Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zena Assaad, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, Australian National University

Following a lengthy investigation, the United States Justice Department is set to file a lawsuit against Apple for potentially breaching antitrust laws.

The department alleges Apple is using hardware and software limitations that make it harder for rival companies to compete with iPhones and iPads.

If the filing goes ahead, it will mean each of the “big four” tech companies – Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple – will have been sued by the US federal government within the past five years for monopolistic business practices.

As the digital market continues to grow, many countries including the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, the US, China, South Korea, India and Australia have all either introduced, or plan to introduce, competition legislation specific to tech firms.

But what are antitrust laws? And how are the tech giants breaching them?

What are antitrust laws?

Antitrust laws originated with the US Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. This law banned business arrangements which restrained trade, and prohibited attempts to monopolise.

Over time, the Sherman Antitrust Act evolved into what are today’s antitrust laws, adopted in countries all over the world.

Antitrust laws are enforced at domestic levels and allegations of breaches of these laws pertain to domestic markets. These laws – also known as competition laws – prohibit business practices that promote unfair monopolies, stifle competition and reinforce dominance or power.

In recent years, technology products – whether apps or physical products like phones and computers – have been under an enormous amount of scrutiny. Calls for regulating the development and use of technology have a dominant focus on artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, the business practices of tech giants are garnering less public attention. So it’s noteworthy that the antitrust lawsuits filed against the big four focus on the companies, not just their products.

The allegation is these companies are concentrating the market and therefore charging higher markups for their goods and services, while having less incentive to innovate in ways that benefit consumers.

How are tech giants breaching antitrust laws?

Of the big four, Apple is not the first to be accused of breaching antitrust laws.

In the past decade, the European Union has fined Google a total of €8.25 billion (A$13.6 billion) for three separate breaches of EU’s antitrust laws.

These related to misuse of Google Shopping to disadvantage competitors in 2017, unfair dominance of the Android operating system market in 2018, and abusive practices in online advertising in 2019. The advertising business accounts for 80% of Google’s income.

While Google and its parent company Alphabet did enact some changes to their practices following these EU rulings, to date Google has not paid these fines and continues to appeal them in various instances.

In 2020, the US Justice Department also filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolising multiple digital advertising technology products.

The ongoing lawsuit claims Google monopolised the “ad tech stack” – the key technologies publishers and advertisers use to sell and buy ads. It is alleged Google neutralised or eliminated ad tech competitors through acquisitions, which forced publishers and advertisers to use its products.

Read more:
The US is taking on Google in a huge antitrust case. It could change the face of online search

In 2021, the US Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 US states sued Meta, claiming the tech company eliminated competition by buying up its rivals.

The two biggest purchases under scrutiny are Instagram, which was purchased for US$1 billion in 2013, and WhatsApp, which was purchased for US$19 billion in 2015. The lawsuit alleges these purchases eliminated competition which had the potential to challenge Meta’s dominance.

In 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon, claiming the tech company used anticompetitive and unfair strategies to maintain a position of dominance in the market.

The US lawsuits against Google, Meta and Amazon are ongoing, with no decisions handed down as yet.

What is Australia doing to protect consumers?

The Australian federal government has also been investigating global tech giants. Since 2021, the government has investigated legislative methods for protecting Australian consumers.

One example is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) news media bargaining code. The code requires digital platforms operating in Australia to compensate domestic news publishers for the use of their content.

Read more:
How 2021 was the year governments really started to wise up against big tech

Despite these advancements, Chandni Gupta, Deputy CEO and Digital Policy Director at the Consumer Policy Research Centre, points out:

There are gaps in both Australia’s privacy laws and the consumer law, which can leave Australians with far fewer protections online than consumers in the US and other countries.

The ACCC released its second Digital Platform Services Inquiry interim report in 2021. The report’s findings indicate Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store have significant market power in the distribution of mobile apps in Australia, and measures are needed to address this. Examples of measures the ACCC proposed include increasing transparency and providing greater choice of default apps for consumers.

In 2023, ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb publicly addressed the dangers of the big four. The commissioner referred to the tech giants as “serial acquirers” and raised concerns about their measures for extending and protecting their market power.

Antitrust laws exist to maintain fair competition among businesses. Breaches of these laws mean companies are influencing the market to the detriment of other, usually smaller companies.

If governments are successful in holding tech giants to account, this could drastically redefine the tech market, making way for more equitable competition and more ethical business practices.

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

– ref. Why are Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta facing antitrust lawsuits and huge fines? And will it protect consumers? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-apple-amazon-google-and-meta-facing-antitrust-lawsuits-and-huge-fines-and-will-it-protect-consumers-221501

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin T. Jones, Senior Lecturer in History, CQUniversity Australia

Every year, there are debates over the appropriateness of January 26 for a national holiday.

Australia Day has been celebrated on different dates since its inception as a fundraiser for the war effort in 1915. The choice of January 26, the day in 1788 when the British flag was raised in New South Wales, attracted significant protest from First Nations, especially at the sesquicentenary in 1938 and bicentenary in 1988.

In recent years, January 26 has become a date that divides Australians. More than 80 local councils have chosen not to have it as a day of celebration, and Triple J stopped using the date to hold its Hottest 100 competition in 2018. This year, Woolworths’ commercial decision not to stock Australia Day merchandise was met with calls to protest the supermarket giant.

If the purpose of Australia Day is to unite Australians and celebrate our achievements as a nation, then would our Independence Day – March 3 1986 – be a better choice?

Read more:
Australia Day wasn’t always January 26, but it was always an issue

Wasn’t Australia independent before the 1980s?

You might be thinking, hang on, surely Australia was already independent in the 1980s?

To give a typical historian’s answer, yes, but it’s more complex than that.

In 1901, Australia federated and became a nation, but not an independent one. Its initial status was a Dominion of the British empire, self-governing but with its foreign affairs dictated from Westminster.

The Imperial Conference of 1923 gave majority-white Dominions such as Australia control over foreign affairs, while the 1926 Balfour Declaration asserted that Dominions were “autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status”.

The passage of the 1931 Statute of Westminster confirmed that the Dominions were not subordinate to Britain. While this might seem like the independence moment, Australia saw no need for the change and did not ratify it until 1942.

The second world war convinced the Australian government it needed its own diplomats and embassies in foreign nations. Then, in the 1960s, Britain’s attempts to join the European common market and its decision to remove its military from South-East Asia (known as East of Suez) prompted Australia to show greater independence in its trade and security policies.

Even if the Commonwealth government was independent from 1931 (or 1942, technically), colonial anomalies remained and would not be addressed until 1986.

Read more:
Welcome to May 9 – the true Australia Day

Wait, so Australia wasn’t fully independent?

When the Hawke government took office in 1983, the state governments retained their colonial constitutions and were still answerable to the British government.

Further, those unhappy with a ruling in their state supreme court could challenge it in Britain’s Privy Council. These colonial hangovers were not harmless relics, but had real consequences.

While protocol dictates that the monarch must accept the prime minister’s advice when appointing the governor general, at state level, British ministers felt free to reject the advice of premiers.

This was seen in 1975 when Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had his attempts to extend the term of governor Sir Colin Hannah blocked.

Similarly, the Privy Council continued to hear cases from Australia. In 1984, 14 appeals from Australia were received, with a further ten in 1985. One of these was instigated by West Indies cricket captain Clive Lloyd, who was awarded damages after an article in The Age implied his team deliberately lost a match. The NSW Court of Appeal overturned the verdict but Lloyd successfully challenged the decision in the Privy Council, undermining the power of the state legal system.

The Australia Acts are twin legislation passed in the UK and Australian parliaments (hence Acts not Act), matched by consenting legislation from each state parliament.

They were the result of years of complex negotiations but were aided by political goodwill from both major parties and the UK government. The Australia Acts ended all remaining powers of the UK parliament over Australian states and confirmed that the High Court of Australia is the final court of appeal.

Australian independence did not come as a result of a dramatic struggle or revolutionary war. Instead, it was a gradual evolution. Queen Elizabeth II commented that “surely no two independent countries could bring to an end their constitutional relationship in a more civilised way” (though, we would continue to share the same head of state).

Despite the significance of the occasion, the passage of the Australia Acts had only limited public interest. The various developments were noted in newspapers in Australia and Britain but usually in the back pages.

For example, when the British legislation passed the House of Lords in December 1985, The Age informed its readers that “the sun sets today on the shreds of colonial bondage” on page 24, next to the daily crossword and a cartoon.

When the Acts came into effect on March 3 1986, the Australian media presented it as a mundane piece of constitutional upkeep, which perhaps explains why the date is not well known today.

A better choice for Australia Day?

Australia does not have a single independence moment. It has no equivalent to the War of Independence in the United States or the storming of the Bastille in France.

Nevertheless, as legal expert Anne Twomey has concluded, it is indisputable that full legal independence was achieved through the Australia Acts.

While historians have been more opaque, Deborah Gare argues convincingly that despite the increased freedoms after 1931, a nation can hardly be called independent without sovereignty over its own judiciary.

January 26 is engulfed in a culture war. It does not satisfy those who want it to be a day of contemplation or those who want it to be a day of united celebration.

Read more:
‘Change the date’ debates about January 26 distract from the truth telling Australia needs to do

For all the commentary, however, few Australians really care what day it is held. Most simply want an opportunity to take a day off work and celebrate the achievements of the country, individually and collectively.

January 26 will always be a significant historical date, but its meaning is contested. By contrast, few would dispute that Australia achieving its full legal independence was a positive development, worthy of celebration.

There is no requirement that Australia Day be celebrated on a historically significant date. The last Friday in January is sometimes suggested to ensure a long weekend.

But for those who do want history to guide the national celebrations, the Australia Acts provide an uncontroversial alternative.

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

– ref. Why we should celebrate Australia Day on March 3 – the day we became a fully independent country – https://theconversation.com/why-we-should-celebrate-australia-day-on-march-3-the-day-we-became-a-fully-independent-country-221015

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

The ACT Party’s election promise of a referendum to redefine and enshrine the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi is likely to dominate debate at this year’s Rātana and Waitangi Day events.

ACT’s coalition agreement with the National Party commits the government to supporting a Treaty Principles Bill for select committee consideration. The bill may not make it into law, but the idea is raising considerable alarm.

Leaked draft advice to Cabinet from the Ministry of Justice says the principles should be defined in legislation because “their importance requires there be certainty and clarity about their meaning”. The advice also says ACT’s proposal will:

change the nature of the principles from reflecting a relationship akin to a partnership between the Crown and Māori to reflecting the relationship the Crown has was with all citizens of New Zealand. This is not supported by either the spirit of the Treaty or the text of the Treaty.

Setting aside arguments that the notion of “partnership” diminishes self-determination, the 10,000 people attending a meeting last weekend called by King Tūheitia were motivated by the prospect of the Treaty being diminished.

Do we need Treaty principles?

The Treaty principles were developed and elaborated by parliaments, courts and the Waitangi Tribunal over more than 50 years to guide policy implementation and mediate tensions between the Māori and English texts of the document.

The Māori text, which more than 500 rangatira (chiefs) signed, conferred the right to establish government on the British Crown. The English text conferred absolute sovereignty; 39 rangatira signed this text after having it explained in Māori, a language that has no concept of sovereignty as a political and legal authority to be given away.

Because the English text wasn’t widely signed, there is a view that it holds no influential standing, and that perhaps there isn’t a tension to mediate. Former chief justice Sian Elias has said “it can’t be disputed that the Treaty is actually the Māori text”.

On Saturday, Tūheitia said: “There’s no principles, the Treaty is written, that’s it.” This view is supported by arguments that the principles are reductionist and take attention away from the substance of Te Tiriti’s articles: the Crown may establish government; Māori may retain authority over their own affairs and enjoy citizenship of the state in ways that reflect equal tikanga (cultural values).

Read more:
Why redefining the Treaty principles would undermine real political equality in NZ

Democratic or undemocratic?

The ACT Party says this is undemocratic because it gives Māori a privileged voice in public decision making. Of the previous government, ACT has said:

Labour is trying to make New Zealand an unequal society on purpose. It believes there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata Whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here.

Liberal democracy was not the form of government Britain established in 1840. There’s even an argument that state government doesn’t concern Māori. The Crown exercises government only over “its people” – settlers and their descendants. Māori political authority is found in tino rangatiratanga and through shared decision making on matters of common interest.

Tino rangatiratanga has been defined as “the exercise of ultimate and paramount power and authority”. In practice, like all power, this is relative and relational to the power of others, and constrained by circumstances beyond human control.

But the power of others has to be fair and reasonable, and rangatiratanga requires freedom from arbitrary interference by the state. That way, authority and responsibility may be exercised, and independence upheld, in relation to Māori people’s own affairs and resources.

Assertions of rangatiratanga

Social integration – especially through intermarriage, economic interdependence and economies of scale – makes a rigid “them and us” binary an unlikely path to a better life for anybody.

However, rangatiratanga might be found in Tūheitia’s advice about the best form of protest against rewriting the Treaty principles to diminish the Treaty itself:

Be who we are, live our values, speak our reo (language), care for our mokopuna (children), our awa (rivers), our maunga (mountains), just be Māori. Māori all day, every day.

Read more:
The kīngitanga movement: 160 years of Māori monarchy

As the government introduces measures to reduce the use of te reo Māori in public life, repeal child care and protection legislation that promotes Māori leadership and responsibility, and repeal water management legislation that ensures Māori participation, Tuheitia’s words are all assertions of rangatiratanga.

Those government policies sit alongside the proposed Treaty Principles Bill to diminish Māori opportunities to be Māori in public life. For the ACT Party, this is necessary to protect democratic equality.

In effect, the proposed bill says that to be equal, Māori people can’t contribute to public decisions with reference to their own culture. As anthropologist Anne Salmond has written, this means the state cannot admit there are “reasonable people who reason differently”.

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

Liberal democracy and freedom

Equality through sameness is a false equality that liberal democracy is well-equipped to contest. Liberal democracy did not emerge to suppress difference. It is concerned with much more than counting votes to see who wins on election day.

Liberal democracy is a political system intended to manage fair and reasonable differences in an orderly way. This means it doesn’t concentrate power in one place. It’s not a select few exercising sovereignty as the absolute and indivisible power to tell everybody else what to do.

This is because one of its ultimate purposes is to protect people’s freedom – the freedom to be Māori as much as the freedom to be Pakeha. If we want it to, democracy may help all and not just some of us to protect our freedom through our different ways of reasoning.

Read more:
Three parties, two deals, one government: the stress points within New Zealand’s ‘coalition of many colours’

Freedom is protected by checks and balances on power. Parliament checks the powers of government. Citizens, including Māori citizens with equality of tikanga, check the powers of parliament.

One of the ways this happens is through the distribution of power from the centre – to local governments, school boards and non-governmental providers of public services. This includes Māori health providers whose work was intended to be supported by the Māori Health Authority, which the government also intends to disestablish.

The rights of hapu (kinship groups), as the political communities whose representatives signed Te Tiriti, mean that rangatiratanga, too, checks and balances the concentration of power in the hands of a few.

Checking and balancing the powers of government requires the contribution of all and not just some citizens. When they do so in their own ways, and according to their own modes of reasoning, citizens contribute to democratic contest – not as a divisive activity, but to protect the common good from the accumulation of power for some people’s use in the domination of others.

Te Tiriti supports this democratic process.

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

– ref. Waitangi 2024: how the Treaty strengthens democracy and provides a check on unbridled power – https://theconversation.com/waitangi-2024-how-the-treaty-strengthens-democracy-and-provides-a-check-on-unbridled-power-221723

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wayne Hall, Emeritus Professor, The National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland

This year, the Australian government will progressively ban the retail sale of all e-cigarettes, known as vapes. Vapers will only be allowed to use nicotine vapes that comply with Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) product requirements – and only to help them quit or manage their nicotine dependence, if prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a pharmacy.

This will be accompanied by increased funding for law enforcement to prevent illegal importation of vapes, a public education campaign about the risks of vaping, and greater efforts to encourage smokers to only obtain their vapes on prescription.

But for the scheme to be successful, three things need to happen: vaping products that vapers will use need to be available, GPs need to be willing to write prescriptions, and pharmacies need to be able to meet the demand. None of these are guaranteed.

Failure to do so could see some people continue to use the illicit market for vapes, or to switch to traditional cigarettes.

Read more:
From today, new regulations make it harder to access vapes. Here’s what’s changing

The previous vape policy failed

The new policy tightens the enforcement of a retail sales ban on vapes containing nicotine first introduced in 2011. This only allowed smokers to use nicotine vapes if they had been approved for smoking cessation (quitting) by the TGA and were prescribed by a doctor to help them quit smoking.

The TGA’s expectation was that nicotine vapes would eventually be produced that would be approved for prescription. When no vapes had been approved by 2021, the TGA reclassified nicotine to allow doctors to prescribe unapproved nicotine vapes.

But these policies didn’t meet their objectives. Fewer than 10% of vapers obtained a prescription.

The TGA’s impact assessment of the 2021 policy shows it failed to prevent vaping among Australian youth or give smokers legal access to vapes. This was in large part because vape retailers illegally sold nicotine vapes as nicotine-free products (which were not banned) and sold colourful, flavoured disposable vapes that appealed to young people.

By the end of 2023, an estimated 1.3 million Australian adults were using vapes containing nicotine. The largest uptake was among young adults aged 18 to 24 and there was a worrying uptake among young people aged 14 to 17. More than 90% of vapes were obtained illegally from retail vape stores and via internet sales.

What are the new rules, and what are their aims?

From January 1, the importation of disposable vapes is banned.

From March, there will be a complete ban on the import of non-therapeutic vape products. Importers of therapeutic vapes will need a licence and permit from the government’s Office of Drug Control to import them.

The government will later set product standards that limit flavours, reduce permissible nicotine concentrations and require pharmaceutical packaging of therapeutic vapes.

Read more:
My teen is addicted to vaping. How can I help them quit and manage their withdrawal symptoms?

The policy aims to reduce adolescent vaping by 2026 while allowing adult smokers to use vapes for quitting and managing nicotine dependence, by making them easier to access.

But there are major challenges in achieving these goals.

1. Enough therapeutic products

The TGA will need to ensure there are enough products that meet their product standards and that vapers will use.

It’s unclear how vape producers will be encouraged to notify the TGA that their device meets standards and whether vapers will be interested in using them.

However, vapes exist with specified nicotine levels that could be plain-packaged, if required.

2. Doctors will need to prescribe them

The new regulations allow any medical or nurse practitioner to prescribe nicotine vapes for smoking cessation and to manage nicotine addiction.

Given the existing low uptake of vape prescribing and strong discouragement from the Australian Medical Association and medical colleges, more medical practitioners will need to be persuaded to prescribe vapes.

