On October 13 one of Australia’s largest medical insurers, Medibank, announced it had suffered a cyberattack – one which has resulted in the breached personal details of 9.7 million customers in Australia. We now know the hackers, who are almost certainly Russian, demanded a ransom of US$9.7 million (about A$15 million) – or else they would leak the data on the dark web.
It’s believed the hackers are linked to the notorious REvil cyber gang which, according to Russian sources, was allegedly dismantled and arrested earlier this year.
The Medibank breach consists of an alleged 200GB of data that contain personally identifiable information such as names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, Medicare numbers, credit card details, and ID documents. Importantly, it also contains sensitive personal information about medical diagnoses and procedures covered by Medibank and ahm health insurance.
The deadline to pay was around midnight on Tuesday. With no ransom received, the hackers kept their promise and the first batch of data was released in the early hours of Wednesday, November 9.
This breach comes with clear risks, and a lot of people will understandably be concerned. Here’s what to know if your data have been exposed, or is exposed in the coming days.
Here’s what the hacker group divulged in the first batch of leaked data:
screenshots of failed negotiations with Medibank
a list of Medibank employees, with their full names, work emails, details of the mobile phones and computers they use, as well as some home wifi names (which can be used to find a person’s home address)
the personally identifiable information (including what appear to be passport numbers) of more than 500,000 international students, either currently or formerly in Australia
the personally identifiable information (including what appear to be ID document numbers) of an additional 500,000 people
and the personal information (including addresses and phone numbers) of 200 people. Most concerningly, this includes details of medical diagnoses and procedures, and a “naughty list” of 100 people singled-out for having medical diagnoses of psychological disorders and drug addiction.
On the following day, November 10, the hackers released an additional 300 records of personally identifying information on account holders who had abortions charged against their accounts.
How might criminals use the stolen data?
Blackmail, fraud, identity theft and targeted scams are the three most obvious options for the hackers now in possession of Medibank customers’ data.
Personal information and information about medical treatments considered “controversial” – such as treatments related to sexual health, mental health, and addiction – could be used to blackmail victims, including high profile people and foreign nationals.
Foreign nationals may be particularly vulnerable if they have undergone procedures considered socially unacceptable – or even illegal – in their home country. This could even make it dangerous for them to return.
Personally identifying information, such as ID documents and contact details, may be used to impersonate victims and seize financial accounts, open lines of credit, or impersonate a victim to extort their friends and family for money.
Personal information can also be used to carry out targeted scams. For instance, cybercriminals may target data breach victims with highly personalised – and therefore highly believable – phishing attacks.
There are also data recovery scams, in which scammers contact victims and make the impossible claim to remove their data from the internet for a fee.
What to do if you’re targeted
We don’t yet know of every single individual who has been directly affected by this breach. Medibank will need to notify individual customers that have been affected, and has said it will continue to do so.
However, concerned customers can take some pro-active steps, such as securing critical accounts and being aware of potential scams – as we describe above, and also as we described in relation to the Optus breach previously.
While passports and drivers licenses can be replaced, there’s no protection against your medical history being released to the public. Hackers may try to exploit this information in extortion scams.
If you are targeted for an extortion scam as a result of the leak, you should notify law enforcement immediately, either through ReportCyber or your local police office. There won’t be any hiding of information that is already posted online, and these criminals can’t keep it a secret for you, no matter what they promise.
If you receive a text or email from scammers related to your medical history, do not reply as it will only encourage them to harass you further.
What do we expect to happen next?
So far, the hackers have released less than 1GB of the 200GB allegedly stolen, with already serious consequences for more than a million Australians. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The communications leaked by the hacking group suggest two things. First, they appear to still be trying to extort their US$9.7 million ransom from Medibank. This explains the trickling release of data, rather than all of it being leaked at once.
Second, they seem intent on releasing the data if Medibank does not pay. Their own stated reason for releasing the data is to market their “ransomware as a service” offerings to other cybercriminals. This is when an initial hacker first gains access to a company, and then hires a hacking group such as REvil to actually run the complicated ransomware scheme – a service made (in)famous by REvil.
Among the leaked data the hackers also posted screenshots of their ‘negotiations’ with Medibank. Screenshot, Author provided
It seems unlikely Medibank will (or should) pay the ransom, and likely the unnamed ransomware gang will release the entire dataset to the public.
Should that happen, we may be facing an unprecedented exposure of personally identifiable information with potentially 9.7 million identity documents and credit card details stolen.
This possibility dwarfs even the worst case scenarios of the recent Optus breach, and will require an unprecedented effort to update and secure the identity documents and credit card details of those affected.
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.
First Nations people, please be advised that the following article mentions family violence and assault.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 69 times more likely than non-First Nations women to go to hospital with a head injury because of an assault.
But not all First Nations women get the support they need.
Our new study shows how health and support services working in remote areas are not equipped with the tools to identify the potential of a head injury for women who experience violence.
Not only are service workers not asking women about a potential traumatic brain injury, there’s a lack of referral options, and often no diagnosis, limiting women’s access to services and supports for recovery.
Head injuries after an assault range from cuts and bruises to the type that can cause longer-term damage, known as traumatic brain injury.
Traumatic brain injury is defined as damage to, or alteration of, brain function due to a blow or force to the head. Non-fatal strangulation can also lead to brain injury as the brain is deprived of oxygen.
Such injury can have short-term (acute) effects or cumulative effects (over months or years). Changes vary from person to person but can include memory loss, difficulty with motivation, impaired awareness, sensory problems, mood changes and anxiety.
Some types of traumatic brain injury are also a risk factor for early onset dementia.
Our work tries to understand the needs and priorities of First Nations women who have experienced a traumatic brain injury due to family violence.
Timely and culturally safe care, and support, following such brain injury is vital. But not all First Nations women get access to it.
So, in early 2022, we spoke to 38 professionals from various sectors – including health, crisis accommodation and support, disability, family violence, and legal services – working across remote areas of the Northern Territory.
The data offers insights into the barriers that can prevent people asking First Nations women about possible brain injury, and women’s access to health care afterwards.
Participants told us that while the more severe cases were evacuated from a remote community to a hospital, less-severe cases were not always followed up.
One participant told us:
Women are often not evac-ed out following a head injury, if it’s assessed to not be an urgent thing, so might not necessarily be getting CT scans.
CT scans can help inform diagnosis, treatment and support.
Service providers were also often unaware of follow-up pathways to identify and connect women with the right supports, should they have ongoing symptoms.
A fly-in, fly out workforce
Participants told us that high workforce turnover and fly-in, fly-out health services in remote regions could also affect identification of traumatic brain injury.
They told us short-term staff can lack knowledge and familiarity of working in remote communities, and in building community relationships.
Not all women were referred to neuropsychologists (health professionals who might assess symptoms), which led to gaps in medical reports and formalised assessments. One participant told us:
I don’t know any who actually have a confirmed diagnosis.
This has implications for how women are managed and the supports they receive.
None of the staff we interviewed had completed training about traumatic brain injury. One told us:
We get ADD [attention-deficit disorder] workshops, we get domestic and family violence workshops, disability support workshops, but nothing around brain injury.
Other than some legal services, service providers did not ask specific questions of women who had experience violence and assaults about possible traumatic brain injury.
One participant said:
We’ll screen for domestic violence, but we don’t screen for specific injuries.
What can we do about it?
As our research shows, First Nations women with traumatic brain injury need better access to support and services, which is critical for their long-term recovery.
Here’s how we support frontline staff:
design and roll out education about traumatic brain injury to develop staff knowledge and confidence. This education needs to be tailored to the type of frontline staff (remote area nurses will clearly need different education to housing staff), be designed with First Nations input and be culturally appropriate
ask women about the possibility of traumatic brain injury as part of existing family violence and health assessments
ask culturally appropriate questions that are not meant to diagnose traumatic brain injury, but help to identify cognitive impairment and complex disability
explore different ways of delivering rehabilitation for mild traumatic brain injury, and whether telehealth might be appropriate under some circumstances.
Giving a voice to First Nations women living with traumatic brain injury is also crucial to providing the necessary supports during their rehabilitation and recovery.
If this article raises issues for you or someone you know, contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or 13YARN (13 92 76). In an emergency, call 000.
Dr Gail Kingston (Townsville Hospital and Health Service) and Elaine Wills (Western Sydney University and Menzies School of Health Research) are co-authors of the journal paper on which this article is based. The authors would like to thank members of the project advisory group and all participants who shared their time and knowledge.
Michelle Fitts receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Jennifer Cullen receives funding from the Department of Social Services and the NDIS. She is the CEO of Synapse Australia.
Karen Soldatic receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.
The costs of climate-related disasters are growing and the poorest countries are bearing the brunt of impacts, from the unprecedented floods in Pakistan to the expanding famine in Somalia. Natural disasters in 2022 alone cost the global economy an estimated US$227 billion.
Such disasters are driving calls at the COP27 climate summit this week for rich countries to pay for the “loss and damage” poorer countries have suffered (and continue to) because of climate change.
Loss and damage finance would help developing countries recover from climate change fuelled disasters and economic losses, and could extend to non-economic losses such as cultural destruction, displacement and health impacts. But this type of funding has long been a sticking point at global climate change negotiations.
As Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, prime minister of flood-devastated Pakistan, pleaded this week:
How on earth can one expect from us that we will undertake this gigantic task on our own?
A few nations have made loss and damage pledges so far at COP27, but the money presently on the table is only a drop in the ocean compared to what’s actually required. By 2050 the economic cost of loss and damage in developing countries is estimated to be between US$1-1.8 trillion.
So why is loss and damage such a hot issue? And why is it only now that developed countries are beginning to talk about it?
Money on the table
Loss and damage is a new aspect of “climate finance” – money from developed countries to help developing countries cut their emissions and adapt to a changed climate. In 2009, developed countries promised to mobilise $100 billion per year of climate finance by 2020. This target remains unmet.
A report presented at COP27 challenges the adequacy of this amount, showing developing countries need a staggering $2 trillion each year from 2030 of climate finance.
Denmark took the lead on loss and damage finance in September, when it pledged 100 million Danish krones (US$13.5 million). A few other nations have since followed suit during the summit and at its “finance day” yesterday.
Germany has pledged €170 million (US$170.4 million) for its “Global Shield” project, which will provide climate risk insurance and prevention support to vulnerable countries. Ireland announced it would contribute €10 million (US$10 million) to this project in 2023.
Other pledges include NZ$20 million (US$11.8 million) from New Zealand and up to €50 million (US$50.1 million) from Austria, and an additional €2.5 million (US$2.5 million) from Belgium directed to Mozambique as part of a wider package.
Under heavy lobbying from Barbados, the United Kingdom government announced a loan scheme with so-called “Climate Resilient Debt Clauses”. This offers low-income countries and small island developing states the ability to defer debt repayments for two years years in the event of a severe climate shock or natural disaster.
Even China, which stresses it has no obligation to participate in contributing to a loss and damage fund, indicated it would be willing to support a loss and damage compensation mechanism for poorer countries, though this wouldn’t involve contributing cash.
A fraught issue
This year marks the first time loss and damage is formally on the UN climate conference negotiating agenda – though it took marathon negotiations into the small hours on the conference’s first day to get there.
While this is an important victory for developing countries and small island nations, the intense negotiations just for the right to talk about loss and damage show how fraught the issue is.
What’s more, the agreement to simply put loss and damage on the agenda comes with terms. One is to put a plan in place by 2024, which is considered “our bare minimum” by the Alliance for Small Island States. Activist Mohamed Adow from Power Shift Africa was scathing, saying it left talks “like a car that stalls on the starting grid” if no plan is agreed in Egypt.
Another condition is to exclude discussions on liability and compensation. This is a red line issue for many rich countries such as the United States, which fear that admitting liability for historical and ongoing climate disasters could open themselves up to compensation for open-ended claims.
But for nations most vulnerable to climate change, there are critical issues of climate justice at stake.
Climate justice means recognising that those who have contributed the least to climate change are bearing its greatest costs in extreme weather, disasters and sea level rise, and then taking measures to redress that inequity.
These countries include Pacific and Caribbean Island states, impoverished central African countries and low-lying poorer nations such as Bangladesh. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley put it acidly in her COP27 address:
This world looks, still, too much like when it was part of an imperialistic empire.
Mottley also called for oil and gas companies to be required to contribute to a loss and damage fund, asking:
How do companies make $200 billion dollars in profits in the last three months and not expect to contribute at least 10 cents in every dollar of profit to a loss and damage fund?
What happens if finance fails?
Despite the strong rhetoric following the COP27’s finance day announcements, we’re unlikely to see agreement on a funding target for loss and damage at COP27. The pledges of developed countries have been welcomed, but developing countries are pushing for a long-term, global systemic response.
Where there may be more progress is on a funding delivery mechanism, and a clarification of where finance might come from – whether from governments, multilateral funding agencies, private finance sources or big polluters.
If developing countries don’t see progress on loss and damage funding at COP27, they may explore other options to hold nations and carbon major companies to account for the harms their emissions are inflicting, including through litigation before domestic and international courts.
Many nations already are exploring such options. Antigua, Barbuda and Tuvalu are together planning to bring an advisory opinion request on climate harms to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Vanuatu is mobilising support for a similar request to the International Court of Justice.
More broadly, failing to meet the developing world’s calls for fairness through genuine negotiations on loss and damage risks unravelling the fragile hopes for climate solidarity that underpin international action.
Jacqueline Peel 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Saddler, Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National University
Shutterstock
Over many years, Australia has barely increased the efficiency of its energy use. Energy consumption per dollar of GDP decreased by an average of only 1% per year from 2002-03 to 2018-19. Over the same period, energy consumption per person actually increased by an average of 0.2% per year.
Of 20 comparable developed countries, Portugal is the only other one to have recorded such an increase over the 15 years to 2020. (The two most recent years are excluded because the impacts of COVID distort these data.)
All the other countries, including European Union members, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Japan, cut their energy consumption, some by over 20%. The decrease for the United States was 12%.
The energy we use to support economic activity and supply essential services to consumers remains a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. That makes it timely that the Australian government today released a consultation paper on what it calls its National Energy Performance Strategy. The strategy is due to be delivered in mid-2023.
The term energy performance usually refers to the technical performance of equipment that uses energy, such as a motor vehicle or a refrigerator. In this context, improved performance means reduced energy consumption to achieve a given output, such as distance travelled or cold temperature maintained.
The paper explains that its use of the term energy performance is intended “to encapsulate the broad management of energy demand. It includes energy efficiency, load shifting, fuel switching and behaviour change.”
This is a clever change in language, for several reasons. The first is that it uses a term that the public probably understands better than “energy productivity”. That was the term both the Gillard and Abbott governments used in white papers published in 2012 and 2015, respectively.
The second reason is that it moves thinking away from a near-exclusive focus on price signals and market efficiency, and towards technologies and engineering. The former approach dominated the policy discussion in both the white papers.
The third reason is that including load shifting and fuel switching will make it easier for the strategy to become a major component of overall emissions reduction policy. For example, load switching means people with rooftop solar shift some of their electricity use from night to day, thereby cutting consumption of coal-fired electricity. Fuel switching can mean replacing a gas heating appliance with a far more efficient electric heat pump alternative.
Both approaches, if used appropriately, can reduce emissions and energy costs, without necessarily reducing the quantity of energy used.
All four of the activities included with energy performance – energy efficiency, load shifting, fuel switching and behaviour change – will be able to reduce the cost of buying the energy needed to deliver an enormous range of goods and services. Lower energy costs mean lower operating costs for businesses and not-for-profit organisations and lower living costs for Australians.
This should not be seen as in any way diminishing the importance of reducing energy use by increasing energy efficiency. As advocates for stronger energy-efficiency policies and programs have long pointed out, improving energy efficiency in housing increases comfort and health, as well as reducing costs. The consultation paper endorses this approach.
The paper also points out that, for these reasons, for some years now, the International Energy Agency has termed energy efficiency the “first fuel”.
The consultation paper is structured as sets of questions on particular topics. Significantly, the first topic is not about policies and programs directed at particular groups of energy users. Instead, it’s about what the paper terms governance.
Nationally, Australia has had policies and programs relating to energy efficiency for over 40 years. The Fraser government first introduced such measures, focused on oil consumption, in response to the so-called second oil crisis in 1979. Since then, federal and state governments from both sides of politics have introduced, pursued and abandoned a wide range of energy-efficiency policies and activities.
In recent years, many policies were abandoned or progressively defunded. There were few significant new initiatives, with some state-level exceptions. Energy policies have been almost entirely concerned with the “big league” issues of energy markets, energy supply and energy security.
It is therefore most significant that this paper prioritises, under the heading of governance, the “need to strengthen the role of demand-side considerations in energy system planning”. It also includes, under governance, consideration of formal efficiency targets. Such targets are an important part of the policies of most of the better-performing countries.
The paper then moves on to examine policy actions in each of the main energy-consuming sectors: residential, commercial and industrial.
The fifth and last topic is supply chains and workforce. These aspects have gained prominence in broader policy discourse over the past couple of years. Some observers see them as being among as the largest potential barriers to a successful transition of the energy system to a low-emissions future.
Comprehensive action is needed to make up for Australia’s woeful performance of recent decades. We will have to transform consumption and efficiency across the full range of activities that depend on energy.
Hugh Saddler does paid consultancy work relating to energy efficiency and fuel switching policy.
Reports of far-right extremists trying to recruit young people through video games have raised concerns for parents, guardians and youth alike.
In October, a statement from Australian Federal Police said officers had seen evidence of extremist groups trying to recruit young people through online games. In one instance, a teen had shared a video game recreation of the 2019 Christchurch attack.
Another recent example came from online gaming platform Roblox, in which some users had set up recreations of the Nazi Third Reich.
Extremist groups, including jihadists and neo-Nazis, have a history of using video games to spread messages of hate. And while this doesn’t mean all gamers will be exposed, or radicalised if they are, it’s still a concern for security agencies the world over. Parents, guardians and gamers should be aware of the risks.
Is far-right extremism in gaming a problem?
Violent video games are sometimes blamed for acts of terrorist violence, especially when perpetrators are identified as gamers. However, although some studies have found violent games can cause players to become desensitised to violent images, decades of research have not shown a link between violent games and violent behaviour in real life.
That said, far-right extremists have long used games and gaming platforms to try to spread hateful ideologies.
There are many different beliefs that might fall under the label “far right”, but generally these ideologies are united in being anti-democratic, racist and against multiculturalism and equality.
Since as early as 2002, American neo-Nazi organisations have been creating and selling their own “white power” games, and modifying existing popular games to suit their agenda. Extremists will also try to recruit through in-game chat functions and gaming-adjacent platforms (such as where games are streamed).
In 2002, American neo-Nazi leader Matt Hale said, in regards to recruiting people to his white supremacist “church”:
If we can influence video games and entertainment, it will make people understand we are their friends and neighbours.
In 2018, violent terrorist group Atomwaffen Division (also called the National Socialist Order) was found posting freely on the gaming platform Steam, before eventually being banned. A year later in 2019, the US Anti-Defamation League raised the alarm about extremist content still spreading on Steam.
Many gaming franchises, including the Call of Duty franchise, have online modes that let players connect and chat with others from all over the world. Sam Delon/Flickr, CC BY-SA
The tactics far-right extremists use to recruit
Former white supremacist Christian Picciolini has explained on Reddit how far-right extremist recruiters target “marginalised youth” using popular games such as Fortnite, Minecraft and Call of Duty.
They “drop benign hints and then ramp up” when players are “hooked” on their message, Picciolini said. Of his own experience of being recruited, he said:
They appealed to my desperate need for identity, community and purpose. I was bullied and they provided safety. I was lonely and they provided family. That’s how they draw people in, with a sense of belonging and ‘humanitarianism’.
Far-right extremists will often interpret games to suit their own positions. For instance, they’ll point to the inherent superiority of a fantasy game species, such as elves, to draw false and racist parallels with reality.
They’ll also use gaming to find and build connections with others who share their views. By playing together they can reinforce each other’s beliefs, bond over “dark humour” and use the game to act out violent fantasies.
And while moderating sites to remove extremist content is important, it’s complex to do in democracies for a range of technical, legal and ethical reasons. Moderation should not be relied on as the only method for addressing far-right extremism online.
Extremists can also find ways to avoid moderation, such as by using coded language. For instance, 88 and 1488 are both associated with neo-Nazism – but most people wouldn’t know it.
As counter-terrorism expert Greg Barton recently told Channel 7, far-right extremists aim to prey on young, vulnerable young people as part of a potential radicalisation process:
It’s the sort of predatory behaviour where they’re trying to win their confidence that’s the concern. The video, the games, that’s just the bait to get them hooked.
Parents, guardians and young gamers can take protective steps – the first of which is to understand that extremist ideologies online can have an impact in the real world. It’s also important to remember video games themselves are not a cause of extremism, and both security services and parents should avoid thinking as such.
Further, not all young people who come into contact with extremist material or far-right extremists online will become radicalised. In fact, some people become more prosocial when they encounter extremist propaganda. In other words, they think less aggressively and more empathetically towards others.
Millions of people play video games, but only a tiny proportion are radicalised towards violent ideologies or acts.
The best thing parents and community can do is be aware of the risks and be involved in the lives and interests of young people – especially when navigating the online world. This isn’t always easy, but the Australian eSafety Commissioner has some tips on how to do this.
The US-based Western States Centre, which works against bigotry, also has a toolkit for parents and caregivers on engaging with extremism and conspiracy theories. According to one of the authors, former educator and diversity consultant Christine Saxman, debating young people will likely not work:
You want to be on that critical thinking journey with them, not fighting them.
The Australian Federal Police also details warning signs that might indicate someone is being drawn into far-right extremist beliefs. These include becoming distant from friends and family, and using violent, angry or abusive language (especially towards minority groups or public figures).
For more information you can visit the Australian government’s Living Safe Together website.
Helen Young 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.
Karen Andrews is the former home affairs minister and now shadows that portfolio, which includes cyber-security.
With Australians shocked by hackers starting to post Medibank data on the dark web, in this podcast Andrews calls on the health insurer to provide more information.
“There are some very serious questions that need to be put to Medibank about what it actually did.”
