Rising life expectancy is one of the great success stories. If you were born in 1870, you’d expect to live until you were 30. But if you were born today, you’d expect to live to 72, and the UN predicts it will continue to rise to 82 years by 2100. Australian life expectancy is currently 84.
There is the occasional blip – world wars, famines, pandemics (even COVID seems to have knocked a year or so off life expectancy globally) – but over time, it just goes marching on.
That’s why I was surprised to read a report from Health and Wellbeing Queensland, a government agency, suggesting life expectancy would fall by 0.6-4.1 years for children born in Queensland next year. According to the report, the problem is obesity.
While being overweight and obese increases your risk of serious diseases, it doesn’t mean children born in Queensland or the rest of Australia will have a shorter life expectancy.
Child obesity isn’t rising much, but we get heavier as we age
The proportion of children who are obese and overweight in Australia rose very rapidly from about 1970, but plateaued at about 25% in the mid-1990s, and has remained thereabouts pretty much ever since.
But the likelihood of becoming overweight or obese increases throughout the lifespan, or at least until deep old age. So as the current crop of kids age, they get heavier. When I was 40, 55% of my cohort were overweight or obese. By the time I was 60, it was 75%.
Life expectancy and obesity have both increased
Obesity increases the risk of the major killer diseases: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer — and many other conditions.
So, the Health and Wellbeing Queensland report argues, we can expect a tsunami of obesity-related deaths in the future, even without an increase in current levels of childhood obesity.
At first blush, this sounds plausible.
But life expectancy has been increasing in countries where obesity has been increasing for decades. The obesity-related reduction in life expectancy previously predicted hasn’t happened.
Obesity is associated with a higher risk of death but being moderately overweight isn’t
A slew of studies involving millions of people have found, rather counter-intuitively, that although slightly overweight people are more likely to get heart disease and diabetes, or suffer strokes, they live longer.
These studies find that life expectancy is greatest at a body mass index (BMI) of about 27: pretty much in the middle of the overweight range.
However, obesity (BMI of 30 or more) is consistently associated with a higher risk of premature death.
Our weight tends to increase as we age. Shutterstock
So what’s the problem with the report?
First, the report assumes “business as usual” – that is, childhood obesity levels will remain high, and the risk of disease and death associated with a given level of fatness won’t change.
But business is never as usual. Medical treatments improve, diet and activity change.
In fact, several studies have found that the level of fatness associated with the lowest risk of death has been increasing over time.
One Danish study found that in a cohort from 1977, the lowest risk of death occurred at a BMI of 24. By 1992, it was 25, and by 2008 it was 27. This probably reflects better medical treatment of people who are overweight or obese.
So by the time these children reach adulthood, even if they remain obese, their chance of dying prematurely will be less than it is today.
Some data underpinning the modelling are questionable
There’s a second problem with this report. To estimate how much being overweight or obese increases the risk of death, the report relies on a 2009 study by an Oxford University-based group called The Prospective Studies Collaboration.
In contrast to the studies mentioned above, this study found the risk of death was lowest at a BMI of about 23-24.
However, the study relied in part on self-reported height and weight, and people tend to underestimate their BMI (we all think we’re a little taller and a little leaner than we really are).
This bias means that in these studies based on self-report, the lowest risk of death actually occurs at a higher BMI, rather than the reported 23-24.
This methodological flaw (and others) have been pointed out in relation to a different study using a similar methodology.
Another issue is that as we age, the BMI associated with the lowest risk of death increases. One British study found that under the age of 50, the “least lethal” BMI is about 23. By the age of 80, it is closer to 28.
So that as people age, higher levels of fatness carry less risk. This may be because fat provides a nutritional reserve, or cushioning from falls, or because older people get better medical care.
The studies on life expectancy aren’t what you’d expect. Shutterstock
Separating science from activism
Finally, it troubles me that the report is openly activist in its intent.
The executive summary states that “to build social licence” for changes such as sugar taxes and advertising bans:
people need to accept the gravity of the situation and believe that maintaining healthy weight for children is not solely a parental responsibility.
This conclusion is nowhere justified by this report. The report doesn’t analyse factors driving obesity at all. It merely makes a mathematical projection of life expectancy.
Predictions about life expectancy arise from time to time, and we should always be wary about taking them at face value. As US baseballer Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Officials from nearly 200 nations are gathering in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th United Nations climate change conference known as COP27. Multiple global crises threaten to overshadow the summit, but the task at COP27 over the next two weeks is more urgent than ever.
A report released today by the Climate Council shows the world is in the grip of a deepening climate crisis. Without more ambitious emission cuts this decade, we are headed for a full-blown catastrophe.
In this time of global volatility, Australia can play a key role. At COP27, Australian officials will be lobbying to co-host the UN climate talks with Pacific island countries.
But, to succeed in its bid, Australia will need to walk the talk. That means moving rapidly away from coal and gas, and helping developing nations to manage climate impacts.
After a decade of denial and delay, Australia has rejoined the global shift toward a clean energy economy. However, Australia’s new 2030 target – to cut emissions by 43% from 2005 levels – is still one of the weakest in the developed world. And dozens of major fossil fuel projects remain in the pipeline.
More ambition is needed. At COP27, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has a chance to signal that Australia intends to become a renewables superpower, exporting the clean energy commodities and critical minerals other nations need to decarbonise their economies.
Australian diplomacy matters too. Australia is formally bidding to host a future round of UN climate talks, for the first time, in partnership with Pacific island nations. But a bigger role will come with bigger expectations.
To demonstrate Australia’s climate credentials, Bowen will need to explain that our 2030 target is just a starting point. Pacific island nations will want to see Australia end public finance for fossil fuels and join the growing list of countries that have set a clear deadline for exiting coal.
Australia will also be expected to commit more climate finance for developing countries and support a new global fund to address permanent loss and damage from climate change.
With a responsible international climate agenda, Australia could play a crucial role reinforcing global co-operation and brokering the next phase of climate action.
We need delegates and world leaders to stay focused at COP27. Distraction will be deadly.
A world of climate suffering
Extreme weather records were broken on every continent this year. From Lismore to Lahore, records tumbled so fast it was hard to keep up.
These climate impacts, sadly, are just the beginning. They are occurring in a world that has warmed 1.2℃ since the Industrial Revolution, but it’s going to get worse. Even if all countries meet their targets for emission reductions by 2030, the world is headed for 2.4-2.6℃ of warming this century.
Deeper cuts to emissions this decade can avoid worst-case scenarios. But we must act now. Global emissions must fall by 45% by 2030 to have any chance of achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃.
Geopolitics is driving clean energy race
Even while climate records tumble, world leaders are focused on strategic rivalry between nations. It’s not all bad news, however. While competition may undermine joint action, it is also speeding up the shift to clean energy.
The United States and China are competing to lead this transition.
China is the world’s largest emitter and relies heavily on coal-fired power, but it’s also the global leader in clean energy production and deployment.
Last year China built nearly half the world’s new renewable energy infrastructure. China also dominates global production of solar photovoltaics, batteries, wind turbines and electric vehicles.
In September, the US Congress passed legislation authorising the largest climate spend in US history. The intention is to establish a clean energy manufacturing base in the US, and to displace China as a key supplier of components for solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles.
In Europe, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sped up the move away from fossil fuels, as it’s now also an issue of security. In May, the European Union set out a plan to cut Russian gas imports by two-thirds this year and end them altogether before the decade is out.
The strategy will cut Europe’s overall gas use — not just Russian gas — by a third by 2030. It also sets more ambitious 2030 targets for renewable energy and energy savings, and requires rooftop solar installations on new buildings.
As a result, the EU is expected to exceed its 2030 emissions target. European policymakers have agreed to formally strengthen the target next year.
Competition among major powers is clearly accelerating, not slowing, the shift to clean energy. A majority of countries — representing more than 90% of the world economy — have committed to achieving net-zero emissions. Most of the developed world has pledged to at least halve emissions this decade.
Australia is well placed to benefit from the global clean energy transition. At COP27 we must signal our shift from fossil fuel heavyweight to renewables superpower.
Wesley Morgan is a Senior Researcher with the Climate Council
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luis Mijangos, Researcher, Centre for Conservation Ecology and Genomics, Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra
Shutterstock
The platypus is one of Earth’s most unique creatures. It sports a duck-like bill and flippers. It locates prey in murky water by emitting an electric charge. Males have venomous spurs on their legs, and the females lay eggs. And a platypus’ fur glows blue-green under UV light!
Sadly, however, this fascinating and irreplaceable animal is at risk of extinction. Among the human-caused threats are habitat loss, climate change, pollution and becoming prey for invasive species such as foxes and dogs. To that list, we can now add another threat: dams.
New research by myself and colleagues, published today, found large river dams restrict platypus movements and separate communities.
This increases the risk of inbreeding and restricts the exchange of genes essential to maintaining healthy platypus populations.
Research shows dams restrict platypus movements and separate communities. Shutterstock
A spotlight on platypus genetics
Dams pose a major threat to global freshwater biodiversity. In Australia, as many as 77% (383 out of 495) of major dams – those with walls higher than 10 metres – are in regions where platypuses are found.
Platypuses spend most of their time in the water. They can also move over land, however until now it was not certain if dams restrict platypus’ movement.
My colleagues and I set out to answer this question. We did this by examining the genetic makeup of platypuses in nine rivers in New South Wales and Victoria: five dammed and four free-flowing. They spanned the Upper Murray, Snowy Mountains, Central NSW and Border Rivers regions.
We captured platypuses across 81 sites. We weighed, measured, sexed and aged them, collected a blood sample then returned the animal to the water. DNA was later extracted from the blood.
So what did we find? Genetic differentiation between platypuses below and above dams was four to 20 times higher than along similar stretches of adjacent undammed rivers. This suggest hardly any platypuses have passed around the dams since they were built.
In fact, one platypus below the dam, and one platypus above the dam, were as genetically different as two platypuses living in different rivers.
Genetic differentiation is not necessarily good or bad. It just describes how genetically different two populations are. But the results mean we’re now far more confident that dams pose insurmountable barriers to platypuses.
Importantly, the genetic differentiation increased the longer the dam had been in place. This reflects the long-term impacts on platypus genetics.
The results mean we’re now far more confident that dams pose insurmountable barriers to platypuses. Shutterstock
What does all this mean?
There a several downsides for a species when populations are unable to connect.
First, it restricts the ability for animals to move to new habitat if needed, and find individuals to reproduce with.
Second, it reduces population size and gene flow. This is likely to lead to increased inbreeding and a reduction in the genetic variation necessary for the species to adapt to threats.
Third, it can lead to “inbreeding depression” – the reduced survival and fertility of offspring of related individuals.
The platypus is currently listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It’s also listed as endangered in South Australia and vulnerable in Victoria.
Continued declines are predicted under climate change as a result of drought and hotter conditions, which could mean more than 30% of suitable platypus habitat is lost by 2070.
Climate change could mean more than 30% of platypus habitat is lost by 2070. Shutterstock
So how can we protect the platypus? There are many steps we could take, such as:
rehabilitating riverbanks by replanting trees and restricting livestock access
improving water quality and natural flow regimes in rivers
limiting dams, roads, weirs and other structures
building bypasses so platypuses can move across barriers
protecting platypuses from invasive predators when they move over land
reducing river pollution
establishing insurance populations to ensure genetic diversity
relocating individuals
more research to understand breeding requirements.
Limiting dams and other barriers would help protect platypuses. Shutterstock
Platypus, be dammed
Our results reinforce growing evidence that major dams contribute to a decline in platypus populations.
The problem extends beyond that identified in our study. Below major dams, altered natural flow regimes in rivers have been found to significantly impact the abundance of platypuses. And research has found conditions below and above major dams are poor for platypuses to forage and live.
We hope our research will inform conservation decision-making, and will help ensure the long-term survival of this Australian icon.
Luis Mijangos receives funding from UNSW Canberra, Australian Research Council, Taronga Conservation Society, and the Australian Government’s Environmental Water Holder.
Backpackers on working holiday maker visas have been a crucial source of farm labour for decades, alongside smaller numbers of temporary migrants from the Pacific Islands, international students, and Australians.
In the 2018-19 financial year more than 200,000 people came to Australia on working holiday maker visas. On average about 35,000 a month – and more than 40,000 in December – worked on farms, picking vegetables, fruit or nuts.
Numbers declined with borders closed to visa holders from March 2020 to February 2022. But since borders reopened they have not recovered as hoped.
By the end of June almost 100,000 Working Holiday Maker visas had been granted. But by the end of August just 54,000 visa holders had arrived. With labour shortages creating more job opportunities in cities and towns, fewer are taking up farm work.
In regional communities facing extensive labour shortages there is growing uncertainty as to when – or indeed whether – enough backpackers will return to Australia to pick, pack, and process fruit and veggies.
So why aren’t backpackers coming?
In recent months I’ve interviewed 35 people – farmers, hostel operators, government representatives and community leaders – about the reasons migrant workers aren’t flocking back to Australia. This is an extension of my research into the pandemic impacts on seasonal farm workers.
Their responses suggest three main reasons for why backpackers have cooled on Australia as a top destination for a working holiday: fear of future border closures; the federal government’s poor treatment of migrants during the pandemic; and Australia’s reputation more generally for exploiting backpackers.
One hostel operator said they were fielding calls and emails mid-year from backpackers overseas hesitant to come to Australia: “They want to come and do the working holiday, but Australia’s known as the lockdown country now.”
Four other the hostel operators said they had heard similar concerns from young people in recent months, asking questions such as “What if we get stuck?” and “Who will help us book a flight back home?”.
When the federal government shut the border in 2020, its message to temporary visa holders was to “go home”.
Despite this, more than 50,000 backpackers, did stay for the first year of the pandemic, and 20,000 beyond that – providing an essential agricultural workforce. But they were excluded from most support payments and left to to fend for themselves.
To entice tourists to the fields, the federal government has introduced incentives including a refund of the $495 Working Holiday Maker visa fee and relocation assistance – up to $2,000 for visa holders, and $6,000 for Australian workers – to take up seasonal work.
Piece rates, a contentious industry practice leading to many stories of wage exploitation, were finally replaced in April, when the Fair Work Commission ruled that farm workers should be guaranteed minimum hourly rate of $25.41.
Labour shortages have seen many farmers sign up to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, a temporary migrant program open to workers from nine Pacific Island nations and Timor Leste.
But these measures haven’t solved the shortfall. According to the National Farmers Federation, there are still about 172,000 vacant agricultural jobs.
What more can be done?
Backpackers bring great benefits to regional communities. Fruit and vegetable farmers need seasonal workers. Many backpackers are happy to use farm work to travel the country. According to a representative from Harvest Trail, the government farm labour information service, they are an “essential pool of workers because they’re so mobile.”
The working holiday maker visa is now available to 47 nations. India, Mongolia and Brazil were added this year.
Longer visa options would encourage more backpackers to stay. The visa, which requires a yearly renewal application, is capped at three years. Many backpackers I’ve interviewed said they “feel part of the community” and would happily remain in their farming jobs if allowed.
The Albanese government has promised to develop permanent resident pathways for some Pacific Island workers. It is worth exploring the feasibility of pathways to permanent residency for farm workers on working holiday maker visas.
Dr Kaya Barry works for Griffith University. She is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE220100394) funded by the Australian Government.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By César Albarrán Torres, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology
Marvel Studios
Wakanda is back in cinemas, promising to deliver high-voltage action and trigger new discussions about how Hollywood represents other races and cultures. On November 10 Marvel’s Black Panther will receive its long-awaited sequel, Wakanda Forever.
The first film was considered a landmark in how Black culture is represented in mainstream movies, breaking box office records and earning a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Now there are hopes that Wakanda Forever will have a similar impact in its depiction of pre-Columbian culture.
Directed by Ryan Coogler, the first Black Panther became an exemplar of ethnic diversity in mainstream cinema, as well as a watershed moment for how film interacts with everyday racial politics.
NBA icon and cultural commentator Kareem Abdul-Jabbar described Black Panther as a “cultural spearhead disguised as a thrilling action adventure”.
if you’re white, you’ll leave with an anti-‘shithole’ appreciation for Africa and African-American cultural origins. If you’re black, you’ll leave with a straighter walk, a gratitude for your African heritage and a superhero whom black children can relate to.
At last, global Black culture was imagined by Hollywood as empowered and proud, and immune to the lasting effects of colonialism and forced migration.
Reimagining pre-Columbian culture
After Black Panther’s original star Chadwick Boseman tragically died in 2020, Marvel Studios had to reframe the future of the franchise, with Coogler deciding not to recast the lead role of T’Challa.
The story of Wakanda Forever centres around the political turmoil within the Afrofuturistic nation of Wakanda after the death of its king. Different factions must band together to repel the advances of a new enemy, the hidden undersea civilisation of Talokan, lead by Namor (played by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta).
In ancient Aztec culture, Talokan was the home of Tlaloc and his consort Chalchiuhtlicue, deities associated with rain and fertility. Marvel Studios has borrowed from pre-Columbian mythology to create a visually lush underwater civilisation based, in turn, on the character of Namor created by Bill Everett for 1939’s Marvel Comics #1.
The combination of an Aztec worldview and an old Marvel antihero could prompt concerns regarding cultural appropriation. However, given how Ryan Coogler and Marvel celebrated Afro culture in Black Panther, there is an expectation that this new Marvel movie will subvert stereotypes and expand wider understanding of the often misunderstood ancient cultures of what is now the Americas (known as the Kuna term Abya Yala by Indigenous activists and organisations).
How Black Panther unleashed a wave of non-white heroes
Coogler’s first film proved that inclusivity can also be profitable in Hollywood. Since Black Panther, a wave of blockbusters have been released featuring non-white heroes and challenge Western-centric conventions of action-adventure cinema.
In the past year alone, films such as Shang-Chi (based on Chinese mythology), Black Adam (set in a fictional Middle Eastern country), and The Woman King (about a group of 19th century African female warriors) have provided a corrective to the historical disservice that Hollywood has done to so-called minorities.
Examples of mainstream cinema depicting pre-Columbian civilisations have been rare, and tend to cater to the tourist gaze by oversimplifying the history and richness of the Mesoamerican region. Films such as Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, or the more recent live-action version of Dora the Explorer reduce complex civilisations later vanquished by European colonial forces to a handful of cliches.
These depictions misconstrue the history of civilisations that were highly advanced in science and technology compared to their European counterparts. They also have a negative impact on how millions of Latin Americans and Latinx individuals are represented onscreen and perceived in everyday life.
Black Panther (2018) was considered a landmark in how Black culture is represented in mainstream movies. Marvel Studios
Namor reframed as an Aztec-inspired antihero
First appearing in comic books in 1939, Namor has traditionally been depicted as the sometimes-villainous king of Atlantis. Wakanda Forever repositions Namor’s underwater home to the Pacific Ocean and draws on Aztec and other pre-Columbian culture to realise this new Marvel hero.
The new Namor wears an Aztec-inspired headdress and armour, as well as facial piercings, and his underwater kingdom features buildings resembling Mesoamerican pyramids.
Namor in his underwater realm in Wakanda Forever. Marvel Studios
Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, who stars as Namor, is one of the main voices of a social media campaign, #PoderPrieto (“Brown Power”), which fights against the white washing of the Mexican screen industry.
Contrary to fellow male Mexican actors who have been given diverse opportunities, up until now, the darker skinned Huerta has been typecast as a criminal and faced discrimination in the Mexican screen industry. Mexican film and television generally favours European-looking talent and systematically under-represents Indigenous Mexicans.
The release of Wakanda Forever coincides with renewed efforts by the incumbent Mexican government and activists to revisit the Indigenous and colonial histories of the country, and address systematic racism on and off-screen. For example, the federal government has demanded Spain and the Vatican apologise to Indigenous Mexicans over human rights abuses during the conquest over 500 years ago.
