Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaya Klop-Toker, Conservation Biology Researcher, University of Newcastle

On an island off the Queensland coast, a battle is brewing over the fate of a small population of goats.

The battle positions the views of some conservation scientists and managers who believe native species must be protected from this invasive fauna, against those of community members who want to protect the goat herd to which they feel emotionally connected. Similar battles colour the management decisions around brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park and cats all over Australia.

Read more: National parks are for native wildlife, not feral horses: federal court

These debates show the impact of a new movement called “compassionate conservation”. This movement aims to increase levels of compassion and empathy in the management process, finding conservation solutions that minimise harm to wildlife. Among their ideas, compassionate conservationists argue no animal should be killed in the name of conservation.

But preventing extinctions and protecting biodiversity is unlikely when emotion, rather than evidence, influence decisions. As our recent paper argues, the human experience of compassion and empathy is fraught with inherent biases. This makes these emotions a poor compass for deciding what conservation action is right or wrong.

It sounds good on paper

We are facing a biological crisis unparalleled in human history, with at least 25% of the world’s assessed species at risk of extinction. These trends are particularly bad in Australia, where we have one of the world’s worst extinction records and the world’s highest rate of mammal extinctions.

The federal government recently announced it will commit to a new ten-year threatened species strategy, focused on eradicating feral pests such as foxes and cats.

Read more: One cat, one year, 110 native animals: lock up your pet, it’s a killing machine

This approach goes against the principles underpinning compassionate conservation. The movement, which first emerged in 2010, is founded on the ideals of “first do no harm” and “individuals matter”.

When you first think about it, this idea sounds great. Why kill some animals to save others?

Well, invasive animals — those either intentionally or accidentally moved to a new location — are one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity.

Invasive predators, such as cats and foxes, have caused the extinction of 142 vertebrate species worldwide. In Australia, feral and domestic cats kill more than 15 billion native animals per year.

Fortunately, endangered populations can recover when these pests are removed. Controlling pest numbers is one of the most effective tools available to conservationists.

Conflicting moral standpoints

Killing pests is at stark odds with the “do no harm” values promoted by the compassionate conservation movement.

Compassionate conservationists argue it’s morally wrong to kill animals for management, whereas conservation scientists argue it’s morally wrong to allow species to go extinct — especially if human actions (such as the movement of species to new locations) threaten extinction.

These conflicting moral standpoints result in an emotional debate about when it is justified to kill or let be killed. This argument centres on emotion and moral beliefs. There is no clear right or wrong answer and, therefore, no resolution.

In an attempt to break this emotional stalemate, we explored the biases inherent in the emotions of compassion and empathy, and questioned if increased empathy and compassion are really what conservation needs.

Evolutionary biases

At first, compassion and empathy may appear vital to conservation, and on an individual level, they probably are. People choose to work in conservation because they care for wild species. But compassion and empathy come with strong evolutionary biases.

The first bias is that people feel more empathy toward the familiar — people care more for things they relate most closely to. The second bias is failure to scale-up — we don’t feel 100 times more sorrow when hearing about 100 people dying, compared to a single person (or species).

Evolution has shaped our emotions to peak for things we relate most strongly to, and to taper off when numbers get high — most likely to protect us from becoming emotionally overloaded.

Let’s put these emotions in the context of animal management. Decisions based on empathy and compassion will undoubtedly favour charismatic, relatable species over thousands of less-familiar small, imperilled creatures.

This bias is evident in the battle over feral horses in national parks. There is public backlash over the culling of brumbies, yet there is no such response to the removal of feral pigs, despite both species having similarly negative impacts on protected habitats.

More harm than good

If compassionate conservation is adopted, culling invasive species would cease, leading to the rapid extinction of more vulnerable native species. A contentious example is the race to save the endangered Tristan albatross from introduced mice on Gough Island in the south Atlantic.

Sealers introduced mice in the 1800s, and the mice have adapted to feed on albatross chicks, killing an estimated two million birds per year. Under compassionate conservation, lethal control of the mice would not be allowed, and the albatross would be added to the extinction list within 20 years.

Read more: Invasive species are Australia’s number-one extinction threat

What’s more, compassionate conservation advocates for a more hands-off approach to remove any harm or stress to animals. This means even the management of threatened fauna would be restricted.

Under this idea, almost all current major conservation actions would not be allowed because of temporary stress placed on individual animals. This includes translocations (moving species to safer habitat), captive breeding, zoos, radio tracking and conservation fencing.

With 15% of the world’s threatened species protected in zoos and undergoing captive breeding, a world with compassionate conservation would be one with far fewer species, and we argue, much less conservation and compassion.

In this time of biodiversity crisis and potential ecosystem collapse, we cannot afford to let emotion bias our rationale. Yes, compassion and empathy should drive people to call for more action from their leaders to protect biodiversity. But what action needs to be taken should be left to science and not our emotions.

Read more: Don’t blame cats for destroying wildlife – shaky logic is leading to moral panic

– ref. ‘Compassionate conservation’: just because we love invasive animals, doesn’t mean we should protect them – https://theconversation.com/compassionate-conservation-just-because-we-love-invasive-animals-doesnt-mean-we-should-protect-them-144945

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowan Callick, Industry Fellow, Griffith University

The forced departure from China of leading Australian journalists Bill Birtles of the ABC and Mike Smith of The Australian Financial Review robs Australia of direct coverage of events in the vast nation for the first time since the Mao Zedong era.

They left behind Australian journalist Cheng Lei, a celebrated business presenter on China’s own CGTN global news channel, who for a month has been held for unknown reasons in an unknown location where she will remain for an unknown period of time.

In coordinated moves, security agents visited the homes of Birtles in Beijing and Smith in Shanghai at midnight last Wednesday, told them they were banned from leaving China and ordered them to come in for questioning over a national security case, possibly in connection with Cheng’s detention.

The journalists then shifted immediately to Australia’s Beijing embassy and Shanghai consulate, respectively, where they remained while Australian diplomats negotiated with Chinese government officials.

This led to a brief interview between Birtles (accompanied by Ambassador Graham Fletcher) and officials in Beijing before he flew to Shanghai (also accompanied by Australian diplomats). Both journalists were then able to board a flight back to Sydney, arriving today.

Long line of expelled journalists

The Australian’s China correspondent, Will Glasgow, has been working for a short time in Sydney, having returned for family reasons. And Eryk Bagshaw, appointed as China correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, has been unable to take up his post due to COVID restraints, and remains in Canberra.

Australian journalist Phil Wen, with The Wall Street Journal, and the doyen of Australians covering China, New York Times correspondent Chris Buckley, were required to leave China earlier this year as the authorities declined to extend their visas.

This was in part due to a “tit-for-tat” exchange with the Trump administration, which had limited the numbers of visas to Chinese journalists working for state media.

Five other reporters for US news organisations – the Journal, CNN, Bloomberg and Getty Images – have also been told in recent days their press credentials will not be renewed. A growing number of foreign journalists have had their visa periods reduced to two or even a single month.

The much-depleted Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China has issued a rare statement saying it is “very alarmed” about such moves.

These coercive practices have again turned accredited foreign journalists in China into pawns in a wider diplomatic conflict.

How will the Australian government respond?

The task of covering China has become increasingly challenging, with journalists provided access to only a tiny number of government set-piece events every year. Very few people in public life — including academics — are prepared to risk speaking to media.

But Australian journalists covering China have gained a generally high reputation, both within the profession and among Chinese people — including some officials — for even-handed and empathetic coverage, despite the daily obstacles.

Read more: China has a new way to exert political pressure: weaponising its courts against foreigners

Some will seek to blame the Australian government and opposition for the plight of the Australian journalists, pointing to their increasing firmness in responding to Beijing’s efforts to expand and deepen its global influence, including in Australia.

Unlike Washington, however, Canberra is unlikely to respond to China’s moves to banish and detain Australian journalists by imposing reciprocal restraints – for instance, withdrawing visas from Xinhua or CCTV reporters working in Australia.

Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute and former correspondent in Beijing for The Australian and the Financial Times, told ABC Radio such a response would be “a really unproductive exercise”.

Canberra has declined to pursue tit-for-tat measures as Beijing has imposed tariffs and duties on Australian goods in recent months.

Risk of more arbitrary detentions

Meanwhile, the unknowns in China-Australia relations remain immense.

China’s politicians have increasingly become difficult to reach and interpret, while its diplomatic corps — which formerly helped provide guidance to foreign counterparts and others about underlying issues, concerns and narratives — have been transformed into far less communicative “wolf warriors”.

Read more: Australian government must act urgently on detention of journalist Cheng Lei in China

Before this week’s dramatic events, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had upgraded its travel advisory to warn that Australian citizens faced “arbitrary detention” in China. Business people, among others, will now be weighing their safety if they visit.

Several Australian journalists are still working in Beijing for international media, such as the BBC correspondent and former ABC correspondent Stephen McDonell. There are also Australians working for China’s state and party media – as Cheng Lei did.

It is a perilous and challenging time for all those attempting to interpret events in China. As Birtles said on arriving in Sydney, it was good to be home, but also

very disappointing to have to leave under those circumstances, and it is a relief to be back in a country with a genuine rule of law.

– ref. Journalists have become diplomatic pawns in China’s relations with the West, setting a worrying precedent – https://theconversation.com/journalists-have-become-diplomatic-pawns-in-chinas-relations-with-the-west-setting-a-worrying-precedent-145749

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Quinn, Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

Yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australians will get access to 84.8 million COVID-19 vaccine doses throughout 2021, provided current trials prove the vaccines in question are safe and effective.

A series of deals worth A$1.7 billion between the federal government and two major pharmaceutical companies would see the local production and supply of two vaccines, developed by the University of Oxford and the University of Queensland, respectively.

So what’s in the deals, what are the vaccines, and are we picking the best of the bunch for a fair price?

What’s the deal?

The current and previous deals represent progress in negotiations between the Australian government, UK/Sweden-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and Melbourne-based biotechnology company CSL. The ultimate aim is a formal agreement to manufacture the two vaccines in Australia.

Previously, the government signed a letter of intent with AstraZeneca, which is working with University of Oxford researchers to test their AZD1222 vaccine.

But AstraZeneca needed a manufacturer in Australia to make the vaccine locally. The biggest local vaccine manufacturer is CSL, which is also working with the University of Queensland to test its V451 vaccine.

Read more: The Oxford deal is welcome, but remember the vaccine hasn’t been proven to work yet

The latest developments include two “heads of agreement” — non-binding documents that outline the basic terms of a tentative deal:

• CSL and AstraZeneca agreed CSL will produce and supply 30 million doses of AZD1222, from early 2021

• CSL and the government agreed CSL will produce and supply 51 million doses of V451, from mid-2021.

The government and CSL also entered a funding deed worth up to A$1.7 billion, under which CSL will prepare to manufacture AZD1222 and one other COVID-19 vaccine (likely V451).

Meanwhile, the government and AstraZeneca have a separate agreement to supply 3.8 million doses produced overseas in early 2021 for vulnerable people and health-care workers.

The final formal agreement remains contingent on whether the vaccines protect against COVID-19 in clinical trials currently underway.

A recap of the vaccines

Oxford and AstraZeneca have what’s called a viral vector vaccine. Researchers take a fairly harmless virus (in this case an adenovirus from chimpanzees) and modify it to produce a target (here they’ve used the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19).

A viral vector looks like a virus to our immune system, so the idea is it can train our body to mount a strong response against SARS-CoV-2. But the viral vector can’t cause disease.

The University of Queensland and CSL have a protein subunit vaccine, which also uses the spike protein as a target. Unfortunately, spike protein is notorious for changing its shape, which makes it harder for our immune system to recognise.

So the University of Queensland has developed a molecular clamp to hold the spike protein in the correct shape. The clamped spike is then mixed with an adjuvant, a compound that stimulates an immune response. The adjuvant here is MF59, used in some influenza vaccines for older people.

AstraZeneca has started vaccinating volunteers as part of phase 3 clinical trials in the United States, while CSL and the University of Queensland are vaccinating volunteers for their phase 1 clinical trial in Australia.

Read more: 5 ways we can prepare the public to accept a COVID-19 vaccine (saying it will be ‘mandatory’ isn’t one)

Two promising candidates

Until a vaccine is shown to work in a phase 3 clinical trial, it’s educated guesswork as to which will be effective.

Selecting two very different types of vaccines is a good strategy though. Each has different pros and cons, and we’ll have a better chance of ending up with an effective vaccine, than, say, if we were banking on two similar candidates.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine can be made quickly and should generate immunity after a single shot. Only one viral vector vaccine has been approved before, for Ebola, so it’s more experimental. But it’s already well advanced through clinical trials.

The Queensland/CSL vaccine takes longer to make as manufacturing large amounts of protein can be difficult, and it will require two shots. But protein subunit vaccines are more of a known entity, routinely used to prevent influenza and hepatitis B.

Why so many doses?

Some 84.8 million doses may seem like a lot to vaccinate 25 million Australians. But it’s reasonable for two reasons.

First, each person might need two doses of vaccine to generate optimal immunity. For the Queensland/CSL vaccine, the pledged 51 million doses will allow for that and more.

A total of 33.8 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine would allow for each person to get one, as intended for this type of vaccine, with plenty to spare. But we should note early clinical trial data has suggested two doses are better than one.

Second, it’s logistically challenging to get a vaccine from the manufacturer into a person’s arm. Not every dose will get to where it needs to go safely and on time. So we’ll need a few million extra doses, just in case.

Is the price reasonable?

There’s a large range in pricing of potential COVID-19 vaccines. Some bulk deals are as low as roughly A$5.50 per dose (AstraZeneca) and other vaccines could be as high as around A$100 per dose (Sinopharm).

Several factors contribute to this variation, including differing manufacturing costs and profit margins.

The current deals with CSL average A$21 per dose, which is mid-range and reasonable considering the resources CSL will need to put towards reconfiguring their operations.

All in all, it’s a fair deal.

Read more: Vaccine progress report: the projects bidding to win the race for a COVID-19 vaccine

What happens next?

All eyes will be on the phase 3 trial results for AZD1222, expected in October. If these are good, the government, AstraZeneca and CSL would need to finalise a formal agreement and production could proceed.

Even if AZD1222 is successful, the V451 clinical trials remain essential. V451 could potentially be more effective or better suited to specific groups, especially older people. It could also potentially be used to boost responses after AZD1222 vaccination. It’s a crucial card to have up our sleeve.

– ref. Putting our money on two COVID vaccines is better than one: why Australia’s latest vaccine deal makes sense – https://theconversation.com/putting-our-money-on-two-covid-vaccines-is-better-than-one-why-australias-latest-vaccine-deal-makes-sense-145693

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa Sandy, Senior Lecturer in Criminology & Justice Studies, RMIT University

In recent weeks, Queensland and the ACT became the first Australian jurisdictions to ban conversion therapy.

Both passed laws making the widely discredited practice a criminal offence.

While this is progress, it is not enough to adequately protect LGBTIQ Australians from the devastating impact of conversion therapy. A national approach is needed.

What is conversion therapy?

Conversion therapy involves practices aimed at changing the sexual orientation, gender identity or expression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse people.

The goal is achieve an exclusively heterosexual and cisgender identity (in other words, where a person’s gender identity matches that assigned at birth).

In Australia, religious-based conversion therapy is most common, and includes things like counselling for “sexual brokenness”, prayer, scripture reading, fasting, retreats and “spiritual healing” .

Read more: ‘Treatments’ as torture: gay conversion therapy’s deep roots in Australia

According to the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, so-called “therapeutic” measures can also include forms of abuse like beatings, rape, electrocution, forced medication, confinement, forced nudity, verbal abuse and aversion therapy.

Even more extreme measures throughout history have included castration, lobotomy and clitoridectomy.

Crucially, conversion therapy does not refer to interventions that help affirm a person’s lived gender identity, such as for transgender people.

How widespread is it?

There are no studies of the prevalence of conversion therapy in contemporary Australia, but a 2018 Human Rights Law Centre/La Trobe University report pointed to the United Kingdom as a reasonable comparison.

The UK’s 2018 national LGBT survey saw 2% of respondents report having undergone conversion therapy, with a further 5% reporting they had been offered it. People from multicultural and multi-faith backgrounds were up to three times as likely to report being offered it.

As The Age reported in 2018, conversion therapies are commonly encountered in religious settings.

[They are] hidden in evangelical churches and ministries, taking the form of exorcisms, prayer groups or counselling disguised as pastoral care. They’re also present in some religious schools or practised in the private offices of health professionals.

Why does it need to be banned?

The practice causes real harm to survivors, many of whom live with acute and long-lasting distress, psychological damage, feelings of guilt and isolation as a result. Conversion therapy encourages internalised homophobia, self-hatred, shame and confusion about sexuality and gender identity.

Read more: Marriage equality was momentous, but there is still much to do to progress LGBTI+ rights in Australia

In addition to direct harms, the practice also violates human rights.

It is opposed by many professional medical and human rights bodies, including the Australian Psychological Society, Australian Medical Association and the United Nations.

