package has the majority of taxpayers better off than the original Stage 3, but a minority get a smaller cut than they would have received.

Appearing on the ABC on Sunday, Albanese fended off questioning about whether breaking his promise to deliver the Coalition’s Stage 3 could be the thin end of the wedge, for example for changes to negative gearing.

Asked whether he thought the existing negative gearing rules were fair, he said: “Well, they make a difference for people. They’ve been there for a long time. There is a whole lot of analysis that says they encourage investment in housing”. He pointed out that “they’re not an equity measure, they are a supply measure”.

Pressed on whether his word was still his bond after the broken promise, Albanese said, “I’m an honest person. I am upfront.

“What I have done here is be very, very clear. And I’ve listened to people who are all saying […] to me, ‘Well, what are you doing about cost of living?’”

The tax cuts are set to be the main issue when federal parliament starts its sitting for the year on Tuesday.

But argument on another front has opened, with the government announcing a fuel efficiency standard for new vehicles. This will work by providing car companies with targets for average emissions per kilometre for new vehicles sold, of the kind that that prevail in Europe, the US and Japan.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Transport Minister Catherine King said by introducing the standard the government was delivering more cars that were cheaper to run, and giving motorists choice.

The new rules would start on January 1 next year.

The opposition said in a statement, “Australian’s favourite vehicles could soon be unaffordable if Labor’s fuel efficiency standard fails to strike the correct balance between minimising costs, reducing emissions and maximising choice for all Australians”.

Read more:
The embarrassingly easy, tax-free way for Australia to cut the cost of electric cars

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. Coalition set for Tuesday tax declaration, as Albanese defends himself as ‘an honest person’ – https://theconversation.com/coalition-set-for-tuesday-tax-declaration-as-albanese-defends-himself-as-an-honest-person-222725

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

The opposition is set to declare its stance on Labor’s revamped tax cuts on Tuesday, after the government on Sunday released the legislation for the changes.

Shadow cabinet on Monday will consider the legislation, and it will go to the joint parties on Tuesday, the day it will be introduced into parliament.

The Coalition will try to amend the package but when its amendment fails it is expected to reluctantly wave the legislation through. If it does, that would render irrelevant the Greens, who are demanding changes and other concessions in return for support.

But there is division in Coalition ranks. Former frontbencher Julian Leeser said at the weekend he would be arguing that “we must stand for what we believe and we must oppose Labor’s attempts to ditch the [Coalition] legislated tax cuts”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government wanted its legislation passed “during this session, which finishes up before Easter”. The new tax cuts will come in on July 1. If the legislation wasn’t passed in time, the old Stage 3 cuts, which favour higher income earners, would start operating from July 1.

The reworked tax cuts, which give all taxpayers a cut but are targeted to lower and middle income earners, are a central pitch by Labor for the March 2 Dunkley byelection.

Labor is buoyed by indications they are going down well in the community, giving the ABC party research showing strong support. The reworked package has the majority of taxpayers better off than the original Stage 3, but a minority get a smaller cut than they would have received.

Appearing on the ABC on Sunday, Albanese fended off questioning about whether breaking his promise to deliver the Coalition’s Stage 3 could be the thin end of the wedge, for example for changes to negative gearing.

Asked whether he thought the existing negative gearing rules were fair, he said: “Well, they make a difference for people. They’ve been there for a long time. There is a whole lot of analysis that says they encourage investment in housing”. He pointed out that “they’re not an equity measure, they are a supply measure”.

Pressed on whether his word was still his bond after the broken promise, Albanese said, “I’m an honest person. I am upfront.

“What I have done here is be very, very clear. And I’ve listened to people who are all saying […] to me, ‘Well, what are you doing about cost of living?’”

The tax cuts are set to be the main issue when federal parliament starts its sitting for the year on Tuesday.

But argument on another front has opened, with the government announcing a fuel efficiency standard for new vehicles. This will work by providing car companies with targets for average emissions per kilometre for new vehicles sold, of the kind that that prevail in Europe, the US and Japan.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Transport Minister Catherine King said by introducing the standard the government was delivering more cars that were cheaper to run, and giving motorists choice.

The new rules would start on January 1 next year.

The opposition said in a statement, “Australian’s favourite vehicles could soon be unaffordable if Labor’s fuel efficiency standard fails to strike the correct balance between minimising costs, reducing emissions and maximising choice for all Australians”.

Read more:
The embarrassingly easy, tax-free way for Australia to cut the cost of electric cars

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. Coalition set for Tuesday declaration on tax, as Albanese defends himself as ‘an honest person’ – https://theconversation.com/coalition-set-for-tuesday-declaration-on-tax-as-albanese-defends-himself-as-an-honest-person-222725

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

A panel of 31 leading economists assembled by The Conversation sees no cut in interest rates before the middle of this year, and only a slight cut by December, enough to trim just $55 per month off the cost of servicing a $600,000 variable-rate mortgage.

The panel draws on the expertise of leading forecasters at 28 Australian universities, think tanks and financial institutions – among them economic modellers, former Treasury, International Monetary Fund and Reserve Bank officials, and a former member of the Reserve Bank board.

Its forecasts paint a picture of weak economic growth, stagnant consumer spending, and a continuing per-capita recession.

The average forecast is for the Reserve Bank to delay cutting its cash rate, keeping it near its present 4.35% until at least the middle of the year, and then cutting it to 4.2% by December 2024, 3.6% by December 2025 and 3.4% by December 2026.

The gentle descent would deliver only three interest rate cuts by the end of next year, cutting $274 from the monthly cost of servicing a $600,000 mortgage and leaving the cost around $1,100 higher than it was before rates began climbing.

Six of the experts surveyed expect the Reserve Bank to increase rates further in the first half of the year, while 20 expect no change and three expect a cut.

Former head of the NSW treasury Percy Allan said while the Reserve Bank would push up rates in the first half of the year to make sure inflation comes down, it would be forced to relent in the second half of the year as unemployment grows and the economy heads towards recession.

Read more:
The 7 new graphs that show inflation falling back to earth

Warwick McKibbin, a former member of the Reserve Bank board, said the board would push up rates once more in the first half of the year as insurance against inflation before leaving them on hold.

Former Reserve Bank of Australia chief economist Luci Ellis, who is now chief economist at Westpac, expects the first cut no sooner than September, believing the board will wait to see clear evidence of further falls in inflation and economic weakening before it moves.

Inflation to keep falling, but more gradually

Today’s Reserve Bank board meeting will consider an inflation rate that has come down faster than it expected, diving from 7.8% to 4.1% in the space of a year.

The newer more experimental monthly measure of inflation was just 3.4% in the year to December, only points away from the Reserve Bank’s target of 2–3%.

But the panel expects the descent to slow from here on, with the standard measure taking the rest of the year to fall from 4.1% to 3.5% and not getting below 3% until late 2025.

Economists Chris Richardson and Saul Eslake say while inflation will keep heading down, the decline might be slowed by supply chain pressures from the conflict in the Middle East and the boost to incomes from the tax cuts due in July.

Slower wage growth, higher unemployment

While the panel expects wages to grow faster than the consumer price index, it expects wages growth to slip from around 4% in 2023 to 3.8% in 2004 and 3.4% in 2025 as higher unemployment blunts workers’ bargaining power.

But the panel doesn’t expect much of an increase in unemployment. It expects the unemployment rate to climb from its present 3.9% (which is almost a long-term low) to 4.3% throughout 2024, and then to stay at about that level through 2025.

All but two of the panel expect the unemployment rate to remain below the range of 5–6% that was typical in the decade before COVID.

Read more:
We can and should keep unemployment below 4%, say top economists

Economic modeller Janine Dixon said the “new normal” between 4% and 5% was likely to become permanent as workers embraced flexible arrangements that allow them to stay in jobs in a way they couldn’t before.

Cassandra Winzar, chief economist at the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, said the government’s commitment to full employment was one of the things likely to keep unemployment low, along with Australia’s demographic transition as older workers leave the workforce.

Slower economic growth, per-capita recession

The panel expects very low economic growth of just 1.7% in 2024, climbing to 2.3% in 2025. Both are well below the 2.75% the treasury believes the economy is capable of.

All but one of the forecasts are for economic growth below the present population growth rate of 2.4%, suggesting that the panel expects population growth to exceed economic growth for the second year running, extending Australia’s so-called per capita recession.

The lacklustre forecasts raise the possibility of what is commonly defined as a “technical recession”, which is two consecutive quarters of negative economic somewhere within a year of mediocre growth.

Taken together, the forecasters assign a 20% probability to such a recession in the next two years, which is lower than in previous surveys.

But some of the individual estimates are high. Percy Allen and Stephen Anthony assign a 75% and 70% chance to such a recession, and Warren Hogan a 50% chance.

Hogan said when the economic growth figures for the present quarter get released, they are likely to show Australia is in such a recession at the moment.

The economy barely grew at all in the September quarter, expanding just 0.2% and was likely to have shrunk in the December quarter and to shrink further in this quarter.

The panel expects the US economy to grow by 2.1% in the year ahead in line with the International Monetary Fund forecast, and China’s economy to grow 5.4%, which is lower than the International Monetary Fund’s forecast.

Weaker spending, weak investment

The panel expects weak real household spending growth of just 1.2% in 2014, supported by an ultra-low household saving ratio of close to zero, down from a recent peak of 19% in September 2021.

Mala Raghavan of The University of Tasmania said previous gains in income, rising asset prices and accumulated savings were being overwhelmed by high inflation and rising interest rates.

Luci Ellis expected the squeeze to continue until tax and interest rate cuts in the second half of the year, accompanied by declining inflation.

The panel expects non-mining investment to grow by only 5.1% in the year ahead, down from 15%, and mining investment to grow by 10.2%, down from 22%.

Johnathan McMenamin from Barrenjoey said private and public investment had been responsible for the lion’s share of economic growth over the past year and was set to plateau and fade as a driver of growth.

Home prices to climb, but more slowly

The panel expects home price growth of 4.6% in Sydney during 2024 (down from 11.4% in 2024) and 3.1% in Melbourne, down from 3.9% in 2024.

ANZ economist Adam Boyton said decade-low building approvals and very strong population growth should keep demand for housing high, outweighing a drag on prices from high interest rates. While high interest rates have been restraining demand, they are likely to ease later in the year.

In other forecasts, the panel expects the Australian dollar to stay below US$0.70, closing the year at US$0.69, it expects the ASX 200 share market index to climb just 3% in 2024 after climbing 7.8% in 2023, and it expects a small budget surplus of A$3.8 billion in 2023-24, followed by a deficit of A$13 billion in 2024-25.

