A Vanuatu Mobile Force’s officer who risked his life wading through chest-high water carrying ballot boxes, is calling on the new government to fund new bridges and roads for residents of central Santo.
Private Samuel Bani is part of the Vanuatu Mobile Force (VMF), a group of volunteers in Vanuatu’s military who support the Vanuatu Police.
He was one of hundreds making sure the 2022 election was possible by delivering ballot boxes to remote areas.
Some were sent by helicopter, others by truck and in some cases the journey was made by foot.
“The journey was so slippery — the road was flooded, there was no bridge, so we had to cross the river by foot. At some points the river reached my chest. It’s so dangerous while it’s raining,” Bani said.
“The journey was so tough, the current is so strong. We nearly lost the ballot boxes because the tide was so strong, it’s so dangerous,” he said.
Bani, an official based in Luganville, said his team risked their lives crossing the Jordan River to deliver boxes so people in remote villages could exercise their right to vote.
The team of three picked the boxes up in Sanma Province.
“We had to run four hours to reach the place, then we slept one night in a village then we walked seven to nine hours up the hill to reach Vunamele,” Bani said.
“These people have their rights, we just get the boxes up so they have their rights,” he said.
‘We put our life on the line’ With the swearing-in of the new government of Vanuatu looming this Friday, Private Bani is calling on leaders to learn from his experience and strengthen infrastructure in rural areas.
“We put our life on the line,” he said.
He wants elected representatives to make the journey he did to understand the hardship people go through just to have access to basic necessities like health care.
“There’s pregnant women walking down and when someone is dead they have to get the coffin back down,” Bani said.
Issues with infrastructure in parts of Santo is an ongoing issue, RNZ Pacific correspondent Hilaire Bule said.
People have died crossing the Jordan River, he added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The 1982 campaign to stop the building of Tasmania’s Franklin River dam was a defining moment in the history of Australia’s social movements. Those events are now being recounted in the documentary Franklin, screening throughout the country.
Franklin tells how thousands of activists stood up in front of police and bulldozers and, through a persistent yet peaceful opposition, eventually forced the Tasmanian government to abandon the project. It was one of Australia’s most famous campaigns of civil disobedience.
Sadly, the story contrasts starkly with current political discourse. Environmental activists in Australia today are often depicted as public enemy number one. In the past few years, a swathe of anti-protest legislation has been enacted at both state and federal levels, imposing extremely tough sentences on those falling foul of the law.
A citizen trying to emulate the Franklin dam protesters today would likely pay a very high price. This silencing of dissent means an important tool for environmental advocacy is closed – and both nature and democracy will suffer.
Protesters in southwest Tasmania in 1982, opposing the proposed Franklin River dam. A citizen trying to emulate them today would pay a high price. National Archives of Australia
Silencing peaceful protest
Politicians insist anti-protest laws protect the community from disruptive behaviour. Human rights organisations, on the other hand, denounce the laws as systemic repression which threatens the right to protest.
The former Coalition federal government was consistent in its anti-protest stance. It frequently sought to portray environmental and animal-welfare activists as dangerous extremists.
For example, a peaceful animal welfare protest in Melbourne in 2019 which disrupted traffic drew the ire of then prime minister Scott Morrison. He described the activists as “green-collared criminals” and said “the full force of the law” should be used against them.
Two months ago, the Tasmanian government increased penalties for protesters who, much like the old Franklin activists, obstruct “business activities” such as mining and logging.
First-time offenders face a fine up to $9,050 and up to 18 months in prison. For second offences, the fine is $13,575 and two years in prison.
Earlier this year, the NSW government passed a bill introducing the new offence of disrupting major public facilities. It means citizens who, for example, organise a peaceful protest in front of a train station, face up to two years in prison.
Also in NSW, one non-violent activist was recently remanded for two weeks in a maximum-security prison, and others have been subjected to harsh curfew conditions despite posing no threat to the community.
And NSW Police this year re-established a special Strike Force Guard that seeks to prevent, investigate and disrupt unauthorised protests.
NSW’s harsh approach prompted Amnesty International to launch a petition urging the state government to respect citizens’ right to protest.
Police arrested environmental protesters earlier this month for blocking a Melbourne intersection. Diego Fedele/AAP
Is ‘direct action’ dying?
Demonstrations and other public forms of protest are a type of civil disobedience known as “direct action”.
As part of a current research project, we interviewed Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) activists, and representatives from Vegan Rising and Animal Liberation. The interviews reveal that some activists are abandoning direct action in light of the new anti-protest laws.
For example, Animal Liberation has shifted to lobbying and education to enact change. As one person from the organisation told us:
In the past, when the laws were very different, (we) would do more direct action, such as sit-ins. But now we’ve moved away from that, because it’s illegal. As an organisation, it wouldn’t help to have us shut down because of an illegal action like that.
Likewise, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson recently left the organisation following its decision to abandon direct action as a protest strategy.
But the tougher laws have not deterred other protesters. Animal activist Tash Peterson told us:
Disruptive activism and civil disobedience are essential to create social change and bring to light the atrocities animals are subjected to […] Until recently, I was rarely charged for my protesting, but now things are changing and I am getting arrested for disorderly conduct and trespass.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown played a key role in the 1982 Franklin campaign. More recently, he says his organisation, the Bob Brown Foundation, will continue to “peacefully defend” Tasmania’s native forests, waterways and wildlife, adding:
The real villains here are those who want to jail fellow citizens for defending public forests and wildlife.
Bob Brown, left, says his foundation will continue to peacefully defend the environment. Bob Brown Foundation
Peaceful protest is a basic right
As the Franklin documentary shows, protesters were willing to spend a few days in prison as the price of their campaign’s success. But the price paid by protesters today is so much higher.
At a federal level, the new Labor government has an opportunity to shift the tone of the national conversation and support the right of citizens to engage in peaceful protest.
Such an approach is consistent with the party’s values. Ahead of the May election, Labor told Human Rights Watch that:
Promoting universal human rights is an essential policy objective for Labor. [It is] vital to ensuring a peaceful world where all people have the right to live with dignity, freedom, safety, security and prosperity.
Franklin celebrates the role of non-violent direct action as a tool for social change. It tells of a people exercising their rights and coming together to fight for environmental justice. Let’s hope those kinds of stories are not consigned to history.
Human Rights Watch will hold a special screening of Franklin in Melbourne on November 2.
I have previously researched Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) a direct action animal activist group and attended a few of their protests. I am also a former member of the Animal Justice Party and Animals Australia.
Piero Moraro 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 vast majority of animals on Earth are invertebrates (animals without backbones) – such as insects, arachnids and crustaceans.
These amazing animals are absolutely crucial to our ecosystems: they are pollinators, pest controllers, soil creators and waste managers. Invertebrates also serve as food for countless other animals. Despite all their hard work, many of these creatures are often described as “creepy crawlies”.
Their alien-looking bodies might seem like the stuff of nightmares, but the vast majority of invertebrate species are harmless to humans. In fact, the scariest thing about invertebrates is the rate at which they are quietly disappearing from our planet.
Here are seven fascinating creepy crawlies you don’t need to be afraid of.
Social huntsman spiders (Delena cancerides)
Native to Australia, social huntsman spiders live in large family groups beneath the loose bark of dead or dying trees.
Sound like nightmare fuel? Don’t worry, social huntsman spiders are gentle giants who rarely bite humans (and cause minimal harm when they do).
Unlike most spider species, social huntsmans live together in groups containing a large adult female and up to 300 of her offspring. Spiders will aggressively defend their nest against outsiders, suggesting they have ways of recognising nestmates from non-nestmates.
At night, individual huntsmans leave the communal nest to hunt their insect prey. Although they are solitary hunters, spiders that come across the same insect will share food rather than fight with one another. In fact, spiderlings would rather starve to death than cannibalise a fellow spider. By consuming large numbers of bugs, social huntsmans help to keep insect populations under control.
This gentle giant is the world’s heaviest species of cockroach, tipping the scales at 30-35 grams. Unlike its infamous relatives, the giant burrowing cockroach is not a pest and prefers to spend most of its time in underground burrows. Giant burrowing cockroaches feed on dry eucalyptus leaves, which they collect and drag into their burrows.
By moving and mixing the soil, giant burrowing cockroaches help keep soils healthy. They are excellent mothers who feed and care for their young for up to nine months after birth. The giant burrowing cockroach is also surprisingly long-lived, with a lifespan of up to 10 years.
Baphomet moth (Creatonotos gangis)
With weirdly pulsating tentacles, the Baphomet moth looks like an alien nightmare – but these moths are simply looking for love. When male Baphomet moths sense the presence of a female, they inflate enormous, tentacle-like organs called “coremata”, which produce an irresistible female-attracting chemical bouquet.
While it’s not the only moth species with coremata, Baphomet moths take theirs to ridiculous lengths, with “tentacles” sometimes exceeding the length of their abdomens.
The Baphomet moth doesn’t always have creepy tentacles. Bhupinder Bagga/Shutterstock
As caterpillars, male Baphomet moths get the ingredients they need to make their female-attracting scents by eating plant leaves that contain chemicals called pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Plants produce these alkaloids to deter plant-munching animals, but Baphomet moths have evolved a way to convert these chemicals into their own attractive scents.
Black soldier fly maggots (Hermetia illucens)
A big, writhing mass of maggots might not sound like one of nature’s marvels, but the larvae of the black solder fly are recycling superheroes that may one day help humanity cut down on food waste. Roiling masses of soldier fly maggots can rapidly devour food through a process physicists colourfully described as a “maggot fountain”.
The incredible speed at which maggots demolish food waste has captured the attention of scientists who hope to use soldier fly maggots to convert waste products such as animal faeces and food waste into maggot-based proteins that can be fed to livestock or humans. Yum!
Tailless whip scorpion (Amblypygi)
Despite their name, tailless whip scorpions are not scorpions, but instead belong to an unusual group of arachnids called amblypygids. Despite their fearsome appearance, amblypygids lack venom and are timid animals that rarely bite unless threatened.
These shy animals prefer to stay hidden in humid habitats such as in leaf litter, inside caves or under bark.
Amblypygids have elongated front legs that act as feelers and help the arachnid locate its insect prey. Once prey is detected, amblypygids use their sharp pedipalps to impale their victim.
Some of these arachnids display complex social behaviours, with mothers staying near and caring for their young for up to a year.
The giant elephant mosquito (Toxorhynchites speciosus)
Few things in life are as horrifying as the high-pitched squeal of a mosquito in the dark. Now imagine an enormous mosquito five times the size of your average mozzie. Measuring in at a shocking 8mm in length, the Australian elephant mosquito is the world’s largest mosquito species.
Most female mosquitoes need a meal of blood to provide nutrients for their developing eggs. Female elephant mosquitoes collect much-needed nutrients by feeding voraciously on other aquatic insects when they are larvae. And it gets better, because the favourite food of larval elephant mosquitoes is … other mosquito larvae!
Common scorpion fly (Panorpa)
Scorpionflies look like a bizarre mashup between a fly and a scorpion. Combine their sinister appearance with a somewhat ghoulish habit of feeding on fresh human corpses, and you have the makings of an excellent horror movie.
Luckily, scorpionflies are not, as their name suggests, flying scorpions, nor are they capable of harming a human. In fact, scorpionfly “stingers” are actually enlarged male genitalia!
The male scorpionfly has claspers at the end of its tail that look like a scorpion’s tail. CHEN HSI FU/Shutterstock
During courtship, male scorpionflies attempt to woo females by offering them either a dead insect or a blob of saliva. Scorpion flies are mostly scavengers and are frequently seen stealing prey from spider webs.
They are among the first insects to turn up on newly deceased corpses, making them important for establishing time of death.
Tanya Latty receives funding from The Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with Invertebrates Australia (conservation organisation), the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour and the Australian Entomological Society
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
Rick Rycroft/AAP
This is an edited extract from Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia by Frank Bongiorno, La Trobe University Press, 2022.
The term “democracy sausage” first appeared in Australia in 2012. It literally referred to the practice of voluntary organisations running fundraising barbecues at polling booths during Australian elections. Symbolically, though, the term expressed the spirit in which Australian elections are held, perhaps even saying something broader about the political culture.
Australians, it seemed to suggest, do not take their politics so seriously that they cannot have a laugh. Contention and disagreement are necessary ingredients of democracy, but a smoking barbecue and a cake stall speak to a deeper sense of community, a more meaningful civic belonging than can be expressed by the political system itself.
There is, of course, a sleight of hand in the rise of the democracy sausage, which occurred during the very same time political trust plunged to very low levels. A peaceful election day came about through historical development. Early elections were often far from gentle occasions. It is the bureaucratic administration of elections that permits organisations to go about the business of fundraising on election day.
In recent years, we have seen intense debate about corruption, bullying and misogyny that hints at a darker side to the country’s politics. The Machiavellian behaviour of factional operatives and branch-stackers is sometimes the squalid backdrop to a pristine election day overseen by smiling and helpful officials and peopled by cheery volunteers handing out how-to-vote cards for the candidates.
Sexual harassment and assault have received unprecedented attention as a major problem in that citadel of the country’s democracy, Canberra’s Parliament House. For many of the women who sought to practise politics within its walls, it was neither a safe nor a peaceful endeavour.
Australians have been creative in their politics, often drawing on forms and practices from elsewhere but also developing a distinctive culture of their own. What was distinctive about it?
In 1930, the historian W.K. Hancock famously presented Australian democracy as having “come to look upon the State as a vast public utility, whose duty it is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. The citizen, Hancock explained, claimed not “natural rights” but rights received “from the State and through the State”. Collective power was in the service of individual rights, so that Australians saw “no opposition between […] individualism and […] reliance upon Government”.
These strains were evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, reminding us of their deep embeddedness. Many Australians longed for greater freedom; most were also willing to agree there is individual responsibility for the collective welfare. There was a broad acceptance, stronger among some than others, that government should play the predominant role in defining where the boundaries between individual rights and the common good lie.
Australians have developed their own distinctive – and peaceful – polling day. Historically, this was not always the case. Mark Baker/AP/AAP
Outside extreme libertarianism, a minority taste in Australia, there tends to be only mild political disagreement. Otherwise, most people get on with their lives, expecting the state to set reasonable parameters for individual behaviour while allowing people a wide scope to pursue their private interests as individuals and families. As Hancock said, “collective power at the service of ‘individualistic’ rights”.
Yet is this sufficient? Australian political history has had its dreamers and visionaries alongside the pragmatists and schemers.
Big change of the kind that occurred in Australia in the 1850s, 1890s, 1940s and 1980s would have been impossible without the idealists and thinkers: that is, without political leaders, activists, intellectuals and movements who refused to be merely “practical”. Change depended on people willing to resist complacent utilitarian appeals to majority interests and consensus opinion, on refusing to accept injunctions merely to tinker rather than transform. In the end, it depended on a vision, however modest, of the good life.
It remains too easy in a political culture based on the vague notion that everyone should be treated “equally”, and that nurtures a value as contested as “fairness”, to marginalise those who have historically been left out or left behind.
Their claims are sometimes dismissed as “special treatment”, their needs as no more compelling or urgent than the better-off – “battlers”, “aspirationals”, “working families” – whom politicians flatter as the most deserving of their constituents.
Meanwhile, a political culture that lays so much stress on the practical and material can shun the creativity and imagination invariably required to master the complexities of intractable problems.
There are, in our own times, plenty of these. On issues as diverse as constitutional recognition for First Nations people, the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and management of the rise of China, Australia’s political system has often appeared stodgy and ineffective.
New forms of online politics have evolved, yet political parties with rapidly declining membership bases, whose practices persistently fail to conform to reasonable democratic norms, still play the central role in the system. An adversarial parliament too closely resembles an arena for a sporting contest, with citizens as spectators rather than players, if indeed they engage at all.
As Australians faced a federal election that Scott Morrison called for May 21 2022, it was hard to discern among the major parties a political vision that might engage the imaginations and ideals of masses of people. The aspirations that attached to democratic self-government in the 19th century, to the social laboratories of the federation era, to postwar reconstruction in the 1940s, and to progressive reform in the late 20th century were now apparently beyond either the consciousness or memory of many Australians.
The 2022 election, however, produced a result that was potentially transformative for the nation’s politics. A government that had served three terms without establishing much that could be called a legacy trailed in the polls. Morrison’s personal standing, revived in the early months of the pandemic, now collapsed, the marketing man’s habit of denying responsibility for failure while owning every success having eroded respect for his leadership.
The success of the ‘teal’ independents, who snatched several previously safe Liberal seats, was one of the big stories of the 2022 federal election. Mick Tsikas/AAP
While the parties tussled in their usual way, a political revolution was brewing in parts of the country that usually received little attention in elections. In electorates normally regarded as safe for the Liberals – predominantly in the leafy, affluent suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, but also in a few regional areas – independent candidates came forward. Most were women already successful in business or the professions. They were known as the “voices of” movement, “community independents” or “teals”.
They received a bitter opposition from the Liberal Party and its friends in the Murdoch media, who saw in this unwelcome outbreak of grassroots politics a clear and present danger to good government and stable democracy. The teals, they said, were really fake independents advancing the Labor cause. Coalition partisans made it plain they felt their own enterprise was being deprived of property that was rightly its own.
While often insulting their values and lifestyles as those of the fashionable inner-city elite, the Coalition did little to draw women into its ranks, protect the planet or promote clean politics. Two of the eventual teal victors – Allegra Spender in Wentworth, Sydney, and Kate Chaney in Curtin, Perth – belonged to multi-generational Liberal parliamentary dynasties.
Each teal, moreover, received financial and strategic support from Climate 200, a political action committee on the US model founded and led by businessman and clean-energy advocate Simon Holmes à Court. Predictably, right-wing commentators depicted Holmes à Court as a puppeteer, which only confirmed the prevailing impression among women of the way that conservative male politicians and their media mouthpieces demeaned them.
The 2022 election disclosed the resilience and adaptability of the country’s distinctive democracy. Independent candidates had successfully challenged well-resourced party machines and had raised the profile of issues that mattered to voters but which had been handled badly by the major parties, especially by the incumbent government.
There was an increase in the number of women elected, of Indigenous parliamentarians and of members from non-English-speaking backgrounds; the parliament would at last begin to reflect the notable diversity of the country. Chinese-Australians acted on their disaffection with the increasingly aggressive posturing towards China among senior Coalition politicians.
Millions of voters ignored the urgings of News Corp to shun Labor, the Greens and the teal independents, and they seemed to pay little attention to right-leaning media that often appeared more interested in testing the memory of the Labor Party leader than in impartially assessing the offerings of parties and candidates, or in holding a three-term government to account for its record.
Rather, the result arguably saw the most drastic electoral shift to the left since the elections of 1969 and 1972 that had brought Gough Whitlam to power. Dreamers imagined that a new era of political creativity might be just around the corner, even as the schemers manoeuvred in their familiar patterns. While the challenges faced by the new government were formidable, for a moment it seemed possible that the nation’s imaginative energies might not yet be completely exhausted.
Frank Bongiorno does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Not all Australians with cancer are getting the fertility care they need.
In 2022, it is predicted more than 8,200 Australians under 40 – in their reproductive years – will be diagnosed with cancer. This is more than double the rate in the 1980s.
The good news is more men, women and children than ever are surviving cancer. This is due to earlier diagnosis and more successful cancer treatments. Now over 85% of patients under 40 will still be alive five years after their cancer diagnosis.
However, many of them might not be aware of the potential decrease in fertility after cancer treatments, and their options for protecting their future ability to have children. Some estimates suggest only half of people with cancer have a documented fertility preservation discussion.
How cancer treatment can affect fertility
Both cancer and its treatments can reduce fertility for all genders.
Chemotherapy, radiation and surgery may permanently reduce the number of egg and sperm cells, which may lead to difficulty conceiving in the future.
The store of eggs is laid down before birth, and to date there is no good evidence eggs can be replenished. Chemotherapy – chemical drug treatments that attack cancer cells – may also harm the delicate egg and sperm cells and reduce their numbers.
Likewise, radiotherapy – directed radiation energy at cancer cells – may scatter and cause scarring of the ovaries and testicular tissue.
