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

The Poll Bludger has summarised the final report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) that was released Monday. The most contentious recommendation is that the number of senators for both the ACT and the Northern Territory be increased from two to four.

In the current 76-member Senate, every state has 12 senators, with half elected at a normal election for the House of Representatives and half the Senate. In a special double dissolution election, all senators are up for election. The ACT and NT have two senators each, with all their senators up at every House election.

Elections use proportional representation with preferences. At a half-Senate election, the quota for election is one-seventh of the vote or 14.3% in a state. In the ACT and NT, the quota is one-third or 33.3%.

The Australian Constitution requires all states to have the same number of senators, so Tasmania is greatly overrepresented. Analyst Kevin Bonham wrote in July 2022 that Tasmania has 21 senators per million people while New South Wales has only 1.5 senators per million people.

Australia overall has three senators per million people, the NT eight and the ACT 4.4. So both territories are already overrepresented in the Senate. Doubling the number of ACT and NT senators would increase the NT’s senators per million people to 16 and the ACT’s to 8.8.

Proponents of more territory senators compare territory representation to Tasmania. But doubling the number of territory senators will increase Senate “malapportionment” – this term is used to describe situations where unequal numbers of people elect parliamentarians.

JSCEM did not recommend staggered terms, so all four NT and ACT senators would be up for election at every House election. The quota for election would drop from one-third to one-fifth or 20%.

For the left to get a 2–0 split in the ACT, they currently need about a 67–33 winning margin over the right. When David Pocock and Labor’s Katy Gallagher won the two ACT senators in 2022, it was the first time the ACT had not split 1–1 between the major parties.

Read more:
ACT Senate result: Pocock defeats Liberals in first time Liberals have not won one ACT Senate seat

With four senators, a 60–40 left win would be enough for the left to take three of these four. Bonham said that every federal election since 2007 would have given the left a 3–1 split of ACT senators. So the left would benefit from this increased malapportionment.

The four senators from the NT would be expected to split 2–2 between the left and right.

Essential poll: just a one-point lead for Labor

A federal Essential poll, conducted November 22–26 from a sample of 1,151, gave Labor a 48–47 lead including undecided (49–47 last fortnight). Primary votes were 34% Coalition (steady), 31% Labor (down one), 13% Greens (up one), 7% One Nation (steady), 1% UAP (down one), 8% for all Others (steady) and 6% undecided (up one).

If 2022 election preference flows were used, Labor would be further ahead. But respondent preferences from Essential have been weaker for Labor in the last few months than at the 2022 election.

By 47–42, voters disapproved of Anthony Albanese’s performance, a reversal of a 46–43 approval in October. Peter Dutton’s net approval improved four points to -3. This is the first time in Essential Albanese’s net approval has been negative since he became PM and also the first time he has trailed Dutton on net approval.

The Coalition led Labor by 33–25 on managing the economy and 28–25 on reducing cost of living pressures. Labor led the Coalition by 37–19 on supporting higher wages. Over 65% thought the government’s performance on cost of living and housing affordability was either below average or poor.

Respondents were read a detailed question on the stage three tax cuts that said those earning $200,000 would receive over a $9,000 tax reduction a year, while those earning $60,000 would only receive a $375 reduction.

On these tax changes, 41% said they should be revised so they mostly benefit those on low and middle incomes, 22% said they should go ahead for those earning under $200,000 but be deferred for those earning over $200,000 until conditions improve, 20% said they should go ahead as planned in July 2024 and 16% said they should not go ahead at all.

The problem with this detailed question is that the vast majority of voters would be unfamiliar with the detail of the stage three tax cuts, and could be persuaded by a broken promises campaign from the Coalition if Labor dumped or revised these cuts.

Morgan poll and additional Newspoll question

In the best poll news for Labor since the early November Resolve poll, a federal Morgan poll, conducted November 20–26 from a sample of 1,379, gave Labor a 52.5–47.5 lead, a three-point gain for Labor since last week.

Primary votes were 35% Coalition (down 2.5), 32% Labor (up 2.5), 13.5% Greens (steady), 5% One Nation (down 1.5), 9% independents (up two) and 5.5% others (down 0.5).

In an additional question from this week’s Newspoll that had a 50–50 tie, 50% said they and their family were worse off than two years ago, 16% better off and 34% about the same.

Victorian Mulgrave byelection final results

A Victorian state byelection occurred in Mulgrave on November 18. This seat was previously held by former Labor premier Daniel Andrews. Primary votes were 40.2% Labor (down 10.8% since the 2022 election), 21.7% Liberals (up 4.5%), 18.8% for right-wing independent Ian Cook (up 0.8%), 6.0% Greens (up 0.9%), 3.6% Victorian Socialists (new), 3.1% Family First (up 1.1%) and 2.9% Libertarian (new).

ABC election analyst Antony Green has details of the preference flow. Although Cook was 2.9% behind the Liberals on primary votes, preference flows from the Libertarians and Family First put Cook 0.4% behind the Liberals, and he surpassed the Liberals on preference leakage from the Socialists and Greens to finish 0.4% ahead of them at the point where one was excluded.

Labor then defeated Cook after preferences by 56.5–43.5, a 4.3% swing to Cook since the 2022 election. The electoral commission also provided a two party Labor vs Liberal measure, which showed that if the Liberals had made the final two, Labor would have won by 54.7–45.3, a 5.5% swing to the Liberals.

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

– ref. Extra senators for ACT and NT will benefit left but increase malapportionment – https://theconversation.com/extra-senators-for-act-and-nt-will-benefit-left-but-increase-malapportionment-218708

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Minyon Avent, Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist, The University of Queensland

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest global threats to health, food security and development. This month, The Conversation’s experts explore how we got here and the potential solutions.

Antibiotic resistance occurs when a microorganism changes and no longer responds to an antibiotic that was previously effective. It’s associated with poorer outcomes, a greater chance of death and higher health-care costs.

In Australia, antibiotic resistance means some patients are admitted to hospital because oral antibiotics are no longer effective and they need to receive intravenous therapy via a drip.

Antibiotic resistance is rising to high levels in certain parts of the world. Some hospitals have to consider whether it’s even viable to treat cancers or perform surgery due to the risk of antibiotic-resistant infections.

Australia is one of the highest users of antibiotics in the developed world. We need to use this precious resource wisely, or we risk a future where a simple infection could kill you because there isn’t an effective antibiotic.

Read more:
The rise and fall of antibiotics. What would a post-antibiotic world look like?

When should antibiotics not be used?

Antibiotics only work for some infections. They work against bacteria but don’t treat infections caused by viruses.

Most community acquired infections, even those caused by bacteria, are likely to get better without antibiotics.

Taking an antibiotic when you don’t need it won’t make you feel better or recover sooner. But it can increase your chance of side effects like nausea and diarrhoea.

Some people think green mucus (or snot) is a sign of bacterial infection, requiring antibiotics. But it’s actually a sign your immune system is working to fight your infection.

If you wait, you’ll often get better

Clinical practice guidelines for antibiotic use aim to ensure patients receive antibiotics when appropriate. Yet 40% of GPs say they prescribe antibiotics to meet patient expectations. And one in five patients expect antibiotics for respiratory infections.

It can be difficult for doctors to decide if a patient has a viral respiratory infection or are at an early stage of serious bacterial infection, particularly in children. One option is to “watch and wait” and ask patients to return if there is clinical deterioration.

Read more:
No, antibiotics aren’t always needed. Here’s how GPs can avoid overprescribing

An alternative is to prescribe an antibiotic but advise the patient to not have it dispensed unless specific symptoms occur. This can reduce antibiotic use by 50% with no decrease in patient satisfaction, and no increase in complication rates.

Sometimes antibiotics are life-savers

For some people – particularly those with a weakened immune system – a simple infection can become more serious.

Patients with life-threatening suspected infections should receive an appropriate antibiotic immediately. This includes serious infections such as bacterial meningitis (infection of the membranes surrounding the brain)
and sepsis (which can lead to organ failure and even death).

When else might antibiotics be used?

Antibiotics are sometimes used to prevent infections in patients who are undergoing surgery and are at significant risk of infection, such as those undergoing bowel resection. These patients will generally receive a single dose before the procedure.

Antibiotics may also be given to patients undergoing chemotherapy for solid organ cancers (of the breast or prostate, for example), if they are at high risk of infection.

While most sore throats are caused by a virus and usually resolve on their own, some high risk patients with a bacterial strep A infection which can cause “scarlet fever” are given antibiotics to prevent a more serious infection like acute rheumatic fever.

How long is a course of antibiotics?

The recommended duration of a course of antibiotics depends on the type of infection, the likely cause, where it is in your body and how effective the antibiotics are at killing the bacteria.

In the past, courses were largely arbitrary and based on assumptions that antibiotics should be taken for long enough to eliminate the infecting bacteria.

More recent research does not support this and shorter courses are nearly always as effective as longer ones, particularly for community acquired respiratory infections.

For community acquired pneumonia, for example, research shows a three- to five-day course of antibiotics is at least as effective as a seven- to 14-day course.

The “take until all finished” approach is no longer recommended, as the longer the antibiotic exposure, the greater the chance the bacteria will develop resistance.

However, for infections where it is more difficult to eradicate the bacteria, such as tuberculosis and bone infections, a combination of antibiotics for many months is usually required.

What if your infection is drug-resistant?

You may have an antibiotic-resistant infection if you don’t get better after treatment with standard antibiotics.

Your clinician will collect samples for lab testing if they suspect you have antibiotic-resistant infection, based on your travel history (especially if you’ve been hospitalised in a country with high rates of antibiotic resistance) and if you’ve had a recent course of antibiotics that hasn’t cleared your infection.

Read more:
How do bacteria actually become resistant to antibiotics?

Antibiotic-resistant infections are managed by prescribing broad-spectrum antibiotics. These are like a sledgehammer, wiping out many different species of bacteria. (Narrow-spectrum antibiotics conversely can be thought of as a scalpel, more targeted and only affecting one or two kinds of bacteria.)

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are usually more expensive and come with more severe side effects.

What can patients do?

Decisions about antibiotic prescriptions should be made using shared decision aids, where patients and prescribers discuss the risks and benefits of antibiotics for conditions like a sore throat, middle ear infection or acute bronchitis.

Consider asking your doctor questions such as:

• do we need to test the cause of my infection?
• how long should my recovery take?
• what are the risks and benefits of me taking antibiotics?
• will the antibiotic affect my regular medicines?
• how should I take the antibiotic (how often, for how long)?

Other ways to fight antibiotic resistance include:

• returning leftover antibiotics to a pharmacy for safe disposal
• never consuming leftover antibiotics or giving them to anyone else
• not keeping prescription repeats for antibiotics “in case” you become sick again
• asking your doctor or pharmacist what you can do to feel better and ease your symptoms rather than asking for antibiotics.

Read the other articles in The Conversation’s series on the dangers of antibiotic resistance here. Listen to the podcast here.

Minyon Avent has received funding from the Metro North Hospital and Health Service, the Children’s Hospital Foundation Queensland, the Department of Health, MSD and the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia.

Fiona Doukas has received funding from the Society of Hospital Pharmacists Australia and Hospira. She works for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. She is part of an NGO called Hepatitis B Free. She works at two Sydney Hospitals.

Kristin Xenos works for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

– ref. Do you really need antibiotics? Curbing our use helps fight drug-resistant bacteria – https://theconversation.com/do-you-really-need-antibiotics-curbing-our-use-helps-fight-drug-resistant-bacteria-217920

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alysia Blackham, Associate Professor in Law, The University of Melbourne

Alex Gutierrez worked for MUR Shipping and its predecessors for nearly 30 years. But in 2018 he was told, in line with company policy, it was time to set a retirement date.

Gutierrez was moved to a fixed-term contract, asked to train his replacement and ultimately resigned from his job. He then complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission and brought his claim to court, alleging age discrimination.

He won the case but he also lost.

The court found the company had discriminated. But Gutierrez’s damages – A$20,000 – dwarfed his legal costs, which amounted to about $150,000. The low damages also meant Gutierrez might have to pay MUR’s costs, as the damages were lower than a previous settlement offer.

Read more:
Workplace discrimination saps everyone’s motivation − even if it works in your favor

Gutierrez was the first person to win an age discrimination case in court in the roughly 20 years the federal Age Discrimination Act 2004 has existed and his situation explains why. You can win in court but still be hugely out of pocket for your costs and your employer’s costs. Few people take the risk.

That problem will be largely eliminated under a new government bill before the federal parliament. The bill would introduce a modified “equal access” cost protection provision for discrimination claims.

How changing the law would help

If the bill passes, claimants (workers) will generally recover their costs when their claim is successful. Respondents (employers) cannot generally recover their costs, except in limited circumstances. This could significantly increase the number of workers who are willing to sue over discrimination, of any kind.

Discrimination at work is common: in one survey conducted for the Australian Human Rights Commission, 63% of respondents said they had experienced age discrimination – being considered too young, or too old – in the last five years.

But few people challenge discrimination in the workplace. In my research on age discrimination law, I found people were often concerned about the costs of making a complaint. This includes financial costs, but also personal and emotional costs. People were also worried about the time it might take to resolve.

Read more:
20 years of tracking sexual harassment at work shows little improvement. But that could be about to change

Costs have been a particular problem under federal discrimination law.

Australia has discrimination laws at state, territory and federal level. Discrimination is also banned under industrial law – the federal Fair Work Act 2009. In every jurisdiction except Victoria, a complaint is first made to a statutory equality agency, which tries conciliation.

In many cases, this succeeds and most claims are resolved, though many are withdrawn.

Conciliation can save time and money

Conciliation is comparatively quick and cheap and lawyers are often not involved because you can represent yourself.

It is when a complaint isn’t resolved at conciliation that the costs increase. In the states and territories, and under the federal Fair Work Act 2009, parties mostly pay their own costs (that is, the cost of a lawyer).

It is different under federal discrimination law. In the federal courts, the losing party generally pays the winning party’s costs. This makes the stakes of a discrimination claim incredibly high: if your claim fails, you may not just have to pay your own legal bill, but also the other side’s legal bill.

The perils of costs were shown by Gutierrez’s case. In Gutierrez v MUR Shipping Australia Pty Limited, despite winning his claim of age discrimination, Gutierrez had to appeal in order to escape punishing legal costs.

Fortunately, Gutierrez had his appeal upheld; his damages were increased to $232,215, so he was no longer liable for the other side’s costs, and he had his appeal costs paid. But not every claim under the current law will be so lucky.

Prohibitive costs can stop people from taking action

Costs make challenging discrimination at work under federal law much more difficult. The human rights commission’s Respect@Work report found the risk of a costs order was a significant “disincentive” to bringing a claim under federal law.

The new bill might remove this disincentive by re-balancing the costs of claiming, enabling many more people to challenge discrimination in the federal courts.

We all have an interest in challenging discrimination and inequality. Research suggests more equal societies are happier and healthier overall. There is a good chance, too, many of us will experience some form of discrimination in our working lives.

Read more:
Every worker is entitled to be safe at work, but casual workers can fall through the cracks

Using discrimination law – making a complaint – can benefit us as individuals but can also force broader change. It can lead to policy change and it can force employers to take equality seriously.

Alysia Blackham has previously received grant funding from the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project DE170100228) and the Victorian Commission for Gender Equality in the Public Sector. She is a member of the National Tertiary Education Union.

– ref. It can be hard to challenge workplace discrimination but the government’s new bill should make it easier – https://theconversation.com/it-can-be-hard-to-challenge-workplace-discrimination-but-the-governments-new-bill-should-make-it-easier-218359

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louis Backstrom, PhD Student, University of St Andrews

Australia is one of the greatest places to see birds. We are fortunate to have more than 800 different bird species across the nation. At least 370 species are found nowhere else on Earth. They range from the iconic Australian magpie to the migratory short-tailed shearwater, the golden-shouldered parrot and the delightful superb fairy-wren.

Every day, thousands of birdwatchers are out spotting birds. Yet despite this enthusiasm, there’s a lot still to learn. More than 200 species are already listed as threatened with extinction but others may also be struggling and we just don’t know it yet.

In our new research, we used citizen science data to rank Australia’s birds in terms of how well they are known. We looked at how often birdwatchers spot each species and where they find birds, compared with how often they look, to determine rates of survey success. This quantifies how “well known” each species is.

We found a quarter of all Australian bird species can be considered well surveyed and adequately represented in our sightings databases. Many of these species have ranges that overlap with the densely populated regions of Australia. And some, like the southern cassowary and eastern rosella, are well known to most Australians. At the other end of the spectrum, some birds are very hard to find. Here’s Australia’s top 10 most elusive birds.

Read more:
Australia has more native bird species than almost anywhere else. What led to this explosion of diversity?

Taking advantage of citizen science

Before smartphones took off, birders would take notes in their private notebooks. They might share details of interesting sightings on internet forums or birdwatching clubs, but otherwise most knowledge was locked away from scientists and conservationists.

Now birders are increasingly taking advantage of easy-to-use birding apps such as eBird run by Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the United States, and Birdata from Birdlife Australia.

Collectively, these two platforms contain more than 40 million bird occurrence records spanning the entire country. That represents 3.8 million volunteer hours, or more than 430 years of effort.

Using these apps, birdwatchers and scientists alike can quickly collate bird records at a specific location.

As conservation scientists and ornithologists, we wanted to work out how to identify species we know very little about because poorly known species may be disappearing without us realising. While some researchers have already highlighted serious declines in poorly known species like the red goshawk, swift parrot and buff-breasted buttonquail, we recognised citizen science databases as a vast untapped source of knowledge for all of our native birds.

Australia’s most elusive birds

In our new study, published in the journal Emu (Austral Ornithology), we looked at millions of citizen science bird records. We focused on 581 terrestrial, native species.

We found a group of 56 “hide and seek” champions of Australia. These are the species which are seen least often by birdwatchers. Many of these species exhibit cryptic behaviour or are primarily nocturnal, which explains why they are not regularly seen by citizen scientists. However, we have serious concerns for a handful of these species.

The Coxen’s fig parrot emerges as a species of major concern. Birders recorded more than 300,000 surveys within this species’ range in the rainforests of south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales. Yet only four sightings of this tiny green parrot are documented in our combined citizen science database. None of these sightings were accompanied by photo or video evidence. In fact there has never been a photo of a live bird of this species. Our research suggests this species is well and truly “lost to science” and may already be extinct.