“They have sustained incredible reputational damage. The only way that I can see forward for them to be able to improve their public standing is to be very clear and open about what happened, why it happened, and what they are doing to assist their customers.”
On this week’s revelations of extensive visa scams, Andrews says: “I’m not aware of those specific issues that are being played out in the media now having been raised specifically by the department [when she was minister]”.
“There will always be individuals out there who will seek to take advantage of Australia’s visa system […] It’s not acceptable and I’m not excusing it and the role of the Home Affairs Department is to do what it can to try and be ahead of the game […] I can say that I would give all the support that I possibly could to there being a proper review of what has happened and how it could possibly be fixed.”
Andrews takes an uncompromising line on the government’s repatriation of ISIS brides and their children. “I think it’s an appalling decision that’s been abysmally handled.”
“I am sympathetic to the children, particularly those that were taken there at a very young age and those that have been born there, because they’ve come into some pretty ordinary circumstances. But there is a level of parental responsibility in there, and they will have to live with the consequences of the actions that their parents took.”
Looking to the opposition’s task of trying to win back female voters, Andrews says, “Without a doubt women left the Liberal Party in droves at the last election.
“In hindsight and even at the time I think I was of the view that we weren’t listening enough to women and the issues that were important to them.
“I actually find it personally offensive that every time someone talks about what’s important to women, it invariably goes to childcare. And yes, that is important to some women at some points in their life, but that’s not the only issue.”
The idea of gender quotas has been a contentious topic for the Liberal Party. Andrews says, “quotas are a difficult issue for us […] I think we need to consider quotas. Absolutely. But maybe the quotas in the first instance need to be so that we have more women standing for pre-selections. So […] we have to have equal numbers of males and females in a pre-selection process.”
She says it is vital to recapture what have become “teal” seats.
“For the Coalition to win, we need to win the best part of 20 seats, which is a large number of seats. We cannot do it, I don’t believe, without winning back the majority of the teal seats that we lost at the last election […]
“Some of those [teals] are quite closely aligned with the values of the Liberal Party, which means that their constituencies are aligned with the principles of the Liberal Party.
Now that’s going to be a difficult thing to achieve in the short term, but we have to; we have to make sure that we are regaining those teal seats, that we are winning seats off Labor and that we are in a position that we can form government at the next election”.
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.
It’s pretty normal to walk through a university campus and see students sitting together, yet ignoring each other for their smartphones – but not in Spain. I’m currently visiting the University of Navarra, where each time I pass the open space outside the Institute for Culture and Society, I see the vast majority of students talking to each other without their phones in hand.
As Inés Olza, a linguist from the institute, explains:
In Spain people like to talk. For them, a conversation is a cooperative process; silence makes them uncomfortable.
This is great news for these students, because ignoring people in favour of a phone – an act known as “phubbing”, or phone snubbing – has dire consequences.
Earlier this month I published a book called The Psychology of Phubbing. In it, I build on my previous research into phubbing, and synthesise findings from 170 other studies – mostly on the effects of phubbing in important relationships such as with partners, supervisors, friends and family members.
Thr research reveals just how serious phubbing can be.
It’s nice to see students at the University of Navarra gathering and talking without their phones in the way.
Phubbing trends
People phub in all situations: while commuting, at cafes, while waiting for the bus, during work meetings, in restaurants, at the dinner table, and in bed. They mostly phub others to browse the web, check their bank app, use Google maps and, of course, to check social media.
People are also more likely to phub those closest to them. For instance, study participants phubbed their partners the most, followed by their closest friends, siblings, children and parents. Younger people phubbed more than older people, but there was no noticeable difference between how often males and females phubbed.
Here’s what the consequences were of phubbing one’s children, partners, staff, friends and family members.
Children
When parents phubbed their children, this sent the message their parents weren’t interested in them. The lack of acceptance felt by the children made them feel rejected and socially disconnected. This was associated with lower life satisfaction, and increased anxiety and depression.
Phubbed children were more likely to become addicted to their smartphones, and displayed hostile behaviour online, such as by cyberbullying their peers. Some even experienced academic burnout.
Partners
In partnerships, phubbing led to increased conflict related to smartphone use. It often made the phubbed partner feel excluded, which resulted in less intimacy, reduced satisfaction with the relationship and in turn led to reduced life satisfaction.
In some cases phubbed partners felt jealous because they were worried their partner may be pursuing someone else romantically. This intensified their anxiety and depression and lowered their wellbeing.
Phubbed partners would also spend excessive amounts of time on social media, possibly to regain some of the attention lost at the hands of their partner’s smartphone habit.
Phubbing made employees feel socially excluded, lowered their motivation and even threatened their self-esteem. To retaliate, employees resorted to misusing the internet at work.
What’s worse is that being phubbed by a boss led to employees phubbing their other colleagues.
Family and friends
Being phubbed by a family member violated the phubbed person’s expectations and made them feel like they don’t matter to the phubber. This weakened their connection to the phubber, lowered their life satisfaction, and increased their loneliness and depression.
In a similar vein, phubbed friends felt socially disconnected. This lowered their friendship satisfaction and life satisfaction and – once more – increased their anxiety and depression. Phubbed friends were also driven to seeking attention on social media.
People who get phubbed by their friends are more likely to go to social media for attention. Shutterstock
How to reduce phubbing
If there’s someone in your life who phubs you, you should try to calmly bring it up. This might be as simple as saying “Hey, can I please have your attention?”
But this may only stop the act once. If it keeps happening – which will be more likely if the phubber is addicted to their phone and/or social media – you’ll need to have a more considered conversation.
Explain how being phubbed affects you and why it needs to stop. It can also help to set ground rules around phone use when you’re together. For instance, parents can establish rules around using phones while eating dinner, and partners can decide to put their phones away before going to bed.
If you’re concerned you may be a phubber, think long and hard about how you use your phone around others. If you catch yourself phubbing, stop and make a commitment to avoid it in the future.
If you’re with someone and absolutely must phub them, do this as considerately as possible. You could say “Sorry, I have to quickly check this/send this text”, or “This is urgent”. And try to keep it short. These small acts can go a long way in reducing the effect of phubbing on the phubbed person.
If your phubbing is out of control, you may have a problematic dependency on your smartphone and/or social media – or maybe a boss who expects you to work at all hours.
Researchers don’t really know the effects of phubbing on family members other than partners and children. My colleagues and I are conducting a study on the impact on parents who are phubbed by their children. If this applies to you, you can help us find out more.
We’re also investigating the consequences of young people being phubbed by their friends. If you’re between 18 and 24, consider participating in our study.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, and mentions of racial discrimination and racist language against First Nations people.
This week marks three years since Kumanjayi Walker was shot and killed by Northern Territory police constable Zachary Rolfe.
Rolfe was initially charged with murder, which was later changed to the alternative charges of manslaughter and violent act causing death. The trial did not come to a conclusion until March 11 2022, when a jury (with no Aboriginal representation) found Rolfe not guilty.
Now an inquest into Walker’s death is taking place.
An inquest is an independent inquiry into the causes of someone’s death that is conducted by a state or territory coroner. Inquests routinely occur in deaths in custody cases in the Northern Territory.
When a death in custody concerns a First Nations person, the police have exhibited a reluctance to pursue criminal investigations. Therefore, it usually requires the coroner to recommend a referral to police and prosecutors before criminal responsibility is considered by these agencies.
In Kumanjayi Walker’s case, the criminal proceeding occurred first. This is likely due to the weight of evidence making the possibility of conviction reasonable and, efforts by the #JusticeForWalker campaign to highlight prosecution was in the public interest. Both factors – evidence and public interest – can inform decisions to prosecute.
The coroner can not address criminal responsibility. They inform causes of the death, and action that can be taken to prevent similar deaths in custody. The coroner can also recommend disciplinary action against people who may be at fault.
The scope of the inquest
The inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker commenced on September 5 and is due to conclude on December 2 this year. An inquest aims to examine the broad causes of death, rather than lay blame. It has already begun to hear and receive evidence on the matters of Rolfe’s past, including violent conduct and racist attitudes.
The inquest will continue to consider whether the supervision and response by senior police to Rolfe’s past use of force, firearms and failure to turn on body-worn video was adequate. It will explore questions of the appropriateness of police arrangements, including the role of the Immediate Response Team to arrest Kumanjayi. Questions such as why violence was used in the arrest, and why police were arresting Kumanjayi in his home on the night of his uncle’s funeral are being explored.
The inquest will also receive evidence on structural racism in the NT, and the NT Police in particular. It will examine the role of the Northern Territory Intervention (a series of federal government laws and policies since 2007 that racially target Aboriginal communities in the NT) in police relations, and specifically in Yuendumu.
The inquest will consider police accountability mechanisms and the culture of the NT Police Force, and identify strategies for change to prevent similar deaths in custody. However, there is no legal obligation for governments and agencies to implement coronial recommendations.
Who does the inquest hear from?
Unlike in the criminal trial, Kumanjayi Walker’s family and the Warlpiri community at Yuendumu has legal representation and a voice in the proceedings. Evidence will also be provided by others outside of the law enforcement system. This includes expert statements by critical race theorists, including leading First Nations scholars, anthropologists, and police accountability scholars.
However, there are also at least 147 statements by police, and the inquest hearings have thus far heard from many more police witnesses than Warlpiri people and other Aboriginal people in the NT. Their lived experiences are valuable as they can provide unique insight in highlighting what needs to change about policing in the NT.
How will the inquest be different from the trial?
While an inquest receives information from a wide range of sources and witnesses and is overseen by a coroner, a trial only considers information within the rules of evidence and guilt is usually determined by a jury.
In the days that followed Rolfe’s acquittal, text messages were released which were ruled inadmissible by the judge in criminal trial, because they may not have reflected Rolfe’s thinking at the time he shot Kumanjayi.
These text messages revealed Rolfe described his job as “a sweet gig, just get to do cowboy stuff with no rules”. A few months later, text messages emerged in which Rolfe described Aboriginal people as “neanderthals who drink too much alcohol”.
Thus far, the inquest has focused on the conduct of the Immediate Response Team on the night of the shooting and the violent behaviour of Rolfe more generally as well as the failure of the police and prosecutors to punish his violence.
Kumanjayi Walker’s family have expressed their ongoing suffering and fear from the shooting. They have called for action to follow the inquest, including a ban on police guns in Aboriginal communities.
The opening statement of the inquest from Warlpiri man Ned Jampajimpa Hargraves – a strong advocate in the “Justice for Walker” campaign – spoke about the sense of danger that kardiya (white people), including police, had brought to his community. His final words to the coroner were
Your Honour, one last thing, there should be not – there should be no guns in the remote communities. There should be no guns, period, no guns.
What can an inquest find and what happens with its findings?
The coroner is likely to make a wide range of findings and recommendations in relation to NT police practises, policies, training and accountability. There may also be findings on Rolfe’s conduct and recommendations for NT police to take appropriate action.
Findings could also extend to whether there is racism embedded in the NT Police, in the conduct and attitudes of Rolfe, in Northern Territory and federal laws, and in government practises at Yuendumu. Whether anything changes is a matter for the agents implicated in the death in custody itself: the NT Police as well as the NT and federal governments.
Recommendations relating to other Aboriginal deaths in custody in the NT, such as requests to repeal certain police powers, have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, families have had to carry the burden of rallying for change. The consequence of agencies and governments failing to heed coronial recommendations is that First Nations deaths in custody tragically continue to occur.
Thalia Anthony receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
It’s pretty normal to walk through a university campus and see students sitting together, yet ignoring each other for their smartphones – but not in Spain. I’m currently visiting the University of Navarra, where each time I pass the open space outside the Institute for Culture and Society, I see the vast majority of students talking to each other without their phones in hand.
As Inés Olza, a linguist from the institute, explains:
In Spain people like to talk. For them, a conversation is a cooperative process; silence makes them uncomfortable.
This is great news for these students, because ignoring people in favour of a phone – an act known as “phubbing”, or phone snubbing – has dire consequences.
Earlier this month I published a book called The Psychology of Phubbing. In it, I build on my previous research into phubbing, and synthesise findings from 170 other studies – mostly on the effects of phubbing in important relationships such as with partners, supervisors, friends and family members.
Thr research reveals just how serious phubbing can be.
It’s nice to see students at the University of Navarra gathering and talking without their phones in the way.
Phubbing trends
People phub in all situations: while commuting, at cafes, while waiting for the bus, during work meetings, in restaurants, at the dinner table, and in bed. They mostly phub others to browse the web, check their bank app, use Google maps and, of course, to check social media.
People are also more likely to phub those closest to them. For instance, study participants phubbed their partners the most, followed by their closest friends, siblings, children and parents. Younger people phubbed more than older people, but there was no noticeable difference between how often males and females phubbed.
Here’s what the consequences were of phubbing one’s children, partners, staff, friends and family members.
Children
When parents phubbed their children, this sent the message their parents weren’t interested in them. The lack of acceptance felt by the children made them feel rejected and socially disconnected. This was associated with lower life satisfaction, and increased anxiety and depression.
Phubbed children were more likely to become addicted to their smartphones, and displayed hostile behaviour online, such as by cyberbullying their peers. Some even experienced academic burnout.
Partners
In partnerships, phubbing led to increased conflict related to smartphone use. It often made the phubbed partner feel excluded, which resulted in less intimacy, reduced satisfaction with the relationship and in turn led to reduced life satisfaction.
In some cases phubbed partners felt jealous because they were worried their partner may be pursuing someone else romantically. This intensified their anxiety and depression and lowered their wellbeing.
Phubbed partners would also spend excessive amounts of time on social media, possibly to regain some of the attention lost at the hands of their partner’s smartphone habit.
Phubbing made employees feel socially excluded, lowered their motivation and even threatened their self-esteem. To retaliate, employees resorted to misusing the internet at work.
What’s worse is that being phubbed by a boss led to employees phubbing their other colleagues.
Family and friends
Being phubbed by a family member violated the phubbed person’s expectations and made them feel like they don’t matter to the phubber. This weakened their connection to the phubber, lowered their life satisfaction, and increased their loneliness and depression.
In a similar vein, phubbed friends felt socially disconnected. This lowered their friendship satisfaction and life satisfaction and – once more – increased their anxiety and depression. Phubbed friends were also driven to seeking attention on social media.
People who get phubbed by their friends are more likely to go to social media for attention. Shutterstock
How to reduce phubbing
If there’s someone in your life who phubs you, you should try to calmly bring it up. This might be as simple as saying “Hey, can I please have your attention?”
But this may only stop the act once. If it keeps happening – which will be more likely if the phubber is addicted to their phone and/or social media – you’ll need to have a more considered conversation.
Explain how being phubbed affects you and why it needs to stop. It can also help to set ground rules around phone use when you’re together. For instance, parents can establish rules around using phones while eating dinner, and partners can decide to put their phones away before going to bed.
If you’re concerned you may be a phubber, think long and hard about how you use your phone around others. If you catch yourself phubbing, stop and make a commitment to avoid it in the future.
If you’re with someone and absolutely must phub them, do this as considerately as possible. You could say “Sorry, I have to quickly check this/send this text”, or “This is urgent”. And try to keep it short. These small acts can go a long way in reducing the effect of phubbing on the phubbed person.
If your phubbing is out of control, you may have a problematic dependency on your smartphone and/or social media – or maybe a boss who expects you to work at all hours.
Researchers don’t really know the effects of phubbing on family members other than partners and children. My colleagues and I are conducting a study on the impact on parents who are phubbed by their children. If this applies to you, you can help us find out more.
We’re also investigating the consequences of young people being phubbed by their friends. If you’re between 18 and 24, consider participating in our study.
We’ve all done it – you’re walking around going about your business and suddenly you’re thinking about that time in high school you said something really stupid you would never say now.
Or that time a few years ago when you made a social gaffe.
You cringe and just want to die of shame.
Why do these negative memories seem to just pop into our heads? And why do we feel so embarrassed still, when the occasion is long past?
How do memories come into our awareness?
The current thinking is there are two ways in which we recall experiences from our past. One way is purposeful and voluntary. For example, if you try to remember what you did at work yesterday, or what you had for lunch last Saturday. This involves a deliberate and effortful process during which we search for the memory in our minds.
The second way is unintended and spontaneous. These are memories that just seem to “pop” into our minds and can even be unwanted or intrusive. So, where does this second type of memory come from?
Part of the answer lays in how memories are connected to each other. The current understanding is our past experiences are represented in connected networks of cells that reside in our brain, called neurons.
These neurons grow physical connections with each other through the overlapping information in these representations. For example, memories might share a type of context (different beaches you’ve been to, restaurants you’ve eaten at), occur at similar periods of life (childhood, high school years), or have emotional and thematic overlap (times we have loved or argued with others).
Memories can be triggered by internal stimuli (thoughts, feelings) or external stimuli (something we see, hear, smell). Yeh Xintong/Unsplash, CC BY
An initial activation of a memory could be triggered by an external stimuli from the environment (sights, sounds, tastes, smells) or internal stimuli (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations). Once neurons containing these memories are activated, associated memories are then more likely to be recalled into conscious awareness.
An example might be walking past a bakery, smelling fresh bread, and having a spontaneous thought of last weekend when you cooked a meal for a friend. This might then lead to a memory of when toast was burned and there was smoke in the house. Not all activation will lead to a conscious memory, and at times the associations between memories might not be entirely clear to us.
Humans are more motivated to avoid bad outcomes, bad situations, and bad definitions of ourselves than to seek out good ones. This is likely due to the pressing need for survival in the world: physically, mentally, and socially.
So involuntary memories can make us feel acutely sad, anxious, and even ashamed of ourselves. For example, a memory involving embarrassment or shame might indicate to us we have done something others might find to be distasteful or negative, or in some way we have violated social norms.
These emotions are important for us to feel, and we learn from our memories and these emotional responses to manage future situations differently.
This is all well and good, and mostly we’re able to remember our past and experience the emotions without too much distress. But it may happen for some people more than others, and with stronger emotions attached.
One clue as to why comes from research on mood-congruent memory. This is the tendency to be more likely to recall memories which are consistent with our current mood.
So, if you’re feeling sad, well, you’re more likely to recall memories related to disappointments, loss or shame. Feeling anxious or bad about yourself? You’re more likely to recall times when you felt scared or unsure.
In some mental health disorders, such as major depression, people more often recall memories that evoke negative feelings, the negative feelings are relatively stronger, and these feelings of shame or sadness are perceived as facts about themselves. That is, feelings become facts.
Ruminating is often unhelpful. pexels/olia danilevich, CC BY
Another thing that is more likely in some mental health disorders is rumination. When we ruminate, we repetitively think about negative past experiences and how we feel or felt about them.
On the surface, the function of rumination is to try and “work out” what happened and learn something or problem-solve so these experiences do not happen again. While this is good idea in theory, when we ruminate we become stuck in the past and re-experience negative emotions without much benefit.
Not only that, but it means those memories in our neural networks become more strongly connected with other information, and are even more likely to then be recalled involuntarily.
Can we stop the negative feelings?
The good news is memories are very adaptable. When we recall a memory we can elaborate on it and change our thoughts, feelings, and appraisals of past experiences.
In a process referred to as “reconsolidation”, changes can be made so the next time that memory is recalled it is different to what it once was and has a changed emotional tone.
For example, we might remember a time when we felt anxious about a test or a job interview that didn’t go so well and feel sad or ashamed. Reflecting, elaborating and reframing that memory might involve remembering some aspects of it that did go well, integrating it with the idea that you stepped up to a challenge even though it was hard, and reminding yourself it’s okay to feel anxious or disappointed about difficult things and it does not make us a failure or a bad person.
Through this process of rewriting experiences in a way that is reasonable and self-compassionate, their prominence in our life and self-concept can be reduced, and our well-being can improve.
As for rumination, one evidenced-based strategy is to recognise when it is happening and try to shift attention onto something absorbing and sensorial (for example doing something with your hands or focusing on sights or sounds). This attention shifting can short circuit rumination and get you doing something more valued.
Overall, remember that even though our brain will give us little reminders of our experiences, we don’t have to be stuck in the past.
David is a current board member of the Australian Clinical Psychology Association (ACPA)
In retrospect, last year’s climate talks in Glasgow look like a dream. International cooperation on methane emissions and deforestation. Acknowledgement of the urgency of the task. The world beginning to rise to the challenge, as it did to the pandemic.
A lot has changed in a year. This week’s COP27 climate conference in Egypt comes amid war and disaster. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw fossil fuel prices spike and old coal plants temporarily reopen, while renewed tensions between the United States and China have cast a shadow over climate cooperation between the world’s top two carbon emitters.
You might think nations could put their tensions aside when it comes to climate change, which puts all of us – and our children – at risk. But so far, the signs are not great. At Glasgow, all 193 nations involved agreed to increase the ambition of their climate pledges. But on the eve of COP27, just over two dozen had actually done so.
While territorial tensions risk taking our focus away from the existential threat of climate change, there are positive signs such as a new rush to green energy on security grounds.
What’s the link between geopolitics and climate action?
Politics and war tend to be separated in media coverage from climate change and environmental disasters. But they’re closely connected.
Military conflict – actual or threatened – strains diplomatic relationships. This makes collective action on any issue more difficult – even an existential threat like climate change. In August, the G20 climate talks in Bali failed to produce a joint statement, largely due to Russia’s controversial presence amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. That same month, China suspended bilateral climate talks with Washington after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a breakaway province.
Geopolitical tensions also draw our leaders’ attention away from climate change. Leaders instead focus on immediate issues such as inflation, economic instability or energy security. Russia’s invasion sparked a global energy crisis and caused grave energy security concerns in many countries, including Australia.
What’s happening right now?
From the outside, it might look bleak. Many European countries appear to have watered down their climate ambitions to tackle the immediate energy crisis over the northern winter. In June, some moved to reactivate old coal plants to shore up energy security and avoid Russian gas. In July, the European Parliament voted to reclassify natural gas and nuclear energy as green investments, which could trigger a private investment wave. European countries have moved to boost non-Russian supplies of oil and gas from African and Middle Eastern suppliers, and scrambled to build new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.
The energy crisis is less intense in the US, which has domestic supplies of gas and oil from fracking. Even so, the crisis could be used by some Republicans to push for “enhanced energy independence” – essentially, more oil and gas.