GP guidelines for quitting recommend prescribing nicotine gum and patches, and vapes only if these products are unsuccessful. However, a Cochrane review of clinical trials found vapes were more effective for smoking cessation than nicotine gum and patches.

3. Pharmacies need to dispense them

There must be enough pharmacies prepared to dispense vapes. Pharmacy organisations are cautiously supportive of the new regulations but it’s unclear how many pharmacies will provide vapes. This may depend, in part, on demand for these products.

Risks of the illicit market

All of these challenges need to be met in two years. Failure to achieve these aims will sustain the illicit market for vapes.

Vapers who are unconcerned about the possibility of arrest for possessing vapes without a prescription (a criminal offence in most states) may continue to use the illicit market.

Australian Border Force officials have conceded they will not be able to prevent the illicit importation of vaping devices.

Read more:
TikTok promotes vaping as a fun, safe and socially accepted pastime – and omits the harms

There is also a risk some vapers will switch to cigarettes which, while expensive, are readily available. Vapes are not without harm, but toxicological analyses conclude they are less harmful than conventional cigarettes.

What if the vape regulations fail?

If the vape laws aren’t successful, regulators must find another way to meet the policy’s goals of minimising youth vaping and reducing the size of the illicit vaping market.

One way would be to allow the sale of approved vapes to adult smokers under much tighter regulations than apply to cigarettes. This could mean banning disposable vapes and restricting sales of other vapes to licensed tobacconists on the condition that they will lose their licence if they sell to youth. This could be enforced by requiring the installation of CCTV in stores, as occurs in US cannabis retail outlets.

This alternative model could include many of the other regulations proposed: only allowing approved vaping devices, plain packaging, flavour restrictions and no advertising. But this model wouldn’t require a doctor’s prescription or restrict dispensing to pharmacies.

Wayne Hall has been a paid advisor to the Therapeutic Goods Administration on the safety and effectiveness of medical cannabis (2017-2019) and was a member of Australian Advisory Council on Medicinal Uses of Cannabis, Commonwealth Department of Health, February 2017-2021. He has advised the World Health Organization on the health effects of cannabis, 2019-2023. He has not received any funding from the alcohol, pharmaceutical, tobacco or e-cigarette industries. His past research on tobacco related topics was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organisation where he works or its funders.

– ref. For the new vape laws to succeed, these 3 things need to happen – or users may look to the illicit market – https://theconversation.com/for-the-new-vape-laws-to-succeed-these-3-things-need-to-happen-or-users-may-look-to-the-illicit-market-221412

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Jakob, Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, Monash University

What happened to the scorching El Niño summer we were bracing for? Why has the east coast of Australia been drenched while the north and west gets the heat?

For beachgoers, a wrong weather forecast is annoying. For farmers, it can be very expensive. And for northern Queensland residents surprised by flooding after Cyclone Jasper, it can be devastating. Small wonder there’s been plenty of criticism levelled at the Bureau of Meteorology and other forecasting agencies this summer.

The criticism is understandable. But is it fair? No. The reason is that weather forecasting is inherently not about certainty but probability. Our atmosphere and oceans do not behave in simple, easily predictable ways. They are non-linear, chaotic systems. That means we can only predict large weather features such as highs and lows or bands of storms with relative certainty and even then only for a few days in advance.

We want certainty – but we have to settle for probability

Let’s say you check your weather app and see your location has a 60% chance of rain at midday. What does this actually mean?

It means if this forecast was issued 100 times, you should get wet 60 times and stay dry 40 times.

To forecast rainfall for a whole season ahead, meteorologists generally calculate the chance of exceeding average conditions, rather than stating that we will have a dry or wet summer with certainty.

So if we predict a 25% chance of above-average rain during an El Niño summer, we would expect that one out of every four times we make this prediction, we would observe higher rainfall than the average.

So how then do we know if we are making good forecasts? Given that a 60% chance of rain can mean wet or dry, albeit with different odds, we certainly won’t be able to judge the forecast quality based on a single event. Instead, we assess many forecasts of 60% rain made in the past to see if the 60 to 40 split of wet and dry eventuated. If it did for this and all other possible probabilities, the forecasts work well.

This isn’t what we’d like. Many of us find probabilistic forecasts confusing. Intuitively, we would prefer to simplify them into absolute statements.

Take a picnic you have planned for tomorrow. If you read the statement “there will be thunderstorms at noon tomorrow at Picnic Spot,” you will feel confident it’s best to cancel the event. But the statement “there’s a 60% chance of thunderstorms at noon tomorrow at Picnic Spot” is far more accurate. The first gives false certainty, by vastly oversimplifying what we really know.

Let’s not forget, there is a 40% chance it will stay dry, which the first statement completely ignores. And if it does stay dry, how will your friends react to the cancelled picnic? How much risk are you willing to take?

Read more:
Curious Kids: how do people know what the weather will be?

When we criticise weather forecasts for their inaccuracy, we are usually being unfair. You can’t actually say a weather forecast was wrong if you experienced rain when the forecast was for a high chance of being dry. It’s simply not possible to tell from a single day or even a season how well our forecasts are working because of the nature of how our atmosphere and oceans behave. We’ve known about this for 60 years.

That is why the Bureau of Meteorology’s seasonal forecasts come in likelihoods, such as the rainfall outlook for October to December issued on September 28th. It predicted that “October to December rainfall was likely (60 to 80% chance) to be below median for much of Australia excluding most of central and northwestern WA and south-west Tasmania.” Note that the forecast had a 20-40% chance for the wetter than usual conditions which some parts of Australia ended up experiencing.

But beware: We can’t declare the success or failure of a likelihood forecast from a single season. What the likelihood gives us is the ability to make better decisions based on the best information we have.

Less than certain but far better than nothing

Given these constraints, how can we best use probabilistic forecasts in making decisions?

Here, weather and climate forecasting alone cannot provide the answers. The use and value of a particular forecast strongly depend on what decisions need to be made, our values, and what economic circumstances decisions are made in.

A very simple example is to assess how much it would cost to protect ourselves against, say, a flood, and the loss we would incur if we did not protect ourselves and then the event happened.

If the cost of protection is very low and the loss very large, the answer is simple: protect yourself all the time. High protection costs and low losses imply we should never protect ourselves. Both statements can be made without bringing in the forecast probability. But in the middle, it gets tricky. How much should you spend on a highly damaging event with a low probability of occurring?

Deterministic weather forecasts giving certainty are only possible for a week or two, and only for the large features of the weather. This means longer term forecasts and those for intense weather systems such as thunderstorms or tropical cyclones will only ever be possible by assessing how likely different outcomes are, and giving us a probability.

It’s fine to complain about the weather. But we can’t complain about the forecasting based on a single event. We want to know what’s coming our way, but the weather doesn’t work like that. We owe it to society to provide and use the best information we have to protect and save property and lives. There is too much at stake to keep it simple.

Read more:
Extreme weather is outpacing even the worst-case scenarios of our forecasting models

Christian Jakob receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Did the BOM get it wrong on the hot, dry summer? No – predicting chaotic systems is probability, not certainty – https://theconversation.com/did-the-bom-get-it-wrong-on-the-hot-dry-summer-no-predicting-chaotic-systems-is-probability-not-certainty-221496

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yvette Grant, PhD (Dance) Candidate and Dance History Tutor, The University of Melbourne

Watching dance is watching an extraordinary and fleeting artistic creation that uses an instrument we all have: the human body. The dancing body communicates a unique sense of being human as it speaks to us through its bones, its muscles, its skin, its cells.

But have you ever been to a dance performance and wondered what it was all about? Or wanted to go see some dance, but been unsure of where to start?

For the uninitiated, dance can be difficult because, like music, it uses a non-verbal language. These basics can open the door to enjoying the beauty and complexity of this physical art.

Read more:
I’m going to a classical music concert for the first time. What should I know?

1. Know the code

There are so many kinds of dance, and all have different ways of communicating – different codes.

For example, in ballet the body is vertical and straight and the legs and arms move around that erect centre. The emphasis is on lightness.

In contrast, in contemporary dance, the body contracts and bends and the movement is grounded and close to the floor.

And these are only two of the Western forms of dance. Every culture has their own dance form, and these all have their own codes.

Some performances are a blend of codes. For example, Bangarra Dance Theatre has created a style which blends traditional Indigenous Australian dance with Western contemporary dance and ballet.

Knowing the code means you know the building blocks, the rules, the frame for the performance. You have a benchmark for what to expect.

2. Do your research

If you’re going to see a ballet, there might be a story and you’ll be expected to know the story before you see the ballet – unlike plays where the excitement is the story being revealed on stage. Ballet companies will often publish this story on their website, or you can look up the work on Wikipedia.

But much like conceptual art (imagine a painting with a small red splodge in the corner of a green background – what does it mean?), the ideas behind a lot of dance performances are not immediately obvious. They may be quite abstract.

In this case, reading what the choreographer says about the work before you see it, and knowing a bit about their other works, gives you a context and a way to make meaning of what you see. You can find interviews with choreographers in various online publications, on company websites, or look them up on YouTube.

3. It’s all about the movement

Story or no story, dance is ultimately about a body moving through space. The pleasure in watching dance comes in engaging with the patterns, the movement vocabulary and phrasing, and the energetic quality of the dancers.

You can appreciate the pattern a body makes moving high or low, traversing the whole stage or staying in one place. With more than one body on stage, you notice the patterns the group make much like noticing the changing configurations of a flock of birds.

Movement vocabulary is the collection of “body words”, or steps, that are repeated and form dance phrases. These can be unique to a performance or a choreographer. The way the vocabulary is arranged in terms of structure, space and timing creates the dance.

The energetic quality of the dancers – think soft, light and flowing versus powerful, attacking and weighty – can change the emotion of the dance and your interpretation.

4. There are no right and wrong answers

A dance performance is not a murder mystery. In watching dance, you are not trying to unlock a singular meaning.

Instead, you are engaging with and appreciating all the factors listed here as well as the other arts on display including the sound, the designs, the lighting and the costumes. You may find a different meaning or different elements to appreciate to other people.

The performance in this video from Chunky Move clearly has characters suggesting a narrative, but it is left up to the audience to interpret the action for themselves. The main meaning comes through the concept being explored which is depth of field.

5. Know the etiquette

Like most shows and exhibitions these days, what you wear is up to you. Even in state theatres and opera houses, some will wear ball gowns, others jeans.

In a traditional theatre setting, once seated, you are expected to watch the whole performance. Some dance performances might be in galleries and for these you can wander around and leave when you’re ready.

Applause is a bit tricky. Sometimes you can applaud during the performance, and sometimes not. Even seasoned dance watchers sometimes get it wrong. So, until you get the hang of it, just follow along. At the end of the performance, there may be multiple curtain calls or bows, especially if there is a large cast, and the audience is expected to continue applauding as long as the bowing continues. You can leave once the lights come up.

If you feel very enthusiastic about the performance, you may stand and applaud. If most of the audience does this, it’s called a standing ovation. But it also doesn’t matter if you are the only one standing.

Read more:
Let’s dance! How dance classes can lift your mood and help boost your social life

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

– ref. How to watch dance – https://theconversation.com/how-to-watch-dance-212877

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

Why is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese suddenly so keen to deliver extra cost-of-living relief – keen enough to summon Labor members of parliament to Canberra for a briefing on Wednesday, followed by a National Press Club address on Thursday?

One immediate reason is he is keen to make sure Labor wins the upcoming byelection in the outer-Melbourne electorate of Dunkley on March 2.

But the cost of living wouldn’t matter much for Dunkley – and it wouldn’t matter much for the rest of us – unless it was really biting.

And despite what the treasurer himself has been trying to tell us, it is biting.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been pointing out that in the June quarter and the September quarter (the three months to June and to September) real wages grew for the first time in years. By that he means that the wages index compiled by the Bureau of Statistics began growing faster than the consumer price index.

It’s better than growing more slowly, but it tells us next to nothing about what’s happening to buying power. Here’s why.

Why CPI understates today’s living costs

Way back in the late 1990s, more than a quarter of a century ago, the consumer price index (CPI) used to actually reflect the cost of living. It included all of the big costs incurred by households, including – importantly – mortgage interest payments. At the time, mortgages accounted for an average of $5 of every $100 each wage earner spent.

Then in September 1998, in response to representations from the Reserve Bank and the Treasury, the bureau changed the way it calculated the index. It excluded mortgage and other interest payments, in a decision it acknowledged would make the index worse at measuring living costs.

It still carries the warning on its website, saying the consumer price index is

not the conceptually ideal measure for assessing the changes in the purchasing power of the disposable incomes of households.

The index actually does a pretty good job of measuring changes in living costs at times when mortgage rates aren’t much changing. But at times when they are tumbling, it’ll overestimate living costs. And when mortgage rates are soaring – as they have been lately – it will way understate what’s happening to living costs.

We know by how much. For years, the bureau has also published a separate set of measures it pointedly calls “living cost indexes”. These do include mortgage and other interest charges, and for households headed by employees (for whom the buying power of wages matters) they are substantial.

Living costs are up 9%, rather than 5.4%

While the consumer price index (the one quoted by the treasurer) increased 5.4% in the year to September, the living cost index for households headed by wage earners climbed 9%.

For these working households, the price of food climbed 4.8% in the year to September, the price of electricity 14.5% and the price of mortgage interest charges 68%.

It’s the increases in mortgage rates that have made the increases in the other prices hurt so much.

The overall increase in prices faced by wage-earners – 9% – is way above the typical wage increase of 4%.

Bill Mitchell of the University of Newcastle points out that on this measure, the correct one, the buying power of wages has been falling for two and a half years. He says it puts the treasurer’s comments in a wholly different light.

Why we should distrust the CPI

Working Australians are right to distrust the consumer price index, which is something the Australian Council of Social Service warned the bureau about when it made the change.

Each month, the Melbourne Institute asks Australians whether their family finances have deteriorated over the previous year. Usually, about one-third of those surveyed say they have.

But for more than a year now, around 50% of those surveyed have been saying their finances have got worse. That’s a peak not seen since the global financial crisis, and one that has lasted longer.

Asked about family finances over the next 12 months, more than 30% say they’ll worsen further. It’s usually 20%.

Looked at from today’s perspective, the arguments put forward in 1997 for weakening the consumer price index as a measure of living costs are unimpressive.

Back then, the Treasury noted that many welfare recipients didn’t have mortgages and that a consumer price index that excluded them would better reflect their living costs.

The Reserve Bank argued interest rates were “conceptually
different from other prices”. In any event, it wanted them excluded because it found it hard to use higher interest rates to bring down inflation if those higher rates pushed the measure of inflation up.

The change attracted little attention at the time, because mortgage rates weren’t moving much. By the time they did, the change had been bedded down.

But here’s some good news

For most of the time since the change, mortgage rates have either increased gradually or been cut, meaning the difference between what the consumer price index has been telling us and what’s been happening to us hasn’t been too stark. It’s been stark lately because interest rates have been rising quickly.

The good news – and there is good news – is that financial markets expect rates to begin falling this year, with the next move down.

Inflation as measured by the consumer price index (inflation excluding mortgage rates) is already falling.

We get the next official update on the consumer price index next week (and the update for the lesser-known living cost indexes a week after that).

It makes now a particularly good time to announce measures to address the cost-of-living crisis. We need them because we really are in something of a crisis. Things are a lot worse than the official index suggests.

And there’s a chance that soon they’ll begin to get better, allowing the prime minister to claim a win.

Peter Martin is economics editor of The Conversation AU.

– ref. Why Australian workers’ true cost of living has climbed far faster than we’ve been told – https://theconversation.com/why-australian-workers-true-cost-of-living-has-climbed-far-faster-than-weve-been-told-221590

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

The recent months have been kind to Peter Dutton and the Coalition. Scott Morrison’s announcement that he will leave parliament at the end of February is the latest instalment of the federal opposition’s good run.

When the Coalition lost the 2022 election, Morrison was, according to the Australian Election Study, the least popular major party leader at any election since the survey began in 1987. Since that time, it has been revealed that he secretly took five ministries for reasons he has never been able to explain with any plausibility. He was also a deeply unimpressive witness before the Robodebt royal commission, a scandal he played a large role in making.

Read more:
View from The Hill: The Bell report on Morrison’s multi-ministries provides a bad character reference

The reasons for his unpopularity even before those post-election revelations were clear enough. He was seen to have failed in the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20. The image of Morrison holidaying in Hawaii while the country burned became the image of Morrison the politician, rivalled only by his carrying a lump of coal into parliament and the spectacle of his ukulele playing on national television.

On gender, he was embarrassing. It would be hard to invent a politician more poorly equipped to deal with the problem of sexual assault, an issue that took political centre stage in the wake of historic claims against his attorney-general, Christian Porter, and former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins’ allegations against a colleague. His repeated fumbling suggested a man out of tune with the times.

Part of Morrison’s problem was that like so many political leaders, he seems to have come to believe in his own artifice. The “Scomo” image – the rugby league-loving daggy dad from the Shire – was pure performance. Morrison was really a rugby union man from affluent Bronte who had enjoyed a string of highly-paid jobs since his twenties.

His error was to believe Australians had voted him back into office because they bought this image. The result was that we had to endure more – curries, cubby-houses, flamboyant displays of barracking, and tedious cosplay in a bewildering variety of workplaces.

One suspects that most of us spotted the fakery a mile off. People voted for him – not overwhelmingly, but enough to get him over the line once – because they didn’t like Bill Shorten, and because they believed Labor was coming after their utes, weekends, jobs, negative gearing and franking credits.

When faced with something more benign three years later, they abandoned him in droves, turning to Labor, Independents, the Greens – anyone but Morrison and his similarly unpopular deputy, Barnaby Joyce.

Read more:
Did Australia just make a move to the left?

Morrison’s defenders are already pointing to a “legacy”. We will hear much about AUKUS. But the Morrison legacy there was a poisonous relationship with France – whose president publicly accused Morrison of lying – and a big splashy announcement lacking basic detail made alongside a United States president who could not recall his name. AUKUS was designed to wedge the Labor Party. The Biden administration wanted him to take Anthony Albanese into his confidence. Morrison predictably declined to do that. There was political hay to be made.

With Morrison, politics invariably trumped policy. He does, however, deserve credit for the government’s handling of the pandemic in 2020. Australia was probably fortunate it had a Coalition government, because any Labor administration that had come up with JobKeeper and JobSeeker would likely have been subjected to relentless hostility by the media and Coalition opposition.

