December 7 marks the 50-year anniversary of the Blue Marble photograph. The crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 spacecraft – the last manned mission to the Moon – took a photograph of Earth and changed the way we visualised our planet forever.
Taken with a Hasselblad film camera, it was the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and is believed to be the most reproduced image of all time. Up until this point, our view of ourselves had been disconnected and fragmented: there was no way to visualise the planet in its entirety.
The Apollo 17 crew were on their way to the moon when the photograph was captured at 29,000 kilometres (18,000 miles) from the Earth. It quickly became a symbol of harmony and unity.
The previous Apollo missions had taken photographs of the earth in part shadow. Earthrise shows a partial Earth, rising up from the moon’s surface.
Earthrise captured Earth in part shadow. NASA, CC BY-NC-SA
In Blue Marble, the Earth appears in the centre of the frame, floating in space. It is possible to clearly see the African continent, as well as the Antarctica south polar ice cap.
Photographs like Blue Marble are quite hard to capture. To see the Earth as a full globe floating in space, lighting needs to be calculated carefully. The sun needs to be directly behind you. Astronaut Scott Kelly observes that this can be difficult to plan for when orbiting at high speeds.
Produced against a broader cultural and political context of the “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union, the photograph revealed an unexpectedly neutral view of Earth with no borders.
According to geographer Denis Cosgrove, the Blue Marble disrupted Western conventions for mapping and cartography. By removing the graticule – the grid of meridians and parallels humans place over the globe – the image represented an earth freed from mapping practices that had been in place for hundreds of years.
We have been placing grids over our maps for hundreds of years, as in this world map from 1689. Wikimedia Commons
The photograph also gave Africa a central position in the representation of the world, where eurocentric mapping practice had tended to reduce Africa’s scale.
The image quickly became a symbol of harmony and unity. Instead of offering proof of America’s supremacy, the photograph fostered a sense of global interconnectedness.
Since the Enlightenment, mapping and map making had emphasised man’s superiority over the Earth. Working against this hierarchy, Blue Marble evoked a sense of humility. Earth appeared extremely fragile and in need of protection. In his book Earthrise, Robert Poole wrote:
Although no one found the words to say so at the time, the ‘Blue marble’ was a photographic manifesto for global justice.
Blue Marble’s afterlives
The photograph has appeared across popular culture.
It is impossible to examine Blue Marble and separate it from the urgency of today’s climate crisis.
It quickly became a symbol of the early environmental movement, and was adopted by activist groups such as Friends of the Earth and annual events such as Earth Day.
The photograph appeared on the cover of James Lovelock’s book Gaia (1979), postage stamps, and an early opening sequence of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006).
The ways we have viewed and visualised Earth have changed over the decades.
Commencing in the 1990s, NASA created digitally manipulated whole-Earth images titled Blue Marble: Next Generation, in honour of the original Apollo 17 mission.
The 2002 Blue Marble showing Australia. NASA image by Robert Simmon and Reto Stöckli, CC BY-NC-SA
These are composite images composed of data stitched together from thousands of images taken at different times by satellites.
Space-based imaging technology has continued to advance in its capacity to render astonishing detail. Art historians such as Elizabeth A. Kessler have linked these new generation of images picturing the cosmos with the philosophical concept of the sublime.
The Blue Marble can inspire a similar sense of awe to images like Thomas Moran’s Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. U.S. Department of the Interior Museum
The photographs create a sense of vastness and awe that can leave the spectator overwhelmed, akin to 19th century Romantic paintings such as Thomas Moran’s The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872).
In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope revealed mountains of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula. Known as the Pillars of Creation, the image captures gas and dust in the process of creating new stars.
This photograph of Eagle Nebula, named Pillars of Creation, was taken by the Hubble. NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Building on the Hubble’s discoveries, the Webb is designed to visualise infrared wavelengths at a unprecedented level of clarity.
Stephan’s Quintet photographed by the James Webb Telescope. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, CC BY-NC-SA
These advances in technology might help explain the photograph’s enduring charm from the vantage point of 2022. The first photograph of our planet was remarkably lo-fi.
Blue Marble is the last full Earth photograph taken by an actual human using analogue film: developed in a darkroom when the crew returned to Earth.
Chari Larsson 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.
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage
William Camacaro, Caracas Frederick Mills, Washington DC
“It is no longer possible, in the case of America, to continue with the Monroe Doctrine nor with the slogan ‘America for the Americans.’” Andrés Manuel López Obrador
December 3, 2023 will mark the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine. It will also mark its obsolescence in the face of popular resistance and the Pink Tide of progressive governments in Latin America that have been elected over the past two and a half decades. The prevailing ideology of these left and left of center movements rejects the “Washington Consensus” and opts for a new consensus based on the decolonization of the political, economic, social and cultural spheres. This consensus is accompanied by encounters and conferences that advance liberatory traditions developed since the 1960’s as well as those deeply rooted in indigenous cultures. It is Washington’s failure to respect and adjust to this political and ideological process of transformation that precludes, at this time, a constructive and cooperative U.S. foreign policy towards the region.
Decoloniality and Multipolarity
One cannot comprehend decolonization from the totalizing point of view of U.S. exceptionalism[1]. U.S. exceptionalism, the offspring of the African slave trade and the conquest of Amerindia, seeks unfettered access to the region’s natural resources and labor to serve its corporate and geopolitical interests. By contrast, decoloniality was born of five centuries of resistance to colonization. It is the critical perspective of those who have been oppressed by imperial domination and local oligarchies and seek to build a new world, one that rejects necropolitics and racial capitalism; one that advances human life in community and in harmony with the biosphere. This critical ethical attitude has been expressed over the past two years in declarations of regional associations that exclude the U.S. and Canada. All share the same ideal of regional integration based on respect for sovereign equality among nations and guided by ecological, democratic, and plurinational principles.
A necessary condition of integration based on these principles is the freedom to engage economically, politically, and culturally with a multipolar world; it is only in such a geopolitical context that the region can resist subjugation to any superpower and itself become a major player on the world political-economic stage. Such engagement is already a fait accompli. From across the political spectrum, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, created in December 2011) has embraced a diversity of trading opportunities. For example, the China-CELAC forum[2] was formed on July 17, 2014 as a vehicle for intergovernmental cooperation between the member states of CELAC and China. The forum held its first ministerial meeting[3] in Beijing in January 2015, which was followed by two more summits (2018,[4]2021[5]), all of which produced economic, infrastructure, energy, and other agreements. Also significant with regard to trade, 20 countries[6] in Latin America and the Caribbean have now signed on to the Belt and Road initiative. According to Geopolitical Intelligence Services, GIS:
“Chinese trade with Latin America grew from just $12 billion in 2000 to more than $430 billion in 2021, driven by demand for a range of commodities, from soybeans to copper, iron ore, petroleum and other raw materials. These imports, meanwhile, were tied to an increase in Chinese exports of value-added manufactured goods. As of 2022, China is the region’s second-largest trading partner and the biggest trading partner in nine countries (Cuba, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela).”[7]
Moreover, the World Economic Forum predicts that “On the current trajectory, LAC-China trade is expected to exceed $700 billion by 2035, more than twice as much as in 2020.” [8]
Rather than acknowledge this trend towards trade diversification, Washington is waging hybrid warfare against Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, including the use of illegal unilateral coercive measures (“sanctions”), in a bid to limit the influence of Russia, Iran, and China and reimpose its hegemony in the region.
The Special Rapporteur[9] of the United Nations on the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, Alena Douhan, has visited and documented the effect of the sanctions in Syria,[10]Iran,[11] and Venezuela,[12] and on each occasion has indicated that the sanctions “violate international law” and “the principle of sovereign equality of States,” at the same time that they constitute “intervention in the internal affairs.” As a November 2022 study by the Sanctions Kill Campaign documents, sanctions against Venezuela and other targeted countries have caused devastating hardship and thousands of deaths.[13]
In order to prevent the import of vital goods to Venezuela, the U.S. went so far as jailing a Venezuelan diplomat, Alex Saab,[14] who had managed to circumvent U.S. sanctions to import urgently needed fuel, food, and medicine. In violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961),[15] Washington has charged Saab with conspiracy to commit money laundering (other charges having been dropped). A hearing on Saab’s diplomatic immunity was scheduled for December 12, 2022 in Southern District Court. Saab threw a wrench into Washington’s “regime change” machinery, for which he has been paying a heavy price over more than two years.
“Regime change” operations against disobedient governments in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past decade by the U.S. and its right wing allies in the Organization of American States (OAS), has not reduced the influence of China, Iran, and Russia in the region. Just the opposite. For example, while Washington was stepping up its campaign against the government of Cuba, Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canal Bermúdez went to Algeria,[16]Russia,[17]China,[18] and Turkey[19] to reinforce mutual solidarity and hammer out new economic accords. Both Russia and China recognize the strategic importance of the Cuban Revolution, for its defeat would have a demoralizing impact on the cause of independence and galvanize oligarchic interests throughout the hemisphere. Moreover, in the context of the Pink Tide of progressive governments, and the disintegration of the Lima Group (a Washington backed right wing coalition) this troika of resistance (Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua) is not alone.
The Pink Tide
It is important not to isolate the period of the Pink Tide as an anomaly, for it has precursors beginning with the first indigenous uprisings and the Bolivarian resistance to Spanish rule. Today’s decolonial struggle is influenced by the spirit of Túpac Amaru, the Hatian revolution, the Sandinista revolution, the Zapatista uprising, and other challenges to conquest, colonization, and the ongoing attempt to recolonize the region.
There is no doubt, however, that the Pink Tide took a big step forward with the election of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1998), Néstor Carlos Kirchner in Argentina (2003), and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil (2003). It was perhaps at the Fourth Summit of the Americas, held in November 2005, at Mar del Plata, that their combined bold leadership struck a significant blow to U.S. hegemony by rejecting then President George Bush’s proposal for a hemispheric agreement called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This defeat of FTAA[20] also signaled the determination of progressive movements to seek alternatives to the neoliberal imperatives of the U.S. and Canada.
Presidents Lula, Kirchner and Chávez, during the 4th Summit of the Americas in 2005, when the Free Trade Area of the Americas was rejected (credit photo: Twitter account of President Nicolás Maduro)
Although the Pink Tide of progressive governance has suffered some electoral and extra-constitutional setbacks since the Fourth Summit, it has received renewed force with the election of the MORENA party candidate, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico in 2018. AMLO ran on a platform that promised to launch the “fourth transformation” of Mexico by fighting corruption and implementing policies that put the poor first. He has since become a major critic of the Monroe Doctrine and the OAS.
The victory of the MORENA movement in Mexico was followed by the election of left and left-of-center presidents in Argentina (Alberto Fernández, October 2019), Bolivia (Luis Arce, October 2020), Peru (Pedro Castillo, July 2021), Chile (Gabriel Boric, December 2021) and Honduras (Xiomara Castro, December 2021). Less than a year later, for the first time in its history, Colombians elected a leftist president, Gustavo Petro, in June 2022. Petro wasted no time in re-establishing diplomatic relations with Venezuela and opening their common border. This South American nation, however, still remains host to nine U.S. military bases and remains a partner of NATO. This historic win was followed by a momentous comeback of the left in Brazil with the election of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in October 2022 after the extreme right wing rule of Jair Bolsonaro. This is big news, as Brazil is not only a major economic power in the hemisphere, but a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) association, which is now expected to increase commerce and integrate a growing number of member states.
Regional associations seize the moment
These electoral victories, all of which relied heavily on the support of the popular sectors, have been the subject of critical analysis at several recent meetings of regional associations. These meetings express the formation of a consensus on advancing regional sovereignty, protecting the environment, respecting indigenous peoples’ rights, and attaining social justice.
The spirit of independence and regional integration was given new impetus when AMLO assumed the pro tempore presidency of CELAC in 2020. The last CELAC Summit[21] set the basic tone for this consensus when on July 24, 2021, AMLO evoked the legacy of Simón Bolívar in the context of the ongoing cause of regional independence; this focus opened a political space for criticizing the OAS and fortifying CELAC. The Summit was held at a time of widespread condemnation of the OAS’ role in provoking a coup in Bolivia.
The message of the CELAC summit had apparently not made much of an impression in Washington. The Ninth Summit of the Americas,[22] hosted by the United States in Los Angeles, California (June 2022), excluded countries on Washington’s “regime change” list, revealing a profound disconnect between U.S. hemispheric policy and the reality on the ground in Latin America. This exclusivity inspired alternative, more inclusive summits: the People’s Summit in Los Angeles[23]and the Workers’ Summit in Tijuana.[24] These alternative summits exposed Washington’s failure to adjust to increasingly independent neighbors to the South. To avoid embarrassment however, Washington did not invite self-proclaimed president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, though it now stands virtually alone in pretending to recognize this comic figure and his inconsequential, corrupt shadow government.
Five months after the divisive Summit of the Americas, there was a meeting of the Puebla Group which was founded in July 2019 to counter the right wing agenda of the Washington-backed Lima Group. It held its eighth meeting in the Colombian city of Santa Marta. On November 11th, the Group issued the Declaration of Santa Marta: The Region United for Change.[25] It declared that “the region needs to incorporate and emphasize new themes for the regional agenda that in the past, for different reasons, did not have the visibility that today appears indisputable, such as . . . gender equality, the free movement of people, the ecological transition, the defense of the Amazon and of the rights of indigenous peoples, . . . and the necessity to include new social and economic actors in the regional processes of integration.”
Mapuche protest in Chile, using signs in their language, defending their right to cultural independence and land recovery (credit photo: Pressenza International News Agency, https://www.pressenza.com/)
Just a few days later, in a letter dated November 14, a group of regional leaders called upon South America’s presidents[26] to reconstitute the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR, created in 2008). The disintegration of UNASUR was a reflection of an offensive against the Bolivarian revolution, led by Washington and Bogota. When Colombia left the organization in 2018, with its right wing allies to follow, it then joined the Lima Group, whose only political goal within the OAS was the destruction of the Bolivarian cause. And in August 2018 after President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno confiscated the UNASUR headquarters in Quito, President Evo Morales reopened the UNASUR headquarters in Bolivia. Morales declared, “The South American Parliament [UNASUR] is the center of integration and the symbol of the liberation of Latin America. The integration of all of Latin America is a path without return.” At that moment, the only country allied with Venezuela in South America was Bolivia.
The letter calling for the reconstitution of UNASUR was followed by a statement by the São Paulo[27] Forum, which met in Caracas November 18 – 19, 2022 and summed up one of the principal themes of the present juncture: “We are in a historic moment for resuming and deepening the transformations in the economic and geopolitical fields that have occurred since the beginning of the century, and for accelerating the transition to a democratic multipolar world, one based on new international relations of cooperation and solidarity.”
On November 22 – 25, in Guatemala, representatives of indigenous peoples from 16 countries came together for the second meeting of the Sovereign Abya Yala movement. The conference took place at a time of renewed political protagonism of indigenous peoples throughout the continent. For example, after the fascist coup in Bolivia in November 2019, it was the fierce resistance of indigenous peoples and the Movement toward Socialism IPSP that led to the successful recuperation of democracy one year later. The theme of the second meeting was “Peoples and communities in movement, advancing toward decoloniality in order to live well (“Buen vivir”).” Its final declaration commits to the decolonization of these territories. To accomplish this, the meeting proposed pluri-nationality as a guiding political principle, “to construct new plurinational states, new laws, institutions, and life projects that make it possible for all beings sharing the cosmic community to live together in harmony.” The declaration also recognizes the need to form political organizations that can advance these goals, including in the electoral field.[28]/
There is now a solid bloc of progressive governments in the region, presenting new opportunities to advance the causes of decolonization, integration, resource nationalism, popular sovereignty, and experiments in building a post-neoliberal order. But this juncture also poses new challenges. The U.S. recent partial lifting of sanctions against Venezuela in the oil sector and support for negotiations in Mexico between the Venezuelan government and opposition is a pragmatic response to the need to access Venezuelan crude and signals a shift in U.S. tactics to an electoral means to bring about “regime change”. This is reminiscent of the U.S. strategy in Nicaragua in the late 1980’s which led to the Sandinista electoral defeat of 1990. The U.S. is also acting with restraint because given the heightened geopolitical tensions over the war in Ukraine and the political climate in this hemisphere no other path is feasible. Washington continues, however, to pursue illegal unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba in a ploy to keep the obsolete Monroe Doctrine alive. To meet this challenge to their existence, the targeted governments are circumventing U.S. sanctions, resisting “regime change” operations, resuming efforts at integration, deepening ties to Russia and China, and diversifying their trade partners. And while hard-liners in the U.S. Congress, stuck in a cold war mentality, are scouring the hills for communists, all of Amerindia is working to end the last vestiges of armed conflict and establish a region at peace.
William Camacaro is a Senior Analyst at COHA. Frederick Mills is Deputy Director of COHA
All translations from Spanish to English by the authors are unofficial. COHA Assistant Editor/Translator Jill Clark-Gollub provided editorial assistance for this article.
[Main photo: Mapuche protest in Chile, using signs in their language, defending their right to cultural independence and land recovery. Credit photo: Pressenza International News Agency, https://www.pressenza.com/]
Sources
[1] Based on Donald E. Pease definition, “American exceptionalism has been taken to mean that America is either ‘distinctive’ (meaning merely different), or ‘unique’ (meaning anomalous), or ‘exemplary’ (meaning a model for other nations to follow), or ‘exempt’ from the laws of historical progress (meaning that it is an ‘exception’ to the laws and rules governing the development of other nations).” American Exceptionalism, https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0176.xml
[10] “Lift ‘suffocating’ unilateral sanctions against Syrians, urges UN human rights expert.” United Nations. UN News. November 10. 2022. Accessed Dec. 3, 2022.
[13] “U.S. Sanctions: Deadly, Destructive and in Violation of International Law.” Report produced by Rick Sterling, John Philpot, and David Paul with support from other members of the SanctionsKill Campaign and many individuals from sanctioned countries. November 2022 (Updates of previous publications in September 2020 and May 2021). Accessed Dec. 5, 2022: https://sanctionskill.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/SanctionsImpactReport_v62c-3.pdf
[18] “El Secretario General y Presidente Xi Jinping Sostiene una Conversación con el Primer Secretario del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba y Presidente de la República de Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. November 25, 2022. Accessed December 3, 2022: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/esp/zxxx/202211/t20221125_10981082.html
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University
Getty Images
When Fijians elect a new parliament on December 14, it’s likely their votes will be counted fairly – yet the country will remain a conditional and fragile democracy.
This will be the third election since the “coup to end all coups” in 2006, which followed two earlier coups in 1987 and a civilian overthrow of the elected government in 2000.
It shall be the overall responsibility of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces to ensure at all times the security, defence and wellbeing of Fiji and all Fijians.
In other words, overall responsibility for the wellbeing of Fiji and its people does not belong to the government or parliament. The military interprets this as meaning it is “mandated to be the guardian of Fiji”.
Democracy’s fragility is entrenched. Furthermore, Fiji’s unicameral parliament is not big enough to support robust parliamentary checks on government, even though it will grow from 51 to 55 members at this year’s election.
From self-appointed to elected prime minister: Frank Bainimarama’s FijiFirst party is likely to form a government after December 14. Getty Images
Freedom and the military
Bainimarama went from self-appointed to elected prime minister in 2014 when his FijiFirst party won the first election under the new constitution. It won again in 2018 with just over 50% of the vote in the country’s proportional representation system.
International observers found votes were fairly counted, but the campaign was marred by intimidation of opposition candidates.
Shortly before the 2018 election, opposition leader Sitivini Rabuka was charged with electoral fraud. He was acquitted just in time to take his place as a candidate.
Rabuka was prime minister between 1992 and 1999, having led the coups in 1987 and having described democracy as “a foreign flower unsuited to Fijian soil”. In 2022, however, Rabuka’s People’s Alliance, in coalition with the National Federation Party, is the most likely alternative government.
Cost of living, poverty and peaceful and orderly government are important election issues. Significantly, though, the People’s Alliance manifesto suggests exploring amendments to the constitution. It also wants to remove measures that suppress human rights, previously highlighted by Amnesty International and others.
Land rights and the protection of the indigenous iTaukei culture are also important in this campaign, to the extent they have prompted an outburst typical of Bainimarama’s florid rhetorical style. At a campaign rally last week, he said of an opponent’s land rights policy:
This conversation will cause stabbing, murder and blood spilled on our land, and unlawful entering [of property] will happen if that conversation is condoned.
Sitivini Rabuka’s People’s Alliance could form an alternative government in coalition with the National Federation Party. Getty Images
Fragile free speech
There are also restrictions on political reporting. As the Fiji Parliamentary Reporters’ Handbook (published in 2019) explains: “As in rugby, knowing the rules is the difference between enjoying the game and not being able to follow it.”
Journalists are reminded that the right to free speech does not allow “incitement to violence or insurrection”. The handbook goes on to remind them:
There is scope in the Constitution to “limit […] rights and freedoms […] in the interests of national security, public safety, public order, public morality, public health or the orderly conduct of elections”.
Interpretations of these limits can be broad. In November, for example, longstanding government critic and election candidate Richard Naidu was convicted of “contempt scandalising the court” following a lighthearted Facebook post in which he pointed out a spelling mistake in a High Court judgment.
The charge – which Amnesty International says should be withdrawn – was brought by the attorney-general.
In my 2017 book, Indigeneity: a politics of potential – Australia, Fiji and New Zealand, I argued that political stability requires ordered and principled measures for protecting iTaukei (ethnic Fijian) rights to land and culture. This is a matter of respecting human dignity, but also to ensure those rights are not used as a pretext for settling wider and sometimes unrelated conflicts.
Stability does not arise only from the freedom to vote and from being confident one’s vote will be fairly counted. It comes also from well-informed expectations of what governments should do and what constitutions should protect, including:
a free and diverse media, with a culture of detailed and critical investigation and reporting on public affairs
a politically independent military, police and judiciary that aren’t called on to intimidate opponents
a larger parliament that is more representative and allows stronger checks on the executive.