The Independent Forensic Expert Group recently released a statement, stressing the “lack of medical and scientific validity of conversion therapy”.

Conversion therapy has already been banned in a number of countries including Brazil, Malta, Germany and parts of Spain, and the United States.

Canada is moving towards a national ban, while the European Parliament has condemned the practice. In July, Prime Minister Boris Johnson also pledged a ban in the UK.

Read more: How I ended up in conversion therapy and why Canada’s proposed ban is only a first step for LGBTQ+ youth

Australia’s progress to date

In the lead up to the 2019 federal election, federal Labor promised a nationwide ban.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison said while he didn’t support conversion therapy, it was “ultimately a matter for the states”.

On top of Queensland and the ACT, Victoria also intends to ban the practice, and South Australia’s Labor opposition is calling for a ban.

A national approach is required

While Australia is making welcome progress, a much more comprehensive approach is needed. Conversion practices remain legal in most of Australia, despite their clear harms.

Queensland’s ban has been criticised for not capturing the less-formalised practices in religious settings.

It is important to note the UN’s independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity recommends banning conversion therapy beyond just healthcare to include religious, education, and community settings.

Read more: Gay conversion therapy: a short history of an ongoing problem

Lawmakers so far have also focused on balancing the rights of LGBTIQ people with religious freedoms. For example, the ACT legislation was amended after Christian schools raised concerns the definition of “conversion” was “vague and imprecise” (the ACT Law Society also criticised the bill as “too broad”).

The Morrison government’s controversial religious discrimination legislation, stalled due to COVID-19, may also raise difficult questions for state lawmakers.

Legal groups, such as the Law Institute of Victoria, have already criticised the proposed legislation for allowing health professionals to put their religious beliefs before the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights.

State-based bans could also be undermined by federal religious freedom exemptions.

A new system is needed

Australia needs to enact a ban that works in concert with federal human rights and anti-discrimination law, overseen by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

This is essential to counter any ramifications of the proposed religious freedom legislation and address recommendations made by the UN.

Ultimately, law reform also needs to go hand in hand with complaint mechanisms and other support for victims. This includes community awareness campaigns to tackle the deep discrimination and prejudice at the heart of conversion practices.

– ref. Why Australia needs a national ban on conversion therapy – https://theconversation.com/why-australia-needs-a-national-ban-on-conversion-therapy-145410

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tregear, Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Melbourne

Anyone looking for evidence of just how devastating the COVID-19 pandemic has been to Australia’s performing arts industry need look no further than its flagship company, Opera Australia.

Only last year it was boasting an operating surplus. Last month, however, Chief Executive Rory Jeffes announced an organisational restructure, which the industry union claims could result in up to 25% of permanent staff losing their jobs.

The aim of this restructure, employees were told, was to better align the organisation to the changing environment of COVID-19 with a new operating model. But what, exactly, should that model be?

Certainly, redundancies were inevitable. Jeffes had already called an abrupt end to the company’s 2020 season. Even where governments have allowed entertainment venues slowly to reopen, the economics of “socially distanced” opera going simply do not support the budget models of old.

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, however, has described the proposed changes as “a disgrace”, citing a lack of staff consultation among other grievances. In response, a spokesperson for Opera Australia said last week the 25% figure refers to administration staff only, and consultations are happening with employees in the rest of the organisation.

The dispute, now before the Fair Work Commission, will be followed with interest and concern across the industry. Opera Australia is Australia’s largest, and most lavishly publicly funded performing arts company and many livelihoods are at stake.

Read more: Does opera deserve its privileged status within arts funding?

A city artform

Opera is especially exposed because it is so closely connected to the places where pandemics have the greatest impact — large cities. Opera is an urban art form par excellence. By the mid-19th century, it had become a principal medium through which burgeoning urban populations might hear and see stylised representations of their lives (albeit filtered through the lens of historical or mythic subjects). It’s not for nothing, for instance, that so many operatic heroines die of “consumption”, a preeminently urban disease.

Now, however, under the shadow of COVID-19, the future of the city itself is under question; the rise of video platforms like Zoom seems to make the necessity of “being there” no longer a necessity. This idea has been refuted by others who highlight the human yearning for togetherness. The general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, similarly has said that while it may be soothing to watch opera streamed at home, it is ultimately a “one dimensional experience”.

Read more: Friday essay: where is the Great Australian Opera?

Nevertheless, with theatres unable to return to full capacity for the indefinite future, and public funding bodies becoming strapped for cash, a return to anything like our pre-COVID operatic culture is unlikely. The current crisis does, however, offer a chance to think afresh about opera’s place (literally as well as figuratively) in our society.

Do we now have an opportunity, as Michael Volpe, the director of London’s Opera Holland Park, has suggested, “for the opera ecology to remodel itself into something that’s more cost effective and fleet of foot”?

Volpe calls for an “opera socialism”. What he is advocating is a return to something closer to opera’s own origins as a performance culture more directly connected to, and supported by, the local communities in which it is based.

Local, not global?

Until the pandemic hit, Opera Australia worked within an industry dominated by a global commerce in “star” singers, conductors, and directors, typically managed by a system of international artist agencies.

Now that system is in a state of collapse. In recent weeks, two of the largest classical music agencies, the US-based Columbia Artists Management and the UK’s Hazard Chase have announced they are shutting their doors.

Is is now time for us to reconsider the need for a national opera company in turn? The economic impact of Opera Australia touring main-stage productions, even just to Melbourne, puts it under significant operational stress. But it also doesn’t allow the company to develop strong local connections outside its Sydney home.

A fully decentralised model might, in fact, be better able to support the operatic “ecology”. Many smaller professional, semiprofessional, and amateur operatic companies already operate successfully in our major metropolitan centres with little or no public funding.

Read more: Opera is stuck in a racist, sexist past, while many in the audience have moved on

They are also currently much more likely than Opera Australia to mount productions of new Australian operas, or works outside the mainstream repertoire.

While Opera Australia’s Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini said back in 2014 that he was “desperate to create new work that is relevant to a significant audience,” he also conceded the company’s operating model does not give it the financial resources to do more than produce mostly a narrow range of traditional works, supplemented by productions of commercial musical theatre.

Maybe it is now time for both federal and state governments to consider focusing more on a civic based or “ground-up” institutional foundation for opera rather than sustaining a nationally based “top-down” one.

The 2016 National Opera Review ducked considering such a possibility. But a new parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s creative and cultural industries and institutions is underway. Now is the opportunity for us to contemplate a new place, and indeed new places, for opera in Australia.

– ref. As COVID wreaks havoc in the performing arts, do we still need a national opera company? – https://theconversation.com/as-covid-wreaks-havoc-in-the-performing-arts-do-we-still-need-a-national-opera-company-145461

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc Stears, Professor and Director, Sydney Policy Lab, University of Sydney

In the early months of the pandemic, Australia’s public policy response to COVID-19 was widely celebrated across the world. The missteps and extended lockdowns in Victoria recently, though, shows how at least one state has slipped from being a gold standard.

So, what has gone wrong?

Effective public policy-making in a pandemic is enormously difficult. Very few countries around the world, if any, have had an exemplary record in the past few months. There are nonetheless a set of key principles that should underpin approaches to decision-making.

What good policy-making looks like

Identifying those principles begins with accepting that pandemics are, by definition, international. They sweep across the world. Terrible though this is in many ways, it nonetheless provides policy-makers with the opportunity to learn from the experiences of others.

Early on in the pandemic, other countries learned swiftly from the horrific impact of the virus on Italy and were able to adjust their policy responses accordingly.

Similarly, as the pandemic has worn on, governments have increasingly recognised the potentially devastating consequences of blunt “stay at home” orders on mental health, social connections and the broader economy. As a result, they have sought to switch their emphasis away from sweeping lockdowns in favour of intensive testing, contact tracing and helping people to self-isolate with financial assistance, if required.

In addition to widening the circle of other nations from which they take advice, governments need to have a willingness to engage a broad range of expertise.

In the early days of the pandemic, epidemiologists — especially those gifted in mathematical modelling — understandably held enormous sway.

However, it has become clear the science required for us to emerge stronger from the pandemic must be far wider in scope. A sole focus on predicting and controlling COVID case numbers fails to take into account the other compelling consequences of our public policy.

Read more: How long will I have to wear a mask? Can single people visit a sharehouse? Common questions answered about Victoria’s new roadmap

Good decision-making in these circumstances demands a breadth of perspectives. We need to draw on the predictive powers of psychologists and psychiatrists, sociologists and anthropologists, economists and educators — in addition to the epidemiological modellers.

A further advantage of such breadth is it enables policy-makers to examine their choices against different timelines.

Those whose focus is limiting case numbers, that is, can tell us what is likely to happen in a matter of days or weeks. Other experts can draw attention to the impact of choices in months or years.

For example, Victoria’s stage 4 lockdown may appear successful by pushing case numbers into single digits after a period of exponential increase, but it could also extract an enormous toll, including on the development and mental well-being of children.

Good policy-making takes all of these perspectives into account.

Read more: Can Victorians stick to the stage 4 rules? Our perception of what others are doing might be the key

Victoria’s narrow vision

These three principles — an international perspective, a breadth of expertise and an ability to look to the long-term as well as the short — show us precisely where Australia, and especially Victoria, has gone wrong.

When Premier Daniel Andrews announced his roadmap out of lockdown, none of these conditions were met.

There was no indication the Andrews administration had learned from global best practice or had any interest in doing so. In fact, the only references to other countries made by government officials have been derogatory and dismissive.

No explanation was provided why the Victorian government says, for example, that cases have to fall below an average of five per day over a 14-day period for lockdown to be eased, when recent research in the British Medical Journal suggests a reasonable track-and-trace program, rather than a lockdown, can control the spread as long as there is a seven-day rolling average of fewer than four new cases per 100, 000 people a day.

Nor was an explanation was provided for why the government believed the nighttime curfews were required, when they have been absent in most other democratic nations, including those with otherwise strict lockdowns.

Similarly, there is no sense the government has either commissioned work from or listened attentively to experts from beyond the narrow world of epidemiological modelling.

Shitij Kapur, the dean of medicine at the University of Melbourne, recently drew attention to this folly, emphasisng that different experts recognise

there are more than one vulnerable groups to COVID-19. We need to protect them all. Differently.

Most worryingly of all, the Andrews roadmap says nothing about the long-term consequences of lockdown, nor does it paint a picture of alternative futures, including a future where there is no workable vaccine and societies around the world must learn to live with the virus.

Others will have their explanations of precisely why the Victorian government’s decision-making has failed in this regard. It is rooted, perhaps, in the competitive politics that exists between the states, and between states and the Commonwealth government.

That does not matter to the rest of us, though. What we need is for a swift return to policy-making that inspires the world, not leaves it behind.

Read more: The modelling behind Melbourne’s extended city-wide lockdown is problematic

– ref. Victoria’s roadmap out of lockdown is the wrong approach. Here’s what good public policy looks like – https://theconversation.com/victorias-roadmap-out-of-lockdown-is-the-wrong-approach-heres-what-good-public-policy-looks-like-145723

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Mudgway, Senior Lecturer in Law, Auckland University of Technology

It’s been two years since the New Zealand Defence Force set up Operation Respect to stamp out sexual harassment and abuse in its ranks. It came after reports exposed a culture of “persistent sexism” in the NZDF.

But a recent independent review of the program, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, revealed a “code of silence” continues, with an overall lack of trust that complaints will be taken seriously.

Despite some positive changes, such as the Sexual Assault Response Team, the review found these initiatives lacked resources and suffered from high staff turnover.

From July 2016 to November 2018, there were 126 disclosures of sexual violence. Given the “code of silence”, these numbers are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.

The review made 44 recommendations, which included introducing independent oversight by the auditor-general, an external complaints channel and a more comprehensive data management system to assess progress.

Why sexual harassment and abuse persist in NZDF

Sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the NZDF take place within a wider societal context of systemic violence against women. But the military as an institution has its own unique environment of risk factors.

Read more: Operation Burnham: the New Zealand military’s self-inflicted wounds will not heal by themselves

Even though promotions of women in the armed forces have increased, the NZDF remains overwhelmingly male. Women make up less than 25% of the NZDF. This creates an inherently gendered context.

Additionally, the gender stereotype of the strong warrior, characterised by male aggression, hyper-heterosexuality, excessive consumption of alcohol and dominance over the feminine, can foster sexual violence.

In this environment, sometimes conceptualised as “toxic masculinity”, women are more likely to be dehumanised, hyper-sexualised and the subject of male aggression.

Where superiors perpetuate this culture, the result is a “boys will be boys” attitude. This context also makes it harder for male victims to make complaints because to do so would be considered weak and betraying their unit.

The NZDF is not alone

The Canadian Armed Forces introduced new policies in 2015 (largely mirrored in NZDF’s Operation Respect), but there has been little change in the prevalence of sexual assault.

A 2018 report from Canada’s national statistics agency, Statistics Canada, said there had been about 900 victims of sexual assault over a 12-month period, the majority of them women.

A survey in 2016 found 27% of women in the Canadian Armed Forces suffered sexual assault during their career, more often than not at the hands of their superiors.

From 2014 to 2018, the Australian Defence Force received 912 complaints of sexual misconduct. In just one example, an Australian Army captain raped a male colleague with a beer bottle at a function. His lawyer called the incident “tomfoolery gone wrong”.

In the United Kingdom, The Sun newspaper reported that the armed forces received 550 individual complaints of sexual assault from 2015-2020. Conviction rates for rape are said to be six times lower in military courts than in civilian courts.

After 20 years of education and campaigns to eliminate sexual assault, an inquiry report last year said more needs to be done to “stop instances of inappropriate behaviour” in the UK defence force.

Similarly, in the United States, the military has been at the centre of sexual abuse scandals since the early 1990s. The US Defence Department said 7,825 allegations of sexual assault were reported in 2018. There remains a reluctance to report due to fear of retaliation or re-traumatisation.

The context is also male-dominated: women make up less than 25% of the US military, less than 20% of the armed forces in Canada and Australia, and less than 15% in the UK.

How to end sexual harassment and abuse in the NZDF

What we learn from looking across Western armed forces is that often sophisticated policies exist and that top brass talk a lot about “zero tolerance”. Yet victims of sexual harassment and sexual abuse do not trust the systems that are in place.

These systems are not always followed through or are not taken seriously. Victims are not taken seriously.

Read more: By allowing the Peter Ellis appeal to continue, the Supreme Court recognises the right to justice outlives the individual

In addition to the New Zealand review’s recommendations, there are three general points to be made.

First, the accountability of perpetrators must be timely and visible. This requires greater transparency and communication from NZDF about numbers of complaints and results of cases. Greater visibility will help lead to greater trust in the system.

Second, leaders throughout the hierarchy, not just top brass, must be consistent in their messaging to create the cultural change needed. These are the people who victims will have the most interaction with.

Third, Operation Respect must be adequately resourced – in terms of both money and people. With a strong and well-funded team, Operation Respect could become proactive, rather than reactive.

The NZDF now has an opportunity to take the lead in driving the cultural change necessary to tackle sexual harassment and sexual abuse, and break away from the dire global trends.

– ref. How to tackle sexual harassment and abuse in the New Zealand Defence Force – https://theconversation.com/how-to-tackle-sexual-harassment-and-abuse-in-the-new-zealand-defence-force-145245

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Gans, Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto

I totally support the goal of eliminating the coronavirus from Victoria and at the same time hopefully eliminating it from all of Australia.

I’ve written a book making the case this is the best way to get Australia back to normal given the uncertainty of the timeline for a vaccine and the difficulty of continually managing a pandemic.

But an examination of the modelling the Victorian government has used to justify an extension of Melbourne’s Stage 4 lockdown for a further two weeks suggests its deficiencies might have driven the results.

A different, more traditional, model would have suggested a more granulated location-based (e.g., local authority or post-code group) easing of restrictions achieving the same result with fewer economic and social costs.

There can be no doubt the Stage 4 lockdown, introduced at 6pm on Sunday August 2, has achieved spectacular results.

Usually in an upswing, measures take two or more weeks to have an effect. But in Victoria the decline was dramatic.

That doesn’t mean costs don’t matter. The delays inherent in the extension and reopening plan are considerable. It works like this:

Step 1 announced on Sunday extends the Stage 4 restrictions for an extra two weeks but with some small extra freedoms. These include:

• moving the start of the nightly curfew from 8pm to 9pm

• allowing two hours of exercise, up from one

• allowing outdoor public gatherings of two people or one household

• creating “social bubbles” for single people who live alone and single parents with children under the age of 18

• reopening playgrounds.

Steps 2, 3 and 4 are all subject to health advice, and depend entirely on daily new case numbers going down.

If new cases meet the required thresholds, Step 2 may begin on September 28 allowing:

• public gatherings of up to five people from a maximum of two households (for a maximum of 2 hours and within 5km of home if you’re in metropolitan Melbourne)

• staged return of some students to school, and child care reopens

• more workplaces can reopen

• outdoor pools can reopen and personal training sessions with up to two clients allowed

• outdoor religious gatherings with five people and a leader allowed.