The budget surplus should be supported by a forecast iron ore price of US$114 per tonne in December 2024, down from the present US$130, but well up on the US$105 assumed in the government’s December budget update.

The Conversation’s Economic Panel

Click on economist to see full profile.

Download the answers as XLS PDF

Peter Martin is economics editor of The Conversation AU.

– ref. Mortgage and inflation pain to ease, but only slowly: how 31 top economists see 2024 – https://theconversation.com/mortgage-and-inflation-pain-to-ease-but-only-slowly-how-31-top-economists-see-2024-218927

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Finnerty, PhD candidate – Behavioural Ecology and Conservation Research, University of Sydney

In places where we need to protect valuable plants – whether for ecological or economic reasons – local herbivores can cause significant damage.

Current solutions often involve killing the problem animals. But this is increasingly unacceptable due to animal welfare concerns and social pressures. Physical barriers such as fences can be expensive, and aren’t always practical. We need other options.

Recently, our team discovered that herbivores – plant-eating mammals – primarily use their sense of smell to tell which plants they want to eat or avoid.

In our study published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, we show how we can use this reliance on smell to nudge wallabies away from vulnerable native tree seedlings. We artificially created and deployed the key smells of a shrub wallabies avoid.

Herbivore-induced headaches

Hungry plant eaters are a concern for conservationists, farmers and foresters alike. They can devastate revegetation efforts and post-fire recovery, destroying more than half the seedlings in these areas.

Every year, they cause billions of dollars of damage in forestry and agriculture. Herbivores also pose a risk to the long-term survival of many threatened plant species.

The most effective control strategies will likely work with a herbivore’s natural motivations – understanding and harnessing what drives the animal to find or avoid certain plants.

Previously, research had primarily focused on what herbivores were eating, but had never really asked how they find the food in the first place.

Our approach puts a new twist on “olfactory (smell) misinformation” or “chemical camouflage” approaches. In recent studies, these methods have substantially reduced invasive predators eating threatened bird eggs in New Zealand, and house mice eating agricultural wheat grain in Australia.

Read more:
How to fool a mouse: ‘chemical camouflage’ can hide crops and cut losses by over 60%

A landscape of smells

In navigating a scent landscape, herbivores use odour to recognise and select among plants and plant patches. Odour is key in guiding the foraging of marsupials in Australia, elephants in Africa and Asia, and deer in the United States.

With this in mind, we explored whether the smell of a plant they don’t like could be enough to nudge animals away from highly palatable native tree seedlings.

To test this idea, we focused on swamp wallabies foraging in a eucalypt woodland in eastern Australia. Studies have shown having too many swamp wallabies around can limit the number of eucalypt seedlings that survive to become trees. Swamp wallabies also have a fantastic sense of smell – they can find just a few eucalypt leaves buried underground among complex vegetation.

Using an approach we recently developed, we found the key scent compounds of a plant we know wallabies avoid – the native shrub Boronia pinnata.

We then mixed these compounds together to create “informative virtual neighbours”. They were “informative” as our mix of compounds mimicked what a wallaby would recognise as Boronia pinnata, “virtual” as we were not actually deploying the real shrub, and “neighbours” as we placed these smells in the bush next to eucalypt seedlings we were trying to protect.

In our study, a virtual neighbour was a small glass vial with a few millilitres of the mixture, with a tube pierced through the lid so the smell could waft out.

Using odours instead of real plants is a type of olfactory misinformation – it sends a deceptive message to the animals.

Real and virtual neighbours

We also compared if virtual neighbours were as good as the real thing in protecting eucalypt seedlings from being eaten by wallabies.

Five virtual neighbour vials or real Boronia pinnata plants were spaced evenly around single eucalypt seedlings the wallabies would find highly palatable. (We also had two types of controls: a seedling with nothing around it, and a seedling surrounded by five empty vials.)

Using remote cameras for 40 days, we recorded how long it took wallabies to find and munch on the eucalypt seedlings.

The results were staggering. Seedlings were 20 times less likely to be eaten when surrounded by virtual neighbours than for both controls. This was equivalent to using real B. pinnata plants, but better because vials don’t compete with seedlings for water and other resources.

A highly effective approach

The success of our study indicates we could use this approach as a new management tool – one that works by influencing the animals’ behaviour rather than trying to get rid of them.

We believe the concept behind developing virtual neighbours is directly transferable to any herbivore, mammal or otherwise, that uses plant odour to forage.

All herbivores avoid some plant species. With future development, we can deploy smelly virtual neighbours as a non-deadly and cost-effective tool to reduce the problems caused by overzealous herbivores.

We acknowledge all other co-authors who contributed to this work: Catherine Price, Malcolm Possell and Cristian Gabriel Orlando from the University of Sydney, and Adrian Shrader from the University of Pretoria. We thank Paul Finnerty for assistance in designing and constructing virtual neighbour holders.

Patrick Finnerty received funding for this work from the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, the Ecological Society of Australia, the Australian Academy of Science, NSW Dept of Planning and Environment, the Australian Wildlife Society, and the Australian Research Council.

Clare McArthur receives funding from the Australian Research Council, NSW Environmental Trust and NSW Department of Planning and Environment. She is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, the Australian Mammal Society and the Australasian Wildlife Management Society.

Peter Banks receives funding from the Australian Research Council, NSW Environmental Trust and NSW Department of Planning and Environment, Hermon Slade Foundation and Manaaki Whenua.

– ref. Animals keep eating precious plants – we used ‘smell misinformation’ to keep them away – https://theconversation.com/animals-keep-eating-precious-plants-we-used-smell-misinformation-to-keep-them-away-215454

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vania Andreoli, PhD Candidate, The University of Western Australia

Overfishing has dire consequences for ocean health and for the millions of people who depend on fish for food and wellbeing. Globally, catch has been steadily declining since the 1990s. It’s a trend that’s likely to continue if we fail to act now.

Nearly all governments, including Australia’s, subsidise their fishing industries. Financial support comes in many forms, from taxpayer-funded fuel to reduced boat-building costs. These subsidies are harmful because they encourage overfishing. Some of the most environmentally damaging and least efficient fishing activities, such as bottom trawling and distant water fishing, would become unprofitable and cease without government subsidies.

Scientists worldwide are rallying for stringent regulations to eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies, which totalled a whopping US$22 billion in 2018. Safeguarding the ocean will strengthen food security and allow more equitable distribution of marine resources.

Trade ministers from around the world are set to convene later this month in Abu Dhabi at a key meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In an open letter published today, we are among 36 marine experts calling on the WTO to adopt ambitious regulations promoting fisheries sustainability and equity, and to eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies.

Read more:
Putting an end to billions in fishing subsidies could improve fish stocks and ocean health

A long-awaited agreement

International pressure from scientists helped to broker an earlier agreement on fishing subsidies, which is yet to be ratified.

In October 2021, 300 experts published an article in Nature calling for an end to harmful subsidies in the fishing sector.

After decades of fruitless negotiations, the WTO finally reached an agreement on fisheries subsidies in June 2022.

Once ratified by two-thirds of WTO members, this agreement will partially address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal Target 14.6 to eliminate harmful subsidies.

Unfortunately, while this agreement is historic, it is narrow. It only prohibits member governments from financing illegal fishing activities and the exploitation of already overfished stocks. But it’s obvious illegal fishing should be banned and the focus on overfished stocks is too little, too late.

Experts argue the agreement fails to specifically address harmful subsidies across global fisheries and as such only affects a trivial component of subsidy-driven exploitation. The subsidies that reduce operating costs and increase fishing capacity, allowing vessels to travel further and remain at sea longer, remain in place.

Fisheries subsidies affect more than just fish

Scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades. Many published studies document the destabilising effects of fisheries subsidies on ecosystems. In addition to impacting biodiversity and ecosystems, subsidies also increase the CO₂ emissions that contribute to climate change.

More recently, studies have also applied a social perspective to this issue. Seafood lifts millions of people out of hunger, malnutrition and poverty. Yet more people will lose a secure source of food and nutrients if fish stocks continue to decline due to industrial overfishing.

Research shedding light on the concept of “equity” shows subsidies don’t just harm the ocean, they also affect human communities. These communities are largely in developing countries which are rarely the source of harmful fisheries subsidies. Rather, their waters are exploited by foreign vessels supported by wealthy governments’ fisheries subsidies.

Fisheries subsidies foster unfair competition not only among countries but also between industrial and community led fishing fleets. In the Indian Ocean, the level of subsidies provided to industrial fisheries corresponds to the amount of seafood exported to international markets, largely supplying rich and food-secure countries. This shows governments are deliberately empowering their industrial fleets to fish for seafood largely exported and consumed elsewhere, instead of sustaining fisheries providing food for locals.

Read more:
Fisheries subsidies fuel ocean depletion and hurt coastal communities

The good, the bad and the ugly

While most nations contribute to harmful subsidies, ten nations are responsible for 70% of this unsustainable financing. Chief among them are China, Japan and the European Union, reflecting the significant size of their distant water fishing fleets that typically access the resources of less-developed nations.

In contrast, Australia contributes only 0.1% of global harmful subsidies. Only 6% of Australia’s annual US$400 million in fisheries subsidies is considered harmful. While Australia should give attention to its ongoing annual taxpayer contribution of US$25 million to the fishing sector, it is well placed to demonstrate global leadership on how fishing can deliver sustainable and equitable outcomes without harmful subsidies.

An essential opportunity

A second wave of negotiations on fisheries subsidies is expected during the WTO Ministerial Conference this February in Abu Dhabi. This conference represents an invaluable opportunity to better protect the ocean.

In anticipation of this meeting, we are urging nations to adopt more ambitious regulations that eliminate harmful subsidies, prioritising fisheries sustainability and ocean equity.

Harmful fisheries subsidies are not only unsustainable but profoundly unfair. Based on the extensive body of evidence, the WTO should agree to eliminate harmful subsidies once and for all.

Vania Andreoli received funding for her PhD research from the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and The Jock Clough Marine Foundation through the Oceans Institute Robson and Robertson Award.

Dirk Zeller supervises Vania Andreoli’s PhD, so his lab has indirectly received funding for this doctoral research from the Australian Government and the Jock Clough Marine Foundation.

Jessica Meeuwig supervises Vania Andreoli’s PhD so her lab has indirectly received funding for this doctoral research from the Australian Government and the Jock Clough Marine Foundation.