For now, while the military enjoys considerable credibility and support, its role as defender and arbiter of the public good ensures perpetual instability.
The diplomatic and economic value of its contributions to United Nations peacekeeping missions means it remains an important national institution. And the recent gift of military peacekeeping vehicles from the US is an example of the soft diplomacy used by democratic states, including Australia and New Zealand, to influence contemporary Fiji.
The effectiveness of that influence will be tested at some point. In the meantime, the Fijian people are free to change their government on December 14. But the possibility they will not be free to keep that government means, whatever the election outcome, democracy has lost before a vote is cast.
Dominic O’Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
He is joined by former National Party MP Hekia Parata, and the previous secretary to Treasury, John Whitehead, as commissioners.
Pasifika Futures chief executive Debbie Sorensen said Pasifika people were essentially left to form their own response during the earlier stages of the pandemic.
That was despite Pasifika people working a large proportion of jobs in MIQ facilities and at the airport and other front line locations, she said.
Many affected Pacific families experienced a great deal of hardship, she said.
It was important for the inquiry to look at the covid-19 response in regards to specific communities, she said.
Slowness of response “We’re really clear that equity in the response and in the resource allocation is an important consideration.”
One issue was the slowness of the government’s response to both Pacific and Māori communities during the height of the pandemic, she said.
“Advice was provided to the government, you know cabinet papers provided advice on specific responses for our communities and that advice was ignored.”
An important aspect of the inquiry should be reviewing how that advice was given to the government, its response to it and how the government’s sought more information, she said.
The inquiry’s initial scope appeared to be very narrow, but it could be broadened as it went along, Sorensen said.
“The impact on mental health and the ongoing economic burden for our communities is immense — you know we have a whole generation of young people who have not continued their education because they were required to go in to work.”
Sorensen said often young people had to work because they were the only person in their family who had a job at that time due to covid-19.
Mental health demand The pandemic also increased demand for mental health services which were already under pressure, she said.
Anyone who was unwell unlikely to be able to get an appointment within six to eight months which was shameful, she said.
Sorensen would have preferred the inquiry had been announced earlier, but it was an opportunity to better prepare for the future, she said.
But Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, chief medical officer Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen told Morning Report he had some concerns that the probe into the covid-19 response was coming too soon to gain a full picture.
The pandemic was ongoing and starting the inquiry so early may obstruct a complete view of it, he said.
“I understand that there’s people champing at the bit and [saying] we should’ve done it before but it’s very difficult to do that and adequately learn the lessons.”
Understanding how to get a proper pandemic response was in everyone’s interest, but the pandemic was now still in its third wave, he said.
About to begin Nevertheless, the inquiry was about to get underway and it could make a large contribution if it was done well, he said.
“I’m sure there will be many Māori communities that want to have voice in the inquiry and you know contribute to a better understanding of how we can manage pandemics really well.
“We’ve had pandemics before and they’ve been absolutely tragic. We’ve got this pandemic and the outcome for us is something like two to two-and-a-half times the rate of hospitalisations and deaths, so Māori communities are fundamentally very interested in bedding in the learnings that we’ve achieved in the pandemic.”
Dr Jansen hoped the inquiry would provide enduring information about managing pandemics with a very clear focus on Māori and how to support the best outcomes for the Māori population.
Inquiry’s goal next pandemic The head of the Royal Commission said the review needed to put New Zealand in better position to respond next time a pandemic hits.
Professor Blakely said the breadth of experience and skills of the commissioners was welcome, and would help them to cover the wide scope of the Inquiry, ranging from the health response and legislative decisions, to the economic response.
Reviewing the response to the pandemic was a big job, he said.
“There’s already 75 reports done so far, I think about 1700 recommendations from those reports, New Zealand’s not the only country that’s been affected by this cause it’s a global epidemic, so there’s lots of other reports.”
The inquiry panel would have to sit at the top of all that work that had already been done “and pull it altogether from the perspective of Aotearoa New Zealand and what would help best there.
The inquiry needed to make New Zealand was prepared for a pandemic with good testing, good contact tracing and good tools that the Reserve Bank could use to support citizens in the time of a pandemic, Professor Blakely said.
“Our job is to try and create a situation where those tools are as good as possible, there’s frameworks to use when you’ve entered another pandemic, which will occur at some stage we just don’t know when.”
Professor Blakely said he was flying to New Zealand next week and would meet with Hekia Parata and John Whitehead to start thinking about the shape of the inquiry going forward.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
As Russia’s propaganda and crackdown on journalism continue to wreak havoc, the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released its new campaign video.
Devised and produced by the Paris-based advertising agency BETC, this powerful video takes just a few seconds to demonstrate the importance of journalism in combatting propaganda.
In the new video, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mendacious speeches to the Russian people about the invasion of Ukraine are contrasted with images of reporters covering the war.
Only the facts reported by journalists can thwart the Kremlin’s propaganda. Like the #FightForFacts campaign video that RSF released at the end of 2020, this new video aims to get viewers to appreciate the importance of journalism in raising awareness and in motivating the public about issues that are decisive for their future.
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:
“Without journalists to cover the war in Ukraine, we would be powerless against disinformation and propaganda, we wouldn’t know whether the bombing of civilians in Ukraine was true or false, or whether the Bucha massacres really took place.
“After the world was stunned by the war in Ukraine, RSF wants to raise awareness about the other war being waged by the Kremlin, the information war.
The cruel reality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Image: RSF
In the occupied territories, journalists are hunted down, arrested and given an impossible choice: collaboration, prison or death.
From day one, RSF teams mobilised. In Lviv and Kyiv, press freedom centres set up by RSF provide protective equipment, first aid kits, digital safety training and psychological support to both Ukrainian and foreign journalists covering the war.
This campaign video is intended to help RSF raise part of the funds it needs to continue its work in Ukraine and the rest of the world.
Targeted at the general public, it is being carried by TV channels, shared on social media and available to all websites that want it.
And it is available in 13 languages (French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Romanian, Azeri, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Mongolian).
The video was produced by and with the support of the BETC agency.
BETC looks to renew the relationship between brands and creation.
Out of desire, curiosity and commitment, BETC creates new synergies and produces its own content in the fields of music, film, publishing, design… BETC is at the heart of the Magasins Généraux project in Pantin, where it moved in July 2016.
It is a new space for creation, innovation, production and sharing that is located at the heart of Greater Paris.
Activists have protested at Indonesia’s Ternate Police headquarters in North Maluku demanding that the security forces release eight people arrested while commemorating West Papua Independence Day on December 1.
December 1 marked 61 years since the first raising of West Papua’s symbol of independence, the Morning Star flag.
Tabloid Jubi reports Anton Trisno of the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) saying the demonstration where the group was arrested was a peaceful one.
“We expressed our aspirations peacefully. Some ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers infiltrated the crowd to disperse the protesters. This is a violation to our freedom of speech,” he said.
Trisno asked the police to immediately release eight of his colleagues.
“We urge the Ternate police chief to immediately release the eight activists who are still detained. We demand the police release them unconditionally,” he said.
Different tactic Meanwhile, an activist group has reported a different tactic used by the security forces, which it says is concerning.
“The Papuan People’s Petition Action (PRP) in commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the ‘West Papua Declaration of Independence’ received escort and security unlike usual actions from the Indonesian Security (colonial military),” a statement said.
“Apart from vehicles such as patrol cars, dalmas, combat tactical vehicles, sniffer dogs, intelligence/bin, bais, and tear gas launchers or other weapons.
“There is also security in the form of hidden security, such as a [sniper] placed on the balcony of Ramayana Mall and Hotel Sahit Mariat which are near the location or point of action.
“This certainly shows that there is something planned to actually push back and close the democratic space for the people and resistance movements in the Land of Papua, especially in the city of Sorong.”
In Port Vila, Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change and a long-time supporter of the West Papua people, Ralph Regenvanu, attended the West Papua flag-raising day.
In line with Vanuatu’s stand in support of West Papua freedom, the Morning Star flag was raised to fly alongside the Vanuatu flag outside the West Papua International Office.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
You might not know it from reading Tuesday’s statement announcing Australia’s eighth consecutive increase in interest rates, but our Reserve Bank might finally have done enough.
The statement says inflation is still “too high” and that the bank expects to increase rates further, although it is “not on a pre-set course”.
But, as it happens, the bank is unlikely to increase rates again for a further two months. The board doesn’t meet in January, meaning the nine weeks between now and its first meeting for 2023 on February 7 will provide an unusually long time for reflection – the first after eight relentless months of hikes.
From time to time, Reserve Bank officials talk about the idea of a “pause”. AMP chief economist Shane Oliver has counted the number of occasions they have referred to the prospect of a “pause” in talks in public pronouncements in the past month. He has counted six.
Inflation to hit 8%, while weakening
Although the annual inflation figure for the year to December due on January 25 is expected to be high – the bank is expecting 8% – the quarter-to-quarter result is likely to show inflation weakening.
The Bureau of Statistics releases the quarterly inflation figures only once every three months. But for some time now it has also been calculating inflation monthly, using a smaller survey that seems to give a pretty good indication of what the larger survey is about to show.
Oliver has graphed what the smaller survey has been saying each month about inflation over the previous three months alongside what the larger quarterly survey has been saying. The two line up, except that in recent months the monthly measure has been sliding.
This suggests that the official quarterly figure released in January will be weak.
Oliver concedes that the new monthly measure needs to be interpreted with caution, particularly partly because it excludes 30% of the items included in the official quarterly measure, among them gas and electricity. But he says if 70% of the quarterly measure is cooling down, “that has to be a positive sign”.
Globally, oil prices and wheat prices and the prices of other things affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are down one-quarter to one-third from their peaks in the middle of the year, undoing much of what has been driving inflation.
The US is considering moderation
In the United States, where inflation peaked at 9.1% in June and has since slid to 7.7%, the head of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell has begun talking about “moderating the pace of rate increases” saying given all he has done, he mightn’t need to raise rates much further to tame inflation.
Australia’s Reserve Bank has already moderated the size of its increases, cutting each one from 0.5 percentage points per month to 0.25 points in September.
If it merely wants to get inflation down (as it says it does) and not needlessly damage the economy along the way, there’s a good case for leaving rates steady at its first meeting for the year in February, and then waiting until sees the full impact of what it has done so far.
Australia’s eight rate rises to date are set to push up the cost of payments on a typical $600,000 variable mortgage by a total of $1,000 per month.
The bank said in October that although most borrowers should be able to weather that increased financial pressure for some time, many would “need to curtail their consumption and some could ultimately see their savings buffers exhausted”.
If these households have limited ability to make adjustments to their financial situation (such as by increasing their hours worked) they could fall into arrears and “may eventually need to sell their homes or may even enter into foreclosure”.
For fixed-rate borrowers, things are worse. About one-third of mortgages are on fixed rates, and about two-thirds of them are due to expire next year. Many were taken out at fixed rates of around 2%. Depending on how high the Reserve Bank pushes things, those borrowers will suddenly find themselves paying 6-7%.
We’re tightening our belts
Spending plans are already crumbling. Asked whether now is a “good time to buy a major household item” in the Westpac-Melbourne Institute November confidence survey, consumers’ answers were about as dismal as they have ever been. Around 40% said they planned to spend less on gifts this year than the year before – the highest proportion since the question was first asked in 2009.
Wednesday’s national accounts will show company profits fell by a seasonally adjusted 12.4% in the three months to September, led down by profits in retail (-6%), manufacturing (-21%) and finance (-43%). Accommodation (up 64% after years in which it was hard to travel) is the only big exception.
Quarterly economic growth is expected to be weak, although the annual figure will look good because things were worse during the lockdowns a year before.
The national accounts will also show a jump in wage payments of 2.9% over the quarter, and 11% over the year – which sounds high, but much of it will be because of the extra 690,000 people employed. Pay per worker will have climbed 4.7%.
A good reading of Wednesday’s national accounts will be that eight consecutive increases in mortgage rates are starting to bite into household budgets in exactly the way the Reserve Bank wants, and that there’s a chance they’ll bite too hard.
On February 7 the board might feel entitled to take the view that it might have done enough, and hold off for a while it waits to see how things play out.
Peter Martin tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.
We’ve all had some kind of interaction with a chatbot. It’s usually a little pop-up in the corner of a website, offering customer support – often clunky to navigate – and almost always frustratingly non-specific.
But imagine a chatbot, enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI), that can not only expertly answer your questions, but also write stories, give life advice, even compose poems and code computer programs.
It seems ChatGPT, a chatbot released last week by OpenAI, is delivering on these outcomes. It has generated much excitement, and some have gone as far as to suggest it could signal a future in which AI has dominion over human content producers.
What has ChatGPT done to herald such claims? And how might it (and its future iterations) become indispensable in our daily lives?
What can ChatGPT do?
ChatGPT builds on OpenAI’s previous text generator, GPT-3. OpenAI builds its text-generating models by using machine-learning algorithms to process vast amounts of text data, including books, news articles, Wikipedia pages and millions of websites.
By ingesting such large volumes of data, the models learn the complex patterns and structure of language and acquire the ability to interpret the desired outcome of a user’s request.
ChatGPT can build a sophisticated and abstract representation of the knowledge in the training data, which it draws on to produce outputs. This is why it writes relevant content, and doesn’t just spout grammatically correct nonsense.
While GPT-3 was designed to continue a text prompt, ChatGPT is optimised to conversationally engage, answer questions and be helpful. Here’s an example:
A screenshot from the ChatGPT interface as it explains the Turing test.
ChatGPT immediately grabbed my attention by correctly answering exam questions I’ve asked my undergraduate and postgraduate students, including questions requiring coding skills. Other academics have had similar results.
In general, it can provide genuinely informative and helpful explanations on a broad range of topics.
ChatGPT can even answer questions about philosophy.
ChatGPT is also potentially useful as a writing assistant. It does a decent job drafting text and coming up with seemingly “original” ideas.
ChatGPT can give the impression of brainstorming ‘original’ ideas.
The power of feedback
Why does ChatGPT seem so much more capable than some of its past counterparts? A lot of this probably comes down to how it was trained.
During its development ChatGPT was shown conversations between human AI trainers to demonstrate desired behaviour. Although there’s a similar model trained in this way, called InstructGPT, ChatGPT is the first popular model to use this method.
And it seems to have given it a huge leg-up. Incorporating human feedback has helped steer ChatGPT in the direction of producing more helpful responses and rejecting inappropriate requests.
ChatGPT often rejects inappropriate requests by design.
Refusing to entertain inappropriate inputs is a particularly big step towards improving the safety of AI text generators, which can otherwise produce harmful content, including bias and stereotypes, as well as fake news, spam, propaganda and false reviews.
Past text-generating models have been criticised for regurgitating gender, racial and cultural biases contained in training data. In some cases, ChatGPT successfully avoids reinforcing such stereotypes.
In many cases ChatGPT avoids reinforcing harmful stereotypes. In this list of software engineers it presents both male- and female-sounding names (albeit all are very Western).
Nevertheless, users have already found ways to evade its existing safeguards and produce biased responses.
The fact that the system often accepts requests to write fake content is further proof that it needs refinement.
Despite its safeguards, ChatGPT can still be misused.
Overcoming limitations
ChatGPT is arguably one of the most promising AI text generators, but it’s not free from errors and limitations. For instance, programming advice platform Stack Overflow temporarily banned answers by the chatbot for a lack of accuracy.
One practical problem is that ChatGPT’s knowledge is static; it doesn’t access new information in real time.
However, its interface does allow users to give feedback on the model’s performance by indicating ideal answers, and reporting harmful, false or unhelpful responses.
OpenAI intends to address existing problems by incorporating this feedback into the system. The more feedback users provide, the more likely ChatGPT will be to decline requests leading to an undesirable output.
One possible improvement could come from adding a “confidence indicator” feature based on user feedback. This tool, which could be built on top of ChatGPT, would indicate the model’s confidence in the information it provides – leaving it to the user to decide whether they use it or not. Some question-answering systems already do this.
Despite its limitations, ChatGPT works surprisingly well for a prototype.
From a research point of view, it marks an advancement in the development and deployment of human-aligned AI systems. On the practical side, it’s already effective enough to have some everyday applications.
It could, for instance, be used as an alternative to Google. While a Google search requires you to sift through a number of websites and dig deeper yet to find the desired information, ChatGPT directly answers your question – and often does this well.
ChatGPT (left) may in some cases prove to be a better way to find quick answers than Google search.
Also, with feedback from users and a more powerful GPT-4 model coming up, ChatGPT may significantly improve in the future. As ChatGPT and other similar chatbots become more popular, they’ll likely have applications in areas such as education and customer service.
However, while ChatGPT may end up performing some tasks traditionally done by people, there’s no sign it will replace professional writers any time soon.
While they may impress us with their abilities and even their apparent creativity, AI systems remain a reflection of their training data – and do not have the same capacity for originality and critical thinking as humans do.
Marcel Scharth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
On 29 October 2022, the New Zealand Listener published 10 Billion reasons to be cheerful, an article by Greg Dixon summarising “futurologist” Hamish McRae’s 2022 book The World in 2050: How to think about the future. (Note also the accompanying article, A blast from the past; and the letters responses.) The headline was somewhat worrying; I am sure many readers would have wanted there to be rather fewer than ten billion reasons for McRae’s optimism. Dixon’s article incongruously followed an editorial by Nigel Roberts, Back on the Brink, with the following highlighted “In 1962, I didn’t think the missile crisis would result in a nuclear war. Of today’s crisis I’m not so sure”. In addition to the Listener story, McRae gave this interview on RNZ (4 October 2022): The World in 2050: How to Think About the Future.
An important bit of context is that Hamish McRae had in 1994 published The World in 2020, in which he seems to have got many predictions correct (though not the coming significance of the internet, and social media). It should be noted that McRae’s focus was as a business and economic futurist, in the context of a world economy made up of ‘countries’, rather than a global economy of ‘people’. Thus, the achievement of having lifted many people out of poverty is based essentially on the economic success of nations (in the conventional sense of per capita average incomes) rather than of people, with the supposition that the success of a country translates to the success of its people.
A contrary point of view would point to the appalling day-to-day air quality in cities such as Beijing, New Delhi, Lahore, and many other large but smaller and less well known cities. At best, the success of 2020 vis-à-vis 1990 is that environmental poverty has displaced income poverty. Taking a more realistic view of the world in just before 2020, when looking at matters of inequality and debt entrapment withinnations, not all was as rosy in 2019 as he perceived, in McRae’s improved middle-class world.
Nicolai Kondratiev
Helpful to thinking about future history in quarter-centennial chunks, is the (fate of, and speculations of) Russian historical economist Nicolai Kondratiev (1892-1938). Kondratiev was murdered by Josef Stalin, it is said, because he believed that the 1930s’ crisis of western capitalism (the Great Depression), would be temporary; the west would eventually recover. More important for us is that Kondratiev in the early 1920s had predicted the great 1930s’ crisis of western capitalism; a crisis which, if we include World War 2 (as we should), can be argued to have lasted from 1926 to 1946.
Kondratiev is best known for his long wave hypothesis, which suggested there has been a fifty-year economic cycle characterised by alternating downswings and upswings. That would mean, in each century, there would be two of each type of cyclical ‘swing’. (Kondratiev’s work was taken up by Joseph Schumpeter – mentioned in my 30 November essay How do Left-Wing Elites Make their Money? – in his 1939 tome Business Cycles.)
Conveniently perhaps, the century years may be cusp years for this cycle, or at least for our thinking about it. Thus, possibly back to the sixteenth century (or before), we can consider world history (or, realistically, European history given the hegemony of Europe over the world from that century) in 25-year chunks. For each century, the first quarter-century was one of optimism and progress, albeit laced with large doses of inter-kingdom violence. The second quarter-century would be a period marked by deep crisis; crises which would bring about profound change, including significant technological and intellectual advances. The third quarter would be much like the first (another upswing), though probably not as violent. And the fourth, a downswing like the second, but not as revolutionary.
From my point-of-view as a political economist with an interest in economic crises, we may see the core decades of socio-economic crisis as the ‘thirties’ and the ‘eighties’. (In that context, we may understand the history of New Zealand becoming the country it is today as being rooted in the 1830s, a decade most definitely not associated with the expansion of empire, hence the reluctance of the British crown to take us on; and certainly the then reluctance of the British Treasury to commit money to the cause of what would later come to be seen as the ‘Britain of the South’.)
So, my prediction – in line with Kondratiev – is that the 2030s in particular will represent a turning point for humanity; a kind of prediction that Hamish McRae’s methodology restricts him from making. (Turning points are notoriously hard to predict, but the hardest part is to predict the ‘what’, then the ‘when’; the ‘whether’ is comparatively easy to forecast.) Probably the ‘what’ will not become apparent until around 2050. The nuclear-risk notwithstanding, my sense is that we are looking at an implosive rather than an explosive crisis.
If the post-crisis world-orders are not clarified until the end of each crisis period (eg 1850, 1950, 2050), then the Kondratiev crises themselves have usually been clearly signalled – in bits – in the early ‘twenties’ of each century (and also in the ‘seventies’ of each century). We have had enough rumblings just in the last three years – indeed a ‘perfect storm’ of pre-shocks – to suggest that the future will not be a predictable extension of the past.
While Kondratiev ‘cycles’ should not be treated as in any way deterministic, or even that any historical turning point will happen on cue, they are useful as a way of warning us that the medium-term future will most likely not be a case of the ‘linear progress’ as suggested by McRae’s form of ‘futurology’.
Hamish McRae
One point to note is that Hamish McRae belongs to what I call here the ‘Pollyanna generation’, born 1935 to 1945. The progressive gains of the twentieth century fell into their laps (especially the post-depression post-war socio-economic reforms established by their parents’ and grandparents’ generations); then that generation largely dismantled those reforms. (We may note here David Thomson’s 1989 book Selfish Generations?, in which he argues that the twentieth century welfare state had its own implicit sunset clause. And note this review in the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, by Ann Reeves.)