Another species of increasing concern is the buff-breasted buttonquail of far north Queensland. Only seven sightings of this bird are recorded in our combined dataset. Recent research suggests many reported sightings of this species may be mistaken. As with the Coxen’s fig parrot, no photo of a living buff-breasted buttonquail has ever been taken. Nevertheless, there is some hope for this elusive species, as its range has been less comprehensively surveyed by birdwatchers. There is now a concerted effort to find them.

Read more:
More than 200 Australian birds are now threatened with extinction – and climate change is the biggest danger

We can all play a role

Our analysis shows much of Australia is not frequented by birdwatchers, so birds in our least populated areas are still poorly known to contemporary science. Some of the most sparsely surveyed regions include Australia’s many deserts, and remote areas such as the Nullarbor Plain, Arnhem Land and western Cape York Peninsula.

Australians can help these elusive birds by heading outdoors with a smartphone and a pair of binoculars. Records of scarce birds will become increasingly important as species continue to decline. Even records of more common birds in backyards have value too. The more information we have, the more chance we can slow the rate of extinction and conserve our amazing birdlife.

Read more:
Our mysterious night parrot has terrible vision – but we discovered it might be able to hear like an owl

James Watson has received funding from the Australian Research Council, National Environmental Science Program, South Australia’s Department of Environment and Water as well as from Bush Heritage Australia, Queensland Conservation Council and Birdlife Australia. He serves on scientific committees for Bush Heritage Australia, climate start up Subak Australia, BirdLife Australia and has a long-term scientific relationship with the Wildlife Conservation Society. He serves on the Queensland Government’s Land Restoration Fund’s Investment Panel as the Deputy Chair.

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

– ref. We analysed citizen science to find Australia’s top 10 most elusive birds – https://theconversation.com/we-analysed-citizen-science-to-find-australias-top-10-most-elusive-birds-216645

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Eva, PhD Candidate and Research Officer, Australian National University

We are seeing more Indigenous businesses in Australia. This is important, given these businesses produce social impact, support Indigenous economic self-determination and maintain strong levels of Indigenous employment.

When we hear about Indigenous knowledge businesses, we often think about how this knowledge is presented within a business’ product or service, such as through art, tourism or clothing. What is less understood is the role Indigenous knowledge can play in the organisation and culture of a business, and the profound impact this can have.

There is still a stark gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous employment on a national level. It doesn’t help when non-Indigenous-owned businesses continue to struggle with hiring and retaining Indigenous employees.

But for Indigenous-owned businesses across locations and industries, employment remains strong. Research shows 36% of employees within these businesses are Indigenous.

In our new research, we interviewed Indigenous business owners, managers and employees to explore how these businesses support strong levels of Indigenous employment. Our findings show a need for all Australian businesses to learn best practices from Indigenous businesses.

Read more:
Indigenous-owned businesses are key to closing the employment gap

What are Indigenous businesses doing differently?

Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing can bring a holistic approach to business management and organisational culture. In our research, participants discussed how Indigenous businesses maintained a non-hierarchical approach to their business structure. This structure incorporated a diversity of perspectives, which better informed tailored and effective policy and practices.

This meant the specific perspectives, values, strengths and circumstances of a workforce could be reflected by the business. This goes against the one-size-fits-all approach to Indigenous employment and recruitment policies that non-Indigenous businesses often implement.

To be formally recognised as an Indigenous-owned business, a business must be at least 50% owned by Indigenous people.

Most Indigenous businesses listed in Supply Nation, a national database of Indigenous businesses, are 100% Indigenous-owned. As such, these Indigenous businesses have Indigenous people in leadership roles. This is in contrast to non-Indigenous businesses that struggle with this.

Our research participants described Indigenous governance within businesses as collaborative, responsive and relational. Through this, managers can be better attuned to their employees’ needs, values and circumstances.

This knowledge builds a foundation to inform specific workplace practices. For example, workplace flexibility is often provided within Indigenous businesses, but how it is provided varies on the specific contexts of the workforce.

Cultural competence is essential

Cultural competence refers to the ability to work effectively and respectfully with people of other cultures.

Cultural competence in the workplace is often considered as education. Our research participants described cultural competence as an action embedded into the practices of their organisations. They did not view cultural competence as a nicety, but an occupational health and safety necessity.

For example, Indigenous businesses are not only aware of cultural obligations or individual circumstances that impact their employees. These businesses often accommodate, support and draw on these things to inform their business practices. Indigenous employees said this meant their businesses understood, valued and supported them.

Employees also detailed stark differences in experiences of racism between Indigenous businesses and their former workplaces. Indigenous business owners and managers were more attuned to their experiences and more committed to addressing and eliminating racism in the workplace.

These are just some of the ways Indigenous businesses can provide a model for rethinking the organisational cultures of non-Indigenous businesses.

Read more:
Closing the First Nations employment gap will take 100 years

Learning from Indigenous businesses

Many organisations across Australia implement their own policies to increase Indigenous employment. Our research participants said many of these policies are heavily focused on “traditional” recruitment practices and policies.

This falsely presumes the supply of jobs is the sole problem. There are many factors affecting Indigenous people’s employment, which differ across the country. Approaches to Indigenous employment often don’t reflect this.

Indigenous businesses demonstrate there is no singular recruitment strategy, Reconciliation Action Plan, apprenticeship program or cultural competence training to improve levels of Indigenous employment.

For example, some Indigenous-owned businesses progress Indigenous employees from entry-level positions to management because they recognise the commitment, logistics and benefits of doing so. Simply creating an entry-level position where an employee does not progress cannot achieve the same outcome.

Strong Indigenous employment is not limited to Indigenous businesses in certain industries. This is why tailored practices are needed that reflect a diverse Indigenous workforce across the country.

Restructuring organisational culture in Australian businesses isn’t only beneficial for Indigenous peoples. Values-driven workplaces invest in employees, support their cultures, maintain a safe work environment and create opportunities for those often excluded from employment. This benefits everyone.

Non-Indigenous institutions can learn from Indigenous businesses, not just to become better employers of Indigenous people, but to be better employers for all.

This article is based on research undertaken at the Australian National University by Christian Eva, Jessica Harris, Kerry Bodle, Dennis Foley, Nina Nichols and Boyd Hunter.

The research project that this article reports on is subject to funding from the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA)

Kerry Bodle works for Griffith University. The research project that this article reports on is subject to funding from the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA)

– ref. New research shows how Indigenous-owned businesses are creating better outcomes for their employees – https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-how-indigenous-owned-businesses-are-creating-better-outcomes-for-their-employees-218246

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathleen McGuire, Lecturer, Australian Catholic University

Who could have imagined how quickly we would return to pre-COVID routines?

Here we are again, juggling year-end stressors, wondering how we can squeeze everything in. If you have young children, you will likely also have several school concerts to mark the end of the year.

While we want to support our loved ones’ extracurricular activities, perhaps you secretly curse sitting through yet another performance or carols sing-along.

I am a researcher in music education and a conductor of community ensembles. Are these events important? Do they matter at all?

Why music matters

The first thing to remember is music really matters. Apart from the joy of making music and gaining a skill, there are many advantages for kids learning music.

Australian music educator and researcher Anita Collins has studied how learning music helps children’s cognitive development.

As she explains, neuroscientists have found the brains of people who studied music look different from those who did not have music lessons:

music education works three areas of the brain at once: the motor, visual and auditory cortices. If we think about it, it’s like a full-brain workout; it’s like our legs, our arms and our torso doing an exercise at the same time. Music education is exercise for the brain.

The long-term impact on the brain is also startling. Research suggests children who undergo music training have better verbal memory, second language pronunciation accuracy, reading ability, reasoning skills, auditory, motor and sensorimotor integration, and executive function.

Other research, surveying more than 112,000 students, revealed those who learn music were more successful than non-musicians across maths, English and science.

Showcasing and building skills

But these concerts also have a broader purpose.

At school concerts, students showcase their learning as individuals and in ensembles. This can motivate a child to practise and learn their instrument. The performance itself can build a student’s confidence and skills in other areas such as public speaking, presentation and managing nerves.

When they play in groups, students can often perform better than expected. As a music director of many school (and community) productions, I can attest that something magical happens in the couple of weeks leading to a performance.

Read more:
Learning music early can make your child a better reader

A sense of belonging

We know people who play in music ensembles identify a feeling of belonging as a benefit of playing with others.

This feeling can be amplified in year-end concerts where a school community and families gather together. Research shows feeling connected to others or a sense of belonging can reduce feelings of loneliness, alienation or hopelessness.

Connection beyond schools

In my broader work, I have also seen how end-of-year concerts can provide important connection and build community at a time of year many find really difficult.

For those who have lost or are separated from loved ones, the festive season can be very stressful and lonely.

But community music can provide a broader social purpose and support network. While conducting the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, I noticed some singers, who were estranged from their families, struggled each December. To help, we filled our schedule with appearances. Being together and connected lifted everyone’s spirits.

In the post-pandemic era, en masse community music-making has exploded with the Pub Choir and Spooky Men’s Chorale attracting thousands of participants. People of all ages buy tickets or volunteer to meet up and learn songs in low-pressure settings such as pubs, sports arenas or outdoors. Here, social and wellbeing factors are emphasised, rather than the quality or expertise of the performance.

Read more:
Before you let your child quit music lessons, try these 5 things

More than just a concert

So yes, year-end concerts are another thing to do at an already busy time of year. But they are so important. They can enhance students’ learning and wellbeing and unite communities.

They are also hopefully fun and rewarding.

So let’s vote with our bums-on-seats. Knowing the essential benefits of music to children and society, let’s show up and clap and cheer. Better yet, participate! Your life will be the richer for it.

Kathleen McGuire conducts various community choirs, including the Tudor Choristers. She is a teacher educator at Australian Catholic University, specialising in Secondary Music Education.

– ref. Hallelujah, it’s school concert season. A music researcher explains why these performances are so important – https://theconversation.com/hallelujah-its-school-concert-season-a-music-researcher-explains-why-these-performances-are-so-important-218240

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ramon Lobato, Associate Professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has today introduced legislation that will require smart TV manufacturers to ensure we can easily find local broadcasters – including ABC, SBS and the commercial networks – when we turn on our TVs.

This “prominence” law will require TV manufacturers to preinstall iview, SBS On Demand, 9Now, 7Plus and 10Play on all smart TVs sold in Australia. It will also ensure these apps are not unfairly hidden in the user interface compared to major players like Netflix and Disney+.

This prominence law was recently the subject of heated discussion between the free-to-air networks, TV platforms, manufacturers and Foxtel – a pseudo-debate driven by industry scare campaigns.

But there is little reason for users to be alarmed.

The government’s proposed smart TV law is a light-touch change that will support our local content and public-service broadcasting ecosystem without compromising the user experience.

Smart TVs need smart regulation

Since 2019, our team at RMIT has been studying smart TVs as part of an Australian Research Council project. During this time we observed significant changes in the smart TV marketplace that point to the need for careful regulation.

Major TV manufacturers have reinvented themselves as advertising platforms. To generate ad revenue, they charge apps fees for prominence: advertising dollars determine the order in which streaming apps appear when you turn on your smart TV.

Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL have also launched their own FAST (Free Advertiser Supported TV) channels, which are actively promoted on the TV home screen.

Read more:
Netflix and other streaming giants pay to get branded buttons on your remote control. Local TV services can’t afford to keep up

One consequence of these commercial arrangements is reduced visibility of local apps and services. The smart TV testing we conducted at RMIT found local services are much less prominent and less frequently preinstalled than Netflix, Disney+ and other US-based services that do global prominence deals with manufacturers.

Why is this a problem? Our research found a third of Australian users do not know how to download smart TV apps. For these users, the smart TV is a preconfigured device: if local apps aren’t on the TV when it comes home from the store they will likely never be installed.

In other words, manufacturers rely on the inertia bias of users to opt for prominently positioned advertiser apps.

Within this environment, local streamers and other smaller players are structurally disadvantaged. In particular, our public-service broadcasters – who do not have the resources to pay for prominence in the attention economy of the smart TV interface – would face a dim future.

How will the prominence law work?

The key feature of the new law, which will take effect mid-2025, is a “must carry” requirement. While ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) will clarify the detail of the rules in coming months, the government’s intention is to require manufacturers of smart TVs and connected TV devices sold in Australia to preinstall the streaming apps of Australian free-to-air channels.

These apps need to have their own home screen shortcuts, which must be of equivalent size and format to those of other streaming services. This will prevent manufacturers trying to bury these shortcuts in favour of paying advertisers’ apps.

However, the order of tiles is left up to the manufacturer – and, importantly, users are free to delete or move the tiles as they wish. So ultimate control of the device still rests with the user.

Our research found a clear majority (around 59%) of Australian adults support compulsory preinstallation of broadcaster apps on new smart TVs. Only around 15% of users said they disagreed with compulsory preinstallation. The rest were neutral or unsure.

This suggests any user backlash against the proposed changes will be modest.

What about TV search and recommendations?

While the free-to-air broadcasters will be pleased with this outcome, they have not received everything they asked for.

The broadcast lobby pushed hard for a must-promote rule, which would have placed their content first in the recommendations and search results.

The government has rejected this idea in favour of the more modest must-carry rule. The order of results in search and recommendations will be left up to the manufacturer, as is presently the case.

The long view

Some may argue any intervention in smart TVs is an overreach by government. But the reality is that almost every country regulates television for cultural, industry and security reasons. Many national regulators are considering prominence rules similar to what has been introduced in Australia today.

Smart TVs – as the new distribution platform for television content – clearly need to be moved into the scope of regulation over the long term.

In doing this, government must balance the competing priorities of user autonomy, local industry needs, and existing market arrangements.

The proposed prominence is a step in the right direction – but only the first step in what will surely be a complex process of media reform.

Read more:
Apple, Disney and Netflix’s streaming battle isn’t winner-take-all

Ramon Lobato receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT190100144).

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

– ref. The government has announced plans to regulate smart TV home screens: what the new rules mean for you – https://theconversation.com/the-government-has-announced-plans-to-regulate-smart-tv-home-screens-what-the-new-rules-mean-for-you-218791

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucas Walsh, Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice, Monash University

Many of us were anxious and fearful during the COVID pandemic, but we’ve probably started to feel a lot better since lockdowns have stopped and life looks more like it did previously.

But new data shows that hasn’t been the case for Australia’s young people.

Our wide-ranging survey of youth across the country reveals many young people fear they’ll never be able to own a home and will end up worse-off than their parents.

Read more:
Listening to youth voices was missing in the COVID-19 pandemic response

Affordable housing is their top concern

Data from the 2023 Australian Youth Barometer, which surveyed 571 young Australians aged 18-24 and interviewed 30 more, highlight young people’s interconnected and confronting attitudes about their futures.

In this third iteration of the annual survey, we expected improvements in young people’s attitudes following the worst of the pandemic.

But the pressures have intensified following increases to costs of living and multiple disruptions to young lives, leading to anxieties about their future.

The clear majority of young people (70%) said affordable housing was their top concern (15% increase since last year), while 51% nominated employment opportunities (up 9%) as the second.

Concern about affordable housing is unsurprising. The fear is real.

Aside from skyrocketing rents and house prices, many young people face the prospect of having nowhere to live. According to 2021 Census data, almost one in four of all people experiencing homelessness (23%) are 12 to 24 years of age.

A 23-year-old woman from the ACT, who’s living in a caravan she doesn’t own, told us housing was her biggest concern:

I’m very lucky to have it [the caravan]. And if it gets taken away from me, I’m back out on the streets again […] I need to be able to shower, have a place to get ready, eat, all that. That’s really the only concern in life.

Seeing a pathway to affordable accommodation is all the more challenging given young people’s current circumstances.

Some 90% of those surveyed experienced financial difficulties in the past year, a continuation of last year’s trend. Around one in five (21%) experienced food insecurity.

Surviving now is a concern, let alone affording a roof tomorrow. Just 35% of young people feel confident that they’ll be able to afford a place to live in the next year.

Feeling unprepared for the future

Only 52% of young people we surveyed feel their education has prepared them for the future

Three issues arise here. First, some young people are critical of education in their schools and post school institutions.

One 23-year-old woman from South Australia said:

The learning system in Australia is absolutely appalling is what I have to say about it. It is so behind, it is so backdated, it has not kept up with the times, their learning ways are just inaccurate, and a waste of everyone’s time […] It wasn’t catered to what would be best for learning in the classroom, it was just, ‘This is what the system is, that’s what we’re doing’.

Second, there is a growing awareness that in a competitive labour market, greater qualifications might not lead to desirable, secure jobs.

The third is understanding what is required to get that desirable work. Upheavals to the workforce, including technological developments such as automation, have led to questioning what skills, knowledge and experience are required for job futures that are decreasingly knowable.

Other factors such as climate change (the third top issue requiring immediate action) and geopolitical insecurity amplify uncertainty about the future.

Read more:
Yes, young people are concerned about climate change. But it can drive them to take action

Challenges to youth mental health

The challenges outlined above intersect. One 20-year-old woman from Queensland told us:

I’m just worried that it’ll be harder for me to get a job from my course or whatever, or that if stuff like cost of living and everything keeps going up, no matter if I get a job, I wouldn’t be able to, like, stay on top of that, as well.

Only 52% of young Australians think that it is likely or extremely likely that they will achieve financial security in the future.

More young Australians think they will be financially worse off than their parents (from 53% in 2022 to 61% in 2023). Most (97%) felt worried, anxious or pessimistic in the past year (an increase of 14% on last year’s data).

Read more:
How to teach children about climate change, inspire hope and take action to change the future

Just over a quarter (26%) characterised their mental health as poor or very poor (up 8% on last year). Nearly one in four (24%) received mental health care in the past year.

Young people see their health and wellbeing as interconnected to other factors, such as affordable accommodation, jobs and food security. A 24-year-old man from New South Wales said that:

Financial independence is kind of a healthy thing. I think that knowing that you could afford your rent, knowing that you can afford food […] knowing that you have a roof over your head is something that I measure for healthiness.

Attitudes that are here to stay?

Conditions for young people typically deteriorate during economic downturns. The question is whether the trends above reflect a tremor or a quake.

We saw during previous recessions how young people were disproportionately and negatively affected compared to older age groups. That tremor is already visible, despite relatively good employment figures in recent years (which insufficiently capture the quality, security and desirability of current employment). Even so, youth unemployment rate has increased to 8.7%.

So are these attitudes likely to remain?

A youthquake is typically defined as a marked shift in cultural norms brought about by changing values, tastes and attitudes of young people. Such shifts are associated with wider social, economic and political seismic upheavals.

Our findings suggest that conditions for the next youthquake might have begun.

