Making money green: Australia takes its first steps towards a net zero finance strategy

November 8, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Atherton, Program Lead, Business, Economy and Governance at the Institute for Sustainable Futures., University of Technology Sydney

This article is part of a series by The Conversation, Getting to Zero, examining Australia’s energy transition.

Just north of Jamestown in South Australia, 70 kilometres east of the Spencer Gulf and next to a wind farm of nearly 100 turbines, stands the world’s first big battery.

Built in partnership with Tesla and financed and operated by Neoen, a French multinational renewable energy developer, the Hornsdale Power Reserve and other big battery projects could stimulate a homegrown battery industry, contributing many billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the Australian economy. But for that industry to rise, it will need money.

Australia aspires not only to transition its economy to net zero emissions, but to become a green energy superpower. That means building a host of solar and wind farms, batteries, electric vehicle charging stations, upgrades to the grid and to all kinds of buildings, as well as investments in new technology.

These investments and big infrastructure projects don’t come cheap. Getting to net zero emissions by 2050 requires investment in renewable energy of A$754 billion in power generation alone, according to research by the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures and funded by Future Super.

The size of the green finance challenge

By 2030, the world will have to invest an estimated US$4.3 trillion a year – roughly the GDP of Japan, the world’s third-largest economy – in climate finance. These financial flows need to grow by 21% a year, on average. Without this enormous increase, the economic transition will not happen in time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The scale of financing means that superannuation funds and other big institutional investors must be involved. They need to know where their money is going, and whether investments are genuine or a case of “greenwashing”. They need certainty that companies in which they invest have solid plans to reduce their climate risk, and the ability to ask the companies questions when they don’t.

But current financial regulation is not set up to support such best practice. To give just one example, default superannuation funds lack the benchmarks – measures of performance assessed by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority – they need to invest in start-up businesses that are developing clean energy technologies.

Successive Australian governments have been slow to grasp this reality, and we are now playing catch-up with many other countries.

Australia releases its strategy

The Australian government’s Sustainable Finance Strategy, released by Treasurer Jim Chalmers last Thursday, lays solid foundations for this recovery. Yet more needs to be done if Australia is to achieve the strategy’s stated ambition to be a global sustainability finance leader.

The strategy is arranged around three core pillars. The first focuses on creating access to information that is credible, accurate and of practical value. It seeks to ensure markets operate efficiently and money flows to where it is most needed.

From July 1 2024, large Australian companies and financial institutions will have to disclose information about the impacts of climate on their business, the risks climate change poses to their operations, and how they plan to decarbonise.

The disclosure requirements will be based on internationally accepted standards, to ensure Australian and overseas investors can compare data across companies and countries.

The government is also supporting the development of an Australian sustainable finance taxonomy – a set of criteria that enables investors to evaluate whether and to what extent an investment supports sustainability goals.

A taxonomy spells out which investments result in real decarbonisation, and reduces the likelihood of false claims about the sustainability of projects and investments. A government agency will manage the taxonomy, which will start as a voluntary code but may eventually become mandatory.

Large companies will also be required to disclose their net zero transition plan, if they have one. With companies representing 80% of the market capitalisation of ASX 200 companies pledging to achieve net zero emissions, the government wants to ensure their plans are credible. It wants the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), to set out its expectations of the plans – a welcome step.

The second pillar focuses on building the capabilities of Australia’s financial system regulators to manage risk and to clamp down on greenwashing – the practice of making misleading or deceptive claims about the environmental benefits of activities or assets.

Fighting greenwashing

ASIC Deputy Chair Karen Chester believes the economic cost and loss of investor confidence caused by greenwashing “cannot be overstated”. Her organisation has set out guidelines to help financial institutions identify it. This year ASIC launched its first three legal actions, including one against the local arm of US investment giant Vanguard, and another against Active Super, which allegedly falsely claimed it had eliminated investments, such as coal mining, that posed too great a risk to the environment and the community.

The third pillar concerns government leadership and engagement. Such a large and rapid increase in the scale of private sector finance requires growth in a range of financial assets, including shares, bonds and other kinds of debt.

The government is supporting the development of a green bond market by issuing Australia’s first green sovereign bond in June. These bonds are designed to establish standards for lending and borrowing for all green finance; they will also help the government to fund projects such as electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Finally, the strategy recognises the importance of collaboration across the Asia-Pacific. If Australia achieves its goal of becoming a regional sustainable finance hub it would not only benefit our national interest but help Pacific Island nations to raise the finance to decarbonise.

What’s missing from the strategy?

The strategy does not focus on green finance skills and competencies. Yet these capabilities, ranging from a basic understanding of what business activities are unsustainable to specialist expertise in the use of scenario analysis to assess climate risk, are essential to the net zero transition.

LinkedIn’s recent Green Skills Report shows that, globally, the finance sector is lagging behind other sectors in building green skills. And Australia ranks only 30th in a list of countries on its share of talent for green finance.

Australia’s financial system must urgently transform itself to meet the climate challenge. If the financing of the transition were a bicycle race, Australia has now caught up to the global peloton. The next step is to take the lead.

Alison Atherton is a member of the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute’s Capability Reference Group

Gordon Noble does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Making money green: Australia takes its first steps towards a net zero finance strategy – https://theconversation.com/making-money-green-australia-takes-its-first-steps-towards-a-net-zero-finance-strategy-214063

Only 1.5% of students swapped fields due to the ‘Job-ready Graduates’ fee changes

By The Conversation -

November 8, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Kabatek, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

In January 2021, the Morrison government changed the way university fees are set with the Job-ready Graduates scheme.

The idea was to steer students into courses that would lead to “the jobs of the future”. So the scheme made some fields (such as history and journalism) more expensive and some (such as nursing, teaching, computer programming and engineering) less expensive.

Fees rose by as much as 117% for some fields and dropped by as much as 59% for others. The government believed this would affect student choices.

Education experts have been very critical of scheme. They argue it is not only unfair, it would not work. But to date there have been few studies looking at the evidence.

Our research with our former student Maxwell Yong shows the impact of the Job-ready Graduates scheme was modest at best.

Our research

Our study looked at student’s preferences when applying for degrees and final enrolments (what they ended up studying).

We used data from the Universities Admissions Centre, which handles applications for degrees in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

We looked at more than 725,000 undergraduates applying between 2014 and 2022. This means we had seven years of data before the Job-ready Graduates scheme was introduced, and two years afterwards.

Using various statistical models, we analysed whether students increased their preferences for fields that became cheaper and reduced preferences for fields that became more expensive.

Our findings

Overall we found the Job-ready Graduates scheme only had a minor impact on course choices.

Just 1.52% of university applicants in our study chose fields they would have not chosen had it not been for the scheme, moving from humanities, arts, law and business to STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and teaching.

Maths and statistics had the largest drop of student fees (59%) of any field. But only one out of every 2,000 students responded by changing their preference to maths.

Communications, journalism and media studies had the largest increase in fees (117%). But only one out of every 350 students chose not to preference these fields in response.

This is perhaps not surprising. Under HECS-HELP, students do not have to pay university fees up-front. Many students also choose courses based on their passions and interests rather than the amount of the deferred fees.

Big repercussions

While we found only modest responses to these large fee changes, this does not mean students are not affected. Because of the reforms, many will accumulate much larger HECS-HELP debts.

For a three-year bachelors degree in journalism, the debt grows from around A$20,000 to A$43,500. For a mathematics degree, the debt falls from around $28,600 to $11,850. The new difference in debts ($31,650) is more than triple the old difference ($8,600).

Higher debts mean more years of making repayments. Longer repayment times may mean delayed home purchases and starting families.

These reforms overturned 25 years of university fees reflecting the earning prospects of graduates. Those likely to earn more post-graduation (lawyers, doctors, financiers) paid a bit more. Those likely to earn less (arts, nursing, teaching) paid a bit less.

The Universities Accord

The Albanese government is in the middle of a broad review of the higher education system, including university fees. The Universities Accord review panel is due to hand in a final report in December.

An interim report was highly critical of the Job-ready Graduates scheme, saying it risks “causing long-term and entrenched damage to Australian higher education”.

As a new model is considered, it is important policymakers understand increasing HECS-HELP debts for some and reducing them for others is not going to prompt students into areas the government deems a “priority”.

Jan Kabatek receives funding from Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course

Michael Coelli has received funding in the past from the Australian Research Council and from the Department of Education. He has also completed some analysis work for the AI Group.

– ref. Only 1.5% of students swapped fields due to the ‘Job-ready Graduates’ fee changes – https://theconversation.com/only-1-5-of-students-swapped-fields-due-to-the-job-ready-graduates-fee-changes-215539

Why it’s a good bet the RBA’s Melbourne Cup Day interest rate hike will be the last

By The Conversation -

November 7, 2023

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

Australia just became become the odd one out.

At its meeting last week, the US Federal Reserve kept its official interest rate on hold. A week earlier, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Canada kept their rates on hold, and, at their meetings before that, the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand did the same thing.

Throughout the Western world – with perhaps Australia as the only exception – financial markets have been assuming central banks were done with increasing rates and would soon start pushing them down.

Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock’s statement accompanying Tuesday’s hike in Australia’s cash rate makes it look as if we’re about to join that club. It makes it look as if this hike from 4.1% to 4.35% – a 12-year high – will be the last.

And with good reason. Inflation has been falling almost everywhere, and – notwithstanding the recent uptick associated with higher oil prices – is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to keep falling.

The RBA has taken our insurance

So why did Australia’s Reserve Bank push up rates at all, at a time when none of its global peers were?

The statement makes it look as if it wanted to take out insurance.

While the bank still expects inflation to continue to fall, it says progress now looks “slower than earlier expected”.

Its revised set of forecasts, to be released on Friday, still have inflation falling, but to around 3.5% by the end of next year, instead of 3.3%, then to around 3% by the end of 2025 instead of 2.8%.

The bank is particularly worried that the prices of services – things such as service in a cafe, done by hard-to-find workers – are “continuing to rise briskly”.

And it mentions “uncertainties” four times in eight paragraphs. It isn’t that it thinks inflation won’t keep coming down; it’s that it wants to be sure it is.

Australian hikes hit harder than in the US

One argument the bank hasn’t used – and nor should it – is catch-up. The US, the UK, the EU, Canada and New Zealand all have higher official rates than Australia.

But they are all are different to Australia, in an important way.

When the US Federal Reserve pushes up its Federal Funds Rate, nothing much happens to US home borrowers. Here’s why: almost all US home borrowers are on fixed rates, meaning their required mortgage payments don’t increase.

In Australia, only about one-third of home loans are fixed.

Stack of US $100 notes — In the US, mortgage rates are fixed for up to the life of the loan.
Shutterstock

And US fixed rates are nothing like Australian fixed rates. The typical term in the US is 30 years, rather than the two to three years common in Australia.

This means that, as long as borrowers in the US don’t refinance or move homes, their payments are fixed for the entire term of their loans. Americans never have to pay more just because the US Fed jacks up rates.

At least when it comes to homebuyers, the US Fed has to do a good deal more than Australia’s Reserve Bank to have the same effect.

It means the US official rate of 5.25% has less immediate effect on ordinary Americans than Australia’s new rate of 4.35% will have on us.

That’s what the consumer spending figures show.

After a year of high US rates, American consumers are buying 2.9% more goods and services than they were a year ago.

After a year of less-high Australian rates, Australian consumers are buying 1.7% less.

This means that, as relatively lightweight as our previous 4.1% cash rate had seemed, it might have been packing more punch than the higher 5.25% rate in the US; and also the higher rates in the UK, Canada and New Zealand, where most of the mortgages are also fixed.

‘Painful squeeze’

In her statement, Governor Bullock acknowledged many households were experiencing “a painful squeeze on their finances”. She also noted others were benefiting from rising housing prices, substantial savings buffers and higher interest income.

Bank calculations suggest one in 20 variable-rate borrowers are now going backwards – paying more for essential expenses and housing than they earn.

Among borrowers with big loans relative to their incomes, it’s one in four.

There’s nothing in the governor’s statement to suggest she is thinking of pushing up rates again. After today’s hike, the futures market assigned only a 30% probability to another hike.

The best guess of people who bet on this for a living is that Australia is about to join the rest of the world and leave rates where they are for quite some time.

A frugal Christmas, before possible rate drops in 2024

Alternatively, rates could even begin coming down within 12 months.

The detail of the inflation figures shows monthly inflation surged to 0.8% for one month only, in August, when petrol and diesel prices jumped 9.1%, then fell back to 0.3% in September, which is where it was before petrol prices jumped.

It is also looking like prices scarcely increased at all last month.

The Melbourne Institute inflation gauge, which comes out ahead of the Bureau of Statistics gauge and broadly tracks it, fell 0.1% in October. This suggests that, when taken together, price falls (slightly more than) outweighed price increases.

It’s what you would expect if we were tightening our belts, as we are.

At Big W discount department stories across Australia, sales are down 5.5% on where they were a year ago.

Big W says shoppers have moved away from buying big-ticket items and are instead buying a remarkable number of small gifts, such as Hot Wheels toy cars.

They sell for $2 each, or five for $9.

It’s pointing to a frugal Christmas in which retailers are going to have to discount if they want to move goods, taking further pressure off inflation.

Should that happen, rates could turn down even sooner than traders expect, perhaps by the middle of next year.

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. Why it’s a good bet the RBA’s Melbourne Cup Day interest rate hike will be the last – https://theconversation.com/why-its-a-good-bet-the-rbas-melbourne-cup-day-interest-rate-hike-will-be-the-last-217094

Mixed-gender hospital rooms are on the rise in New Zealand, but the practice is unsafe and unethical

By The Conversation -

November 7, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cindy Towns, Senior Lecturer, University of Otago

Mixed-gender rooms are increasingly common in New Zealand’s hospitals, based on evidence from hospital complaints and a large Wellington study.

But our new research demonstrates that placing men and women in the same hospital room is unsafe and unethical.

Mixed-gender bedding practices have been banned in the United Kingdom since 2010. Breaches are publicly reported and lead to fines for the hospital.

Reports and complaints show Australia is also failing in this basic standard of care.

Both Australia and New Zealand need to urgently adopt national policies that ban the practice. All new hospital builds should have single-occupancy rooms as the standard of care.

Being and feeling safe

All people have a basic human right to personal security. This is especially important for hospital patients, who are rendered more vulnerable due to illness and being away from the security of their home.

Mixed-gender rooms compromise both physical and psychological safety, particularly for women. Health system reviews, patient complaints and nursing surveys all document that women feel unsafe and uncomfortable when placed in rooms with male patients.

We need more research from medical and surgical wards, but evidence from mixed Australian mental health wards shows 67% of women experienced sexual harassment and almost half had experienced assault.

In the UK, an official information request revealed that two-thirds of sexual assaults by patients in hospital occurred in mixed-gender rooms.

Hospital beds separated by curtains — Mixed-gender rooms can compromise physical and psychological safety for patients.
Shutterstock/inomasa

The following quotes are taken directly from patient feedback we received when our research came out. Names have been withheld to preserve confidentiality.

A family member told us:

I was reluctant to leave my mother unattended at all due to being exposed to these men, in a deteriorating and distressed state. I think all three men were ambulatory. I wondered if I left her, would the creep take that opportunity to come over to her bed.

Globally, one in three women are subjected to sexual or physical violence in their lifetime. Women bring their prior experience with them when admitted to hospital.

Being forced into a mixed-gender room when unwell and vulnerable – often separated only by a curtain – may be traumatising to women even when the threat of physical or sexual violence is not realised.

Another family member said:

I don’t want to go into this further, other than to say, my mother had some awful experiences in her life at the hands of men and then to be placed in this situation when she was so incredibly ill […] it was just shocking. She was so vulnerable and powerless.

Maintaining dignity

Mixed-gender rooms don’t just violate women’s right to physical, sexual and psychological security. They also violate the fundamental right to dignity for all patients.

New Zealand’s Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights entitles patients to services delivered in a manner that respects their dignity and takes account of the needs, values and beliefs of different social groups. Respecting dignity requires providers to respect a patient’s values and avoid transgressing their own standards of decency.

Male and female patients have both expressed a preference for single-gender rooms. While for women this preference is commonly associated with fear, for male patients it is driven by standards of decorum and discomfort around the exposure of their bodies or bodily functions to women.

One male patient said:

I was an in-patient in [name of hospital withheld] earlier this year. A female was wheeled into the ward. She immediately displayed huge amounts of stress as soon as she had seen me. I am not sure who was more upset.

The wife of another patient recalled:

My elderly husband has just been in hospital for six days in a mixed ward. He was embarrassed for the women. It is not right.

An aging population

The risks of physical, sexual or psychological harm are exacerbated by the ageing population.

Delirium is a confused state that reduces awareness, impairs judgement and alters behaviour. This condition is present in about 25% of people admitted to hospital.

Similarly, dementia can impair judgement and insight. Dementia patients can suffer behavioural changes, especially when in unfamiliar environments. This can result in agitation and intrusive or inappropriate, even violent, behaviour.

These older adults are not predatory or criminal. They are unwell. However, there is a massive shortage of psychiatric beds for mental health patients, including older adults. This results in even the most severely affected patients being regularly admitted to general medical wards that simply lack the resources to manage this type of behaviour.

Around 70,000 New Zealanders already live with dementia. This is projected to more than double by 2050, which means the proportion of hospital in-patients with this condition will also rise.

We need policies to prevent the harm arising from mixed-gender rooms in hospitals as well as long-term planning that takes into consideration the needs of an ageing population.

A family member told us:

My mother age 93 was recently in a ward at [name withheld] hospital with three men […] one of the others was an aggressive dementia patient who was very loud and quite scary. I can’t understand why they have mixed wards when it would be easy to swap a bed around – surely?

What about gender minorities?

Protecting the safety of women and the dignity of all patients does not conflict with the rights of gender minorities. Transgender patients should have their identity respected along with all other patients and their admission should be aligned with their gender identity.

For those who identify as non-binary or gender diverse, admission would need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. But given that gender minorities suffer significant victimisation and harassment, they should be high priority for single rooms.

Our research calls for single-occupancy rooms as the standard of care; it is the only way to comply with the Code of Rights for all patients.

To protect the safety and dignity of vulnerable patients, we need to ban mixed-gender rooms in hospitals across Aotearoa New Zealand. We also need to dramatically increase the number of single rooms in our hospitals.

Our already overcrowded hospitals, ageing population and increasing rates of dementia and disability should make this a high priority for any incoming government.

