Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW

In Victoria there are nearly 80 active COVID-19 cases linked to more than 50 disability accommodation sites. At least two people have died.

These don’t sound like big numbers in the context of Victoria’s second wave, and particularly when we compare it to the COVID-19 crisis in residential aged care.

But similarities between residential disability care and aged care — including vulnerable residents and a casualised workforce — give us cause for concern.

Recent experience in Victoria’s aged-care sector shows the potential for the current outbreaks to escalate very quickly.

What is residential disability care?

When we talk about residential disability care, this includes group homes and respite services. Usually these have fewer than six residents.

We’re also talking about larger facilities such as supported residential services. These privately-run services accommodate between ten and 80 residents.

In Victoria, around 6,500 people receive disability accommodation or respite services.

Read more: People with a disability are more likely to die from coronavirus – but we can reduce this risk

We’ve already seen COVID-19 outbreaks in group homes, respite services and supported residential services in Victoria. One notable example is Hambleton House in the Melbourne suburb of Albert Park, where 15 residents and one staff member tested positive.

The Victorian government recently requested help from the federal government following outbreaks at a number of disability accommodation sites.

An ‘at risk’ group

Australians with disability are at heightened risk during COVID-19 because many have other health conditions (for example, problems breathing, heart disease, diabetes). This makes them more likely to be sicker or die if they become infected.

People with disability are also more likely to be poorer, unemployed and socially isolated, making them more likely to experience poor health outcomes during the pandemic.

Many people with disability, particularly those with complex needs, require personal support, which puts them in close contact with other people. Different workers will come through residential disability-care settings, sometimes moving between multiple homes and services, just as in aged care.

The potential for coronavirus spread is also high because some residents may have difficulties with physical distancing and personal hygiene. They may have trouble understanding public health recommendations and/or have behavioural or sensory issues that make these recommendations hard to follow.

Read more: ‘I’m scared’: parents of children with disability struggle to get the basics during coronavirus

Aged care and disability care

Federal NDIS Minister Stuart Robert has said disability and aged-care settings differ because aged-care settings tend to be larger than disability accommodation, and this is generally true.

But as well as their vulnerable residents, they share many important similarities — including communal living arrangements and a highly mobile, precariously employed workforce.

This is a significant risk factor because casual, low-paid workers have greater incentive to come to work when they’re sick. Recent government moves to provide financial compensation or paid pandemic leave when workers need to take time off to get tested and/or self-isolate are welcome, but came too late.

The disability sector also lacks a “surge workforce” — people skilled in disability support who are able to step in and provide care in the event usual workers become sick. In aged care we’ve seen a lack of appropriate workers during the pandemic lead to neglect.

A lack of planning and preparedness

Since at least April, disability advocates have been warning about the potential for COVID-19 outbreaks in residential disability care. But there’s been little active work to develop preventative strategies or plans to deal with an outbreak.

A national plan has addressed the needs of people with disability in relation to COVID-19, and state and territory governments have also produced their own plans. But these plans don’t include effective strategies specifically for residential disability settings.

Importantly, disability support staff appear to be be inadequately trained and prepared with regards to personal protective equipment (PPE).

We recently surveyed 357 disability support workers from around Australia. More than one-quarter reported cancelling shifts because they feared they might contract coronavirus at work. Not all workers had accessed even basic infection control training, and of those who had, half wanted more.

Even those properly trained to use PPE can’t necessarily access it. Distribution of PPE has been beset with difficulties and the disability workforce hasn’t been a priority.

Read more: 4 steps to avert a full-blown coronavirus disaster in Victoria’s aged care homes

So the outbreaks we’ve witnessed among residents and support workers in disability accommodation are not particularly surprising. They indicate services, workers and governments weren’t as prepared as they should’ve been to respond to this public health emergency.

What now?

Here’s how we could prevent the current COVID-19 infections in residential disability care in Victoria from becoming more widespread, and avoid the deaths we’ve seen in residential disability services in other countries.

First, we should reduce the number of workers who support people across multiple sites. Some states have banned staff working across multiple aged care sites to minimise contacts. This approach might be more difficult in disability services, but we should encourage it wherever possible within workforce constraints.

The federal government should update current guidelines for disability support workers around PPE and enhance their training in its use.

Where residents are suspected or confirmed to have coronavirus they must be separated from uninfected residents to prevent spread. If the facility they’re in is too small to accommodate this, it may mean moving them to another appropriate location.

Finally, we need urgent action to create surge disability support workforce capacity and trained health staff who can be rapidly deployed to work alongside disability support workers if the situation deteriorates.

– ref. Let’s heed the warnings from aged care. We must act now to avert a COVID-19 crisis in disability care – https://theconversation.com/lets-heed-the-warnings-from-aged-care-we-must-act-now-to-avert-a-covid-19-crisis-in-disability-care-144669

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ellen Corrick, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne

Between 115,000 and 11,700 years ago, the Earth would have been almost unrecognisable. Massive ice-sheets covered northern Europe and northern Asia, and about half of North America, and global sea-levels were as much as 130 meters lower than today.

In this period, known as the “last glacial period”, the climate was much cooler and drier than today. It was punctuated by some of the largest and most rapid climate change events in Earth’s recent geological history.

Read more: Humans inhabited North America in the depths of the last Ice Age, but didn’t thrive until the climate warmed

For a long time, scientists have pondered how closely timed these abrupt climate change events were between Greenland and other regions of the world — far beyond the Arctic.

In our research, published today in Science, we’ve shown abrupt climate changes across the Northern Hemisphere and into the southern mid-latitudes occurred simultaneously, within decades of each other, throughout the last glacial period. We’ve also determined exactly when the abrupt changes occurred, much more precisely than before.

This can help us predict how abrupt climate changes might play out in the future.

A series of abrupt climate changes

Scientists can peer into Earth’s climate history through long ice cylinders, called “ice cores”, drilled from the Greenland ice sheet. Changes in the chemical composition of these ice cores reveal that the surrounding atmospheric temperature repeatedly warmed by 8-16℃, and each time within just a few decades.

Each warming event was followed by a more gradual period of cooling. These abrupt warming and cooling events happened more than 25 times throughout the last glacial period, and are known as Dansgaard-Oeschger events. They reflect changes in circulation patterns of the Atlantic Ocean.

While we have records of climate changes from many regions, the relative timing of these changes between Greenland and across the northern hemisphere into the southern sub-tropics is not well understood.

Read more: 6,000 years of climate history: an ancient lake in the Murray-Darling has yielded its secrets

This has been difficult to resolve because we need very precisely dated records to make exact comparisons in timing. Ice cores provide a wealth of information about Dansgaard-Oeschger events. But while they faithfully reproduce the patterns of past climate, they are difficult to date very precisely.

Crystal time capsules beneath our feet

For our study, we turned to more precisely datable climate records: those from cave stalagmites.

Stalagmites are cave mineral deposits, which build up layer-by-layer on the cave floor. Their growth is fed by water dripping from the cave ceiling, which carries with it a chemical signal of temperature and rainfall conditions above the cave at that time. This signal is trapped in the crystal structure of the growing stalagmite.

Stalagmites can be dated very precisely, by measuring the decay of minute amounts of uranium trapped in them. This key feature enables us to compare the timing of climate events from place to place.

However, long, high-quality stalagmite records are rare. Scientists from around the world have been working for more than 20 years to produce these records. Only now that enough records are available, we are able to make precise comparisons of the timing of Dansgaard-Oeschger events between different regions.

We collated and compared 63 published stalagmite records from caves in Asia, Europe and South America, and we determined the timings of abrupt climate changes in each.

What we found

Our results show that during each Dansgaard-Oeschger event, climate changes felt in Asia, South America and Europe occurred within decades of one another. Being able to determine this level of synchrony is remarkable, given we are looking at events that occurred many tens of thousands of years ago.

This means that as large temperature increases were occurring in Greenland, abrupt changes were also occurring in air temperature and rainfall in Europe, and in the monsoon systems in Asia and South America.

Read more: Delving deep into caves can teach us about climate past and present

So why is this important? First of all, finding that climate change events occurred in lots of different parts of the world within decades provides clues as to how they started in the first place.

It tells us the changes were likely propagated from the North Atlantic region to these locations through the re-organisation of patterns in atmospheric circulation. And knowing this can help scientists narrow down the underlying triggers, which are still not conclusive.

And our findings mean the precise ages from the stalagmites can be used to better date ice cores, enhancing one of the most important records we have of the last glacial climate.

Implications for the future

The abrupt climate changes we studied occurred under very different conditions compared to the climate of today.

While our ancestors lived through the last glacial period, humans are unlikely to experience Dansgaard-Oeschger events for many thousands of years, until the earth has again cooled to glacial temperatures.

However, piecing together the puzzle of how abrupt climate changes took place in the past will help us to understand how abrupt climate changes might occur in the future. For example, our findings will help validate climate models used to predict climate changes.

Showing that profound changes in climate can occur simultaneously across large regions of the Earth highlights just how unstable and interconnected our climate system can be.

Read more: Climate explained: why we won’t be heading into an ice age any time soon

– ref. We pieced together the most precise records of major climate events from thousands of years ago. Here’s what we found – https://theconversation.com/we-pieced-together-the-most-precise-records-of-major-climate-events-from-thousands-of-years-ago-heres-what-we-found-144575

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nadine Zacharias, Director, Student Engagement, Swinburne University of Technology

Students failing at university is not a problem of “extremes”, as federal Education Minister Dan Tehan would have it. A large proportion of students fail units of study. And, surprisingly, our research found about a third do nothing about it. However, students who received targeted help from their university on average halved their failure rate.

The government is right to be concerned about high rates of failure among students who accrue HECS-HELP debt even if they don’t graduate. Its proposed amendments to the Higher Education Support Act mean students who fail half their subjects across two semesters would lose Commonwealth support.

The changes would extend conditions applying to non-university providers to universities. They would also increase the powers of the regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), and the Department of Education to enforce those rules.

Read more: Uni student failure rate is a worry, but the government response is too heavy-handed

The question is: will the treatment cure the disease? And is it reasonable in terms of its consequences for universities and their students?

Failure is common

Our large study of the prevalence and reasons for academic failure of undergraduate students at an Australian university found 40% failed at least one unit. These students were four times more likely to drop out. And 58% of those who persisted with their studies failed again.

All universities have procedures to identify students who fail multiple units in a semester or fail the same unit multiple times. These processes would pick up students who fail half their units, especially in their first year.

The question is what happens next? A university would ordinarily develop a plan to support the student to improve their performance. This may include advice to attend the language and learning skills centre, to seek support for mental well-being and/or to reduce study load if possible. Universities differ in how much practical assistance they give students to recover from failure and complete their course.

Targeted help makes a difference

Swinburne University of Technology has a comparatively comprehensive process to support students identified as being at risk. This includes students who have to “show cause” why they should not be excluded from their course.

Highly trained academic development advisers (ADAs) reach out to the students individually. Students are asked to attend a one-on-one session to work through the reasons that led to unit failure and discuss how they will respond to these challenges. They can see the ADA multiple times.

The ADAs also run a facilitated peer support program, called Back on Track, over the semester. It’s aimed at changing behaviour and developing new study habits as well as building a personal support network.

The outcomes of the Back on Track program are impressive. The 213 participants in the second semester of 2019 almost halved their fail rate from the first semester. Some students did not fail any units.

Dropping study load to improve pass rates was an important strategy. Almost half of the cohort did this.

Supporting students after academic failure is resource-intensive because of the numbers involved. The Swinburne ADA team works with about 2,000 students a year. This is in addition to the administrative staff who identify students and the academic staff involved in the “show cause” process.

While Swinburne leads in proactive support of students, all universities have robust processes for dealing with poor academic progress.

Students must learn to help themselves

Offering support is only part of the story. Students must also adapt their behaviour following academic failure. At Swinburne, many “at risk” students don’t engage with the ADA support system.

In our study, we asked students what they did in response to failing. One-third of respondents who had failed but persisted with their study answered: “Nothing”.

This is obviously of concern, especially for students who have failed multiple units. Of those who had failed repeatedly but did “nothing”, 43% were international students and 26% were online students. They struggled with exam anxiety and exam situations, especially the international students, and reported problems with workload and time management.

These students had not yet worked out how to help themselves, or where to go for help.

Most students named multiple and compounding reasons for failing, including financial struggles, disability, and care or work responsibilities. These underlying issues cannot be resolved quickly, by students or universities.

Everyone has a role to play

Universities could do more to help students in practical ways to get back on track. Combined use of predictive learning analytics (drawing on multiple data points to identify students at risk) and learning advisers who intervene early is showing promise and could be rolled out across the sector. The government, through the Higher Education Standards Framework, could encourage this.

Reducing study load is an effective strategy but can have negative consequences for Centrelink support and, in many cases, scholarships. The government could help improve pass rates by further relaxing the Centrelink requirement that students must study full-time to receive benefits.

The proposed 50% fail rule for Commonwealth-supported places seems an overreaction to some extreme cases. The solution to these extremes could be found in the Commonwealth Higher Education Student Support Number (CHESSN) and a better IT system. The Education Department could then police the issue of students enrolling in multiple courses at multiple institutions behind the scenes.

We know students who fail 50% of their units in a semester are a significant minority. If institutions had to justify to the department why they are not excluding these students, the administrative burden would be substantial.

The more serious concern is what such a process would teach students about their ability to recover from failure and make changes in response to feedback and advice. The proposed policy risks adding stress for students who are already struggling with their life load and is likely to punish those who are already disadvantaged.

– ref. When students fail, many do nothing about it. Here’s how unis can help them get back on track – https://theconversation.com/when-students-fail-many-do-nothing-about-it-heres-how-unis-can-help-them-get-back-on-track-144563

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Healey, PhD Student, Curtin University

First, a grammar quiz. Which of these sentences do you think begins the Eric Carle classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

a) A little egg lay on a leaf in the light of the moon.

b) On a leaf, in the light of the moon, a little egg lay.

c) In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf.

Grammatically speaking, all three options are correct. But you’ve probably got an opinion on which of these grammatical constructions is best.

Perhaps you chose (a) because you know what is happening in the first few words through the subject (“a little egg”) and its verb (“lay”). Maybe you chose (b) because the prepositional phrases (“on a leaf” and “in the light of the moon”) create an ambient setting before introducing the subject.

Read more: ‘I’m in another world’: writing without rules lets kids find their voice, just like professional authors

The only way to know which one Carle chose to begin the caterpillar’s epic adventure is to open the first page. But I’ll save you the trouble: it’s (c). I’ll let you ponder why Carle might have chosen it.

So, how was this a grammar question?

In each option, the same three parts were arranged in a different order, which creates a different effect. Knowing how these parts function to create the effect is a type of grammatical knowledge. Even if you were unaware of terms like subject or verb, you could probably still make sense of what each does.

A way to make meaning; not a set of rules

Let’s try again. Take a look at the next line in the story and decide which clause best completes the sentence.

One Sunday morning, the warm sun came up and — pop! —

a) out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.

b) a tiny and very hungry caterpillar came out of the egg.

While option (b) has a more typical structure, the one Carle chose was (a). You might have noticed that the inverted structure in (a) seems to flow more easily from the first clause. But why?

The prepositional phrase (“out of the egg”) first creates an image of something we already know. The directional verb (“came”) shows the movement towards us, the reader, as opposed to away from us (“went”). Finally, after a little pre-modifier for description (“a tiny and very hungry”), we reveal the subject (“the caterpillar”) in all its glory at the end of 21 words of anticipation.