Of course, Morrison never dropped politics: favoured groups of Australians – men in high-vis and corporates – were treated well, while anyone regarded as in the camp of the enemy was less fortunate. His instincts were often bad, but tempered by an understanding of how bad they had proved during the bushfires, by the expert advice of officials, by the obstruction of premiers and chief ministers and, above all, by a desire not to be seen as responsible for a very high pile of dead bodies.

It was obvious the pathway through vaccination and out of danger was meant to lead to an early election and Morrison’s return – an outcome widely regarded by Australia’s political pundits as inevitable until the summer of 2020-21. His government’s muddling of the vaccination program, a new round of lockdowns in 2021, and the failure even to arrange enough test kits put paid to any prospect of an early resort to the polls and, in retrospect, can be seen to have sealed his fate.

Morrison’s Pentecostal religion gained a good deal of attention at the time he contested and won the 2019 election, but had less prominence thereafter. A recording of him addressing a conference of co-religionists that did the rounds served as a reminder that it was both odd and American. Morrison was itching to introduce US-style conservative religiosity into the everyday discourse of Australian politics but had sufficiently well-honed political instincts to understand he should not go there.

The poverty of his political language owed something to this prohibition. Take out the religious material, and Morrison had only slogans that tired those he had acclaimed as “quiet Australians”. After a while, the import of that phrase also became clear enough. Morrison’s ideal citizenry was one that left politics to professionals such as Morrison.

In the end, future historians will probably scratch their heads over why Morrison took the plunge from being a not-very-successful tourism executive to a not-very-successful prime minister. He was also for a time state director of the New South Wales Liberal Party, and his political career took its tone and colour from these earlier roles. He was always campaigning, always looking for the rhetorical trick, political stunt and clever phrase (Remember “negative globalism” and “can-do capitalism”?) that would gain him advantage. He launched his prime ministership in 2018 with a crackdown against criminals who were said to have placed pins in strawberries.

Sean Kelly, easily the most perceptive Morrison watcher, called his book on Morrison The Game and was astute in doing so: that was precisely how Morrison treated politics. It was just a game to be played and won.

He has been unable to hide his pride in besting Shorten in 2019, but seems otherwise uninterested in what he leaves behind him, including the wreckage of the Liberal Party, the public service and parliamentary government – which received its worst battering since November 1975 at the hands of Morrison’s secret dealing with the governor-general.

And for that, we have all paid a price. Politics might look like a game if on your way up you’ve coasted from one bubble to another, one executive job to another, one ministry to another, one political ally to another, one policy to another, one suburb to another, one football code to another. But it’s no game if you are being pursued by Centrelink for a debt you don’t actually owe. It’s no game if your home has just burned down in a bushfire. And it’s no game if you can no longer sell your barley, wine or lobster to China because the government thought it a good idea to go front-running on a grand international enquiry into COVID-19.

On the day of the 2022 election, Morrison tried another stunt – a public announcement that the government had intercepted a Sri Lankan asylum-seeker boat. The news was then texted to mobile phones for the benefit of undecided voters. It was the political equivalent of a minor Bond villain’s last, desperate throw of the dice.

It did the Coalition no good. But it was a reminder of what Morrison had never ceased to be: the marketing man who believed that, in the end, he had the punters’ measure.

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

– ref. As Morrison quits parliament, his ‘legacy’ has little to recommend it – https://theconversation.com/as-morrison-quits-parliament-his-legacy-has-little-to-recommend-it-221746

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, Griffith University

Nearly four years into the pandemic, Australia, like many other countries, is still seeing large numbers of COVID cases. Some 860,221 infections were recorded around the country in 2023, while 30,283 cases have already been reported in 2024.

This is likely to be a significant underestimate, with fewer people testing and reporting than earlier in the pandemic. But the signs suggest parts of Australia are experiencing yet another COVID surge.

While some lucky people claim to have never had COVID, many are facing our second, third or even fourth infection, often despite having been vaccinated. You might be wondering, how long does immunity last after a previous infection or vaccination?

Let’s take a look at what the evidence shows.

B cells and T cells

To answer this question, we need to understand a bit about how immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) works.

After being infected or vaccinated, the immune system develops specific antibodies that can neutralise SARS-CoV-2. B cells remember the virus for a period of time. In addition, the immune system produces memory T cells that can kill the virus, and remain in the blood for some months after the clearance of the infection or a vaccination.

A 2021 study found 98% of people had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein (a protein on the surface of the virus that allows it to attach to our cells) one month after symptom onset. Six to eight months afterwards, 90% of participants still had these neutralising antibodies in their blood.

This means the immune system should have recognised and neutralised the same SARS-CoV-2 variant if challenged within six to eight months (if an infection occurred, it should have resulted in mild to no symptoms).

Read more:
What happens in our body when we encounter and fight off a virus like the flu, SARS-CoV-2 or RSV?

But what about when the virus mutates?

As we know, SARS-CoV-2 has mutated over time, leading to the emergence of new variants such as alpha, beta, delta and omicron. Each of these variants carries mutations that are new to the immune system, even if the person has been previously infected with an earlier variant.

A new variant likely won’t be perfectly recognised – or even recognised at all – by the already activated memory T or B cells from a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. This could explain why people can be so readily reinfected with COVID.

A recent review of studies published up to the end of September 2022 looked at the protection conferred by previous SARS-CoV-2 infections.

The authors found a previous infection provided protective immunity against reinfection with the ancestral, alpha, beta and delta variants of 85.2% at four weeks. Protection against reinfection with these variants remained high (78.6%) at 40 weeks, or just over nine months, after the previous infection. This protection decreased to 55.5% at 80 weeks (18 months), but the authors noted there was a lack of data at this time point.

Notably, an earlier infection provided only 36.1% protection against a reinfection with omicron BA.1 at 40 weeks. Omicron has been described as an immune escape variant.

A prior infection showed a high level of protection against severe disease (above 88%) up to 40 weeks regardless of the variant a person was reinfected with.

Read more:
There are still good reasons to avoid catching COVID again – for one, your risk of long COVID goes up each time

What about immunity after vaccination?

So far almost 70 million COVID vaccines have been administered to more than 22 million people in Australia. Scientists estimated COVID vaccines prevented around 14.4 million deaths in 185 countries in the first year after they became available.

But we know COVID vaccine effectiveness wanes over time. A 2023 review found the original vaccines were 79.6% and 49.7% effective at protecting against symptomatic delta infection at one and nine months after vaccination respectively. They were 60.4% and 13.3% effective against symptomatic omicron at the same time points.

This is where booster doses come into the picture. They’re important to keep the immune system ready to fight off the virus, particularly for those who are more vulnerable to the effects of a COVID infection.

Plus, regular booster doses can provide immunity against different variants. COVID vaccines are constantly being reviewed and updated to ensure optimal protection against current circulating strains, with the latest shot available designed to target the omicron variant XBB 1.5. This is similar to how we approach seasonal flu vaccines.

A recent study showed a COVID vaccination provides longer protection against reinfection than natural protection alone. The median time from infection to reinfection in non-vaccinated people was only six months, compared with 14 months in people who had received one, two or three doses of vaccine after their first infection. This is called hybrid immunity, and other research has similarly found it provides better protection than natural infection alone.

It also seems timing is important, as receiving a vaccine too soon after an infection (less than six months) appears to be less effective than getting vaccinated later.

What now?

Everyone’s immune system is slightly unique, and SARS-CoV-2 continues to mutate, so knowing exactly how long COVID immunity lasts is complicated.

Evidence suggests immunity following infection should generally last six months in healthy adults, and can be prolonged with vaccination. But there are exceptions, and all of this assumes the virus has not mutated so much that it “escapes” our immune response.

While many people feel the COVID pandemic is over, it’s important we don’t forget the lessons we have learned. Practices such as wearing a mask and staying home when unwell can reduce the spread of many viruses, not only COVID.

Vaccination is not mandatory, but for older adults eligible for a booster under the current guidelines, it’s a very good idea.

Lara Herrero receives funding from NHMRC.

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

– ref. How long does immunity last after a COVID infection? – https://theconversation.com/how-long-does-immunity-last-after-a-covid-infection-221398

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

Late last year, a PhD student named Yuekang Li was refused a study visa to enter Canada. Why? Canada’s Federal Court was concerned he could be “targeted and coerced into providing information that would be detrimental to Canada”.

Li wasn’t the only one. Earlier this month, Iranian computer engineering student Reza Jahantigh was denied a visa to study his PhD in Canada, because of his previous service in the Iranian military. Some observers have called the decisions “deeply unhelpful”, and said they risked the prospects of future international students coming to Canada.

Despite such criticisms, Canada is at the forefront of an international charge for stricter “research security” – the idea of protecting certain university courses and research programs from espionage, foreign interference and technology theft.

While countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are moving swiftly to make their research more secure, Australia lags behind. And our need for research security is only set to grow.

Rules around the world

In the US, applicants for federal funding must comply with strict guidelines on disclosing both local and foreign partners. Canada has banned research collaborations with foreign entities connected with Chinese, Russian or Iranian military or intelligence agencies.

The UK even funds specific university research into how they secure their work. The Netherlands, a world leader with its own brand of “knowledge security”, has even proposed a controversial law to security-screen every foreign researcher, irrespective of their home country.

What is Australia doing?

In Australia, research security is a contentious topic. We don’t recognise the term, we don’t really talk about it, and it doesn’t appear in parliamentary press releases. But there are real threats to our universities.

A parliamentary inquiry in 2022 heard stories of coercion, suppression and foreign interference on almost every Australian campus. Two years on, almost none of the inquiry’s recommendations have been completely adopted.

Read more:
Teaching Chinese politics in Australia: polarised views leave academics between a rock and a hard place

Last year, my colleagues and I found Australia has more than 3,000 research agreements with China, some of which might pose significant security risks. Only a few months ago, the Five Eyes – composed of the intelligence agencies of the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – called China an “unprecedented threat” to innovative research around the world.

We should be worried. Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia is about to receive some of the most closely guarded military secrets in the world courtesy of the US – nuclear-powered submarines.

After that, we will be sharing breakthroughs in military technologies such as robotics, hypersonic missiles and quantum computers. The government has even allocated thousands of new university positions to support AUKUS.

Some action, but not enough

But what Australia hasn’t done is take a really good look at what needs to be done to keep those secrets safe.

We aren’t completely defenceless. ASIO has published a booklet called Collaborate with Care, which gives researchers tips on how to ensure their research isn’t compromised. And one of Australia’s biggest funding bodies, the Australian Research Council, recently published its Countering Foreign Interference Framework.

But the steps outlined in those publications are all voluntary, and pale in comparison with our international allies. So, what will it take for Australia to reconsider its position on research security?

Does Australia need a scandal?

Put simply, Australia seems to need a proper research security scandal in one of its universities.

The US has a long history of research security scandals. One of the worst was the alleged theft of “military grade meta-materials” by Chinese entrepreneur and one-time graduate student Ruopeng Liu from Duke University in 2009.

Read more:
The Thousand Talents Plan is part of China’s long quest to become the global scientific leader

In 2018, Hao Zhang – a professor at China’s Tianjin University – was arrested (and later convicted) for stealing semiconductor technology from US businesses. And in 2021, Harvard professor Charles Lieber – once considered a frontrunner for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry – was convicted of fraud for lying about payments he received to be a “strategic scientist” for foreign universities.

Canada too has had its scandals. In 2021, doctors Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were fired by Canada’s National Microbiology Lab and lost their security clearances for allegedly sharing virus samples with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And in 2023, Norwegian officials arrested a Russian intelligence agent named Mikhail Mikushin, who had posed for years as a Canadian university academic.

Close calls

In Australia, we’ve come close. Just two years ago, the ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess told the Five Eyes his agency had expelled a visiting professor who had been given “money and a shopping list of intelligence requirements” by Chinese intelligence. Then, last year, ASIO warned that foreign intelligence agents have been told to “aggressively seek” and steal AUKUS secrets from Australia.

Read more:
China’s quest for techno-military supremacy

So perhaps we should act now, before we get a scandal to spur us into action.

We could be having open, honest and frank discussions between universities and our intelligence services. We could be crafting a robust research security policy hand-in-hand between academia and government. We could be looking at what works around the world, analysing it, critiquing it, and seeing if it works here.

Otherwise, Australia stands to lose the very secrets we have just been entrusted to keep.

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

– ref. Australia risks falling behind allies on research security. Will it take a spy scandal in our universities to catch up? – https://theconversation.com/australia-risks-falling-behind-allies-on-research-security-will-it-take-a-spy-scandal-in-our-universities-to-catch-up-221602

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Johanna Reidy, Lecturer, Department of Public Health, University of Otago

As if on cue, parents across New Zealand are starting to raise concerns about the price of compulsory school uniforms ahead of the start of the new school year. The cost of new uniforms can range from around NZ$80 to over $1,200 for a single student.

This is a big upfront investment, followed by the ongoing costs to replace worn-out or small items.

Yes, school uniforms are an investment in clothing that lasts for multiple years and can be cheaper in the long run than ordinary clothing. But it’s hard to apply this investment mindset during a cost-of-living crisis.

Our ongoing research examines uniforms and equity in New Zealand and includes interviews with school leaders and students across three schools.

Irrespective of a school’s equity index rating (formerly decile), the school leaders we interviewed said uniform cost was raising concerns.

Our survey of students in one school in a higher socioeconomic area found nearly 20% of the 630 respondents worried about whether their parents could afford their uniform. Across three surveyed schools, most staff knew students who weren’t able to afford some items.

Staff in our survey reported balancing the benefits of having a “uniform” body of students against creating a barrier to education through high garment costs.

So what can be done to ensure students experience the benefits of school uniforms without added pressure on struggling families? Turns out, there are international examples that can guide us.

Costs and community expectations

Debates are never just about the uniform itself. Politics, power, class and tradition can influence decisions about compulsory garments.

Evidence shows any well-designed uniform can help students settle and remove classroom distractions. Students are physically comfortable, active, feel like they fit in and are be ready to learn.

But there is a persistent belief that a formal blazer and tie is somehow better than a simple uniform, even though there is no evidence the type of school uniform directly influences academic achievement.

Who decides a school’s uniform?

In New Zealand, school boards determine uniform garments and rules.

From an ethical standpoint, boards should ensure that school uniforms don’t create an undue cost barrier to education.

Obviously boards cannot control the cost of raw materials from which uniforms are made. But they can control adherence to Commerce Commission guidelines on school uniform and supplies, and their school’s list of compulsory school uniform items.

Read more:
School uniforms – a blessing or a curse?

New school uniforms are usually purchased from specialist suppliers, directly or via the school. In New Zealand there exists a broad choice of suppliers, from large corporates to small family businesses.

But maintaining real and competitive choice depends on competition in and for the market. And it is here where schools can have a real influence on price by adhering to the Commission’s guidelines.

This includes conducting a regular review of the schools’ uniforms and having a mix of suppliers – ideally avoiding problems of sole-supplier or “evergreen” arrangements.

Taking a proactive stance

Relying on best practice and guidelines is not enough to ensure everyone can afford and access school uniforms. The rules don’t appear to be proactively monitored and rely on complaints from the public.

Instead, it’s time for the government to intervene more to improve access to uniforms and education.

To ensure the supply process is as fair as possible, the government could follow international examples and introduce legislation on best practice.

Read more:
Social media has made school children more fashion conscious than ever – and parents are footing the bill

The United Kingdom’s Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 outlines what schools must consider in their uniform policies and supplier arrangements.

Under this legislation, most uniform items should be available from any shop, not just specific retailers.

While not a silver bullet, such legislation creates a hook for authorities to check and monitor school uniform cost and policy. The law also gives the government a baseline understanding of uniform cost and composition in the UK.

Supporting NZ families with uniform costs

There are several steps the New Zealand government could take when it comes to school uniforms, including making subsidies for uniform costs more accessible and less bureaucratic. The government could legislate state funding of school uniforms for high-need students.

Currently low-income families have to take out what are essentially loans from Work and Income New Zealand. This then places pressure on these families to survive on less income while paying the loans back.

The government could also establish a national uniform bulk buyer – similar to the national drug-buying agency PHARMAC. But while this would be a pragmatic approach to the issue of school uniform cost, it may not be widely supported.

Read more:
School dress ‘debate’ is a nonsense: just have a range of options, and let students choose

That said, what governments decide to do depends on who bends the ear of power. Everyone with a stake in this issue – students, schools, teachers, charities and communities – needs to contact their local politicians to ensure they are aware of the issue and the possible solutions.

At the school level, boards should have a detailed uniform policy that supports human rights and reflects school values. But this policy needs to be transparent and adaptable, with a detailed review process.

Schools also need to periodically check their uniform still serves student and community needs, including number and cost of compulsory items (for example, whether blazers are necessary and whether all items have to be monogrammed), or whether the school decides to fund uniforms to meet student need.

Regardless of the approach, let’s address school uniform cost head on so we can optimise investment in students’ education.

This research is funded by a University of Otago Research Grant. Lucy Telfar Barnard and Michaela Pettie are associate investigators on the project.

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

– ref. The cost of school uniforms is a burden on families – is it time for the government to step in? – https://theconversation.com/the-cost-of-school-uniforms-is-a-burden-on-families-is-it-time-for-the-government-to-step-in-221213

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kanika Meshram, Lecturer in Marketing, The University of Melbourne

A Senate inquiry into supermarket pricing, announced last year, is currently taking public submissions and will report its findings in May.

The Albanese government, meanwhile, has appointed former Labor cabinet minister Craig Emerson to review the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct.

Coles has said it’s “always exploring ways to reduce prices,” while Woolworths says it is “working to deliver relief” from high prices. Supply chain costs, inflation, construction costs and energy prices have all contributed to high prices, the major supermarkets say.

But let’s forget the media commentary, the politician sound bytes and the supermarket public messaging for a moment. What are ordinary Australians saying about supermarket pricing?

To find out more, I analysed 10,025 comments made on Reddit using Python programming software. Reddit is a network of online communities where like-minded people can discuss topics of mutual interest. The comments were drawn from the Reddit groups r/australian and r/australia and r/AustralianPolitics.

My research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, revealed five key themes dominated these discussions.

Read more:
Amid allegations of price gouging, it’s time for big supermarkets to come clean on how they price their products

1. ‘ColesWorth’: the two brands knitted together

These Redditors often used a particular portmanteau in their discussion: “ColesWorth”.

This term, which seems to imply many see no real difference between the two retailers, negatively knits together two brands. It was also interesting to note how often Redditors used the word “they” to refer – fairly indiscriminately – to Coles and Woolworths.

This suggests a real public image problem for Coles and Woolworths, as the actions of one chain come to influence how the other is perceived.

One illustrative Reddit comment said:

We need to make sure ColesWorth aren’t hurting our citizens.

2. ‘Duopoly’ concerns

Many Redditors expressed concern about what they saw as a duopoly, a term that showed up frequently.