– ref. Governments spend US$22 billion a year helping the fishing industry empty our oceans. This injustice must end – https://theconversation.com/governments-spend-us-22-billion-a-year-helping-the-fishing-industry-empty-our-oceans-this-injustice-must-end-222511

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Higgins, PhD candidate in Psychology, Monash University

Earlier this week, Elon Musk announced his brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, had implanted a device in a human for the first time. The company’s PRIME study, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration last year, is testing a brain implant for “people with paralysis to control external devices with their thoughts”.

In the past few years, Neuralink has faced investigation for mistreatment of lab animals and seen the departure of several company executives. Nevertheless, the PRIME trial is a significant milestone for a company less than ten years old.

However, Neuralink’s challenges are far from over. Implanting a device is just the beginning of a decades-long clinical project beset with competitors, financial hurdles and ethical quandaries.

Decades of development

The first reported demonstration of a brain-computer interface occurred in 1963. During a lecture at the University of Oxford, neuroscientist William Grey Walter bewildered his audience by linking one of his patient’s brains to the projector, where they advanced the slides of his presentation using only their thoughts.

However, the current wave of exploration in using brain-recording techniques to restore movement and communication to patients with severe paralysis began in the early 2000s. It draws on studies from the 1940s which measured the activity of single neurons, and more complex experiments on rats and monkeys in the 1990s.

Read more:
Neuralink put a chip in Gertrude the pig’s brain. It might be useful one day

Neuralink’s technology belongs to the next generation of recording devices. These have multiple electrodes, greater precision, and are safer, longer-lasting, and more compatible with the body. The Neuralink implant is thinner, smaller and less obtrusive than the “Utah array” device, widely used in existing brain-computer interfaces, which has been available since 2005.

Neuralink’s device is implanted by a special robot which rapidly inserts polymer threads, each containing dozens of electrodes. In total, the device has 3,072 electrodes – dwarfing the 100 electrodes of the Utah array.

Competitors

Neuralink faces stiff competition in the race to commercialise the first next-generation brain-computer interface.

Arguably its most fierce competitor is an Australian company called Synchron. This Melbourne-based start-up recently used a microelectrode mesh threaded through the blood vessels of the brain. This allowed paralysed patients to use tablets and smartphones, surf the internet, send emails, manage finances (and post on X, formerly Twitter).

Read more:
We’ve been connecting brains to computers longer than you’d expect. These 3 companies are leading the way

The Synchron implant is described as a “minimally invasive” brain-computer interface. It requires only a minor incision in the neck, rather than the elaborate neurosurgery required by Neuralink and most other brain-computer interfaces.

In 2021, Synchron received a “Breakthrough Device Designation” in the United States, and is now onto its third clinical trial.

Patient welfare

This competitive landscape raises potential ethical issues concerning the welfare of patients in the PRIME study. For one, it is notoriously difficult to recruit participants to neural implant studies. Patients must meet strict criteria to be eligible, and the trials are inherently risky and ask a lot of participants.

Musk’s public profile may help Neuralink find and enrol suitable patients. However, the company will need to be prepared to provide long-term support (potentially decades) to patients. If things go wrong, patients may need support to live with the consequences; if things go right, Neuralink may need to make sure the devices don’t stop working.

In 2022, a company called Second Sight Medical Product demonstrated the risks. Second Sight made retinal implants to treat blindness. When the company went bankrupt, it left more than 350 patients around the world with obsolete implants and no way to remove them.

If Neuralink’s devices are successful, they are likely to transform patients’ lives. What happens if the company winds up operations because it can’t make a profit? A plan for long-term care is essential.

What’s more, the considerable hype surrounding Neuralink may have implications for obtaining informed consent from potential participants.

Musk famously compared the implant to a “Fitbit in your skull”. The device itself, Musk recently revealed, is misleadingly named “Telepathy”.

This techno-futurist language may give participants unrealistic expectations about the likelihood and kind of individual benefit. They may also underappreciate the risks, which could include severe brain damage.

The way forward

In this next chapter of the Neuralink odyssey, Musk and his team must maintain a strong commitment to research integrity and patient care. Neuralink’s establishment of a patient registry to connect with patient communities is a step in the right direction.

Long-term planning and careful use of language will be necessary to preventing harm to patients and families.

The nightmare scenario for all neurotechnology research would be a repeat of Walter Freeman’s disastrous pre-frontal lobotomy experiments in the 1940s and 1950s. These had catastrophic consequences for patients and set research back by generations.

Nathan Higgins is supported by an Australian Research Training Program Stipend.

– ref. Neuralink has put its first chip in a human brain. What could possibly go wrong? – https://theconversation.com/neuralink-has-put-its-first-chip-in-a-human-brain-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-222497

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) this week released new guidelines for youth and community sport designed to change the way concussion is managed across the country.

While the guidelines contain a host of recommendations about on-field concussion management and identifying symptoms, the biggest changes relate to how a concussion is managed after it happens.

Specifically, all players who sustain a concussion should be symptom-free for at least 14 days before restarting contact training. This was already the advice for children, but now applies to community sport too. And notably, all players should wait a minimum 21 days after being concussed to return to competition.

This is in contrast to the previous recommendations made by many Australian sporting organisations, which typically enforce a ten to 14 day minimum period before a concussed athlete can return to competition.

The new guidelines address a number of recommendations from last year’s Senate inquiry into concussions and repeated head trauma in contact sports. So what’s the rationale for having people sit out for longer?

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

The dangers of concussion

Sport-related concussion has been defined as:

a traumatic brain injury caused by a direct blow to the head, neck or body resulting in an impulsive force being transmitted to the brain that occurs in sports and exercise-related activities.

Concussion in sport has become an increasingly hot topic in recent years – and for good reason. The effects of a concussion can include blood flow changes and inflammation affecting the brain.

In the short term, concussion can cause fatigue, light sensitivity and nausea, as well as more severe symptoms including behaviour change, loss of balance and coordination, and severe headaches.

There’s also some evidence to suggest repeated concussions can have long-term effects. These include lasting reductions in cognitive function (how people think, make decisions, and process information), and in some instances, an increased risk of dementia in older adulthood.

Concussion in kids

Children who have previously had a concussion are almost four times more likely to get concussed in the future than those who have never been concussed before.

Similarly, our research has shown adolescent athletes who return from concussion are around 50% more likely to suffer any type of future injury than other athletes. My colleagues and I also found most athletes were returning to competition after roughly 12 days, which may suggest insufficient recovery is increasing their injury risk after concussion.

We don’t know the exact reason children and adolescents take longer to recover from concussion, but it seems they do.

Recent evidence has indicated that children, on average, may not be fully recovered and able to return to sport until around 20 days after concussion, while adults may be recovered after closer to 14 days. However, this is not true for everyone, with some taking much longer to recover.

Read more:
New study highlights the brain trauma risks for young athletes

A step in the right direction

Taking these factors into consideration, I believe increasing the recovery period of concussion to 21 days is not only justified, but a positive step. While additional recovery time seems especially important for children, this change will also increase the likelihood adults playing community sport are ready to return, particularly if they don’t have access to medical guidance.

Most people in sport are happy to accept recovery from a muscle strain can take from four to eight weeks, so why wouldn’t they accept the brain (which is arguably a much more important part of the body) needs a shorter time?

Australia is not the first country to tighten up its guidelines.

In April 2023, the first concussion guidelines for non-elite sport to cover the whole of the United Kingdom set out the same minimum recovery days.

Similar guidelines have also been implemented throughout New Zealand for a range of sports.

There’s no research examining whether these updated guidelines have had a positive effect yet, but given coming back too early may pose a risk, they offer very little downside.

Implementing the guidelines

While these guidelines are positive for the health and welfare of athletes across the nation, there are also potential issues with their implementation – especially at the grassroots level where there may be few on-site medical staff.

The good news is, you don’t have to be an expert to reduce the effects of concussion.

The first step for those involved in community sport is simply being aware of the concussion management protocols the AIS proposes. This means making sure club staff know what the symptoms of concussion look like, and when to encourage their players to see a medical professional.

Read more:
Hit your head while playing sport? Here’s what just happened to your brain

The second step, as recommended by the updated guidelines, is to introduce a “concussion officer” to oversee the management of concussion. This person doesn’t need to be a concussion expert and is not expected to diagnose concussion. Like the role of a fire warden, the concussion officer ensures anyone diagnosed with concussion follows the agreed protocol.

Lastly, when it comes to young athletes, when in doubt, sit them out. A more conservative approach is always best.

Hunter Bennett 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. Concussion in sport: why making players sit out for 21 days afterwards is a good idea – https://theconversation.com/concussion-in-sport-why-making-players-sit-out-for-21-days-afterwards-is-a-good-idea-222504

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Lui, Senior Project Officer – Indigenous Research, James Cook University

On October 14, Australia voted against First Nations peoples’ having a constitutionally enshrined right to be heard on matters that affect them. There was a catchcry during the campaign that a “no” vote would mean keeping with the status quo. Indeed, the referendum outcome sustains the political subjugation of our communities.

Yet, Torres Strait Islanders have a long history of pursuing self-determination even in restricted conditions.

Zenadth Kes is the Torres Strait Islander name that represents the place we are from. Despite many shared experiences and solidarities with our Aboriginal kin, our position as Zenadth Kes people, both historically and today, is unique.

Although Zenadth Kes people are often combined with Aboriginal people in Indigenous politics, we have significant political histories of our own.

Read more:
Why the Australian government must listen to Torres Strait leaders on climate change

Zenadth Kes: united voices

Zenadth Kes signifies a regionally united group of Torres Strait Islander communities that once were distinct.

Zenadth Kes is an alternative term for Torres Strait Islanders. It is used by islanders who don’t wish to use the colonial nomenclature of “Torres Strait”, but unlike specific clan names, it acknowledges all the groups in the region.

Zenadth Kes peoples have a tiny population of just under 70,000 people (identifying as Torres Strait Islander, or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander), according to the last national census.

The vast majority of Torres Strait Islanders live on the mainland (primarily in Queensland) spread across multiple electorates. As a result, they have very little electoral political power and a minority status within national Indigenous affairs agendas.

Despite this, Zenadth Kes people have been highly effective in maintaining and adapting their distinctive laws, knowledges and practices at the interface of colonial power.

Torres Strait Islander people may be small in number on the national political stage, which presents challenges, especially at the ballot box. For millenia, however, our peoples have navigated changing tides.

This short history reminds us we determine our own futures, no matter the changing determinations of others.