Huerta has spoken about the importance of inclusivity and representation of non-white characters in superhero movies. When Huerta was first unveiled to be playing the iconic character at San Diego Comic-Con he explained to the thousands of fans in attendance “I wouldn’t be here without inclusion”, and then switching to Spanish said “Thank you to all the Latin Americans – you guys crossed the river, and you all left everything you love behind. Thanks to that, I’m here.”
The first Black Panther film was a milestone in Black representation on-screen, now it is hoped Wakanda Forever will be both a mirror and a spotlight for millions of Latin Americans, as well as for the vast Latinx diaspora around the world.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Anthony Albanese leaves late next week for another round of international diplomacy, starting with the East Asia Summit in Cambodia, followed by the G20 in Indonesia, and APEC in Thailand.
But the PM will be notably missing from the COP27 leaders summit in Egypt early next week. The minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, will represent Australia later in the conference.
On the back foot a year ago, Scott Morrison had to scramble politically to twist the Nationals’ arms to support the 2050 net zero emissions target ahead of COP26, before turning up (reluctantly) at the Glasgow meeting.
It did him no good. Australia was seen as a laggard on climate policy, not least because Morrison would not improve the Coalition’s medium-term target.
Whenever he is on the international stage, Albanese draws attention to the big change his government has made in Australia’s climate policy. He reckons he has enough credit in this particular bank to skip COP in favour of more urgent claims on his presence – being seen in parliament. Unlike British PM Rishi Sunak, who has been forced by political pressure to reverse his decision to stay at home.
“I can’t be in all places at once,” Albanese said, justifying his absence; he observed that this COP is about implementation, not new commitments. “I have a very busy schedule of parliament, then the international conferences, then back to parliament again. Making sure that our agenda gets through and that includes our agenda on clean energy and taking action on climate change.”
Indeed. And that energy and climate agenda is looking tougher to implement than it seemed before the election.
Anyway, from Albanese’s point of view, missing COP27 has its advantages. Australia’s policy switch will be welcomed, but more generally this will be a difficult meeting. While it is about “implementation”, that’s actually where the rubber hits the road in combating climate change.
The international energy crisis is causing backsliding, with some European countries forced to rely on fossil fuel to a greater extent than they’d planned.
Also, the conference will see pressure on developed countries for a fund to compensate poorer countries that suffer devastating weather events (such as the floods in Pakistan). Australia’s preference is to confine its assistance to its immediate region, rather than commit more widely.
The Australian government will also have to admit that its ambition to host (with Pacific countries) the 2024 COP (which would be before the next election) was overreach. It is now expected to bid for the 2026 conference.
At home, while the government has put its 43% medium-term emissions reduction target into law, it still has to legislate, and regulate, for changes to the Safeguard Mechanism. These will strengthen the obligations on the big polluters.
The legislation will be introduced in the (very crowded) remaining parliamentary weeks of the year. The proposed changes are already running into resistance from some big emitters.
Most immediately, with the public reeling from the budget’s forecast of massive price increases for electricity and gas, the government knows it needs to come up with a gas policy quickly.
The energy crisis, substantially driven by overseas events, has already blown away any chance of Albanese meeting his election promise of a $275 reduction in household power bills by 2025. Ministers dodge questions about the promise, the fate of which is a warning against over-precise commitments.
But being unable to deliver a price cut is now not the issue – it’s how to head off extraordinary price hikes, by taking action on gas.
Appearing on the ABC on Thursday night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said there were three paths the government could go down: act on tax, provide subsidies to people or companies, or regulate to bring down prices.
“Our preference is to do something with regulation,” he said, and that was the focus of the work being down. “But we don’t want to rule out subsidies or tax.” His aim is an announcement before Christmas.
Meanwhile Treasury is looking at whether changes should be made to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. Despite his strongly stated preference for regulatory action, Chalmers said “I do understand […] there is an appetite for us to get a better return on our resources”: he would consider whatever Treasury said on the PRRT and “try and involve the Australian public in that conversation”.
Labor before the election put itself in a tight corset on taxation generally. But the government would face minimal voter backlash if it decided to impose a super profits tax, although it would involve breaking a promise.
A survey for the Australia Institute’s Climate of the Nation report, launched on Thursday, found 61% support for a windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry.
Such a tax would, however, obviously bring a sharp reaction from the industry and nervousness about international contracts.
The current policy debate also goes to gas’s longer-term role. The government recognises it as an essential transition fuel, which means fending off critics of new projects.
Looming state elections in Victoria and NSW are playing into the pressures on the Albanese government.
NSW Liberal Treasurer Matt Kean, who had wanted cost-of-living relief in the budget, later said Bowen needed to “come up with a solution to support homes and business”.
Victoria’s Premier Dan Andrews urged a “domestic reserve” (as exists in Western Australia) “so that our gas is for our businesses and our households first and then the bit that we don’t need, these private companies can sell that to the world”. Some in federal Labor thought Andrews had a hide, given Victoria’s ban on onshore unconventional gas mining.
At the federal level, Industry Minister Ed Husic has again lashed out at the gas companies, declaring “this is not a shortage of supply problem; this is a glut of greed problem”. The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), accused him of demonising the industry.
As the energy issue escalated, the government might not have been surprised at opinion polls showing the budget’s poor reception. In Newspoll, 47% thought the budget bad for them, and 29% said it was bad for the economy. But people didn’t think the Coalition would have done any better.
The ANU’s “Economic and other wellbeing in Australia” October survey, out this week, highlighted the impact of general cost-of-living pressures. The survey of nearly 3,500 (completed before the budget) found a steep increase during the year in the proportion of people “who think rising prices are a very big problem.
“In January 2022, over one in three (37.4 per cent) Australians thought that price rises were a very big problem. This increased to 54.6 per cent per cent in August 2022 and then again to 56.9 per cent in October 2022.”
The survey found: “One of the key determinants of life satisfaction in October 2022 is people’s experiences of price increases. Life satisfaction in October 2022 was 10 per cent lower for those who thought that rising prices were a very big problem compared to those who did not.”
Exactly a week after the budget, its inflation forecast was blown up.
On Tuesday the Reserve Bank, increasing the cash rate by 25 basis points, indicated inflation is now expected to peak at 8%, rather than the budget’s 7.75% forecast.
As happened last year, Australians are facing another summer of discontent, this time with escalating living costs replacing Omicron at the top of their worry lists.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As he said on Thursday, “there is a shortage of them right across the country”. For example, federal education department modelling shows there will be a high school teacher shortfall of about 4,000 by 2025.
The plan has been brewing since a meeting between Clare and his state and territory counterparts in August.
Since then, education department heads, schools, university and union leaders have been working on ways to address the teacher shortage. Clare now wants to know what should stay and what needs to change, before education ministers sign off on the plan in December.
First, what’s the problem?
We are education researchers who study teachers’ perceptions of their work in Australia. Earlier this year, we conducted a national survey of 5,000 teachers. We recorded more than 38,000 comments, including proposed solutions and ideas for change.
This research showed the teacher shortage is the result of complex problems that have been building for years.
If we are going to fix it, we need to address issues including excessive workloads, the increasing complexity of the role, growing expectations and administrative responsibilities, and a lack of respect for the profession.
What’s in the plan?
The plan includes a headline figure of A$328 million, some of which was announced in the budget last week.
It looks at six themes: improving teaching’s reputation, encouraging more people to do teaching degrees, improving how we prepare new teachers for the job, reducing workloads and better data. It includes 28 “actions”, such as:
$10 million to raise the status of teachers
new teacher of the year awards
recognising skills in other areas (like maths) that can be “transferable” to teaching
improving access to First Nations cultural competency resources
The draft plan also includes:
$25 million for a “workload reduction” pilot
improving data about current teacher supply, teaching graduate numbers and why teachers leave
improving mentoring and support for teachers starting out in their careers.
What does it get right?
The draft has many promising elements, which suggests there is a commitment to real action on key issues. This is particularly the case when it comes respect for teachers and their workloads.
1. Elevating the profession
The draft says we need to “recognise the value teachers bring to students, communities and the economy”. It is encouraging to see this is the top of the list of action items. Importantly, it also states:
ministers, education stakeholders, and the media will take every opportunity to actively promote the valued work of teachers and the merits of the profession, effective immediately.
Our research found 70% of surveyed teachers feel the profession is disrespected by the public. We also found 90% felt politicians don’t respect teachers and 80% felt the media do not respect teachers. As one teacher told us:
I plan to leave […]it is wearying constantly having to defend my profession against attacks in the media.
Raising the status of the profession and valuing teachers as a highly skilled, expert workforce (that is a critical part of society) is of utmost importance.
In another section called, “maximising the time to teach”, there is a much-needed focus on workload issues. In our study, only 14% of teachers agreed their workloads were manageable. Workload issues were also the most frequent reason given for wanting to leave the profession, as illustrated by this teacher:
I’ve hit burnout twice already. I don’t expect I can keep up the level of energy or give so much of my time for much longer.
Workload is a crucial issue that requires an immediate response, as this draft has recognised. Ongoing consultation with teachers is crucial. Ministers and policymakers should keep asking teachers what support they need to make their workloads manageable – and listening to the responses.
What needs to change?
In releasing the draft, Clare has called for feedback from teachers and the broader community, and he wants to know what is missing. In our view, the final plan needs to have a bigger focus on two things:
1. Retaining teachers
Although the report includes sections to support current teachers, a significant proportion is spent on attracting new teacher and strengthening teaching degrees.
There is no question we need to attract and train great teachers. But if we want to have any short-to-medium-term impact on the issue, the top priority should be keeping the teachers we have now.
The current workforce shortage crisis is a result of teachers leaving the profession. Our research suggests attrition will continue, with only 28% of teachers indicating they plan to stay in the job until retirement, and almost 50% planning to leave within the next ten years.
There is also a lot of attention on teachers leaving the profession within their first five years. But we found those who had been in the profession for six-to-ten years were the most likely to be planning to leave. This suggests the more significant issues are those experienced on the job rather than while studying.
2. More trust
The other big element missing from this draft is trust. Australia has a history of blaming teacher quality for problems in education.
Policy responses have suggested teachers can’t be trusted to do their jobs well. We require teachers to constantly account for their professional decisions through excessive data collection and narrow performance-based markers (such as the NAPLAN tests).
Our research showed the lack of trust erodes Australian teachers’ commitment to, and passion for their work. As one teacher told us:
It’s not the profession I want to remain in. I became a teacher to educate and inspire students, not to push agendas and collect data.
When it comes to keeping teachers in the classroom where they are needed, we need to trust they are well-trained and committed to delivering the best for all their students.
If not, teachers will not feel respected, will be burdened by unrealistic workloads and they will not stay.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Robodebt royal commission is currently hearing evidence of tremendous hardship inflicted on people by a government that appeared to have little concern for the people its actions affected.
The bureaucratic process was malign, and it harmed and stigmatised welfare recipients.
Despite questions about the scheme’s legality, the program recovered about $750 million from around 380,000 people by a process called income averaging. This involved sending debt notices that came as a surprise to the recipients who had virtually no options to challenge these notices.
The whole process was outrageous. It led to severe trauma among many of the poorest people in the country, mental health episodes and some reported suicides.
When the matter finally came to court as a result of a class action involving about 400,000 people, the government made a $1.2 billion dollar settlement in 2020, but did not admit liability. It was absurd politics and absurd financial management.
What was the main driver? Was it recovery of money, or something else? The royal commission will answer these questions.
Irrespective of the final outcome, Robodebt lacked integrity and projected the government’s deficit of trust towards its most vulnerable citizens.
This wasn’t an example of artificial intelligence gone mad. Automation in public administration is inevitable and can bring great benefits. AI expert professor Anton van den Hengel, wrote in an email to the authors of this article:
Automation of some administrative social security functions is a very good idea, and inevitable. The problem with Robodebt was the policy, not the technology. The technology did what it was asked very effectively. The problem is that it was asked to do something daft.
Centrelink took income data from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and matched it with social welfare recipients’ income as self-reported to Centrelink. These income data were averaged, and though income fluctuated making recipients eligible for welfare payments, many were issued with debt notices.
The onus of proof was firmly placed on welfare recipients to prove their innocence.
A policy lacking integrity
There’s evidence many public servants were uneasy with the process. Evidence is also coming out that government lawyers cautioned about its legality.
The ATO also advised the Department of Social Services the scheme was “unlawful”.
Evidence is being heard now by the royal commission regarding the scheme’s lawfulness. This isn’t new, as law professor Terry Carney wrote in 2018
there can only be a debt if another provision [of the Social Security Act] creates it. There is no relevant provision ‘automatically’ creating a debt just because data-matching shows a discrepancy…
Carney also pointed to the flawed arguments in the government’s legal defence of debt averaging practices and the effective reversal of the onus of proof onto welfare recipients.
Impartiality is a central feature of government, but Robodebt had a disproportionate impact on welfare recipients. The complexity of the welfare system, and the lack of access – particularly in remote areas – ensured many were effectively unable to challenge debt notifications they received from Services Australia. People with the technical means to engage with a large bureaucracy were often able to challenge the notices, but those who weren’t were left out in the cold.
Integrity and trust in government is fundamental to a civil society and one in which legitimacy is accorded to actions of government, even though they may be unpopular or harmful to some people.
In this case, the fundamental principles of governance – a shared view between citizens and the state – fell short of normal expectations. The policy undermined the trust between government and the people, which resulted from an inability to establish a system to correctly identify and review debts owed to the government.
Governments are often concerned about the diminishing trust citizens have in them. Yet Robodebt sent a clear message to Australians that their government did not trust them.
Overall the scheme lacked integrity. It was a malign policy – and without even going into issues of whether it was designed to be malign or whether it became malign over time – and it set a very poor example for the conduct of government.
The lessons for the future are that lawfulness, impartiality, integrity and trust should underpin all government actions. These are so obvious that it seems superfluous to state them the way we have. But hopefully this will be one enduring lesson from Robodebt.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Tech platforms use recommender algorithms to control society’s key resource: attention. With these algorithms they can quietly demote or hide certain content instead of just blocking or deleting it. This opaque practice is called “shadowbanning”.
While platforms will often deny they engage in shadowbanning, there’s plenty of evidence it’s well and truly present. And it’s a problematic form of content moderation that desperately needs oversight.
What is shadowbanning?
Simply put, shadowbanning is when a platform reduces the visibility of content without alerting the user.
The content may still be potentially accessed, but with conditions on how it circulates.
It may no longer appear as a recommendation, in a search result, in a news feed, or in other users’ content queues. One example would be burying a comment underneath manyothers.
The term “shadowbanning” first appeared in 2001, when it referred to making posts invisible to everyone except the poster in an online forum. Today’s version of it (where content is demoted through algorithms) is much more nuanced.
Shadowbans are distinct from other moderation approaches in a number of ways. They are:
When shadowbanning has been reported, platforms have explained this away by citing technical glitches, users’ failure to create engaging content, or as a matter of chance through black-box algorithms.
That said, most platforms will admit to visibility reduction or “demotion” of content. And that’s still shadowbanning as the term is now used.
In 2018, Facebook and Instagram became the first major platforms to admit they algorithmically reduced user engagement with “borderline” content – which in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s words included “sensationalist and provocative content”.
YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and TikTok have since announced similar strategies to deal with sensitive content.
In one survey of 1,006 social media users, 9.2% reported they had been shadowbanned. Of these 8.1% were on Facebook, 4.1% on Twitter, 3.8% on Instagram, 3.2% on TikTok, 1.3% on Discord, 1% on Tumblr and less than 1% on YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, NextDoor, Pinterest, Snapchat and LinkedIn.
Experts think shadowbanning by platforms likely increased in response to criticism of big tech’s inadequate handling of misinformation. Over time moderation has become an increasingly politicised issue, and shadowbanning offers an easy way out.
The goal is to mitigate content that’s “lawful but awful”. This content trades under different names across platforms, whether it’s dubbed “borderline”, “sensitive”, “harmful”, “undesirable” or “objectionable”.
Through shadowbanning, platforms can dodge accountability and avoid outcries over “censorship”. At the same time, they still benefit financially from shadowbanned content that’s perpetually sought out.
Who gets shadowbanned?
Recentstudies have found between 3% and 6.2% of sampled Twitter accounts had been shadowbanned at least once.
The research identified specific characteristics that increased the likelihood of posts or accounts being shadowbanned:
new accounts (less than two weeks old) with fewer followers (below 200)
uncivil language being used, such as negative or offensive terms
Of particular concern is evidence that shadowbanning disproportionately targets people in marginalised groups. In 2020 TikTok had to apologise for marginalising the black community through its “Black Lives Matter” filter. In 2021, TikTok users reported that using the word “Black” in their bio page would lead to their content being flagged as “inappropriate”. And in February 2022, keywords related to the LGBTQ+ movement were found to be shadowbanned.
Overall, Black, LQBTQ+ and Republican users report more frequent and harsher content moderation across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
How can you know if you’ve been shadowbanned?
Detecting shadowbanning is difficult. However, there are some ways you can try to figure out if it has happened to you:
rank the performance of the content in question against your “normal” engagementlevels – if a certain post has greatly under-performed for no obvious reason, it may have been shadowbanned
ask others to use their accounts to search for your content – but keep in mind if they’re a “friend” or “follower” they may still be able to see your shadowbanned content, whereas other users may not
benchmark your content’s reach against content from others who have comparable engagement – for instance, a black content creator can compare their TikTok views to those of a white creator with a similar following
refer to shadowban detection tools available for different platforms such as Reddit (r/CommentRemovalChecker) or Twitter (hisubway).
Shadowbans last for varying amounts of time depending on the demoted content and platform. On TikTok, they’re said to last about two weeks. If your account or content is shadowbanned, there aren’t many options to immediately reverse this.
But some strategies can help reduce the chance of it happening, as researchers have found. One is to self-censor. For instance, users may avoid ethnic identification labels such as “AsianWomen”.
Users can also experiment with external tools that estimate the likelihood of content being flagged, and then manipulate the content so it’s less likely to be picked up by algorithms. If certain terms are likely to be flagged, they’ll use phonetically similar alternatives, like “S-E-G-G-S” instead of “sex”.
Shadowbanning impairs the free exchange of ideas and excludes minorities. It can be exploited by trolls falsely flagging content. It can cause financial harm to users trying to monetise content. It can even trigger emotional distress through isolation.
As a first step, we need to demand transparency from platforms on their shadowbanning policies and enforcement. This practice has potentially severe ramifications for individuals and society. To fix it, we’ll need to scrutinise it with the thoroughness it deserves.
Marten Risius is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Australian Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE220101597) funded by the Australian Government.
Financial support for Marten Risius and Kevin M. Blasiak from The University of Queensland School of Business in the Research Start-up Support Funding is gratefully acknowledged.
Kevin M. Blasiak is a PhD candidate at The University of Queensland School of Business. His PhD research scholarship funding from The University of Queensland School of Business is greatly acknowledged.
Political Roundup: A Culture war over hate speech and free speech is unlikely
Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards.
Sunday’s announcement by Justice Minister Kiri Allan about forthcoming legislation on hate speech has sparked concerns that the country is headed for a second round of culture wars over free speech. As one journalist states today, Allan is “reigniting last year’s political firestorm”.
Some have suggested that Labour are about to make another attempt – after former Justice Minister Kris Faafoi had earlier put the hate speech law proposals on ice – to push through divisive and controversial legislation. Campaigners against hate speech have expressed their gratitude for Allan’s announcement, while free speech campaigners have warned that they are ready for a big fight.
The reality is likely to be much more prosaic – instead of Labour implementing far-reaching and radical reforms on speech regulation, Kiri Allan can be expected to simply make some tweaks to the current laws. Allan and Labour will be hoping a minimal or watered-down approach will satisfy those calling for hate speech to be suppressed more vehemently.
The background to the current hate speech law reform
The Labour Party has long been keen on tightening up laws on hate speech. And advocates for tighter rules on speech, such as the Human Rights Commission, have campaigned for government action.