One commenter, for instance, said:

Who could’ve guessed in Australia we’ve allowed our newspapers to be run by a monopoly, our banks by a Big Four effectively acting like a monopoly, and our supermarkets becoming a duopoly.

On the Senate inquiry, another said:

This is good news. This brand duo will certainly feel the heat of more scrutiny, possibly curbing their monopoly in the short term.

A different Redditor opined:

Coles and Woolworths’ duopoly should split up, but I doubt that Labor would have the guts, and the LNP (Liberal National Party) wouldn’t do it, so things will return to normal soon enough.

3. Perturbed by profits

Coles and Woolworths made net profits in 2022-23 of A$1.1 billion and A$1.62 billion, respectively.

Many Redditors expressed concern about supermarket profits. One commenter wrote:

They can charge higher and higher prices for basic necessities, and there’s nothing we can do about it except pay up or starve.

Another said:

Big business changes when its customers revolt; in a profit-focused world it’s boycott or accept.

4. The Aldi alternative

Supermarket chain Aldi, which markets itself as a cheaper alternative to Coles and Woolworths, was frequently mentioned by these Redditors.

One said:

Coles and Woolworths keep hiking prices for years, but thankfully we have at least Aldi to keep them in check.

A different Redditor said:

Woolies prices floored me […] for everyday food items. Ended up going to Aldi instead.

Another wrote:

We have greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers for fresh stuff. Aldi or IGA for tinned and dry goods. The best part is if you do this, the price drops for you straight away, and, in theory, for everyone else in time.

This suggests the stiff competition Woolworths and Coles already face from Aldi (and other alternatives) is not going away any time soon.

5. Calls for government action

Many commenters sought government intervention, while others were sceptical it would ever happen or would help.

Some linked the Senate inquiry to similar past investigations in banking, aged care and health, dismissing them as “a waste of taxpayers’ money” that would bring no tangible outcomes.

One commenter wrote:

Corporations wield more influence than voters over the major parties, and so will continue to get their way as long as this remains.

Some called for “full federalisation” of supermarkets, the breakup of “monopolies” and even for the arrest of high-level management at Coles and Woolworths.

Many of these proposals seem unlikely but such comments show the depth of consumer anger about supermarket pricing.

Why do online conversations about brands matter?

Clearly, social media doesn’t include everyone in Australia and while the Reddit community is large it isn’t a representative sample of broader Australian society. An element of selection bias is at play.

However, the anger on display in these forums does indicate Coles and Woolworths face difficult brand risks. The advent of the “ColesWorth” phenomenon must be particularly worrying for the two brands, which may now struggle not to be tarred with the same brush even if they make radical changes to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

The comments I analysed show the supermarket pricing story is not just a media beat-up. People are talking about the issue, suggesting a shift to supporting local or cheaper businesses and calling for government action on pricing.

Read more:
As Australian supermarkets are blamed over food costs, French grocer Carrefour targets Pepsi for ‘unacceptable’ price rises

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

– ref. I analysed more than 10,000 Reddit posts on supermarket pricing. 5 key themes emerged – https://theconversation.com/i-analysed-more-than-10-000-reddit-posts-on-supermarket-pricing-5-key-themes-emerged-221119

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arjuna Dibley, Head of Sustainable Finance Hub, The University of Melbourne

Few of us pay much attention to our superannuation. Under the Superannuation Guarantee, employers pay at least 11% of salaries into their employees’ super funds without workers having to do anything.

These accumulating automatic payments have turned the Australian super fund industry into one of the world’s largest, and the fastest-growing. Worth $A3.5 trillion, our superfunds sit alongside funds from Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and United States to make up 92% of total global pension assets.

But none of these funds are investing enough in the net zero transition. Institutional investors, of which super funds are a vital part, provided less than 1% of all direct private climate change finance globally in 2021/2022– a contribution of around $US6 billion. This is far from the trillions needed every year to finance renewable energy projects, cleaner industrial processes, and replacing fossil fuels in transport, among other initiatives.

At the same time, many Australian funds continue to invest in carbon-producing companies, such as oil and gas, even when they claim to be making “green” investments.

This article outlines reforms the federal government could undertake to encourage super funds to tackle the climate crisis. This would help align the super system with its original purpose: to provide a better standard of living for the millions of us who will retire on a climate-damaged planet.

The Albanese government’s sustainable finance plan

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is aware of the unmet potential of super funds. Treasury’s Sustainable Finance Strategy, released in November, outlines measures underway or in development to enable more sustainable investment. The Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, for example, helps investors and regulators to identify whether an investment is “green”.

Read more:
Making money green: Australia takes its first steps towards a net zero finance strategy

Last month Chalmers held an “Investor Roundtable” that brought together heads of superannuation funds and others to discuss how to scale up investment in climate change.

Funds expressed their intent to make more investments aligned with net zero. Studies consistently show most large Australian funds have pledged to support net zero and established investment targets. Yet they say several regulatory roadblocks hinder them from turning their commitments into action.

The government has said it will make reforms on one roadblock – the funds’ performance-testing framework.

Why super funds rarely invest in clean energy

Because superannuation funds are required by law to invest retirement savings for the best return for their members, they give preference to investments that offer the best financial returns with the lowest level of risk.

Funds see companies that are developing and deploying new technologies or operating in areas of significant public policy change as higher risk. That’s a big reason why new green technologies struggle to attract institutional capital compared to those based on fossil fuels.

Read more:
As Australia’s net zero transition threatens to stall, rooftop solar could help provide the power we need

Super funds consistently note in annual surveys that the lack of green investment opportunities with the right risk-adjusted return profile is a huge barrier to exapanding climate-aligned investment. And recent legislative changes have made the situation worse.

Under the Your Super Your Future scheme, announced in the 2020-21 Budget, the financial regulator for super funds evaluates funds each year by comparing their performance over an eight-year time period against one of 11 “benchmark” investment portfolios.

This process aims to weed out underachieving funds and to protect members from losing money. Funds that are found to underperform must disclose the fact to their members, and persistent failures cannot accept new member funds. This tough sanction has led funds to “hug the benchmark”, meaning they pursue investment strategies to beat the performance test and their peers.

The result, as studies show, is that funds are discouraged from pursuing climate-related investments. The test encourages funds to invest in companies or projects that deliver returns over time frames that are too short for most climate-related investments to achieve returns.

Read more:
Australian homes can be made climate-ready, reducing bills and emissions – a new report shows how

Treasury has announced it will extend the performance test period to ten years, and adjust it “to ensure that funds are not unintentionally discouraged from investing in certain assets”. These are encouraging first steps but they are not enough.

Letting ordinary fund members invest in a greener planet

Melbourne Climate Futures’ research has uncovered further regulatory barriers that are stalling investment. One relates to the way individual members choose investments.

Since its establishment by the Keating government in 1992, the Superannuation Guarantee has given individuals some choice over how they handle their superannuation. While many are placed into a fund with a default investment option when they begin work, they are able to choose different investment approaches.

Some of these focus on a theme, such as sustainability, and some offer different levels of risk exposure. Encouraging individuals to direct more of their super to green companies and projects could be a powerful tool to enable more climate investment.

Read more:
Why Australia urgently needs a climate plan and a Net Zero National Cabinet Committee to implement it

Surveys show more than half of Australians support greater climate action. While many people would not support their super fund making climate investments that hurt their returns, at least some members would. Yet the rigid nature of the best-financial-interest duty, combined with the performance test, prevents funds from offering members the option to put the climate first.

This needs to change. The government could amend the best-financial-interest duty so individuals can instruct their funds to invest their money in projects that reduce long-term and systemic financial risks such as climate change. A tax break or a matching contribution from government could also encourage individuals to choose sustainable investment options.

Climate change poses a grave risk to the health, wellbeing and finances of all Australians, including retirees. Federal policy reform is urgently needed to unlock more superannuation for green investment, harness the power and preferences of individual members and help reduce future climate impacts.

Read more:
Too hard basket: why climate change is defeating our political system

Arjuna Dibley is a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Development, a Board Member at CarbonPlan and Environmental Justice Australia. He is part of a research team at the University of Melbourne that receives funding from the Australian Research Council to study institutional investors and climate investing.

– ref. How Australia’s huge superannuation funds can do much more to fight climate change, with a little help – https://theconversation.com/how-australias-huge-superannuation-funds-can-do-much-more-to-fight-climate-change-with-a-little-help-221018

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University

What happens when a person is experiencing long COVID and intimate partner violence at the same time? There has been no attention paid to this question anywhere in the world since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

This is staggering, given previous research shows women who are victim-survivors of intimate partner violence are twice as likely to develop long-term illnesses, including chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

The World Health Organisation defines long COVID as the continuation, or development of new symptoms three months after the initial COVID infection. Global studies estimate one in ten infected people go on to develop long COVID symptoms.

Our research reveals the previously unseen impacts of long COVID on individuals experiencing domestic violence. We found that each of these conditions worsened an individual’s experience of the other.

Our study

We conducted an anonymous online survey between April and October 2023 with 28 Australian adults affected by intimate partner violence and diagnosed with long COVID. The survey asked participants about the impact of long COVID on their experiences of intimate partner violence as well as about their safety and support needs.

The majority of survey participants (18 of the 28) identified as female and as heterosexual (21 of 28). Most participants were between 31 and 50 years old and identified English as the main language spoken at home.

The majority of respondents contracted long COVID in 2022 and had experienced symptoms for more than a year. Three-quarters of them said long COVID “significantly” affected their day-to-day functioning.

Experiences of partner abuse since contracting long COVID

Thirteen participants had experienced abuse in the relationship prior to their diagnosis with long COVID. Another seven experienced abuse for the first time following their long COVID diagnosis. These victim-survivors talked about the abuse beginning as their health deteriorated.

One participant described:

I think the illness on top of my other conditions made him perceive me as more of a burden, leading to poor behaviour. There were a few signs of this prior to my having COVID, but I think my being vulnerable when I had previously been the ‘strong’ and ‘independent’ partner really threw him off and he rejected that.

Another victim-survivor put the rapid increase in abuse down to the difficult social conditions of living through lockdowns and in isolation:

[The pandemic] gave us too much time to know so much about each other. That worsened the abusive tendencies.

Eighteen survey participants believed contracting long COVID had put them at higher risk of abuse due to a range of factors, including reduced brain functioning, low self-worth, social isolation associated with COVID restrictions, and the burden of care placed on their partners.

As two victim-survivors described:

My self-worth has decreased and my need for help and support has increased. He makes me feel like I need him.

I seemed to be a burden at all times.

Several participants said they were too unwell as a result of long COVID to even consider leaving their abusive partner. As two participants commented:

I felt that I had no choice but to stay. I can’t handle another huge change or unknown.

It [long COVID] makes me feel helpless. My health is my ticket to a better life. I’m not actioning my thoughts to leave as it all seems too big, too messy. I won’t cope physically or mentally. I cannot take care of five children on my own.

Victim-survivors who had not separated from their abusive partner acknowledged that it would be impossible to recover physically from long COVID while continuing to experience intimate partner violence.

Read more:
I have COVID. How likely am I to get long COVID?

The weaponisation of long COVID symptoms

Victim-survivors described how their partners weaponised or manipulated their long COVID symptoms to perpetrate abusive behaviours. Perpetrators exploited the mental and physical impacts of long COVID to further entrap victim-survivors in coercively controlling relationships.

One victim-survivor described their partner in the following way:

yelling and pushing due to me not knowing what I want to say quickly and words getting muddled up.

Another victim-survivor lost their sex drive, a well-documented symptom of long COVID, which led to their abuser shifting towards sexually abusive behaviours.

Missed opportunities

Many victim-survivors in this study talked about missed opportunities for intervention by health professionals. One in five victim-survivors surveyed said that they were never asked about violence by a medical professional.

Several participants also said family violence support services were partially or completely inaccessible due to their long COVID symptoms. One victim-survivor commented:

Nothing was able to be provided in a practical sense, the best that could be done is acknowledging that there’s a gap in services.

Several victim-survivors who accessed support did so via phone or webchat. This is unsurprising given the health vulnerabilities of victim-survivors experiencing long COVID. But it highlights the importance of continued funding for the delivery of remote domestic violence supports and health care services across Australia.

Read more:
How technology can help victims of intimate partner violence

Supporting the safety and recovery needs of all victim-survivors

Our study provides critical information relevant to the continued implementation of the Australian government’s National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children as well as ongoing public health policy and practice in all Australian states and territories.

The unique experiences of victim-survivors with long COVID and other chronic health conditions must be recognised and addressed across the spectrum of prevention, early intervention, response and recovery efforts.

In this study, victim-survivors commonly described losing control of their health and then losing control of their safety within their relationship. Addressing this issue requires workers responding to domestic violence to be alive to the complex intersection of chronic illness, ableism, and gender-based violence.

Kate has received funding for family violence related research from the Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Criminology, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, the Victorian Government and the Department of Social Services. This piece is written by Kate Fitz-Gibbon in her role at Monash University and is wholly independent of Kate Fitz-Gibbon’s role as Chair of Respect Victoria.

Jasmine McGowan receives funding for family violence related research from the Victorian Government and the Queensland Government.

Naomi Pfitzner receives funding for family violence related research from the Victorian Government and the Department of Education.

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

– ref. How both health and safety are compromised for people living with long COVID and intimate partner violence – https://theconversation.com/how-both-health-and-safety-are-compromised-for-people-living-with-long-covid-and-intimate-partner-violence-221413

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

When the previous government released the first ever national security strategy last year, it forecast stormy geopolitical weather ahead. In the brief few months since then, the sky has darkened further still.

Beyond a slight rapprochement between China and the United States at the end of 2023, arms control remains poor, measures to prevent accidental war limited, and a genuinely rule-based international order patchy at best.

British foreign secretary David Cameron may have been speaking to his own government’s agenda when he said the “lights are absolutely flashing red on the global dashboard”. But the analogy still holds.

Three big issues are now rising to the boil: the war in Ukraine, tension in the South China Sea, and the widening disaster in Israel and Gaza. Each instance of global disorder touches Aotearoa New Zealand and its largely untested coalition government.

Ukraine in the balance

While New Zealand has not joined the fighting, it is not neutral on Ukraine. It has provided weapons, training and other forms of assistance – including joining actions against Russia at the International Court of Justice.

But the prognosis is not good. Russia’s military counterpunch is coming while external support for Ukraine is at risk of fading.

Defence officials in Sweden have warned their country should prepare for the possibility of conflict. A leaked plan from the German government shows it is also preparing for potential widening Russian aggression.

As a partner to NATO, New Zealand needs to consider its response should the tide of war turn against Ukraine – or worse still, spreads to other countries.

Read more:
Ukraine war: talk of Russian spring offensive raises fears that Kyiv is ill-prepared to face it

US-China standoff

New Zealand has said it is “deeply concerned” about China’s tactics over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Of particular concern have been Chinese efforts to stop Philippine vessels resupplying citizens in the islands (to which the Philippines has sovereign rights).

The Permanent Court of Arbitration has affirmed Philippine claims to its territories. Although China opposes the court decision, a clear majority – including New Zealand – either positively acknowledge or support the ruling.

New Zealand also asserts “there is no legal basis for states to claim ‘historic rights’ with respect to maritime areas in the South China Sea”.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden last year promised to defend the Philippines should China attack. The region – where the Chinese navy confronted a New Zealand frigate during a freedom of navigation exercise last year – remains a raw nerve.

Widening Middle East threats

The situation in Israel and Gaza is a legal, political and ethical mess that risks spilling over. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has already joined Australia and Canada to reiterate the need for a negotiated two-state solution and the importance of respecting international law.

However, there has so far been no mention of accountability for war crimes through the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court.

Read more:
New Zealand can learn from South Africa, The Gambia and others when it comes to international accountability

New Zealand’s focus has shifted to the protection of global waterways, specifically the Red Sea. With nine other countries, it has pledged to defend lives and protect the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways.

New Zealand has not been involved in the first military actions against Houthi rebels trying to control the sea lanes. But if things escalate, the coalition government has effectively signed up to fight a proxy group directly connected to an angry and dangerous Iran.

Increasing military spending

To meet these challenges at a practical and logistical level, New Zealand will need to invest more in its military. While the new government wants to control spending, it would be prudent to increase defence spending to at least 2% of GDP to match various allies.

It makes sense for New Zealand to focus on inter-operability and shared spending on common military platforms with its one official ally, Australia.

New Zealand can still maintain its nuclear-free policy and work for arms control while improving its own self-defence. It does not need the offensive capacity of the next generation of armaments (from AI and cyber capabilities to bioweapons), but it must have access to defences against them.

At the same time, self-defence need not be linked to new alliances such as the AUKUS security pact. The security issues outlined here are separate, not part of one large fire. China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are close. But they are not connected by mutual military obligations.

Read more:
The ‘number 8 wire’ days for NZ’s defence force are over – new priorities will demand bigger budgets

Independence and self-defence

It might make more sense for New Zealand to join agreements like AUKUS if other like-minded countries (such as Canada, South Korea and Japan) joined at the same time.

But this might also create problems. First, it could accelerate a divide of the world into two large blocs. And second, without the kind of trade agreements with the US that other partners enjoy, New Zealand would be more exposed than most.

An independent foreign policy where each issue is treated on its own merits should still be the preferred approach. There is much to be said for working with countries which have shared values and common histories.

At the moment, some challenges warrant New Zealand’s involvement, but others do not. Defending the values and agreements that underpin the United Nations and a rule-based international order is the best guide.

Simply to follow the US, come-what-may, is a dangerous bet, especially given the uncertainties around the presidential election in November. At the same time, not to be better militarily prepared is a utopian position New Zealand can no longer afford.

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

– ref. From the Middle East to the South China Sea: NZ’s new government inherits a defence dilemma – https://theconversation.com/from-the-middle-east-to-the-south-china-sea-nzs-new-government-inherits-a-defence-dilemma-221585

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University

How menopause affects women’s working lives has been shrouded by stigma for decades.

But this is starting to change. Australian journalist Imogen Crump’s recent on-air hot flush and her remark “I don’t think hormones respect national television” drew applause for its candour.

The federal parliament has menopause firmly on its radar with an inquiry set to explore the economic, physical, mental and emotional effects of this typically natural transition.

The inquiry will also investigate why awareness, availability and usage of workplace supports remains low. It’s not enough for employers to offer supports – employees need to be confident enough to access them.

Our global review of organisational supports for menstruation and menopause found workplaces play a pivotal role in breaking menopausal taboos. With the right interventions, workplaces can enable employees to manage their symptoms and remain in the workforce.

3 in 4 women experience troubling symptoms

Menopause is when a woman or person who menstruates stops having their period for at least 12 months.