Sometimes, with high-dose chemotherapy or radiotherapy, all the eggs, sperm cells and supporting tissues may be destroyed. Direct surgery to reproductive organs may lead to reduced fertility.
Often, it is not known what the full effect of cancer treatment will be on fertility, and the effect may be different for each individual.
Oncofertility is a relatively recently established medical field that provides options for fertility preservation. Addressing quality of life from a biological, psychological and social perspective acknowledges the potential distress that reduced fertility might cause cancer survivors.
Advances in assisted reproductive technology, such as vitrification (fast freezing), means we can preserve eggs, embryos, ovarian tissue, sperm and testicular tissue for future use. This is known as medical fertility preservation.
Fertility preservation may be someone’s best chance for biological children in the future. Oncofertility considers an individual’s future goals for family and parenthood, alongside cancer treatments.
It is based on advice from Australian experts including medical specialists, scientific researchers, psychologists, health managers and nurses, public consultation and feedback.
The COSA guidelines discuss fertility treatment options, referral pathways and psychological support. They also cover contraception during cancer treatment (to avoid disruption to the treatment regimen), interrupting hormone treatment to conceive, assisted reproduction, and the risk of cancer recurrence. This guideline aims to support conception and pregnancy in cancer survivors.
In our paper published today in the Medical Journal of Australia we update medical practitioners on the latest in oncofertility knowledge:
that pregnancy rates after freezing eggs are similar to those after freezing embryos, with live birth rates of 46% and 54% respectively in one study
ovarian tissue freezing and grafting for females is no longer considered “experimental”, however special oversight for pre-pubertal girls under the age of 13 years is recommended. This is because clinical experience of patients who were 20 years of age or younger at the time of fertility preservation remains limited
testicular tissue freezing in pre-pubertal boys is currently considered “experimental” as there are no mature sperm cells. Clinical ethical oversight is required while new methods are trialled to use these early cells for fertility.
Health professionals can support newly diagnosed patients through their oncofertility journey.
Timing is important
Once a diagnosis of cancer is made, discussion and decisions around fertility can be urgent and time-critical.
This is to allow time for referral to an oncofertility unit, appropriate counselling and informed decision-making to occur.
It takes time to plan and perform fertility preservation (for example, eggs may take around 14 days to grow and collect for freezing) so promptness is important to prevent delays in cancer treatment.
Not everyone of child-producing age who is diagnosed with cancer is referred to oncofertility health services promptly, if at all. This can lead to feelings of conflict and regret.
The Fertility after Cancer videos – available in multiple languages, reviewed by cancer patients and support groups, age-appropriate for children, adolescents, adults, and their families — discuss fertility preservation options, risks, benefits and alternatives.
Our goal is that all Australians with cancer have access to information, and support, regarding the impact of cancer treatments on their future fertility.
A quick guide to oncofertility choices.
Violet Kieu is a Fertility Specialist at The Royal Women’s Hospital and Melbourne IVF. To attend scientific conferences, she has received support from Merck, Gedeon Richter, and honorarium from Organon. In conjunction with the Western and Central Melbourne Integrated Cancer Service, Violet co-created the www.fertilityaftercancer.org patient education videos.
Kate Stern is a fertility specialist and head of the Fertility Preservation Service (FPS) at the Royal Women’s Hospital and Melbourne IVF. These organisations both provide fertility preservation treatment for cancer patients. Kate is a board member of Fertility Matters, a not-for-profit organisation which develops fertility education tools for schools. The FPS has previously received non-directed grants for research from Merck-Serono and MSD. Kate is also a member of the Future Fertility Registry group which has developed a national and international database for fertility preservation patients. Previously this registry has received administrative support from Merck-Serono. Kate established the NOTTCS tissue transport program for young cancer patients and this receives support from Sony Foundation.
In an emergency, where do you turn to find out what’s going on and what you should do to stay safe?
Traditionally, government agencies have been the “go-to” sources of information in events such as floods and bushfires, as well as health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the rise of social media has seen community groups, volunteers and non-government organisations nudging out official channels. While these informal sources often provide faster, more local information, they may also be less reliable than government sources.
So what should you do in an emergency? Here are some tips for how to prepare – and how to decide who to trust when the need arises.
Information overload
The number of sources of information we can access is growing all the time. This leads to higher information load and lower quality of shared information.
With so many sources of information there is also the possibility of contradictory social media messaging by government and other actors, as we have seen during COVID-19. For emergency planners, this increases complexity and can lead to unpredictable behaviours by citizens who may not be responding to relevant advice or even accurate warnings.
For their part, citizens are demanding more and more information that matches their needs. Citizens clearly find value from local information sources.
Many people are switching off from official warnings because they find them hard to understand, or may feel there are too many of them. It may be that they have seen too many situations where the warnings do not affect them – “the boy who cried wolf”. The bottom line is people want answers to immediate questions such as “How does this affect me right now?”
Eroding control
On the flip side, government agencies also find social media hard to manage. In an emergency, they may not have the resources to keep up with the influx of comments and posts.
These shifts have raised concerns that greater use of social media erodes the established command-and-control information approach that has traditionally been vital to ensuring consistency in emergencies.
The information space is likely to become even more cluttered as extreme weather events become more frequent and begin to overlap.
What can citizens do?
Compounded by misinformation, fake news, disinformation and the plethora of social media and other media, it is no wonder that citizens may be confused and retreating to local or other “go to” social media sources.
It is not a matter of government information versus other sources of information. Often official advice is the starting point for outlining what is going on and encouraging local dialogue. This creates the opportunity for the local community to crowdsource information and offer further insights from locals on the ground.
The first step to being information-ready is to be mindful that there is a whole ecosystem of information sources and channels.
Your basic, trusted source of information should still be government agencies. Trusted local sources can then amplify that information or add context. Likewise, individuals may provide reports from the ground, share their experiences and contribute to how a community makes sense of what’s happening.
Don’t believe everything you read
While community social media sources can be excellent sources of local information, you shouldn’t accept everything you see there at face value.
Local Facebook and WhatsApp groups, for example, can have very fluid membership and their own biases – meaning the quality of information they provide may vary. What’s more, the most visible and engaging posts on social media are often the most controversial ones, not necessarily the most accurate ones.
As well as biases and limited reliability, social media are also vulnerable to organised attempts at disinformation. During Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires, for example, the hashtag #arsonemergency pushed the narrative that arsonists (rather than climate change) were the main cause of the fires.
This highlights the need to crosscheck information obtained from social media.
Emergencies are emotional and volatile events, so you should make yourself familiar with government social media and warning channels before events like bushfires or floods occur. If you know in advance where to go and what sources to trust, it will take some stress out of the situation.
Most platforms are trying to counter misinformation. Keep an eye out for tags on content that is harmfully misleading, or indicating official trusted sources.
Debunking popular misinformation is another common tactic, and fact-checkers operating at a local level could reassure the public. So-called “prebunking” – pre-emptive debunking before misinformation has spread – is also effective at reducing susceptibility to misinformation at scale.
Like all approaches, these have their drawbacks. People have to actively choose to engage with them. And, perhaps more significantly, in the volatile situation of an emergency people often simply revert to familiar sources of information.
Stan Karanasios received funding for the research reported here from the National Disaster Resilience Grant Scheme, Emergency Management Victoria (2017-2019).
Stan Karanasios is a member of the Association for Information Systems.
Peter Hayes has previously received funding from: Bushfire CRC; Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC; and Emergency Management Victoria’s (EMV) Natural Disaster Resilience Grant Scheme.
He has undertaken funded project work for AFAC (Australian and New Zealand National Council for Fire and Emergency Services) and NAFC (National Aerial Firefighting Centre).
Among the many questions asked about Russia’s disastrous war against Ukraine, one of them is posed only very rarely: can Russia survive what seems increasingly likely to be a humiliating defeat at the hands of its smaller neighbour?
On the face of it, the prospect seems almost absurd. Vladimir Putin may have been weakened by a trio of crucial miscalculations – about Russian military strength, Ukrainian resolve, and Western unity – but there’s no evidence yet that he’s on the verge of losing his grip on power, much less the Russian state imploding.
There have been few significant demonstrations on the streets to protest against the war, against Putin’s leadership, or even against the mobilisation of conscripts. Those with the wherewithal to leave Russia for fear of getting drafted have already fled. And while there are likely to be significant economic shocks as Western sanctions begin to bite, some creative fiscal management by Moscow has dampened their impact so far.
Indeed, by rattling the nuclear sabre ever louder amid blatant false flags about Ukrainian “dirty bombs”, the image Putin seeks to project is one of strength, not fragility.
Cognitive biases among Western commentators can also play a role when making judgements about authoritarian states like Russia, leading us to see weakness when in fact it is absent. After all, nobody seriously thought the United States would disintegrate after its ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan for that matter.
But there are three good reasons why we should not discount the possibility that defeat in Ukraine might make the Kremlin’s edifice crumble, leaving Russia difficult to govern in its entirety, or at least its present form.
1. It has happened before
First and most obvious – it has happened before. And in an historical sense, it has happened relatively recently, with the collapse of the USSR in 1991 rightly considered a seismic event in world politics.
In fact, it was confidently assumed in the West that Mikhail Gorbachev would go on ruling the Soviet Union, until the hard-line coup that failed to topple him (but left him mortally wounded in a political sense) made that view obviously redundant.
2. Lack of viable alternatives to Putin
Second, the distribution of political power in Russia means there are no viable alternative answers beyond Putin. Part of this is deliberate: Putin has constructed the state in his own image, making himself inseparable from any major question about Russian society and statehood.
Eschewing an imperial title, but acting in accordance with its precepts, Putin is Russia’s tsar in virtually everything but name. But that also means there is no patrilineal succession plan, nor anyone in his increasingly shrinking orbit of semi-trusted courtiers who readily stands out as a replacement. It’s difficult to imagine a successor who could command respect and wield authority to unite the competing Kremlin cliques – groups that Putin himself encouraged to form in order to ensure their weakness and continued fealty.
Names like Sergei Kiriyenko, Nikolai Patrushev and Sergei Sobyanin are often bandied around when analysts play speculative “who succeeds Putin?” games. But each of them have either irritated Putin, given him cause to mistrust them, or would struggle to bring the different clans together.
3. Ethnic tensions
A third reason Russia’s ongoing viability in the wake of defeat in Ukraine isn’t totally assured is that the war has exacerbated cracks between the privileged Russian political core and its ethnically concentrated periphery. Part of the mythos beloved by Russia’s far right is that Russia is the “Third Rome”, a necessary great power that unites people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds and prevents them from fighting one another.
Given the relative poverty of Russia’s minorities, it’s unsurprising they tend to be over-represented in the military. We know, for instance, that Russia’s military casualties have come disproportionately from Russia’s poorest ethnic groups: Dagestanis, Chechens, Ingush, Buryats and Tuvans.
We also know the Kremlin’s campaign to draft an additional 300,000 personnel for service in Ukraine was similarly targeted along ethnic lines. That shields the residents of Moscow and St Petersburg, keeping the war an abstract phenomenon that only touches their lives in peripheral ways.
But it also means those on Russia’s periphery are effectively being used as cannon fodder.
If Russia were to fracture, where and how might this come about?
The North Caucuses would be the most likely centre of gravity. Of the few demonstrations against the Kremlin’s military mobilisation campaign, those in Dagestan have been the most visible, including violent clashes with riot police. But attention is now also turning to Chechnya, where attempts to secede from Russia led to two wars: from 1994 to 1996; and from 1999 to 2009.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the outspoken Chechen leader, has been kept on a fairly tight leash by Putin since being installed in 2007, and has been one of his most vigorous supporters. But this again underscores the fragility of Putin as the key to keeping others in check.
Kadyrov has few friends in Moscow beyond the Russian president, and he has emerged as a leading critic of Russia’s military leadership – particularly Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. On October 6 he followed the suggestion by Kiril Stremousov, the Moscow-backed chief of occuptied Kherson, that Shoigu should consider suicide with the claim that General Oleksandr Lapin, a Shoigu ally, should be sent to the front lines to “wash away his shame with blood”.
The concern here is that should Putin exit the political stage, Kadyrov would be very difficult to control. He has what amounts to his own private army (the Kadyrovtsy, who are loyal to him and have been implicated in numerous human rights abuses). More than that, he could be incentivised to exploit a power vacuum by seeking greater independence.
This is important because Russia’s multi-ethnic makeup has not erased ethnic identities and ideas about nationhood.
History is instructive here on two counts. One is that the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was not brought about by Gorbachev, its last general secretary. Rather, the Soviet collapse was engendered by Boris Yeltsin, then-leader of the Russian Republic – as the largest part of the USSR – and the first president of the new Russian Federation.
More broadly, the end of the Soviet Union came about due to simultaneous national revolutions, with Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and the Central Asian former republics of the USSR all choosing self-determination rather than continuing to be part of the Soviet empire.
A second historical fact is that the end of the USSR saw the creation of four new nuclear-armed states: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. But the lesson of Ukraine in 2022 – which in 1991 was the most reluctant of the three non-Russian countries to hand control of the nuclear weapons on its territory back to Moscow – is that it’s vital to retain every instrument of power as potential insurance.
Gradually, and then all at once
This is why, aside from the human rights emergency it would represent, a fragmented Russia (or one in the middle of a civil war) would put regional and global security in a precarious position. Even a localised breakup would inevitably be along ethnic lines, and potentially create a variety of nuclear-armed aspirant statelets.
And while the end of the Soviet Union literally reshaped the map of Eurasia, any contemporary splintering of Russian power would potentially be far more dangerous, with no guarantee a potentially bloody domino effect could be averted.
So is it speculative to talk about a future Russian collapse? Yes. Is there evidence it is imminent? No. But in many ways that’s the problem: when authoritarian regimes implode, they tend to do so very quickly, and with little warning.
Hence in the Russian case, it’s important to consider all possible eventualities, even if they might appear implausible at the moment.
And, if nothing else, it’s always better to be pleasantly surprised than blindsided by events we inconveniently decided not to foresee.
Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Lowy Institute and various Australian government agencies.
As the Victorian city of Echuca prepared for flooding this week, the council moved rapidly to build a temporary earthen levee as others sandbagged. This kept some homes dry, likely worsened flooding in others, and prompted blame from many sides.
You can imagine the anger with council who put this levee up and … it’s made it worse because the waters hit it and bounced back (to my home).
After storms of rain come storms of blame. In the shock that follows disasters we often focus on those at hand – the emergency services and local government. While understandable, it is vital we recognise that many people and organisations contribute to disasters. To avoid future cycles of blame, we need to better understand and value the hard work involved in preparation.
Flooding is natural – but flood disasters are by design
US sociologist Dennis Mileti spent a lifetime arguing against the idea that disasters are natural events. To point out their human dimensions, he argued that they were “by design”. What does he mean?
Imagine a house that floods when a tributary of the Murray River breaks its banks. Is it the council’s fault for approving the development? The developer for seeking to convert cheap land to valuable housing? The home buyer for failing to check flood risk maps? The landholders upstream who cleared forests that normally slow floodwaters? Authorities who built levees generations ago, which now overtop? The risk managers for failing to anticipate ‘unprecedented’ rainfall? Those of us who rely on fossil fuels? Insurance companies for giving false security? Government agencies for failing to prepare adequately for predictable floods? There’s a lot of blame to go around.
The recent New South Wales inquiry into the flooding in February-March aimed to make sense of what happened and what went wrong. So too did the 2009 royal commission following Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires, and the 2020 royal commission that followed the Black Summer fires. Each of these detailed, thoughtful investigations struggled to explain why disasters keep reoccurring – not on a natural front, but on a human one.
When you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail
In 2015, the Productivity Commission released a report on how we fund natural disaster preparation and recovery, which states:
Governments overinvest in post-disaster reconstruction and underinvest in mitigation that would limit the impact of natural disasters in the first place. As such, natural disaster costs have become a growing, unfunded liability for governments
The imbalance between rescue and recovery (97%) and prevention (3%) is extreme. Seven years later, little has changed. Just look at this week’s announcement of A$600 million in federal spending on disaster relief.
We have been warned about the rising threats. We can better predict future events. As the Productivity Commission explained, we know prevention is cheaper and more effective than response. But we remain unwilling to fund the ongoing human relationships needed to reduce the impacts of disasters.
An expensive future
Without doubt, we are entering a period of escalating risk, disasters, impacts and costs. This year, the world’s peak body on climate change released a report on what it means for Australia and the region. They point out that our flood risk is increasing, while our ability to adapt and reduce damages lags behind.
The cost of disasters averaged across Australian households has shot up to A$1,532 over the past 12 months, compared with an annual average of $888 over the previous decade. That’s due in large part to this year’s devastating floods, according to the insurance peak body.
Rising costs may force government to withdraw from recovery and focus only on immediate responses. This could leave Australian homeowners stranded, given insurance is becoming unaffordable in disaster-prone areas. Some estimates suggest up to 500,000 houses could be uninsurable by the end of the decade.
Consider the problem from the point of view of the risk sector – the authorities, agencies and governments responsible for managing risks.
Victoria’s State Emergency Service is the control agency for flooding in the state, meaning that they are responsible for flood planning, supporting community preparedness, and managing the response. Given budget limitations and urgency, it’s natural that they focus on helping those directly in need.
By contrast, partnering with communities to prepare for future disasters is slow, hard, expensive, and difficult to assess in terms of effectiveness. This trade-off is not a decision made by the emergency services or volunteers – even though many in the sector are doubtful about community empowerment. Rather, it’s a consequence of how these agencies are funded.
We know that our top-down, expert-led responses to disaster events do not translate well into the community engagement needed for preparation. To prepare means community members become willing to take costly actions they would not otherwise do. To support those actions requires far more than “awareness raising” – it requires listening, understanding, collaboration, learning and care.
Put simply, training for swift-water rescues or emergency levee building is very different to the relationship building needed to support disaster preparation. The ways that we respond to disasters are not how we should prepare for them.
Many people in the risk sector are trying to change course. In recent research, my colleagues and I interviewed Victorian risk managers over a five year period. We wanted to know why it was so hard to engage with communities to prepare for disasters. We found many were highly committed to making communities better prepared – but stifled by funding and resource constraints, as well as institutional inertia.
Preparation could involve rebuilding using houses on stilts like these traditional Queenslanders in Brisbane. Shutterstock
What’s the solution? We should have agencies focused on disaster response and others that focus on disaster preparation: both would require ongoing, substantial funding.
As climate change accelerates, we will see more “unprecedented” disasters, from record-breaking flooding to megafires. Blame will follow. Inquiries will be launched. We will ask, again and again, why we cannot seem to prepare. When the next one hits, remember we arrived at this point by design.
Brian Robert Cook receives research funding from Melbourne Water. He is an associate editor at the Journal of Flood Risk Management. He has researched the emergency services for the past decade.
New Zealand agriculture contributed 50% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, an unusually high proportion by world standards. Dairy farming was responsible for about half of the 39.1 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-eq) emitted, or 25% of all emissions.
Addressing the problem of New Zealand’s agricultural emissions has mainly focused on technical fixes aimed at reducing methane and nitrous oxide produced by livestock and fertiliser and relying on voluntary agreements with the industry.
Exploring alternatives to conventional farming is therefore timely and urgent. One such alternative with the potential to drastically reduce agricultural emissions – while at the same time helping restore ecological quality – is to use fermentation technology.
This would allow some yet-to-be-determined proportion of dairy and meat farming to be replaced by “precision fermentation” of high-protein products, a process akin to brewing.
It might seem like a radical step for a traditional agricultural nation, but given the urgency of the problem, New Zealand needs to consider it at least.
In his recent book Regenesis, British journalist and activist George Monbiot discusses the prospects for precision fermentation, or single-cell protein (SCP) production. In particular, he highlights a process developed by Finnish startup Solar Foods.
This process employs hydrogen-oxidising bacteria as an alternative means of food production with a much lower climate impact. The end product is a nutritious high-protein powder suitable for use as a food ingredient and as a component of new foods.
The high-protein powder can be used as a component of new foods. Solar Foods, CC BY-ND
Key to this process are the production of hydrogen by electrolysis of tap water and the direct capture of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide from the air. Hydrogen produced in this way can also be used to make ammonia for use as a nitrogen source for the bacteria.