In China, election cycles are obviously not a concern. While President Xi Jinping has a strong personal commitment to environmental protection and green development, his authoritarian tendencies cast a shadow over China’s climate actions in the longer term. Authoritarian regimes are by their nature centralised. That means major policies could reverse abruptly if Xi’s priorities change – or if another leader takes over.
You can see the impact of international tensions and domestic consequences by who’s missing from the COP27 guest list. Leaders from many high-emitting nations are skipping the conference altogether, including China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and India’s Narendra Modi.
The case for optimism: look to the new momentum
It’s not an auspicious start for the conference billed as the moment when talk turns into actions.
But it is by no means all doom and gloom. Pro-coal leaders in Brazil and Australia have been voted out this year, with climate change and environmental concerns key factors for voters. The intensifying droughts and floods we’ve seen this year tends to boost votes for “green” political parties.
And geopolitical tensions are leading to accelerated investment and commitment to renewables. The International Energy Agency notes “energy security concerns reinforce the rise of low-emissions sources and efficiency”.
For the US, competition with China is accelerating the clean energy transition. The Biden administration this year approved A$570 billion of investment for emissions reduction and clean technology. Internally, renewables are regarded as vital in America’s intensifying rivalry with China. Perhaps we don’t always need cooperation – the emerging US-China clean energy race will benefit us all.
China is pressing ahead with major clean energy plans. Shutterstock
For its part, China is powering ahead on renewables, taking advantage of its manufacturing prowess. Last year, it spent A$411 billion on low-carbon energy, up 60% from 2020. That’s more than a third of the global total. And China’s solar cell factories are preparing to pump out truly enormous quantities in the next few years.
China is usually pragmatic about climate, seeing clean energy as a way to develop internationally competitive industries, and to build energy security through manufacturing renewables and contribute to its goal of “national rejuvenation”. It will push on with the clean energy transition regardless of the outcomes of climate summits. This year’s unprecedented drought and heatwaves in China’s south will make climate front of mind for party leaders.
Other developed countries are finally stumping up to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to new climatic conditions. Denmark has offered to pay A$20 million to developing nations damaged by climate change. That’s the first offer of this kind by a developed country.
Climate talks never occur in a vacuum. While this year’s talks are particularly fraught, we can rise to the challenges. Uncertainty is everywhere – but that doesn’t have to mean climate disaster. These overlapping tensions and crises could speed up the shift away from fossil fuels.
Hao Tan receives funding from the Australia Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project 2019-2022. He previously received funding from the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and funding from the Confucius Institute Headquarters under the “Understanding China Fellowship” in 2017.
Alexander M. Hynd is Non-resident James A. Kelly Korea Fellow at Pacific Forum, and a research associate at UNSW’s Korea Research Initiatives.
Elizabeth Thurbon receives funding from the Australian Research Council, The Australian Department of Defence, and The Academy of Korean Studies. She has previously received funding from the Korea Foundation, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and The Asia Society. She sits on the Research Board of the Jubilee Australia Research Centre.
More and more of the world’s people are feeling the impacts of climate change. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said when COP27 opened this week: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”
Much of the weight on the accelerator is coming from the construction and building sector. Accounting for 37% of global carbon dioxide emissions, the built environment is a major part of the climate change problem. That also means it can and must be a key part of the solution.
The sector’s energy consumption and emissions have rebounded from the COVID pandemic to an all-time high. Emissions are 2% higher than the previous peak in 2019.
The report says the reasons include revival of construction activity suppressed during lockdowns, and more intensive use of existing buildings.
In 2021, buildings accounted for more than 34% of the world’s total energy demand. This figure includes embodied energy that goes into construction materials and processes, and operational energy that goes into running buildings. The sector produced about 37% of CO₂ emissions.
The gap between the sector’s performance and what needs to be done to achieve decarbonisation by 2050 is widening – despite a 16% increase in investments in building energy efficiency from 2020 to 2021.
How do we measure progress?
The Paris Agreement seeks to avoid catastrophic climate change by limiting global warming to 1.5℃ and no more than 2℃. The Human Settlements Pathway of the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action identifies two objectives which are building momentum across the sector:
by 2030, halve built environment emissions, with 100% of new buildings to be net-zero carbon in operation
by 2050, all new and existing built assets must be net zero across their whole life cycle, including both embodied and operational emissions.
nationally determined contributions to include building sector action
building codes and regulations.
So why is the sector going backwards?
At first glance, the report offers some good news when comparing the 2021 trends to the 2015 baseline data. However, the overriding change is gross floor area, which has increased by 11% – 24 billion square metres – since 2015. This growth in construction, which is predicted to continue beyond 2050, is outweighing progress in other areas.
In addition, energy intensity has stagnated, falling by only 0.7%. Three-quarters of countries still do not have mandatory energy-efficiency standards for all building types. While an increasing number mention buildings in their nationally determined contributions, many still don’t have detailed plans for achieving net-zero emissions from the sector by 2050.
Global buildings and construction trends, 2015 and 2021
What does this mean for efforts to limit climate change?
Overall, the report shows we have made less than half the progress we should have made on decarbonising the sector at this stage.
The gap has increased this year, meaning the situation is getting worse, not better. Urgent action is needed to get the sector back on track to zero net emissions by 2050.
Building sector performance compared to pathway to zero carbon by 2050
The report highlights the need to consider whole lifecycle approaches to emissions. That means taking into account emissions from the manufacture of materials and construction activity, through to the operation of buildings and then end-of-life demolition and waste.
For example, research in 2020 found total lifecycle emissions from the new homes required for Australia’s growing population greatly exceeded our emissions targets. Federal government projections potentially underestimated emissions by 96%.
Priorities in Australia are to urgently update our building regulations; shift business models and investment to prioritise net-zero buildings and construction; and secure the electricity grid’s transition to renewable energy generation.
While the 2022 National Construction Code update increased energy-efficiency standards, further changes are needed to meet 2050 goals. Revisions to the code are notoriously slow, but the need for more action is urgent.
Australia is also yet to consider embodied carbon emissions in the construction, refurbishment and retrofitting of buildings, or the ongoing embodied emissions due to tenancy changes or home improvements.
We have seen improvements as a result of the Commercial Building Disclosure Program requiring commercial buildings to display their environmental rating under the NABERS standards. While no minimum requirements have yet been set, this program has helped to cut operational emissions.
However, unlike Europe, the NABERS rating generally only measures the base building operational emissions (as required under the Commercial Building Disclosure Program). It’s missing a big piece of the puzzle, tenancy emissions.
Despite the level of construction activity, most of the building stock has already been built and will not be replaced for decades. This means a retrofit program is needed.
It’s a huge challenge. For example, the City of Melbourne’s target of zero-carbon buildings by 2040 requires about 77 buildings to be retrofitted every year.
The good news is we already have the capacity and know-how we need to steer our buildings sector onto a net-zero trajectory and off the highway to climate hell.
Anna Hurlimann receives funding from the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Grant Program for Project DP200101378 – ‘Integrating Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Built Environments’. Anna is a Member of the Planning Institute of Australia and Planners for Climate Action (UN-HABITAT).
Georgia Warren-Myers receives funding from Australian Research Council, the Australian Property Research and Education Fund and New South Wales government. She is a Certified Practising Valuer with the Australian Property Institute, and is affiliated with Australian Property Institute National Standards Steering Committee, the International Valuation Standards ESG Working Group, the Green Building Council of Australia Homes Advisory Panel, Investor Group on Climate Change, Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council, and Victorian government – Residential Efficiency Scorecard Program Advisory Group.
Judy Bush receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Discovery project Integrating Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Built Environments (DP200101378). She is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia
This year’s landmark decision of the US Supreme Court to overturn the constitutional right to abortion established by the Roe versus Wade judgement in 1973 leaves Australian women better off than those in the United States.
Abortion has been decriminalised in every Australian state and territory, and following amendments to the Fair Work Act last year, eligible women are entitled to two days of paid compassionate leave for miscarriages.
But the Act defines miscarriage very narrowly as the “spontaneous” loss of an embryo or foetus – a definition that suggests other terminations will be excluded on the ground they are “non-spontaneous”.
Distinguishing between “spontaneous” and “non-spontaneous” pregnancy loss makes some types of loss look more worthy of support than others.
Labor says it wants to put gender equity at the heart of the Fair Work Act. This gap in the Act deals with a sensitive topic, but remaining silent on it will disadvantage some workers, perhaps as many as one quarter of Australian women.
‘Non-spontaneous’ as worthy as spontaneous
Ending a pregnancy for personal or socio-economic reasons rather than because of an act of nature or a medical necessity does not make the physical and emotional toll any less.
Ignoring or minimising the grief, trauma and stigma that comes with an abortion threatens not only to undermine the reproductive rights of Australians but also to entrench gender inequality in the workplace.
It was the same in New Zealand when it introduced paid bereavement leave for miscarriage several months before Australia in March last year.
New Zealand National Party member of parliament Erica Stanford said that while she supported the bill, the grief and anguish and trauma experienced during an abortion and the fact that it was not recognised in the bill made her feel “uncomfortable – personally uncomfortable”.
A growing number of Australian companies and the NSW government are also introducing paid leave for pregnancy loss, but it appears to be similarly limited.
The Australian Council of Trades Unions and the Health and Community Services Union are campaigning for a broader reproductive health and wellbeing leave that encompasses abortions as well as conditions including menstrual pain, perimenopause and menopause, endometriosis, infertility treatments, vasectomy, hysterectomy and gender transition.
Portland, Oregon shows the way
Perhaps surprisingly, there’s a model for how to make it work in the United States.
Prior to the overturning of Roe versus Wade, the city of Portland, Oregon made headlines in 2021 for being the first in the country to introduce paid bereavement leave for public sector employees for miscarriage, stillbirth and other types of pregnancy loss, including abortion.
The move was praised by reproductive health policy experts for its capacity to destigmatise abortion and recognise the important role employers have to play in caring for their workers.
Australia has the potential to be the next world leader in gender work policy, building on our initial success in recognising pregnancy loss.
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.
They say marriage teaches patience and understanding, but might it also be good for business ethics?
Apparently, yes. As our recent study found, a chief executive’s home life can be a good indicator of whether or not they’ll engage in opportunistic insider trading. Married CEOs seem to take fewer risks with their investment decisions and are less likely to bend the rules than their unmarried counterparts.
Insider trading can be legal or illegal, depending on whether the trades are based on public or non-public company information. But profiting from insider trading can invite serious litigation if outside investors suspect executives have taken advantage of inside knowledge.
Understandably, then, there is a lot of interest in how executives’ personal characteristics and experiences might affect their management style.
Earlier research has documented how the marital status of CEOs relates to various aspects of their jobs, such as encouraging corporate social responsibility, the quality of financial reporting, and portfolio investment strategies.
However, these activities and outcomes may not be entirely driven by CEO decisions alone. In our study, we focused on identifying CEOs’ trading activity in their own companies’ shares.
Corporate executives can invest a significant proportion of their personal wealth in their companies, and may be remunerated in company stocks on top of their own salaries.
Although CEO stock ownership has decreased over time in the US, on average, CEOs still hold 12% of company shares. This means managers sometimes have to trade stocks in their own firms, for a variety of reasons.
But despite regulations designed to discourage insider trading, it is still hard for regulators and other investors to interpret those reasons: are the trades motivated by a legitimate need for liquidity or diversification, or are they informed by non-public information about the stock?
At the same time, the legal ambiguity and uncertainty about what constitutes an illegal trade also affects the decisions of would-be insider traders. Even when insider trading is technically legal, it still carries a threat of litigation from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange: trading on inside information disadvantages other investors. Getty Images
Marriage and insider trading
Our study provides new insights into whether the marital status of a CEO has any bearing on their behaviour when trading company stock.
Looking at the trading behaviour of 1,100 heads of publicly listed companies in the US between 1996 and 2019, we found marital status seemed to have a significant influence on insider trading patterns. Overall, we found that:
married CEOs earned significantly lower insider trading profits than their unmarried counterparts
married CEOs were less likely to engage in opportunistic trades (as opposed to routine trades) than unmarried CEOs
unmarried CEOs earned higher insider trading profit when they worked for firms with poorer corporate governance mechanisms or information quality.
One possible explanation for this is that married CEOs are simply more likely to avoid insider trading because they don’t want to risk their jobs and let down their families by being prosecuted.
In other words, our findings suggest a CEO’s commitment to married life correlates with a lower appetite for risk.
Insider trading can clearly be a path to increased personal wealth for CEOs because they can convert their equity shares into cash.
Research shows insider traders can earn, on average, a 10% higher return compared to an average investor in a stock market index.
CEOs who use inside information for personal gain obviously create an uneven playing field that disadvantages other investors and stakeholders. So it’s useful to be able to identify characteristics that might predict an increased propensity for opportunistic behaviour.
If married CEOs display less opportunistic behaviour than unmarried CEOs, it suggests the social institution of marriage plays a positive – if under-examined – role in regulating trading behaviour at both an individual and corporate level.
While our study suggests a causal connection between CEO marital status and insider trading, it is not the sole indicator of likely behaviour.
Marriage merely helps determine an executive’s potential appetite for taking risks. In this context, it can be viewed as one of the traits (similar to education level or personality type) that correlates to such behaviours.
Our findings should not be interpreted as a prescription for corporate hiring policies. Risk-taking behaviour can also fuel innovation, drive momentum and help enhance company performance.
However, our study does provide evidence that marital and family commitment can be a good indicator of a CEO’s risk preferences – specifically as it applies to opportunistic insider trading and the subsequent risk of litigation.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stefan Volk, Associate Professor and Co-Director Body, Heart and Mind in Business Research Group, University of Sydney
Shutterstock
Are you a morning or evening person? Studies show we have strong differences in when we feel most creative and do our best work during the day.
These differences go far deeper than just personal preference. Whether you like to get up early or go to bed late, and whether you are more productive in the morning or later during the day, is a biological predisposition. This predisposition is related to the setting of your internal body clock, a group of nerve cells in the brain which help to synchronise your bodily functions with the 24-hour rotations of our planet.
Research suggests genetic effects account for about half of the variability between individuals. That is, if your parents are “larks” (morning types) or “owls” (evening types), there’s about a 50% chance you’ll be the same. Environmental factors and age explain the rest.
Yet most workplaces take a cookie-cutter approach to time, forcing us to work standardised hours. There are obvious organisational advantages to this, but the disadvantage is that you (and your colleagues) may not be working at your most productive times.
In the past few years we’ve seen a revolution in where we work. The enforced experiment of remote working during the pandemic has done much to overcome decades of managerial resistance to greater flexibility. Is it now time for a revolution in when we work?
If done well, my research suggests, it could lead be the next big gain in productivity – but only if the downsides are acknowledged and the competing needs balanced.
Variations in chronotypes
Differences in the human body clock are often referred to as chronotypes.
Chronotypes exist on a morningness-eveningness continuum, but individuals are often broadly classified based on the timing of their daily performance peaks as either morning types, evening types, or intermediate types.
Most kids are morning types. Most teenagers are evening types. In the working-age population about 20% can be categorised as either morning or evening types while 60% are intermediate types.
Women are slightly more likely to prefer earlier hours than men up until menopause, when differences disappear. People who live further from the Equator are more likely to be evening types.
Women are more likely to prefer earlier hours to men up until menopause, when sex differences in chronotypes disappear. Shutterstock
Chronotypes determine when during the day we feel energised and prefer to be active and perform demanding work. They also determine when we feel tired and prefer to work on less demanding tasks or to rest. So they play an important role in determining how productive you are during the day.
If you’re a lark, you may be missing your best hours working 9am to 5pm. If you’re an owl you may be knocking off when you’re at your most alert.
The pros and cons of time flexibility
Could greater work-time flexibility be the next big key to unlock greater well-being and productivity? My research suggests yes, but only by acknowledging that increased work-time flexibility can also lead to negative consequences.
The downside – particularly if time flexibility is combined with remote working – is less interaction with coworkers, leading to greater isolation and less creativity and innovation.
The benefits of “serendipity” – unplanned hallway and cafeteria discussions – are well established. The less time we spend with coworkers, the less likely we are to connect, make friendships and develop team spirit.
But these problems are no more insurmountable than the objections that remote work.
There are comparatively easy ways to mitigate unintended side-effects through designing work-time arrangements that balance individual and organisational interests.
The key is for organisations to segment work time into four parts.
Fixed on-site working hours: during these times employees are expected to attend office and be available for in-person meetings, collaborative work and social gatherings. There is no hard-and-fast rule on how many days this should be, but surveys suggests employers generally want at least three days, while workers want less.
Fixed flexible-location working hours: during these hours all employees can work remotely if they want, but work a set number of standard work hours – say 10am to 3pm. These hours will depend on the needs of the organisation and the degree of teamwork required.
Flexible working hours: beyond fixed working hours, workers can choose when to work to make up their full hours.
Lockout hours: it is important to prevent excessive, potentially self-harming behaviour by setting limits through “lockout hours” – 7pm to 7am, for example – during which employees are strongly discouraged from working unless absolutely necessary.
Increased work flexibility is one of the few positive outcomes of the pandemic. But revolutions are rarely smooth. We have to be conscious of the potential pitfalls to avoid them.
Through careful attention to unintended consequences, and developing new work structures, there’s no reason to think we can’t have more flexibility over where and when we work.
Stefan Volk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
Mariam Zuhaib/AP/AAP
The US midterm elections occurred Tuesday, with polls closing from late Wednesday morning AEDT. There are many results still outstanding, but Democrats have gained Pennsylvania in the Senate, and appear likely to hold Arizona, while Republicans will probably hold Wisconsin.
In Nevada, with all election day and early votes counted, Republican Adam Laxalt leads in the Senate by 49.9-47.2. Democrats will hope late mail will overturn Laxalt’s current lead.
The Senate contest in Georgia is likely headed to a runoff on December 6, with neither Democrat Raphael Warnock nor his Republican opponent Herschel Walker able to obtain the 50% needed to avoid a runoff owing to the presence of a Libertarian candidate who won 2.0%.
If current results hold up, Democrats would hold 49 Senate seats (including two independents who caucus with Democrats), Republicans 49 and there would be a runoff in Georgia, with Nevada in doubt. Current called results according to CNN are 48 Democrats and 48 Republicans with four undecided.
If Democrats win both Nevada and Arizona, they will control the Senate regardless of the result in Georgia through Vice President Kamala Harris’ casting vote. The final FiveThirtyEight forecast had given Republicans a 59% chance to win the Senate, so this outcome was better than expected for Democrats.
35 of the 100 Senate seats were up for election at these elections, with Republicans holding 21 and Democrats 14. In the House of Representatives, all 435 seats were up for election, and it takes 218 seats to win a majority.
CNN’s current projections have Republicans winning 198 House seats and Democrats 178. Republicans have gained nine seats from Democrats, but have lost three, so the net gain is six to Republicans. Democrats won the House by 222-213 at the 2020 election, so a six-seat gain would be barely enough for Republicans to secure a 219-216 House majority.
However, a narrow Republican House majority would fall well short of expectations of sweeping gains. And Democrats remain a realistic chance to hold the House. The final FiveThirtyEight forecast had given Republicans an 84% chance to win the House.
With President Joe Biden’s net approval at about -10 and high inflation, Republicans should have performed much better. Since 2006, every midterm election has seen the non-presidential party easily win control of the House.
Republicans’ underperformance could be because voters thought they were too wedded to former President Donald Trump, who is still very much in the news. Trump’s ratings in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate are currently 54.3% unfavourable, 39.9% favourable (net -14.4).
And there was also the abortion issue after the US Supreme Court’s decision in late June to strike out the constitutional right to an abortion.
Overall, the results were better than expected for Democrats, but there was one state with a massive Republican wave.
Florida used to be considered a swing state, and voted for Barack Obama at the 2012 presidential election. But at this election, Republican Marco Rubio was re-elected senator by over 16 points and Republican Ron DeSantis, who is seen as a possible 2024 presidential candidate, won by more than 19 points. Republicans also gained three House seats.
While today’s results are better than expected for Democrats, they face a very difficult Senate election in 2024, when they will be defending 23 of the 33 seats up and Republicans just ten. Democrats will be defending seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana, which Trump won easily in both 2016 and 2020.
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.
Democrat John Fetterman won the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania over high-profile Republican Mehmet Oz.Gene J. Puskar/AP/AAP
On average, the US president’s political party loses 28 seats in the House of Representatives and four Senate seats in their first midterm elections. While votes continue to be tallied, early results indicate that President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party has, at the very least, done far better than average.
Unlike Bill Clinton’s first midterm in 1994, or Barack Obama’s first in 2010, early results make clear that these midterm elections were by no means a “shellacking” for Biden’s Democratic Party. This is an all the more remarkable outcome in light of levels of inflation and interest rates that have not been seen in decades. Biden now faces the prospect of a slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and a Senate that may even retain Democratic control.
Some may see such a minor change in the electoral makeup as an indication that perhaps Americans aren’t really sure what they want. That would be a mistake.
The nationalisation of political – not policy – battles
“All politics is local” is a refrain in politics around the world. Even without all the results in, the 2022 midterms further underline that in the contemporary United States, local politics are ever more nationalised, while political debates are ever less policy-driven.
While Biden secured historic legislation on infrastructure, climate change and scientific research, Democrats have pleaded for him to be more of a fighter. It’s not clear that Americans care as much about a politician’s policies as they do about a politician’s political battles.
One need only to look at the candidacy of Herschel Walker in Georgia to see such dynamics at play. While he benefits from national name recognition thanks to his collegiate and professional football career, he was dogged by extensive personal controversies and a relatively unknown policy platform.
Nonetheless, nearly half of Georgia voters embraced Walker – not as much for his policy agenda but, in the eyes of some conservatives, because he was a “means to an end”. And in this instance, that end was Republican control of the US Senate.
The response to Herschel Walker’s Senate bid in Georgia is an example of political battles trumping policy debates in the midterms. Brynn Anderson/AP/AAP
One of these things is not like the other
The Speaker of the House is not only the second in line to the presidency. The speaker also decides what legislation gets voted on by the 435 members of the House of Representatives, which members occupy which committees, and even the accounting of the House. The transition to a prioritisation of politics over policy is also apparent in the last three Republican Speakers of the House.