And this is a book for pre-schoolers.

So, here’s the whole point of knowing how to grammar: we can shape it to express precise meaning.

A child with a broad repertoire of grammatical knowledge can skilfully choose how to phrase what they want to say. It is useful to know how adverbial phrases (such as “with its legs”) add specific detail to verbs to show when, where, how, or why (“the caterpillar felt the leaf with its legs”), or how repeated clause structures attract attention to themselves.

This isn’t limited to literature. You’ll see children playing with grammar in unconventional ways when they text. It’s common to see words, letters and punctuation omitted in textese resulting in phrases like “am goin out now c u soon”.

Read more: Text-messaging isn’t, like, ruining young people’s grammar

What I’ve discussed here is how grammar is a set of tools to make meaning rather than a set of rules to follow.

The difference is in how we teach it.

How can you teach it?

Discrete grammar exercises such as circling pronouns in a passage are quite useful for mastering the art of pronoun circling, but they do little to improve the mastery of writing. Grammar is learned contextually.

If we want children to use pronouns effectively in their writing, we need to teach them how authors use them for literary effect in texts. Research has shown children learn to apply grammar in their writing carefully and creatively when we teach it in the following ways.

1. Show how grammar works in texts

Provide a clear link between a piece of grammatical knowledge and how authors use it to make meaning. So, rather than telling your child to “use more determiners and pronouns”, show them how determiners and pronouns create cohesion between ideas.

For example:

Earth turns on its axis in a full rotation. Each takes 24 hours, and this is what creates day and night.

Each of the bolded words points back to another word (“its” back to “Earth” and “each” back to “rotation”) or phrase (“this” back to “each rotation”) that ties the text together.

This makes the text flow. Imagine how cumbersome and confusing it would be to read a book if words repeated themselves instead of being “pointed” back to.

2. Use examples and make them authentic

Grammar is abstract, so use examples rather than lengthy explanations. The best kind of example is one you find in published literature. Open a book or article and highlight where the grammar exemplifies what you want to teach.

When I want to teach a student to “zoom in” on an object using specific nouns, I open up the first page of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which reads:

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

This grammatical construction dehumanises the person whose hand it is, giving agency to the hand. It’s a spooky effect cemented by the final noun — knife.

3. Make room for discussion

Ask your child what they are trying to write. For instance: “What effect are you trying to create here?”

Then use this information to decide what kind of grammar will help them do that. For instance: “Try using the passive voice, like “His eyes were drawn to the fire”, to make the character feel like they’re not in control”.

Ask your child to tell you how they might use it

How could you use the passive voice here to create this effect?“

4. Encourage language play

We saw with our Very Hungry Caterpillar example that playing with parts of sentences helps authors make grammatical choices. Ask your child to experiment by reordering parts or splitting the subject and verb, and then notice what happens. You’ll be surprised by a child’s intuitive grammatical knowledge.

– ref. 4 ways to teach you’re (sic) kids about grammar so they actually care – https://theconversation.com/4-ways-to-teach-youre-sic-kids-about-grammar-so-they-actually-care-144353

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Braid, Professional Learning and Development Facilitator in Literacy Education, Massey University

Meet Otis. He’s eight years old and until recently he didn’t want to read or write. Then his teacher changed the way she taught and things began to improve.

After a few weeks, Otis (not his real name, but he’s a real child) wanted to read and write at every opportunity. With this new-found knowledge and motivation his skill increased too. And his confidence.

So what was different? Technically, Otis’s teacher had begun using what is known as a structured approach to teaching literacy. Essential for children with a literacy learning difficulty such as dyslexia, it has been shown to be beneficial for all children.

The structured approach is a departure from what is known as the “implicit” teaching approach most teachers have used in the classroom. There are now calls for “explicit” instruction to be adopted more generally, including a petition recently presented to the New Zealand Parliament.

New data suggest this is an urgent problem, with growing numbers of young people turning off reading. According to a recent report from the Education Ministry’s chief education science adviser, 52% of 15-year-olds now say they read only if they have to – up from 38% in 2009.

The report made a number of recommendations, including that the ability to “decode” words become a focus in the first years of school. The importance of decoding to literacy success was reiterated by learning disability and dyslexia advocacy group SPELD NZ. It called for a change in teacher training and urgent professional development in structured literacy teaching.

Read more: Why every child needs explicit phonics instruction to learn to read

How does a structured approach work?

Structured literacy teaching means the knowledge and skills for reading and writing are explicitly taught in a sequence, from simple to more complex. Children learn to decode simple words such as tap, hit, red and fun before they read words with more complex spelling patterns such as down, found or walked.

Learning correct letter formation is a priority. Mastery of these skills builds a strong foundation for reading and writing, without which progress is slow, motivation stalls and achievement suffers.

The books children first read in a structured approach employ these restricted spelling patterns. Reading these with his teacher’s help, Otis built on his skills with simple words and progressed to decoding words with advanced spelling patterns.

These structured lessons also allowed him to master letter and sentence formation, so he made progress in writing too.

Old approaches aren’t working

By contrast, an implicit approach to teaching reading essentially means children have lots of opportunities to read and write, and learn along the way with teacher guidance.

Unfortunately, children like Otis can get lost along the way, too.

Implicit reading books use words with a variety of spelling patterns – for example: Mum found a sandal. “Look at the sandal,” said Mum.

Read more: Explainer: what’s the difference between decodable and predictable books, and when should they be used?

When Otis tried to read these books, he looked at the pictures or tried to remember the teacher’s introduction before attempting the words. But he was not building his skills and was getting left behind.

Otis is not alone, and New Zealand’s literacy results support the calls for change. Despite many interventions and the daily hard work of teachers, it is common for schools to report 30% of children with low reading results and 40% with low writing results.

However, a Massey University study in 2019 found reading outcomes improved when teachers were trained in a structured approach. The results were particularly good for children with the lowest results prior to intervention.

Overall, the findings suggest the change in teaching had a positive effect on children’s learning.

Change is already happening

Fortunately for children like Otis, more teachers are now seeking training in a structured approach. One project based on the Massey research involved more than 100 teachers in over 40 schools. Teacher comments suggest the knowledge and training support has helped them change their teaching for the benefit of the whole class.

Read more: The top ranking education systems in the world aren’t there by accident. Here’s how Australia can climb up

Further signs of hope include recent Ministry of Education efforts to develop structured approach teaching materials, and the resources now available for teachers on the ministry’s Te Kete Ipurangi support site.

No one pretends change is easy in a complex area such as literacy teaching. But every child like Otis has the right succeed, and every teacher has the right to be supported in their approach to helping Otis and his peers learn.

With courage and effort at every level of the system – not just from classroom teachers – a structured approach to literacy teaching can improve outcomes and have a positive impact that will stay with children for the rest of their lives.

– ref. Young New Zealanders are turning off reading in record numbers – we need a new approach to teaching literacy – https://theconversation.com/young-new-zealanders-are-turning-off-reading-in-record-numbers-we-need-a-new-approach-to-teaching-literacy-141527

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

Last week Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe, and his top lieutenants, appeared before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics.

This time-honoured tradition goes roughly as follows.

The governor makes an opening statement that contains nothing not said before in public.

Committee members then take turns trying to trick the governor into agreeing to some policy position those members hold.

Being experienced and smart, the governor politely sidesteps these questions and repeats some version of part of their opening remarks.

For example, Craig Kelly (the Liberal member of the southern Sydney seat of Hughes) asked Lowe the following:

What about the effects on the long-term dynamism of the economy? If I’m at the university now and I’m thinking what my future career would be, if I look at it and I go down the track of the Public Service, I’m not affected economically by something like a pandemic, but if I’m in a small private enterprise it could wipe me out. Doesn’t that tend to tip the balance towards less dynamism in the economy?

Lowe responded with 160 words that said precisely nothing.

Despite this theatre, the governor’s testimony provides a useful opportunity to reflect on exactly where Australia’s policy response to the current economic crisis is up to, and the Reserve Bank’s likely future role.

Read more: No snapback: Reserve Bank no longer confident of quick bounce out of recession

We’re pursuing the right strategy on COVID-19

Lowe reaffirmed what our political leaders – along with the overwhelming majority of the Australian public – agree on: the nation (despite the Victorian quarantine debacle) has pursued the right strategy to COVID-19, investing in the long-term good of the economy by containing the virus, so consumer and business confidence can return.

As Lowe put it:

From the outset there was a very strong sense that we needed to build a bridge to the other side when the virus is contained. As things have turned out, that bridge has had to be longer and stronger than we might have hoped would be necessary. Even so, it has been the right strategy.

There’s not much more monetary policy can do

Lowe reiterated that the rather extraordinary measures taken by the Reserve Bank are essentially all it can do in terms of monetary policy.

It has cut the cash interest rate to an historic low of 25 basis points (0.25%) thereby lowering mortgage rates and corporate borrowing costs. Lowe has said repeatedly he regards this as low as the Reserve Bank should go.

At the same time it is working on keep longer-term interest rates low. Its principle mechanism to do this has been through buying federal and state government three-year bonds. So far it has spent about A$55 billion buying bonds from private holders like banks and hedge funds. It being willing to buy any amount at a given price means the market has to clear at that price. This means governments can find buyers at a low rate of interest.

The Reserve Bank’s policy is to buy enough bonds to keep the yield down at 25 basis points. These lower bond rates help keep debt costs down for governments and private companies, who often borrow on three-year timelines.

Read more: The government has just sold $15 billion of 31-year bonds. But what actually is a bond?

The committee’s deputy chair, Andrew Leigh (Labor’s shadow assistant treasurer) asked a smart question about the Reserve Bank also buying longer-term bonds, like ten-year securities. Being able to borrow at low rates locked in for a decade would give companies a great ability to plan and ride out the crisis. This may be something the Reserve Bank considers, but doing so will not constitute a fundamental rethinking of its strategy.

Lowe repeatedly said a negative cash rate wasn’t impossible, but very unlikely.

He also offered a welcome reiteration of eight decades of economic wisdom, beginning with John Maynard Keynes and John Hicks, by clearly rejecting the idea of “modern monetary theory” (MMT).

This theory argues that circumstances mean governments can now issue bonds or even print money with abandon, because there’s little chance of causing inflation. Harvard economics professor Lawrence Summers (among other things a former US Treasury secretary) has equated this to the “voodoo” of 1980s supply-side economics – a valid idea “stretched by fringe economists into ludicrous claims”.

This is what Lowe said:

One monetary policy option that has been the subject of recent discussion is the possibility of the RBA creating money to directly finance government spending — so-called MMT. To some, this offers the possibility of a free lunch. The harsh reality, though, is there’s no free lunch. There’s no magic pudding here and there’s no way of putting aside the government’s budget constraint permanently.

No. Magic. Pudding.

Read more: No snapback: Reserve Bank no longer confident of quick bounce out of recession

It’s now over to the government

What flows from there not being much more that monetary policy can do?

It means the government needs to do more. Lowe addressed this at the end of his opening statement, noting the priority to boost jobs:

The Reserve Bank will do what it can, with its policy instruments, to support the journey back to full employment. Beyond that, government policies that support people’s incomes, that add to aggregate demand through direct government spending and that make it easier for firms to hire people all have important roles to play.

He then concluded:

As I have said a number of times before, we need to make sure that Australia is a great place for businesses to expand, to invest, to innovate and to hire people.

So governments need to both boost demand (through spending) and reduce imposts on business (through lowering taxes).

Australia is fortuitously placed to do both – to “spend like Keynes and cut taxes like Friedman”.

The nation’s strong fiscal position going into the pandemic – with net debt just 18% of GDP – and the current opportunity to borrow money very cheaply gives us the “fiscal space” to work on both the demand and supply sides of the economy.

We should, and we must. Even if there is no magic pudding.

– ref. Vital Signs: the Reserve Bank has done as much as it can. Now it’s up to the government – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-the-reserve-bank-has-done-as-much-as-it-can-now-its-up-to-the-government-144667

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lydia Edwards, Fashion historian, Edith Cowan University

Masks have emerged as unlikely fashion heroes as the COVID-19 pandemic has developed. Every conceivable colour and pattern seems to have become available, from facehuggers to Darth Vader to bejewelled bridal numbers.

Many show how brevity and style can combine to protect the wearer, offsetting the fear the sight of a respiratory or surgical mask usually inspires.

Some, like those produced by not-for-profit enterprises including the Social Studio and Second Stitch, use on-trend fabrics and benefit both the wearer and the makers. Meanwhile, an Israeli jeweller has designed a white gold, diamond-encrusted mask worth US$1.5 million (A$2.1 million).

Yet, masks remain fundamentally unnerving. Mostly intended to either protect or disguise, they are designed to cover all or part of the face. In societies where emotions are read through both eyes and mouth, they can be disorienting.

In many places around the globe, masks have played an important role in conveying style, spirituality and culture for thousands of years. They have been a part of western fashion for centuries. Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of masks as fashion items.

Read more: How should I clean my cloth mask?

Silenced by the vizard

“And make our faces vizards to our hearts/Disguising what they are” – Macbeth

One of the most bizarre accessories in 16th-century fashion was the vizard, an oval-shaped mask made from black velvet worn by women to protect their skin whilst travelling.

In an age where unblemished skin was a sign of gentility, European women took pains to avoid sunburn or significant sun tan. Two holes were cut for the eyes, sometimes fitted with glass, and an indentation was created to accommodate the nose. Disturbingly, they did not always have an opening for the mouth.

To hold the mask in place, wearers gripped a bead or button between their teeth, prohibiting speech. To the contemporary feminist, the mask raises associations with the scold’s bridle: a method of torture and public humiliation for gossiping women and suspected witches.

During the following century, masks continued to be fashionable although the guise of protection gave way to mystique and desire. The small “domino” mask – seen in a 17th century Netherlands example below and still worn by superheroes from Batman to Harley Quinn – covered the eyes and tip of the nose. It was usually made from a strip of black fabric. For warmer months, a lighter veiling could be substituted.

Read more: Beware of where you buy your face mask: it may be tainted with modern day slavery

Masquerade and desire

Venice has long been associated with masks, thanks to its history of carnival and masquerade. Their theatrical nature might lead to an assumption masks were always worn to deceive or seduce. Travellers expecting a masked amoral free-for-all in the early 18th century were surprised at how “innocent” the accessory really was in everyday life.

When worn at a masquerade, masks encouraged “safe” contact between the sexes – bringing them close enough to mingle but maintaining the social distance between strangers that etiquette required. In this scenario, masks also encouraged a kind of egalitarianism by allowing people of disparate social classes to mix – a freedom never allowed in normal social gatherings.

The gnaga mask, with its cat shape, allowed men to dress as women and skirt Venetian homosexuality laws. Venetian prostitutes were at various times prohibited from wearing or required to wear masks in public, yet married women were required to wear masks to the theatre, fostering an association between masks and sex.

Conversely, the infamous Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, published annually between 1757 and 1795, provided a catalogue of prostitutes to hire in London. One entry from 1779 described a woman who …

by her own confession has been a votary to pleasure these thirty years, she wears a substantial mask upon her face, and is rather short.

John Cleland’s controversial 1748 book Memoirs of Fanny Hill describes Louisa, a prostitute, being made “violent love to” by a “gentlemen in a handsome domino” as soon as her own mask was removed.