McRae is a socio-technological optimist who sees the wellbeing of peoples as closely tied to the economic success of the nation states they belong to (and presumably hold allegiance to). In that sense, I feel that the underlying globalisation of the 1990s and 2000s – with its detachment of many people from their nation states, the creation of an effective global citizenry (English-speaking; though, for most, not as their first language) – has not been well understood. It means that the present phase of the reassertion of nation states is much more fraught than he understands. Far from being the vehicles for beneficent growth, nation states and their rigid rules-based structures are becoming barriers to non-elite human development.
Despite his emphasis on nation states, McRae uses the word ‘we’ a lot. I heard the same use of ‘we’ a lot in the third episode of Brave New Zealand World (on artificial intelligence). The ‘we’ in these contexts, I understand to be ‘humanity’ (as a single collective). But it really means ‘elite humanity’, with the sense of each nation being a different delivery system for national elites cloned from a supra-national ‘liberal’ template; a template highly infused with the largely outdated western ‘progressive’ assumptions of the Pollyanna generation. These values of economic growth are not the values of today’s progressive young.
An interesting quote from McRae in the Listener article is: “[One of] the two most important of these [technological challenges] will be productivity in the service sector.” He is thinking firstly about productivity in services such as health, education, and journalism; this is the techno-visionary utopian view that forever-improving high-tech will raise life expectancy (due to more and better medical interventions), will create more and better ‘human capital’, and will enable ‘us all’ to be better informed. (My guess is that we will see retrogression on those laudable outcomes; technology in those industries can also have retrograde consequences.)
But what about the other service industries? In my Using the Sex Industry to Critique Textbook Economics, I looked at ‘personal services’, with the sex-industry as my principal example. In this case, it’s very hard to increase productivity in the way McRae means. Some of these services represent ‘retreat-industries’, occupations people go to when they are casualties of productivity increases in sectors more amenable to technology. As well as the sex industry, this probably includes the ‘street-retail’ sector ubiquitous in the ‘third world’ cities where so much of humanity lives. These industries are generally characterised by overcapacity (especially excess labour capacity); they become more productive when overcapacity reduces, their ‘marginal product of labour’ is typically zero.
The ‘elephant in the room’ however is ‘producer services’. These are often well-paid services – especially financial, management, marketing, public relations, and other overlapping professional business services – performed by businesses and consultants for other businesses, for governments and for government-dependent entities. Not producers of consumable services, these are the service industries to which elite labour migrates; these are ‘problem solvers’ who market their services in part by upplaying the competitiveness problems of their potential clients. ‘Producer services’ is a sector with significant predatory elements. (As a very current example, we may note the destructuring of AUT University, where a capricious management is tithing that institution’s academic wing; see ‘Huge distress’: Post-grads students feel impact of AUT staff cuts, RNZ 6 December 2022.)
In today’s world, the problems of non-elites represent income-earning opportunities for the new service-sector elites who work not by solving these problems, but by profiting from them, and perpetuating them.
This exchange in Kathryn Ryan’s interview (27′ 15″) with Hamish McRae is instructive:
Ryan: “One final point, I think you just touched on it when you said 70 percent of the economy being services … are we going to see, are we already seeing, a significant shift from manufactured goods and consumer goods which we binged on in the second half of the twentieth century, to economies built on services, and many of these services being ‘problem-solving’? And I raise these because of the crises of climate change and environmental degradation, population explosion over the last 100 years. Might many of our economies be built on services, and might many of those services be about solving our problems? Is that too optimistic?
McRae: “no you’ve put your finger exactly what I’m trying, on one of the themes I’m trying to say. I suppose, I’ll plead guilty to being an optimist … a service-based economy inherently uses less resources than a manufacturing-based economy. Once you’ve got one decent car you can’t drive another one at the same time. True it would be nice to travel more, but maybe we’ll spend longer where we are and travel less frequently. So I think that a world where we try to live better, live more orderly lives, have a nicer time, eat well, is actually not a bad world, rather than one that insists on absorbing more resources in ways that are not much fun; I don’t really want to drive around in a big American truck, I’d much rather have my Prius and my vintage car.”
See the Pollyanna problem! What planet are they on? Both interviewee and interviewer paint a world economy piloted by problem ‘solving’ elites as utopian; an economy dominated by elites who make money off the problems they cannot solve, and have no interest in solving. If that’s 100 million elite global citizens and another billion technicians providing ancillary services to them, that leaves 89% of the world’s population in 2050 in dire straits. The expansion of marketing and marketed services – from public relations to sexual relations – will prove to be more dystopian than utopian. (We may also note that ‘people smugglers’ represents the bottom end of the same market that has ‘immigration consultants’ at the top end.)
‘Piloting’ our way out of trouble like this is not likely to work; especially when the pilots have already crash-banged-walloped the world into the problem-state that it is in. (Useful reading: The Shock of the Anthropocene, 2017, by “scientific historians” Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. See reviews in The Guardian and New Scientist, with the latter referring to the piloting issue as “raising the spectre of a new self-selecting scientific geocracy” of problem solvers.) It’s fitting that the new Oxford ‘word of the year’ is Goblin mode (Guardian, 5 December 2022).
Hamish Macrae sees a better future arising from both higher productivity and a continuation of labour expansion into these understudied service industries; occupations and industries in which the assessment of productivity is extraordinarily difficult. How do we measure the productivity of elite problem-solvers? Further, if the future world is dependent on problem-solving services, what happens if the problems are actually solved? What does a successful post-problem-solving economy look like? Might it be even worse than an economy with a multitude of unsolved problems? (Obviously, such an economy need not be worse! But we have no well-enunciated vision of what a problem-solved economy looks like.)
We should also note that problem-solving has always been central to economic life. Many services presently purchased by the poor are to a large extent ‘problem-solving’ too. Personal services are either pro-pleasure or anti-pain; all the latter fit the ‘problem-solving’ moniker.
And a final note on McRae; his disparaging views about the future of Russia. If the global-warming scenarios are as bad or worse than widely-predicted today, Russia may be sitting on some of the world’s most promising (and underpopulated) real estate. The hitherto inhospitable territories of Russia may become some of the most attractive for immigration; whether by liberal means or by conquest.
The Surveillance, Propaganda and Geopolitical Dystopia
We should be aware of just how prescient George Orwell’s 1984 has proved to be, in 2022. (In an important sense, Orwell was not making a prediction for the year 1984; though that did prove to be a prescient year in New Zealand’s history. Rather, he was making a commentary about post-war life in 1948, and the concerns about how his experiences of World War 2 might be projected forward into a tri-partite cold war era. The story I heard was that 1948 was the provisional title of that book.)
In 2022 the propaganda war is between Orwell’s ‘Oceania’ and ‘East Asia’, whereas today’s physical war is between ‘Oceania’ and ‘Eurasia’. In 2022 the geopolitically-contested territory is Ukraine; in the 1960s it was Vietnam. There is a fourth geopolitical contestant, symbolised by Iran (and by the concept of ‘caliphate’, and, before that, Samuel Huntingdon’s 1996 Clash of Civilisations thesis); a contestant which has played an important role in late-modern times only since 1979, so which did not figure in Orwell’s book. In the post-Orwellian narrative, we may call this still-divided geo-bloc ‘West Asia’.
While bloc geopolitics was an important part of Orwell’s dystopia, it is the ubiquitous role of surveillance and propaganda today that may be especially problematic in affecting non-elite human life in the next quarter century. While Orwell emphasised propaganda from official sources, today we are subject to prominent cultural narratives from both pro- and anti-government sources. We in ‘Oceania’ (ie ‘The West’) can see how authority-sourced propaganda is stressing out ‘East Asia’ and ‘Eurasia’ (and ‘West Asia’). We find it harder to see, from the inside, such direction of information in our own bloc; that was, of course, George Orwell’s main point.
Macroeconomic Dystopias
In its essence, the capitalist world economy depends on the production of mass-produced ‘wage goods’ (which include those consumer services which accompany a mass-consumption society); indeed, that’s how the post-industrial-revolution captains-of-industry past-and-present made their fortunes. The problem now is that we need a massive edifice of consumer debt in order to support such spending. If we attempt to unravel that edifice in the next 25 years, the resulting deflationary depression will make The Great Depression seem rather innocuous.
If the working-class cannot afford to buy wage goods, it’s not only the human producers of wage goods that become redundant; it’s also the machines – the robots, if you like – whose main purpose (we understand) is to produce wage-goods more cheaply. This constitutes a deflationary technological dystopia; widely feared also in the 1820s and 1920s.
On the other hand, higher wages – starting to happen today – if uncontained, can lead to a cost-inflationary spiral; a process of competitive access for resources that could be exacerbated by elites wanting to spend or restructure their savings before they become worthless. This constitutes an inflationary dystopia.
If we move away from a global economy based on wage-goods to a global economy based on elite-goods, then we regress into an eighteenth-century-type world of extreme privilege, servitude, drug-assisted-ennui, and criminal desperation. Haiti, anyone?
Or we could move into the kind of capitalist world Karl Marx foretold, in which austere capitalists would keep building capitalist unconsumables until the whole edifice collapses under its own weight. (There were anti-capitalists in the 1920s’ Labour Parties who promoted pro-capitalist policies in order to bring forward the date of capitalist collapse.)
Other Candidates for Coming Revolutionary Crises
I avoid the phrase ‘existential crisis’, because, in history, Kondratiev crises have always given way to better times.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, we have just seen a locally-made television series Brave New Zealand World. It looks at these topics: nuclear war, climate change, pandemics, biological warfare, and artificial intelligence. The last two of these topics (and indeed the first) might better have been characterised as ‘artificial evil’; as such the final programme gives an unintended insight into why (at least until 2020) we – and especially the political left – never trusted ‘scientists’. Another interesting theme of the series is the idea that global elites – such as those from Silicon Valley – are eyeing up this South Pacific archipelago as a bolt-hole from which new beginnings might be possible; indeed, scheming another round of colonisation. (On bolt-holes, I cannot help but think of the final scenes from Don’t Look Up!)
Interestingly, there was no episode on socio-economic catastrophe. Maybe that’s now seen as too mundane; or maybe the new catastrophists struggle with the nuances of economics’ discourse? Perhaps we need a follow-up to Don’t’ Look Up, called Don’t Look Down? Kondratiev and Schumpeter were socio-economists, who instinctively looked to socio-economic history. As such, demography and epidemiology fall into that socio-economic brief. So does the intellectual bankruptcy of Stalin’s Soviet Union and its socialist offshoots; a bankruptcy that has, for example, made nuclear exchanges thinkable. Further, top-down politics has created (and exported) what I think of as AU; ‘artificial unintelligence’. It’s not so much humanity being displaced by robots; more it is humanity becoming robotic.
My underlying Kondratievan optimism, however, is reflected in this parody: ‘You can roboticize some of the population all the time, and all of the population some of the time; but you cannot roboticize all of the population all the time.’ We become hidebound by rules, and the ruling elites who make and enforce those rules. Humanity finds a way out, however, and we are only just seeing a bit of this in China (and in Iran) these last two weeks.
In my view the essential economic threat is liberal mercantilism, which represents a fusion of ‘nationalism’, the ‘sovereignty of exclusive property rights’, and growth as ‘the accumulation of wealth’; where wealth is conceived (in a financial sense) as being ‘money, combined with many types of tradable assets’. Liberal mercantilism is indeed the root cause of the previously mentioned ‘existential’ threats – threats that result from the linear growth mindset: climate change, trickle-down inequality leading to heightened pandemic risks, and the AU idea that new technology can always come to rescue economic growth. (Also see my Northern European Mercantilism and the Covid‑19 Emergency, Evening Report, 9 April 2020; and this reference to “individualistic mercantile capitalism” in The Shock of the Anthropocene review – a crisis centuries in the making.)
Dialectic
I would however argue that an even bigger danger than capitalism in its present form is anti-capitalism, including some of the sentiment from the ‘occupy’ movement of 2011/12. This is where anti-establishments went wrong in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s; we still have the legacies of anti-capitalist totalitarian states which formed in those decades. The challenge is to move away from the blunt primitive capitalism which our older elites still take for granted, and to address the three components of liberal-mercantilism: nationalism, an absence of inclusive public property rights (of economic democracy), and the equating (throughout the now 500-year-old modern era) of wealth as money.
Maybe, following the formal dialectic process, we need a synthesis of capitalism and anti-capitalism; a synthesis that evolves liberalism, dumps mercantilism, and develops democratic structures more local, more global, and less national.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
It’s been some journey for Anwar Ibrahim, the new Malaysian prime minister appointed last month. It took 24 years to go from being the country’s deputy prime minister in 1998 to becoming the prime minister today, at 75 years old. Along the way, he was jailed twice, found guilty on charges of sodomy, beaten up by the police commissioner, charged with corruption and finally, received a royal pardon.
Many consider Anwar to be one of the only real Muslim democrats fighting to keep Malaysia multiracial and multicultural. On the surface, this was the fairytale ending for that fight.
No single coalition won the bare majority required to form government when the election results were announced on November 19. After five days and direct intervention by the king and the Malay Rulers, Anwar was picked to be the prime minister after proving he could cobble together a majority coalition under Pakatan Harapan (The Alliance of Hope).
It’s likely many Western governments breathed a sigh of relief on seeing Anwar triumph, as the other leading coalition, Perikatan Nasional (National Alliance), was running on a conservative, nationalistic Islamic platform. There wasn’t a single ethnic Chinese or Indian elected under the Perikatan Nasional, despite the fact non-Malays make up at least one-third of the population.
No wonder many are calling the Anwar administration the “New Malaysia”. Yet the challenges facing Anwar are colossal.
A divided Malaysia
Malaysia after the polls is a totally divided country. The two biggest parties in parliament are Parti Islam Malaysia (part of the conservative Perikatan Nasional) and the Democratic Action Party (part of Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan coalition). Parti Islam Malaysia won 49 seats, making it the largest single party in the 222-seat parliament. The Democratic Action Party is the second largest party with 40 seats.
Parti Islam Malaysia, as the name suggests, wants Malaysia to be a fully-fledged Islamic state, including throwing out the current constitution and Westminster style of government. It also strongly believes non-Muslims in Malaysia shouldn’t enjoy full political rights, but instead be treated as “dhimmi”.
Dhimmi is an Islamic term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state. Often translated into English as “protected person”, a dhimmi doesn’t enjoy equal political rights as a Muslim and must pay a special tax to the Islamic state to retain their protected status. This status includes rights like property, life and the right to follow non-Islamic religions.
Among Islamic scholars there are disputes over exactly what a dhimmi person is entitled to under an Islamic state, but they all agree a dhimmi isn’t recognised as a full citizen, as understood by the West, in an Islamic state.
The Democratic Action Party is totally opposite to Parti Islam Malaysia. Largely supported by non-Malays (receiving about 90% of the ethnic Chinese vote), it believes in a liberal, secular Malaysia where everyone enjoys the same political rights.
The majority of the Malay community is becoming more conservative and supports Parti Islam Malaysia, while most non-Muslims are equally strong in supporting the liberal, secular Democratic Action Party. Since their ideologies are poles apart, we are really looking at two different Malaysias.
Racial politics
If that wasn’t complicated enough, people often forget there’s a third distinct political circle. There are two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo – Sabah and Sarawak. They are totally different from Peninsular Malaysia in terms of history, demography, language and culture.
Sabah and Sarawak are very multiracial. Interracial and intercultural marriages are common, and there’s little in the way of a religious divide. While political Islam is trying to make headway in both states, locals have made it clear they reject the extreme form of Islam promoted by Parti Islam Malaysia.
For the past half century, the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak have watched the obsession with racial politics and the rise of political Islam in the peninsular with bewilderment and fear. Many remember a time prior to the 1970s when Islam in the region was not used as a weapon in the political arena.
Political Islam in Malaysia only really took off after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the influx of Saudi money for spreading Islam in the region in the 1980s.
Many in Malaysia saw the rise of political Islam, but nobody expected it to arrive so soon. For years people were warning that “identity politics” had taken over the Malay community and it was more or less unstoppable.
Parti Islam Malaysia had been laying the groundwork since the 1990s by building private Islamic kindergartens, Islamic high schools, and Tahfiz schools (Quran memory schools). This indoctrination was allowed to proceed because the Malaysian authorities were afraid of offending the religious establishment, and the state itself was in competition with Parti Islam Malaysia to show who was more Islamic.
So we have three different Malaysias: Parti Islam Malaysia’s Islamic version, the Democratic Action Party’s secular version, and the pluralistic Borneo version.
Can Anwar Ibrahim, the man who wrote a book on “his vision for a more tolerant, pluralistic Asia”, bring the three into a single modern, progressive state?
I don’t know, but I hope he succeeds. Malaysia has all the elements to be a successful progressive Muslim country, rather than the polarised country it is today.
James Chin 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.
In Travis Linnemann’s book The Horror Of Police, he quotes David Grossman, founder of the “bulletproof warrior” seminar series, notorious for teaching police that killing is “just not that big of a deal.”
At the end of a long day, Grossman says, police should “look out on your city and let your cape blow in the wind”.
This suggests police should see themselves as superheroes. In reality, they seem drawn to one superhero in particular: the classic Marvel comics character, the Punisher.“
He doesn’t wear a cape, admittedly. He’s more famous for the stylised skull logo plastered across his chest.
The Punisher as depicted in Marvel comics in 2013. Marvel
Brutal and abusive
It’s a skull that a group of rogue officers in Milwaukee wore while on patrol in 2011. They were characterised as “brutal and abusive” by a police academy supervisor. In 2017, the logo was added to police cruisers in Lexington, Kentucky – morphed together with a Blue Lives Matter flag – and only removed after public outcry.
A Chicago officer wore a Punisher skull in 2019 while pointing his weapon at teenagers, and police wearing the same skull were spotted at the crackdowns after George Floyd’s death in 2020.
Before you think this is limited to America, the skull has appeared on an Australian police car, too.
Why do so many police love the Punisher?
What makes the Punisher so appealing to these police? Created by writer Gerry Conway and artists John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru, the Punisher first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #129 in 1974. He was the gun-toting, ex-soldier Frank Castle, determined to wipe out crime with deadly force after his family were murdered in front of him.
While initially an antagonist, it wasn’t long before he graduated to anti-hero. By 1986 he starred in his own Marvel miniseries, by the late ‘80s he was popular enough to have multiple ongoing comic books at once.
This included ten issues of The Punisher Armory, one of the strangest series Marvel has ever published: just page after page of flat, technical drawings of weapons. As Professor of Political Science Kent Worcester wrote in Law Text Review:
It is difficult to think of another comic book figure, in any universe, that could inspire such a relentless, militaristic, and fetishistic series.
A Marvel editor, Stephen Wacker, once noted the Punisher had killed around 48,502 people since his first appearance. Compare that to Batman, who refuses to kill – much to the annoyance of some fans. According to critic Glen Weldon, this is more than a moral decision. It’s also a “deliberate storytelling choice: it would be easy to mow down a roomful of bad guys with an uzi”.
Why would the police choose the Punisher skull instead of Batman’s logo? The police chief in Lexington, Kentucky, defended its use on their police cars by saying that the skull “represents that we will take any means necessary to keep our community safe.”
The adoption of the skull is a sign some police no longer want to be police – they want to be vigilantes, capable of using “any means necessary”. After all, as Worcester states, “the legal system is little more than an inconvenience” to the Punisher.
The vigilante impulse
After American citizen Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty of murder, after killing two men and seriously injure a third with a gun during a Black Lives Matter protest, a New York Times opinion piece described the vigilante impulse as a “central feature of the American experience”. The police are far from immune.
Gerry Conway, the Punisher’s co-creator, is appalled by law enforcement adopting the logo. He said on Twitter:
Any ‘cop’ who wears a Punisher logo in his official capacity is identifying law enforcement with an outlaw. These ‘cops’ are a disgrace to serious police officers everywhere. They show an imbecilic level of irresponsibility and should be fired immediately.
Many called on Marvel to make a statement about the skull’s unofficial use after the George Floyd crackdown. A spokesperson said they were “taking seriously” any unlicensed usage, but otherwise referred to a general message shared by Marvel:
We stand against racism. We stand for inclusion. We stand with our fellow Black employees, storytellers, creators and the entire Black community. We must unite and speak out.
They also pointed to a specific issue of The Punisher from the year before. In The Punisher #13 (2019), Frank Castle tears up a skull decal on a police car, explaining that if the police want a role model, they should look to Captain America instead.
This set a precedent: it is the character who would apparently be speaking for the company.
As professor of Film and Cultural Studies Will Brooker writes that origin stories are those that “bury the old, battered, weaker self and give the character a new life as someone braver and bolder”. But the origin for the Punisher’s crusade – watching his family die – had already been complicated by other Marvel stories.
A recent Punisher series suggests it wasn’t his family’s deaths that created the Punisher. It shows teenage Frank as a pathetic loser in grimy flashbacks, sulking in a Captain America mask. Instead of allowing him to become “braver and bolder”, we see Frank was always prone to fits of extreme violence.
In this version, the Punisher didn’t begin as a “bulletproof warrior”. He was a disturbed child – more Dexter Morgan than Dirty Harry.
Skulls for justice
A few years ago, Punisher creator Gerry Conway launched an initiative called Skulls For Justice. It asked artists to create new versions of the Punisher skull by combining it with the imagery of Black Lives Matter. Conway explains:
For too long, symbols associated with a character I co-created have been co-opted by forces of oppression and to intimidate Black Americans. This character and symbol was never intended as a symbol of oppression. This is a symbol of a systematic failure of equal justice. It’s time to claim this symbol for the cause of equal justice and Black Lives Matter.
Punisher as depicted in Marvel comics in 2022, with a new skull logo. Wikimedia
These skulls were not approved by Marvel. However, in the latest Punisher series, Marvel has also changed the iconic logo on Frank’s chest. Almost as if they know the old skull is too toxic to be redeemed, and – at least for now – they’re abandoning it to the vigilante police who’ve embraced it.