John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, became Speaker of the House in the 2010 midterm elections – the last time a first-term Democratic president lost control of the House. Boehner came to the role with years of experience as chair of the House Republican Conference as well as the House Education Committee.
It was on the latter that he and the late Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts famously authored the “No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001, which implemented wide-reaching national education reforms during the Bush administration.
Paul Ryan, who became Speaker of the House after Boehner’s retirement in 2015, got the gavel after years as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Seen across party lines as a policy wonk with a fondness for detailed debates about entitlement reforms, Ryan would end up securing the signature piece of legislation for Donald Trump’s term of office: the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
The presumptive new Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, comes to the role with no committee membership or signature legislative accomplishments, particularly of any bipartisan variety. Perhaps the most significant accomplishment of McCarthy’s political career so far is the way he has successfully navigated the whims of Trump – the de facto party leader and presumptive 2024 presidential candidate.
Debates about the size and scope of government on issues like education and taxes no longer dominate the US political discourse. Instead, political debates – at all levels of US society – are increasingly about politics themselves.
What about the 2024 presidential race?
The ultimate political question of the midterm elections has little to do with 2022 but instead 2024. In an effort to clear the field of any other Republican presidential contenders, Trump is expected to announce he is running for president in 2024 as early as next week. His announcement is, however, unlikely to dampen the presidential aspirations of one of the midterm election’s big winners: Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis.
Donald Trump has indicated he will again run for president in 2024. Andrew Harnik/AP/AAP
DeSantis’ nearly 20-point victory over former Florida governor Charlie Crist only increased a sizeable national profile for a politician already beating Trump in some polls of Republican voters.
DeSantis’ resounding win was all the more remarkable given his increased win margin over what Trump won in 2020, as well as what DeSantis won in 2018. In Miami-Dade county, for example, DeSantis improved on his 2018 election win by 16 points.
Unsurprisingly, Trump recently decided to make public long-simmering tensions between the two Florida residents, calling the governor “DeSanctimonious” while indicating he could publicly disclose unsavoury information about DeSantis.
We are a long way away from knowing the 2024 presidential candidates. After all, Trump took the escalator to announce his candidacy for president in June 2015 – more than half a year after the 2014 midterm elections.
Yet with nearly 200 politicians who questioned the 2020 election winning their midterm races, and ever higher numbers of Americans concerned about their democracy, we already know for sure the 2024 race will be more eventful than average.
Jared Mondschein 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.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Image; RNZ.
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Image; RNZ.
Political Roundup: Will the Govt act on mega bank profits and reform the banking sector?
Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards.
The corporate retail banks are making mega profits on the back of Government policies and indirect subsidies of recent years. As a result, there are calls from across almost the whole political spectrum for greater regulation of the banking sector, including windfall taxes. But will outrage turn into action?
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led the charge against the banks this week, warning the likes of ANZ – which announced recently that its profits were up 20 per cent to a record $2.3b – that they are at risk of losing their “social license” to operate here. The Prime Minister sounded tough, but she was also quick to admit that she has no intention of taking any action or changing the rules. The Finance Minister Grant Robertson was also fast to rule out any reforms or further investigations.
Critics have said that Ardern’s plea for the banks to have “self-reflection” is wishful thinking in the extreme. The Green Party’s finance spokesperson Julie Ann Genter put forward this analogy: “Expecting banks… to put people ahead of profit would be a bit like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.”
National, too, is pressuring the Government to act, with spokesperson Nicola Willis saying a full investigation needs to be launched into the banking sector, including whether government monetary policy had contributed to the mega profits.
Why won’t the Government act?
Claire Matthews, a banking expert at Massey University, has accused Ardern of grandstanding on the issue, suggesting that if Labour really thought the mega profits were a problem, they would be doing something about it. She suggests today that Ardern is just being an opportunist populist and electioneering: “People like to hate the banks so it’s quite an easy win for the Government.”
Looking at the lack of substance from Ardern on banking, one leftwing blogger wrote yesterday on Labour’s banking policy: “this is why Labour deserves to end up in opposition after the next election: they’re all noise and no policy. They’re offering us literally nothing, just the same tired, unjust status quo.”
Sam Stubbs, Chief Executive of KiwiSaver provider Simplicity, is reported today as saying: “The PM talks about the social license to operate. There seems to be quite a bit of hui but not much doey from the Government on bank reform.”
Stubbs is rather scathing about the dissonance between Ardern’s bank-bashing and her own governance of the banking sector: “These are nice sound bites but so far what the Government has done is slap the banking industry with a wet bus ticket all through the pre-Covid profit period when it was huge, all through the Australian banking inquiry. They then provided them with a massive amount of free money during Covid.”
The Government has handed the banks the mega profits
Stubbs’ critique of government subsidies of the banks is important. He says: “They have received a tremendous amount of tax-payer-funded support. How do they reward us? By making record profits when everyone else is doing it hard.”
Business journalist Bernard Hickey also argues that the big banks have essentially been subsidised by the taxpayer in recent years. Today he writes that “The big four banks got massive help to grow their lending & profits from the Govt in 2020, 2021 & 2022. They get their licenses to print money from the public.” He argues that mega bank profits have been made because of the Government’s “$55b of money printing, abandonment of LVR controls and $16.4b of subsidised lending by the Reserve Bank to banks through the Funding for Lending scheme”.
Hickey also explains that the banks have benefitted from a government guarantee of their sector: “the banks benefit from an implied and unfunded Government guarantee to protect them, especially now the Government is building a deposit guarantee scheme and especially after the Government’s actions during the Global Financial Crisis, when the Government created retail and wholesale deposit guarantees in 2008/09.”
Quite simply, banks have always been keen to privatise the profits from their role in the economy, but then socialise any losses – by getting the state to bail them out and to guarantee their operations.
New Zealand Herald business editor Liam Dann makes some similar arguments today: “Billions of dollars were pumped into the economy by Government and the Reserve Bank to save businesses and jobs and avoid a crisis. A side effect of the stimulus was a property and savings boom through 2020 and 2021. That’s now had the galling result that a sizeable chunk of that cash looks set to line the pockets of Aussie bank shareholders.” And he adds, “When things actually go wrong, taxpayers have to bail them out.”
Leftwing political commentator Gordon Campbell also points to Government policy as behind the mega bank profits: “The banks have reaped the rewards of the government’s successful efforts (e.g. the wage subsidy scheme) to keep the economy relatively buoyant during the pandemic. Not only did those government schemes and capital injections save the banks from suffering the bad debts and mortgage defaults that they’d expected. In addition, the Aussie-owned banks are also now in line to reap further profits from the Reserve Bank’s current efforts to curb the inflation that those initial Covid interventions inadvertently helped to generate. For months, the banks have been able to crank up their lending rates. They’ve also increased their profit margins. In sum, Covid has been something of a joy ride for the banks.”
All of this means that the banks are likely to have a combined profit total of $10b this year. Analysts point out that a 14 per cent rate of return is extremely high for banking, which is a low-risk activity normally expected to make more like half of that rate. Unusually, banks are making much greater profits and return on investments than the average NZX50 Index companies.
As Bernard Hickey points out, the local bank operations in New Zealand are “now more profitable than their parents and almost all their peers in other developed economies”. And according to Victoria University of Wellington’s banking analyst Martien Lubberink, the previous year’s profit announcements showed that the four big banks were making a profit of about $1,200 per New Zealander.
Actions the Government can take on banking
Four different reform areas are currently being proposed by analysts.
The first is a special tax on the current mega bank profits. A “windfall tax” has been proposed for some time, especially by those on the political left. The Greens took up this idea last month, pushing for a one-off tax on companies in super-profitable sectors such as supermarkets, electricity and banking.
Bernard Hickey advocates that Labour adopts the same tax used by the Australian government on banks, arguing today that this “would generate extra tax revenues of $2.6b a year, which would be enough to either pay for a tax cut or extra social spending, or to return the Budget to surplus sooner.” He says that the tax could be a levy of 0.06 per cent on the banks’ loans of $447b.
A second action would be to increase competition in the banking sector. At the moment the lack of competition in New Zealand means that mortgage rates are higher than they should be. Australians get a much better deal from their banks, because a more competitive market has been fostered there. Here, the four big banks are allowed to make a killing without any great attempts to make the playing field level and competitive.
One way to do this would be to invest significantly in the state-owned Kiwibank, which is currently far too small to compete properly. Some critics say that the Government is failing to properly fund the bank which means that it can’t properly compete with the Big Four Australian banks. It simply doesn’t have the assets and economies of scale to make any difference.
Sam Stubbs has argued today that the Government should scale up Kiwibank significantly: “Now the Government owns it yes it can recapitalise it. It would be profitable and the Government would still make money and you would get a serious competitor.”
Similarly, Liam Dann argues today that the best way to scale up Kiwibank would be “with mixed-model ownership in the style of the power companies – something this Government will never allow.” Dann suggests Kiwibank could be doubled in size.
The third action would be a full independent inquiry into the banking sector, as took place in Australia recently. Banking expert Claire Matthews, suggests that the Commerce Commission could also undertake a market study, as they did with the supermarkets and the building sectors. She argues that we simply don’t know how the banks currently operate and what problems there might be with the market and its regulation.
A fourth action would be to open up the banking sector by creating “open banking”, whereby customers can more freely shift between banks. This has occurred in plenty of other countries, and Labour has been accused of being far too slow to act on this.
For example, Stubbs is scathing on the lack of reform in this area: “Why aren’t they doing what everybody else has already done? They talk about open banking – they could have bought it in three or four years ago. We are still waiting for that. They could bring in number portability – we know what that has done for phones – they haven’t done that.” He suggests that the banks have successfully lobbied Labour to delay such reforms.
Liam Dann also comments on this today, explaining that “new blockchain-based tech that allows consumers to control all their banking data and switch providers more easily. In fact, New Zealand is dragging the chain on this initiative which has been adopted in the UK and opens the market to all sorts of new players to offer retail-facing banking services.”
Today, Newshub is reporting Government sources saying that “a mega shakeup” in terms of open banking is soon to be announced. While neither Labour nor the banks are commenting publicly, it’s reported that “Behind the scenes there’s now a scurry to get this out quickly to capitalise on the public outrage over the massive bank profits.”
The banking problem is going to get bigger
Although the Government seems more inclined to try and embarrass the banks into action rather than take a more interventionist or reforming approach, it won’t be enough. In fact, the political situation could get more embarrassing for the Government over the next year.
With rising interest rates bank profits are just going to get bigger. But at the same time, for homeowners these rising interest rates – together with mortgage holders going into negative equity with falling property prices – may result in defaults on mortgage payments. Banks may then have to increase their foreclosures. That’s going to reduce their social license to operate even further.
Banks would be wise to convince the public and politicians that they are “ethical capitalists”. If they can’t or won’t do that, then pressure will mount on the Labour Government to regulate. Government pleas to the banks to be kinder are unlikely to be enough to convince the public.
Increasingly voters are aware that Labour’s monetary policies of recent years led to increased super profits for the rich – including a transfer of about $1 trillion to asset owners. A reckoning might therefore be coming, and politicians will increasingly have to show which side they stand on: with the banks and the super-wealthy, or with the public.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim M Caudwell, Lecturer – Psychology | Chair, Researchers in Behavioural Addictions, Alcohol and Drugs (BAAD), Charles Darwin University
SewCream/Shutterstock
Have you ever been out and about, perhaps tackling the Christmas shopping list, and felt a bit thirsty? You buy a drink – say, one that comes in a plastic bottle – and quench your thirst, only to find there’s no recycling nearby. What do you do?
The Two Buttons meme accurately captures cognitive dissonance. Meme Generator
You could hang on to the empty bottle, or throw it in with general rubbish. If you are particularly passionate about recycling, the latter option may feel quite distressing.
However, you might peek into the rubbish bin and notice plenty of others have thrown their recyclables in – so you throw your bottle in there too. After all, it’s not your fault there isn’t a recycling bin around. Suddenly, you feel much better!
If this scenario seems familiar, you have experienced – and resolved – “cognitive dissonance”, one of the most intriguing phenomena discovered in social psychology.
A famous experiment with menial tasks
After some hypothesising, US psychologists Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith first demonstrated cognitive dissonance in the 1950s, in a now famous social psychological experiment.
In the first half, participants had to perform long, menial tasks (such as turning a tray full of wooden pegs a quarter-turn each, again and again, for an hour). These tasks were deliberately not enjoyable.
A demonstration of the famous induced-compliance paradigm used in Festinger and Carlsmith’s study.
Festinger and Carlsmith then offered some participants either $1 or $20 to spruik the study they had just participated in for the next participant (who was secretly “in” on the true experiment).
All participants, including those who were not asked to spruik the study at all (that is, the control group), then went on to complete a presumably unrelated survey on their experience.
Understandably, participants in the control group rated the study as not that enjoyable. Those paid $20 rated it much the same. However, participants paid $1 rated the study as much more enjoyable than those in either of the other groups!
As it turns out, being paid a mere dollar to tell the next person in line that the boring, lengthy task you just sat through was actually quite fun and interesting (this is something called “counterattitudinal behaviour”) induced such psychological discomfort – cognitive dissonance – that participants changed how they viewed the tedious task.
The physical response to dissonance
Festinger and Carlsmith’s experimental approach is known as the “induced-compliance paradigm”, and has become one of several ways in which social psychologists can study cognitive dissonance.
Subsequent research has consistently found that inducing cognitive dissonance – for example, by having to write an essay arguing in favour of a belief you don’t hold – increases subjective feelings of discomfort and heightens “arousal”, as measured by the electrical activity of our sweaty palms.
Luckily, in most cases, the feelings associated with cognitive dissonance are fairly short-lived, as we find a way to reduce or eliminate the dissonance – similar to how we are motivated to find food when we are really hungry.
How can I reduce cognitive dissonance?
There are two main ways to reduce cognitive dissonance – these have varying chances of success, and are highly dependent on the importance of a behaviour or belief that you have.
Changing your beliefs: perhaps the simplest way is to actually change how we think. For example, you form a New Year’s resolution to run three times a week to improve your health, but quickly lapse to once a week. You could resolve the dissonance by viewing running once a week as still having some benefit (good news – it does).
Changing your behaviour: perhaps the most difficult way to reduce cognitive dissonance is to change our behaviour to fit our attitudes. You might decide that it will take you a while to build up to running three times a week, make a plan, and seek feedback on your progress.
Dissonance as a force for good
Because cognitive dissonance is a powerful motivator, it has been explored as a potential force for good – especially in the context of health behaviours.
One of the more effective methods in this space is known as “hypocrisy induction”. Much like the term suggests, we ask people to make a statement about the value of a behaviour, and then reflect on their own failures to engage in that behaviour, to induce cognitive dissonance.
For instance, a smoker might be asked to deliver a speech on the importance of quitting smoking, then complete a questionnaire on their smoking behaviour.
(However, some smokers appear particularly skilled at reducing cognitive dissonance in a variety of ways, as we found when looking at how smokers responded to the introduction of plain packaging legislation.)
Plain packaging legislation was introduced in Australia in 2012.
For most of us, what helps the most is knowing that cognitive dissonance is an everyday human experience, and likely to pass.
If we are not too hard on ourselves, and open to evaluating our behaviour in a much broader context, we shouldn’t feel too much discomfort. However, you might think about taking a reusable drink bottle to the shops this holiday season, just in case.
Kim M Caudwell 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.
Imagine this: a heap of colourful plastic buckets stacked on top of each other to form a climbable bridge, monolithic bluestone boulders holding up a contorted slide, a pile of concrete demolition debris moonlighting as a resting spot.
At every point, children can be seen swinging their bodies from warped, dented monkey bars and balancing along rope-webs strung between stones.
Would you let your kids come here and play?
This new playground in Melbourne’s Southbank is the work of artist Mike Hewson. The project can be confusing for the public. Is it a playground? A sculpture? Or an unfinished piece of infrastructure?
Hewson’s playable public art parks in Sydney and Melbourne are known to be “risky” – but risk means different things to different people. And it’s exactly the risks his art takes that makes it so valuable.
The risk of no risk
Urban play has long been synonymous with the cultural life of art and the city. In the decades of Europe’s baby boom, new playground concepts emerged with a focus on “free play” (distinct from earlier playgrounds resembling open-air gymnasiums), as one of children’s fundamental needs.
“Tufsen”, Egon Möller-Nielsen’s unusual sculpture was the first unscripted free play sculpture of its kind, created in 1949, bringing together abstract art and play in a public space.
This new approach generated a boom in playground sculptures.
Egon Möller-Nielsen’s Tufsen in Stockholm was the first free-play sculpture. Sune Sundahl
In the early 1980s, we saw a significant shift in response to questions of risk, hazards and children’s safety, which resulted in fears and threats of litigation.
As play-safety standards were introduced in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, innovation in the arena of a playable public realm slowed. As soon as the standards began to be referenced in liability cases, playspace designers began to follow them.
Designs outside the specifications were avoided and playgrounds were standardised into the “boring” versions that still dominate most of our play spaces, where the potential movement of children is scripted: up, across and down.
The new playground at Melbourne’s Southbank doesn’t look like the playgrounds of your childhood. Mike Hewson
Over the past 30 years, interpretations of these safety standards continue to regularly confuse the meanings of “risk” and “hazard”.
A risk is something the child is aware of, forcing them to identify, analyse and overcome the challenge; a hazard puts one in danger because a condition for injury exists the user cannot perceive.
Conflating these meanings has resulted in a cultural attitude toward play that is highly risk-averse.
This risk-aversion is in contrast to the mounting research on the benefits of risk for children.
Risk-aversion can have long-term health implications on adolescence and into adulthood, potentially impacting the development of anxiety, depression, obesity and diabetes.
Hewson is also behind Pockets Park in Leichhardt, Sydney. Mike Hewson
In fact, researchers Jonathan Haidt and Pamela Paresky suggest contemporary society “mollycoddles” children. The risk-of-no-risk is a question of resilience – not only physical but also, perhaps more importantly, psychological resilience.
Psychological resilience is the capacity for adaptation in the face of tragedy, trauma, adversity, threats or significant stress. Put simply, resilience is the ability to “bounce back” from challenging experiences.
Based on this premise, Hewson’s “risky” sculptural play environments can bolster, fortify and increase psychological resilience among children.
These playgrounds can bolster psychological resilience. Mike Hewson
In contrast to the conventional playground where movement is predetermined, Hewson’s projects offer children the opportunity to explore unfamiliar, unscripted, innovative and playable sculptural worlds.
When given the chance, even very young children show clear abilities to negotiate unfamiliar spaces, manage risks and determine their own limitations.
Hewson’s sculptural playgrounds don’t just offer the opportunity for children to take risks. Their very construction appears to be risky: all playable parts appear to be improvised, cobbled together with cardboard and chicken wire, balanced just-so or teetering on the verge of collapse.
Hewson’s sculptures seem like they’re teetering on the verge of collapse. Mike Hewson
And yet nothing is quite as it appears. With Hewson’s background in engineering, each playable element has been meticulously designed, structurally engineered and thoughtfully integrated into the urban realm.
This illusion of danger gives the works a sense of the uncanny, appealing to art-lovers and children alike.
In the art world, Hewson’s works are important for their bold and cheeky irreverence of the traditions of public art.
By making these sculptures playable – and seemingly defective – they tip the hierarchy of “art” upside down.
This might look broken – but it’s highly engineered. Mike Hewson
Australia has a long-standing reputation of presenting “plonk art” in public spaces. Plonk art is a pejorative slang term for the large Modernist artworks intended for government plazas, corporate atriums and open parks designed to be looked at but not touched.
Hewson takes sculpture off its pedestal and integrates it directly into the public domain, while also engaging local communities in the creative development stages of his projects.
For this experimentation, he receives some backlash from certain sections of the community – but his convictions keep him pushing forward.
We need to give kids space to take risks. Mike Hewson
His works advance the role of public art in creating a more culturally rich, intergenerational public domain while also challenging conventions of the ubiquitous de-risked playground.
So what do you think? Is it time we integrate more playable art opportunities into the public realm?
As the COP27 climate talks got underway in Egypt this week, climate and energy minister Chris Bowen announced Australia would bid to co-host the annual United Nations climate summit with Pacific island nations in 2026.
Playing host to the world’s climate negotiations could be a very big deal. It would be the largest diplomatic event Australia has ever held and would have major implications for both climate policy and our international relations.
A successful summit would signal Australia’s shift from fossil fuel heavyweight to renewables superpower and herald a new era of regional cooperation with the Pacific. However, these outcomes cannot be assumed, nor can support from Pacific nations.
Over the past 30 years Pacific island countries have played a crucial role in the global response to the climate crisis. Meanwhile, Australia has sought to avoid obligations to cut emissions and has acted as a handbrake on global action, even while expanding coal and gas exports. This legacy cannot be put to one side easily, nor should it be.
To successfully bid for and host the UN climate talks, the Albanese government will need to show Australia really has changed by bringing more to the table, and taking coal and gas off the menu.
Australia has never hosted the annual UN climate talks. Doing so would be a chance to revive Australia’s international reputation and reposition us to embrace the benefits of a global clean energy economy.
Sydney or Melbourne would most likely host, as between 20,000 and 40,000 delegates would be expected to attend. Apart from the technical negotiations, the summit would be an industry trade fair – a chance to showcase Australia’s growing clean energy export industry.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues that Australia has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower. He is right.
Australia can play a supersized role in the global transition to net-zero by exporting the clean energy commodities and critical minerals other countries need to cut emissions.
According to leading economist Ross Garnaut, Australia could reduce reduce global emissions by 8% – especially by exporting zero-carbon metals to growing economies in Asia. This would be the equivalent of cutting all the emissions of Europe and the United Kingdom.
Australian diplomacy matters, too. We have history as a responsible middle power, galvanising action to protect the environment. In 1982 Australia supported a global moratorium on commercial whaling. In 1989 former Prime Minister Bob Hawke championed a treaty to ban mining in Antarctica.
With similar ambition today, Australia could broker a new era of global climate action, especially if we work with Pacific island nations as a regional diplomatic bloc.
Australia’s relations with Pacific island countries are more important than ever. In the context of China’s growing interest in the region, Australia is keen to reaffirm its place as the security partner of choice for island governments.