Most people who menstruate transition to menopause and experience perimenopausal symptoms between 45 and 60 years of age.

Symptoms commonly include hot flushes, night sweats, cognitive disruptions known as “brain fog”, anxiety, depressive symptoms and disturbed sleep.

Read more:
Perimenopause usually begins in your 40s. How do you know if it has started?

For some people, menopausal symptoms can be brief and cause little discomfort. But around 25% of women experience symptoms that profoundly affect their daily working lives.

Why menopause is a workplace issue

The government’s focus on prolonging workforce participation, together with its workplace equality agenda, has placed menopause on the agenda for unions and individual organisations.

Recent Australian research found 17% of women aged 45 to 64 reported taking an extended break from work in the last five years.

Menopause can also be a key factor in some women’s decision to retire early. Women retire 7.4 years earlier, on average, than men. This means a loss of earnings upwards of A$577,512 per woman.

The economic impact is significant. Menopause is estimated to cost Australian women $15.2 billion in lost income and superannuation for every year of early retirement.

Changing workplace culture is key

Our review investigated the supports organisations around the globe are offering for women going through menopause. Organisations have trialled a wide range of interventions, with varying success.

The better ones took a holistic approach. They prioritised a safe and open workplace culture, where menopausal symptoms could be talked about. Awareness raising, education and buy-in from senior leaders contributed to a positive workplace culture.

Without this, employees can fear repercussions will impact their job security or career progression and are likely to be suffering in silence.

Collaboration and adaptability is key

It’s important for employees and employers to work together to develop evidence-based workplace guidelines. These should include actionable advice about how to modify working conditions.

Guidelines supporting staff can be better received than policies as they can be less bureaucratic and more practical. Menopause guidelines might recommend access to:

• flexible working conditions
• fans
• cold drinking water
• natural light
• free period products
• uniforms made from breathable, natural fabrics.

Guidelines must be adapted to different industries, professions and work roles. Ways of cooling down employees will be more necessary for hot workplaces such as commercial kitchens or labour intensive roles in agriculture and construction.

Guidelines within the teaching profession, in contrast, might include more access to toilet breaks and on-site showering facilities.

Read more:
How to design menopause leave policies that really support women in the workplace

Flexible working conditions, including flexible start and finish times, more frequent breaks and working from home can also be useful during symptom flare ups. Australian legislation already enables these supports, but their take-up is often tied to senior management support.

Additional leave entitlements, combined with education and the other interventions mentioned can be effective, but remain widely debated.

Some argue additional entitlements can lead to menopausal women being seen as weak or unreliable.

But in the right circumstances, leave provisions can enable employees to take time away from work they need to better manage their symptoms and return to work fresh.

Best-practice approaches also recognise how other health issues like pelvic pain (such as endometriosis) and menstruation can affect employees throughout their life-course.

Lagging workplaces need to catch up

Victorian Women’s Trust, Future Super and ModiBodi were among the first Australian organisations to offer support to employees affected by menopause and menstruation. These organisations offer a variety of workplace supports that trust employees to be honest about their circumstances and empower them to access help when they need it.

With a tight employment market and a workforce motivated by progressive corporate cultures, more organisations may be encouraged to consider a menstrual and menopause policy. Sustainability Victoria recently topped the 2023 AFR Boss Best Places to Work List (in the government, education and not-for-profit sector) in part due to its progressive menstruation and menopause policy.

Organisations looking to implement menopause-sensitive workplace policies need not reinvent the wheel. Research-informed, free workplace resources can encourage productive conversations. They can be modified to meet unique industry and workplace contexts, with leading workplaces often sharing their guidelines and policies to help break the stigma and taboo shrouding menstruation and menopause in the workplace.

If we are serious about workplace gender equity, workplace menopause supports should be part of business as usual.

Read more:
How long does menopause last? 5 tips for navigating uncertain times

Michelle O’Shea receives funding from Endometriosis Australia & Changing Places HR Services Pty Ltd

Danielle Howe receives funding from Western Sydney University.

Sarah Duffy received funding from Endometriosis Australia & Changing Places HR Services Pty Ltd.

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

– ref. Symptoms of menopause can make it harder to work. Here’s what employers should be doing – https://theconversation.com/symptoms-of-menopause-can-make-it-harder-to-work-heres-what-employers-should-be-doing-219314

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

In 2024, global climate trends are cause for both deep alarm and cautious optimism. Last year was the hottest on record by a huge margin and this year will likely be hotter still. The annual global average temperature may, for the first time, exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – a threshold crucial for stabilising the Earth’s climate.

Without immediate action, we are at grave risk of crossing irreversible tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. Yet there are reasons for hope.

Global greenhouse gas emissions may peak this year and start falling. This would be an historic turning point, heralding the end of the fossil fuel era as coal, oil and gas are increasingly displaced by clean energy technologies.

But we must do more than take our foot off the warming accelerator – we must slam on the brakes. To avoid the worst of the climate crisis, global emissions must roughly halve by 2030. The task is monumental but possible, and could not be more urgent. It’s not game over – it’s game on.

Our planet in peril

Last year, Earth was the hottest it’s been since records began. The onset of El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean helped drive global temperatures to new heights. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service found 2023 was 1.48°C warmer than the pre-industrial average.

Warmer global temperatures in 2023 brought extreme events and disasters worldwide. They included deadly heatwaves in the northern hemisphere summer, devastating wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, and record-breaking rains in many places including Korea, South Africa and China.

Last year was also the warmest on record for the world’s oceans. More than 90% of heat from global warming is stored in the world’s oceans. Ocean temperatures are a clear indicator of our warming planet, revealing a year-on-year increase and an acceleration in the rate of warming.

The warming oceans meant for parts of 2023, the extent of sea ice in the Earth’s polar regions was the lowest on record. During the southern hemisphere winter, sea ice in Antarctica was more than one million square kilometres below the previous record low – an area of ice more than 15 times the size of Tasmania.

This year may be hotter still. There is a reasonable chance 2024 will end with an average global temperature more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Governments have agreed, through the Paris Agreement, to work together to limit global warming to 1.5°C, because warming beyond this threshold poses enormous dangers for humanity.

The agreement refers to long-term trends in temperature, not a single year. So breaching 1.5°C in 2024 would not mean the world has failed to meet the Paris target. However, on long-term trends we are on track to cross the 1.5°C limit in the early 2030s.

As the planet warms, we are now at grave risk of crossing irreversible “tipping points” in Earth’s climate system – including the loss of polar ice sheets and associated sea-level rise, and the collapse of major ocean currents. These tipping points represent thresholds which, when crossed, will trigger abrupt and self-perpetuating changes to the world’s climate and oceans. They are threats of a magnitude never before faced by humanity – one-way doors we do not want to go through.

Read more:
It is time to draw down carbon dioxide but shut down moves to play God with the climate

The age of fossil fuels will end

In 2024 there are also many reasons for hope.

At the COP28 United Nations climate talks in December 2023, governments from nearly 200 countries agreed to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels in this crucial decade. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of the climate crisis.

We have the technology needed to replace fossil fuels across our economy: in electricity generation, transport, heating, cooking and industrial processes. In fact, surging market demand for clean energy technologies – wind, solar, batteries and electric cars – is now displacing polluting technologies, such as coal-fired power and combustion engine vehicles, on a global scale.

The world added 510 billion watts of renewable energy capacity in 2023, 50% more than in 2022 and equivalent to the entire power capacity of Germany, France and Spain combined. The next five years are expected to see even faster growth in renewables.

Sales of electric vehicles are also booming – growing by 31% in 2023 and representing around 18% of all new vehicles sold worldwide. In Australia, sales of electric vehicles doubled last year and are expected to continue to grow strongly.

Read more:
COP28 deal confirms what Australia already knows: coal is out of vogue and out of time

Toward a peak in global emissions

The accelerating shift toward clean energy technologies means global greenhouse gas emissions may fall in 2024. Recent analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA), based on the stated policies of governments, suggests emissions may in fact have peaked last year. The finding is supported by analysis from Climate Analytics, which found a 70% chance of emissions falling from 2024 if current growth in clean technologies continues.

A growing number of major economies have passed their emissions peaks, including the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Japan.

China is currently the world’s biggest emitter, contributing 31% of the global total last year. But explosive growth in clean energy investments mean China’s emissions are set not only to fall in 2024, but to go into structural decline.

What’s more, China is currently undergoing a boom in clean energy manufacturing and a historic expansion of renewables – especially solar. Similarly explosive growth is expected for batteries and electric vehicles.

A peak in global emissions is cause for optimism – but it won’t be nearly enough. Greenhouse gas emissions will still accumulate in the atmosphere and drive catastrophic warming, until we bring them as close to zero as possible.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns global emissions must roughly halve by 2030 to keep the 1.5°C goal within reach. The task is monumental, but possible.

Next steps for Australia

Australia is making great strides in rolling out renewable energy. But state and federal governments are undermining this progress by approving new fossil fuel projects.

Every new coal, oil or gas development endangers us all. Australia must urgently reform its national environmental law – the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – to end new fossil fuel developments.

Similarly, Australia’s gains in renewable energy have been offset by rising emissions in other sectors, notably transport. It’s time to implement long-promised fuel efficiency standards and get these emissions down.

Beyond these immediate next practical steps, Australia has much work ahead to shift from fossil fuel exports to clean alternatives.

The opportunity for Australia to play a major positive role in the world’s decarbonisation journey is undeniable, but that window of opportunity is narrowing fast.

Wesley Morgan is a Senior Researcher with the Climate Council

– ref. ‘It’s not game over – it’s game on’: why 2024 is an inflection point for the climate crisis – https://theconversation.com/its-not-game-over-its-game-on-why-2024-is-an-inflection-point-for-the-climate-crisis-221497

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil Malan, Research associate, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

Over this wet summer, Melburnians and Sydneysiders have had to think twice about cooling off at their local beach. Heavy rainfall has swollen rivers and pumped pollutants, nutrients and murky fresh water far out to sea. Swimmers at Port Phillip Bay beaches are emerging coated in brown goo, while Sydney’s seas were contaminated last week.

During 2022, floods repeatedly hit Australia’s eastern seaboard, causing an estimated A$3.5 billion in damage and tragic loss of life. In Sydney, it was the wettest year on record, with 2.2 metres of rain falling in the year, twice as much as usual. The heavy rainfall event in March–April dropped more than 600 millimetres of rain alone.

We don’t normally think about what happens to floodwater once it pulses out to sea. But we should. Floodwater is fresh. When it hits the sea in large volumes, it lowers the coastal ocean’s salinity. In our new research, we found floodwaters in 2022 led to 116 extreme low salinity days off Sydney – ten times more than the annual average. Extreme low salinity days are those that fall into the bottom 5% of salinity values ever measured at this location.

Normally, this effect clears within six days. But in 2022, extreme low salinity persisted for months in the coastal ocean. These plumes of freshwater extended as far as 70 kilometres offshore – five times further than original estimates. You could see them from space. For fish, this is confusing and dangerous. For kelp forests or sponge gardens, it can be lethal.

Unprecedented floodwaters, unprecedented impact

Why do we care about very low salt levels in our coastal seas?

First, changing salinity levels let us track where floodwaters are headed. This is important, as floodwater often carries pollutants, sediment and other contaminants from the land into the ocean.

Second, when large volumes of freshwater arrive, it can actually change the density of the ocean. Saltwater is heavier (more dense) than freshwater, which is why some seabirds can find a layer of drinking water far out at sea when it rains heavily.

The ocean’s density depends on a combination of water temperature and salinity. Off Australia’s east coast, this density is usually influenced more by temperature. But during 2022, we saw something change. For the first time, we saw the density of seawater was becoming controlled by salinity.

Rather than the hottest temperatures always being seen at the surface, the heat could be anywhere in the water column, as the weight (or density) of the water was mostly being controlled by how much salt it contains, not how warm it was.

You might look at the sea and imagine it’s the same all the way down. But in fact, there are very real changes as you go down the water column, and there are distinct layers of water.

What this pulse of floodwater did was change the structure and layering of the water column in unusual ways. In this coastal ocean, there’s usually a light layer of warm water at the top and colder water below it. During 2022, the normal ocean water was replaced by two additional layers of fresher water from successive floods.

The 50-metre deep layer of fresh water didn’t simply mix with salt. Instead, the floodwaters remained off our coastline for months, trapped between the land and the warm, swiftly flowing waters of the East Australian Current.

Read more:
What’s causing Sydney’s monster flood crisis – and 3 ways to stop it from happening again

What does freshwater do to ocean ecosystems?

Some coastal species such as bream tolerate freshwater well. But others don’t like it at all. We expect the sudden appearance of a very large freshwater layer would have forced fish to move. The sediment and pollutants in the floodwaters can disrupt normal food supplies for the ocean’s inhabitants.

We already know floodwater can destroy kelp forests or cover verdant seagrass meadows with sediment, affecting turtles and dugong. This, in turn, can temporarily slash the catch from some fisheries.

How did we track these changes?

Off the eastern coast lies an advanced network of ocean sensors, deployed as part of Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System. For our work, we used data from oceanographic moorings – sensors anchored to the floor and extending through the water column – as well as underwater gliders, an underwater drone packed with instruments.

Moorings give us detailed, consistent information but only at a few locations. Gliders travel hundreds of kilometres up and down the length of the coastline in a zigzag pattern, from the coast offshore and back, and diving from the surface to the bottom around every 200 metres.

We used data from moorings, gliders, satellite data and estuary monitoring sensors run by the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment to build up a picture of where floodwaters had moved.

Even though we have a good system of sensors, our observing systems are geared towards monitoring temperature rather than salinity, meaning that this type of analysis can only be performed in certain parts of the coast that have the right instruments.

Climate change is worsening floods. Could it weaken coastal ocean salinity?

Globally, there’s little data on how salty our coastal seas are – and what floodwaters are doing, especially in areas where large rainfall is intermittent, such as eastern Australia. In 2022, severe floods also hit Pakistan and South Africa.

These regions don’t yet have ocean observing systems capable of detecting and tracking the impact of floodwaters on the ocean. We don’t know what these unprecedented floods are doing to ocean ecosystems – but it’s important we find out.

Extreme rainfall events are expected to increase globally due to climate change. We will need to determine what’s happening down there to plan our response and adapt as best we can.

Read more:
As New South Wales reels, many are asking why it’s flooding in places where it’s never flooded before

Neil Malan receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Moninya Roughan receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure (NCRIS) through support of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)

– ref. When floodwater reaches the sea, it can leave a 50 metre thick layer of brown water – and cause real problems – https://theconversation.com/when-floodwater-reaches-the-sea-it-can-leave-a-50-metre-thick-layer-of-brown-water-and-cause-real-problems-213548

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland

Heading back to school is a time of great anticipation for many families, but it is not without challenges. One of the big challenges is preparing healthy, easy, affordable and appealing lunchboxes.

Lunchboxes are vital for supporting children’s energy levels throughout the school day, which in turn helps maintain their concentration.

What does a healthy lunchbox contain? How can you keep it fresh, while also keeping costs down?

Making a healthy lunchbox

A healthy well-balanced lunchbox should have four things:

1. food for energy: these foods have carbohydrates for energy to learn and play. This could be sandwiches, wraps, pasta or rice dishes

2. food for growth: these foods have protein to support growing bodies and minds. This could be lean meats, eggs, beans or dairy

3. food for health: these foods have vitamins and minerals to support healthy immune systems and include fruits and vegetables in a variety of colours

4. something to drink: water, milk or milk alternatives are the best choices. Do not give your children sugary drinks, including juice, cordial or energy drinks as they can lead to dental issues. If your child has trouble drinking plain water, try different bottles or cups. Some kids are more likely to drink from a strawed or spouted bottle. You can also try adding in a few drops of colourful fresh vegetable juice such as beetroot to make the water pink.

Choose snacks wisely

Most kids will eat a treat food over the core foods listed above (just like most adults!). These foods are fun and yummy but not the best choice for sustained energy and focus at school everyday.

So try and avoid snacks like fruit bars and straps, which are low in fibre, fluids, vitamins and minerals, and high in sugar. Also avoid dairy desserts such as custard pouches, biscuits, chocolate bars and muesli bars that are often high in fat and sugar and don’t need to be included in the lunchbox.

While homemade snacks like pikelets, scrolls or homemade dip are ideal and more cost effective, pre-packaged options can be a lifesaver for time-pressed parents.

When choosing packaged snacks, look for items under 600 kilojules per serving, low in saturated fat (less than 2 grams per serving) and containing fibre (more than 1 gram per serving).

Also look for nutrient-dense ingredients like low-fat dairy, wholegrains, fruits, vegetables, or beans to provide a more balanced snack selection. Good options include popcorn, dried fruit boxes, wholegrain crackers and cheese, mini rice cakes, tinned fruit cups and yoghurts without added sugars.

Read more:
Sick of packing school lunches already? Here’s how to make it easier

Keep lunch boxes easy

Try to make school food easy to handle and eat.

For younger children, cut up large pieces of fruit and vegetables, quarter sandwiches and choose things with easy-to-open packaging.

Involve your children in preparing and packing the lunchbox or show them the final product so they know its contents. This means the child is not surprised by the contents. They are also more likely to eat a meal they helped make.

Read more:
Trying to spend less on food? Following the dietary guidelines might save you $160 a fortnight

Keep things fresh

Food can sit in lunchboxes for hours, so it’s important to keep it fresh. To help keep it as cool you can:

• use an insulated lunchbox and ice pack. Pack the ice pack next to items prone to spoilage

• if you are preparing the lunchbox the day before, store it in the fridge overnight

• ask your kids to keep lunchboxes in their school bags, away from direct sunlight and heat

• also consider freezing water bottles overnight to provide a cool and refreshing drink for hot days

• if you know it’s going to be a particularly hot day or your child is going to be out and about with their lunch box, choose foods that don’t have to be kept cool. For example, baked beans, tetra pack milk, wholegrain crackers and diced fruit cups. Also consider uncut and whole raw fruit and vegetables such as an apple or orange, baby carrots, baby cucumbers or cherry tomatoes.

Read more:
Australian schools are starting to provide food, but we need to think carefully before we ‘ditch the lunchbox’

Keep costs down

There are several ways you can try to keep costs down when buying school lunch supplies:

• follow the Australian Dietary Guidelines. A 2023 study suggests maintaining a healthy diet – along the lines of the guidelines – could save A$160 off a family of four’s fortnightly shopping bill

• choose seasonal fruits and vegetables for the freshest items at lowest cost

• take advantage of special deals or bulk purchases, especially for your child’s favourite snacks or things with a long shelf-life like canned or frozen foods

• bake items such as scrolls or muesli bars and freeze in bulk when time allows. The One Handed Cooks have healthy recipes for all ages that are wallet and freezer friendly

• use dinner leftovers as next-day lunches

• keep an eye on your child’s lunchbox to see what they eat. They may eat less during lunchtime but need a snack later. Adjust the lunchbox contents based on their hunger level and have a post-school snack prepared to avoid unnecessary food waste.