In a comprehensive life-cycle analysis, Finnish researchers determined that each kilogram of product made using hydroelectricity created about one kilogram of CO₂-eq emissions, requiring 18 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
The product itself is comprised of 65-75% protein, 4-10% fat, 18-20% carbohydrates, 4-10% minerals and 5% moisture. This means it has a high protein content, complemented by smaller amounts of fats (mostly polyunsaturated), carbohydrates and nutrients.
An overseas example of an offshore wind farm, which has been proposed for coasts off New Zealand. Bernd Wüstneck/picture alliance via Getty Images
Where could the electricity come from?
New Zealand has a world-class wind resource, both onshore and offshore. Major developers have recently revealed plans for more than six gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind farms off the Taranaki and Waikato coastlines. The first is due to be operational by the end of this decade.
Using a 1GW offshore wind farm as an example, this could supply enough electricity to produce about 240,000 tonnes of SCP product a year, containing about 160,000 tonnes of protein. The carbon footprint, based on the Finnish life-cycle analysis, would be around 0.25 megatonnes of CO₂-eq emissions.
The same amount of milk protein produced at a dairy farm would have a carbon footprint of about 3.6 megatonnes of CO₂-eq emissions (based on the average emissions intensity from a recently updated life-cycle analysis).
Precision fermentation could be used to replace some milk protein and reduce emissions from dairy farms. Martin Hunter/Getty Images
If replaced by the SCP product, this would result in an 18.9% reduction in dairy-sector emissions and milk production based on 2019-2020 levels. Net emissions to the global atmosphere would also be reduced.
Milk contains a large proportion of fat – about 125% of the protein content compared to about 10% for the SCP product. Lactose and other nutrients, plus meat and by-products from culled cows and bobby calves, would also be removed from production under this process.
The extent to which these might be substituted with plant-based or precision-fermentation alternatives requires further investigation. Using vegetable oils to supply the difference in fat would add about 0.7 megatonnes of CO₂-eq emissions to the SCP footprint.
If the equivalent land area was retired from intensive dairy farming this would allow a range of alternative land uses, including rewilding of sensitive areas.
Given New Zealand’s serious degradation of water quality due to nutrient and biocide runoff associated with intensive farming, this would have obvious environmental and ecological benefits.
It would also provide a permanent carbon sink of native bush, adding further to the net emissions reduction.
Transition to a new system
Animal agriculture is deeply embedded in New Zealand’s culture, society and economy. Discussing alternative means of food production will therefore require a thoughtful, detailed and respectful conversation focused on a just partial transition to new systems.
New development funding would be well spent on comprehensive consultation, pilot trials of the SCP technology under local conditions and on training.
What is signalled is a very real prospect for capping and then reducing the scale of our industrial animal farming. It’s an opportunity to fit within the greenhouse gas budget we need to live within to avoid the 2.7℃ warmer world we now appear to be heading for.
It is also an opportunity to write a new chapter in New Zealand’s environmental history. Adding to the menu the “rich, mellow and filling” SCP pancake George Monbiot enjoyed in Finland sounds like a good option, too.
Ian Mason is a co-founder of the NZ Offshore Wind Working Group.
Alasdair Macintyre, Ghost Kid on Stairs 2, 2019.aecap/flickr, Author provided
Do you believe in ghosts? Every year, Halloween serves up the usual images of spooks, skeletons and witches – but these ideas aren’t just the domain of fiction or trick-or-treating. There is also a philosophical concept that embraces ghosts.
It is called “hauntology”, and it might just make you a believer.
The word hauntology was invented by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida for his 1993 lecture Spectres of Marx.
Derrida was a whimsical guy, and the words “hauntology” and “ontology” both sound identical when spoken in French.
Ontology is the philosophical study of existence and being, dating back as far as ancient Greece. In Derrida’s mind, ontology was shadowed by hauntology, a state of non-being.
Hauntology is that eerie zone where time collapses and our past memories and associations haunt our minds, like a ghost.
Haunted by past and future
Pedro Américo’s Visão de Hamlet (Hamlet’s Vision), painted 1893. Wikimedia Commons
In his lecture, Derrida invoked Shakespeare’s Hamlet, both through the phantom of Hamlet’s father and particularly the phrase “time is out of joint”.
Not only does hauntology look back to your past experiences, it looks forward. You are haunted by the future – or, at least, haunted by futures that did not eventuate.
Are you in the job you planned to have ten years ago? Do you live in the house you dreamed of when you were younger? Do these unfulfilled dreams weigh on your mind? Dare I ask, do these unmet expectations haunt you?
English theorist Mark Fisher called this concept “cancelled futures” and associated it with cultural stagnation. In a 2014 lecture he bemoaned little forward progress in music and films: an endless repetition and recycling of old ideas, just in high definition.
Fisher was an important catalyst in the transformation of ghosts. Along with music journalist Simon Reynolds, Fisher appropriated Derrida’s hauntology by analysing pop culture, music and movies through a hauntological lens: considering how contemporary culture is haunted by our pasts and impossible futures.
This area of “spectral studies” developed in the new millennium mainly through blogs. The traditional idea of ghosts evolved from a supernatural phenomenon (fictional or otherwise) into a philosophical concept, discussed vigorously in the digital realm.
Those studying spectral studies turned to sources as diverse as Freud’s observations of the “uncanny” and Sartre’s suggestion that, although invisible, the dead survive and are all around us.
Many creatives have embraced the motif and connotations of the ghost. Richard Littler’s blog Scarfolk (2013-) imagines a fictional English village stuck forever looping on 1979. The retro electronica musicians of the Ghost Box Records label (2004-), seem to capture the soundtrack of a parallel world outside of time.
Hauntology also describes a post-traumatic-like disquiet of those born in the 1960s and ‘70s. Dubbed by Bob Fisher as “the haunted generation”, Fisher says kids of this era grew up in an age of “cosy wrongness”, consuming lots of media – especially television.
Not all of it was suitable for children.
Think of films like Watership Down (1978) with its blood-soaked fields and scary rabbits, or those fuzzy Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker-era episodes of Doctor Who.
Are you of an age where the memory of those grainy black and white ghost photographs you saw as a child in Usborne’s World of the Unknown: Ghosts (1977) still freak you out? Does the recollection of the shrill screams in Disney’s read-along book and record of The Haunted Mansion (1970) still send shivers down your spine?
Much hauntological writing discusses popular culture artefacts such as these, and the way they haunt our minds through recurring memories that return again and again.
Walking with ghosts
Films like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), especially its setting at the vast and secluded Overlook hotel, strongly reflect key features of hauntology. The emotional disintegration of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) mirrors the very hauntological collapsing of time within the walls of the hotel.
People and events from decades past appear and influence his behaviour. Then, of course, there are the ghosts of those two little girls in their blue dresses.
This depiction of ghosts we knew returning to us dressed in the attire they wore in life reflects a long tradition. Hamlet’s father returns dressed in battle armour. The ghosts of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol are decked out in their burial suits.
It was not until the 20th century that ghosts began to appear in their ubiquitous white sheets, most notably in the works of MR James. In James’ Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad (1904), a holidaying academic inadvertently conjures up a terrifying entity swathed in linen bedsheets.
Illustration by James McBryde for MR James’s story, Oh, Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad. Wikimedia Commons
So in a sense, hauntology has brought us full circle, returning to these ideas of ghosts we knew from our lives returning once more to haunt us.
Now you know it, hauntology is a name you can give to those slightly eerie memories from your childhood, or that nagging feeling that you took a wrong turn in life somewhere along the road.
Whether ghosts be the Scooby Doo-style spooks chasing us around old castles, or the psychological phantoms gatecrashing our own minds, hauntology is all around.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Green Party has again urged the government to step up its condemnation of Iran.
About 50 protesters burned headscarves and passports outside the Iranian embassy in the capital Wellington yesterday.
There has been a wave of protest in Iran and around the world over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the “morality police” for violating Iran’s dress code.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the government had been working hard over the past several months to ensure the safe exit of travellers Topher Richwhite and his wife Bridget Thackwray.
Greens’ foreign affairs spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said there was no longer anything stopping the government taking stronger action.
Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman hugs a protester. Image: Angus Dreaver/RNZ News
“Now there is no imagined or real impediment to us actually taking action and it is our responsibility to do that,” Ghahraman said.
“We need to come to line with the rest of the world when action on Iran is concerned.
Specific actions needed “There are these very specific actions we can take that will hurt the people most responsible for this violence and oppression.”
Ghahraman wanted a freeze on the assets, bank accounts and travel of people supporting violence in Iran.
Protests continue in Iran . . . NZ Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta says NZ was “appalled” by the use of force by Iranian authorities. Photo: Andalou/RNZ News
There has been an upsurge in the protests this week, with tens of thousands taking to the streets in major cities across Iran after security forces were reported to have opened fire on protesters in Saqquez, Amini’s home city, on Wednesday.
In a tweet, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said Aotearoa was “appalled” by the use of force by Iranian authorities overnight.
“Violence against women, girls or any other members of Iranian society to prevent their exercise of universal human rights is unacceptable and must end.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) wants to delay the next meeting of the Joint Supervisory Body with the Papua New Guinea government, claiming Port Moresby is “dragging the chain” on drawing up critical constitutional regulations..
The key focus of the ABG is on achieving independence by 2027 by the latest.
This latest dispute comes despite both governments committing last April to the Era Kone Covenant which lays out how the independence referendum results would be tabled in the national Parliament, and the manner in which that institution may ratify the results.
At that time Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama commended the national government for its unwavering support for the Bougainville Peace Process.
He said the Era Kone Covenant laid out a timeline and a roadmap for the ratification of the referendum results in the national Parliament.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape at the time reaffirmed his commitment to the outcomes, saying his government would continue to work within the spirit of the peace agreement.
“We’ve established a pathway that we should work towards and we on the national government side, I just want to assure Bougainville that it doesn’t matter who sits in this chair in 3 months’ time, the work for Bougainville has been set and the work we have set will continue on,” Marape said.
Failed to engage But a national government’s technical team has since failed to engage with its Bougainville counterparts to develop a jointly agreed draft of the regulations.
ABG Minister Ezekiel Masatt said this week this lack of commitment from the national government has frustrated the ABG leadership and prompted its call for a deferral of the Joint Supervisory Body meeting.
The PNG government, and its technical team, have called for nationwide consultations on the Bougainville issue, but Masatt said the ABG’s position was that ratification of the outcome of the consultation on independence was for the national Parliament and not all the citizens of PNG.
He said there was no legal basis for such a proposed nationwide consultation.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Papua New Guinea’s Education Department headquarters in Waigani, National Capital District (NCD), will be locked by 5pm on Monday if the state fails to pay K39 million (NZ$19 million) in unpaid rent.
The arrears — accumulating since 2017 — are owed to Grand Columbia Limited, owner of Fincorp Haus.
The landlord’s action means 1049 staff of the Education Department and Teaching Services Commission will not be able to access their workplace from Tuesday.
This will have severe repercussions — the most immediate being fortnightly salaries for almost 60,000 teachers nationwide.
A lockout will mean these hardworking men and women will go without their pay, at least for a fortnight or two, depending on how fast the department scrambles technical staff and equipment.
Next-up will be the selection of successful students to attend higher schools and institutions next year.
The process is time-barred and any delay will only affect the timely commencement of the scheduled academic year in 2023.
Not opening gates The state reportedly paid K3 million (NZ$1.5 million) to GCL on Wednesday to offset some of what it owes but GCL insists it will not open its gates until all arrears are paid.
In a desperate move, the department’s top management convened a special meeting yesterday to start allocating space for all its workers.
Most staff will be housed at the Papua New Guinea Education Institute.
And the ministry is also looking at a number of secondary and technical schools in NCD to help with space.
The staff have begun packing important work documents to start the exodus.
TSC chairman Samson Wangihomie said their staff would be operating at either Wardstrip Primary, Gordon Secondary School or PNGEI.
This news comes on the back of news that public servants will receive a 3 percent pay increase and the final K158 million (NZ$77 million) GTFS was disbursed this week to schools.
Referred to Finance Education Secretary Dr Uke Kombra referred the Post-Courier to the Department of Finance, saying the Department of Education does not manage its rentals.
“We wish this was given to the departments to manage,” he said.
“At the moment it’s all centralised by DoF.”
Education Minister Jimmy Uguro expressed serious concern at the threat of a lockout.
He said: “Of course the closure of Fincorp Haus will affect operations of Education services in the country.
Teachers pays, examinations, inspections and general education services will be affected.
“I call on the government through the office sector to see and assist the issue as a matter of urgency.
BOLT arrangements Over the years the ministry and the department have been negotiating to have a Build, Own Lease and Transfer (BOLT) arrangement with development partners, but this is not happening.
“We would like to invite those who can offer the best BOLT arrangement so that the office allocation authority can assist to implement the plan.
“Despite such a disruption, the Education Department is keen and will continue to provide services needed by our schools and citizens.”
Grand Columbia Limited in its notice of closure said the building would close at 5pm on Monday, October 31, due to failure by the state to honour its contracted obligations to pay rent.
It stated that rental payments allowed the landlord to maintain the place, look after the workforce and other expenses.
The GCL is adamant, it will not open its gates after Monday.
It stated that of 24 months, only two months’ rent has been received with significant rent outstanding dating back to 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The Education Department and TSC have been housed by the Fincorp Haus since the establishment of these two offices in the late 1980s.
Phoebe Gwangilois a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
Eight policemen attached to Mt Hagen police division have been identified as suspects in an election-related shooting that resulted in four people killed and several others wounded on 6 August 2022.
The shooting took place in Anglimp-South Waghi electorate in Jiwaka province and investigations were completed last week.
The alleged shooting caught international media and election observers criticism, triggering the investigation.
Crimes division director Chief Inspector Joel Simatab said that primary reports — including the autopsy, post-mortems, eye witness statements and other evidence — had been compiled.
He said the public must be aware that investigations had been completed.
International observers’ ‘lot of noise’ “At that time we had international observers in the country who made a lot of noise about the security forces involved in the killing,” he said.
“And we responded, sending our detectives — two from NCD [National Capital District] and four from the Highlands region — who carried out the investigations,” he said.
“We want to give assurance that we have done our independent investigations and [are] now working with the Coroner’s office, going through their process to serve [the suspects] to come and give their side of the story before arrests are made.”
It was alleged that youths from the area blocked off the highway over frustrations over how elections were being conducted, which resulted in police shooting at them.
Marjorie Finkeois a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edgar Liu, Senior Research Fellow, Healthy Urban Environments (HUE) Collaboratory / City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
Shutterstock
In response to the horror stories of abuse and neglect from the Royal Commission into Aged Care, the new federal Labor government has made legislative changes. Prior to this, Australia’s most recent aged-care reforms were enacted a decade ago. The focus, however, is still largely on residential care homes, so what about older Australians in the broader community?
More older Australians are still living in their own homes. How do our policies and cities support them? We have published an analysis comparing 85 policy documents across all three levels of Australian governments against World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on age-friendly cities.
We found these policies reflect outdated views of old age. They neglect many important aspects that contribute to happy and fulfilling lives in older age.
The policy focus is overwhelmingly on care and support services. There are decreasing levels of attention to housing, transport, walkability and, least of all, cultural diversity.
The WHO first published its Global Age-Friendly Cities: A Guide in 2007 to support the active ageing policy framework it proposed back in 2002. Described as “the centrepiece of WHO’s age-friendly cities approach”, the guide became a major point-of-reference for age-friendly policymaking around the world.
In 2010, the WHO launched the Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities. The network aims to help governments and other organisations build age-friendly cities through evidence-based guidance and knowledge exchanges. Australia’s members include two states, 34 local councils and one regional organisation.
Our research, however, found little to no difference between Australian members and non-members in making direct policy references to these guides. For example, more of South Australia’s (a non-member) policy documents referred to the guidelines than Western Australia’s (a member), as the table below shows.
There were also discrepancies between the tiers of government. State and territory governments were more likely to take on such guidance than federal and local governments. Yet local governments are the intended audience of the framework and the guide.
Previous research in Canada blamed this on “the minimal state powers of municipal governments”. In Australia, too, our federated system has left local councils with limited authority and resources.
An outdated view of old age
In analysing the 85 policy documents, we adopted a “traffic light” system to highlight whether they acknowledged ageing-related challenges and proposed corresponding actions.
Our analysis focused on five policy areas:
care and support services
cultural diversity
housing
transport
walkability.
These areas broadly align with the WHO’s age-friendly domains.
The skewed policy focus is on care and support services. This reflects decades of aged-care reforms in Australia and their take-up at all levels of government. It also potentially reveals a stereotypical view of old age as being a time of frailty, decline and disengagement.
Our analysis also reveals a failure to recognise how diverse circumstances impact the ageing processes. The result is a neglect of the broader spectrum of older Australians’ support needs.
In Australia’s three-tiered government system, each level has its own authority and resourcing ability. Previous Australian research shows local governments have limited ability to raise the resources they need to design and implement policies and programs for their ageing residents as the WHO guidance intended.
Our analysis shows a reliance on national programs instead. These may not be as nuanced in responding to local needs and conditions.
In related work, our fine-level spatial analysis also highlights a mismatch between the growth of ageing populations across Australia and where aged care services are being offered. This is due largely to inequitable eligibility criteria. These effectively favour home owners living in standalone suburban houses over others such as renters.
The latest proposal to revamp a residential aged-care sector that is no longer fit-for-purpose must be applauded. Policy should aim to provide these residents with all the attention and dignity they deserve. But as the population ages, there’s an ever greater need to provide support across all the domains that enable older people to live healthy, fulfilling lives.
Local authorities would know local residents and their needs most intimately. But our analyses show they are hamstrung in supporting the needs of older people in the community.
Continued reform must aim to ensure local councils have the powers and resources required to serve these needs. This will go some way towards responding better to Australians’ changing needs. Importantly, it will also help to reframe the dialogue of ageing away from frailty and debilitation.
Edgar Liu receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Ltd, UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, the Cancer Institute NSW, and the Western Sydney Health Alliance. His position at the HUE Collaboratory is supported by Maridulu Budyari Gumal (SPHERE).
Bruce Judd receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Kyushu University Japan, and the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute. He is affiliated with the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, International Federation of Ageing and the European Network for Housing Research.
Mariana T Atkins receives funding from UNSW Ageing Futures Institute. She is affiliated with the Centre for Social Impact.
With progressive members of the US Congress recently calling for a resumption of direct talks between the West and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it’s a good time to consider how such talks could look and what might be gained – or lost.
As Russia’s military losses mount in Ukraine, the rhetoric surrounding Russia’s war is increasingly apocalyptic. Few in Ukraine are calling for talks, and US President Joe Biden has indicated he will respect Ukraine’s wishes.
Yet could direct talks between top Russian and Western leaders help to avoid disaster?
During the Cold War – a time now often compared to the present point in history – Soviet and Western antagonists managed to hold several successful dialogues on matters including nuclear de-escalation. Cold War examples suggest that not merely “talks”, but “summits” – symbolising high-level dialogues between equals – may help to initiate a rhetorical reset.
What are the arguments for and against such high-level talks?
The critics
The potential downsides of talking are clear. Some commentators have argued that talking would reward Putin for his nuclear brinkmanship.
Indeed, there’s no question that, besides talking, there must be other strong forms of response to the invasion.
Still others simply think it’s morally unacceptable to talk with aggressors.
This isn’t a new debate. Leaders have often grappled with whether to talk with enemies, even if they abhor their enemies’ actions.
For instance, similar questions, focusing on Iran at the time, featured in the campaign between presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008.
Those who would call for talks might ask, however, if it’s realistic to expect wars to end by simply waiting for the initial aggressor to admit they were wrong.
Of course, another option is to wait for the war to run its course on the ground. But despite its setbacks, Russia’s resources for sustaining the war are nowhere near fully depleted.
Choosing not to talk with the other side is understandable. When a war is vicious and unjust, it must be called out.
But what if, by expressing our moral disapproval by choosing not to talk, the war we disapprove of paradoxically lasts longer? What if the consequences are many more deaths?