But Australia will need to take serious action on climate change, as the Pacific has made it crystal clear for decades that climate change is the region’s single greatest threat.
Pacific leadership and Australian recalcitrance
Pacific island countries have led the global response to climate change in the decades since a scientific consensus on the issue emerged in the 1980s.
In 1990 they formed a diplomatic alliance with island nations in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean to pursue shared interests in UN climate negotiations. This alliance has since swelled to 39 countries.
Pacific diplomats were also crucial for securing the 2015 Paris Agreement, which now guides international collaboration to cut greenhouse gas emissions and shift toward clean energy.
They have succeeded in shaping global climate action, despite the divergent position of Australia.
In fact, Australia has used its position as the most powerful member of the Pacific Islands Forum to try to weaken regional declarations put forward by island nations at key milestones in the global climate negotiations.
In the run-up to the 1997 UN Kyoto climate summit, for example, Prime Minister John Howard refused to back Pacific calls for a protocol with binding targets to cut emissions.
Similarly, ahead of the 2015 Paris climate summit, Prime Minister Tony Abbott refused to support Pacific calls for a global treaty to limit warming to to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. Pacific island states have consistently argued that this temperature threshold is key for low-lying nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands to survive.
In response, Kiribati President Anote Tong suggested Australia should leave the forum altogether if it wasn’t prepared to back the islands’ positions in global climate negotiations.
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison again tried to water down a regional climate declaration at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu in 2019, a frustrated Fiji prime minister Frank Bainimarama told waiting media that partnering with China was preferable to working with Morrison.
What Australia needs to bring to the table
To co-host the 2026 UN climate talks with Pacific nations, Australia will need to show it’s finally serious about tackling the climate crisis.
While Pacific leaders have welcomed Australia’s new 2030 target – to cut emissions by 43% from 2005 levels – they clearly expect more. Bainimarama has pointedly argued for Albanese “to go further for our family’s shared future by aligning Australia’s commitment to the 1.5-degree target”.
By 2026, Australia will need to put in place policies that will drive deeper cuts to emissions, enabling us to strengthen our 2030 target and to set a much more ambitious 2035 target.
Global emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 to have any chance of achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃. A wealthy nation like Australia – with vast, untapped, resources for renewable energy – should be aiming to reduce emissions by 75% this decade.
Over the next four years, we can expect more Pacific nations to join this treaty, adding pressure to tackle Australia’s biggest contribution to the problem: coal and gas exports.
Australia should also end all fossil fuel subsidies, especially public support for fossil fuel projects.
Instead Australia will need to put more money on the table to help developing nations cope with climate impacts. As a start Australia should increase overall commitment to international climate finance from A$2 billion to A$3 billion over the period 2020-2025.
As potential co-host for COP31, Pacific island nations will also expect Australia to contribute to a new global fund to address loss and damage from climate change. Expectations will only grow with New Zealand announcing yesterday it would provide finance for loss and damage, a move already welcomed by island leaders.
This is the crucial decade
By 2026 the window for securing a safe climate will be closing fast.
Much can change in four years’ time. Over the past four years, we have seen more than 100 countries – representing 90% of the global economy – commit to net-zero emissions. Most developed nations have committed to halving their emissions by 2030.
Despite these shifts, the world remains dangerously off-track. Even if all countries meet their current targets for emission reductions by 2030, the world is headed for 2.4-2.6℃ of warming this century. This would be a cataclysmic outcome.
By hosting the UN climate talks, Australia could broker a new round of global ambition to cut emissions, and cement our place as part of the Pacific family. But first we will need to show we’re taking this crisis seriously.
Humans, as a rule, do not like floods. And three years of La Niña rains have meant Australians have had more than enough of floods.
But Australia’s plants and animals have evolved alongside periodic floods, as they have for fire. For them, floods are a boon. These pulses of water are vital to the health of most river floodplain ecosystems. For some native fish, floods create new habitat as the waters fill floodplains, wetlands and creeks. Many trees like river red gums need periodic flooding too.
Floods trigger a huge spike in growth. Nutrient-rich sediment is washed downstream and out on to floodplains. This is a boon to algae and aquatic plants at first, and, once the water evaporates, to grasses, shrubs and trees. Herbivores such as wallabies and wombats feast on the new growth.
Most of the time, rivers stay in their main channels and floodplains are dry. But in years like this one, so much rain falls that water spills over the banks and fills floodplains. This is a life-giving process which nourishes and replenishes. Without floods, rivers would not be rivers – they’d just be drains, unfit for all but the very hardiest of animals and plants.
Herbivores like wallabies flock to the new growth after floods. Shutterstock
Why does nature need floods?
It’s not all good news for nature. Flooding is a disturbance for wildlife and plants, moving things around and shaking things up. Some animals may drown, high flows may rip out plants and even undermine and topple trees. Low-oxygen blackwater events and fish kills – heartbreaking for many – often follow floods, as they have recently on the Murray. But after the damage comes the boom.
Once the initial pulse of water subsides, it often takes much longer for the water to evaporate or drain from the floodplains. Plants killed by the water will add to the organic matter load, which may later be used by other plants.
The pulse of nutrients that goes with flooding is wonderful for freshwater phytoplankton (miniscule aquatic plants), as well as zooplankton which feed on them, such as tiny rotifers, known as wheel animals, and crustaceans. Some fish leave the main channel of the river and swim onto their new temporary habitat, feeding on the zooplankton. Waterbirds follow them.
Should the timing be right, native fish like golden and silver perch may breed in floodplain wetlands. Their larvae are poor swimmers, and these still, food-rich water bodies are ideal nurseries.
South Australia’s Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre has only filled a handful of times over the last century. But the unprecedented rains this year have partly filled the lake. When water covers the arid land, brine shrimp eggs hatch in their millions and start feeding and breeding. It’s a brief boom for fish, but as the water evaporates, the lake gets saltier and eventually kills the fish. Pelicans, cormorants, terns and gulls head inland to feast on shrimp and dying or dead fish.
Birds like red-necked avocets flock to ephemeral lakes like Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre. Graham Winterflood/Flickr, CC BY
In northern Australia, many rivers are not dammed, and widespread natural flooding occurs most years. Indigenous people here are accustomed to living alongside flooding and have been making use of the riches of floodplain productivity for more than 50,000 years. Tropical floodplains offer food and habitat to everything from aquatic plants and barramundi to saltwater crocodiles and magpie geese.
Freshwater floodplain wetlands like this one on the Roper River floodplain in northern Australia are rich in species – but at risk from climate change. ` Keller Kopf, Author provided
In Australia’s south-east, floodwaters generally don’t linger quite as long as they do in the tropical north. But they do rise rapidly – sometimes several metres over only a couple of days. Much of the water will never return to the main channel of the river but will evaporate slowly. Deeper remnants like billabongs, lagoons or oxbow lakes – actually old river channels – linger longest.
The giant of Australia’s rivers, the Murray, takes longer to flood because Australia is mostly flat. Pulses of water move slowly down its tributaries to the main channel. It can take weeks to months for rain that falls on the Great Dividing Range to make it to the Murray’s mouth at Goolwa in South Australia.
These lingering floodwaters are perfect for freshwater mussels, as well as frogs, lizards, platypus and snakes. Bottlebrushes, wattles, reeds, rushes and aquatic plants do well out of floods too.
Of course, introduced species often thrive too. Common carp populations typically boom after floods. And willow trees and other invasive aquatic plants that spread through pieces breaking off, do well on the back of floods.
Floodplain fertility can be seen with the naked eye, as in this image of the Murray River flowing through the Riverina in New South Wales. Shutterstock
Our uneasy relationship with rivers
Nature needs floods. But while you might not believe it, we need them too. Most of the world’s major cities were founded next to rivers, which gave their inhabitants water, fish, transport, and fertile farmland. But for all river cities, there are times when the river surges and can destroy houses and livelihoods.
Many cities have tried to tame floods with levees and dams. But as we’re finding now, you can reduce the impact of smaller floods – but the big ones are all but unstoppable.
Because we have farmed and settled so many floodplains, farmers are particularly vulnerable to floods. Floodwaters hitting bush will be slowed by trees and plants. But farms are often cleared, which can see more erosion take place. Whole farms can be devastated by flooding, leading to food prices spiking.
With climate change, Australia is expected to experience bigger and more frequent floods. This may be a good thing for nature but means people will no longer be able to live safely in some places. It will also mean iconic ecosystems like Kakadu will be at risk, with sea level rise predicted to push saltwater into almost half of its famous wetlands by 2070.
While floods bring pain in the short term, over the longer term both humans and nature need the benefits they bring.
Paul Humphries has received funding from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Australian Government’s Commonwealth Environmental Water Office and the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
Keller Kopf receives funding from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australian Research Council and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.
Humans, as a rule, do not like floods. And three years of La Niña rains have meant Australians have had more than enough of floods.
But Australia’s plants and animals have evolved alongside periodic floods, as they have for fire. For them, floods are a boon. These pulses of water are vital to the health of most river floodplain ecosystems. For some native fish, floods create new habitat as the waters fill floodplains, wetlands and creeks. Many trees like river red gums need periodic flooding too.
Floods trigger a huge spike in growth. Nutrient-rich sediment is washed downstream and out on to floodplains. This is a boon to algae and aquatic plants at first, and, once the water evaporates, to grasses, shrubs and trees. Herbivores such as wallabies and wombats feast on the new growth.
Most of the time, rivers stay in their main channels and floodplains are dry. But in years like this one, so much rain falls that water spills over the banks and fills floodplains. This is a life-giving process which nourishes and replenishes. Without floods, rivers would not be rivers – they’d just be drains, unfit for all but the very hardiest of animals and plants.
Herbivores like wallabies flock to the new growth after floods. Shutterstock
Why does nature need floods?
It’s not all good news for nature. Flooding is a disturbance for wildlife and plants, moving things around and shaking things up. Some animals may drown, high flows may rip out plants and even undermine and topple trees. Low-oxygen blackwater events and fish kills – heartbreaking for many – often follow floods, as they have recently on the Murray. But after the damage comes the boom.
Once the initial pulse of water subsides, it often takes much longer for the water to evaporate or drain from the floodplains. Plants killed by the water will add to the organic matter load, which may later be used by other plants.
The pulse of nutrients that goes with flooding is wonderful for freshwater phytoplankton (miniscule aquatic plants), as well as zooplankton which feed on them, such as tiny rotifers, known as wheel animals, and crustaceans. Some fish leave the main channel of the river and swim onto their new temporary habitat, feeding on the zooplankton. Waterbirds follow them.
Should the timing be right, native fish like golden and silver perch may breed in floodplain wetlands. Their larvae are poor swimmers, and these still, food-rich water bodies are ideal nurseries.
South Australia’s Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre has only filled a handful of times over the last century. But the unprecedented rains this year have partly filled the lake. When water covers the arid land, brine shrimp eggs hatch in their millions and start feeding and breeding. It’s a brief boom for fish, but as the water evaporates, the lake gets saltier and eventually kills the fish. Pelicans, cormorants, terns and gulls head inland to feast on shrimp and dying or dead fish.
Birds like red-necked avocets flock to ephemeral lakes like Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre. Graham Winterflood/Flickr, CC BY
In northern Australia, many rivers are not dammed, and widespread natural flooding occurs most years. Indigenous people here are accustomed to living alongside flooding and have been making use of the riches of floodplain productivity for more than 50,000 years. Tropical floodplains offer food and habitat to everything from aquatic plants and barramundi to saltwater crocodiles and magpie geese.
Freshwater floodplain wetlands like this one on the Roper River floodplain in northern Australia are rich in species – but at risk from climate change. ` Keller Kopf, Author provided
In Australia’s south-east, floodwaters generally don’t linger quite as long as they do in the tropical north. But they do rise rapidly – sometimes several metres over only a couple of days. Much of the water will never return to the main channel of the river but will evaporate slowly. Deeper remnants like billabongs, lagoons or oxbow lakes – actually old river channels – linger longest.
The giant of Australia’s rivers, the Murray, takes longer to flood because Australia is mostly flat. Pulses of water move slowly down its tributaries to the main channel. It can take weeks to months for rain that falls on the Great Dividing Range to make it to the Murray’s mouth at Goolwa in South Australia.
These lingering floodwaters are perfect for freshwater mussels, as well as frogs, lizards, platypus and snakes. Bottlebrushes, wattles, reeds, rushes and aquatic plants do well out of floods too.
Of course, introduced species often thrive too. Common carp populations typically boom after floods. And willow trees and other invasive aquatic plants that spread through pieces breaking off, do well on the back of floods.
Floodplain fertility can be seen with the naked eye, as in this image of the Murray River flowing through the Riverina in New South Wales. Shutterstock
Our uneasy relationship with rivers
Nature needs floods. But while you might not believe it, we need them too. Most of the world’s major cities were founded next to rivers, which gave their inhabitants water, fish, transport, and fertile farmland. But for all river cities, there are times when the river surges and can destroy houses and livelihoods.
Many cities have tried to tame floods with levees and dams. But as we’re finding now, you can reduce the impact of smaller floods – but the big ones are all but unstoppable.
Because we have farmed and settled so many floodplains, farmers are particularly vulnerable to floods. Floodwaters hitting bush will be slowed by trees and plants. But farms are often cleared, which can see more erosion take place. Whole farms can be devastated by flooding, leading to food prices spiking.
With climate change, Australia is expected to experience bigger and more frequent floods. This may be a good thing for nature but means people will no longer be able to live safely in some places. It will also mean iconic ecosystems like Kakadu will be at risk, with sea level rise predicted to push saltwater into almost half of its famous wetlands by 2070.
While floods bring pain in the short term, over the longer term both humans and nature need the benefits they bring.
Paul Humphries has received funding from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Australian Government’s Commonwealth Environmental Water Office and the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
Keller Kopf receives funding from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australian Research Council and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.
Hay fever (also known as allergic rhinitis) is a catch-all term that covers a group of ailments that cause sneezing, a runny nose, and itchy and red eyes.
Hay fever affects millions of people in Australia. Ask your friends and colleagues about hay fever and chances are several will report they have it. However, they will probably describe different triggers, symptoms and seasons when it occurs.
Although it may seem like more of an annoyance than anything else, uncontrolled hay fever can have economic and further health effects.
Hay fever can reduce people’s ability to concentrate, for example when driving or at work or school. This is made worse with hay fever also leading to disturbed sleep, affecting mood.
Nasal inflammation from allergies also has a concerning impact on an individual’s defences against infection. The inflammation from hay fever and the need to mouth breathe has a direct impact on asthma, leading to worse symptom control and a greater risk of a flare-up that requires unscheduled health care.
To reduce these risks, a range of treatments are available. However, before considering treatment, we need to consider what’s going wrong and why.
In addition to genetic factors, environmental exposures such as airborne pollutants can dramatically predispose people to allergies.
Common causes
Causes of hay fever fall in three main groups:
seasonal: pollens and plant materials that give symptoms at certain times of the year. Calendar charts of the various pollens are available
perennial/symptoms year round: however clean your house is, you will be exposed to fungal spores and to faeces from dust mites feeding off your dead skin cells. That sounds unsettling enough, but they can both be potent allergens that can’t be effectively avoided
intermittent: most typically these are animals’ dead skin. It’s worth noting the culprits are molecules in saliva, sweat and urine, not hair.
Given these serious consequences, it’s reassuring to know there are effective treatments for hay fever. These range from common over-the-counter products to specialist medicines.
Antihistamines
Many people will immediately think of antihistamines for hay fever: by tablet, nasal spray or eye drops. Histamine is a key messenger chemical in the allergy process, but it isn’t the only one. Therefore, antihistamines alone are usually usually only sufficient to get on top of mild problems.
There are a large number of antihistamines available with a range of effectiveness. Although many are available without prescription, bear in mind some are sedating, and some are unsafe in pregnancy, or when you have certain cardiac conditions, and may clash with some other medicines.
Nasal treatments
Nasal sprays apply treatment directly to microscopic hairs in the nose, helpfully spreading the medicine around. Many people take over-the-counter nasal corticosteroid spray to dampen down inflammation.
As a physician I’ve found it’s common in clinic for people to say sprays “don’t work” for them but usually this is because they don’t take them properly. These treatments can take many days to work, and need to be taken regularly every day. The trick is: don’t sniff them (the medicine will end up in the back of your throat), or spray them onto the sensitive middle part of the nose, which can bleed.
Saline sinus rinses can be very helpful in clearing mucus, allergens and inflammatory material (snot, to you and me) before using other medicines. Always use sterile liquids for this or nasty sinus infections can occur.
Decongestants might seem like a good idea when you can’t breathe, but are associated with a rebound worsening of swelling when they wear off (this has the excellent name of rhinitis medicamentosa).
As for many chemicals, if you take them long enough the body switches off its own supply (negative feedback) so when the drug is removed, the body is worse off. Think about how someone feels if they haven’t had a coffee all day and normally drinks four or five cups. There is a rebound of blood vessel dilation and mucus production. Use them sparingly.
A lack of success of allergy treatments such as nasal sprays are often due to them not being used correctly. shutterstock
Prescribed therapies
If your hay fever is more severe, your doctor could consider a course of higher-strength nasal steroid drops, but these aren’t to be used for longer than a month as they can cause erosion of the nasal lining.
Adding a medicine that acts on other key messengers of inflammation (leukotrienes), such as montelukast, can sometimes be helpful. These tablets are usually well tolerated but can have side effects such as headache which lead to their discontinuation.
Validated scores that ask a standard set of questions about aspects of someone’s symptoms (such as “SNOT-22”) are helpful in assessing who needs extra prescription-based treatment for hay fever and their response to it.
Specialist treatments
For people with hay fever alongside asthma or other allergic disease, there are now effective medicines that block messengers of allergy in a highly specific manner, such as the monoclonal antibody Dupilumab, and more are coming soon. Although too costly to be prescribed in hay fever alone, they show our understanding of the relevant mechanisms has improved.
Giving people a regular small dose of something they are sensitised to can make their immune system more tolerant of it. This is often referred to as immunotherapy, and can be by regular tablet or injection.
This article does not constitute specific medical advice. Please do speak to your GP, specialist or pharmacist about using the medicines mentioned here. You may also wish to review the helpful information and videos from Asthma Australia
John Blakey and/or his employer has received funding for research or educational activities from companies that produce treatments for asthma, including Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, GSK, Novartis, Sanofi and Teva. He is affiliated with Asthma Australia and Asthma WA in a medical advisory capacity for which his organisation receives income. He is the WA branch president of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand. None of these entities had any input into or influence on this article.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
The present cost-of-living crisis, and the present inflation, are global issues. It is just silly to discuss these, to address these, in predominantly nationalist terms. The next key point to note is that rises in the cost-of-living and inflation are not the same thing, yet public discussion largely treats them as if they are the same. Rising costs are real, and must be borne. Inflation is ‘nominal’; a fall in the purchasing value of money, if you like.
Real-cost Crises
Rises in the cost of living are events of real cost increases. These cost-events may be events which we can reasonably expect to come to an end (such as a pandemic), and most wars. Or they may be events which will not end in the foreseeable future, such as the climate crisis, the crisis of antibiotic resistance, the infrastructure deficit, or the housing crisis. (Three simultaneous real-cost events are commonly called a ‘perfect storm’, a frequent and hackneyed expression these days.)
When there is a cost-of-living crisis, the reasonable expectation is that prices will fallwhen that crisis resolves, when the real-cost event ends. In the case of cost events that cannot be foreseen to end, then the rate of crisis-associated priceincreases will eventually fall as populations adapt to higher costs. Real-costs are not a monetary issue. Reserve Banks should not become involved. Adaptation should be a process of market-led rationing, with governments attending to any arising market failures.
Real-cost crises represent a burden on the population, meaning that, at least for a while, standards of living become lower than they would have been in the absence of the crisis. There’s no escaping this.
The central role of government policy in this kind of situation is to manage the burden, protecting those with the least ability to ‘tighten their belts’, and ensuring that there is not a new group of incomeless people taking on a disproportionate share of the burden. Policies which seek to increase unemployment, or are otherwise known to cost people their livelihoods, are both unethical and ineffective.
Because these cost-of-living crises are typically global, the temptation of governments is to try to export their country’s share of the burden. An example of such ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ policies is to pay subsidies on, for example, petrol. If petrol is more costly to supply than before, because there is a reduction in global supply, the economy needs to adjust by reducing the amount of petrol consumed. If a government acts to make it look to consumers that petrol has not become more expensive, then people in that country will consume as much petrol as before; that would mean consumers in other countries would be forced to bear the burden of reduced petrol supply.
We should also note that in our experience environmental costs are typically ‘externalised’, meaning the environment is suffering exploitation; that the total costs of exploitative practices are not reflected in the prices of the resulting goods, and therefore a portion of the costs are borne in the form of environmental harm (some of which may be exported to other countries). It is correct that governments should set taxes to ‘internalise’ these costs, meaning that the prices we pay reflect our just share of the burden. Such taxes do not in any sense constitute a cost problem; they are a cost solution. There will be a domestic cost crisis, though, if other countries export their real-costs to us.
An interesting case is when exploited workers find the power to resist that exploitation. Labour exploitation is like environmental exploitation. If workers remove their shackles, as happened to some extent in the covid pandemic, they may appear to be contributing to a cost-crisis; in fact, it means that the costs of exploitation come to be borne by consumers, as they should be, rather than by workers. Ending exploitation is a solution, not a problem; though such a solution may appear to be part of a wider ‘cost-of-living’ problem. Labour, like the environment, should be properly priced; ‘internalised’ as economists say.
The most important ways that governments can facilitate market-led rationing is to have in place a system of universal benefits and flat production taxes. (Properly understood, income taxes are production taxes.) Then when the rising costs occur – and I mean real costs such as those discussed so far – societies as a whole can bear those costs fairly, by raising both the tax rate and the level of benefit. This is a simple non-bureaucratic way through which the vulnerable can be insulated (not necessarily 100%) and those who can afford to bear more of the rising costs are required to do so.
It is commonly believed that a ‘universal basic income’ is a policy for times of high unemployment. While it is true that universal benefits and flat production taxes help in times of labour surplus, it is equally true that such a tax-benefit mechanism helps to keep the economy going – seamlessly – when costs including labour costs are high. A universal-benefit flat-tax mechanism ensures that labour supply is ‘elastic’.