Charming possibilities

“A mask tells us more than a face”, wrote Oscar Wilde in his 1891 dialogue Intentions, yet by the 19th century the mask as fashion accessory was démodé. Masks were generally only mentioned in newspapers and fashion magazines when referring to fancy dress and masked balls, which still took place in the homes of the wealthy.

“Society is a masked ball”, wrote one American columnist in 1861 mirroring Wilde’s famous quote, “where everyone hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding”.

Although masks were no longer recommended for maintaining a pale complexion, women’s faces were still covered by veiling in certain situations: including, for the first time, weddings. Ironically, one Australian fashion column in 1897 decried the fashion, stating:

Veils are largely responsible for poor complexions … This fine lace mask – for it is nothing else – hinders the circulation … but does far more injury by keeping the face heated.

As if this were not enough, veils blew dust from the street into “open pores” and retained dirt, redistributing it onto the skin every time it was worn.

Veiling still had some fans, who touted its health and beauty benefits, and connotations of intrigue and excitement. “It suggests such charming possibilities beneath it”, a columnist in The Australasian wrote in 1897.

Fashionable or not, some masks were still worn behind closed doors. Enter the most bizarre masked accessory since the vizard: the toilet mask or “face glove”.

Devised by a Madame Rowley in the 1870s-80s, the rubberised full-face covering was advertised as an:

aid to complexion beauty … treated with some medicated preparation … the effects of the mask when worn at night two or three times in the week are described as marvellous.

Advertisements for these precursors to today’s sheet mask beauty treatments contained testimonials from women who claimed to be cured of freckles and wrinkles.

Veils and visors

The advent of the automobile in the early 20th century brought a whole new fashion range into the public arena. Motorists needed protection from weather, dust and fumes, so accessories had to be practical. For women, protection took the fashionable form of coats and face coverings.

Veils and hoods were wrapped around stylish large hats of the day, and fastened under the chin so that the entire face was safely covered.

Advertisements in the early 1920s describe a “complete face mask” for drivers – ostensibly men as the accessory “buttoned to the cap and [is] equipped with an adjustable eye shield against glaring headlights”.

A design for women in 1907 was described as a “window hood”, which completely engulfed the hat beneath and closed with a drawstring around the neck. It had a gauze “window” for the eyes and another smaller opening at the mouth.

By the swinging 1960s, the cultural and sartorial landscape couldn’t have been more different – and yet, masks made an unlikely appearance in “space age” fashion championed by designers such as André Courrèges and Pierre Cardin. Metallic mini dresses and one-piece suits were topped with “space helmets” that left an opening for the entire face or eyes.

More commonly adopted were plastic visors worn separately or as part of a hat, sometimes covering forehead to chin and taking on the appearance of a welders’ shield – or indeed, the face shields worn by health workers today.

Sunglasses, a kind of mask in their own right, were taken to the extreme by Courrèges with his infamous solid white shades with only a slit for light. Life described this as a “built-in squint” in 1965 – a design that “dangerously narrows the field of vision”.

Read more: The fashionable history of social distancing

What goes around …

Discussions during the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic around whether masks would be a fad, how long they would be required, and how to create your own at home, seem eerily prescient now.

This darkly comic mask from 1918 demonstrates the same wish for ingenuity and levity that exists today:

Lebanese fashion designer Eric Ritter has sported a similarly macabre aesthetic. He was already thinking and writing about masks on Instagram in January before coronavirus spread around the world …

On growing up without a mask

On being forced to wear a mask

On ecstatically removing a mask

On picking a mask back up

In Australia, entertainer Todd McKenney has launched an online marketplace for costume designers to make and sell one-of-a-kind masks directly to the public.

Face masks don’t have to be created by artists, designers or couture fashion houses to make them appealing. But a look through our fashion history shows that ingenuity and humanity have long influenced our face wear – whether for the purposes of allure, space travel or pandemic protection.

– ref. Friday essay: vizards, face gloves and window hoods – a history of masks in western fashion – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-vizards-face-gloves-and-window-hoods-a-history-of-masks-in-western-fashion-143994

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

Most of us are only starting to realise how grim this Christmas is likely to be. Not only will so many people be without jobs, but lots of usual family get-togethers will be stymied because of restricted travel. An overseas holiday is out of the question. And the virus will still be around potentially to cause sporadic havoc and panic.

Hopefully Victoria will have successfully dealt with its second wave by then, but the situation could remain precarious. Cases will continue to pop up elsewhere. Premiers will probably stay inward-looking. The political blame game, now in full swing, won’t have abated.

As the flowering wattle and blossoms tell us spring is almost here, the summer that follows will be anything but relaxed and comfortable. And for many Australians it will come after they were hit by last summer’s blazes and smoke.

Scott Morrison at the moment is deeply frustrated – by the bleakness, by those state and territory leaders in their fortified fiefdoms (with whom he is negotiating on a piecemeal basis), by the criticism he’s copping over his government’s poor performance in protecting the elderly in residential aged care.

When he finds himself on the back foot, Morrison’s response is to look for a way to jump onto the front one. This week he used as his springboard the announcement that Australia has signed a letter of intent with the company AstraZeneca for a supply of Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine, if its trials are successful.

“Today is a day of hope – and Australia needs hope, the world needs hope,” he declared, as he undertook on Wednesday the sort of publicity blitz prime ministers do after a budget.

And hope is what we’re talking about here. Not certainty. The world doesn’t yet have a vaccine, from anywhere.

It has maximum effort to produce one, many trials, encouraging signs – although the pessimists note there has never been a vaccine for this type of virus. Even assuming a vaccine arrives, it might be with limitations. Some people who have flu injections still get the flu.

And if it comes, that could be a considerable while away. Morrison said if the trials were successful “we would hope that this would be made available early next year – if it can be done sooner than that, great”. But experts often have a longer timetable – mid-year or later.

All the same, critics say Australia has been slow to the party, with the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Commission each already having several agreements.

Morrison might expect that if it turns out he has over-egged the vaccine story, people will have forgotten what he said when reality dashes the dream. Anyway, if that happens he, and we as a community, will be in such difficulties his false prophecy will be the least of them.

If the vaccine materialises, the immediate issue will be to triage who gets it first, but a more fundamental one will be to ensure enough people get it.

Morrison says a 95% take-up would be needed for proper community protection (this figure would be lower with a totally effective vaccine). He made it clear he thought that, medical exceptions aside, everyone should have to be jabbed.

“I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make [it],” he said. As social services minister he brought in the “no jab no pay” policy, which denies certain government payments to those whose children aren’t immunised.

This is sensitive territory. Not only would the vaccine have the anti-vaxxers out in force, but quite a few people would worry about its newness, or have other fears, however unjustified. Remember the controversy about the pretty harmless COVIDSafe app.

Unless it was mandatory, the take-up could be inadequate, with some young people, for example, not bothering – just as a portion of the population persists in not having flu shots.

Pauline Hanson was predictable: “I’m angry. You have no right to say I have to have this vaccination, because I won’t be having it,” she said.

Morrison quickly saw the suggestion of the vaccine being mandatory threatened to play badly (even though we have been living for months with massive degrees of compulsion, and Victoria currently is as close as Australia will ever get to a police state).

By late Wednesday he was becoming exasperated, saying on 2GB: “Can I be really clear to everyone? … It’s not going to be compulsory to have the vaccine. Okay?

“There are no compulsory vaccines in Australia. … I mean, we can’t hold someone down and make them take it.”

The Melbourne Institute’s Taking the Pulse of the Nation survey published on Thursday highlights how acceptance of COVID measures varies, including among particular cohorts of the population, pointing to the importance of building consensus around them.

The August 3-8 wave of the regular survey asked people: “Which mandatory government regulations would you be willing to accept to allow a return to normal activities?” It didn’t ask about vaccination but its findings are relevant for that debate.

In the survey all groups, regardless of age, gender, income, education or politics, were willing to wear masks, self-quarantine if exposed and face capacity restrictions on public transport.

But there was much less acceptance of routine weekly testing, closure of non-essential businesses and contact tracing with mobile phone data. Moreover younger people (under 35) were notably less willing than older people to accept measures such as weekly testing and phone tracing.

Analysing the results, Marco Castillo and Ragan Petrie, from the institute, conclude that if the virus persists, “solutions that balance public safety and the return to normal economic activity may be needed.

“Measures like routine weekly testing and use of mobile phone data for contact tracing can help transition out of the current restrictions and help open the economy.”

But such measures throw up the problem of divided opinion and the challenge of consensus-building, they say.

If we get a vaccine, strong support for it can be expected. But its effectiveness could be undermined by activist opponents, the worried and the “I don’t need it” brigade. Even combined, they might add to only a small proportion. But given the virus’s virulence, they could reduce its community effectiveness.

How to maximise coverage will be a priority for when (or if) there actually is a vaccine, but the government needs to start working hard well beforehand on creating overwhelming backing, allaying fears and countering critics and contrarians.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Scott Morrison hypes vaccine hopes but there is a long road ahead – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-scott-morrison-hypes-vaccine-hopes-but-there-is-a-long-road-ahead-144801

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

A federal cabinet minister has lashed out with an extraordinary attack on premiers, declaring Friday’s national cabinet meeting “has become a flashpoint for the future of Australia’s federation”.

Agriculture minister David Littleproud accused premiers of “city centric decisions” and said unless they “commit to work with one another to find workable solutions to state border issues for regional Australians … they risk states becoming irrelevant to modern Australia”.

Alan Joyce, chief executive of Qantas, which on Thursday announced a loss of nearly A$2 billion for the year to June 30, also hit out over the internal borders.

“We don’t have clear guidelines for when the borders will open, when they will close,” he said.

“So we have this situation where there are large numbers of states and territories that have zero cases and they’re not even open to each other.”

Business generally is highly critical that premiers have been digging in behind their closed borders. The tourist industry is being especially hard hit.

Littleproud’s public anger reflects the frustrations of Scott Morrison and other ministers.

While accepting the need for the Victorian border to be shut, the federal government believes the broader closures are unnecessarily holding back the economy’s recovery.

It is also angry at the difficulty of getting specific issues resolved such as transits for agriculture workers and medical cases. Morrison this week has been negotiating with individual states on problems.

The borders will be a major issue at the national cabinet. Morrison has set out principles he wants to see followed when borders are closed – these deal the federal government into the discussion. But the power over their borders is with the state and territory governments.

With elections looming in Queensland and Western Australia, their premiers are convinced their voters prefer closed borders to keep them safe. This has been supported in polls. The Northern Territory, which has strict quarantine arrangements for people from COVID hot spots, goes to the polls on Saturday.

Littleproud said premiers must urgently consult with one another and regional communities to deliver practical resolutions, “and not rely on city centric policy formation forgetting a third of the country’s population and our agricultural production systems.

“While we support evidence-based restrictions to protect human health, ongoing border restrictions on large sections of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia that have no COVID-19 cases are posing major challenges on agricultural supply chains, as well as on the health and welfare of residents,” he said.

He said recent announcements to deal with cross-border issues hadn’t been developed in partnership with regional communities, or didn’t seem “genuine in rectifying the serious impacts on many families, communities, workers and industries.

“What these city centric decisions fail to acknowledge is that modern regional Australia has outgrown state lines, and that many regions share strong economic, social and community links across borders.

“The integrated and connected nature of many regional economies is also exposing the limitations of the states and these border closures are becoming a flashpoint for our federation and the future role and relevance of the states in our nation.

“The inability or unwillingness of our premiers to work with each other to find common-sense and practical solutions to restrictions that they have imposed is becoming a major test of their leadership.

“Premiers must remember that they are not just premiers of capital cities.”

Littleproud said premiers should visit affected border regions and thrash out solutions with local governments, people, businesses and organisations.

National cabinet will also discuss joint federal-state emergency response plans for aged care.

In a new submission to the Royal Commission on Aged Care the Australian Medical Association has called for every residential aged care home in the country to be urgently and comprehensively assessed for its ability to safely care for residents during COVID.

AMA President, Dr Omar Khorshid, said this week, “Aged care was in crisis long before the pandemic started, and the failures of clinical care and clinical governance in aged care homes have simply been amplified by COVID-19”.

He said hundreds of elderly people had died needlessly.

“Last year, the AMA and our colleagues in the nursing profession joined forces to campaign for urgent changes to our aged care system. We said then that care can’t wait.

“Had our calls and recommendations over the past decade been heeded and implemented, we would not be facing the crisis to the extent we are currently seeing in aged care in Victoria”

– ref. Federal government fires a shot ahead of national cabinet discussing border wars – https://theconversation.com/federal-government-fires-a-shot-ahead-of-national-cabinet-discussing-border-wars-144816

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Eckard, Professor & Director, Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre, University of Melbourne

The National Farmer’s Federation says Australia needs a tougher policy on climate, today calling on the Morrison government to commit to an economy wide target of net-zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050.

It’s quite reasonable for the farming sector to call for stronger action on climate change. Agriculture is particularly vulnerable to a changing climate, and the sector is on its way to having the technologies to become “carbon neutral”, while maintaining profitability.

Agriculture is a big deal to Australia. Farms comprise 51% of land use in Australia and contributed 11% of all goods and services exports in 2018–19. However, the sector also contributed 14% of national greenhouse gas emissions.

A climate-ready and carbon neutral food production sector is vital to the future of Australia’s food security and economy.

Paris Agreement is driving change

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, 196 countries pledged to reduce their emissions, with the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Some 119 of these national commitments include cutting emissions from agriculture, and 61 specifically mentioned livestock emissions.

Emissions from agriculture largely comprise methane (from livestock production), nitrous oxide (from nitrogen in soils) and to a lesser extent, carbon dioxide (from machinery burning fossil fuel, and the use of lime and urea on soils).

Read more: UN climate change report: land clearing and farming contribute a third of the world’s greenhouse gases

In Australia, emissions from the sector have fallen by 10.8% since 1990, partly as a result of drought and an increasingly variable climate affecting agricultural production (for example, wheat production).

But the National Farmers’ Federation wants the sector to grow to more than A$100 billion in farm gate output by 2030 – far higher than the current trajectory of $84 billion. This implies future growth in emissions if mitigation strategies are not deployed.

Runs on the board

Players in Australia’s agriculture sector are already showing how net-zero emissions can be achieved.

In 2017, the Australian red meat sector committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030. A number of red-meat producers have claimed to have achieved net-zero emissions including Arcadian Organic & Natural’s Meat Company, Five Founders and Flinders + Co.

Our research has shown two livestock properties in Australia – Talaheni and Jigsaw farms – have also achieved carbon neutral production. In both cases, this was mainly achieved through regeneration of soil and tree carbon on their properties, which effectively draws down an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to balance with their farm emissions.

Read more: Intensive farming is eating up the Australian continent – but there’s another way

Other agricultural sectors including dairy, wool and cropping are actively considering their own emission reduction targets.

Carbon neutral wine is being produced, such as by Ross Hill, and Tulloch and Tahbilk.

Most of these examples are based on offsetting farm emissions – through buying carbon credits or regenerating soil and tree carbon – rather than direct reductions in emissions such as methane and nitrous oxide.

But significant options are available, or emerging, to reduce emissions of “enteric” methane – the result of fermentation in the foregut of ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats.

For example, livestock can be fed dietary supplements high in oils and tannins that restrict the microbes that generate methane in the animal’s stomach. Oil and tannins are also a byproduct of agricultural waste products such as grape marc (the solid waste left after grapes are pressed) and have been found to reduce methane emissions by around 20%.