Dr Cindy Towns is a consultant general physician and geriatrician at Wellington Hospital, the current chair of the ethics committee for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the clinical ethics advisor for Te Whatu Ora Wellington and the Hutt Valley, and a previous member of the national ethics advisory committee.

Angela Ballantyne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Mixed-gender hospital rooms are on the rise in New Zealand, but the practice is unsafe and unethical – https://theconversation.com/mixed-gender-hospital-rooms-are-on-the-rise-in-new-zealand-but-the-practice-is-unsafe-and-unethical-216263

A Senate inquiry says Australia needs a national ADHD framework to improve diagnosis and reduce costs

By The Conversation -

November 7, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Coghill, Financial Markets Foundation Chair of Developmental Mental Health, The University of Melbourne

Around 800,00 Australians live with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is the most common mental health condition in children aged four to 17, and around half of those with childhood ADHD continue to have significant difficulties as adults.

Without appropriate support, ADHD often has lifelong negative impacts on education and employment. The current cost of ADHD to Australia is estimated at more than A$20 billion every year.

Until recently, ADHD was very much under-recognised and under-treated in Australia. However, public awareness and acceptance of ADHD has led to a sharp increase in people seeking assessment and support and receiving treatment. This has highlighted the significant barriers faced by those trying to access services, and there are now long wait times, rising costs and concerns about the quality of services on offer.

In response to these concerns, a Greens-chaired Senate inquiry looked at how people access ADHD diagnosis and get support afterwards, the international evidence base, as well as practitioner training and cost. Yesterday, after more than 700 submissions and evidence from 79 witnesses at three public hearings, the inquiry delivered its findings.

Not just a mental health issue

The report makes 15 recommendations, all of which should be welcomed by Australians with ADHD and those involved in supporting them. The committee emphasises that ADHD is not just a mental health issue but a public health concern.

The committee members agreed there is a need for a government-funded national framework for ADHD, developed in consultation with people with lived experience. They supported the broad implementation of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association’s guideline – an evidence-based roadmap for ADHD clinical practice, research and policy.

A national framework should include shared and collaborative models of care, the committee said. This would increase the range of healthcare professionals, particularly GPs and nurse practitioners, who can contribute to assessment and support services for people with ADHD.

They also found funding models should be reviewed to reduce the financial burden of ADHD highlighted by many of the lived-experience submissions.

The committee said Medicare and bulk-billing incentives should be considered to reduce out-of-pocket expenses for diagnosis and management for people on low incomes and families who have multiple members with ADHD.

On top of this, this inquiry recommended more telehealth and better access to care in rural, regional and remote areas. The government should “review the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to improve the safe and quality use of medications by people with ADHD”, the recommendations said.

While the committee clarified that National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) supports can currently be accessed with ADHD as a “primary or secondary disability”, they highlighted people with ADHD find the process of making an NDIS application difficult. They recommended the NDIS improve the accessibility and quality of information around the eligibility of ADHD as a condition under NDIS.

boy at desk doing homework — The inquiry looked at the costs and access barriers for ADHD diagnosis.
Shutterstock

Learning from people with ADHD

The focus on improving lived experience is particularly welcome. Trying to navigate pathways to care, even as an expert in ADHD, can be challenging and at times painful in my experience.

While public awareness of ADHD has improved greatly in recent years there are still those spreading misinformation and increasing the stigma of people living with ADHD.

The committee said the Australian government should implement a neurodiversity-affirming public health campaign. This could shift social attitudes and reduce the stigma felt so acutely by those with ADHD.

Also welcome is the committee’s recognition we have a long way to go in addressing the gender bias experienced by girls, women, and gender-diverse people with ADHD. Our understanding of ADHD in the context of First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse communities was also acknowledged as lacking. The committee said this could lead to misdiagnosis or inappropriate treatment.

ADHD impacts on the whole of peoples’ lives. The committee recommended improving training across settings from workplaces to schools and universities and institutional settings including out-of-home care and correctional facilities – both places where people with ADHD are over-represented.

A first step

The committee recommends

all levels of government consider investing in the implementation of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association’s Australian evidence-based clinical practice guideline for ADHD.

Further investment will be needed to ensure the guideline is used properly to promote more holistic care with broader access to key supports. The committee’s final recommendations call for better funding for ADHD disability and advocacy organisations to provide advice and support helplines, legal aid, financial counselling and assistance. Finally, the committee recommends funds for further research to better understand the neurodevelopmental condition, how it affects brain function and the stigma it can carry.

The inquiry’s recommendations will now be tabled in federal parliament, with government to respond within three months.

Making this work is going to be a big job but one that will payback in increased productivity, educational outcomes and a better quality of life for all Australians living with ADHD.

David Coghill receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Futures Fund. He is the President of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association and a director of the European ADHD Guidelines Network both not for profit organizations working in the field of ADHD. He has received research funding and/or honoraria from Takeda, Medice, Novartis and Servier.

– ref. A Senate inquiry says Australia needs a national ADHD framework to improve diagnosis and reduce costs – https://theconversation.com/a-senate-inquiry-says-australia-needs-a-national-adhd-framework-to-improve-diagnosis-and-reduce-costs-215798

High Court, then what? NT remote housing reforms need to put Indigenous residents front and centre

By The Conversation -

November 7, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liam Grealy, Research fellow, Menzies School of Health Research

The relationships between tenants and landlords are often fraught, but it’s fair to expect a house to meet basic standards, like having a back door.

That wasn’t the case for an Aboriginal woman in a remote community, who was part of a successful class action to sue the landlord for failing to provide a habitable house.

Last week, the High Court ruled residents of the community of Santa Teresa (Ltyentye Apurte) could be compensated for the “distress and disappointment” caused by the poor state of their government-managed houses.

So how can such housing be better managed? And what needs to be done to ensure houses in remote communities do not just meet the legal standard, but exceed it?

Big result, but ongoing problems

Seventy public housing residents in Santa Teresa commenced the legal action against their landlord, the NT government, in 2016.

By the time the High Court decision was handed down in 2023, both lead applicants had died. Just as remote housing tenants must wait prolonged periods for repairs, the lengthy delay for housing justice outlasted them.

Elsewhere in the NT, residents of Laramba have also been pursuing compensation for the landlord’s failure to undertake housing repairs, and arguing for a right to safe drinking water in their homes.

In October this year, the NT Supreme Court found the landlord, the NT government, is responsible for ensuring safe drinking water at those premises.

The Santa Teresa High Court decision is potentially significant for tenants across the country.

However, a right to seek compensation for distress and disappointment is not a silver bullet for housing justice.

The challenge is to maintain housing and essential services at such standards that render these types of lawsuits unnecessary.

When your landlord is the government

The NT government has not always been responsible for remote community housing.

Most remote communities are located on Aboriginal land owned under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.

Through the NT Intervention, the Commonwealth government compulsorily acquired five-year leases over entire communities.

A policy of “secure tenure” made subsequent housing and infrastructure investment contingent on long-term remote community leases to governments.

Indigenous Community Housing Organisations were effectively dismantled, and the introduction of “mainstream” tenancy arrangements under a public housing system followed.

One of the unanticipated consequences of this change was the ability of tenants to use the Residential Tenancies Act as a “tool of empowerment”.

Residents could now push back against entrenched low expectations for the timeliness and quality of remote housing repairs.

Current programs falling short

In response to the cases at Santa Teresa and Laramba, the NT government has sought to reform its remote housing maintenance program.

In 2021, the NT government introduced its Healthy Homes program. It aims to prioritise cyclical and preventive maintenance to improve the quality of houses as well as health outcomes for tenants.

The reforms reflect many reviews that have recommended such measures.

If implemented effectively, Healthy Homes can improve housing hardware and increase the lifespan of existing housing.

An evaluation of Healthy Homes found the average maintenance spend per house to be about $6,000 per year.

While seemingly significant, this is much less than is spent by Housing SA on housing on the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in northwest South Australia, where expenditure in 2021 exceeded $10,000 per house.

The key mechanism that underpins the NT’s Healthy Homes is a yearly condition assessment requirement, generating maintenance work without relying on tenant reporting.

The evaluation found that from July 2021 to February 2023, only 1,315 such inspections had been undertaken across a total of 5,498 houses included in Healthy Homes.

This is equivalent to an inspection of only 23.9% of houses.

The Santa Teresa case also laid bare significant issues with the NT government’s record-keeping, which don’t appear to have been fixed.

The evaluation found:

NT government datasets cannot distinguish between preventive and responsive maintenance
reporting requirements mean maintenance data is unreliable for determining how quickly repairs were undertaken
a significant proportion of maintenance work is coded miscellaneous, meaning it is not possible to determine the proportion of works by trade type.

The combination of these factors makes it very hard to assess whether and how approaches to remote community maintenance might be improving.

Bringing remote housing up to scratch

So a High Court case has reaffirmed the rights of Santa Teresa tenants and the current remote housing maintenance program is inadequate. What happens to NT remote housing now?

The National Partnership for Remote Housing Northern Territory expired in July 2023.

Commonwealth funding was extended for another year. A new agreement is currently being negotiated.

To meet the needs of remote communities, this agreement must be tripartite. The peak body Aboriginal Housing NT and Northern Territory land councils require rights to determine funding allocations and policy directions, as well as the territory and federal governments.

This is necessary for the meaningful participation and empowerment of those Aboriginal organisations in key decision-making under the agreement, and to enshrine their place as equal partners in the ongoing governance of remote housing in the NT.

Federal funding of remote housing is required into the long term. A ten-year funding agreement should support all of remote communities, town camps and homelands.

Because of historical underfunding and neglect, this funding also needs to increase and the Commonwealth Government must remain on the hook.

The Santa Teresa case has shown the ongoing legacy of underinvestment and neglect.

Aboriginal residents of remote communities and their representative organisations must be supported to play a central role in determining the future of the places they call home.

Liam Grealy receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, and the NT Department of Territory Families, Housing and Communities. He is affiliated with Menzies School of Health Research and the University of Sydney. Details related to specific projects are available on his public profiles.

Kyllie Cripps receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government and State Governments to conduct research and evaluations. Details related to this are on her public profiles.

– ref. High Court, then what? NT remote housing reforms need to put Indigenous residents front and centre – https://theconversation.com/high-court-then-what-nt-remote-housing-reforms-need-to-put-indigenous-residents-front-and-centre-216908

Geoffrey Miller Analysis – The foreign affairs puzzle facing NZ’s new Government

By Geoffrey Miller -

November 6, 2023

Winston-Peters-at-Vic — Winston Peters, New Zealand First leader, at Victoria University.

Analysis by Geoffrey Miller.

New Zealand’s new Government will need to hit the ground running on foreign affairs.

Determining New Zealand’s full response to the war in Gaza and the fallout in the wider Middle East will be the first major test for whoever takes the foreign minister’s role.

New Zealand has been run by a Labour caretaker administration since elections were held on October 14. But the final results are now in – and once coalition negotiations are out of the way, a new right-leaning government will take office.

During the transition period, caretaker Labour Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and outgoing foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta have respected the convention of saying as little as possible while waiting for their successors.

When Labour has spoken out on foreign affairs, it has been after consultation with the National Party leader and soon-to-be Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon.

Luxon has characterised the new war in the Middle East as ‘sad and tragic on both sides’ – a phrasing that reflects New Zealand’s overall balanced position towards the conflict so far.

One possible exception to the low-key approach was New Zealand’s decision to cast a vote in favour of a resolution in the UN General Assembly that called for a ‘humanitarian truce’ in Gaza.

Many of New Zealand’s closest Pacific and Western partners either abstained on the resolution (e.g. Australia, Canada and the UK) or opposed it altogether (such as the United States, Tonga and Fiji).

It seems likely that New Zealand’s own vote in favour was decided by a narrow margin.

Carolyn Schwalger, New Zealand’s ambassador to the UN, said New Zealand’s support came despite Wellington being ‘deeply disappointed’ by the resolution’s failure to directly condemn Hamas.

Luxon later largely echoed Schwalger in a media interview, stressing the need to ‘prioritise the protection of civilians’, but condemning Hamas and emphasising Israel’s right to defend itself.

Still, New Zealand’s vote in favour suggests there is still life to the country’s ‘independent foreign policy’, even as Wellington creeps closer to Washington at a broader level.

It will now be up to the new Government to decide what happens next.

To command a majority in Parliament, Christopher Luxon’s National Party will need a deal with two other parties. These are the Act Party, led by David Seymour, and Winston Peters’ New Zealand First.

Of the two smaller parties, New Zealand First is likely to play a particularly crucial role in determining the shape of New Zealand’s international relations.

Winston Peters has served as foreign minister twice before – but only under Labour-led governments. He held the role under Helen Clark from 2005-2008 and again under Jacinda Ardern from 2017-2020.

Peters is said to want the foreign minister’s job again – which would come as little surprise.

Of course, the rumours could still prove to be incorrect.

Now aged 78, Peters may not want the burden of travel himself.

Other options include Judith Collins, a former National leader, and Gerry Brownlee.

However, Brownlee is a likely candidate for Speaker. For her part, Collins easily has the experience for foreign affairs, having been in Parliament since 2002.

If Collins is not chosen, the defence portfolio would be a worthy alternative option, especially as New Zealand looks to make some major decisions on military spending.

Surprisingly, no woman has ever served as New Zealand’s defence minister. A role model for Collins could be Ursula von der Leyen, a centre-right politician who served as Germany’s first-ever female defence minister from 2013-19 and went on to become a high-profile president of the European Commission.

Yet another option could be for Peters to claim the foreign minister job for his New Zealand First deputy, Shane Jones, who served as a roving ‘Ambassador for Pacific Economic Development’ in the foreign ministry from 2014-2017.

The position was somewhat controversially created for Jones by the then National-led government after Jones quit as a Labour MP, before he later reemerged as a key figure in New Zealand First.

Even if it passes up on the foreign affairs portfolio, New Zealand First is likely to be influential and outspoken on international relations issues.

An ‘agree to disagree’ clause in New Zealand First’s coalition agreement with Labour in 2017 prevented New Zealand First from being muzzled under usual collective Cabinet responsibility provisions.

Peters’ past speeches provide some clues as to how he might respond to current developments.

During his first term as foreign minister, Peters observed at the UN shortly after Israel’s 32-day war with Hezbollah in 2006 that conflicts in the Middle East had largely been left to fester, resulting in ‘an unstable environment where extremism, injustice and despair flourish’.

Peters told the UN General Assembly that peacekeeping efforts – such as the strengthening of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) following the 2006 war – were only a stopgap solution and would be ‘doomed to failure unless the underlying political and security issues are addressed’.

More recently, as tensions between the US and Iran mounted, Peters observed in a speech to the Otago Foreign Policy School in 2019 that it was in New Zealand’s interest to stop ‘flashpoints escalating’ and commended Washington for avoiding ‘retaliatory strikes’. The speech built on an earlier statement in which Peters called for ‘caution, restraint and commonsense’ from all involved.

A 2023 election campaign speech by Peters that was dedicated to foreign affairs provides some wider insights into New Zealand First’s foreign affairs and defence priorities.

These include picking up on New Zealand First’s efforts from 2017-2020 to boost New Zealand’s foreign aid and defence budgets. At the time, Peters secured an additional $NZ714m in funding for foreign aid – largely targeted at the Pacific as part of his ‘Pacific Reset’ policy. Meanwhile, military spending was boosted by around $NZ4 billion over the same three-year period.

Peters also gained funding for 50 more diplomats – a feat he seems keen to build on.

Contrasting New Zealand with two other small states – Singapore and Ireland – Peters argued New Zealand needed ‘highly active diplomacy’ which in his view had been ‘shockingly not pursed with vigour’ since 2020.

This was probably partly a jibe at the outgoing foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, who came under pressure during her tenure for a perceived reluctance to travel frequently.

Peters’ contrast with Singapore and Ireland also surfaced in a campaign interview, with some eviscerating criticism: ‘Ireland has two-and-a-half-times more diplomats offshore, so does Singapore – maybe they know something about exporting and trade that we should be practising, rather than this eternal idiotic statement that New Zealand is ‘punching above its weight’’.

As foreign minister, Peter oversaw the opening of new diplomatic posts in Cairo (2007), Dublin (2018), Stockholm (2008 and 2018 – the latter a reopening). But not all of these were his idea.

On the substance, Ireland already has around 100 diplomatic missions globally – twice the number maintained by New Zealand – and is currently expanding its diplomatic footprint even further under an initiative dubbed ‘Global Ireland 2025’.

It remains to be seen whether Peters will be in a position to replicate the ‘Global Ireland 2025’ plan in New Zealand – and what exactly he would seek to achieve with more diplomatic resources.

Opening up more missions in the Middle East would help to give New Zealand the eyes and ears it needs to understand and respond more effectively to events in the region. As the current war shows, these frequently have a global impact.

Another focus might be to boost diplomats’ access to foreign language training, which has been dealt a blow by recent cuts to languages by New Zealand universities.

Nevertheless, stepping up engagement in the Pacific is probably going to be the bigger long-term priority for New Zealand First.

In a 2006 speech, Winston Peters remarked that the Pacific’s ‘strategic significance presents opportunity and challenge’ and the threats included ‘chequebook diplomacy’ – probably an early veiled barb at China.

Fast-forward to 2023, and the New Zealand First leader seems keen to pick up on the ‘Pacific Reset’ policy he launched in March 2018.

In his September campaign speech, Peters recapitulated how as foreign minister he had sought to work more closely with Pacific countries themselves, as well as boosting engagement with the US and Japan – on top of the foreign aid and defence budget boosts.

But Peters warned he was ‘seriously concerned that the momentum we started has fallen by the wayside since 2020’.

After a successful election campaign, the New Zealand First leader is now in a position to change that.

Christopher Luxon needs Winston Peters to form a government.

And a shakeup of New Zealand’s international relations seems likely.

*******

Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD at the University of Otago on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.

This article can be republished for free under a Creative Commons copyright-free license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)

Both the US and Australia are adamant the Pacific “matters”. But only one is really moving the dial

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henryk Szadziewski, Affiliate, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawaii

Just before the second summit between the US and the Pacific Islands Forum at the White House in September, the US hosts took Pacific leaders to an American football game. One, however, was conspicuously absent: Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.

This led many to question whether Sogavare’s absence was evidence that in another kind of competition – the rivalry between the US and China for influence in Oceania – Beijing had taken the lead.

Sogavare has made no secret of his increasing cosiness with China. His government decided in 2019 to “switch” diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China, for instance, and signed a controversial security agreement with Beijing three years later.

The US, however, has not stood idly by. After last year’s inaugural US-Pacific
summit, Washington announced a new Pacific Partnership Strategy, with shared goals and priorities on climate change mitigation, nuclear nonproliferation, maritime security and post-pandemic economic recovery.