Inflation Crises
Inflation occurs only when the price level increases for reasons other than rising real costs. And it only really matters when it becomes (or threatens to become) a process– sometimes characterised as a spiral process – that get out of control, like a runaway train.
The first thing to note here is that annual inflation of two-percent – that is, a small general level of price increases unrelated to costs of production, or (if you prefer) a small regular monetary debasement – works well to keep market economies lubricated. So, if a country has an annual increase in prices of seven percent during a cost-of-living crisis – as New Zealand does at present – then it should be taken as most likely there is a five-percent real-cost component and a two-percent inflation component.
However, it is possible that a cost-of-living crisis can trigger an inflation crisis; indeed that’s probably what’s happening in the world today. (Before continuing, it is necessary to note that this is not the only way an inflation crisis can begin; and we must remind ourselves that a real-cost crisis, which is not the same thing as an inflation crisis, can occur with inflation present; the two problems can get horribly confused with each other. In some cases inflation, as a form of market adjustment, may even be a part of the solution to a real-cost crisis.)
(It is also important to note that inflation can get going through a process that looks like a cost crisis but is not. This is when monopolies and cartels – and, in history, these monopolies may have been labour unions – raise their prices simply because they can; ie because of their market power, not because they are passing on real costs. This kind of process was part of the story of the early 1970s.)
Inflation generally happens when people try – and continue to try – to buy more goods and services than the world is currently offering to sell. This is a demand process, whereby a real-cost crisis is a supply event. And the process really only qualifies to be called inflation if this excess demand persists into some kind of ‘spiral’. In other words, an inflation process can get started if we experience a real-cost crisis in a state of denial, as is happening today. Too many consumers around the world today seem to think that governments rather than businesses supply goods, and set prices by edict; and that rising prices are misdeeds of governments failing to conjure up affordable goods and services, a problem that popular opinion believes can only be addressed by ‘dealing-to’ those wicked governments at the next election.
(There are two key exceptions to the generalisation of the above paragraph. First, prices may rise in a decelerating spiral as economies, coming out of a crisis, adjust to a new normal. This is good inflation, not bad inflation; it is not an out-of-control process. Second, individual countries may face spiralling inflation if they are undergoing a domestic currency crisis, as Türkiye is today; more dramatic was the German currency crisis that took place in 1923, giving Germany hyperinflation at a time when the world as a whole was not experiencing inflation.)
Before returning to the present crisis, we should note that the world was facing a looming inflation crisis before the Covid19 pandemic distracted us. It was a looming inflationary spiral that might not have become apparent until around 2025. This potential inflation was not a consequence of the successful low-interest-rate monetary policies that saved the world economy in the period between the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020/22 covid crisis. Those policies did not trigger inflation, despite the claims of the monetary hawks that they would do so.
The inflationary time-bomb, brewing before the covid pandemic, was and still is the world’s private pension funds. As a substantially high proportion of the world’s people with retirement savings shift from accumulation mode to consumption mode, ever larger demands will be placed on an increasingly threadbare global supply chain; a chain for which the most crucial component will be personal services. It is the ‘funded’ retirement income schemes that are already starting to unleash their contribution to global inflation, not the pay-as-you-go public pensions which have been vilified by our class-elites. In Aotearoa New Zealand we see it in the substantially increased advertising for upper-middle-class retirement villages, while traditional residential care and nursing homes are being forced to close due to their inability to secure staff.
Going back to the present crisis, part of the problem – as I have already suggested – lies in the fact that governments, in order to give themselves a chance of re-election, are trying to export the present cost-of-living crisis. That’s a recipe for global ‘stagflation’, whereby an inflationary spiral coexists with a real-cost crisis.
Interest Rates
The second, aggravating and particularly worrying problem, is that the monetary authorities (the Reserve Banks) are reverting to shaman-like dogma. They are aggressively raising interest rates, substantially adding to the present cost-of-living crisis. They are trying to create a monetary deflation – by creating unemployment despite labour shortages – to offset rising prices associated with the increases in real costs. This way, they are protecting the ‘purchasing value of the dollar’ for our elites – including the elites with lots of ‘retirement savings’ stashed away in pension funds and other financial assets – ensuring that the burdens of the cost-crisis and the subsequent monetary deflation will fall directly upon the expanding poor and vulnerable classes.
The people who staff the Reserve Banks are not evil. They believe that they are doing the right thing. They have simply experienced an education that has been substantially biased in the service of the elites; an education that, in the context that the university system, is in practice the gateway to an elite lifestyle. In preserving their elite careers, they have no choice but to continue with their shamanistic (and unscientific) practices around money; practices which have been around, in one form or another, for centuries.
For economics, history is the only real laboratory. We have the events of the 1920s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and the late 2000s to testify the moral and academic bankruptcy of high interest rate policies; policies which create unemployment, and create servile small business and working classes.
In the 1980s’ revival of this policy programme – as the bankruptcy of crude monetarism was becoming more obvious – the academic leaders came to emphasise the role of ‘inflation expectations’ as the central driver of inflation. They started talking about ‘credible’ and ‘independent’ central banks which would have the power to torture the small business and working classes, and to do this independent of democratically elected governments. High interest rates were the whip. Once small businesses and workers had been beaten into submission, then ‘inflation expectations’ would have been seen to have been overcome.
(Re the return of that torturous policy, the following, from RNZ Checkpoint on 2 November 2022, were an interesting listen. Low unemployment figures get pessimistic response from economists; Housing downturn grim, but not another financial crisis – economist. Lisa Owen [3’40” in, second recording]: “So to be grim, Jarrod, do we need people to lose their jobs to even out the economy?” Jarrod Kerr: “That’s a very blunt way of putting what the Reserve Bank is trying to do, yes.” Although I cannot believe that Lisa Owen has only just come to realise that the intent of our monetary policy settings is to create unemployment, to undermine the livelihoods of a group of people.)
The financial elites were always uncomfortable with the low-interest-rate environments from 2008 to 2021. They claimed throughout that period that inflation was about to erupt; but it didn’t. In that period, it was deflation – negative inflation – that was always the more likely problem. In that period, asset inflation – quite distinct from consumer inflation – did take hold, as those elites bought and sold assets while governments fiddled and twiddled; while too many governments refused to invest in sustainable infrastructure and sustainable income accounting, letting the speculators play with the money instead.
Global Race to the Bottom
High interest rate policies have the perverse effect of drawing money from countries which don’t follow that monetary policy to countries which do follow the prescription. So reluctant countries become obliged to follow the leader countries, to defend their currencies. While undervalued currencies are seen as advantageous in a mercantilist world in which countries seek to run trade surpluses – or at least avoid trade deficits – the problem with falling currencies is that they generate inflation spirals in the concerned countries; this is especially true for small countries which are substantially inter-connected in the global economy.
Thus we see the terrible culpability in 2022 of the United States Federal Reserve Bank. Interestingly, Japan, the world’s third largest national economy, has a degree of self-sufficiency (and a track record since the 1990s) that enables it to resist this race-to-the bottom. Today Japan has a central-bank interest rate of minus 0.10%, and an inflation rate of just 3.0%, despite a falling currency. The United States, despite its purported anti-inflation policy (of aggressive interest rate ‘hikes’) and its rising currency, has a central bank interest rate of 4.0% and an annual inflation rate of 8.2%.
A race-to-the-bottom is initiated in a situation where an action is globally adverse, but is seen to be domestically favourable. In other words, it occurs where leaders in one country see a gain to their country by imposing a greater cost on the rest of the world. It means that the leaders in other countries become obliged to pursue the same policies, thereby further exporting the problem. When all countries pursue the ‘race-to-the-bottom’ policy, also known as ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’, then all countries become losers. It’s worse than that though, because those which pursue the policy most vigorously become the losers with the least losses; which in a perverse way makes them the ‘winners’. (Just as megadeath in the trenches of World War One came to be seen as ‘victory’ if the other side’s megadeath was even greater.)
Real interest rates
Real interest rates, a measure of the probable true costs of borrowing money (and the true yields from lending money), are defined as the current annual interest rate minus the expected rate of price increases for the coming year. (Because future prices are unknown, this ‘expected rate’ is an average of the probabilities; where those probabilities are assessed from current information, historical knowledge of similar situations, and generalised ‘knowledge’ derived from theory.)
Example: if the current interest rate is 6% and prices are expected to fall 2% because normality is expected to return over the next year, then the real interest rate is 8%.
In a cost-of-living crisis, real interest rates rise, because the expected rate of price increases falls; ie the significant price increases are understood to have already happened. This acts as a dampener on business borrowing, because loans will need to be serviced when the prices businesses receive are lower than are present prices. The appropriate monetary policy response to a rise in the real rate of interest, if any response is undertaken, is for the Reserve Banks to reduce their ‘official cash rates’ (or whatever they are called in other countries).
It is also important to note that, during a period of inflation – when expected inflation rates are positive, maybe substantially positive – that interest rate increases should follow inflationary price increases. The problem with monetary policy as we experience today is that the authorities seek to control what should be a market price, and they seek to use rising interest rates as a weapon against inflation rather than have them as a passive consequence of inflation.
What we saw in the 1980s was a ruthless attempt to turn a 1970s’ situation of negative real interest rates into a situation of positive real interest rates. Looking back, we clearly see this as having been a political coup on the part of the financial elite; the richest ‘ten percent’ and the financial industry which services them. When real interest rates are positive, incomes – entitlements to consume – flow from the poor to the rich; substantial positive real interest rates were the main drivers of growing inequality in the 1980s and the 1990s.
Conclusion
We are now seeing another political coup, as the richest decile – the ‘ten percenters’ – seek to escape from the clutches of an existential real-cost crisis of their own making. Popular denial of a real-cost crisis – for example, by calling it ‘inflation’ – just plays into the hands of the elite. Denial cannot resolve a crisis. In the end, if the ‘ship’ is sinking, all on board can expect to drown. There may be no life-boats. And, if there are life-boats, it might not be money that buys a person a ticket.
*******
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Hickson, Economics Lecturer and Director Business Taught Masters Programme, University of Canterbury
Getty Images
It feels like a perfect storm is building. The rising cost of living and higher interest rates are putting household budgets under stress, and falling house prices could push some home owners into negative equity.
On the one hand, the drop in house prices is a good thing as it makes housing more affordable, particularly for young people – and we want that.
But every transaction has two sides. Dropping house prices are bad for those who need or want to sell their house, or who hold most of their wealth in their home. These people are now markedly poorer.
In September 2017, the average house in New Zealand cost NZ$666,518. By January 2022, prices had peaked at $1,063,765. But by September 2022, the average house price had slipped to $956,592. The downward trend may continue for a while yet.
Some 32% of New Zealand households have a mortgage on the primary residence, with the median property debt increasing to $260,000 in the year ended June 2021, up $56,000 over the past three years.
A looming threat
For most home owners, a small or even moderate fall in the value of their home won’t make any practical difference. Their house will still probably be worth more now than it was two years ago and it will still be worth more than their mortgage.
However, for those whose mortgage is a high fraction of the value of their home – those who bought property in 2021 when rates were low and house prices high, for example – the risk is that they will fall into negative equity.
A borrower enters negative equity if the value of their home drops below the value of their mortgage.
For around 2% of New Zealand mortgage holders, this threat has become a reality.
But is it time to panic? Well, probably not. As long as you don’t need to sell your house and you can sustain your mortgage payments, then negative equity doesn’t matter all that much. You can just wait it out.
That said, negative equity can become more of an issue when other economic issues – rising inflation, unemployment or interest rates – rear their heads.
Yes, interest rates are rising but they are still relatively low. The floating rate for a first mortgage is currently 6.8%. Prior to the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), this interest rate tier hit a peak of 10.9%.
That said, interest rates fell over the course of the GFC, while rates are currently rising. Furthermore, the level of debt held by many households is now higher since people had to take on bigger mortgages as house prices rose. Bigger debt levels makes higher interest rates harder to cope with.
Unemployment will make negative equity a bigger issue. Currently, New Zealand’s unemployment rate is historically low, meaning most people with a mortgage can feel relatively secure in their job or job prospects.
But it won’t stay there.
The low unemployment makes it harder for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to rein in inflation, particularly if wages continue to rise. The RBNZ has been clear that New Zealand needs to get ready for a rise in unemployment, with some economists saying 50,000 New Zealanders would need to lose their jobs to bring inflation under control.
Rises in both unemployment and interest rates at the same time will increase the chance that some highly-leveraged mortgage holders get into problems.
Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr has warned that inflation must come down – and this could mean difficulty for some borrowers. Getty Images
Did we learn from the GFC?
Negative equity was a big problem during the 2008 GFC as house prices fell and banks accumulated bad loans. This issue hit the United States and parts of Europe particularly hard.
But that doesn’t mean we are heading to the same place now.
Following the 2008 crisis, New Zealand’s lending rules changed, requiring banks to be more cautious when lending. In 2021, these rules were refined even further. The number of low-equity loans that banks could make was reduced and banks had to look more closely at a borrower’s ability to repay debt.
Some of these requirements have certainly made it harder for first home buyers, perhaps overly so, but it has reduced the risk in our financial system.
This time around there will be fewer borrowers with mortgages that are a high fraction of the value of their house and fewer who can’t manage higher mortgage repayments.
Banks also have no incentive to push people into a default on their mortgage. This is especially true when there is negative equity. The bank doesn’t win if they force the sale of a home and get back less than they were owed. And the headline “Bank evicts mum with two toddlers” never plays well.
So expect banks to work hard with any struggling mortgage holders to help them keep paying the mortgage.
The immediate future is not going to be pleasant for many borrowers. The RBNZ must get inflation down. Doing that will not be easy and homeowners should prepare for higher interest rates.
But negative equity is not a problem providing you don’t need to sell your house and you can afford to pay your mortgage.
Even if unemployment rises to 7%, which is just above the post GFC peak, that would still mean a 93% employment rate. Most people will be in work, living in their house and paying their mortgage – even those with negative equity.
Stephen Hickson 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.
When the ancestors of Māori made landfall in Aotearoa some 750 years ago, it marked the final stop of the greatest expansion of human migration in prehistory.
Much of their story – exactly when they arrived and where they initially settled, how quickly the population grew, and how they sustained themselves and adapted during rapidly changing climate conditions – has remained elusive until now.
Our research traces the first 250 years of settlement, including changes in resource availability and population growth. It provides a more precise timeline for arrival and settlement, beginning as early as 1250-1270.
We also demonstrate for the first time a difference in the age of settlements in the North and South islands. The research shows that Māori adapted quickly to their new environment and again during later periods when temperature and rainfall changed significantly.
The changing distribution of archaeological sites across Aotearoa. The red ellipse marks the distribution of the volcanic deposits from the Kaharoa eruption around 1314. Authors provided, CC BY-ND
Researchers have long debated the exact timing of their first settlement, with estimates varying between the 12th and 14th centuries, depending on the material selected for radiocarbon dating.
We show that early settlers reached the North Island first, between 1250 and 1270, a decade before the South Island became more popular.
At the time of settlement, the south had colonies of the large flightless moa. The early settlers rapidly adapted to this temperate climate, living on a diet of moa, seafood and vegetables grown in their garden plots.
Wairau Bar in Marlborough is thought to be one of the earliest sites of settlement in the South Island. Fiona Petchey, CC BY-SA
But then the Little Ice Age interfered with this lifestyle. After 1350, conditions became significantly colder in the south. By around 1400-1420, moa hunting became uneconomic and put these fledgling communities under immense pressure. Once again, people had to adapt quickly.
Models developed from radiocarbon dates and the distribution of archaeological sites indicate the population shifted back to the north and grew between 1350 and 1450. In the north, soils were ideal for agriculture and temperatures were warmer.
Estimates of arrival and settlement in earlier studies and models vary depending on the material they used. For example, radiocarbon dates of the Pacific rat (Rattus exulans or kiore) tell a story about the spread of rats following the introduction by Māori ancestors. This study documents an explosion in the rat population but not information on the earliest human settlement date.
Likewise, radiocarbon dates on moa eggshell and bone tell us about the timing of moa-hunting activities but little about activities elsewhere.
This piecemeal approach has blurred the settlement chronology and contributed to the notion of a “mass migration” event. These studies also ignored dates on marine materials, one of the most commonly dated sample types.
In a previous study, we demonstrated that dates of midden shells could increase the accuracy of models if we had a better understanding of how radiocarbon in the ocean changed over time.
The development of a regional marine calibration curve that mapped this change allowed us to include more than 800 shell radiocarbon dates in the current study. This curve doubled the number of dates available for analysis.
Toitoi (Cookia sulcata) shell from an early archaeological site. Fiona Petchey, CC BY-SA
It was also necessary to develop a new approach to modelling that combined terrestrial and marine radiocarbon data sets. The increased precision and accuracy of these new models enabled us to draw links between the number and distribution of archaeological sites, climate, resources and deforestation trends.
Why our results are more precise
We scoured journal papers and books to assemble more than 2,250 dates, the largest radiocarbon data set from any island context. We carefully evaluated the archaeological context and scientific reliability of each date and removed almost 700 problematic dates before modelling began.
Differences between the terrestrial and marine calibration curves used to convert radiocarbon measurements into calendar ages enabled us to refine “wiggles” that result in multiple ranges for some early settlement events.
This research goes only a small way to providing a time baseline for understanding the complexity of ancestral Māori society. Future work aims to achieve the precision needed to establish more links between people, climate and time.
We would like to acknowledge the contribution to this research by Simon Bickler, director of Bickler Consultants.
Dr. Magdalena Bunbury receives funding from Australian Research Council (ARC) and previously from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)
Fiona Petchey’s work is supported by a University of Waikato Marsden Support Grant
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Orchard, Research Fellow, Centenary Institute; and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Dragana Gordic / Shutterstock
Wearable devices that can record your pulse can be handy for tracking your fitness – but can you really use them to monitor for an irregular heartbeat?
The short answer is maybe, and it depends on who you are. These devices are great, but there are some things you need to know.
Several large studies have been carried out to examine how well wearables can check for signs of a common heart rhythm problem called “atrial fibrillation”, which can lead to strokes.
Atrial fibrillation becomes more common with increasing age, and it can substantially increase the risk of stroke. Patients at high risk of atrial fibrillation-related stroke, due to age and/or other risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes, are generally prescribed blood-thinning medication.
More and more devices for recording heart rhythm are available to consumers. These include handheld electrocardiogram (ECG) and pulse-based technology in smartwatches, other wearables and portable consumer devices. These are often marketed as “health and wellness” products.
For people aged 65 and over, Australian and other international guidelinesrecommend occasional screening for atrial fibrillation.
However, new technologies (including wearables) allow consumers to record their own heart rhythms whenever they wish, and continuously monitor the regularity of their pulse. This technology can empower consumers and provide important information, but it does have limitations.
How accurate are wearables and other consumer devices?
The short answer is that, for identifying atrial fibrillation, wearables are probably quite accurate (often over 95%). However, the information is often based on studies of small numbers of people.
Some devices include an algorithm that automatically says whether your heart rhythm is regular (a “normal sinus rhythm”) or irregular (which may indicate atrial fibrillation). These algorithms generally require regulatory approval (such as from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia).
However, device companies often don’t publish many details about the accuracy and performance of their devices. Wearables that simply track heart rate or activity without making claims about serious conditions are not regulated by the TGA.
It’s important that manufacturers of health devices:
are accurate in their health claims
don’t advertise unproven benefits
report the accuracy and performance of their devices in different populations.
While the Fitbit, Apple and Huawei studies were very large, the calculations used to determine accuracy of the device may be based on small numbers because not many people in the study had atrial fibrillation.
For example, the Apple Heart study had 419,000 participants overall – which is a lot of people! However, the accuracy was calculated by comparing simultaneous recordings of atrial fibrillation on the smartwatch pulse irregularity detector and an ECG patch in only 86 people.
Who are they good for?
If you have symptoms, or are aged over 65, wearables can be very useful for detecting atrial fibrillation.
Wearables are great as an “event recorder” for anyone with a symptom (such as heart palpitations) that could be an arrhythmia. Devices with ECG capability such as Apple Watch Series 4 or later, Withings Scanwatch and KardiaMobile are particularly good as they provide more information. Once you have an ECG recording during a symptom, you can give it to your doctor, which can help guide further follow-up.
Wearable devices give us more heart rhythm data than ever before – but it’s not always clear how to interpret it. Unsplash
Wearables are also good for helping people to get an early diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. Ideally, this needs to be supported by integrated care, including risk factor reduction and lifestyle changes to reduce progression and complications (especially relevant for young people who may need no specific therapy).
We also know wearables can be used to screen enormous numbers of people: 457,000 in the Fitbit study, 419,000 in the Apple Heart study and 188,000 in the Huawei study. However, the yield of new atrial fibrillation detected was low (less than 1%) in these studies, mainly because the study participants were very young (the average age in all three studies was 41 years or less).
What are the problems then?
More data isn’t always better. If your GP checks your pulse at an appointment, finds it irregular and an ECG confirms it is atrial fibrillation, it’s likely you are experiencing atrial fibrillation quite a lot of the time (or all the time).
The risks of atrial fibrillation are similar for people with symptoms and those without, and we know how to treat the condition.
However, wearables are able to monitor people’s heart rhythm far more frequently and for much longer. The more you look, the more atrial fibrillation you find, but we are not yet sure we should.
So, while wearables increase detection of atrial fibrillation, we don’t know whether this will also prevent strokes.
Many people who buy wearables are younger and at lower risk. We aren’t yet sure about what it means when a young person with few or no risk factors has short episodes of atrial fibrillation.
More evidence is needed, ideally from good-quality, independent, randomised studies.
Drawbacks and data
Even highly accurate devices can and do sometimes give false positives, more frequently in younger people who have a lower risk of having atrial fibrillation. Additional tests may be needed, which increase cost, and may lead to unnecessary testing that could cause problems and potentially anxiety.
What should I do if my wearable tells me I have atrial fibrillation?
If your device says you may have atrial fibrillation, save a copy of the reading and talk to your doctor about the result. You may need further testing or treatment. However, don’t panic!
We need to remember one size doesn’t fit all. Either way, wearables are here to stay. We have to make sure we understand their benefits and limitations.