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. What are young Australians most worried about? Finding affordable housing, they told us – https://theconversation.com/what-are-young-australians-most-worried-about-finding-affordable-housing-they-told-us-218426

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Fraser, PhD Candidate, Deakin University

Meal kits are a billion dollar industry selling the promise of convenience while cooking healthy meals at home. Delivering ingredients and step-by-step recipes to the doorstep, meal kits reduce the time and energy to plan, shop and prepare meals. But do they deliver on their promise of health?

While people may think meal kits are healthy, our new research suggests this varies.

The range and quantity of vegetables in a meal is a great indicator of how healthy it is. So we assessed the vegetable content of recipes from six Australian meal kit providers. We found when it comes to nutrition, whether it be budget friendly or high-end, it’s more about the meals you choose and less about what company to use.

Read more:
Are we overthinking family meals? 5 realistic tips to ease the pressure

What we found

For our new research we purchased a one-week subscription to nine Australian-based meal kit companies to access weekly recipes. Six companies provided their full week of recipes. The vegetable content of these recipes were analysed.

Of the 179 meals analysed, we found recipes use a median of three different types of vegetables and provide a median of 2.5 serves of vegetables per person. At first glance, this looks promising. But on closer inspection, the number and types of vegetables vary a lot.

Some recipes provide less than one serve and others more than seven serves of vegetables per person. Not surprisingly, vegetarian recipes provide more vegetables, but almost one-third of these still include less than two vegetables serves per person.

The variety of vegetables included also varies, with recipes providing between one and six different types of vegetables per meal.

What’s for dinner?

Dinner is the time when we’re most likely to eat vegetables, so low levels of vegetables in meal kit meals matter.

Eating vegetables is known to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity and some cancers. What’s more, food preferences and eating habits are learned in childhood. So being exposed to a wide range of vegetables from a young age is important for future health.

But few Australians eat enough vegetables. According to the Australian Dietary Guidelines, children should be eating 2.5 to five serves and adults at least five serves of vegetables each day. Currently children eat an average of less than two serves and adults less than three serves of vegetables per day.

So there’s room for improvement and meal kits may help.

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

Meal kits have advantages

The good news is that using meal kits can be a healthier alternative to ordering takeaway delivery or prepared ready-to-heat meals. When we cook at home, we have much more say in what’s for dinner. We can use healthier cooking methods (think grilled rather than deep-fried), healthier fats (olive or canola oil) and add in plenty of extra veg. All make for better nutrition and better health.

Meal kits might also build your cooking confidence to cook more “from scratch” and to learn about new ingredients, flavour combinations and time-saving techniques. Cooking with meal kits may even cut household food waste by providing the exact amount of ingredients needed to prepare a meal.

Read more:
How to save $50 off your food bill and still eat tasty, nutritious meals

5 tips for getting the most out of meal kits

1) Select some vegetarian options

This way you can have meat-free dinners during the week. Vegetarian recipes are more likely to help you meet daily vegetable intakes and to eat a wider variety of vegetables

2) Choose recipes with at least 3 different types of vegetables

Eating a range of vegetable types and colours will help maximise nutritional benefits. Research shows eating a variety of vegetables at dinner can increase our vegetable intakes. Exposing children to “eating the rainbow” can also increase their willingness to eat vegetables

3) Choose recipes with unfamiliar or new vegetables

Research tells us that learning to prepare and cook vegetables can increase cooking confidence and skills. This can influence our willingness to buy a wider range of vegetables. Worried about fussy eaters? Add your child’s favourite cooked or raw veg to their plate (one familiar, one new)

4) Look for ways to add more vegetables

It’s OK to tweak the recipe! Adding vegetables from your fridge – maybe some lettuce on the side or chopped up carrots to a cooked sauce – to meal kit meals will help reduce household food waste. You can also extend meals by adding a can of lentils or beans to mince-based meals, or frozen peas or chickpeas to a curry. This adds valuable fibre to the meal and also bulks up these recipes, giving you leftovers for the next day

5) Use less

While vegetables are important for health, it’s also important to consider the salt, fat and energy content of meal kit recipes. When using meal kits, you can use less seasoning, spice mix or stock cubes and add more herbs instead.

Alison Spence is affiliated with Dietitians Australia.

Karen Campbell receives funding from NHMRC

Penny Love is currently a named investigator on a NHMRC CRE Grant (2022-2026) and Norwegian Research Council (2021-2025) funded project. She is affiliated with Dietitians Australia (DA), the World Public Health Nutrition Association (WPHNA), and the International Society for Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA).

Kylie Fraser 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. Meal kits are booming – but how do they stack up nutritionally? – https://theconversation.com/meal-kits-are-booming-but-how-do-they-stack-up-nutritionally-218339

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Nash, Casual Academic, School of Art, Communication and English, University of Sydney

In a 1950 essay on Charles Dickens, literary critic Dorothy Van Ghent suggested the author had an unusual way of writing about the human form.

She identified his “habit of seeing the parts of the body as separable and manipulable” in a descriptive technique of “surgical division”.

While these surgical divisions were often figurative, there were plenty of literal examples in Dickens as well. The most notable sees one of his characters searching after his own amputated leg in the seedy anatomical emporiums of London.

The new Australian series The Artful Dodger pursues this surgical fascination in a reworking of Oliver Twist. Its irreverent intentions are clearly marked by its substitution of the cheeky but lovable Dodger for the too-good Oliver, who’s summarily dismissed in the first episode as so much “wet lettuce”.

Casual brutality

It is 15 years after the end of the novel and the Dodger – Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) – is in a fictional Australian town where he’s turned his pickpocket’s dexterity to the purpose of surgery.

Jack has fallen into an enormous gambling debt to a local crook (Tim Minchin), who is threatening to collect by taking off one of his precious hands.

At the same time, Jack’s old boss and bad father figure, Fagin (David Thewlis), arrives in town on a convict ship. Thrown into the mix in a meet-cute that takes place over a heinous compound fracture is the Lady Belle Fox (Maia Mitchell), who intends on becoming the colony’s first female surgeon.

In the vein of a show like Dickensian, the series’ writers stitch together miscellaneous bits and pieces from the author’s canon.

They borrow the Dodger’s naval surgeon training from Bleak House and its kindly love interest, Mr Woodcourt. Rather than hanging, Fagin meets the fate of the transported convict Magwitch of Great Expectations. And in one of the show’s more creative additions, the hospital’s artificial limb maker (Luke Carroll) evokes Dombey and Son’s charming duo Solomon Gills and Captain Cuttle. His complex mechanical arms and wooden legs recall both the scientific instruments manufactured by Gills and the prosthetic hook the captain uses in place of his hand.

Playing up the spectacle, speed and savagery of surgery before anaesthesia and antibiotics, the series presents its public operations as something between pantomime and blood sport. But despite all the viscera and violence, it refuses to double down on Dickensian misery, largely playing its most gruesome elements for laughs.

Read more:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: class prejudices, the convict stain and a corpse-bride

Trading in bleakness

Bleakness has long been the stock-in-trade of Dickens adaptations. But in the midst of all their Dickensian fog, many forget the fun of the author’s books.

This isn’t true of The Artful Dodger. Taking notes from the recent success of pop period dramas like Bridgerton, the new adaptation is loud, energetic and refreshingly bright. It’s full of Australian sun and sound, each episode starting off with an Aussie rock track from the likes of Spiderbait and The Cruel Sea.

While these stylistic revisions reinvigorate, the show’s jokes and subplots are more hit and miss. Caricature has always been key to Dickens’s fiction, but the sheer silliness of Lady Belle’s unwanted suitor and her domesticated sister don’t serve the series well. Despite being a show that itself centres a minor figure, it fails to give some of its best side characters room to breathe.

The most significant issue facing the series is its central romance. The key erotic scenes between the Dodger and Lady Belle just don’t crackle as intended.

There’s frankly much more on-screen chemistry between Brodie-Sangster and Thewlis, so the show is at its best when the Dodger and Fagin are keeping company. The pair skilfully tap into the troubling mix of affection and abuse in this relationship, with Fagin longing for a past that to Jack is the stuff of traumatic childhood memory.

Welcome revisionism

Given the enormous quantity of screen adaptations of Dickens, do we really need another reworking of the old Victorian?

In a recent essay, On Killing Charles Dickens, Zadie Smith discusses her complicated feelings towards the author. With self-conscious hyperbole, Smith recounts how she went so far as to flee London to avoid writing her new historical novel and, in particular, to avoid everything Dickens.

Long story short: she couldn’t do it.

Returning home to work on The Fraud, she found him an irrepressible presence haunting both her city and her story. And so, she set about killing off the famous author by writing his death into the pages of her book.

As Smith aptly concludes, Dickens’ (sometimes irritating) ubiquity doesn’t mean he should be handed the last word.

If Smith’s strategy was to kill Dickens, we might say The Artful Dodger’s is to perform hacksaw surgery on him. The series slices and amputates and stitches back together with a welcome revisionism.

If the result is a little uneven, it works well enough. As Victorian surgeons knew, sometimes you have to be brutal to keep things alive.

The Artful Dodger is on Disney+ from today.

Read more:
The Fraud by Zadie Smith review: a dazzling depiction of Victorian colonial England

Megan Nash 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. Spectacle, speed and savagery: Disney’s The Artful Dodger comes down under for a pop period spin – https://theconversation.com/spectacle-speed-and-savagery-disneys-the-artful-dodger-comes-down-under-for-a-pop-period-spin-218242

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Masoumeh Sara Rahmani, Lecturer Study of Religion, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Religious beliefs among Māori have shifted significantly over the past two decades.

The number of Māori identifying as having “no religion” in the census between 2006 and 2018 increased from 36.5% to 53.5%. Māori affiliation with Christianity has fallen from 46.2% to 29.9%.

Are Māori simply rejecting Christianity? Or are they rejecting all supernatural phenomena, including traditional Māori beliefs?

Our research examined the apparent rise of Māori atheism. We found the colonial history of religion was a driving force for Māori who identified as atheist or having no religion.

We also found Māori atheists said they experienced discrimination for their lack of religion, and their “Māoriness” was questioned within their community or work.

The “no religion” category in the census captures a range of worldviews, including people who say they are spiritual but not religious; agnostics – people who are uncertain about the existence of a higher power; and atheists – people who do not believe in the existence of god(s).

Multiple reasons for leaving religion

As part of our research, we spoke with 16 Māori aged 30 to 65 who did not believe in god(s). All but four were raised in religious households.

Some emphasised lingering intellectual doubts as the reason for rejecting religion. As one participant explained:

If I’m being intellectually honest and consistent, I should put all my beliefs on the table and I should examine all of them. I shouldn’t keep some safe from scrutiny just because they’re mine, they’re Māori.

Read more:
When is being Māori not enough? Why Māori politics are always personal

Others said they left for moral reasons. These included a perceived hypocrisy among churchgoers, immorality of religious leaders, and the role of religion in spreading harmful views about women and LGBTQ people.

Most participants, however, framed their rejection of religion as an expression of resistance against the colonial systems of belief.

In fact, participants’ ideas of “religion” were primarily shaped by their experience of various Christian denominations and their knowledge of the Christian missionary history in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Accordingly, most of the people we spoke with viewed religion as a colonial tool for the oppression of Māori people and culture. Another participant noted:

I’ve only become very angry against religion over the last five years after I found out what they’ve done to my culture […] We’ve lost a lot of our culture from the Anglican missionary societies […] Removing one’s culture and then assimilating them into religion is […] like a double-edged sword of colonisation.

Some interviewees spoke about how Christianity had been used as a way to exert cultural superiority, labelling Indigenous beliefs and practices as “evil”.

Others argued that the God of the Bible is not indigenous to Aotearoa, but rather a creation myth from the Middle East and therefore inherently irrelevant to Māori people.

Dissatisfaction entwined with colonial history

The interview responses show Māori rejection of Christianity seems to be largely aligned with anti-colonial movements, Māori protest movements, and the decolonial feminist movement.

For most participants, “atheism” equated to non-belief in the existence of God and the rejection of monotheistic traditions, specifically Christianity.

In other words, being a Māori atheist did not necessarily mean the rejection of all supernatural beliefs.

While some individuals were confident in their non-belief in all supernatural phenomena, others were either ambivalent towards certain wairua (spirit, soul) beliefs or emphasised the need to understand Māori beliefs as metaphors for a way to live.

What it means to be Māori is changing

The emergence of “non-religious” as a growing sector of the Māori community poses both challenges and opportunities to the ideas of what it is to be Māori and the development of New Zealand.

If we see ourselves progressing as a “bi-cultural” Treaty/Tiriti-enhanced nation, it stands to reason we need to be able to identify the two cultures clearly.

But there is the opportunity to develop more quickly without identity “membership” based on religious affiliation or non-affiliation.

Within the community, there is a spectrum of views about the significance of religious or spiritual beliefs to Māori identity.

On one end, there are those who ask whether it is even possible to be Māori if one is not “religious” or “spiritual” in some shape or form.

At the other, there are those who distinguish between culture and religion, and argue Māori development can be more easily enhanced if one is freed from the constraints of religious belief.

Read more:
Kiwiana is past its use-by date. Is it time to re-imagine our symbols of national identity?

The former speaks to a “traditional” and conservative view of being Māori; the latter to notions of changes in cultures, the impact of the colonial experience, modernisation, and different ways of being Māori.

Our research highlights the diversity of non-religion among Māori, which is neither reflected in representations of Māori (for instance in education), nor considered in Māori-Crown relations.

While there is little difficulty in identifying the Crown in Treaty negotiations, the emerging “no religion” sector of the Māori community adds new layers of complexity to who the Treaty partner is. Importantly, is being spiritual or religious a prerequisite to being a Māori?

This research was supported by Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty Research Establishment Grant and the Explaining Atheism research grant awarded by Queen’s University Belfast with funding from the John Templeton Foundation.

Peter Adds 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. Māori atheism on the rise: the legacy of colonisation is driving a decline in traditional Christian beliefs – https://theconversation.com/maori-atheism-on-the-rise-the-legacy-of-colonisation-is-driving-a-decline-in-traditional-christian-beliefs-214701

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Nash, Casual Academic, School of Art, Communication and English, University of Sydney

In a 1950 essay on Charles Dickens, literary critic Dorothy Van Ghent suggested the author had an unusual way of writing about the human form.

She identified his “habit of seeing the parts of the body as separable and manipulable” in a descriptive technique of “surgical division”.

While these surgical divisions were often figurative, there were plenty of literal examples in Dickens as well. The most notable sees one of his characters searching after his own amputated leg in the seedy anatomical emporiums of London.

The new Australian series The Artful Dodger pursues this surgical fascination in a reworking of Oliver Twist. Its irreverent intentions are clearly marked by its substitution of the cheeky but lovable Dodger for the too-good Oliver, who’s summarily dismissed in the first episode as so much “wet lettuce”.

Casual brutality

It is 15 years after the end of the novel and the Dodger – Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) – is in a fictional Australian town where he’s turned his pickpocket’s dexterity to the purpose of surgery.

Jack has fallen into an enormous gambling debt to a local crook (Tim Minchin), who is threatening to collect by taking off one of his precious hands.

At the same time, Jack’s old boss and bad father figure, Fagin (David Thewlis), arrives in town on a convict ship. Thrown into the mix in a meet-cute that takes place over a heinous compound fracture is the Lady Belle Fox (Maia Mitchell), who intends on becoming the colony’s first female surgeon.

In the vein of a show like Dickensian, the series’ writers stitch together miscellaneous bits and pieces from the author’s canon.

They borrow the Dodger’s naval surgeon training from Bleak House and its kindly love interest, Mr Woodcourt. Rather than hanging, Fagin meets the fate of the transported convict Magwitch of Great Expectations. And in one of the show’s more creative additions, the hospital’s artificial limb maker (Luke Carroll) evokes Dombey and Son’s charming duo Solomon Gills and Captain Cuttle. His complex mechanical arms and wooden legs recall both the scientific instruments manufactured by Gills and the prosthetic hook the captain uses in place of his hand.

Playing up the spectacle, speed and savagery of surgery before anaesthesia and antibiotics, the series presents its public operations as something between pantomime and blood sport. But despite all the viscera and violence, it refuses to double down on Dickensian misery, largely playing its most gruesome elements for laughs.

Read more:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: class prejudices, the convict stain and a corpse-bride

Trading in bleakness

Bleakness has long been the stock-in-trade of Dickens adaptations. But in the midst of all their Dickensian fog, many forget the fun of the author’s books.

This isn’t true of The Artful Dodger. Taking notes from the recent success of pop period dramas like Bridgerton, the new adaptation is loud, energetic and refreshingly bright. It’s full of Australian sun and sound, each episode starting off with an Aussie rock track from the likes of Spiderbait and The Cruel Sea.

While these stylistic revisions reinvigorate, the show’s jokes and subplots are more hit and miss. Caricature has always been key to Dickens’s fiction, but the sheer silliness of Lady Belle’s unwanted suitor and her domesticated sister don’t serve the series well. Despite being a show that itself centres a minor figure, it fails to give some of its best side characters room to breathe.

The most significant issue facing the series is its central romance. The key erotic scenes between the Dodger and Lady Belle just don’t crackle as intended.

There’s frankly much more on-screen chemistry between Brodie-Sangster and Thewlis, so the show is at its best when the Dodger and Fagin are keeping company. The pair skilfully tap into the troubling mix of affection and abuse in this relationship, with Fagin longing for a past that to Jack is the stuff of traumatic childhood memory.

Welcome revisionism

Given the enormous quantity of screen adaptations of Dickens, do we really need another reworking of the old Victorian?

In a recent essay, On Killing Charles Dickens, Zadie Smith discusses her complicated feelings towards the author. With self-conscious hyperbole, Smith recounts how she went so far as to flee London to avoid writing her new historical novel and, in particular, to avoid everything Dickens.

Long story short: she couldn’t do it.

Returning home to work on The Fraud, she found him an irrepressible presence haunting both her city and her story. And so, she set about killing off the famous author by writing his death into the pages of her book.

As Smith aptly concludes, Dickens’ (sometimes irritating) ubiquity doesn’t mean he should be handed the last word.

If Smith’s strategy was to kill Dickens, we might say The Artful Dodger’s is to perform hacksaw surgery on him. The series slices and amputates and stitches back together with a welcome revisionism.

If the result is a little uneven, it works well enough. As Victorian surgeons knew, sometimes you have to be brutal to keep things alive.

The Artful Dodger is on Disney+ from today.