But it was the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks that resulted in 51 deaths that initiated the current reform programme. The subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry recommended 44 changes, including reform of hate speech laws. The Commission report complained that the current laws do not “provide a workable mechanism to deal with hate speech”.
The Government agreed to implement these, with Minister Andrew Little being responsible for overseeing the response to the Commission report.
There are a number of possible areas that hate speech campaigners want changes on. The most basic reform is to adjust which groups in society should have legal protection from hate speech – i.e. what forms of speech can be criminalised. At the moment, hate speech laws only target discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin. Religion is the most obvious missing category, with others also calling for gender and gender-diverse groups to be specified as needing protection from hate speech.
The Government has previously been keen to go much further than simply adding religion and gender to the groups to be protected from hate speech. There is an argument that the current definition of hate speech in the law makes prosecutions too difficult, because the threshold for the courts to convict is far too high. And as evidence of this, there has been only one prosecution for hate speech in the last three decades. The Royal Commission argued that the current law “does not provide a credible foundation for prosecution”.
The Labour Government therefore attempted last year to implement a thorough reform of hate speech laws, with the notion that the current rules are “not fit for purpose”. But what they proposed was full of serious problems, and produced a backlash.
This was most vividly exposed when both the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice were unable to explain the reforms to the public. Labour politicians couldn’t promise that the reforms wouldn’t lead to prosecutions for examples such as young people blaming the “Boomer” generation for monopolising housing wealth.
The moderate, watered-down fix on hate speech
There really is no chance that Labour wants to spark a culture war on free speech as it’s about to go into election year. It’s quite the opposite – the Government has an interest in getting this issue off the agenda as quickly and quietly as possible. As many commentators have rightly pointed out, a big debate about Government clamp-downs on political speech would not go down well in an election year.
It’s not surprising, and quite telling, that Labour is talking about wanting to obtain National’s support for their legislative changes. It points strongly to the likelihood that Labour has been developing a very moderate, or watered-down, fix for the hate speech problem.
The Prime Minister is reported as wanting to introduce “a slimmed down reform package” that National could support. As Newsroom’s Marc Daalder argues today, “To get National’s support, the reforms would have to be dramatically different from what was proposed last year.”
There are some clear signs that Labour wants to just focus on fixing the omission of religion from the current hate speech laws, with the PM saying: “I would have thought that amongst politicians there should be good support for saying, actually, you should not experience hate speech and incitement based on your religion. It’s a fairly simple concept”.
Ardern also told media this week that the Government is only aiming at minimal change: “Where there were issues last time was because there were other amendments around some of the thresholds in language that caused some concern, but let’s get back to our first principles on this one.”
It seems obvious from such statements that the upcoming reforms will simply add religion and gender to the list of protected groups, but won’t involve more radical changes to definitions of hate speech. We might also expect that the Government could modernise the legislation to take into account digital communication, and this is also likely to be uncontroversial.
The backlash from advocates of strong laws on hate speech
Justice Minister Kiri Allan made her announcement of hate speech reform this week on TVNZ’s Q+A, saying “I can make this promise to you, I will be making announcements on hate speech by the end of this year” and “I guarantee I will be introducing law I intend to have concluded and put into law by the next election”.
Allan had good political reasons for making this statement, and for keeping the details under wraps. The Government is under pressure to fulfill their promises for reform in this area, and this week the Government had to front up to the second He Whenua Taurikura hui on counter-terrorism and violent extremism, where they knew that would be challenged on this issue. Therefore, a pre-emptive announcement was necessary for this audience, as well as for the Labour Party conference this coming weekend.
Andrew Little is also under strong pressure from the Kāpuia advisory group that he has established to consult with the Government over implementing the Royal Commission recommendations. The chair of Kāpuia, Arihia Bennett, has made numerous complaints to Little about the Government’s “lack of clarity, a lack of funding or a lack of observable progress” in dealing with issues like hate speech.
Other voices for reform such as political commentator Morgan Godfery and Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon have been demanding radical changes on speech regulation. Foon has accused the Government of “dragging its heels” on the reforms and saying that this was allowing “hate allowed to fester”.
Advocates of a much more radical clampdown on political speech are likely to be extremely disappointed by what the Government eventually announces. If the National Party is able to sign up to a minimal change to the legislation, the Green Party and others will almost certainly feel aggrieved that the Government isn’t taking a more radical approach, and Labour might well be accused of capitulating to the free speech brigade.
So although some are expecting free speech advocates and maybe even the National and Act parties to come out fighting against Labour’s upcoming reforms, it’s much more likely is that the advocates of radically-tightened laws on speech will have more cause to revolt against Labour’s mild changes.
Further reading on free speech, hate speech and extremism
Research Checks interrogate newly published studies and how they’re reported in the media. The analysis is undertaken by one or more academics not involved with the study, and reviewed by another, to make sure it’s accurate.
No matter your age, we all pick our nose.
However, if gripping headlines around the world are a sign, this habit could increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.
Could picking your nose lead to dementia? Australian researchers are digging into it.
Yet if we look at the research study behind these news reports, we may not need to be so concerned. The evidence connecting nose picking with the risk of dementia is still rather inconclusive.
Queensland researchers published their study back in February 2022 in the journal Scientific Reports.
However, the results were not widely reported in the media until about eight months later, following a media release from Griffith University in late October.
The media release had a similar headline to the multiple news articles that followed:
New research suggests nose picking could increase risk for Alzheimer’s and dementia
The media release clearly stated the research was conducted in mice, not humans. But it did quote a researcher who described the evidence as “potentially scary” for humans too.
The researchers wanted to learn more about the role of Chlamydia pneumoniae bacteria and Alzheimer’s disease.
These bacteria have been found in brains of people with Alzheimer’s, although the studies were completed more than 15 years ago.
This bacteria species can cause respiratory infections such as pneumonia. It’s not to be confused with the chlamydia species that causes sexually transmitted infections (that’s C. trachomatis).
The researchers were interested in where C. pneumoniae went, how quickly it travelled from the nose to the brain, and whether the bacteria would create a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease found in brain tissue, the amyloid β protein.
So they conducted a small study in mice.
The study, which was conducted in mice, didn’t mention nose picking. Shutterstock
The researchers injected C. pneumoniae into the noses of some mice and compared their results to other mice that received a dose of salty water instead.
They then waited one, three, seven or 28 days before euthanising the animals and examined what was going on in their brains.
Not surprisingly, the researchers detected more bacteria in the part of the brain closest to the nose in mice that received the infectious dose. This was the olfactory brain region (involved in the sense of smell).
Mice that had the bacteria injected into their noses also had clusters of the amyloid β protein around the bacteria.
Mice that didn’t receive the dose also had the protein present in their brains, but it was more spread out. The researchers didn’t compare which mice had more or less of the protein.
Finally, the researchers found that gene profiles related to Alzheimer’s disease were more abundant in mice 28 days after infection compared with seven days after infection.
The study doesn’t actually mention nose-picking or plucking nose hairs. But the media release quoted one of the researchers saying this was not a good idea as this could damage the nose:
If you damage the lining of the nose, you can increase how many bacteria can go up into your brain.
The media release suggested you could protect your nose (by not picking) and so lower your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Again, this was not mentioned in the study itself.
At best the study results suggest infection with C. pneuomoniae can spread rapidly to the brain – in mice.
Until we have more definitive, robust studies in humans, I’d say the link between nose picking and dementia risk remains low. – Joyce Siette
Blind peer review
Nose picking is a life-long common human practice. Nine in ten people admit doing it.
By the age of 20, some 50% of people have evidence of C. pneumoniae in their blood. That rises to 80% in people aged 60-70.
But are these factors connected? Does one cause the other?
The study behind these media reports raises some interesting points about C. pneumoniae in the nasal cavity and its association with deposits of amyloid β protein (plaques) in the brain of mice – not humans.
We cannot assume what happens in mice also applies to humans, for a number of reasons.
While C. pneumoniae bacteria may be more common in people with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, association with the hallmark amyloid plaques in the mouse study does not necessarily mean one causes the other.
The mice were also euthanised at a maximum of 28 days after exposure, long before they had time to develop any resultant disease. This is not likely anyway, because mice do not naturally get Alzheimer’s.
Even though mice can accumulate the plaques associated with Alzheimer’s, they do not display the memory problems seen in people.
Some researchers have also argued that amyloid β protein deposits in animals are different to humans, and therefore might not be suitable for comparison.
So what’s the verdict?
Looking into risk factors for developing Alzheimer’s is worthwhile.
But to suggest picking your nose, which introduces C. pneumoniae into the body, may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s in humans – based on this study – is overreach. – Mark Patrick Taylor
Mark Patrick Taylor works for the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria. He is the Executive Director of EPA Science and is also Victoria’s Chief Environmental Scientist.
Joyce Siette does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
With it came some dubious biographies composed by candidates which voters will have to delve into over the coming weeks.
The list gives a basic outline of FijiFirst: 60 percent of its candidates — 31 people — have a university bachelor’s degree.
Very few have anything more, and it would be fair to say, FijiFirst is not rich in intellectuals or academics. No prestigious universities for any of them.
What is important is the fact that just over a third of the candidates — 18 people — have degrees from the Suva-based University of the South Pacific.
They owe their careers and jobs to a university that the FijiFirst government is trying to destroy.
The 21 FijiFirst candidates with nothing more than a high school education are famously led by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and include his possible successor Inia Seruiratu.
Michael Field is an independent journalist and author and co-editor of The Pacific Newsroom. Republished with permission.
Outdated plumbing standards are leading to oversized systems and inflated costs for Australian apartment buildings. Their plumbing systems are required to handle demand for water that’s more than three times the actual recorded peak demand, our newly published research shows.
The “designed peak demand” as laid out in the Australian plumbing standard dictates the design and scale of the water services in apartment buildings. The large discrepancy between designed and actual demand in most of these buildings means the water system is much larger than needed, adding to both construction and maintenance costs.
One case study of a 13-storey apartment building estimated A$120,000 could have been saved in building costs if actual peak demand were used for the plumbing design. With hundreds of apartment buildings built in Australia every year, updated standards could save many millions of dollars.
Even more of a problem is that oversized systems don’t work as designed. This leads to plumbing defects that account for a high proportion of strata insurance claims and cost the Australian economy about $200 million a year.
We can improve plumbing systems using more accurate estimates of peak demand. However, it’s not simply a matter of reducing the size of pipes and pumps. This may create other damaging problems such as noisy vibrations in the pipes known as water hammer.
Updating the standard requires work to develop a modern and accurate process of sizing plumbing systems.
Plumbing standards and practices are outdated
The Australian plumbing standard provides a solution for sizing water services to comply with the Plumbing Code of Australia. Based on the number of apartments, the solution estimates the probable maximum water demand – the “designed peak demand”. The pipe size is then determined based on a desired range for how fast the water flows and water pressure at times of peak use.
Hunter’s work (1940) laid the foundation of plumbing engineering.
This approach is based on the “Barrie Book”. It was developed using the British plumbing code in the mid-1970s. The British and many other international plumbing codes are based on pioneering work by Roy B. Hunter in the US, which was published in 1940.
Hunter monitored the use of water fixtures in two hotel buildings at times of high demand. He used the data to determine each type of fixture’s probability of use at these times. Knowing the fixture flow rate and number of fixtures, the probable total demand can be determined.
We are much more water-efficient today
The over-estimation for buildings today is not a reflection on Hunter’s work. It is a result of changes in our water use and advances in plumbing technology.
In Australia, the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards adopted in response to the Millennium Drought have largely driven changes in fixture flow rates and water use. For example, consumption in our two biggest cities has dropped by between a quarter and a third this century.
In Melbourne, residents used an average of 248 litres per person per day (L/p/d) in 2001. By 2020 it was 158 L/p/d.
A case study of a 13-storey residential building with around 120 apartments found the pipe size would have been 40mm instead of 100mm if designed for actual peak demand. This could save $120,000 in building costs. This suggests very large savings could be made across the construction sector.
For the hot water system, the smaller pipe could reduce heat loss by 30-40%, saving another $2,000 a year in energy costs.
Pumps that are oversized as a result of overestimating peak demand are less energy-efficient and cost more. They start and stop more often, to “throttle down” water flow, which reduces the life of the pump. Pressure surges can also create water hammer.
Building water pipes with cracks at the joint. Image: James Gong
To deliver a given amount of water, wider pipes have lower flow velocities than narrower pipes, so oversized pipes may rarely experience self-cleansing velocities. These relatively high flows flush out trapped air and particulates that can cause pipe walls to wear out faster. Long-term low flows also promote the growth of biofilms and bacteria, which can result in corrosion and discoloured water.
Repeated water hammer, combined with other factors such as water chemistry, can lead to plumbing systems failing prematurely. When this happens after a building developer’s defects and liability period expires (usually within two years for non-structural defects), home owners are left liable for a hidden design problem.
A 2021 strata insurance report listed “water damage including leaks” and “burst water pipe” among the top four most common causes of claims in Australia. The combined claim costs were estimated at over $500 million from 2016-2020, based on a review of some 49% of all strata schemes in Australia. This equates to an annual nation-wide cost of $200 million.
Deakin researchers are developing methods to estimate peak demand more accurately for multi-level residential buildings. Digital water meters have provided a rich dataset that shows how Australians use water indoors.
With more accurate estimates of peak demand, pipe sizes would reduce significantly using the existing standardised approach. However, smaller pipes may experience more severe water hammer and higher risk of pipe erosion and corrosion due to higher flow.
Future plumbing design has to consider a wide range of flow conditions. Most times the flow is much lower than the expected peak demand, but it can change quickly. Modelling can help us understand how systems perform under various conditions.
Capturing the dynamics of the flow, pressure, temperature and energy use is a challenge that requires further research. Australian plumbing standards and practices need a systematic update that goes beyond peak demand.
James Gong receives funding from Hydraulic Consultants Association of Australasia and Australian Building Codes Board.
Brendan Josey receives funding from Hydraulic Consultants Association of Australasia and Australian Building Codes Board.
A View from Afar - Paul G Buchanan and Selwyn Manning deep dive into the notion of Trumpism beyond Trump, the Brazil elections, US midterm elections, and Israel's election.
A View from Afar
PODCAST - Buchanan and Manning on Trumpism Beyond Trump - Brazil, USA, Israel
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In this, the 21st episode of A View from Afar for 2022 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning analyse the notion, and perhaps the reality, of Trumpism beyond Trump.
In earlier episodes, Paul and Selwyn have examined how Trumpism, and even Bannonism, has been exported as a cult, a cultural political movement, around the world. And, we gave detailed examples of how it manifests itself in countries as untypical comparatively as New Zealand and Brazil.
And in this episode, Paul and Selwyn deep dive into this notion – that while Brazil’s out-going right-populist president Bolsonaro was narrowly defeated by his left-positioned rival Lula, there’s a risk that Brazil’s version of Trumpism will live on well after Bolsonaro’s electoral defeats at the ballot-box and enforce a formidable impediment to their successor’s policies.
And in addition, they examine what to expect from the United States’ mid-term elections. Will the GOP’s Trump endorsed candidates assist in removing a Democratic Party majority in the US Senate?
And finally, they explore the Israel elections and whether Benjamin Netanyahu will return to dominating Israel’s political sphere.
Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
Harsono said Karma often encountered problems at sea.
He said that on the day of his death he was with two relatives and they were swimming together. The relatives went home as Karma wanted to fish alone, which Harsono said was dangerous for a diver.
Suspicions mount However, some Papuan activists want a full investigation into the death.
West Papua National Committee (KNPB) activist Ogram Wanimbo, said the complete chronology of Filep Karma’s death must be revealed transparently to the public.
Wanimbo said they were dissatisfied with the post-mortem results.
“We need an explanation of who went to the beach with him and what exactly happened,” he said.
Papuan People’s Petition spokesperson Jefri Wenda also asked for a more detailed explanation.
The chairman of the Papua Customary Council, Dominikus Surabut, said his party also did not fully believe that Filep Karma’s death was purely an accident.
“The family said it was a pure accident but until now, I don’t believe it. Let there be an investigation into it,” Surabut said.
Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman said: “There were too many strange circumstances around his death and questioning police’s influence on the family. We are not accepting this as an accident.”
Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman . . .”too many strange circumstances around his death”. Image: ANU
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
While ostensibly about improving New Zealand’s water infrastructure, the government’s proposed Three Waters reforms have instead become a lightning rod for political division and distrust.
Critics cite concerns about local democracy, de facto privatisation and co-governance with Māori as reasons to oppose the Water Services Entities Bill currently before parliament. With the mayors of Auckland and Christchurch now proposing an alternative plan, the reforms may be far from a done deal.
But behind the debate lies an undeniable truth: clean water is a necessity of life. In fact, 20 years ago this month the United Nations Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights first affirmed that water is a human right. The anniversary is a timely reminder of what Aotearoa’s proposed water reforms are essentially about.
Covering drinking water, wastewater and stormwater (hence the “three waters” label), the reforms would have a wider remit than the human right to water. They fold in environmental and cultural considerations alongside public health concerns.
But the human right to water, as well as lessons learned from implementing that right, have important implications for the Three Waters debate, not least around water quality and affordability.
A fragile right
By acknowledging it to be a human right in 2002, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights argued water is indispensable for leading a dignified life and essential for other human rights.
Since then, the human right to water has been repeatedly declared, including by the UN General Assembly and the European Union. This right is included in the constitutions and laws of numerous countries.
The human right to water covers five essential factors:
access to enough water for drinking, personal sanitation, washing clothes, preparing food, personal and household hygiene
water that is clean and won’t cause harm
the look and smell of water should be acceptable
water sources should be within easy reach and accessible without danger
the cost should be low enough to ensure everyone can buy enough water to meet their needs.
The anti-government protest movement Voices for Freedom has added Three Waters to its list of grievances. Getty Images
Access and affordability
Internationally, there is evidence the adoption of a human right to water has made a difference. In South Africa, where access to sufficient water is a constitutional right, the courts have repeatedly referred to the human right to water when determining government obligations around water services.
In 2014, the first European Citizens’ Initiative pushed the European Union to exclude water supply and water resources management from the rules governing the European internal market. This means EU citizens have a stronger voice in water governance decisions.
In 2016, Slovenia became the first EU country to make access to drinkable water a fundamental right in its constitution.
New Zealand’s Three Waters reforms are not unrelated to these basic issues of safety, accessibility and affordability. They aim to address significant problems with the country’s existing water services model, including ageing infrastructure, historical under-investment, the need for climate change resilience, and rising consumer demand.
These all require a serious program of water service transformation – one the government believes is beyond what local councils (which currently administer most water assets) will be able to deliver.
One way or another, the work has to be done. Last year elevated lead levels were found in the water in east Otago. Ageing infrastructure and increasing demand are likely to increase the risk of similar incidents unless expensive upgrades are undertaken.
Without reform, the government argues, the huge cost of those upgrades will be unevenly spread across households, with a substantially higher burden on rural consumers.
To be affordable and equitable for everyone, therefore, the Three Waters plan involves creating four publicly owned, multi-regional entities. These will benefit from greater scale, expertise, operational efficiencies and financial flexibility compared to local councils.
But because councils could still contract out water services for 35 years, concerns have been raised about the potential for creeping privatisation. Indeed, similar concerns, including failed attempts to privatise water services in other countries, were a significant catalyst for asserting the human right to water more than two decades ago.
While international acknowledgment of water as a human right doesn’t automatically create binding obligations on New Zealand’s government, it can still inform the Three Waters debate.
Over the past 20 years, many of the benefits of this right have accrued from its ability to focus attention on securing high-quality and sustainable water services for everyone. That remains an essential ambition for New Zealand in 2022 and beyond.
Nathan Cooper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
LIVE@MIDDAY NZ Time – 6pm USEST – In this, the 21st episode of A View from Afar for 2022 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning will analyse the notion, and perhaps the reality, of Trumpism beyond Trump.