Dr Jessica Orchard is a Research Fellow at the Centenary Institute and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, the University of Sydney. She is supported by a Heart Foundation fellowship and some of her research has been supported by Pfizer-BMS (investigator-initiated research grants) and Alivecor (provided devices for study purposes).
Ben Freedman receives current competitive grant funding from the Medical Research Future Fund, the NSW Dept of Health, and from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement no. 648131, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement no. 847770 (AFFECT-EU). In the past 5 years, B.F. has received speaker fees and travel support for speaking at sessions or official satellites of large international or continental society meetings from Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb–
Pfizer Alliance, Daiichi Sankyo and Omron; and investigator-initiated research grants to the institution from Bristol-Myers Squibb–Pfizer Alliance.
Last week, police seized about 80 illegal firearms across Victoria. These included eight homemade firearms, four of which were “military-style weapons”, as well as two 3D printers.
This is the latest in a series of seizures of 3D-printed weapons in Australia:
in September 2021, New South Wales counter-terrorism police arrested a right-wing extremist for possession of a digital design file that could be used to print a 3D gun
Despite media reports of seizures of 3D-printed guns, very little is known about the demand and availability of these firearms within Australia. The available research, including our own, draws heavily from media reports.
What are 3D-printed firearms and why are they such a threat?
3D printing is used to create a three-dimensional object by layering materials following instructions contained in Computer Aided Design (CAD) files. These files can be downloaded on dark web forums, for example, and shared via online networks.
3D-printed firearms can include handguns, rifles and machineguns. There are also modular or hybrid guns made from interchangeable firearm components (3D-printed or otherwise). This allows for customisation and cloaking of a firearm’s history.
3D-printed firearms do not currently work as well as traditional guns. However, there have been rapid improvements in the reliability of 3D-printed firearms and they are becoming less prone to malfunction.
3D-printed guns pose a significant threat to community safety. 3D printing has evolved to become relatively cheap and easily accessible. Significantly, it allows the manufacture of operational weapons within an otherwise heavily regulated firearms context.
Such guns are untraceable as they don’t have serial numbers nor do they leave ballistic evidence in the same way as conventional firearms. This can undermine police investigations and information systems such as the Australian Ballistics Information Network and the National Firearm Trace Program.
These weapons are potentially available to people who aren’t licensed to own a firearm, and those under Firearms Prohibition Orders. This includes those who could not hold a firearms licence due to their age, mental health, or criminal histories.
What’s more, these weapons are made mostly from plastics, which means they aren’t detectable with metal detectors. Such firearms can bypass traditional security screening measures, presenting serious risks in aviation, public events and locations where security screening is in place (for example mega events, or secure government buildings such as Parliament House). 3D-printed guns are also easier to dismantle and destroy than more durable metal-based firearms.
Police have revealed some organised criminal groups and extremists have had 3D printers and 3D-printed firearms in their possession.
Recent Australian research in which one of the authors, David Bright, was involved, found criminally connected individuals, including members of organised criminal groups, can easily access a range of firearms through social networks. We interviewed 75 people imprisoned for gun crimes and found some had manufactured firearms or firearm parts. However, some interviewees were suspicious of accessing digital design files for fear of leaving online traces that law enforcement could intercept.
Members of extremist groups are less likely to have the contacts required to access the Australian black market for firearms. For them, 3D-printed firearms may be an attractive and low-risk option.
It’s important to note Australia has one of the strictest gun control regimes in the world. Any home manufacture of any firearms is criminalised under existing laws.
Legislative responses to 3D firearms have varied internationally, and across Australian jurisdictions, and are evolving given the dynamic nature of the problem. International responses to 3D-printed guns include:
criminalising the manufacture of 3D-printed firearms
licensing or registration schemes for 3D-printed firearms
introducing new offences for possession of digital design files for 3D-printed firearms.
While Australian states have uniform legislation on the restriction of firearms, different states have enacted different laws for 3D-printed firearms and their design files. NSW is the only Australian state to criminalise possession of digital design files for 3D guns.
There are some alternative legal and policy responses. “Hash values” might be used to eradicate digital design files from the internet. Hash values are codes associated with images and files, sometimes referred to as “photo DNA”.
Police and technology companies already use these to detect and remove child exploitation material. This could be used to restrict access to 3D weapon digital design files. However, unlike child exploitation material, design files for 3D printed guns are not universally illegal.
One option might be to have 3D printers recognise design files for guns, and prevent them from being printed. Shutterstock
One innovative approach would be to require 3D printers sold in Australia to recognise digital design files for 3D-printed firearms. This is turn could prevent printing in such cases.
Online censorship, content moderation and website blocking are other possible options. However, these are complicated by the fact the possession or dissemination of design files for 3D-printed firearms isn’t currently illegal (unless you’re in NSW). There are also a range of issues with online censorship, such as free speech, the cross-jurisdictional nature of the internet, and the availability of design files on the dark web.
Another possibility for restricting access to digital design files would involve the development of industry online safety codes. These are codes that regulate access to harmful online conduct, similar to the Online Safety Act.
There’s perhaps a greater role for the e-Safety Commissioner to direct platforms or websites accessible in Australia to remove harmful content such as design files for 3D-printed firearms, or restrict access to those over 18. Again, though, there are a range of issues with online age verification systems.
There is a pressing need for more research on 3D-printed firearms in Australia. Given the relative safety we enjoy in Australia by virtue of our tough gun laws, there are serious concerns about the ease of availability of digital design files for printing firearms. Restricting the capacity to manufacture firearms is our best defence to ensure our safety.
David Bright receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Criminology.
While employed at the Australian Institute of Criminology, Dr Monique Mann worked on the evaluation of the Australian Ballistics Information Network (ABIN). Dr Mann is Vice Chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation.
A heated debate about autism was reignited after the recent publication of an article advocating for use of the term “profound autism”.
This term is not an official part of the autism diagnosis. But the 2021 Lancet Commission on autism – part the journal’s program to gather expertise on pressing global health and science issues – argued the term should refer to people with a diagnosis of autism who have very high support needs, such as 24-hour care for basic needs and safety. The Lancet Commission estimated that around 20% of autistic people meet criteria for “profound autism”.
Now debate centres on whether this term is an appropriate way to highlight the high support needs of a subgroup of autistic people – or whether the term may be a step backwards for community understanding and acceptance.
The autism spectrum
Our understanding of autism has changed dramatically over the past 30 years.
The term “autism” was first introduced into the diagnostic manual in 1980. To receive this diagnosis, children demonstrated significant development difficulties, such as “gross deficits in language development” and “a pervasive lack of responsiveness to other people”.
These difficulties meant people with a diagnosis of autism in the 1980s and 1990s tended to have high support needs – likely 24-hour care.
The 2000s and 2010s saw a major reconceptualisation of autism. Autistic behaviours became understood as present in people who do not have intellectual or significant language difficulties.
This new understanding of autism led to people with a much more diverse range of abilities receiving a diagnosis of autism. The “autism spectrum” was born.
Advocacy and representation
The rethinking of autism to a “spectrum” emerged out of a large body of high-quality research.
Another important catalyst was the extraordinary work of autistic people themselves, who through important advocacy, championed the rights and needs of all autistic people. This advocacy reshaped community views about autism, in particular, that not all autistic people have intellectual disability.
Media portrayals of autism accelerated the shift in community views about autism. TV shows focused on stereotypes of men (it was almost always men) who were intellectually gifted, but had social difficulties. Shaun Murphy in The Good Doctor and Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory are two examples.
The greater community visibility of autism has been overwhelmingly positive. It has fostered greater acceptance of difference and increased support for a broader range of people. However, like all important societal changes, there have been challenges too.
A key source of debate has been whether broadening the diagnosis of autism has made the diagnostic label no longer entirely fit-for-purpose.
The purpose of a diagnosis is to help define and identify a health condition or disability. Diagnoses provide understanding about what a condition is, and what it may mean for the person diagnosed. In many cases, a diagnosis can also provide information about the most appropriate clinical management.
A current criticism of the autism diagnosis (officially, “autism spectrum disorder”) is that it is too broadly defined. How can a single diagnostic label that incorporates television’s Dr Cooper as well as people who require around-the-clock care, serve all autistic people?
This was part of the argument the Lancet Commission made when proposing the term “profound autism”. The experts involved claimed that, because people with very high support needs are unable to advocate for themselves, they “are at risk of being marginalised by a focus on more able individuals”.
spur both the clinical and research global communities to prioritise the needs of this vulnerable and underserved group of autistic people.
Strong counter points have been made against the use of the term “profound autism”. These include advocating for alternative ways to describe the different needs of autistic people. For example, using brief descriptions such as “autistic person with intellectual disability”.
A key criticism is that, after the significant gains of the past few decades in recognising the broad spectrum of autistic people, dividing autistic people into two groups using relatively arbitrary criteria would represent a retrograde step.
It is clear there is a large group of people who do not feel well served by the broad nature of the current autism diagnosis. There is a clinical and moral responsibility to acknowledge and value this perspective, and explore it further.
To do so would be entirely consistent with the history of our changing understanding of autism over time.
Whether or not “profound autism” is eventually seen as an appropriate diagnostic term, it is important to acknowledge that this debate touches on deeply personal issues of identity and understanding.
The voice of autistic people must be central in this discussion. The voices of families who care for autistic people must also be valued.
A chocolate treefrog that looks like a Freddo. Burrowing frogs which live in trees. Long-nosed frogs named after Pinocchio. Frogs which go straight from egg to froglet without stopping at tadpole. And large treefrogs which can glide from tree to tree.
All these and many more are found only in Melanesia. This tiny region in the South Pacific is a global hotspot of cultural and biological diversity. And we still don’t know the full extent of its extreme biological riches.
Centred on the world’s largest tropical island, New Guinea, Melanesia is home to 534 types of frog. As our new research shows, that’s 7% of all the world’s frog species living on just 0.7% of the world’s land. And there are more to come. Almost 40% of these frogs have only been scientifically described in the last two decades.
Hundreds more species will likely be added to the tally, as we know of at least 190 species not yet formally described. The final tally will be over 700, with frogs colonising every possible niche. But their sheer evolutionary inventiveness also puts them at risk, with many species restricted to tiny ranges.
Litoria pinnochio is just one of over 200 species of Melanesian frog first documented in the last 20 years. Males of this species have an erectile spike at the tip of their snout. Tim Laman
Winged fingers, erectile noses and tiny males
Melanesia’s wealth of frog species easily surpasses other tropical island regions, including famed hotspots such as Madagascar (around 370 species), Borneo and the Caribbean (both around 200).
On these islands live more than double Australia’s tally of around 248 species).
Species diversity goes hand-in-hand with weird and wonderful evolutionary twists.
Take the narrow-mouthed frogs, which skip the tadpole stage and hatch directly from egg to frog. In this family, Microhylidae, is the likely ancestor of most of the region’s frog species after migrating from Asia around 20 million years ago. These frogs were spectacularly successful, calving off an estimated 400 species.
Their tally include some of the world’s smallest creatures with a backbone, as well as many burrowing frogs which abandoned the ground to live in trees, and others with complex parental care, such as the father frog guarding his eggs and tadpoles, or carrying babies on his back.
In New Guinea multiple lineage of frogs have independently evolved very tiny size. Pictured is Choerophryne gracilirostris, described in 2015. Stephen Richards
The treefrogs are numerous too, with an estimated 200 species. Large green treefrog species have evolved finger webbing so they can glide to a lower branch. Other treefrogs have odd nose spikes. And of course, the recently described chocolate treefrog has drawn worldwide attention (and amusement) for its resemblance to a certain confectionery.
Litoria mira bears a strong resemblance to a popular kid’s sweet, hence the common name Chocolate Treefrog. Stephen Richards
Other islands have their own unique frogs. On the Papua New Guinean (PNG) island of New Britain lives Boulenger’s wrinkled ground frog (Cornufer boulengeri), a species whose males are 40 times lighter than females. For many years, scientists didn’t realise the males and females were the same species.
Melanesia’s many islands have fertile soil and often have extraordinarily varied landscapes. New Guinea, for instance, goes from sea level to highlands and mountains almost five kilometres high, with a few peaks still holding their last ice.
This is a key reason for frog diversity. Why? Because populations can easily become isolated, which speeds up the development of new species. New Guinea, for instance, is one of the world’s megadiverse hotspots, containing an estimated 7% of the world’s species on a fraction of the land area.
Complex landscapes increases the chance populations will become isolated and ultimately evolve into separate species. Stephen Richards
We also suspect the arrival of the direct-developing frog family have further supercharged species diversity in Melanesian frogs.
These frogs don’t have free-living tadpoles able to be dispersed by floods or along streams. This stay-at-home disposition may increase their chances of becoming isolated and evolving into distinct species.
Our research found direct-developing frogs in Melanesia have narrower ranges than their more conventional relatives.
Frogs without a free-living tapdole stage tend to have restricted ranges. Shown here is Oreophryne oviprotector, described in 2012. Stephen Richards
In fact, the easternmost tip of New Guinea and nearby islands have the most extreme concentration of vertebrates with small ranges anywhere in the world, with more than 160 species jammed into an area less than a quarter of the size of Tasmania.
Melanesia is a good place to be a frog – but threats are arriving
The world’s frogs are in trouble. Hundreds of species have gone extinct in recent decades.
But Melanesia, for now, is a good news story. We know of no frog extinction events and only 6% of species are threatened, compared to a global average of over 30%).
This could change if a lethal fungus takes hold. So far, Melanesia has stayed clear of it. Biosecurity measures are essential to conserve this bounty of frogs.
Because so many of Melanesia’s frogs have tiny ranges, they are particularly vulnerable to changes, such as logging a small area of forest. Climate change will pose an existential threat, particularly to frogs dependent on cold climates in the mountains.
PNG’s eastern biodiversity hotspot around Milne Bay is most at risk. Six species are threatened here by logging, while plans for oil palm plantations threaten many frog species.
Logging forests around Mt Simpson near Milne Bay threatens at least six recently described frog species. Fred Kraus
We hope documenting Melanesia’s wealth of frogs and other species will help conservation efforts. This region is special. Let’s keep it that way.
When we talk about Indigenous education in Australia, it almost always includes three words: “close the gap”. The federal government’s Indigenous education priorities highlight school attendance, literacy and numeracy and year 12 attainment. This frames students and their families as a “problem” to “fix”.
In other areas of education, the word “excellence” is frequently used to frame policy. But a simple Google search of “excellence” and “Indigenous education” comes up with very few meaningful results. Why aren’t starting from the same point in Indigenous education?
Our project started as a pilot study with three secondary schools from an urban, regional and remote setting in Queensland.
We yarned with 31 Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, principals and teachers about their perspectives on excellence in Indigenous education.
Educators spoke of the importance of building relationships with students. Author supplied
Here we share the perspectives of 12 Indigenous educators. We do this deliberately because it is critical we elevate Indigenous voices in any re-imagining of policy that affects us.
We explored the question: “How is excellence in Indigenous education defined by Indigenous peoples?”
Three themes emerged: the young person, school culture and relationships.
‘Build young people up’
The most distinct theme to emerge was the need to nurture and affirm culture and identity in students and in doing so, “build young people up”.
Indigenous interviewees talked about identity as a protective factor in the face of navigating issues such as racism at school. As school community liaison officer Uncle Frank* explained:
In our school, once students knew their identity, they excelled. Nurturing identity and culture is very important – growing young people in an environment where being Indigenous was negative but turning that into a positive is re-imagining the story for all Indigenous students.
Aboriginal teacher, Brooke, also explained:
our white kids know where they fit in society. Many of our kids don’t, sometimes they’re not accepted in different communities. Kids who are fair like me don’t fit with white or Black. Identity is important for all kids – we are social creatures”.
From a practical perspective, community education counsellor Aunty Millie said schools could provide dedicated physical spaces to enhance their identity work with students.
culture and identity play an important role in students believing in themselves and striving to be the best version of themselves […] students have to know that they [are] included and recognised as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people […] space to call their own is important. They like to be there.
Building up young people is more than just affirming their identity. As Uncle Frank explained, it is also:
letting our senior students take a lead role [and] encouraging Indigenous students to give feedback to teachers. Empower them to have a say.
School culture and leadership
Research already tells us the leadership of a school plays a critical role in its culture.
Our research also shows it is vital for excellence in Indigenous education.
Community liaison Katelyn told us how she was empowered by strong leadership at her school, who are open to new ideas and approaches based on Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.
We have a very great leader here […] I’m able to look outside the box […] the restraints aren’t there.
Brooke talked about the notion of “curriculum leadership” and the importance of “making sure everyone is reflected in curriculum and pedagogy [the way students are taught]”.
Relationships with students
Previous research also recognises how positive relationships with students are connected to positive outcomes for students.
Aboriginal school support worker Missy talked about the quality of relationships being a priority for schools.
It really does come down to building a relationship with the students [and] with the families and showing them [they are] not just another number.
Uncle Frank pointed out Indigenous people bring a wealth of knowledge in relationships with schools.
[…] we know what’s best for our kids – include us in the conversation. If you’ve got a degree that’s good but I’ve got a degree in life – being Aboriginal.
We need new ways to talk about Indigenous education
In all our conversations with educators and support staff in school, one other thing stood out. When asked to think about “excellence” in Indigenous education, many of these experts struggled to conceptualise what it is or should be.
We believe this is due to the dominance of “closing the gap”. Those three words have been so influential in shaping the minds of educators and support staff in schools.
This highlights the power and importance of language. We need new ways to speak aspirationally about Indigenous education and move on from the old deficit vocabulary.
This is a small data set from a pilot study, but it already provides some important insights about how we work towards excellence in Indigenous education.
It shows how there must be opportunities for Indigenous peoples to shape all aspects of schooling and educational policy. It is vital we include the aspirations, experiences and stories of Indigenous people working in Indigenous education.
*names have been changed.
Marnee Shay receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Edmund Rice Education Australia.
Danielle Armour receives funding from Edmund Rice Education Australia.
Jodie Miller receives funding from Edmund Rice Education Australia.
Suraiya Abdul Hameed receives funding from Edmund Rice Education Australia
The Adelaide Film Festival is well timed in the festival calendar, as it lands between many films premiering at the Venice Film Festival and their Australian theatrical release.
This year’s program balanced big films like My Policeman, TÁR and Banshees of Inisherin with smaller, edgier films.
Over the week, I saw a respectable 15 films. Here are my top five highlights.
Survival of Kindness
Rolf De Heer’s Survival of Kindness, supported by the festival’s investment fund, opens with BlackWoman (Mwajemi Hussein) abandoned in a desert, locked in a cage, left alone to die. As the film starts, we see her struggle to break free. Achieving this freedom, we follow her journey to the city, where she is challenged by several characters along the way.
The film’s gradual world building and use of genre continually subverts expectations. Is this a road movie? Is it a western? Is it perhaps science fiction? The film’s portrayal of Australia is equal parts strange and familiar.
De Heer depicts Australia as a dystopian landscape, where non-white folk are hunted down and exterminated by those in gas masks. The continuous subversion of expectations as the narrative unfolds makes this a compelling and confronting watch.
Triangle of Sadness
Ruben Östlund is fantastic at socially conscious comedies and he is at his best in the Palme d’Or winning Triangle of Sadness. The film is in two parts.
First, we are aboard a $250 million luxury yacht for the exceedingly wealthy, where jars of Nutella are helicoptered in and the staff are at the behest of the passengers. The staff must always say yes and never no.
Passengers include Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (the late Charlbi Dean), two influencers whose beauty is paying for the trip. We also meet the ship’s drunk captain (Woody Harrelson) who gets into a heated political debate with Russian businessman Dimitry (the brilliant Zlatko Buric).
“While you’re swimming in abundance, the rest of the world is drowning in misery,” the captain drunkenly rants over the ship’s PA system.
The film obscures its standout player, cleaner Abigail (Dolly de Leon), until the second act, when her character arc is revealed to be pivotal to the film’s objective.
The film’s social commentary loses any subtlety when the passengers all sit down to the captain’s dinner during a particularly rough storm. What precedes is a raucous, stomach-churning onslaught of physical humour. The humour is utterly carnivalesque.
Some critics have reviewed the film as being too on the nose, which is the absolute point of this film. This havoc leads into the film’s second act, which deftly sees these class structures challenged and subverted. The tone of the film dramatically changes as well, with the laugh-out-loud comedy making way for a fallout of the social dynamics constructed in the first half.
Triangle of Sadness will be in Australian cinemas from December 22.
Senses of Cinema
Understandably, John Hughes and Tom Zubrycki’s Senses of Cinema was also a standout film in Adrian Dank’s highlights for The Conversation from this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival.
The film examines the history of Sydney and Melbourne film co-operatives told by those at the forefront of independent filmmaking in Australia.
Those interviewed include important figures such as Martha Ansara, Jan Chapman, Albie Thoms and Phillip Noyce.
Key to this film is that there has always been an audience for these films and – regardless of the hurdles faced – artists will always persist.
The extensive use of films from the archives is wonderful, making this an important inclusion to any course on Australian cinema. The documentary also doesn’t shy away from political differences that formed during the collectives’ history, such as the surging feminist movement’s critique of the sexist representation of women in some early films or the role of class with a lot of the early filmmakers being products of private schooling.
Fascinating moments included early filmmaking with and, more importantly, by First Nations’ communities, such as the work by Essie Coffey. I was pleased to see Digby Duncan’s documentary Witches & Faggots, Dykes & Poofters discussed as these co-operatives were significant to the development of queer Australian filmmaking.
This year’s festival had a strong queer presence, which is important as there is no dedicated stand-alone queer film festival in Adelaide.
Paul Struthers, previously the director of Queer Screen in Sydney and of San Francisco’s Frameline International LGBTQ Film Festival, was a guest programmer. Struthers’ talent for queer programming is indicative in the offerings in this year’s program. There were the big events with Bros and My Policeman, starring Harry Styles. There were also many smaller queer films that one would expect from a queer film festival, such as Will-O-The-Wisp and Uyra: The Rising Forest.
My highlight from the queer slate was Phantom Project, a small Chilean film dubbed as an urban gay ghost story.
The film opens with Pedro’s roommate moving out, owing him two months rent and leaving behind a cardigan.
Unbeknown to Pedro, this cardigan is possessed by a ghost, who begins to haunt him and his dog Susan during the night.