Read more:
The Fraud by Zadie Smith review: a dazzling depiction of Victorian colonial England

Megan Nash 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. Spectacle, speed and savageness: Disney’s The Artful Dodger comes down under for a pop period spin – https://theconversation.com/spectacle-speed-and-savageness-disneys-the-artful-dodger-comes-down-under-for-a-pop-period-spin-218242

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Ellis, Medical Doctor. Interdisciplinary Lecturer. PhD Student, History and Philosophy of Science., University of Sydney

The scientific worldview has made great contributions to humanity’s flourishing. But, as science advances into territory once firmly held by religion – attempting to answer questions about the origins of the universe, life and consciousness – science communication often paints a fairly pessimistic picture of the world.

Take a few examples. An article in New Scientist claims our perception that pet dogs love us may be an illusion. Physicist Brian Greene sees humanity’s ultimate fate in the demise of the Solar System. Writer Yuval Noah Harari, in his bestselling book Sapiens, posits that life holds no inherent meaning. Philosopher David Benatar goes so far as to argue that being born is a bad thing.

Scientists themselves may not find the view of the universe presented above to be pessimistic. However, this may bring them into conflict with many things humanity values – or has evolved to value – such as meaning, purpose and free will.

The Copernican principle

One essential function of science communication is to mobilise people to act against some of humanity’s most pressing problems – think of the COVID pandemic, or climate change.

However, unlike most people, scientists and science communicators often tend to think humans are in a sense nothing special. This idea is known as the Copernican principle.

Read more:
Copernicus’ revolution and Galileo’s vision: our changing view of the universe in pictures

The Copernican principle (named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who realised Earth goes around the Sun) holds that humans are not special observers of the universe compared to any other beings who may exist elsewhere.

Going further, the principle has been extrapolated to mean that any attempt to ascribe meaning to human life or imply there is something exceptional about human relationships falls outside the realm of science. As a consequence, humans have no unique value – and any suggestion otherwise can be dismissed as unscientific.

Paradoxes in science communication

Although science does not deny the importance of human happiness and societal function, we would not expect a physicist, for example, to modify their theories of cosmology to make them more psychologically meaningful.

This leads us to two great paradoxes science communication often tries to straddle.

1. We live in a deterministic world without free will, yet we must choose to accept science and prevent climate change. And we must act now!

2. The universe is destined to end in a dead, freezing void and life has no meaning. But we must prevent climate change so our planet does not become a dead, overheated void – and we can continue our meaningless lives.

As a result of these paradoxes, those who do not align with science’s claims about the fundamental nature of the universe may not accept scientific arguments regarding climate change. If agreeing to stop using fossil fuels is linked to accepting your life has no meaning, it’s no wonder some are reluctant.

What’s worse, signing up to “science” may also mean accepting your religion is false, your spirituality is an illusion and your relationship with your dog is based on an evolutionary lie.

Science communication and beliefs

In words you might sometimes see on novelty T-shirts, commonly attributed to astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Science doesn’t care what you believe.” What Tyson actually said was a little less combative: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

But if science, by its rational and objective nature, is not able to care what people believe, perhaps science communication should care.

Compare science communication to health communication, for example. The maternity ward at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney contains the word “welcome” in more than 20 languages. The admission paperwork asks for your religion so that care may be taken to avoid insensitivities and also to provide an appropriate spiritual guide if needed.

Public health messaging is adapted to its audience based on research in health anthropology.

Read more:
The cultural assumptions behind Western medicine

All of this is done to achieve the best health outcomes and to try to create health care centred on people. This is despite the fact that a virus or a chronic disease care little for your religious or spiritual beliefs.

Just as the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health Framework looks at non-medical factors that influence health outcomes, we also need to look at non-science factors when evaluating science communication outcomes.

The opposite poles of the debate

Proponents of science often see themselves in a battle against the forces of superstition and religion, one which geneticist Francis S. Collins has written is “overshadowed by the high-decibel pronouncements of those who occupy the poles of the debate”.

But if we are trying to use science communication to make the world a better place, we shouldn’t let the drama of this battle distract us from our ultimate goal.

Instead, science communicators would do well to take a more sensitive and anthropological approach to science communication. Understanding what people value and how to reach them may actually help the advancements of science make the world a better place.

We don’t have to change what science discovers, but we perhaps do not have to tell people their life has no meaning in the opening chapter of a popular science book. As Brian Greene put it, “we have developed strategies to contend with knowledge of our impermanence”, which provide us with hope as we “gesture toward eternity”.

Chris Ellis 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. Science communicators need to stop telling everybody the universe is a meaningless void – https://theconversation.com/science-communicators-need-to-stop-telling-everybody-the-universe-is-a-meaningless-void-215334

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Grzeskowiak, Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation Fellow in Medicines Use and Safety – Flinders University & South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute, Flinders University

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will deliver a national apology to thalidomide survivors and their families today. More than 60 years since the medication had devastating consequences when taken by pregnant women, the apology recognises the government’s role in the tragedy and its enduring impact.

Had the government acted more swiftly to issue public warnings and restrict thalidomide use when concerns were first raised, as many as 20% of Australia’s thalidomide survivors may not have been affected.

Today, protecting pregnant people and the fetus means ensuring there is high quality science to guide medicine use.

Read more:
Remind me again, what is thalidomide and how did it cause so much harm?

What is the thalidomide story?

Thalidomide was developed in the 1950s in Germany. Originally intended for use as a sedative or tranquilliser, by the late 1950s it was soon being widely promoted as a safe and effective treatment for morning sickness in pregnancy.

At the time, it was commonly thought the placenta would act as a barrier to stopping medicines reaching the fetus in the womb. Animal studies showed low toxicity and no tests were done involving pregnant women.

Thalidomide rapidly become available for use around the world, including the United Kingdom and Australia. The United States famously rejected marketing approval, largely owing to the efforts of pharmacologist Frances Kelsey who was concerned about the paucity of safety data available.

As use increased worldwide, so too did reports of babies being born with distinct birth malformations. Thalidomide embryopathy is characterised by shortening of the arms or legs. But when taken in early pregnancy it can also result in sight or hearing loss, facial paralysis and impact to internal organs.

The first public report linking thalidomide to birth malformations was made by an Australian doctor William McBride in The Lancet journal in 1961. Soon after, the medicine began to be withdrawn from the market. By this time, it was estimated thalidomide led to thousands of miscarriages and deaths of newborns worldwide and left more than 10,000 children with lifelong disability.

A careful comeback

In the last decade thalidomide has made a comeback. Thalidomide is being used in the treatment of certain cancers and other relatively rare conditions such as leprosy. Most recently, it was investigated as a potential treatment for COVID.

While its return may cause anxiety, there are strict controls limiting its use. This includes requiring people who could get pregnant to take regular pregnancy tests and multiple forms of birth control.

Prescribing thalidomide involves careful counselling and discussion of risks involved. Some may prefer to see thalidomide gone forever. For others, it represents a potential life-changing treatment.

Read more:
Thalidomide: the drug with a dark side but an enigmatic future

Thalidomide changed medicine – for better and worse

The continued availability of thalidomide raises important ethical questions about how we balance the need to make available effective treatments, while ensuring we protect the most vulnerable.

The thalidomide tragedy represents a significant historical turning point in medicines testing and regulatory oversight. There is now much tighter testing of medicines in both animals and humans before they are marketed and closer scrutiny of their potential side-effects.

But there is a dark side. Thalidomide also gave rise to an ongoing hesitancy towards the testing and use of medicines during pregnancy. This has stifled the critical development of new and existing medicines to treat common life-threatening conditions in pregnancy. Globally, many thousands of women and babies die each year from conditions such as preterm birth and pre-eclampsia. Yet, in the last 30 years, only one new medication has been developed specifically for use to treat such complications.

Such hesitancy was most recently demonstrated during the COVID pandemic where pregnant women were excluded from participating in the first vaccination and treatment clinical trials. This led to uncertainty about how to best protect vulnerable pregnant individuals and their children from the effects of COVID, leading to otherwise avoidable deaths.

Read more:
Take care with paracetamol when pregnant — but don’t let pain or fever go unchecked

What’s next?

A national apology represents an important step in the healing process for those affected by thalidomide and an opportunity to reflect on its legacy.

The most important legacy should be one of ensuring we have adequate data to support the safe and effective use of medicines in pregnancy, rather than one of excluding pregnant people from research or using medicines.

This requires greater government investment and support into how we develop, evaluate, monitor and guide medicines use in pregnancy. A coordinated national approach across all sectors to identify, outline and implement strategies could ensure pregnant people have access to the modern medicines they deserve. Otherwise we risk repeating failures of the past and relegating pregnant people to the status of therapeutic orphans.

Luke Grzeskowiak receives funding from the Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation, The Hospital Research Foundation, National Health and Medical Research Council and Medical Research Future Fund.

Hannah Jackson receives an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend from the University of Technology Sydney.

– ref. Thalidomide survivors are receiving an apology for the pharmaceutical disaster that changed pregnancy medicine – https://theconversation.com/thalidomide-survivors-are-receiving-an-apology-for-the-pharmaceutical-disaster-that-changed-pregnancy-medicine-218691

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Mackey, Director, Griffith Climate Action Beacon, Griffith University

Eight years ago, the world agreed to an ambitious target in the Paris Agreement: hold warming to 1.5°C to limit further dangerous levels of climate change.

Since then, greenhouse gas emissions have kept increasing – and climate disasters have become front page news, from mega-bushfires to unprecedented floods.

In 2023, the world is at 1.2°C of warming over pre-industrial levels. Heatwaves of increasing intensity and duration are arriving around the world. We now have less than 10 years before we reach 1.5°C of warming.

This week, the COP28 climate talks will begin against a backdrop of evermore strident warnings from climate scientists and world leaders. United Nations chief António Guterres has warned climate action is “dwarfed by the scale of the challenge” and that we have “opened the gates of hell”. In his latest climate letter, Pope Francis quotes bishops from Africa who dub the climate crisis a “tragic and striking example of structural sin”.

In the United Arab Emirates, the 198 nations in the UN’s climate framework will gather for COP28. Can we expect to see real progress – or half-measures?

Watch for these three key issues facing negotiators.

1. Taking stock of progress on climate action

This year, a critical issue will be the global stocktake, the key mechanism designed to ratchet up climate ambition under the 2015 Paris Agreement. This is the first time each nation’s emission cut targets and benefits from climate adaptation or economic diversification plans have been assessed.

The stocktake reveals what track we are on. Do the combined emission cut promises from all countries mean we can limit warming to 1.5°C? If not, what is the “emissions gap” – and how much more ambitious do nation’s emission reductions need to be?

Read more:
UN’s ‘global stocktake’ on climate offers a sobering emissions reckoning − but there are also signs of progress

There’s been progress, but not nearly enough. If all national emissions pledges became a reality, global warming would peak between 2.1-2.8°C.

That leaves an emissions gap of around 22.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over the period to 2030.

It is very good that the worst-case scenarios – unchecked warming and 4+ degrees of global heating by 2100 are now looking unlikely. But a 2°C world would bring unacceptable harm and irreversible damage.

We’ll need much more ambitious targets and support to cut global greenhouse gas emissions 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels if we are to reach net zero CO₂ emissions by 2050 globally. A major measure of COP28’s success will be whether the major emitting nations agree on more ambitious emission reduction actions.

2. Who pays for climate loss and damage?

For decades, nations have wrestled over the fraught question of who should pay for loss and damage resulting from climate change.

Now we’re close to finalising arrangements for the new Loss and Damage Fund. This will be the second major issue for negotiators at COP28.

So far, governments have drawn up a blueprint for the new fund. Expect to see debate over who will manage the fund – the World Bank? A UN agency? – and whether emerging economies such as China will provide funds. To date, there’s no target for how much money the fund will hold and disburse. The blueprint must be formally adopted at COP28 before it can begin operating.

Why a new fund? Other climate finance commitments are aimed at cutting emissions or helping societies adapt to climate impacts. This fund deals specifically with the loss and damage from the unavoidable impacts of climate change, like rising sea levels, prolonged heatwaves, desertification, the acidification of the sea, extreme weather and crop failures.

Think of the damage from the unprecedented floods in Pakistan or Libya, for instance.

3. Where’s the climate finance?

A major issue in climate negotiations is how countries can transform their economies so they are “climate ready”, with lower emissions and boosted resilience. For developing countries, this requires massive levels of investment and new technologies to let them “leapfrog” fossil fuel dependency.

This is likely to be a critical sticking point. To date, climate finance has flowed too slowly. Under the Paris Agreement, rich countries promised to provide funds of A$150 billion a year every year. This has been slow in coming, though it is nudging closer, with $130 billion flowing in 2021.

Unless we see significant progress on climate finance – including making the Loss and Damage Fund a reality and meeting the existing commitments – we’re unlikely to see progress on other key issues such as ratcheting up emission cuts under the stocktake mechanism, phasing out fossil fuels and work on preserving biodiversity.

Read more:
In September we went past 1.5 degrees. In November, we tipped over 2 degrees for the first time. What’s going on?

How do you build a 198-government consensus?

One reason climate negotiations advance slowly is the need for consensus.

All 198 governments must agree on each decision. This means any one nation or group of countries can block a proposal or force the wording to be changed in order for it to be approved.

The votes of less wealthy countries – including small island nations and least developed countries – therefore carry as much weight as the G20 nations, who account for about 85% of global GDP. This has in the past worked to increase the level of climate action, including the focus on 1.5°C as the global warming target.

The COP28 President is Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, who has attracted controversy due to the fact he heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Expect to see considerable debate over wording. Will governments agree to the “phasing down of fossil fuels” or just the “phasing down of unabated fossil fuels”?

It might sound like quibbling but it’s not – the second option, for instance, implies the heavy use of yet-to-be-proven carbon capture and storage technologies and offsets.

Sultan al-Jaber has, to his credit, promoted some progressive agenda items including a focus on the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of nature to help achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Here, there are welcome commonalities with the major global biodiversity pact struck late last year, the Global Biodiversity Framework, aimed at stemming the extinction of species and degradation of ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems store carbon and help people adapt to the climate change already here.

As nations prepare for a fortnight of intense negotiation, the stakes are higher than they have ever been. Now the question is – can the world community seize the moment?

Read more:
COP28: inside the United Arab Emirates, the oil giant hosting 2023 climate change summit

Brendan Mackey has received funding from the Australian Government to support his work with the IPCC 6th Assessment Report. He is a volunteer member of the Great Eastern Ranges connectivity conservation initiative science advisory group and board.

– ref. As disasters and heat intensify, can the world meet the urgency of the moment at the COP28 climate talks? – https://theconversation.com/as-disasters-and-heat-intensify-can-the-world-meet-the-urgency-of-the-moment-at-the-cop28-climate-talks-217063

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saul Karnovsky, Senior Lecturer & Bachelor of Education (Secondary) Course Coordinator, Curtin University

As we approach the end of the school year, many families are thinking about what might be an appropriate gift to thank teachers.

Meanwhile, teachers are preparing for an inundation of scented candles, boxes of chocolates and pot plants as they head into a well-deserved summer break.

As a former high school teacher, I remember receiving plenty of these gifts. Most would sit in a drawer, or be quickly eaten and forgotten about. The pot plants often wilted.

If you are a cash-strapped parent or carer and wish to genuinely express thanks, how best can you do this, particularly in a cost-of-living crisis?

Read more:
‘Thank you for making me feel smart’: will a new campaign to raise the status of teaching work?

Write something

It may seem simple, but take a few minutes out of your day and write something meaningful to thank your child’s teachers.

Also encourage your child to write or draw something that tells their teacher what difference they have made in their year. Ask them what made their teacher special, funny, caring or kind?

It could be something like, because of their support your child no longer struggles with maths, or now loves to read every day. Perhaps they have more confidence speaking in front of others or just loved going to school each day.

Teachers want to know if they helped

Teachers want to help young people and make a difference in their lives but this can be difficult to measure. Reports and test scores only reveal so much, they can show how someone has improved academically but this is only one part of positive changes teachers make.

As a new graduate I fondly remember getting a handwritten letter from a Year 9 student on the last day of term four. He was a difficult student. We were often locked in battle – he would call me out if I spelled a word wrong on the board or gave an incorrect fact about history.

Yet, at the end of the year he took the time to tell me what a great teacher I was and how he would miss me. Other teachers I spoke to have loved receiving personalised gifts, like hand-drawn pictures with quotes they would often say in class, delicious home-made cookies, letters of thanks, framed photos and messages that made them laugh.

Refill a teacher’s cup

We know teachers are under a huge amount of pressure and at the end of the year they need their cup to be refilled.

Research tells us teachers can feel undervalued and their work can be highly stressful. We also know increasing numbers are not sure if they want to remain in the profession .

As a community we can tell teachers we care for them and understand their work can be hard. Tell teachers they matter, they are doing important work, they have inspired your child to love learning and will be remembered.

Read more:
A new database of teachers on screen shows they are often portrayed as rule breakers, losers or villains

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

– ref. What should I give my child’s teacher at the end of the year? – https://theconversation.com/what-should-i-give-my-childs-teacher-at-the-end-of-the-year-217687

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Naish, Professor in Earth Sciences, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

As this year’s UN climate summit (COP28) gets under way in Dubai, scientists studying Earth’s frozen regions have been delivering an urgent call for action to policy makers. But is anyone listening?

Throughout 2023, we have been warning of an impending series of crises occurring in the cryosphere – polar ice sheets, ice shelves, sea ice, mountain glaciers and permafrost.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) released its decadal synopsis on the state of Antarctic climate change and ecosystems. It led the recent Antarctic Treaty meeting to issue the Helsinki Declaration to highlight that significant observed changes in Antarctica influence climate impacts globally.

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) has prepared the Kigali Declaration, summarising the latest climate science to highlight the urgency at COP28.

And this month, a State of the Cryosphere 2023 report assessing the most recent science warned that even 2°C of warming would trigger irreversible loss of ice sheets, glaciers, snow, sea ice and permafrost, with disastrous consequences for society and nature.

I have contributed to all three documents. Some of the most dramatic changes are occurring in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, including extreme heatwaves, record lows in sea ice and the emergence of an amplified warming pattern across the entire Antarctic continent.

These changes are melting Antarctica’s ice sheet and delivering vast quantities of freshwater to the ocean. This in turn drives an accelerating rise in shorelines around the world.

Polar warming is also contributing to drought and wildfires in Australia, floods in New Zealand and extreme weather at every latitude.

Read more:
We can still prevent the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet – if we act fast to keep future warming in check

Breaching planetary thresholds

In July this year, average monthly global temperatures breached 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. With a large El Niño event underway in the Pacific, 2023 is virtually certain to be the hottest year on record.