In earlier episodes, Paul and Selwyn have examined how Trumpism, and even Bannonism, has been exported as a cult, a cultural political movement, around the world. And, we gave detailed examples of how it manifests itself in countries as untypical comparatively as New Zealand and Brazil.
And in this episode, Paul and Selwyn will deep dive into this notion – that while Brazil’s out-going right-populist president Bolsonaro was narrowly defeated by his left-positioned rival Lula, there’s a risk that Brazil’s version of Trumpism will live on well after Bolsonaro’s electoral defeats at the ballot-box and enforce a formidable impediment to their successor’s policies.
And in addition, they will examine what to expect from the United States’ mid-term elections. Will the GOP’s Trump endorsed candidates assist in removing a Democratic Party majority in the US Senate?
And finally, they will explore the Israel elections and whether Benjamin Netanyahu will return to dominating Israel’s political sphere.
Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) – The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of Canberra
Nathan Dumlao / Unsplash
Millions of Australians have had their privacy breached in recent cyber attacks against Optus, Medibank and other companies.
Cybercriminals stole sensitive health and financial data that can be used for ransom, blackmail or fraud.
Law enforcement agencies are still investigating the origin of these attacks, but as experts in cyber and national security we can say two things are already clear.
First, anyone affected should check their credit record. Second, Australia’s international cyber engagement strategy – which sets the terms for how we work with other countries to maintain national cybersecurity – is desperately in need of an update.
How to turn data into credit
Cybercrime is most often motivated by making money, as the return on investment can be enormous. One recent estimate suggested a low-end attack costing US$34 could bring in US$25,000, while spending a few thousand dollars on a more sophisticated attack could bring in up to US$1 million.
Hackers might demand a ransom in return for the stolen information. Failing that, they can make money from it in other ways.
In the September Optus attack, for example, data including names, birth dates, email addresses, driver’s licence numbers, and Medicare and passport details were taken.
One quick way to turn these data into money is to use them to apply for credit cards. Many credit card providers, eager for new customers, have very simple and streamlined processes to check identity.
Alongside stolen data such as a name, address and driver’s licence details, cybercriminals will need an email address, a phone number and payslips.
Phone numbers and email addresses used for communication and authentication are easy enough to provide, and fake payslips can be generated using free websites.
In some cases, cyber criminals can start using the credit cards instantly if approved. The victim will have no idea about the existence of this credit card unless the credit report is checked as part of a subsequent mortgage or credit application.
How to track cybercriminals
Cybercriminals naturally take steps to remain anonymous. However, applying for a credit card does leave traces that can be used to track them down in the following ways:
the phone number used for the credit card application can be tracked, with a court order and the help of the telecommunication service provider
How to track someone’s location with just a phone number.
activity on the credit card obtained with the stolen data can also be tracked, as can email correspondence, with the help of the credit card provider
any suspicious IP address associated with the credit card can lead to further intelligence on the cybercriminals, and the internet service providers (ISPs) or virtual private network (VPN) providers may assist in tracking down the criminals.
IP addresses can be traced to real-world locations. iplogger.org
A national security issue
The Optus and Medibank hacks have caused significant problems for individuals. They have had to apply for new identity documents, and the final costs are likely to total hundreds of millions of dollars.
But preventing cyber attacks can also be a matter of national security, as a recent ransomware attack on an Australian Defence Force contractor has shown.
The data affected in such attacks may easily extend beyond identity theft to include data relevant to national defence, business and society. The risk of these attacks has been recognised in Australia’s cyber security strategy, but more must be done to prevent them.
Stronger rules for data protection
National cyber defence requires a “whole of government” approach, but it needs to go further. The commercial and civilian sectors must be included as well.
Private companies store huge amounts of private data. What they store and how they store it needs to be much better regulated.
The Optus hack, for example, revealed the company was keeping data not only from current customers but also past customers. Given how often customers change telecom providers, practices like this can lead to companies storing huge amounts of unnecessary personal data.
Current penalties for failing to protect customer data are also inadequate. At present, fines of up to A$2.2 million are the only enforceable safeguards available.
These penalties are too small to act as an effective deterrent, and they apply only after a breach has occurred. What we need are strict and enforceable rules regarding the storage of current consumer data and the deletion of past customer data.
Without new regulations, we will continue to see sophisticated cyber attacks targeting the private sector.
Borderless cybercrime
In many cases the cybercriminals are from other countries, which means we need international co-operation to track them down. This is when Australia’s International Cyber Engagement Strategy comes into play.
The strategy, published in 2017, aims to foster increased international attention to cyber threats. It calls for greater co-operation in the region and beyond to mitigate cyber risks.
Australia’s international cyber engagement is distinct from domestic cyber security efforts, which are undertaken under the auspices of the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
Cyber attacks of foreign origin are on the rise as a result of current international tensions. The current strategy may no longer be sufficient to address the international nature of cyber threats.
The strategy contains high-level promises of collaboration around strategic interests, but this is only a beginning. To create a comprehensive international cyber defence approach, we will need more detailed working arrangements with overseas partners.
Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann received funding from the Australian Department of Defence for research regarding grey zone and information operations targeting Australia.
Mohiuddin Ahmed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Omicron variant of concern has splintered into multiple subvariants. So we’ve had to get our heads around these mutated forms of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, including BA.1 and the more recent BA.5.
We’ve also seen recombinant forms of the virus, such as XE, arising by genetic material swapping between subvariants.
More recently, XBB and BQ.1 have been in the news.
No wonder it’s hard to keep up.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has had to rethink how it describes all these subvariants, now labelling ones we need to be monitoring more closely.
Omicron and its subvariants are still causing the vast majority of COVID cases globally, including in Australia.
Omicron subvariants have their own specific mutations that might make them more transmissible, cause more severe disease, or evade our immune response.
Omicron and its subvariants have pushed aside previous variants of concern, the ones that led to waves of Alpha and Delta earlier in the pandemic.
Now, in Australia, the main Omicron subvariants circulating are BA.2.75, and certain versions of BA.5. More on these later.
Viral genomes from Australia: once we had Alpha and Delta waves. Now we have waves of Omicron subvariants. Author provided
We still don’t fully understand the driving forces behind the emergence and spread of certain SARS-CoV-2 subvariants.
We can, however, assume the virus will keep evolving, and new variants (and subvariants) will continue to emerge and spread in this wave-like pattern.
To monitor these subvariants, the WHO has defined a new category, known as “Omicron subvariants under monitoring”.
These are ones that have specific combinations of mutations known to confer some type of advantage, such as being more transmissible than others currently circulating.
Researchers and health authorities keep track of circulating subvariants by sequencing the genetic material from viral samples (for instance, from PCR testing or from wastewater sampling). They then upload the results to global databases (such as GISAID) or national ones (such as AusTrakka).
These are the Omicron subvariants authorities are keeping a closer eye on for any increased risk to public health.
Newer versions of BA.5
The BA.5 subvariant that arose in early February 2022 is still accumulating more mutations.
The WHO is monitoring BA.5 versions that carry at least one of five additional mutations (known as S:R346X, S:K444X, S:V445X, S:N450D and S:N460X) in the spike gene.
The spike gene codes for the part of the virus that recognises and fuses with human cells. We are particularly concerned about mutations in this gene as they might increase the virus’ ability to bind with human cells.
Throughout recent months, BA.5 has been the dominant subvariant in Australia. However, BA.2.75 has now established a foothold.
BA.2.75 or Centaurus
The BA.2.75 subvariant, sometimes called Centaurus, was first documented in December 2021. It possibly emerged in India, but has been detected around the globe.
This includes in Australia, where more than 400 sequences have been uploaded to the GISAID database since June 2022.
This subvariant has up to 12 mutations in its spike gene. It seems to spread more effectively than BA.5. This is probably due to being better able to infect our cells, and avoiding the immune response driven by previous infection with other variants.
BJ.1
This was first detected in early September 2022 and has a set of 14 spike gene mutations.
It has mostly been detected in India or in infections coming from this area.
We know very little about the impact of its mutations and at the time of writing, there was only one Australian sequence reported.
BA.4.6 or Aeterna
BA.4.6, sometimes called Aeterna, was detected in January 2022 and has been spreading rapidly in the United States and the United Kingdom.
There have been more than 800 sequences uploaded to the GISAID database in Australia since May 2022.
It may be more easily transmitted from one person to the next due to its spike gene mutations.
This was first detected in the US in August 2022. It has a set of nine mutations in the spike gene, including a rare double mutation (A484R).
Like BA.2.75, this subvariant is probably better able to infect our cells and avoid the immune response driven by previous infection.
There are more than 100 Australian genomic sequences reported in the GISAID database, all from August 2022.
XBB
This recombinant version of the virus was detected in August 2022. It is a result of the swapping of genetic material between BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75. It has 14 extra mutations in its spike gene compared with BA.2.
Although there have only been 50 Australian genomic sequences reported in GISAID since September, we anticipate cases will rise. Lab studies indicate therapeutic antibodies don’t work so well against it, with XBB showing strong resistance.
Although XBB appears to be able to spread faster than BA.5, there’s no evidence so far it causes more severe disease.
How about BQ.1?
Although it is not on the WHO list of subvariants under monitoring, cases of the BQ.1 subvariant are rising in Australia. BQ.1 contains mutations that help the virus evade existing immunity. This means infection with other subvariants, including BA.5, may not protect you against BQ.1.
In the meantime, your best protection against severe COVID, whichever subvariant is circulating, is to make sure your booster shots are up-to-date. Other ways to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection include wearing a fitted mask, avoiding crowded spaces with poor ventilation, and washing your hands regularly.
Sebastian Duchene receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Ash Porter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
World leaders and climate experts will come together this Sunday for pivotal United Nations climate change talks in Egypt. Known as COP27, the conference will aim to put Earth on a path to net-zero emissions and keep global warming well below 2℃ this century.
The world must rapidly decarbonise to avoid the most dangerous climate change harms. World leaders know this. But that knowledge must urgently turn into concrete commitments and plans.
If humanity continues on its current path, we’re going to leave a hotter, deadlier world for the children of today and all future generations.
Earth desperately needs COP27 to succeed. I’m a climate scientist and I believe world leaders should have these three things top-of-mind heading into the conference.
So far, Earth has warmed just over 1℃ relative to pre-industrial levels, meaning we’ve already damaged the climate system. Our greenhouse gas emissions have already caused sea level to rise, sea ice to shrink and the ocean to become more acidic.
Extreme events in recent years – particularly heatwaves – have the fingerprints of climate change all over them. The record-smashing heat in western North America in 2021 saw massive wildfires and straining infrastructure. And earlier this year, temperatures in the United Kingdom reached a deadly 40℃ for the first time on record.
The ocean, too, has suffered a succession of marine heatwaves that have bleached coral reefs and reduced the diversity of species they host. Heatwaves will worsen as long as we keep warming the planet.
Frighteningly, we risk tipping the climate into a dangerous new regime bringing even worse consequences. Research from September finds we’re on the brink of passing five major climate “tipping points”, such as the collapse of Greenland’s ice-sheet. Passing these points will lock the planet into continuing damage to the climate, even if all greenhouse gas emissions cease.
Human health is also on the line. Research last month revealed the climate crisis is undermining public health through, for instance, greater spread of infectious diseases, air pollution and food shortages.
Among its disturbing findings, heat-related deaths in babies under a year old, and adults over 65, increased by 68% in 2017-2021, compared to 2000-2004.
Future generations cannot afford our dithering on action to reduce emissions.
Some countries, particularly in Europe, are succeeding in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through transitioning to renewable energy.
But globally it’s not happening fast enough. A UN report this week found if nations deliver on their climate action goals for 2030, Earth will still heat by about 2.5℃ this century – overshooting the Paris Agreement goal to keep global warming well below 2℃.
Such warming would be disastrous, especially in poorer parts of the world that have contributed little to global emissions.
For decades, the world has talked about reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But annual global emissions have risen by over 50% in my lifetime, since the first COP back in 1992. The UN warns there’s still “no credible pathway” to limiting warming to 1.5℃.
Until we reach close to net-zero emissions, the amount of CO₂ in our atmosphere will rise and the planet will warm. At our current rate, we are warming the planet by about 0.2℃ every decade.
Global carbon dioxide emissions remain at close to record highs and have roughly quadrupled since 1960. Global Carbon Project
3. The stalling must end
With so many challenges facing the world, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, it may be tempting to view climate change as a problem that can wait. This would be a terrible idea.
Climate change will get only worse. Every year of delay makes it much harder to prevent the most dangerous climate projections becoming a reality.
Only concerted efforts from all nations will avoid destroying our most sensitive ecosystems, such as coral reefs. We should be doing everything we can to stop this by transitioning away from fossil fuels. Any new fossil fuel development is just making the problem worse and will cost humanity and the environment far more in future.
And yet, the International Energy Agency last week projected that the net income for oil and gas producers will double in 2022 “to an unprecedented US$4 trillion”, a $2 trillion windfall.
We can’t, as climate activist Greta Thunberg put it, just have more “blah, blah, blah” from world leaders at COP27 – we need concrete action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
What now?
COP27 must lead to a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, including no new fossil fuel developments, and more support for countries dealing with the biggest climate change impacts. We must be on a credible path to reach global net-zero emissions within the next few decades.
The lack of progress at past global climate talks means I’m not optimistic that COP27 will achieve what’s needed. But I hope world leaders will prove me wrong and not let their nations down.
It’s small wonder a major fossil fuel producer like Australia has relied so heavily on carbon offsets. Plant new forests – or say you will avoid clearing old ones – and you can keep approving new gas and coal developments. This year, whistleblower Professor Andrew McIntosh claimed up to 80% of these offsets weren’t real. They didn’t actually offset emissions.
In Australia, renewables are the only real source of emission reduction. The rest of the economy is set to slowly increase emissions. But what matters is actually reducing how many tonnes of heat-trapping greenhouse gases go up into the sky and add to the 2.5 trillion tonnes of CO2 humans have already emitted – of which more than a trillion tonnes remain in the atmosphere. Last year, carbon dioxide and methane levels hit new highs.
As the world’s policymakers head to Egypt for next week’s crucial climate talks, offsets will be in the spotlight next to climate finance, loss and damage to vulnerable communities and 2030 emissions targets. Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has pitched the COP27 conference as the moment “where words were translated to actions”.
For Australia, this is an opportunity to move away from relying on dubious offsets and focus on the real action of actually cutting emissions.
Remind me what offsets are?
Offsets measure how much carbon is soaked up by, say, a reforestation project. As the saplings grow, they store carbon. Offsets are a way to theoretically package up this stored carbon – or emissions claimed to have been avoided by not deforesting an area of land – and sell it to companies who would like to keep pumping out emissions equal to the amount stored in new forests.
You can quickly see the problem. Who’s checking to see if these forests were planted – or if they were going to be planted anyway? Are emission reductions or storage real – and additional to what would otherwise have happened?
While international offsets are notoriously variable in quality, our Australian Carbon Credit Units scheme is hardly blameless. In Australia, many offsets rely on “avoided emissions” such as leaving a forest intact rather than cutting it down, and counting the carbon in these forests as an offset. This, as Professor McIntosh showed, has been easily gamed. Most of our offsets are not real and not additional.
In July, the federal government launched a review of Australia’s offset scheme, chaired by Professor Ian Chubb. Last week, Chubb told The Australian “offsets can’t be a device which big emitters use not to […] do something about reducing emissions”.
Chubb’s comments echo global scientific and political concerns over offsetting. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned our over-reliance on offsets net zero emission claims is a form of greenwashing.
Offsetting large-scale emissions, after all, essentially licenses the companies who buy offsets to just keep on pumping out – and even massively increase – emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. And as a new report points out, sequestering carbon into trees is not equivalent to reducing fossil fuel emissions.
There is a very long tail to every tonne of fossil CO₂ added to the atmosphere: around 400 kilograms will still be there after a century. After 1,000 years, there’s still around 25%. After 10,000 years, there’s still around 20%. This carbon will go on heating the planet for millenia.
Yet in Australia, offset permanence counts as anywhere between 25 and 100 years, depending on the project.
That means offsets have to be very good to be worthwhile. If they’re not real, additional and permanent – or if they’re used to continue fossil fuel emissions – then they will make climate change worse rather than better.
In the last decade, Australia has become the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). This has been enormously lucrative for gas producers and a boon to government revenues.
We’re already seeing companies shipping so-called “carbon-neutral” LNG from Australia. Emissions from burning or using this gas has, they claim, been offset.
Is carbon-neutral gas possible? Well, no. Australia is one of only a handful of countries with its own government-sponsored offsetting system, ClimateActive. This is intended to certify companies as carbon neutral when they have reduced their emissions “as much as possible” while “cancelling out” remaining emissions through offsets.
Sceptical? You’re not alone. Environmental policy experts say this legacy system from the previous Coalition government effectively amounts to state-sponsored greenwashing.
That’s not the only questionable environmental legacy. Labor is also reviewing the safeguard mechanism – effectively an emissions trading scheme. It was pitched as a way to reduce the 25% of our emissions which come from industrial facilities. Fossil fuels account for more than half the facilities.
But instead of falling, emissions across the facilities actually rose by 7% over the five years to 2021 – equivalent to more than nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
In our submission to the mechanism review, we suggest the government should pivot to a full emissions trading scheme for the industrial sector – without offsets.
Unfortunately, Labor has already suggested draft legislation to revise the mechanism which would allow more offsetting, rather than require substantial emission reductions from Australia’s industries.
What’s likely to happen to offsets at COP27?
When the world’s leaders and negotiators got the Paris Agreement across the line in 2015, there was much celebration. Now comes the harder part: actually making the transition.
Under rules adopted in Glasgow, offsetting may be permitted – as long as carbon offsets are high integrity (they’re real and additional), and operate transparently with robust accounting (we can check they’re real and are not double-counted).
This will be on the table in Egypt, where negotiators will seek to hash out detailed rules for tracking and checking each nation’s progress – or lack thereof – towards emissions reduction goals.
Expect to see intense negotiation around avoiding emissions – that is, not cutting down forests. To date, avoided emissions have not been counted as part of a country’s efforts. But that may change.
Integrity and transparency have long been challenges in accounting for avoided or offset carbon in the land sector.
The world will be watching to see if Australia – now under new management – is still willing to push for the right to buy cheap and sometimes questionable offsets. And will it support rules and requirements to guarantee permanence?
Australian industries are lobbying to use these kinds of international offsets to meet emission obligations. The question is, will Labor seize the chance to move away from them, and instead reduce emissions?
Let’s say Labor’s tweaks to the safeguard mechanism become law. In this scenario, offsets continue, despite their chequered history.
We would miss many opportunities to invest in technologies which actually reduce the CO₂ pouring out of machines and smokestacks. And we would miss a vital opportunity to shift away from our reliance on fossil gas, which – when burned overseas – produces massive emissions and risks slowing the clean energy shift in developing economies.
That’s the bad timeline.
In the good timeline, Labor seizes the historic moment. Amid intensifying and accelerating climate change, the public want change. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the security risks of foreign fossil fuels. And after nine years of go-slow tactics, Australia has a government elected on a promise to actually slash emissions.
Let’s hope they turn away from the false promise of offsets, and pass the test.
Bill Hare receives funding from the European Climate Foundation, Climate Works Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropy, and Solutions for Climate, a project of Climate Action Network Australia.
Howard Carter, Ahmed Gerigar and King Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus, opened three years after the tomb was discovered, in 1925. Wikimedia Commons
On November 4 1922, a young Egyptian “water boy” on an archaeological dig is said to have accidentally stumbled on a stone that turned out to be the top of a flight of steps cut into the limestone bedrock.
The stairs led to one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries in history and the only almost intact funerary assemblage of a pharaoh – the Tutankhamun’s tomb.
A century after this discovery, it’s worth revisiting the story of Tutankhamun’s tomb and how it eventually became a symbol for Egyptian nationalism.