Step 3 could look like this from October 26:

• curfew abolished, no restrictions on reasons or distance to leave home

• up to 10 people can gather outdoors, and you can create a “household bubble” with one nominated household allowing up to five visitors from that household at a time

• more progression on school years 3-10 returning

• hairdressing, retail and hospitality can reopen conditionally

• a staged return to outdoor, non-contact sport for adults (outdoor contact sport for under-18s is allowed).

And from November 23, subject to all the necessary requirements, Step 4 includes:

• allowing up to 50 people to gather in public and up to 20 visitors at homes

• hospitality to reopen with limits, retail and real estate to reopen

• up to 50 people at weddings and funerals (20 in a private residence)

• further return to community sport.

The trigger for Step 2 is fewer than 50 new daily cases on average over two weeks, while the trigger for Step 3 is only five new daily cases over two weeks. For Step 4, the trigger is fewer than five mystery cases over two weeks, and for the end of restrictions no new cases for two weeks.

There are some good, progressive things about this plan. Schools are opening relatively soon, and before pubs. Playgrounds are opening quickly and allowances are being made for social bubbles. And big gatherings are last.

The issue is: why is the pace of reopening so slow?

One reason could be that the government is trying to avoid disappointment of things being extended. But playing those games seems second order to providing clarity. It seems to me the plan is slow because it relies on the outcomes from some modelling.

So let’s look at that modelling.

The Victorian model

The model used by the Victorian government has been published in the Medical Journal of Australia. It is peer reviewed. But peer review only tells us that the model is accurate for what it claims to do, not whether or not it is the right model for the decisions being made.

The model is an “agent-based” epidemiological model.

That means that unlike the standard “SIR” model which uses as inputs the number of Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered individuals and explicitly lists equations to describe behaviour and information flows, this one is a computer simulation based on the interaction of agents.

Read more: Coronavirus: we’ve had ‘Imperial’, ‘Oxford’ and many more models – but none can have all the answers

It runs the simulation over and over again as agents randomly run into each other, and observes how the pandemic progresses. That can be a useful approach, but it is heavily dependent upon a critical assumption: that agents spread the virus by interacting with neighbours, but that (in order to make those interactions computable) the geographical distribution of those agents is pretty smooth.

This means such models don’t divide the population into groups, with the result that, if there is a little bit of the virus somewhere, they predict it will eventually end up everywhere. They invite the conclusion that the best way to stop the virus ending up everywhere is to eliminate the cause of transmission, which is people movement.

Not surprisingly, that is what Victoria has decided to do.

It used a model that is well-calibrated but is based on people moving around, and then decided to stop people moving around because, not surprisingly, in the model that is about the only thing that works.

Read more: ‘Slow and steady’ exit from lockdown as Victorian government sets sights on ‘COVID-normal’ Christmas

Is it the right model?

Recall that the premise of the agent-based model is that people interact with neighbours and are linked in a fairly smooth, albeit probabilistic, manner, is this the case for the spread of the coronavirus.

Here is a map of the pattern of outbreaks across greater Melbourne where the strongest lockdowns are in place.

This is the pattern right now, but I have been watching all along and it has been the same throughout.

The pattern suggests that people interact more intensively within their own local areas than in ways that create the same probability of transmission city-wide.

It also suggests that if you are going to have a stringent lockdown and need resources to make that work, there are places where it is more important to put resources than others.

A couple of other things are worth observing.

If you check Google Trends data for a common COVID-19 symptom such as anosmia, it shows people have been googling this term at a fairly steady rate since April. Hopefully, that means there are not large numbers of people the government is missing in tests (a huge surge in Google searches of common symptoms at a time when new case numbers didn’t appear to be surging might suggest an undiscovered cohort of COVID-19 cases).

Finally, summer is coming. If allowed to, people will get outdoors more and, from what we know about the coronavirus, that drastically reduces spread.

What should Victoria do?

The government should make public any other modelling it has done and explain how it compares with the model it is using.

There is too much economic cost to additional months of lockdown not to do this.

It is important to take into account network patterns — how people move around in their city and social groups.

Second, the government could make reopening either postcode-based or local government area based. That way the government can monitor whether the low-prevalence areas it reopens first have outbreaks and use that to inform the pace of reopening.

It can use real-time information to update restrictions fortnight by fortnight.

Toronto, Canada where I now live, has a footprint as large as Melbourne and did not treat the entire area as one as it reopened. It has worked reasonably well although the goal pushed in Toronto is a lesser one than elimination.

Read more: Tracking Victoria’s job losses: there’s no road to recovery without containing COVID-19

Taking the whole of Melbourne as your unit for triggers does not seem to be compatible with the nature of the outbreak.

The most defensible case for it is based on the idea that people regularly travel long distances throughout Greater Melbourne. A middle case is that policing a location-by-location lockdown is harder than policing a city-wide lockdown.

The least defensible case is based on some notion of fairness.

Third, the government should encourage people to be outside as much as possible. No mask mandate outdoors. A more relaxed approach to outdoor gatherings would make the job of enforcing the important directives much easier.

Read more: How long will I have to wear a mask? Can single people visit a sharehouse? Common questions answered about Victoria’s new roadmap

Google mobility reports suggest people are getting out more anyway.

Finally, and I can’t emphasise this strongly enough, test and trace – and quickly! This is the theme of the updated edition of my book and I cover ways of doing it in a pandemic newsletter.

Lockdowns alone won’t get infections to zero. But when cases are low, aggressive identification and isolation of infectious people will.

Victoria is in striking distance of getting infections to zero while avoiding economic pain.

It should double down and do it.

– ref. The modelling behind Melbourne’s extended city-wide lockdown is problematic – https://theconversation.com/the-modelling-behind-melbournes-extended-city-wide-lockdown-is-problematic-145681

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mitchell P. Jones, Postdoctoral researcher, Vienna University of Technology

Seven millennia since its invention, leather remains one of the most durable and versatile natural materials. However, some consumers question the ethical ramifications and environmental sustainability of wearing products sourced from animals.

This shift in social standards is the main reason we’re seeing a wave of synthetic substitutes heading for the market.

Leather alternatives produced from synthetic polymers fare better in terms of environmental sustainability and have achieved considerable market share in recent years.

But these materials face the same disposal issues as any synthetic plastic. So, the leather market has begun to look to other innovations. As strange as it might sound, the latest contender is the humble fungus.

Research by my colleagues and I, published today in Nature Sustainability, investigates the history, manufacturing processes, cost, sustainability and material properties of fungus-derived renewable leather substitutes – comparing them to animal and synthetic leathers.

How unsustainable is animal leather, actually?

How sustainable leather is depends on how you look at it. As it uses animal skins, typically from cows, leather production is correlated with animal farming. Making it also requires environmentally toxic chemicals.

The livestock sector’s sustainability issues are well known. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the sector is responsible for about 14% of all greenhouse emissions from human activity. Cattle rearing alone represents about 65% of those emissions.

Still, it’s worth noting the main product of cattle rearing is meat, not leather. Cow hides account for just 5-10% of the market value of a cow and about 7% of the animal’s weight.

There’s also no proven correlation between the demand for red meat and leather. So a reduction in the demand for leather may have no effect on the number of animals slaughtered for meat.

That said, leather tanning is still energy- and resource-intensive and produces a lot of sludge waste during processing.

This gives leather a higher environmental impact than other minimally processed animal products such as blood, heads and organs (which can be sold as meat products or animal feed).

From spore to mat

Fungus-derived leather technologies were first patented by US companies MycoWorks and Ecovative Design about five years ago.

These technologies take advantage of the root-like structure of mushrooms, called mycelium, which contains the same polymer found in crab shells.

When mushroom roots are grown on sawdust or agricultural waste, they form a thick mat that can then be treated to resemble leather.

Because it’s the roots and not the mushrooms being used, this natural biological process can be carried out anywhere. It does not require light, converts waste into useful materials and stores carbon by accumulating it in the growing fungus.

Going from a single spore to a finished “fungi leather” (or “mycelium leather”) product takes a couple of weeks, compared with years required to raise a cow to maturity.

Mild acids, alcohols and dyes are typically used to modify the fungal material, which is then compressed, dried and embossed.

The process is quite simple and can be completed with minimal equipment and resources by artisans. It can also be industrially scaled for mass production. The final product looks and feels like animal leather and has similar durability.

Mushroom for progress

It’s important to remember despite years of development, this technology is still in its infancy. Traditional leather production has been refined to perfection over thousands of years.

There are bound to be some teething problems when adopting fungal leather. And despite its biodegradability and low-energy manufacturing, this product alone won’t be enough to solve the sustainability crisis.

Read more: Will we soon be growing our own vegan leather at home?

There are wider environmental concerns over animal farming and the proliferation of plastics – both of which are independent of leather production.

Nonetheless, using creativity to harness new technologies can only be a step in the right direction. As the world continues its gradual shift towards sustainable living, perhaps seeing progress in one domain will inspire hope for others.

Will I be wearing it anytime soon?

Commercial products made with fungi-derived leather are expected to be on sale soon – so the real question is whether it will cost you an arm and a leg.

Prototypes were released last year in the US, Italy and Indonesia, in products including watches, purses, bags and shoes.

And while these fundraiser items were a little pricey – with one designer bag selling for US$500 – manufacturing cost estimates indicate the material could become economically competitive with traditional leather once manufactured on a larger scale.

The signs are promising. MycoWorks raised US$17 million in venture capital last year.

Ultimately, there’s no good reason fungal leather alternatives couldn’t eventually replace animal leather in many consumer products.

So next time you pass the mushrooms at the supermarket, make sure you acquaint yourself. You may be seeing a whole lot more of each other soon.

Read more: Could fungi save the fashion world?

– ref. Vegan leather made from mushrooms could mould the future of sustainable fashion – https://theconversation.com/vegan-leather-made-from-mushrooms-could-mould-the-future-of-sustainable-fashion-143988

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

The case for a referendum on New Zealand’s cannabis law was already urgent in 2015 when the supposedly more pressing issue was whether we should change the flag. As I argued at the time, prohibition had failed and was costing society far more than the drug itself.

As with alcohol, tobacco, prostitution and gambling, regulation – not prohibition – seemed the smarter way forward. Nothing has changed as the cannabis legalisation and control referendum looms on October 17. If anything, the evidence from five wasted decades of war on cannabis is even more compelling.

First, tens of thousands of New Zealand lives have been disproportionately damaged – not through use of the drug, but because of its criminalisation.

According to figures released under the Official Information Act, between 1975 and 2019, 12,978 people spent time in jail for cannabis-related convictions (using and/or dealing). In the same period, 62,777 were given community-based sentences for cannabis-related convictions.

These statistics have not been evenly distributed. Māori are more likely to be convicted on cannabis charges, even accounting for higher rates of use.

Each conviction represented real or potential harm to job prospects, ability to travel, educational and other forms of social opportunity.

Despite the law, cannabis use increases

Second, despite these penalties and the millions of hours of police time spent enforcing the law, demand remains stronger than ever. Mirroring international trends (an estimated 192 million people used cannabis in 2018, making it the most used drug globally), the number of people using cannabis in New Zealand is increasing.

Read more: Cannabis use after work doesn’t affect productivity – new research

The most recent statistics suggest 15% of people used it at least once in the past year – nearly double the 8% recorded in 2011-12. The rate for those between 15 and 24 could be closer to 29% (nearly double the 15% in 2011-12).

Research suggests most New Zealanders (about 80%) born in the 1970s have used cannabis at least once. Despite the hype, propaganda and fear, such widespread use has not sent the nation spinning of control.

This is not a universal rule. For a minority (perhaps 4% to 10% of all users), there is a risk of developing a dependence that impairs their psychological, social and/or occupational functioning. Again, Maori suffer disproportionately in this area.

Despite these risks, overall the damage of cannabis is far less (for both individuals and wider society) than for legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.

Black markets only work for criminals

Third, criminals have thrived on the illegality of cannabis. The median price of an ounce fluctuates between $350 and $400. With such attractive profit margins for an illegal product, a black market is inevitable.

Read more: Cannabis: high potency strains linked to greater chance of anxiety – new research

In turn, the quality and safety of the product are not regulated, the market is not controlled (children become customers), and no tax is earned from the profits. The spill-over crime rate increases as gangs or cartels seek to monopolise business and expand their territory.

The referendum now offers the Cannabis Legislation and Control Bill as a solution to these problems. If it became law the current situation would change in several significant ways:

• access to cannabis for those aged 20 or over would be restricted to a personal supply (two plants) or purchase of 14 grams per day at a set potency level

• sale would be through licensed premises selling quality-controlled product from licensed producers

• standardised health warnings would be mandatory

• advertising would be strictly controlled

• cannabis could not be consumed in a public place

• selling to someone under 20 would risk four years in jail or a fine of up to $150,000

• cannabis sales would be taxed

• money would be available for public education campaigns to raise awareness of potential harm and promote responsible use.

Read more: Economics of legalising cannabis – pricing and policing are crucial

Some estimates put the potential tax take as high as NZ$490 million per year. There are also optimistic arguments that criminality and harm associated with the drug will drastically reduce, if not be eliminated altogether.

But these outcomes will depend on the price and quality of the product, the effectiveness of policing the non-compliant, and providing the right help to those who need it.

There is no perfect solution

While overseas evidence suggests legalisation reduces many of the peripheral crimes associated with the illegal supply of cannabis, this tends to turn on the types of crimes examined and the nature of the black market.

New Zealand conditions may differ. These caveats suggest it is overly simplistic to believe that regulation of recreational cannabis will lead to a happy utopia down under. There will always be harm and there will undoubtedly be teething problems if the new law goes ahead.

But that is not the question being asked on October 17. What voters have to answer is this: does regulation offer a better pathway than prohibition when it comes to reducing harm in our society?

Five decades of failure would suggest one of those options offers more hope than the other.

– ref. If reducing harm to society is the goal, a cost-benefit analysis shows cannabis prohibition has failed – https://theconversation.com/if-reducing-harm-to-society-is-the-goal-a-cost-benefit-analysis-shows-cannabis-prohibition-has-failed-145688

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erich Kisi, Professor of Engineering , University of Newcastle

As climate change worsens, the future of fossil fuel jobs and infrastructure is uncertain. But a new energy storage technology invented in Australia could enable coal-fired power stations to run entirely emissions-free.

The novel material, called miscibility gap alloy (MGA), stores energy in the form of heat. MGA is housed in small blocks of blended metals, which receive energy generated by renewables such as solar and wind.

The energy can then be used as an alternative to coal to run steam turbines at coal-fired power stations, without producing emissions. Stackable like Lego, MGA blocks can be added or removed, scaling electricity generation up or down to meet demand.

MGA blocks are a fraction of the cost of a rival energy storage technology, lithium-ion batteries. Our invention has been proven in the lab – now we are moving to the next phase of proving it in the real world.

Why energy storage is important

Major renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power are “intermittent”. In other words, they only produce energy when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Sometimes they produce more energy than is needed, and other times, less.

So moving to 100% renewable electricity requires the energy to be “dispatchable” – stored and delivered on demand. Some forms of storage, such as lithium-ion batteries, are relatively expensive and can only store energy for short periods. Others, such as hydro-electric power, can store energy for longer periods, but are site-dependent and can’t just be built anywhere.

Read more: 45,000 renewables jobs are Australia’s for the taking – but how many will go to coal workers?

If our electricity grid is to become emissions-free, we need an energy storage option that’s both affordable and versatile enough to be rolled out at massive scale – providing six to eight hours of dispatchable power every night.

MGAs store energy for a day to a week. This fills a “middle” time frame between batteries and hydro-power, and allows intermittent renewable energy to be dispatched when needed.

How our invention works

In the next two decades, many coal-fired power stations around the world will retire or be decommissioned, including in Australia. Our proposed storage may mean power stations could be repurposed, retaining infrastructure and preventing job losses.

For coal stations to use our technology, the furnace and boiler must be removed and replaced by a storage unit containing MGA blocks.

MGA blocks are 20cm x 20cm x 16cm. They essentially comprise a blend of metals – some that melt when heated, and others that don’t. Think of a block as like a choc-chip muffin heated in a microwave. The muffin consists of a cake component, which holds everything in shape when heated, and the choc chips, which melt.

Read more: Japan is closing its old, dirty power plants – and that’s bad news for Australia’s coal exports

The blocks don’t just store energy – they heat water to create steam. In an old coal plant, this steam can be used to run turbines and generators to produce electricity, rather than burning coal to produce the same effect.

To create the steam, the blocks can be designed with internal tubing, through which water is pumped and boiled. Alternatively, the blocks can interact with a heat exchanger – a specially designed system to heat the water.

Old coal plants could run on renewable energy that would otherwise be switched off during periods of oversupply in the middle of the day (in the case of solar) or times of high wind (wind energy).

Our research has shown the blocks are a fraction the cost of a lithium battery of the same size, yet produce the same amount of energy.