Sana Nakata receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Geoff Lui 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. Zenadth Kes peoples’ long journey to self-determination in the Torres Strait – https://theconversation.com/zenadth-kes-peoples-long-journey-to-self-determination-in-the-torres-strait-199675

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milad Haghani, Senior Lecturer of Urban Mobility, Public Safety & Disaster Risk, UNSW Sydney

E-scooters are a popular new feature of urban mobility, offering an eco-friendly solution with zero exhaust emissions and agility in city spaces. They make an attractive option for “last-mile” commuting — bridging the gap between public transport and final destinations.

Tourists like them, too, as a convenient way to explore new cities.

Launched in Singapore in 2016, the global electric scooter market is valued at more than US$33.18 billion (A$49 billion) and is growing each year by around 10%.

More than 600 cities globally have embraced e-scooter sharing programs, yet reactions to these micro-mobility vehicles vary, making them a contentious urban planning issue.

Cities such as San Francisco and Madrid initially banned e-scooters, citing safety and public space concerns, but later introduced regulations for their use. Paris conducted a referendum, resulting in an e-scooter ban.

In Australia, the response has been more welcoming, though regulations differ across states and territories. What do we know about how safe e-scooters are? And what can we learn from other cities?

Read more:
E-scooters are becoming wildly popular – but we have to factor in the weather

More e-scooters means more injuries

The growing popularity of e-scooters worldwide, including in Australian cities, has been mirrored by a significant rise in related injuries and hospital admissions.

Most of these incidents involve males in their late 20s or early 30s, commonly sustaining head, face and limb injuries. There is consistently low helmet use in those injured. Also, about 30% of people who go to hospital with e-scooter injuries have elevated blood alcohol levels. Crashes involving riders under the influence of alcohol are associated with more severe head and face injuries.

A study examining data from the Royal Melbourne Hospital reported 256 e-scooter-related injuries in the year to January 2023 – including nine pedestrians – with a total hospitalisation cost of A$1.9 million.

In Queensland, e-scooter-related presentations to hospitals rose from 279 in 2019 to 877 in 2022. By September of 2023, this figure had already reached 801 (full-year figures weren’t available yet). Similar trends are seen in almost every city that has introduced e-scooters.

Read more:
Thinking of swerving high fuel prices with an e-scooter or e-bike? 5 crucial questions answered

But are e-scooters riskier than other transport?

All modes of transport come with inherent safety risks. While trauma patient records in Western Australia show an almost 200% annual increase between 2017 and 2022 in e-scooter related admissions, these figures still remain well below those for cyclist injuries.

We need to understand the relative risk of e-scooters – a newcomer to the mobility market – and compare it to other established forms of transport. A proper assessment also considers exposure – the total number of trips and the distance covered.

A study in the United Kingdom, incorporating exposure factors using data from an e-scooter rideshare operator and hospital admissions combined, indicates that although hospital presentations increased during the e-scooter trial period, the injury rate was comparable to that of bicycles.

But it might be a different story when it comes to the severity of injuries. Some studies suggest a higher incidence of severe trauma among e-scooter users compared to cyclists. One study of more than 5,000 patients treated at a major trauma centre in Paris found that, while the mortality rate from e-scooter crashes wasn’t higher than that of bicycles or motorbikes, the risk of severe traumatic brain injuries was slightly higher than bicycles (26% compared to 22%).

There is evidence e-scooter riders tend to engage in significantly more risky behaviour than cyclists. Compared to injured bicyclists, those injured while riding e-scooters:

• tend to be younger
• are more frequently found to be intoxicated
• exhibit a lower rate of helmet use
• and are more commonly involved in accidents at night or on weekends.

Read more:
Who’s liable if you’re injured or killed riding an e-scooter?

We can make them safer

Mitigating safety risks of e-scooters requires consistent regulation, stricter enforcement of rules, and user education about safe scootering. This includes restrictions on usage times, rider age restrictions, mobile phone and headphone use, riding under the influence of drugs or alcohol, speed limits, helmet use and carrying passengers.

The cooperation of e-scooter companies is crucial in enhancing safety. They could curb risky behaviours and enforce the rules. This could be done with simple devices to make scooters automatically stick within speed limits, sobriety tests before operation or detecting and preventing tandem riding. More advanced options could include technology to require helmet use for scooter activation.

Safety in numbers

Data on the total number of rides and coverage, as well as recording of accidents, is needed. Access to this detailed information would offer a clearer understanding of the actual accident and injury risks associated with e-scooters than the news headlines.

And let’s not overlook the “safety in numbers” effect. In the world of urban mobility, e-scooters are currently “the small fish in a big pond”. As the demand for e-scooters grows, they may find their place in our city planning and infrastructure design.

Across Europe cities with limited cycling infrastructure have seen the largest increase in e-scooter accidents. Cities with lots of bike lanes showed no significant effect.

The path to safer e-scootering might lie in the development of more friendly infrastructure. As the ridership grows, safety investments should follow, and that can make the future of e-scootering less risky for everyone.

Milad Haghani receives funding from the Australian Research Council (Grant No. DE210100440).

Clara Zwack 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. E-scooters are linked with injuries and hospital visits – but we can’t say they are riskier than bikes yet – https://theconversation.com/e-scooters-are-linked-with-injuries-and-hospital-visits-but-we-cant-say-they-are-riskier-than-bikes-yet-222148

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Peacock, Lecturer in Law, Federation University Australia

A home buyer usually does not pay goods and services tax (GST) on a home except if they buy a new home that has not been sold before as residential property. However, when a home that has been “substantially renovated” is sold, the buyer may have to pay GST. This can add 10% to the price of the home for the buyer.

The problem home buyers face is that what qualifies as a “substantial renovation” is uncertain. The Australian Taxation Office does provide some guidance on this in a ruling. However, the definition is subject to interpretation.

My research has looked at the approaches to answering this question in Australia, Europe and Canada. Whether a renovation has transformed an existing home into a “new home” for GST purposes has been the subject of litigation in almost all countries where such a distinction is made. The experience of other countries may provide a guide to reforms that could be made in Australia to provide home buyers and sellers with more certainty.

If tax law applied a test based on the renovation cost as a percentage of the post-renovation resale value of the home to determine if there is a substantial renovation, that would give buyers greater certainty.

Read more:
How much can I spend on my home renovation? A personal finance expert explains

Renovation boom has added to uncertainties

Two-thirds of Australians live in homes they own (outright or with a mortgage). Home renovations appear to have become increasingly popular.

Housing is becoming less affordable, the latest ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report shows. Housing prices and rents have increased, along with the cost of debt. It is taking longer to save for a home deposit. There is a housing supply shortage.

Fewer home owners can afford to move. Many are renovating instead. Landlords, too, are often renovating to take advantage of higher rents.

Not all renovations are publicly reported, but Australian Bureau of Statistics data show both owner-occupiers and investors have been taking out more loans for alterations, additions and repairs since the start of COVID-19.

Why renovations can make buyers liable for GST

Most existing home purchases are not subject to GST. GST is payable when buying a newly built home and potentially when buying a “substantially renovated” home.

GST taxes the value of consumption of many goods and services. The value of consumption is assumed to be the market value.

GST is charged when a “new home” is first bought. For the sake of simplicity, it is assumed the purchase price of a new home when it is first bought is equal to the present value of all future consumption of the home. This means future buyers of the home generally don’t have to pay GST.

However, where a home is substantially renovated it is assumed most of the original value of the home that was subject to GST the first time it was sold has been consumed. The value added by a substantial renovation means the home is regarded as new. A buyer of a substantially renovated home may be required to pay 10% GST.

Read more:
Building costs have soared. Is it time to abandon my home renovation plans?

But what is a ‘substantial renovation’?

A minor repair will clearly not lead to substantial value being added to a home. On the other hand, if a home is demolished and replaced by a new one, the buyer of the new home may have to pay GST. It’s less clear what the GST treatment should be when a renovation falls somewhere in between these two extremes.

Canadian cases provide helpful examples of renovations falling along the spectrum. This issue is often litigated in Canada partly because home owners may be eligible for GST rebates where they live in a substantially renovated home. The outcomes of these legal cases have been inconsistent.

In one case, a basement was added, one floor of the house was gutted and renovated, the electrical system, plumbing, flooring, roof and windows were replaced, and a kitchen was extended. The court decided this was a substantial renovation.

In another case, a new hallway was added, part of the roof and the ceilings were raised, the house was re-insulated, and a porch was added. A garage was demolished and replaced with a two-storey addition and basement. The addition included living space, a bedroom and bathroom. The court decided this was not a substantial renovation, despite significant value being added.

Read more:
NZ’s housing market drives inequality – why not just tax houses like any other income?

So how can we settle the issue?

A test could be adopted in law to provide certainty about what is a substantial renovation.

A logical test could deem a home renovation to be substantial if its cost is 50% or more of the post-renovation resale value of the home. The cost of the renovation could be verified with receipts.

This means minor changes that do not add significant value to a home would not lead to a future buyer having to pay GST. GST would be potentially payable only when most of the value of the home being bought has been added by a renovation.

Christine Peacock 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. Buying a renovated home? You could be up for an extra 10% GST, but it’s a grey area. Here’s a way to end the uncertainty – https://theconversation.com/buying-a-renovated-home-you-could-be-up-for-an-extra-10-gst-but-its-a-grey-area-heres-a-way-to-end-the-uncertainty-218911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Carland, Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellow, Monash University

It’s well documented that news media influences our behaviour in all manner of ways, from how much meat we buy to our attitudes towards exercise.

Journalism does not merely hold a mirror up to reality, as some have argued. It creates versions of reality. With every decision of which story to include and exclude, which image to show or not show, even which grammatical choice is made, our impressions are sculpted. This is especially the case with the Israel-Gaza war.

Research has shown, for example, that exposure to news media can induce Islamophobia. There’s also evidence of historical news media bias against Palestinians and Muslims.

As the leading organisation tracking and tackling Islamophobia in Australia through its digital reporting platform, the Islamophobia Register Australia commissioned this research to assess whether there was media imbalance in the present-day coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. Our analysis found a pro-Israel bias across the surveyed outlets.

Read more:
How Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are manufactured through disinformation

A flammable media environment

The impact news media can have on our attitudes became especially pertinent when the Israel–Gaza war began on October 7 2023, and with it, sustained media coverage. From that date, reports of antisemitism in Australia increased 738% and Islamophobia increased 1,300%.

Australians brought their concerns to the Islamophobia Register Australia as anti-Palestinian racism is a specific and documented form of Islamophobia.