Other promising technologies are about to enter the market. These include 3-NOP and Asparagopsis, which actively inhibit key enzymes in methane generation. Both technologies may reduce methane by up to 80%.

There are also active research programs exploring ways to breed animals that produce less methane, and raise animals that produce negligible methane later in life.

On farms, nitrous oxide is mainly lost through a process called “denitrification”. This is where bacteria convert soil nitrates into nitrogen gases, which then escape from the soil into the atmosphere. Options to significantly reduce these losses are emerging, including efficient nitrogen fertilisers, and balancing the diets of animals.

There is also significant interest in off-grid renewable energy in the agricultural sector. This is due to the falling price of renewable technology, increased retail prices for electricity and the rising cost to farms of getting connected to the grid.

What’s more, the first hydrogen-powered tractors are now available – meaning the days of diesel and petrol consumption on farms could end.

More work is needed

In this race towards addressing climate change, we must ensure the integrity of carbon neutral claims. This is where standards or protocols are required.

Australian researchers have recently developed a standard for the red meat sector’s carbon neutral target, captured in simple calculators aligned with the Australian national greenhouse gas inventory. This allow farmers to audit their progress towards carbon neutral production.

Technology has moved a long way from the days when changing the diet of livestock was the only option to reduce farm emissions. However significant research is still required to achieve a 100% carbon neutral agriculture sector – and this requires the Australian government to co-invest with agriculture industries.

And in the long term, we must ensure measures to reduce emissions from farming also meet targets for productivity, biodiversity and climate resilience.

Read more: IPCC’s land report shows the problem with farming based around oil, not soil

– ref. Australia’s farmers want more climate action – and they’re starting in their own (huge) backyards – https://theconversation.com/australias-farmers-want-more-climate-action-and-theyre-starting-in-their-own-huge-backyards-144792

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Markus Wagner, Associate Professor of Law, University of Wollongong

It’s on again. This time it’s Australia’s wine industry that’s under investigation in China for allegedly violating anti-dumping rules.

The investigation has sent shock waves through the wine industry and beyond.

Broadly speaking, anti-dumping rules prohibit producers from selling anything for less than its market value.

The Chinese industry body claims that the market share of Chinese wine has fallen from about 75% to just under 50% over the past four years.

It says this is due to the sale of Australian wine being dumped (sold at less than market prices) in China. It has asked for the imposition of an anti-dumping tariff of 202.70%, which would triple the price at which Australian wine is sold.

Australian wine has enjoyed zero tariffs since 2019 under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

In the past financial year, nearly 40% of Australian wine exports (worth AU$1.1 billion) went to China.

The proposed duty would effectively exclude Australian wine from the Chinese market.

This comes after a highly publicised interview in April in which China’s Ambassador to Australia Jingye Cheng said the Chinese public was “frustrated, dismayed and disappointed” at Australia’s stance on a number of issues and might boycott Australian goods and services.

Among those issues was Australia’s call for an investigation into China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Other irritants include Australia’s criticism of the new Hong Kong security law and its decision to ban China’s Huawei from involvement in Australia’s 5G network.

Read more: China used anti-dumping rules against us because what goes around comes around

Anti-dumping investigations turn on highly technical data, often obtainable only through the analysis of confidential business information.

This latest probe can be looked at in two ways:

1. Tit for tat

One is that it is just a tit for tat action following Australian anti-dumping measures against Chinese electric cables, wind towers, glass, A4 copy paper, chemicals, herbicides and aluminium products and steel.

Australia has more anti-dumping measures in place against China than it does against any other country.

Australian anti-dumping and countervailing measures by country, March 2020

China’s foreign ministry was quick to suggest its actions were a “normal anti-dumping investigation”.

The ministry could find Australia’s wine industry is in a particular market situation, a technical term relating to government intervention and subsidies that Australia uses when it imposes anti-dumping duties.

Standing in the way of such action is the presence of Chinese investors in Australian wineries that sell directly to China via their own distribution networks. It would be difficult to design an anti-dumping penalty that didn’t also hit them.

2. Geo Economics

Another possibility is that China is trying to inflict economic pain to send a political message.

Using wine would be a shrewd move. China doesn’t need it for its economic growth. It has the added benefit of upsetting Australia’s powerful agricultural lobby which has the ear of governments.

The latest probe follows sanctions against Australian coal, barley and beef.

Read more: Vital Signs: Australian barley growers are the victims of weaponised trade rules

The aim might be for the targeted industries, and their workers, to pressure the Australian government to be less confrontational with China.

A related strategy might be to portray Australia in a negative light. China (questionably) claimed that it stopped Australian coal and beef shipments for quality and hygiene reasons. Along with travel warnings, it is a way of turning the sentiment of Chinese citizens against Australia.

It’s hard to know which way to jump

It’s too early to tell whether China is simply expressing its dissatisfaction with Australian anti-dumping actions against it, or whether it is hoping to make Australia more politically malleable.

Each would require a different response.

The anti-dumping investigation might take up to 18 months, as did the investigation into Australian barley which resulted in extra tariffs.

Both countries stand to lose from a protracted battle.

Read more: China might well refuse to take our barley, and there would be little we could do

But China can get its coal, barley, beef and wine from elsewhere, although at potentially higher cost or lower quality. It is also trying to diversify its sources of iron ore.

The uncomfortable truth is that Australia’s economy relies on China far more than China’s relies on Australia.

– ref. It’s hard to tell why China is targeting Australian wine. There are two possibilities – https://theconversation.com/its-hard-to-tell-why-china-is-targeting-australian-wine-there-are-two-possibilities-144734

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria O’Sullivan, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, and Deputy Director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison took many people by surprise this week when he said a COVID-19 vaccine would be “as mandatory as you could possibly make it”.

Although he later backtracked on the use of the word “mandatory”, he made clear the government is aiming for a 95% vaccination rate in Australia.

There appears to be strong community support for the vaccine, but it is not yet clear there will be enough people willing to take it voluntarily to reach that target. Therefore, it is likely there will have to be some sort of incentive or compulsion by the government to ensure nationwide compliance.

What, then, are the legal limits to compelling people to be vaccinated? There are myriad questions that could be raised, such as:

• can workplaces require that workers take the vaccination as a condition of employment?

• can airlines require an immunisation certificate to permit people to travel?

• should people be able to claim a non-medical exemption, such as a conscientious objection to vaccines or on religious grounds?

This is an important debate we need to have about how to balance the rights of the community versus those of the individual in a public health emergency and how the law should be used to ensure the efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Can the government mandate vaccinations?

The right to bodily integrity is a fundamental legal principle in Australia. This means a person cannot be subject to medical treatment without consent.

However, there are exceptions to this under state and territory public health laws. For instance, sections 116 and 117 of the Victorian Public Health Act permit public health orders to compel people to undergo a medical examination, testing and treatment without consent if it is required to address a public health issue.

There may be a legal argument here that a vaccination is not “treatment”. But that could be dealt with via an amendment to the legislation.

Can workplaces and businesses require vaccines?

There is a strong case for requiring particular workers (for example, those in aged care facilities) to be subject to mandatory vaccinations. However, many other workplaces in Australia may also require COVID-19 vaccination certificates under Occupational Health and Safety policies.

The legal dynamics here are different to a government-mandated vaccination if it is required as a condition of employment (which is a private law matter).

There is precedent for this: some states and territories have adopted a mandatory vaccination policy for staff working in close contact with patients or infectious materials. In the ACT, for example, all ACT Health staff are subject to an “occupational assessment, screening and vaccination procedure”, which requires them to be immunised against diseases including influenza, diphtheria and hepatitis B.

Similarly, businesses could require an immunisation card to be presented as a condition of entry. This could include airlines requiring proof of vaccination as evidence of “fitness to fly”.

There are more complex legal questions when it comes to requiring vaccines for students to be admitted to schools or universities.

This was hotly debated in those states that introduced a “no jab, no play” mandatory vaccination regime for access to child care services, as well as the federal “no jab, no pay” policy.

Despite differing rules around the country, all states and territories have fairly consistent rates for childhood vaccinations — with a nationwide coverage rate of 91%. Whether the same rate could be reached for a COVID-19 vaccine remains to be seen.

Would this infringe on people’s human rights?

Challenges could be made to any compulsory COVID-19 vaccination policy under the human rights charters in Victoria, Queensland and the ACT, which aim to protect rights such as freedom of expression, thought, conscience, religion and belief.

Here, much will depend on who is requiring the vaccination (a public body or private business) and whether there are punitive measures in place for non-compliance (for example, the use of fines or imprisonment).

If there are punitive measures for non-compliance, these may be deemed as disproportionate by a court — even if it could be argued compulsory vaccines are necessary and reasonable for public health reasons.

The use of compulsory vaccination programs also has specific implications for children’s rights. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that every child has the right to “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health”.

However, children also have the right to an education. Therefore, punitive measures to compel parents to vaccinate their children against COVID-19, such as keeping them out of school, could violate the core principles of this convention.

Can people argue for a vaccine exemption?

There is no recognised right to conscientious objection to vaccinations under Australian law. Therefore, any person who is not willing to be vaccinated cannot merely argue an “objection” to it.

A religious body, however, may be able to argue a federal compulsory vaccination policy interferes with the freedom of religion protections under the Australian constitution, but that is a complex legal question.

One religious group did successfully claim an exemption to mandatory childhood immunisations — the Christian Scientists. This “conscientious objection” exemption was removed in 2016, but it does provide an example of how such an exemption could be dealt with under the law.

How to create good law during a crisis

Governments clearly have an obligation to protect the public’s health and welfare and vaccinations are an important means of ensuring this.

But while punitive legal measures such as fines may be effective in compulsory mask usage, they are not necessarily going to be effective when it comes to something much more invasive like a vaccine.

Serious thought must not be given just to what the law can do to achieve a high COVID-19 vaccination rate, but also what good law is. That is, we must pursue measures that will be sufficiently accepted by the community.

– ref. Can the government, or my employer, force me to get a COVID-19 vaccine under the law? – https://theconversation.com/can-the-government-or-my-employer-force-me-to-get-a-covid-19-vaccine-under-the-law-144739

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Egliston, Postdoctoral research fellow, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology

There has been a clash of clans in mobile gaming, with angry birds Apple, Google and Epic Games in a saga over in-app payments.

Video game developer Epic’s massively popular “battle royale” game Fortnite was removed from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store last week.

Android players can still download the game directly via the Epic Games mobile app, but for Apple iOS users the decision means no new downloads. Currently installed versions of the game will still work, but iOS players will be unable to update the game and participate in the next season of Fortnite, beginning on August 27.

The boot from Apple and Google was in response to Epic’s implementation of a direct in-app payment system, designed to circumvent Apple’s and Google’s own payment systems and their 30% fee charged on in-app purchases and app sales. Epic’s move is a clear violation of Apple’s rules for app monetisation.

Epic taking charge

Following Apple’s and Google’s removal of Fortnite from their app stores, Epic filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in Californian courts, followed by another against Google.

The game develoepr also launched the hashtag #FreeFortnite and aired an in-game parody of Apple’s famous “1984” ad which, at the time it was released, was Apple’s own response to IBM’s dominance of the computing industry.

The parody renders the ad in Fortnite’s graphical style, but retains its original symbolism of oppression and control. Epic, valued at US$17 billion, is attempting to portray itself as Apple did back in 1984: as an underdog facing down a corporate behemoth.

What’s at stake in this show of platform power?

The fight escalated this week, with Apple threatening to terminate Epic’s enrolment in the Apple Developer Program should it not resolve its breach of Apple’s policy.

Membership in the program is required for creating and distributing iOS software. Losing its enrolment wouldn’t just affect Epic, or Fortnite, but potentially anyone using Epic’s widely adopted Unreal Engine game development technology.

Considering there are more than a billion users of Android and iOS based mobile devices, these punitive responses (particularly from Apple) are being characterised by many as anti-competitive and monopolistic, including by Epic’s chief executive Tim Sweeney.

In the past, other companies such as Spotify, Microsoft and Amazon have also protested Apple’s 30% fee and strict control over the App Store. But none has so brazenly attacked Apple in the public sphere.

Apple’s and Google’s response to this saga has highlighted the power of big tech platforms. As in the case of app stores, these platforms are enclosed and tightly regulated systems. You must play by the owner’s rules, or you’re expelled.

Read more: Apple Arcade and Google Stadia aim to offer frictionless gaming, if your NBN plan can handle it

In this case, Apple and Google know their app stores – where millions of users download their apps – are crucial to the financial success of developers on their platform.

As such they can exert their power over developers, who don’t really have anywhere else to go.

Reminiscent of antitrust charges against Microsoft in the 1990s, critics of Apple and Google have described the tech behemoths as anti-competitive monopolies charging an unreasonable 30% transaction fee.

This falls to 15% in the case of subscription-based apps but only after an initial year of Apple charging the 30% fee. For perspective, PayPal only charges 2.9% of the value of each transaction.

What does Epic want?

Epic argues the mobile games market should be more like the PC market. For instance, Microsoft and Apple don’t get to charge a percentage on every transaction we make through our computers just because they developed the operating system.

Given the speed with which Epic responded to Apple’s ban, it appears Epic anticipated it and was prepared for this outcome.

Is Epic’s lawsuit ultimately aiming to renegotiate the percentage of app store cuts?

Maybe Epic believes it’s in a strong enough position to push back against Apple and Google, given Fortnite’s massive popularity and revenues, as well as the uptake of and value created by software using the Unreal Engine.

Or perhaps, given Apple’s previous pre-emptive bans of Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud, Epic believes Apple has overplayed its hand.

The mobile games industry is a massive source of revenue for app store operators. Perhaps Epic is banking on Apple and Google eventually deciding gaming is too lucrative to cast aside, and hoping they will succumb to renegotiating fees.

Epic will probably be fine

Epic claims, in the long run, it’s doing this for everyone.

If it can force Apple to reduce the 30% fee, or launch an alternative game store on iOS with lower fees, developers will have to sell fewer game copies to make a profit. According to Epic, this means more games for everyone.

But it’s also an opportunity for Epic to amplify its platform power by more aggressively expanding its games store into the mobile marketplace.

Regardless of what happens now, don’t feel too sorry for Epic. It’s one of the world’s most profitable video game developers and a platform owner in its own right (although at 12% it takes a smaller app store cut than Apple).

While Android players can still access Fortnite, only iOS players who already have the game installed will be able to keep playing. Alternatively, they may have to shell out thousands for a secondhand iPhone with Fortnite installed.

And whether or not iOS players will experience much of the upcoming season – that will be determined by Epic’s next move.

Read more: Time well spent, not wasted: video games are boosting well-being during the coronavirus lockdown

– ref. Apple, Google and Fortnite’s stoush is a classic case of how far big tech will go to retain power – https://theconversation.com/apple-google-and-fortnites-stoush-is-a-classic-case-of-how-far-big-tech-will-go-to-retain-power-144728

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Willsteed, Senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic.

This road down to Nashville is like crystal and stone,

it’s a place where a man sells his soul for a song

The house is creaking, buffeted by westerly winds, Brisbane’s annual curse. The sleep owed me by the long day is held to ransom by the racket rising through the floorboards, the windows edging open, sending doors slamming. Cardboard boxes tumble and slide on the cold concrete below, and the patio roofing lifts at the edges, beating a random rhythm, tempered by the pretty pentatonic windchimes hitched up to a beam somewhere down in the dark. We don’t hear them often, those lullaby chimes.