As the Pacific Islands Forum is holding its annual summit this week, we’ve asked experts on the Pacific to examine the great power competition in the region. How are countries like the US, Australia, China and others attempting to wield power and influence in the Pacific? And how effective has it been? You can read the rest of the series here.

The US also made a pledge of US$810 million (A$1.275 billion) to the Pacific. Some US$600 million (A$945 million) of this was earmarked for the Pacific Fisheries Agency to contain illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

The US has also gotten its allies involved. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom joined forces with the US last year to form a group called Partners in the Blue Pacific to co-ordinate their outreach to the region.

With this engagement, the US has been seen as finally taking the region seriously and – more to the point – China’s growing footprint as a threat to its interests. Oceania now appears to matter.

As the Pacific Islands Forum holds its annual summit in the Cook Islands this week, it’s a good time to reflect on this increased interest from outside powers, such as the US, China and Australia, and what it all means – especially to the people of the region.

Surface-level engagement?

For the US, interest in the Pacific Islands seemingly centres on China and tuna. But these interests alone don’t place the region above others in order of strategic importance.

On China, the Biden administration’s February 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy serves as a useful guide. It says China’s “coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific”.

However, despite the speculation around Chinese bases, airstrips and wharves in the Pacific, the extent of Chinese military presence in the region has been muted.

Indeed, the US is the predominant military power in the Pacific. It has:

bases in Australia, Guam, Hawai’i, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines
a newly inked security deal with Papua New Guinea
exclusive military access to the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau.

US supremacy in the north Pacific also means these states are more likely to adopt Washington’s positions in global affairs, making Sogavare’s stance on China more of an anomaly.

And on the US support for the fisheries agency, it’s worth looking at the numbers and motivation. Not only is the $600 million commitment spread over ten years, it is only three-quarters of the total funding promised in 2022.

This pledge also serves as yet another form of regional deterrence against Beijing, since China’s highly subsidised fleets are the ones primarily accused of illegal fishing.

By comparison, the US doesn’t seem as interested in establishing scholarships, construction, investment and trade in the Pacific – all areas where China thrives.

Australia charts a different path

In Australia, however, there seems to be movement of the dial. In October, for instance, the Pacific Engagement Visa finally passed in parliament. This will allow up to 3,000 Pacific islanders to permanently settle in Australia every year.

The significance of the visa lies in its potential to transform Australia into a nation that looks more like the Pacific.

For Pacific Islanders, reams of research show access to permanent migration is more effective than development assistance. The gains to Pacific families are almost immediate, too.

From a national interest perspective, there’s the side benefit that welcoming Pacific migrants is something China will not do. As Fiji’s deputy prime minister argued, “this is part of a broader strategy to integrate the region in the long term”.

The Australian government faces a similar bind to the US, however. Military concerns can be acted upon much more quickly than economic or developmental needs.
And Australia’s military spend in the Pacific – whether or not it’s in response to a clear threat from China – reinforces the longstanding perception Canberra is more interested in securing the region’s territory than the wellbeing of its people.

Unlike China, Australia’s government can’t direct companies to invest in the region, even though this is what Pacific leaders are keen on. (Telstra’s purchase of Digicel Pacific is the lonely exception.)

While much ink has been spilled on China’s debt trap diplomacy, its true hold over Pacific leaders is the promise of future projects, the pipeline of investments.

China’s special envoy to the Pacific, Qian Bo, is known to regale his Pacific counterparts with derisory observations about Australia’s economy and its inability to meet the Pacific’s needs, either as a destination for Pacific exports or a source of investment.

Greatly lifting Australia’s Pacific aid spend is also politically tricky, even though public sentiment has been shifting in recent years.

Significantly, Australia’s minister for international development recently took aim at “transactional” development projects designed to help heads of mission solve “short-term” problems. This trend is particularly evident in the Pacific, where Australia’s aid is least effective.

While China’s Pacific aid has plateaued since 2016, there’s little danger of domestic push-back on scholarships for the children of political elites, massive stadiums and sleek government buildings. And China’s infrastructure spend has prompted Australia to move from grant-based aid to providing development infrastructure financing itself.

Becoming a true Pacific nation

The material impact of all of this foreign interest is what matters in the region.

The US has long faced accusations of quickly losing interest in the Pacific, even if President Joe Biden says it will be different this time.

However, if “strategic denial” of China is the only area where the US is willing to commit to on-the-ground change, this doesn’t place the Pacific islands high on the list of American priorities around the world. And it barely scratches the concerns about climate change and economic development voiced across region.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping asked Biden why America was working so strongly with Australia, he apparently replied, “because we’re a Pacific nation”. Yet, if former President Donald Trump is re-elected, the Pacific could face an administration that mocks climate change and has little interest in the region beyond China and tuna.

In contrast, with the Pacific Engagement Visa, Australia has taken an important step towards becoming an actual Pacific nation. And even though the opposition is led by a man who once joked about rising sea levels, there is bipartisan conviction the Pacific matters.

The question of why it matters is something for all Australians to reflect on. Because the why part matters a lot to the Pacific.

No conflicts of interest to disclose

Graeme Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Both the US and Australia are adamant the Pacific “matters”. But only one is really moving the dial – https://theconversation.com/both-the-us-and-australia-are-adamant-the-pacific-matters-but-only-one-is-really-moving-the-dial-215069

A 4-day week might not work in health care. But adapting this model could reduce burnout among staff

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nataliya Ilyushina, Research Fellow, Blockchain Innovation Hub, RMIT University

The COVID pandemic saw a mass exodus of health-care workers across developed countries, exacerbating an existing health-care staffing crisis.

In Australia, turnover rates among hospital staff reached nearly 20% in 2022. Hospital waiting lists in Victoria alone ballooned to 80,000 in 2023.

The United States and the United Kingdom have faced similar staffing issues.

Efforts are underway globally to educate new health professionals and boost the skilled migration of doctors.

However, retaining existing staff is a paramount strategy.

The pandemic accelerated the exploration of more flexible work arrangements, while the idea of a four-day work week is continually gaining traction. Could this be a solution to improve the retention of burnt out staff in the health-care sector?

Burnout

Health-care professionals have historically experienced high levels of burnout.

The strain of balancing demanding work schedules, including long hours and shift work, with family responsibilities, can lead to work-family conflicts. Also, the nature of the profession means staff are often exposed to traumatic situations such as patient deaths, further elevating stress levels. COVID has intensified the issue of burnout in health care.

Burnout commonly leads health-care workers to resign, and also contributes to early retirement.

For those who remain in the profession, burnout negatively affects productivity, including increasing the likelihood of perceived medical errors.

A nurse attends to a patient's IV drip. — Staff shortages are a big issue in the health-care sector.
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

Rise of the four-day week

A four-day work week is based on the so-called 100-80-100 arrangement, where 100% of productivity is achieved in 80% of the time with 100% of pay. So that might mean working Monday to Thursday, but getting paid a full wage, and with an expectation that you’ll produce as much in four days as you did in five.

In a pilot study by Cambridge University and 4 Day Week Global, 71% of participants reported feeling less burnt out, while there was a 57% fall in staff resignations. These outcomes are similar to results from trials in Belgium, Spain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

But the execution of a four-day work week in health care comes with unique challenges. The model has primarily been trialled in office and corporate environments, where a five-day work week, totalling 35-40 hours, is conventional.

For many health-care workers, especially nurses, longer hours and shift work are the norm. Nurses are often expected to work on public holidays, and may have to work for six or seven consecutive days before having a few days off, instead of the standard five days on, two days off.

Also, many health-care services, such as hospitals and aged care facilities, require staffing seven days a week. It’s imperative any restructured work arrangements are designed to ensure continuous, adequate staffing.

Consequently, a direct transition from a five-day to a four-day work week might not be immediately logical or applicable.

Instead, this model should be conceptualised more broadly for health care, focusing on reducing and optimising working hours, and addressing the specifics of rostering and workforce planning in the industry.

Applying this model to health care

The focus should be on achieving greater productivity through reducing stress and burnout. Although shifting to a four-day work week won’t necessarily be practical, there should be an emphasis on shorter hours, guided by the 100-80-100 model.

The application of this model within health care would vary. For example, specialist physicians work 50 hours a week on average, so applying the model would reduce their work week to 40 hours.

Shift design, particularly for nurses, should focus on ways to reduce fatigue and in turn burnout. This might include scheduling shifts at a consistent time of day for individual staff members, implementing shorter shifts, and rostering reasonable consecutive working days (instead of seven or more days in a row before getting a day off).

Four people working around a table in an office. — Trials of a four-day work week have shown positive results in corporate settings.
Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

The benefits

Reducing the hours worked and optimising shift rostering could help to alleviate stress, burnout and work-family conflict for health-care workers. All this is likely to improve staff retention.

Any reduction in staff turnaround would save on direct costs associated with hiring new staff. The cost to replace a highly specialised health-care professional can reach up to 200% of their annual salary.

Also, implementing shorter shifts – for example shifts lasting four or eight hours instead of 12 – may increase the uptake of shift times that are usually hard to fill. Measures like shorter shifts could also appeal to part-time workers or those who have retired.

Finally, reducing burnout and absenteeism will improve productivity among staff. This will indirectly lower costs and benefit public health.

Some challenges

As it can take a few months to a few years to recover from burnout, once any changes are implemented, the benefits would take time to be seen.

And reducing working hours as well as other changes to rostering will initially be difficult given current staff shortages in the sector.

Hopefully, measures such as migration incentives and subsidised training for health-care professionals will bolster the workforce and make bridging this gap a little easier.

Although the implementation is not straightforward, changes to working arrangements in the health-care sector could have an even greater positive impact than in other industries.

Nataliya Ilyushina receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence.

– ref. A 4-day week might not work in health care. But adapting this model could reduce burnout among staff – https://theconversation.com/a-4-day-week-might-not-work-in-health-care-but-adapting-this-model-could-reduce-burnout-among-staff-213554

Fieldwork can be challenging for female scientists. Here are 5 ways to make it better

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Hamylton, Associate professor, University of Wollongong

Women coastal scientists face multiple barriers to getting into the field for research. These include negative perceptions of their physical capabilities, not being included in trips, caring responsibilities at home and a lack of field facilities for women. Even if women clear these barriers, the experience can be challenging.

This is a problem because fieldwork is crucial for gathering data, inspiring emerging scientists, developing skills, expanding networks and participating in collaborative research.

Our recent study revisited an international survey of 314 coastal scientists that revealed broad perceptions and experiences of gender inequality in coastal sciences. We offer five ways to improve the fieldwork experience for women.

Our collective experience of more than 70 years as active coastal scientists suggests women face ongoing problems when they go to the field. Against a global backdrop of the #MeToo movement, the Picture a Scientist documentary and media coverage about incidents of sexual harassment in the field, conversations between fieldworkers and research managers about behaviour and policy change are needed.

A collage of photos showing female fieldworkers operating equipment, carrying gear and fixing engines — Disrupting the narrative: Women fieldworkers operating equipment, carrying gear and fixing engines.
Women in Coastal Geosciences and Engineering network

Our research: what we did and what we found

In 2016, we surveyed both male and female scientists about their experiences of gender equality in coastal sciences during an international symposium in Sydney and afterwards online.

From 314 responses, 113 respondents (36%) provided examples of gender inequality they had either directly experienced or observed while working in coastal sciences. About half of these were related to fieldwork.

Our recent paper in the journal Coastal Futures revisits the survey results to further unpack fieldwork issues that continue to surface among the younger generation of female coastal scientists whom we supervise in our jobs. Many of those younger women don’t know how to address these issues.

The paper includes direct quotes from 18 survey respondents describing their experiences. One woman, a mid-career university researcher, said:

As I fill in this survey, the corridor of the building I work in is lined with empty offices. My colleagues are out on boats doing fieldwork. I have a passion for coastal science. That’s why I’m working in a university. But I have a disproportionately large share of administrative, pastoral and governance duties that keep me from engaging in my passion. I’m about to go to a committee meeting of women, doing women’s work (reviewing teaching offerings). Inequality is alive and well in my workplace!

Collectively, the responses highlight barriers to fieldwork participation and challenges in the field, such as sexual harassment and abuse.

A pressing issue, on and off campus

Universities have recently been criticised for failing to respond to sexual violence on campus. But women employed by universities working off campus – at field sites – can be even more vulnerable.

The social boundaries that characterise day-to-day working life in the office and the laboratory are reconfigured on boats or in field camps. Personal space is reduced. Fieldworkers can be required to sleep in close proximity to one another, potentially putting women in vulnerable situations.

As this female early-career university researcher wrote:

Sometimes women are ‘advised’ to avoid fieldwork for security reasons. Or [we] are considered weak, or we are threatened by rape for being with a lot of men.

Women working on boats commonly face inadequate facilities at sea for toileting, menstruation and managing lactation. Some women said they were “not allowed to join research vessels” or “prevented from [joining] research in the field because of gender”.

Reminded of our personal experiences

Just reading the survey responses was difficult for us. Tales of exclusion and discrimination were particularly confronting because they resonated with our own personal experiences. As one of us, Sarah Hamylton, recalls:

I remember spending a hot day in my early 20s on a small boat taking measurements over a reef. I was the only female. When one of the four guys asked about needing the toilet, he was told to stand and relieve himself off the stern. I had to hold on, so I was desperate when we returned to the main ship in the afternoon.

But that wasn’t the only challenge Hamylton encountered on that trip:

We got back into port and the night before we departed to go home, I was woken by the drunken second officer banging on my cabin door asking for sex. The following year women were banned from attending this annual expedition because someone else had complained about sexual assault.

Gender stereotypes and discrimination

Coastal fieldwork demands diverse physical skills such as boating, four-wheel driving, towing trailers, working with hand and power tools, moving heavy equipment, SCUBA diving and being comfortable swimming in the surf, in currents or underwater.

But our survey revealed roles on field trips – and therefore opportunities to learn and gain crucial field skills – are typically handed to men rather than women. Several respondents observed female students and staff being left out of field work for “not being strong enough” and “too weak to pick stuff up”.

Body exposure can also be an issue for women in the field. Close-fitting wetsuits and swimsuits can increase the likelihood of womens’ bodies being objectified by colleagues. Undertaking coastal fieldwork while menstruating can also be a concern.

Another of us, Ana Vila-Concejo, notes:

Some scientific presentations show women in bikinis as a ‘beach modelling’ joke. Beyond self-consciousness, I have felt vulnerable wearing swimmers and exerting myself during fieldwork. Women students and volunteers have declined to participate in field experiments for this reason, particularly while menstruating.

The issue of body exposure also sheds light on the interconnections between race, religion, class and sexuality, which can create overlapping and intersectional disadvantages for women. Vila-Concejo adds:

I am old enough now that I don’t care anymore. I can afford a wetsuit, but many students and volunteers don’t have one. For some women, it isn’t socially or culturally acceptable to wear swimmers, or even to do fieldwork.

Five suggestions for improvement

To improve the fieldwork experience for women in coastal sciences, our research found the following behavioural and policy changes are needed:

publicise field role models and trailblazers to reshape public views of coastal scientists, increasing the visibility of female fieldworkers
improve opportunities and capacity for women to undertake fieldwork to diversify field teams by identifying and addressing the intersecting disadvantages experienced by women
establish field codes of conduct that outline acceptable standards of behaviour on field trips, what constitutes misconduct, sexual harassment and assault, how to make an anonymous complaint and disciplinary measures
acknowledge the challenges women face in the field and provide support where possible in fieldwork briefings and address practical challenges for women in remote locations, including toileting and menstruation
foster an enjoyable and supportive fieldwork culture that emphasises mutual respect, safety, inclusivity, and collegiality on every trip.

These five simple steps will improve the experience of fieldwork for all concerned and ultimately benefit the advancement of science.

Sarah Hamylton receives funding from The Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the Women in Coastal Geosciences and Engineering Network.

Ana Vila Concejo receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other sources unrelated to the subject of this article. She is a founding member and former co-chair of the Women in Coastal Geoscience and Engineering Network.

Hannah Power receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the NSW State Government State Emergency Management Program, the Queensland Resilience and Risk Reduction Fund, the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour Fund, and ship time from Australia’s Marine National Facility. She is a member of the NSW Coastal Council and is affiliated with the Women in Coastal Geosciences and Engineering Network.

Shari L Gallop works for Pattle Delamore Partners (PDP). She has an honorary lectureship with the University of Waikato. She is a founding member and former co-chair of the Women in Coastal Geoscience and Engineering Network.

– ref. Fieldwork can be challenging for female scientists. Here are 5 ways to make it better – https://theconversation.com/fieldwork-can-be-challenging-for-female-scientists-here-are-5-ways-to-make-it-better-214215

Almost 2 million Workforce Australia payments have been suspended in the past year, with devastating impact

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simone Casey, Research Associate, Centre for People, Organisation and Work, RMIT University

Last year the federal government replaced the jobactive employment support program with what was expected to be a more flexible and improved support system for jobseekers, Workforce Australia.

Yet, in the 16 months the contracted-out system has been running, almost 2 million income support payments have been suspended, affecting 70% of participants.

Under the new system, participants must meet a points target to receive payments.

For example, if the default points target is 100 per month, this can be met by a minimum of four job applications (worth 5 points each) and a mix of other activities. Points targets are adjusted to 60 per month for parents and people with disabilities.

Why are payments suspended?

Payment suspensions are supposed to get people to comply with requirements such as attending job interviews and undertaking training, education classes or other activities to reach their points target.

When these criteria are not met, participants are given a two-day grace period to resolve the problem, after which payments are automatically suspended. The suspension remains until the target is met or the suspension is lifted by a job service provider. The average suspension period is four days.

The figure of almost 2 million payment suspensions, cited at a Senate Estimates committee meeting last month, showed they have been occurring at an alarming rate since Workforce Australia started.

Man handing document across a desk to another person — Workforce Australia participants might be required to attend a certain number of job interviews to reach their points target.
Shutterstock

Committee member and Greens senator Janet Rice highlighted concern about the high suspension rate and representatives from the Department of Employment, which runs the program, agreed it was an issue.

If 70% of participants have been suspended, that makes it very likely some people have lost payments multiple times. These people might be long-term unemployed due to health, disability or discrimination in the workplace.

Suspending payments to these already disadvantaged groups has a devastating impact because income support payments are grossly inadequate. The single person rate of JobSeeker payment is only $749.20 per fortnight, and the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance is $101.07, adding up to $860.27 a fortnight.