Martyn Pedler 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter J. Dean, Director, Foreign Policy and Defence, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Climate action is firmly on the political agenda in both Australia and the United States, following a recent change in government in both nations. As this year’s Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) get underway in Washington, the Albanese and Biden administrations appear keen for deeper bilateral cooperation on tackling climate change.
New research has found the political impetus for this cooperation is reflected in the views of Australians. It shows many Australians believe our defence alliance with the US should be extended to include greater collaboration on climate action.
In this respect, the US-Australia Alliance is seen by many Australians as an incomplete project. It’s now time for both the Australian and US governments to turn their rhetoric on climate cooperation into reality.
Many Australians believe our defence alliance with the US should be extended to include greater collaboration on climate action. Evan Vucci/AP
The shifting sands of climate politics
In August, the Albanese government passed its Climate Change Bill, enshrining into law an emissions reduction target of 43% from 2005 levels by 2030, and net-zero emissions by 2050.
On taking office, Albanese also announced a major review of security threats posed by the climate crisis.
The Biden administration has also passed a number of laws with significant climate provisions. They include new infrastructure laws, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act – the latter billed as the most significant climate legislation in US history.
The outcome of last month’s midterm US elections will, however, hamper Biden’s climate efforts. Republicans now narrowly control the US House of Representatives. This means climate policy will likely be targeted and piecemeal at least until the 2024 US presidential elections.
But the Democrats’ continued control of the Senate still leaves room for progress on climate action. This is most likely on issues with bipartisan consensus such as boosting US competitiveness with China and reducing dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Ohio Republican JD Vance declares electoral victory in the midterm elections last month. The Republicans gained control of the House, but the Democrats still control the Senate. AP
Stronger together
Both the US and Australian governments have also recognised the need for deeper bilateral cooperation on climate action.
We should immediately deepen US-Australian cooperation on climate change security issues […] On coming to office, I will make comprehensive co-operation on climate change a hallmark of Alliance co-operation.
And in Washington in July this year, Defence Minister Richard Marles reiterated that climate change was “the single greatest threat” to the lives and livelihoods of Australia’s Pacific Island neighbours. He declared “Australia will lift its weight” in response – including by making climate change a pillar of the US-Australia alliance.
Senior Australian and US defence officials have also reaffirmed their commitment to “evolving” the alliance – including through better engagement on climate change – to support stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.
Our research suggests the Australian community also wants to see greater collaboration with the US on the wicked climate change problem.
Polling conducted by the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre found climate change was the most important international issue for respondents (57%). It came ahead of security cooperation with the US and Japan (56%), increasing trade and investment in Asia (49%) and standing up to China (48%).
Some 77% of participants said fighting climate change with the US was important for Australia. This view was largely bipartisan: 87% of Labor voters and 73% of Coalition voters said this cooperation was very important or somewhat important.
Respondents aged 18 to 34 were the most likely to support climate action in concert with the US.
People aged 18 to 34 were most likely to support US-Australia cooperation on climate action. James Ross/AAP
This data is backed by qualitative evidence gathered by myself and colleagues Andrew O’Neil and Caitlin Byrne (of Griffith University) and Stephan Fruhling (of the Australian National University). It involved community focus groups across all states and territories in Australia over the last 14 months.
We held 29 discussions with 232 community members to gauge their views on the Australia-US Alliance. The participants were drawn from wide-ranging backgrounds and recruited via a range of strategies to ensure diverse representation.
One key theme to emerge was that climate change is considered an important policy area for the future of the alliance. As one participant said:
There is an opportunity for Australia to use the Alliance for climate change and elaborate on how we define security. I think there’s a shared interest in climate policy and climate security and bringing that into AUKUS. There’s an opportunity to tie that more closely to the Alliance.
Participants broadly expressed the view that the alliance should adapt to new and emerging challenges to remain relevant in the 21st century. As one participant put it:
The Alliance is considered unbreakable so we should see how far it can be stretched.
Another participant observed:
The alliance needs to be repurposed to address real security threats rather than imagined ones — most significantly the impacts of climate change.
There is a real opportunity now to expand thinking around the alliance beyond binary questions of security and defence, to position Australia as an active peace-builder rather than a reactionary force. Climate action, and leveraging the alliance to pursue it, is central to that.
Many Australians believe cooperation with the US should extend far beyond defence. Pictured: Australian and US defence personnel fire a M777 Howitzer during a joint exercise last year. Department of Defence
Climate collaboration is key to an enduring alliance
The Australian government — by itself and in partnership with US counterparts — should inject greater energy into deeper collaboration with the US on climate action.
In opposition, Albanese outlined what that cooperation should entail, saying:
We must develop operational plans to address the natural disasters and humanitarian outcomes. We must study and plan for how other states may seek to exploit its impacts on regional security.
We must develop capabilities and shared responsibilities to mitigate its worst impacts. We should cooperate on technological development to take advantage of the economic opportunity that comes from the shift to clean energy.
As our research shows, the Australian public sees such collaboration is a key to the alliance’s future.
While crown-of-thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef have long been ecological villains in the popular imagination, sea urchins have mostly crawled under the national radar – until now.
Long-spined sea urchins (Centrostephanus rodgersii) have invaded Tasmania and Victoria from their historical range in New South Wales. Where it occurs, this species dominates near-shore reefs to create “barrens habitat”. This is where at high densities sea urchins remove all large brown algae (kelp), and few abalone and other important species for fishers remain.
Both climate change and over-fishing of its main predators have been blamed for the urchin’s southward extension.
This is a central issue in the ongoing Senate inquiry into climate-related marine invasive species, which has brought the challenges and contradictions of managing the marine estate into sharp relief. The inquiry received over 40 diverse and often contradictory submissions.
It’s clear there is little national consensus about the nature of the sea urchin problem, its causes, or what to do about it. In Tasmania and Victoria, policy directions are clear and being implemented. But managing barrens within New South Wales seascapes isn’t as clear cut. Although a single solution may not be clear now, there is a path forward.
A long-spined sea urchin. David Harasti, Author provided
Meet the long-spined sea urchin
Long-spined sea urchins defend themselves with a menacing armoury of long, hollow spines. By day they are found in crevices or aggregated on the reef, and emerge to forage at night. As with many sea urchins, their roe (unfertilised fish eggs and sperm) is edible and the species is harvested in all three southeastern states.
They begin their lives as minute larvae. Ocean currents carry the larvae to reefs where they settle and grow. Understanding the relative importance of processes that limit them as larvae and as grazing urchins on reefs is crucial to discerning what controls their populations.
In Tasmania and Victoria, the larval supply horse has bolted. Over the last half century, the East Australian Current has pushed further south more often as it eddies into the Tasman Sea. This incursion of warmer water into cooler, southern seas has been attributed to climate change.
Urchin larvae can tolerate a wide temperature range and survive when food is limited, making the species a good coloniser.
Still, in 2009 researchers concluded larval supply was not a sufficient explanation for urchin numbers rising in Tasmania. Rather, they argued the population boomed because a predator, the southern rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) has been overfished.
More recent research published this year has challenged the notion that southern rock lobster predation limits long-spined sea urchin numbers.
Sea urchins in Tasmania and Victoria are currently managed with a patchwork of diver culling, subsidised sea urchin fisheries and marine reserves. Despite local successes, Centrostephanus populations continue to boom and to expand their geographic spread.
Barrens habitat in Disaster Bay, NSW, showing dominance of barrens habitat (the pale areas) with kelp inshore. BHP Technologies, Author provided
Sea urchins in NSW
Although it waxes and wanes on local scales, the total area of barrens habitat in NSW has been a relatively stable and prominent feature of reefs for more than 60 years.
But it’s not clear whether the extent of barrens habitat in NSW is “natural” or a long-term artefact of overfishing.
For example, a different lobster, the eastern rock lobster (Sagmariasus verreauxi), has been cited as a missing predator, along with the fabulous eastern blue groper (Achoerodus viridis). Certainly, both lobster and groper eat sea urchins and have historically been overfished, but the evidence for them acting as a controlling influence is weak.
Strong opinions notwithstanding, predatory control of sea urchins in NSW remains an unresolved question for now.
Innovative and committed mitigation programs can make a difference locally. Nevertheless, fishing and/or culling sea urchins has not successfully reduced overall populations in NSW where the geographic range is so large.
Sea urchins, for their part, have just got on with being good echinoderms – colonising, eating and reproducing.
Dense crayweed on a shallow fringing reef in NSW. Nokome Bentley, Author provided
The stories we tell ourselves and others
If we can’t settle on what’s driving the long-spined sea urchin boom in Victoria, Tasmania and NSW, then it’s no surprise we’re struggling to agree on how to manage them. As in many fields, this is classically a wicked problem.
If you prioritise conservation values, livelihoods, commercial fisheries or, more fundamentally, First Nations communities’ rights and aspirations, you see the problem differently. And so be guided toward different solutions.
For Traditional Owners and abalone divers, sea urchins impinge on a range of economic, cultural and social values. For others, black sea urchins are a natural and important element of the ecosystem.
Along with diverse and incompatible views, legal instruments to manage the marine estate, First Nations rights, and fisheries overlap, further defying simple solutions.
The urchins may be seen as a symptom rather than a cause of a suite of ecological, institutional and political problems. These larger issues include climate change, marginalisation and lack of voice, conflicting worldviews, and institutional paralysis.
The Senate inquiry should prompt new ways to manage the marine estate. We need a form of transparent, flexible and inclusive governance, consistent with fisheries and other legislation.
Structured management experiments to manage the marine estate, including sea urchins, should be implemented in small zones to learn how reefs respond to different management.
A diverse range of people should be brought together to design and implement such experiments. As examples of what may be considered as interventions:
the urchin fishery should be co-managed with abalone to optimise yields, maximising profitability rather than environmental sustainability
the abalone industry should be enabled and supported to cull sea urchins and otherwise fish in ways that boost productivity
First Nations communities should be enabled and supported to manage Sea Country
and Marine Sanctuary Zones should be monitored, not fished.
Shifting the centre of gravity of managing the issue to those most affected and with the greatest experience creates an opportunity for collaboration. This means marine estate managers, industry, and First Nations peoples need to be at the forefront. Researchers have important, but secondary roles, in monitoring and evaluation.
Although solutions may not be clear now, they will emerge as shared understanding evolves into common purpose. This is difficult work, but in a quote Sir Peter Medawar ascribes to philosopher Thomas Hobbes, “there can be no contentment but in proceeding”.
Neil Andrew receives funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
While some women at the University of the South Pacific’s 14 campuses found working from home enjoyable during the covid-19 pandemic, others felt isolated, had overwhelming mental challenges and some experienced domestic violence, a Pacific survey has found.
Titled “University Women Remote Work Challenges”, the survey was funded by the Council of Pacific Education (COPE) and was supported by the Association of the University of the South Pacific staff (AUSPS)
The research report, released last month, was conducted by Dr Hilary Smith (an honorary affiliate researcher at the Australian National University and Massey University) for the women’s wing of AUSPS.
AUSPS women’s wing chair Rosalie Fatiaki . . . “Women with young children had a lot to juggle, and those who rely on the internet for work had particular frustrations.” Image: AUSPS
“This survey confirms that many of our university women had support from their family networks while on Work From Home, but others were left feeling very isolated,” said Rosalie Fatiaki, chair of the AUSPS women’s wing.
“Women with young children had a lot to juggle, and those who rely on the internet for work had particular frustrations — some had to wait until after midnight to get a strong enough signal,” she said.
Around 30 percent of respondents reported having developed covid-19 during the Work From Home periods, and 57 percent had lost a family member or close friend to covid-19 as well as co-morbidities.
In the survey there was also evidence of the “shadow pandemic” of domestic abuse and although the reported levels were low, it was likely the real incidence was much higher, said Dr Smith.
‘Feelings of shame’ “That was because of the feelings of shame (reporting domestic violence). In the Pacific Islands families and communities tend to be very close-knit groupings,” Dr Smith said.
Only two of the 14 USP campuses in 12 Pacific countries avoided any covid-19 closures between 2020 and 2022 — the shortest closure was two days in Tokelau and the longest at the three Fijian campuses of Laucala, Lautoka and Labasa lasting 161 days.
There had been no cases on the Tuvalu campus until the second quarter of this year.
“For women who had older children they said they enjoyed the time with their families,” Dr Smith said.
“And it was more difficult for those with young families,” she said.
She stressed the importance of being careful with the survey in relation to domestic violence.
“With this kind of survey, we had to be a little bit careful. We can’t say we got evidence of how much there is because it is a very tricky thing to survey and especially in this kind of survey,” Dr Smith said.
‘Sensitive issue’ “And because it is a sensitive issue and people tend not to identify and it is something that people tend to be ashamed about pretty much.
“The survey was totally confidential, and we set it up so no one would who the respondents were.
“It was impossible to find out through the ANU programme we used.
“But the fact people did give some evidence then I think that we know that it is actually quite significant, and we assumed that the prevalence was quite higher.”
She said that she was not saying there were more incidents, but from media reports, particularly in Fiji, she had suspicions that it was higher than reported in the survey.
“We were responding to the fact that there were other news reports in Fiji we referenced, and there has been the other report by the UN (United Nations) women about it,” she said.
The report “Measuring the Shadow Pandemic – violence against women during Covid-19” was released by the UN in December 2021 and the Violence Against Women Rapid Gender Assessments (VAW RGA) were implemented in 13 countries spanning all regions — Albania, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand and Ukraine.
There was general support of national statistical offices (NSOs) or national women’s groups and funding from the policy and Melinda Gates Foundation, which found an incidence of 40 percent of reported domestic violence.
‘There in Pacific” “So, we weren’t saying that it was more than in other countries, but we were saying it was there in the Pacific.
“It could be more, or it could be less but because the evidence had been already highlighted in Fiji, we were just picking up on that.”
AUSPS had specifically asked for it to be followed up because of “widespread murmuring” that domestic violence was occurring.
“My colleagues at USP had indicated they wanted to follow it up because they had heard that it was an issue for some women,” Dr Smith said.
In her recommendations she had suggested counselling for women and a safe space on campus, but she was unsure if it would be acted on.
Limited counselling There was limited counselling available already and some had suggested that it should be done through religious denominations, she said.
She said internationally people had struggled with mental health issues during the pandemic, so it was common to all communities.
“There was a relatively high incidence in Fiji, and we reported the findings from the survey,” Dr Smith said.
Among the recommendations for support during isolation was the setting up of a helpline and regular calls from senior personnel and support staff.
She said even if this pandemic had passed there were other events like natural disasters, politics, and wars to be mindful of.
“Human-made or nature-made or the prevalence of other pandemics, we are basically saying the university should be prepared,” Dr Smith said.
Having a baby can be an empowering experience when women are treated with kindness and respect.
However, some women are left feeling traumatised by how they were treated. When women receive disrespectful and abusive care from health providers during pregnancy, labour and birth, or after the baby is born, it’s called obstetric violence. This includes verbal, physical and emotional abuse, threats or coercion by health providers.
Our study, published today in journal Violence Against Women, is the first to look at Australian women’s experiences of obstetric violence. Of the 8,804 women we surveyed, more than one in ten (11.6%) indicated they had, or may have, experienced obstetric violence.
Respondents who elaborated told us this ranged from disrespectful, abusive and coercive comments (42%) to physical abuse (7%) and vaginal examinations without consent (17%).
Our data comes from the Birth Experience Study, a survey asking Australian women about their birth experiences over the past five years.
We asked participants if they experienced obstetric violence and they were able to leave comments if they wanted to.
Like all surveys, women who are more educated and have English as their first language tend to respond the most. To reduce this bias, we translated the survey into seven other languages.
Some 626 women left comments describing feeling dehumanised, powerless and violated. Some experienced psychological and emotional abuse, while others were threatened and yelled at.
More alarming were the experiences of physical assault, such as forcible restraint or being held down.
Some women felt the experience was like a sexual assault. This was mainly associated with rough vaginal examinations or procedures the women didn’t consent to.
As one woman from New South Wales explained:
I was told by the doctor who just appeared in the room that he would need to do a vacuum delivery and an episiotomy and I felt him cut me as he was speaking before [using] the numbing needle, it wasn’t during a contraction and I hadn’t had a chance to consent yet.
Another woman from Queensland told us:
I felt dehumanised because A) nobody told me the procedure was optional or gave me choice to opt out. B) I was very clearly highly distressed and they didn’t pause or stop the procedure to check my consent. C) there were three people I didn’t know standing and looking at my exposed naked body. D) the midwife had joked about the procedure.
The Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Queensland have their own state/territory human rights acts. This protects against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” and requires clinicians get the “person’s full, free and informed consent” before performing any medical treatment.
However, across Australia, consent is always required before any medical treatment or examination, except where the woman is incapacitated or unconscious. The provider must explain the proposed treatment in a way that is balanced, truthful, timely, and free of harassment and coercion. And she can change her mind at any time.
Clinical guidelines don’t trump the right to bodily integrity. If guidelines suggest a vaginal examination, they need to be explained, including the reasons for the treatment and the alternatives. Then the woman has to be given an opportunity to accept or decline.
Yet our study detailed many instances of treatments or examinations with either no consent, no informed consent, or despite their refusal.
Midwives and obstetric doctors are expected to practise ethically and respect their patients’ right to refuse consent or withdraw consent.
Patients can make complaints about doctors or midwives, however there are a variety of different methods dependent on state/territory which can make the process confusing and overwhelming.
The process of making a complaint can be difficult and overwhelming. Alexander Grey
How do we eliminate obstetric violence?
All women deserve respectful maternity care, free from harm and abuse. To prevent obstetric violence, we first need to recognise it exists.
The next steps need to involve getting the main professional colleges for obstetricians and midwives, consumer organisations, universities that train health providers, health departments and governments to work together to change policies and improve education.
The International Confederation of Midwives and UN Population Fund created a RESPECT toolkit to facilitate workshops for health care providers on respectful maternity care to support their strategy to create zero tolerance for disrespect and abuse. Programs such as this could be implemented across Australia.
Alongside education, we need legislation recognising obstetric violence as a human rights violation. This would mean women are aware of their rights and have access to legal support if needed. It would also prompt governments and health services to develop quality improvement systems, including repercussions for clinicians who commit obstetric violence.
Bashi Hazard is the Chair of the Human Rights in Childbirth, a US s501(c)(3) NGO.
Hannah Dahlen and Hazel Keedle 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.
Post-graduate students are petitioning Auckland University of Technology over academic staff cuts — saying it is hugely disruptive and will impact on New Zealand’s research sector.
AUT planned to cut 170 academic positions — those affected had until last Thursday to take voluntary redundancy or face a compulsory layoff.
The petition states the criteria for selecting which staff would go was based on “unjust” and “flawed” performance criteria — something backed by the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) which is taking legal action against AUT on similar grounds.
The criteria included “teaching” and “research” on disputed grounds, but ignored “supervision” and “community service”, vital components of academic work.
RNZ’s Susie Ferguson talks to TEU organiser Jill Jones, and two PhD students: Sarah, and Melanie Welfare, who have both signed the petition requesting AUT reinstate staff.
Pacific Media Watch reports that the journalism programme, which celebrates 50 years of teaching media tomorrow, is among those sectors hit by the AUT layoffs.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The New Zealand government has announced a Royal Commission into its covid-19 response.
The Commission will be chaired by Australia-based epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, former Cabinet minister Hekia Parata, and former Treasury Secretary John Whitehead.
It will start considering evidence from February 1 next year, concluding in mid-2024.
The Royal Commission will look into the overall covid-19 response, including the economic response, and find what could be learned from it.
Some things — like particular decisions taken by the Reserve Bank’s independent monetary policy committee, and the specific epidemiology of the virus and its variants — will be excluded.
Announcing the moves, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a Royal Commission was the highest form of public inquiry in New Zealand and was the right thing to do given covid-19 was the most significant threat to New Zealanders’ health and the economy since the Second World War.
“It had been over 100 years since we experienced a pandemic of this scale, so it’s critical we compile what worked and what we can learn from it should it ever happen again,” she said.
Fewer cases, deaths “New Zealand experienced fewer cases, hospitalisations and deaths than nearly any other country in the first two years of the pandemic but there has undoubtedly been a huge impact on New Zealanders both here and abroad.”
The Royal Commission of Inquiry announcement. Video: RNZ News
Ardern said Professor Blakely had the knowledge and experience necessary to lead the work, and Parata and Whitehead would add expertise and perspectives on the economic response and the effects on Māori.
The terms of reference had been approved and the scope will be wide-ranging, covering specific aspects including the health response, the border, community care, isolation, quarantine, and the economic response including monetary policy.
Ardern said monetary policy broadly was included in the review, but “what is excluded is the Reserve Bank’s independent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and those individual decisions that would have been made by that committee”.
However, it “will not consider individual decisions such as how a policy is applied to an individual case or circumstance”.
“We do need to make sure we learn broadly from the tools that we used for our response so that we make sure we have the most useful lessons possible going forward. Individual decisions don’t necessarily teach us that.
“What we want to be careful about is that … we draw a distinction between individual decisions on any given day made by, indeed, officials within MBIE or the independent monetary policy committee given the role that they have and the independence of that committee, but broadly speaking monetary policy is included.”
This was because the review needed to be mindful of the independence of the MPC, Ardern said.
Impacts on Māori Terms of reference also included specific consideration of the impacts on Māori in the context of a pandemic consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationships, she said.
Things like lockdowns and the length of them in general will be in scope, but for instance whether a specific lockdown should have ended one day or three days earlier would not be, Ardern said.
Covid-19 Response Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said the vaccine mandates were in scope, along with communication with communities, and this would be able to include looking at matters of social licence.
The inquiry will cover the period from February 2020, to October 2022.
Ardern was confident the inquiry would be able to be resourced appropriately.