Proving MGA blocks in the real world

Our team perfected the novel material through research at the University of Newcastle between 2010 and 2018. Last year we formed a company, MGA Thermal, and are focused on commercialising the technology and conducting real-world projects.

In July this year, MGA Thermal received a A$495,000 grant from the federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, to establish a pilot manufacturing plant in Newcastle, New South Wales. This project is due to start operating in the second half of next year. The goal is to begin manufacturing a commercial quantity of MGA blocks economically, at scale, for large demonstration projects.

Read more: Yes, carbon emissions fell during COVID-19. But it’s the shift away from coal that really matters

MGA Thermal have partnered with a Swiss company, E2S Power AG, to test the technology in the rapidly changing coal-fired power industry in Europe. Beginning next year, the testing will include retrofitting a functioning coal power plant with MGA storage. This will also verify the economic case for the technology.

We are aiming for a cost of storage of A$50 per kilowatt hour, including all surrounding infrastructure. Currently, lithium-ion batteries cost around A$200 per kilowatt hour, with added costs if energy is to be exported to the electricity grid.

So what are the downfalls? Well, MGA does have a much slower response time than batteries. Batteries respond in milliseconds and are excellent at filling short spikes or dips in supply (such as from wind turbines). Meanwhile MGA storage has a response time above 15 minutes, but does have much longer storage capacity.

A combination of all three options – batteries, MGA/thermal storage and hydro – would provide large-scale energy storage that can still respond quickly to fluctuating renewable supply.

Safe and recyclable

MGA blocks are safe and non-toxic – there is no risk of explosion or leakage, unlike some other fuels.

The blocks can also be recycled. They are expected to last 25-30 years, then can be easily separated into their individual materials – to be made into new blocks, or recycled as raw materials for other uses.

Like any new technology, MGA blocks must be financially proven before they’re accepted by industry and used widely in commercial projects. The first full-scale demonstrations of the technology are on the horizon. If successful, they could allow coal-fired power plants to be used cleanly, and provide hope for the future of coal workers.

– ref. Aussie invention could save old coal stations by running them on zero-emissions ‘Lego’ blocks – https://theconversation.com/aussie-invention-could-save-old-coal-stations-by-running-them-on-zero-emissions-lego-blocks-144864

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ivano Bongiovanni, Lecturer in Information Security, Governance and Leadership / Design Thinking, The University of Queensland

Universities worldwide are a growing target for hackers. A July 2020 report by cybersecurity company Redscan found more than 50% of UK universities recorded a data breach in the previous 12 months.

More recently, a data breach has affected 444,000 users of ProctorU. Universities, including several Australian ones, use this online tool to supervise students sitting exams from home. Personal records from ProctorU were made available on hacker forums.

Read more: ANU will invigilate exams using remote software, and many students are unhappy

The online-first approach universities are adopting during the COVID-19 pandemic further increases their digital footprint. This was done at very short notice. This meant risk analysis was different from the traditional processes, leading to additional cybersecurity risks.

Why do unis attract attacks?

Why are universities such attractive targets? It basically boils down to higher education’s “bread and butter”: they hold precious data, information and knowledge. Typical examples include emails, personal information, technical resources, sensitive research data and intellectual property.

In addition, universities have attractive infrastructure – such as high-bandwidth connections via high-capacity wiring – and access to expensive resources. Their structures and processes are also inherently complex.

All of these factors make them vulnerable.

In a recently published research paper, we sought to disentangle this complexity. We interviewed 11 cybersecurity and IT leaders in universities and research centres across Australia. We asked them about the main cyber challenges their institutions faced daily.

Challenges everywhere

University IT systems host a variety of users, including academics, professional staff, students and visitors. They have different levels of knowledge and understanding of cybersecurity and could create vulnerabilities, albeit unwillingly.

At the same time, they have work to do and they sometimes feel security controls hamper their productivity. One interviewee said:

We regularly get pushed back by researchers saying: ‘Your controls are too tight; we can’t run software or do the experimentation we want to do.’

Universities are hyper-connected organisations, whose edges are hard to establish: the boundary is no longer simply “the campus”.

Most universities also have to deal with old technology and networks. Once connected to the internet, these legacy systems may offer so-called “backdoors” that hackers can exploit. The hacking of the Australian National University and resulting data breach was an example of this.

Read more: 19 years of personal data was stolen from ANU. It could show up on the dark web

Universities increasingly operate as businesses. They connect with industry partners and third-sector organisations to make an impact on the “real world”. They outsource some of their services and develop entrepreneurial branches in the form of start-ups and spin-offs.

These activities create further complexity, as universities’ value chains are extended to involve other universities, private and public organisations and non-government organisations. A breach in one component of these value chains could have devastating effects on the other components.

Last but not least, universities have a natural inclination towards innovation. To innovate, information-sharing is essential. This, together with academic freedom, may at times clash with a culture of security. As one interviewee said:

The boards of directors are looking at growth, and there is no growth without risk.

It’s all about protecting intellectual capital

Intellectual capital is the mix of human capital (the knowledge of individuals), structural capital (systems, processes and technology to organise knowledge) and relational capital (the value that comes from connections with the external world). Protecting data and information held in universities ultimately means protecting their intellectual capital.

This cannot be achieved without bearing two levels of embeddedness in mind: vertical (the different end-user categories) and horizontal (the different organisations that engage with universities).

Once more, this teaches us that, in cybersecurity, a one-size-fits-all approach is rarely the best solution. Even more so for universities.

Governments are acutely aware of the issues. The recently launched Australian Cyber Security Strategy dedicates A$1.6 million over ten years to enhancing the cybersecurity of universities.

Will this be enough? More money for higher education could come from critical infrastructure protection, joint cyber security centres and perhaps defence, through programs such as the Defence Industry Security Program (DISP).

Read more: Australia’s cybersecurity strategy: cash for cyberpolice and training, but the cyberdevil is in the cyberdetail

What can unis do to improve cybersecurity?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Engage with all end users. Making cybersecurity easier to understand for academics, researchers, students and other users helps make them part of the solution. Engagement goes a long way towards changing people’s behaviours.

2. Share information. Analysis of past breaches and chains of events – like the analysis by the Australian National University – can help other universities improve security and repel attacks. This improves cybersecurity for all.

3. Couple technology investment with investment in people. Universities such as Monash, Deakin and the University of Queensland have recently required multi-factor authentication by users. Legacy systems, where possible, should be replaced or retired, but training and awareness also have to be refined, improved and personalised.

4. Establish coalitions of universities to counter common cybersecurity challenges. This is especially important for universities that have limited resources to tackle the scourge by themselves.

5. Understand your assets. Whether holistically as intellectual capital or specifically as data, information and knowledge assets, a better understanding helps focus investments effectively and efficiently.

This article was co-authored by Dr David Stockdale, AusCERT Director and Deputy Director of Infrastructure Operations Information Technology Services at The University of Queensland.

– ref. Universities are a juicy prize for cyber criminals. Here are 5 ways to improve their defences – https://theconversation.com/universities-are-a-juicy-prize-for-cyber-criminals-here-are-5-ways-to-improve-their-defences-144859

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Irene Håkansson, Postdoctoral Reserach Fellow, University of Melbourne

In the face of the global health and climate crises, we look at our cities both anxiously and hopefully. We deviate from our normal patterns of behaviour to avoid close physical contact and suffer associated emotional and practical losses. At the same time, we envision our cities’ lasting transformation for the better.

We have become familiar with astonishing photographs of clear blue skies over usually polluted cities or of cyclists, pedestrians and even wild animals appearing on suddenly deserted streets. Although we are rightly warned not to get complacent, these images of what could be have animated calls for a “green”, sustainable healing. A window of opportunity is opening to accelerate action on climate change and sustainability, while safeguarding ourselves as we live with COVID-19.

But how and where do we kick-start and anchor the kinds of initiatives needed to achieve and unify these objectives? And what could and should these initiatives be?

How we want to use the urban realm is clearly changing. We require and value (more) cycling paths, pedestrianised areas and public green spaces. Once workers and students return to the city, things like outdoor lunch and meeting spaces may be essential.

With this in mind, we propose a renewed look at prevailing urban blueprints, drawing on potential answers from initiatives like the Melbourne Innovation Districts (MID).

Despite suspicions, public has a role to play

Innovation districts are a nucleus of knowledge-based and creative economic activities. They are walkable neighbourhoods that connect organisations like universities or cultural institutions with science-and-technology-driven businesses.

The idea is that the vibrancy and connectivity of these urban quarters attract creative start-ups and spin-outs. At local networking events, for example, researchers, students, knowledge workers, business and community organisations can come together to share new knowledge and city experiences.

In cities like New York and San Francisco, innovation districts have been criticised as “high-tech fantasies” and pure real-estate businesses that deepen segregation and inequalities. A survey across three Australian cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane) that are home to a number of innovation districts found communities view them with suspicion.

Read more: Valleys, alleys and roundabouts: innovating beyond a precinct

We must not downplay such assessments. However, the context of time and place is vital. The Melbourne Innovation District just to the north of the CBD is not (yet) the site of a tech-financial elite. It is still in the making, which allows for a (re-)shaping of its intended purposes of place-based collaboration, innovation and public engagement.

The district was established in 2016 and endorsed by the Future Melbourne Committee in late 2019. It is a partnership between the City of Melbourne, the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. With its identity and function evolving, it may play a guiding role in Melbourne’s and other cities’ way forward.

Read more: Looking beyond the sandstone: universities reinvent campuses to bring together town and gown

A space for urban experimentation

These are highly unpredictable times, so room for experimentation and rapid adaptation is needed. This is precisely what the Melbourne Innovation District provides.

The underlying MID action plan identifies so-called “innovation streets and spaces” to provide “test and engagement sites”. These are designated areas for testing new ideas and practices in a real-life urban context.

The City of Melbourne has used these sites for some trials of emerging technologies. Examples include 5G technology and sensor technology to capture micro-climate data that can be used to inform walkers about routes with comfortable temperatures.

But the test sites are otherwise awaiting uptake. The innovation district and its test sites can be a springboard for vital experimentation leading to radical improvements of infrastructure and the public realm.

Read more: City streets become a living lab that could transform your daily travel

Innovation in response to social need

A sustainable city must balance ecological and economic goals with social ones. Part of the Melbourne Innovation District’s ambition is to foster “social innovation”. That is, innovative activity motivated by social need, not private profit.

Social innovation is sometimes derided for being a vague and hence easily co-opted buzzword. But the innovation district could give it a renewed, purposeful meaning: care, solidarity and collective action have been fundamental principles during this pandemic.

In this spirit, Melbourne City Council has pledged financial and in-kind support for the 52,000 international students living within its boundaries during the COVID-19 crisis. Many of them live in and around the innovation district. This gesture acknowledges the students’ vital contribution and takes a stand against bigotry.

With this as a guiding first step, the Melbourne Innovation District and its Social Innovation Hub can become spaces for creative collective action. This will help nurture community-building and mutual care for our future city.

Read more: Australia needs an innovation ‘skunkworks’

Collaboration before competition

Beyond coming together in empathy and care, knowledge alliances and co-operation are indispensable. Solutions for tackling the climate and global health crises will only be found in collaboration. The innovation district’s biomedical precinct will contribute to the fight against COVID-19.

To date, however, the Melbourne Innovation District has not gained the traction needed to realise its full potential as a collaboration between two universities and a local government. The partnership could position itself as a central platform within a citywide network of, for example, new satellite hubs of economic activity and co-working spaces. With our ways of using the city changing, spaces like these may prove to be increasingly important. Joint outdoor public lectures, labs and workshops (with physical distancing) could be launched.

Despite bearing the at-times-controversial label “innovation district”, the focus and trajectory of Melbourne’s version are not fixed. With the right intentions and effective backbone organisation in place, it may rise to lead by example.

– ref. Innovation districts like Melbourne’s could help chart our course out of crisis – https://theconversation.com/innovation-districts-like-melbournes-could-help-chart-our-course-out-of-crisis-142267

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin University

“Cultural Marxism” is a term favoured by those on the right who argue the humanities are hopelessly out of touch with ordinary Australia.

The criticism is that radical voices have captured the humanities, stifling free speech on campuses.

The term has been used widely over the past decade. Most infamously, in former senator Fraser Anning’s 2018 “final solution” speech to parliament he denounced cultural Marxism as “not a throwaway line, but a literal truth”.

But is cultural Marxism actually taking over our universities and academic thinking? Using a leading academic database, I crunched some numbers to find out.

The back-story

The term “cultural Marxism” moved into the media mainstream around 2016, when psychologist Jordan Peterson was protesting a Canadian bill prohibiting discrimination based on gender. Peterson blamed cultural Marxism for phenomena like the movement to respect gender-neutral pronouns which, in his view, undermines freedom of speech.

Read more: Is Jordan Peterson the philosopher of the fake news era?

But the term is much older. It seems first to have been used by writer Michael Minnicino in his 1992 essay The New Dark Age, published by the Schiller Institute, a group associated with the fringe right wing figure Lyndon LaRouche.

Around the turn of the century, the phrase was adopted by influential American conservatives. Commentator and three time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan targeted “cultural Marxism” for many perceived ills facing America, from womens’ rights and gay activism to the decline of traditional education.

The term has since gone global, sadly making its way into Norwegian terrorist Anders Brevik’s justificatory screed. Andrew Bolt used it as early as 2002. In 2013, Cory Bernardi was warning against cultural Marxism as “one of the most corrosive influences on society”.

By 2016, the year the Peterson affair unfolded, Nick Cater and Chris Uhlmann were blaming it for undermining free speech in The Australian. The idea has since been adopted by Mark Latham and Malcolm Roberts.

So, what is cultural Marxism?

Insofar as it goes beyond a fairly broad term of enmity, the accusers of “cultural Marxism” point to two main protagonists behind this ideology.

The first is Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Writing under imprisonment by the fascists in the 1920s, Gramsci argued the left needed to capture the bureaucracy, universities and media-cultural institutions if it wished to hold power.

The second alleged culprits are “neo-Marxist” theorists associated with the Frankfurt School of Social Research. These “critical theorists” drew on psychoanalysis, social theory, aesthetics, and political economy to understand modern societies. They became especially concerned with how fascism could win the allegiance of ordinary people, despite its appeals to aversive prejudice, hatred and militarism.

When Hitler came to power, the Frankfurt School was quickly shut down, and its key members forced into exile. Then, as Uhlmann has narrated:

Frankfurt School academics […] transmitted the intellectual virus to the US and set about systematically destroying the culture of the society that gave them sanctuary.

While Soviet communism faltered, the story continues, the cultural Marxist campaign to commandeer our culture was marching triumphantly through the humanities departments of Western universities and outwards into wider society.

Today, critics argue it shapes the “political correctness” that promotes minority causes and polices public debate on issues like the environment, gender and immigration – posing a grave threat to liberal values.

Read more: How a fake ‘free speech crisis’ could imperil academic freedom

What the numbers show

If the conservative anxieties about cultural Marxism reflected reality, we would expect to see academic publications on Marx, Gramsci and critical theorists crowding out libertarian, liberal and conservative voices.

To test this, I conducted quantitative research on the academic database JStor, tracking the frequency of names and key ideas in all academic article and chapter titles published globally between 1980 and 2019.

In 1987, Karl Marx himself ceded the laurel as the most written about thinker in academic humanities, replaced by Friedrich Nietzsche – revered by many fascists including Benito Mussolini – and Martin Heidegger, another figure whose far-right politics were hardly progressive.

Over the past 40 years, the alleged mastermind of cultural Marxism, Gramsci, attracted 480 articles. This compares with the 407 publications on Friedrich Hayek, arguably the leading influence on the neoliberal free market reforms of the last decades.

The “Frankfurt School” featured in less than 200 titles, and critical theorist Herbert Marcuse (identified by Uhlmann as a key transmitter of the cultural Marxist “virus” in the US) was the subject of just over 220.

Over the last decade, the most written about thinker was the neo-Nietzschean theorist, Giles Deleuze, featuring in 770 titles over 2010-19.

But the notoriously esoteric ideas of Deleuze – and his language of “machinic assemblages”, “strata”, “flows” and “intensities” – are hardly Marxist. His ideas have been a significant influence on the right-wing Neoreactionary or “dark enlightenment” movement.

Cultural, not Marxist

The last four decades have seen a relative decline of Marxist thought in academia. Its influence has been superseded by “post-structuralist” (or “postmodernist”) thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Deleuze.

Post-structuralism is primarily indebted to thinkers of the European “conservative revolution” led by Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Where Marxism is built on hopes for reason, revolution and social progress, post-structuralist thinkers roundly reject such optimistic “grand narratives”.

Post-structuralists are as preoccupied with culture as our conservative news columnists. But their analyses of identity and difference challenge the primacy Marxism affords to economics as much as they oppose liberal or conservative ideas.

Quantitative research bears out the idea that “cultural Marxism” is indeed a “post-factual dog whistle” and an intellectual confusion masquerading as higher insight.

A spectre of Marxism has survived the cold war. It now haunts the culture wars.