Is it right simply to blame the other side for the extra deaths? Or do we bear some obligation to talk in a bid to foreshorten the war, even if we didn’t cause it?
Status grievance as a root of war
Previous wars have often been explained in part by status grievance – the historical humiliation of a group, leading to a score to settle. Of course, the grievances may be wholly misguided. And status grievance shouldn’t be a legitimate cause for war.
Yet whether we think it’s legitimate or not, status grievance is in fact a contributing cause of war. We might ask Russia why it can’t simply accept its diminished post-Cold War position. But it may be no use. Status grievance cannot in most cases be wished away or defeated by rational argument. To those it animates, status grievance feels as real and rational as any other cause for war.
Russia’s rationale for attacking Ukraine seems to be a paradigm case of status grievance. On the Ukrainian side is a struggle against conquest, a struggle for sovereignty, and a struggle for democratic and liberal values – each clearly worth fighting for.
Yet on the other side is a settling of scores on a wider scale. In his speech addressing Russia’s efforts to annex four eastern provinces in Ukraine, Putin’s focus was not on Ukraine, but on a catalogue of misdeeds of a West bloc too powerful to be trusted. He cited the Western record of colonising, enslaving and weakening other peoples and powers. He didn’t turn a similarly critical gaze onto Russia itself.
What would a summit look like?
At the moment, a range of academics and politicians are hoping for a summit, although only a few are willing to say so out loud and risk blowback.
If a summit did take place, it could perhaps include Russia and other leading global powers as the main parties. The United Nations or a neutral government might play host.
But what would the parties talk about? Many wars have underlying causes based in clashes of values. Without addressing these, we may struggle to end even the most horrifying wars.
In Northern Ireland, for instance, the 1998 peace agreement formally adopted values such as “mutual respect” and “equality”.
It may cost nothing for the sides in the current war to hear each other out about values. For instance, there’s no harm in Western powers recognising their adversary’s equal worth. We can readily respect Russia’s historical scientific and cultural accomplishments.
At any summit, the signing of a treaty would be ideal, but it isn’t necessary. A merely informal statement of mutual respect between the historical blocs could be pursued, with the aim of defraying some of the underlying forces sustaining the war.
Russia seems to crave acknowledgement of its high status as a global power, and as an accomplished people. That is not a hard concession for the West to make. Yet it may offer Putin a face-saving way to begin de-escalating.
Summit ground rules would need to be stipulated. These could include discussion based on reciprocity: for example, listening by each side to the values and grievances of the other.
Finally, there could be no substantive preconditions – no requirement that, before a summit could take place, one side first acknowledge the errors of its ways. We’d need to be far more realistic. Peacemaking always involves two or more parties to a conflict that, though they view each other’s causes as illegitimate, proceed to talk anyway.
Sooner or later, summit talks may take place. Perhaps the only question is when. Leaders in the West, representing people deeply disturbed by Russia’s invasion, may not be ready. As the Congressional progressives found out, there are political risks to even floating the idea.
The arguments for a summit are at least as clear as those against, however. With careful design, and a little luck, a summit could conceivably reset the discourse around a war that is currently stuck in cycles of escalation.
Ron Levy has received funding from the Australian Research Council.
People living in the Hunter region of New South Wales know all too well the devastation disasters can bring. After enduring the 2019-2020 horror bushfire season, La Niña settled in for three wet summers and residents experienced back-to-back floods this year.
Since early October, we’ve conducted nine in-depth interviews with members of flood-response teams in the Hunter for our ongoing qualitative research into how prepared these communities are for future floods. Many people in the Hunter are living in temporary accommodation. A councillor we spoke to pointed out, “there are still people living in caravans, and they’ll be in caravans for quite some time”.
For the Northern Rivers region, which was ravaged by record-breaking floods in February and March this year, some relief is coming.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet today announced a A$800 million buyback scheme for residents in seven areas – including Lismore, Ballina and Tweed – where “major flooding would pose a catastrophic risk to life”. Some 2,000 homeowners will be eligible for funding to sell their homes, repair damage, or make their homes more resilient.
More flooding is expected across eastern Australia in coming weeks, as La Niña conditions are set to persist until early 2023. This is a time to take stock of the lessons gained from the previous spate of floods, and to assess how agencies and communities are heeding these lessons to manage coming floods.
Floods in the Hunter
Overall it seems regular warnings are being provided and agencies have actively stepped up their operations. Still, some Australian communities currently experiencing floods, such as in Victoria, remain vulnerable.
Our research focuses on the Hunter region’s experience of recent floods as they relate to climate change. We want to find out how local communities can improve their resilience and capacity to adapt to floods.
In the Hunter, floods have severely impacted businesses. Cumulative losses in businesses across the region caused a significant economic setback, at a time when many were still struggling with the economic impacts of COVID.
For example, a pub in the centre of Wollombi was submerged to its roof last July. And a vineyard and resort owner we spoke to explained: “We were trapped here for nearly a week in July, including some resort guests”.
Towns such as Broke, Gillieston Heights, Maitland and Singleton were completely isolated, as road networks became inundated. This made evacuations difficult or even impossible.
A police officer said people were trapped in recent floods and he expected the same if another flood strikes, adding: “We need to put in place better evacuation systems.”
Great demands are placed on volunteers of the State Emergency Services (SES). As one volunteer said: “I just joined the SES early this year and since then it has been a very busy time!”
Other volunteers mentioned the potential for “burnout” after dealing with so many floods over a long time, including this month.
Flooding in Maitland in July this year. Ifte Ahmed, Author provided
Mixed messages
The biggest problem to be solved, according to our interviews, is inadequate communication.
A local police officer told us: “The focus should be on early warning and communication. There were mixed messages [to residents] from the services on the ground”. This was in regards to when exactly residents should evacuate.
These mixed messages not only hampered timely evacuation operations, but also strained the communication between the regional Emergency Management Centre and on-ground staff, as well as between emergency services and communities.
He also pointed out the challenge of local complacency to heed warnings, encapsulated in the typical “She’ll be right” mentality.
Research shows social media offers communication opportunities during disasters, but it’s also evident that the potential for misinformation on social media can hinder effective communication. Lack of internet access and language barriers can also make effective communication difficult.
Another police officer said: “Communication is something that I am always thinking of. It’s not just us getting the messages out but getting [communities] to hear our messages and respond to them appropriately”.
The importance of emergency communications has been highlighted in Australian research on disaster risk management. For example, a 2016 paper found around 20% of all emergency management problems since 2010 were linked to communicating with communities.
As agencies and communities grapple with frequent flooding, it seems preparedness measures may indeed be improving. For example, in anticipation of Victoria’s floods this month, we saw the rapid deployment of sandbags and even the building of a new levee in Echuca.
Across towns in the Hunter regions, our research participants told us of efforts to improve, for instance, equipment supply and inter-agency coordination. For example, the NSW SES have, in recent years, initiated “Flood Forums” to gather together, plan and coordinate different emergency agencies, in response to communications issues.
Another key area that deserves attention is to understand the multi-hazard scenario confronting Australian agencies and communities, as we face back-to-back bushfires, floods, and storms under climate change.
One way to tackle this is by bringing together agencies, such as the Rural Fire Service and the SES, into coordination to address multiple hazards, perhaps even as a single entity.
Interestingly, this was suggested by both SES and Rural Fire Service volunteers in our research interviews. They told us that combining the agencies into a single entity would lead to, for instance, less competition for recruiting volunteers.
As soil remains sodden and catchments are saturated, towns across Australia should be wary of more floods in the coming weeks. We hope being awareness of the urgent need for disaster management agencies to communicate better will lead to tangible improvements.
Iftekhar Ahmed received funding from the University of Newcastle for an ongoing research project entitled “Improving local resilience to floods in the Hunter Region to address Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13′, from which this article is drawn.
Thomas Johnson receives funding from the University of Newcastle for an ongoing research project entitled “Improving local resilience to floods in the Hunter Region to address Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13”, from which this article is drawn.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University
Shutterstock
Billions of dollars in proceeds of crime are being funnelled through clubs and pubs in New South Wales, according to the NSW Crime Commission. Predictably, the industry is claiming it’s not an issue and solutions are too difficult.
Laundering money through a local club or hotel involves loading cash into one of the state’s 86,640 poker machines, then cashing out and claiming the money as winnings.
This is not a preferred method for most organised criminals, the crime commission says. Sophisticated criminals have other methods. But it is still a sizeable proportion of the estimated $20 billion in criminal proceeds laundered in NSW each year.
In Queensland, you can put only $100 into a poker machine at one time. In Victoria the limit is $1,000. In NSW, newer machines allow $5,000, and older machines up to $10,000. For supposedly harmless suburban fun it’s hard to understand why such sums are allowed.
Those inquiries found Crown Resorts and Star Entertainment allowed hundreds of millions of dollars to pass through their casinos, in contravention of anti-money-laundering regulations.
Both companies were found not fit to hold their licences. Crown has been fined $80 million in Victoria. Star has been fined $100 million in NSW, and had its licence suspended.
Both have been required to undergo extensive “renewal”. They have agreed to adopt cashless gaming to better protect against money laundering.
It’s therefore unsurprising the NSW Crime Commission’s principal recommendation is to introduce a cashless system for all electronic gaming machines in NSW. Also unsurprising is that the industry is focused on why it shouldn’t.
The NSW Crime Commission’s report recommends a cashless gambling system for pubs and clubs the same as for casinos – consistent with the identification requirements of Australia’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act.
Electronic gaming cards would record amounts loaded and withdrawn, times, turnover, and losses/wins. The maximum amount of cash able to be loaded on to a player’s account in a single day would be $1,000.
Older electronic gaming machines in NSW allow ‘load up’ to $9,999. Shutterstock
Josh Landis, the chief executive of ClubsNSW (which represents most of the state’s 1,200 licensed clubs) has said that such technology has not been trialled, and was uncosted and unproven.
But Crown Resorts and Star Entertainment are implementing such systems. Similar systems have been operating successfully in Norway since 2009, and in Sweden since 2013.
Victoria has already implemented a card-based precommitment system, incorporating most necessary characteristics. Every poker machine in the state is linked to this system. Its flaw is it is voluntary, allowing those who wish to clean dirty money, or avoid a limit, to simply opt out.
It’s not just about money laundering
Money laundering isn’t the only reason to introduce cashless gaming systems.
A pre-commitment system incorporating all the features of the NSW Crime Commission’s cashless model would stop money laundering and also help those struggling to control their gambling. For those who want to stop it would provide a truly effective gambling self-exclusion system.
ClubsNSW and the Australian Hotels Association are two of Australia’s most powerful lobby groups. According to an ABC investigation, they have doled out about a third of $40 million in political donations disclosed by gambling-related organisations over the past two decades.
Since 2010, ClubsNSW has signed memorandums of understanding with incoming governments to protect its members interests.
In the first six months of 2022 (the most recent data available), people in NSW lost $4 billion using pokies – $2.4 billion in clubs, $1.6 billion in pubs. This is 23% more than the same period in 2019, before pandemic restrictions.
Yet according to the Australian Hotels Association, the industry is on “on its knees” and being told to introduce “an unproven, untested, un-costed and unnecessary cashless system”.
In NSW, gambling operators are not permitted to donate to state political campaigns. But ClubsNSW (and its member clubs) can because they are “not for profit”.
If this continues, political parties will be open to the allegation that they, like clubs, are benefiting from the proceeds of crime.
Pokie operators have billions of reasons to assert this is no big deal. Politicians should take a different view.
Charles Livingstone has received funding from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the (former) Victorian Gambling Research Panel, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority (the funds for which were derived from hypothecation of gambling tax revenue to research purposes), from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, and from non-government organisations for research into multiple aspects of poker machine gambling, including regulatory reform, existing harm minimisation practices, and technical characteristics of gambling forms. He has received travel and co-operation grants from the Alberta Problem Gambling Research Institute, the Finnish Institute for Public Health, the Finnish Alcohol Research Foundation, the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee, the Turkish Red Crescent Society, and the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He was a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council funded project researching mechanisms of influence on government by the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has undertaken consultancy research for local governments and non-government organisations in Australia and the UK seeking to restrict or reduce the concentration of poker machines and gambling impacts, and was a member of the Australian government’s Ministerial Expert Advisory Group on Gambling in 2010-11. He is a member of the Lancet Public Health Commission into gambling, and of the World Health Organisation expert group on gambling and gambling harm.
In this week’s federal budget the costs of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) have been revised upwards, with average forecast growth of 14% a year over the next decade.
It looks like the NDIS could cost more than A$50 billion per year within four years and could be more expensive than many other federal government social programs.
But provisions have been made in the budget to identify and reduce areas of spend and improve the value for money we are getting from the scheme.
The objective of the scheme was to support the independence and social and economic participation of people with disability by providing “reasonable and necessary” supports. What is reasonable and necessary not only depends on the individual, but also on what barriers our society places in front of them.
The original 2011 estimates for the scheme were that the NDIS would cover 411,000 participants and cost $13.6 billion per year. The total cost of the scheme for this year is expected to reach $35 billion to cover 535,000 participants.
While some of this increase is due to rising costs (including pay rises awarded to social and community services employees), it is clear there are many more participants than was originally envisaged.
Spending to save
The budget has made provision for initiatives that should help rein in funding.
Within the budget, $385 million has been added to funding for the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA, which administers the NDIS). These funds will be used in part to recruit 380 new staff.
NDIA staff numbers were originally planned to sit just under 11,000. But in 2014, the Abbott government imposed a staff cap of 3,000. Over the years since, the number of staff has gradually increased but still falls short. External labour hires have been used to fill the gaps.
There is also money in the budget to examine plan appeals. Since 2016, appeals against decisions made by the NDIA have risen by more than 700%. The legal costs are high for the NDIA, and the process can be very difficult and time-consuming for participants. Labor’s new budget commits $12.4 million to develop an expert review process to reduce the number of cases being heard by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
A new Fraud Fusion taskforce is budgeted to receive $126.3 million to address issues of misuse of scheme funds. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission chief estimates as much as $6 billion per year is being misused.
Finally, the budget commits $18.1 million to the NDIS review, which has been brought forward by a year, to examine the design, operations and sustainability of the scheme.
Taken together, these funding commitments should help to address areas of the scheme where funding is not being used to appropriately support participants.
The NDIS is jointly funded by the federal government and Australia’s states and territories. Under current arrangements, however, any scheme overspend beyond the initial agreements falls to the federal government.
The state and territory governments have a keen interest in making sure the NDIS works as it has implications for other services.
This interplay is seen where NDIS participants in state and territory-funded hospitals, who are medically ready for discharge, are unable to leave as appropriate services are not in place. The NDIS has launched a new plan to address discharge delays.
What states and territories do in terms of mainstream services also has important implications for the NDIS. The more barriers there are in accessing mainstream services (such as education or healthcare) for people with disability, the more reasonable and necessary supports are needed to overcome these barriers.
An ‘oasis in the desert’
Shorten has suggested the NDIS is seeing larger numbers of people who have less complex disabilities and do not require 24/7 support. The scheme was designed to support people with permanent and significant disability.
One reason given for the high numbers entering the NDIS is there aren’t alternative options for people with disability – including those who experience episodic disability, such some kinds of psychosocial disability or neurodegenerative conditions like multiple sclerosis – to access services.
The NDIS has been described as the “oasis in the desert” as mainstream services have moved away from offering disability supports.
Making mainstream services more accessible and providing support to those on the edge of the scheme is crucial to a successful NDIS.
Not just a cost but an investment
While the costs of the NDIS are being spoken about widely in media coverage, what is often less acknowledged is that the NDIS is an investment scheme. We should be more concerned about whether we are getting the best returns we can from our investment.
One big driver of participant numbers has been children and young people with an autism diagnosis. This has been partly driven by the increased recognition that early supports for these young people can have large future benefits and reduce the supports they will need down the track.
The NDIS was designed with the view that supporting people with disability should not only allow people more control over their lives, but also support some participants and families to work, and this would mean they would contribute to the economy via taxable income. We are unlikely to be fully realising this potential yet, but these returns will likely continue to grow as the scheme improves.
NDIS funding employs more than 270,000 people and contributes indirectly to the employment of many more workers. It has been estimated that for every $1 billion the NDIS is underfunded, there is a drop in around 10,200 jobs and a reduction in the national employment rate of 0.1%.
Last year, a report estimated that every dollar spent on the NDIS creates $2.25 in the Australian economy. This means that when NDIS costs increase, the benefits to the economy also increase significantly.
Ultimately, there is no silver bullet in reforming the NDIS and curbing the costs of the scheme. But we do know where some of the issues are, and the budget has allocated investment to help tackle these.
How the scheme continues to grow depends not just on how it operates, but also on what is available outside the NDIS. We need to ensure people in the scheme are getting the most value they can out of the funds provided.
Helen Dickinson receives funding from ARC, NHMRC and CYDA.
Dennis Petrie has received research funding from NDIA, NHMRC, ARC, MRFF, Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, Victorian Department of Health and WISE Employment Australia.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney
Cruise ships carrying passengers with COVID are back in the news. The Coral Princess, with an unconfirmed number of people testing positive on board, is set to dock at Fremantle, Western Australia. The Quantum of The Seas, with passengers reportedly testing positive, is heading for Brisbane. There have been similar situations at other ports in New Zealand and the Pacific.
But this isn’t 2020. The cruise ship industry and health authorities have learned much from large outbreaks linked to the Ruby Princess and Diamond Princess cruise ships early in the pandemic.
Yet, there’s even more we can do to limit the impact of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) spreading from cruise ships to communities on land.
Cruise ships can have epidemics of a variety of infectious diseases, not just COVID, facilitated by large numbers of people in close proximity, especially during indoor social activities.
We know SARS-CoV-2 is spread mainly by inhaling contaminated air, so indoor activities may pose a risk if ventilation is poor.
Cruises typically last at least a week, which covers the incubation period for infections such as influenza and COVID. So all it takes is for one infected person to be on the ship to set off an epidemic.
Staff stay on ships much longer than passengers, and can continue to infect new passengers, perpetuating a cycle of outbreaks.
But almost half of infections are transmitted asymptomatically. So, without testing everyone on board (before they board and during outbreaks), infectious people can board a ship without being aware they are infected and cause an epidemic. Infected staff can also infect new passengers, and passengers can infect communities they visit on land.
What happened with cruise ships and COVID in 2020?
Early in the pandemic, large outbreaks on ships, such as the Diamond Princess made the headlines. Some 634 of 3,711 (17%) people on board tested positive for COVID. The ship was quarantined for two weeks.
An estimated 69% of transmissions on board were transmitted asymptomatically.
The Ruby Princess had a COVID outbreak in March 2020 with around 700 cases. Yet health authorities allowed passengers to disembark in Sydney without testing, who then dispersed around the country at a time we had no vaccines.
Our research showed this resulted in growing community clusters for weeks afterwards.
We now have vaccines. But vaccination rates vary globally (and cruise passengers are often from many countries). Some vaccines are less effective than others, not everyone is up-to-date with their booster shots, vaccine immunity wanes (even after having a booster), and current vaccines are generally less-effective against currently circulating Omicron subvariants.
This means people can be infected and infectious despite being vaccinated.
Many of us have also had COVID, especially in 2022. But our immunity following infection (whether or not we’re also up to date with our vaccines) wanes too. People who were infected with older variants may also have a dampened immune response to Omicron, which means limited protection.
Cruise ships and health authorities have also tightened up their COVID protocols.
The New South Wales government, for instance, publishes on its website the COVID risk of in-coming vessels. It places ships in one of three categories according to a number of factors, including the number of COVID cases on board.
Cruise ships also have strict protocols for controlling and managing outbreaks. This includes masks for close contacts, mandatory isolation for infected passengers for five days, and testing of anyone with symptoms.
The problem is that transmission can continue because of asymptomatic infections. The ship may need medical evacuations or assistance for severely ill people. There is also the problem of infection being transmitted to communities on shore after people without symptoms disembark.
People disembarking and unknowingly spreading the virus is especially a problem for small towns.
The itinerary of the Coral Princess, which has since been modified, included the Western Australian towns of Broome and Geraldton, both of which have large Aboriginal communities, and other towns, such as Albany and Busselton.