The westerlies slide in and out through the Brisbane winter, settling around August with the usual winter ills. But this year, there’s no flu and few colds. The world is trembling under the looming Virus. And in the quieter, slower life that is now the norm, we have more time to listen and read and scan the channels.

I don’t know, can’t remember, what brought this album into my sight. I had seen his name, associated with Nashville songwriters — Kristoffersen, Cash, van Zandt — and with the arrangement of “An American Trilogy”, Elvis’ big closing number in his 72/73 shows. Dylan made sure he touched base with Newbury when he was recording Nashville Skyline in 1969.

Mickey Newbury was born in Texas in 1940 and died in Oregon in 2002. He moved to Nashville in 1965, and by 1969 had racked up a string of hits … for other singers. Sweet Memories, Funny Familiar Forgotten Feelings — in 1968 he had hits across four different charts.

Read more: Simplicity and quiet: my isolation playlist from ECM Records

The album I’ve been falling into, relying on in this quiet time, is called Winter Winds. Released in 2002, it is an extended version of the 1994 live album Nights When I Am Sane. An odd thing to do, re-release a live album, but Winter is markedly different from Sane.

The picked guitar fades up, the voice, wordless, floats around a cello and settles into the verse. And when the chorus comes: “It’s the 33rd of August and I’m finally touching down”, we get this guy. He’s the guy whose “demons dance and sing their songs within [his] fevered brain” and we know him well.

We’ve all had those days, those mornings when brutal reality slouches in, slides onto the sofa and lights a cigarette. Looks at you sideways.

A storyteller’s voice

But it’s the second song, Ramblin’ Blues, that sends my neck hairs crazy. Newbury has a storyteller’s voice. You can smell the phone box, the fear, hear the kids yelling in the distance at the other end of the line — and in the chorus the voice soars, untethered, on a landscape of strings.

Read more: Listening to Songs of Leonard Cohen: singing sadness to sadness in these anxious times

These strings set the album apart from its older twin. The strings, the sound effects — the wintry winds — the bass and mandolin, were all added later to Newbury and Jack Williams’ delicate guitars. Some purists hate them, but these embellishments helped me love this record. That, and the whistling!

Yes, the strings drew me in. They’re not cinematic, or showy. They just wrap the words and melodies in harmony and warmth. They’re structural and sometimes a bit dramatic, but carefully considered.

A few tracks in and we arrive at I Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In); the cello swooping up to meet Newbury in his delirium —

I woke up this morning, the sundown was shining in / I found my broken mind in a brown paper bag but then / I tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high / Tore my mind on a jagged sky

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

This song has crept into the zeitgeist, thanks to the Coen Brothers, who used the very groovy first edition version in The Big Lebowski dream sequence, and on it travelled – True Detective, Fargo, on and on. You can smell the trip gone wrong, the metallic fear, the suffocating.

Dark moments

There are lots of dark moments on this album. As there are love songs, full of heartache. The lost love of San Francisco Mabel Joy, of Genevieve, of Angeline. Aching, relentless loss in this soaring voice, the voice of a troubled mind.

Oh, what will I do / Till the need in me subsides? / Simply close my eyes / And try to sleep / And try to sleep.

And then, just the sound of the chill wind, and finally the distant train whistle, reaching into the fitful slumber. And then it’s gone.

So that’s been my accompaniment since the beginning of the year. I listened to Winter Winds when we were at airports and on planes. And then the planes went away, so I listened to it in the car, combing the empty streets just to get out of the house in the early lockdown. I have it on in the background when I write, keeping my words company.

But mainly I just relax into Newbury’s wonderful voice, and my spirit rises with those notes, and skips with the whistling, and settles into his sad and beautiful stories.

Some parting advice from Mickey:

I’ve been dying all my life … You should do the things today that need to be done. Tomorrow is too late.

– ref. Winter Winds by hippy cowboy Mickey Newbury: the perfect soundtrack to wintry times – https://theconversation.com/winter-winds-by-hippy-cowboy-mickey-newbury-the-perfect-soundtrack-to-wintry-times-143542

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larisa Labzin, Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland

Could we have some immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, without ever having been exposed to it?

Some new studies found people who were never symptomatic, exposed to, or tested positive for COVID-19 have immune cells that can recognise and possibly kill virus-infected cells.

How is this possible? And what does it mean for our fight against COVID-19?

Many common colds are coronaviruses

There are seven known coronaviruses that can infect humans. Three can cause severe respiratory symptoms: SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1 (which caused the 2002-04 SARS outbreak), and MERS-CoV (which was first identified in 2012).

The other four cause relatively mild colds, and are known as the common cold coronaviruses. It’s hard to find an exact figure, but one estimate suggests up to 30% of all common colds are caused by these coronaviruses, and up to 90% of us will have some antibodies against them in our blood. Like the other viruses that cause common colds (such as rhinoviruses), they show a strong seasonality, with a wave of coronavirus infections each winter.

Immunity to these common cold coronaviruses is not very long–lasting, so we get re-infected with them all the time. We don’t know yet if our immunity to SARS-CoV-2 will also wane over time, and whether that means we could get re-infected.

Read more: Immunity to COVID-19 may not last. This threatens a vaccine and herd immunity

What did new studies find?

What these new studies did was expose some people’s blood to SARS-CoV-2. These blood samples were taken specifically from “healthy donors” – people who have never been confirmed to have coronavirus, or from whom blood was collected years before SARS-CoV-2 emerged.

Depending on the study, between 20 and 50% of these people were found to have immune cells (called T cells) that could recognise SARS-CoV-2. This is unexpected, as usually specific T cells are only present after infection with the virus.

There are two possible explanations. Either those “healthy donors” were mildly infected with SARS-CoV-2 and didn’t show symptoms or develop antibodies, but they did develop a T cell response. Or, in the case of samples taken before the disease emerged, it means these T cells can recognise multiple coronaviruses, including common colds and SARS-CoV-2.

More than just antibodies

When we get infected with a virus like SARS-CoV-2, our immune system responds in a range of ways. It generates antibodies, which can neutralise the virus to stop it entering our cells. These antibodies are specific to the virus, and thus can be used to test whether we’ve had the virus before.

But besides antibodies, we have a host of other immune weapons in our arsenal for fighting off viruses.

T cells are specialised immune cells that have lots of functions (including helping us make antibodies) but are best known for being able to recognise and kill virus-infected cells. This is really important, because if the virus has evaded antibodies and managed to get into the cells, it can start replicating. Eliminating the infected cell is one of the most efficient ways to stop the infection.

Read more: Antibody tests: to get a grip on coronavirus, we need to know who’s already had it

T cells are master detectives

How do T cells know which of our body’s cells are infected with a virus? Because they can recognise small but specific snippets of viral proteins that our cells “present” on their surface. These viral snippets on the infected cell surface act like a beacon for the T cells to recognise and eliminate the virus-infected cells. Like antibodies, after the infection is cleared, we keep some of those T cells around in case we get reinfected with the same virus.

The small bits of virus presented on the infected cell’s surface can come from all parts of the virus, including the ones from inside the virus, which tend to be very similar across the different coronaviruses. That means a T cell that recognises a viral protein fragment from one type of coronavirus could potentially recognise the same fragment of viral protein that comes from a different coronavirus.

For example, if a virus was like a car, the antibody might recognise and bind to the outside, and it would only recognise a certain colour, year, and type of car.

But the T cell could recognise the specific bits, like the engine. So if the same engine was in loads of different cars, even though you might have really different cars, as long as it’s a petrol engine the T cell would recognise it. So it’s possible some of our T cells that were formed during a common cold infection are recognising SARS-CoV-2 and helping our immune system have a headstart for fighting SARS-CoV-2.

So these T cells can be cross protective — they work against different coronaviruses — and they can be very longlasting. In patients who recovered from SARS-CoV-1, specific T cells were still detectable up to 11 years later. This T cell memory could protect us from developing severe COVID-19, and could possibly explain why some people get so sick with COVID-19 while other people do not.

It’s not all rosy

While T cells represent another measure of whether people have been infected or not, we can’t use them as a quick diagnostic tool because detecting virus-specific T cells is far more slow, laborious and difficult than detecting antibodies.

We also don’t know yet what this pre-existing T cell immunity means for immune protection. We don’t even know whether the specific T cells generated during SARS-CoV-2 infection will be enough to protect us from COVID-19, and how important they are compared with the antibody responses.

Therefore, the most successful vaccines will likely induce both protective antibody and T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2.

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

– ref. Exposure to common colds might give some people a head start in fighting COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/exposure-to-common-colds-might-give-some-people-a-head-start-in-fighting-covid-19-143455

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

The Department of Social Services has confirmed Australia’s pensioners will not receive an automatic indexation increase this September, because inflation has gone backwards.

This will be the first time since 1997 the pension hasn’t risen with indexation.

Labor has quickly criticised the news the pension will be put “on hold”. As its Social Services spokeswoman Linda Burney argues, “this is the worst possible time to be putting the squeeze on the household budgets of seniors and the most vulnerable”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also been quick to point out his government was not expecting this to happen and “will work through” the issues.

So, why haven’t pensions gone up in the middle of the pandemic? And what options does the government have to try to address this?

How is the pension indexed?

Under current legislation, pensions are indexed twice a year, in March and September.

This is done according to the higher of the Consumer Price Index or Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index (a cost of living measure designed specifically for households that rely on pensions) over the previous six months.

As the Department of Social Services explains, when wages grow more quickly than prices, the pension is increased to a wages benchmark. The wages benchmark sets the combined couple rate of pension at 41.76% of male average weekly earnings. The single rate of pension is roughly two thirds of the couple rate, which works out at 27.7% of average male earnings.

So in normal times, indexation sees pensions maintain their real value or improve if real wages are increasing in the community. In March 2020, the single base rate of the pension increased by about $10 a fortnight.

But these are not normal times

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Consumer Price Index and pensioner index fell by 1.9% and 1.4% respectively between March and June 2020.

And benchmarking to male earnings will will not help in September, because the current maximum basic pension rate of $860.60 per fortnight is 28% of average weekly earnings, which was $1537.70 in May 2020. So, this is slightly above the benchmark.

Read more: ‘I will never come to Australia again’: new research reveals the suffering of temporary migrants during the COVID-19 crisis

Thank Kevin Rudd for the current system

Australia’s indexation provisions were introduced in the Labor government’s 2009-10 Budget, following the Harmer pension review. At the same time, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd increased the single rate of pensions by $65 per fortnight, the largest single real amount since the age pension was first paid in 1909.

These new indexation provisions were generous compared to previous arrangements, given they take whichever is higher of the Consumer Price Index and the pensioner index, and also maintain higher benchmarks against wages. It is worth noting the Abbott government’s first budget in 2014 tried to change indexation of pensions so that they only increased in line with inflation. But this never got past the Senate.

So under the current provisions, introduced by Labor, the system is working the way it is intended. It is just that in these unusual times, none of these measures will result in a pension increase.

What is really going on with cost of living?

One important questions is: does the fall in the Consumer Price Index and pensioner index between March and June this year really reflect what has happened to the prices faced by pensioners?

The Bureau of Statistics has published a special analysis of changes in prices due to COVID-19, as well as the effect of the pandemic on average earnings.

This analysis shows a large part of the fall in the overall Consumer Price Index was due to temporary free childcare, subtracting approximately 1.1 percentage points from the headline figure. However, because the weight of childcare in the pensioner index is lower, it is likely to have a smaller effect on that figure.

Another factor the Bureau of Statistics identifies is the fall in rents because of the range of supports state and territory governments have put in place during COVID-19.

The bureau has not quantified this impact yet, but there is a possibility this may have a negative effect for pensioners. This is because rent reductions usually require tenants to have experienced a fall in income, which is unlikely to apply to pensioners (who will therefore be paying the same rents as before the pandemic).

There is hope of a rise

Morrison has already given a strong signal something extra will happen for pensioners. As he told reporters on Wednesday,

this is one of those issues that comes in a pandemic, you don’t expect those indexes to go negative. And as a result, budgets and others haven’t been prepared on the basis of them going negative … But the Treasurer [Josh Frydenberg] and I will work through those issues … And we’ll work out the exact response to the circumstances and will announce that when a decision has been made.

If the government wished, they could consider a one-off increase in pensions, as used to be the case before the Howard government legislated for benchmarking to wages in 1997.

Alternatively, as the Council on the Ageing suggested on Wednesday, they could provide another stimulus payment of $750 timed to go out before Christmas.

Read more: ‘I will never come to Australia again’: new research reveals the suffering of temporary migrants during the COVID-19 crisis

As Morrison noted, there have already been two $750 payments, in April and July, as part of the pandemic response.

A further payment could support consumer spending at what seems likely to be a very difficult time for the economy. A payment of $750 over a six-month period is a little under $60 per fortnight, which would be much higher than any normal indexation increase. But it would not be built into the rates for the long-term, which the government does not seem to want to do.

Meanwhile, don’t forget JobSeeker support is going backwards

Even more pressing, however, is the level of support to unemployed Australians. Under current policy settings, JobSeeker and related payments will fall by $300 per fortnight from September 25.

Extending the current level of the Coronavirus Supplement until it is clear what Australia’s economic prospects are is a pressing necessity for the two million-plus Australians receiving the Coronavirus Supplement.

Read more: When the Coronavirus Supplement stops, JobSeeker needs to increase by $185 a week

– ref. There will be no pension increase in September for the first time in 23 years. But there is a simple fix – https://theconversation.com/there-will-be-no-pension-increase-in-september-for-the-first-time-in-23-years-but-there-is-a-simple-fix-144732

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide

Over 2,000 active cases of COVID-19 and 245 resident deaths as of August 19 have been linked to aged care homes in Victoria, spread across over 120 facilities. The St Basil’s cluster alone now involves 191 cases. In New South Wales, 37 residents were infected at Newmarch House, leading to 17 deaths.

Why are so many aged care residents and staff becoming infected with COVID-19? New research suggests poor ventilation may be one of the factors. RMIT researchers are finding levels of carbon dioxide in some nursing homes that are more than three times the recommended level, which points to poor ventilation.

An examination of the design of Newmarch in Sydney and St Basil’s in Melbourne shows residents’ rooms are arranged on both sides of a wide central corridor.

The corridors need to be wide enough for beds to be wheeled in and out of rooms, but this means they enclose a large volume of air. Windows in the residents’ rooms only indirectly ventilate this large interior space. In addition, the wide corridors encourage socialising.

If the windows to residents’ rooms are shut or nearly shut in winter, these buildings are likely to have very low levels of ventilation, which may contribute to the spread of COVID-19. If anyone in the building is infected, the risk of cross-infection may be significant even if personal protective equipment protocols are followed and surfaces are cleaned regularly.

Why does ventilation matter?

Scientists now suspect the virus that causes COVID-19 can be transmitted as an aerosol as well as by droplets. Airborne transmission means poor ventilation is likely to contribute to infections.

A recent article in the journal Nature outlines the state of research:

Converging lines of evidence indicate that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, can pass from person to person in tiny droplets called aerosols that waft through the air and accumulate over time. After months of debate about whether people can transmit the virus through exhaled air, there is growing concern among scientists about this transmission route.

Read more: Is the airborne route a major source of coronavirus transmission?

Under the National Construction Code (NCC), a building can be either “naturally ventilated” or “mechanically ventilated”.