So far 75 reviews of New Zealand’s response had been carried out within Aotearoa since 2020, and internationally New Zealand had been named as having the fewest cases and deaths in the OECD for two years in a row, Ardern said.
“However, we said from the outset there would be an appropriate time to review our response, to learn from it, and with the emergency over and our primary focus on our strong economic recovery — that time is now.
‘Our next pandemic’ “Our next pandemic will not be for instance necessarily just a new iteration of covid-19 … one of the shortcomings we had coming into covid-19 was that our pandemic plan was based on influenza and because it was so specific to that illness there wasn’t enough in that framework that could help us with the very particular issues of this respiratory disease.”
It would be an exercise in ensuring Aotearoa had the strongest possible playbook for a future pandemic, Ardern said.
She expected the inquiry will cost about $15 million — similar to others, with the 2019 mosque attacks inquiry costing about $14 million.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The French judiciary has thrown out an alleged forgery and fraud case against former French Polynesian president Gaston Flosse, relating to a property transaction in Paris.
In 2018, Flosse and his son Reginald had been accused of forging management papers for a house which they had jointly owned with Gaston Flosse’s former wife.
Reginald Flosse was appointed manager of the holding company in place of his father.
When the property was sold in 2011 the proceeds were seized by the state.
This was done to ensure Gaston Flosse would repay US$2 million he owed to the public purse for misspending millions on phantom jobs to the benefit of his political party, Tahoera’a Huiraatira, in what was the biggest such case in French legal history.
To secure a partial lifting of the seizure, Reginald Flosse produced documents which the authorities believed were forged.
However, a magistrate has dismissed the allegation, and investigators have agreed to abandon the fraud and forgery case.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Markus Luczak-Roesch, Associate Professor in Information Systems, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Getty Images
If the debate about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter tells us anything, it’s that people – including those in governments – don’t understand how the World Wide Web works.
We know that the algorithms Twitter uses to recommend content can guide people to develop more extreme views, but what is considered extreme has changed since Musk’s takeover. Many things he considers free speech would previously have been thought to be derogatory, misogynistic, violent or harmful in many other ways.
Many countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand as the co-initiator of the Christchurch Call, are looking to Twitter and other platform providers to allow analysis of their algorithms and more transparency about their effects on individuals and the social fabric.
But what the Christchurch Call doesn’t address is a much more fundamental question that governments should think about with urgency. Is it appropriate that the infrastructure to host citizen discourse and engagement is in the private and profit-oriented hands of multinational data monopolies?
Privately owned social media platforms now house a significant portion of important public debates essential to democracy. They have become core to the modern public sphere, and as such they have to be considered a critical part of public infrastructure.
But they are set up to collect and monetise people’s data. It is time for governments to help their citizens take back control of that data.
The World Wide Web started out as a global network with a set of open technical standards to make it easy to give someone from a remote computer (also known as the client) access to information on a computer under someone else’s control (also known as the server).
Embedded into the Web standards is a principle called hypertext, which means the reader can choose to follow hyperlinks, browsing the global network of information in a self-directed fashion.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, people created their own websites, manually authoring HTML pages and linking to content other people had published. This was superseded by content management systems and – maybe more importantly – blog software.
Blogs unlocked content publishing for the masses, but it was only when social media platforms emerged – commonly also known as Web 2.0 – that literally everyone with access to the Internet could become a producer of content. And this is when the Web broke, more than 15 years ago. It has been broken ever since.
Social media platforms not only put content beyond the control of those who created it, they also sit as a monolithic interface between a whole generation and the actual Web. Gen Z has never experienced the decentralised nature of the technologies that make the apps they use work.
Each social media platform instead tries to make the entire World Wide Web just one application on one big server. This principle is true for Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and all the other social media applications.
The outcome is that platforms collect interactions in order to profile users and guide them to content through “recommender” algorithms. This means people can be
directed to products they can purchase, or their data and behavioral insights can be sold to other businesses.
Social media platforms collect interactions to profile users and guide them to content. Getty Images
How to fix the Internet
In response to the disruption from Musk’s Twitter acquisition we have seen governments and institutions set up their own servers to join the decentralised microblogging system Mastodon. These institutions can now validate the identity of users they host and ensure their content lies within their own terms and potentially legal requirements.
However, taking back control of microposts is not enough to fix the broken Web. Social media platforms have made attempts in the past to entrench more fundamental functions such as payments and banking. And people have been arbitrarily locked out of platforms, without a legal way to regain access.
Considering wide-ranging regulation on its own won’t solve the problem in the long term and at a global scale.
Instead, governments will need to assess which digital services and data currently hosted on social media platforms are critical parts of modern democratic societies. Then, they’ll have to build national data infrastructures that allow citizens to stay in control of their data, protected by their government.
We can expect a new ecosystem of digital services to develop around those data infrastructures, but one that doesn’t disenfranchise individuals or make them the product of surveillance capitalism.
This is not a Utopian vision. The Flemish government in Belgium has announced the establishment of a data-utility company to facilitate a digital ecosystem based on personal data vaults. Citizens control these vaults and any digital services that need the data interact with them if given permission (for example, public transport payment systems or content-sharing systems like Twitter).
Various blockchain businesses want to make people believe their technology allows a “Web3”, but the technologies to achieve this vision are already available and they leverage the original standards of the World Wide Web. Web technologies for decentralisation and openness have been called Web 3.0 for about 20 years now. They have matured into robust market-ready products for personal data vaults.
Governments now have to build the technical back end with regulatory oversight to ensure algorithmic transparency and trusted digital transactions. We need rich data infrastructures, run by data-utility companies.
The technologies and expertise are readily available, but we need greater awareness of what real technical decentralisation means, and why it will protect citizens and democracy in the long run.
Markus Luczak-Roesch received funding from the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge under the Veracity Technology spearhead project. He is also affiliated with Te Pūnaha Matatini – the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence for Complex Systems.
The Australian people will soon be asked to vote in a referendum to constitutionally recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through a First Nations Voice. Unfortunately, the political debate on this question has become mired in arguments over “detail” that are either ignorant or deceitful about the nature of the proposal, and the work that has been done on it.
Last week, a fractured Nationals Party announced it would not support the referendum because they were not convinced a Voice would “Close The Gap”. They also argued Labor had failed to provide sufficient “detail”.
The former Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt accused the party of “laziness” for failing to read the detail in a 280-page report delivered to government in July 2021, a proposal Wyatt took to Cabinet twice before the last election.
This rebuke didn’t stop Liberal party leader Peter Dutton claiming there was “building bewilderment” about the lack of detail on the Voice. Special Envoy for the Uluru Statement from the Heart Senator Patrick Dodson has responded by arguing the Australian people are being asked to vote “on principle, not on detail”.
So, who is right in this debate on detail? The answer lies somewhere in the middle. Taking a step back, let’s look at the principles that should inform how we approach the question of detail.
First, it should be informed by respect for the constitutional role of the Australian people in the referendum. They must be provided with sufficient detail about the nature and likely operation of any proposed constitutional amendment so they can make an informed choice.
Second, any further detail that is released must not mislead the voters as to what they are being asked to vote on. Australians are not being asked to vote on a specific Voice model. Rather the Voice will be determined by parliament with the input of the community and the Voice itself, and will evolve and change over time.
Finally, any detail of the Voice must give sufficient assurance to First Nations people that the design of the body – particularly with respect to the pivotal question of membership – will be designed with their genuine input.
We need some detail, but not a specific model
Senator Dodson is right to say the Australian people are voting on the constitutional amendment – the principle that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be given a say on laws and policies that affect them. There is already significant detail that has been released on that, including a draft amendment to the constitution. This is what the Australian people will be asked to vote on at a referendum, not a detailed Voice model. This is also what will be constitutionally entrenched, and unable to be changed (other than by another referendum).
Beyond this, there is further debate about what the “model” of the Voice will be.
There is real danger in providing a full, detailed model of the Voice prior to a referendum (for instance, in the form of a draft bill). A complete “model” of the Voice will mislead voters and impair the constitutional function of the referendum. Voters may think they are voting on the detail of the model, and not the actual constitutional provision they are required to vote on.
And if the referendum is successful, it would likely “lock in” that specific model (if not legally then politically). Future parliaments would be reluctant to disturb the model that was passed with the referendum, even though it wouldn’t technically be attached to the amendment itself. This would undermine the objective of allowing the model to adapt and evolve as future circumstances require, and would also undermine the authority of parliament to do so as required.
But that doesn’t mean there should be no detail. The proposal for a constitutional First Nations Voice is the result of more than ten years of dedicated inquiries and consultations on constitutional recognition. This history provides two important lessons.
Lesson 1: there’s a lot we already know
First, we have significant understanding of what the Voice will be from the last ten years of government and parliamentary inquiries. This includes the Referendum Council’s Regional Dialogues, as reported in their Final Report, the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition (2018), and the government’s Indigenous Voice Co-design Process, as reported in its Final Report of 2021.
The Indigenous Law Centre has painstakingly reviewed these reports, and determined eight key principles of the Voice design:
1) the intention of the Voice is to further the self-determination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within the Australian state, by giving them greater voice and control in matters that affect them
2) the Voice is primarily a Voice to Parliament, informing the ultimate national law-making authority, but it must also be engaged with government in the development of policies and legislative proposals
3) the Voice must have a structure that represents and reflects local communities in their diversity, giving those a voice who haven’t had a voice in the past
4) the Voice must have cultural legitimacy, in that it must be selected by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples themselves in accordance with their own local practices, protocols and expectations
5) the Voice should be designed in a way that it can achieve its functions, in particular that it is: provided with stability and certainty, without the risk hanging over it of future abolition; designed so as to be structurally independent of government; and adequately funded and resourced
6) the Voice is to be established to represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples politically, and while it may draw on the expertise of pre-existing organisations such as community groups and peak bodies, it performs a distinct function to them
7) the government and parliament have an obligation to engage with the Voice in certain defined areas, and the Voice has an overarching capacity to engage the government and parliament proactively about policies, legislation, and amendments
8) the Voice must be involved at multiple points in legislative and policy processes from the beginning to the end.
Lesson 2: we don’t know the design yet, but we know how to get there
Wyatt has stated the detail of the Voice is to be found at pages 15-17 of the 2021 government report. However, this should be treated with caution. The 2021 process was not directed at designing a constitutionally enshrined Voice. This is clear from the terms of reference, which directed the group to work within existing structures and specifically excluded the group from considering a constitutionally protected Voice.
Most concerning, an uncritical adoption of the 2021 co-design model would be met by significant opposition from many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Earlier this year, an ANU issues paper on the referendum summarised the co-design process, rushed through in four months during the COVID pandemic:
[T]he consultation process was rushed. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and organisations such as the [National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation] and the Central Land Council have criticised the process, arguing that there was little opportunity for participants to consider or engage with key elements of the model.
In 2021, Indigenous public policy expert (and former community worker, senior Commonwealth and NT public servant, and ministerial adviser) Michael Dillon heavily criticised what he referred to as a “pre-emptively constrained codesign process”.
Dillon wrote that ministerial and cabinet involvement, control and ultimate veto over the process, including the involvement of departmental officials, combined with the limited terms of reference, meant the Indigenous Voice co-design process “does not amount to ‘shared decision-making’ nor to a negotiation, but is more akin to ‘managed consultation’”. The whole process created an appearance or a veneer of collaboration, while maintaining government control.
Submissions to the co-design process, including from the Central Land Council and NSW Aboriginal Land Council voiced similar concerns, and the consultation summaries reveal repeated concerns from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants about the lack of time for consultation, the availability of information, and about how members of the body would be appointed.
To secure the legitimacy and success of a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice, its design must be done right. It needs its own, dedicated process, where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people select their own representatives and are fully apprised of the options.
This shouldn’t occur before the referendum, but the government should commit to a timeline, and the principles by which it will be conducted.
Gabrielle Appleby worked as a pro bono constitutional adviser to the Regional Dialogues and First Nations Constitutional Convention that delivered the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Gabrielle Appleby is the constitutional consultant to the Commonwealth Clerk of the House of Representative and a Director of the Centre for Public Integrity.
Eddie Synot is a Centre Associate at the Indigenous Law Centre, UNSW Sydney that works in partnership with the Uluru Dialogue.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
The sex of human and other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. But the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene.
The good news is two branches of rodents have already lost their Y chromosome and have lived to tell the tale.
In humans, as in other mammals, females have two X chromosomes and males have a single X and a puny little chromosome called Y. The names have nothing to do with their shape; the X stood for “unknown”.
The X contains about 900 genes that do all sorts of jobs unrelated to sex. But the Y contains few genes (about 55) and a lot of non-coding DNA – simple repetitive DNA that doesn’t seem to do anything.
But the Y chromosome packs a punch because it contains an all-important gene that kick-starts male development in the embryo. At about 12 weeks after conception, this master gene switches on others that regulate the development of a testis. The embryonic testis makes male hormones (testosterone and its derivatives), which ensures the baby develops as a boy.
This master sex gene was identified as SRY (sex region on the Y) in 1990. It works by triggering a genetic pathway starting with a gene called SOX9 which is key for male determination in all vertebrates, although it does not lie on sex chromosomes.
The disappearing Y
Most mammals have an X and Y chromosome similar to ours; an X with lots of genes, and a Y with SRY plus a few others. This system comes with problems because of the unequal dosage of X genes in males and females.
How did such a weird system evolve? The surprising finding is that Australia’s platypus has completely different sex chromosomes, more like those of birds.
In platypus, the XY pair is just an ordinary chromosome, with two equal members. This suggests the mammal X and Y were an ordinary pair of chromosomes not that long ago.
In turn, this must mean the Y chromosome has lost 900–55 active genes over the 166 million years that humans and platypus have been evolving separately. That’s a loss of about five genes per million years. At this rate, the last 55 genes will be gone in 11 million years.
Our claim of the imminent demise of the human Y created a furore, and to this day there are claims and counterclaims about the expected lifetime of our Y chromosome – estimates between infinity and a few thousand years
The good news is we know of two rodent lineages that have already lost their Y chromosome – and are still surviving.
The mole voles of eastern Europe and the spiny rats of Japan each boast some species in which the Y chromosome, and SRY, have completely disappeared. The X chromosome remains, in a single or double dose in both sexes.
The Amami spiny rat (Tokudaia osimensis) is endemic to the Japanese island of Amami Ōshima. Asato Kuroiwa
Although it’s not yet clear how the mole voles determine sex without the SRY gene, a team led by Hokkaido University biologist Asato Kuroiwa has had more luck with the spiny rat – a group of three species on different Japanese islands, all endangered.
Kuroiwa’s team discovered most of the genes on the Y of spiny rats had been relocated to other chromosomes. But she found no sign of SRY, nor the gene that substitutes for it.
Asato Kuroiwa leads the lab that discovered the ‘new’ sex determination gene in spiny rats. Asato Kuroiwa
Now at last they have published a successful identification in PNAS. The team found sequences that were in the genomes of males but not females, then refined these and tested for the sequence on every individual rat.
What they discovered was a tiny difference near the key sex gene SOX9, on chromosome 3 of the spiny rat. A small duplication (only 17,000 base pairs out of more than 3 billion) was present in all males and no females.
They suggest this small bit of duplicated DNA contains the switch that normally turns on SOX9 in response to SRY. When they introduced this duplication into mice, they found that it boosts SOX9 activity, so the change could allow SOX9 to work without SRY.
What this means for the future of men
The imminent – evolutionarily speaking – disappearance of the human Y chromosome has elicited speculation about our future.
Some lizards and snakes are female-only species and can make eggs out of their own genes via what’s known as parthenogenesis. But this can’t happen in humans or other mammals because we have at least 30 crucial “imprinted” genes that work only if they come from the father via sperm.
To reproduce, we need sperm and we need men, meaning that the end of the Y chromosome could herald the extinction of the human race.
The new finding supports an alternative possibility – that humans can evolve a new sex determining gene. Phew!
However, evolution of a new sex determining gene comes with risks. What if more than one new system evolves in different parts of the world?
A “war” of the sex genes could lead to the separation of new species, which is exactly what has happened with mole voles and spiny rats.
So, if someone visited Earth in 11 million years, they might find no humans – or several different human species, kept apart by their different sex determination systems.
“Nobody listened to Russia,” Vladimir Putin intoned in 2018, as he unveiled the poisonous fruit of Russia’s military modernisation project: a nuclear-powered cruise missile; a hypersonic glider; and a nuclear warhead atop a drone submarine, designed to flood coastal cities with tsunamis. “Well, listen up now.”
Whether it’s new weapons, threatening nuclear war, or illegally invading sovereign states, Putin has a habit of seeking attention. In fact, it’s been his most predictable strategic reflex. Combining a thirst for great power status with a primitive nativism that has crossed over into xenophobia, Putin has consistently sought to compel others to respect Russia, though having them fear it will also apparently do.
But what sort of Russia will Putin leave behind for the millions of citizens at whose expense he has enriched himself, both personally and politically?
As his disastrous war in Ukraine demonstrates, Putin’s achievements embody anything but greatness. He will leave Russia geopolitically weakened, economically little more than a Chinese vassal, its people viewed with suspicion and hostility. Russia will have little more than a hefty nuclear arsenal and a disregard for the laws of war to coerce its neighbours.
For those reasons, future Russian historians are likely to view Putin with revulsion, not respect.
It’s worth recalling that Putin first came to power in 2000 on a wave of popular relief, not euphoria. For years, Russians had faced unappealing leadership choices: an increasingly ill and gaffe-prone Boris Yeltsin; the Communist Party’s dour Gennady Zyuganov; and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the neofascist “clown prince” of Russian politics.
Unsurprisingly, Russians stoically but unenthusiasticaly voted for Yeltsin as president, but repeatedly elected rogues’ galleries of communists and nationalists (often called reds and browns) to Russia’s emasculated parliament as symbols of their discontent.
Enter Putin, who was plucked from obscurity by Yeltsin to become prime minister in August 1999. He soon became acting president when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned on December 31.
In Putin, a population disillusioned with democracy and capitalism – which it blamed for economic shocks, rampant inflation and corruption, war in Chechnya, a decline in life expectancy and a shrinking population – saw the promise of relative youth. With that also came a sense of optimism that there was an alternative future for Russia than slow sclerosis, a return to the bad old days of the USSR, or muscular fascism.
At first Putin made few commitments: a vague notion of restoring Russia’s great power status, and a promise to clean up corruption.
Early in his tenure, pundits at home and abroad speculated about Putin the man. Did his shadowy KGB past hint at a preference for control, and ultimately dictatorship? Or did his role as chief of staff to the reformist mayor of St Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, suggest a democrat in disguise?
Of course, any doubts about Putin’s character have long since been expunged, save for a small number of his ardent Western supporters.
Placating Putin has emboldened him
Yet it is worth recalling that the West has not just given Putin the benefit of the doubt on numerous occasions, but actively promoted him as a potential ally. Meeting Putin in June 2001, George W. Bush apparently “looked into his soul” and saw a trustworthy man. Tony Blair pushed hard (with Putin’s firm backing) for a new Russia-North Atlantic Council in 2002 to strengthen ties between Moscow and NATO members.
After those relationships soured over war in Iraq, Putin progressively repressed domestic freedoms with formal legislation and black PR, moulded the media into a propaganda arm, imprisoned oligarchs, embarked on gas wars against Ukraine, renationalised the energy industry, foreshadowed his current ultranationalism at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, launched the five-day war against Georgia, and threatened the West with nuclear annihilation.
Even then, Barak Obama still attempted to “reset” relations with the Kremlin in 2009 and 2010, prompting Russians to joke that when you reset a computer you didn’t erase its memory.
Many Western leaders, including then US President Barack Obama, have sought to placate Putin. Shawn Thew/EPA/AAP
Western attempts to socialise Putin should therefore have ended well before Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014. Yet the West responded with sanctions packages, reflecting an unwillingness to accept significant risks or costs. It then actively rewarded Putin with the opportunity to further extend Russian energy dominance in Europe – and the strategic leverage that came with it – via the Nordstream gas project.
The shooting down of flight MH17 by proxy Russian forces raised opprobrium, but no retributive justice. Nor did the poisonings of dissidents in Western capitals with fourth-generation chemical weapons, the horrendous conduct of Russian forces in Syria, or the Kremlin’s earnest attempts to polarise Western societies and interfere in their elections.
The dwindling ranks of those who support a softer line on Russia often justify Western behaviour with an odd sense of victor’s guilt, in which they see the West as partly culpable for Russia’s problems.
They are right, although not in the way they might expect. It is not enlarging NATO but placating Putin that has emboldened him to invade a sovereign state in the service of his imperial ambitions and throw Europe’s security order into turmoil.
Ironically, Putin’s singular capacity to divide has assisted his success in uniting Russia. He recognises that human frailties – fear, mistrust, anger – can be weaponised to generate support and even legitimacy, albeit not one recognisable in pluralist societies.
He set Kremlin clans against one another, elevating and demoting them in games of superpresidential sport. He encouraged victimhood by blaming Russia’s woes on moral decay in the West, American imperialism, liberals, “fascists”, Islamic terrorists, the Baltic states and Ukrainians.
He presented Russia’s oligarchs with a deal: they could continue to obscenely enrich themselves on the condition they stay out of politics. All the while he gradually shaped the apparatus of the state and society into a form in which he became the essence of all decisions, and the personification of Russian nationhood.
But, even in an autocracy, that only works provided there’s some good news to report.
For many of Putin’s presidencies, he was able to point to rising standards of living. Yet Russia’s structural inequalities have remained. In 2021, for instance, Russia’s 500 richest people controlled more wealth than the poorest 99.8% of the population.
That wealth is clustered in major cities. Russia’s ethnic minorities, save for local elites, are largely excluded.
Sanctions are also hurting. According to Andrei Illarionov, Putin’s former chief economic adviser, the number of Russians living in poverty will likely triple – to around one-third of the population. And an inability to diversify its economy will make Moscow beholden to Beijing as the main viable provider of capital to fund Russia’s extraction of energy and resources.