– ref. Is ‘cultural Marxism’ really taking over universities? I crunched some numbers to find out – https://theconversation.com/is-cultural-marxism-really-taking-over-universities-i-crunched-some-numbers-to-find-out-139654

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

Scott Morrison and Daniel Andrews are in a high stakes arm wrestle.

Morrison, faced with the prospect of more economic devastation, is desperate to force Victoria to open faster than Sunday’s roadmap proposes.

Andrews, still reeling from the consequences of his government’s earlier mistakes, is terrified of risking a third Victorian wave by moving too quickly.

Morrison is flagging he’ll pull out whatever stops he can to prod Victoria to speed up its journey to COVID-safe activity in that state.

Describing the Andrew government’s plan as “a worst case scenario”, he said on Monday: “I see it as a starting point in terms of how this issue will be managed in the weeks and months ahead in Victoria”.

The federal government warns of dire consequences for the Victorian economy, with a national flow-on. With epidemiologists divided over Victoria’s map, it quotes those experts who are questioning. And it intends to put under the microscope the assumptions on which the timetable is based.

It also demands to know what relief the Victorian government will give suffering businesses. There’s a general promise without specifics.

On the more positive side, the federal government declares itself ready to do anything it can to improve Victoria’s contact tracing.

When Morrison, Health Minister Greg Hunt and Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy (former chief medical officer) appeared at a Monday news conference pegged on an announcement about new agreements to secure vaccines, the Victorian roadmap was centre stage.

Murphy put aside his bureaucratic cloak to say “this does seem a very conservative approach”.

He questioned some of the “triggers” for planned steps. “Five cases rather than 10, no cases rather than a few. There’s no rule book for this virus but I think some of us feel that, if there were more confidence in the public health response capability, you could take some slightly more generous triggers.”

But Murphy rejected the suggestion (made by some critics, not the state government) that Victoria was pursuing an elimination strategy. “They’re still pursuing aggressive suppression.”

Morrison is focused, laser-like, on contact tracing. Yet again he raved about the strength of the NSW system – gold standard, as he repeatedly describes it – that has enabled a continuing small number of cases to be managed with the economy more or less open.

His point might be right but every time he makes it, he does sounds so much like – well, a New South Welshman.

It’s generally accepted Victorian contact tracing was very poor and this was a reason the quarantine bungle turned into a disaster. It’s also accepted – and Murphy attested to this – that it’s much better now.

The Victorian government said on Monday that now, almost all cases are interviewed within 24 hours (97.8% on September 3) and their close contacts notified within 48 hours (98.6%) of the state health department being informed of the result.

But Morrison remains convinced the Victorian system still leaves much to be desired, and believes it holds the key to speeding up the state’s opening.

The proposed federal examination of the Victorian modelling and settings will be an interesting moment for federal and state health advisers.

These experts have become nationally known figures during the pandemic, and commentators early on remarked how good it was to see politicians turning to experts.

But as time has gone on, the experts have found themselves used and abused, literally. Sometimes used to buttress the politicians’ cases. And abused, particularly by critics on the right, who condemn them for having too much sway.

Acting Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly last week had to come up with a “hotspot” definition for Morrison, which was not endorsed by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), or the national cabinet.

Now Kelly and other federal experts are charged with reviewing the Victorian assumptions and modelling, done by university experts and used by the state government to devise the roadmap.

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Monday Victoria hadn’t discussed the specific roadmap with the AHPPC ahead of Sunday’s announcement. “Because no-one’s got a view of the Victorian industry and population and epidemiology to the extent that we do ourselves,” he said.

Despite his tough talk, Morrison admitted the federal government was not looking at making some formal intervention in Victoria – for which it lacks power. It intended to provide “constructive feedback to the Victorian government once we’ve had the opportunity to fully look at the assumptions that sit behind this plan”.

The Andrews government always says it acts on the health advice, so Morrison might be a little encouraged by Sutton’s remarks at the premier’s Monday news conference, which suggested a possibility of some acceleration in the later stages of the roadmap.

Not of a bring-forward of the proposed September 28 date for taking step 2 – assuming case conditions are met – which Sutton said was “locked in”.

“We need to absolutely have that time to drive transmission down so that we’re going in the right direction,” he said.

After that there seems potential for faster progress – but for a slowing too. “I think we should always be in a process of continuous review,” Sutton said.

“We could miss [step dates] on the one hand because […] we don’t get to those [required] numbers. But we should also reflect on being in a much more successful position earlier on.”

In its battle with Queensland over its border with NSW, the federal government couldn’t force a general opening but did get action to facilitate the process for people who needed to cross for health reasons.

When states are exerting their rights and powers, small progress is all Morrison seems able to achieve.

At this stage, probably the best he can hope for is the Victorian government becomes willing to be a little more ambitious if the case numbers are going well come October.

– ref. View from The Hill: Morrison signals a long battle as the experts descend into the weeds of Victoria’s modelling – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-signals-a-long-battle-as-the-experts-descend-into-the-weeds-of-victorias-modelling-145734

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra

This is an edited extract from Chris Wallace’s book, How to Win an Election, NewSouth Books.

Leadership challenges make terrific political theatre – the kind leaders themselves want to avoid. To do so they have to do the substance and theatre of politics well enough to keep their job and win elections.

Not doing the theatre of politics well enough means no one will ever know how well they do the substance, because no one will listen or watch to find out. The public sphere, as sociologist Ari Adut puts it, is “simply a space of appearances” that is sensory, largely visual, involves distance, and of which spectatorship is the essence – in short, it is spectacle.

Further, theatre is about emotion. The prime error made by contemporary social democratic politicians is to rely on reasoned argument to sway voters. Emotion trumps reason every time. Labor relies overwhelmingly on reason and facts to carry the day, making it easy pickings for right-wingers who understand the primacy of emotion and exploit it to the hilt.

Earnest political players may scoff at the importance of politics’ thespian dimension, but even cursory consideration of a few prominent examples makes the point. As with Ronald Reagan, many of Bill Clinton’s speeches were banal on the page but tremendously effective, and sometimes electrifying, in the delivery. In contrast, Hillary Clinton’s speeches read well on the page but tended to fall flat in the delivery. The two outstanding examples of politicians whose speeches read brilliantly and were delivered brilliantly – Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy – put tremendous time and effort into getting both the texts of their speeches and the performance of those texts absolutely right.

Who was the last Labor leader to pull off this double?

The Shorten-Morrison contest in 2019, on the Labor side, was bad theatre. Had Bill Shorten won rather than narrowly lost the 2013 election against Malcolm Turnbull, perceptions of him might have undergone the kind of transformation Gough Whitlam’s did on winning office in 1972. As opposition leader, though, Shorten’s presentational problems symbolised his situation and caged him in them.

Ill-fitting suits with overly large coats made him look like a boy in a grown-up’s clothes. He spoke at voters rather than with them. They appeared as passive listeners to a politician rather than feeling a fellow human being was communicating with them, seeking their trust and favour.

Compare and contrast with Bob Hawke, whose enviable ability to be only and obviously himself, in public and in private, flaws and all, made him a national phenomenon and helped Labor win four consecutive elections in 1983, 1984, 1987 and 1990.

A university visit Shorten made to address a student meeting a few years ago suggested he was able to change gears if he wanted. The vice-chancellor attended. A wooden performance from Shorten ensued until one student asked an especially challenging question. Shorten electrified the meeting with the brilliance and conviction of his response, then reverted to his previous mode.

Afterwards the vice-chancellor raised the dramatic, impressive but temporary change in tenor for that one question and asked why he didn’t speak that way all the time. Shorten said his office forbade it as insufficiently “leader-like”.

So it did not have to be this way. Shorten could have been less wooden and more engaging, making him more credible and likeable – that is, more electable.

Read more: How might Labor win in 2022? The answers can all be found in the lessons of 2019

Nor was it as though Scott Morrison was strong on the “trust” front himself. He had a documented record of sketchy performances in positions of responsibility, departing from two jobs under a cloud after serious governance failures – firstly, as director of the New Zealand Office of Tourism and Sport (1998-2000) and secondly in Australia under the Howard government as managing director of Tourism Australia (2004-2006).

In 2018, colleagues noted the cynicism and cunning of Morrison and his supporters in their manipulation of Peter Dutton into a leadership tilt against Turnbull, and then of Turnbull out of a prime ministership while ostensibly remaining loyal to Turnbull, with Morrison himself magically emerging from the fray as prime minister. Post-election revelations about the A$100 million “sports rorts” affair, overseen by Morrison’s office in a way that bent the flow of cash to boost the government’s prospects in marginal seats, reinforced concerns about his trickiness.

Nevertheless, Morrison easily bettered Shorten in the theatre of politics for the duration of the 2019 election campaign, when it really counted. Political scientist Glyn Davis, paraphrasing research by American sociologist Frederic Milton Thrasher on Chicago gang leaders in the 1920s, noted the leader “must embody those attributes the gang most values […] must be of the culture”.

So it was that Morrison interacted enthusiastically with every ordinary voter in sight, left no sizzled sausage voraciously uneaten, and radiated palpable energy through the media coverage of those interactions to voters not there. Shorten and his wooden ways looked lower energy and less relatable by comparison. Relative to Shorten – and that is an important qualification – Morrison visibly connected with enough people in enough places, amplified through the media, to boost his chance of winning significantly.

Bob Hawke did the same for Labor, informed by and advancing social democratic rather than conservative values, in his four consecutive election wins from 1983. Voters want to feel, vicariously if they cannot get it directly, energy and connection.

“It is often said of democratic politics,” historian David Runciman pointed out astutely, “that the question voters ask of any leader is: ‘Do I like this person?’ But it seems more likely the question at the back of their minds is: ‘Would this person like me?’”

Morrison enthusiastically made encounters with voters appear to be all about them, conveying the impression he really liked the ordinary Australians he met on the election trail. Viewers of news reports carrying pictures of these interactions day in, day out, during the campaign were more likely to think he would like them too.

With Shorten, it too often seemed to be about him as he stayed controlled and within himself, smiling but slightly distant, looking ahead to the next person whose hand had to be shaken almost before he finished shaking the one in front of him.

Morrison’s mishandling of the national crisis over the summer of 2020 – secretly going on holiday to Hawaii while the east coast was ablaze, having his office deny he was there, reluctantly returning when he was found out, failing to show compassion for affected communities and then attempting to exploit the situation for political gain through ads designed to burnish his leadership standing – revealed his true self. But he managed to devise, create and perform the “daggy dad” political persona for the five weeks of the 2019 election campaign sufficiently well to see off Shorten’s prime ministerial prospects for good.

Winning the theatre of politics does not always come down to good looks, likeability or the ability to scoff sausages like a local, but it does always come down to the better performance. In his successful 1993 election campaign, Paul Keating was respected and awesomely powerful in his public arguments and interventions – so much so that his opponent, John Hewson, cracked under the media pressure orchestrated by Keating’s relentless pursuit of him on policy grounds.

Read more: She won’t be right, mate: how the government shaped a blokey lockdown followed by a blokey recovery

The campaign yielded two of the most memorable images of modern Australian politics: Lorrie Graham’s photograph of Keating cheekily peering over a pair of dark sunglasses on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, and a perspiring Hewson facing Mike Willesee’s forensic examination on the Nine Network’s A Current Affair of the way his proposed goods and services tax would apply to the purchase of a birthday cake. Keating was cool; Hewson perspired under pressure. Keating won the substance and theatre of the campaign, the theatre powerfully coming, during the campaign, to symbolise the substance.

So successful leaders need to be able to do both, ideally in a way that enables voters to say yes when asking themselves the question: “Do I like this person and, more importantly, would they like me?” A leader who can do the substance and theatre of politics will beat a competitor who can only do the substance or theatre of politics every time.

– ref. How to win an election? Do the substance as well as the theatre of politics – https://theconversation.com/how-to-win-an-election-do-the-substance-as-well-as-the-theatre-of-politics-144795

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Hobbs, Senior Lecturer in Public Health, University of Canterbury

Tooth decay has been described as a neglected epidemic in New Zealand however, our recent research suggests many people are unaware they are contributing to the problem by choosing a fluoride-free or “natural” toothpaste.

The 2016 Global Burden of Disease Study shows dental decay is the most prevalent health condition globally, affecting 2.4 billion people.

While oral health has generally improved in New Zealand, dental decay remains the most widespread chronic and irreversible disease.

Failure to prevent oral diseases comes at significant personal and economic cost. In New Zealand, the cost of treatment of dental diseases is more than NZ$1.1 billion each year. Poor oral health is also linked to lost time at school and poorer school performance, absences from work and a lower quality of life.

Rates of tooth decay in childhood

Earlier New Zealand research shows only two in five children and two in three adults brush their teeth twice daily with fluoride toothpaste.

Our study was the first investigation of the use of non-fluoride toothpaste in a large, nationally representative sample of both adults and children. We wanted to find out which segments of the population are drawn to using non-fluoride toothpaste.

We analysed data from the most recent New Zealand Health Survey, which was the first to include a question about the use of “natural” toothpastes.

Our research found that 6-7% of all children and adults now use a “natural” or non-fluoride toothpaste. The study shows the highest use in moderately and more affluent population groups and middle-aged (35-44 years) people. We found the highest number of non-fluoride toothpaste users (both children and adults) were in the moderate to least deprived areas.

Read more: Dental report card fail: half of adults and one-third of kids don’t brush twice a day

Our findings support prior concerns of dentists, particularly about tooth decay in children. A recent study shows 38% of five-year-olds had rotting teeth in 2017. Rates were even higher among Māori and Pacific children compared to other ethnicities. The New Zealand Dental Association has warned the increased popularity of non-fluoride toothpastes raises the risk.

A recent review of the world’s best available evidence shows toothpastes with fluoride are clearly more effective in preventing tooth decay than toothpastes without it. It means using non-fluoride toothpaste, often labelled as “natural”, raises the risk of future dental problems.

Misleading marketing and confusing messages

There is little evidence as to why people choose non-fluoride toothpastes. This is especially perplexing given the vast body of evidence in support of fluoride as a prevention of tooth decay.

Read more: High cost means more than half of NZ’s young adults don’t access dental care

One plausible explanation is that people think they are doing the “right thing” by choosing a “natural” option. Another more likely reason is that it is difficult to know whether a toothpaste contains fluoride. Current packaging doesn’t always highlight clearly whether a toothpaste contains fluoride or how much. Even if it does show the fluoride concentration, this is often hidden in small text.

In the future, better labelling on toothpaste tubes and packaging will help shoppers understand which toothpaste has fluoride. We also need to stop claims that “natural” toothpastes prevent tooth decay. The world’s best evidence clearly shows non-fluoride toothpastes do not prevent tooth decay.

Marketing is also often inconsistent with Ministry of Health recommendations. Evidence shows that for the toothpaste to work it needs fluoride in it. Adults should use a pea-sized amount and younger children a smear of fluoride toothpaste, without swallowing it.

In the future, it would also be helpful if supermarkets could help consumers make an informed choice by separating fluoride-containing from non-fluoride products. The bottom line is, if you want to avoid future trips to the dentist, your toothpaste should contain fluoride.

– ref. Wealthier New Zealanders are more likely to buy fluoride-free toothpaste, making a tooth decay ‘epidemic’ worse – https://theconversation.com/wealthier-new-zealanders-are-more-likely-to-buy-fluoride-free-toothpaste-making-a-tooth-decay-epidemic-worse-143286

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW

Drones have changed how we see the world. Even more profoundly, drones have transformed how we witness the world: how we decide the events that matter and create our shared “truth” of what happened.

Remotely piloted and equipped with sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles are changing the way we witness war, climate change, political protest, and now the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent weeks, drone footage has broadcast the unrest in the US city of Kenosha following the shooting of Jacob Blake and the devastation of the Beirut chemical explosion and Tropical Storm Laura.

Drone technology can blur viewpoints, pull focus onto surveillance and allow people to witness everything from public protests to places pushed out of reach by the pandemic.

Drones do more than ‘see’

It’s true that drones are vision machines: they loiter in the air with a persistent eye on the ground, beaming back imagery to their control point. For most drones, the images they send are optical. For military drones and those used in policing, border surveillance and even animal conservation, thermographic imaging is also common.

But drones are also data machines, accumulating information about altitude, speed, location and more.

My research shows this combination of aerial vision, remote control and data creation is changing how we witness the world. Drone imagery dissolves distinctions between war and domesticity, human and machine.

Drones are increasingly autonomous. Drone vision defines the contemporary aesthetic of war, but it is also increasingly present in new modes of art, activism, and popular and promotional culture.

Images of conflict are now often seen through the eyes of Predator and Reaper drones, which can make witnessing war difficult if not impossible. Police drones can capture footage of protests and be used in the court room against activists.

Yet at the same time, drone vision can allow us to witness state violence that might otherwise have gone undetected and even reveal the invisible data systems that police airspace.

Drone footage of open cut mines, Great Barrier Reef bleaching and the newly intense devastation of bushfires, floods and droughts make the effects of the climate emergency inescapable.