Tutankhamun is often referred to as a “child king” and the “most famous and least important” of the pharaohs; he was almost unknown to history before the tomb’s discovery.
The son of one of the most controversial pharaohs in history – the champion of monotheism, Akhenaten – Tutankhamun ascended the throne around age six or so. After a rather uneventful reign of restoring temples and bringing Egypt out from a period of political and religious turmoil, he died sometime between the age of 17 and 19.
The discovery of his tomb full of magnificent and unique objects is more than a story of treasures. This is also a tale of the “roaring 20s” in the Middle Eastern version: a story of a quintessential embrace of class, privilege and colonialism juxtaposed against struggle for political freedom and building of new national identity.
None of the three male protagonists behind the discovery – Howard Carter (the lead British excavator), Lord Carnarvon (the man behind the money), and Ahmed Gerigar (the Egyptian foreman) – were formally trained as archaeologists.
Despite this, Carter is now almost always referred to as an archaeologist, but Gerigar almost never is – further entrenching colonial narratives.
But Carter’s three-decade-long excavation experience, draughtsman’s talent and his meticulousness, allied with the photographic aptitude of Harry Burton of Metropolitan Museum and the skills of the Egyptian excavators assured Tutenkhamun’s tomb – the only discovery of its type and arguably one of the most important archaeological finds ever – was recorded in a systematic and “modern” way.
Howard Carter was a young painter who fell in love with Egyptian antiquities while following his father, also a painter, into the houses of London’s elite to add drawings of pets to his father’s portraits.
In 1891, age 17, Carter was recommended as an illustrator to archaeologist Percy Newberry, and joined him at a dig in Egypt at Beni Hassan tombs. From this first trip to his death in 1939, Carter spent his life mostly in Egypt with short trips back to London to deal in antiquities, including those allegedly stolen from Tutankhamun’s tomb.
After Beni Hassan, Carter became an illustrator for one of the fathers of Egyptology, William Flinders Petrie in Tell el-Amarna, the capital of Tut’s father Akhenaten.
Carter then worked in Deir el-Bahari, the funerary temple of queen pharaoh Hatshepsut, located right on the other side of the limestone ravine known as the Valley of the Kings.
It is here, on the western bank of the Nile I also trace some of my humble early experiences in Egyptology.
Walking at dawn from our base at the Metropolitan Museum house in Deir, which Carter frequented, to the temple, I followed in his footsteps and mused on how lucky he was when the “water boy” stumbled upon a staircase to the tomb.
Lord Carnavon and Howard Carter at the entrance to the tomb in 1922. Wikimedia Commons
That year, 1922, was supposed to be the last season after seven fruitless years of digging in the Valley in search of Tutankhamun’s elusive resting place.
After clearing the staircase, Carter found the doorway sealed with cartouches – the hieroglyphs which enclose a royal name. He ordered the staircase to be refilled, and sent a telegram to Carnarvon, who arrived from England two-and-a-half weeks later.
On November 26 Carter made a “tiny breach in the top left-hand corner” of the doorway.
Carnarvon asked, “Can you see anything?” and Carter replied with his famous line: “Yes, wonderful things!”
Opening the burial shrine in 1924, photographed by Howard Carter. Wikimedia Commons
Across 3,000 years, about 300 pharaohs ruled ancient Egypt. All royal tombs had been broken into by thieves.
The spectacular find of Tut’s tomb was also not a fully intact discovery. The tomb had been looted twice in antiquity, and Carter estimated that a considerable amount of jewellery was stolen. But it is the only surviving almost complete funerary assemblage.
Consisting of over 5,000 objects, only 30% have been studied so far.
A story of its time
Following Egyptian independence on February 28 1922 and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Egypt, the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb became an optimistic symbol for Egyptian nationalists.
After the initial documentation, the official opening of the tomb in early 1924 coincided with the inauguration of Egypt’s first elected parliament.
Despite the new independence, colonial attitudes continued. Lord Carnarvon sold the rights to the story of the discovery of Tut’s tomb to the London Times for a significant sum.
Arthur Mace and Alfred Lucas working on the conservation of a chariot from Tutankhamun’s tomb. Wikimedia Commons
Given the delay of a couple of weeks with sending photos on the ship from Cairo to London, Egyptian newspapers and readers were only able to follow the unfolding discovery from reading delayed British press. This caused a lot of resentment among the newly independent Egyptians, especially the middle classes.
Nevertheless, the discovery was very significant for nation building and new national post-colonial identity.
Taha Hussein, a notable Egyptian philosopher of the time, coined a notion of “pharaonism”. This unified national identity was supposed to transcend religious and ethnic differences between Arab, Muslim, Coptic and Jewish Egyptians.
Anna M. Kotarba-Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She had previously received funding for work in Egypt from the Griffiths fund and Society for Nautical Research. She is an expert member of ICAHM – International Committee for Archaeological Heritage Management.
A tragic day of mourning. Thousands thronged the West Papuan funeral cortège today and tonight as the banned Morning Star led the way in defiance of the Indonesian military.
There haven’t been so many Papuan flags flying under the noses of the security forces since the 2019 Papuan Uprising.
Filep Jacob Semuel Karma, 63, the “father” of the Papuan nation, was believed to be the one leader who could pull together the splintered factions seeking self-determination and independence.
It is still shocking a day after his lifeless body in a wetsuit was found on a Jayapura beach.
Police and Filep Karma’s family say they had no reason to believe that his death resulted from foul play, report Jubi editor Victor Mambor in Jayapura and Nazarudin Latif from Jakarta for Benar News.
“I followed the post-mortem process and it was determined that my father died from drowning while diving,” Karma’s daughter, Andrefina Karma, told reporters.
But many human rights advocates and researchers aren’t so convinced.
Speculation on reasons Some are speculating about the reasons why peaceful former political prisoner Filep Karma was perceived to be an obstruction for Jakarta’s “development” plans for the Melanesian provinces.
“There were too many strange circumstances around his death and questioning police’s influence on the family. We are not accepting this as an accident,” declared Indonesian human rights Veronica Koman in a tweet.
Human rights lawyers for West Papua are solid that there were too many strange circumstances around his death and questioning police’s influence on the family. We are not accepting this as an accident. https://t.co/bfOcMvNpha
Tributes pour in Tributes have poured in from many of his friends, colleagues and fellow activists across Indonesia and the Pacific.
Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch wrote: “Filep Karma’s humour, integrity, and moral courage was an inspiration to many people. His death is a huge loss, not only for Papuans, but for many people across Indonesia and the Pacific who have lost a human rights hero.”
The Diplomat’s Southeast Asia editor Sebastian Strangio wrote: “Karma trod a path that avoided the extremes of violent rebellion and acquiescence to what many Papuans view as essentially foreign rule.
“Whether this approach ever would have achieved Karma’s long-held goal of independence and autonomy for the Papuan people is unclear, but his passing will clearly leave a large vacuum.”
He was a former civil servant who, dismayed at how many Indonesian state officials treated West Papuans, spurned a good salary to dedicate his life to West Papua.
Although standing for “justice, democracy, peace and non-violent resistance, he was jailed for 11 years for raising the Morning Star flag.
One of the most comprehensive tributes to Karma was offered by Benny Wenda, leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), saying that the day was a “national day of mourning for the West Papuan people — all of us, whether in the bush, in the cities, in the refugee camps, or in exile”.
‘Great leader’ “Filep Karma was a great leader and a great man,” says Wenda.
“Across his life, he held many roles and won many accolades — he was a ULMWP Minister for Indonesian and Asian affairs, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and the longest serving peace advocate in an Indonesian jail.
In “Loving memory” for Filep Karma . . . “For West Papuans, Filep was equivalent to Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King.” Image: Free West Papua Campaign
“But he was first of all a frontline leader, present at every single protest, reassuring and inspiring all West Papuans who marched or prayed with him.
“Filep was there at the Biak Massacre in 1998, when 200 Papuans, many of them children, were murdered by the Indonesian military. Despite being shot several times in the leg that day, his experience of Indonesian brutality never daunted him.
“He continued to lead the struggle for liberation, whether in prison or in the streets.
“For West Papuans, Filep was equivalent to Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King.
“The history of our struggle lived within him.”
‘How did he die?’ Now Benny Wenda says: “The big question is this: how did Filep die?” (He reportedly died while surfing despite being a skilled diver.)
“Indonesia systematically eliminates West Papuans who fight against their occupation. Sometimes they will kill us in public, like Theys Eluay and Arnold Ap, who was murdered and his body dumped on the same beach Filep died on.”
But Wenda adds, it is more common for West Papuans to “die in mysterious ways” or face character assassination, as in the case of Papua Governor Lukas Ensemble.
Filip Karma was a courageous and inspirational man of peace.
However, tonight at the funeral procession in Jayapura, many have been singing:
One of New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties, Palika, says it is prepared to meet the French ministers due in Noumea this month to follow up on the aftermath of the 1998 Noumea Accord.
Among a dearth of formal contact this year, the Palika said the talks could be about a possible framework allowing for New Caledonia’s independence in partnership with France.
Last week, Palika, along with the other parties making up the FLNKS movement, stayed away from what Paris called the Convention of Partners, hosted by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to discuss the future status of New Caledonia.
The meeting was the first gathering involving the prime minister since last December’s third and last referendum, in which 96 percent voted against full sovereignty.
The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process, calling instead for bilateral talks with the French government.
A Palika spokesperson, Charles Washetine told La Premiere television that Palika wanted to attend the Paris talks but followed the stance of other FLNKS parties which had reneged on a commitment made in September to travel to France.
Washetine said he was keen to start discussions as quite a bit was on the agenda for 2024 when the next provincial elections are due.
Dealing with decolonisation He said for his side it was important to know how to deal with the decolonisation as outlined in the Noumea Accord, which is transitional in nature.
At the heart of it, he said, was the transfer of power from France to New Caledonia, adding that work had to be done to complete the process.
He said the outstanding powers, which include defence and policing, could be shared in a partnership with France.
At last Friday’s Paris talks, attended by New Caledonia’s leading anti-independence politicians, Borne said they marked the beginning of discussions on the future status of New Caledonia.
She added that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco would visit Noumea in November.
With a target date of mid-2023, Borne wants to conclude an audit of the decolonisation to assess the support given to New Caledonia by the French state since 1988.
She said it was agreed with the anti-independence leaders in attendance that they would broaden the scope of the discussions beyond the institutional questions, by also addressing vital subjects for the future of New Caledonians.
Equal opportunities These include equal opportunities and social cohesion, economic development and employment, energy sovereignty and ecological transition as well as common values and reconciliation.
Borne said working groups would be organised in Noumea by the High Commissioner.
Washetine said the pro-independence side would co-operate but added that amalgams should be avoided as some powers were within the competences of New Caledonia.
This year, there has been little formal contact between the pro-independence leaders and the French government, with Paris being accused of being deaf to their demands.
Washetine said if the referendum had been held under normal conditions, the situation would perhaps be different.
In Paris, however, Borne said after meeting the anti-independence politicians that she was delighted with the spirit of responsibility and consensus of the exchanges, describing them as “faithful to the tradition of the agreements of 1988 and 1998”.
With talks now likely in New Caledonia, Washetine said he hoped that the upcoming period would deal with the fundamental questions, adding that “things can’t be done without the Kanak people”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The aftermath of the Albanese government’s first budget has seen the political and policy debate turn sharply onto the spectre of households and businesses facing sky-high power prices over the next 18 months.
The government is now scrambling to craft a policy to bring the domestic price of gas down.
In this podcast, Michelle Grattan talks with Professor Bruce Mountain, Director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University, about this power price crisis, and the options available to deal with what he calls “a weeping sore”.
Mountain offers four key ways to address gas policy.
“First and foremost, a proper resource tax must be on the table […] a levy on exported gas may be a useful proposition,” he says.
“Secondly, there are some trade-exposed industries that are facing very great pain as a result of the extraordinary surge in gas prices.
“This has an economic impact on employment, on profits, on industries that have been built up over time. And I think some price refuge for those industries will have an economic benefit that is likely to be a good deal higher than the cost.”
“Third, there are still many Australian households that use gas for heating water and for heating spaces, most notably in Victoria. I think a means-tested bill, not a price relief, for those households that battle to afford gas for these purposes, would be worthwhile.
“But I don’t think at the expense of effort in drawing those households off gas. There are cheaper […] ways of heating water and heating spaces and also much, much cleaner ways of doing that.
“Fourthly, I think a more realistic price cap in our various spot gas markets [is] likely to do more good than harm. Some of the absurdly high prices we see in the spot markets have not been useful, and I don’t think there’s much harm in capping them at a low level.”
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
If you surfed the web this morning, you may have seen news of the latest existential threat to humanity: a “planet killer” asteroid named 2022 AP7.
Luckily for us 2022 AP7 “has no chance to hit the Earth currently”, according to Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution for Science. He and his international team of colleagues observed 2022 AP7 in a trio of “rather large” asteroids obscured by the Sun’s glare (the other two don’t pose a risk).
2022 AP7 orbits the Sun every five years, and currently crosses Earth’s orbit when Earth is on the other side of the Sun to it. Eventually its movement will sync with Earth’s and it will cross much closer by, but this will be centuries into the future.
We simply don’t know enough about 2022 AP7 to precisely predict the danger it may pose centuries from now. At the same time, we suspect there could be other “planet killers” out there yet to be discovered. But how many? And what’s being done to find them?
What makes a planet killer?
Asteroid 2022 AP7 is the largest potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) found in eight years, with a diameter between 1.1km and 2.3km. For context, an asteroid with a diameter more than 1km is enough to trigger a mass extinction event on Earth.
As well as having a diameter greater than 1km, an asteroid also needs to have an orbit that crosses Earth’s to be considered potentially dangerous. In the case of 2022 AP7, any threat is centuries down the track. The important point is it has been detected and can now be tracked. This is the best possible outcome.
It is estimated we’ve already discovered about 95% of potentially hazardous asteroids, and that there are fewer than 1,000 of these. The work of Sheppard and colleagues highlights that hunting down the remaining 5% – some 50 asteroids – will be a massive effort.
Statistically, there’s less of a chance of a larger asteroid colliding with Earth compared to a smaller one. NASA
What constitutes a near miss?
NASA closely tracks all known objects in the Solar System. But every now and again an object will catch us off guard.
In 2021, we had a close call with an asteroid called 2021 UA1. It came only a few thousand kilometres from Earth, over the Antarctic. In cosmic terms, this is uncomfortably close. However, 2021 UA1 was only two metres across, and therefore posed no substantial risk.
There are likely hundreds of millions of objects of this size in our Solar System, and it’s not uncommon for them to impact Earth. In these cases, most of the object burns up in the atmosphere and creates a spectacular light show, with little risk to life.
In 2019 another asteroid with a 100m diameter passed Earth some 70,000km away. It was publicly announced mere hours before it flew past. While it wasn’t as close, it was of a much more concerning size.
These near misses reiterate how important it is for us to speed up the search for near-Earth objects.
Blind spots
The reason we haven’t already found every object that could one day pass nearby Earth is largely because of observational blind spots, and the fact we can’t observe all parts of the sky all the time.
To find 2022 AP7, Sheppard and colleagues used a telescope at twilight soon after the Sun had set. They had to do this because they were looking for asteroids in the vicinity of Venus and Earth. Venus is currently on the other side of the Sun to Earth.
Making observations close to the Sun is difficult. The Sun’s glare overwhelms the weak light reflected off small asteroids – presenting a blind spot. But just before and after sunset, there’s a small window in which the Sun’s glare no longer blocks the view.
Right now there are only about 25 asteroids known to have well-determined orbits that lie entirely within Earth’s orbit. More are likely to be discovered, and these may contribute significantly to the missing 5% of potentially hazardous asteroids.
The Near-Earth Object Surveyor
A recent NASA mission spectacularly demonstrated that humans can purposefully change the trajectory of an asteroid. NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission collided a vending-machine-sized spacecraft into a 160m diameter minor-planet moon called Dimorphos.
The DART spacecraft successfully collided with Dimorphos, which itself was orbiting a larger asteroid named Didymos. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
The collision altered Dimorphos’s 12-hour orbital period by more than 30 minutes, and was declared a resounding success. So it’s plausible for humans to redirect a hazardous asteroid if we find one.
That said, we’d have to find it well in advance. Potentially hazardous asteroids are much larger than Dimorphos, so a bigger collision would be required with plenty of lead time.
To do this, NASA has plans to survey for potentially hazardous objects using a telescope in space. Its Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, scheduled to launch in 2026, will be able to survey the Solar System very efficiently – including within blind spots caused by the Sun.
That’s because the glare we see while observing from Earth is caused by Earth’s atmosphere. But in space there’s no atmosphere to look through.
The NEO Surveyor spacecraft won’t have the issue of observational blind spots when hunting for asteroids. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
It’s very likely the Near-Earth Object Surveyor will reveal new objects, and help us characterise a large number of objects to greatly improve our understanding of threats.
The key is to find as many objects as possible, categorise them, track the risks, and plan a redirection mission as much in advance as possible. The fact that all of these elements of planetary defence are now a reality is an amazing feat of science and engineering. It is the first time in human history we have these capabilities.
Steven Tingay is a member of the Australian Labor Party
Brazil’s presidential election result is crucial for the future of the world’s forests. On Sunday, former president and Workers Party candidate Lula da Silva narrowly beat the incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro. Deforestation rates had surged under Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 on an explicitly anti-environmental platform. He had promised to reduce environmental oversight, halt Indigenous land demarcations and allow the extraction of resources from protected areas in the Amazon. Lula’s victory speech signalled a strong commitment to preserving the Amazon, protecting Indigenous people’s rights and reaching a zero-deforestation target.
Some researchers argue that the Amazon might be nearing its tipping point if current clearing rates continue. That would mean the rainforest loses resilience to changes in climate and land use. It would have profound effects on biodiversity, carbon storage and climate change globally.
Lula’s victory speech marks a clear departure from Bolsonaro’s rhetoric. It’s a welcome shift in the lead-up to the United Nations climate conference, COP27, which starts in Egypt on Sunday. But Lula still faces stiff challenges in delivering his promise to protect the rainforest.
The Amazon, covering 5.5 million square kilometres, accounts for half of the world’s remaining tropical rainforest. It’s home to enormous biodiversity, has a major influence on the world’s climate and hydrological cycles and acts as a carbon sink.
Preserving the Amazon is crucial for achieving the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels – the goal of the Paris Agreement.
About 60% of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil. This means the nation’s political shifts have enormous repercussions for this biome and, in turn, for the world’s climate.
Lula’s election creates a possibility of ending the destruction of the forest. In his first two terms in office (2003-10), Lula oversaw significant reductions in forest clearing.
Important environmental policies were enacted in Lula’s first term. Remote sensing was used for real-time monitoring of the Amazon. Protected areas and Indigenous territories were greatly expanded.
Other notable policies included a strategic focus on monitoring and enforcement in areas with high deforestation rates, re-establishing and regulating a system of environmental sanctions, and making compliance a condition of financial aid.
Forest clearing was reduced by more than 80% between 2004 and 2012. However, the 2012 Forest Code relaxed some of the rules for conservation on private lands and granted amnesty for prior deforestation. Rates began to rise again.
The election of Bolsonaro accelerated this upward trend. He cut funding for the environmental agency and attempted to allow mining on Indigenous lands and protected areas. An area of rainforest the size of Greater Sydney was cleared last year alone. It was the worst loss in nearly two decades.
Lula’s vigorous promises to protect the Amazon are unprecedented in Brazilian politics. His victory speech provides hope for the future of the rainforest. International pressure to preserve the Amazon, coupled with an active and organised Indigenous movement and civil society, are on his side.