The World Meteorological Organisation predicts the world is on track to exceed the Paris target to keep warming below 2°C within the next five years, on an annual basis.

Scientific evidence is clear that due to the current trajectory of human-derived greenhouse gas emissions, the polar regions will continue to warm at rates of up to four times the global average.

This is because of self-reinforcing feedbacks, such as those related to retreating sea ice. The more sea ice melts, the more energy the darker ocean surface absorbs, in turn leading to more land ice melting and the potential crossing of tipping points linked to temperature thresholds close to 1.5-2°C of global warming.

There are two key planetary thresholds in the polar regions. Firstly, thawing permafrost in the Arctic has the potential for widespread release of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further enhancing global heating.

Secondly, meltdown of up to two-thirds of Antarctica’s ice sheet may become irreversible, locking in multi-metre sea-level rise for generations to come even if the warming were to stop or reverse after peaking before 2100.

Dramatic consequences at all latitudes

The Southern Ocean has taken up most of the heat from global warming (70%). This excess energy will remain in the ocean for centuries and continue melting parts of the coastal fringes of Antarctica from underneath.

The amplified polar warming is accelerating the melting of ice sheets. They are now the largest contributors to rising global sea levels. But they respond slowly, trapping heat and releasing it over long timescales. Sea-level rise will therefore continue for centuries to come, even with net zero emissions.

Projections show substantial differences between low- and high-emissions scenarios, especially after 2050. A high-emissions scenario could result in multi-metre sea-level rise for coming centuries. This includes a “low likelihood, high impact” scenario in which two metres by 2100 cannot be ruled out due to rapid loss of Antarctica’s fringing ice shelves and consequent melting of the ice sheet.

The ice shelves currently stabilise the interior ice sheet and protect it from erosion by encroaching warming ocean waters. Evidence suggests the Paris climate target of limiting heating to 1.5-2C°C is a threshold for widespread ice shelf loss.

The loss of two-thirds of the world’s high mountain glaciers (often referred to as the third pole) is also likely. This will affect two billion people who depend on these frozen water stores for their drinking, power production, agriculture and related ecosystems services.

As glacial lakes fill up, more people will be exposed to hazards such as the recent glacial outburst flood and landslides in Sikkim in India’s northeast.

Intense high-latitude, low-pressure systems – “bomb cyclones” – are now bringing extreme temperatures and precipitation via atmospheric rivers to coastal regions and the interior of Antarctica and Greenland. These extremes cause unseasonal weather not only in polar regions, but also in lower latitudes, including New Zealand.

Changing icescapes

An unprecedented heat wave occurred over East Antarctica in March 2022, peaking at 39°C above the climatological average. It was the largest temperature anomaly ever recorded globally. A local ice shelf, which was in a vulnerable state, collapsed within days.

This demonstrates the potential of future heatwaves over the warmer, lower-elevation West Antarctic Ice Sheet to trigger surface melting and collapse of ice shelves.

During this year’s southern hemisphere winter, Antarctica’s sea ice cover reached a 40-year low. This followed the record low annual sea-ice minimum in early 2023, due to an unseasonably warm Southern Ocean and changed atmospheric circulation patterns that brought warm air south.

These unprecedented changes were well outside the range of natural variability. They coincide with new evidence from a study of ice cores that shows the emergence of an amplified surface-warming pattern over Antarctica.

Decision makers still hold the power

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reinforces that “limiting warming well below 2°C involves rapid, deep and in most cases immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions”.

However, it is now clearer than ever that policy is not responding at the pace and scale required to avert the impending nexus of global climate, ecological and environmental catastrophes.

Read more:
Antarctica’s heart of ice has skipped a beat. Time to take our medicine

Every nation’s emissions policy settings are insufficient to achieve the Paris target. New Zealand’s climate policies are assessed as “highly insufficient”, but the country is not alone. The global policy response remains grossly ineffective and has been that way since the IPCC’s first report in 1990.

But the report provides some hope through “multiple feasible and effective, sustainable and equitable options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human caused climate change”.

Scientists made this clear in a policy briefing on sea-level rise to the UN General Assembly, stating:

Ambitious mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement is critical to avoiding thresholds that would yield rapid and irreversible sea-level rise and to enabling successful adaptation.

Timothy Naish 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. COP28: Earth’s frozen zones are in trouble – we’re already seeing the consequences – https://theconversation.com/cop28-earths-frozen-zones-are-in-trouble-were-already-seeing-the-consequences-218119

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney

After ruling on November 8 that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful, the High Court today delivered its reasons for the decision that upturned 20 years of precedent. Its ruling has required the release of some 140 people from immigration detention so far, and set off a political scramble to legislate in response to the outcome.

The judgment, the first made by the court under new Chief Justice Stephen Gageler, was unanimous. It largely turned on questions of constitutional law and the limits of executive power.

The court made it clear that a person must be released from detention when there was no real prospect of them being deported in the foreseeable future. Previously, there was no limit to the length of time people could be detained in immigration detention in Australian law. In fact, people could legally be detained for the rest of their lives without ever being found guilty of a crime.

Read more:
The High Court has decided indefinite detention is unlawful. What happens now?

The decision overturns the much-criticised 2004 Al-Kateb v Godwin case, where a 4-3 majority ruled that, provided the government maintained an intention to eventually remove a person from Australia, the Constitution allowed them to be detained indefinitely until that removal took place.

The court’s reasons in this case indicated that other laws allowing detention, such as continuing detention orders, could apply to people released because of the decision. Continuing detention orders are a mechanism that enable people to be detained once they have served their sentence for a crime.

However, those orders are only available if the person is considered to pose an “unacceptable” risk of reoffending and only in relation to specific, serious crimes. Such orders can only be made with the support of expert evidence and with judicial oversight, as detailed below.

Implications of the decision

The decision has significant ramifications for the rapidly drafted legislation that was passed by parliament in response to the case, before the High Court had released its reasons.

In response to the release of the reasons for the decision, the federal government indicated it would legislate again before parliament rises for the year.

Laws rushed through parliament earlier this month included curfews, high levels of monitoring of people released from detention and severe mandatory prison sentences for infringements of release conditions. The first package of laws has already been challenged in the courts by a Chinese refugee known as S151, on the basis they are “punitive”. More challenges are anticipated.

With this decision, the court has revealed an intention to exercise much greater scrutiny of the parliament and executive in ensuring constitutional limits on power are respected.

In this way, this judgment can be seen as representing a turn from more permissive approaches to limits on parliamentary legislative power.

The challenge and decision

The challenge was brought by a stateless Rohingya man, given the pseudonym NZYQ, who had fled his home country of Myanmar and arrived in Australia by boat in 2012. He spent just over a year in immigration detention on arrival.

Soon after he was released into the community, he was convicted of sexual intercourse with a minor and was sentenced to a maximum of five years imprisonment. While in prison, he applied for refugee status. He was found to be owed protection but, due to his criminal history, was not granted a protection visa. On release from prison, he was immediately re-detained in immigration detention.

Both international and Australian law prohibit sending people back to places where they are at risk of persecution, as NZYQ had been found to be.

The Migration Act requires “unlawful non-citizens” to be held in detention until they are removed from Australia, deported or granted a visa.

NZYQ’s appeal focused on two questions. Did the detention provisions authorise the potential indefinite detention of non-citizens in circumstances where there were no real prospects of removal? If so, was this constitutionally valid?

The High Court answered the first question in the affirmative, in essence agreeing with the majority in Al-Kateb that relevant legislative provisions authorised detention until a detainee was removed, deported or given a visa, no matter how long that might take.

But on the second question, treading a course it said “should not lightly be taken”, the court reopened and overruled the constitutional holding in Al-Kateb, finding that detention provisions contravened the separation of powers in the Constitution. That is, detention is generally punishment, which can only be ordered by courts, not the government.

There are limited exceptions to this rule for immigration detention. Detention will not be punishment as long as it for the purpose of deportation or enabling an application for a visa to be made.

In NZYQ, the High Court stated that ongoing detention – where there is no reasonable prospect of the removal of the plaintiff from Australia in the reasonably foreseeable future – would not meet this test.

What does it mean?

With this judgment, the court unanimously rejected the ability of the parliament to define its own limits for detention. In doing so, it brings Australia into line with international law and practice. No other country allows for, let alone requires, indefinite mandatory immigration detention.

While the court did not engage directly with international law arguments, the outcome and reasoning reaffirm international principles of reasonableness and proportionality, set out in a memo by international refugee law expert Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill. This formed the basis of Kaldor Centre’s intervention with the Human Rights Law Centre in the case.

In terms of when an individual will be required to be released from detention, the court makes clear that the onus is on the government to show there is real prospect of removal in the reasonable future. This means deportation has to be a real possibility – it is not enough for the government to say it is trying without showing there is a real prospect it can be achieved.

This decision also will have broader ramifications for habeas corpus in Australian courts. This is the requirement that any person detained by the government has the right to challenge that detention. When challenged, the government must demonstrate the basis for the detention. With this judgment, the court has made it clear that inquiries will be rigorous, not merely considering the surface arguments made by detaining authorities.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: A government in a big hurry gives opposition some wins on ex-detainees

Preventive detention

The court acknowledged that people released from immigration detention because of its decision could be re-detained under other laws, such as continuing detention provisions. These allow for the ongoing detention of people who are considered to pose an unacceptable risk of reoffending. This would need to be for reasons exclusively connected to the risk that is posed, not to their immigration status.

Such provisions already exist for some sex or terrorism crimes. However, for such orders to be made, there must be clear evidence the individual poses an unacceptable risk; merely having committed a crime before is not adequate. Most importantly, these decisions are generally made by the courts, and not the government.

The High Court’s decision was clear – only the courts have the power to deal out punishment. The risk is that any further blanket restrictions on individual liberty that are not subject to judicial oversight will be similarly overturned by the courts.

Daniel Ghezelbash receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government. He is a member of the management committee of Refugee Advice and Casework Services and a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project. He is the Deputy Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, which was given leave to intervene in the NZYQ case as amicus curiae.

Anna Talbot receives funding from the Australian government as a PhD scholar at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, University of NSW, Sydney, which was given leave to intervene in the NZYQ case as amicus curiae.

– ref. High Court reasons on immigration ruling pave way for further legislation – https://theconversation.com/high-court-reasons-on-immigration-ruling-pave-way-for-further-legislation-218699

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

The government will urgently legislate to enable some of those released from immigration detention to be preventatively detained.

This follows the High Court on Tuesday outlining its reasons for its decision that indefinite immigration detention was unconstitutional. The judgment indicates the decision was unanimous.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil told parliament late Tuesday: “We are moving quickly to finalise a tough preventative detention regime before parliament rises. The safety of Australian citizens is our utmost priority.”

This is the last full week of the House of Representatives for the year. Next week the Senate sits with the house only due to come back on Thursday to deal with final legislation.

The opposition has been calling for a preventative detention regime.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the High Court reasons had removed the government’s “final excuse not to act”. It was “crystal clear” that a preventative detention regime “is necessary and lawful”.

“If the government introduces one as we have recommended we’ll be highly likely to support it,” Paterson said.

Refugee lawyer David Manne said the court did not suggest there was a need for a new legal regime.

“The High Court makes it clear there are already laws for preventative detention to manage serious risks to the community in relation to people reoffending”, Manne said.

Constitutional expert George Williams, from UNSW, said it would be very difficult for the government to legislate for the whole cohort, but the judgment indicated individuals could be detained under other provisions. This would require a case-by-case approach.

The court says in its judgment a person could, for instance, be detained “under a law providing for preventive detention of a child sex offender who presents an unacceptable risk of reoffending if released from custody.”

The government has released 241 people. One is now missing, and being sought by authorities.

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

– ref. Government readying to rush through more legislation on ex-detainees – https://theconversation.com/government-readying-to-rush-through-more-legislation-on-ex-detainees-218724

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

Pay close enough attention to parliament these next few days, and you’re likely to witness something truly remarkable: politicians from both sides of politics uniting to remove the power of politicians to overrule the Reserve Bank.

As an instance of self-loathing, it’s hard to top.

Sure, a good many of us don’t trust politicians. But surely politicians ought to trust politicians. Surely politicians ought to realise that we put them there to make decisions – not usually the day-to-day decisions, but the ultimate big decisions. They are meant to be where the buck stops.

That Treasurer Jim Chalmers could be even thinking about axing his ultimate power to veto decisions of the Reserve Bank board shows just how far the myth of an “independent Reserve Bank” has spread.

Scroll through the treasurer’s website, and you’ll find 195 documents referring to the “independent Reserve Bank”, many multiple times.

‘Independent’, but not according to the law

Saying the Reserve Bank is independent suits the treasurer and it suits the prime minister, just as it has suited many of their predecessors. As soon as the bank does something that’s necessary but unpopular (such as pushing up interest rates) they are able to say – wrongly – there’s nothing they can do.

The government’s Reserve Bank is dependent on the government in myriad ways.

The government set up the Reserve Bank. The government appoints every member of its board. The government directly appoints its chief and deputy chief. And from time to time the government gives it running instructions.

But – most importantly – the government can overrule it.

The mechanism is built into the Reserve Bank Act.

In the event of a disagreement, the treasurer can

submit a recommendation to the governor-general, and the governor-general, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council, may, by order, determine the policy to be adopted by the bank.

The government is to accept responsibility for the decision taken, and the Reserve Bank board must

thereupon ensure that effect is given to the policy determined by the order and shall, if the order so requires, continue to ensure that effect is given to that policy while the order remains in operation.

After so directing the bank, the treasurer is to table in parliament a copy of the direction, along with a statement explaining the reasons, and a statement from the Reserve Bank board putting the case that failed to convince the treasurer.

These are the clauses – until now unused – that in April the outside review of the Reserve Bank asked the government to do away with.

Its thinking was that the government can’t be trusted.

As the review put it

if an elected government controls monetary policy there are risks that it may try to push the economy to run above its capacity, resulting in higher inflation but with no lasting impact on employment.

On releasing the review’s recommendations, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said straight away that he agreed in principle with all of them.

Shadow Treasury Angus Taylor said much the same thing, although he now says the Coalition will wait until sees the legislation Chalmers is about to introduce before deciding its position on it.

The veto power is there for a reason

On the face of it, a reasonable position would be that the government’s ability to overrule the bank in extreme circumstances has caused no problem so far.

The review counters this by warning of “the possibility that established conventions cease to be observed”.

But, if that did happen, it would be because there was a serious (and ultimately public) rift between the elected government and an unelected board.

With the exception of judges in Australia’s courts, unelected officials can’t normally overrule elected governments. It’s how our system is designed.

The Reserve Bank tried to overrule the government once, and succeeded, which is why the provision we have was written into the law.

Back in 1930, in the early years of the Great Depression, the Reserve Bank was part of the Commonwealth-owned Commonwealth Bank, run by a board appointed by the government which reported to the government.

In The Conversation earlier this year, Alex Millmow outlined what happened.

Desperate to support the economy, the government begged the government-owned bank to help it finance public works.

The bank refused. Its government-appointed chairman, Sir Robert Gibson, wrote to Treasurer Ted Theodore warning a point was being reached

beyond which it would be impossible for the Commonwealth Bank to provide further financial assistance for the governments in the future

Theodore replied complaining the bank was trying to

arrogate to itself a supremacy over the government in the determination of the financial policy of the Commonwealth, a supremacy which, I am sure, was never contemplated by the framers of the Australian Constitution

While the government did not question the right of the bank’s board to offer such comment or criticism as the board thought proper, the control of the public purse had “heretofore always been regarded as an essential prerogative of the people”.

In the end, it was the government that backed down. But to ensure it could never be overruled again, Labor wrote the veto power into the Commonwealth Bank Act of 1945 and the Coalition wrote it into the Reserve Bank Act of 1959.

That’s the veto power today’s Labor Party, quite possibly with the support of the Coalition, is about to try to remove.

I understand why the Reserve Bank review made the recommendation it did: it wants monetary policy to work well. But I don’t think that’s enough of a reason for the government to attempt to abrogate its responsibility.

And ultimately, it can’t. The Australian public is going to hold the government responsible for the state of the economy even if it succeeds in tying one hand behind its back. But I don’t think it’s wise. One day it might need it.

Read more:
Jim Chalmers wants a truly independent RBA. He should be careful what he wishes for

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. Governments have been able to overrule the Reserve Bank for 80 years. Why stop now? – https://theconversation.com/governments-have-been-able-to-overrule-the-reserve-bank-for-80-years-why-stop-now-218600

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David John Eldridge, Professor of Dryland Ecology, UNSW Sydney

If you run a large polluting facility and can’t work out how to actually cut emissions, you might buy carbon credits to offset your emissions from the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme. These credits are meant to represent carbon taken back out of the atmosphere and stored in growing trees or in the soil.

The problem is, these credit schemes can be rubbery in the extreme. One area we must scrutinise forensically are human-induced regeneration projects. These are the backbone of the offset scheme, accounting for 30% of credits issued to-date. Over the coming years, they could be responsible for almost 50% of annual issuances. These projects claim to regenerate native forests across vast areas – not by replanting trees in cleared areas, as you might think, but by reducing grazing pressure from livestock and feral animals.

This is fundamentally flawed. Almost all projects are in arid or semi-arid rangeland grazed by livestock and kangaroos and only partly cleared. But cattle and sheep mostly eat grasses and herbs, not woody material. So how can we possibly claim reducing grazing pressure leads to more trees and shrubs?

3 reasons for scrutiny

Human induced regeneration projects have ballooned. They now cover about 34 million hectares of Australia’s rangelands, about 1.5 times the size of Victoria.

Projects have sprung up in absurd areas such as Alice Springs, Coober Pedy, and the Nullarbor Plain where few trees grow naturally, and where those that do grow are rarely eaten by livestock. These projects are currently producing over 6 million carbon credit units each year for tree growth that either can’t happen, or where growth would have happened anyway. That’s about A$235 million in today’s prices.

Under the rules, the projects are supposed to regenerate these forests and then maintain them for either 25 or 100 years.

Here’s why they should not be earning carbon credits.

1. Location

These projects are largely in the uncleared rangelands covering most of Australia’s interior. These areas have little chance of promoting woody growth and storing more carbon, not because of grazing pressure, but because rainfall is too low, the soil too infertile, and the vegetation already close to its maximum. Forests will not regrow in these areas, particularly under hotter and drier climates.

2. Tree growth can have many causes

Grazing is just one driver of woody plant change. Where we do see tree growth, it’s most likely to be due to other factors such as sustained rain, greater concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, falls in the intensity and frequency of bushfire, or removal of top predators like the dingo.