There is also no good news from the front lines. A combination of losses and defeats has made it harder to deny the scale of Russia’s military ineptitude. Having decried Ukrainians first as Nazis and then Satanists, Russia’s propagandists are now reduced to calling them ugly.
It is therefore increasingly evident that Putin has succeeded only in creating not a great power but a pre-modern petty state, characterised by fluid fiefdoms. He presides over a decaying and stratified society where wealth can be more precarious than poverty, where failure to intone whatever nonsense pours out of a cynical state media is grounds for suspicion and mistrust, and whose much-vaunted military might has been crippled by his own hubris.
Ultimately, Putin’s bequest to his people is grimness, not greatness. The next generation of Russians will be untrusted and unwanted in many of the world’s most prosperous and welcoming nations. Those who remain will be isolated, increasingly poor, and unable to shape their own destinies.
For all the suffering Putin and his people have inflicted on others, we should not be triumphant about that. On the contrary, we should lament it.
Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Lowy Institute, the Carnegie Foundation and various Australian government agencies.
As the tourism industry emerges from pandemic shutdowns and border closures, so too is “voluntourism”, the sometimes controversial combination of overseas volunteer work and more traditional tourist experiences.
Voluntourism is also largely unregulated, raising important ethical questions about who it really aims to serve – travellers or hosts. These issues are now being felt in the Pacific, where voluntourism is a relatively new but growing industry. As Simone Kaho wrote of her experience in Tonga:
In many cases, voluntourism asks the local community to stand back, and allow themselves to be helped. It turns helping into a business model.
My research in Fiji has also highlighted the problems associated with the commercialisation and commodification of volunteering. These are real and important issues that need close examination as tourism in general picks up.
Behind the ‘bula smile’
The Fiji case study – conducted with an international, for-profit, specialist voluntourism agency – tells a complex story about the benefits and downsides of voluntourism.
Volunteers are hosted by local families and included in household life, attending church or religious functions, learning to cook Fijian food, and spending time with children and other family members. Through this, they gain an understanding of life behind the famous “bula” smile. As one staff member said:
The host may get angry with you if you leave the light on, you may feel like you are back living with mum and dad because they may give you a lunch box, things like that. But it’s important that they see the person who is paid to smile at the Hilton, what they are like at home with their kids, how they make ends meet, how they eat.
Hosts often put considerable energy into sharing their way of life and teaching volunteers Fijian culture. Most hosts and staff took pride in helping travellers find their way around and teaching them Fijian ways. In turn, this helped Fijian staff build knowledge and pride in their own culture.
Also the good thing is that we keep up with our culture. Because if you are talking about it every day and you show them and try to talk about it, then the history remains […] Now when we go to the village we do the sevusevu [kava ceremony] and all those things, and we go with the elders. It was our mothers that did that, but now we are doing it, the next generation.
When we have volunteers in a Fijian village we will go to any lengths to give them what they want, to try and serve them […] But of course then the volunteers change to become more Fijian!
A chance to improve voluntourism
The growth of voluntourism in Fiji follows half a century of mass tourism, in which contact between Fijians and tourists has been largely limited and manufactured. Hosts embrace the opportunity to interact with tourists more directly and to build connections across the globe.
However, the commercial nature of the encounter has the potential to significantly undermine these connections. The large fees paid by voluntourists mean they – like any tourist – are consumers.
Volunteers have certain expectations, ranging from the mundane (internet access, good food and logistical support) to the more profound (a sense of accomplishment, a feeling they’ve made a difference). They will complain if these expectations aren’t met.
The pandemic also raised questions about the sustainability of voluntourism. The organisation I studied cut its global workforce significantly. In Fiji it had provided jobs for about a dozen Fijian staff, as well as home-stay income for many households.
COVID-19 has been something of a wake-up call that we need to move beyond voluntourism as a pseudo-development practice or as a commodified, profit-making experience. This is an opportunity for the industry to take on board the criticisms, examine past practice and reassess the role and impact of volunteering.
Rather than rush back to business as usual, this is the perfect moment to look at
reconfiguring the industry in line with the principles of sustainability and regenerative tourism. In the process, perhaps voluntourism’s strengths – building cross-cultural relationships, learning and solidarity – can contribute more to meaningful social and environmental change.
Sharon McLennan 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.
Human beings experience a range of emotions, some of which are pleasant, such as joy and happiness, and others that are uncomfortable or even painful, such as anxiety, anger or grief. Often, emotional discomfort or pain is temporary and appropriate to the circumstances. It is natural, and even helpful, to experience anxiety when facing a difficult decision, or grief when a loved one dies.
However, when painful mental states are long-lasting and interfere with our ability to function well in our daily lives and relationships, it can mean we are experiencing a form of mental illness.
Mental illnesses usually have other impacts apart from mood, including physical symptoms, changes in thinking, changes in behaviour, and sometimes changes in perception, including hallucinations, severe nightmares or flashbacks.
Mental health is also influenced by the world in which a person lives, which might include family and kin, community, culture, Country or spirituality.
Trauma experiences are important. It is profoundly disrespectful to see a person who has experienced adversity such as intergenerational trauma, domestic violence, racial discrimination, poverty or any other systemic abuse, and apply a disease label like “depression” without acknowledging the crucial role of their trauma experiences in their health.
Managing mental health involves understanding how all these elements fit together.
Why is a diagnosis important?
Psychiatric diagnoses may be only one way of understanding mental illness, but they are important. In severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, medication can be essential to wellbeing. The evidence for medication and specific psychological strategies in therapy are often based on making an accurate psychiatric diagnosis. It is also important to make sure mental illness symptoms are not caused by physical diseases.
Most people with mental illness diagnosis should also have a “formulation”, which is a description of why this person may be experiencing mental illness at this time. A formulation may include historical factors (such as childhood trauma), features of their personality (such as perfectionism), details of their lived experience (such as discrimination and harassment based on their gender identity), and acute stressors (such as living through a natural disaster).
Brought together, the diagnosis and formulation should help clinicians, patients and carers understand why they are unwell and develop a plan of action to optimise their mental health. A formulation includes aspects of lifestyle (including avoiding damaging social environments such as mentally unhealthy workplaces), psychosocial strategies (such as therapy) and, in some cases, medication.
Usually, a person with mental illness will choose which strategies to use in collaboration with their treating team.
Medication is one strategy to address mental health, sometimes alongside therapy. shutterstock
Recovering from mental illness
Mental illness can range from a single episode to a lifetime condition, and from mild to severe. It can involve a single condition such as depression, but it is common to have more than one illness at a time (such as depression and anxiety). It is also common for physical and mental illnesses to occur together (eating disorders and diabetes, heart disease and depression). Mental illnesses can change over time. For many people, there will be times of stability, times of crisis, and times when mental health is consistently poor.
Treatment needs to be individualised. Just because a treatment is said to be “evidence-based” in one context, doesn’t mean it can treat everyone across the entire spectrum. Most evidence is developed through research in urban, middle-class, well-educated, predominantly white people, and it may not necessarily be the best psychological strategy to use for a person from a completely different environment.
If you have thoughts of self-harm or symptoms are severe enough to affect your ability manage everyday life, it is time to work with a mental health professional to get a good, holistic diagnosis and formulate a management plan.
A GP is a good place to start to check there are no physical reasons why your mental health is deteriorating. GPs are likely to have the best understanding of appropriate, accessible and affordable options for care for your needs in your area. Unfortunately, specialised mental health services can be expensive and difficult to access.
Then it is time to identify the key issues impacting your mental health, and plan your recovery.
If this article has raised issues for you, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or 13Yarn on 13 92 76.
Louise Stone receives funding from ACT Health to research mental health services for young people in the ACT
It’s almost bushfire season. Yes, even though floods are still racing through parts of eastern Australia. Fire conditions are above average including in inland New South Wales and Queensland.
When we switch back to a neutral or El Niño climate cycle, our fire risk will likely intensify, given the huge vegetation growth during these rainy years.
As we prepare for the next major fire season, it’s vital we take a close look at our laws. Why? Because these laws can clash in ways that make it harder for us to prepare.
Governments have always struggled to balance laws protecting nature with laws protecting us from bushfire.
In recent years, planning laws have been changed to make it easier to fell trees and clear vegetation to keep our homes safe. Some of these came out of the review of Victoria’s catastrophic 2009 Black Saturday fires, where many houses nestled in bush burned. But these changes to the rules about clearing native vegetation can also make it harder for us to preserve habitat – and can give us a false sense of security, encouraging us to settle deeper and deeper into the fire-prone bush.
Many people love living in the bush – but it comes with risks. Our bushfire laws are aimed at reducing risk to us – sometimes at the expense of nature. Shutterstock
Why do laws matter for bushfire preparation?
My colleagues and I recently mapped out Australia’s legal “anatomy” for fire. By anatomy, we mean all the different parts of the legal framework, including those that affect fire preparation.
Why? To optimise our system of laws to be ready for the ever-more-intense fires expected as the world heats up.
Here’s what a clash looks like. It’s now common to undertake prescribed burns and burn vegetation to reduce fuel loads and reduce the chances of a major bushfire.
But prescribed fires cause smoke. Fire agencies must comply with smoke pollution laws designed to keep vulnerable people safe. These two different risks – bushfire, and smoke-related illness – are managed under two different areas of law. Finding the balance is really hard.
Bushfires add to this as a serious and growing threat to our distinctive wildlife and ecosystems. The Black Summer megafires of 2019–20 killed huge numbers of animals and pushed many species closer to extinction, including mountain pygmy possums, native bees and rare frogs.
As fire seasons worsen and get longer over coming decades, fire agencies and local governments will be called on to clear and manage fuel loads – essentially, trees, plants and leaf litter – close to communities in the bush.
Leaf litter and fallen trees are fire hazards – and habitat. Shutterstock
You can see the issue. Bushfire fuel is also habitat. Our international and domestic obligations to protect threatened species and habitats will come into increasing conflict with the need to preserve our settlements and farms.
Better, clearer laws would help balance these issues. Last year, the Victorian government announced plans to make bushfire planning provisions clearer and more understandable. Reviews like this should clarify where homes can and can’t be safely built, as well as preventing development in sensitive habitat.
Laws around fire need to be considered separately
Emergency planners often group floods, storms and bushfires under the blanket term “all hazards”. This is done to help emergency services to plan efficient and coordinated responses to all kinds of extreme events.
We believe laws about fire also deserve specific attention, particularly in Australia, where many of our ecosystems have evolved alongside fire. Not all fire is equal and not all fires are emergencies.
In fact, laws governing protected areas in some states actually require parks agencies to use fire as a conservation tool. Using fire carefully is front and centre in the new plan to look after Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Not only that, but some areas need small fires lit in a mosaic pattern. Why? To encourage moorland plants to put out the flowers and seeds the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot relies on.
Or take the growing importance of cultural fire management and traditional land management. Victoria’s cultural fire strategy describes cultural burning as a “responsibility” and an example of “living knowledge”, but not as an emergency.
Some laws, like arson, only apply to fire. There’s no equivalent crime for floods. Improving arson prevention could help cut the estimated A$1.6 billion in damages annually from fires being lit deliberately.
While arson is not as common as it used to be, cutting arson further will reduce the number of fires Australian firefighters have to respond to.
We have to make laws intersect better
In the wake of destructive and lethal fires come the reviews and inquiries, which often recommend changes to emergency management laws.
These post-disaster inquiries also often recommend streamlining rules around native vegetation, to let landholders clear more trees and shrubs around their houses. That’s understandable, because these inquiries are intended to find lessons.
But if we look across the whole range of laws governing or touching on fire, we might find new ways to help us adapt.
We don’t need to wait for the next fire and inquiry. We can find ways of optimising our web of intersecting laws right now – and prepare ourselves and nature for what is to come.
My co-authors Professors Jan McDonald and David Bowman, Associate Professor Michael Eburn, Dr Stuart Little and Dr Rebecca Harris contributed to the research on which this article is based.
Phillipa McCormack is affiliated with Natural Hazards Research Australia, and was the NHRA 2022 Early Career Research Fellow.
Do you work for an organisation that treats pay information like a state secret? Do you know what your coworkers get paid? Can you tell others what you earn?
Well, now you can, following the passing of the Albanese government’s “Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill” reform package, which includes a ban on pay secrecy policies.
The ban is primarily aimed at reducing gender-based pay differences – part of a larger suite of reforms that make gender equity a key principle of the Fair Work Act.
But there’s also reason to believe it should benefit other disadvantaged workers in both individual and collective pay negotiations.
Secrecy and the gender pay gap
The gender pay gap in Australia is currently 22.8%. According to federal employment and workplace relations minister Tony Burke, pay secrecy clauses have long been used to conceal gender pay discrepancies:
Banning them will improve transparency and reduce the risk of gender pay discrimination by allowing women to compare their pay with that of their co workers. Differences can be discussed with their manager without fear of punishment.
International evidence support Burke’s claim. Studies in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Denmark all report a decline in the gender pay gap as a result of legislation to promote pay transparency.
US research shows women’s wages in states prohibiting pay secrecy clauses are 4-12% higher (depending on how the data was analysed) than in states that allow secrecy clauses.
In Canada, pay secrecy law reduced the gender pay gap between men and women by 20-40% (again depending on how data was analysed).
These findings are supported by studies of organisations that have dropped pay secrecy policies. A 2019 study covering approximately 9,000 US employees found women’s annual pay growth was 0.4% lower than for men under pay secrecy. This gap disappeared with greater transparency.
It’s possible that just ending secrecy clauses is enough to improve outcomes even without people disclosing how much they earn – that the prospect of pay information being shared is enough to focus an organisation on ensuring fair and equitable remuneration.
Secrecy, by contrast, means managers can make decisions they don’t have to justify to employees. This heightens the risk of unconscious bias, favouritism, discrimination and stereotyping affecting pay decisions.
Studies shows pay secrecy contributes to the pay gender gap. Shutterstock
What about conflict?
Not everyone wants to share their pay information. Some people are self-conscious about how it will affect their image. Some worry it will affect work relationships.
It may be upsetting for coworkers in a similar role to discover they are paid less than you. It is even more upsetting to find out you’re paid less than them.
Employers argue that pay secrecy is needed to minimise conflict between employees. This is based on the “jealousy hypothesis”, which says that employees reduce their work effort when they find out they are paid less than a colleague.
But such claims are overstated. In fact, employees are more likely to view restrictions on sharing pay information with suspicion and as something driven by managerial self-interest, not the best interest of the employees.
This is borne out by research showing pay secrecy leads workers to underestimate supervisors’ pay (but overestimate coworkers’ pay).
Most employees deserve to be given more credit. The research shows they understand and accept pay differences that can be explained and justified according to work contribution and performance.
While the ban on secrecy clauses is primarily aimed at reducing the gender pay gap, it could deliver positive pay outcomes for other disadvantaged employees as well.
It’s a fundamental principle of economics that sharing of information contributes to more efficient markets. Removing pay secrecy therefore contributes to a more efficient labour market.
Bargaining freely with full information, employees are able to assess their employment options and make better informed choices. The decisions of individuals encourage organisations to ensure they have fair and equitable pay systems.
This should lead to greater fairness for all.
Michelle Brown had received funding from the Australian Research Council.
Leanne Griffin 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.
Labor needs to develop plans to address dissatisfaction among voters in heartland seats, especially in outer suburban Melbourne, the party’s federal election review has warned.
It also should develop plans to improve outcomes in Queensland, to deal with its under-performance in Tasmania, and to retain the clutch of seats it won in Western Australia.
The review, titled Election 2022: An opportunity to establish a long-term Labor government, was chaired by former minister Greg Combet and Lenda Oshalem, a former party official in Western Australia. Other members were Linda White, a Victorian senator and Craig Emerson, a former minister.
It found that the unpopularity of Scott Morrison and his government was the “most significant” factor in the election result.
Despite the Morrison government’s unpopularity, Labor’s primary vote fell to its lowest level since 1934.
Contributing to this, the review says, were the long-term downward trend in the major parties’ primary vote, driven by declining trust in government, politics and politicians.
Other factors included:
tactical voters by Labor supporters, particularly where there were high-profile independents
Labor’s focus on Morrison’s shortcomings as a leader, and its small and tightly-targeted set of policies
the proliferation of minor party, Green and independent candidates
dissatisfaction with Labor in some heartland seats in Melbourne and Sydney
an anti-Labor swing in Tasmania.
“The election victory conclusively affirmed the Labor campaign’s strategic judgment to maintain focus on the Morrison Government’s negatives, and to present a more targeted set of policies, even if it may have moderated the primary vote,” the review concludes.
The success of Greens and teals in Liberal heartland seats, multiple Coalition losses in WA, and Labor’s loss of Fowler (contested by former senator Kristina Keneally) to an independent shows the “folly” of assuming some seats as safe, the review says.
“The unusually disparate results in individual seats, regions and states reflect the political turbulence of recent years and the frustrations of many voters.
“While the results do not represent a permanent realignment of Australian politics, the loss of support for Labor in heartland areas, as evidenced once again in the recent Victorian state election, is cause for significant concern.”
The election saw a realignment for the Liberals, with voters in their traditional seats leaving them, benefiting Labor, the Greens and independents.
But while the Liberal party is in “its worst position since the 1946 election”, with the Coalition’s path back of office appearing difficult, “there is no room for Labor complacency”, the review says.
“It is reasonable to expect that the Coalition will target Labor-held outer-suburban and regional electorates – a strategy that Labor must anticipate and counter.
“The Review cannot overemphasise the importance of both federal and state Labor focussing on the delivery of demonstrable improvements for communities in areas of long-standing support for Labor. These communities must not be taken for granted.”
The review does point out that although Labor “experienced swings against it in some outer-suburban areas, some of the biggest swings to Labor were also recorded in outer-suburban and regional electorates”.
Among its recommendations, the review makes specific reference to how China is spoken about. “While always uncompromisingly promoting and defending Australia’s national interests and Australia’s security, both major parties should avoid unnecessarily divisive and aggressive rhetoric towards China.”
Chinese Australians swung towards Labor, while Vietnamese Australians swung away from Labor in 2022. The latter “might partially be explained by the result in Fowler [where the successful independent was a Vietnanese Australian]. However, the correlation is still evident when Fowler is excluded from the overall results.”
The review says Morrison’s unpopularity was the result of:
failure to accept responsibility and show leadership during natural disasters
failures in the pandemic, on the vaccine rollout and the shortage of rapid antigen tests
politicisation of the pandemic through attacks on Labor governments and leaders
failure to empathise with women’s experience
failure to develop a credible climate policy
political dissembling and misleading
bellicose politicisation of the relationship with China.
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.
The “politics of fear” pervading Fiji must go away, says National Federation Party (NFP) candidate Agni Deo Singh.
The former general secretary of the Fiji Teachers Union (FTU) attacked the “politics of fear” aimed at the hearts of voters, especially Fijians of Indian descent.
“Every time we hear about politics of fear from the FijiFirst government,” he claimed.
“They are doing it currently. Trying to instil that fear in the Indo-Fijian community.
“The worst part is that this is bringing about an ethnic divide.
“We are here to bring the two major ethnic groups together.
“We don’t talk ethnicity, we don’t talk race or religion.”
Singh said people should not worry and leave security to the authorities such as the police.
Shayal Deviis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Rowe, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University
Before the men’s FIFA World Cup commenced, the Socceroos’ most noteworthy contribution seemed likely to be their pre-emptive video campaign on human rights in host country Qatar.
The political debate receded somewhat once the action on the field kicked off. After losing their opening game heavily to world champions France, the focus was set to be on the deficiencies of the team, coach and organisation of the game in Australia.
But unexpectedly, the Socceroos, ranked 38th in the world by FIFA, won two consecutive games for the first time in their World Cup history, and qualified for the knockout stages for the first time since 2006. There, they faced Lionel Messi’s Argentina, ranked 3rd in the world.
While their 2022 World Cup road then ended in an honourable 2-1 defeat, their historic run is a chance to reflect on the meaning of the Qatar experience for football in Australia, which has a troubled local history, as we look ahead to co-hosting the Women’s World Cup next year.
Taking on the world game
Those in Australia who only pay attention to football (or soccer) because of noisy World Cup intrusion tend to underestimate such effort and accomplishment.
The two biggest football codes in the country, Australian rules and rugby league, are far less globally significant. Australian rules is played professionally only in Australia, while rugby league is dominated by Australasia.
The recent Rugby League World Cup in the UK saw the Australian men’s team win it for the 12th time in 16 attempts, while the women’s team have won the last three successive tournaments.
By contrast, the Socceroos have never come close to winning the football World Cup. This is unsurprising given FIFA has 211 affiliated national teams, compared to the International Rugby League’s 34 with two pending.
After first qualifying in 1974 and losing all three games without scoring, Australia didn’t return to the FIFA World Cup for 32 years. Before Qatar, the Socceroos had won only two out of 13 World Cup games since 2006, conceding twice as many goals as they’d scored.
To win consecutive games in Qatar and progress to the last 16 for only the second time was impressive, especially as the current team consists mostly of “journeymen” and has no outright stars.
Being on the same pitch as superstars like Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi, both of whom scored against the Socceroos in Qatar, signalled both the scale of this achievement and the tough task ahead for a game with a troubled history in Australia.
Multicultural stigma and football diplomacy
The late Socceroo and commentator Johnny Warren observed that men’s football in Australia has been widely stigmatised as feminised, fey and foreign. This prejudice sometimes resurfaces, especially when any cases of crowd disorder generate tabloid headlines about mob violence and old ethnic enmities being imported to Australia.
Ethnic community clubs have been the cradle of football in Australia. But when football became fully professional in 2004, this contribution was actively repressed under its new regime, which was run by the mega-rich Frank Lowy at the urging of Prime Minister John Howard. A condition of public funding was the “de-ethnicisation” of the game, which included banning ethnic-related names, emblems and chants.