As Black Lives Matter protests continue across America and the world, drones bear witness to clashes between police and activists, democratising the aerial view that once belonged to police and media helicopters.

A brief history of drones

Before drones, the view from above was limited to helicopters, satellites, air planes and, further back still, the hot air balloon. Drones have made the aerial view commonplace, found everywhere from news reports to geographic surveys to wedding photos.

Military drones might not exist today without a weapons designer who also happened to be an amateur glider enthusiast. Back in the 1980s, Israeli aeronautical engineer Abraham Karem became obsessed with designing a remotely piloted aircraft, and he wanted to do it on his own terms.

Emigrating to California and launching his own company, Karem used his passion for his love of glider design to design a drone that could stay in the air for hours, using only a glorified lawn mower engine to stay aloft: the Predator.

Read more: Aerial threat: why drone hacking could be bad news for the military

Initially designed as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance craft, the Predator struggled to gain traction at the Pentagon. But the growing revolution in military affairs and protracted violence in the Balkans gave the Predator a chance, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden pushed it slowly to centre stage.

On the civilian side, drone development has focused more on quad-copter than fixed wing designs, with the market dominated by the Chinese manufacturer DJI.

Just a few years ago, hobbyist drones were tricky to fly but now there are selfie drones that can be piloted by gesture, autonomously avoid obstacles, and track you as you move.

Now found everywhere from search and rescue to agriculture to policing, the social and political impact of drones is a serious issue. During the pandemic, the policing function of drones has spread alarmingly to social distancing enforcement and biometric surveillance.

Witnesssing the pandemic

This year, drones have allowed people around the world to witness cities emptied of their usual crowds. These images testify to the scale of the upheaval of everyday life. For those sheltering in place, these images can provide a sense of the communal nature of a profoundly isolating time.

In contrast to the continual updating of testing, infection and death statistics and the ubiquitous logarithmic charts showing curves flattening or rising, drones allow us to witness the uncanny, melancholic and strangely beautiful disruption to everyday life.

This kind of witnessing provides context for the dislocations and anxieties of life under lockdown, even if it can’t necessarily make the disruption easier to bear.

Last month, the skies over Seoul, South Korea were lit up by around 300 drones creating messages of public health safety and lockdown encouragement. Previously, Lithuanian photographer Adas Vasiliauskas used his drone to facilitate human connections with friends and neighbours, who relished the chance to dress up and pose for family portraits.

Read more: Acedia: the lost name for the emotion we’re all feeling right now

As our ability to encounter the world beyond our neighbourhoods recedes, drones could open up the world in unexpected ways. Before the coronavirus, travellers were already using drones to capture stunning imagery – though it landed one Australian couple in trouble in Iran.

With millions stuck in lockdown and travel restrictions in place, drone footage shared online can help people experience distant places without leaving home.

While remote tourism of this kind could be abusive and intrusive, infrastructure is in place for a more ethical approach. For example, WeRobotics and other groups have seeded drone expertise across Africa, Asian and South America, helping train local operators to undertake mapping and photography.

Witnessing the world through the eyes of drones can be powerful for both good and ill. It can reveal beauty and injustice, but it can also subject people to unwelcome surveillance. As drones become more and more embedded in how we see the world, deeper understandings of the ethics of aerial vision will be essential.

– ref. Eyes on the world – drones change our point of view and our truths – https://theconversation.com/eyes-on-the-world-drones-change-our-point-of-view-and-our-truths-143838

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

The Victorian government’s roadmap out of pandemic lockdowns includes new provisions for single people living alone and single parents: the “single social bubble” system, which comes into effect on September 14.

Under the new system, if you’re a single person living alone or a single parent with children under 18, you can nominate one other person to be a part of your bubble.

The nominated person can visit your home and you can visit theirs — but only under certain circumstances. Both the single person and the nominated person must wear masks during the visit.

The system will replace the old rule, under which people could leave the house to visit an intimate or romantic partner but not a friend.

We collected answers to some common questions and asked three experts — an epidemiologist, an academic who researches sharehouses, and a philosophy researcher who examines how governments make rules around different types of relationships — to reflect on the new rules.

How long will I have to wear a mask?

Potentially for a good while yet.

Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services told The Conversation:

Masks will remain a tool in our fight against coronavirus for the foreseeable future. We have seen that there is more and more evidence to support the use of masks in slowing the spread of coronavirus. They are relatively inexpensive, accessible, and not too much of an imposition.

We expect that they will continue to be a part of our daily lives for some time to come.

FAQs for the roadmap to recovery in Victoria can be found on the Vic gov website here.

I’m single but live in a sharehouse or with family. Can I form a single social bubble with my friend?

No. The government factsheet says:

You can only nominate a person to be a part of your ‘single social bubble’ if you live alone, or are a single parent.

If you’re single and live alone, does the person you nominate also have to live alone?

No. Your nominated person can live in a sharehouse or with family. The factsheet says “you are also able to visit them in their home, but only when they are alone.”

So their housemates or family must be out of the house when you (the single person) wants to visit.

I live alone but am not single. Can I nominate a social bubble person to visit – my best friend or my sister, for example?

You’re faced with a tough choice. According to the Victorian government’s FAQ sheet:

people must choose whether they wish to see their intimate partner or form a ‘single social bubble’ with another nominated person.

If you designate someone to be in your bubble, is there some formal procedure? Do you have to register the person or get a permit?

No. If you’re a single person living alone or a single parent, your “nominated person” doesn’t need a permit – the Victorian government says it’s relying on people to “do the right thing”.

Read more: ‘Slow and steady’ exit from lockdown as Victorian government sets sights on ‘COVID-normal’ Christmas

The epidemiologist’s view: analysis from Mary-Louise McLaws

I am glad the rule on masks is remaining in place for a while yet. It’s a cost effective way to reduce transmission.

I am pleased the government has responded to calls from the community for compassion. I have argued before in favour of the bubble concept.

Yes, there are a lot of rules about how the single social bubble system will work in practice and some single people will miss out but I can understand why the authorities have done that.

On the rule that a single person can only visit their nominated person’s home if all other adult household members are out, I understand the logic and I think it’s reasonable and likely based on reducing the risk of spread to the household.

Yes, it might be tricky but you will be allowed to sit outside for two hours with one other person, so you and your bestie could be in the park.

Nothing is going to be perfect. Everything will have some logistical challenges but the fact authorities are willing to insert a compassionate component into this roadmap at the first step is commendable. For the sake of those who need support, we need to work around it.

I understand why they have asked people to wear masks when a single person and a nominated person get together in a shared home. There’s still a risk of transmission to others living in the shared accommodation even when they aren’t at home during the visit because the visitor can exhale virus several days before they start to show symptoms. Exhaled virus particles can contaminate surfaces or remain in the air when air flow at home is not high.

I hope people do the right thing. People are desperate to see the person they love or the person that makes them happy to help them get through this pandemic.

I am so delighted authorities are understanding they need to keep people safe and safety includes compassion. This is a step forward. Yes, some people will miss out and yes there are issues around the rules that need to be made safe. But Australia hasn’t had a pandemic quite like this before.

The sharehouse researcher’s view: analysis from Katrina Raynor

My research involved surveying more than a thousand people who have lived in a share house in Victoria at any time in 2020. We found many of them are already under intense pressure.

I think the single social bubbles concept in the new roadmap is an excellent step, but will be experienced differently by people who live in sharehouses.

Throughout the pandemic, I think there has been a presumption towards nuclear families or couples in the way policies have been written.

Particularly in relation to the idea of single social bubbles idea, the idea that a single person living alone can only visit their nominated person if the nominated person is alone in their house — this could be incredibly tricky in practice. And it differs from how intimate partners are treated in the rules.

These rules could present an extra area of conflict for sharehouses, many of which are already in conflict. One person we interviewed described COVID-19 as being like Married at First Sight for housemates, and I think that is very true.

Read more: Victoria now has a good roadmap out of COVID-19 restrictions. New South Wales should emulate it

Rules that stipulate only one person per household can shop are also confusing for sharehouses — housemates tend to shop for their own needs rather than the “household’s”. I suspect there are many who are not or can not follow that particular rule.

While I understand why members of share households won’t be able to take advantage of the single social bubble from a public health perspective, I think many will continue to feel lonely.

We may presume these single people have a fulfilling relationship with their housemates and that’s not always the case.

The philosopher’s view: analysis from Stephanie Collins

I think the single social bubble concept is an improvement on the rules we had before, where people could only visit their intimate partners. That clearly was an instance of society privileging one type of relationship over another, which is a question I look at in my research.

I am not too worried about “coupled up” people who live with an intimate partner and can’t take advantage of the social bubble.

But I am a bit worried about people who are single and living in a sharehouse not being able to form a single social bubble.

People don’t always know their housemates particularly well and might not turn to their housemates for the kind of intimate psychological connections we know are so important for human flourishing.

But we have to acknowledge the law is a blunt instrument. It’s difficult for the government to say “if you are not friends with your housemates then you can visit a nominated person”.

I do think the government is in a difficult position. What they have come up with is not a terrible compromise but it certainly won’t solve every social connection problem.

In general, I am very much in favour of the single social bubble. I think the previous rule really unjustly favoured people in intimate relationships over other kinds of relationships.

I hope this rule sticks around if Victoria or other states need to lockdown again in future. This concept could be integrated and improved in an ongoing way and I hope it’s not a reactionary decision.

– ref. How long will I have to wear a mask? Can single people visit a sharehouse? Common questions answered about Victoria’s new roadmap – https://theconversation.com/how-long-will-i-have-to-wear-a-mask-can-single-people-visit-a-sharehouse-common-questions-answered-about-victorias-new-roadmap-145682

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Conley Tyler, Research Fellow, Asia Institute, University of Melbourne

The Morrison government wants sweeping new powers to cancel international arrangements by universities, councils and state governments. After announcing its intentions in August, it introduced a bill to parliament last week.

The government argues the bill is needed to “ensure a consistent and strategic approach to Australia’s international engagement”. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia must “speak with one voice”.

But the bill should not pass parliament.

Not only has the government failed to identify any specific problem with the status quo, the bill rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of modern diplomacy.

Read more: Morrison government set to target Victorian ‘belt and road’ agreement under sweeping new legislation

Modern diplomacy is about multiple voices

For decades, Australia has had international agreements beyond the federal level. A huge number of actors interact internationally and affect how Australia is viewed. This can’t be exclusively managed from Canberra.

Over the past year, I’ve been researching new diplomatic actors – including sister cities, think tanks, sports diplomacy, international education, student mobility and corporate diplomacy.

Read more: Explainer: can the federal government control the ability of states to sign deals with foreign governments?

There are 87 state trade and investment offices overseas and 500 sister cities, including more than 100 with China. Each university would have hundreds of international agreements, including for students to study abroad for a semester and for research collaboration.

The proposed legislation mistakenly rests on the idea that speaking with “one voice” in foreign policy is a positive thing, when the modern idea of diplomacy emphasises broad engagement.

Australia benefits when multiple actors across society engage internationally to balance the ups and downs in official relations. As American author Parag Khanna memorably described it, “diplomacy is no longer the stiff waltz of elites but the jazzy dance of the masses”.

This bill overreaches

The legislation badly overreaches by seeking to regulate activities across education, culture, research and trade.

For example, it treats a visual artist exchange between Victoria and Jiangsu or a library agreement between the City of Sydney and Guangzhou as issues of foreign policy.

Including universities is also a step too far. It was originally thought the legislation would only cover arrangements between universities and foreign agencies, but it also covers universities that do not have institutional autonomy, which is a large number of foreign universities. This vastly increases the scope of regulation.

Read more: Explainer: what are Confucius Institutes and do they teach Chinese propaganda?

Meanwhile, the test for vetoing a foreign arrangement is far too wide. The foreign minister can declare an arrangement invalid if it is likely to adversely affect Australia’s foreign relations (undefined) or be inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy (defined as whatever the minister says it is, whether or not written or publicly available). “Arrangements” include anything in writing, whether or not legally binding.

We don’t actually need this bill

In sounding the alarm, the government has failed to pinpoint a real problem.

For example, there is zero evidence that a non-binding, symbolic memorandum of understanding between Victoria and China on to the Belt and Road Initiative has hampered the Commonwealth in pursuing Australia’s foreign policy.

Read more: Why is there so much furore over China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

It is important to note Australia already has the ability to protect itself, with existing laws on espionage, foreign interference and foreign investment and a University Foreign Interference Taskforce. We made it through the Cold War without needing this type of legislation.

What will happen if the bill passes?

Apart from being unnecessary over-regulation, the bill will also create problems for Australia if passed.

Firstly, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will have to divert resources to this new function when its funding is the lowest in history.

This means diplomats, who could be pro-actively working to promote the national interest, must check potentially tens of thousands of overwhelmingly non-controversial arrangements like the City of Warrnambool’s local export bureau with Changchun or the City of Darwin’s student English language competition in Haikou.

Secondly, the bill is likely to reduce international linkages due to uncertainty about what will be approved. Educational or cultural exchanges are the most at risk.

State and local governments will continue to promote trade, but they will waste time filling in the prescribed form to take, say, a delegation of Australian start-ups to pitch to investors in Nanjing.

Beyond this, the legislation sends exactly the wrong message to the wider community: to be uneasy about international engagement.

And all of this at a time of economic recession, when we need to find new avenues for growth. Sister cities have been shown to have measurable direct economic benefits, while state government export and investment promotion brings local jobs.

What could we do instead?

There are better solutions: more information-sharing between different levels of government; a one-page bill banning state governments from the Belt and Road Initiative.

Even giving the foreign affairs minister the power to request information on, and then cancel, any specific arrangement would be better than the overkill regulatory burden proposed.

And if, as many believe, the bill is directed at China, the irony is that fighting the Chinese Community Party seems to bring out the Australian government’s authoritarian tendencies.

Speaking with one state-approved voice is not what a open democracy like Australia should aim to achieve.

– ref. Morrison’s foreign relations bill should not pass parliament. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/morrisons-foreign-relations-bill-should-not-pass-parliament-heres-why-145615

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Borland, Professor of Economics, University of Melbourne

The good news from Victoria’s road map to recovery is the stage 4 restrictions imposed in July are working, albeit more slowly than anyone wants.

The evidence also suggests the Victorian government’s “slow but sure” approach to easing those rules is the right strategy. Unless the risk of COVID-19 is suppressed, relaxing restrictions will not produce the economic recovery we want.

Under the plan announced by Premier Daniel Andrews yesterday, metropolitan Melbourne’s stage 4 restrictions are being extended till at least September 28, with some minor relaxations of curfew and exercise rules.

Read more: Victoria’s path out of COVID-19 lockdown – quick reference guides

Then – if the number of new COVID-19 cases is fewer than 50 a day – there will be further relaxation of public gatherings and home visits. Child care centres will reopen, and about 100,000 workers in construction, delivery, manufacturing and gardening will be allowed to go back to work.

More substantial resumption of businesses activity won’t occur until at least October 26 – and only then if the average number of new cases over the previous two weeks is less than five a day.

If that is achieved, the government will allow most retail shops to open, and cafes and restaurants to serve patrons sitting outdoors. Hairdressers will be back in business, but not other beauty and personal care services.

From November 23, if there have been no new cases for 14 days, all retail will reopen, and hospitality restrictions will relax further.

For regional Victoria, Andrews said, it would likely be just be a matter of weeks before moving to “a very different range of settings compared to metropolitan Melbourne”.

Blaming the lockdown, not the pandemic

Critics of the Victorian government (and lockdowns generally) have argued its containment measures have caused more economic and social damage than would have been caused by the virus itself.

Read more: Melbourne’s second lockdown spells death for small businesses. Here are 3 things government can do to save them

But others argue the short-term economic cost is more than justified by the longer term benefits. They point to evidence suggesting the economy will only recover once COVID-19 is eliminated and the community again feels confident to socialise and shop as before.

University of Chicago economists Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson, for example, have analysed consumer behaviour in neighbouring regions with different social distancing restrictions in the US. They found voluntary changes in behaviour to reduce risks of catching COVID-19 were the major driver of lower economic activity. Government-imposed restrictions, they calculated, accounted for less than 12% of the total effect.

Read more: Vital Signs: the cost of lockdowns is nowhere near as big as we have been told

Victoria’s experience may provide more evidence on what is really driving the slowdown in economic activity.

Specifically, we can examine whether decreases in the number jobs appear to correspond more to growth in the COVID-19 caseload or to the timing of imposition of government restrictions.

The chart below displays how Victoria’s employment has tracked compared with the rest of Australia since the initial rise in COVID-19 cases in mid-March. It shows the difference (in percentage terms) between the decline in jobs in Victoria and the rest of Australia.

A number above zero means Victoria has lost a smaller share of its jobs than other states. A number below zero means a larger proportion of jobs have been lost.

As the chart shows, Victoria was following closely with other states till late April, then lost slightly more jobs through to late June.

But once COVID-19 re-emerged in late June, job losses in Victoria accelerated. By early August Victoria had lost about 4% more jobs than other states.