Small towns may not have a hospital, may have limited access to health care, and would not have capacity to deal with many severely ill patients. Capacity for medical evacuations are also limited.
In the map below, we can see how hospitals are distributed in rural areas around Broome. Most hospitals are near Perth and the southwest coast. Broome has one hospital with about 40 beds. Large hospitals in Perth and Darwin are about 2,000 kilometres away, which would be the destinations for medical evacuations of severely ill patients.
Most major hospitals are near Perth, which is about 2,000 kilometres from Broome. Samsung Lim, author provided
So it’s important to monitor for outbreaks in Broome after the Coral Princess docked there this week, and ensure availability of testing to enable early intervention (such as antiviral drugs) to control outbreaks.
Cruises with outbreaks on board should ideally avoid small towns or remote locations with limited health services or vulnerable populations, as the impacts on these communities may be much greater than in a large city.
Visiting small towns during an on-board epidemic would be safer if everyone who disembarks is tested first, is negative, and wears a mask on shore.
What else could we do?
The cruising industry has acknowledged the reality of COVID being a continuing threat. This could be improved by recognising the role of asymptomatic transmission in testing policies.
For instance, all passengers and crew should have a negative rapid antigen test at the start of the cruise, and during an outbreak. All close contacts and all disembarking passengers should be tested for COVID, regardless of symptoms. The cost of testing would be much less than the lost costs of large epidemics.
During a cruise epidemic, companies also need to consider the locations being visited, how much COVID is already present there (some remote towns have very little COVID) and available health-care systems for locals.
Rapid use of antivirals may also help to control epidemics on board as these allow passengers testing positive to clear the virus faster.
The aviation industry does well in providing safe air in-flight. The cruise industry has also started changing ventilation to add fresh air instead of recirculated air indoors.
But there is still some way to go before we can say the threat of COVID is over, on-board or on land.
C Raina MacIntyre currently receives funding from NHMRC, MRFF and Sanofi for nvestigator driven research.
Samsung Lim receives funding from Medical Research Future Fund, Department of Health.
Ashley Lindsay Quigley 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.
We can all agree humans need to reduce their impact on the environment. And while most of us think of this in terms of daily activities – such as eating less meat, or being water-wise – this responsibility actually extends beyond life and into death.
The global population is closing on eight billion, and the amount of land available for human burial is running out, especially in small and densely populated countries.
To minimise environmental impact, human bodies should return to nature as quickly as possible. But the rate of decay in some of the most common traditional disposal methods is very slow. It can take several decades for a body to decompose.
In a one-of-its-kind study, our team analysed 408 human bodies exhumed from grave pits and stone tombs in the north of Italy to find out what conditions help speed up decay.
We conducted research on bodies exhumed from the La Villetta cemetery in Parma, Italy. Edda Guareschi, Author provided
The environmental cost of traditional burials
Funeral rituals should respect the dead, bring closure to families and promote the reaching of the afterlife in accordance with people’s beliefs. This looks different for different people. Although the Catholic church has allowed cremation since 1963, it still prefers burials. Muslims are always supposed to be buried, while most Hindus are cremated.
In Australia, however, the latest census revealed almost 40% of the population identifies as “not religious”. This opens up more avenues for how people’s bodies may be handled after death.
Most traditional burial practices in industrialised countries have several long-lasting harmful effects on the environment. Wood and metal fragments in coffins and caskets remain in the ground, leaching harmful chemicals through paint, preservatives and alloys. Chemicals used for embalming also remain in the ground and can contaminate soil and waterways.
Caskets made out of processed materials like metal and wood are bad for the environment. Shutterstock
Cremation also has a large carbon footprint. It requires lots of trees for fuel and produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide each year, as well as toxic volatile compounds.
There are several alternatives to traditional burials. These include “water cremation” or “resomation” (where the body is rapidly dissolved), human composting, mummification, cryonics (freezing and storage), space burials, and even turning the body into trees or the ashes into diamonds or record vinyls.
However, many of these alternatives are either illegal, unavailable, costly or not aligned with people’s beliefs. The vast majority choose coffin burials, and all countries accept this method. So the question of sustainable burials comes down to choosing between the many types of coffins available.
What leads to faster decomposition?
Coffins range from traditional wooden caskets, to cardboard coffins, to natural coffins made from willow, banana leaf or bamboo, which decompose faster.
The most environmentally sustainable choice is one that allows the body to decompose and reduce to a skeleton (or “skeletonise”) quickly – possibly in just a few years.
Our research has presented three key findings on conditions that promote the skeletonisation of human bodies.
First, it has confirmed that bodies disposed in traditionally sealed tombs (where a coffin is placed inside a stone space) can take more than 40 years to skeletonise.
In these sealed tombs, bacteria rapidly consume the oxygen in the stone space where the coffin is placed. This creates a micro-environment that promotes an almost indefinite preservation of the body.
We also found burial grounds with a high percentage of sand and gravel in the soil promote the decomposition and skeletonisation of bodies in less than ten years – even if they are in a coffin.
That’s because this soil composition allows more circulation of air and microfauna, and ample water drainage – all of which are helpful for degrading organic matter.
Finally, our research confirmed previous suspicions about the slow decomposition of entombed bodies. We discovered placing bodies inside stone tombs, or covering them with a stone slab on the ground, helps with the formation of corpse wax (or “adipocere”).
This substance is the final result of several chemical reactions through which the body’s adipose (fat) tissues turn to a “soapy” substance that’s very resistant to further degradation. Having corpse wax slows down (if not completely arrests) the decomposition process.
A new, greener option
In looking for innovative burial solutions, we had the opportunity to experiment with a new type of body disposal in a tomb called an “aerated tomb”.
Over the past 20 years aerated tombs have been developed in some European countries including France, Spain and Italy (where they havebeencommercialised). They allow plenty of ventilation, which in turn enables a more hygienic and faster decomposition of bodies compared to traditional tombs.
They have a few notable features:
an activated carbon filter purifies gases
fluids are absorbed by two distinct biodegrading biological powders, one placed at the bottom of the coffin and the other in a collecting tray beneath it
once the body has decomposed, the skeletal remains can be moved to an ossuary (a site where skeletal remains are stored), while the tomb can be dismantled and most of its components potentially recycled.
Arguably one of the world’s most famous ossuaries, the Paris Catacombs is an underground labyrinth containing the remains of more than six million people. Shutterstock
Aerated tombs are also cheaper than ordinary tombs and can be built from existing tombs. They would be simple to use in Australia and would comply with public health and hygiene standards.
Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about what will happen to our bodies after we die. Perhaps we should. In the end this may be one of our most important last decisions – the implications of which extend to our precious planet.
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.
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
David Crosling/AAP
The Victorian state election will be held in four weeks, on November 26. A Resolve poll for The Age, conducted October 20-24 from a sample of “more than 800”, gave Labor a 59-41 lead over the Coalition.
Resolve does not give a two-party estimate until close to elections, so this is the first Victorian Resolve poll with a two-party estimate. Analyst Kevin Bonham estimated Labor would lead by 58-42 from the primary votes, a three-point gain for the Coalition since September.
Primary votes were 38% Labor (down four since September), 31% Coalition (up three), 12% Greens (steady), 12% independents (steady) and 6% others (steady). Labor Premier Daniel Andrews led Liberal leader Matthew Guy by 49-29 as preferred premier (46-28 in September).
With just four weeks until the election, the Victorian polls continue to indicate a landslide victory for Labor. But at the last election in 2018, Labor won 42.9% in the lower house, so this poll shows a five-point primary vote swing against Labor.
A five-point primary vote swing against Labor in the upper house would be likely to cost them some of the 18 upper house seats they won at the last election, out of 40 total seats, particularly as the upper house still uses the group voting ticket system which Labor has done nothing to reform in the eight years it has held government in Victoria.
A Victorian Morgan state poll, conducted during September from a sample of 1,379, gave Labor a 60-40 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since August. Primary votes were 42% Labor (up 5.5), 28% Coalition (down one), 14.5% Greens (up 0.5) and 15.5% for all Others (down five).
Voters were asked to specify minor parties from a long list, but only non-teal independents (7%) had more than 2% support. This poll was conducted during September and released October 18, so it is not a recent poll.
NSW Freshwater poll: 54-46 to Labor
The New South Wales state election is in March 2023. A Freshwater poll for The Australian Financial Review, conducted October 13-16 from a sample of 1,042, gave Labor a 54-46 lead (52.0-48.0 to the Coalition at the 2019 election). Primary votes were 37% Labor, 36% Coalition, 11% Greens, 1% Shooters, 5% independents and 11% others.
NSW uses optional preferential voting. For the two party estimate, 47% said they would vote for or preference Labor, 40% the Coalition, 8% would not preference either (exhaust) and 6% were undecided. The headline estimate excluded exhaust and undecided.
Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet had a 37% favourable, 35% unfavourable rating, while Labor leader Chris Minns was at 26% favourable, 15% unfavourable. Minns led Perrottet by 41-38 as preferred premier. Poll figures are from The Poll Bludger.
I have not seen any previous Australian polls by Freshwater, but Newspoll and Resolve both gave NSW Labor large leads in late September, so these results are credible.
Federal Essential poll: Albanese’s ratings remain strong
In last week’s federal Essential poll, conducted in the days before October 18 from a sample of 1,122, 58% approved of Anthony Albanese’s performance (down one since September) and 26% disapproved (up one), for a net approval of +32.
By 52-48, respondents thought it was never acceptable to break an election promise, over it being acceptable if circumstances change. Asked about Labor’s promise to stick with the Coalition’s changes to the tax system, 53% thought Labor should stick to its promise while 47% thought as the current economic situation is very different to 2019, Labor breaking this promise was understandable.
Some 11% thought they would benefit a great deal from the tax changes, 22% a fair bit, 23% not that much, 10% hardly any and 24% none at all. Voters supported the changes by 29-27.
Federal Resolve poll on Optus and corruption commission
I previously covered the federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers that gave Labor an estimated 59-41 two party lead. Additional questions on the Optus hack and the proposed corruption commission are covered here.
By 68-11, voters blamed Optus over the federal government for the hack. By 59-12, they thought Optus should be fined many millions of dollars for allowing the hack to occur. By 83-3, they thought Optus should pay for new identity documents to be reissued.
By 70-6, voters agreed a federal integrity commission was needed after being told that all states currently have such bodies. Asked whether more commission hearings should be public, or only public in exceptional circumstances, 51% wanted more public hearings and 27% only in exceptional circumstances.
Morgan poll: 54.5-45.5 to Labor, and YouGov Taiwan poll
In this week’s federal Morgan poll, Labor led by 54.5-45.5, a 0.5-point gain for the Coalition since the previous week. Polling was conducted October 17-23.
A YouGov poll for the US Studies Centre at The University of Sydney, conducted in early September from a sample of 1,068, had 46% agreeing that Australia should send military forces to help the United States defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, while 25% disagreed.
Similar polls were taken in Japan and the US. In Japan, it was 35-29 in favour of helping the US defend Taiwan. In the US, 33% agreed with sending American troops to defend Taiwan, while 31% disagreed. Poll results were reported in The Guardian on October 25.
Rishi Sunak is Britain’s new PM, Brazilian election and US nidterms update
Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak was the only candidate in the Conservative leadership contest to replace Liz Truss as PM to secure the 100 nominations required from Conservative MPs, and was thus elected Britain’s next PM this week; I covered this for The Poll Bludger.
After no candidate won a majority in the October 2 first round, the Brazilian presidential election will go to a runoff this Sunday. Polls indicate that the leftist challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (called “Lula”) is narrowly ahead of the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
Republicans have continued to improve in the FiveThirtyEight forecasts with 12 days until the November 8 US midterm elections. Democrats are now just a 52% chance to hold the Senate, down from 61% in my October 20 article. Republicans are an 82% favourite to gain the House of Representatives, up from 75%.
Adrian Beaumont 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.
Flooding stirs up river sediments, which can spread contaminants in our waterways and floodplains. Flood water can carry sediments bearing contaminants from a range of sources, both historical and new, such as sewage, petrol stations, industrial yards and farming areas. This is worrying many people whose homes and gardens have been hit by repeated floods across eastern Australia.
One of the sites of the latest flooding is the suburb of Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s inner west. The Maribyrnong River’s industrial past means swimming was already not recommended. The community has longstanding concerns about water and sediment quality. The flood washed those concerns right into the homes of hundreds of residents.
In response, EPA Victoria’s Science division mobilised last week, at the request of Maribyrnong Council, to provide some answers for residents. We took samples from the river at three locations. We also collected and analysed flood sediments in public areas and residents’ gardens.
The results so far from across the impacted area are consistent – the chemicals and compounds analysed were mostly below levels of concern for human health. The exception was concentrations of pathogens like E. coli, which is linked to sewage. Exposure to sunlight is expected to reduce these pathogen levels.
The best thing you can do to protect yourself at these times is to stay clear of the river and wear gloves, boots and masks while cleaning up. Leave your dirty shoes outside and wash your hands regularly. While flood conditions and clean-ups continue, stay abreast of the most recent advice on managing the hazards.
An EPA worker collects samples from sediments left by the floods in Maribyrnong. Author provided
The river flooding raised significant concerns in the community because it drains from an industrial catchment with known contamination. The catchment is also home to Tullamarine Airport, a known source of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These industrial chemicals are persistent – they’re known as “forever chemicals” – and spread easily through the environment.
Maribyrnong sits on a river floodplain, which accommodates excess water and sediment during high flow. The redistribution of contaminated sediment across such areas during floods is well established. Research also has found examples of toxicity in farm animals from such events.
In addition to daily water sampling along the Maribyrnong, we have to date sampled sediment from 109 gardens and 13 public areas. To reflect the potential sources of contamination, flood water and sediment are being analysed for a suite of:
potentially toxic trace metals – arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel, lead and zinc
chemicals present in oil, coal and petroleum known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
PFAS
pathogen indicator bacteria including E. coli and Enterococci.
The EPA tested for a wide range of contaminants in samples from 109 gardens and 13 public areas that were flooded in Maribyrnong. Author provided
Sediment cores from floodplains and riverbanks allow scientists to evaluate what it contains. Bands of coarse particles – sands and silts – from high-flow events are interspersed with finer clay deposited as the water recedes. Finer deposits often contain more contaminants than the coarser material.
This is because the surface-area-to-volume ratio of a particle increases with decreasing particle size. This means there is more surface area for metal ions and organic contaminants to bind to finer sediments.
Floods are known to deposit potentially toxic trace metals on floodplains. However, other large flood events, such as the one caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, have produced outcomes like we see in Maribyrnong, where clean sediments have been draped over more contaminated urban soils.
Levels of PFAS chemicals were also very low. On average, concentrations were roughly a tenth of the values regarded as being of concern for human health.
Small amounts of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) were detected. This is unsurprising given the upstream sources at Tullamarine Airport.
What’s the next step?
EPA Science has engaged the State Emergency Service to set up similar sampling in regional locations. This will help to provide the same evidence-based guidance to communities affected by floods in those areas. This work should begin next week, with the organisations working together on sampling and fast-tracked laboratory analysis.
The current focus of this new rapid response from EPA Victoria is for flood-impacted communities. The work will shortly shift to all Victorian residents who want to know what’s in their soil. Through EPA’s GardenSafe program, they can have their garden soil tested, free of charge, for trace element contaminants and soil quality indicators.
Building homes on a floodplain, which by definition is a plain that floods and where homes will always be at risk, arguably increases the impacts of climate change. That said, it’s not a new venture for humans who have been taking advantage of accessible and organically rich floodplains for centuries.
Given how much flood-prone land is now developed, the crux of long-term management is to ensure we are better prepared. Future decisions should aim to create adequate space for rivers to do their natural work.
Rapid sampling and advice do not fix the root cause of the problem. However, this work can ease residents’ fears, allowing them to focus on cleaning up and rebuilding their lives after the flood.
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. He is an Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, Sydney. The EPA funded the analysis of the samples mentioned in the article as part of its response to the Victorian statewide flood emergency.
Kara Fry works for the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria. She is a Citizen Science Officer in EPA’s Science Partnerships team. Previously, Kara was a research assistant at Macquarie University where she managed the citizen science programs VegeSafe and DustSafe.
Paul Leahy works for the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria. He is the Principal Scientist – Freshwater. He is an Associate of RMIT University STEM College.
Jacinda Ardern addressing the UN General Assembly in September 2022.Getty Images
Since Jacinda Ardern described the state of world affairs as “bloody messy” earlier this year there have been few, if any, signs of improvement. Ukraine, China, nuclear proliferation and the lasting impacts of a global pandemic all present urgent, unresolved challenges.
For a small country in an increasingly lawless world this is both dangerous and confronting. Without the military or economic scale to influence events directly, New Zealand relies on its voice and ability to persuade.
But by placing its faith in a rules-based order and United Nations processes, New Zealand also has to work with – and sometimes around – highly imperfect systems. In some areas of international law and policy the machinery is failing. It’s unclear what the next best step might be.
Given these uncertainties, then, where has New Zealand done well on the international stage, and where might it need to find a louder voice or more constructive proposals?
Confronting Russia
Strength and clarity have been most evident in New Zealand’s response to the Russian attack on Ukraine. There has been no hint of joining the abstainers or waverers at crucial UN votes condemning Russia’s actions.
While it can be argued New Zealand could do more in terms of sanctions and support for the Ukrainian military, the government has made good use of the available international forums.
Unfortunately, similar avenues have been blocked when it comes to other critical issues New Zealand has a vested interest in seeing resolved properly.
China and human rights
This has been especially apparent in the debate about human rights abuses in China, and allegations of genocide made by some countries over the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
New Zealand and some other countries correctly avoided using the word “genocide”, which has a precise legal meaning best applied by UN experts, not domestic politicians. Instead, the government called on China to provide meaningful and unfettered access to UN and other independent observers.
While not perfect, the visit went ahead. The eventual report by outgoing UN human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet concluded that China had committed serious human rights violations, which could amount to crimes against humanity.
This should have forced the international community to act. Instead, 19 countries voted with China to block a debate at the UN Human Rights Council (17 wanted the debate, 11 abstained). The upshot was that China succeeded in driving the issue into a diplomatic dead-end.
Allowing an organisation designed to protect victims to be controlled by alleged perpetrators isn’t something New Zealand should accept. The government should make it a diplomatic priority to become a member of the council, and it should use every opportunity to speak out and keep the issue in the global spotlight.
Arms control
Elsewhere, New Zealand’s foreign policy can arguably be found wanting – most evidently, perhaps, in the area of nuclear arms regulation.
Advocating for the complete prohibition of all nuclear weapons, as the prime minister did at the UN in September, might be inspiring and also good domestic politics, but it doesn’t make the world safer.
With the risk of nuclear conflagration at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis, a better immediate goal would be improving the regulation, rather than prohibition, of nuclear weapons. This would entail convincing nuclear states to take their weapons off “hair-trigger alert”.
The other goals should be the adoption of a no-first-use policy by all nuclear powers (only China has made such a commitment so far), and a push for regional arms control in the Indo-Pacific to rein in India, Pakistan and China.
Finally, there is the danger of vital law and policy not just failing, but not even being born. This is the case with the World Health Organization’s so-called “pandemic treaty”, designed to better prevent, prepare for and respond to the next global pandemic.
New Zealand set out some admirable goals in its submission in April, but these have been watered down or are missing from the first working draft of the proposed agreement.
This shouldn’t be accepted lightly given the lessons of the past two-and-a-half years. Transparency by governments, a precautionary approach and the meaningful involvement of non-state actors will be essential.
Similarly, improved oversight of the 59 laboratories spread across 23 countries that work with the most dangerous pathogens is critical. Currently, only a quarter of these labs score highly on safety. The proposed treaty does little to demand the kind of biosecurity protocols and robust regulatory systems required to better protect present and future generations.
As with the other urgent and difficult issues mentioned here, New Zealand’s future is directly connected to what happens elsewhere in the world. The challenge now is to keep adapting to this changing global order while being an effective voice for reason and the rule of law.
Alexander Gillespie 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.
Up to one in ten cases of breast cancer in Australia is linked to drinking alcohol. Midlife women are already at increased risk for breast cancer because of their age, and tend to drink more than younger women. That means this group is at even more risk for breast cancer.