Natural ventilation requires only that ventilation openings, usually the openable portion of windows, must achieve a set percentage of the floor area. It does not require windows to be open, or even mandate the minimum openable area, or any other measures that would ensure effective ventilation. Air quality tests are not required before or after occupation for a naturally ventilated building.

Nearly all aged care homes are designed to be naturally ventilated with openable windows to each room. In winter most windows are shut to keep residents warm and reduce drafts. This reduces heating costs, so operators have a possible incentive to keep ventilation rates down.

From inspection, many areas of typical nursing homes, including corridors and large common spaces, are not directly ventilated or are very poorly ventilated. The odour sometimes associated with nursing homes, which is a concern for residents and their visitors, is probably linked to poor ventilation.

Carbon dioxide levels sound a warning

Carbon dioxide levels in a building are a close proxy for the effectiveness of ventilation because people breathe out CO₂. The National Construction Code mandates CO₂ levels of less than 850 parts per million (ppm) in the air inside a building averaged over eight hours. A well-ventilated room will be 800ppm or less – 600ppm is regarded as a best practice target. Outside air is just over 400ppm

An RMIT team led by Professor Priya Rajagopalan is researching air quality in Victorian aged care homes. He has provided preliminary data showing peaks of up to 2,000ppm in common areas of some aged care homes.

This figure indicates very poor ventilation. It’s more than twice the maximum permitted by the building code and more than three times the level of best practice.

Research from Europe also indicates ventilation in aged care homes is poor.

Good ventilation has been associated with reduced transmission of pathogens. In 2019, researchers in Taiwan linked a tuberculosis outbreak at a Taipei University with internal CO₂ levels of 3,000ppm. Improving ventilation to reduce CO₂ to 600ppm stopped the outbreak.

Read more: How to use ventilation and air filtration to prevent the spread of coronavirus indoors

What can homes do to improve ventilation?

Nursing home operators can take simple steps to achieve adequate ventilation. An air quality detector that can reliably measure CO₂ levels costs about A$200.

If levels in an area are significantly above 600ppm over five to ten minutes, there would be a strong case to improve ventilation. At levels over 1,000ppm the need to improve ventilation would be urgent.

Most nursing homes are heated by reverse-cycle split-system air conditioners or warm air heating systems. The vast majority of these units do not introduce fresh air into the spaces they serve.

The first step should be to open windows as much as possible – even though this may make maintaining a comfortable temperature more difficult.

Read more: Open windows to help stop the spread of coronavirus, advises architectural engineer

Creating a flow of warmed and filtered fresh air from central corridor spaces into rooms and out through windows would be ideal, but would probably require investment in mechanical ventilation.

Temporary solutions could include:

1. industrial heating fans and flexible ventilation duct from an open window discharging into the central corridor spaces

2. radiant heaters in rooms, instead of recirculating heat pump air conditioners, and windows opened far enough to lower CO₂ levels consistently below 850ppm in rooms and corridors.

The same type of advice applies to any naturally ventilated buildings, including schools, restaurants, pubs, clubs and small shops. The operators of these venues should ensure ventilation is good and be aware that many air-conditioning and heating units do not introduce fresh air.

People walking into venues might want to turn around and walk out if their nose tells them ventilation is inadequate. We have a highly developed sense of smell for many reasons, and avoiding badly ventilated spaces is one of them.

– ref. Poor ventilation may be adding to nursing homes’ COVID-19 risks – https://theconversation.com/poor-ventilation-may-be-adding-to-nursing-homes-covid-19-risks-144725

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shimona Kealy, Postdoctoral Researcher, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University

Prehistoric axes and beads found in caves on a remote Indonesian island suggest this was a crucial staging post for seafaring people who lived in this region as the last ice age was coming to an end.

Our discoveries, published today in PLOS ONE, suggest humans arrived on the tropical island of Obi at least 18,000 years ago, successfully making a living there for at least the next 10,000 years.

It also provides the first direct archaeological evidence to support the idea these islands were crucial for humans’ island-hopping migration through this region millennia ago.

In early April 2019, we and our colleagues in Indonesia became the first archaeologists to explore Obi, in Indonesia’s Maluku Utara province.

We found the oldest example from east Indonesia of edge-ground axes, made by grinding a piece of stone to a sharp blade against a rough material such as sandstone. These were likely used for clearing the forest and making dugout canoes.

Our discoveries suggest the prehistoric people who lived on Obi were adept on both land and sea, hunting in the dense rainforest, foraging by the sea, and possibly even making canoes for voyaging between islands.

Our research is part of a project to learn more about how people first dispersed from mainland Asia, through the Indonesian archipelago and into Sahul, the prehistoric continent that once connected Australia and New Guinea.

An island stepping-stone

Recent models by CABAH researchers identified the collection of small islands in northeast Indonesia – and Obi in particular – as the most likely “stepping-stones” used by humans on their very first journey east towards northern Sahul (modern-day New Guinea), about 65,000-50,000 years ago.

Migrating through this region, which is named Wallacea after the explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, would have required multiple sea crossings. This enormous archipelago thus has a unique significance in human history, as the region where people first set out on deliberate long sea voyages.

Our earlier research suggested the northern Wallacean islands, including Obi, would have offered the easiest migration route. But to back this theory, we need archaeological evidence for humans living in this remote area in the ancient past. So we travelled to Obi to look for cave sites that might reveal evidence of early occupation.

Read more: Island-hopping study shows the most likely route the first people took to Australia

Tools and treasure

We found two rock shelter sites, just inland from the village of Kelo on Obi’s northern coast, that were suitable for excavation. With the permission and help of the local people of Kelo, we dug a small test excavation in each shelter.

We found numberous artefacts including fragments of edge-ground axes, some dating to about 14,000 years ago. The earliest ground axes at Kelo were made using clam shells. Axes made from shells have also been found elsewhere in this region from roughly the same time, including on the nearby island of Gebe to the northeast. Traditionally, they were used by people in the region for the construction of dugout canoes. It is highly likely that Obi’s axes were also used for making canoes, thus allowing these early peoples to maintain connections between communities on neighbouring islands.

The oldest cultural layers from the Kelo 6 site, containing a combination of shell and stone tool flakes, provided us with the earliest record for human occupation on Obi, dating back around 18,000 years. At this time the climate was drier and colder the today, and the island’s dense rainforests would likely have been much less impenetrable than they are now. Sea levels were about 120 metres lower, meaning Obi was a much larger island, encompassing what is today the separate island of Bisa, as well as several other small islands nearby.

Roughly 11,700 years ago, as the most recent ice age ended, the climate became significantly warmer and wetter, no doubt making Obi’s jungle much thicker. It is perhaps no coincidence this is the time we see the first evidence of axes made from stone rather than sea shells, likely in response to their increased, heavy-duty use for clearing and modification of the increasingly dense rainforest. While stone takes about twice as long to grind into an axe compared to shell, the harder material also keeps its sharp edge for longer as well.

Judging by the bones we found in the Kelo caves, people living there mainly hunted the Rothschild’s cuscus, a possum-like animal that still lives on Obi today. As the forest grew more dense, people probably used axes to clear patches of forest and make hunting easier.

Again, it’s probably no coincidence axes made of volcanic stone – which would have stayed sharp for longer, and are known to have been used for this purpose in New Guinea – first appearing in the archaeological record at around the time the climate was changing.

We also found obsidian, which must have been brought over from another island as there is no known source on Obi, and particular types of shell beads in the Kelo caves, similar to those previously found on islands in southern Wallacea. This again supports the idea that Obi islanders routinely travelled to other islands.

Moving out, or moving on?

Our excavations suggest people successfully lived at the Kelo caves for about 10,000 years. But then, about 8,000 years ago, both sites were abandoned.

Did the residents leave Obi completely, or move elsewhere on the island? Perhaps the jungle had grown so thick human axes (even stone ones!) were no longer a match for the dense undergrowth. Perhaps people simply moved to the coast and became mainly fishers rather than hunters.

Read more: An incredible journey: the first people to arrive in Australia came in large numbers, and on purpose

Whatever the reason, we have no evidence for use of the Kelo shelters after this time, until about 1,000 years ago, when they were reoccupied by people who had pottery and metal items. It seems likely, in view of Obi’s location in the middle of the Maluku “Spice Islands”, this final phase of occupation saw the Kelo shelters used by people involved in the historic spice trade.

We will hopefully find the answers to some of these questions when we return to Obi next year, COVID permitting, to excavate some coastal caves.

– ref. Stone tools from a remote cave reveal how island-hopping humans made a living in the jungle millennia ago – https://theconversation.com/stone-tools-from-a-remote-cave-reveal-how-island-hopping-humans-made-a-living-in-the-jungle-millennia-ago-144570

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristy Hess, Associate Professor (Communication), Deakin University

After Australia’s two big local newspaper companies, Australian Community Media (ACM) and News Corporation, shut down scores of rural newspapers as part of their COVID-19 cost-saving strategies, there were heartwarming stories of retrenched journalists and volunteers stepping in to fill the gaps.

From Broken Hill and Braidwood in NSW to Naracoorte in South Australia, these new media outfits were buoyed by public encouragement.

There was further cause for optimism when the federal government announced two initiatives to breathe life back into Australian journalism – a $50 million fund to support regional news media and a draft mandatory bargaining code that will force tech giants Google and Facebook into negotiations with news providers to share their advertising revenue.

While both government initiatives are worthy responses and a commendable mission for the future of public interest journalism, they miss the mark for many small independent newspapers and new media start-ups. And the optimistic mood in parts of the bush is starting to sour.

Only certain regional media need apply

There are a couple of significant hurdles to qualify for assistance under the $50 million public interest news gathering initiative — the funds can only be accessed by news organisations that have served their communities for a minimum of 12 months and have a history of delivering public interest journalism.

A large chunk of these funds reportedly went to big media conglomerates, such as ACM, Southern Cross Austereo and Seven West Media to support their regional operations. The federal government has not made the full list of recipients publicly available.

Read more: Another savage blow to regional media spells disaster for the communities they serve

The draft mandatory bargaining code, meanwhile, requires potential beneficiaries to have a minimum revenue stream of $150,000.

This clause eliminates many news outlets serving small towns and cities across the nation. If journalists in rural Australia can generate enough money to pay themselves a weekly salary and serve the needs of a small community, they are doing well. And they certainly could do with any additional revenue to support their cause.

Big business (like News Corp and ACM) is often the first, and the most savvy, when it comes to advocating for public money.

But with so much talk of subsidies for news providers and a desire to put a leash on social media, there are few checks and balances in place to assess which news outlets are most deserving of a government handout and whether they are adequately serving the needs of their local communities.

New media ventures shut out of funding

In Naracoorte, Michael Waite, a former business executive, garnered national media attention when he started a new newspaper in his hometown, called The News.

His foray into the newspaper business came after ACM pulled the pin on its 140-year-old paper, the Naracoorte Herald, at the onset of the pandemic.

Waite, whose mother had once managed the Herald, could not bear to see his town without a news outlet, so he started his own. For the past couple of months, he’s established a unique commercial business model with a small profit margin and he tells me it works.

But when ACM received a funding boost as part of the government’s $50 million package, it resumed its operations in Naracoorte. On the one hand, it’s a triumph for news diversity. A tiny town with 5,000 people served by two newspapers. Sounds like a win-win for democracy.

But Waite was not eligible for the funding as the new kid on the block, nor can he qualify for the draft mandatory bargaining code.

He’s not the only start-up unlikely to be eligible for the funds. In Yass, NSW, where another ACM paper, the Tribune, closed its doors this year, local journalist Andrew Hennell also found himself shut out of the government funding to support his plan to start a weekly paper.

ACM has since resumed operations in Yass after the $50 million funding was announced.

Read more: Local newspapers are an ‘essential service’. They deserve a government rescue package, too

Disparity in local government advertising

Local, state and national levels of government have long supported local newspapers through advertising – in fact, they have often been required by law to do so.

This funding stream has indirectly supported local newspapers for more than a century, but increasingly local governments are shying away from advertising in newspapers in search of a better deal, such as on Facebook or through free publicity on their own websites. These websites are often run by public relations professionals whose job it is to spruik rather than scrutinise council matters.

In the case of Naracoorte, Waite tells me the local council is continuing to advertise with the Herald, but not with him. After lobbying national politicians about his plight, he says he suddenly received a request from the local MP to advertise in his newspaper until the end of the year.

This highlights how power and politics can affect the very future of the industry the government is desperately trying to preserve in the interest of safeguarding our democracy.

Read more: Digital-only local newspapers will struggle to serve the communities that need them most

What needs to happen to support regional journalism

There are more ways we could be supporting regional media to ensure we are supporting news outlets that best serve the interests of their communities. Here are a few things that should be immediately enacted.

• A review of government advertising legislation, practices and policies to ensure a level playing field.

• A lowering of the revenue threshold in the draft mandatory code to $75,000, especially for those outlets serving populations of below 100,000 people.

• A new fund to support start-ups that did not qualify for the public interest journalism grants, and stronger aid for independent newspapers that serve as the primary source of local news for their towns and cities. This could mean the difference between fertilising new media growth across rural and regional Australia or creating an information drought.

• The public release of all news outlets benefiting from government public interest journalism initiatives and the methodology for determining the value of allocations among recipients. We should also have a public assessment of how money is spent.

• As a bare minimum requirement, local new outlets that receive any form of government funding should be required to independently cover council meetings (not run rewrites of press releases).

• A national body to help regulate and disseminate government grants — and to assess quality measures for local journalism — is also essential. This would also help to ensure public money is being spent where it is needed most.

News media are supposed to be the watchdogs that hold power to account. But in these times, it’s important we watch the watchdogs and their relationships to political revenue streams. Communities are depending on it.

The author would like to thank Michael Waite and Professor Lisa Waller at RMIT University for their input to this article.

– ref. The government’s regional media bailout doesn’t go far enough — here are reforms we really need – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-regional-media-bailout-doesnt-go-far-enough-here-are-reforms-we-really-need-144666

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Lockwood, Associate Professor Implementation Science, JBI, University of Adelaide

Early COVID-19 images of swabbing from Wuhan, China, looked more like an Ebola news story — health-care workers fully encased in personal protective equipment (PPE), inserting swabs so deeply that brain injury seemed imminent.

As COVID-19 (and testing) spread around the world, there were reports of “brain scraping”, “brain stabbing” or “brain tickling” swabs. Perhaps this was your experience early in the pandemic. Perhaps these stories have put you off getting tested so far.

But if you go to a drive-through clinic today, you’re likely to have a different swab, one that’s briefly inserted and not so far up as before.

So if fear of the swab itself is holding you back from getting tested, here’s what you need to know about these gentler swabs.

‘Brain scrapers’ not used so much in drive-through clinics

The swabs that gave COVID-19 testing its reputation are the nasopharyngeal swabs. Although these are considered the “gold standard” of testing, they are undeniably uncomfortable.

You remove your mask and blow your nose to clear your nasal passages. Then you try not to sneeze, cough or gag while a health worker inserts a long, flexible shaft about 12cm up your nose and into the back of your throat (until there’s resistance). They then swivel the swab against the back of your throat.

The distance for insertion is significant. Close your eyes and imagine a thin shaft being inserted the length of the space between your nostrils and the outer opening of the ear. The health worker needs to rotate the swab to maximise contact with the contents in the back of the nose before removing it.

The swab may cause your eyes to water, a reflex cough or sneeze. Because of this risk, staff must wear full PPE to avoid risk of being exposed to and inhaling infectious particles and aerosols.