Meanwhile an average share house rent in a capital city like Melbourne is $446 per fortnight – with single renters often paying double – and this leaves people without much room for delays to their income support payments.

The damage caused by suspending payments

Research into the impact of payment suspensions on people’s mental health shows the consequences are dire.

This is especially so during the current cost-of-living crisis when people have enough to worry about just paying rent, buying food or keeping a car on the road.

The harm caused by suspending payments is apparent in my recent analysis of the individual submissions to the parliamentary inquiry into Workforce Australia.

I coded the frequency of words relating to poor psychological wellbeing as represented in the table. Of the 69 submissions reviewed, 52 identified how payment suspensions caused high levels of stress and affected trust of the job service provider.

The word-frequency results show threats to payments have a devastating effect on the mental health of people receiving unemployment payments. Many felt bullied by their job services providers.

The impact of suspensions is reflected in this quote from one of the submissions. As one 53-year-old woman said in her submission:

I would ask you to consider and recognise that those of us who are reliant on this system are deprived of any means to control our circumstances. A system failure, a missed phone call, a misunderstanding or a simple lack of communication can lead to a suspension of payments.

The stress associated with being constantly under threat by the whims of a particular person, system faults or even a missed phone call is immeasurable. That I might be unable to eat, go to the doctor, pay for medication, buy petrol, pay bills on time (so as not to incur further costs), pay for internet/phone … is considerable and has a massive impact for those of us who are living under these unfortunate circumstances.

It effects our physical and emotional health, our ability to participate in our communities, our sense of future and diminishes our sense of self-worth and our accomplishments – reducing them to meaninglessness while keeping us in poverty.

Why is the suspension rate so high?

The suspension rate is high because the criteria people must meet to receive payments are unrealistic, and because job service providers make mistakes.

Some people can’t meet targets or report points under the points model on time, or don’t attend appointments because they’ve been given insufficient notice or the appointments have been scheduled at times they are already working or in training.

In a speech last month, Labor MP Julian Hill, who heads the parliamentary inquiry into Workforce Australia, told a conference the powers of the system’s providers to make decisions affecting payments was a “major false economy”.

This “false economy” of payment suspensions has been a fixture of job services requirements for nearly two decades.

Workforce Australia was meant to have addressed this with the points model. Instead, the points reporting is onerous and there is no evidence it improves the employment prospects of people who have been struggling to find work.

The next steps

When the parliamentary inquiry into Workforce Australia submits its report this month, it is likely to recommend big changes including returning and payment suspension decisions to the government’s former Human Services department, Services Australia.

If that happens, it will be vital to move swiftly.

As was the case with the former government’s highly discredited and unlawful automated debt assessment and recovery system, Robodebt, the widespread use of payment suspensions is unfair and causes acute distress to people already surviving on inadequate income support.

Simone Casey commenced employment with Economic Justice Australia, a peak organisation for community legal centres providing specialist advice to people on their social security issues and rights, after completing the research for this article.

– ref. Almost 2 million Workforce Australia payments have been suspended in the past year, with devastating impact – https://theconversation.com/almost-2-million-workforce-australia-payments-have-been-suspended-in-the-past-year-with-devastating-impact-216752

Do racehorses even know they’re ‘racing’ each other? It’s unlikely

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathrynne Henshall, Lecturer, School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University

When racing season arrives, everyone becomes an expert on the horses that are the stars of the spectacle.

TV personalities, professional pundits and form guides talk confidently about the favourite’s “will to win”. In close races, the equine contestants “battle it out”, demonstrating “heart”, “grit” and “determination”.

But do horses even know they are in a race, let alone have a desire to win it? Do they understand what it means when their nose is the first one to pass the post?

Based on decades of experience and everything we know about horse behaviour, I think the most plausible answer is “no”.

From the horse’s perspective

From a horse’s perspective, there are few intrinsic rewards for winning a race.

Reaching the end might mean relief from the pressure to keep galloping at high speed and hits from the jockey’s whip, but the same is true for all the horses once they pass the finishing post. If the race is close, the horse that eventually wins might even be whipped more often in the final stages than horses further back in the field.

So while being first to reach the winning post can be crucially important to the horse’s human connections, there is very little direct, intrinsic benefit to the horse that would motivate it to voluntarily gallop faster to achieve this outcome.

So does a horse even know it’s in a race? Again, the answer is likely “no”.

Running (cantering or galloping) is a quintessential horse behaviour and horses voluntarily run together in groups when given the opportunity – even in races without jockeys. However, there are a number of reasons to think horses have not evolved a desire to “win” during a group gallop.

Horses are social animals. In the wild, to minimise their individual exposure to predators, they synchronise their movement with other horses in their group.

This synchronisation includes maintaining similar speeds to other group members (to keep the group together), being alert to the positions of their own body and their neighbours’ to avoid collisions, and adapting their speed to the terrain and environmental cues that indicate upcoming danger or obstacles. In the wild, “winning” – that is, arriving first, long before other group members – could even be a negative, exposing the “winner” to an increased risk of predation.

This collective behaviour is the opposite of what owners, trainers and punters want from horses during a race.

The horse’s preferences (and how riders override them)

Horse races depend on two horse-related factors: the horse’s innate tendency to synchronise with other horses, and its ability to be trained to ignore these tendencies in response to cues from the jockey during a race.

Trainers and jockeys also harness the preferences of individual horses. Some horses are averse to bunching up with others during the race, so jockeys let them move to the front of the field (these are “front runners”). Other horses seek the security of the group, so jockeys let them remain in the bunch until closer to the winning post (these are “come-from-behind” winners).

Jockeys use several different interventions to override the horse’s innate tendency to synchronise. These might include:

directing the horses to travel much closer to the other horses (risking the sometimes fatal injuries we sometimes see at the track)
travelling at speeds not of the horse’s choosing (usually at far higher speeds and for longer durations, and often maintained by use of the whip)
preventing the horse from changing course to adapt its position relative to other horses in the field (directing its path via pressure on the mouth from the bit or taps from the whip).

During the early stages of a race, jockeys rely on horses’ innate desire to remain with the group to ensure they maintain the physical effort required to keep in touch with the front runners. This tendency may then be overruled so the horse will act independently of the group, leave it behind and come to the front to hopefully win.

No concept of being in a race

So horses most likely have no concept of being in a “race”, where the goal of their galloping is to get to a certain location on the track before any of the other horses. However, they undoubtedly know what it’s like to be in a race. That is, they learn through prior experience and training what is likely to happen and what to do during a race.

And with jockeys and trainers who understand the individual preferences of their horses to maximise their chances during the race, there will always be one horse that reaches that part of the track designated the winning post before the other horses in the group.

But as for winning horses understanding they are there to “win”? It’s far more likely it is the combination of natural ability, physical fitness and jockey skill that accounts for which horse wins, rather than any innate desire by that horse to get to the winning post before the other horses.

Cathrynne Henshall receives post-doctoral research funding from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Welfare Foundation

– ref. Do racehorses even know they’re ‘racing’ each other? It’s unlikely – https://theconversation.com/do-racehorses-even-know-theyre-racing-each-other-its-unlikely-216641

How much protein do I need as I get older? And do I need supplements to get enough?

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia

If you are a woman around 50, you might have seen advice on social media or from influencers telling you protein requirements increase dramatically in midlife. Such recommendations suggest a 70 kilogram woman needs around 150 grams of protein each day. That’s the equivalent of 25 boiled eggs at 6 grams of protein each.

Can that be right? Firstly let’s have a look at what protein is and where you get it.

Protein is an essential macro-nutrient in our diet. It provides us with energy and is used to repair and make muscle, bones, soft tissues and hormones and enzymes. Mostly we associate animal foods (dairy, meat and eggs) as being rich in protein. Plant foods such as bread, grains and legumes provide valuable sources of protein too.

But what happens to our requirements as we get older?

Ages and stages

Protein requirements change through different life stages. This reflects changes in growth, especially from babies through to young adulthood. The estimated average requirements by age are:

1.43g protein per kg of body weight at birth
1.6g per kg of body weight at 6–12 months (when protein requirements are at their highest point)
protein needs decline from 0.92g down to 0.62g per kg of body weight from 6–18 years.

When we reach adulthood, protein requirements differ for men and women, which reflects the higher muscle mass in men compared to women:

0.68g per kg of body weight for men
0.6g per kg of body weight for women.

Australian recommendations for people over 70 reflect the increased need for tissue repair and muscle maintenance:

0.86g per kg of bodyweight for men
0.75g per kg of bodyweight for women.

For a 70kg man this is a difference of 12.6g/protein per day. For a 70kg woman this is an increase of 10.5g per day. You can add 10g of protein by consuming an extra 300ml milk, 60g cheese, 35g chicken, 140g lentils, or 3–4 slices of bread.

There is emerging evidence higher intakes for people over 70 (up to 0.94–1.3g per kg of bodyweight per day) might reduce age-related decline in muscle mass (known as sarcopenia). But this must be accompanied with increased resistance-based exercise, such as using weights or stretchy bands. As yet these have not been included in any national nutrient guidelines.

foods on table including eggs, salmon, eggs, meat, nuts, avocado — Protein can come from animal and non-animal sources.
Shutterstock

But what about in midlife?

So, part of a push for higher protein in midlife might be due to wanting to prevent age-related muscle loss. And it might also be part of a common desire to prevent weight gain that may come with hormonal changes.

There have been relatively few studies specifically looking at protein intake in middle-aged women. One large 2017 observational study (where researchers look for patterns in a population sample) of over 85,000 middle-aged nurses found higher intake of vegetable protein – but not animal protein or total protein – was linked to a lower incidence of early menopause.

In the same group of women another study found higher intake of vegetable protein was linked to a lower risk of frailty (meaning a lower risk of falls, disability, hospitalisation and death). Higher intake of animal protein was linked to higher risk of frailty, but total intake of protein had no impact.

Another smaller observational study of 103 postmenopausal women found higher lean muscle mass in middle-aged women with higher protein intake. Yet an intervention study (where researchers test out a specific change) showed no effect of higher protein intake on lean body mass in late post-menopasual women.

Some researchers are theorising that higher dietary protein intake, along with a reduction in kilojoules, could reduce weight gain in menopause. But this has not been tested in clinical trials.

Increasing protein intake, improves satiety (feeling full), which may be responsible for reducing body weight and maintaining muscle mass. The protein intake to improve satiety in studies has been about 1.0–1.6g per kg of bodyweight per day. However such studies have not been specific to middle-aged women, but across all ages and in both men and women.

What are we actually eating?

If we look at what the average daily intake of protein is, we can see 99% of Australians under the age of 70 meet their protein requirements from food. So most adults won’t need supplements.

Only 14% of men over 70 and 4% of women over 70 do not meet their estimated average protein requirements. This could be for many reasons, including a decline in overall health or an illness or injury which leads to reduced appetite, reduced ability to prepare foods for themselves and also the cost of animal sources of protein.

While they may benefit from increased protein from supplements, opting for a food-first approach is preferable. As well as being more familiar and delicious, it comes with other essential nutrients. For example, red meat also has iron and zinc in it, fish has omega-3 fats, and eggs have vitamin A and D, some iron and omega-3 fats and dairy has calcium.

sliced boiled eggs on a floral plate with green napkin — A person can only eat so many eggs.
Tamanna Rumee/Unsplash

So what should I do?

Symptoms of protein deficiency include muscle wasting, poor wound healing,
oedema (fluid build-up) and anaemia (when blood doesn’t provide enough oxygen to cells). But the amount of protein in the average Australian diet means deficiency is rare. The Australian dietary guidelines provide information on the number of serves you need from each food group to achieve a balanced diet that will meet your nutrient requirements.

If you are concerned about your protein intake due to poor health, increased demand because of the sports you’re doing or because you are a vegan or vegetarian, talk to your GP or an accredited practising dietitian.

Evangeline Mantzioris is affiliated with Alliance for Research in Nutrition, Exercise and Activity (ARENA) at the University of South Australia. Evangeline Mantzioris has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, and has been appointed to the National Health and Medical Research Council Dietary Guideline Expert Committee.

– ref. How much protein do I need as I get older? And do I need supplements to get enough? – https://theconversation.com/how-much-protein-do-i-need-as-i-get-older-and-do-i-need-supplements-to-get-enough-215695

How Phar Lap’s skin, bones and heart became ‘holy relics’ in colonial Australia and New Zealand

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Pickles, Professor of History, University of Canterbury

When the legendary Phar Lap won the Melbourne Cup in 1930, the big chestnut horse didn’t just live up to his Thai name, which means “lightning”. He also brought together strands of colonial history and mythology that are only now properly visible.

Much worshipped in life and in death, Phar Lap has occupied a unique place in the story of Australia’s and New Zealand’s evolving national identities. The posthumous division and distribution of his corpse into “relics” – mounted hide, skeleton and heart – represented a form of what I call “new world worship”.

Old world religions were an important part of colonisation. But the early settler experience also saw the appearance of quasi-religious icons and symbols, one of which was the horse. Vital for settling, farming and policing the new land, they became more than mere beasts of burden.

Successful colonisation involved the breeding of introduced species – plants and animals, but also people. Physical strength, egalitarianism, battling against the odds and “mateship” were characteristics of the new colonial societies on both sides of the Tasman. For a while, Phar Lap embodied them all.

Breeding good colonial stock

The other thing Australia and New Zealand shared was a “cultural cringe” that expressed itself in a need to prove the new colonies could take on the world and win. National myths based on climate, soil, good pastures and practical skill took shape.

Whether it was soldiers, race horses or rugby players, the goal was to produce the best winning stock in the world. Breeding champion race horses from overseas bloodlines fitted the narrative perfectly.

By the time Phar Lap was born in Timaru in New Zealand’s South Island in 1926, horse racing was well established as an important industry throughout Australia and New Zealand. Uniquely, it brought together the business of breeding and training with socialising, entertainment and gambling.

Antipodean racing culture mimicked British rituals and traditions, but involved a wider cross-section of society. Many factors made following the horses so appealing: genetics, condition and training, track conditions, riders and of course the field, all contributed to the interest and the odds.

A big race meeting became a kind of “holy day”. The fun, excitement, dressing up and partying while trying one’s luck on the horses lives on today, nowhere more so than at the Melbourne Cup.

Phar Lap’s famous win by three lengths in 1930 – having survived an assassination attempt shortly beforehand – became part of the legend. Against the grim backdrop of the Great Depression, he offered escapism and even a sense of confidence that things could be better.

When he won the Agua Caliente Handicap in Mexico it thrilled Australians and New Zealanders alike. And his death two weeks later saw shock and public mourning. The attendant conspiracy theories – killed by gangsters, toxic feed, too much arsenic in his tonic – are seemingly as immortal as Phar Lap’s memory.

Horse with a big heart

Like holy relics, the horse’s hide, bones and heart were brought back from the United States and then shared between Australia and New Zealand for the faithful to witness.

Renowned New York taxidermists the Jonas brothers created the life-like mount that went to the National Museum of Victoria (later the Melbourne Museum). Phar Lap’s skeleton went to Wellington’s Dominion Museum (now Te Papa).

But it’s Phar Lap’s heart that has seen the most myth-making and mystery. Preserved and displayed at the National Institute of Anatomy in Canberra (later the Australian National Museum), it is extremely large, leading to various claims that it enabled Phar Lap’s success and that it can’t be authentic.

Nonetheless, the symbolism of a big heart can’t be denied. And while it evokes the preserved and sacred hearts of old-world saints, it suggests forms of new-world worship are evolving too. All three museums claim their Phar Lap relics are perennially popular.

Phar Lap’s skeleton and hide were temporarily reunited for a special exhibition at the Melbourne Museum to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Melbourne Cup in 2011. But it’s ironic the remains of a horse that once united Australia and New Zealand should be so separated.

Then again, perhaps it’s a fitting metaphor after all, as the two former colonies find their separate way in the modern world, nearly a century on from Phar Lap’s brief but glorious reign.

Katie Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Phar Lap’s skin, bones and heart became ‘holy relics’ in colonial Australia and New Zealand – https://theconversation.com/how-phar-laps-skin-bones-and-heart-became-holy-relics-in-colonial-australia-and-new-zealand-216530

Albanese and Labor slump to worst position in Newspoll since 2022 election

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

A national Newspoll, conducted October 30 to November 3 from a sample of 1,220 people, gave Labor a 52–48% lead over the Coalition, a two-point gain for the Coalition since the final Newspoll before the October 14 Voice referendum. This is Labor’s narrowest lead in Newspoll since the 2022 federal election.

Primary votes were 37% Coalition (up two percentage points), 35% Labor (down one), 12% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (steady) and 10% for all others (down one).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ratings were 52% dissatisfied (up six points) and 42% satisfied (down four), for a net approval of -10, down ten points. This is easily his lowest net approval in Newspoll since becoming PM. This graph shows the continued decline in Albanese’s Newspoll ratings since late 2022.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s net approval improved five points to -13. Albanese’s lead over Dutton for preferred prime minister narrowed to 46–36%, from 51–31% previously. This is also Albanese’s smallest lead since the election. Newspoll and Redbridge figures are from The Poll Bludger.

The slumping polls show how damaging the heavy defeat of the Voice referendum and continuing cost of living pressures have been to Albanese and Labor.

Redbridge national poll: Labor’s lead holds steady

The Herald Sun
reported Sunday that a Redbridge national poll, conducted October 25 to November 2 from a sample of 1,205 people, gave Labor a 53.5–46.5% lead over the Coalition, a 0.6-point gain for the Coalition since early September.

Primary votes were 35% Coalition (down one point), 34% Labor (down three), 14% Greens (up one) and 17% for all others (up three).

The Herald Sun emphasised large primary vote swings against Labor among those with lower educational attainment, but these would be based on small subsamples of the overall sample, and are thus not reliable.

Voice referendum final results

All of the votes in the October 14 referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament have now been counted and the final results are in.

Nationally, “no” won the referendum by a 60.06–39.94% margin, or 20.1 points. “No” also won every state, by 8.3 percentage points in Victoria, 17.9 points in New South Wales and Tasmania, 26.5 points in Western Australia, 28.3 points in South Australia and 36.4 points in Queensland.

For the referendum to be successful, it needed a majority in at least four of the six states, as well as a national majority. The territories are counted towards the national total, but not the majority of states. The “no” vote won in the Northern Territory by 20.6 percentage points, while “yes” came out ahead in the ACT by 22.6 points.

Nationally, 34 of the 151 House of Representatives electorates
voted “yes” while 117 voted “no”. In NSW, 11 of 47 seats voted “yes”, in Victoria 13 of 39, in Queensland three of 30, in WA two of 15, in SA none of ten, in Tasmania two of five, in the ACT all three seats and in the NT none of two.