Job losses began before restrictions

The chart below shows how job numbers in accommodation and food services and arts and recreation services have changed in Victoria relative to other states.

These are the two sectors most affected by COVID-19, due to high levels of personal contact between and among customers and staff. The big question is to what extent the effect on employment in those sectors has been due to government rules or consumer behaviour.

The chart shows Victoria’s jobs changes in these two sectors were relatively consistent with the the rest of the country until June. (Arts and recreation did slightly better, food and accommodation slightly worse.)

The situation began to worsen in June with Victoria’s second-wave outbreak. This happened even before the Victorian government imposed stage 3 restriction on July 4.

In the two weeks prior to going back to stage 3, Victoria went from an average of about 16 new cases a day to 72 cases a day. Over the same period, the number of jobs in Victoria in accommodation and food services fell by 3%, and in arts and recreation services by 4.7%, compared with the rest of Australia.

Read more: The costs of the shutdown are overestimated — they’re outweighed by its $1 trillion benefit

As well, after the imposition of stage 3 restrictions the pace of decrease in jobs in Victoria was relatively steady. It matched the rise in COVID-19 cases (to an average of more than 450 a day in early August). Job losses do not seem to have been bunched around the dates restrictions were imposed, as might be expected if those restrictions were the main explanation for job losses.

All of this suggests that while the Victorian government’s path to remove restrictions will undoubtedly influence the level of economic activity in the months ahead, relaxing restrictions immediately would not bring the economy back to where we were in March.

It would only make the road to full recovery much slower and more uncertain.

– ref. Tracking Victoria’s job losses: there’s no road to recovery without containing COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/tracking-victorias-job-losses-theres-no-road-to-recovery-without-containing-covid-19-145621

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Killoren, Research Fellow, Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University

Animal welfare experts warn our pets could suffer during the coronavirus pandemic, including from abuse or abandonment.

When we hear about animals being neglected, we’re often outraged. Consider the revelation of the mistreatment of racehorses at a Queensland abattoir, or the man who decapitated a kookaburra. These stories left many of us shocked and appalled.

But harm to animals is common in our society. Tens of billions of animals are killed in farms and slaughterhouses every year. Their deaths are sometimes truly horrific. Humanity’s relationship with animals is dysfunctional: humans love animals yet simultaneously perpetrate extreme violence against them. This is not only bad for animals. It’s bad for us too.

But humans and animals cannot simply end their relationship and part ways. We have to share a world. So we have to forge a better relationship. The hard question is: what shape should that new relationship take?

Differing standards for humans and for animals?

Here’s an ethics thought experiment. Five humans are dying of organ failure. The only way to save their lives is to kill one healthy person, harvest their organs, and transplant these into the five dying people. Is it morally acceptable to kill the one to save the many?

If you’re like most people, your answer is a firm “no”. Humans have a right to life and can’t be killed in service of the greater good. This is an example of what’s known as a deontological judgment.

Read more: If you don’t eat meat but still wear leather, here are a few facts to chew on

But now let’s change the scenario. Suppose you are the manager of a sanctuary for chickens. An infectious virus is spreading through the sanctuary and you have to decide whether to kill one infected chicken or allow the virus to spread throughout the sanctuary, killing a larger number. Now what?

When confronted with the chicken scenario, many will say it’s acceptable to kill the one to save the many. Your responsibility as manager of the sanctuary is to promote the aggregate health and well-being of all the chickens in your care. If this means you have to kill one chicken to save many more, so be it. This is an example of what’s known as a utilitarian judgment.

When we think about cases where animal lives are at stake, we often tend to think in utilitarian terms. When we think about cases where human lives are at stake, we often tend to think in deontological terms.

Animal activists put to the test

Even animal activists, committed to a view of animals and humans as moral equals, may be inclined to see animals and humans from these differing perspectives.

At an animal activist conference in Melbourne last year (before the pandemic) we divided the audience into small groups and gave them different scenarios featuring different species.

Only 35% of those considering chicken cases said it was wrong to kill one chicken to save the many, whereas fully 85% of those considering human cases decided it was wrong to kill one human to save the many. An informal experiment, but it seems to illustrate a very human tendency to think of animals and humans according to different standards.

That tendency has been observed in many contexts. Robert Nozick influentially discusses a bifurcated view along these lines in his 1974 classic Anarchy, State, and Utopia. But the question of whether such a view can be attributed to ordinary people is only recently being rigorously studied by psychologists such as Lucius Caviola at Harvard University.

Read more: Illegal hunters are a bigger problem on farms than animal activists – so why aren’t we talking about that?

Beyond psychological research, we can look to institutions for evidence that this sort of bifurcated view is widespread, as we have argued elsewhere.

For example, when animals are used in scientific experimentation, researchers are mainly expected to show the benefits outweigh the costs: a utilitarian standard.

But when humans are used, characteristically deontological considerations, such as consent and autonomy, are brought to bear; a cost-benefit analysis isn’t enough.

So we tend to be more utilitarian about animals than about humans. Yet we also don’t see all animals from a purely utilitarian perspective. Think about your family dog. Would your conscience allow you to kill her to save five other dogs?

Three perspectives

The upshot: humans seem to be capable of seeing animals in at least three very different ways.

First, we’re able to regard animals as objects that exist solely for the sake of our use and enjoyment and that don’t matter in themselves. For an example, consider the way the fishing industry treats bycatch as disposable.

Second, we’re able to regard animals as beings who matter in themselves yet who are fundamentally interchangeable with others. That’s a utilitarian perspective. It’s the perspective you occupy when you endorse killing one pig to save five. Such a view is defended by world-renowned Australian philosopher Peter Singer, among many others.

Third, we’re able to see animals as beings who not only matter in themselves, but who also have rights, such as the right to life, or the right to bodily integrity, or even the right to liberty.

Perhaps it’s strange to see farmed animals that way, but it’s not so strange to see non-human family members such as cats and dogs in that way. And famous philosophers such as Tom Regan have argued a vast range of animals ought to be seen in that way.

The future of human-animal relations

Currently, many of us see most animals as mere things, the way fishermen typically see bycatch. And this might continue into the future.

But that’d be a tragedy. Despite their differences from humans, animals are conscious individuals with their own welfare, and so do matter in themselves. Recognising this will be an essential step in reducing the tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering and death that humans inflict on animals.

The simple recognition that animals are not mere things is in itself of massive importance, but it’s also only the beginning of the work we have ahead of us. As a society we must confront deep and difficult questions about whether animals have moral rights and, if so, what those rights might be, and how (if at all) their rights differ from those of human beings. Philosophers have been debating such questions for decades but haven’t reached consensus (yet).

Such questions must be addressed before we can we hope to find a new relationship with animals that fully recognises and respects our obligations to them.

Read more: Not just activists, 9 out of 10 people are concerned about animal welfare in Australian farming

– ref. People hate cruelty to animals, so why do we do it? – https://theconversation.com/people-hate-cruelty-to-animals-so-why-do-we-do-it-127448

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Isaacs, Associate Professor, Film Studies, University of Sydney

How do filmmakers communicate big ideas on screen? In this video series, film scholar Bruce Isaacs analyses pivotal film scenes in detail. (Warning: this video contains violence and may be upsetting for some viewers.)

There is perhaps no better time than now to appreciate the unique and subversive genre of zombie movies. These films have always been great socio-cultural lenses. Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were two classics of the genre.

World War Z (2013), an adaptation of Max Brook’s 2006 apocalyptic zombie novel continues this tradition. In a pivotal scene set in Jerusalem, director Marc Foster encapsulates the greatest threat posed by zombies: the end of our individuality and loss of uniqueness. The casting of Hollywood star Brad Pitt is crucial, as are the cuts between him as a figure and the invading mass.

See more video analysis of great movie scenes here.

– ref. Close up: World War Z frames the terror of ‘loss of self’ and the threat of a mass pandemic – https://theconversation.com/close-up-world-war-z-frames-the-terror-of-loss-of-self-and-the-threat-of-a-mass-pandemic-145090

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University

It’s surprising how quickly public opinion can change. Winding the clocks back 12 months, many of us would have looked at a masked individual in public with suspicion.

Now, some countries have enshrined face mask use in law. They’ve also been made compulsory in Victoria and are recommended in several other states.

One consequence of this is that facial recognition systems in place for security and crime prevention may no longer be able to fulfil their purpose. In Australia, most agencies are silent about the use of facial recognition.

But documents leaked earlier this year revealed Australian Federal Police and state police in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia all use Clearview AI, a commercial facial recognition platform. New South Wales police also admitted using a biometrics tool called PhotoTrac.

Read more: Your face is part of Australia’s ‘national security weapon’: should you be concerned?

What is facial recognition?

Facial recognition involves using computing to identify human faces in images or videos, and then measuring specific facial characteristics. This can include the distance between eyes, and the relative positions of the nose, chin and mouth.

This information is combined to create a facial signature, or profile. When used for individual recognition – such as to unlock your phone – an image from the camera is compared to a recorded profile. This process of facial “verification” is relatively simple.

However, when facial recognition is used to identify faces in a crowd, it requires a significant database of profiles against which to compare the main image.

These profiles can be legally collected by enrolling large numbers of users into systems. But they’re sometimes collected through covert means.

The problem with face masks

As facial signatures are based on mathematical models of the relative positions of facial features, anything that reduced the visibility of key characteristics (such as the nose, mouth and chin) interferes with facial recognition.

There are already many ways to evade or interfere with facial recognition technologies. Some of these evolved from techniques designed to evade number plate recognition systems.

Although the coronavirus pandemic has escalated concerns around the evasion of facial recognition systems, leaked US documents show these discussions taking place back in 2018 and 2019, too.

And while the debate on the use and legality of facial recognition continues, the focus has recently shifted to the challenges presented by mask-wearing in public.

On this front, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) coordinated a major research project to evaluate how masks impacted the performance of various facial recognition systems used across the globe.

Its report, published in July, found some algorithms struggled to correctly identify mask-wearing individuals up to 50% of the time. This was a significant error rate compared to when the same algorithms analysed unmasked faces.

Some algorithms even struggled to locate a face when a mask was covering too much of it.

Finding ways around the problem

There are currently no usable photo data sets of mask-wearing people that can be used to train and evaluate facial recognition systems.

The NIST study addressed this problem by superimposing masks (of various colours, sizes and positions) over images of faces, as seen here:

While this may not be a realistic portrayal of a person wearing a mask, it’s effective enough to study the effects of mask-wearing on facial recognition systems.

It’s possible images of real masked people would allow more details to be extracted to improve recognition systems – perhaps by estimating the nose’s position based on visible protrusions in the mask.

Many facial recognition technology vendors are already preparing for a future where mask use will continue, or even increase. One US company offers masks with customers’ faces printed on them, so they can unlock their smartphones without having to remove it.

Growing incentives for wearing masks

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, masks were a common defence against air pollution and viral infection in countries including China and Japan.

Read more: I’ve always wondered: why many people in Asian countries wear masks, and whether they work

Political activists also wear masks to evade detection on the streets. Both the Hong Kong and Black Lives Matter protests have reinforced protesters’ desire to dodge facial recognition by authorities and government agencies.

As experts forecast a future with more pandemics, rising levels of air pollution, persisting authoritarian regimes and a projected increase in bushfires producing dangerous smoke – it’s likely mask-wearing will become the norm for at least a proportion of us.

Facial recognition systems will need to adapt. Detection will be based on features that remain visible such as the eyes, eyebrows, hairline and general shape of the face.

Such technologies are already under development. Several suppliers are offering upgrades and solutions that claim to deliver reliable results with mask-wearing subjects.

For those who oppose the use of facial recognition and wish to go undetected, a plain mask may suffice for now. But in the future they might have to consider alternatives, such as a mask printed with a fake computer-generated face.

– ref. Face masks and facial recognition will both be common in the future. How will they co-exist? – https://theconversation.com/face-masks-and-facial-recognition-will-both-be-common-in-the-future-how-will-they-co-exist-144417

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Green, Postdoctoral resident adjunct, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University

As we approach the end of a uniquely challenging school year, the class of 2020 look set to miss out on many of the usual highlights of year 12.

Graduation ceremonies, formals, schoolies week and summer music festivals have either been cancelled or restricted.

Meanwhile, those who may have been planning a gap year overseas are not able to leave the country.

Read more: There’s a ban on leaving Australia under COVID-19. Who can get an exemption to go overseas? And how?

So far, public discussion of these cancellations have understandably focused on the risks posed by COVID and the possible mental health impacts on young people.

But young people aren’t just missing out on a chance to wear fancy clothes or party with their mates. Events like schoolies and formals also have a profound social purpose as rites of passage.

What are rites of passage?

Rites of passage are rituals that accompany changes in social status for individuals and groups. Their importance has been recognised by social researchers for more than a century.

In ethnographer Arnold Van Gennep’s original 1909 work, which is still broadly accepted by researchers, rites of passage share three basic phases:

• a symbolic separation from normality, such as by travel or costumes
• an in-between stage, in which social norms and hierarchies are cast off and people embrace a community spirit
• a ceremonial confirmation of the new state of affairs, often with symbols like a ring or crown.

This creates a transformative experience for people. It marks a change as special, by stepping outside ordinary life.

The brief upturn in the social order also allows the community to strengthen its bonds and reaffirm its support for the broader, existing social system.

Traditional rites of passage are in decline

For young people today, ceremonies like school graduations or schoolies trips are even more important than for previous generations.

Declining rates of religious affiliation means religious coming-of-age has also declined in importance. Changing social norms also mean events like debutante balls and weddings are no longer common practice for teenagers and those in their early 20s.

Meanwhile, traditional economic markers of growing up – such as moving out of home, and starting full-time work – are also proving more elusive for young people, thanks to challenging job and housing markets.

Read more: Six graphs that explain Australia’s recession

Schoolies, gap years are even more important

This means other cultural traditions are a critical part of how young people transition to adulthood.

Often when we talk about “muck up” days, schoolies and gap years, debates focus (not always fairly) on the risks involved with young people who are celebrating and testing boundaries.

But research has shown how schoolies and gap year travel act as rituals to mark and manage the otherwise often unremarkable transition to adulthood.

These episodes provide a meaningful break with normal life and past identity. They see young people leave their comfort zone to experience a sense of community with their peers, before moving to the next stage of life.

Similarly, music festivals, while not one-off events, can also provide these experiences. Nightclubs and parties – which have also been significantly curtailed during COVID – are also spaces to escape everyday rules and experience communal energy within the broader period of emerging adulthood.

Lasting impacts?

In addition to the impact on education – which has yet to be fully understood – there are other ways in which the class of 2020 may be roundly disadvantaged.

COVID-19 has changed so many of the cultural experiences young people use to make their way into adulthood.

So, what might be the lasting consequences for this year’s school leavers?

Missing out on rites of passage like schoolies week and festivals could mar the transition into adult society in subtle but palpable ways.

Without such cultural experiences it is harder to know when this change has really happened, to respect its significance and feel a sense of belonging in one’s new social role.

As per Van Gennep’s work, this cohort of young people is also missing chances to bond as a community and to reaffirm their commitment to the social order by temporarily disrupting it.

This is why, in the absence of formal rites of passage, people develop their own replacements, for better or worse. Recent reports of an impromptu rave inside a kebab shop show that young people will find other ways of crossing boundaries together – testing both legal and social norms.

Read more: ‘It really sucks’: how some Year 12 students in Queensland feel about 2020

On a more positive note, our ongoing research with young people about making music during COVID-19 is showing their resilience and creativity in balancing safety with social needs. Online performances are providing some missing ritual and social media also allows a level of community experience.

While we maintain our focus on community health and safety, we must recognise that what might look like frivolous or risky activities can have huge significance for young people as they move into adulthood.

This means they also have huge significance for our society more broadly.

– ref. No festivals, no schoolies: young people are missing out on vital rites of passage during COVID – https://theconversation.com/no-festivals-no-schoolies-young-people-are-missing-out-on-vital-rites-of-passage-during-covid-145097

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Sanger, Research Associate, University of Tasmania

Environmental scientists see flora, fauna and phenomena the rest of us rarely do. In this new series, we’ve invited them to share their unique photos from the field.

Tasmania’s native forests are home to some of the tallest, most beautiful trees in the world. They provide a habitat for many species, from black cockatoos and masked owls to the critically endangered swift parrot.

But these old, giant trees are being logged at alarming rates, despite their enormous ecological and heritage value (and untapped tourism potential). Many were also destroyed in Tasmania’s early 2019 fires.

Read more: Comic explainer: forest giants house thousands of animals (so why do we keep cutting them down?)

Former Greens leader Bob Brown recently launched a legal challenge to Tasmania’s native forest logging. And this year, Forestry Watch, a small group of citizen scientists, found five giant trees measuring more than five metres in diameter inside logging coupes. “Coupes” are areas of forest chopped down in one logging operation.

These trees are too important to be destroyed in the name of the forestry industry. This is why my husband Steve Pearce and I climb, explore and photograph these trees: to raise awareness and foster appreciation for the forests and their magnificent giants.