Australia left the small Oceania Football Confederation in 2006 for the bigger stage of its Asian counterpart, the Asian Football Confederation. But the move had long been opposed by some Asian nations. Australia was seen, especially in the Middle East, as an affluent agent of the West.
Ironically, Qatar comprehensively defeated Australia in FIFA’s now-discredited bidding process for hosting the 2022 World Cup. A further irony is that in countering China’s ambitions in the region, Australia is enthusiastically using sports diplomacy to mend fences with the same Pacific nations it previously abandoned in the football world.
Up next: co-hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup
Still, following the Socceroos’ success in Qatar there will soon be plentiful opportunities for regional sports diplomacy when Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand host the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The Australian women’s soccer team, the Matildas, has a higher ranking in world football than the national men’s team – 13th compared to 38th.
Australia’s Sam Kerr has a much higher global profile than any current Socceroo. She’s currently playing for London club Chelsea in the top division of women’s football in England, and has finished third in the women’s Ballon d’Or (the prize for the world’s best player) in both the last two years.
This World Cup will be the biggest sport event in Australia since the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It will also be a major indicator of the post-peak pandemic resurgence of women’s sport and its challenge to traditional male domination.
Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, refugees, and the environment, among other major political issues, are likely to be subjected to increased global scrutiny.
The Socceroos earned respect for how they began and finished their 2022 World Cup campaign. But as I suspect Australia will discover in 2023, when it comes to hosting mega sport events, it’s not only illiberal countries like Qatar that feel the heat.
David Rowe received funding from the Australian Research Council for the Discovery Projects ‘A Nation of “Good Sports”? Cultural Citizenship and Sport in Contemporary Australia’ (DP130104502).
Around half of the world’s population are women or people who menstruate – yet the way their body works can be a mystery, even to them.
Most women will experience periods roughly every month, many will go through childbirth and those who live into midlife will experience menopause.
While menopause is a significant time of change, it isn’t talked about much, other than as a punchline. This may contribute to keeping it a taboo topic.
So, what happens during menopause? How do you know when it is happening to you? And – the thing most women want to know – how long will it last?
What is menopause?
Menopause is defined as the permanent cessation of menstruation, which is medically determined to be one year after the final menstrual period. After this time women are considered to be postmenopausal.
The average age of “natural menopause” (that is not caused by a medical condition, treatment or surgery) is considered to be around 51 years.
However, natural menopause does not occur suddenly. Changes can begin a number of years before periods stop and most often occur in a woman’s 40s but they can be earlier. Changes can continue for 10 years or more after periods have stopped.
Using hormones such as the oral contraceptive pill or hormone intrauterine devices may make it more difficult to determine when changes start.
Menopause that occurs before 45 is called “early menopause”, while menopause before 40 is called “premature menopause”.
What about perimenopause?
Various terms are used to describe this period of change, including “menopause” or “the menopause”, “menopausal transition”, “perimenopause” or “climacteric”.
These terms tend to refer to the period before and after the final menstrual period, when changes are considered to be related to menopause.
The difficulty with the definition of menopause is it can only be decided retrospectively. Yet women can experience changes many years before their periods stop (a lead up usually called “perimenopause”). Also, any changes noticed may not be associated with menopause (because people might not be aware of what to expect) or changes may be associated with a combination of factors such as stress, being busy or other health issues.
Through a feminist lens, menopause can be seen as a complex and diverse experience, influenced by biological, psychological, social and cultural aspects of women’s lives.
However, it is usually viewed from the biomedical perspective. This sees it as a biological event, marked by the decline in ovarian hormone levels leading to a reduction in reproductive function.
The female reproductive system operates because of a finely tuned balance of hormones managed by the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis. International experts have developed a staging system for female reproductive ageing, with seven stages from “early reproductive” years to “late postmenopause”.
However, female reproductive hormones do not just affect the reproductive system but other aspects of the body’s function. These include the neurological system, which is linked to hot flushes and night sweats and disrupted sleep. Hormones may also affect the heart and body’s blood circulation, bone health and potentially the immune system.
Menopausal hormone changes may cause hot flushes, night/cold sweats, mood swings, sleep disruption and tiredness, vaginal dryness.
Medical confirmation of menopausal changes in women over 45 years is based on two biological indicators: vasomotor symptoms (those hot flushes and night sweats again) and an irregular menstrual cycle.
In early perimenopause the changes to the menstrual cycle may be subtle. Women may not recognise early indicators, unless they keep a record and know what to watch for.
Keeping track of any changes that could be menopausal is a good idea. Pexels, CC BY
The body demonstrates an amazing ability to change over a lifetime. In a similar way to adolescence where long-lasting changes occur, the outcome of menopause is also change.
Research suggests it is difficult to give an exact time frame for how long menopausal changes occur – the average is between four and eight years.
The Penn Ovarian Ageing Study found 79% of the 259 participants experienced hot flushes starting before the age of 50, most commonly between 45 and 49 years of age.
A later report on the same study found one third of women studied experienced moderate to severe hot flushes more than ten years after their periods had stopped. A 2017 study found a small number of women continued to experience hot flushes and other symptoms into their 70s.
So overall, the research cannot offer a specific window for perimenopause, and menopause does not appear to mark the end of changes for everyone.
Menopause is ‘official’ once you haven’t had periods for one year. Shutterstock
Shifts and changes can be recognised early by developing knowledge, paying attention to changes to our bodies and talking about menopause and perimenopause more openly.
Here are five tips for moving from uncertainty to certainty:
1. talk to people and find out as much information as you can. The experiences of mothers and sisters may help, for some women there are familial similarities
2. notice any changes to your body and make a note of them, this will help you recognise changes earlier. There are menopause tracking apps available
3. keep a note of your menstrual cycle: start date, duration, flow and note any changes. Again, an app might help
4. if you are worried, seek advice from a GP or nurse that specialises in women’s health. They may suggest ways to help with symptoms or refer to a specialist
5. remember changes are the indicator to pay attention to, not time or your age.
Menopause is a natural process and although we have focused here on the time frame and “symptoms”, it can also be a time of freedom (particularly from periods!), reflection and a time to focus on yourself.
Women speak about their experiences of menopause.
Yvonne Middlewick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In solidarity with West Papua, the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has called for a boycott of all Indonesian products and programmess by the Indonesian government.
The Fiji-based PCC said this should be done until Indonesia facilitated a visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate alleged human rights abuses in West Papua, which included torture, extrajudicial killings, and systemic police and military violence.
General secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said the call for a boycott came in response to the lack of political will by the Indonesian government to honour its commitment to the visit, which had been made four years ago.
“Our Pacific church leaders are deeply concerned that the urge by our Pacific Island states through the Pacific Islands Forum has been ignored,” he said.
“We are also concerned that Indonesia is using ‘cheque-book diplomacy’ to silence some Pacific states on this issue. Our only option in the face of this to apply our own financial pressure to this cause.
“We know that the Pacific is a market for Indonesian products and we hope that this mobilisation of consumers will show that Pacific people stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers of Tanah Papua.”
On Thursday, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) held a flag-raising ceremony to mark 61 years since the Morning Star, the West Papuan national flag, was first raised.
Women, girls suffered FWCC coordinator Shamima Ali said as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign, FWCC remembered the people of West Papua, particularly women and girls, who suffered due to the increased militarisation of the province by the Indonesian government.
“We also remember those women, girls, men and children who have died and those who are still suffering from state violence perpetrated on them and the violence and struggle within their own religious, cultural and societal settings,” she said.
Ali said Pacific islanders should not be quiet about the issue.
“Fiji has been too silent on the issue of West Papua and the ignorance needs to stop,” she said.
“Keeping quiet is not the answer when our own people are suffering.”
Shayal Deviis a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Three months after their extradition from Thailand to face bribery and money laundering charges in the United States, two naturalised Marshallese citizens pleaded guilty on Friday in a New York court to conspiring to violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with a multi-year scheme to bribe government officials in the Marshall Islands to pass legislation to establish a special investment zone in this western Pacific nation.
Cary Yan and Gina Zhou had been charged with three counts each of violating the FCPA and two counts of money laundering.
They pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the FCPA and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York dismissed the other four charges. They are naturalised Marshall Islands citizens originally from the People’s Republic of China.
“As they have now admitted, the defendants sought to undermine the democratic processes of the Republic of the Marshall Islands through bribery in order to advance their own financial interests,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.
“I commend the career prosecutors of this Office and our law enforcement partners for bringing this corruption to light and ensuring that justice is done.”
The Marshall Islands Journal’s page one when the story broke in early September about Cary Yan and Gina Zhou being extradited to the US to face bribery and money laundering charges related to the Marshall Islands. Image: Marshall Islands Journal/RNZ Pacific
Yan, 51, and Zhou, 35, are awaiting sentencing. They have been held without bail pending final disposition of the case.
Yan faces a maximum five-year term in prison and a fine of up to US$200,000, while Zhou faces a maximum prison term of three years and 10 months and a fine of up to US$150,000, according to the plea agreement between their defence attorneys and the SDNY prosecutors.
“Beginning at least in 2016, Yan and Zhou began communicating and meeting with Marshall Islands officials in both New York City and the Marshall Islands concerning the development of a semi-autonomous region within a part of the Marshall Islands known as the Rongelap Atoll,” said the US indictment that was unsealed on September 2 on Yan and Zhou’s arrival in New York following extradition from Thailand.
‘Attracting investors’ “The creation of the proposed semi-autonomous region was intended by Yan, Zhou, and those associated with them to obtain business by, among other things, allowing Yan and Zhou to attract investors to participate in economic and social development projects that Yan, Zhou, and others promised would occur in the semi-autonomous region.”
Their aim was to establish the Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR). But because it ran afoul of the Marshall Islands constitution and required exemption from multiple Marshall Islands legal oversight and enforcement provisions, President Hilda Heine’s administration refused to introduce the proposed RASAR legislation to Nitijela (parliament) for consideration in 2018.
Yan and leading Marshall Islands officials had officially launched the RASAR plan in Hong Kong in April 2018, but never met legal requirements to move the plan forward in the Marshall Islands.
Starting in early 2018 and “continuing until at least on or about November 1, 2018, Yan and Zhou offered and provided a series of cash bribes and other incentives to obtain the support of Marshall Islands legislators for the RASAR bill,” said the US indictment.
Heine’s administration held off the attempt to push RASAR legislation into parliament in late 2018 and survived an attempt to unseat Heine through a vote of no confidence in November.
After the national election a year later, when Nitijela reconvened in January 2020, Heine lost the presidency to David Kabua.
Shortly after the new government took office in 2020, “Yan and Zhou began emailing and meeting with certain Marshall Islands officials to continue their plan to create the RASAR,” said US prosecutors.
Law consideration “In or about late February 2020, the Marshall Islands legislature began considering a resolution that would endorse the concept of the RASAR, a preliminary step that would allow the legislature to enact the more detailed RASAR Bill at a later date.”
US prosecutors said that in early March, “Yan and Zhou met with a close relative of a member of the Marshall Islands legislature in the Marshall Islands.
During the meeting, Yan and Zhou gave the relative $7000 in cash to pass on to the official, specifying that this money would be used to induce and influence other Marshall Islands legislators to support the RASAR Resolution.
“Yan and Zhou further stated, in sum, that they knew that the official needed more than $7000 for this purpose and that (they) would soon obtain additional cash for the official.”
US prosecutors said that at this meeting in early March 2020, Yan and Zhou “also discussed having previously brought larger sums of cash into the Marshall Islands through the United States and that they planned to do so again in the future”.
By the third week of March 2020, the Nitijela passed the RASAR Resolution “with the support of legislators to whom Zhou and Yan had provided bribes and other incentives,” said the prosecutors.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Taking regular medicines is common, and it’s not unusual for people to miss an occasional dose or take it outside the regular time window. Forgetting to do something is normal, but in the case of medicines, forgetting to take them at the prescribed time can have negative health effects.
By one estimate, about half the population of people taking regular medicines don’t take them as prescribed. Is this a breakdown in communication? A lack of understanding of their importance? Forgetfulness?
Largely, reasons for not taking medicines as prescribed can be organised into two types: intentional and unintentional.
Unintentional is when a patient intends to follow the prescribed regimen but doesn’t due to factors outside their control, including forgetfulness, difficulties understanding dosing instructions, or cost.
But for some, a patient consciously decides not to follow the prescribed regimen. This could be due to side effects, or not believing in the necessity of the medicine.
Medication-taking is complex because each person is unique and the challenges to each person’s medication-taking can vary quite significantly. The most effective strategy is one that also considers why a person isn’t taking their medicine. What are some of the support strategies available, and are they actually helpful?
Pill boxes
The most commonly used methods to support medication adherance are organisational strategies such as days-of-the-week pill containers.
Pill containers labelled Monday to Friday can be filled at home. towfiqu barbhuiya/unsplash, CC BY
These are functional if a patient has to take many different medications.
But they’re not always suitable – if the user does not fill the container correctly or doesn’t remember to collect the prefilled pack (called a Webster-pak, blister pack or dosette box) from the pharmacy, this simple intervention quickly becomes ineffective.
The pharmacy can also make up dosette boxes, with medications for different times of day. Shutterstock
Some medicines can’t be packed because their stability is compromised with repacking, and patients with reduced eyesight or dexterity can struggle to use these containers.
So while they are an effective prompt, simple reminder cues such as days-of-the-week pill containers may not be ideal for everyone.
Alarms
Pre-set alarms are another commonly used reminder method.
However, this strategy is not infallible, and the literature shows many patients miss medication doses when out of routine because they turn their alarm off subconsciously when occupied with another task.
Reminder alarms only seem to be effective when they are interactive or personalised.
Automated pill dispensers are handy for those with memory issues, but they’re not cheap. Shutterstock
For example, in a handy combination of both methods above, you can now buy automated pill dispensers with alarms that go off at predetermined times and only stop when the medication is removed.
These can be especially handy for those with memory issues such as dementia. However, they are not cheap, costing a few hundred dollars each, and so will not be accessible for everyone.
Mobile apps
The latest Apple iOS update allows you to track your medications and schedule reminders.
Medication reminder apps were first developed to support older adults and people with chronic diseases required to manage multiple medicines.
But they’ve now been embraced as a suitable support for anyone wishing to independently manage their own medicines, including those on short-term medicines such as antibiotics.
Smart phone apps can help with medication reminders. Shutterstock
They provide simple, practical health-specific information as well as supporting medication-taking through automation.
Although the platforms differ slightly, the general premise is a patient independently inputs their medication-taking and prescription refill schedule, and the app then generates automatic reminders for the patient.
The only downside is like any notification, they can be easily dismissed or overlooked.
Habit stacking
When our day changes, for example if we go out for brunch and we usually take our medicines with breakfast, or an unexpected visitor arrives at the usual 11am pre-lunch tablet time, often we forget our medications. This is where “habit stacking” may be beneficial.
Although habit stacking is a relatively new approach to fostering medication taking, habit formation has been repeatedly shown to effectively support wellbeing. Linking medication-taking to a behaviour that does not change from day to day, such as cleaning your teeth, or removing shoes when entering the house, can help you to remember medications.
Some more habit stacking examples to support medication taking may include:
• hygiene routine – shower, shave, swallow
• after dinner unwind – cuppa and meds
• morning mantra as you leave the house – keys, phone, wallet, meds.
What else can we do?
We are all unique, so to make sure we actually take our medicines we need to find what works for us, and consider why we weren’t actually taking them in the first place.
Reminders, gadgets, habit stacking, or a combination may help. We need strategies that can adapt to the unexpected.
Amelia Cossart 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathryn Trott, Research Fellow in Radio Astronomy, SKA-Low Chief Operations Scientist, Curtin University
Artist’s impression of some of the SKA-Low antenna stations.DISR
Construction of the world’s biggest radio astronomy facility, the SKA Observatory, begins today. The observatory is a global project 30 years in the making.
With two huge two telescopes, one in Australia and the other in South Africa, the project will see further into the history of the Universe than ever before.
Astronomers like me will use the telescopes to trace hydrogen over cosmic time and make precise measurements of gravity in extreme environments. What’s more, we hope to uncover the existence of complex molecules in planet-forming clouds around distant stars, which could be the early signs of life elsewhere in the Universe.
I have been involved in the SKA and its precursor telescopes for the past ten years, and as the chief operations scientist of the Australian telescope since July. I am helping to build the team of scientists, engineers and technicians who will construct and operate the telescope, along with undertaking science to map primordial hydrogen in the infant universe.
What is the SKA Observatory?
The SKA Observatory is an intergovernmental organisation with dozens of countries involved. The observatory is much more than the two physical telescopes, with headquarters in the UK and collaborators around the world harnessing advanced computers and software to tailor the telescope signals to the precise science being undertaken.
The telescope in South Africa (called SKA-Mid) will use 197 radio dishes to observe middle-frequency radio waves from 350 MHz to more than 15 GHz. It will study the extreme environments of neutron stars, organic molecules around newly forming planets, and the structure of the Universe on the largest scales.
The Australian telescope (SKA-Low), in Western Australia, will observe lower frequencies with 512 stations of radio antennas spread out over a 74-kilometre span of outback.
The site is located within Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. This name, which means “sharing sky and stars”, was given to the observatory by the Wajarri Yamaji, the traditional owners and native title holders of the observatory site.
Tuning in to the Universe
After decades of planning, developing precursor telescopes and testing, today we are holding a ceremony to mark the start of on-site construction. We expect both telescopes will be fully operational late this decade.
Each of the 512 stations of SKA-Low is made up of 256 wide-band dipole antennas, spread over a diameter of 35 metres. The signals from these Christmas-tree-shaped antennas in each station are electronically combined to point to different parts of the sky, forming a single view.
An artist’s impression of a station of radio antennas. Each station has 256 antennas,
and the SKA-Low telescope will have 512 stations. DISR
These antennas are designed to tune in to low radio frequencies of 50 to 350 MHz. At these frequencies, the radio waves are very long – comparable to the height of a person – which means more familiar-looking dishes are an inefficient way to catch them. Instead the dipole antennas operate much like TV antennas, with the radio waves from the Universe exciting electrons within their metal arms.
Collectively, the 131,072 dipoles in the completed array will provide the deepest and widest view of the Universe to date.
Peering into the cosmic dawn
They will allow us to see out and back to the very beginning of the Universe, when the first stars and galaxies formed.
This key period, more than 13 billion years in our past, is termed the “cosmic dawn”: when stars and galaxies began to form, lighting up the cosmos for the first time.
The cosmic dawn marks the end of the cosmic dark ages, a period after the Big Bang when the Universe had cooled down through expansion. All that remained was the ubiquitous background glow of the early Universe light, and a cosmos filled with dark matter and neutral atoms of hydrogen and helium.
The light from the first stars transformed the Universe, tearing apart the electrons and protons in neutral hydrogen atoms. The Universe went from dark and neutral to bright and ionised.
The SKA Observatory will map this fog of neutral hydrogen at low radio frequencies, which will allow scientists to explore the births and deaths of the earliest stars and galaxies. Exploration of this key period is the final missing piece in our understanding of the life story of the Universe.
Unimagined mysteries
Closer to home, the low-frequency telescope will time the revolutions of pulsars. These rapidly spinning neutron stars, which fire out sweeping beams of radiation like lighthouses, are the Universe’s ultra-precise clocks.
Changes to the ticking of these clocks can indicate the passage of gravitational waves through the Universe, allowing us to map these deformations of spacetime with radio waves.
It will also help us to understand the Sun, our own star, and the space environment that we on Earth live within.
These are the things we expect to find with the SKA Observatory. But the unexpected discoveries will most likely be the most exciting. With an observatory of this size and power, we are bound to uncover as-yet-unimagined mysteries of the Universe.
Cathryn Trott receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and is employed by SKAO and Curtin University.
Review: Médée, directed by Justin Way and conducted by Erin Helyard, Pinchgut Opera
Known for specialising in baroque opera and historically informed music interpretations, Pinchgut Opera always programs pieces that not only delight with luscious baroque instruments and beautiful voices but bring forth characters and themes that speak to modern audiences.
Médée, by Thomas Corneille and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, is a masterpiece of French baroque opera, first performed in 1693 at the Académie Royale de Musique.
The story explores themes of justice, loyalty, migration and family annihilation with pertinent relevance for an audience of the 21st century still suffering the consequences of the COVID pandemic.
The voice of Médée
Médée is based on the ancient Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides (431 BC).
Knowing that her husband, the power-thirsty and spineless Jason (Michael Petruccelli), will betray her, Médée (Catherine Carby) attempts diplomacy. She is forced to enact justice by usurping her status and breaching the constricting social and political norms. In doing so, she breaks one of society’s greatest taboos: she kills her children.
In this production, the two sons are part of the action and their bodies are brought on stage covered in blood.
Corneille’s libretto emphasises the political manoeuvring at the Corinthian court to respond to the sensibilities of the French court of Louis XIV. Power tactics are used by everyone to gain advantage during a crisis.
Catherine Carby gives us a formidable female character. Cassandra Hannagan
In the Pinchgut production, the setting of the opera transports the imminent threat and negotiations at the Corinthian court to the 20th century with the respective civic and military connotations.
The strong voice of Médée dominates this story and resounds on the Australian operatic stage as a rare representation of a formidable female character who uses diplomacy and power to stand up for herself in a male-dominated world.
Conducted by Erin Helyard, the Orchestra of the Antipodes play Charpentier’s music with elegance and restraint. It renders the melodious richness of orchestral colour and instrumentation with finesse. The choir enchants with the uniformity and depth of their sound. The beautiful solo voices of the cast leave the listener gasping for more.
The minimalist grey columns and walls of the set allow for effective contrast of costumes, movement and lighting and projection to play their role in the visual storytelling.
Costumes, movement, lighting and projection all play their role in the visual storytelling. Cassandra Hannagan
A supersized bust dominates the stage and remains malleable throughout, referencing the gradual disintegration of the Corinthian court and the humiliation the male characters suffer in this story.