All seven seats won by “teal” independents and all four won by Greens at the 2022 election voted “yes”, as did 21 of the 78 Labor-held seats. Bradfield in NSW was the only one of 57 Coalition-held seats to vote “yes”.

ABC election analyst Antony Green has a chart showing the “yes” and “no” split by vote type. Pre-poll ordinary votes were far worse for “yes” than polling day ordinary votes, and postals were even worse. But both polling day absent votes and declaration pre-poll votes were better for the “yes” side than polling day ordinary votes.

Turnout for the referendum was 89.9%, higher than the 89.8% turnout recorded for the House at the last federal election.

How did the polls do?

The graph below shows the “yes” lead or deficit in all polls conducted this year, culminating with the final result (“no” by 20.1 points). Newspoll’s final poll was the most accurate, showing a 20-point “no” lead. YouGov’s final poll had an 18-point “no” lead, while Focaldata’s poll suggested a 22-point defeat.

Other pollsters did not perform as well, such as Morgan, whose final poll showed “no” with just a seven-point lead, and Essential, which had given “no” a six-point lead. Essential has altered its methodology since the referendum to weight results by education level.

Newspoll’s state breakdowns were also good at the state level, with the exception of WA. “No” led in the final Newspoll by 13 points in NSW, eight points in Victoria, 35 points in Queensland, 27 points in SA, 37 points in WA and 17 points in Tasmania.

The Resolve poll had “yes” ahead in Tasmania by 56–44% in its final poll, which was a large error given “no” won in the state by almost 18 points.

Newspoll was administered by YouGov until mid-July, but is now managed by Pyxis. Both the new Newspoll and YouGov performed well.

Victorian Mulgrave byelection

A byelection will occur on November 18 in the Victorian state seat of Mulgrave, previously held by former Labor Premier Daniel Andrews. At the 2022 state election, Andrews defeated independent Ian Cook after preferences by 60.8–39.2%, and the Liberals by 60.2–39.8%.

Cook is running for the seat again. He will face nine other candidates, including Labor’s Eden Foster and the Liberals’ Courtney Mann.

Argentine legislative results

I covered the Argentine legislative results from the October 22 election in my article for The Poll Bludger. The combined right-wing parties won control of the lower house in Argentina, but failed in the Senate owing to a system similar to first-past-the-post.

Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Albanese and Labor slump to worst position in Newspoll since 2022 election – https://theconversation.com/albanese-and-labor-slump-to-worst-position-in-newspoll-since-2022-election-216819

A new Silicon Valley manifesto reveals the bleak, dangerous philosophy driving the tech industry

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hallam Stevens, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, James Cook University

In 1993, Marc Andreessen was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he also worked at the US-government funded National Center for Supercomputing Applications. With a colleague, the young software engineer authored the Mosaic web browser, which set the standard for cruising the information superhighway in the 1990s.

Andreessen went on to cofound Netscape Communications, making a fortune in 1999 when the company was acquired by AOL for US$4.3 billion.

Since then, through his venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the outspoken billionaire has become one of the most influential wallets in Silicon Valley. His investments – in companies including Facebook, Foursquare, Github, Lyft, Oculus and Twitter – have definitively shaped tech over the past 15 years. (He once described his approach as “funding imperial, will-to-power people”.)

Because of all this, it’s worth paying attention to Andreessen’s recent “techno-optimist manifesto”. Opening with the claim that “we are being lied to”, the lengthy blog post takes in a section on “becoming technological supermen”, musings on the meaning of life, and a long list of enemies. It offers a revealing glimpse into the philosophy of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, where more technology is the only way forward – and a warning about the kind of world they’re trying to build.

Tech utopia gone sour

Since Silicon Valley’s birth in the 1960s, its promoters have held utopian ideas about technology, from the “new communalism” of Stewart Brand to the cyber-libertarianism of Kevin Kelly and John Perry Barlow. In the 1990s, supporters of this “Californian ideology” saw the rise of the Internet as proof of the growing importance of technology (and the diminishing power of governments).

Andreessen’s essay shows what these ideals have become in 2023. The political and economic worldview beneath its ideas about technology is most visible towards the end of the manifesto, in a list of “enemies”.

Remarkably, these include “sustainability”, “trust and safety”, “tech ethics” and “social responsibility”. According to Andreessen, who describes himself as an “accelerationist”, such ideas are holding back the advance of technology and therefore human progress.

Although the manifesto purports to believe in democracy, what Andreessen really argues for is a kind of technocracy based on “economic strength (financial power), cultural strength (soft power), and military strength”.

This is a vision of dominance. By proposing to abolish concern with ethics and the environment, for example, individuals like Andreessen can have free rein to develop, promote and profit from their inventions (including those funded by taxpayers) without interference.

A very large circular building with greenery around it viewed directly from above — Bird’s eye view of Apple Park in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, California, US.
Faysal06/Shutterstock

A colonial vision

We don’t have to look too deeply into history to find parallels to this kind of worldview. Simply put, it is the worldview of colonialism: it sees both nature and other people as domains to be conquered and exploited for “growth”.

Andreessen describes his mission in explicitly colonial terms: “mapping uncharted territory, conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for our community”. This is a worldview in which territories must be constantly expanded (“our descendants will live in the stars”) in a perpetual war for supremacy.

Technology has played an instrumental role in colonial conquest. Anthropologist Jared Diamond’s famous “guns, germs, and steel” were all technologies vital to the European conquest of the Americas. We might add to this list ships (including slave ships), navigation instruments, telegraphs, and so on.

Even the technologies of the industrial revolution – so important to the narrative of technological progress imagined by Andreessen and his ilk – were enabled by the availability and exploitation of cheap labour and markets in the Global South.

The mission of techno-optimists appears to be to pick up where the European and American empires of the 19th century left off, using technological, political and economic power to bully, coerce and bludgeon other societies into acquiescence.

For Andreessen, all this is supported, like colonialism, by a kind of social Darwinism. He sees an evolutionary war in which “smart people and smart societies outperform less smart ones on virtually every metric we can measure”.

Andreessen writes “technology doesn’t care about your ethnicity, race, religion, national origin, gender, sexuality, political views, height, weight, hair or lack thereof”. However, his talk of “America and her allies” and “our civilisation” suggests Andreessen himself cares quite a bit about these things. The West should, he implies, embrace its rightful place as the world’s technological (and civilisational) leader.

Illustration of a fictional Mars colony of round domes on a red planet with mountains in the background — Imaginary future colonies of people ‘living in the stars’ are reminiscent of a worldview where territories must constantly be expanded.
Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock

A warning

All this reveals some of what Silicon Valley entrepreneurs really think of the rest of the world, and of us (non-techno-optimists).

We should take it as a warning about the kind of world that Silicon Valley technologists want. It will be a world built with technology, yes, but also a world that values power, force and wealth over all else.

Andreessen is right about one thing: we do need technology. We are unlikely to solve many of the problems facing our planet without it.

But the stripped-down, raw, blunt version of technology – a technology without ethics, without values, and without a conscience – is not the only way. Instead, we need to support technological innovation and at the same time support democratic participation, pluralism, ethics and our natural environment.

Hallam Stevens has previously received funding from the Ministry for Education (Singapore) and the National Heritage Board (Singapore).

– ref. A new Silicon Valley manifesto reveals the bleak, dangerous philosophy driving the tech industry – https://theconversation.com/a-new-silicon-valley-manifesto-reveals-the-bleak-dangerous-philosophy-driving-the-tech-industry-216894

Our minds handle risk strangely – and that’s partly why we delayed climate action so long

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Rotman, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Consumer Psychology & Co-Director of the Better Consumption Lab, Deakin University

We now have a very narrow window to significantly and rapidly slash greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most disastrous effects of climate change, with just an estimated six years left before we blow our carbon budget to stay below 1.5°C of warming.

We’ve known how gases like carbon dioxide trap heat for over 100 years and alarm bells have been ringing loudly for over 35 years, when climate scientist James Hansen testified that global warming had begun.

As extreme weather and temperatures arrive, many of us wonder whether it had to get this bad before we acted. Did we need to see to believe? What role has our own psychology played in our sluggishness?

james hansen testifying before US senate — Many people first took notice of climate change after US scientist James Hansen testified about its effects.
NASA

How do we respond to threats?

From a psychology point of view, motivating us to take action on climate is a wicked problem. Many factors combine to make it harder for us to act.

The necessary policies and behaviour changes have been viewed as too hard or costly. Until recently, the consequences of doing nothing have been seen as a distant problem. Given the complexity of climate modelling, it has been difficult for scientists and policymakers to lay out what the specific environmental consequences would be from any given action or when they would manifest.

As if that’s not enough, climate change presents a collective-action problem. It would do little good for Australia to reach net-zero emissions if other countries keep emitting without change.

When we write about climate change, we often frame it as an ever more urgent and significant threat to our way of life. We do this thinking that showing the seriousness of the threat will galvanise others into faster action.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. When we’re confronted with big risks – and the need for a painful shift from the status quo – some of us respond unexpectedly. We might find ourselves motivated to seek out evidence to undercut the reality of the threat, and use this uncertainty to justify staying on the same path.

One unfortunate aspect of this is that people motivated to avoid or deny climate risk are actually better able to do so when they have more scientific training. This background equips them better to counter-argue and rationalise the dissonance, meaning they seek out information to align with their beliefs and justify their passivity. Misinformation and doubt are particularly damaging to climate action. They let us feel OK about inaction.

This tendency to rationalise away risk was also clearly visible among people who downplayed the impact or even denied the existence of COVID-19.

Is there an antidote?

We’ve found explaining the simple and well-understood way that emissions of specific gases trap the Sun’s heat and warm the planet can be effective, because people can’t rationalise these facts away. The greenhouse effect is a well-accepted phenomenon, even by those most sceptical of global warming. After all, it’s essential to life on Earth – without these gases trapping heat, the world would be too cold for life.

a greenhouse with lettuces growing — The greenhouse effect is well known and uncontroversial.
Shutterstock

Why are we finally acting?

As climate change has moved out of the computer models and become very much a part of our present, we are seeing stronger efforts to cut emissions.

More and more of us are experiencing tangible events such as forest fires, droughts, sudden floods, rapidly intensifying hurricanes or record-breaking heatwaves. This has removed one barrier to inaction. Until now, the consequences of doing nothing seemed far off and uncertain. Now they are seen as certain and already present.

Better still, technological advancement and economies of scale in production have meant clean energy and clean transport have fallen significantly in price.

At government and individual levels, there are now measures we can take that aren’t too costly and come with immediate gains such as cutting power bills or avoiding petrol price increases. Greater political consensus in many countries is also helping challenge the inertia of the status quo. That’s another barrier to inaction evaporating.

As climate damage gets worse, we’re likely to see ever-starker warnings. Does fear motivate us? When faced with threats, we are more likely to take action, particularly if we think we can make a difference.

Yes, we now have a very narrow window to avert the worst. But we also have an increased certainty about climate change and the damage it causes, as well as greater confidence in our ability to bring about change.

For years, our own psychology slowed down efforts to make the sweeping changes necessary to quit fossil fuels. Now, at least, some of these psychological barriers are getting smaller.

Jeff Rotman has received funding from the Australian Energy Market Operator, Mondo Power, and iMove Australia

– ref. Our minds handle risk strangely – and that’s partly why we delayed climate action so long – https://theconversation.com/our-minds-handle-risk-strangely-and-thats-partly-why-we-delayed-climate-action-so-long-213761

Winston Peters back in the driver’s seat for coalition negotiations

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University

Here go again. The final results of this year’s election have delivered two more seats to te Pati Māori, thereby increasing the size of New Zealand’s 54th Parliament to 123 seats (once the Port Waikato by-election has taken place).

The double effect of this “overhang” is to erase the narrow election night majority held by National (who have lost seats via special votes for the seventh election on the trot) and ACT, and to hand the balance of power to NZ First.

The irony that te Pati Māori’s performance forces three parties who are, at best, lukewarm on the idea of Māori seats into formal negotiations won’t be lost on anyone. The larger point, however, is that the results fundamentally change the dynamics of the process required to form the next government.

Until now, contact between National and NZ First has been framed as a means by which Chris Luxon and David Seymour shore up the narrowest of parliamentary majorities. But National and ACT cannot now get to that majority without NZ First.

Once again, as he was in 1996 and 2017, Peters is in the veto position, holding the “balance of responsibility” (as he called it in 1996, and will likely start doing so again) and central to the process of government formation.

A brief history of Winston

Given this, it is worth recalling what happened the last time Peters put National in office. The parallel discussions NZ First held with National and Labour following New Zealand’s first MMP election in 1996 took two months to complete, and Peters’ decision to go with National was made just hours before the public announcement of the coalition.

Prime Minister Jim Bolger was informed of this after Peters’ televised press conference had begun, but Helen Clark, Labour’s leader, learned of the decision at the same time the rest of the country did.

The process produced the most detailed coalition agreement New Zealand has seen. The document ran to some 50 pages and included detailed commitments in 36 policy domains, a statement of fiscal parameters for the new government’s operations and a supplementary agreement on a range of matters that were not resolved during negotiations.

Peters secured five Cabinet seats and a further four positions outside Cabinet, as well as a commitment – somewhat bizarrely – that NZ First would take three more seats at the top table in 1998. The government didn’t survive that long, but you can see why this provision angered many within National.

Peters also took on the specially created role of Treasurer, the offer of which swung his decision to go with National. In fact, the books were run by the Finance Minister, National’s Bill Birch, but the splitting of the finance portfolio gave NZ First leverage without making Peters an associate to Birch.

And the whole thing fell apart within two years. Jim Bolger was rolled by Jenny Shipley a year after the election, and the relationship between the new prime minister and her deputy rapidly deteriorated: Shipley sacked Peters and formally dissolved the coalition in August 1998.

Given this history, you imagine that Chris Luxon, Nicola Willis and the rest of National’s senior leadership will be approaching the next few weeks warily.

Where to from here?

There is much to be done, including establishing the precise shape of the government. Will it be a formal three-party coalition, or will one of the smaller parties sit outside the executive, supporting it on confidence and/or supply?.

Ministerial portfolios will also need to be distributed – members of three parties will probably be competing for a limited number of positions. This means there there are going to be some very disappointed people – who might, over the long-term, become disruptive.

Just as important will be any decisions taken regarding the arrangements for the day-to-day management of the government. These will attract less public attention, but the rules that coalition partners agree to play by are critical – and were at the centre of the collapse of the National/NZ First administration in 1998.

Negotiation likely to take time

While there is no constitutional requirement to have negotiations wrapped up by the December 21, which is the last date by which the new parliament must meet, there is a strong political incentive to do so. It will be a bad look if Luxon cannot get his administration organised by Christmas.

One thing is clear: while Peters can negotiate governing arrangements in his sleep, Seymour has little experience of what it takes to form a government and Luxon has none whatsoever. Indeed, the last time Peters sat down to hammer out a deal with the National Party, Luxon was just three years into his time at Unilever and Seymour was 13 years’ old.

Adding to the intrigue – especially given the premium Peters apparently places on respect – is the animus between Peters and Seymour. Luxon’s pre-election position on talking with Peters – which might generously be characterised as tepid – will also not have gone down well at NZ First headquarters.

And while Peters has, in the past, professed disdain for the baubles of office, he might well demand his beloved Foreign Affairs, or another stint as Treasurer (to the fortunate Nicola Willis’ Minister of Finance). Or seek to deny others – Seymour, perhaps – those baubles.

No one knows what the coming days (or weeks) have in store. We are now at that point in political time when bottom lines become guidelines, and conversations that were categorically ruled out start taking place. But we should expect the unexpected when Winston Peters does eventually exercise the “balance of responsibility”.

Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Winston Peters back in the driver’s seat for coalition negotiations – https://theconversation.com/winston-peters-back-in-the-drivers-seat-for-coalition-negotiations-217045

Do you trust AI to write the news? It already is – and not without issues

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Associate professor of regulation and governance, UNSW Sydney

Businesses are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate media content, including news, to engage their customers. Now, we’re even seeing AI used for the “gamification” of news – that is, to create interactivity associated with news content.

For better or worse, AI is changing the nature of news media. And we’ll have to wise up if we want to protect the integrity of this institution.

How did she die?

Imagine you’re reading a tragic article about the death of a young sports coach at a prestigious Sydney school.

In a box to the right is a poll asking you to speculate about the cause of death. The poll is AI-generated. It’s designed to keep you engaged with the story, as this will make you more likely to respond to advertisements provided by the poll’s operator.

This scenario isn’t hypothetical. It was played out in The Guardian’s recent reporting on the death of Lilie James.

Under a licensing agreement, Microsoft republished The Guardian’s story on its news app and website Microsoft Start. The poll was based on the content of the article and displayed alongside it, but The Guardian had no involvement or control over it.

If the article had been about an upcoming sports fixture, a poll on the likely outcome would have been harmless. Yet this example shows how problematic it can be when AI starts to mingle with news pages, a product traditionally curated by experts.

The incident led to reasonable anger. In a letter to Microsoft president Brad Smith, Guardian Media Group chief executive Anna Bateson said it was “an inappropriate use of genAI [generative AI]”, which caused “significant reputational damage” to The Guardian and the journalist who wrote the story.

Naturally, the poll was removed. But it raises the question: why did Microsoft let it happen in the first place?

The consequence of omitting common sense

The first part of the answer is that supplementary news products such as polls and quizzes actually do engage readers, as research by the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas has found.

Given how cheap it is to use AI for this purpose, it seems likely news businesses (and businesses displaying others’ news) will continue to do so.

The second part of the answer is there was no “human in the loop”, or limited human involvement, in the Microsoft incident.

The major providers of large language models – the models that underpin various AI programs – have a financial and reputational incentive to make sure their programs don’t cause harm. Open AI with its GPT- models and DAll-E, Google with PaLM 2 (used in Bard), and Meta with its downloadable Llama 2 have all made significant efforts to ensure their models don’t generate harmful content.

They often do this through a process called “reinforcement learning”, where humans curate responses to questions that might lead to harm. But this doesn’t always prevent the models from producing inappropriate content.

It’s likely Microsoft was relying on the low-harm aspects of its AI, rather than considering how to minimise harm that may arise through the actual use of the model. The latter requires common sense – a trait that can’t be programmed into large language models.

Thousands of AI-generated articles per week

Generative AI is becoming accessible and affordable. This makes it attractive to commercial news businesses, which have been reeling from losses of revenue. As such, we’re now seeing AI “write” news stories, saving companies from having to pay journalist salaries.