Our analysis was a focused, introductory study with the aim of looking for disparities in reporting on the Israel-Gaza war on the Instagram accounts of six of Australia’s most followed news outlets: ABC News, The Daily Aus, The Australian, News.com.au, 9News and The Daily Telegraph. We looked at their posts on the topic between October 7 and November 7 2023. We chose Instagram as the field of analysis, as the latest global research found social media is the main way people of all ages come across news online.

These outlets span commercial and publicly owned, legacy media and new media, digital-only and print-based, and national and state-based media. Outlets also needed to have more than 100,000 followers on their verified Instagram account. The amount of posts assessed varied depending on how many each outlet had posted. News.com.au had only four posts in the time period, while ABC News had published 63.

This is not a definitive analysis of potential bias in the Australian media. It’s scope is small and doesn’t account for the outlets’ reporting on the Israel-Gaza war more broadly. This report is, however, an initial look that highlights some common areas of imbalance or inequality in the current approach.

Read more:
Israel now ranks among the world’s leading jailers of journalists. We don’t know why they’re behind bars

Humanising the victims of war

We focused on language because it’s part of the “covert operations of war”. While we assessed all posts about the conflict during the time period (not just posts with an explicit human angle), we measured them on how humanising they were because of the known impact it has on the way audiences interpret conflict.

One specific tool we developed to assess the treatment of people in coverage was what we called the “humanising test”. To meet a minimum standard of humanising coverage, news outlets’ Instagram posts needed to include at least two of the three following criteria in their mentions of Israelis and Palestinians:

• provide at least a first name for the person

• show their face, and/or

• use at least some of their own words (translations were ok).

This test appears easy to pass. Outlets only needed a single post that met the criteria to be successful. However, only one of the six accounts passed the test for Palestinians, while five of the six passed for Israelis.

Five of the six news media accounts did not include a single post that passed the humanising test about Palestinians. ABC News was the only account to provide any posts about Palestinians that passed. The Australian had ten posts about Israelis that passed the humanising test, and not one post that passed the test for Palestinians.

The power of grammar

We also investigated the use of “voice”, specifically the active, passive and middle voice.

While the distinction between active and passive voice may seem like something only your high school English teacher cares about, it matters a lot more than just clarifying prose. It highlights who an actor is in a sentence, which really matters in discussions about war.

Even more important is the less-discussed “middle voice”. The middle voice exists beyond the active and passive voice, and when used in a sentence, removes any possibility of an actor causing an event.

In an example from our study, a post by The Daily Telegraph is captioned “bombs are falling less than 100m from where [the family] are sheltering” on the Gaza strip.

Note the word “fall” used when discussing the “bombs falling” on the family. Using the word “fall” with “bomb” as opposed, for example, to “dropped”, signifies to the audience that there was no external agent involved in the bombing. If the word “dropped” had been used, even if using the passive voice without naming the Israeli army, there remains an understanding that somebody dropped the bombs, even if they are unnamed.

But this use of the middle voice by saying the bombs “fall” implies that the bombs fell spontaneously from the sky without human intervention, as if it were a natural phenomenon. There is no attribution as to where the bombs came from, nor who is responsible for their presence. Thus, even the suggestion of Israel as the agent of the bombs is erased in the mind of the audience.

The middle voice was never used for any posts about attacks on Israel, but was used by five of six accounts when reporting on attacks on Gaza.

Five (ABC News, 9News, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and News.com.au) of six accounts showed bias against Palestinians in their use of the active, middle and passive voices. Meanwhile, all five accounts were more likely to use the active voice when discussing attacks against Israel. Overall, the passive voice was used more often to describe what was happening in Gaza than in Israel.

Why does all this matter?

So what? you may think. But this is important, because these grammatical choices shepherd the audience – you and I – into a way of understanding the parties in the Israel-Gaza war.

Grammatical choices are more subtle than blatantly calling one side “the victim” or “human”, and the other side “the aggressor” and “inhuman”. Such framing therefore slips past the audience unnoticed, but creates a reflexive perception that lingers in the audience’s mind.

Subsequent analysis internationally has found Australian news media is not alone in its biased treatment against Palestinians. Analysis of the media in Canada and the United States found the same imbalance in language we identified.

Read more:
War in Gaza: An ethicist explains why you shouldn’t turn to social media for information about the conflict or to do something about it

The discrepancies and dehumanisation we and others have found are not merely semantic squabbles. Five of the six outlets we studied (all bar The Daily Aus) were unbalanced against Palestinians in their Instagram posts in at least one of the three categories we assessed (along with humanisation and grammar, we also looked at descriptive language).

The media’s reporting on the Israel-Gaza war matters because it shapes the way the audience views the people involved in the war. These perceptions are fostered online and can translate into the way Australians view and treat each other in real life.

Palestinian war victims are being systematically dehumanised by large and influential parts of the media to their substantial audiences. When the media is the primary prism through which people understand the war, it must be held to high standards, and to account.

Susan Carland was commissioned by the Islamophobia Register Australia to conduct this research and received research funding to complete this work. Susan Carland sits on the board of the Islamophobia Register Australia as an academic advisor. She was not part of any decision making that led to her being commissioned to conduct this research.
Susan Carland has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Churchill Trust to conduct research into Islamophobia in Australia

– ref. Australian media’s Instagram posts on Gaza war have an anti-Palestine bias. That has real-world consequences – https://theconversation.com/australian-medias-instagram-posts-on-gaza-war-have-an-anti-palestine-bias-that-has-real-world-consequences-221609

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Moon, Professor of History, Auckland University of Technology

When it comes to grappling with the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, one of the commonest responses is that it’s a matter of interpretation. It seems to be a perfectly fair reaction, except that historical interpretation generally requires adherence to rules of evidence.

It is not a licence to make any claims whatsoever about the Treaty, and then to assert their truth by appealing to the authority of personal interpretation.

Yet since the 1970s we’ve been faced with the paradoxical situation of a growing body of Treaty scholarship that has led to less consensus about its meaning and purpose.

It is therefore worthwhile to investigate some of the more common misconceptions about the Treaty that have accrued over recent decades. This will not lead to a definitive interpretation of the Treaty. But it might remove a few obstacles currently in the way of understanding it better.

Read more:
History and myth: why the Treaty of Waitangi remains such a ‘bloody difficult subject’

1. The Treaty or Te Tiriti?

A common view persists that the English and Māori versions of the Treaty are fundamentally at odds with each other, especially over the central issue of sovereignty.

But research over the past two decades on British colonial policy prior to 1840 has revealed that Britain wanted a treaty to enable it to extend its jurisdiction to its subjects living in New Zealand.

It had no intention to govern Māori or usurp Māori sovereignty. On this critical point, the two versions are essentially in agreement.

2. The Treaty is not a contract

The principle of contra proferentem – appropriated from contract law – refers to ambiguous provisions that can be interpreted in a way that works against the drafter of the contract.

However, there are several problems in applying this principle to the Treaty. Firstly, treaties are different legal instruments from contracts. This explains why there are correspondingly few examples of this principle being used in international law for interpreting treaties.

Secondly, as there are no major material differences between the English and Māori versions of the Treaty when it comes to Māori retaining sovereignty, there is no need to apply such a principle.

And thirdly, under international law, treaties are not to be interpreted in an adversarial manner, but in good faith (the principle of pacta sunt servanda). Thus, rather than the parties fighting over the Treaty’s meaning, the requirement is for them to work with rather than against each other.

Read more:
Learning to live with the ‘messy, complicated history’ of how Aotearoa New Zealand was colonised

3. Relationships evolve over time

No rangatira (chief) ceded sovereignty over their own people through the Treaty. Nor was that Britain’s intention – hence Britain’s recognition in August 1839 of hapū (kinship group) sovereignty and the guarantee in the Treaty that rangatiratanga (the powers of the chiefs) would be protected.

Britain simply wanted jurisdiction over its own subjects in the colony. This is what is known as an “originalist” interpretation – one that follows the Treaty’s meaning as it was understood in 1840.

This has several limitations: it precludes the emergence of Treaty principles; it wrongly presumes that all involved at the time of the Treaty’s signing had an identical view on its meaning; and, crucially, it ignores all subsequent historical developments.

Treaty relationships evolve over time in numerous ways. Originalist interpretations fail to take that into account.

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

4. Questions of motive

British motives for the Treaty were made explicit in 1839, yet in the following 185 years false motives have entered into the historical bloodstream, where they have continued circulating.

What Britain wanted was the right to apply its laws to its people living in New Zealand. It also intended to “civilise” Māori (through creating the short-lived Office of Protector of Aborigines) and protect Māori land from unethical purchases (the pre-emption provision in Article Two of the Treaty).

And Britain wanted to afford Māori the same rights as British subjects in cases where one group’s actions impinged on the other’s (as in the 1842 Maketū case, involving the conviction for murder and execution of a young Māori man).

The Treaty was not a response to a French threat to New Zealand. And it was not an attempt to conquer Māori, nor to deceive them through subterfuge.

Read more:
From ‘pebble in the shoe’ to future power broker – the rise and rise of te Pāti Māori

5. Myths of a ‘real’ Treaty and 4th article

Over the past two decades, some have alleged there is a “real” Treaty – the so-called “Littlewood Treaty” – that has been concealed because it contains a different set of provisions. Such conspiratorial claims are easily dispelled.

The text of the Littlewood Treaty is known and it is merely a handwritten copy of the actual Treaty. And, most obviously, it cannot be regarded as a treaty on the basis that no one signed it.

Another popular myth is that there is a fourth article of the Treaty, which purportedly guarantees religious freedom. This article does not appear in either the Māori or English texts of the Treaty, and there is no evidence the signatories regarded it as a provision of the agreement. It is a suggestion that emerged in the 1990s, but lacks any evidential or legal basis.

Finally, there is the argument that the Treaty supports the democratic process. In fact, the Treaty ushered in a non-representative regime in the colony. It was the 1852 New Zealand Constitution Act that gave the country a democratic government – a statute that incidentally made no reference to the Treaty’s provisions.

This list is not exhaustive. But in dispensing with areas of poor interpretation, we can improve the chances of a more informed and productive discussion about the Treaty.

Read more:
The idea of ‘sovereignty’ is central to the Treaty debate – why is it so hard to define?

Paul Moon 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. Waitangi Day 2024: 5 myths and misconceptions that confuse the Treaty debate – https://theconversation.com/waitangi-day-2024-5-myths-and-misconceptions-that-confuse-the-treaty-debate-221973

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erick Lundgren, Adjunct Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

Large introduced herbivores such as feral horses and camels are often seen as “invasive” species which damage native plants.