What makes these trees so special?

Eualypytus regnans, known more commonly as Mountain Ash or Swamp Gum, can grow to 100 metres tall and live for more than 500 years. For a long time this species held the record as the tallest flowering tree. But last year, a 100.8 m tall Yellow Meranti (Shorea faguetiana) in Borneo, claimed the title — surpassing our tallest Eucalypt, named Centrioun, by a mere 30 centimetres.

Centrioun still holds the record as the tallest tree in the southern hemisphere. But five species of Eucalypt also grow above 85 m tall, with many ranking among some of the tallest trees in the world.

It’s not only their height that make these trees special, they’re also the most carbon dense forests in the world, with a single hectare storing more than 1,867 tonnes of carbon.

Read more: Money can’t buy me love, but you can put a price on a tree

Our giant trees and old growth forests provide a myriad of ecological services such as water supply, climate abatement and habitat for threatened species. A 2017 study from the Central Highlands forests in Victoria has shown they’re worth A$310 million for water supply, A$260 million for tourism and A$49 million for carbon storage.

This significantly dwarfs the A$12 million comparison for native forest timber production in the region.

Tasmania’s Big Tree Register

Logging organisation Sustainable Timber Tasmania’s giant tree policy recognises the national and international significance of giant trees. To qualify for protection, trees must be at least 85 m tall or at least an estimated 280 cubic metres in stem volume.

Read more: The Leadbeater’s possum finally had its day in court. It may change the future of logging in Australia

While it’s a good place to start, this policy fails to consider the next generation of big, or truly exceptional trees that don’t quite reach these lofty heights.

That’s why we’ve created Tasmania’s Big Tree Register, an open-source public record of the location and measurements of more than 200 trees to help adventurers and tree-admirers locate and experience these giants for themselves. And, we hope, to protect them.

Last month, three giant trees measuring more than 5 m in diameter were added to the register. But these newly discovered trees are located in coupe TN034G, which is scheduled to be logged this year.

Logging is a very poor economic use for our forests. Native forest logging in Tasmania has struggled to make a profit due to declining demand for non-Forest Stewardship Council certified timber, which Sustainable Timber Tasmania recently failed. In fact, Sustainable Timber Tasmania sustained an eye watering cash loss of A$454 million over 20 years from 1997 to 2017.

Read more: Summer bushfires: how are the plant and animal survivors 6 months on? We mapped their recovery

The following photos can help show why these trees, as one of the great wonders of the world, should be embraced as an important part of our environmental heritage, not turned to wood chips.

It’s not often you get to see the entirety of a tree in a single photo. This tree above is named Gandalf’s Staff and is a Eucalyptus regnans, measuring 84 m tall.

While Mountain Ash is the tallest species, others in Tasmania’s forests are also breathtakingly huge, such as the Tasmanian blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) at 92 m, Manna gum (Eucalyptus viminalis) at 91 m, Alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) at 88 m and the Messmate Stringybark (Eucalyptus obliqua) at 86 m.

This giant tree, pictured above, was a Messmate Stringybark that was felled in coupe, but was left behind for unknown reasons. Its diameter is 4.4 metres. Other giant trees like this were cut down in this coupe, many of which provided excellent nesting habitat for the critically endangered swift parrot.

Old-growth forests dominated by giant trees are excellent at storing large amounts of carbon. Large trees continue to grow over their lifetime and absorb more carbon than younger trees.

The tree in the photo above is called Obolus, from Greek mythology, with a diameter of 5.1 m. Names are generally given to trees by the person who first records them, and usually reflect the characteristics of the tree or tie in with certain themes.

For example, several trees in a valley are all named after Lord of the Rings characters, such as Gandalf’s Staff (pictured above), Fangorn and Morannon.

Giant trees are typically associated with Californian Redwoods or the Giant Sequoias in the US, where tall tree tourism is huge industry. The estimated revenue in 2012 from just four Coastal Redwood reserves is A$58 million dollars per year, providing more than 500 jobs to the local communities.

Few Australians are aware of our own impressive trees. We could easily boost tourism to regional communities in Tasmania if the money was invested into tall tree infrastructure.

– ref. Photos from the field: capturing the grandeur and heartbreak of Tasmania’s giant trees – https://theconversation.com/photos-from-the-field-capturing-the-grandeur-and-heartbreak-of-tasmanias-giant-trees-144743

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yannick Thoraval, Lecturer, RMIT University

Some of my students have been assaulted. Others have been homeless, jobless or broke, some suffer from depression, anxiety or grief. Some fight addiction, cancer or for custody. Many are in pain and they want to write about it.

Opening wounds in the classroom is messy and risky. Boundaries and intentions can feel blurred in a class where memories and feelings also present teachable moments. But if teachers and students work together, opportunities to share difficult personal stories can be constructive.

Writing about trauma

The health benefits of writing about trauma are well documented. Some counselling theories — such as narrative therapy — incorporate writing into their therapeutic techniques.

Research suggests writing about trauma can be beneficial because it helps people re-evaluate their experiences by looking at them from different perspectives.

Studies suggest writing about traumatic events can help ease the emotional pressure of negative experiences. But writing about trauma is not a cure-all and it may be less effective if people are also struggling with ongoing mental health challenges, such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Internationally acclaimed researcher and clinician Bessel van der Kolk asserts in his book, The Body Keeps the Score, that trauma is more than a stored memory to be expunged. Rather, van der Kolk suggests our whole mind, brain and sense of self can change in response to trauma.

Pain is complicated. And teachers in a classroom are not counsellors in a clinic.

If properly managed, though, sharing stories about personal suffering can be a relevant and valuable educational experience. It’s a strategy my colleagues and I call “lit therapy”.

An empathetic space

Dr Jill Parris is a psychologist who works with refugees and uses lit therapy as an extension of trauma counselling. Parris and I also worked together on the project Home Truths: An Anthology of Refugee and Migrant Writing, which paired refugee authors with a writing mentor to develop personal stories about challenging migrant journeys to Australia.

Read more: Note to self: a pandemic is a great time to keep a diary, plus 4 tips for success

Parris says writing about trauma is helpful in most cases, as long as teachers and their students monitor stress levels and offer an empathetic space where storytellers are given the time and tools to manage the complex feelings that may surface.

“It is important that people feel absolutely free to avoid focusing on traumatic events and this should be made clear from the start,” says Parris.

Teachers should therefore be wary of implying traumatic personal stories are inherently worthy subjects, that divulgence alone is more likely to receive a higher grade or publication. It isn’t. In fact, sharing a story may be detrimental. It may be unfair to the author’s future self, the other people involved in their experience, or to the piece’s intention for its readers.

Helping individual students identify their own readiness to share personal experiences is an important first step. Parris recommends asking students how they know they are ready to share their story. What has changed to make them ready? Answering these questions helps people sit outside themselves.

As teachers, we also need to be mindful that sharing painful memories presents a risk for those hearing them.

Vicarious trauma

Vicarious trauma is a real threat. To help mitigate the risk of emotional contagion, teachers should check in with students at the beginning and end of class to monitor feelings, reminding people they are in the present, that the trauma they recounted or heard was survived.

If people feel stressed, Parris recommends looking around and forcing ourselves to name what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell as a way of returning to the present. Discussing what people will do outside class to care for themselves is also useful.

As teachers, it is important to help our students organise their thoughts and feelings in relation to the craft of professional writing, which is writing intended for consumption by an anonymous reader.

Students are likely to write what they’re passionate about — the good, the bad and the ugly. Their best writing comes out of what’s meaningful to them. Teachers can help guide their students’ search for authenticity.

Read more: What my students taught me about reading: old books hold new insights for the digital generation

Feelings and experiences matter, but writers and readers also want to know what they mean. Revealing how masters of personal storytelling bridge the personal and the universal is useful in demonstrating the broader purpose of sharing stories.

Story craft is part of how author Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking is both a personal reflection and a forensic investigation of grief. Part of a writing teacher’s job is exploring how personal stories can contribute to the archive of collective human experience.

While I work with adult students, there is also evidence narrative writing exercises can help children and teenagers process thoughts and emotions related to challenging personal events.

This work is emotionally demanding. Scenes of horrible things people have told me occasionally invade my mind, as if another person’s lived experience orbits my own memories. It’s unsettling. It’s also why stories matter. Because hearing them can help us better understand the people who share them. Stories help us glimpse the humanity in the hardship, showing us while pain is universal, compassion is too.

If you are struggling with mental health, it may be helpful to consult your doctor or contact Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636.

– ref. ‘Lit therapy’ in the classroom: writing about trauma can be valuable, if done right – https://theconversation.com/lit-therapy-in-the-classroom-writing-about-trauma-can-be-valuable-if-done-right-145379

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology

The reopening of cafes has been one of the highlights of relaxed COVID-19 restrictions for many Australians. During lockdowns, long queues for takeaway coffee were testimony to caffeine’s relevance to our lives.

Yet the precarious employment of so many hospitality workers meant hundreds of thousands of casual café workers and café owners lost work. Rents and mortgages were suspended or lost, upturning countless lives. At the other end of the coffee supply chain, many coffee farmers in poorer countries, who were already struggling to make a living, are doing it even tougher.

Read more: A tale of two coffee farmers: how they are surviving the pandemic in Honduras

The pandemic has exposed the widening wealth gap in our global economy, and nowhere is this better illustrated than by our daily coffee fix. The multi-billion-dollar global coffee industry relies on vulnerable workers at both ends of the supply chain: the café worker serving your coffee and the struggling farmer who grew your coffee beans.

It’s an industry steeped in its colonial past, whose massive profits were built on the back of African slave labour.

An unequal business

Coffee is big business, mostly for coffee merchants in affluent countries. It’s among the world’s most-traded commodities and we consume nearly 10 million tons of coffee a year. That’s about 2.25 billion cups a day worldwide. Since 2000 global consumption has increased by 38%.

Over 80% of the world’s coffee comes from 25 million small-scale farmers and 60% is produced by farmers on less than 5 hectares. Many of them struggle to make a decent living.

Read more: Sustainable shopping: here’s how to find coffee that doesn’t cost the Earth

Coffee’s production and consumption echo its 18th-century origins as a global industry. It’s mostly consumed by people in affluent countries and produced by agricultural workers in the poorer global south.

The coffee industry’s business model is based on a type of neo-colonialism, dominated by a handful of transnational coffee merchants whose profits are bountiful. Plantation economies in developing countries were established by colonial empires whose use of slavery spearheaded the rapid growth of the industry.

The Spanish introduced the use of slaves from Africa in the Caribbean and Latin America. They were quickly followed by the Portuguese in Brazil, then British and French colonialists in the West Indies. African slaves were considered “robust, disease resistant and productive” – physically superior to the local indigenous populations of the Americas, many of whom died from diseases such as cholera and smallpox.

Producers live with poverty and hunger

While the type of slavery that launched the coffee industry no longer exists, other inequities remain. Coffee producers are among the most vulnerable members of the supply chain. When we buy our coffee, most of us are unaware of the bean’s provenance and the arduous labour of workers in small-scale plantations.

It’s estimated almost half of the world’s smallholder coffee producers live in poverty. Most of them are in East Africa, but others are in Latin America and Asia.

Many coffee farmers suffer chronic seasonal hunger. Unlike famine, this occurs between harvest seasons, when the previous year’s food stocks have dwindled, food prices are high and income is scarce.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the scarcity of food supplies that were already sporadic. The closure of national borders has further reduced access.

Trying to make the coffee trade fairer

In response to the industry’s inequities, many initiatives are seeking fairer and sustainable outcomes for coffee farmers and for the environment. Some have been in place for decades. Of the programs established by NGOs, governments, multinational companies and other organisations, Fair Trade and Direct Trade are among the better-known ones.

More recently, the 2007 International Coffee Agreement is designed to promote a more equitable coffee trade to support smallholder farmers throughout the world. To overcome problems such as very low wages, poor housing and gender inequality, to name a few, these schemes are by necessity site-specific. Despite some success stories, the complexity of the industry and the wide variety of contexts presents barriers to consistent equitable outcomes and results are mixed.

Read more: Nine myths about Indonesian specialty coffee farmers and development

Another approach in the growing speciality coffee sector – independent cafes serving high-quality coffee – is upending traditional business models. An increasing number of entrepreneurs in affluent countries are forming direct partnerships with coffee farmers. The aim here is both ethical and business-focused: to ensure consistent bean quality and provide a fairer income for coffee producers through direct trade.

The supply chain of coffee and cafes is a complex network of producers, distributors and services. Like all industries affected by the pandemic, some operators will survive and others will go to the wall.

While the pandemic’s impact is an unfolding story, it has brought into sharper focus inequalities in a thriving industry. Fault lines are evident across both producing and consuming nations, with many of those who work in the plantations and in our cafes on the wrong side of the divide.

It might give us something to think about as we enjoy our next coffee from our local café.

– ref. A dark brew: coffee, COVID and colonialism have left millions struggling to make a living – https://theconversation.com/a-dark-brew-coffee-covid-and-colonialism-have-left-millions-struggling-to-make-a-living-143274

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Wood, Chief executive officer, Grattan Institute

The prime minister wants the states to open their wallets. Although he has warned them not to “make whoopee”, his message is blunt: “The Commonwealth cannot do all the fiscal heavy lifting on its own”.

The Reserve Bank governor is more circumspect, but also says the states have an “important” role in the fiscal response to the COVID recession and “can do more over time”.

Have the states been slacking off? At first glance, it appears so. The Commonwealth’s stimulus contribution so far is more than A$170 billion, compared to less than A$30 billion from all of the state and territory governments.

To date, it’s the Feds more than the states

The Commonwealth has spent almost 9% of national output on stimulus, whereas no state except Tasmania has spent more than 2% of its own output.

The two biggest states, NSW and Victoria, have each spent little more than 1%.

But these measures tell only part of the story. The Commonwealth has greater spending power because it has more revenue to draw from, and the states get about half their revenue from the Commonwealth.

These disparities account for some of the unbalanced effort, but not all of it.

Excluding what it passes on to the states, the Commonwealth’s revenue as a share of gross domestic product is about twice that of most states as a share of gross state product.

Yet its COVID response has been almost six times as big.

Read more: The big stimulus spending has just begun. Here’s how to get it right, quickly

Although the Commonwealth is the main funder for several of the traditional stimulus levers – including the welfare and personal income tax systems – the states also spend money in areas that can be used to stimulate the economy.

The most important include social housing, health, education, and industry support.

There’s also plenty of “room to move” on state government balance sheets – all six states entered this crisis with net debt below 15% of gross state product and with interest and depreciation costs less than 2% of gross state product. All were projecting operating surpluses.

Their borrowing costs, though higher than the Commonwealth’s, are still exceptionally low.

NSW and Victoria can borrow for 10 years at an interest rate just over 1%, far below the Reserve Bank’s inflation target band, making the money free in real terms.

More is needed from both

All of this suggests our states can and should do more to support the recovery.

But the Commonwealth will also need to do more. Like the states, it has room to spend more, and it should.

The Reserve Bank expects unemployment to peak at 10% in the December quarter and still be as high as 7% in December 2022.

That’s too high for too long.

Read more: Cutting unemployment will require an extra $70 to $90 billion in stimulus. Here’s why

To avoid this scenario, the Grattan Institute recommended in June that governments of both kinds plan for $70-to-$90 billion in extra stimulus over the next two years to bring unemployment down to 5% and get wages growing again.

The renewed economic fallout from State 4 restrictions in Melbourne means that the response will now need to be even larger.

There are many things governments can do beyond the extensions of JobKeeper and JobSeeker already announced.

A banquet of options

The Commonwealth could introduce a wage subsidy for new employees beyond March. And it should boost the childcare subsidy to help parents who have lost jobs or hours during the downturn to re-enter work.

It could also amplify state investments in infrastructure and services that create jobs and serve social needs: social housing and mental health services are obvious candidates. The tutoring program to help disadvantaged students that Grattan proposed in June also fits this bill.

Well-targeted personal income tax cuts or better, a tax bonus, targeted at low and middle income earners, can also help boost demand, including in worst-hit sectors such as hospitality, tourism, and the arts.

Read more: No snapback: Reserve Bank no longer confident of quick bounce out of recession

But tax cuts generally don’t provide as much economic kicker as others forms of government stimulus because more of the money “leaks” to savings.

Announcing a permanent boost to JobSeeker beyond December would put money in the hands of those most likely to spend it.

Other ideas such as a temporary GST holiday or electronic vouchers to spend in certain sectors – an idea being adopted in Britain – have the advantage of being temporary and targeted.

There is a banquet of worthwhile options governments should be considering – and they shouldn’t fight over who picks up the tab.

If governments of both kinds don’t do more, the recession will last longer.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to make a little whoopee. The downside of doing too little way exceeds the potential downside of doing too much.

– ref. Morrison is right. All governments will need to spend more to get us out of the crisis – https://theconversation.com/morrison-is-right-all-governments-will-need-to-spend-more-to-get-us-out-of-the-crisis-145449