In June, News Corp executive chair Michael Miller revealed the company had a small team that produced about 3,000 articles a week using AI.

Essentially, the team of four ensures the content makes sense and doesn’t include “hallucinations”: false information made up by a model when it can’t predict a suitable response to an input.

While this news is likely to be accurate, the same tools can be used to generate potentially misleading content parading as news, and nearly indistinguishable from articles written by professional journalists.

Since April, a NewsGuard investigation has found hundreds of websites, written in several languages, that are mostly or entirely generated by AI to mimic real news sites. Some of these included harmful misinformation, such as the claim that US President Joe Biden had died.

It’s thought the sites, which were teeming with ads, were likely generated to get ad revenue.

As technology advances, so does risk

Generally, many large language models have been limited by their underlying training data. For instance, models trained on data up to 2021 will not provide accurate “news” about the world’s events in 2022.

However, this is changing, as models can now be fine-tuned to respond to particular sources. In recent months, the use of an AI framework called “retrieval augmented generation” has evolved to allow models to use very recent data.

With this method, it would certainly be possible to use licensed content from a small number of news wires to create a news website.

While this may be convenient from a business standpoint, it’s yet one more potential way that AI could push humans out of the loop in the process of news creation and dissemination.

An editorially curated news page is a valuable and well-thought-out product. Leaving AI to do this work could expose us to all kinds of misinformation and bias (especially without human oversight), or result in a lack of important localised coverage.

Cutting corners could make us all losers

Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code was designed to “level the playing field” between big tech and media businesses. Since the code came into effect, a secondary change is now flowing in from the use of generative AI.

Putting aside click-worthiness, there’s currently no comparison between the quality of news a journalist can produce and what AI can produce.

While generative AI could help augment the work of journalists, such as by helping them sort through large amounts of content, we have a lot to lose if we start to view it as a replacement.

Rob Nicholls receives funding from each of Google, Meta, and the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Do you trust AI to write the news? It already is – and not without issues – https://theconversation.com/do-you-trust-ai-to-write-the-news-it-already-is-and-not-without-issues-216909

How are global powers engaging with the Pacific? And who is most effective? These 5 maps provide a glimpse

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Wallis, Professor of International Security, University of Adelaide

After years of neglect, there’s a reason why Pacific leaders now describe the Pacific Islands’ geopolitical landscape as “crowded and complex”. Many democratic powers have recently refocused their attention on the region, including Australia, the United States, New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom and Japan.

One after another, they are rolling out big-ticket initiatives to improve their reputations and relationships in the region. While some of these projects make good developmental sense – for instance, Australia’s A$4 billion infrastructure financing agency for the region (although questions are being asked about debt sustainability, given how quickly it has ramped up) – the rationale for others is less clear.

But what all these initiatives have in common is that they are being formulated with a sense of urgency – as a reaction to Chinese offers of assistance.

There’s a risk to all this urgent energy: it’s difficult to know who is doing what, and where. To help meet this challenge, our Statecraftiness mapping project shows how all of these outside powers are seeking to engage with and influence the region.

Our StoryMap shows that the US, Australia and their partners do a lot in the region. Given the depth of this engagement, they should now shift their priorities from reacting to every Chinese announcement towards a more considered approach. This could better anticipate and respond to their interests and those of Pacific Island countries.

There are signs they are beginning to do this: the Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative announced in 2022 by the US, Australia and other partners may help to improve the coordination of their assistance.

Based on our analysis, we make five recommendations about how these partners could further implement proactive “statecraft” in the region.

1. Understand that all influence is relative

In 2018, a rumour of a potential Chinese military base in Vanuatu triggered a wave of concern in Western capitals. Four years later, news of a security agreement between China and Solomon Islands amplified these anxieties.

Scroll down the images to show military installation locations.

But despite all the discussion about a potential Chinese military presence in the region, what is often overlooked is the existing presence of Australian, American and French forces (although such militarisation is contested by many islanders).

Similarly, there are concerns the China-Solomon Islands agreement could pave the way for a Chinese police presence in the region. This, too, led to reactive policymaking. After China provided police training in the Solomon Islands, Australia countered by donating rifles and police vehicles, and then China donated water cannons, motorbikes and vehicles.

Scroll down the map to reveal policing assistance in the region.

But our StoryMap shows that China’s rather nascent policing activities are nowhere near as broad-reaching as the assistance provided by Australia and New Zealand.

2. Acknowledge the difference between quantity and quality

As our StoryMap below shows, Australia is the only partner state with diplomatic posts in all Pacific island countries, followed closely by New Zealand. The US, Japan, France, Taiwan, India and Indonesia also have a diplomatic presence, and others are looking to open embassies.

Scroll down the timeline to show diplomatic posts in the region.

But the number of diplomatic posts does not necessarily equate to quality or effectiveness. This is because individuals, not policies, are the most important determinants of whether a country’s “statecraft” efforts succeed.

And diplomatic presence is not always reciprocated. Niue, Tuvalu, Micronesia, Cook Islands, Palau and Kiribati do not have diplomatic missions in Australia. Instead, they have missions in cities where international institutions are, such as New York and Geneva. This reflects how Pacific countries prioritise where they place their limited number of diplomats.

Scroll down the timeline to show diplomatic visits.

High-level visits to the Pacific by foreign leaders and officials have also increased dramatically in the past 18 months. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, British Foreign Minister James Cleverly and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have all made appearances.

But, again, the quantity of diplomatic engagement does not necessarily lead to quality relationships, which are “the enduring currency of influence” in the Pacific.

Social media, for instance, has greater reach and can impact countries’ diplomatic negotiations and shape their influence outside formal meetings.

To try to understand the effectiveness of social media as a diplomatic tool, we analysed social media followings of diplomatic missions in the region. As expected, countries with close relationships tended to have high numbers of followers.

However, social media engagement does not necessarily indicate that people agree with – or even think favourably of – a country. For example, the large following of the US embassy in Papua New Guinea could be due to recent controversies involving the mission there.

Some diplomatic missions also pay for extended social media reach through boosted posts. We also found examples of automated bots commenting on posts.

3. Focus on long-term, rather than short-term, engagement

The value of long-term engagement was illustrated in the US response to the Solomon Islands-China security agreement.

Senior US officials immediately flew to Honiara, without having had a diplomatic presence there for 29 years. Sudden, overtly self-serving engagement is seldom effective.

Soft power comes in many forms, such as media broadcasts, scholarships, church networks, sports tournaments, language training and cultural exchanges. Many of these are often overlooked by analysts, who tend to focus on more quantifiable tools of “statecraft”, such as aid, loans, infrastructure projects and security assistance.

Scroll down and click on scholarship initiatives to show locations.

But this misses the long-term value of soft power initiatives. These have the potential to shape the beliefs, attitudes and opinions of communities in ways that are harder to immediately identify, but often more influential.

4. Distinguish between announcement and implementation

In 2020, news broke that China had agreed to a A$204 million deal with Papua New Guinea to establish a fishery industrial park project on Daru Island.

Concerned the facility would give China a foothold only a few kilometres from its shores, Australia quickly signed a A$30 million agreement with PNG for an “economic empowerment program” on Daru.

Since 2020, there has been no substantive progress on the Chinese project. But it’s unlikely Australia’s reaction influenced this. While the pandemic may have delayed things, the more plausible explanation is that the project was an “outlandishly ambitious” “mirage” that will “never eventuate”.

Any development initiative on Daru Island — long a neglected region — is welcome. But the speed of Australia’s reaction exemplified how the significance of such an announcement can be misinterpreted.

5. Make sure the right country gets the credit

The US, Australia and its partners frequently subcontract the delivery of their programs in the Pacific to nongovernmental organisations and private contractors. Even Australian policing and justice assistance is increasingly coordinated by private contractors.

But as some Pacific islanders have told us, with so much American and Australian assistance provided by other organisations, it’s often unclear where it comes from.

And sometimes credit goes to the wrong party. Many infrastructure projects are funded by institutions such as the Asian Development Bank. Though much of the bank’s funding comes from Australia (A$11.31 billion) and the US (US$26.9 billion), the projects themselves are often built by Chinese state-owned enterprises.

So, China receives the credit – and the reputational and relationship boosts that come with it.

More proactive statecraft can help in this regard. But whether these influence attempts succeed will be determined by Pacific countries themselves. And these countries aren’t passive: they are attempting to influence their partners in return.

Joanne Wallis receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Defence. This activity is supported by the Australian Government through a grant by the Australian Department of Defence. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Department of Defence.

Henrietta McNeill receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence.

Michael Rose is a research associate at the University of Adelaide working on a project that is funded by the Australian Department of Defense.

Alan Tidwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How are global powers engaging with the Pacific? And who is most effective? These 5 maps provide a glimpse – https://theconversation.com/how-are-global-powers-engaging-with-the-pacific-and-who-is-most-effective-these-5-maps-provide-a-glimpse-213768

Someone has told you they’re self-harming. Now what?

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Penelope Hasking, Professor of Psychology, Curtin University

For many people, self-harm can be a difficult behaviour to understand. It also comes with a lot of stigma.

This can make talking about it difficult as people who self-harm often anticipate negative responses and judgement.

But if someone tells you they’re self-harming, how you respond is critical to their health and wellbeing.

What is self-harm? Why do people do it?

The term self-harm could mean someone’s intentional damage to their body as a way of coping or an attempt to end their life. But we think these are very different behaviours.

So we prefer the term self-injury to describe the range of non-suicidal behaviours people use mostly to cope with difficult feelings (such as intense distress or anxiety) and thinking styles (for instance, self-criticism).

Self-injury is common. About one in six adolescents report having self-injured at some point in the past.

But no two people’s experiences are alike. And people self-injure for many reasons other than to cope. This includes to punish themselves or to feel something when feeling emotionally numb.

So, if someone tells you they self-injure, it is critical to avoid assuming why they do it.

Telling someone is a big step

Given its associated stigma, many people who self-injure do not tell anyone. When they disclose, it is usually to friends or family.

When disclosing to friends or family, someone values the quality of the relationship, disclosing to people they trust. They may not be seeking tangible aid (for instance, professional support). Instead, they are looking for social support, understanding, and a safe space to talk about their experiences.

Someone with more severe self-injury, or who also has suicidal thoughts or behaviours, is more likely to disclose their self-injury, perhaps as a way of accessing professional or medical support.

What not to do

When someone tells you they self-injure, you may feel concerned about their safety and wellbeing. You might be upset someone you care about appears to be struggling. You might feel overwhelmed and unsure how to respond. These and other reactions are understandable and expected.

But it is important not to over-react or respond with high-intensity emotions. This can signal you are uncomfortable, which may make the person less likely to talk.

It is also not advised to ask a large number of questions (such as, what they do, when they do it) as this can seem like an interrogation.

Another common reaction is to stress the importance of stopping self-injury. Although this is usually because they care for the person and want them to be safe, a problem-solving approach may not be what people need. The person disclosing may simply want a chance to share their experience.

Many people have mixed feelings about stopping – wanting to stop self-injury, but also wanting to hold onto a trusted coping strategy.

What to do

If someone discloses they self-injure, it is important to respond supportively, with compassion, and without judgement. It is important to give the person space to share what they want in their own words, to actively listen, and to validate this is likely a difficult conversation for them.

It is also important to recognise someone may share a bit about their experience now but may not be ready to talk about everything yet. Being patient is therefore important.

Telling someone you are there to listen and support them can go a long way in letting them know they can come to you again if they need to and they are not being rushed or pressured if they are not yet ready.

Close up of a person holding another person's hand, on their knee — Disclosure may happen over several conversations.
charnsitr/Shutterstock

What can I say?

To support someone who discloses they self-injure, we recommend using a low key, compassionate tone that communicates you are concerned and are there to listen without judgement.

This involves acknowledging self-injury can be a difficult topic to discuss. You can say:

I recognise this isn’t an easy conversation. However, I appreciate you’re willing to share and I’d like to understand what it’s been like for you lately.

Part of this can also involve a “respectful curiosity”. This involves communicating a genuine interest in a person’s experience. You can say:

I know people self-injure for different reasons. I’m wondering if you can help me understand what self-injury does for you?

Recognise self-injury is often not something someone can just stop. This can go a long way in making the person not feel judged and therefore more likely to talk about it. You can say:

I can appreciate self-injury has been helpful to you, which I can see would make it pretty difficult to stop right now.

Finally, it is important to take care of yourself. Supporting someone who self-injures can take its toll. Be sure to take notice of how you are feeling. It is OK to tell someone you need a break right now and to find some time to look after yourself.

What can I expect?

If a person discloses their self-injury, take the time to listen to what they are saying, and what support they need right now.

While learning someone self-injures can be challenging, you may find that not only can you support the person, it can bring you closer and strengthen your relationship.

People who self-injure and those who support them can find more information from the following resources: the book Understanding Self-Injury: A Person-Centered Approach; the Self-injury Outreach & Support website; and resources in 11 languages from the International Consortium on Self-Injury in Educational Settings. If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Someone has told you they’re self-harming. Now what? – https://theconversation.com/someone-has-told-you-theyre-self-harming-now-what-213983

Gonski for universities: what if we funded higher education like schools?

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Hurley, Director, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

The Australian Universities Accord is a major review of Australian universities.

Its proposals promise to have a huge impact on how Australia’s higher education system will function in years to come.

Education Minister Jason Clare has made equity a top priority for the accord. This means increasing opportunities for disadvantaged groups to attend university and finish their degrees.

In its interim report in July, the review panel suggested a “needs-based” funding model could be used for Australian universities, similar to what we have to determine school funding.

With a final accord report due in December, our new paper explores how this might work.

What is needs-based funding?

Australia currently has a needs-based model for schools. This was introduced as part of the “Gonski” reforms a decade ago and is called the “Schooling Resources Standard”.

This involves a base amount for every primary and high school student and then six equity loadings. The loadings provide more funds to schools and students who need more support, including students with disabilities, low English language proficiency, First Nations students, students with socio-educational disadvantage, students in regional and remote areas, and small schools.

The accord review panel said a needs-based model, similar to our current school one, has

potential benefits […] for learning and teaching in universities [which] takes into takes into account the costs of different courses and the socio-economic mix of students at each institution.

As our paper notes, research evidence shows resources do matter. Many studies have shown increases in per-student funding, when properly targeted, can lead to improved or higher student outcomes.

At the moment, university funding is primarily based on a student’s field of study. There are some extra funds for equity students, about A$360 million a year, but this is not a key feature of the system’s design.

How might it apply to universities?

In our paper we explored what would happen if a model similar the Schooling Resource Standard was introduced in Australian universities.

We found a needs-based funding model, using the same parameters as the Schooling Resource Standard, would see an overall 11% increase in base funding amounts to universities for government-funded students. We estimate this would mean about an extra A$1.3 billion per year in federal government funding.

Importantly, universities with large enrolments of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds would gain the most. Under our system, James Cook University, the University of New England and CQUniversity would receive more than a 30% increase in base funding. Charles Darwin University and Charles Sturt University would gain more than 20% in base funding.

The University of Canberra, University of Melbourne and Australian National University, the University of Notre Dame and University of Sydney would stand to gain the least, with an increase of 5–6% in base funding.

This extra funding would specifically help universities counter disadvantage by meeting extra learning needs and providing extra support to help students finish their courses.

We know universities with a higher proportion of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds have poorer completion rates.

Could international student fees make university funding more equal?

A needs-based model could also help with other policy challenges.

The interim report has already suggested a levy on lucrative international student fees. The idea is universities would pay some of the fees they receive from international students into a central fund managed by the government.

As we have noted before, prestigious metropolitan universities tend to attract far more international students than other universities.

The idea of a levy has been criticised by researchers as complicated and risky.

But a needs-based model could help. International student income could be used to adjust funding to universities using a concept like the “capacity to contribute” mechanism in the school sector.

For private schools, a “capacity to contribute” score is calculated using parents’ income. This means independent schools with more advantaged students receive less funding from the government. These schools typically charge higher fees to families.

This model could be applied in higher education so universities with higher international student revenue relative to domestic student revenue receive less government funding.

Remaining questions

In our report, we find a needs-based model is promising. But significant questions remain:

how should equity be measured within each loading category, and what should be the relative weighting of funding for each group?
what should students contribute in a needs-based funding model?
what formula should we use for a “capacity to contribute” measure?
Could there be a needs-based funding model that doesn’t increase overall funding?

Our research also found needs-based funding models are very technical. Much more work is required to make sure it would be appropriate for Australia’s higher education sector.

The Universities Accord was right to identify needs-based funding as a policy direction, but it is only the first step towards a new model.

– ref. Gonski for universities: what if we funded higher education like schools? – https://theconversation.com/gonski-for-universities-what-if-we-funded-higher-education-like-schools-216898

Homeowners often feel better about life than renters, but not always – whether you are mortgaged matters

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University

Homeownership has long been thought of as the great Australian dream. For individuals, it’s seen as the path to adulthood and prosperity. For the nation, it’s seen as a cornerstone of economic and social policy.

Implicit in this is the assumption that owning a home rather than renting one makes people better off.

It’s an assumption we are now able to examine using data from the government-funded Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, which for two decades has asked questions both about homeownership and satisfaction with life.

The overarching question asks

all things considered, how satisfied are you with your life? Pick a number between 0 and 10 to indicate how satisfied you are

We also looked at people’s satisfaction with their financial situation, their home and the neighbourhood in which they live.

In a study published in the journal Urban Studies, we linked those answers to home ownership and characteristics including age and income.

As expected, we found homeowners were generally more satisfied with their lives than renters. But we also find the extent to which they were more satisfied depended on whether or not they were still paying off a mortgage.

Mortgaged homeowners about as satisfied as renters

Outright home owners were 1.5 times as likely to report high overall satisfaction as renters. But home owners still paying off a mortgage were only a little more likely to feel high overall satisfaction.

Similarly, outright owners were 2.3 times as likely to report high financial satisfaction as renters – but mortgaged owners were only 1.1 times as likely.

When it comes to satisfaction with their home and neighbourhood, the differences were less extreme.

Outright home owners were 3.1 times as likely to report high satisfaction with their home as renters, while mortgaged owners were 2.8 times as likely.

Outright owners were 1.6 times as likely to report high satisfaction with their neighbourhood as renters, and mortgaged owners 1.4 times as likely.

The results also varied with age and income.

As shown in the graph above, outright owners were more likely to report high financial satisfaction than renters across almost the entire age range.

But mortgaged owners only showed a demonstrably greater financial satisfaction than renters between the ages of 25 and 50.