My colleagues and I published new research in Science testing this assumption and found it isn’t true. Instead, both native and introduced species of plant-eating megafauna (weighing over 45 kilos) have similar impacts on plants.

The effects of introduced megafauna on plants can drive negative public sentiment towards the species. It’s time to change how we think of these animals.

Megafauna over millennia

For the last 35-55 million years, megafauna have shaped Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems. Present-day plant and animal species in Australia evolved on a continent dominated by earth-trampling beasts. They include hoofed horse-like kangaroos, tree-thrashing marsupial tapirs and migratory two-tonne diprotodons resembling womabts.

Sadly, much of the world’s megafauna went extinct as humans radiated out from Africa. Australia lost all its land megafauna with an average weight over 45kg.

This drove radical changes in Australian ecosystems. Ancient megafauna were uniquely able to eat large volumes of fibrous low-nutrient plants. With them gone, fires may have intensified and once-widespread rainforests shifted to fire-prone eucalypt forest.

But now, the megafauna have returned – introduced by humans.

Australia, for instance, now has the world’s only wild herd of dromedary camels, extinct in the wild in their native range. Water buffalo wallow in the Top End, though they’re endangered in their native range. And feral horses, also endangered in their native range, roam the Australian Alps.

How megafauna affects plants

Our research set out to evaluate the effects of megafauna on plant abundance and plant diversity. To do this, we reviewed all literature available on the impacts of native and introduced megafauna and extracted all available data comparing the effects of megafauna between an excluded area and a control site.

We found no evidence that introduced, “invasive”, or “feral” megafauna have different impacts on native plants than native megafauna. Nor was there evidence that the effects of introduced megafauna in biologically distinct places such as Australia are different from their effects in their native ranges.

Our study adds to a growing body of research that has looked for differences between the impacts of native and introduced species and failed to find them.

Yes, there are outliers. Some introduced species have novel effects very different what they do in their native ranges, such as introduced diseases and insect herbivores such as emerald ash borer, those with novel defences such as cane toads, or those introduced to islands. But extrapolating to all introduced species may be unjustified.

Megafauna traits determine their impact

We found ecological explanations – rather than whether an animal was native or not – explained the effects of both native and introduced megafauna.

In particular, we found the effects of megafauna were determined by their traits. Larger and less-picky species tended to have more positive effects on plant diversity.

This suggests that studying introduced megafauna simply as wildlife rather than as an ecological problem can help us respond to situations where megafauna — native and introduced — come into conflict with conservation goals.

Let’s say there is high abundance of introduced sambar deer eating rare plants in a national park. A typical response is to start shooting.

But if you look at this as an ecological conflict rather than as an introduced species problem, the real issue might be that dingoes are routinely poisoned in the area.

Dingoes, as the top terrestrial predator, create landscapes of fear, meaning deer and kangaroos can’t eat their way through everything because they have to watch for predators and often flee. The solution may be to stop killing dingoes.

Read more:
Australia should enlist dingoes to control invasive species

The double standard of ‘harm’

It can be a shock to see the impact of feral pigs, deer, camels and buffalo. They eat plants, trample vegetation, or root around in the ground.

These animals do the same thing in their native ranges, where it is not generally considered a bad thing, ecologically. Elephants tear down trees to eat or to make a path. That’s bad for the tree, but gives other species a chance to grow.

Australia’s extinct megafauna would have also trampled sensitive plants and eaten huge volumes of vegetation. Large animals suppress some species and benefit others. For example, buffalo can actually increase plant diversity by chowing down on dominant plant species.

The debate over native versus introduced species can create a double standard when assessing the harm they cause. This is a longstanding blind spot in how we think about and study introduced species.

The world could look quite different if we relax cultural beliefs about “belonging” and nativeness.

Erick Lundgren receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Horses, camels and deer get a bad rap for razing plants – but our new research shows they’re no worse than native animals – https://theconversation.com/horses-camels-and-deer-get-a-bad-rap-for-razing-plants-but-our-new-research-shows-theyre-no-worse-than-native-animals-221873

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Ann Wheeler, Professor in Water Economics, University of Adelaide

Management consulting revenue in Australia has grown from less than A$33 billion in 2010 to more than $47 billion in 2023. The increasing use of consultants, as well as the PwC scandal, highlights serious issues with vested interests, integrity and transparency.

Consequently, a Senate inquiry is investigating the management and integrity of consulting services. The deadline for the Senate committee’s final report has been extended twice, partly due to the various revelations, to March 28. So far, all the big consulting groups in Australia have appeared before the committee.

Our recent review of research in the Murray-Darling Basin points to other serious concerns about the use of consulting studies, which are increasingly relied upon for policy-making, especially in water. Of the studies we examined, 65 were on the economic consequences of water recovery. Almost half of these were low-quality studies, mainly from consultancies but also by think tanks and government departments. The low-quality studies were more likely to overestimate negative impacts on the economy and community from buying water back for the environment.

Unfortunately, these poor-quality studies were used to justify changes to water policy. Buying back water rights from “willing sellers” is a cost-effective way to redistribute water entitlements. But buybacks were halted under the former Coalition government. The policy will now be restored under Labor in the form of “voluntary water purchases”.

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

Contested research into water buybacks

The $13 billion basin plan seeks to improve the health of our nation’s largest river system by returning water from irrigation to the environment.

But such water reallocation has been blamed for huge job losses, reductions in irrigated production and consequently, economic decline in rural towns.

There are many groups with different interests in the basin. Research results are often contested.

To provide an objective assessment and comparison of the quality of basin water economic study results, we developed and applied a new economic quality assessment framework. This was inspired by health research, which has long applied grading systems to ensure robustness in research findings (such as the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation.

Our framework enables studies to be classified as low, medium or high quality, to suggest how robust each study’s results may be.

Nearly half (45 per cent) of the 65 water recovery studies in our review were classified as low quality. These low quality studies were much more likely to suggest large negative impacts on economic values from water recovery than higher quality studies. They were also more likely to be consulting studies.

The high quality studies (26 per cent) were peer-reviewed, employed sophisticated modelling and extensive analysis. The estimated impact of water recovery ranged from none to small or modest. None of these studies were funded by industry.

Why is there such a difference in results?

The method used in each study is a major factor determining research quality. Consultants often rely on simple methods such as “input-output modelling” or “multipliers” to assess economic impact. These are models that often rely upon simplistic assumptions and links within sectors in the economy to predict changes in job numbers or production. These models are not able to consider all possible influences of change.

Input-output modelling is heavily criticised as inappropriate by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and many treasury departments. Given this modelling is used across many areas and subjects within Australia to illustrate “economic impact”, its use and application needs greater scrutiny.

Higher quality studies use methods that allow for dynamic feedback and adaptation. They also account for other factors that influence outcomes such as climate or prices. As a result, higher quality studies in our review do not find anywhere near the same large decrease in jobs or economic impact from reduced water extraction.

For example, some feedbacks that can occur when farmers sell water include that the money is reinvested on the farm, increasing profits, or that the farm switches from irrigated to dryland agriculture, so production continues. Alternatively water recovery may increase community welfare through an improved environment, or better downstream water conditions for other farmers. Simplistic modelling approaches often ignore these other benefits.

Our review also indicated a relative lack of study in the basin on other downstream and Indigenous benefits and costs, as well as a need to pay closer attention to transition and adjustment issues within some small irrigation-intensive communities.

We need quality standards for water research

Basin communities will increasingly need to adapt and adjust as the climate changes. We need better ways to cope with such transitions, especially in the face of future upheavals from drought and extreme weather events.

Hopefully the recently released funding and other support for communities announced in the amended water law will help communities adjust to the reallocation of water. To date, such funds have not been allocated to areas most in need.

The negative socio-economic impacts predicted by low-quality studies are often used to justify changed water policies. We, along with other water economic professors, are calling for greater quality standards when it comes to government-funded research into the affects of water reallocation. The government is now required to update the impact analysis for the basin plan. It is essential that any assessment of impact is robust and defensible, following strict quality standards.

These quality standards could also be applied widely, across a variety of policies and areas. Although high quality research is difficult and takes time, relying on inadequate research can have serious consequences.

Read more:
Suicide rates increased after extreme drought in the Murray-Darling Basin – we have to do better as climate change intensifies

An Australian Research Council discovery grant and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority provided funding for this research.

Alec Zuo receives funding from an Australian Research Council discovery grant and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority provided funding for this research.

– ref. Consulting firms provided low-quality research on crucial water policies. It shows we have a deeper problem – https://theconversation.com/consulting-firms-provided-low-quality-research-on-crucial-water-policies-it-shows-we-have-a-deeper-problem-219596

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nina Van Dyke, Principal Research Fellow and Associate Director, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

As children return to classrooms for 2024, school communities will be confronting bullying in person and via technology.

In-person bullying and cyberbullying affect significant numbers of children and young people in Australia and around the world.

The eSafety Commission recently revealed a 40% jump in cyberbullying reports. In 2023, it received 2,383 reports of cyberbullying compared with 1,700 in 2022. Two-thirds (67%) of reports concerned children aged 12–15 years.

A 2019 headspace survey found 53% of young Australians aged 12–25 have experienced cyberbullying.

A 2016 survey of 12- and 13-year-olds found seven in ten children had experienced at least one bullying-like behaviour within the past year.

Schools have a responsibility to provide a safe learning environment. As part of our work on bullying, we have identified five key ways schools can prevent and respond to bullying.

What is bullying?

In-person bullying is unwanted, negative and aggressive behaviour. It is done on purpose and done repeatedly, and can cause physical, emotional or social harm.

As the eSafety Commission explains, cyberbullying occurs

when someone uses the internet to be mean to a child or young person so they feel bad or upset.

It can happen on a social media site, game or app. It can include comments, messages, images, videos and emails.

There is a lot of overlap between the two types of bullying. Those who bully or are bullied in person also tend to bully or be bullied online, and vice versa.

In any kind of bullying, the person doing the bullying has – or is perceived to have – more power than the person being bullied.

Read more:
Our new study provides a potential breakthrough on school bullying

What do schools need to do?

As the Australian Human Rights Commission notes, bullying is an abuse of individuals’ human rights. It says schools have a responsibility to provide a safe learning environment free from violence, harassment and bullying. This protects the right to education.