However, Lula still faces an uphill battle in his efforts to halt deforestation. The challenges include:
a weakened environmental agency: Bolsonaro-appointed officials refused to make use of allocated funds and in 2020 the agency hit an all-time low of 591 enforcement agents (down from 989 in 2016), following a 29% cut in 2019
a pause in much-needed international support: most notable is the Amazon Fund, set up in 2008 by Norway and Germany. Donors paused this funding in 2019 after Bolsonaro abolished the fund’s technical committee amid record high deforestation rates and massive forest fires. Norway (which has donated more than $1.2 billion) has already signalled it wishes to resume climate co-operation once Lula takes office.
What’s more, Lula secured only a narrow election victory and is taking over a country split in half. He will have to design innovative policies that link environmental concerns with sustainable development and economic opportunities. Only then will he win over a polarised nation.
The next four years will be crucial for Brazil and the world. Brazil has once before reduced deforestation. The new government will need to draw lessons from its previous success, while also learning from recent policy failures.
The situation is challenging for the incoming president. But it also presents a great opportunity to re-establish Brazil’s standing in the world and rebrand its agricultural exports as sustainable and just.
Kathryn Baragwanath does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
This is a story that is not confined to New Zealand women in their early 60s, but which focusses on them as a surprisingly large group facing challenging circumstances. My focus narrows even further; my emphasis here is on ‘married’ women, and with partners presently (or soon to be) eligible of New Zealand Superannuation, New Zealand’s universal retirement pension.
These women are part of what the Americans call ‘Generation Jones’; in the absence of another label, we may use that moniker here, as Gen-J. For simplicity, we may think of Gen-J as people born from 1956 to 1965. People today in their early sixties – from 60 to 64 – were born from 1957 to 1962, the years of peak birth numbers in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Gen-J are commonly included as ‘boomers’, but they are not true post-war baby boomers. Boom generation, yes; post-war, no. Unlike classic baby boomers, their parents (for the most part) were too young to have participated as adults during World War Two. Typically, Gen-J parents were born in the years from 1926 to 1945. Further, many Gen-J people did not have grandparents who participated in World War One. Gen-J grandparents were mostly born after 1900.
Last decade, Gen-J recently constituted much of the political leadership in the world; think of people in the age group of Theresa May, Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard, Barrack Obama, John Key, and Boris Johnson. Now the leadership baton has largely passed to generations X and Y (b.1966 to 1986); consider these leaders, ex-leaders, and would-be leaders of western liberal democracies (from young to youngest): David Cameron, Mark Rutte, Marine Le Pen, Christopher Luxon, Nicola Sturgeon, Justin Trudeau, Pedro Sánchez, Alexis Tsipras, Elizabeth Truss, Giorgia Meloni, Emanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Leo Varadkar, Rishi Sunak, Jacinda Ardern, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Sanna Marin, Gabriel Boric, Sebastian Kurz. (Chris Luxon and Nicola Sturgeon were born on the same day, but I give Mr Luxon seniority because of New Zealand’s more advanced time zone.)
Older generations are not entirely impotent, politically, though. Lula has just returned to power in Brazil. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are baby boomers (b.1952 and 1953). Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are of the ‘lucky generation’ who parented the Joneses. (My prediction is that that lucky generation, born between 1935 and 1945, will prove to be the longest lived, ever; at least in western liberal democracies. Their longevity is presently distorting current life expectancy projections.)
Life Stage
Being in one’s sixties represents an important transitional life stage. Almost all women of this age have completed menopause; they are at a new beginning, not an end. Most women in New Zealand aged 60 are very much employed in the labour force, noting that being employed at this age often (and appropriately) means being self-employed or even an employer. In contrast, most women aged 70 are retired, although by no means inactive; there is much more to an active life than paid work.
A not insignificant minority of women in their 60s have had personal health challenges. One of the important challenges is cancer, which is more of an equal-opportunity condition than some others which affect men more. An important minority of women (and of course not only women) in their early-sixties will be cancer survivors. Other women are facing that challenge, at present, in a state of uncertainty.
Being in one’s sixties commonly means wishing to work fewer than forty hours per week; maybe working four days per week (for four days’ pay); or maybe joining the ranks of ‘relievers’, critically important in the education and health sectors.
Women in their early 60s are very likely to be grandmothers; indeed active grandmothers. Additionally, they may be mothers of millennials living ‘at home’, or of older adult children with special needs. (It is not only people under 25 who are facing mental health challenges, or debilitating circumstances such as long covid and other forms of chronic fatigue. There are peak working-age adults, now Gen-Y, who need care.) Many of the cohort of super-women we are focusing on have substantial responsibility towards their still-living parents (including parents resident in those rest homes which are understaffed, some of which may soon have to close); we remember that these parents, many now in their nineties, belong to a particularly long-lived generation.
Further, and noting that our particular focus is on women in their early 60s with older partners, most of those partners now have much lower incomes than they used to have. These older partners, mainly husbands, may have significant healthcare needs, and may no longer have health insurance. It is very common for women in their early sixties to be the ‘family breadwinner’, either as sole-breadwinner or principal breadwinner.
Some Gen-J women will be amongst the most vulnerable to online financial scammers. Many women of this generation are not entirely comfortable in our increasingly on-line world. Many, having low levels of financial confidence, may delegate financial expertise; they become a target demographic for financial predators.
In terms of housing, a substantial minority of women in their early 60s will be living in houses which are not mortgage-free. Some are renters. We should not assume that housing costs do not loom large in their lives; nor other (non-mortgage) debts. Indeed people who are to some degree ‘free-lance’ workers will normally get through hard times such as pandemics and recessions by extending house-mortgages. Or they will take business risks, meaning debt; part of normal life for businesspeople. Rising interest rates can be particularly problematic for our under-resourced and unsung community leaders.
Women in their early sixties have traditionally played substantial roles in running and staffing the ‘voluntary sector’. Charities and the like become particularly important when communities – and countries, and the world – are going through economic crises. When the going gets tough, the tough women get going.
Equal Pay
Women in this age cohort have always had pay equality – equal pay for equal work – thanks to legislation passed in 1972, towards the end of Robert Muldoon’s first tenure as Minister of Finance. They also became beneficiaries of a recommitment to universalist public income support, with the advent of the Domestic Purposes Benefit. And, again thanks to Robert Muldoon, in 1976 Gen-J’s grandmothers became eligible in their own right for a significant universal retirement income from age 60; and, as ‘non-qualifying spouses’, for a lesser universal retirement income before age 60 when their older husbands turned 60. Life was looking better for Aotearoan women in the 1970s; as mothers, as workers, and as older citizens whatever the nature of their working-age contributions might have been.
Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1972, women’s wage and salary earnings remain significantly lower than men’s. The reasons for this are substantially what statisticians call ‘the composition effect’. One composition effect relates to age and time-served; the age and experience attributes of female employees has always differed, on average, from those of their male colleagues. One significant issue here is that a new surge of inexperienced (mainly young) women gaining employment increases the overall gender earnings gap; this effect would be exacerbated if accompanied by a substantial departure of women in their 60s from their employed roles.
Another composition-like effect is that average hours worked by fulltime female employees are almost certainly less than average hours for fulltime males. Here it should be noted that, whereas the standard fulltime work-week is 37½ hours, people working 30 hours per week are still classed as fulltime workers. (Such people may be working four days at 7½ hours per day; others, especially workers with school-age children, may be working 6 hours per week over five days.)
While statistical analyses need to account more for hours worked by fulltime workers, another composition effect is the greater proportion of female than male employees working part-time; and it is likely that hourly wages for part-time work are lower on average than hourly wages for fulltime work. Also, regarding hours of work, it is entirely possible that men do more unpaid overtime for their employers, meaning that true male hourly wages may be being overstated. (Women almost certainly do more unpaid work than men, though probably not as much for their employers.)
Another composition effect is that of contractors versus employees. In human history, most workers have been contractors – self-employed, often casual, working on own account – rather than employees (who are bonded). The apex decade of the employee was the 1970s. Since then, there has been a growth in contractor labour, especially amongst older workers; and also more workers employed by sub-contractors. Earnings’ datasets have a systemic bias against self-employment.
The Employer Effect
The reason traditionally given for the male vis-à-vis female pay gap is that certain occupations are female dominated; and that there are employer biases as to why workers in female-dominant occupations are paid less on average than employees in male-dominated occupations.
Are systemic employer biases, if they exist at all, likely to be much different whether employers are male or female? Indeed, it is likely that female-dominated occupations are more likely than male-dominated occupations to have female employers, and we would be surprised if female employers have unconscious biases against female workers. (And we should note that ‘effective’ employers – hirers and firers – are often managers, employees themselves.)
The Government-as-Employer Effect
A version of the employer effect may be the most important composition effect of all. I understand that a substantial majority of female-dominated occupations have governments (central or local) as their effective employers. In most cases the government is not the direct employer; but government entities and government subsidies play crucial roles in the flow of wages to women.
An important distinction between government (and government entity) employers and private employers is a divergent approach to finance. In particular, private employers are expected to borrow and spend; to take risks, to fund and grow their enterprises by running financial deficits. Government employers have a completely different financial culture; in particular they are extremely deficit-averse, even in the face of the very low interest rates which predominated last decade. (This deficit-aversion – aka austerity – is commonly called ‘fiscal responsibility’.) Government employers, unlike private employers, claim that there is no money to pay workers more; they have very different relationships with their bank managers. And, as a consequence of their financial culture, governments create entities which separate governments, the effective employers of many if not most women, from the legal employers of those women.
Foremost among these entities are the organisations providing healthcare and education services. Two of the most important in New Zealand are Te Whatu Ora and Te Pūkenga. My focus here will be on the latter, while noting that most organisations in these sectors are in trouble, short of finance and short of labour. And, taking healthcare more broadly, we should add the Palliative Care sector and the Rest Home and Residential Care sector. And General Practice doctors.
Education Sector – Te Pūkenga
The education sector is made up almost entirely of ‘business and business-like organisations’ dependent on government funding. The smaller organisations are Early Childhood Centres. Bigger are the Primary Schools. Bigger again are the Secondary Schools, and then the Universities. Biggest of all is the new government behemoth – Te Pūkenga – which replaces a whole sector, the Polytechnic Sector.
Many would argue that the biggest economic challenge that New Zealand faces, at present, is labour supply; skilled, but not only skilled, workers. In this case, getting Te Pūkenga right, investing in skills’ education, is central to Aotearoa’s economic future. Yet the botched implementation of this underwhelming ‘flagship’ project gets almost no media coverage; and when it does the problems aired are almost entirely financial.
Te Pūkenga represent the sharp end of government financial retrenchment comparable with the closing down of Teachers’ Colleges during the Great Depression. (This is on top of a half-decade, the later 2010s, in which the two economic sectors showing the least employment growth were ‘education’, and ‘the media’.) At least with Te Whatu Ora, the public is invited by the media to evaluate its success on the basis of clinical outcomes, and not just on its ability to balance its budget. With Te Pūkenga the issues given public airing are almost entirely an inability to meet unreasonably tight financial targets; targets which create employment opportunities only to professional rationers.
Our main theme here, however, is the plight of women in their early-sixties. It so happens that the ‘Polytech’ sector is a substantial employer of older women, most of whom earn above the average female hourly wage. These are women whose personal circumstances will be such that almost all can relate to some of the challenges identified at the beginning of this essay.
It seems that the very-highly-paid men and women tasked by government to build Te Pūkenga as a ‘financially sustainable’ near-monopoly for skills’ education have been told by government that their proposals are insufficiently austere. Redundancies – potentially many redundancies – are in the wind.
Much of the coming attrition in skills’ education – whether the attrition is ‘natural’, or through artifice – will fall on women in their early sixties. Such attrition will aggravate the gender pay gap. But this big picture ‘macro’ impact pales into insignificance compared to the ‘micro’ impacts on many of these women, and on the people who depend on them.
Public Superannuation and the ‘Non-Qualifying Spouse’
In the New Zealand of 1984, women were well protected from financial distress. The country had high wage rates, and equal pay for equal work. (Price-adjusted wages peaked in New Zealand during the late 1970s.) In addition to National Superannuation (‘Super’), paid as of right to women on the same basis as to men, and regardless of their employment histories, many women could qualify early for Super (albeit receiving a lesser amount), as ‘non-qualifying spouses’. (There was at the time an egalitarian tax structure which clawed back substantial amounts of the universal Super being paid to those who needed it less.) There was also a Widow’s Benefit, a sex-discriminatory benefit which lasted into the present century; this helped a group of women in their fifties and early sixties, no longer spouses, who could not become ‘non-qualifying spouses’.
My story to tell here is about the fate of the ‘non-qualifying-spouse’ superannuation benefit. Although less so than in the past, a majority of households move into a ‘retirement’ context when men – most of whom are married, and to younger women – reach the age of 65. (65 is still commonly called the ‘retirement age’.)
From the 1970s until the 1990s, ‘Retirement age’ in Aotearoa New Zealand was 60; not 65. Before the 1970s, it was 65 for men and 60 for women. In the 1980s, in two steps the Labour Government dramatically cut the top tax rates which only higher-income-earners paid. Further, that Government introduced a quite different means to claw back Universal Super, as it was popularly called. They created a tax surcharge payable by Super recipients on their private earnings (above a threshold); Super became a ‘guaranteed’ income rather than a ‘universal’ income, making it increasingly an alternative to rather than a supplement to private income. The focus during the 1980s was to create low ‘marginal tax rates’ for people of working age, and to ‘target’ public income support.
In the 1990s, the National Government raised the ‘retirement age’ from 60 to 65. (This may have been an appropriate thing to have done during a period of labour shortage, but it was in fact done at a time of high unemployment, forcing labour supply to increase even more than usual at a time when labour demand was low. The usual effect of increased labour supply as a response to decreased labour demand is called ‘the Added-Worker Effect’.) Around the same time, National also held the referendums which led to proportional representation (multi-party government), a change which proved important to the full restoration of Universal Super.
Perhaps as a sop to those whose retirement aspirations had to be put aside, National created a ’55-plus Benefit’ which was widely interpreted as an unconditional unemployment benefit. Further, the option to receive early Super at a lower rate as a ‘non-qualifying spouse’ was retained. Then, during New Zealand’s first non-war coalition government since the Depression, superannuation was restored in 1998 as a fully universal benefit; the tax-surcharge was abandoned thanks to Winston Peters’ New Zealand First Party. (During the post-1984 stage of New Zealand’s economic history, neither National nor Labour have been keen on universal benefits; though both ‘major parties’ recognise that, for New Zealanders, universal benefits have been popular and undiscriminating.)
In 1998, the 55-plus Benefit was replaced by the ‘Community Wage’, a non-universal ‘Job-Seeker’ benefit. And the payment of Super to non-qualifying spouses of superannuitants had become, unlike Super itself, a means-tested benefit. Actually, it was worse than that. Not only would the non-qualifying spouse be subject to a means-test, so would the qualifying spouse. This meant, in practice, that many women in their early sixties were denied the option to be joint retirees; they would instead have to hustle in the labour market if they lost their jobs. Many would ‘serve time’ until they were 65, knowing that they would be more productive as volunteers or as small-business women.
But at least the non-qualifying spouse option was there, providing a degree of security to married women in their early sixties; married women without rich husbands. The non-qualifying-spouse benefit provided basic security in the event of an economic contraction.
Then, on 9 November 2020, even that was taken away, with barely a word in the press. This could not have happened had Winston Peters still been a part of government, as indeed he was from 2017 to October 2020. Instead we had, for the first time, a numerically female-dominated government – a majority Labour government with support from the Māori Party and the Green Party – take away, with indecent haste, the one remaining unconditional public income option that mainly benefited women. Even worse, for older unemployed women who prefer not to hustle for another job, their pensioner husbands continued to get their Super at the lowest rate, the ‘married rate’. If such an income-less woman leaves her husband, then the husband gets a ‘pay increase’, moving on to the top ‘living-alone unmarried’ rate. (She also is denied access to her Kiwi-Saver account.)
So now let’s consider the many older women employed by Te Pūkenga who are fearing redundancy before they reach pensionable age. Their circumstances might not be so bad in 2022; with labour shortages, most could probably find another reasonably well-paid job. Although having to hustle in the job market after having made substantial contributions in the education sector would be galling; especially given the many other things going on in many of their lives (as indicated above).
But at present the central banks of the world, including New Zealand’s own Reserve Bank, are doing their very best to create a recession; to induce an economic contraction in the belief that cost-pressures in today’s world can be magicked away through ‘monetary policy’. The Labour Market in 2024 will probably be very different to what it is today, with few opportunities for the soon-to-retire unemployed.
Even more important, the coming recession is going to require many community services – voluntary work, social entrepreneurship – for which this group of women have just the right set of skills. These are people who have been mothers and time jugglers; people who will be as well able as anyone to contribute to an easing of the ‘complex social circumstances’ faced by so many people today aged 15 to 50. (These younger people are the people who represent this decade’s new healthcare and educational challenges.) We are going to subject our older women to dole queues, instead of allowing them to supply the nuanced social capital that they would – if they could – be willing and able to provide.
Universal Benefits are particularly beneficial for older and younger residents
Since 1984, the Labour and National parties have spearheaded a movement to convert the mid-twentieth-century welfare state into a charity state in which Ministry people and people with government contracts provide the charity. This system of control and neglect works almost satisfactorily for many people, especially those in mid-career.
But, if we are to harness the full social and economic productivity of our under-25s and over-55s, we need universal supports, for them at least. We need our younger and our older people to be independent-minded risk-takers and social-entrepreneurs, not time-servers. Nor people jumping from one short-term employment contract to another, forever having to maintain polished résumés and flattering social media profiles.
If we cannot have a Basic Universal Income for all working-age adults, set at the level of a young adult’s unemployment benefit, then we should at least introduce an alternative tax code that achieves this outcome for people over 55 (and for people aged 18 to 25). Or, failing that, we could re-establish a ‘non-qualifying-spouse’ Super benefit, as an unconditional benefit payable to non-employed partners – aged 55 to 64 – of public superannuitants.
Conclusion
I have argued that governments of today and the recent past – governments, and government entities in which women may hold half the power – are particularly responsible for the present plight of older Aotearoan women of ‘working age’. In giving the example of undervalued senior polytechnic staff, I have barely mentioned the plights of older nurses, doctors, and school-teachers, and the many journeyman (and journeywoman) academics in our universities. These are all people who, for the most part, depend upon the government for their pay-cheques, and, if not appreciated where they are, could be released under conditions where they can be of value elsewhere, and without undue economic hardship.
Gen-J, despite their extraordinary range of skills, are now a governed rather than a governing generation; and a very large generation. In twenty years time, who will care about, let alone care for, those women (mostly single women by then) now in their early sixties?
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Chambers, Senior Research Fellow in the Health Environment & Infection Research Unit (HEIRU), University of Otago
Shutterstock/Icruci
For those concerned about the public health impacts of alcohol, the government’s recent policy announcement was perhaps a little “glass half empty” to be cause for outright celebration.
As Justice Minister Kiri Allan outlined, the government’s review of alcohol laws will start by implementing only one of the reforms proposed in Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick’s Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill.
That reform will remove a legal appeal process that the alcohol industry has used to hinder or exclude community input into decisions around alcohol availability. But the government would not commit to the second wing of the private member’s bill, to remove alcohol sponsorship of broadcast (mainly professional) sports.
Under existing legislation, local councils can develop Local Alcohol Policies (LAPs) to allow community involvement in deciding how alcohol should be sold in their areas.
LAPs can specify the number (if any) and location of new alcohol outlets, as well as the hours and conditions (such as storefront advertising) of sale.
However, large companies often block LAPs using their right of appeal. The country’s two major supermarket companies have appealed 86% of LAPs, while bottle stores have appealed 72% of them.
These appeals have resulted in many councils abandoning or watering down their policies. Seven years and NZ$1 million later, Auckland council is still without an LAP – along with Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton.
Alcohol outlets in Wellington City, showing the highest availability (darkest colour) compared to the least availability (lightest colour). Author provided
Thus, community attempts to influence the location and density of alcohol outlets have been rendered ineffective. This makes the government’s commitment to even the playing field a welcome announcement.