Beyond age 50, the existence of a mortgage debt burden appeared to cancel out any boost to financial satisfaction from homeownership. This potentially reflects the growing financial stress of making mortgage payments as retirement approaches.

By income, mortgaged owners reported experiencing more financial satisfaction compared to renters the more they earned between A$80,000 and A$240,000. Outright owners experienced more financial satisfaction than renters up to A$320,000.

Beyond these income levels, owners did not have greater financial satisfaction than renters, perhaps because high-earning renters have other sources of financial satisfaction.

How satisfied people feel beyond 60

In other respects, outright owners and mortgaged homeowners showed similar patterns, becoming more satisfied with their homes relative to renters the more they age up – until the age of 60. That’s when their satisfaction relative to renters declined, as illustrated below.

This decline might reflect the growing physical burden of maintaining an owned home as people age.

Our study has important implications. One is that age matters.

Although older people consistently express a desire to age in place, we found satisfaction among those who owned vs rented their home declined beyond age 60. This suggests better integration between housing and care is critical to support people ageing in place.

Another implication is that as low-income owners are more reliant on their homes as a source of relative financial satisfaction than high earners, they are more exposed in times of crisis. They may face the risk of being forced to sell suddenly with little time to consider the consequences.

And another implication is as the relative financial satisfaction of mortgage holders disappears after the age of 50, and as more of us approach retirement with mortgages intact, more of us will either postpone retirement or become dissatisfied.

Our findings suggest the extension of mortgage debt into later life should be discouraged if the benefits of the Australian dream are to be preserved.

Rachel Ong ViforJ is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project FT200100422).

Hiroaki Suenaga and Ryan Brierty do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Homeowners often feel better about life than renters, but not always – whether you are mortgaged matters – https://theconversation.com/homeowners-often-feel-better-about-life-than-renters-but-not-always-whether-you-are-mortgaged-matters-215147

Roald Dahl, time-bending crime, and queer pirate comedy: the best of streaming this November

By The Conversation -

November 6, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis Altman, VC Fellow, La Trobe University

October has somehow slid into November and pretty soon, the silly season will be upon us.

Before the madness hits, however, there’s still time to get some serious streaming study under your belt, so you’ll be completely up to date if anyone at an end-of-year party asks if you’ve watched anything good lately.

Here are our authors’ picks of the best of November streaming.

Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl short films

Netflix

Wes Anderson’s latest work involves four short films based on Roald Dahl stories, in some of the most literal and faithful Dahl adaptations ever put on screen.

Dahl (played by Ralph Fiennes) becomes an onscreen character and narrator. The sight of Dahl talking directly to camera in his famous writing chair is somewhat uneasy. Which Dahl will we see? The bigot? Beloved children’s author?

In truth we see neither in the character – but rather manifestations of both in the films themselves.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the most joyous in both style and story. From the altruistic Henry Sugar things significantly go darker. The Swan is about a boy victimised to merciless bullying; The Rat Catcher involves a man who kills a rat with his teeth.

The final and most confronting is Poison. Englishman Harry Pope in British-ruled India believes he has a poisonous krait snake asleep with him in his bed. When this is proven incorrect, local physician Dr Ganderbai is subjected to Harry’s racial slurs. It is an ugly and unexpected moment provoking the doctor to leave in stunned silence.

From the first film of its vivid colours and altruistic themes to the bleak finale of Poison, it feels as if Anderson is making a statement about the difficulties regarding Dahl and his cultural legacy.

In the process he has produced some of his most challenging, complex and intriguing films to date.

– Stephen Gaunson

Scrublands

Stan from November 16 (Australia), NZ TV3 (New Zealand)

Sunday morning service has drawn to a close and the congregation mill around in the sunshine. Many talk glowingly of Father Swift’s charity work, while others on the perimeter of the gathering, bearded and barrel chested, glower from beneath peak caps.

Father Swift emerges from the weatherboard church in his vestments, raises an assault rifle to his shoulder and calmly shoots dead five of his flock. They are all men.

Journalist Martin Scarsden (Luke Arnold), stuck for words and shielding his own tragedy, is sent to the bush town, Riversend. He’s there to write a piece 12 months on from the mysterious random slaying by the priest.

Here, Scarsden sets about unravelling the murder mystery in search of the truth. The tale takes us from international war crime investigation to local drug manufacturing and distribution, a love child, more murders and implosion of the colonial patriarch.

Landscape is a less dominant theme in Scrublands than more recent bush town crime dramas, such as Mystery Road. Racism and colonial history is covered but is not a leading theme.

Based on the novel by Chris Hammer, the limited series (four episodes) is well worth watching. Scrublands is an Easy Tiger production co-commissioned by Stan and the 9Network, in association with VicScreen and stars Luke Arnold, Bella Heathcote and Jay Ryan.

– Heidi Norman

Orange Thrower

Australian Theatre Live, australiantheatre.live

Orange Thrower is a powerful exploration of the experience of “otherness” and what it’s like to exist on the margins.

This play, staged by Griffin Theatre Company and the National Theatre of Parramatta, is set in a fictional suburb called Paradise filled with nosy, prying neighbours.

Zadie (Gabriela Van Wyk) is a young South African woman growing up in Australia. The sudden arrival of troubled and energetic cousin Stekkie (Zindzi Okenyo) from Johannesberg disrupts Zadie’s carefully controlled world, where she attempts to walk unnoticed among the community. Despite her attempts to assimilate, Zadie’s home is being regularly pelted by oranges by some unknown vandal.

The exploration of young love, of gender, of joy and resistance makes for a visceral performance work by Kirsty Marillier – an exciting new Australian voice in theatre.

The storytelling form of Orange Thrower and the spatial realisation of the work are complex and compelling choices. As an audience member watching a digital rendering of live performance, it takes time to sit with this work and understand its nuance and intention.

The performances, especially by Van Wyk, are exceptional. Throughout the work, Marillier exploits the tensions between simplicity and its potential to obscure profound complexities and challenges.

This digital release marks the start of a staggered release of six Griffin Theatre Company productions from Australian Theatre Live, allowing an international audience to experience the magic of Australian stories from the comfort of their homes.

– Sarah Austin

Bodies

Netflix

The premise of Bodies is extraordinary. The body of a naked man, shot through the eye, is discovered in London’s East End. The same body is discovered over 160 years by four detectives, who are caught in an increasingly complex plot to destroy the world as we know it.

Bodies is based on a graphic novel by Si Spencer and the filming recalls its origins in the use of split screens and constant jumps across time periods.

Unsurprisingly the contemporary detective, Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) does most to hold the story together, but over the eight episodes all four have striking, if somewhat didactic, backstories.

1890s detective, Alfred Hillinghead, is a closeted homosexual, caught between family and lover; in the 1940s Charles Whiteman is a Jew surrounded by anti-Semitic colleagues.

The scenes in 2053 are the least convincing, positing as they do a post-apocalyptic regime under the rule of Elias Mannix, whom we first encounter as a teenager who detonates the bomb which makes his future rule possible.

Bodies is melodramatic, absurd, beautifully acted and strangely compelling. The motto of the new world, Know you are loved, becomes both trite but surprisingly touching. Suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.

– Dennis Altman

Our Flag Means Death (Season 2)

Binge (Australia), Neon (New Zealand)

The deliciously queer pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death dropped its entire second season in October.

Where parts of season one felt a bit like a convoluted gag, this season confidently balances emotional depth with hilarity and deadpan absurdity.

We ended on a breakup when dandy Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), the self-styled Gentleman Pirate, failed to make a rendezvous with Ed (Taika Waititi), aka Blackbeard, after they had finally declared their love.

Here, Ed descends into abject villainy and must then seek redemption, and Stede must atone for his betrayal, while also becoming, perhaps, a halfway decent pirate.

This season, filmed in and around Auckland, is much bigger in scope. The cinematography is lush and spacious. The production design is impressive. The already large ensemble cast expands further into a motley, (mostly) lovable found family; local audiences also can play “spot the Kiwi”.

Across eight episodes full of unexpected, absurd highlights – not least a dream sequence in which Rhys Darby appears as a merman – Con O’Neill offers an Emmy-worthy turn as ferocious first mate Izzy, becoming the season’s unexpected heart.

Through the crew’s various escapades, dalliances, failures, and victories, a clear theme emerges: how do you have good relationships? How do you live authentically when the structures around you are toxic?

The answer, and it’s no spoiler, is kindness.

– Erin Harrington

– ref. Roald Dahl, time-bending crime, and queer pirate comedy: the best of streaming this November – https://theconversation.com/roald-dahl-time-bending-crime-and-queer-pirate-comedy-the-best-of-streaming-this-november-215525

Can we eat our way through an exploding sea urchin problem?

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Keane, Research Fellow (Dive Fisheries), University of Tasmania

John Keane on an extensive urchin barren John Keane, CC BY-ND

Longspined sea urchins are native to temperate waters around New South Wales. But as oceans heat up, their range has expanded more than 650km, through eastern Victoria and south to Tasmania. Their numbers are exploding in the process, clear-felling kelp forests and leaving “urchin barrens” behind.

The species (Centrostephanus rodgersii) is now the single largest and most urgent threat to kelp forests along the southeastern coast of Australia’s Great Southern Reef.

What can we do? Here’s one excellent solution: eat their roe, a buttery delicacy that can fetch hundreds of dollars per kilogram. Tasmania already has a government-backed urchin fishery. When combined with a mix of other tools, as outlined in our submission to the invasive marine species Senate inquiry, harvesting urchins can put the brakes on this overabundant, range-extending marine species.

Today, the Senate handed down its findings, identifying investment in commercial harvesting as a frontline climate-ready tool to combat the urchin. It presents a win-win opportunity by maximising socioeconomic and environmental returns for kelp ecosystems, while lessening the ongoing cost of control.

Strategies for urchin control.

Dealing with urchins is urgent

Almost 200 marine species have been documented shifting range in Australian seas as climate change heats the oceans. But longspined sea urchins are the most damaging so far.

The waters along hundreds of kilometres of coastline have now warmed above a winter average of 12°C. This is the temperature at which urchin larvae can develop during spawning. The ocean is warming faster than land, heating at a rate of 4°C per century.

The Senate inquiry shows the government is listening. The inquiry and accompanying five-year plan for control methods are based on more than two decades of scientific research.

The tragedy of the barrens

Urchins chew through entire forests of kelp. Once the big kelp is gone, they switch to feeding on tiny encrusting seaweeds that can regrow rapidly and persist in the face of intensive grazing. This creates “hyper-stable” urchin barrens.

The damage is dramatic, with the local loss of hundreds of kelp-associated species ranging from valuable abalone to the iconic leafy seadragon.

Barrens in southern NSW, eastern Victoria and Tasmania can now be measured in the scale of kilometres, with whole reefs turned into underwater deserts.

They expand fast, too. In Tasmania, early sightings off the northeast in 1978 have turned into a population estimated at 20 million around the eastern coastline. Barren areas now cover 15% of Tasmanian reefs. If left unchecked, 50% of reef habitat could be lost by the 2030s, as we’ve seen in southern NSW and eastern Victoria.

diver in a kelp forest looking for sea urchins — Research divers assessing sea urchin spread off St Helens in Tasmania’s northeast.
Matt Testoni

Correcting an imbalance of nature

Rock lobsters are a natural predator of urchins. They boost kelp bed resilience and even prevent barren expansion in some areas off limits to lobster fisheries.

The Tasmanian East Coast Rock Lobster Rebuilding Strategy focuses on rebuilding stocks to help combat the urchin. However, the lobsters’ strong preference for local prey such as abalone, their negligible capacity to rehabilitate extensive barrens once urchins reach hyperabundance, and high recreational and commercial fisheries value, constrains the scale of effectiveness.

Another option is culling, where divers kill urchins underwater. The upshot is that kelp can grow back quickly, within just 18 months, if all visible urchins are culled. But it’s extremely expensive and urchins can reemerge, meaning culling needs to be ongoing.

An affordable, scalable, long-term solution?

Yes. Make it profitable. The main game here isn’t the urchins themselves but their roe, known as “uni” in Japan. Urchin roe is a delicacy, renowned for its sweet, buttery, umami flavours and bright golden colour. Premium roe returns top dollar in markets from across South East Asia, the United States and the Middle East.

If commercial fisheries are viable, we can remove vast quantities of urchins from reefs in a low-cost urchin control program over large areas.

But there are challenges here too. Extracting the roe is labour-intensive. Roe quality can vary greatly, dropping as overgrazing ensues. To date, infrastructure, access to markets, and detailed knowledge of processing techniques has been a limiting factor.

A commercial diver bags a haul of sea urchins destined for international markets — A commercial diver removes a haul of sea urchins destined for international markets.
Matt Testoni

Tasmania is showing it can be done. In 2018, the state government invested in a fledgling urchin fishery in conjunction with the abalone industry by offering harvest subsidies.

These gave urchin processors the financial certainty to invest. In a few years, annual urchin fishery yields have grown from 40 tonnes to 500 tonnes, all harvested by hand by divers.

To date, the fishery has created more than 100 jobs and boosted regional economies. It’s starting to work too. The fishery has not only slowed the expansion of urchin barrens, but allowed recovery of kelp habitats in some heavily fished areas.

Expanding urchin fisheries

Tasmania’s example shows the potential of fishery-led control of overabundant, problematic species. Making the most of it means adding value, such as by expanding the international market, developing new uses for low-grade urchin roe and selling waste products. If it’s more profitable, divers will be able to travel farther from port and fish down urchin stocks.

We can also direct fishery efforts for better urchin control by offering subsidies to fish high priority areas.

Other states hit hard by urchins too, such as Victoria, could benefit from control-by-fishery.

Achieving national, widespread urchin control will require challenging coordination. We need to:

support dive fisheries to become the heavy lifter of urchin control
add extra urchin control measures on high-value reefs
begin restoring degraded barrens to a mosaic of urchin fisheries or kelp forests
boost populations of urchin predators on healthy reefs, to increase resilience in the first place.

Photo showing a healthy kelp ecosystem — Healthy kelp ecosystems are vital for abalone.
Matt Testoni

If we do this right, Australia’s control of the longspined sea urchin could be a global exemplar of climate-ready management of overabundant and range extending species, boosting rural economies and social wellbeing. As species keep moving, finding low- or zero-cost control measures will be essential to keeping ecosystems intact.

Controlling troublesome species is often seen as a major cost to government. Our work and the work of many others has shown it doesn’t have to be. Creating viable urchin fisheries turns a cost into a benefit.

John Keane receives funding from the Fisheries Research Development Corporation and the Tasmanian Government.

Scott Ling receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Can we eat our way through an exploding sea urchin problem? – https://theconversation.com/can-we-eat-our-way-through-an-exploding-sea-urchin-problem-214389

National drops 2 seats on NZ final results, and will need NZ First to form government

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

The final results of the October 14 New Zealand election have been released.

The National Party has won a total of 48 seats (down two from the preliminary election night results), Labour has won 34 (remaining steady), the Green Party has won 15 (up one), ACT has won 11 (steady), NZ First has won eight (steady) and te Pāti Māori/the Māori party has won six seats (up two).

These results mean National will need both ACT and NZ First to secure a ruling majority.

The parliamentary overhang

Based on the preliminary results, te Pāti Māori captured four electorate seats, producing a one-seat overhang. This happens when a party wins more electorate seats than it would be entitled to with its party vote. On election night, te Pāti Māori was entitled to just three seats given its small share of the overall party vote.

But the final vote count gave te Pāti Māori two more seats after the party overturned narrow Labour leads in two Māori electorates (one by just four votes). Te Pāti Māori’s party vote also increased to 3.1%, entitling it to a fourth seat. This means there is a two-seat parliamentary overhang.

These results mean the size of parliament will be 122 seats, up from the normal 120. It will take 62 seats for a majority.

Even if National wins the November 25 by-election for Port Waikato, as is expected, National and ACT combined will have 60 of the now 123 seats, two short of a majority.

Comparison with 2020 election

This election marked a big swing from the 2020 results. National has increased its number of MPs by 15, while Labour has lost 31. The Greens gained five MPs, ACT gained one and NZ First gained eight – returning to parliament after falling below the 5% threshold in 2020. Te Pāti Māori has four additional MPs.

There was also a big shift in the party vote. National won 38.1% of the party vote (up 12.5%), Labour won 26.9% (down 23.1%), the Greens won 11.6% (up 3.7%), ACT won 8.6% (up 1.1%), NZ First won 6.1% (up 3.5%) and te Pāti Māori won 3.1% (up 1.9%).

In my previous analyses I have grouped National and ACT as right-wing parties, while Labour, the Greens and te Pāti Māori are left-wing parties. I have not counted NZ First with either bloc. It supported the Labour government in 2017, and has sided with both major parties in the past.

By this formulation, the right coalition defeated the left by 5.1% in this election, a reversal of a 25.9% win for the left in 2020.

Polls understated right

The polls ahead of the election consistently underestimated the popularity of the right-wing parties.

The first graph below shows all polls since March.

The second graph shows the polls since late August, when there was a clear trend back to the left.

The most accurate polls were the Talbot Mills poll, the Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union and the Verian/Kantar poll for 1 News, but all three still understated the right’s margin over the left. Morgan, Essential and Reid Research all had the left ahead in their final polls.

Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. National drops 2 seats on NZ final results, and will need NZ First to form government – https://theconversation.com/national-drops-2-seats-on-nz-final-results-and-will-need-nz-first-to-form-government-215995

Sam Bankman-Fried convicted for massive FTX fraud, in stark reminder of risks of crypto trading

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

It is not just crypto tokens that have spectacular downfalls. So can crypto personalities.

Sam Bankman-Fried founded FTX, one of the world’s largest exchanges for so-called cryptocurrencies, which collapsed last year owing billions of dollars. Now he has gone from being hailed as potentially the world’s first trillionaire to a lengthy term in prison.

After a month-long trial, a New York jury took less than five hours to find him guilty on seven counts of fraud and money laundering.

Bankman-Fried’s conviction highlights the risks of crypto markets, where people trade tokens with no fundamental value via hugely complex and poorly regulated financial machinery.

The Australian government is currently considering how to protect consumers in such markets. Treasury has commenced a consultation process. But it will not be an easy task when so much of the activity occurs overseas or in cyberspace.

FTX was not fine

Bankman-Fried chose to testify in his own defence. But he failed to convince the jury he was merely a maths nerd with a poor memory who was unaware of what his friends and colleagues were doing with the companies in which he was the largest stakeholder.