For more ideas on managing lunchboxes, check out the Grow&Go Toolbox. Nutrition Australia also has some great suggestions for balancing your child’s lunchbox.

Clare Dix receives funding from the Australian Government Department of Health.

Stella Boyd-Ford receives funding from the Australian Government Department of Health.

– ref. Good lunchboxes are based on 4 things: here’s how parents can prepare healthy food and keep costs down – https://theconversation.com/good-lunchboxes-are-based-on-4-things-heres-how-parents-can-prepare-healthy-food-and-keep-costs-down-219119

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martijn Boersma, Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Australia

Last week, a 47-year-old Queensland man was charged with 46 offences, including torturing and enslaving deckhands on his fishing boats.

The accused allegedly intimidated and attacked his employees, and withheld food and water. He will appear in court next month.

Australia is estimated to have 41,000 people trapped in modern slavery. People can be subjected to modern slavery through coercion, deception and violence. This includes acts such as grooming, wage theft and restriction of movement.

In Australian and international law slavery is defined as:

the condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.

Modern slavery is distinct from historical slavery in that people are no longer legally owned but are instead subjected to illegal control.

What is Australia doing to stop modern slavery?

Forced marriage, forced labour, debt bondage, domestic servitude and deceptive recruitment are on the rise in Australia.

Sadly, global conviction rates are low at (38%). In Australia, only 24 offenders were convicted between 2004 and 30 June 2019.

Despite this, Australia is hailed as having one of the strongest responses to modern slavery.. This is largely due to the Modern Slavery Act.

In 2018, following the introduction of a Modern Slavery Act in the United Kingdom (2015), Australia adopted its own act. It requires large businesses to report on slavery risks in operations and supply chains.

The effectiveness of the act in curbing slavery has come under scrutiny and a bill to amend it and to appoint an anti-slavery commissioner is currently before parliament.

What would an anti-slavery commissioner do?

The appointment of a commissioner will be crucial to implement the recommendations made in the 2023 Modern Slavery Act review.

The review made 30 recommendations to fix the act’s weaknesses, which mainly revolve around reporting variability and lack of enforcement.

One key recommendation relates to the introduction of financial penalties for businesses failing to comply with the act, as levels of noncompliance are high.

Read more:
Australia’s modern slavery law is woefully inadequate – this is how we can hold companies accountable

Another recommendation imposes due diligence duties onto businesses. This would involve taking proactive action in identifying and responding to slavery risks, rather than just reporting on them.

Overall, a commissioner could play an educational and an enforcement role.

Specific powers are needed

The Modern Slavery Amendment Bill 2023 outlines several functions for the proposed commissioner.

But many of these functions lack detail prompting a collective of civil society organisations and academics to make a joint submission to parliament, urging the government go further.

According to this group, the commissioner should have the authority to:

Receive complaints and refer cases: For example, in the 2015–16 financial year, police in the UK recorded 884 modern slavery offences. After the appointment of an anti-slavery commissioner, the number rose to 9,158 offences in the 2021–22 financial year.

An Australian commissioner should support victim/survivors of modern slavery and affected parties by establishing a complaints mechanism.

This would help identify slavery cases and referrals to relevant authorities. It would assist law enforcement and organisations involved in resource allocation and could improve the low rates of detection and conviction.

Investigate, research, and provide advice: If the commissioner is required to publish annually a list of countries, industries, and products with a high risk of modern slavery, as is recommended in the 2023 Modern Slavery Act Review, then the power to investigate will be important.

Examples from overseas include the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, maintained by the US Department of Labor, and the Dirty List produced by the Brazilian government, which lists employers found by inspectors to subject workers to “conditions analogous to slavery”.

Businesses required to comply with the Australian Modern Slavery Act should have a duty to cooperate with the commissioner.

Support the shift from reporting to mandatory due diligence: Germany, France and Norway have all adopted laws requiring businesses to proactively manage potential adverse human rights impacts as a result of their activities. Similar laws are planned in The Netherlands and the European Union.

The looming duty for businesses operating in Australia to proactively act on modern slavery risks, rather than just reporting on them, will significantly shape the commissioner’s function.

Read more:
‘I’m really stuck’: how visa conditions prevent survivors of modern slavery from getting help

The commissioner will have to support the introduction of due diligence processes, which will require substantial attention and resource allocation.

Act independently from government: The review of the Modern Slavery Act in the UK provides direction for the Australian commissioner in maintaining independence.

Independence means the commissioner is free to scrutinise the efforts of government departments and agencies, the police, and others working in prevention, prosecution and protection.

Failure to provide an Australian anti-slavery commissioner with this independence, adequate resourcing and relevant powers, could undermine the effective functioning of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act.

The government is expected to report on the amendment bill on 21 February.

Martijn Boersma receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Fiona McGaughey received funding from Walk Free in 2023 to research forced marriage.

Shelley Marshall receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

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

– ref. More forced marriages and worker exploitation – why Australia needs an anti-slavery commissioner – https://theconversation.com/more-forced-marriages-and-worker-exploitation-why-australia-needs-an-anti-slavery-commissioner-221318

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Stokes, Senior Lecturer in Digital and Information Literacy (Education Futures), University of South Australia

The opening shot of the new Mean Girls provides a literal reframing of the 2004 cult classic.

Recording vertical video through a phone, Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) introduce the “cautionary tale” of Cady (Angourie Rice) and her move from being home-schooled in Africa to a North American high school, negotiating “Girlworld” politics and “the plastics” clique to find her true self.

This introduction signifies key changes. Firstly, this is a musical, narrated through the lens of these “art freaks” and puckish best friends. Secondly, much has changed over the past 20 years. In this remake, the style, values and fashion are those of Gen Z – and social media is omnipresent in the teens’ lives.

Mean girls today have a whole new way to be mean.

Shifting landscapes

In 2004, Facebook was limited to Ivy League students. Smartphones were years away. The millennial Mean Girls blocked caller ID to make prank calls “from Planned Parenthood” and used “three-way calling attacks” to create conversational ambushes on landlines.

Most significant was their Burn Book, where they wrote nasty comments about every girl in their year. Regina (Rachel McAdams) used this book to achieve retribution when Cady (Lindsay Lohan) became clique leader. Regina glued her own picture in the book alongside a nasty comment, framed the other plastics, and distributed photocopies to cause a school-wide riot.

Then, bullying was verbal, physical or social. Connectivity was limited and expensive, meaning bullying usually took place in the schoolyard, mall and other physical spaces teens occupied.

The Gen Z Mean Girls exist in an accelerated surveillance culture. School trends go viral, mistakes are meme-ified, and every moment is recorded. Regina (Renee Rapp) is at the centre of this attention economy, crooning that she is a “massive deal” and “the filter you use looks just like me”.

When Cady is invited to join the plastics, her classmates dissect her rise in popularity – and Regina’s downfall – on social media. Research shows using image-based social media, such as TikTok and Instagram, leads to worse mental health outcomes.

The Burn Book still exists in the 2024 film. However, this physical device now seems quaint. Today, the internet gives everyone connected voice and power to be a mean girl. Peers hide behind the screen committing what Ms Norbury (Tina Fey, reprising her role from the original film) calls “girl-on-girl crime”.

Classmates conduct social polling on who is “hotter” between Regina and Cady. They discuss Regina’s weight gain publicly online. When the Burn Book is found, its contents are shared via social media, leading to chaos.

Social media has become a major platform for bullying, which can now occur online 24/7. Adolescents have matured in online spaces, leading to worsening mental health. Parents are struggling too. Due to technological changes, 66% of parents in the United States say parenting is harder now than it was 20 years ago.

Social media bullying disproportionately affects girls. The 2024 film shows how this system fails even those at the top – Regina is just as bullied as the girls she picks on. “Influencers” must maintain a carefully curated image and one mistake can go viral online. Judgement is quick, savage and public.

Read more:
How to help teen girls’ mental health struggles – 6 research-based strategies for parents, teachers and friends

How to confront bullying in 2024

When Cady is struggling, she turns to her mum (Jenna Fischer), who honestly acknowledges the challenges, saying “you’re learning things now that I don’t know how to teach”.

Rapid technological change means families are often learning new tools together. It is crucial adolescents are not left to navigate this alone.

Whichever generation we identify with, there are strategies we can use to protect our mental health around social media:

• turn off notifications so you choose when to use the device. Set a time limit for usage each day and stick to it

• focus on wellbeing. Keep devices out of bedrooms. Ensure breaks are taken from screens. Time spent offline in nature is particularly restorative

• discuss what is seen online. Be aware of the constructed nature of social content, including filters and image editing. Highlights reels should not be compared to our daily lives

• reflect on privacy and what you want to share with the world. Even images or text shared in a private channel can be screenshotted or downloaded. Legislation is slow to catch up with technology. For example, teens sharing nude photos with peers can be charged with child pornography distribution in many jurisdictions

• take feelings seriously. Disconnect as a first strategy, and uninstall platforms that have a negative impact. Gain support from real world friends and family.

Mean Girls shows the dangers of popularity and models ways to maintain agency and self-worth. Recognising her own problematic behaviour, Cady reconstructs her identity with support from friends, gaining recognition for her intellectual ability as a mathlete.

Janis provides a more radical response, rejecting socialisation that rewards artificial niceties and breeds duplicity in girls, a system wherein “boys get to fight, we have to share”.

Janis offers another way to deal with online and offline bullies and retain self-worth, encouraging peers to “solemnly swear ‘whatever they say about me I don’t care!’”.

Read more:
How parents and teens can reduce the impact of social media on youth well-being

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

– ref. ‘That filter you use looks just like me’: what the new Mean Girls film gets right about social media – https://theconversation.com/that-filter-you-use-looks-just-like-me-what-the-new-mean-girls-film-gets-right-about-social-media-221206

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

With several drug overdoses already this festival season, and recent news of three new recreational drugs identified by the drug checking service in Canberra, many parents of teenagers will be wondering how they can keep their kids safe from harmful drugs.

It’s not the first time CANtest, Canberra’s fixed site drug checking service, has identified new drugs circulating. Worldwide, more than 1,000 new drugs have been released on to the illicit market in the past 15 years.

Because illicit drugs are unregulated, there’s no quality control or restrictions on sales, like there is, say, for alcohol or medicines. Manufacturers can add whatever substances they like and sell their drugs as anything. Data from CANtest shows illicit drugs often contain substances other than the expected drug.

The age group most likely to have used an illicit drug recently is young adults in their 20s (30.6%), but nearly 22% of teenagers have tried an illicit drug in their lifetime. The key is to start talking to teens well before they encounter these substances so they’re well prepared.

First, don’t panic

The good news is most teenagers don’t use illicit drugs and the majority of those who do only do so occasionally, and don’t come to serious harm. Drug use among teens in Australia has actually been in decline for more than two decades.

Still, some do, and using illicit drugs is risky, primarily because they’re illegal and you don’t know what you’re getting.

Children are heavily influenced by their parents’ attitudes when it comes to alcohol and other drug use. While some parents worry discussing drugs might encourage drug use, open communication generally, and specifically in discussing drugs, has been associated with lower rates of drug use.

Read more:
How hard is it to say ‘no’ to drugs?

Maintain an open dialogue

Conversations about drugs can start at an early age. Talking early means a young person already has well-formed attitudes before the influence of their peers kicks in. Even before they get to school you can be talking to them about using medicines safely.

As children become teenagers, they’re exposed to more news and information online. You can use current events, like the recent festival overdoses, as a catalyst for raising the issue.

Find a time to talk when you’re both clear-headed, you’re somewhere private and you have plenty of time. In the car can be a good place.

Ask questions, listen to what your teen has to say, and resist the urge to lecture. We know honest information works best. Scare tactics and exaggeration are generally unhelpful and may make teens more curious about trying drugs.

For example, claims they will become addicted after using a drug once or that using drugs causes instant and irreversible brain damage are not credible to teens, and they’re likely to ignore them.

Ask what they know about the topic and what their thoughts are. Then give them the facts in a non-judgemental way. Talk about the reasons some people choose to use drugs, and about the risks.

Avoid glorifying drug use, such as talking about fun times you’ve had using drugs in the past. Some parents think this makes them more credible, but it also potentially communicates a permissive attitude to drugs.

Emphasise personal responsibility

If your teen is worried about peer pressure or standing out from their friends if they don’t want to use drugs, it can be helpful to run through a few scenarios with them. What would they say if someone asked them if they wanted to try MDMA?

Emphasise personal responsibility and the importance of making independent decisions, and help them make contingency plans if someone is applying unwanted pressure. This could include seeking out friends at a party who don’t use drugs, planning how to exit, or calling a parent.

It’s absolutely OK to set and be clear about your expectations around drug use, but try not to make threats. Saying things like “if you use drugs you’re on your own” is unhelpful because if they get into trouble they may not feel they can call for help.

Take a harm reduction approach

Sometimes though, no matter what you do, some young people will want to experiment. Risk-taking is a natural part of adolescence and young adulthood.

Make sure they know how to respond in an emergency. Consequences from illicit drugs such as toxicity can often be reversed if treated early enough, so make sure your teen knows if they or their friends use something and start feeling unwell that they should get medical help straight away. It’s better to get help and not need it.

At festivals there’s always a medical tent. Ensure they know to call 000 if there is no immediate medical help available and they should disclose what has been taken. Police are not usually called to drug emergencies.

Make sure they feel like they can call you for advice or to pick them up and that they won’t be interrogated or berated. It’s much better if you can talk to them later about what they learnt from the incident.

Read more:
Should I give my teen alcohol? Just a sip, the whole can, or none at all?

If you know your teen is occasionally using recreational drugs or is intending to, or their friends are, you can be more direct with harm reduction information.

Let them know it’s possible to get drugs checked in some places to see what’s in them.

If they can’t, make sure they know they should just take a small amount first to see how a drug affects them. It’s best to take a quarter or half initially to make sure there are no adverse reactions, and ideally wait at least 45 minutes before talking more. It can take up to an hour or more to feel the effects of MDMA.

Mixing drugs with alcohol or mixing multiple drugs, including prescription medicines, significantly increases the risk of something going wrong and should be avoided.

If you need advice you can call the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015. The Alcohol and Drug Foundation has a range of helpful information about drugs and their effects.

Nicole Lee works as a paid consultant in the alcohol and other drug sector. She has previously been awarded grants by state and federal governments, National Health and Medical Research Council and other public funding bodies for alcohol and other drug research. She is a Board member of drug checking organisation The Loop Australia.

– ref. Wondering how to talk to your teen about drugs? Start the conversation early, be honest and avoid judgement – https://theconversation.com/wondering-how-to-talk-to-your-teen-about-drugs-start-the-conversation-early-be-honest-and-avoid-judgement-221211

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah G. Phillips, Professor of Global Conflict and Development at The University of Sydney; Non-Resident Fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, University of Sydney

As the Houthi militant group in Yemen ramps up its attacks on vessels in the Red Sea – ostensibly in response to what it calls Israel’s “genocidal crimes” in Gaza – the US and UK have responded with multiple military strikes in the last week. The US has also re-listed the group as a global terrorist organisation.

The hope is these strikes will pressure the Iran-aligned Houthis to back down. It won’t, however. Short of a complete halt to Israel’s war in Gaza and a 180-degree shift in Western support for Israel’s approach, there is little that will dissuade the Houthis to change course in the foreseeable future.

There are three main reasons for this, none of which are principally about Iran’s regional strategy.

The group has already survived years of airstrikes

The first, and most obvious, reason is the Houthi movement, whose political wing is known as Ansar Allah, has already withstood years of airstrikes in its war with a Saudi-led and Western-backed coalition from 2015–2022.

Prior to this, the Houthis fought six wars against the central Yemeni government from 2004–2010. Guerrilla warfare is not new to them, and harassing ships off their coast does not require sophisticated weapons.

The blockade that accompanied much of the recent war (which is currently in a shaky truce) also helped the Houthis to finetune their weapon smuggling networks from Iran, as well as their own domestic weapon production.

As a result, airstrikes alone are unlikely to deliver a knockout blow to their military capacity and will almost certainly increase their appetite for a fight.

That is because they can – for the first time – more strongly frame their actions in the context of fighting against the US and Israel, per their slogan: “God is Great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam.”

Read more:
Why Yemen’s Houthis are getting involved in the Israel-Hamas war and how it could disrupt global shipping

With dissent rising, the Houthis have found ‘quasi-legitimacy’

The second reason they are unlikely to be deterred is more important, but less understood, because it is about Yemen’s domestic politics.

The Houthis currently control much of Yemen, including the capital Sana’a, which accounts for around 70% of the population. The people in these regions have been subjected to years of acute and structural violence by the Houthis. This includes:

• the forced disappearances of political opponents and religious minorities

• the extrajudicial killings of journalists and executions of civilians, including minors

• the recruitment of child soldiers

• withholding public sector salaries since 2016

• the laying of landmines in populated areas, sniper attacks on civilians and the use of siege warfare

• the systematic extortion of businesses and implementation of a caste-based taxation system

• the implementation of male guardianship rules for women

• and the weaponisation of food and water, including the diversion of food aid for private enrichment.

It is important to note the Saudi-led coalition and internationally recognised Yemeni government have also been accused of committing war crimes and grave human rights violations in Yemen, including the ruthless bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

At least 150,000 people are estimated to have died violently in the war that began in 2015, though the challenges with collecting such data are considerable. This also does not include the many more thousands that have died from preventable starvation and disease.

The behaviour of the Houthis in power has made them deeply unpopular. Dissent is dangerous due to the sophisticated system of repression and neighbourhood surveillance the Houthis have imposed in the areas they control. But Yemenis began taking to the street in protest last year anyway in Ibb and the besieged city of Ta’izz.

Then on September 26, just before Hamas’ assault on southern Israel and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Yemenis defied the authorities in large numbers.

In protests in the capital city of Sana’a, they celebrated the anniversary of the 1962 revolution that ousted the country’s leader, the Zaydi Imam, Mohammed al-Badr – and with him, the kinship-based autocracy that many Yemenis claim the Houthis seek to reinstate.

Seeing this (rightly) as a demonstration against them, the Houthis were shaken. Amnesty International reported they responded with an “alarming wave of arrests” and “a draconian show of force.”

Against a background of rising dissent at home, the Houthis’ actions and Western retaliation have given the group the gift of “quasi-legitimacy,” according to Yemeni analysts. The US-led strikes also give credence to the Houthis’ demands that critics “shut their mouths.”