Sports sponsorship is the primary driver of children’s exposure to alcohol marketing in Aotearoa. A New Zealand study called Kids’ Cam, where children wore automated cameras over four days, found children were exposed to alcohol marketing via sports sponsorship 1.4 times per day on average. Māori and Pacific children are exposed to four or five times more alcohol sponsorship than New Zealand European children.
Images from the Kids’ Cam project showing children’s exposure to alcohol marketing via alcohol sponsorship. Author provided
Alcohol marketing, including sponsorship, increases the risk of children drinking at earlier ages, drinking more once they start and drinking more hazardously. As such, alcohol marketing is considered a causal factor for alcohol consumption. Put simply, alcohol marketing drives consumption.
Opponents commonly suggest that sponsorship restrictions will destroy community sport and affect the financial viability of professional sport. But these arguments don’t bear close scrutiny.
Firstly, the bill is designed to restrict broadcast sports only. Many community sports should not feel any direct impacts of restrictions.
Secondly, the total value of all alcohol sponsorship of sport, including community sports, was NZ$21 million in 2014. This equates to less than 1% of all revenue generated by sports and recreation in Aotearoa.
As of September 2022, Sport New Zealand had no updated information of any kind on the value of alcohol sponsorship or sponsorship in general. Despite this, the organisation recently advised the minister for sport and recreation, Grant Robertson, that a sponsorship ban “would have a profound impact on the ability of some organisations to continue to provide sport and recreation opportunities”.
The Sport New Zealand advice contained no figures to support this statement. It also referred to revenue that would not be impacted by the bill (sponsorship of clubrooms, for example). In the past, Robertson and some of his cabinet colleagues voted in favour of various bills proposing more restrictive measures on alcohol marketing than the current member’s bill.
Sponsorship can be replaced
The sponsorship revenue from the alcohol industry could be replaced by an increase in the existing alcohol levy by around two cents per beer.
A two-cent levy increase assumes no other sponsors would replace alcohol sponsors. However, when tobacco sponsorship changed in the early 1990s through a sponsorship replacement program, around 50% of all tobacco sponsorship was replaced immediately.
The range and number of industries sponsoring sports have increased since the 1990s. Globally, the alcohol industry contributes only 2.1% of all sports sponsorship revenue.
Available evidence in Aotearoa suggests a similar contribution. Only three of the top ten national sports organisations (rugby, cricket and golf) have an alcohol sponsor. In each case, the alcohol sponsor is not a principal sponsor, suggesting its relative contribution is smaller than that of other companies.
Time for evidence-based policy
While some sports organisations may struggle with losing any sponsorship revenue, the claims that community or professional sports would fold is not supported by the available evidence.
By contrast, there are decades of longitudinal evidence demonstrating the harms of alcohol marketing, including sponsorship. The body of evidence has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to classify restrictions on marketing as one of the three best policies to reduce alcohol-related harm.
There is limited evidence to support the argument that sports organisations will suffer unduly, particularly when considered in the context of an appropriate and modest increase in an existing alcohol levy.
Looking ahead, further action is also required to decrease the affordability of alcohol (through a minimum unit price or tax), reduce its availability (through reduced outlets and hours of operation) and introduce more comprehensive marketing restrictions, particularly online.
But the proposed restrictions outlined in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill are a good start to alcohol reform in Aotearoa. If the government wants to tackle alcohol-related harm, restricting alcohol sponsorship of broadcast sport is an evidence-based policy response to the country’s most harmful drug.
Tim Chambers receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand and from a donation from the GAMA Foundation.
Joseph Boden receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand
Dr. Matthew Hobbs receives funding from the New Zealand Health Research Council, Cure Kids/A Better Start National Science Challenge and IStar. He was also previously funded as a researcher by the New Zealand Ministry of Health.
Nicholas Bowden receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, Cure Kids, the Laura Fergusson Trust, and A Better Start National Science Challenge.
More than 71% of Israel’s 6.5 million eligible voters, a 20-year high, cast their votes in Israel’s November 1 elections. This is the fifth Israeli election in less than four years; during that period, two shaky governments were formed, each of which lasted only a year.
Exit polls: a majority for the right wing camp
According to the exit polls, former Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu is in a good position to reclaim the prime ministership. Like all four previous elections campaigns since 2019, 2022 was again a referendum on his eligibility to be Israel’s head of government. Entangled in a legal battle after being indicted on charges of bribery, corruption and breach of trust – which he vehemently denies – Netanyahu is still popular among most right-wing voters. His supporters largely believe an organised campaign against him is being run by the legal and political elites, promoted by the media.
Netanyahu’s Likud party is set to win around 30 Knesset (parliament) seats, out of the total 120, thereby retaining its status as the biggest party in Israel.
Senior Likud members have been promising to reform the judicial system, reducing what they consider the judges’ disproportionate power to challenge the authority of elected parliamentarians. Some of the judicial reform laws being proposed, if passed, could either aid Netanyahu in his legal battle or annul the case against him entirely.
The “star” of the elections was extreme right-wing politician Itamar Ben Gvir. Ben Gvir achieved notoriety as a teenage activist for his role in the incitement in the mid-1990s against then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, shortly before Rabin was assassinated by another right-wing extremist.
Ben Gvir has sought to re-brand himself as more “moderate” in recent months, rejecting some of his most extreme positions of the past. An alliance of Ben Gvir’s party with the Religious Zionism party, headed by Bezalel Smotrich, appears poised to become Israel’s third largest party, gaining 14-15 seats.
The two will push for expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and rejection of any two-state resolution with the Palestinians. A coalition including Ben Gvir, Smotrich and Israel’s two conservative ultra-Orthodox religious parties (Shas and UTJ, 17-18 seats collectively) would be bad news for advocates of LGBTQI+ rights in Israel and abortion rights for women.
Itamar Ben Gvir, far-right Otzma Yehudit party, has sought to re-brand himself as more ‘moderate’ in this election. Abir Sultan/EPA/AAP
The picture for the centre-left anti-Netanyahu camp is a mixed bag. Yesh Atid, the party of outgoing caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, is set to be second in several seats to Likud with 22-24. Meanwhile, the National Unity Party, led by Defence Minister Benny Gantz, gained 12-13 seats. Both these parties increased their strength but apparently failed in their bid to remain in government.
The left-wing Meretz and Labour parties polled poorly, winning a predicted 4-5 seats.
Right-wing secularist Avigdor Lieberman, a Netanyahu ally turned opponent, and his Yisrael Beitenu (“Israel our home”) party, barely made it to the Knesset, winning 4-5 seats.
Engulfed in bitter internal fighting, non-Zionist, mainly Arab-supported Israeli parties crashed after splitting their Joint List, which gained 15 seats in 2020, into three parties. Hadash-Ta’al, the central component of the former Joint List ended up with just four seats.
Another component of the former Joint List, the Arab Islamist party Ra’am, headed by Mansour Abbas at the party’s helm, has gained five seats, up one from last election.
This is significant, as Abbas took a bold and unprecedented step by joining a Zionist-led government in 2021 – the first time a majority Arab party has done this. Ra’am’s success among Arab Israeli voters suggest they want their representatives to enter governing coalitions to gain services and other policy priorities for Israeli Arab communities, rather than take an ideological stand against Zionism.
Led by Mansour Abbas (voting in 2021), Ra’am appears to have achieved great success in the 2022 election. Mahmoud Illean/AP/AAP
What happens now?
The big parties will immediately start the difficult rounds of consultations, trying to attract enough Knesset members to join their coalition and pull together the magic number of 61.
If exit polls are accurate, Netanyahu’s task is easier than anyone else’s, but nothing is assured. He has at least one major mine to defuse: many in Israel, the Jewish diaspora (including in Australia) and among Israel’s important allies, specifically the US, have warned against granting Ben Gvir a major role in a Likud-led government. Yet without Ben Gvir’s support, Netanyahu appears to have no government.
Lapid will aim at assembling a bloc that would prevent a Likud-led coalition and, if he succeeds, will likely send Israel to yet another election in a few months.
Israeli citizens are fed up with the chronic instability of the political system. They face the same rising costs of living challenges experienced worldwide at the moment. Since the collapse of the Oslo peace process in 2000, and the Palestinian rejection of a two-state peace offer in 2008, the belief the Palestinians can be a partner for peace is low among most Israeli Jews. According to surveys, Israelis still dream of peace based on a two-state solution, but think there is little chance of this happening soon.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian arena is far from stable, with ongoing Palestinian terror, a bloody succession battle on the horizon after the 86-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas finally goes, and Gaza governed by the Islamist terror gang of Hamas.
In the background, Iranian regional aggression, siding with Russia and relentless drive for nuclear weapons capability is casting a black shadow on Israeli security. Whoever becomes Israel’s next PM, these challenges will be at the centre of the government’s agenda, along with trying to heal the great divides within Israel’s society.
It’s going to be days before the final vote counting is concluded. A few hundred votes each way could lead to dramatic changes that will determine if Israel is going to another election, or a Netanyahu-led government is on the cards.
For example, according to latest real vote counting, non-Zionist Arab nationalist party Balad is polling just under the minimum four-seat threshold, while Yisrael Beitenu and Mertez both risk failing to get into the Knesset.
Despite the recurring elections of recent years, Israel has remained a vibrant and strong democracy, an economic success story and a hi-tech powerhouse, with increasingly good relations across the Arab Middle East. The vote count over the next few days will be crucial in determining if Israel will have a stable new government or not.
Ran Porat is a Research Associate for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)
Filep Karma, a prominent Papuan activist and former political prisoner, was found dead yesterday on a beach in the Papuan city of Jayapura.
He had been on a diving trip with his brother-in-law and nephew, and apparently went diving alone after his relatives left the trip early.
Karma, 63, a master diver with three decades’ experience, was found wearing his scuba diving suit.
His daughter said he had died because of a tragic “accident and drowning”.
I had met Karma in 2008 when I visited a Jayapura prison to interview political inmates.
Karma was clearly the leader that the other prisoners looked to for inspiration. He articulated his principles for the human rights and self-determination of the Papuan people.
We quickly became friends, discussing and debating the human rights situation in Papua.
Educated about mistreatment Filep Karma was born in 1959 in Jayapura, the capital of Indonesia’s Papua province. Karma told me his father educated him about the mistreatment of Indigenous Papuans under Indonesian rule.
In 1998, Karma organised a protest on Biak Island, calling for independence for Papua while raising the Morning Star flag, a symbol of independence banned by Indonesia’s government.
Indonesian military forces violently broke up the protest. Karma was imprisoned, then released in 1999.
In 2004, he organised another Morning Star protest following the killing of Theys Eluai, another pro-independence leader. The authorities tried and sentenced Karma to 15 years in prison for “treason”.
In 2010, Human Rights Watch published a report on political prisoners in Papua and the Moluccas Islands, launching a global campaign to release the prisoners.
Karma’s detention a ‘violation’ In 2011, Karma’s mother, Eklefina Noriwari, petitioned the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for Karma’s release. The working group determined Karma’s detention had violated international law, and called on the Indonesian government to release him.
Filep Karma’s coffin and mourners. Image: ULMWP
The authorities only released Karma in 2015.
After his release, Karma embraced a wider agenda of political activism. He spoke about human rights and environmental protection. He campaigned for the rights of minorities. He organised help for political prisoners’ families.
Karma’s humour, integrity, and moral courage was an inspiration to many people. His death is a huge loss, not only for Papuans, but for many people across Indonesia and the Pacific who have lost a human rights hero.
Andreas Harsono is the Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
Steven Saphore/AAP
A Newspoll, conducted October 27-30 from a sample of 1,500, gave Labor a 55-45 lead, a two-point gain for the Coalition since the last Newspoll in early September. Primary votes were 38% Labor (up one), 35% Coalition (up four), 11% Greens (down two), 6% One Nation (down one), 1% UAP (down one) and 9% for all Others (down one).
59% were satisfied with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s performance (down two), and 33% were dissatisfied (up four), for a net approval of +26, down six points. Both Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s satisfied and dissatisfied ratings were up, respectively up four to 39% and up three to 46%, for a net approval of -7.
There was large movement on the better PM indicator, with Albanese’s lead over Dutton dropping to 54-27 from 61-22 in early September.
While Labor still has a large lead in Newspoll, their lead has dropped since early September. But the Resolve poll continues to give Labor a huge lead. I believe Newspoll is more realistic as the October 25 budget was not well received, and Essential’s poll shows a large increase in economic pessimism.
Newspoll budget questions
Newspoll has asked three questions after every budget since 1988: whether the budget was good or bad for the economy, good or bad for you personally and whether the opposition would have delivered a better budget.
The budget was rated good and bad for the economy by 29% each. On the personal side, 47% rated it bad and just 12% good. By 48-34, voters thought the Coalition would not have delivered a better budget.
The Poll Bludger said this budget was the sixth worst out of 36 polled by Newspoll on personal impact and the ninth worst on economic impact, but it rated about middle on whether the opposition would have done better. The Poll Bludger has graphs of these Newspoll questions for all budgets they have been asked.
An additional question asked whether voters thought the budget properly balanced the cost of living and the budget deficit. By 25-6, respondents thought it put too much emphasis on the deficit, while 31% thought it didn’t do enough for either and 23% that it struck the right balance.
Resolve poll: Labor maintains huge lead
A Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted October 26-30 from a sample of 1,611, gave Labor 39% of the primary vote (steady since three weeks ago), the Coalition 32% (up two), the Greens 13% (up one), One Nation 4% (down one), the UAP 1% (down two), independents 8% (down one) and others 3% (up one).
Resolve does not give a two-party estimate until close to elections, but my calculations using 2022 election preference flows give Labor about a 58.5-41.5 lead, only about a 0.5-point gain for the Coalition.
On Albanese, 57% thought he was doing a good job and 28% a poor job, for a net approval of +29, down six points. Dutton’s ratings were 41% poor, 29% good, for a net -12, down two points. Albanese led Dutton by 53-19 as preferred PM (53-18 three weeks ago).
Labor led the Liberals by 38-32 on party best for economic management (36-30 three weeks ago). But on keeping the cost of living low, Labor’s lead dropped to 31-24 from 30-20 previously.
By 43-21, voters gave Jim Chalmers a good rating for his performance as Treasurer. After the March 2022 budget, the former Coalition Treasurer Josh Frydenberg had a 52-28 good rating, and a 54-27 good rating after the May 2021 budget.
Asked if Labor has broken election promises to cut power bills and get wages moving, 36% said Labor had broken promises, 12% said they had kept their promises and 53% said it was too early to tell or were undecided.
Several proposals to tackle power prices were well supported, with the most popular “setting price caps that utility companies cannot go over” (79-3 support).
Asked to choose between higher wages at the cost of higher prices, or lower prices at the cost of lower wages, 29% selected each option.
Essential poll: large rise in economic pessimism
In an Essential poll, conducted in the days before November 1 from a sample of 1,038, 52% thought economic conditions in Australia would get worse in the next 12 months (up 12 since June), 24% thought they would get better (down eight) and 19% stay the same (down one).
Politicians were rated from 0 to 10, then ratings from 0-3 were counted as negative, 4-6 as neutral and 7-10 as positive. Albanese was at 45% positive, 20% negative (46-17 in September), Dutton was at 32% negative, 29% positive (33-23 previously). Chalmers was at 31% positive, 20% negative.
By 67-20, voters thought the government can make a meaningful difference on energy prices. Concerning easing COVID lockdown restrictions, 63% thought their state had moved at about the right speed, 22% too slowly and 15% too quickly.
On the Melbourne Cup, 34% said they regularly bet on horse races and will bet on the cup (down eight since last year), 29% that they rarely bet on horses, but will make an exception for the cup (up eight), 19% that they will watch the cup but not bet (down three) and 18% that they are not interested in the cup and won’t bet.
By 72-10, voters thought the cup was a unique part of Australia’s identity, but by 45-25 they thought it promoted unhealthy gambling behaviour. Voters were split 34-34 on whether the cup normalises animal cruelty.
Lula defeats Bolsonaro in Brazil and US midterms update
I covered Sunday’s Brazilian presidential runoff election for The Poll Bludger. The leftist challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (called “Lula”) defeated the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by a 50.9-49.1 margin. Lula won the October 2 first round by a 48.4-43.2 margin, but did not secure the majority needed to avoid the runoff. Bolsonaro had won the 2018 runoff by a 55.1-44.9 margin.
The US midterm elections will be held next Tuesday, with polls closing from late Wednesday morning AEDT. Republicans have continued to improve in the FiveThirtyEight forecasts since my update last Friday.
They are now a 51% favourite to win the Senate after Democrats had a 52% chance last Friday, and an 83% chance to win the House of Representatives (82% previously). This is Republicans’ first lead in the Senate forecast since July.
Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Salads are great for our health. Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay, CC BY
Keep yourself fuller for longer
Salads are naturally low in calories or kilojoules. This is because salads mostly contain vegetables, which have a high water content.
This may mean you don’t feel very satisfied after eating your salad – making it hard to stay full until your next meal.
Instead of eating a salad and then later reaching for something less healthy to fill up on, you can stay fuller for longer by including all three macronutrients in your salad:
a healthy carbohydrate source (pumpkin, sweet potato, parsnips, taro, brown rice, quinoa, barley or brown pasta)
a healthy fat source (avocado, olive oil, toasted seeds or nuts)
a lean protein source (eggs, fish, chicken, tofu, tempeh, lentils or legumes).
Many people experience bloating and/or gut upset when they eat a lot of salad.
This commonly occurs if someone is going quickly from a less healthy, low-fibre diet to a healthier, high-fibre diet.
It happens because your gut microbes are multiplying and producing lots of plant-digesting enzymes (which is great for your gut health!).
However, your gut needs some time to adapt and adjust over time. You can help alleviate any discomfort by:
taking a short walk or doing some stretching after eating your salad. This has been shown to reduce bloating as it loosens up the gut muscles and helps release any trapped gas
being mindful of how you are preparing lentils and legumes. Ensure they are thoroughly rinsed and only include ¼ cup of them (soaked) to begin with if they are something new in your diet
eating your salad mindfully. A non-relaxed, uptight gut or a gut that has recently been irritated by an illness can mean your gut is not as efficient in absorbing gas. This can trigger bloating as the gas gets “trapped”
cooking some of the vegetables in your salad. Applying temperature or heat to your vegetables can help break them down and make them easier to digest
considering your symptoms. If you experience extreme abdominal pain, irregular bowel habits (including chronic diarrhoea or constipation, or alternating diarrhoea and constipation) and a bloated stomach after eating salad it may indicate you are suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Please see an accredited practising dietitian who can make an assessment and diagnose IBS, help you identify your triggers and manage your symptoms
being mindful of your current health conditions or treatments. For example, if you are undergoing chemotherapy treatment, some drugs can slow down your digestion. This may mean some vegetables and other high-fibre foods in your salad upset your gut. Again, speaking with an accredited practising dietitian is the best way to receive evidence-based advice on how to manage this.
Lauren Ball receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and Queensland Health. She is a Director of Dietitians Australia.
Emily Burch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
What would happen if the world split in half? – Ronan, age 5, Melbourne
That’s a fantastic question, Ronan, and the very short version of the answer is: it would be the end of the world as we know it. All life on Earth would be brought to an end – so it would be a very bad day!
Luckily, events that can tear a planet in half are very, very rare. But, believe it or not, when our Solar System was young, things like that happened more often than you might think.
When we look out at the Solar System, astronomers are essentially playing at being detectives. We look at all the objects out there – planets and moons, asteroids and comets. By studying them, we gather clues that tell us all about what the Solar System was like when it was young.