Approaches vary between jurisdictions and school systems. In Victoria, for example, government schools need to have bullying prevention policies. In New South Wales, government schools need to have an “anti-bullying plan”.

But while schools often have bullying policies, they need comprehensive systems to be adequately prepared.

Read more:
Why do kids bully? And what can parents do about it?

Our research

Our work has examined what schools should do to be prepared to prevent and respond to bullying. As part of this, we spoke to five principals and teachers at five Victorian schools in 2022.

This highlighted the ongoing and complex nature of the challenges schools face. For example, they told us how COVID set back responses to cyberbullying. As one high school principal told us:

We had a lot of online bullying going on […] a lot of nasty stuff happening online, a lot of sexting and a lot of horrible comments […] We nearly got it wiped out and then COVID hit and we then went back to having kids on computers all day, every day, so I think that’s back in a big way.

Technological change also means new challenges keep emerging. As a primary school teacher said:

[students are now] getting Apple Watches and so we’re having to rewrite policy to deal with that.

What should schools do to be prepared?

We have also reviewed Australian and international evidence on bullying. Here we distil this work into five key questions to ask your child’s school.

1. Do they have good data? The school should regularly collect, review and act on data about social relationships in the school community. These should include levels of trust, support, empathy and kindness between students and between students and teachers/staff. This tells the school whether students feel safe and supported to raise social problems if they arise.

2. Do they seek students’ ideas? The school should ask students how the school can better prevent and respond to bullying. It should also consider and act on these suggestions. Actively involving children and young people in issues that concern them is a basic human right. It also results in policies and practices that are more likely to be appropriate for them.

3. Do people know about “gateway behaviours”? All school staff and students should be trained to identify and immediately report “gateway behaviours”. Examples include posting embarrassing photos online, ignoring particular students, name-calling, whispering about people in front of them, and eye-rolling. Gateway behaviours are not in and of themselves considered bullying, but when left unchecked, can escalate into bullying.

4. Do students think bullying is being reported? The school should also ask students whether they believe students and staff report all or almost all bullying they observe. It is also important to know whether students think reporting will remain anonymous and be acted on and positively resolved. This indicates whether students believe the school takes bullying seriously and feel empowered to come forward if they need to.

5. Does the school have “safety and comfort plans”? These are created for specific students immediately after they are identified as having been a victim of bullying. They should be designed by the student and a staff member together. This is to ensure they feel comforted and safe at school.

We know bullying can have devastating physical and psychological impacts on children. It can lead to issues including school refusal, poor self-esteem and poor mental health. This is why it is so important schools are properly equipped to not just handle incidents of bullying when they arise, but try and prevent them in the first place.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or contact headspace.

Nina Van Dyke was funded by the Alannah & Madeline Foundation to conduct this research.

Fiona MacDonald was funded by the Alannah & Madeline Foundation to conduct this research.

– ref. 5 questions your child’s school should be able to answer about bullying – https://theconversation.com/5-questions-your-childs-school-should-be-able-to-answer-about-bullying-222255

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Rutherford, Adjunct Associate Professor, Cinema Studies, Western Sydney University

As the new year gets going and we’re all looking towards evenings on the couch again to unwind after work or school, there is again a glut of shows to choose from.

This month, our academics have suggested everything from a drama exploring the AIDS epidemic, to the latest outing from Marvel, to a documentary about a cult.

If you like your comedy black or romantic, if you want to watch a film or a series, we have you covered for what to stream this February.

Fellow Travellers

Paramount+ (Australia) and Neon (New Zealand)

Fellow Travellers picked up two nominations in the Golden Globes; I would have given it many more. But maybe the combination of political history and hot man-to-man sex was too much for the nominators.

Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel about two men who fall in love in the homophobic Washington of Senator McCarthy has been expanded to explore racism and the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. But the essential tensions of forbidden love remain, even if the television series takes us into worlds Mallon chose not to explore.

The performances of the two leading actors Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey are
extraordinary. So too is Jelani Alladin as a black reporter who struggles to balance his racial and sexual identity.

Bomer’s character is the ultimate survivor, who marries for his career and treats all relationships transactionally. Bailey’s is seemingly weaker, a right-wing Catholic who falls completely for Bomer. His transformation at the end into an AIDS activist stretches credulity, but Bailey has the skill to carry it off.

Fellow Travellers is politically more sophisticated than Oppenheimer and more complex in its sexual politics than Barbie. Like them it interrogates the myth of America, which sadly promises to preoccupy us over the coming year.

– Dennis Altman

Read more:
A Kid Called Troy at 30: this beautiful Aussie film was one of the most important HIV/AIDS documentaries ever produced

The Curse

Paramount+ (Australia) and Neon (New Zealand)

The genre-bending black comedy The Curse is a persistent, excruciating tummy ache of a show – and that’s a recommendation.

Newlywed white liberal do-gooders Whitney (Emma Stone) and Asher (Nathan Fielder) arrive in the socio-economically deprived town of Española, New Mexico, with louche filmmaker Dougie (Benny Safdie) to film an obnoxious HGTV show called Flipanthropy. The wealthy couple will ostensibly “help” the community through their high-end eco-home company, but things do not go to plan.

The satirical ten-part series, created and written by Safdie and Fielder, defies convention and description. It’s filmed in an uncanny, dissociative style. Very long takes, awkward framing and unsettling points of view marry contemporary surveillance cultures with the dream-like stupor of David Lynch. It’s a Rorschach test for viewers as it takes on a huge range of targets: gentrification, the constructed nature of “reality” television, vanity, racism, class, colonisation, capitalism, power, art, privilege, entertainment, taste, masculinity, loneliness.

The show inflicts a lot of psychic damage on the viewer, but it’s worth making it to the end. The performances are impeccable, and the astonishing finale offers what might be the biggest water cooler moment of television this year.

– Erin Harrington

Read more:
Nathan Fielder’s new comedy The Rehearsal will be familiar to anyone with autism

Total Control season three

iView (Australia)

Two years after First Nations MP Alex Irving (Deborah Mailman) outwitted the major
parties and leveraged the new power of the crossbench to install Paul Murphy
(Wayne Blair) as Australia’s first Indigenous prime minister, the shine has worn off Murphy’s leadership.

In the third season of Total Control, Murphy has sacrificed one social justice commitment after another on the altar of electoral politics and the knives are out between him and Irving.

Irving is at boiling point, as her commitment to youth justice and to
securing resources for her disaster-struck regional community is constantly thwarted.

Her nemesis, former prime minister Rachel Anderson (Rachel Griffiths) – all
sangfroid and intrigue – has reinvented herself as a warrior for ethical, truly
representative democracy and is attempting to set up a new alliance of independents. The stakes are high, the tension palpable.

Filmed in Parliament House, this final season continues Total Control’s stylish, taut political drama. Consultations with political insiders informed themes of political corruption, dirty money in politics and the reconfiguration of the political landscape with the rise of independents, set against the ongoing neglect of Indigenous communities.

But this is no cynical exercise; there is an optimistic vision here for the real change independents could bring.

– Anne Rutherford

Smothered

Binge (Australia) and Neon (New Zealand)

Many of us have bemoaned the lack of rom-coms in the cinema, but luckily television is increasingly becoming a space for dynamic and interesting romantic-comedies from You’re the Worst to Everything I Know About Love.

A recent entry into the TV rom-com landscape is the delightful new British series Smothered, created by Monica Heisey. Danielle Vitalis stars as Sammy, a chaotic but fun twenty-something interior designer, who is disillusioned by her current dating (read: sex) life.

Jon Pointing plays her counterpart Tom, a quiet, lost, old-before-his-years “lad in jeans.” In a classic meet-cute conceit, an impossible but alluring deal is struck between our two leads: a hot casual affair, no last names, no details, three weeks and they’re done. But of course life and feelings complicate best laid plans.

Equal parts absurd and sincere, this is the perfect show for those who love Nora Ephron and Sex and the City. Like these predecessors, Smothered is populated by quirky supporting characters who are inexplicably invested in Sammy and Tom’s romance, but it works thanks to hilarious performances by Aisling Bea, Harry Trevaldwyn and Lisa Hammond.

– Jessica Ford

Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God

Binge (Australia) and Neon (New Zealand)

Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God charts the life and death of Amy Carlson, who in early adulthood claimed she was a divine being in communication with a host of “Galactics”, including deceased comedian Robin Williams, and built a following of tens of thousands on Facebook and YouTube.

The three-part documentary series begins with the discovery by police in 2021 of the former McDonalds manager’s corpse, blue from ingesting copious amounts of colloidal silver and attended by her inner circle of devotees in Crestone, Colorado.

Director and producer Hannah Olsen successfully compiles several key interviews with those closest to the believed 254th reincarnation of Mother God, including testimony from Carlson’s four “Father God” partners and from those who maintained the religious movements’s online presence whilst witnessing her decline first hand.

The eerie use of cloud photography (“starships” coming to ascend Carlson to a higher “5D” dimension) alongside the group’s influencer-style social media livestreams and a soundtrack of atonal electronica makes for a unique post-millennium aesthetic.

Ultimately Love Has Won left me pondering the relationship between the unknowable mysteries of our existence and the myriad mental health effects of trauma.

– Phoebe Hart

Echo

Disney+ (Australia) and Apple TV (New Zealand)

Among swathes of Marvel spin-offs, Echo’s bingeable five chapter run caught and kept my interest. Echo spotlights Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), a deaf assassin who flees New York following deadly conflict with her “uncle”, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). Fisk is “Kingpin”, a villainous businessman who lacks interstellar prowess but employs monstrous methods of controlling “his” city.

We open on Maya’s childhood within her Choctaw family and heritage. After a targeted tragedy – including the loss of her leg – Maya and her father move to New York where Fisk’s indoctrination begins. Present-day Maya returns home to a wary family and town. Only her cousin, Biscuits (Cody Lightning), leaps to provide support and charmingly obvious comedic relief.

Kingpin’s shadow – cast by D’Onofrio’s stellar performance – looms, but Cox shines as a tight-lipped young woman at crossroads, determinedly independent, drawn to the past. Maya is a break-out role for Cox, who is herself Native American, deaf, and an amputee. Exposition and relationship-building are communicated through sign language. Sound mediates emotion and action, oscillating between manically heightened music and tense, heart-beating silence.

We soon root for antihero Maya, despite plentiful onscreen violence at her hand. While she debuted in Hawkeye as a heartless killer, Echo goes deeper, exploring inheritance, loss, and betrayal, via a lick of magic and a lot of blood.