For these reasons, projects may well be credited for tree growth stemming from natural fluctuations – not grazing control.

3. Grazing on rangeland doesn’t destroy trees and shrubs

Removing grazing to regenerate forests in these uncleared areas would actually be a great idea – if we still had diprotodons, the largest marsupials ever to live. These 4 metre, 3.5 tonne browsers ate their way through trees and shrubs, much as elephants still do elsewhere, and played a key role in maintaining the balance between forests and grasslands.

If you took diprotodons off the land, you really would notice the difference – trees and shrubs would spring up without their intense grazing pressure. But the problem is, they’re extinct and have been for 25,000 years.

Their replacements on our rangelands – mostly sheep, cattle, feral goats and kangaroos – have nothing like the same effect.

In fact, where overgrazing does occur in Australia, it’s likely to actually increase tree and shrub cover rather than reduce it. Known as woody thickening, this happens when grazing animals eat so many grasses and herbs that they skew the balance in favour of trees and taller shrubs. Livestock might eat some woody plants, but most plants are out of their reach.

How did this happen?

By law, projects under the human-induced regeneration scheme are supposed to be restricted to land that is already cleared, with few mature trees and shrubs, and where native forest can regenerate naturally.

Under these conditions, the simple forest carbon model used by the Clean Energy Regulator to estimate how carbon is being stored works reasonably well.

The problem is, projects are no longer restricted to cleared land. Just 17 months after the Carbon Credits Scheme began, the regulator permitted projects to proceed in uncleared rangelands. Worse, these projects are credited using the same simple forest carbon model designed for cleared areas, which can’t account for the large numbers of pre-existing trees and shrubs in uncleared vegetation.

Read more:
Chubb review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme falls short – and problems will continue to fester

In short, there is little evidence the carbon storage credited to these projects matches the real carbon on the ground.

For Australia’s Carbon Credits Scheme to work effectively we need better administration, more transparency, and compliance testing. If we do not use the best available science, we will get the wrong outcomes. Emissions will be higher than they would otherwise be.

Using nature to store carbon can work. In fact it’s the only cost-effective way to pull carbon dioxide from the air at present. But the credit system is easily gamed – not only here, but in many other countries.

We must make absolutely certain credits represent real, additional and permanent abatement. That is, based on real increases in carbon stored in vegetation, that would not have occurred without carbon credits as incentive, and in ways which will hold the extra carbon for a century or more.

If we don’t, Australian businesses and organisations relying on carbon credits to meet their climate goals will lose faith in the program.

Read more:
‘Worthless’ forest carbon offsets risk exacerbating climate change

David John Eldridge receives funding from the Hermon Slade Foundation

Andrew Macintosh receives funding from the Australian Government and state governments. He is also a Director of the Paraway Pastoral Company, which has carbon offset projects.

David Alan George had previously received funding support from NCCARF, ACIAR, The World Bank and was an AVA. David develops, delivers and evaluates coursework in climate change to help build community capacity of individuals and groups by addressing knowledge and skills.

Don Butler receives funding from the Australian and State governments.

– ref. 3 reasons why removing grazing animals from Australia’s arid lands for carbon credits is a bad idea – https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-why-removing-grazing-animals-from-australias-arid-lands-for-carbon-credits-is-a-bad-idea-218129

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Guido Carim Junior, Senior Lecturer in Aviation, Griffith University

Picture this: you’re nestled comfortably in your seat cruising towards your holiday destination when a flight attendant’s voice breaks through the silence:

Ladies and gentlemen, both pilots are incapacitated. Are there any passengers who could land this plane with assistance from air traffic control?

If you think you could manage it, you’re not alone. Survey results published in January indicate about one-third of adult Americans think they could safely land a passenger aircraft with air traffic control’s guidance. Among male respondents, the confidence level rose to nearly 50%.

Can a person with no prior training simply guide everyone to a smooth touchdown?

We’ve all heard stories of passengers who saved the day when the pilot became unresponsive. For instance, last year Darren Harrison manged to land a twin-engine aircraft in Florida – after the pilot passed out – with the guidance of an air traffic controller who also happened to be a flight instructor.

However, such incidents tend to take place in small, simple aircraft. Flying a much bigger and heavier commercial jet is a completely different game.

You can’t always rely on autopilot

A pilot spends about 90% of their time monitoring autopilot systems and making sure everything is working as intended. The other 10% is spent managing problems, taxiing, taking off and landing.

Takeoffs and landings are arguably the most difficult tasks pilots perform, and are always performed manually. Only on very few occasions, and in a handful of aircraft models, can a pilot use autopilot to land the aircraft for them. This is the exception, and not the rule.

For takeoff, the aircraft must build up speed until the wings can generate enough lift to pull it into the air. The pilot must pay close attention to multiple instruments and external cues, while keeping the aircraft centred on the runway until it reaches lift-off speed.

Once airborne, they must coordinate with air traffic control, follow a particular path, retract the landing gear and maintain a precise speed and direction while trying to climb.

Landing is even more complicated, and requires having precise control of the aircraft’s direction and descent rate.

To land successfully, a pilot must keep an appropriate speed while simultaneously managing gear and flap configuration, adhering to air traffic regulations, communicating with air traffic control and completing a number of paper and digital checklists.

Once the aircraft comes close to the runway, they must accurately judge its height, reduce power and adjust the rate of descent – ensuring they land on the correct area of the runway.

On the ground, they will use the brakes and reverse thrust to bring the aircraft to a complete stop before the runway ends. This all happens within just a few minutes.

Both takeoff and landing are far too quick, technical and concentration-intensive for an untrained person to pull off. They also require a range of skills that are only gained through extensive training, such as understanding the information presented on different gauges, and being able to coordinate one’s hands and feet in a certain way.

Training a pilot

The journey from student to commercial pilot is a long one. It normally starts with a recreational licence, followed by a private licence, and then a commercial licence (which allows them to fly professionally).

Even before stepping into a cockpit, the student must study aerodynamics, air law and flight rules, meteorology, human factors, navigation, aircraft systems, and performance and flight planning. They also need to spend time learning about the specific aircraft they will be flying.

Once the fundamentals are grasped, an instructor takes them for training. Most of this training is conducted in small, lightweight aircraft – with a simulator introduced briefly towards the end.

During a lesson, each manoeuvre or action is demonstrated by the instructor before the student attempts it. Their attempt may be adjusted, corrected or even terminated early in critical situations.

The first ten to fifteen lessons focus on takeoff, landing, basic in-flight control and emergency management. When the students are ready, they’re allowed to “go solo” – wherein they conduct a complete flight on their own. This is a great milestone.

After years of experience, they are ready to transition to a commercial aircraft. At this point they might be able to take off and land reasonably well, but they will still undergo extensive training specific to the aircraft they are flying, including hours of advanced theory, dozens of simulator sessions and hundreds of hours of real aircraft training (most of which is done with passengers onboard).

So, if you’ve never even learned the basics of flying, your chances of successfully landing a passenger aircraft with air traffic control’s help are close to zero.

Yet, flying is a skill like any other

Aviation training has been democratised by the advent of high-end computers, virtual reality and flight simulation games such as Microsoft’s Flight Simulator and X-Plane.

Anyone can now rig up a desktop flight simulator for a few thousand dollars. Ideally, such a setup should also include the basic physical controls found in a cockpit, such as a control yoke, throttle quadrant and pedals.

Flight simulators provide an immersive environment in which professional pilots, students and aviation enthusiasts can develop their skills. So if you really think you could match-up against a professional, consider trying your hand at one.

You almost certainly won’t be able to land an actual passenger plane by the end of it – but at least you’ll gain an appreciation for the immense skill pilots possess.

We conducted a research project with funds provided by Boeing Research & Technology Australia.

– ref. Almost half the men surveyed think they could land a passenger plane. Experts disagree – https://theconversation.com/almost-half-the-men-surveyed-think-they-could-land-a-passenger-plane-experts-disagree-218037

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

The journalists who signed an open letter to Australian media organisations last week calling for ethical reporting on the war in Gaza have succeeded in intensifying the dispute over whether the coverage has been fair. At the same time, they’ve called their own impartiality into question.

At last count, the letter had attracted 270 signatories from journalists at a range of institutions including the ABC, Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Conversation and Schwartz Media.

At the Herald and The Age, both owned by the Nine company, senior editorial executives, including the papers’ editors, have banned those staff who signed the letter from having any role in covering the war.

The ABC’s director of news, Justin Stevens, did not go that far, but warned his staff that if they signed the letter, their ability to cover the story impartially may be brought into question.

À lire aussi :
ABC chief is right: impartiality is paramount when reporting the Israel-Gaza war

Addressing journalist deaths

The signatories to the letter, in addition to the individuals, were the journalists’ section of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and its house (branch) committees at the ABC and Guardian Australia. It is not clear exactly under whose auspices the letter was written, but it is clear it has the endorsement of the union.

The letter raises two main issues.

One is that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has killed at least 53 journalists in the course of the present conflict and has a history of targeting journalists.

The letter provides links to reputable organisations – Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists – each of which provides substantial detailed evidence making a strong case against the Israeli Defence Force.

The letter states:

As reporters, editors, photographers, producers, and other workers in newsrooms around Australia, we are appalled at the slaughter of our colleagues and their families and apparent targeting of journalists by the Israeli government, which constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

That much of it can be defended as an attempt to stand up for press freedom and hold the Israeli forces to account.

À lire aussi :
More than one journalist per day is dying in the Israel-Gaza conflict. This has to stop

Clear implications of pro-Israel bias

However, the letter then goes on to argue in a veiled but unmistakable way that the Australian media’s coverage of the war has been pro-Israel.

This is achieved by a series of what, on the surface, look like journalistic motherhood statements:

We call for […] Australian newsroom leaders to be as clear-eyed in their coverage of the atrocities committed by Israel as they are of those committed by Hamas.

The immense and disproportionate human suffering of the Palestinian population should not be minimised.

Apply as much professional scepticism when prioritising or relying on uncorroborated Israeli government and military sources to shape coverage as is applied to Hamas […] The Israeli government’s version of events should never be reported verbatim without context or fact-checking.

The clear implication is that this is not being done, and that taken together they add up to a pro-Israel bias that needs to be corrected.

That is a highly contestable proposition and it needs evidence, but none is provided.

The letter goes on to urge that “adequate coverage be given to credible allegations of war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid”.

The position taken by the ABC on the use of these terms was set out ten days ago by its managing director and editor-in-chief, David Anderson. He said the ABC would report other people’s use of them but would not adopt them for itself.

This is the conventional way for impartiality to be applied when such politically charged language is used. When they are reporting atrocities of the kind perpetrated by both sides in this war, on what authority do journalists take it upon themselves to apply these definitions?

Messy fall-out amid messy messaging

A further question concerning impartiality then arises: does signing this letter disqualify a journalist from being involved in covering the war? Does it justify the action taken by the Herald and The Age?

Those two newspapers have traditionally taken a strict line on these issues, and their decision this time is consistent with that tradition. Many years ago, a Herald reporter was taken off the reporting of state politics when he declared his membership of the Labor Party.

The reason given by the editorial executive who made this decision was not that his coverage had been biased but that there would be an apprehension among those who knew of his affiliation that his coverage might be biased.

A strict line on impartiality is fine, if it is applied impartially, but Crikey has drawn attention to an uncomfortable fact: that three of the four editorial executives at Nine who imposed the ban have participated in trips to Israel sponsored by pro-Israeli groups.

You might think the handling of these problems by the media industry and the journalism profession couldn’t get much messier, but it could.

On November 11, a group of journalists calling themselves MEAA Members for Palestine published a separate letter in Overland magazine, and in this there was nothing veiled about the position they took.

À lire aussi :
‘I just find it very hard to talk about it without getting emotional’: top journalists reveal their trade secrets to Leigh Sales

They condemned the Australian government’s support for what they called Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, called on the government to demand that Israel withdraw its forces and stop the bombing in Gaza, and condemned “the silencing and intimidation that our members experience when expressing support for, or reporting on, Palestine”.

They called on the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance to support the Palestinian solidarity movement and join with trade union action across the world to “end all complicity and stop arming Israel”.

As a trade union, the alliance undoubtedly has the right to take sides, even in a war. But doing so is irreconcilable with the professional ethical obligations of its members to report impartially.

The Overland letter and the more restrained open letter to the media organisations might be two separate documents but it would be naïve in the extreme not to think that the first was parent to the second.

The whole episode, including the obvious hypocrisy of the Nine editorial management, has left the profession and the industry diminished at a time when Australian society needs them to be at their strongest.

Denis Muller ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. At a time when journalism needs to be at its strongest, an open letter on the Israel/Hamas war has left the profession diminished – https://theconversation.com/at-a-time-when-journalism-needs-to-be-at-its-strongest-an-open-letter-on-the-israel-hamas-war-has-left-the-profession-diminished-218596

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

Labor senator Pat Dodson, often dubbed “the father of reconciliation”, is quitting parliament due to ill health.

Dodson, 75, told the Labor caucus on Tuesday he would resign as a senator for Western Australia, effective from January 26, Australia Day.

“Regrettably, my recent treatment for cancer means that my health, although slowly improving, has left me physically unable to fulfil satisfactorily my duties as a senator,” Dodson said in a statement.

Anthony Albanese paid tribute to Dodson at the meeting. The Indigenous caucus members stood with Dodson at the lectern, and there a long standing ovation for him.

Albanese said in a statement: “You would gladly follow him into battle yet he’s made it his life’s work to make peace.”.

“There are few more reassuring sights in parliament than seeing Patrick and his hat coming down a corridor towards you.”

Priest, activist, academic, politician, Dodson was born in Broome.
The family subsequently moved to Katherine in the Northern Territory because of Western Australia’s laws against mixed race families.

In 1960 he and his siblings (including brother Mick, who also became a leading Indigenous figure) were orphaned when their parents died, months apart.

His early experiences had a lifelong impact on Dodson. He said in his first parliamentary speech: “I was hiding in the long grass in the Northern Territory town of Katherine and watched my age-mates being taken by welfare and police.

“In Katherine I also watched in fear as white people were bussed in to the town hall meeting, where they vented their hatred and anger against Aboriginal stockworkers for walking off Wave Hill Station and for demanding justice and equal wages. The Australian law at that time was unarguably founded on a social outlook that was highly ethnocentric, even racist.”

At school at Monivae College in Hamilton Victoria, Dodson became head prefect. He studied for the priesthood, and was ordained as the first Aboriginal Catholic priest in 1975. Later he quit the priesthood, unable to reconcile Catholicism with Aboriginal spiritual beliefs.

Dodson was director of the Central and Kimberley Land Councils, and negotiated the return of Uluru (Ayers Rock) to the traditional owners.

He served on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, was the founding chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (1991-97), and co-chair of the Expert Panel for Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians (2010-16).

He filled a casual Senate vacancy in 2016. In Tuesday’s statement he thanked former leader Bill Shorten for nominating him for the vacancy.

In the Albanese government he was Special Envoy for Reconciliation and Implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

His serious illness prevented him from all but minimal campaigning in the Voice referendum.

When parliament was debating the bill for the referendum, Dodson was too unwell to attend in person – Senate leader Penny Wong read a message from him.

His message said: “This move to recognise the First Peoples of Australia in the Constitution is part of an action of restorative justice. Doing this will give a sense of honour for all Australians, as we collectively stand with courage to face these past legacies and ensure that they are not bequeathed to future generations. This is one commitment our generation can make.”

Dodson in his statement placed on the record his “high regard” for Albanese’s decision to proceed with the referendum.

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

– ref. ‘Father of Reconciliation’ Pat Dodson to quit parliament – https://theconversation.com/father-of-reconciliation-pat-dodson-to-quit-parliament-218696

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne

When things are going bad in the health system, we are reassured we’ve got one of the best health systems in the world. But we’re rarely told where we actually stand relative to others.

A new report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows where Australia is doing relatively well – and not so well. The report is more than 200 pages with dozens of charts and tables.

Here we highlight five charts showing Australia’s relative performance. Overall, Australia’s health system performs well, but can come after long waits. And our use of antibiotics is trending in the wrong direction.

1. We spend less than average but live longer than average

Despite the rhetoric about the unsustainability of the health system, Australia performs well. When mapping health expenditure against life expectancy, Australia (marked by the red dot) sits in the best performing quadrant – and has done so for the past decade.

In contrast, the United States is stuck in the worst performing quadrant for the whole period – significantly higher spending than other countries with worse life expectancy.

The life expectancy measure is used here but it involves an implicit assumption that the principal impact on life expectancy is from the health system, which is not really the case. Nevertheless, it is a good measure of overall system performance and combined with spending provides a good measure.

2. Most Australians rate their health as good or very good

The vast majority of Australians (about 85%) rate their health as good or very good, with Australia performing better on this metric than most other similar countries. Often good health is conflated with good health care, and the data show that Australia also has more doctors per head than other countries.

The founding charter of the World Health Organization (WHO) recognised that health is not just the absence of disease, but a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”. This points to a flaw in the nexus between good health and more health professionals. The WHO focus on well-being helps to explain why it is not surprising that, looking across countries, the number of doctors doesn’t appear to be a key determinant of performance on self-rated health.

3. It’s harder to get a bed in aged care

About 30% of people in OECD countries are over 65, while the Australian proportion is about 20%. The proportion of over-65s is rising everywhere.

A minority of older Australians (14%) use aged care, with most of these using home care. However, monitoring access to residential aged care (represented here by the number of long-term care beds per thousand population over 65) might act as a “canary in the coal mine”, highlighting where access problems exist.

In Australia, access to aged care beds is falling, by about 27% between 2011 and 2021. We started in the middle of the pack so this is a concern and probably contributes to more Australians being stuck in acute hospitals, rather than being in more appropriate accommodation in residential aged care. This “exit block” in turn leads to problems of ambulance ramping.

4. Australians wait too long for public hospital hip replacements

Most publicly funded health systems are characterised by long waiting times for access to planned procedures such as hip replacements. Some waiting is to be expected as part of efficient management of operating theatre scheduling. But long waits, especially when the person is in pain, reflect poorly on management of the public hospital system.

The data shows that almost two-thirds of people waiting for hip replacement surgery in Australia waited more than three months. This is marginally worse than the OECD average. Unfortunately, our performance is deteriorating.

A number of states, such as Victoria, have developed strategies to improve the performance of the planned procedure system, or have identified opportunities for efficiency improvements in public hospitals which would help address this issue.

Although it’s understandable that planned procedures were affected by the first few years of the COVID pandemic, governments should have adapted their funding and provision systems to bring waiting times back to the pre-pandemic levels.