And just as important, the US strikes can boost the Houthis’ military recruitment efforts. And this could help them attempt to seize the government-held oil wells in Marib again, which the group needs to become economically sustainable.

Anger is rising against the West across the region

The third reason the Houthis are unlikely to be deterred by airstrikes or a terrorist designation is that their actions articulate the wider region’s fury at Israel’s war in Gaza, which has so far claimed the lives of 25,000 Palestinians, and the decades of Western support for Israel’s policies in occupied Gaza and the West Bank.

They have also tapped into profound grievances about the West’s policies more generally and its record of reinforcing unpopular regimes in the face of popular action for change. This includes the selling of weapons and bestowing of political legitimacy to authoritarian regimes in exchange for what the West considers “stability” in the world order.

Read more:
The Houthis: four things you will want to know about the Yemeni militia targeted by UK and US military strikes

Yemenis are, however, keenly aware that the Houthis’ rise and expansion was enabled by this same external push for stability, which came at the expense of Yemenis’ ability to determine local solutions to local problems.

By centring the defence of Palestinians in their actions, the Houthis have found a way to discredit their domestic opponents – something that has largely eluded them for 20 years. This will make them even harder to dislodge from power and will likely consign ordinary Yemenis to further violence at their hands.

Sarah G. Phillips receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (Yemen).

– ref. Why US strikes will only embolden the Houthis, not stop their attacks on ships in the Red Sea – https://theconversation.com/why-us-strikes-will-only-embolden-the-houthis-not-stop-their-attacks-on-ships-in-the-red-sea-221588

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol Oliver, Professor in Science Communication and Astrobiology, UNSW Sydney

When NASA attempted to return to the Moon for the first time in 50 years on January 8, more was at risk than just US$108 million worth of development and equipment.

The agency earned the ire of the Native American Navajo people, who made a bid to stop the launch because of an unusual inclusion in the payload.

The Peregrine lander (which completed its controlled re-entry into the atmosphere late last week) was carrying human ashes, including those of famed science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. A commercial partnership also allowed paying customers to send their mementos to the Moon.

As space exploration becomes increasingly privatised and commercial, you can now send your favourite stuff to the Moon. But what does that mean, both ethically and legally?

Read more:
Privatised Moon landings: the two US missions set to open a new era of commercial lunar exploration

The Moon open for business

US company Astrobotic owns the Peregrine, which is the size of a small car. It ran into fatal fuel issues shortly after being launched on Vulcan Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral.

On board are “vanity canisters”. The idea arose in a partnership between the firm and global freight company DHL.

Under the deal, anyone can send two and a half centimetre by five centimetre package to the lunar surface for less than US$500. Apart from size, there were a few other limitations on what each package could contain.

Astrobotic, founded in 2007 and based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is one of several US companies providing commercial lunar payload services to NASA to deliver science and technology to the Moon. Peregrine was also carrying scientific instruments from six countries and many science teams.

Perhaps surprisingly, sending ashes into space is not new aboard suborbital and Earth orbital flights.

Two American companies make a business of the service starting at just a few thousand dollars – Celestis and Elysium Space. The practice is embraced by many, including astronauts who have been in space.

A Moon burial (yes, you can buy one) costs more – around US$13,000.

Commercial payloads launched from US soil require approval, but that approval process only covers safety, national security, and foreign policy.

Peregrine, if it had made it, would have marked the first commercial lunar burial. It’s uncharted territory as other worlds become within reach, although it is not the first time it has come up.

Read more:
Earth isn’t the only planet with seasons, but they can look wildly different on other worlds

NASA pledged to consult in the future after an outcry from the Navajo when, 20 years ago, it carried some of Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes to the Moon aboard the Lunar Prospector probe. Like many other indigenous cultures, the Navajo Nation considers the Moon sacred and opposes using it as a memorial site.

However, NASA said in a press briefing it had no control over what was on Peregrine, highlighting the gaps between commercial enterprise and international space law.

A legal minefield

Another question concerns the rules in individual nations on where and how human ashes can be located, handled, and transported and how those could extend to space. For example, in Germany, ashes must be buried in a cemetery.

With space privatisation accelerating, the ethical and legal maze deepens.

The Outer Space Treaty (OST) declares space the “province of all mankind” while banning national appropriation.

It fails, however, to address what private companies and individuals can do.

The recent Artemis Accords, signed by 32 nations, expand protection to lunar sites of historical significance. But these protections only apply to governments, not commercial missions.

And no one owns the Moon to grant burial rights, or any other world or celestial body.

The treaty requires states to authorise and supervise activities in space. It requires “due regard” for the interests of other states.

Many countries have space law that includes grounds for refusing payload items not in their national interest, for example Indonesia and New Zealand.

Nations apparently without such consideration, including Australia and the US, may need to consider expanding this template with the emergence of the commercial world in a traditionally governmental arena.

Where to draw a line?

Earth’s orbit is already clogged with defunct satellites and, further out, items like Elon Musk’s Tesla.

We have already spread space probes across other worlds, including the Moon, Mars, Titan, and Venus, but much may be treasure rather than junk, according to space archaeologist Alice Gorman.

For example, the Apollo astronauts left official mementos, such as a plaque marking the first human footsteps on the lunar surface. Some have left personal ones, too, like Apollo 16’s Charles Duke, who left a framed family photo.

However, sending a clipping of your hair or the ashes of your pet dog to the Moon may not qualify as culturally and historically important.

Read more:
From the Moon’s south pole to an ice-covered ocean world, several exciting space missions are slated for launch in 2024

The problem, therefore, is where we want to place a line in the sand as we step out into the cosmos onto the shorelines of other worlds.

We cannot turn back the clock on private space enterprise, nor should we.

But this failed mission with ashes and vanity payloads exemplifies the unexplored questions in the legal and ethical infrastructure to support commercial activities.

It is worth pausing for thought on future commercialisation such as mining asteroids and the eventual colonisation of space.

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

– ref. You can pay to have your ashes buried on the moon. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should – https://theconversation.com/you-can-pay-to-have-your-ashes-buried-on-the-moon-just-because-you-can-doesnt-mean-you-should-220664

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology

Some of us remember August 24 2006 like it was yesterday. It was the day Pluto got booted from the exclusive “planets club”.

I (Sara) was 11 years old, and my entire class began lunch break by passionately chanting “Pluto is a planet” in protest of the information we’d just received. It was a touching display. At the time, 11-year-old me was outraged – even somewhat inconsolable. Now, a much older me wholeheartedly accepts: Pluto is not a planet.

Similar to Sara, I (Rebecca) vividly remember Pluto’s re-designation to dwarf status. For me, it wasn’t so much that the celestial body had been reclassified. That is science, after all, and things change with new knowledge. Rather, what got to me was how the astronomy community handled the PR.

Even popular astronomers known for their public persona stumbled through mostly unapologetic explanations. It was a missed opportunity. What was poorly communicated as a demotion was actually the discovery of new exciting members of our Solar System, of which Pluto was the first.

The good news is astronomers have better media support now, and there’s a lot of amazing science to catch up on. Let’s go over what you might have missed.

A throwback to a shocking demotion

Pluto’s fate was almost certainly sealed the day Eris was discovered in 2005. Like Pluto, Eris orbits in the outskirts of our Solar System. Although it has a smaller radius than Pluto, it has more mass.

Astronomers concluded that discovering objects such as Pluto and Eris would only become more common as our telescopes became more powerful. They were right. Today there are five known dwarf planets in the Solar System.

The conditions for what classifies a “planet” as opposed to a “dwarf planet” were set by the International Astronomical Union. To cut a long story short, Pluto wasn’t being targeted back in 2006. It just didn’t meet all three criteria for a fully fledged planet:

1. it must orbit a star (in our Solar System this would be the Sun)
2. it must be big enough that gravity has forced it into a spherical shape
3. it must be big enough that its own gravity has cleared away any other objects of a similar size near its orbit.

The third criterion was Pluto’s downfall. It hasn’t cleared its neighbouring region of other objects.

So is our Solar System fated to have just eight planets? Not necessarily. There may be another one waiting to be found.

Read more:
I’ve always wondered: why are the stars, planets and moons round, when comets and asteroids aren’t?

Is there a Planet Nine out there?

With the discovery of new and distant dwarf planets, astronomers eventually realised the dwarf planets’ motions around the Sun didn’t quite add up.

We can use complicated simulations in supercomputers to model how gravitational interactions would play out in a complex environment such as our Solar System.

In 2016, California Institute of Technology astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown concluded – after modelling the dwarf planets and their observed paths – that mathematically there ought be a ninth planet out there.

Their modelling determined this planet would have to be about ten times the mass of Earth, and located some 90 billion kilometres away from the Sun (about 15 times farther then Pluto). It’s a pretty bold claim, and some remain sceptical.

One might assume it’s easy to determine whether such a planet exists. Just point a telescope towards where you think it is and look, right? If we can see galaxies billions of light years away, shouldn’t we be able to spot a ninth planet in our own Solar System?

Well, the issue lies in how (not) bright this theoretical planet would be. Best estimates suggest it sits at the depth limit of Earth’s largest telescopes. In other words, it could be 600 times fainter than Pluto.

The other issue is we don’t know exactly where to look. Our Solar System is really big, and it would take a significant amount of time to cover the entire sky region in which Planet Nine might be hiding. To further complicate things, there’s only a small window each year during which conditions are just right for this search.

That isn’t stopping us from looking, though. In 2021, a team using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (a millimetre-wave radio telescope) published the results from their search for a ninth planet’s movement in the outskirts of the Solar System.

While they weren’t able to confirm its existence, they provided ten candidates for further follow-up. We may only be a few years from knowing what lurks in the outskirts of our planetary neighbourhood.

Finding exoplanets

Even though we have telescopes that can reveal galaxies from the universe’s earliest years, we still can’t easily directly image planets outside of our Solar System, also called exoplanets.

The reason can be found in fundamental physics. Planets emit very dim red wavelengths of light, so we can only see them clearly when they’re reflecting the light of their star. The farther away a planet is from its star, the harder it is to see.

Astronomers knew they’d have to find other ways to look for planets in foreign star systems. Before Pluto was reclassified they had already detected the first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi B, using a radial velocity method.

This gas giant world is large enough, and close enough to its star, that the gravitational tug of war between the two can be detected all the way from Earth. However, this method of discovery is tedious and challenging from Earth’s surface.

So astronomers came up with another way to find exoplanets: the transit method. When Mercury or Venus pass in front of the Sun, they block a small amount of the Sun’s light. With powerful telescopes, we can look for this phenomenon in distant star systems as well.

We do this via the Kepler space telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Both have observed tens of thousands of stars and discovered thousands of new planets – dozens of which are about the same size as Earth.

But these observatories can only tell us a planet’s size and distance from its star. They can’t tell us if a planet might be hosting life. For that we’d need the James Webb Space Telescope.

Looking for life

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has just wrapped up its first year and a half of science. Among its many achievements is the detection of molecules in the atmospheres of exoplanets, a feat made possible by the transit method.

One of these exoplanets, WASP-17, is also known as a “hot Jupiter”. It seems to have been plucked from a page in a sci-fi novel, with evidence for quartz nanocrystals in its clouds.

Read more:
10 times this year the Webb telescope blew us away with new images of our stunning universe

Meanwhile, the super-Earth K2-18b (a Kepler find) shows signs of methane and carbon dioxide. But while such discoveries are amazing, the magic ingredient necessary for life still eludes us: water vapour.

The field of planetary studies is evolving and 2024 looks promising. Maybe JWST will finally produce signs of water vapour in an exoplanet atmosphere. Who knows, we might even have a ninth planet surprise us all, filling the void left by Pluto.

Stay tuned for exciting science to come.

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

– ref. The Solar System used to have nine planets. Maybe it still does? Here’s your catch-up on space today – https://theconversation.com/the-solar-system-used-to-have-nine-planets-maybe-it-still-does-heres-your-catch-up-on-space-today-219396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patti Shih, Senior Lecturer, Australian Centre for Health Engagement, Evidence and Values, University of Wollongong

Many of us have done countless rapid antigen tests (RATs) over the course of the pandemic. Testing ourselves at home has become second nature.

But there’s also a growing worldwide market in medical tests sold online directly to the public. These are “direct-to-consumer” tests, and you can access them without seeing a doctor.

While this might sound convenient, the benefits to most consumers are questionable, as we discovered in a recent study.

Read more:
Five warning signs of overdiagnosis

What are direct-to-consumer tests?

Let’s start with what they’re not. We’re not talking about patients who are diagnosed with a condition, and use tests to monitor themselves (for example, finger-prick testing to monitor blood sugar levels for people with diabetes).

We’re also not talking about home testing kits used for population screening, such as RATs for COVID, or the “poo tests” sent to people aged 50 and over for bowel cancer screening.

Direct-to-consumer tests are products marketed to anyone who is willing to pay, without going through their GP. They can include hormone profiling tests, tests for thyroid disease and food sensitivity tests, among many others.

Some direct-to-consumer tests allow you to complete the test at home, while self-collected lab tests give you the equipment to collect a sample, which you then send to a lab. You can now also buy pathology requests for a lab directly from a company without seeing a doctor.

What we did in our study

We searched (via Google) for direct-to-consumer products advertised for sale online in Australia between June and December 2021. We then assessed whether each test was likely to provide benefits to those who use them based on scientific literature published about the tests, and any recommendations either for or against their use from professional medical organisations.

We identified 103 types of tests and 484 individual products ranging in price from A$12.99 to A$1,947.

We concluded only 11% of these tests were likely to benefit most consumers. These included tests for STIs, where social stigma can sometimes discourage people from testing at a clinic.

A further 31% could possibly benefit a person, if they were at higher risk. For example, if a person had symptoms of thyroid disease, a test may benefit them. But the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners does not recommend testing for thyroid disease in people without symptoms because evidence showing benefits of identifying and treating people with early thyroid disease is lacking.

Read more:
Cervical, breast, heart, bowel: here’s what women should be getting screened regularly

Some 42% were commercial “health checks” such as hormone and nutritional status tests. Although these are legitimate tests – they may be ordered by a doctor in certain circumstances, or be used in research – they have limited usefulness for consumers.

A test of your hormone or vitamin levels at a particular time can’t do much to help you improve your health, especially because test results change depending on the time of day, month or season you test.

Most worryingly, 17% of the tests were outright “quackery” that wouldn’t be recommended by any mainstream health practitioner. For example, hair analysis for assessing food allergies is unproven and can lead to misdiagnosis and ineffective treatments.

More than half of the tests we looked at didn’t state they offered a pre- or post-test consultation.

Products available may change outside the time frame of our study, and direct-to-consumer tests not promoted or directly purchasable online, such as those offered in pharmacies or by commercial health clinics, were not included.

But in Australia, ours is the first and only study we know of mapping the scale and variety of direct-to-consumer tests sold online.

Research from other countries has similarly found a lack of evidence to support the majority of direct-to-consumer tests.

4 questions to ask before you buy a test online

Many direct-to-consumer tests offer limited benefits, and could even lead to harms. Here are four questions you should ask yourself if you’re considering buying a medical test online.

1. If I do this test, could I end up with extra medical appointments or treatments I don’t need?

Doing a test yourself might seem harmless (it’s just information, after all), but unnecessary tests often find issues that would never have caused you problems.

For example, someone taking a diabetes test may find moderately high blood sugar levels see them labelled as “pre-diabetic”. However, this diagnosis has been controversial, regarded by many as making patients out of healthy people, a large number of whom won’t go on to develop diabetes.

2. Would my GP recommend this test?

If you have worrying symptoms or risk factors, your GP can recommend the best tests for you. Tests your GP orders are more likely to be covered by Medicare, so will cost you a lot less than a direct-to-consumer test.

3. Is this a good quality test?

A good quality home self-testing kit should indicate high sensitivity (the proportion of true cases that will be accurately detected) and high specificity (the proportion of people who don’t have the disease who will be accurately ruled out). These figures should ideally be in the high 90s, and clearly printed on the product packaging.

For tests analysed in a lab, check if the lab is accredited by the National Association of Testing Authorities. Avoid tests sent to overseas labs, where Australian regulators can’t control the quality, or the protection of your sample or personal health information.

4. Do I really need this test?

There are lots of reasons to want information from a test, like peace of mind, or just curiosity. But unless you have clear symptoms and risk factors, you’re probably testing yourself unnecessarily and wasting your money.

Direct-to-consumer tests might seem like a good idea, but in most cases, you’d be better off letting sleeping dogs lie if you feel well, or going to your GP if you have concerns.

Patti Shih receives funding from NHMRC. She is affiliated with Wiser Healthcare, an NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence for reducing medical overuse and increasing the sustainability and equity of healthcare.

Fiona Stanaway receives funding from the MRFF.

Katy Bell receives funding from NHMRC and MRFF. She is affiliated with Wiser Healthcare, an NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence for reducing medical overuse and increasing the sustainability and equity of healthcare.

Stacy Carter receives funding from organisations including NHMRC, ARC, MRFF and NBCF. She is affiliated with Wiser Healthcare, an NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence for reducing medical overuse and increasing the sustainability and equity of healthcare.

– ref. You can now order all kinds of medical tests online. Our research shows this is (mostly) a bad idea – https://theconversation.com/you-can-now-order-all-kinds-of-medical-tests-online-our-research-shows-this-is-mostly-a-bad-idea-219805

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Flannery, Honorary fellow, The University of Melbourne

The global effort to keep climate change to safe levels – ideally within 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures – is moving far too slowly. And even if we stopped emitting CO² today, the long-term impacts of the gas already in the air would continue for decades. For these reasons, we will soon have to focus not only on halting but on reversing global warming.

We can do that in two ways. The first is by “drawdown” – strengthening natural processes on Earth that withdraw CO² from the atmosphere. The second is through vast experiments with the climate known as geo-engineering, some of which sound like science fiction, and could be extremely dangerous if ever tried.

The dangers of some forms of geo-engineering

Geo-engineering proposals to arrest climate change range from the seemingly sensible – painting our roofs and roads white – to the highly speculative: solar radiation modification, or putting mirrors in space to reflect some of the Sun’s heat away from Earth. Probably the most commonly proposed form of geo-engineering involves putting sulfur into the stratosphere to dim the power of the sun.

The natural 1991 eruption of the Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines showed the effects of sulfur in action. The eruption measurably cooled the Earth’s surface for almost two years.

But we don’t have to wait for an erupting volcano: all we need do is add some sulphur to the emissions of the world’s airline fleet, and release it once planes are in the stratosphere. The sulphur layer, which would also reflect some of the Sun’s heat back to space, would be a relatively inexpensive global cooling mechanism, instantaneous in its effect and implementable right now.