The film is a light-hearted take on the ghost genre, with crude animated squiggles representing the presence of the ghost, making it a silent character for the film.
Pablo is surrounded by young creatives, YouTubers, musicians, and actors, and yet, Pablo is at a creative block in his life that leaves him unfilled. Being haunted becomes an allegory for this fear of leading an unfulfilled life.
While the film does lose cohesion in the closing act, it is nonetheless fun and simple. This type of film, the small, independent production, is just as important for the film to support than the major titles coming out of Venice or Cannes.
Banshees of Inisherin
Martin McDonagh reunites with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson from In Bruges to deliver another tragic comedy.
In 1923 on the small idyllic farming island Inisherin, Colm Doherty (Gleeson) tells Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) their friendship is over, and they are never to talk again.
In the small community of Inisherin, however, where the shopkeepers open your mail and the only place to go in the evening is the local pub for a singalong, it’s not easy for Pádraic to easily avoid Colm.
Ignoring the pleas from his sister Siobhan (a superb Kerry Condon), Pádraic continues to pester Colm, who declares that if Pádraic doesn’t heed his warnings, he will cut off his own fingers, one by one, for each time that Pádraic ignores the warning. For a man who lives to play his violin and yearns to leave a legacy in his music, this is a grim ultimatum.
In the background of this breakdown, the Irish civil war sounds off on the mainland, a constant reminder of the potential for destruction.
Both Farrell and Gleeson offer fantastic performances. With the slightest change in facial expression, both men can change the tone from humour to sadness. Pádraic is a gentle and ever-so slightly dull man whose deeply good nature is tested with this sudden change of character in Colm. He is very much like his pet mini-donkey, Jenny, with his humbleness and loyalty.
If there was one symbol of the Adelaide Film Festival this year, it would be the donkey. Given this film, EO and Triangle of Sadness, these humble, hardworking beasts appeared in many films in the program.
Much like the everyday men fighting over on the mainland, Pádraic and Colm are also driven down violent and destructive paths. While the wit of the dialogue is sharp, this is a deeply sad exploration of the love and fear that drive us.
Banshees of Inisherin will be in Australian cinemas from December 26.
The best of the rest
As always, there were a slew of other films I saw worth a mention.
Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Broker is another strong offering from the director whose skill at presenting heartbreaking tales of family are like none other.
While I didn’t love TÁR as much as some other critics have, the experience of seeing the film in a sold-out session at the historic Capri cinema with Cate Blanchett in attendance was electrifying.
The closing night Adelaide-made Talk to Me is a smart horror film that will be popular in the months and years ahead.
There were also many films which I didn’t see due to programming clashes I now have to chase down, such as Monolith, EO and Hamlet Syndrome. The Adelaide Film Festival has been a huge success this year, firming its position as an important player in the Australian screen industry.
Stuart Richards 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.
However, tobacco companies, rehearsing their well-worn arguments, have claimed this measure will deprive young people of important freedoms. Having spent decades refining tobacco products to enhance their addictiveness, these companies appear to believe that protecting young people from addiction would deprive them of personal autonomy.
While it is predictable that health researchers would support effective measures and tobacco companies would oppose them, we know much less about how young people, those targeted by the policy, view these measures.
We explored this question through in-depth interviews with 20 young people aged 17 or 18, and probed in detail how they viewed the smokefree generation policy.
Five of our participants reported currently smoking, one had formerly smoked and 14 did not smoke. Most supported the policy and believed introducing a smokefree generation would protect their freedoms.
Several had seen addiction within their whānau (extended family) and knew the health inequities smoking causes. Some struggled with addiction personally and thought the smokefree generation policy would address and protect young people’s right to healthy futures.
Their life experiences led these participants to favour longer-term outcomes and societal wellbeing over choices they viewed as illusory. They felt protecting young people from smoking uptake and addiction was crucial, and saw a society that protected young people from these pressures as more important than the so-called freedom to choose.
The right to protection trumps absolute freedom
Participants who supported the smokefree generation policy held a nuanced view of freedom and did not see it as absolute; instead, they recognised regulation could enhance positive freedoms and well-being.
They rejected the negative view of freedom tobacco companies propose, which presents regulation as limiting or removing choices. Many outlined a positive view of freedom that prioritised protection from addiction and the negative health consequences that follow, and endorsed the smokefree generation policy.
For these participants, it followed that the government had a responsibility to protect them, including limiting access to harmful products. As one young women observed:
The government essentially is supposed to keep you safe, and they’re not supposed to […] make things readily available that are gonna actively harm you.
Addiction not a choice
Participants did not see smoking as an “informed choice” they were entitled to make. Most young people who reported smoking supported the smokefree generation policy because it might have protected them from losing the freedoms addiction had taken from them.
One participant presented the options bluntly:
Whether it’s the government taking the choice or you being addicted to smokes, you’ve got no choice either way. If you’re addicted to smoking it’s not like you are choosing to go buy smokes. You’re going, ‘Oh, I needed a packet of smokes this week’.
A small minority did not support the smokefree generation measure, either because they felt less restrictive measures could prevent smoking uptake (such as raising age restrictions) or because they disagreed philosophically and believed people should not “be protected from yourself”.
In contrast to the societal perspective that supporters of the policy had adopted, these participants took an individualistic approach and felt people could and should make informed personal choices.
Most young people we interviewed did not share the tobacco companies’ view that the policy will reduce their autonomy or limit their freedoms. Their deep reflections suggest a sharp divide between industry “transformation” rhetoric and young people’s values.
Our findings add to earlier research documenting wide support for the smokefree generation policy. Such evidence indicates its acceptance and likely effectiveness.
Introducing a smokefree generation policy will promote freedom from lifelong addiction and the harms smoking causes, and safeguard the wellbeing of future generations.
Janet Hoek is a co-director of ASPIRE 2025, a University of Otago Research Centre whose members undertake research to inform the Government’s Smokefree 2025 goal. She has received or currently receives funding from the Royal Society Marsden Fund, the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Cancer Society of New Zealand.
Richard Edwards receives funding from various Government- and NGO-funded research funders such as the Health Research Council of New Zealand, National Institute for Health (USA) and the Cancer Society of New Zealand. He is a member of several expert advisory groups including for Hāpai te hauora – Māori Public Health, The New Zealand Cancer Society, Health Coalition Aotearoa and the Public Health Communication Centre.
Elizabeth Fenton, Jude Ball, and Lani Teddy do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.
The clock is fast running down on the parliamentary year, but the government still has lots to do before Christmas.
In this podcast Michelle and Amanda Dunn, the Conversation’s politics editor, discuss Labor’s struggle to hasten through its industrial relations bill. It is proffering multiple amendments to accommodate business objections, but also to persuade key Senate crossbencher David Pocock, who would like the controversial bill split, something the government won’t do.
Michelle & Amanda also canvass the COP27 conference under way in Egypt, which Anthony Albanese is not attending, and the release this week of election spending returns, which showed big cash splashes by successful Teals.
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.
Medibank is still refusing to pay a ransom of an undisclosed amount to cybercriminals, despite the hackers now allegedly threatening to release the stolen data on the dark web.
It’s reported the data of about 9.7 million current and former Medibank customers were compromised in a breach first confirmed by Medibank on October 13.
The data are said to include customers’ names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses – as well as some 500,000 health claims with information such as patients’ service provider details, where they received medical services and the types of treatments they claimed.
Medibank’s chief executive has said the company won’t be paying up – a decision endorsed by Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil. But what does the evidence say?
How were the data stolen?
According to variousreports, it all started when a hacker compromised the credentials of a Medibank employee who had access to a number of the company’s data repositories. It’s unclear whether the employee would have needed multifactor authentication to access these data – and, if so, whether this was also compromised.
It’s believed this hacker then sold the employee’s credentials to notorious cybercriminal group REvil via an online Russian language forum. Around midnight, REvil posted on the dark web threatening it would release the data in the next 24 hours should the ransom not be paid.
While there’s no evidence REvil does indeed have access to the stolen data, historically the REvil group has not been found to bluff. There’s no reason to believe this time is different.
Medibank first identified unusual activity on its network on October 12. It then launched a follow-up investigation that confirmed the breach. We don’t know how long the cybercriminals may have had access to its systems before then.
It’s reported they stole some 200GB of data in total. This is quite a large amount, and it would be unusual not to notice the exportation of this much sensitive data.
In this case, however, it seems the criminals used some sort of compression algorithm to minimise the data file size. This may have allowed the data extraction to be less obvious, perhaps also through splitting the data into smaller data packages.
To pay or not to pay?
Medibank chief executive David Koczkar has said the ransom request would not be paid, and “making any payment would increase the risk of extortion for our customers, and put more Australians at risk”. He said the decision is consistent with advice from cybersecurity experts and the Australian government.
This is, in fact, a smart decision. Even if the ransom is paid, it does not guarantee the cybercriminals will not use the stolen data for other malicious purposes, or won’t undertake further attacks against Medibank.
Law enforcement agencies across the world are against paying ransoms. However, there are life-threatening situations in a healthcare context, such as during remote surgery, when there may be no choice.
Cybercriminals take advantage of vulnerabilities in healthcare IT infrastructure – largely because there’s a higher chance of getting a ransom paid in healthcare than in any other sector.
Often, organisations targeted will have to pay a ransom to get back access to data and continue providing healthcare services. According to one recent report the majority of ransomware attack victims in healthcare end up paying the ransom.
As to why Medibank hasn’t disclosed the specific ransom amount, this is because this information could encourage other cybercriminals to aim for similar targets in future ransom events.
If the ransom were disclosed, and later had to be paid, Medibank’s reputation as an insurance provider would hit rock bottom. When Colonial Pipeline’s fuel pipeline infrastructure in the US was hit by a ransomware attack, the hefty ransom payment of US$4.4 million left a permanent scar on the operator’s reputation.
The risks as the situation unfolds
The risks for victims of the Medicare data breach must not be underestimated. This sensitive information could be used in various types of fraud. For example, hackers may call victims of the data breach pretending to be Medibank, and ask for a service charge to have their data safeguarded. Healthcare data can also be used for blackmail and fraudulent billing.
What’s more, hackers can identify the most vulnerable individuals among the list of victims and create customised attack vectors. For example, individuals with implanted devices (such as pacemakers) can be targeted with blackmail and threats to their life.
Beyond this, cybercriminals could also use victims’ personal information to conduct a number of other scams unrelated to Medibank or healthcare. After all, if you have someone’s details it’s much easier to pretend to be any organisation or company with authority.
For those potentially affected by the Medicare data breach, the most important thing now is to remain vigilant about all types of online activity. You can start by replacing your passwords with more secure passphrases. You should also consider running a credit check to see if any suspicious activity has been conducted in your name.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Penelope Crossley, Associate Professor of Law, The University of Sydney Law School, University of Sydney
Prudence Upton/Sydney Theatre Company
Review: RBG: Of Many, One, directed by Priscilla Jackman, Sydney Theatre Company
Writing a play about the life and legacy of American Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was always going to be an ambitious task for playwright Suzie Miller.
Ginsburg (or “RBG” to her many fans) was only the second female judge to be appointed onto the bench of the court in its more than 200-year history, when elevated to the court in 1993, aged 60.
Throughout her life, she was much admired for her trailblazing legal career, her work advocating for gender equality and her considered dissenting judgements against the often-conservative majority decision.
At the same time, both during her life and after her death, RBG was attacked for openly criticising former US president Donald Trump during the presidential race and for not resigning from the court during Obama’s presidency, despite her advanced age and cancer diagnosis.
When RBG ultimately died during the Trump presidency, she was not able to be replaced by another Democratic appointee, leading to the court becoming even more conservative.
Miller’s new play is beautifully crafted, written from the perspective of RBG. She discusses her most famous cases throughout her life and her conversations with three of the presidents who served during her 27-year term on the bench. Over this journey, the play takes the audience through a roller-coaster of emotions.
RBG: Of Many, One, follows RBG’s time as one of the few women at Harvard Law School, along with her work challenging gender-based discrimination including the ability of women to serve on juries and the cancer that repeatedly afflicted her family.
Miller seamlessly weaves quotes from RBG’s most famous cases and judgements into the script, so we hear her authentic voice. The play demonstrates a complex understanding of the legal cases, but Miller doesn’t assume familiarity with RBG: this play is equally accessible for the non-lawyer who knows little of RBG’s history.
Heather Mitchell gives a virtuosic performance. Prudence Upton/Sydney Theatre Company
Miller doesn’t skate over the criticisms of RBG. She humanises the decisions she made and her later reflections on those decisions. In particular, the audience gets to see, upon reflection, how deeply troubled RBG was by her decision to criticise Donald Trump during the Trump/Clinton presidential election.
RBG: Of Many, One’s ultimate success or failure turns on the strength of the acting. Heather Mitchell is a virtuoso, giving the performance of her life.
She shows us Bader Ginsburg from a young girl through to her physical frailty in old age, poignantly characterising the emotional depth of her character.
The inner strength, the anxieties, the love, and the fears are all expertly conveyed to the audience. At times I have to remind myself that she is indeed playing RBG.
The play takes us from RBG’s childhood to her old age. Prudence Upton/Sydney Theatre Company
David Fleischer’s set design is stripped back to a beautiful simplicity. For most of the play the main prop is a solitary armchair, sitting isolated on the big stage.
David Fleischer’s set gives room for Heather Mitchell to shine. Prudence Upton/Sydney Theatre Company
Paul Charlier’s composition and sound design is another strength. He juxtaposes some of the operas that RBG so loved with the music of the rapper the Notorious B.I.G. (from whom the nickname the Notorious RBG is derived). This deftly highlights the complexity of RBG’s character.
These simple design choices allow Mitchell to shine. This play will long be one that Miller and Mitchell will be remembered for.
RBG: Of Many, One is at Wharf 1 Theatre until December 23.
Penelope Crossley received complimentary tickets for the purpose of reviewing this performance.
Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe is getting terrible press, most of it undeserved.
“Lowe Blow” and “Take a Hike” were two of the headlines on the front page of one of our newspapers. “We’ve had our Phil” was on the front page of another.
His critics – the ones complaining about continual increases in interest rates – seemed happy enough when he was keeping them low.
Daily Telegraph, August 2, 2022
Lowe and his board are pushing up rates at almost the fastest pace on record, for the same reason they cut them to the lowest level on record – to try to get the economy back into some sort of balance.
It’s tough. But it has been done before, and it worked.
In fact, the man who pushed rates down then up even more aggressively than we’re seeing now, former RBA Governor Bernie Fraser, told me this week he approves of the way Lowe is doing his job – with just one exception.
How Lowe’s low rates saved jobs
When COVID hit in 2020, at a time when the Reserve Bank’s cash rate was already a then-record low of 0.75%, the bank cut to what Lowe described as the “effective lower bound” of 0.25%, before cutting again to 0.1%, and offering banks near-free loans at 0.1%.
Lowe’s promise to buy as many government bonds as were needed to push the three-year bond rate down to 0.1% drove three-year fixed-rate mortgages below 2%. Variable-rate mortgages slid to 2.5%.
In concert with the Morrison government, which spent massively in response to COVID, Lowe cut rates to try to keep alive an economy that was shutting down.
The best measure of unemployment is the one that counts as unemployed the Australians working zero hours. It climbed to 15% in April 2020 – the worst since the Great Depression.
The stimulus programs, the arrival of vaccines and the end of lockdowns worked magic, as did the Reserve Bank’s determination to ensure that almost anyone who wanted to borrow could borrow for next to nothing. Spending bounced back, and by July this year unemployment had fallen to a five-decade low of 3.4%.
Then this year inflation – which had remained close to the Reserve Bank’s target of 2-3% for a record 30 years – broke free and climbed; at first to 5%, then to 6% and now 7.3%, all in the space of a few months.
Despite earlier hopes (those who were hopeful in the US and the UK, where this has also happened, called themselves “team transitory”) inflation hasn’t come back down, and shows little sign of returning to 2-3% of its own accord.
Inflation reawakened
Seven per cent inflation matters because an increase in prices of 2-3% per year is very different from an increase of 5-7%. It makes inflation, in the words of former Governor Bernie Fraser, “a subject you don’t discuss at barbecues”.
At 2-3%, people adopt a mental model of fairly steady prices in which, when they agree to provide a service for a certain price, they know what they are getting into.
It’s not so much that high inflation creates winners and losers; the problem is that it becomes almost impossible to tell who those winners and losers will be. It’s the arbitrariness of who does well from timing price increases, and who gets hurt by them, which makes businesses difficult to run and spending difficult to plan.
The RBA’s clear instructions
The Reserve Bank has a written riding instruction from the treasurer to aim to get “inflation between two and three per cent, on average, over time”.
It is certainly true that much of what set off the latest sudden burst of inflation won’t be restrained by high interest rates. Diesel and petrol prices are set internationally, and soared after Russia invaded Ukraine.
But a lot of what set off and is sustaining the resurgence of inflation most certainly can be tamed by high interest rates.
The rising cost of almost everything
Home building is expensive because of an (internationally-driven) shortage of building materials, and a shortage of workers not laid low by COVID. It is true that more materials and healthier workers would bring down prices, but so too would less demand for building work. Higher interest rates help restrain the demand.
Even the global price of oil can be restrained by high interest rates – not by high interest rate here, but by high rates in the US, which is a big enough nation for consumers tightening their belts to make a difference.
In any event, Australia’s inflation is now incredibly widespread, encompassing almost everything sold here, including most of the things made here.
Ten years ago, 32 of the 87 items priced by the Bureau of Statistics were falling in price, while most of the others climbed. In the latest consumer price update, I counted only six falling in price.
The verdict from a former RBA governor
This week, I rang up the person who’s arguably best qualified to assess the job Lowe’s doing as RBA governor now – someone who was in his shoes three decades ago.
Bernie Fraser was the Reserve Bank’s governor between 1989 and 1996. He pushed down the cash rate 15 times in three years to speed the recovery from the early 1990s recession. Then in 1994, at the first sign of renewed inflation, he pushed them up faster and more aggressively than Lowe has so far this year.
Fraser told me he had wanted to “shock people – let them know that you’re there, that you are concerned about inflation and you want to head it off”.
Fraser stopped pushing up rates only when he had got inflation down to where it has stayed for most of the past three decades. As it happened, he was able to do it without much pushing up unemployment.
Fraser said he approves of the way Lowe has been doing his job – though he said Lowe was wrong to give the imply during COVID that rates would stay low for three years.
But he also noted setting rates is more art than science.
Fraser thinks that in due course shortages will ease and inflationary pressure will abate. In the meantime, it’s essential to let people know that the bank will do what’s needed to bring inflation down, right up until the point of (but not necessarily including) increasing unemployment.
Fraser thinks there’s a good chance Lowe can bring inflation back down to 2-3%. He should know – he did it before.
Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jongkil Jay Jeong, CyberCRC Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University
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In the past financial year, the Australian Cyber Security Centre received 76,000 cyber-crime reports – on average, one every seven minutes. The year before, it was a report every eight minutes. The year before that, every ten minutes.
The growth of cyber crime means it is now arguably the top risk facing any business with an online presence. One successful cyber attack is all it takes to ruin an organisation’s reputation and bottom line. The estimated cost to the Australian economy in 2021 was $42 billion.
To protect itself (and its customers), a business has three main options. It can limit the amount of sensitive data it stores. It can take greater care to protect the data it does store. And it can insure itself against the consequences of a cyber attack.
Cyber-insurance is a broad term for insurance policies that address losses as a result of a computer-based attack or malfunction of a firm’s information technology systems. This can include costs associated with business interruptions, responding to the incident and paying relevant fines and penalties.
The global cyber-insurance market is now worth an estimated US$9 billion (A$13.9 billion). It is tipped to grow to US$22 billion by 2025.
But a big part of this growth reflects escalating premium costs – in Australia they increased more than 80% in 2021 – rather than more business taking up insurance.
So coverage rates are growing slowly, with about 75% of all businesses in Australia having no cyber-insurance, according to 2021 figures from the Insurance Council of Australia.
Challenges in pricing cyber-insurance
With cyber-insurance still in its infancy, insurers face significant complexities in quantifying cyber risk pricing premiums accordingly – high enough for the insurers not to lose money, but as competitive as possible to encourage greater uptake.
A 2018 assessment of the cyber-insurance market by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency identified three major challenges: lack of data, methodological limitations, and lack of information sharing.
Lack of historical loss data means insurers are hampered in accurately predicting risks and costs.
Because of the relative newness of cyber crime, many insurers use risk-assessment methodologies derived from more established insurance markets such as for car, house and contents. These markets, however, are not analogous to cyber crime.
Companies may be hesitant to disclose information about cyber incidents, unless required to do so. Insurance carriers are reluctant to share data pertaining to damage and claims.
This makes it hard to create effective risk models that can calculate and predict the likelihood and cost of future incidents.
So what needs to be done?
Deakin University’s Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation has been working with insurance companies to understand what must be done to improve premium and risks models pertaining to cyber insurance.
Here is what we have found so far.
First, greater transparency is needed around cyber-related incidents and insurance to help remedy the lack of data and information sharing.
The federal government has taken two steps in the right direction on this.
One is the Consumer Data Right, which provides guidelines on how service providers must share data about customers. This came into effect in mid-2021.
The other is the government’s proposal to amend privacy legislation to increase penalties for breaches and give the Privacy Commissioner new powers.
Second, insurers must find better ways to measure the financial value and worth of the data that organisations hold.
The primary asset covered by cyber insurance is the data itself. But there is no concrete measure of how that data is worth.
The recent Optus and Medibank Private data breaches provide clear examples. The Optus event affected millions more people than the Medibank Private hack, but the Medibank Private data includes sensitive medical data that, in principle, is worth far more than data regarding just your personal identity.
Without an accurate way to measure the financial value of data, it is difficult to determine the appropriate premium costs and coverage.
Cyber insurance is a new, specialised market with significant uncertainty.
Given the ever-increasing risks to individuals, organisations and society, it is imperative that insurers develop robust and reliable risk-based models as soon as possible.
This will require a consolidated effort between cyber-security experts, accountants and actuaries, insurance professionals and policy makers.
The work has been supported by the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre Limited whose activities are partially funded by the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Programme.
Robin Doss 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.