5. Our use of antibiotics is going in the wrong direction

Antibiotics have saved millions of lives. But public health experts have long recognised the emerging problem of antimicrobial resistance, where inappropriate use of these drugs can lead to their reduced effectiveness over time.

Worldwide campaigns to promote appropriate use of antibiotics are bearing fruit and across the OECD, use of antibiotics is going down.

Unfortunately, Australia’s trend is in the reverse direction.

Stephen Duckett 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 does Australia’s health system stack up internationally? Not bad, if you’re willing to wait for it – https://theconversation.com/how-does-australias-health-system-stack-up-internationally-not-bad-if-youre-willing-to-wait-for-it-218031

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic Redfern, Associate Professor, RMIT University

In my office, someone has pinned a cartoon in which two dogs consider an abstract sculpture on a plinth. As he strokes his chin one of them asks, “Yes, but is it food?”.

ACMI’s Marshmallow Laser Feast: Works of Nature is most definitely food.

This exhibition featuring artworks by London-based experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast is sumptuous, a feast for eyes and ears at the technological bleeding edge of audio-visual practice. With its swirling murmurations of atoms, cells, blood platelets and gravitational forces, it is straightforwardly beautiful.

We are immersed from the moment we begin our descent into the vault of ACMI’s project hall. On the first landing is a portrait ratio image projected flush with the architecture and populated with flowing, bifurcating veins that break like dandelion blossoms to disperse.

Text from the poetry of Daisy Lafarge fades up and down between images. Linking each space, wall panels of Lafarge’s writing offer us a counterpoint to the didactic panels. The projection is accompanied by sound somewhere between breath and wind in the trees, an analogy central to an exhibition so focused on the breathing, pulsing dimension of all that lives.

Lafarge’s text is memorably recited into our ear in the meditation room by video art go-to Cate Blanchett (see her ongoing collaboration with Julian Rosefeldt). Blanchett has shown great generosity to artists and lends a gravitas and humanity to all she touches.

No exception, this ten-minute experience lounging in bean bags sets the tone, gearing us down to the required contemplative tempo.

Read more:
Light: Works from the Tate’s Collection honours the body and its sensations – this is art which is meant to be felt

United by sound

Sound is a vital feature of the installation.

Crackles, creaks, drippings, fizzes, distant reverberant booms and rushing fluid sounds suffuse and unite the space, contributing to the sense of interiority established by the dark subterranean setting.

At times, though, I found myself slightly troubled by the score. Recurrent throughout the exhibition are the smeared synth pads and soothing, never resolving harmonic progressions of massage therapy rooms. This fairly screams calm and slightly cheapens the installation.

Next to the meditation room is a towering projection of a Colombian kapok tree. The camera slowly circumnavigates this buttressed giant as the naturalistic image transforms into a 3D scan reminiscent of photogrammetric point-cloud images showing the flow of oxygen and nutrients within the tree.

A black mirror at the foot of the projection extends us further underground and compounds the “as above, so below” motif recurring throughout the exhibition.

Mirrored floors also feature in the third space where diagonally opposed screens are accompanied by the rushing sound of water, muted in its upper frequencies, emphasising our interior perspective.

Oxygen flows into swimming, hurrying platelets which move like plankton, fish or flocking birds as we travel inside our own bodies. These dots, whether acting cells, atoms or droplets, provide a delightful flip between 2D and 3D. A skeleton is revealed as we shift from micro to macro, up and out, and form is conjured out of air.

In the fourth space we loll on more of the comfortable furnishings provided throughout, as these eddying dots take us down and further down to our cell’s engine room, conjured here as a literal furnace.

It tells, it doesn’t ask

After a room of prints, we travel into illustrations of cosmological phenomena.

While I appreciate the design conceit that led to this decision in an exhibition replete with mirror motifs, aesthetically, it did seem a little tacked on relative to the very unified earlier rooms. It was also the first use of interactivity, a type of chase-the-mouse atom cloud which failed to meet the grandeur of much of the rest of the work.

Finally, we encounter another scanned tree, a sequoia. After vertiginous tilting and thunderous rumblings, we head up the tree and inside its glowing heart, a transcendent moment in which we are shown once again all in nature is in flow and flux.

The appearance of birdsong here is a delight and a welcome change from the massaging synth; a sombrely cinematic harmonic sequence which stands out among the rest of the music.

The exhibition is most definitely a spectacular achievement for ACMI and the many (many!) people it took to pull this all together (witness the pages of credits in the final room). Works of Nature, however, sits firmly within the museological remit of ACMI and is distinct from the far more open, ambiguous and troubling works ACMI also commissions. Works of Nature is clearly in the business of knowledge transfer: it tells, it doesn’t ask.

As was eloquently stated by Ersin Han Ersin, the director of Marshmallow Laser Feast, in his opening remarks at the launch, here art’s role was to make us feel something: feel the significance and wonder of our inescapable entanglement with the entirety of the biosphere.

It achieved this most certainly, but I was left with the impression that this was information design – rather than art at its more ambiguous, troubling task.

Read more:
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Dominic Redfern 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. Marshmallow Laser Feast at ACMI is a sumptuous visual feast – but something is missing – https://theconversation.com/marshmallow-laser-feast-at-acmi-is-a-sumptuous-visual-feast-but-something-is-missing-215877

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English, University of Sydney

What is comedy?

This is the question I kept coming back to while watching Andrew Upton’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, which opened to warm applause – and a touch of controversy – at the Sydney Theatre Company on Saturday.

Theatre scholar Eric Weitz notes that comedy is a genre “with characteristic features”.

Laughter, humour, distraction. These are some of the terms associated with comedy.

Comedy is also restless. As Weitz acknowledges, comedy “embraces a range of subgenres” and often “cross-pollinates with other genres to form the likes of tragicomedy”.

These cross-pollinations can often confuse.

Consider the very first performance of The Seagull, subtitled “a comedy in four acts”.

The notorious performance at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg on October 17 1896 was an unmitigated failure. The audience jeered; the reviews were scathing.

In a letter sent to the publisher Aleksey Suvorin the very next day, a wounded Chekhov declared he would never again “write plays or have them acted”.

The reason why the premiere went so badly has to do with audience expectations. As essayist Janet Malcolm explains, there were special circumstances on the night in question.

The performance was part of a benefit event for E. I. Levkeeva, a popular Russian comic actress, “and so the audience was largely made up of Levkeeva fans, who expected hilarity and, to their disbelief and growing outrage, got Symbolism.”

Primed for broad comedy, the audience didn’t know what to do with Chehkov’s groundbreaking spin on the genre, which broke with established realist modes and placed emphasis on metaphorical imagery and allegorical tropes.

While the play, which speaks to the themes of art and desire, has many funny moments, it simultaneously foregrounds discussions of mortality and depictions of madness. And it ends with a suicide.

Moreover, Chekhov’s play is one where, as the academic James Loehlin writes

the old win out over the young, where hope and the impulse for change are crushed, in part through their own fragility and lack of conviction, but in part by the proficient ruthlessness of the seasoned old campaigners, their elders.

I mention this because the serious and subtle aspects of The Seagull – many of which continue to resonate today – can get lost in modern takes on Chekhov’s play.

This is true of the Sydney Theatre Company’s production. Adapted by Upton and directed by Imara Savage, this version showcases the sound work of Max Lyandvert and features a meta-theatrical set designed by David Fleischer.

The adaptation is set in contemporary rural Australia and uses anglicised character names. Upton and Savage stick with Chekhov’s formal structure, but privilege the comedic at the expense of pretty much everything else when it comes to delivery.

This has ramifications for how the adaptation pans out.

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Success beckons, tragedy befalls

The play comprises four acts and centres on four characters who mirror each other.

Constantine (Harry Greenwood) and Boris (Toby Schmitz) are writers. Boris is famous. Constantine – a college dropout who fancies his chances as an avant-gardist – is most definitely not.

Irina (Sigrid Thornton) and Nina (Mabel Li) are actors. Irina, who is Constantine’s mother and Boris’s lover, is a renowned stage star. The ingénue Nina, who is dating Constantine, desperately wants to make it.

Success beckons, but tragedy eventually befalls Nina – who leaves Constantine for Boris – in the two year gap between the play’s third and fourth acts.

These characters are joined by several others, including Irina’s ailing landowner brother Peter (Sean O’Shea), and a depressive young goth, Masha (Megan Wilding). With the exception of one, every character in the play is morose.

The first act is structured around an abortive performance of an experimental theatre piece Constantine has worked up. Nina and Boris grow close in the second, while Irina holds court. At the start of the third act, it is revealed Constantine has tried to take his own life. Boris threatens to leave Irina for Nina. Hilarity ensues as Irina tries to win him back.

The atmosphere that the Sydney Theatre Company creative team establishes in each of these acts is lighthearted and largely humorous. Indeed, there are some moments, as when a gravely ill Peter convulses on the ground in the third act, when the onstage action almost tips over into outright farce.

As Chekhov himself insisted, different types of comedy – including farce – had roles to play in The Seagull. However, the overarching tonal emphasis in this adaptation causes problems in the play’s last act, which is set indoors during the Australian winter.

Peter, not long for the world, spends his time talking about how he regrets his entire life. The other characters fob him off. Constantine has made headway as a writer, but is deeply unhappy. He pines after Nina, who dropped off the radar somewhere between acts.

Time passes, and trivialities exchanged. A bedraggled Nina reappears. The story she tells is one of sorrow and woe. A genuinely moving moment, the speech is delivered with real affective intensity – undoubtedly the high point of the production.

However, the tonal chasm between the final act and the preceding three is simply too great.

In keeping with Chehkov’s original, comedy ultimately gives way to tragedy, but something seems to have been lost along the way.

The Seagull is at the Sydney Theatre Company until December 16.

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

Alexander Howard 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. Chekhov called The Seagull ‘a comedy’. The Sydney Theatre Company seems to forget it was a tragedy, too – https://theconversation.com/chekhov-called-the-seagull-a-comedy-the-sydney-theatre-company-seems-to-forget-it-was-a-tragedy-too-215799

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Brent, Professor and Chair in Sustainable Energy Systems, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

A new concept – the “grid of grids” – is revolutionising the way we think about energy.

In essence, the grid of grids signifies a shift from a single unified energy network to a collection of smaller networks, capable of operating together or independently as required. It can create a flexible and resilient energy infrastructure that could help contribute to a sustainable future.

In our recent research, we explored the integration of smaller-scale renewable energy systems (microgrids) with a fleet of electric vehicles (EVs).

Under the grid of grids concept, national and international energy infrastructure would become part of a dynamic network. Each point in this network would represent a smaller hub – a community, town or even business district.

EVs would be part of this network, not merely extracting power but actively participating in a reciprocal energy exchange. This approach turns every EV into a decentralised power unit, capable of contributing to and benefiting from the broader energy system.

But how can communities achieve this? Smart community energy solutions are the key.

Understanding microgrids

A microgrid is essentially a self-sufficient energy system that provides power for a particular geographic area, such as a university, hospital complex, business centre or neighbourhood.

Microgrids ensure that even in times of disruptions, communities can keep the lights on. They are flexible, adaptive – and, importantly, they can empower local groups to take control of their energy destiny.

Smart microgrids take this a step further. They leverage advanced information and communications technologies, such as sophisticated sensors and automated control systems, and the Internet of Things (a network of devices that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the internet). This enables smart microgrids to optimise energy distribution and ensure efficiency.

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Cyclone Gabrielle: how microgrids could help keep the power on during extreme weather events

Our recent research examined the economic viability of microgrids across all 16 regions of Aotearoa New Zealand using the “Stochastic Microgrid Optimisation Under Uncertain Loads and Distributed Energy Resources” (SMOULDER) web tool.

SMOULDER represents a five-year project that investigated the role of artificial intelligence in optimising microgrids.

The SMOULDER web tool helps determine the optimal size of various microgrid configurations. The technologies considered are solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and hydrogen microgrids for neighbourhoods and communities. SMOULDER also evaluates the economic impact of EV charging patterns during peak or off-peak times.

How do EVs fit into the puzzle?

When an EV is parked, it can do more than merely wait for its next journey. It can integrate into the local microgrid, actively contributing by channelling unused stored energy back into the system.

This can enhance the efficiency of energy utilisation. It can also allow us to harness the potential of variable renewable sources such as solar and wind.

So, when an EV is not in use, and the local microgrid is experiencing peak demand, it transfers the excess energy back into the grid.

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Floods left thousands without power. Microgrids could help communities weather the next disaster

Conversely, during periods of light load, such as the middle of the night with excess wind power, the EV intelligently charges, ensuring a sustainable and efficient exchange within the community microgrid.

This strategic and dynamic interaction optimises energy usage within the community microgrid, providing both economic and environmental benefits.

A buffer against fluctuating prices

Microgrid solutions, enhanced by the collaboration with EVs, offer a pathway to significant cost savings. By harnessing local, renewable resources, these systems reduce reliance on centralised power grids, mitigating the impact of fluctuating energy prices.

The grid of grids concept enables microgrids to achieve greater economic self-sufficiency, establishing a buffer against the uncertainties of the broader energy market.

Establishing microgrids and building towards the grid of grids has a cost that will need to be managed by individuals, organisations and communities. But once established, these grids will have broader benefits as Aotearoa New Zealand moves towards a sustainable future.

This article was written with the assistance of Dr Soheil Mohseni, Senior Energy Forecasting Analyst at Ausgrid and Research Fellow, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Alan Brent is affiliated with The Sustainability Society, a technical working group of Engineering New Zealand.

– ref. Driving a greener future: how your electric car could help power your neighbourhood – https://theconversation.com/driving-a-greener-future-how-your-electric-car-could-help-power-your-neighbourhood-218345

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University

In a significant step towards reforming Australia’s Reserve Bank, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has stepped outside the bank and outside of Australia to select Andrew Hauser, a British economist, as its new deputy governor.

The deputy governor’s job has traditionally been a springboard to the governor’s job, and Hauser will replace Michele Bullock who was herself deputy governor until her appointment as governor on Philip Lowe’s retirement in September.

Hauser is the first deputy governor to be appointed from outside the bank, and also the first non-Australian to be appointed to a high-ranking position in the bank.

The selection of a complete outsider is a sign that Treasurer Jim Chalmers has taken on board the concerns of the independent review of the Reserve Bank which in April expressed concern about what it called groupthink at the bank, which it defined as

a phenomenon in which a group of individuals tries to minimise conflict and
reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints,
by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints and isolating themselves from
outside influences

The review found a “lack of openness to external ideas” at the bank and a tendency to avoid difficult discussions to resolve issues.

It wanted the bank “open to diverse voices” and suggested advertising vacancies for management roles externally as a default, with external members on all selection panels for deputy-head of department roles and above.

The RBA and the Bank of England face similar challenges

Hauser has worked at the Bank of England for over 30 years, giving him a deep understanding of the operation of monetary policy in an open economy similar to Australia’s, in which interest rates and the the exchange rates are important economic levers.

If the experience of his former governor at the Bank of England, Mark Carney, is any guide, he’ll make the transition without too much difficulty.

Carney was appointed Governor of the Bank of England in 2013 from Canada where he had been Governor of the Bank of Canada, and served until 2020.

Hauser’s experience as executive director for markets at the Bank of England and his involvement in managing its response to the global financial crisis and the early stages of COVID will make him especially useful to Australia’s Reserve Bank.

The Reserve Bank has been without top-level experience in managing markets during crises since the departure of Guy Debelle in March 2022.

Debelle had long been the bank’s point person on markets. As head of its financial markets group during the crisis he coordinated and directed the bank’s attempt to keep financial markets open on a daily basis, a role he fulfilled again as deputy governor during the COVID crisis.

Hauser will help the bank decide how quickly to shrink

A major challenge for the bank under Hauser’s deputy governorship will be managing the size of its balance sheet.

During the COVID crisis, the bank bought government bonds with money it created in order to support the economy and keep interest rates low.

This led to a quadrupling of its balance sheet, from A$161.4 billion in financial assets before COVID to a peak of $637 billion in March this year.

Now that the crisis has passed, the bank is slowly contracting its balance sheet by gradually letting the bonds they bought expire.

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RBA revolution: how Chalmers will recraft the bank for the 21st century

At issue is whether the bank should contract its balance sheet faster (and contract the economy) by actively selling bonds, and also when it should stop selling bonds and letting them expire.

While these are new questions for the Reserve Bank, the Bank of England has been grappling with them for years, having bought bonds with created money during the global financial crisis.

As executive director of markets at the Bank of England, Andrew Hauser is well versed in the problem. He outlined the issues earlier this month in what might be his final speech for the Bank of England, entitled “Less is more or less is a bore? Re-calibrating the role of central bank reserves”.

His appointment marks a pivotal moment in the Reserve Bank’s history, underlining the government’s commitment to revitalising the bank and refashioning it for the 21st century.

He is expected to take up his new role in early 2024.

Isaac Gross ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Meet Andrew Hauser, the outsider from the UK who’ll be deputy governor of the RBA – https://theconversation.com/meet-andrew-hauser-the-outsider-from-the-uk-wholl-be-deputy-governor-of-the-rba-217521

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Smith, Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, a zealous convert to Donald Trump’s cause, once offered an expansive vision of how Trump should rule in a second term: “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

Polls a year out from the 2024 election suggest Trump has a good chance of winning it. If he does, he and his allies want to be ready to run the country in ways they were not in 2016.

For more than a year, groups supporting Trump have been publicising plans to fill government roles with proven Trump loyalists if he wins a second term.

Trump believes his first term was undermined by “deep state” bureaucrats, “weak” lawyers and even “woke generals”. Some of his opponents argue that government officials indeed acted as “guardrails” during Trump’s administration, saving the country from his worst instincts.

There seems to be a near consensus among Trump’s friends and foes that his authoritarian second term plans would require more cooperative government officials than he had last time around.

But how much could Trump genuinely reshape the United States government?

Theory of bureaucratic politics

In 1971, political scientist Graham Allison wrote Essence of Decision, an analysis of the Kennedy administration’s actions in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Allison argued that foreign policy decisions of the United States government could not be understood simply as rational responses to external situations. Decisions are political outcomes resulting from complicated “games” played between different actors within the government.

Even in foreign policy, a domain where the US president has a lot of power compared to other areas of policy, the president needs help making decisions. Those decisions reflect bargaining between cabinet secretaries, military figures, diplomats and advisers, all of whom have their own interests and viewpoints.