Yet this approach does nothing to remove CO² from the atmosphere, or to reduce
the rising acidity of the oceans. It’s like a Band-Aid over a festering sore. And, beyond its cooling effect, its impact on the climate system as a whole is unknown: no one to my knowledge has modelled the effects of using the jet fleet in this way.

No international treaty exists to regulate such experiments. In April 2022, the US
start-up company, Make Sunsets, released weather balloons designed to reach the stratosphere, carrying a few grams of sulphur particles. There was no public scrutiny or scientific monitoring of the work. The company is already trying to sell “cooling credits” for future flights that could carry larger volumes of sulphur.

And what if climate change brings mass famine and civil disobedience to China? It is already seeding clouds to make rain on a massive scale. China might think it is doing the right thing by putting sulfur into the stratosphere. But that decision might lead to war with other countries. What if this form of geoengineering affected the monsoon in India and caused famine? We just don’t know what the climatic and political impacts would be.

Read more:
From laggard to leader? Why Australia must phase out fossil fuel exports, starting now

Drawdown’s potential to store carbon

Drawdown, by contrast, involves withdrawing CO² from the atmosphere and storing it in other planetary organs, such as rocks, oceans or plants. Drawdown is much longer term than geoengineering, and most initiatives are only in the research and development stage. The most advanced and practical, by far, is forest protection and reafforestation.

Today humans emit about 51 billion tonnes of CO² a year. Protecting and regenerating forests draws down 2 billion tonnes a year. Other approaches, such as direct air capture of CO², draw down much smaller volumes.

So forest protection and reafforestation is our best bet for getting us closer to limiting warming to 1.5°C. A recent paper in the Nature journal argues we could draw down as much as 226 gigatonnes by allowing existing forests in areas where few humans live to recover to maturity, and by regrowing forests in areas where they have been removed or fragmented.

Read more:
Australian homes can be made climate-ready, reducing bills and emissions – a new report shows how

We should not ignore other drawdown pathways, however. Seaweed is a promising option for drawing down a billion tonnes or so of CO² by 2050. But we need a lot more scientific research to understand how to do that, and what its wider impacts might
be. Today only one commercial kelp farm exists – Kelp Blue, off the coast of Namibia, where four hectares of kelp are not only storing carbon but are used to make biodegradable food packaging and crop stimulants.

Silicate rocks, which are common in many places, including Victoria’s Western
District, also offer great hope. Once the rocks are crushed, a kilogram of a mineral they contain, olivine, will sequester 1.5 kilograms of CO² from the atmosphere within a few weeks of being spread on a farm field or put onto a beach.

The crushing speeds up a natural sequestering process of thousands of years. Field trials conducted in Brazil and other countries show using crushed rocks on crops can bring another benefit – significant increases in the yields of corn, cocoa and many other crops.

The problem is that the way we quarry and transport rocks today creates a lot of fossil fuel emissions. Once a farm is more than a few hundred kilometres from the quarry most of the benefit is gone. So until we can decarbonise transport and industrial energy, the benefit of silicate rocks will be minimal.

A process known as “direct air capture” sucks CO² out of the air and either puts it deep into rock strata or uses it for greenhouses or as the basis of concrete, plastic and other products that can sequester carbon long term. Nineteen plants using this technology are already operating around the world, including in Switzerland, the US and Iceland. But again, a lot of industrial capacity and a clean energy to run the plants are needed to get the value.

Read more:
Green growth or degrowth: what is the right way to tackle climate change?

What the Albanese government should do

For these reasons, the Albanese government should focus its drawdown efforts on forest protection and regrowth. This could be a theme of the UN climate conference Australia is bidding to co-host with Pacific nations in 2026. Our temperate forests contain more carbon per hectare than almost anywhere on Earth. Stopping old-growth logging would be a magnificent contribution to arresting climate change.

The government should also back research and development on seaweed and silicate rocks so that the country’s huge resources can be responsibly deployed in future. Finally, Australia must push urgently for a global treaty to restrain sulphur geoengineering.

Today governments are busy just trying to reduce emissions and haven’t looked closely at drawdown and geoengineering. But things are moving fast, and it’s time to start.

Read more:
Australia’s new dawn: becoming a green superpower with a big role in cutting global emissions

Tim Flannery is Ambassador for RegenAqua, which uses seaweed and river grass to clean up wastewater before it flows out to sea and on to the Great Barrier Reef. He consults for the not-for-profit environmental charity, Odonata. He is Chief Councillor and Founding Member of the Climate Council, Governor at WWF-Australia, and sits on the board of the Kelp Forest Foundation, a philanthropic entity associated with Kelp Blue.

– ref. It is time to draw down carbon dioxide but shut down moves to play God with the climate – https://theconversation.com/it-is-time-to-draw-down-carbon-dioxide-but-shut-down-moves-to-play-god-with-the-climate-220422

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Percy Allan, Professor, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney

In January a year ago, two-thirds of the leading economists surveyed by the World Economic Forum forecast a global recession for 2023.

We didn’t get one. This year at the forum they are talking about a soft landing in 2024, notwithstanding financial conditions the US Federal Reserve says have been the tightest since the 2008 global financial crisis.

There are reasons to think that this time, for this year, they are right.

Global inflation has been falling (especially for goods, but soon for services as labour markets weaken). This means interest rates are likely to have peaked. While short-term cash rates will remain high until inflation is clearly heading back to target bands, longer-term bond rates should turn down as economies slow.

4 scenarios for the rest of the 2020s

But what about the rest of the decade?

Few economists are prepared to venture forecasts beyond 2024. Having gotten 2023 very wrong a mere year ago, that’s understandable.

But it is still worth considering each of the likely scenarios for the rest of this decade, because our prosperity and equity will depend on how the exit from the COVID pandemic plays out.

As I see it, there are four competing storylines: reflation, stagnation, stagflation and rejuvenation. I’ll outline the case for each, and then the one I’ve reluctantly come to believe is the most likely.

Scenario 1: reflation

Portfolio managers Alex Stiles and Steve Becker of Goldman Sachs developed the concept of “secular reflation” back in 2017.

It is characterised by high investment and low savings, and as a result, high growth and inflation.

Strategist Gerard Minack sees a surge of investment in Australia and elsewhere driven by a new focus on resilience in place of efficiency.

This would mean onshoring (making goods at home), friendshoring (obtaining goods from politically aligned nations) and higher inventories to insure against shortages.

As well, governments would spend more on defence, climate mitigation and public infrastructure at the same time as the private sector spends more on capital equipment to cope with tight labour markets.

Minack says it should all work to reverse what’s been a long-term trend from the 1970s right through to the 2008 global financial crisis – declining investment as a share of gross domestic product in developed economies.

Scenario 2: stagnation

The contrary view is that we will get a return of the “secular stagnation” we had before COVID – it’s a mix of high savings, low investment, low growth and low inflation.

Olivier Blanchard, a former International Monetary Fund chief economist, and Lance Roberts, chief strategist for US investment adviser Real Investment Advice, are among those expecting this sluggish outcome, for several reasons.

One reason is a set of ageing populations, which are likely to become more risk-averse, and so more likely to save.

Another is that private investment is likely to be crowded out by bigger government investment and increased government regulation and higher taxes and industry protection as part of a de-risking of supply lines.

As well, governments themselves are likely to be less keen on GDP growth, being weighed down by debt and preferring to focus on national security at the expense of dynamism.

Central banks might try to help by resuming quantitative easing (“printing money” by buying government bonds) in order to suppress interest rates and make government borrowing affordable.

But the conservatism of ageing populations means low rates are more likely to encourage asset speculation than productive investment.

Technological progress is unlikely to turbo-charge growth any more than the internet and the smartphone did.

Inflation will be restrained because wages will continue to grow slowly.

Former US treasury secretary Larry Summers was the first to describe the period before COVID as one of “secular stagnation” marked by a glut of savings and a dearth of investment. But in late 2022 he told the American Economic Association he did not expect a return to secular stagnation.

Summers now sees inflation rather than deflation.

Scenario 3: stagflation

The Summers view is that after an economic slowdown in 2024, which will temporarily tame inflation, stagflation will emerge with low savings, low investment, low growth and high inflation.

The World Bank puts forward this thesis in its June 2023 Global Economic Prospects Report, as does Colin Twiggs, editor of the Patient Investor.

Economic growth would be subdued for the same reasons as in the stagnation scenario, but it would be coupled with high inflation as the world deglobalises and decouples from “cheap China” and finds it needs to spend increasing amounts shifting from polluting fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Inflation is also likely to be driven by increasing worker shortages as baby boomers retire, voters turn against high immigration and employment regulations are tightened to give workers a better work-life balance.

As in the stagnation scenario, central banks will turn to quantitative easing to help governments fund bigger deficits and debt, but it will be inflationary.

Scenario 4: rejuvenation

The best of all worlds – the Goldilocks outcome – is rejuvenation, in which high savings and high investment produce robust growth and low inflation.

Micro-economic reforms in the fields of taxation, labour markets and regulations would boost productivity and enable both real wages and profits to climb while also generating enough tax revenue to meet social goals.

The renewables transition would cut the cost of energy, and artificial intelligence would supercharge knowledge work in the same way as automation overhauled manual work. Higher interest rates would keep inflation in check.

Politically, Washington and Beijing would reach a détente whereby they focused on economic co-operation rather than military conflict.

The focus of leaders would return to striving for economic efficiency through the use of global markets rather than aiming for self-sufficiency.

Reluctantly, the one I am picking is….

Which scenario is most likely to emerge in advanced economies post-2024?

I am afraid I think it is the second scenario, stagnation. It seems likely to me that the supply disruptions and economic stimulus of the pandemic interrupted rather than ended the low-inflation stagnant growth we had before COVID.

Continued low investment and low productivity growth will retard economic growth while re-globalisation (resuming cheap imports from China as well as alternative locations) and high immigration will contain inflation.

Official interest rates might be in the 2% to 4% range rather than the 0% to 2% we became used to before COVID because central banks will be less inclined to fund government deficits by buying bonds.

This would be a gloomy outcome because it would favour speculation over productive investment and set the scene for stagnant wages, which would in turn help build inequality and polarised politics. I hope I’m proved wrong.

Percy Allan chairs The Reform Club which is a non-partisan public policy forum hosted by the ASX (Australian Securities Commission).

– ref. There are 4 economic scenarios for the rest of the decade: I’ve reluctantly picked one – https://theconversation.com/there-are-4-economic-scenarios-for-the-rest-of-the-decade-ive-reluctantly-picked-one-217519

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John L Hopkins, Associate professor, Swinburne University of Technology

Working from home introduced in response to the harsh pandemic lockdowns in 2020 was expected to be a short term arrangement with staff returning to the office as soon as restrictions were lifted.

Yet, almost four years later, most office workers are still following hybrid arrangements – splitting their week between home and office, with no plans to return full-time to the workplace anytime soon.

In what some employees consider an aggressive move by their bosses to get them back where they can be seen, some companies are now linking office attendance to pay, bonuses and even promotions.

It pays, for some, to return to the office

Linking office attendance with pay has taken off after Citibank workers in the UK were told last September their bonuses could be affected if they didn’t work a minimum of three days per week from the office.

In Australia Origin and Suncorp, have done the same thing, as has ANZ where staff are required to work at least half their hours – averaged over a calendar month – in the office.

If these conditions are not met, it may be taken into consideration in performance and remuneration reviews at the end of the next year.

“If you are one of our people who are yet to be spending more than half your time in the workplace, we need you to adjust your patterns unless you have a formal exception in place,” an internal email to ANZ staff said.

Read more:
What’s it worth to work from home? For some, it’s as much as one-third of their wage

In the US, Amazon has told corporate employees they may miss out on promotion if they ignore the company’s return-to-office mandate, which requires employees to be in the office at least three days a week.

A post on Amazon’s internal website viewed by CNBC said:

Managers own the promotion process, which means it is their responsibility to support your growth through regular conversations and stretch assignments, and to complete all the required inputs for a promotion

If your role is expected to work from the office 3+ days a week and you are not in compliance, your manager will be made aware and VP approval will be required.

Not everyone is happy

To say the reaction to these measures has been divisive is an understatement.
Up to now, some hybrid work arrangements may have been ill-defined, and employee expectations confusing.

The messaging offered here is clear, employees know what is expected of them in terms of office attendance, and the repercussions they may face if they don’t meet those expectations.

And it’s important to remember that these initiatives are only aimed at incentivising workers to attend the office for part of the week, typically 2-3 days out of 5, which still represents a significant flexibility gain compared to what these firms offered before the pandemic.

Is showing up the best measure of performance?

However, critics have raised concerns that linking attendance to pay could hurt high achievers who don’t meet their in-office quotas – will they miss out on bonuses or a promotion simply because they don’t show up to the office enough, regardless of how well they are doing their job otherwise?

Is office attendance really that important, compared to other performance and outcome metrics, and will employees feel they are being treated like school children?

There are also fears about the impact strict attendance requirements will have on diversity, with women, parents, and people with neurodiverse needs more likely to favour a higher proportion of remote working.

Read more:
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Additionally, monitoring and managing attendance creates additional work for managers, and could lead to regular awkward conversations about attendance expectations.

Measuring office attendance may not be as simple as it first sounds either.

If an employee is required to maintain an average of 50% office attendance and they are invited to visit a client interstate for a day, or travel overseas to present at a conference, do these count as “in office days” or “WFH” days? This needs to be established and communicated to staff in writing.

One-size doesn’t fit all

With hybrid work arrangements there is no one right or wrong strategy. Different companies will take different approaches, based on the specific needs of their particular organisation and staff, and only time will tell how successful their respective strategies prove to be.

What we can be certain of is the fact hybrid work will not be disappearing anytime soon, so the focus for 2024 needs to be how to make this arrangement as efficient as possible, rather than trying to turn the clock back to 2019.

Read more:
Working from home since COVID-19? Cabin fever could be the next challenge

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

– ref. Is linking time in the office to career success the best way to get us back to work? – https://theconversation.com/is-linking-time-in-the-office-to-career-success-the-best-way-to-get-us-back-to-work-220845

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cherine Fahd, Associate Professor Visual Communication, University of Technology Sydney

Spitting image, dead ringer, chip off the old block. Doubles, twins and doppelgangers have a funny way of tricking us.

When I encountered Anne Zahalka’s photo portrait of Nicole Kidman at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, I assumed what I was looking at was a straightforward representation of the Hollywood actress.

Then I discovered that the portrait was, in fact, Kidman’s wax double at Madame Tussauds. By photographing a wax double, Zahalka reproduced a copy, intensifying the duplication of an already replicated image.

Beyond Zahalka’s portrait of Kidman, my encounter with Madame Tussauds had been nil. Truthfully, the global tourist attraction had never been on my bucket list, until now.

In October 2021, Madame Tussauds Dubai revealed a life-size wax figure of my brother Kristan Fahd, known for the past 16 years in the United Arab Emirates as radio entertainer Kris Fade.

My other brother

My brother hosts the UAE’s number-one morning radio program, The Kris Fade Show, on Virgin Radio. His breakfast show can be heard across Australia on Sunday mornings on KIIS FM. Last year, he also joined the cast of Netflix’s Dubai Bling. And if that’s not enough to keep him busy, he founded a Dubai-based healthy snack company, Fade Fit, in 2018. All this made him endearingly popular enough to attract his own wax figure.

With his family in Sydney, Kris shared photographs of his wax effigy online. We were excited by this public recognition of his contribution to culture in the UAE. In our family group chat we collectively celebrated this illustrious milestone.

But it wasn’t until I visited Madame Tussauds Dubai with him and my family in March 2022 that the strangeness of such an encounter set in.

Encountering Lady Gaga, Posh and Becks, Taylor Swift and Tom Cruise registered the typical expression of “Wow, aren’t they so lifelike!”

But encountering a sibling – a person I love, the brother whose face feels and looks like my face – is an altogether different experience.

At first, I watched as fans came and went, posing with his statue in a replica radio studio and feeling lucky because they happened to come on the day the real Kris Fade was there.

I watched my parents turn the corner and enter the room to encounter their son. It appeared like a slow-motion scene from a romantic movie, deaccelerated for my benefit, the artist daughter with the watchful eye.

My father spontaneously wept. It was as if my brother had been resurrected. My mother, also in tears, could not keep her hands off him. She stroked and touched and blessed him. When she tried to kiss his face with her Chanel red lips, my brother had to stop her: “Mum, you’re not allowed to touch me.”

“I love you,” she whispered to the statue.

Then, our London-based relatives approached and took photos with the two of him. I listened intently as they chatted and laughed, amazed by the realism of the statue and the fame that a Madame Tussauds wax figure gestures toward.

Then, it was my turn to approach. I didn’t touch. I got right up close and looked straight into his shining black eyes. It was these tiny details that moved me most. I took a photo with both my brothers and left.

Read more:
I’m a photographer who wanted to be more present in my life – so I put down the camera

Feeling love

I returned a year and a half after my first encounter for a private visit. I wanted to study the statue without my brother and family in tow.

It was quiet, and the statue was in a new setting. From an Arabian desert scene, he appeared to be welcoming visitors to Dubai.

I got to work studying the statue the way an artist does. I saw that every hair on his face and head appeared in the right place. His stubble appeared just like the one that scratches my face when we hug and kiss.

The big gothic punk rings on his fingers, so idiosyncratic, were exact. The open chest stance, the tattoos peering out from under the clothes, the muscle shirt – all his signature style. His long hair and man bun, the curl of his lip, the size of his nose, his diamond piercings and his affectionate posture perfectly resembled my brother.

Then I turned my attention to myself. What was I, his big sister, an artist, bringing to this encounter? I felt nothing in front of the other statues. In front of him, I felt love. I placed my hand on his hand and thanked him for the ease of our affection.

Seeing resemblances is easy. But it was at the level of feeling that I understood the most. This wax figure was displaced by sibling attachment. It was not a Madame Tussauds wax figure of a celebrity. It was my brother. Not a replica, but him. At the level of feeling, they were one and the same.

Kris and I discussed his wax double. I shared my personal experience, and he expressed a fascination with the unavoidable reversal of the Picture of Dorian Gray. In contrast to Dorian’s perpetual youth, my brother contemplates the mortal experience of growing older while witnessing the everlasting shine of his immortal self.

Read more:
Drawing data: I make art from the bodily experience of long-distance running

Kris Fade is the author’s brother.

– ref. I felt nothing at Madame Tussauds – until I found my brother’s statue, and felt love – https://theconversation.com/i-felt-nothing-at-madame-tussauds-until-i-found-my-brothers-statue-and-felt-love-218523