– Marina Deller

Read more:
Marvel’s Echo is a one-of-a-kind superhero – and an inspiration to the Deaf community

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. Black comedy, political drama and a documentary about a cult: what we’re streaming this February – https://theconversation.com/black-comedy-political-drama-and-a-documentary-about-a-cult-what-were-streaming-this-february-222146

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

Anthony Albanese might not be Labor’s strongest policy innovator but as a tactician, he’s as shrewd as they come.

Hence his small target strategy in 2022, a contrast with Bill Shorten’s policy overreach in 2019. Ahead of the Dunkley byelection, Albanese’s rework of the Stage 3 tax cuts is calculated boldness.

Peter Dutton isn’t too bad at tactics either, and the two are presently in the cat-and-mouse phase of their battle over the changes. Dutton won’t yet declare the opposition’s stand on the government’s package, trying to keep attention on Albanese’s broken promise. “Liar in the Lodge”, Coalition MPs shout, rewarming yesteryear’s “Juliar” sledge.

The Coalition can’t afford to delay a response too long, making itself the target. Anyway, legislation for the new package will be introduced next week, and voted on in the lower house by the following week. The government hopes it will be through parliament in the last week of February, just in time for the March 2 byelection.

An immediate problem for the “liar” campaign is that people are more forgiving when a broken promise benefits them. This one advantages the majority of taxpayers. Even those disadvantaged are still getting a tax cut, just a smaller one than they anticipated. If the broken promise had removed an established benefit it would be a different story.

The expectation is the Coalition will reluctantly wave the package through. Apart from the byelection, the message from some of its backbenchers in poorer electorates is people want the money.

The Greens are playing the Oliver Twist game, demanding more, including on welfare. If the opposition were rash enough to vote against the package in the Senate, the government would need the Greens’ support (the package has the backing of all or most other Senate crossbenchers, even Pauline Hanson).

On occasion, notably over the government’s housing fund, the Greens played hardball and extracted concessions in return for their votes. This time, they are not in a great bargaining position. Would they really, with a byelection imminent, want to hamper tax relief for families facing painful living costs?

For the longer term, the Stage 3 decision has burst a dam, unleashing a much wider tax debate.

The pressure is coming from two directions – from those whipping up scares of what the government might do and those who want the government to undertake a range of ambitious reforms.

The scare campaign, fuelled by the opposition, focuses on areas such as negative gearing. Treasury’s tax expenditures statement, released this week, showed the cost to the budget of negative gearing was $2.7 billion in 2020-21, with higher income earners the main beneficiaries. The government says it is not considering changes to negative gearing. The critics retort it said that about Stage 3.

Those wanting comprehensive tax reform aren’t saying trust should be breached – they’re arguing now’s the time to put the tax system on the table for review.

Former union leader Bill Kelty, who collaborated with the Hawke-Keating government on landmark economic reforms, told Nine media the system should be shifted towards taxing assets and away from income, with the burden of income tax reduced. Kelty argues the current system is grossly unfair to younger people, many of whom are loaded with debt, while many older people are asset-rich.

Calls for a comprehensive look at the system are also coming from the “teal” corner of parliament. The teals’ votes on the present package don’t matter because Labor has a majority in the lower house, where the teals sit. But their response, unconstrained by party straitjackets, has been interesting for what it shows about the way “community candidates” operate.

The teals have been open about the tension between political integrity (governments keeping promises) and what’s seen as a fairer package giving cost-of-living help. In line with their commitments to local consultation, they are taking formal steps (such as surveys) to get their constituents’ views.

Zali Steggall, who represents the wealthy Sydney seat of Warringah, admits being conflicted.

“Whilst I support more assistance for those who are doing it tough, the lack of transparency in proposing amendments raises concerns about the government’s credibility and commitment to honesty with the Australian public. The recent government backtrack on the Stage 3 tax cuts undermines trust,” Steggall says.

“I support streamlined tax brackets to encourage hard work and income retention.

“The community is providing me with their feedback, and we can so far see that there is support for helping those who are facing economic challenges – however, it is also being made clear that there is concern around the proposed thresholds. I will thoroughly review the Treasury’s analysis and continue to welcome further feedback from Warringah.”

In the end, all or most of the teals are expected to vote for the package.

Teal member for Wentworth Allegra Spender, who has been an advocate for comprehensive tax reform since entering parliament, is using the opportunity to ramp up her campaign.

We are seeing an “intergenerational tragedy,” she told the National Press Club this week. “While our younger generation is the most highly educated yet, in the last 15 years or so households over 65 grew their wealth by around 50% while those under 35 barely moved. Tax is a significant factor in this.

“A retired household pays half the tax of a working household on the same income – even though they are on average likely to be
wealthier. The number of retirees paying tax is falling even as their wealth grows. 17% of retirees pay income tax today, compared with 27% a generation ago.”

The government does not want a full-blown tax debate. Treasurer Chalmers shows no appetite for launching into comprehensive tax reform, involving, as it does, losers as well as winners. He prefers incremental changes when opportunities come.

But if the government tries to go the 2025 election with a minimalist tax agenda, it will face awkward questions on two fronts. Some will claim it is hiding ambitions for changes it will roll out after the votes roll in. Others will condemn its unwillingness to commit to using a second term to deal with the glaring inadequacies of our present tax system.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Albanese’s Stage 3 rework invites a wider tax debate the government doesn’t want to have – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-albaneses-stage-3-rework-invites-a-wider-tax-debate-the-government-doesnt-want-to-have-222493

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

With the government’s changes to the stage 3 tax cuts to favour lower and middle income earners, and a looming by-election in the Victorian seat of Dunkley, eyes are now on the opposition for its response to Labor’s new package.

In our first podcast of 2024, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor discusses the tax broken promise, where the economy is heading, falling inflation, and more.

On the government’s tax backflip he says:

I think Labor has shifted to a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul mindset now. They clearly believe in zero-sum economics, a zero-sum politics, where you take something from some and give it to another, and that is not acceptable.

On stage 3 itself, Taylor is quick to defend the Coalition version:

Stage 3 tax cuts were tax reform. They are about incentivising people to change their behaviours in positive ways for the economy and for all of us.

On whether the government should be giving further cost-of-living assistance now:

[It] tells us something about how the political culture has changed – which is the idea that if someone gets behind, the only answer is to give them money. Actually, the number one objective here has to be to enable people to get ahead.

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: Angus Taylor on tax and the economy – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-angus-taylor-on-tax-and-the-economy-222506

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Macfarlane, Head of Clinical Services, Dementia Support Australia, & Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Monash University

An article published this week in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine documents what is believed to be the first evidence that Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted from person to person.

The finding arose from long-term follow up of patients who received human growth hormone (hGH) that was taken from brain tissue of deceased donors.

Preparations of donated hGH were used in medicine to treat a variety of conditions from 1959 onwards – including in Australia from the mid 60s.

The practice stopped in 1985 when it was discovered around 200 patients worldwide who had received these donations went on to develop Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which causes a rapidly progressive dementia. This is an otherwise extremely rare condition, affecting roughly one person in a million.

What’s CJD got to do with Alzehimer’s?

CJD is caused by prions: infective particles that are neither bacterial or viral, but consist of abnormally folded proteins that can be transmitted from cell to cell.

Other prion diseases include kuru, a dementia seen in New Guinea tribespeople caused by eating human tissue, scrapie (a disease of sheep) and variant CJD or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, otherwise known as mad cow disease. This raised public health concerns over the eating of beef products in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.

Read more:
People who lived in the UK in the ‘mad cow disease’ years may now be able to give blood. The risk of vCJD is tiny

Human growth hormone used to come from donated organs

Human growth hormone (hGH) is produced in the brain by the pituitary gland. Treatments were originally prepared from purified human pituitary tissue.

But because the amount of hGH contained in a single gland is extremely small, any single dose given to any one patient could contain material from around 16,000 donated glands.

An average course of hGH treatment lasts around four years, so the chances of receiving contaminated material – even for a very rare condition such as CJD – became quite high for such people.

hGH is now manufactured synthetically in a laboratory, rather than from human tissue. So this particular mode of CJD transmission is no longer a risk.

What are the latest findings about Alzheimer’s disease?

The Nature Medicine paper provides the first evidence that transmission of Alzheimer’s disease can occur via human-to-human transmission.

The authors examined the outcomes of people who received donated hGH until 1985. They found five such recipients had developed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

They considered other explanations for the findings but concluded donated hGH was the likely cause.

Given Alzheimer’s disease is a much more common illness than CJD, the authors presume those who received donated hGH before 1985 may be at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is caused by presence of two abnormally folded proteins: amyloid and tau. There is increasing evidence these proteins spread in the brain in a similar way to prion diseases. So the mode of transmission the authors propose is certainly plausible.

However, given the amyloid protein deposits in the brain at least 20 years before clinical Alzheimer’s disease develops, there is likely to be a considerable time lag before cases that might arise from the receipt of donated hGH become evident.

Read more:
Size of brain area linked with cognitive decline – even in people with no other warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease

When was this process used in Australia?

In Australia, donated pituitary material was used from 1967 to 1985 to treat people with short stature and infertility.

More than 2,000 people received such treatment. Four developed CJD, the last case identified in 1991. All four cases were likely linked to a single contaminated batch.

The risks of any other cases of CJD developing now in pituitary material recipients, so long after the occurrence of the last identified case in Australia, are considered to be incredibly small.

Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (defined as occurring before the age of 65) is uncommon, accounting for around 5% of all cases. Below the age of 50 it’s rare and likely to have a genetic contribution.

The risk is very low – and you can’t ‘catch’ it like a virus

The Nature Medicine paper identified five cases which were diagnosed in people aged 38 to 55. This is more than could be expected by chance, but still very low in comparison to the total number of patients treated worldwide.

Although the long “incubation period” of Alzheimer’s disease may mean more similar cases may be identified in the future, the absolute risk remains very low. The main scientific interest of the article lies in the fact it’s first to demonstrate that Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted from person to person in a similar way to prion diseases, rather than in any public health risk.

The authors were keen to emphasise, as I will, that Alzheimer’s cannot be contracted via contact with or providing care to people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more:
Young-onset Alzheimer’s can be diagnosed from as early as 30 – and the symptoms are often different

Steve Macfarlane is affiliated with HammondCare, a not-for-profit aged care provider.

– ref. Alzheimer’s may have once spread from person to person, but the risk of that happening today is incredibly low – https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-may-have-once-spread-from-person-to-person-but-the-risk-of-that-happening-today-is-incredibly-low-222374