One of the book’s earliest reviewers, the realist international relations scholar Stephen Krasner, was unimpressed by this analysis. He believed it would be popular with high-level policy-makers because it obscured their responsibility for the decisions they made. In the end, Krasner argued, there is a single decision-maker in US foreign policy, and that is the president. Games may be played among the president’s staff and bureaucrats, but they are games whose rules are written by the president and whose players are chosen by the president.

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Allison’s theory would resonate with those who imagine a “deep state” establishment thwarting the president’s agenda. Trump is not the first president to rail against entrenched opposition in his own administration, especially in foreign policy. Barack Obama’s staff complained of “The Blob”, a militaristic establishment that included Obama’s secretary of defense. Other Democratic presidents also used blob-like metaphors. Allison noted that John F. Kennedy described the State Department as “a bowl of jelly”, while Franklin D. Roosevelt said that trying to change anything in the Navy was “like punching a feather bed”.

But we should remember Krasner’s warnings that presidents and their allies would use bureaucratic opposition as an excuse for the shortcomings of systems they controlled. Trump was frustrated at times by appointees who ignored his orders or refused to carry them out because they were illegal.

But such people usually didn’t last long in the administration after colliding with Trump.

Trump’s administration set records for turnover among White House staff and Cabinet positions, and had a very high vacancy rate for Senate-confirmed appointments. By the end of his presidency, nearly anyone who disagreed with him was gone, and his Cabinet was filled with acting secretaries. This, he said, gave him “more flexibility”.

The inexperience and incompetence of Trump’s people were bigger problems for Trump in the end than disloyalty and opposition. Selecting high officials for their loyalty alone could be a recipe for another four years of domination without control.

Read more:
Trump has changed America by making everything about politics, and politics all about himself

Smashing the administrative state

Trump’s allies have ambitions beyond enforcing loyalty to Trump, who can only serve one more term. His former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon called early in Trump’s first term for the “deconstruction of the administrative state”. This may sound new and radical, but it broadly aligns with the aims of conservative policy ever since Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Congress delegates many of the powers of government to dozens of independent regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board. These bodies are given the power to do things like setting and enforcing clean air standards, investigating and publishing consumer complaints over financial services, and conducting elections on union representation.

The legitimacy of these agencies has long been attacked by conservatives, who believe they bypass legislatures to advance liberal policy goals. Lawyers in the Reagan and Bush administrations developed the theory of the “unitary executive”, which asserted the right of the President to fire uncooperative civil servants and questioned the constitutionality of independent government agencies.

Towards the end of his presidency, Trump signed an executive order to create Schedule F, which would reclassify tens of thousands of career civil servants as political appointees, stripping them of their employment protection. Biden rescinded the order a few days into his presidency, but Trump’s allies now see it as the key to finally taking control of the administrative state.

Their stated aim is to remove public servants likely to obstruct Trump’s agenda and replace them with people committed to it. This would theoretically increase the president’s power.

However, the long term effect of flooding the civil service with thousands of political appointees hostile to government would be to reduce the capacity of all government, regardless of the president. The quality of government services would degrade, and public faith in government would further erode.

Not all conservatives like this plan. Some warn it would return America to the “spoils system” that existed before the neutral civil service, where public sector jobs were rewards to be doled out to political supporters. But the conservative ascendancy now belongs to those who can best align their ideologies with Trump’s grievances.

Control is still an illusion

The activist conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation boasts that “the left is right to fear our plan to gut the federal bureaucracy”. The mass firing of political enemies fits well with Trump’s focus on “retribution”. But Heritage and other organisations are selling an illusion that is likely to leave Trump or any other president frustrated.

It’s easy to blame scheming bureaucrats and administration “traitors” for the failures of Trump’s first term. The reality is that all recent presidents have faced the same intractable problem: it is increasingly difficult to get any major legislation through a polarised Congress. It is the failure to legislate that forces presidents to rely on inherently flimsy executive orders.

Trump also had the problem that much of what he wanted to was illegal. While his allies are now searching for administration lawyers who “are willing to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject”, Trump would also need the cooperation of judges to implement plans such as “strong ideological screening” of immigrants.

The hundreds of judges that Trump appointed to federal courts, including three Supreme Court justices, have certainly made it easier to pursue a conservative political agenda. But they wouldn’t help Trump when it came to the issue he cared about most: overturning the results of the 2020 election.

Trump may find that the lifetime appointments from his first term have created a new conservative legal establishment that can help his allies but is at odds with his personal ambitions.

Various biographers of Trump have suggested he will never be satisfied with any level of power or prestige. He is unlikely to get what he wants out of a second term in the White House. But plenty of others will see it as a great opportunity to settle longstanding scores.

David Smith 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. Polls say Trump has a strong chance of winning again in 2024. So how might his second term reshape the US government? – https://theconversation.com/polls-say-trump-has-a-strong-chance-of-winning-again-in-2024-so-how-might-his-second-term-reshape-the-us-government-217664

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Boivin, Professor, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology

It’s frightening to imagine where the world would be right now without mRNA vaccines. The COVID-busting technology revolutionised vaccine development at an internationally critical moment – with massive implications for people’s health, wellbeing and the global economy.

Yet imagine we must – because some of the research most crucial to the development of mRNA vaccines almost didn’t happen.

Biochemist Katalin Karikó’s fascination with the therapeutic potential of mRNA began in the early 1990s, but she received little encouragement. She was undervalued and underfunded throughout her university career and eventually left academia.

When she went on to jointly win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for her pioneering role in developing the mRNA technology that allowed the world to take on COVID, Karikó’s former employer, the University of Pennsylvania, tried to take credit.

Yet during her time there, the university sidelined and demoted Karikó, eventually pushing her out altogether. While it would be nice to think of Karikó’s experience as an aberration, her experience – as we highlight in our new paper – is all too common for women in academia.

Barriers to women’s success

Academia is widely viewed as a meritocracy, a bastion of liberalism, and a place where people go to pursue a higher calling. The data, however, point to a dark side to the ivory tower.

For instance, a major report published in 2019 by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine showed rates of sexual harassment in academia are second only to those in the military.

More common than overtly sexualised harassment, however, is gender bias. Studies reveal women’s research receives tougher assessment, less funding, fewer prizes, and less citation than men’s. Women professors receive lower evaluations and more criticism from students – both male and female – and face higher expectations as mentors.

Women often face chilly academic climates, isolation, job insecurity, stalled promotions and unequal or limited access to resources. These tendencies can easily verge on incivility, ostracism, online abuse, academic sabotage and malicious allegations. And these problems are worse for women of colour, and those who belong to sexual and gender minority groups.

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When women are brave enough to speak out, it usually backfires. At best, they may face minimisation or silencing. More damaging is retaliation, including from institutions themselves. Women can find themselves placed on probation, under investigation, targeted for character assassination, facing retaliatory accusations, demoted or even fired.

Bad for science and a waste of funding

A massive study of almost a quarter of a million US academics showed women are leaving academia at significantly higher rates than men.

They are also leaving for different reasons. While men are more likely to leave because they have been attracted by better opportunities, the number-one reason women cite for leaving is toxic workplaces.

The outcome of this gradual attrition is that women continue to be vastly underrepresented in senior academic positions: as full professors, research directors, and heads of research institutions and universities.

The loss of so many women from research and higher education isn’t just a social or ethical issue. It’s also an economic one. Women in academia reflect investment. Their many years of post-secondary education, their training, their research – it all costs money. This money is wasted when they are pushed out of academia.

The worst bias and explicit harassment often comes as women achieve greater success. Rates of departure between men and women really start to widen about 15 years after academics finish their PhDs.

This means higher education and research are often losing women with the most experience and promise, and in whom the greatest funding investments have been made.

Follow the money

As current and former institutional heads and research leaders, we suggest it’s time to follow the money. Where does all this wasted money come from?

You, the taxpayer.

Higher education, research and science all are, in many parts of the world, funded mostly through public sources. This means when higher education and research organisations fail to tackle the persistent sexism, discrimination and harassment that’s driving women out, they are throwing your money out the window.

Or you can think of it another way: your taxes are subsidising sexism.

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The buck stops here

The fact that tax money supports higher education and research also presents an opportunity: taxpayers can demand change in how their taxes are used.

They can demand efficiency in public funding – efficiency that will lead to less sexism in the institutions educating our children, and to more of the science we desperately need to address the collective challenges we face.

We call on governments to address sexism in higher education and research as a matter of urgency, such as by:

1. acknowledging that self-regulation isn’t working.

   Universities and research institutions have implemented gender equity initiatives and policies for decades. Yet gender biases remain entrenched.

2. developing effective and transparent systems for measuring gender equity, and applying them to all publicly funded higher education and research institutions.

   This means collecting and publishing data on recruitment, appointment, salaries, workload allocation, promotions, discrimination, harassment, misconduct, demotion, dismissal and departure.

3. making funding in higher education and research dependent on the achievement of gender equity targets.

   Institutions currently receive public funding regardless of whether they uphold a fair academic culture that provides equal opportunity for men and woman.

   Disregard for rules, procedures and laws designed to achieve gender equity does not hold institutions back from receiving continued public funding. This lack of accountability helps perpetuate gender bias. It needs to change.

You can join us in pressing for these changes by contacting your local representative, organising and submitting petitions, or reporting concerns to organisations designed to investigate possible abuses of public funding (such as federal auditing offices).

The story of Karikó and the transformative research that almost never was should be the wake-up call we need to demand better.

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Susanne Täuber is affiliated with the Academic Parity Movement and the Network Against Power Abuse in Science. Both are non-profit organizations fighting harassment and power abuse in academia.

Janet G. Hering, Nicole Boivin, and Ursula Keller 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. How your money is helping subsidise sexism in academia – and what you can do about it – https://theconversation.com/how-your-money-is-helping-subsidise-sexism-in-academia-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-218347

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Casey Michelle Haining, Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology

From today, eligible people in New South Wales can ask for voluntary assisted dying.

NSW is the last Australian state to have its voluntary assisted dying laws begin. These laws come into effect following an 18-month implementation period.

Here is who’s eligible to request voluntary assisted dying in NSW and how its laws compare with those in other Australian jurisdictions.

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Who’s eligible in NSW?

To be eligible for voluntary assisted dying in NSW, a person must:

• be an adult with decision-making capacity

• be an Australian citizen, permanent resident or a resident of Australia for at least three continuous years

• have lived in NSW for at least 12 months (unless granted an exemption)

• be experiencing suffering that cannot be relieved in a way the person considers tolerable

• have a condition that is advanced, progressive and will cause death within six months (or 12 months for neurodegenerative diseases)

• be acting voluntarily without pressure or duress.

Read more:
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How do these new laws differ from other states?

Australian voluntary assisted dying laws are lengthy and tightly regulate the request and assessment process.

A person must make at least three separate requests for voluntary assisted dying, and their eligibility must be assessed by at least two specially trained doctors. The process is overseen by a voluntary assisted dying board (or commission).

The new laws largely follow the Australian model of voluntary assisted dying, but key differences exist. In NSW:

• people can choose between taking the medication themselves or having the medication administered by a qualified health professional. In other states, administration by health professionals is more limited

• all health-care workers (not just for example, doctors and/or nurse practitioners depending on the state) can raise the option of voluntary assisted dying with the person, provided they also inform the person about palliative care and other treatment options

• nurse practitioners can administer the medication (they cannot in Victoria and South Australia). However, nurses cannot administer it (they can in Tasmania and Queensland)

• non-participating facilities have obligations to facilitate access, including allowing health professionals to enter the facility to provide information. Residential facilities must also allow health professionals to attend to assess for eligibility or administer the medication. In other cases, facilities may be required to transfer the person elsewhere for this to occur. (These obligations do not exist in Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia)

• the usual waiting period between first and final requests for voluntary assisted dying is five days (compared with seven days in Tasmania and nine days in other states).

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What’s happening elsewhere?

Since 2019, all Australian states have progressively introduced voluntary assisted dying. Each state must review their laws after a fixed period, and some states have already started doing so.

Victoria and Western Australia

Victoria was the first state to introduce voluntary assisted dying laws, which became operational in June 2019. In the first four years, 912 people died through voluntary assisted dying.

Western Australian laws have been in effect since July 2021. In its first two years of operation, 446 people died through voluntary assisted dying.

Both states have started to review their laws.

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Tasmania, Queensland and South Australia

Tasmanian laws have been operational since October 2022, with 16 people dying through voluntary assisted dying in the first six months. These laws are scheduled to be reviewed after October 2025.

Queensland and South Australian laws commenced in January 2023. In Queensland, 245 people died in the first six months through voluntary assisted dying. In South Australia, 70 people died in the first eight months.

Queensland laws will be reviewed in 2026 and South Australia’s will be reviewed in 2027.

Read more:
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Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory

The territories were previously prevented from passing voluntary assisted dying laws by a federal law, which has now been repealed.

In 2023, the Australian Capital Territory introduced a voluntary assisted dying bill into parliament. The Northern Territory has established a panel to make recommendations, and community consultation has begun.

Read more:
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Passing laws does not guarantee access

Early research and reports from oversight bodies suggest voluntary assisted dying laws are safe, but have reported a range of barriers to access.

Some of the barriers are specific to a specific state’s law. Other barriers have been reported across states. Barriers include:

• Commonwealth restrictions on discussing voluntary assisted dying via telehealth and email

• a lack of doctors willing to provide voluntary assisted dying

• inadequate remuneration for doctors

• a lengthy and complicated administrative process.

While some barriers may be addressed at the state level, others will require reform at the federal level (for example, telehealth restrictions and inadequate remuneration).

Casey is a research fellow at the Australian Centre for Health Law Research. She has been employed on multiple projects as a research fellow, including the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT190100410: Enhancing End-of-Life Decision-Making: Optimal Regulation of Voluntary Assisted Dying) funded by the Australian Government and the Western Australian Government’s Review of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2019. She was also previously engaged as a legal writer for the Voluntary Assisted Dying Training in Queensland.

Ben White receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and Commonwealth and state governments for research and training about the law, policy and practice relating to end-of-life care. In relation to voluntary assisted dying, he (with colleagues) has been engaged by the Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments to design and provide the legislatively mandated training for health practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in those states. He (with Lindy Willmott) has also developed a model bill for voluntary assisted dying for parliaments to consider. He is a sessional member of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which has jurisdiction for some aspects of this state’s voluntary assisted dying legislation. Ben is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT190100410: Enhancing End-of-Life Decision-Making: Optimal Regulation of Voluntary Assisted Dying) funded by the Australian government.

Katrine was a member of the QUT team which delivered the mandatory training for health professionals participating in voluntary assisted dying in Western Australia and Queensland.

Lindy Willmott receives or has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and Commonwealth and state governments for research and training about the law, policy and practice relating to end-of-life care. In relation to voluntary assisted dying, she (with colleagues) has been engaged by the Victorian, Western Australian and Queensland governments to design and provide the legislatively mandated training for health practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in those states. She (with Ben White) has also developed a model bill for voluntary assisted dying for parliaments to consider. Lindy Willmott is also a member of the Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board, but writes this piece in her capacity as an academic researcher. She is a former board member of Palliative Care Australia.

– ref. Voluntary assisted dying is now available in all Australian states. How do the NSW laws compare? – https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-is-now-available-in-all-australian-states-how-do-the-nsw-laws-compare-217261

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Speldewinde, Lecturer, The University of Melbourne

In Australia we have a long history of taking children outdoors to learn about the natural environment. But thanks to computer games, tablets and busy lifestyles, children aren’t getting as much exposure to nature as they used to.

“Bush kinders” are one way to counter this. In a bush kinder, children in preschool years are regularly taken into the natural environment by their daycare centre or kinder/preschool. There are also standalone nature playgroup programs offered by organisations like the YMCA.

What are bush kinders?

Australia’s Early Years Learning Framework (which supports learning for children under five) talks about the importance of the natural world, noting educators should:

encourage children to develop appreciation of the natural world, understand our impact on the natural world, and the interdependence between people, animals, plants, lands and waters.

Bush kinders deliberately and regularly take children into the natural world so they can experience this firsthand.

There is no national figure for bush kinders in Australia. But there are currently more than 200 bush kinder programs in Victoria alone (these are otherwise regular services that offer bush kinder sessions as part of their overall program). These numbers will grow rapidly thanks to the recent bush kinder funding in the 2023 Victorian budget. We should expect another 600 bush kinder programs in the state by 2027.

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What can they teach children?

Research shows bush kinders can happen in almost any outdoor place. It could be a forest, beach, rural area, garden or a park.

Bush kinders work best without playground equipment, toys, balls or other items. This is so children are challenged to play with only what nature provides. They can climb, dig, balance, explore or hide.

While playing, children can build STEM skills. Our research showed children’s maths skills can benefit from bush kinder time – as they count and sort sticks, rocks, leaves and gumnuts into piles.

Educators have also told us bush kinders can help children’s social and emotional learning. In the natural world, they can take risks for example, exploring a new area and develop their resilience.

Bush kinders are supposed to be fun, discovery-filled places to learn about nature. It is only a child’s imagination that limits their play.

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What makes a good bush kinder?

Parents can find bush kinders by looking at kindergarten or early learning centre websites. Many centres actively promote their bush kinder programs.

Good bush kinders will be in spaces that are natural and have different aspects for children to explore.

But many different places and environments can work. It can have tall trees that are great for climbing or birds to nest. There can be soft earth or sand for digging. There may be ant trails to watch, fallen leaves to count or sticks to collect and make a pattern with.

In recent research, we watched children at a park learn about weather and space by lying back, listening to the wind and watching the clouds.

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What role do educators have?

While bush kinder experiences should be led by children’s curiosity, they also need to be supported by their educator to take appropriate risks and build their resilience. For example, educators can actively encourage children to climb trees as long as they feel safe.

Our recently published research examined bush kinder educators teaching children about sustainability and the natural world. They do not need specific extra training for this on top of their existing expertise in early education and play-based learning).

For example, at a beach kinder, if the tide is low, rock pools will exposed, children can explore under the water, get their feet wet and measure how deep the water is. The next week, the tide might be high. So children dig, play with shells, roll about and write their name in the sand.

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Enthusiasm for the natural world

Bush kinder must be more than taking children to a park occasionally for a walk.

It needs to be a regular part of a daycare or kinder/preschool’s program. The lessons also need to be applied back in the classroom or service. For example, educators can take learning about the weather and create a weather chart.

Teachers of course also need enthusiasm for the natural world. Imagine my excitement during a recent research trip when a seal glided past at a beach kinder and the children and educators screamed excitedly. Children can see the joy that we as adults experience when nature surprises us.

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

– ref. What are bush kinders? And what makes a good one? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-bush-kinders-and-what-makes-a-good-one-217919