This type of swab is still used in some clinics, and different jurisdictions around the world have different testing policies.

Read more: Why some people don’t want to take a COVID-19 test

You’ll be pleased to hear, things changed

As the pandemic evolved, so have methods of testing, with evidence accumulating about how well they work.

For instance, some Australians have had their saliva tested, including Victorians towards the start of the state’s second wave.

Read more: Explainer: what’s the new coronavirus saliva test, and how does it work?

But more widely used now in a typical drive-through clinic are a combined swab of the throat and nose.

You’ll be pleased to know the health worker swabs your throat first before using the same swab up your nose (and not the other way around)! This is the so-called oropharyngeal/nasal swab.

First the health worker will use a tongue depressor to keep your tongue down, then swab the area behind and next to the tonsils. Then they will take a nose swab.

If they take a superficial nose swab, they will ask you to look straight ahead before gently inserting the swab upwards until there’s some resistance. Then they will hold the swab in place for 10-15 seconds while rotating it, before repeating this in the other nostril.

If they take a mid-turbinate nasal (also known as a deep nasal) swab, you will tilt your head back slightly. The health worker will then insert the swab horizontally (instead of vertically) until there’s resistance (about two to three centimetres). They will then gently rotate the swab for 10-15 seconds before repeating on the other side.

Why did the swabs change?

If someone is going to stick a swab stick up our collective noses, the test needs to be accurate and reliable.

But what if other options were almost as good, without so much invasion, coughing and increased exposure risk for health-care workers?

So from late March and into April, organisations including the US Food and Drug Administration and US Centers for Disease Control, and Australia’s Public Health Laboratory Network, announced they would move away from the deeper nasopharyngeal swabs to using nasal swabs for this type of testing.

The recommendation in Australia is to use a combined throat/deep nasal swab but if the health worker thinks it necessary, a nasopharyngeal swab.

Since then, studies suggest the gap between absolute best (nasopharyngeal) and avoiding a gag or cough-inducing reflex (nasal) might not matter as much as once thought.

Comparative studies show throat/nasal swabs are as sensitive as nasopharyngeal to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Other studies show throat/nasal swabs are practical, cheap, accurate and reliable.

Still not convinced? Your brain really is safe

The accumulating evidence suggests the newer nasal swabs are safe, reliable, cheaper to complete, and less unpleasant. They also save expensive, higher grade PPE for where it is needed — in our health-care facilities.

So with testing rates down in Victoria and calls for more testing in New South Wales, this is a reminder we must continue to test, test, test, as well as practise hand hygiene, social distancing, and wearing masks.

Read more: 13 insider tips on how to wear a mask without your glasses fogging up, getting short of breath or your ears hurting

– ref. Goodbye, brain scrapers. COVID-19 tests now use gentler nose swabs – https://theconversation.com/goodbye-brain-scrapers-covid-19-tests-now-use-gentler-nose-swabs-144416

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Sparkes, Senior Lecturer (Media Studies and Production), University of Southern Queensland

Ten years on from its release, and hitting cinemas again, Christopher Nolan’s Inception still puzzles and intrigues.

It is one of those films in which you discover something new each time you watch it. Or, more likely, it makes you reinterpret what you thought you already knew.

Nolan’s oeuvre builds complex paradoxes of time, space and dimension. Memento (2000) and Insomnia (2002) deal with the order of time; The Prestige (2006) deals with the illusion of space; Interstellar (2014) moves through multi-dimensions.

Inception goes one step further, exploring the manipulation and distortion of all three states. It is a narrative set in the subconscious.

Nolan’s other films are set within a real world framework. It is uniquely Inception that moves into the unreal dream dimension. As in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) and Mulholland Drive (2001), Nolan explores not a singular subconscious world but billions of worlds interconnected.

Read more: The Matrix 20 years on: how a sci-fi film tackled big philosophical questions

It takes an astute viewer to realise what world you are in (are you in the real or unreal, are you in the mind of this character or that one?) throughout the film.

The complex subconscious

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a professional thief, stealing information directly from his targets’ subconscious minds. As a payment for implanting ideas into someone else’s subconscious, he can have his own criminal history erased.

At the beginning of the film, Cobb says:

I know how to search your mind and find your secrets. I know the tricks, and I can teach them to your subconscious so that even when you’re asleep, your guard is never down.

This could well be Nolan’s secret to the film.

Everything you see is a trick. Inception plays constantly with reality and the dream state. Nolan drops visual clues throughout the film, forcing the viewer to become a cinematic investigator to unravel his message.

It seems even Nolan realises how difficult it is to understand the film’s universe and narrative. He constantly resorts to large blocks of exposition to explain what we have seen, or what is happening – or going to happen.

Read more: How do you know you’re not living in a computer simulation?

With any other film you’d think this was a big mistake, but in Inception this exposition is a necessary road map to deciphering the mysteries of its increasingly complicated subconscious world.

Even Nolan himself can lose track on this road map, as he told Wired:

One of the things you do as a writer and as a filmmaker is grasp for resonant symbols and imagery without necessarily fully understanding it yourself.

(Un)realities

Perhaps the greatest trick of all in this film is that by its end you question if you have even been in any true reality (at least in terms of the cinematic world it depicts) – or did we just leap from one subconscious mind to the other?

It’s still a point of discussion among fans. The Inception subreddit gets daily questions about how to unpack the film. New theories about the different realities are constantly being put forward.

But don’t let Nolan’s complex storytelling or technical wizardry blind you. In all of his films, family is the main motivator for each of the central characters. Family drives the story forward.

Read more: On Interstellar and ‘real physics’

Both Memento and The Prestige have obsessive compulsive main characters who are driven to avenge their dead wives. In Interstellar, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is brought back from the brink by his daughter. In Inception, Cobb becomes separated from his children because of his criminality and it is his love for them that motivates the entire story.

Without these familial foundations, Nolan’s films would be smart but they would have no soul. Each of the main protagonists is well aware of what is motivating their redemptive actions. The ends justify the means – murder, mayhem, misery – as long as the end is love.

Playing with paradoxes

Inception is by far Nolan’s most complex film and arguably his most intellectual, with its questions of where does the real world end and the subconscious begin?

It is also visually stunning, with a whole street exploding or a hallway spinning 360 degrees, making the characters appear to defy gravity. These are not computer graphics, but effects created live on set.

While all of Nolan’s films end very neatly and satisfactorily, Inception’s is highly ambiguous. The spinning top at the beginning of the film, which represents the dream world, still spins at the end. Does that mean the whole film has taken place in the subconscious and nothing we have seen is real?

Inception’s re-release comes just two weeks before Nolan’s new film, Tenet, hits cinemas after delays due to COVID-19. Tenet appears to be another mind trip where time, space and dimensional paradoxes are a large part of the narrative.

Watching Inception will attune your skills of observation and interpretation and prepare you for Tenet. But, as with any Nolan film, don’t take anything at face value.

As Cobb would say: Nolan knows the tricks.

Inception is in select cinemas from today

– ref. 10 years on, Inception remains Christopher Nolan’s most complex and intellectual film – https://theconversation.com/10-years-on-inception-remains-christopher-nolans-most-complex-and-intellectual-film-144664

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

With the withdrawal of the international market, and the stresses of delivering education virtually, the university sector has been hit especially hard by COVID-19. The sector, which in the 2018-2019 financial year contributed $37.6 billion in export income to the Australian economy, is a shadow of its former self.

Meanwhile the government last week released its controversial “JobReady Graduates” draft legislation, which aims to promote study in areas it believes will increase the employment prospects of graduates. A new fee structure will steer students towards STEM fields, IT, teaching, nursing and away from the humanities and law.

Professor Barney Glover, former chair of Universities Australia, a peak body for the higher education sector, is Vice Chancellor of Western Sydney University. Among his many roles on advisory committees, he’s on the New South Wales International Education Advisory Board.

While acknowledging the need for innovation and reform in how higher education is delivered, Professor Glover believes it will be a long road back to normality for the university sector, which has had such a high dependence on foreign students.

“This is something that’s going to affect the sector for several years because the recovery – the economic recovery overseas, the capacity for students to study internationally, the amount of international mobility – all of that is going to be curtailed and constrained, which means universities are going to have to deal with a very different financial situation over the course of particularly [20]21, [20]22 and I suspect [20]23.

“And it won’t be, we predict, until 2024 that we see recovery back towards 2019 levels.”

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Professor Barney Glover on the bleak years ahead for higher education – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-professor-barney-glover-on-the-bleak-years-ahead-for-higher-education-144736

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Douglass Rovinsky, PhD Candidate, Monash University

Until it was hunted to extinction, the thylacine – also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf – was the world’s largest marsupial predator. However, our new research shows it was in fact only about half as large as previously thought. So perhaps it wasn’t such a big bad wolf after all.

Although the thylacine is widely known as an example of human-caused extinction, there is a lot we still don’t know about this fascinating animal. This even includes one of the most basic details: how much did the thylacine weigh?

An animal’s body mass is one of the most fundamental aspects of its biology. It affects nearly every facet of the its biology, from biochemical and metabolic processes, reproduction, growth, and development, through to where the animal can live and how it moves.

For meat-eating predators, body mass also determines what the animal eats – or more specifically, how much it has to eat at each meal.

Catching and eating other animals is hard work, so a predator has to weigh the costs carefully against the benefits. Small predators have low hunting costs – moving around, hunting, and killing small prey doesn’t cost much energy, so they can afford to nibble on small animals here and there. But for bigger predators, the stakes are higher.

Almost all large predators – those weighing at least 21  kilograms – focus their efforts on prey at least half their own body size, getting more bang for the buck. In contrast, small predators below 14.5 kg almost always catch prey much smaller than half their own size. Those in between typically take prey less than half their size, but sometimes switch to a larger meal if some easy prey is there for the taking – or if the predator is getting desperate.

The mismeasure of the thylacine

Few accurately recorded weights exist for thylacines – only four, in fact. This lack of information has made estimating their average size difficult. The most commonly used average body mass is 29.5kg, based on 19th-century newspaper accounts.

This suggests the thylacine would probably have taken relatively large prey such as wallabies, kangaroos and perhaps sheep. However, studies of thylacine skulls suggest they didn’t have strong enough skulls to capture and kill large prey, and that they would have hunted smaller animals instead.

This presented a problem: if the thylacine was as big as we thought, it shouldn’t be able to live solely on small prey. But what if we’ve had the weight wrong the whole time?

Read more: Why did the Tasmanian tiger go extinct?

Weighing an extinct animal

Our new research, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, addresses this weighty issue. Our team travelled throughout the world to museums in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, and 3D-scanned 93 thylacines, including whole mounted skeletons, taxidermy mounts, and the only whole-body ethanol-preserved thylacine in the world, in Sweden.

Based on these scans, we created new equations to estimate a thylacine’s mass, based on how thick their limbs were – because their legs would have had to support their entire weight.

We also compared the results of these equations with a new method of digitally weighing 3D specimens. Based on a 3D scan of a mounted skeleton, we digitally “filled in the spaces” to estimate how much soft tissue would have been present, and then used our new formula to calculate how much this would weigh. Taxidermy mounts were easier as there was no need to infer the amount of soft tissue. The most artistic member of our team digitally sculpted lifelike thylacines around the scanned skeletons, and we weighed them, too.

Our calculations unanimously told a very different story from the 19th-century periodicals, and from the commonly used estimate. The average thylacine weighed only about 16.7 kg – not 29.5 kg.

Read more: Friday essay: on the trail of the London thylacines

Tall tales on the tiger trail

This means the previous estimate, based on taking 19th-century periodicals at face value, was nearly 80% too large. Looking back at those old newspaper reports, many of them in retrospect have the hallmarks of “tall tales”, told to make a captured thylacine seem bigger, more impressive and more dangerous.

It was based on this suspected danger that the thylacine was hunted and trapped to extinction, with private bounties already placed on them by 1840, and government-sponsored extermination by the 1880s.

The thylacine was much smaller than previously thought, and this aligns with the smaller prey size suggested by the earlier studies. Predators below 21 kg – in which we should now include the thylacine – all tend to hunt prey smaller than half their size. The “Tasmanian wolf” probably wasn’t such a danger to Tasmanian farmers’ sheep after all.

By rewriting this fundamental aspect of their biology, we are closer to understanding the role of the thylacine in the ecosystem – and to seeing exactly what was lost when we deliberately hunted it to extinction.

– ref. The Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a ‘large predator’ – but it was only half as heavy as we thought – https://theconversation.com/the-tasmanian-tiger-was-hunted-to-extinction-as-a-large-predator-but-it-was-only-half-as-heavy-as-we-thought-144599

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Laura Glitsos, Lecturer in Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University

We know Instagram is the most influential app when it comes to lifestyle and beauty trends.

But recent research shows increasing numbers of people are also going to Instagram for their news. A report by the Reuters Institute found the use of Instagram for news has doubled across all age groups since 2018.

It is now set to overtake Twitter as a news source in the coming year, with younger people in particular embracing Instagram for their news.

What is ‘Insta’?

Instagram is a social media platform where users post photos with captions, with an estimated one billion active users around the world.

The Reuters report found Instagram reaches 11% of people of all ages for news, based on survey results for 12 countries, including Australia.

But the embrace of the platform for news is particularly pronounced for young people. For example, in April, 24% of 18-24 year olds in the United Kingdom used Instagram to find out about COVID-19. This compares with 26% in the United States.

Australians were not polled for this particular question, but a 2020 Australian study of school students found 49% of teenagers surveyed got their news from Instagram.

Instagram is certainly viewed as a younger person’s platform, as opposed to Facebook, which is seen to be for older people. Those between 18 and 34 make up about 63 per cent of Instagram users worldwide.

Instagram users can receive news stories and updates by following another user and then seeing what they post by scrolling through their feed. Alternatively, users can search via a hashtag.

Why are young people choosing Instagram for news?

Those under about 35 have grown up with mobile and social media as the norm. So it follows they interact with news and current events in a radically different way from previous generations, or even news consumers a decade ago.

Read more: We live in an age of ‘fake news’. But Australian children are not learning enough about media literacy

Recent research suggests young people think that rather than going to dedicated sources for their news – like a newspaper or TV bulletin – the news will come to them. So, important information “finds them” anyway, through their general media use, peers and social connections.

Another key difference with older news consumers is that younger people are “prosumers”. Not only do they read the news, they can actually produce it and join in what’s trending. Sometimes, this may be by simply sharing a post with extra commentary and opinion. At other times, users might take an image or video and edit it in order to make and share a meme that relates to the content.

Order in a chaotic world

Amid global chaos and uncertainty, Instagram offers up the world as a stable, structured, and highly stylised.

Instagram is less chaotic than other social media platforms because of the actual interface design. That is, the focus is almost purely on aesthetics – on the beauty and impact of the image using filters and tools. This type of media consumption soothes instead of provoking anxiety. In some senses, it simplifies and streamlines the chaos of the world.

Instagram’s ability to simplify and “organise” the world resonates with another finding of the Reuters report – Instagram has become even more important with younger groups for accessing news about COVID-19.

The power of influencers

Instagram is home to “influencers” – high-profile users who are considered to be style and opinion leaders. While they can influence the products we buy, or the places we travel to, they can also influence the information we consume.

This becomes even more important in times of crisis. It is comforting to seek out narratives or perspectives from people we know and trust.