Health authorities have mostly so far dealt with this by telling women not to drink. But does this approach – which positions drinking as an individual’s “problem” based on their own “bad” choices – actually work?
In fact, our recent study found women aren’t necessarily aware of the link between alcohol and breast cancer. And even when they are, they aren’t always able to “choose” to quit.
We wanted to better understand where women sought health information, how they accessed information specific to breast cancer risk as it relates to alcohol, and how they determined whether (or not) such information was trustworthy.
We interviewed 50 “midlife” women (aged 45-64) living in South Australia from different social classes.
Previous research has shown alcohol consumption performs a range of important functions for women, such as coping, socialising, networking and managing difficulties. Women often feel they cannot necessarily “choose” not to drink in these circumstances.
Women also face mixed messages about alcohol and cancer risk. Some alcohol brands display pink ribbons in an effort to “raise awareness” about breast cancer. And more broadly, media reports have come and gone over the years about the purported risks or benefits of alcohol for various illnesses.
Many women in our study did not know that alcohol causes breast cancer. But upon hearing about it, they mostly wanted to know more.
One woman told us:
I didn’t realise there was a link and I went on and interrogated it after that, because I do enjoy a glass of wine. And I wondered, what am I knowingly getting into here […] and to understand how alcohol affects your body, in terms of it increases the estrogen levels, and so that has a link to breast cancer.
Others thought if knowledge became more common, breast cancer risk messages might more likely be accepted (or, at least, be less likely to be rejected). One woman told us:
I think sometimes the more information comes out, or the more it’s repeated, the more it becomes common knowledge for people rather than easily dismissed.
But, even if women are aware, the message that alcohol causes breast cancer can be difficult and confusing to hear. In response, trust in the message can waver. As one woman said:
I do question quite a lot because I do think the media play it up […] I take it with a pinch of salt.
Messages that seem exaggerated were also off-putting. As one woman put it:
First of all, you just look at the tone of the way they wrote about things, you’d probably, if you thought it’d been sensationalised, or if they were axe-grinding.
Indeed, encountering conflicting information in daily life made some public health messages feel less believable to some women we spoke to. Some women instead preferred to rely on “gut feeling” to judge information.
Considering who and what to trust in terms of information about alcohol and breast cancer was key for women. Some want these complexities to be recognised and messages to be delivered in “even-handed” ways. As one woman told us:
You just listen to it, see if they’re going to be harping on a certain theme, maybe without having any basis for saying so, if they’re trying to push a certain point of view without having any basis or back-up for that. Rather than someone being even-minded about, you know, even-handed about things.
Health messaging for women around alcohol breast cancer risk must acknowledge the social and commercial factors that encourage alcohol consumption. Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay, CC BY
Sceptical of experts
Some women, especially those living with disadvantage, were more likely to be sceptical of information and information sources, even if it is based on research from experts.
They described needing time to consider messages and judge them as trustworthy, with some feeling research evidence can be skewed to serve different interests. As one put it:
Well, I know there’s been various research done but I have to admit I tend to be rather sceptical about certain research […] things can be found that really say “Oh, yes, this is what [has been found] and then someone will come along and [say] “No, it’s not like that at all”.
We found women want to trust clear, consistent and non-judgemental messaging, otherwise distrust in the message and messenger might become the default position.
Health messaging for women around alcohol breast cancer risk must acknowledge the social and commercial factors that encourage alcohol consumption.
Too often, public health messaging asks women to take on the responsibility of reducing their alcohol consumption – without enough recognition that the same women are targeted by alcohol advertising and many see alcohol as a reliable “friend” in the absence of other social support.
If we don’t acknowledge that, we risk perpetuating the same stigma and blame that drives women to drink in the first place.
Belinda Lunnay receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Samantha Meyer receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Paul Ward 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.
Australia is now 39th in Reporters Sans Frontiers’ World Press Freedom Index, a staggering decline of 20 places since 2018. This reflects a fact acknowledged by both the Morrison and Albanese governments: Australia has a press freedom problem.
The 2019 AFP raids on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC prompted two parliamentary inquiries and as many constitutional challenges. Meanwhile, the prosecutions of whistleblowers David McBride, Witness K and Richard Boyle revealed the potential consequences for those who expose government wrongdoing.
Vast and complex security laws, set against an absence of protections unique in the Western world, have made public interest reporting a risky business for journalists and their sources.
These problems are well known, but we are yet to see actual law reform to support public interest journalism.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus recently assured Australians his government was “going to do something” about press freedom reform.
Specifically, it would act on Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommendations made in 2020 and accepted by the Morrison government.
A central pillar of the committee’s report were reforms to federal warrant applications.
It recommended only senior judges have the power to grant warrants relating to journalists and media organisations.
It also said the “interests of public interest journalism” should be represented by a government-appointed “public interest advocate”. Otherwise, warrant applications should remain ex parte (meaning without the knowledge or presence of other parties, such as the affected media organisation).
The government has committed to these reforms. But as several overseas examples show, the proposals go nowhere near far enough to address the deficiencies in press freedom in Australia.
Under US law, a blanket protection exists to prevent state access to journalistic materials, subject to strictly limited exemptions.
In New Zealand, as in Queensland and Victoria, a journalist cannot be forced to show police materials that would identify a confidential source (unless a judge determines the public interest in the administration of justice outweighs the public interests in source confidentiality and press freedom).
In Canada, only a senior judge may grant police access to information a journalist holds – and only where there is no alternative and access is justified by a robust public interest test.
UK police cannot get a warrant to see any journalistic materials such as recordings or documents (unless it is necessary to avoid seriously prejudicing an investigation).
Instead, UK law sets up a special process by which police apply for “production orders”, which the media gets a chance to contest.
Access to journalistic material will only be granted if other methods of getting the material have been tried (or would be futile) and if access is in the public interest.
In recognition of journalists’ ethical obligations to protect their confidential sources, police access to confidential journalistic materials is limited to terrorism investigations. Even then, strict limitations and protections apply.
These considerations are not taken lightly. UK courts have emphasised the high bar police must reach to obtain a production order, and the importance of rights to privacy and press freedom.
A five point plan
Australia remains the only liberal democracy lacking a national bill or charter of human rights, with the protections for privacy, speech and press freedom they usually entail.
Something would be better than nothing. But compared to international practice, the Parliamentary Joint Committee recommendations fall short.
Tellingly, Dreyfus and his Labor colleagues on the committee noted the recommendations did “not go far enough” and were “a bare minimum – a starting point – for reform.”
Now Dreyfus is attorney-general and can actually drive reform. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, and Australia could introduce laws shaped by the experience of our closest international partners.
We suggest a five point plan based on comparative research and analysis:
create a special framework of production orders for controlling state access to all journalistic materials, not just confidential source information.
have only senior judges determine access to such material.
create a mechanism by which access can be contested in court prior to being executed.
ensure substantive protection via a clear public interest test. Investigators should only be able to access journalistic material if there is no reasonable alternative source and the public interest in the investigation of crime outweighs the public interest in press freedom.
in exceptional circumstances, police may be able to get a warrant (without the knowledge of the media organisation they’re targeting) instead of a production order.
In these exceptional circumstances referred to in point five, however:
a public interest advocate should be present to represent the public interest in press freedom
the warrant should be drafted as narrowly as possible, and
if a warrant is granted and executed, any seized material should be held by a court so media can challenge police access and, if necessary, for this to be resolved by a court.
Police raids on Australian media have tangible effects on press freedom, but they are not the whole story. Meaningful protections should also:
safeguard journalists’ sources through privacy law
enhance whistleblower protections
limit data surveillance, and
include journalism-based defences to certain criminal offences.
With both sides of politics behind press freedom reforms, now is the time to support democracy. Australia must not slip further down in global standings.
Jason Bosland 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.
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.
Australia is facing a cost-of-living crisis. Rising costs of rent, fuel, food and power have increased financial stress for many households.
While financial pressures are now being felt by a broader section of society, for many Australians, such pressures are constant.
The health costs of such socioeconomic disadvantage are startling. A 2021 report found the most disadvantaged 20% of Australians die four to six years earlier than the least disadvantaged.
One-fifth of the country’s ill-health would be avoided if everyone enjoyed the same socioeconomic circumstances as the top 20%. Internationally, more equal societies enjoy better overall health.
So how does financial hardship damage health? And what can we do about it?
Shorter lives with more disease
People in poorer socioeconomic circumstances do worse across almost all health measures. This includes life expectancy, non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, diabetes), injuries, and as we’ve seen in the COVID pandemic, infectious diseases.
Compared to wealthier Australians, those who are worst-off carry a health burden 40% higher for anxiety, twice as high for heart disease and more than twice as high for diabetes.
Poor outcomes in disadvantaged groups are due to a mix of higher exposure to negative risk factors for health (environmental and occupational hazards, tobacco) and poorer access to positive factors (healthy food, preventative care, autonomy to make decisions for yourself and your family) than the broader population.
These disparities come about through disempowerment, social discrimination and disadvantage.
Poor health can also perpetuate financial hardship through reduced access to education, employment, and other key social resources, leading to a vicious cycle.
Financial hardship is bad for families, especially children
Households under financial stress have difficulty paying for essentials such as rent, food, clothing and heating. While they spend less in dollar terms on these items, expenditure on essentials accounts for a greater proportion of their total household income. This leaves people with less control over their wellbeing and quality of life.
Households experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage are also at increased risk of family disruption, stigma and domestic violence. The health burden of intimate partner violence is two-and-a-half times higher in the poorest 20% compared with the most advantaged 20% of households.
Poorer families experience more disruption than wealthier families. Aaron Burden, CC BY
Financial hardship is particularly bad for children. Despite former Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s declaration that “by 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty”, around one in six still do. This impacts their access to food, security and social participation.
It also has lifelong effects on their health and wellbeing, making it more likely they will experience financial hardship as adults, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Poor communities lack access to resources to improve their health
Socioeconomic disadvantage is often concentrated in particular communities, where social and environmental factors can further compromise health.
Loss of employment opportunities, limited public services and infrastructure such as transport are often exacerbated by political neglect and geographic disparities in local government resources. This is partly captured in Australia’s stark regional health inequalities: people in regional and remote areas are more likely to have heart disease, kidney disease and injuries.
While many communities respond to these challenges, long-term community health requires support from the wider society. This includes a commitment to listen and respond to local needs and priorities, address historical injustices (particularly for Indigenous communities), and invest in sustainable community development.
Financial hardship is a structural problem, so tackling it is a daunting challenge, particularly in the current economic climate. But international evidence shows it is possible to reduce socioeconomic inequalities and improve health through collective action.
Such efforts require a commitment to “levelling up” society by expanding welfare, improving public services, and ensuring the political participation of disadvantaged groups.
As the link between poverty and health is related to disempowerment, to counter the effect, we need to empower people. This means listening to those experiencing poverty and disadvantage to understand their needs and including them in decision-making.
Reducing inequality – including providing better public transport options – can improve health outcomes in lower socioeconomic groups. Sandy Ravaloniaina/Unsplash
Australia’s response to the COVID pandemic shows it is possible to mobilise resources and political will in the face of a public health crisis. In 2020, the Australian government temporarily increased the unemployment benefit from its base rate (46% below the poverty line) – an implicit admission these payments were inadequate.
While poverty in Australia fell during the first two years of the pandemic, it has increased again as income supports have been phased out. Australia spends less on welfare than most high-income OECD countries and our taxes are spread less equitably. There is plenty of scope to improve this inequality by lifting benefit levels permanently to keep Australians out of poverty.
The health costs of financial hardship and inequality constitute a public health crisis, one that requires a collective commitment to “levelling up” society: the quintessentially Australian value of giving everyone a “fair go”.
The good news is, we have the tools to do this and the evidence to show it works – even in times of economic difficulty. Let’s make this a priority, for the sake of everyone’s health.
Edward Jegasothy is employed by the University of Sydney and is affiliated with the Public Health Association of Australia.
Sarah Hill 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.
A story from the early days of the Abbott government still circulates in the halls of Parliament House.
The government’s Expenditure Review Committee apparently supported then Minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce’s first A$500 million budget funding for the National Party’s dam-building plans, over then Treasurer Joe Hockey’s objections. Hockey reputedly said to Joyce “good luck with that, I don’t think you’ll build one of them”. If true then Joe, take a cigar.
In our land of drought and flooding rains, better water management should feature in every federal budget. Thankfully, the budget handed down by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Tuesday delivers it.
It slashes spending on big dams and elevates the role of science in water decision-making. It also positions Labor to undertake further reform in the Murray-Darling Basin by buying back more water from farmers to improve the health of the rivers, and manage the impacts of climate change.
These measures promise to deliver more sustainable use of water in Australia’s most economically important and exploited river system. But they also buy a fight with some quarters of the farming community, and the New South Wales and Victorian governments.
Nationals set about building dams
Dams are a talisman for Australians who believe development and the conquest of nature is essential to nation-building.
The National Party arguably exemplifies this ideology. It gained control of the water portfolios in the former federal government and current NSW government and set about trying to build dams, especially in the Murray-Darling Basin.
The Liberal Party has conceded to National Party demands on water even though the National Water Initiative, established by the Coalition in 2004, stipulates:
proposals for investment in new or refurbished water infrastructure […] be assessed as economically viable and ecologically sustainable prior to the investment occurring.
This week’s budget wields a long overdue axe to dam proposals from Coalition governments, saving $1.7 billion over four years. Two of the most controversial dam proposals in the Murray-Darling Basin are among those axed or indefinitely postponed.
First is the $1.27 billion Dungowan proposal near Tamworth in NSW. It was slammed by the Productivity Commission as excessively expensive and the leading example of poor water infrastructure decision making.
Second is the hugely expensive – up to $2.1 billion at last estimate – raising of Wyangala Dam, near Cowra. In 2021 a NSW parliamentary inquiry found the proposal was “yet to demonstrate the cost effectiveness and water yield benefits of the project”.
Further, $153.8 million of unallocated funding in former “water efficiency” projects in the basin has been (somewhat ambiguously) “re-profiled”. These efficiency projects have been criticised as double-counting water at the expense of the environment, being very expensive and subsidising irrigators.
Importantly, Labor has quietly sought to lock a commitment to better governance with transparent environmental and socio-economic assessment standards in a new National Water Grid Investment Framework.
Science and the Murray-Darling Basin
Labor has allocated $51.9 million over five years to strengthen the Murray-Darling Basin Plan “by updating the science to account for the impacts of climate change and restore trust and transparency in water management”.
This spending is timely. The past decade and more has seen risk-averse government agencies commission water research through narrow briefs to the government-owned CSIRO and other contractors. In one instance, the South Australian Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling Basin described this research as “improperly pressured” and representing “maladministration”.
The situation worsened when the research program into better water management commissioned by the independent National Water Commission was axed under Abbott in 2014.
Further, water institutions in the basin do not currently adequately address the threat of climate change.
Returning water to the rivers
Measures to implement the basin plan are meant to be complete in mid-2024. Consequently, allocated funding for all Basin water reforms was due to decline markedly after this point. Yet, major and expensive elements of the plan have still not been implemented.
In just one example, the Victorian and NSW governments were supposed to reach agreements and pay over 3,300 riverside land owners to fill river channels and allow water to spill safely onto the lower-most floodplains. This would conserve nearly 375,000 hectares of wetlands, and maximise conservation of flora and fauna with the limited volume of available environmental water.
However, since 2013 the state governments have failed to make a single agreement with land owners.
Murrumbidgee river at Yanga Woolshed, a major tributary of the Murray-Darling Basin. Jamie Pittock, Author provided
Hundreds of billions of litres of water that were supposed to have been reallocated to the environment are still missing. The latest federal budget describes the lack of water recovery for the environment as an unquantified “fiscal risk”.
Waving a big stick, Labor has allocated initial funding for meeting the environmental water targets in the plan. The amount of the funding has not been disclosed. It could involve purchasing water entitlements from farmers who volunteer to sell them – a move deeply opposed by the state governments and the irrigation industry.
The budget also funds repairs to other broken elements of the basin’s water governance. After a decade of cuts, the now Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water will have funding restored to, among other goals, improve “the health of our rivers and freshwater ecosystems”.
There is also money to start work on re-establishing a National Water Commission, and to reform the much criticised water trading markets to make them more transparent and robust.
Finally, the budget allocates $40 million to begin addressing the appalling dispossession of water from Indigenous peoples, who now hold just 0.17% of surface water entitlements in the basin. It’s a small but important first step for water justice.
Jamie Pittock is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and is a member of and advises a number of other environmental non-government organizations. Many moons ago he received funding from the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (RIP) for research on on climate change adaptation in the Murray-Darling Basin.
A close encounter between a white shark and a surfer.Author provided, Author provided
Australian surf lifesavers are increasingly using drones to spot sharks at the beach before they get too close to swimmers. But just how reliable are they?
Discerning whether that dark splodge in the water is a shark or just, say, seaweed isn’t always straightforward and, in reasonable conditions, drone pilots generally make the right call only 60% of the time. While this has implications for public safety, it can also lead to unnecessary beach closures and public alarm.
Engineers are trying to boost the accuracy of these shark-spotting drones with artificial intelligence (AI). While they show great promise in the lab, AI systems are notoriously difficult to get right in the real world, so remain out of reach for surf lifesavers. And importantly, overconfidence in such software can have serious consequences.
With these challenges in mind, our team set out to build the most robust shark detector possible and test it in real-world conditions. By using masses of data, we created a highly reliable mobile app for surf lifesavers that could not only improve beach safety, but help monitor the health of Australian coastlines.
A white shark being tracked by a drone. Author provided.
Detecting dangerous sharks with drones
The New South Wales government has invested more than A$85 million in shark mitigation measures over the next four years. Of all approaches on offer, a 2020 survey showed drone-based shark surveillance is the public’s preferred method to protect beach-goers.
The state government has been trialling drones as shark-spotting tools since 2016, and with Surf Life Saving NSW since 2018. Trained surf lifesaving pilots fly the drone over the ocean at a height of 60 metres, watching the live video feed on portable screens for the shape of sharks swimming under the surface.
Identifying sharks by carefully analysing the video footage in good conditions seems easy. But water clarity, sea glitter (sea-surface reflection), animal depth, pilot experience and fatigue all reduce the reliability of real-time detection to a predicted average of 60%. This reliability falls further when conditions are turbid.
Pilots also need to confidently identify the species of shark and tell the difference between dangerous and non-dangerous animals, such as rays, which are often misidentified.
Identifying shark species from the air.
AI-driven computer vision has been touted as an ideal tool to virtually “tag” sharks and other animals in the video footage streamed from the drones, and to help identify whether a species nearing the beach is cause for concern.
But scaling these systems to make a real-world difference across NSW beaches has been challenging.
AI systems are trained to locate and identify species using large collections of example images and perform remarkably well when processing familiar scenes in the real world.
However, problems quickly arise when they encounter conditions not well represented in the training data. As any regular ocean swimmer can tell you, every beach is different – the lighting, weather and water conditions can change dramatically across days and seasons.
Animals can also frequently change their position in the water column, which means their visible characteristics (such as their outline) changes, too.
All this variation makes it crucial for training data to cover the full gamut of conditions, or that AI systems be flexible enough to track the changes over time. Such challenges have been recognised for years, giving rise to the new discipline of “machine learning operations”.
Essentially, machine learning operations explicitly recognises that AI-driven software requires regular updates to maintain its effectiveness.
Examples of the drone footage used in our huge dataset.
Building a better shark spotter
We aimed to overcome these challenges with a new shark detector mobile app. We gathered a huge dataset of drone footage, and shark experts then spent weeks inspecting the videos, carefully tracking and labelling sharks and other marine fauna in the hours of footage.
Using this new dataset, we trained a machine learning model to recognise ten types of marine life, including different species of dangerous sharks such as great white and whaler sharks.
And then we embedded this model into a new mobile app that can highlight sharks in live drone footage and predict the species. We worked closely with the NSW government and Surf Lifesaving NSW to trial this app on five beaches during summer 2020.
A drone in surf lifesaver NSW livery preparing to go on patrol. Author provided.