Médée’s music is more often mournful and pleading than furious and destructive. Carby portrays well the inner turmoil of the character with a silky mezzo-soprano voice that soars over the tricky waves of Charpentier’s phrases and offers a variety of tonal qualities to express the emotional states of Médée’s complex character. Her touching rendition moves the audience with pity.
Carby is less successful in expressing physically the power of the sorceress or the sexual attraction her character feels for Jason, which is not helped by a reliance on the symbolism of costumes over bodily eloquence.
In this production, Médée is presented as a crone – white haired and having lost her physical allure, juxtaposed against the younger princess Créuse (Cathy-Di Zhang), stunning in a royal purple dress.
It is only in pursuit of Créuse that Petrucelli’s Jason shows virility and arduous persuasion. Zhang’s Créuse is sexy and cunning, negotiating well the political manoeuvres of the court.
Zhang’s Créuse is sexy and cunning, negotiating well the political manoeuvres of the court. Cassandra Hannagan
Adrian Tamburini’s Créon looks younger than Petrucelli’s Jason to be a father of Créuse, but he does his best to convey the authority and arrogance of the King by relying on his rich bass-baritone, crisp diction and good acting.
Andrew Finden is most convincing as Oronte with attention to text emphasis and strong commitment to the character.
Maia Andrews stands out among the secondary roles with a voluptuous voice and portrayal of the Italian entertainer.
Louis Hurley’s singing and acting deliver a compelling Arcas and La Vengeance.
Elevating the soul
If the purpose of art is to elevate the soul, provide an opportunity for contemplation and even salvation, then Médée’s performance delivers.
The music is elegant and noble, transporting the listener away from the crude noise of the modern world to a state of aesthetic pleasure and satisfaction.
The tragedy of Médée encourages reflection on justice and reciprocity and asks us to look within. Are we like Jason and Médée obsessed by our desires? Do we love too much someone who does not deserve it? Do we feel so vulnerable that violence is the only way to protect ourselves? How do we accept those that are different and more powerful than us? Do we have the courage to live on the edge and stand up for our ideals and consequently face the music – and do we condone or support those that do?
Pinchgut’s production of Médée is an opportunity not to be missed to enjoy baroque opera performed at the highest standards by expert baroque musicians and singers. The choice of an opera based on Greek tragedy provides intellectual stimulation to consider the human condition, loyalty and justice in the world we live today.
Médée is at City Recital Hall, Sydney, until December 7.
Daniela Kaleva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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
Mick Tsikas/AAP
A federal Newspoll, conducted November 30 to December 3 from a sample of 1,508, gave Labor a 55-45 lead, unchanged from the post-budget Newspoll in late October. Primary votes were 39% Labor (up one), 35% Coalition (steady), 11% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (steady), 1% UAP (steady) and 8% for all Others (down one).
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was at 62% satisfied (up three) and 29% dissatisfied (down four), for a net approval of +33, up seven points. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was down two points on net approval to -9. Albanese led Dutton by 59-24 as better PM (54-27 previously). Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.
In all polls conducted since the May election, Labor has had a big lead, with one exception. Last week’s Morgan poll only gave Labor a 52.5-47.5 lead, and Morgan’s polls have generally been better for the Coalition this term than other polls. In the past, Morgan polls nearly always skewed to Labor.
Labor and Albanese have had a long honeymoon since the election, but so did Kevin Rudd after the 2007 election, and he did not even lead Labor to the 2010 election. Honeymoon polling is not predictive of the next election’s result.
Essential: first voting intentions has Labor leading by 51.4-43.1
In last week’s Essential poll, conducted in the days before November 29 from a sample of 1,042, the Guardian reported that Labor led by 51.4-43.1 with 5.5% undecided in the first time Essential has polled voting intentions since the May election.
If undecided were excluded, Labor would lead by 54.4-45.6. Primary votes were 33% Labor, 31% Coalition, 13% Greens, 17% for all Others and 6% undecided.
Essential asked respondents to rate leaders from 0 to 10, then 0-3 ratings were counted as negative, 4-6 as neutral and 7-10 as positive. Albanese’s ratings were 46-23 positive (45-20 in early November), while Dutton’s were 33-28 negative (32-29 previously).
By 46-9, respondents thought Australia’s relationship with China would be better after Labor won the May election, with 44% opting for no different.
On the AUKUS submarine partnership, 44% (down one since September 2021) thought it would make Australia more secure, 39% (up three) said it would not affect our security and 16% (down three) that it would make us less secure.
By 55-11, voters agreed that “the media is too biased to one side of politics”. Greens voters were most likely to agree (63%), but so did Coalition voters (57%), Labor voters (51%) and Other voters (61%). By 47-21, voters agreed that “I feel well-informed about federal politics”.
Morgan poll: 52.5-47.5 to Labor
In last week’s Morgan weekly federal poll, Labor’s lead dropped to 52.5-47.5 (53.5-46.5 the previous week). This poll was taken November 21-27.
The passage of these reforms highlights the importance of two Senate results at the May election: Pocock’s win in the ACT was the first time either territory’s two senators had not split 1-1 between the major parties. And Labor won three of Western Australia’s six senators that were up for election, with the Greens winning one, for a 4-2 left-right split.
These two results gave Labor, the Greens and Pocock a combined 39 of the 76 senators, enough to pass legislation opposed by all others.
Victorian upper house: is Transport Matters really winning a seat from second last?
The ABC calculator currently shows Rod Barton, the lead candidate of Transport Matters in Northeastern Metro region, defeating the Greens to win the fifth and final seat in this region despite being second last on just 0.2% or 0.01 quotas.
In the initial count, Barton was last behind the New Democrats, but correction of an error at a booth put the New Democrats behind Barton, and he receives their preferences starting the spiral that puts him ahead of the Greens at the final count. Labor preferences go to Barton ahead of the Greens.
However, the calculator assumes all votes are above the line. In fact, only 377 of the 649 New Democrats’ votes are above the line, so only these votes will be automatically transferred to Barton when the New ?Democrats are excluded. So Barton will have only 1,153 votes after this, not the 1,425 the calculator gives him.
That will put Barton 199 votes behind Sustainable Australia, the next party that gives him their preferences, not the 73 ahead the calculator shows. Barton will be knocked out early and the Greens will win the final Northeastern Metro seat.
In the lower house, the ABC is calling 52 of 88 seats for Labor, 27 for the Coalition, four Greens and five still undecided. A late Greens surge in Northcote has reduced Labor’s lead to 50.2-49.8 after the Greens conceded when Labor led by 51.2-48.8.
Labor will very likely win Preston, is just ahead in Bass, just behind in Pakenham, and the Coalition will likely win Narracan when the deferred election is held.
Overall lower house late counting has helped the Greens and hurt the Coalition. With 85.7% of enrolled voters counted, the ABC’s statewide two party estimate is 54.8-45.2 to Labor, with Labor on 37.0% of the primary vote, the Coalition 34.4% and the Greens 11.5%.
Georgia Senate runoff and US midterm poll performance
I covered the United States Georgia Senate runoff for The Poll Bludger; polls now suggest a narrow win for Democrat Raphael Warnock on Wednesday AEDT. US polls for the midterm elections understated Democrats in key Senate contests, in contrast to polls in recent major national elections that have understated the right.
I also covered the November 19 Malaysian election, at which Anwar Ibrahim became PM in a hung parliament. Labour maintains a huge lead in United Kingdom national polls, and had a big swing in its favour at a byelection.
Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Marine sponges were thought to be more resilient to ocean warming than other organisms. But earlier this year, New Zealand recorded the largest-ever sponge bleaching event off its southern coastline.
While only one species, the cup sponge Cymbastella lamellata, was affected, a prolonged marine heatwave turned millions of the normally dark brown sponges bright white.
Ocean warming during a heatwave has bleached millions of cup sponges bone white. Author provided, CC BY-SA
Subsequently, we reported tissue loss, decay and death of other sponge species across the northern coastline of New Zealand, with an estimated impact on hundreds of thousands of specimens. In contrast, we didn’t observe any bleaching or tissue loss in central areas of New Zealand’s coastline, despite extensive surveys.
Our latest research shows the most severe impacts on sponges occurred in areas where the marine heatwave was most intense. The loss of sponges may have major repercussions for the whole ecosystem.
Why should we care about sponges?
Sponges are among the most ancient and abundant animals on rocky reefs across the world. In New Zealand, they occupy up to 70% of the available seafloor, particularly in so-called mesophotic ecosystems at depths of 30-150m.
They serve a number of important ecological functions. They filter large quantities of water, capturing small food particles and moving carbon from the water column to the seafloor where it can be eaten by bottom-dwelling invertebrates. These invertebrates in turn are consumed by organisms further up the food chain, including commercially and culturally important fish species.
Sponges also add three-dimensional complexity to the sea floor, which provides habitat for a range of other species such as crabs, shrimps and starfish.
Typical sponge reefs from Northland, New Zealand. Author provided, CC BY-SA
Sponge bleaching, tissue loss and decay
Like corals, sponges contain symbiotic organisms thought to be critical to their survival. Cymbastella lamellata is unusual in that it hosts dense populations of diatoms, small single-celled photosynthetic plants that give the sponge its brown colour.
These diatoms live within the sponge tissue, exchanging food for protection. When the sponge bleaches, it expels the diatoms, leaving the sponge skeleton exposed.
Tissue loss occurs when sponges are stressed and either have to invest more energy into cell repair or when their food source is depleted and they reabsorb their own tissue to reduce body volume and reallocate resources.
Tissue decay or necrosis on the other hand is generally associated with changes in the microbial communities living within sponges and growth of pathogenic bacteria.
Bleaching, tissue loss and decay in sponges have all previously been associated with heat stress, but didn’t necessarily result in sponge death. In other places where such impacts have been observed, they were much more localised, compared to what we saw in New Zealand.
The impact of marine heat waves
Marine heatwaves are defined as unusual periods of warming that last for five consecutive days or longer. Some can last from weeks to several months and extend over hundreds or thousands of kilometres of coastline.
The sponge bleaching and tissue loss or decay in New Zealand matched the duration and intensity of marine heatwaves to the north and south of New Zealand during the summer of 2021/2022. The Hauraki Gulf, where sponge necrosis and decay was reported, was in a continuous marine heatwave for 29 weeks from November 2021 to the end of May 2022, with a maximum intensity of 3.77℃ above normal.
Sea surface temperature in the Hauraki Gulf over the past 12 months (thin line). Red shading appears when temperatures are above the marine heatwave threshold. Moana Project, CC BY-SA
In Fiordland, a prolonged marine heatwave developed in early February 2022 and persisted for more than 16 weeks into May, with a maximum intensity of 4.85℃ above normal temperatures. In contrast, the Wellington and Marlborough Sounds regions experienced only short (weeks) marine heatwaves with a lower intensity and we did not observe any impacts on sponges.
These extreme heat events can result from a combination of changes in the heat exchange between the air and the sea, wind patterns and ocean currents. Their likelihood is also influenced by large-scale climate patterns such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
What the future may hold
Most global research on climate change impacts has focused on experimental studies exposing organism to temperatures predicted for 2100, often 2-4℃ higher than current temperatures. But the occurrence of marine heatwaves means organisms are already experiencing these temperatures, sometimes for several weeks or months. By 2100, marine heatwaves will become even more extreme.
For bleached Cymbastella, recent anecdotal reports suggest many sponges have recovered their colour, which is good news. However, observations immediately after the bleaching indicate many sponges were being eaten by fish, possibly because their symbionts may provide chemical defences against predation.
For bleached corals, studies have shown impacts on spawning success for many years after the event, likely because their energy reserves have been depleted.
We don’t yet know if this is the case for sponges. For sponges with decayed tissue the outlook is even less clear, as many probably died.
This sponge (Cymbastella lamellata) has been partially eaten. Author provided, CC BY-SA
Sponges are not the only species to be affected by marine heatwaves New Zealand experienced in 2021/2022. There were reports of seaweed die-offs and changes to normal distribution patterns of tuna and other ecologically and commercially important fish species.
Marine heatwaves should be front of mind when thinking about climate impacts. They are happening now, not in 50 years, and we don’t know enough yet to determine if sponges may be the canary in the coal mine.
This is especially important because New Zealand’s northern coastlines are already experiencing almost continuous marine heatwave conditions, with the ongoing event forecast to extend into the coming summer.
James Bell receives funding from the George Mason Trust, Victoria University of Wellington, The Fiordland Lobster company and The Leslie Hutchins Foundation
Nick Shears receives funding from Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment – Sustainable Seas, New Zealand Department of Conservation, Waikato Regional Council, Foundation North – GIFT and Live Ocean Foundation.
Robert Smith receives funding from the New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Smith, Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Butch Dill/AP/AAP
Ron DeSantis’s re-election as governor of Florida was one of the few bright spots for Republicans in an otherwise disappointing 2022 midterm election. DeSantis originally won the governorship by less than half a percentage point in 2018. in 2022, he defeated his Democratic opponent (and former Republican governor) Charlie Crist by more than 19% of the vote.
For the first time in years, Donald Trump may have a serious challenger to his domination of the Republican Party. Donors, media figures and other conservative elites are flocking to DeSantis.
The contrasts with Trump are obvious. DeSantis won re-election while Trump lost, and many Republicans hold Trump responsible for their losses this year. DeSantis’s allies also point to his policy victories, something largely missing from Trump’s presidency.
But winning a Republican primary requires winning over large numbers of evangelical Christians, and for them the calculus of victory is more complex than “check out the scoreboard”. Trump has always promised them a victory much bigger than legislative triumphs or even election wins. While DeSantis represents the orthodox conservative Christian uses of political power, Trump appeals to those who believe that only an apocalypse can save America.
The Kingdom of God
One of the most important Christian narratives is triumph over death, embodied in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and promised one day to all God’s people. Death is not just beaten, but humiliated. In the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul taunts “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
There will be other reversals of earthly fortune, because God’s grace does not follow established social convention. In the parable of the vineyard workers, Jesus tells his followers that in the Kingdom of God “the last shall be first, and the first last”.
This passage has historically inspired enslaved and oppressed peoples to find a message of liberation in the gospels. But it has also encouraged relatively well-off people to imagine themselves as the persecuted “last” who will one day be first by God’s grace.
For orthodox Christians (referring not to Eastern Orthodox churches, but all adherents to core Christian creeds), politicians are not supposed to promise the Kingdom of God. The state and the Kingdom of God are separate realms, as Jesus himselfexplains. Nonetheless, political power has had important uses for Christians ever since Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.
The Kingdom of DeSantis
Ron DeSantis exemplifies the orthodox American use of political power for conservative Christian ends. While he uses the updated language of fighting “wokeness”, DeSantis has used the governor’s office to pursue a time-honoured culture war agenda in Florida, reasserting the primacy of traditional family structures and gender roles and keeping children away from material that may conflict with their parents’ beliefs. DeSantis’s message of victory on election night was “Florida is where woke goes to die”.
DeSantis learnt from Trump that evangelical Christians don’t care much about the personal piety of their candidates. They want fighters, not Sunday school teachers. He taps into the idea that secular authorities are persecuting Christians in America, an old claim that has also been a centrepiece of Trump’s appeal to evangelicals.
But there are limits to how much DeSantis can emulate Trump. While DeSantis sounds like a politician with a law degree, Trump sounds like a tent revival prophet. Rather than rearguard culture war actions, Trump promises the redemption of America.
The Kingdom of Trump
In his first presidential run, Trump was notable for his scathing “American carnage” speeches about the fallen state of the nation. It was rare to hear an American politician talk his country down like that, but it appealed to Christians who thought that even their own leaders didn’t understand how bad things were.
Trump’s vows to restore America’s glory and punish its enemies without mercy resonate with evangelicals, who long for a day of reckoning when everyone will be held to account. As president, Trump always hinted that bigger things were around the corner. In the words of Kimberley Guilfoyle at the Republican National Convention, “the best is yet to come!”.
In contrast, Trump warned that if Joe Biden won the 2020 election, “there will be no God” in America.
Even Trump’s “stolen election” claims fit a death and resurrection narrative. Remembering his remarkable 2016 victory in defiance of the polls, Trump’s most ardent supporters expect him to ultimately triumph, one way or another, despite the appearance of defeat in 2020.
For many Pentecostals and Charismatics, Trump was such a radical break from political norms that he represented the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. They likened him to biblical figures like Cyrus the Great, a pagan king who was nevertheless chosen to save God’s people.
This apocalyptic style does not appeal to all conservative evangelicals, but in 2016 more orthodox-minded Christians couldn’t unite around a single candidate in opposition to Trump. Now, after six years of Trump influencing evangelical subculture and bringing previously marginal views to the centre of it, any challenger to Trump seeking evangelical votes faces a daunting task.
Any presidential candidate trying to wrest evangelical votes from Donald Trump faces a daunting task. Lynne Sladky/AP/AAP
How abortion could make or destroy the 2024 Republican candidate
The most complicated issue in any contest between Trump and DeSantis could be abortion.
In 2016, Trump promised to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v Wade, the framework that had kept abortion legal in all states for nearly five decades. The Dobbs decision in 2022 overturning Roe was a direct consequence of Trump’s three appointments.
Trump’s supporters can point to the fulfilment of this longstanding conservative dream as far more significant than anything DeSantis has achieved, and Trump quickly claimed credit for it. But he reportedly also worried that Republican legislators were going too far for voters with abortion bans, and that the issue could hurt him politically in 2024.
He was right to worry. The abortion issue is widelyrecognised as one of the main reasons Republicans did so poorly in the midterm elections.
Before the Dobbs decision, DeSantis signed a law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks in Florida, with no exemptions for cases of rape or incest. The law survived a legal challenge and DeSantis suspended a state attorney who refused the enforce the law.
After Dobbs, which allows for even more extensive abortion bans, DeSantis said Florida would “expand pro-life protections” but has so far declined to say what these would be. Some Florida Republicans may push for tougher restrictions after making big gains in the state legislature at the midterms.
Both Trump and DeSantis would have difficult decisions to make about whether to try to outflank each other on the abortion issue, or to distance themselves from Republican extremism. Abortion bans are increasingly unpopular even in the Republican Party, but these are among the most prized goals of religious activists who vote in Republican primaries.
Primary contests are highly unpredictable, and there is little current polling on how evangelical Christians compare the two most likely candidates. Trump secured 81% of the white evangelical vote in the 2020 election, but a contest with DeSantis could open deep divides among evangelical conservatives – at least until the winner faces a Democrat.
David Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Pawson, Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
The numbers of people who are homeless have risen sharply across Australia, with soaring housing costs emerging as the biggest driver of the increase. The Australian Homelessness Monitor 2022, released today, reports that the average monthly number of people using homelessness services increased by 8% in the four years to 2021-22. That’s double the population growth rate over that period.
In the first major homelessness analysis spanning the COVID crisis years, we also show numbers have been rising in some parts of the country at rates far above the national trend. The problem has been growing especially rapidly in non-metropolitan areas. This trend is consistent with the boom in regional housing prices and, more especially, rents sparked by the pandemic.
The homelessness that has long been a sad feature of our biggest cities has clearly spread to regional and rural Australia.
Many other patterns in the changing scale and nature of homelessness in Australia are ongoing trends that pre-date the 2020-21 public health emergency. This period appears to have had relatively little effect on these trajectories, which include a growing proportion of older adults, as well as First Nations peoples and those affected by mental ill-health.
As the chart below shows, unaffordable housing is playing an increasing role in people becoming homeless.
Social housing programs are welcome but overdue
The pandemic triggered significant and welcome commitments to social housing programs by the new federal government and some state governments. The recent federal budget confirmed funding for 20,000 new social housing dwellings over five years.
Together, these new programs will – at least temporarily – halt the long-term decline in social housing capacity. The sector’s share of the nation’s housing stock has been shrinking for most of the past 25 years.
By our reckoning, the government programs should deliver a net increase of about 9,000 social rental dwellings in 2024. This will be the first year for decades in which enough dwellings will be built to maintain the sector’s share of Australia’s occupied housing stock.
But sustaining this achievement will require more funding beyond the current commitments. Otherwise, the decline will resume.
Affordability is the big issue, but some need other help
As a recent Productivity Commission report acknowledged, homelessness is primarily a housing problem. In its words, “fundamentally, homelessness is a result of not being able to afford housing”.
While other reasons do contribute to some people becoming homeless, most people experiencing homelessness have no long-term need for personal support. And many who do have high support needs can access and keep tenancies when suitable affordable housing is available.
At the same time, the most disadvantaged rough sleepers may require a great deal of help to overcome their problems. The widely acclaimed “housing first” model successfully does this. As other recent research emphasises, for many chronic rough sleepers helped into secure housing, withdrawing such support – even after three years – markedly increases their risk of becoming homeless again.
Australian governments need to better recognise the case for expanding the supply of permanent supportive housing. This involves integrating long-term affordable housing with ongoing support services where required.
Only a few such projects operate in Australia. There is no general framework to fund them, especially the support services.
Lengthy rough sleeping is typically a symptom of societal failure. All too often, for those affected, this failure starts from infancy.
The Productivity Commission report advocated a “high-needs-based [social] housing subsidy to ensure housing is affordable and tenancies can be sustained”. Logically, since this is essentially a social work (not social security) responsibility, it is the states and territories, and not the Commonwealth, that should bear the cost.
This may sound like a big ask for underfunded governments. But state and territory budgets stand to benefit from avoiding the costs that recurrent and chronic homelessness imposes on departments such as health and justice. As our previous research shows, we spend enormous amounts of public money responding to the consequences of leaving people in a state of chronic homelessness.
A model for funding permanent supportive housing needs to be developed. Ideally, this process should involve all Australian governments, perhaps as part of discussions to advance the National Housing and Homelessness Plan. Federal Labor pledged this project will take shape in 2023.
More broadly, these deliberations must be underpinned by recognition that our current ways of developing, operating and commodifying housing produce homelessness. A plan to end homelessness requires a plan to overhaul our housing system so it produces enough suitable and affordable housing for all Australians.