Amazing infographic showing real pictures of many of the Solar System’s moons and dwarf planets – all clues for astronomers who want to understand the story of our planetary system. Wikimedia/Antonio Ciccolella, CC BY
Everywhere we look in the Solar System, we find evidence of what scientists call “giant collisions”. What does that mean? Well, it turns out that the final stages of planet formation were REALLY violent. There were lots of things that were planet-sized just floating around, and they kept smashing into each other.
When two things the size of planets smash into each other, the collision is really catastrophic – more than enough to tear a world into pieces. And that’s exactly what we think happened to the planet Mercury.
When Mercury formed, all the clues tell us it was probably about twice as big as it is today. But a long time ago, only a short time after Mercury formed, another Mercury-sized object smashed into it in a collision that almost totally destroyed Mercury.
Artist’s impression of a collision between two planets. NASA/JPL-Caltech
That collision stripped away a large amount of Mercury, leaving behind a metal core, with just a thin layer of rubble over the top of it. A planet torn apart by a collision, with the scars still visible to us, four billion (that’s 4,000,000,000) years later!
Earth also had a collision
The most famous example of a planet being torn apart is actually our own Earth. You see, astronomers think that when Earth formed, it was all on its own. But when we look at Earth today, it has a companion – the Moon. So where did the Moon come from?
Animation from NASA showing the phases of the Moon for the whole of 2022.
All the clues we’ve been able to gather tell a really dramatic story. Not long after Earth formed, all on its own, it ran into another planet. That planet, which astronomers have nicknamed “Theia”, was about the size of Mars, and bumped into us relatively gently (as collisions between planets go).
But a gentle collision between planets is still amazingly violent. The collision would have turned the entire Earth molten – killing any life that might have evolved at that point. It would have torn Earth apart, as well as destroying Theia.
The material torn off Theia and Earth would have sprayed out into the space around our planet. Earth’s gravity was so strong that it trapped most of debris, which gradually gathered together to form the Moon.
Computer simulation showing how the Moon could have formed.
So whenever you look up at the Moon in the sky, you can tell everyone it’s a reminder of a giant collision when Earth was young. Because, once upon a time, Earth really was torn apart by a crash with another planet!
Jonti Horner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show theft and burglary are among the most common offences committed by young people.
We wanted to find out from children why they committed burglary, which can exact a huge financial and emotional toll on victims.
Our study, recently published in the journal Youth Justice, involved interviews with children presenting at the Perth Children’s Court who reported they had burgled.
We interviewed 50 children between the ages of 11 and 17 years who told us why they stole, what they stole, and how they learned how to burgle.
We found children rarely planned or “staked” premises. They usually committed burglaries on the spur of the moment with friends, and generally to steal items they felt they needed – like food or drugs – out of boredom or while drunk or high.
Most young people chose a target that had “signs” of being an empty home (such as no cars in the driveway). This was commonly tested by a young person knocking on a door.
Other ways homes were picked was when they saw items they wanted through windows or in gardens that were “just sitting there” and, in their words, “just there for us to take”.
The time spent selecting a target was minimal, with many tending to favour places that could obviously be accessed easily via, for example, an open window or door.
Many said they favour places that could obviously be accessed easily. Shutterstock
More need than greed
Children’s reasoning for why they burgled was more out of need than greed.
One child said they stole because they were “poor” and “had nothing”.
Eight of the 50 children we spoke to said they only stole food, often looking for fresh food from the fridge to eat in the moment, and frozen or tinned items to take home to family.
When asked why they stole, one child said:
I had nothing to eat.
Another told us:
I got stuff from the freezer. I go for the food, but I didn’t take anything else.
Commonly stolen items included money, drugs, jewellery, food and mobile phones. Most young people reported keeping the items or gifting them to friends or family.
Those items not kept were often sold to drug dealers, with one child telling us they stole
just what was around: jewellery, money, anything really that we could sell to get drugs.
Some children burgled because they were looking for food. Shutterstock
Many children reported stealing to obtain drugs or money to buy drugs. One child targeted a certain place because
I knew they had dope in there.
Another said they stole because
I needed the fix.
In one case, a child was “employed” to steal from drug dealers’ homes known to have large qualities or drugs and money.
Others reported only burgling because they were intoxicated. As one child put it:
I was just drunk and being stupid.
Motivations for burglary
We sorted these young burglars into categories based on their motivation (using categories developed by previous criminology research).
The majority fell into the “opportunistic” category. These were characterised by the opportunity posed to the child, such as an open window in an affluent area or valuables in view. As one child put it:
It was just out of the blue.
Another told us:
We just walked into a house.
Another said:
I just saw toys and stole the toys. No, it wasn’t planned – just walked past and that’s it.
Another category – “searchers” – said that while they had intended to burgle, they had not picked a property and would instead roam the streets looking for a house. As one child put it:
We don’t plan it, we just knock on the people’s door and if they aren’t home we go in.
Although intention to burgle was present for children in this group, the element of planning was minimal. There was overlap with “opportunists”, as they targeted premises based on the ease of entry without being caught.
The background lives of these children were often chaotic. Most were not attending school regularly, if at all. Most had learned to burgle from family members. As one child put it:
[I’ve] been there and seen it; Dad used to take me along with him.
Most committed their burglaries in groups with friends (78%) or family members (10%).
This snapshot of young burglars calls for a better understanding of the reasons for “food-only” theft as a matter of urgency.
These findings could also be used to support measures such as Youth Drug Courts to address the underlying drug behaviours that contribute to criminal behaviours.
We need holistic interventions that address the economic and social disadvantages that drives children to burgle.
Access to quality health care is a fundamental human right. Yet more than half the world’s population can’t obtain even the most essential health care. Out-of-pocket costs drive hundreds of millions into extreme poverty
The solution the World Health Organization and many nations promote is to provide universal health coverage, like Australia’s Medicare system. Achieving that is one of the key targets of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Surprisingly, one of the challenges with increasing access to health care is the danger of getting too much of it. Too many unnecessary tests, treatments and diagnoses cause people harm and waste precious resources.
With a global team of more than 30 researchers, we’ve been assessing the situation in low- and middle-income countries. This included analysing more than 500 scientific articles reporting on studies involving close to 8 million participants or health care services, from more than 80 low- and middle-income countries.
Our world-first scoping reviews – published today in BMJ Global Health and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization – suggest the problems of too much medicine are already widespread in low- and middle-income countries. Here’s a snapshot of what we found.
Overdiagnosing thyroid cancer
Awareness has grown in recent years that many tiny thyroid tumours are wrongly diagnosed and treated as cancer, including in Australia. Based on the evidence we uncovered, this is affecting health systems everywhere.
Thyroid cancer overdiagnosis occurs when a person is diagnosed with a “harmless” cancer that either never grows or grows very slowly – and wouldn’t have caused any problem even if left untreated.
Overdiagnosis of thyroid tumours can cause psychological, financial, physical harms, including unnecessary removal of the thyroid and related complications.
One analysis included more than 5 million patients with thyroid cancers from more than 50 countries. It found very high rates of thyroid cancer in some low- and middle-income countries. However, death rates from thyroid cancer had remained unchanged in these countries, strongly suggesting much unnecessary diagnosis.
A recent study of more than 27,000 people in China estimated that three in four patients diagnosed with thyroid cancer might be overdiagnosed. That study also found huge variations in the estimate of overdiagnosis across regions in China.
Malaria overdiagnosis occurs when people who don’t carry malaria parasites are wrongly diagnosed, and given malaria treatment.
One study of more than 3,000 patients from 95 health centres in Sudan found a growing recognition of malaria overdiagnosis, and calculated that this wasted more than US$80 million in the year 2000.
Malaria is endemic in in many Asian and African countries. However, when malaria is wrongly diagnosed, serious non-malarial infections might be missed and drugs are wasted.
Wasteful imaging tests
In 2014 in Iran, a study found half of the requests for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for low back pain were inappropriate or unnecessary.
Another study from 2021 in Iran, estimated the cost of inappropriate use of brain imaging in just three teaching hospitals to be greater that US$100,000.
Unnecessary imaging tests diverts scarce resources and may lead to unnecessary treatments.
In Lebanon, a 2020 study found massive overuse of stomach drugs called proton pump inhibitors, with more than two in three people taking them unnecessarily. Approximately US$25 million was being wasted annually.
A large global study in 2020 examined antibiotic use among more than 65,000 children under five in eight low- and middle-income countries: Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. The researchers found antibiotics were prescribed to more than 80% of children diagnosed with respiratory illness and most of these prescriptions were deemed unnecessary.
Unnecessary use of antibiotics has potential harms including antibiotic resistance – when bacteria adapt and antibiotics become less effective. Antibacterial resistance is one of the leading causes of death around the world, with the highest burdens in countries and services with limited resources.
Disparities based on wealth
Our reviews found examples of too much medicine alongside underuse in low- and middle-income countries.
One large study of more than 70 low- and middle-income countries found huge inequality in rates of caesarean sections. While the poorest people had inadequate access to emergency caesarean sections, the richest could obtain them when they were not needed.
There is huge disparity in access to caesarean sections. Shutterstock
Time to tackle waste and harm
The World Health Organization notes that as the world moves towards universal health coverage, it’s a good time to tackle the waste and harm caused by overdiagnosis and overuse.
It’s also a problem we can work together to solve. As the WHO noted, “the 194 Ministries of health with whom WHO works all face this problem”.
Solutions are already being tested, though not often enough. One example is a large study in Ghana, which found introducing new rapid diagnostic tests could halve the rates of unnecessary treatment for Malaria.
However, without more action, too many people in low- and middle-income countries will find themselves lacking access to effective health services, coupled with overuse in some areas.
Building on the results of our reviews, we aim to help build a global alliance to reduce overdiagnosis and overuse of health services in low- and middle-income countries. This collaborative effort will seek to develop and evaluate potential solutions.
Loai Albarqouni receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
Ray Moynihan received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, and helped lead the Preventing Overdiagnosis initiative and conferences for several years.
Australia is in the midst of a spiralling energy crisis. Prices have risen rapidly and are forecast to increase by another 56% in the next two years.
The federal government is considering short-term solutions such as imposing a price cap on gas. But amid stiff global headwinds including the war on Ukraine, more must be done to protect vulnerable energy consumers – now and in the long term.
We all need energy to survive: to raise our families, do our jobs and stay healthy. So how do we make sure Australia’s energy market leaves no-one behind?
A key step is a policy overhaul so all households can access rooftop solar and other technology to slash energy bills.
All households need access to schemes that can slash their energy bills. Shutterstock
Why the system must change
Earlier this month, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) released a new consumer vulnerability strategy. It called for “game-changer” reforms to ensure energy markets are inclusive and equitable.
Launching the strategy, AER chair Clare Savage said about 2.7% of residential energy consumers have debt longer than 90 days. She said a quarter of those customers had a debt greater than $2,500, and added:
When your budget might allow a spare $5 or $10 a week, coming back from $2,500 worth of energy debt would be almost impossible – it would certainly feel insurmountable.
The AER strategy contains 15 actions. They include measures to tackle market complexity, remove barriers to participation, increase protections and improve energy affordability for all.
One suggested action involves extending financial support to vulnerable energy consumers via rebates. But as I outline below, such policy can be difficult to design – as Australia’s experience with rooftop solar shows.
Government rebates are key
About 30% of detached homes in Australia have rooftop solar systems installed. This could reach 65% by 2050.
In recent years, Australian governments have offered rebates to households that install rooftop solar. Studies have found households with the technology installed are far less likely to struggle to pay their energy bills.
But as my research shows, low-wealth households are less likely than average to have rooftop solar installed. And homeowners are almost five times more likely than renters to have rooftop solar.
Policies to rectify this have not always succeeded. For example, a Victorian scheme offering a $1,400 rebate to landlords who install solar panels on a rental property has had slow uptake.
Governments must ensure the continued surge in rooftop solar is equitable. The same goes for home batteries which support rooftop solar – a technology also set to expand in coming decades.
New approaches are needed. Here are three options for policy reform.
The pattern of Australia’s rooftop solar uptake offers lessons for policymakers. Shutterstock
1. Count assets, not income
Government energy rebates and other financial support are often means-tested. Eligibility tends to be based on income.
But research shows a household’s assets are much more important than income in determining which have solar panels. These assets might include shares, savings or physical goods that can be used to help cover the upfront cost of installing the technology.
Governments should target energy rebates to households where the value of the home or other financial assets, such as savings in bank accounts, is low.
2. Tailor financial assistance
Current energy rebate schemes often provide the same amount of money to all eligible households, regardless of household assets. This generic policy design is inequitable because many poorer households can’t afford even the reduced cost, so end up getting nothing.
Government energy rebates should be tailored so households receive different amounts, depending on the value of their assets.
This tailored approach is already taken by the broader welfare system, where a recipient’s assets are part of the criteria used to determine what payments they receive.
Means testing for energy rebates should be asset-based. Dan Himbrechts/AAP
3. Combine and conquer
Let’s say a government offers two types of rebates: one for electric vehicles and one for rooftop solar.
Usually, households must financially contribute as well, perhaps through a co-payment or by taking on a loan. However, a poorer household may not be in a position to make even that subsidised contribution.
Or perhaps a household lives in a rental property, and so can’t take advantage of a rooftop solar subsidy.
But what if two subsidies could be combined to form one larger subsidy? That might enable a household to adopt at least one of the technologies.
Governments could allow incentives for other technologies to also be pooled, such as those for household appliances or home batteries.
Thinking big
The problems of energy inequity extend beyond eye-watering gas and electricity bills. Energy poverty can increase physical and mental health risks and contribute to social isolation, among other harms.
As climate change worsens, extreme weather will only exacerbate the energy equity crisis.
Financial disaster brought on by illness or other challenges can strike us at any time. Many people now struggling to pay their power bills may never have thought they’d experience such hardship.
Improving energy equity is challenging. But it’s time to tackle it head on – and think big.
Rohan Best does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When Australia’s borders slammed shut during COVID, international students were among those who were stranded. This disrupted lives and studies, and put a major revenue stream for Australian universities in doubt.
The latest data shows international students are returning to Australia. Since international borders reopened in December 2021, the number of overseas students in Australia has risen by more than 120,000.
Applications for student visas – an indicator of future student numbers – are also at record levels.
But this growth is not shared equally around the university sector. It is the larger, more prestigious universities that are likely to benefit the most from students coming back.
Last week’s 2022-23 budget included Labor’s election policies to increase university places by 20,000 and provide 180,000 fee-free TAFE spots.
But away from the budget headlines, we need to look at Australia’s international education policy (which determines where international students study and what they pay). This will have the biggest impact on funding for universities and TAFEs.
When Australia began to close its international borders in January 2020, many international students were in their home countries during the semester break. Because of this, thousands were left stranded outside Australia.
Despite repeated attempts by universities and governments to bring them back, current and new international students were largely unable to enter the country. By December 2021, the number of international students in Australia had more than halved to about 250,000.
The lifting of travel restrictions and quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated non-citizens in mid-December 2021 halted the decline.
By October 2022, international student numbers in Australia had grown back to about 370,000. There are still more than 72,000 international student visa holders outside Australia. About half these are Chinese international students, who are still subject to travel restrictions in their home country.
Visa numbers are a good sign
It will take some time for international student enrolments to return to pre-pandemic levels.
This is because the pandemic disrupted the pipeline of students. Students typically study for two to four years. Without new students to replace those finishing their courses, international student numbers fell.
This also means the losses experienced during the pandemic will be felt for several years. But there are encouraging signs.
One way to measure future demand of international students is through the number of student visas granted. Student visas are a leading indicator because students require a visa before they can enrol.
Student visas granted for July and August 2022 are the highest they have been compared to previous years.
Visas for students from China and India, two of Australia’s biggest markets, have returned almost to previous levels. Applications from other countries are growing, too.
Part of this may be due to policies that make Australia a more desirable study destination. Australia, like the United Kingdom, has increased access to post-study work rights. This means students in some courses can stay for longer in Australia after they have finished their course.
International students are a vital resource for Australia’s higher education sector. No university could function as they currently do without the revenue from international student fees.
But this resource is concentrated in certain institutions. And it is the larger and more prestigious universities that benefit the most.
The most prestigious (the so-called “Group of Eight” universities) account for more than half of the revenue universities receive from international students.
This is because these universities, which include the universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland, can charge more due to their prestige, higher rankings, greater resources and favourable location.
For a business degree – the most common course for international students – Group of Eight universities charge around $50,000 annually. This more than double what some other universities charge for the same course. For the same local student, universities receive $15,600.
The revenue international students bring is enormous. For example, in the recent budget, the Albanese government announced $485 million over four years for 20,000 extra places for local students. In the four years before the pandemic, universities increased their international student revenue by $4.6 billion. Group of Eight universities accounted for half this increase.
Increasing gaps between universities
The disparity risks encouraging a form of what researchers call “residualisation”.
This occurs when students from more economically and educationally advantaged backgrounds are able to enrol in more prestigious, well-resourced universities.
Revenue from high-paying international students is used to subsidise other activities across these universities, such as research. The extra revenue enables greater investment in infrastructure, which also increases a university’s attractiveness as a study destination for local and international students.
The smaller universities, which often cater for more disadvantaged cohorts, miss out. Lower enrolments and less resources also mean these smaller universities face additional challenges such as limited subject offerings and less student support services.
It is a similar problem in the vocational sector, where only 5% of international students study at TAFE colleges. This means TAFEs don’t receive much needed revenue.
What happens now?
The reasons for the lopsided benefits are complex. International education policy is intertwined with migration policy – all international students are temporary migrants. Access to the labour market and the relative status of certain institutions all play a role in driving student choice.
But the value of international students to Australia’s education sector and the resources they bring are vital.
Finding ways to ensure the benefits are spread more evenly would go a long way to making the sector more equitable.
Human rights campaigner Filep Karma, the most famous West Papuan former political prisoner, was found dead early today on a beach in the Melanesian region’s capital Jayapura.
His death has shocked Papuans and the grassroots activist communities in Indonesia and around the Pacific.
“It is true that a body was found by a resident on the beach at Bse G, suspected to be Filep Karma, but to be sure, the police are still waiting for confirmation from his family,” North Jayapura police chief Police Adjunct Commissioner Yahya Rumra told Antara News.
The head of the Papuan Human Rights Commission, Frist Ramandey, confirmed Karma’s body had been found on the beach, reports CNN Indonesia.
However, he said his group was still investigating the circumstances of Karma’s death.
“He was a father figure for West Papuans and respected by many Indonesian people. He was gentle, loving, courageous, and full of wisdom,” said human rights lawyer Veronica Koman in a tweet.
“Grassroots are shaken.”
‘I’m crushed beyond words’ In a later tweet, she added: “We first met when I visited him in prison. We would spend days and days together when he visited Jakarta or I visited Jayapura.
“He laid the foundation of how I, as an Indonesian, view West Papua. He called me ‘child’ and I called him ‘father’.
“I’m crushed beyond words.”
The Indonesian police investigation site at the Jayapura beach where Filep Karma’s body was found today. Image: Tabloid Jubi
Filep Karma, 67, led the raising of the Morning Star flag of independence — banned by Indonesian authorities — in Biak in 1998 and was eventually imprisoned.
He was released two years later.
In 2004, he again carried out a similar act and was accused of “treason”.
On that occasion he was jailed for 15 years but released in 2015.
Filep Karma, the most famous West Papuan ex political prisoner, was found dead on a beach in Jayapura this morning.
He was a father figure for West Papuans and respected by many Indonesian people. He was gentle, loving, courageous, and full of wisdom.
“Sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for the act of simply raising a flag . . . his release on 19 November 2015 was widely celebrated among Papuan civil society.”
The son of a prominent local politician, originally from Biak island, Karma studied political science in Java before working as a civil servant in Papua.
Indonesian police investigators at the beach scene in Jayapura where the body of Filep Karma was recovered today. Video: Jack Caryota
Watch how fully armed paramilitary police officers approached this unarmed brave West Papuan man carrying the banned Morning Star flag. “Respect us! This is our father!” referring to the passing of Leader Filep Karma.