Our AI shark detector did quite well. It identified dangerous sharks on a frame-by-frame basis 80% of the time, in realistic conditions.
We deliberately went out of our way to make our tests difficult by challenging the AI to run on unseen data taken at different times of year, or from different-looking beaches. These critical tests on “external data” are often omitted in AI research.
A more detailed analysis turned up common-sense limitations: white, whaler and bull sharks are difficult to tell apart because they look similar, while small animals (such as turtles and rays) are harder to detect in general.
Spurious detections (like mistaking seaweed as a shark) are a real concern for beach managers, but we found the AI could easily be “tuned” to eliminate these by showing it empty ocean scenes of each beach.
Example of where the AI gets it wrong – seaweed identified as sharks. Author provided
The future of AI for shark spotting
In the short term, AI is now mature enough to be deployed in drone-based shark-spotting operations across Australian beaches. But, unlike regular software, it will need to be monitored and updated frequently to maintain its high reliability of detecting dangerous sharks.
An added bonus is that such a machine learning system for spotting sharks would also continually collect valuable ecological data on the health of our coastline and marine fauna.
In the longer term, getting the AI to look at how sharks swim and using new AI technology that learns on-the-fly will make AI shark detection even more reliable and easy to deploy.
The NSW government has new drone trials for the coming summer, testing the usefulness of efficient long-range flights that can cover more beaches.
AI can play a key role in making these flights more effective, enabling greater reliability in drone surveillance, and may eventually lead to fully-automated shark-spotting operations and trusted automatic alerts.
The authors acknowledge the substantial contributions from Dr Andrew Colefax and Dr Andrew Walsh at Sci-eye.
Cormac Purcell received funding from the NSW Department of Primary Industries to conduct this research at Macquarie University. He was previously affiliated with Sci-eye, a company founded to advance the development of technology to tackle human-wildlife conflict. Fujitsu Australia also supported this research with a loan of computing equipment.
Paul Butcher works for and receives funding from NSW Department of Primary Industries while being an adjunct of Southern Cross University and Deakin University.
The most important part of the government’s proposed agricultural emissions pricing scheme is the price. This may seem obvious – but the government has failed to provide a clear indication of what the price will be and how it will be set.
Unfortunately, this uncertainty is already undermining what is otherwise a very good policy proposal. The first casualty of the lack of price certainty seems to have been well-informed public debate.
Public consultation on the scheme is open until November 18. My hope would be that one outcome is the Climate Change Commission being given responsibility for setting the price – as soon as possible – to provide more certainty.
In reality, because we don’t know the price, we can’t say how much the scheme might reduce agricultural emissions and what impacts it could have on the sector. But if we assume a price that will give us credible emission reductions, industry-led modelling predicts an average cost of 0 to 7.2% of farm profits.
Carrot and stick
Under the proposed plan, farmers will be charged for every kilogram of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) they emit. They will also be given incentives to implement specific GHG-reducing practices on their farms. Both the “stick” and the “carrot” make up the price.
This is a good policy because the stick funds the carrot. Combined, they increase the price while reducing the impact on farmers. The scheme is farm-level, which is more costly to administer than the earlier proposals to place emissions charges on processors like Fonterra. But it should be more effective at reducing emissions.
While our milk and meat produce relatively low GHGs per kilogram of product by international standards, a strong pricing scheme such as this will help us maintain that position.
Ministers will set the price, annually or every three years, taking into account advice from the Climate Change Commission.
The recent Groundswell protests claim emissions pricing will put some farmers out of business. Getty Images
Uncertainties around pricing
Methane is the main greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted by farming cows and sheep. The government has set a target for methane emissions of 10% below 2017 levels by 2030. But it’s hard to know what the price needs to be to achieve the target.
There are a few things that complicate the calculation.
Firstly, there’s the human factor. It’s hard to model exactly how strongly farmers will respond to the price, particularly when we are talking about relatively small costs in relation to all the decisions made on farms.
Secondly, we don’t know what technologies will become available to farmers over the next five to ten years. A range of technologies show promise but are still in development. If one or two of them become available and affordable in that time frame, the 10% target may be easy to achieve at little cost.
By putting the decision in the hands of government, we now have political uncertainty to add to this list.
A need for compromise
There are many competing factors to weigh up when setting the price. First is achieving the GHG reduction targets – a difficult task in itself. There may need to be some flexibility, as long as we are on the right track.
A second factor is maintaining a competitive agricultural export sector. Reducing emissions will come at a cost, but we will want to avoid putting too high a burden on farmers too quickly.
A third factor is providing some certainty over the price. This is important for farmers when they’re deciding whether to invest time and money in new practices and technologies.
Governments may be tempted play with any of these factors – for example, promising to drop prices at election time. And if the price is set too low, the scheme will be an expensive failure. Too high and the costs may be borne too quickly.
Who should set the price?
A better option would be to let the Climate Change Commission set the price. It’s well placed to do this with expert and community input, and was set up as an independent body specifically for jobs like this.
Yes, the government has said the commission will recommend a price and ministers will respond. But why add the additional political uncertainty?
The government should provide clear criteria for determining the price, which would increase rather than reduce certainty. And the commission should set prices early and for a specific period of time. For example, next year it could set the prices for when the scheme starts in 2025, with the plan to review it in 2028.
Of course, governments don’t like to hand decision-making power over to others. But in this case it would make sense. The first casualty of price uncertainty may have been some public doubt over the merits of the policy. Let’s make sure the next casualty isn’t the policy itself.
Zack Dorner received funding from the Ministry for Primary Industries in 2022 to review modelling of the agri-emissions pricing policy. He is receiving funding from DairyNZ to co-supervise a Master’s student. He also receives funding from a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour project, looking at increasing pro-environmental actions on farms.
As university students around the country finish their final exams and assessments for the year, the idea of removing due dates might seem incredibly appealing.
Being more open-ended about when assignments are submitted may also seem like the logical next step for universities. Even before COVID-19, they have been looking for ways to make learning more flexible. This is generally done by offering units online or in a hybrid model, where some units are in person and some are online. But is it truly flexible if just the place has changed?
An emerging trend in the sector is “self-paced learning,” where students do not have to fit their learning into a university semester and there might be flexible due dates for assessments.
In other words, students with internet access and a laptop can study at a time and place that suits them.
We wanted to know what the experience would be like for students and staff if hyperflexible units were offered at undergraduate level.
Our study
In a 2021 pilot study, we looked at four undergraduate history and communication units. The humanities was a good fit for the pilot because they attract a wide range of students, did not have tests or exams and had fewer restrictions like external accreditation.
We offered the units in the traditional mode and a hyperflexible mode. In the hyperflexible mode, students had access to all the unit content, could self-pace and did not have due dates for their written and oral assessments.
University is becoming more and more flexible, in a bid to fit around students’ lives. Alexis Brown/Unsplash
The unit’s content was self-paced, via short recorded videos and interactive learning modules, rather than traditional lectures. There were opportunities for learning with other students (like live Zoom tutorials), but these were not compulsory.
Of the group, 27 students chose to take the hyperflexible option. We interviewed them and three unit coordinators before and after the term about their experiences. We also surveyed all 12 humanities staff about their perceptions of hyperflexible learning.
While the sample size was small, students and staff suggested there are both risks and benefits to this type of study.
‘I wouldn’t have passed’: what did students say?
On balance, the students who took part had a positive experience. One even said:
If it wasn’t hyperflexible I wouldn’t have passed.
Several noted how assessment deadlines were a significant source of stress and relished the freedom to fit study around their life, rather than the other way around. Several said it made it easier to accommodate their work and family commitments.
One student said they were thrilled when they heard about the hyperflexible option because:
I am a very anxious student, and deadlines really, really stressed me out.
Other students suggested the quality of their learning was better in a hyperflexible model as they were able to “go deeper” on a topic that interested them and not have it reserved for one particular week. It was suggested that the hyperflexible unit allowed “study in a more intensive way”.
But students also raised concerns. Several noted it “feels a bit isolating”, “disconnected”, like they are “the only student doing it” and they are not “participating in the university experience”.
Others were worried they might not receive the same level of feedback from staff and there might be a temptation to “leave everything to the last minute”.
University staff were generally more cautious about the benefits of hyperflexible learning. Common concerns were students would lose their sense of being part of a group, feel lost or overwhelmed, allow assignments to pile up, and it could ultimately see more students dropping out.
Staff were also concerned no due dates could increase their workload. They noted they would be less free to take leave or attend conferences if they did not have a reasonable expectation when their marking would be due. Even when students were being taught the same content, there were new challenges and as one staff member said:
I feel as though I am managing two cohorts.
Staff members did see benefits in hyperflexible learning also and most said they were willing to experiment with it. Several commented on the potential for motivated students to finish their degrees faster. One staff member noted that having now taught a hyperflexible unit:
I have confidence that most students get there in the end.
Our study suggests removing due dates from undergraduate units has potential to make university study more accessible and less rigid, while reducing student stress.
One key issue is how students can maintain a sense of being together in a group, receive support, and feel a connection to their university.
Some students reported feeling isolated when studying without due dates. Max Shilov/Unsplash
For educators, hyperflexible learning is a distinct form of teaching and staff members would need to be adequately trained and supported. This way of teaching is individualistic and seeks to fit study around the needs of each student. To some extent, this is in conflict with the ideal of university as a learning community.
Although the responses to the pilot program were largely positive, there is still a lot more we need to know about the impact of removing due dates and time pressures. For example, although due dates were removed, students still had to complete their assessments within the semester – due to university and government policies.
Also, while this approach might fit the assessment-focused humanities, we don’t know how this works in disciplines that are more heavily exam-driven (like health and IT).
Ultimately, risks associated with hyperflexible learning and the impact on both staff and students need to be considered carefully before adopting these approaches for undergrads.
So, sorry students – seems like you’ll have to finish that essay this week after all.
This research was funded by a CQUniversity Learning and Teaching Research Development Grant.
Benjamin T. Jones 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.
An opposition leader has a tricky task when delivering a first budget reply after an election rout. But circumstances played into the hands of Peter Dutton for his big parliamentary occasion on Thursday night.
Jim Chalmers’ budget was, as the treasurer argued, responsible and restrained. But it contained alarming numbers on the potent issue of surging power prices. They’re not Labor’s fault, and of course when it comes to energy policy the Coalition has dirty hands.
But dealing with the crisis, driven by the Ukraine war, is now Labor’s problem, and that gave Dutton something substantial to latch onto.
Aside from the budget, the government this week introduced its workplace reforms, which include extending multi-employer bargaining, and business is critical, fearing a rise in strike action. Industrial relations is traditional core ground for the Coalition (not that it has always gone well politically). The legislation provided some more fodder for Dutton.
In Thursday’s reply, Dutton sounded nervous and fluffed some lines. Without the troubles Labor faces, he probably would have struggled. In the event, it was a comprehensive effort that touched many bases. Chalmers had pre-billed his budget as “workmanlike”, and so was Dutton’s reply. Neither indulged in the “flashy”.
Homing in on the cost of living, Dutton told Australians: “Labor’s budget was a missed opportunity to help you at a time when you need help.”
Notably, however, he did not say the government should have splashed cash around.
Dutton reprised Labor’s killer pre-election line. “On Tuesday, the treasurer failed to mention in his speech what Labor’s budget papers revealed: ‘Everything is going up, except your wages’.
“Cost of living, power prices, taxes, interest rates, unemployment and the deficit are going up, or will be going up,” Dutton said, claiming that “by Christmas, a typical family will be $2000 worse off under this budget”.
The budget “makes life more difficult for millions of Australians,” he said; he invoked the familiar Coalition mantra that “Labor can’t manage the economy”.
It’s true life will be more difficult for millions of Australians in coming months, with rising prices and interest rates. But it is not true, as Dutton claims, that this is as a result of the budget.
Despite the climate issue being a significant factor in the Coalition’s loss of teal and other seats, Dutton used the energy crisis to maintain a hard line.
“Labor’s push for 82% renewables by 2030 comes without a plan to ensure reliable baseload power,” he said. “Labor is misleading Australians when it says it can roll out billions of dollars’ worth of transmission wires, cables and towers for renewables in the next few years.” Nuclear got a nod.
He said the budget saw the government “rip-up funding for gas exploration and cancel gas infrastructure projects which would eliminate shortfalls and make your bills cheaper. They handed over funding to environmental activists who want to overturn gas projects approvals.
“Higher gas prices will be baked-in for the foreseeable future, putting high-paying jobs in regional communities at risk.”
The government retreated from its flirtation with recalibrating the Stage 3 tax cuts, but Dutton painted this as just a temporary reprieve.
“Our legislated tax plan future-proofs your income,” he said. Labor had taken the Coalition’s tax plan to the election, “but now they are laying the groundwork to break this promise”.
“This budget provides no certainty for ten million Australians expecting tax relief in 2024. The budget is intended to soften up Australians. It gives the government time to come up with excuses by May next year to tax you more.”
Unsurprisingly, the opposition leader didn’t announce major new Coalition policy, but he reaffirmed the election policy to allow first home buyers to dip into their superannuation to buy a home (which would be extended to women who separated later in life).
He contrasted this with the budget’s “housing accord” between governments, investors (Chalmers is thinking super funds) and industry to build a million houses. “They want your super to invest in someone else’s home – not your own.”
He cast the government’s multi-employer bargaining changes as a throwback to the 1980s, a world where “multiple sectors will be able to engage in crippling economy-wide strikes, where parties unaffected by disputes join in on protests”.
Dutton trod carefully in some areas, finding aspects of the budget with which to agree (the extension of the childcare subsidy, lower medicine prices), and promising co-operation on issues such as violence against women and children.
Elsewhere, notably on education, he was combative, saying “the system has allowed ideologically driven advocates too much influence over what is taught to our children”.
He also used the occasion to sketch his personal story, just as Anthony Albanese did so often in the run-up to the election. Albanese said he learned the value of a dollar growing up as the son of a single mum; Dutton told us his parents taught their kids “to appreciate the value of money”.
In the direct political contest – government versus opposition – Labor is in a very strong position. Post-election, the public is not expressing buyer regret. The opposition is painfully strung out on a spectrum stretching from its right wing to its moderates, with Dutton still to figure how he can shape his troops into a cohesive fighting unit.
But in that real world where families sit around those much-talked-about kitchen tables, the government knows it confronts intractable problems.
This week it has been criticised for not having sorted out a policy on power prices before the budget. One reason is because crafting one is fraught with difficulty. Nevertheless the task looms more urgent by the day.
Wednesday’s unexpectedly high inflation number – 7.3% for the September quarter – just reinforced how painful cost-of-living pressures are becoming. It also called into question the budget’s forecast that inflation will peak (in the December quarter) at 7.75%, although Chalmers is sticking to it.
As if they don’t have enough bad news, households with mortgages will be slugged with another interest rate rise when the Reserve Bank board meets on Tuesday, Melbourne Cup day.
Labor was helped to office by the cost-of-living pressures and its promise it would get real wages growing.
But living costs are much more acute now, and the budget confirmed the earliest real wages are likely to start moving is 2024.
In the space of a few months the cost of living has transformed, politically, from a Labor weapon to a Coalition one. As it looks to the May budget, the government will be preoccupied with trying to deal with both the substance and the politics of the issue.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rod Sims, Professor in the practice of public policy and antitrust, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Shutterstock
Virtually every country in the world is facing a crisis in energy costs, yet while other countries can’t do much about it, Australia can.
Australia could get its east coast gas producers to supply the domestic gas market for less than A$10 a gigajoule. Earlier this year, prices were more than $40 a gigajoule, and now sit at $25-30 a gigajoule.
Tuesday’s budget factored in retail electricity price rises of more than 50% over two years. The increases in retail gas prices exceeded 40%.
Outlining the budget on Tuesday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said any responsible government facing these kinds of price hikes needed to “consider a broader suite of regulatory interventions” than in the past.
Chalmers had “more work to do” and would work with the states.
Here is the key step I think should be taken.
To restrain electricity prices, cut gas prices
The quickest way to get electricity prices down is to significantly lower the cost of gas. Gas generators come online after cheaper forms of generation have already been pressed into service, and so help set the final price charged.
Getting gas prices below $10 a gigajoule would also help households that are facing crippling gas bills, as well as industries that rely on sensibly priced energy for their existence including Australia’s glass, paper and fertiliser industries.
Once those industries close, they are unlikely to return.
Here’s what’s been done so far.
The Turnbull, Morrison and recently the Albanese governments have each reached agreements with the three liquid natural gas producers operating out of Gladstone in Queensland that together control around 90% of east coast reserves.
‘Sufficient supply’ isn’t affordable supply
The agreements require the supply of sufficient gas to meet the needs of east coast gas consumers.
For a while they worked to reduce then-high domestic prices to sensible levels, because international prices were low. But now international prices have climbed to multiples of usual levels, agreements to supply without specific reference to prices are no longer enough.
An agreement to supply “sufficient” quantities of gas at $25-40 per gigajoule is an agreement to not supply much. After industries close, supply will be “sufficient” for the remaining users who can afford it, but it won’t be what we want.
We need to get the east coast liquefied natural gas (LNG) producers to supply sufficient gas to the east coast at prices below $10 a gigajoule. They would continue to make a profit at those prices, albeit much less than otherwise.
As it happens, the Commonwealth has the power to get such commitments, because it has the power to stop exports. That power gives it complete leverage.
We need to be clear on two points.
First, there is no suggestion here that the LNG producers’ long-term contracts are at risk. Asian buyers need not be concerned. All three LNG projects were underwritten by long-term contracts at fixed prices.
What we are talking about is the gas the three producers have available beyond their need to service these long contracts. This gas can either be exported to the spot, or short-term, market at very high prices or sold domestically.
They should be told they can only export gas to the currently lucrative international spot market if they sell sufficient gas domestically to get prices clearly below $10 a gigajoule.
Other exporters reserve gas
Second, what I am suggesting is akin to what all other gas exporting countries do.
Australia has by far the highest domestic gas prices of any gas exporting country. No other country would tolerate its gas being exported while its domestic market is paying the same high prices as international customers.
The gas companies need to come to the party, either to earn their “licence to operate” or to avoid the threat of export controls.
If they know the threat of export controls is real, I believe they will do what’s necessary without the need to actually control exports.
A final point: there can be no argument about “sovereign risk”, the idea that foreign companies will no longer do business with Australia if it changes the rules.
The long-term gas exporting contracts would remain intact. Australia would simply be aligning itself with all other gas exporting nations – and, by the way, with Western Australia, which has long looked after its residents and businesses by reserving gas to ensure reasonable domestic prices.
Rod Sims was Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission from 2011 to 2022.
Over the next two years, energy prices are expected to rise by a whopping 56%. That’s the dismal forecast in this week’s federal budget.
The rise will be extremely painful, adding enormous pressure to households already struggling with the cost of living.
In response, the government is talking tough. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has flagged a government intervention and has asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to examine the gas market closely.
But does the government have any real leverage? It’s so far baulked at pulling the gas trigger – a mechanism to limit exports if there’s a local shortfall.
If Labor genuinely wants to stop prices skyrocketing, it must forcibly reserve gas for the east coast market. The policy has worked for Western Australia. The question is, does it have the nerve?
Is there any hope for consumers? Short term, it’s unlikely. But within three years, Australia should be able to produce half its electricity from renewables – and the sun and wind are, thankfully, resistant to geopolitical price hikes.
Energy prices show no signs of slowing. Shutterstock
Why do energy prices keep rising?
Right now, we’re still highly dependent on fossil fuels, because the renewable transition is still in its early stages.
Oil, gas and coal prices are spiking following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sweeping sanctions on Russia forced many European countries to find alternative gas supplies, causing global prices to skyrocket. So while Australia has plentiful gas, producers are selling much of it overseas – and domestic users have to pay the same high international price.
What’s more, the Australian electricity market has been forced to rely more on expensive gas due to rising number of extreme weather events, unexpected coal plant outages, fuel supply issues and the closure of old coal plants.
To date, the national market (which excludes Australia’s north and west) has imposed few restrictions on gas exports. This cannot continue. Gas is a public resource and the government must act to protect vulnerable consumers.
What has the government tried?