In the case of news media, Instagram gives young people what feels like a direct and personal line to their role models. In this respect, so does Twitter, but again, the interface of Instagram is simpler. On Instagram, what might be complex and confusing issues are condensed down to images.

Recent research also suggests Instagram users prefer “lighter” and “less-demanding” types of interaction with online news.

What does this mean for news consumption?

The implications of the move towards “Insta-news” are complex. One concern is the way people can curate their own reality, because they can shape their feed so they only see what they want. They can unfollow or block what they do not like.

Read more: Pivot to coronavirus: how meme factories are crafting public health messaging

In some senses, this can sense of control is positive. However, this also means people are essentially constructing what they want the world to look like. This leads to “filter bubbles”, where people become “cut off” from other, perhaps more challenging, ideas.

Western culture is essentially “ocularcentric”. In other words, we are obsessed with images. And we are more likely to believe things we can see. As a result, news consumers may be less inclined to challenge or critique what they see on Instagram. Even though they need to be doing this online more than ever.

The dangers of fake followers, fake accounts and fake news are already well-known on social media. Last year, Institut Polytechnique de Paris researchers found 4,000 fake accounts in a targeted sample on Instagram.

Good-looking news in a hostile world

For young people seeking solace from the hostility and pressure of news events, Instagram provides a space filled with good-looking visual stimulation, often from people they like and trust.

And as the Reuters report noted – Instagram may not be everything. Social media are generally used “in combination” with other types of news information.

But as increasing numbers of people turn to Instagram for their news, the question remains: is this the news they need, or simply the news they want to see?

Read more: Pastel colours and serif fonts: is Annastacia Palaszczuk trying to be an Instagram influencer?

– ref. Instagram is the home of pretty pictures. Why are people flocking to it for news? – https://theconversation.com/instagram-is-the-home-of-pretty-pictures-why-are-people-flocking-to-it-for-news-144079

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yves Rees, Lecturer in History, La Trobe University

In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic.

In her 2017 book Living a Feminist Life, Sara Ahmed advocates the necessity of a “feminist killjoy survival kit”, her name for the assemblage of books, things, tools, creatures and joys that enable feminists — and feminism — to survive.

When the world is exhausting, when life grinds you down, the Survival Kit is the place feminists turn for nourishment and solace. More than just an exercise in neoliberal selfcare, Survival Kits are about sustaining a community and a political project.

Needless to say, my Survival Kit has been getting a heavy workout in 2020. Coronavirus, climate collapse, economic downturn, the implosion of higher education, resurgent fascism, celebrity transphobia— not mention my own gender transition: it’s a lot.

What I’ve craved, to survive these times, is communion with like-minded souls, fellow queer bookworms who’ll share my horrified fascination with a world in flames. But in this age of social distancing and repeated lockdowns, communion is hard to find — especially for us more than two million Australians who live alone.

This is why a treasured item in my Killjoy Survival Kit is a podcast that beams whip-smart feminist conversation into my home, allowing me to eavesdrop on the latest musings of a fellow traveller each week.

Secret Feminist Agenda is the creation of Canadian academic Hannah McGregor, a literature scholar at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. As McGregor describes, it is a “podcast about the insidious, nefarious, insurgent, and mundane ways we enact our feminism in our daily lives”.

Now in its fourth season, the podcast alternates between interview episodes and shorter “minisodes”, in which the dauntingly articulate McGregor monologues on a topic front of mind.

Soundtrack to the Sisyphean

Every Saturday morning for the past two years, the latest episode has provided the soundtrack to the Sisyphean drudgery of laundry and housework. In the process, McGregor’s voice has become as familiar as my own. As podcasting critics have noted, you develop a special kind of intimacy with someone who whispers into your ear as you scrub the toilet each week.

What makes this podcast stand out in an increasingly rich podcasting landscape is its unique blend of brain and heart. McGregor is an intellectual greyhound, and she brings a fierce scholarly rigour to each episode.

But she has an equally fierce commitment to a “feminist politics of care”, showing that softness, humour, pleasure and even cosiness are values that must be central to a truly emancipatory feminist politics.

More than anyone, McGregor has made me realise the truth of Audre Lorde’s vision of selfcare as warfare. For oppressed groups like women, people of colour, and queer and trans people, using selfcare to ensure one’s own survival can itself constitute political resistance. As Lorde wrote, and both Ahmed and McGregor cite, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

By exploding the Cartesian mind-body divide, McGregor gives us an embodied, feminised model of intellectual excellence — one that provides a much needed alternative to the still ubiquitous vision of “the scholar” as a white male automaton with a wife looking after things at home.

In the process, McGregor helps us imagine a world where academia could discard its masculinist culture of hyper-competitiveness, punitive benchmarks and elitist gatekeeping. As embattled Australian universities discard their armies of casuals and push surviving staff towards ever greater “efficiency”, we need more than ever to envision and fight for a better university.

Secret Feminist Agenda also expands the boundaries of academic knowledge production. By having the project peer-reviewed via a university press, McGregor makes a case for the podcast as a legitimate form of scholarship.

In doing so, she shows that “scholarship” can be pleasurable, collaborative and —most importantly — accessible to a broader public. This example has been crucial to development of my own podcast Archive Fever, co-hosted with historian and author Clare Wright.

On a more personal level, Secret Feminist Agenda has given me specific tools to think with as I — like McGregor — navigate life as a queer, single, white, vegan, millennial feminist academic living on stolen Indigenous land.

Episode 2.3 helped me discover my inclinations towards asexuality and aromanticism (little or no romantic attraction towards others). Episode 3.17 spoke to my growing qualms about veganism, dissecting its links to white supremacy and disordered eating. Other episodes pushed me to confront how my workaholism reproduces the productivity fetish of late capitalism.

And many episodes have illuminated instructive parallels between Canada and Australia, twin settler colonial nations struggling to come to terms with entrenched racism and genocidal histories.

‘It’s okay not to be okay’

Finally, the podcast has been a treasure trove of reading recommendations. Both the interviewed guests, and each episode’s show notes, have led me to books that have transformed my world.

Best of all, McGregor is as delightful in real life as she appears on the podcast. We met once, back in 2018, when I visited Vancouver for a conference. We feasted on vegan ice cream and she introduced me to her beautiful and troubled city. Just like her podcast, it was the perfect blend of pleasure and politics, radical sweetness infused with a dash of bracing vinegar.

As I approach my five-month anniversary of lockdown, this memory has itself become part of my Survival Kit — a reminder life once contained sociability and travel, and will one day do so again. In the meantime, I have McGregor in my ear to remind me that “it’s okay not to be okay” when a pandemic upends life as we know it.

– ref. Secret Feminist Agenda — a treasured item in my ‘feminist killjoy survival kit’ – https://theconversation.com/secret-feminist-agenda-a-treasured-item-in-my-feminist-killjoy-survival-kit-143451

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland

It’s after work and you’ve gone to the supermarket to grab some ingredients for dinner. You’re tired, anxious and pretty hungry. Plus you have to put on a mask because a thousand other people are there, and social distancing is hard to enforce at this moment. Now you’re uncomfortable, on top of everything.

We all feel this way sometimes. But we tolerate it because there’s a pandemic and we all have to do our part to keep everyone safe.

Except that one person.

There’s that one person at the front of the line being asked to step out and put on a mask before coming into the shop. And they’re putting on a scene, yelling about their rights to go unmasked, to be able to breathe, to be free of oppression.

“Everyone else can wear a mask if they choose but not I,” says the person. “I have rights and I will be free.”

This is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is when we are inconsistent in our morality. We commonly refer to it as “saying one thing and doing another”.

Anti-maskers believe they have rights. But in refusing to wear a mask, they are denying other people the right to live in security. Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights says “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”. These rights are inextricably interwoven. Freedom without safety is arguably not freedom at all.

The primary way we become hypocrites, strangely enough, is being too flexible in our thinking — a cognitive flexibility called abstraction. Flexible thinking can be about keeping an open mind, but the capacity to warp one’s thinking processes can also make double standards acceptable.

Read more: How to talk to someone who doesn’t wear a mask, and actually change their mind

We create loopholes in the application of the rules because we’ve created those rules much too theoretically, which doesn’t gel with real world settings.

Why is hypocrisy so bad?

When we are hypocritical, we create injustices. We may fail to do the right thing, which might hurt people or even make them sick. But the biggest problem with hypocrisy is that it causes a complete breakdown of our own personal truth.

If we believe in a principle, but don’t apply it ourselves, that principle is essentially meaningless.

Many dictatorships and fascists are fantastic hypocrites. They often say they are defending some theoretical value – like national security, cultural tradition or even freedom — but there’s no value or meaning in an abstract notion of security or freedom if you murder and oppress your people.

Not all hypocrisy ends with bloodshed but we can have some pretty poor outcomes regardless. One of the more fundamental hypocrisies comes from ignoring the responsibility that comes with every right.

You want the right to live? Then you have a responsibility to the rights of others to live.

You want to own stuff? You have a responsibility to respect the property rights of others.

You want to use a public space? You have a responsibility to share that space with others.

To believe you have a right without a corresponding responsibility is hypocritical — a double standard where you’ve likely considered the abstract principle but not the specific situation.

Why is it bad, particularly now?

Hypocrisy erodes the value behind rights and truth, so they’re essentially worthless. Democracy is fundamentally about consent of the governed — we give our informed consent through voting and political participation. Informed consent requires accurate information though. Without being able to know the truth, we have no ability to give consent.

Read more: Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn’t simply ‘fact-checking’ and truth

Our democracy erodes away with every hypocrisy and lie told to undermine expertise. It’s a well-known arguing tactic to discredit opposition to win a debate but we simply don’t have the luxury of this kind of sophistry during a pandemic.

We may not agree on what we need to do but right now we can’t afford to ignore evidence and truth.

Take public goods. These are shared spaces and qualities we all benefit from: education, clean air and water, health and the environment.

Without the public good of health, we get sick, the economy shuts down, we lose loved ones to disease. Our quality of life drops dramatically without good public health.

A hypocritical viewpoint says: “I’m willing to benefit from good public health but I’m not willing to maintain it”.

Hypocrites never would directly think or say this. Instead, they would see the issue as a fulfilment of a different abstract right. This might look like “I have a right to be unmasked in public”.

This right may exist, or it may not. However, if you think public health is a good thing but you aren’t willing to take a basic measure of responsibility for it — like wearing a mask — that’s hypocrisy. It can make a disaster worse for everyone.

What can we do to check ourselves for hypocrisy?

One of the best ways to avoid hypocrisy is to make our own moral principles far more specific. Put that abstract principle into context.

Say your principle is

I have a right to live unmasked.

That’s not too contentious but it is vague enough to be abused.

Applying context to that principle could look like this:

I have a right to live unmasked even when I’m possibly an asymptomatic carrier of the worst disease to hit our country in a century.

It’s a lot harder to defend a belief like this one.

We don’t have to share common ethics from person to person, but we do have to be consistent with ourselves. If we’re charitable and authentic in how we interpret a situation, we gain the ability to construct much stronger, much more consistent moral beliefs.

– ref. With rights come responsibilities: how coronavirus is a pandemic of hypocrisy – https://theconversation.com/with-rights-come-responsibilities-how-coronavirus-is-a-pandemic-of-hypocrisy-144270

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Douglass Rovinsky, PhD Candidate, Monash University

Until it was hunted to extinction, the thylacine – also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf – was the world’s largest marsupial predator. However, our new research shows it was in fact only about half as large as previously thought. So perhaps it wasn’t such a big bad wolf after all.

Although the thylacine is widely known as an example of human-caused extinction, there is a lot we still don’t know about this fascinating animal. This even includes one of the most basic details: how much did the thylacine weigh?

An animal’s body mass is one of the most fundamental aspects of its biology. It affects nearly every facet of the its biology, from biochemical and metabolic processes, reproduction, growth, and development, through to where the animal can live and how it moves.

For meat-eating predators, body mass also determines what the animal eats – or more specifically, how much it has to eat at each meal.

Catching and eating other animals is hard work, so a predator has to weigh the costs carefully against the benefits. Small predators have low hunting costs – moving around, hunting, and killing small prey doesn’t cost much energy, so they can afford to nibble on small animals here and there. But for bigger predators, the stakes are higher.

Almost all large predators – those weighing at least 21  kilograms – focus their efforts on prey at least half their own body size, getting more bang for the buck. In contrast, small predators below 14.5 kg almost always catch prey much smaller than half their own size. Those in between typically take prey less than half their size, but sometimes switch to a larger meal if some easy prey is there for the taking – or if the predator is getting desperate.

The mismeasure of the thylacine

Few accurately recorded weights exist for thylacines – only four, in fact. This lack of information has made estimating their average size difficult. The most commonly used average body mass is 29.5kg, based on 19th-century newspaper accounts.

This suggests the thylacine would probably have taken relatively large prey such as wallabies, kangaroos and perhaps sheep. However, studies of thylacine skulls suggest they didn’t have strong enough skulls to capture and kill large prey, and that they would have hunted smaller animals instead.

This presented a problem: if the thylacine was as big as we thought, it shouldn’t be able to live solely on small prey. But what if we’ve had the weight wrong the whole time?

Read more: Why did the Tasmanian tiger go extinct?

Weighing an extinct animal

Our new research, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, addresses this weighty issue. Our team travelled throughout the world to museums in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, and 3D-scanned 93 thylacines, including whole mounted skeletons, taxidermy mounts, and the only whole-body ethanol-preserved thylacine in the world, in Sweden.

Based on these scans, we created new equations to estimate a thylacine’s mass, based on how thick their limbs were – because their legs would have had to support their entire weight.

We also compared the results of these equations with a new method of digitally weighing 3D specimens. Based on a 3D scan of a mounted skeleton, we digitally “filled in the spaces” to estimate how much soft tissue would have been present, and then used our new formula to calculate how much this would weigh. Taxidermy mounts were easier as there was no need to infer the amount of soft tissue. The most artistic member of our team digitally sculpted lifelike thylacines around the scanned skeletons, and we weighed them, too.

Our calculations unanimously told a very different story from the 19th-century periodicals, and from the commonly used estimate. The average thylacine weighed only about 16.7 kg – not 29.5 kg.

Read more: Friday essay: on the trail of the London thylacines

Tall tales on the tiger trail

This means the previous estimate, based on taking 19th-century periodicals at face value, was nearly 80% too large. Looking back at those old newspaper reports, many of them in retrospect have the hallmarks of “tall tales”, told to make a captured thylacine seem bigger, more impressive and more dangerous.

It was based on this suspected danger that the thylacine was hunted and trapped to extinction, with private bounties already placed on them by 1840, and government-sponsored extermination by the 1880s.

The thylacine was much smaller than previously thought, and this aligns with the smaller prey size suggested by the earlier studies. Predators below 21 kg – in which we should now include the thylacine – all tend to hunt prey smaller than half their size. The “Tasmanian wolf” probably wasn’t such a danger to Tasmanian farmers’ sheep after all.

By rewriting this fundamental aspect of their biology, we are closer to understanding the role of the thylacine in the ecosystem – and to seeing exactly what was lost when we deliberately hunted it to extinction.

– ref. Tassie tiddler? The thylacine was hunted to extinction as a ‘large predator’ – but it was only half as heavy as we thought – https://theconversation.com/tassie-tiddler-the-thylacine-was-hunted-to-extinction-as-a-large-predator-but-it-was-only-half-as-heavy-as-we-thought-144599