Since taking power in May, Labor has done two things to bring prices down: extended an existing agreement with gas producers, and proposed changes to the gas trigger to make it easier to pull. Neither have had noticeable success.
The agreement signed at the end of September extends the Morrison-era agreement out to 2030. The goal is simple: ensure we do not run short of gas next year.
The problem is, while good in principle, these types of agreements – known as heads of agreement – are not legally binding.
The extended agreement says producers must offer uncontracted gas to the domestic market – gas left over after producers have satisfied their contractual supply obligations – before it’s offered to the international market.
It must be offered at a competitive price, which is hard to define in a highly turbulent international market. It provides no price security.
What’s more, the code of conduct guiding the agreement is voluntary and there’s no legal recourse for non-compliance.
This is a feeble, unsatisfactory way to regulate Australia’s multibillion-dollar gas sector in the face of a global energy crisis.
If a shortfall of gas is forecast, the federal government can pull the gas trigger – a mechanism where the energy minister can impose export restrictions.
This is a supply mechanism, not a price mechanism. Intended as a last resort, it was introduced in 2017 and has never been used – not even this year, despite the dire predictions of a shortfall next year.
What’s Labor doing? Proposing to make it easier to pull this trigger by assessing any shortfall every three months instead of only once a year. But this won’t change the price of gas.
Don’t we have more protection against price spikes?
When you look at your energy bill, you may notice a key phrase: the default market offer. Effectively a price cap, it was introduced in 2019 to ensure the standing offers of energy retailers couldn’t rise too much.
Standing offers – as opposed to market offers – include mandatory consumer protections, usually making them more expensive. Confused? You’re not alone. While energy users have always been able to choose between standing and market offers, in reality, most of us didn’t know the difference.
That’s why the ACCC got involved in 2018, finding the national electricity market wasn’t operating in the best interest of consumers.
In response, the government introduced a code forcing energy retailers to adhere to the default market offer, set by the Australian Energy Regulator. This price cap is figured out by taking into account wholesale cost of energy and cost of living pressures. For instance, this financial year, price increases were capped at 1-9% in Victoria, 8.5-14% in New South Wales, and 11.3% in South-east Queensland.
The default market offer has proved an important safeguard against anti-competitive pricing in the retail sector. But the problem now is the wholesale cost of energy has spiked, forcing up the default market offer to reflect the rising cost of energy for retailers.
How could Labor get serious on energy prices?
As prices surge, pressure will rise on the government to quit tinkering and take stronger action – namely, legally reserving gas for east coast use, and tackling the soaring network costs of maintaining and expanding the poles and wires through which electricity flows.
In WA, the energy crisis has been much more muted. This year, wholesale energy price rises in the west have averaged A$64 a megawatt-hour while east coast rises have been more than four times higher at an extraordinary $284/MWh.
That’s because the WA government learned from a 2008 gas outage and brought in a reservation policy which mandates 15% of the gas extracted in the state must stay there.
A federal gas reservation policy is the best way to increase supply and drive down prices.
The second step is to intervene in network costs, which contribute up to half of the cost to you as a consumer.
The problem is, worsening extreme weather damages existing infrastructure. And we’ll need much more transmission infrastructure to get to a clean energy grid.
To solve this part of your energy bill pain, state and federal governments can work to expand our underground power network, which is more resilient to floods and fire. But we also need to develop a fair and equitable way of allocating network costs.
Renewables are coming – but not fast enough to stave off this pain. Nicolas Doherty/Unsplash, CC BY
Beyond softly-softly
Where does this leave us? In a world of (temporary) pain. Until we stop relying on expensive gas, coal and oil, market turbulence will add more pain. Change is coming – and fast – with renewables expected to meet 50% of our electricity needs within three years.
Those three years are likely to be rough. We are dependent on gas until enough renewables and storage come online. Given our gas is a national resource, we should treat it as such. The softly-softly approach isn’t working.
As consumers feel the pain, energy poverty and food insecurity will spike. Things may have to get worse for Labor to bite the bullet and take decisive action.
Samantha Hepburn 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 trial of Bruce Lehrmann, accused of raping former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins, has been aborted after a juror was found in possession of material that had not been presented as evidence, against the judge’s specific directions.
This was not the first drama in the jury’s deliberations. On Tuesday, after more than four days of deliberating, the 12 jurors passed a note to ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum saying they could not agree on a unanimous verdict. The judge called the jurors back into the courtroom and encouraged them to keep working on a decision.
Today, however, she announced she had no choice but to discharge the jury due to a juror’s “misconduct”, which was apparently discovered when a member of the court staff noticed an academic research paper in one of the juror’s document holders that had been knocked to the floor.
One of the more extraordinary cases of jury misconduct occurred in 1994 when a number of jurors in Britain deployed a ouija board to contact the victim of a murder. A new trial was ordered.
Interestingly, misconduct often comes to light when one juror approaches the judge about a fellow juror’s behaviour. It’s more difficult to know how common it is for extraneous research by a juror to go undetected, particularly given the veil of secrecy that surrounds jury deliberations.
Why are jurors not allowed to conduct their own research?
The role of the jury is to come to a decision based on the evidence before them.
Juries are community representatives within the courtroom, whose job it is to determine questions of fact and apply the law to those facts to reach a verdict.
One might think that, in so doing, it’s inevitable individual jurors bring with them their own life experiences and moral values, and there is nothing wrong with that. Indeed, Justice McCallum told the jury in this case:
You are expected to use your common sense […] your understanding of human nature and your ability to judge people […] You are entitled to have regard to your understanding and experience of the nature of memory.
However, the jurors in the trial of Lehrmann sat through days of evidence, carefully presented and argued over by prosecution and defence counsel, and deemed admissible according to the rules of evidence.
The most important rule of admissibility is that the evidence is relevant to the case. Beyond relevance, evidence is subject to complex rules of admissibility, designed primarily to screen out material that’s unfairly prejudicial to the defence, and to protect vulnerable witnesses.
Examples include rules against the admission of hearsay, prior sexual experience of a complainant, or the “character” of a defendant. These rules are all the more important when it comes to emotive crimes like rape.
Given the complex nature of some of the evidence with which they are presented, and the “holes” in the trial narrative that might appear from the exclusion of potentially relevant evidence, jury members may be tempted to turn to outside sources in an attempt to increase their understanding of issues raised during the course of a trial.
The dangers of allowing such extraneous “research” are twofold. First, such evidence is not subject to the rules of admissibility alluded to above. Second, it is not subject to the rigours of cross-examination.
For these reasons, jurors are reminded again and again to come to a decision based solely on the evidence presented. It’s for this reason the jury in this case will have been instructed to disregard anything they may have read, heard or seen in the media about the case before they had been empanelled, and certainly not to undertake their own research.
The trial has been aborted and the jury has been dismissed. The judge granted Lehrmann bail until February 20, and set that as a provisional retrial date. The matter is now referred back to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold. It’s unclear whether a retrial will be heard before a jury.
A re-trial comes at considerable economic cost. What’s more, all of the witnesses will now be put through the same ordeal once again.
Despite the disruption caused by the errant juror’s behaviour, however well-meaning, the juror has committed no offence in the ACT. However, other jurisdictions deem juror contempt a serious criminal offence.
It remains to be seen what the next chapter in this protracted case brings.
Rick Sarre is affiliated with the ALP.
Ben Livings 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.
New Zealand journalist and academic David Robie has covered the Asia-Pacific region for international media for more than four decades.
An advocate for media freedom in the Pacific region, he is the author of several books on South Pacific media and politics, including an account of the French bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985 — which took place while he was on the last voyage.
In 1994 he founded the journal Pacific Journalism Review examining media issues and communication in the South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.
The Mediasia “conversation” on Asia-Pacific issues in Kyoto, Japan. Image: Iafor screenshot APR
He was also convenor of the Pacific Media Watch media freedom collective, which collaborates with Reporters Without Borders in Paris, France.
Until he retired at Auckland University of Technology in 2020 as that university’s first professor in journalism and founder of the Pacific Media Centre, Dr Robie organised many student projects in the South Pacific such as the Bearing Witness climate action programme.
In this interview conducted by Mediasia organising committee member Dr Nasya Bahfen of La Trobe University for this week’s 13th International Asian Conference on Media, Communication and Film that ended today in Kyoto, Japan, Professor Robie discusses a surge of disinformation and the challenges it posed for journalists in the region as they covered the covid-19 pandemic alongside a parallel “infodemic” of fake news and hoaxes.
He also explores the global climate emergency and the disproportionate impact it is having on the Asia-Pacific.
Paying a tribute to the dedication and courage of Pacific journalists, he says with a chuckle: “All Pacific journalists are climate journalists — they live with it every day.”
Challenges facing the Asia-Pacific media . . . La Trobe University’s Dr Nasya Bahfen and Asia Pacific Report’s Dr David Robie in conversation. Image: Iafor screenshot APR
This week, a United Nations torture prevention subcommittee delegation suspended its visit to Australia. The delegation arrived on October 16 and was due to end its visit on October 27, but suspended the visit prematurely on Sunday October 23.
In giving its reasons for the decision, the delegation claimed it had
been prevented from visiting several places where people are detained, experienced difficulties in carrying out a full visit at other locations, and was not given all the relevant information and documentation it had requested.
The Australian government signed the OPCAT anti-torture protocol in 2009 and ratified it in 2017, voluntarily agreeing to meet the obligations.
These include granting the subcommittee unfettered access to information such as the number of people deprived of their liberty in places of detention, and the treatment of those people and their conditions of detention. This also includes allowing unfettered access “to all places of detention and their installations and facilities”.
irrespective of whether [denial of access] happens in parts of the country, or in the country as a whole, we see that as an obstruction to our mandate.
Muhammad emphasised that suspending the subcommittee visit was not a decision taken lightly. In fact, such a decision has only been made three times in the past:
a visit to Azerbaijan was suspended, but then recommenced in April 2015, with a confidential report to the government
a visit to Ukraine was suspended and then recommenced in September 2016, with the report to the government being made public
and a visit to Rwanda was suspended in October 2017, to be ultimately terminated, without a report, in June 2018.
A collaborative approach
There are misconceptions about what the subcommittee actually does. It’s not an oversight or complaint handling body. It doesn’t carry out investigations or inspections. And it’s not in the business of naming and shaming governments or countries.
The opposite is true. The subcommittee’s work is grounded in co-operation, making confidential recommendations to governments on strengthening critical safeguards to mitigate the risk of torture and ill-treatment of detained people.
The optional anti-torture protocol is a forward-looking instrument, which focuses on building constructive relationships, and engaging in constructive dialogue, with governments and detention authorities.
This preventive mandate is to be distinguished from oversight and accountability mechanisms such as complaints adjudication, audits, regulation, monitoring, criminal proceedings, civil litigation and coronial inquests.
Can Australia benefit from a successful visit?
The short answer is yes. Every country can benefit from accommodating a visit by a subcommittee delegation, to have a fresh, objective, expert set of eyes on places of detention, and to learn from best practices internationally.
No country has a perfect record when it comes to preventing torture and ill-treatment in places of detention.
Australia is one of 91 countries that have voluntarily joined the anti-torture protocol. In doing so, it has affirmed a commitment to meet international human rights obligations to take proactive steps to prevent torture from happening in the first place.
So the emphasis here is on not just responding to torture and ill-treatment after the fact, when people have already gone through terrible pain and suffering, with potentially lifelong consequences.
Under the protocol, Australia has committed to establishing a “national preventive mechanism” (NPM) – which can be constituted by multiple bodies and is the domestic counterpart to the UN subcommittee.
To date, the federal government has nominated its NPM body, as have the governments of the Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia. However, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland are yet to do so.
The deadline for Australia to meet these commitments is in January 2023. It had been postponed for three years, and subsequently extended by one year.
Although the subcommittee has suspended its visit to Australia, there’s still an opportunity for Australian governments to work collaboratively to address any obstacles to the subcommittee effectively exercising its mandate, and being able to resume its visit.
On the other hand, the subcommittee may choose to terminate its visit if the issues it has identified aren’t resolved in a reasonable time frame. In that case, it may decide to make its observations public.
Andreea Lachsz is currently contracted to the ACT government as the ACT National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) Coordination Director. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ACT government, ACT NPM or any extant policy.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Pawson, Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney
Housing took centre stage in Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s first budget this week. Relatively modest but positive steps were made towards tackling Australia’s worsening shortage of affordable social housing, as well as the broader challenge of housing affordability. But parts of the package cast some doubt on the new government’s analysis of the problem and its ambitions to tackle it.
The most substantive aspect of budget housing plans was the confirmation of promised funding for 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes over five years via the new Housing Australia Future Fund. This will involve a A$10 billion, debt-funded, equity investment. Resulting annual returns will be ploughed into building subsidised housing available at below-market rates.
The 2022 ALP election platform had outlined this initiative. The budget added a bonus in the form of federal funding for another 10,000 affordable rental homes under a newly minted National Housing Accord with state and territory governments.
As part of that deal, the states have pledged to enable construction of “up to” 10,000 affordable homes on top of Commonwealth commitments. One way they would do this is by making well-located state land available for the purpose.
To help make housing more affordable for Australians in general, the accord also commits Australian governments to enabling at least 1 million new homes over five years from 2024.
A million homes has a good ring to it, but how ambitious is it really?
Critics have pointed out that 985,000 homes were built over the past five years. However, in Australia’s notoriously volatile housing system, that was a period of peak activity unlikely to be repeated soon. In the five years to 2014, for example, the total was only 860,000 homes. And official and industry forecasts suggest only about 180,000 housing completions per year on average over the next three years.
By these measures, the million homes target could be quite challenging. So how can it be achieved?
Firstly, if governments directly fund 50,000 social and affordable rental homes, that will be a good start.
Secondly, according to the budget statement, it’s hoped measures such as stepped-up rezoning of non-housing land for housing and higher-density redevelopment near transport hubs will boost market housing output. These moves could lead to better-sited house building.
This approach also follows from the analysis that unreasonably high prices and rents are largely a result of “constrained housing supply”, in turn largely due to excessive planning restrictions.
Planning simplification can never be a bad aspiration. However, it’s questionable whether market players would ever boost construction rates enough to significantly lower new house prices – and therefore existing property values too.
The real problem here is that the budget and Labor’s election platform focused solely on the supply side of the market. They turned a blind eye to the policy settings that affect housing demand such as migration, tax, social security and financial regulation.
It would be hoped the more holistic analysis of Australia’s housing problems and solutions that’s essential to address these issues will underlie the government’s forthcoming National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
Positively, the budget allocated funds for the plan’s development. But that task has been assigned to the Department of Social Services. This seems to raise the risk of an unduly narrowly defined conception of what’s needed. The concern is it might focus exclusively on homelessness and affordability at the lower end of the market.
Certainly, these are crucial aspects of the wider housing policy challenge. But to examine them in isolation risks misdiagnosis and the prescription of palliative solutions.
Budget downplays need for institutional reform
The budget papers also imply a substantial downgrading of another ALP election pledge – to emulate countries such as Canada by setting up a national housing agency. Just $500,000 a year is allocated to this task. In my book, Housing Australia should be leading on the national plan, as well as accommodating the re-established National Housing Supply and Affordability Council.
With the right mandate, Housing Australia could create a much-needed permanent body of housing expertise within government, co-ordinating policy development and implementation across departments and levels of government. It could help to insulate housing policymaking from the short-term political dynamics that have plagued it for decades. This is an area where long-term thinking comes at a premium.
Negotiating the multi-party Housing Accord within months of taking power is an impressive government achievement. More broadly, though, these developments seem to speak to a disappointingly lukewarm commitment to essential institutional reforms.
The governance structure for housing policy in Australia is outdated, fragmented and underpowered. It’s badly in need of an overhaul.
After nearly a decade of Commonwealth neglect, the Albanese government has moved fast to flesh out its main housing commitments. Yet an administration with serious long-term ambition to restore the health of our housing system would also be embracing the challenge of wider policy governance reform. It’s a fairly low-cost undertaking, but a precondition for progress beyond this term of office.
Hal Pawson receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), the Australian Research Council (ARC), Launch Housing, the Queensland Council of Social Service, and Crisis UK
The announcement the BBC will move the global streaming of Doctor Who from free to air channels to Disney+ will change the viewing habits for millions of people internationally.
In Australia, Doctor Who will be removed from the ABC, in New Zealand from the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, and in America from BBC America.
According to reports, the BBC and Disney+ are thrilled with the deal. The show’s chief writer Russell T. Davies has said this new relationship will allow the show to “launch the TARDIS all around the planet, reaching a new generation of fans while keeping our traditional home firmly on the BBC in the UK.”
But what about the traditional homes Doctor Who has in other countries, which often kept rare Doctor Who episodes safe which the BBC discarded in the 1970s, before the BBC began archiving the videotapes of their old black and white programs. Now the BBC keeps everything, but once wiped or threw out tapes when they thought the programs had no further value.
The first people anywhere in the world to see Doctor Who were British viewers of the BBC’s television service on November 23 1963. Any one with a television licence could have watched and several million people did, having just learned of President John F Kennedy’s assassination.
The rest of the world did not have to wait long. In the mid-1960s television was mostly black and white and the BBC’s 405 line productions could be broadcast by technicians in television stations around the world.
West Australians first saw Doctor Who in January 1965. Shortly after, the ABC in other capitals began to broadcast the series.
The global broadcasting of Doctor Who has created different viewing patterns for diverse audiences.
Famously in Britain, Doctor Who was part of a Saturday evening “tea time” experience for school children: a line-up of football, light entertainment and drama from early afternoon to late night. Doctor Who kept its place as the mainstay of the BBC’s Saturday line-up almost without interruption from 1963 to 1989.
But for Australians like me, Doctor Who was viewed in a different way. As a child of the 1980s, Doctor Who was in an unmissable weekday afternoon line-up on the ABC.
Australians weren’t watching exactly the same episodes as their counterparts watching the BBC. Early Doctor Who is startlingly violent, and early on the show gained its enduring reputation as so scary kids watched from behind the sofa. These black and white episodes feature mass killings, hangings, shootings, attempted and actual rape, psychotic attacks by a scissor wielding woman, and more.
Doctor Who episodes broadcast in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s had many of these juicy moments were edited out by the Commonwealth Film Censorship Board.
Oddly, this means Australian television archives contain snippets of 1960s episodes still missing from the BBC archives, among them the existentially dreadful attack from Mr Oak and Mr Quill, humanoids made of gas who advance on a helpless woman breathing poison gas out of gaping black holes in their faces. These small moments of violence are all that’s left of some classics stories.
Global audiences from the 1960s to present
These snippets of missing episodes exist because, prior to the late 1970s, the BBC did not routinely archive its shows – including Doctor Who. Indeed, a global network of television archives has been crucial in maintaining the nearly 50 year history of the show.
Doctor Who episodes missing from the BBC archives have been recovered from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Africa. They were found there because the BBC sent them there, as exports for showing on local free to air channels.
As recently as 2013, a large number of missing episodes were found in a remote television relay station in west Africa.
Much academic research into the viewing and reception of Doctor Who is about British audiences. How fascinating it would be to know more about the first global audiences and the viewing reactions and audiences from Hong Kong to Nigeria.
Modern Doctor Who’s global audience is no less diverse. In 2013 the incumbent Doctor, Peter Capaldi, embarked on a world tour and fans in Seoul, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, New York and Sydney clamoured to meet him.
But these fans, like others elsewhere in the world, watched their favourite show free to air.
The BBC’s announcement changes everything for fans around the world.
It puts Doctor Who on par with programs from the streaming giants which are the most talked about in popular culture, like House of the Dragon or The Crown.
But Doctor Who has always been an accessible commodity on the ABC, the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and their like.
In Australia, Doctor Who on the ABC was simply a fact of life. This announcement will not only be a disappointment but a concern about access.
It also means Doctor Who will be judged against lavish programs with immensely larger budgets, different storytelling approaches and multinational casts.
In 2021, the Guardian writer Martin Belam suggested the time had come to exterminate Doctor Who for precisely these reasons, but back then the show was still safe on global free to air.
This change means Doctor Who will enter its 60th year with its global broadcasting changed beyond recognition and judged against the giants of streamed television.
Marcus Harmes 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.