In FTX’s final days, as concerned customers started withdrawing their deposits, Bankman-Fried tweeted “FTX is fine. Assets are fine”. It appears the jury did not accept he truly believed this at the time.

The verdict is a salutary warning about the dangers of unregulated financial markets such as crypto. As the former chair of the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority put it, fraud is “a feature, not a bug” for much of the industry.

Crypto tokens such as Bitcoin have no underlying assets to give them some fundamental value. They only generate a return if the owner can sell at a higher price, to someone who expects the price to go even higher. This makes them one of the purest examples of a speculative bubble.

No government

One of the ironies of the crypto market is that cryptocurrency is sold as a way to avoid having to trust governments or banks, as one does with traditional currency. But in practice, crypto trading often relies on trusting individuals – some of them charlatans such as Bankman-Fried.

Punters thought they could trust FTX to mind their funds for them while they switched between speculative crypto tokens such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin. They were not investing in FTX, or even lending their money to it.

But instead of letting customers’ funds sit around waiting to be withdrawn, FTX transferred a lot of them to another company, Alameda Research. This was an investment fund, poorly run by Bankman-Fried and his cronies.

It is still not clear what happened to all the missing billions. Some of the money was frittered away on extravagant living. Some went to pay celebrities for advertisements and endorsements, such as the famous Super Bowl clip starring comedian Larry David. At least David can say he was warning people against “getting into crypto”.

Some of the missing cash went on large political donations. Much was lost on poor bets by Alameda which failed to hedge against the risk that the price of crypto tokens could quickly plummet.

FTX was essentially a casino. But Bankman-Fried both owned the casino and was gambling in it – and gambling with other people’s chips.

Prison looms

Bankman-Fried is still proclaiming his innocence. But he looks likely to be in prison for decades.

He will find out how long on March 28 2024. It could be more than a century if he receives the maximum penalty on all the counts on which he has been convicted. And he may yet face further charges.

John Hawkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sam Bankman-Fried convicted for massive FTX fraud, in stark reminder of risks of crypto trading – https://theconversation.com/sam-bankman-fried-convicted-for-massive-ftx-fraud-in-stark-reminder-of-risks-of-crypto-trading-216991

The fury on show at the Qantas AGM couldn’t have come at a worse time for the airline

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Wastnage, Adjunct Industry Fellow, Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University

Fielding tough questions from a furious audience is no one’s idea of fun. But as Richard Goyder and Vanessa Hudson – Qantas chairman and chief executive, respectively – dealt with angry question after angry question at the airline’s annual general meeting today, the pair knew their main audience was not those in the room. It was, in fact, the decision-makers in Canberra.

The AGM comes at a critical time for the national carrier. The federal government is considering a suite of aviation policy reforms, many of which Qantas would rather stay unreformed.

Qantas can ill afford further damage to its public image now.

Shareholder and community anger

Qantas had a good year financially, as demonstrated by its A$2.47 billion full-year profits. But consumers are less happy.

These profits have been delivered in part by rapidly rising air fares.

The Qantas board has also had to deal with anger on executive remuneration, especially around former chief executive Alan Joyce’s multimillion-dollar payout.

This rage over executive pay was on full display at today’s AGM, when 83% of shareholders voted against Qantas’ remuneration report for the 2023 financial year. Reported as “one of the biggest strikes ever recorded in corporate history”, it is a clear rejection Joyce’s payout.

Qantas has also had to manage allegations it sold tickets for flights it knew had been cancelled, on top of a suite of PR disasters around flight delays and lost luggage issues.

The aviation white paper and Qantas’s optics problem

The federal government released a new green paper on aviation policy in September and is consulting stakeholders, ahead of publishing a new white paper on aviation policy next year.

There are several contentious areas of policy Qantas would prefer to remain unchanged.

The white paper panel will no doubt also take into account public sentiment. Optics matter in politics, and so Federal Transport Minister Catherine King and her department would have been taking the pulse of today’s AGM.

The anger on show from shareholders – with Goyder facing jeers, boos and cries of “shame on you!” – can’t have helped Qantas’s optics.

Any political advisor watching would likely caution the government that now is not a good time to be seen cosying up to the airline.

The 2024 aviation white paper (itself a sequel to Anthony Albanese’s 2009 aviation white paper while he was transport minister) aims to set a new aviation policy framework out to 2050.

Unlike its predecessor, it will take into account consumer and worker rights – so the angry scenes at today’s meeting will not help Qantas in its efforts to stave off the kind of regulation being discussed in the aviation white paper.

Mandatory compensation

One policy under consideration is the idea of mandatory compensation for flight cancellations and delays.

For almost 20 years, air travellers flying from European Union airports have been able to access a guaranteed compensation scheme that is tiered according to length of delay and inconvenience.

Airlines in Europe fought the introduction of the mechanism in 2004. It’s unlikely Qantas would welcome such policies in Australia either.

Bilateral air service agreements

Another issue on the table is the negotiation of bilateral air service agreements. These agreements between nation states govern the number of flights between countries, but are seen as archaic in many other OECD countries.

In their place, “open skies” agreements allow unfettered access to foreign carriers and often deliver lower fares to consumers.

Qantas and Virgin Australia both rely on a bilateral air service agreement with the United Arab Emirates for the bulk of their international connections. This agreement still has ample expansion room, but the agreement with neighbouring Qatar is already at capacity.

The seemingly opaque way in which the application by Qatar to enlarge this quota was denied by the federal government angered many in the industry. It led to a senate committee inquiry.

Indeed, a freedom-of-information request was required to discover the decision was, in part, linked to the treatment of women strip-searched at Doha airport in 2020.

It’s likely the government will reform the way these bilateral service agreements are negotiated (at least to add greater transparency).

Goyder and Hudson wanted the focus at today’s AGM to be partly on their plan to boost non-stop international flights, all of which hinge on bilateral service agreements with European countries. So Qantas may be nervous about any proposed changes to the negotiation process that make it easier for their would-be rivals to also expand services.

Greater competition monitoring

The white paper panel is also considering greater monitoring of competition in air transport.

Airports operate as monopolies in their cities and are regulated as such. Airlines, on the other hand, operate in a competitive landscape.

But the playing field is not level for all airlines and potential entrants, not least because capacity restraints such as takeoff and landing slots can be engineered to favour incumbents. As such, Qantas would no doubt prefer no reform in these areas.

So the terrible optics of today’s Qantas AGM come at a moment when it is very keen to mould the legislative landscape of aviation in its favour. In other words, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

As Goyder and Hudson fronted shareholders today, their promise to work harder to address customer concerns was aimed as much at Canberra as it was to the Melbourne audience.

Justin Wastnage was previously director of two industry groups, Aviation/Aerospace Australia and the Tourism & Transport Forum, which are both funded in part by Australian and international airlines and airports.

– ref. The fury on show at the Qantas AGM couldn’t have come at a worse time for the airline – https://theconversation.com/the-fury-on-show-at-the-qantas-agm-couldnt-have-come-at-a-worse-time-for-the-airline-216983

When Oregon decriminalised drugs, overdoses went up. Will that happen in the ACT?

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University

A new bill came into effect in the ACT at the weekend decriminalising personal possession of common illegal drugs.

The bill decriminalises the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and heroin for personal use.

Critics of the move say when similar laws were brought into effect in the US state of Oregon, overdose deaths went up. However, there was already an upward trend, and Oregon now has lower rates of death from overdose than most other US states.

Remind me again, what does decriminalisation mean?

Decriminalisation isn’t legalisation. With decriminalisation, drugs are still illegal, but the criminal penalties are removed. Instead, they usually attract a fine, a bit like a speeding fine.

The ACT will be the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise common illegal drugs. In this model, people will be diverted from police to attend a one-off health information session where a health worker assesses their wellbeing and the need for support or intervention. They provide education and harm-reduction information and make referrals to other services if needed.

Police will still confiscate illicit drugs they find on people. Drug dealing and trafficking are still criminal offences.

This system means people who are caught with small amounts of some drugs will be diverted away from the criminal justice system. Contact with the criminal justice system is one of the biggest harms from illicit drugs.

There’s no evidence enforcement-led solutions to personal drug use reduce use or harms. But having a criminal record can have a long-term impact on getting a job or secure housing, which can then increase the likelihood of further drug use. Current punishments in many states and territories include a possible prison sentence.

Policing of drug laws, and the justice system itself, disproportionately impacts Aboriginal people and other people of colour. Young people have been described as being traumatised and dehumanised by the use of drug dogs and strip searches by police.

The change is supported by decades of research and backed by major health and human rights organisations, such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Where else has decriminalised drugs?

We know from other jurisdictions that decriminalisation reduces harms from drugs and increases seeking help. Portugal is the most well-known case. It decriminalised all drugs more than 20 years ago and has seen significant reductions in drug deaths, crime and drug use.

But critics in Australia are concerned about the possible negative outcomes, pointing to problems in Oregon. The federal opposition unsuccessfully introduced a bill to overturn the ACT legislation.

In November 2020, Oregon passed Measure 110, which decriminalised the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. Instead of criminal charges, people are now given a US$100 (A$155) fine for possession, which is waived if they contact a support hotline.

After Portugal decriminalised personal drug use in 2001, there was a drop in drug-related deaths.

In the two years after Measure 110 passed, opioid overdose deaths in Oregon more than doubled.

Why did this happen in Oregon?

The purpose of decriminalisation is merely to reduce one of the biggest harms from illicit drugs: contact with the criminal justice system. It has certainly achieved that in Oregon, especially among Black Americans, who are over-represented in the criminal justice system.

In the year before Measure 110 was passed, overdose deaths in Oregon were already on the increase, up 69% on the previous year. Oregon was ranked second-highest of all US states for substance use disorders, and ranked last of 50 states for access to treatment.

Decriminalisation on its own isn’t intended to directly reduce use or overdoses. Portugal’s success in reducing use and other harms, such as overdoses, is likely more to do with the significant investment in treatment and support. And as Oregon continues the roll-out of treatment program funding, there are indications 2023 overdose death rates have come down, tracking at half the rate of the year before.

Oregon’s overdose death rate is now one of the lowest in the United States.

We know treatment is the most effective and cost-effective way to reduce use and harms. A study in California found for every $1 spent on drug treatment, the community saved $7 in other costs, primarily by reducing crime and increasing employment earnings.

Decriminalisation needs to be supported by treatment, support and evidence-based harm reduction measures, such as access to naloxone and drug checking.

Naloxone has been available for free with no prescription since July 2022 in Australia, and the Take Home Naloxone program will increase the availability of naloxone Australia-wide.

The Queensland government has given drug checking services the green light to start operating, and Canberra’s fixed-site drug checking service has been extended until December 2024. The service checked nearly 1,200 samples for their contents and provided more than 1,500 brief interventions in the first 12 months.

Will drug decriminalisation work in the ACT?

The ACT is Australia’s most progressive jurisdiction when it comes to drug laws. It removed criminal penalties from cannabis possession more than 30 years ago, and in 2019 it introduced a “home grown” model, removing all penalties for the use and possession of small amounts of homegrown cannabis for personal use.

It has the lowest rate of cannabis use in Australia. There has been no change in rates of cannabis use, drug driving offences or hospital presentations, and there has been a significant reduction in the number of Canberrans being exposed to the police and criminal justice system.

Ultimately, we won’t know the full impact of decriminalisation in the ACT until the bill has been implemented for some time. But evidence from places such as Portugal says it will increase diversion from the criminal justice system, improve access to treatment and harm reduction, and reduce stigma towards people who use drugs. To significantly reduce drug use itself, the ACT also needs to increase investment in drug treatment.

If you are worried about your own or someone else’s alcohol or other drug use, you can contact the National Alcohol and other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015 for free, confidential advice.

Nicole Lee is CEO at Hello Sunday Morning and also works as a consultant in the alcohol and other drug sector and a psychologist in private practice. She has previously been awarded funding by Australian and state governments, NHMRC and other bodies for evaluation and research into alcohol and other drug prevention and treatment.

– ref. When Oregon decriminalised drugs, overdoses went up. Will that happen in the ACT? – https://theconversation.com/when-oregon-decriminalised-drugs-overdoses-went-up-will-that-happen-in-the-act-216736

Is Now and Then really a Beatles song? The fab four always used technology to create new music

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jadey O’Regan, Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Co-author of "Hooks in Popular Music" (2022), University of Sydney

Over the past few weeks, Paul McCartney has been touring Australia to play through three hours of his musical legacy – from Beatles and Wings favourites to solo material, and some unexpected deep cuts.

A particularly moving pair of songs was the bookending of McCartney’s performance of In Spite of All the Danger (the first song the band recorded as The Quarrymen) and the performance of The End – one of the last songs the Beatles recorded together.

The encore featured I’ve Got a Feeling, in which McCartney and his late bandmate John Lennon “sang” together, performing alongside footage from the rooftop performance from the Get Back documentary. Hearing McCartney’s current vocals alongside Lennon’s from the 1960s was poignant for both the crowd and McCartney.

These moments of connection over the decades between McCartney and Lennon are made stronger by the release of the new, and last, Beatles single, Now and Then.

Now and Then is one of four songs from a Lennon demo cassette provided by Yoko Ono and given to Paul McCartney in 1994, with a handwritten title: For Paul. The remaining Beatles finished Lennon’s demos for Free as a Bird and Real Love for the Anthology release in 1995.

While these songs may have lacked a little of the original magic, with John’s voice sounding more distant and thin compared with Paul’s, the scarcity of new material allowed fans to embrace the songs, warts and all. At the time, Now and Then was deemed too tricky to complete, as John’s voice was buried in the mono mix of his home-recorded piano. It sat there for 28 years.

Fast forward to 2021 and a new AI tool developed by film-maker Peter Jackson to separate audio sources on Get Back could now be used on Lennon’s old demo. John’s voice is now clear, present, and free to be flown in seamlessly over any new arrangement.

It has a natural expression, captured in that not-overthought, early-demo moment.

George’s archived acoustic guitar take was added, with Paul providing updated piano, slide guitar and bass. Ringo added his distinctive feel remotely from Los Angeles.

Giles Martin, son of George, and keeper of the production flame, contributes a suitably Beatles-esque string arrangement that taps into many of his father’s well-loved stylistic traits.

There are insistent quarter-note pulsing rises, sitar-esque bends, and a final switch from four in a bar to three, reminiscent of The End from Abbey Road.

Is this a Beatles song?

Due to the use of AI tools to finish Now and Then, and the song having been recorded without the Beatles in a room together, some may ask “is this really a Beatles song?”.

After the release of Get Back, audiences were able to experience what it felt like to be in the room with the band, watching their ideas form, seeing them joke and laugh, and also the tensions that happen with a group of creative people who have experienced a lot together.

The four Beatles in front of Big Ben — ‘The fab four in a room, playing together, often seems essential to their sound.’
Shutterstock

Get Back is relevant here for many reasons.

The first film version of this footage Let it Be by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg was released briefly in 1970 with the album, and painted the last days of The Beatles as a dark, acrimonious time, and cemented Ono’s role as alleged “villain” in Beatles lore.

Jackson’s new version Get Back reframed fans’ perceptions of The Beatles’ breakup, the relationship of the surviving members, and their ongoing legacy. In the 1990s the Anthology film and albums captured a new generation of Britpop-loving Beatles fans, and the release of Get Back and Now and Then may do the same for another generation.

The fab four in a room, playing together, often seems essential to their sound. However, the Beatles were always fascinated by recording technology – from reversing tape loops in Taxman, to using Lennon’s voice through a Leslie speaker cabinet for Tomorrow Never Knows, to the musique-concrete Revolution 9, where the band cut a variety of tape loops and sounds together.

Using current music technology was always part of the band’s creativity, and with Now and Then, they are still engaging with technology to make new music, albeit in a slightly different way.

Will it be remembered as fondly as their other songs in the canon?

Perhaps – or perhaps not. But that is not the heart of this release.

John and George are gone, however, we still have Ringo and Paul with us to complete this new and final Beatles track.

Despite the time, distance and technology, Now and Then finishes a long and winding conversation that began in the early 1960s, and has now come to a thoughtful and musical end.

With time, it allows fans to reframe John’s love letter to Yoko as a message to Paul, the band, and even the fans.

Perhaps that will be its enduring value: “I know it’s true…And if I make it through, It’s all because of you”.

– ref. Is Now and Then really a Beatles song? The fab four always used technology to create new music – https://theconversation.com/is-now-and-then-really-a-beatles-song-the-fab-four-always-used-technology-to-create-new-music-216981

The UN is calling the Israel-Hamas war a ‘graveyard of children’. In an adult conflict, the young are suffering most

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick O’Leary, Professor, Co-Lead of the Disrupting Violence Beacon and Director of Violence Research and Prevention Program, Griffith Criminology Institute and School of Health Sciences and Social Work, Griffith University

Too often, it’s the most vulnerable who suffer most in the throes of war.

This remains true, with children accounting for many of the deaths and casualties in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Just this week there have been two bombings of the Jabalia Refugee Camp, a densely populated area of the Gaza strip home to many families with children.

International agencies are particularly worried. The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has said Gaza is turning into a “graveyard of children”.

The disproportionate effect on young people is not just resulting in devastating scenes right now. It will have long-term consequences.

A large toll on a young population

The median age of people in Gaza is just 18 years. Some 65% of the population is under 24.

To date, more than 41% of the 8,805 people killed in Gaza as of October 31 2023 are children, according to the UN.

Many people are missing, trapped under the rubble of destroyed homes. More than half of those missing are children.

Children account for more than 30% of those injured in Gaza, possibly indicating the low level of survival among children caught in the conflict.

These statistics echo previous research showing the disproportionate consequences on children in armed conflict.

But the violence against children has not been limited to Gaza.

Graphic accounts point to the killing of numerous Israeli children in the Hamas attacks on October 7.

Scores of young people were killed at a music festival.

At least 33 of the estimated 240 Israeli hostages taken by Hamas are thought to be children, including babies and infants.

In the West Bank, at least 122 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military operations since October 7, 39 of them children. It’s unclear how many of those casualties are directly because of the conflict.

It’s an extraordinarily grim stocktake, but key to understanding the nature of the conflict.

Dire situation made worse

Sadly, the suffering of children in Gaza is not new.

For decades, children in Gaza have been among the world’s most vulnerable groups, with very high rates of paediatric mental health problems, stunted growth, lead poisoning, malnutrition and post-traumatic stress disorder.

An Israeli study showed high rates of psychopathology among those exposed to trauma from military attacks.

Other research that compared the wellbeing of Israeli and Palestinian children found the latter fared significantly worse.

These conditions have worsened since Hamas took power in Gaza in 2006.

Protecting children stuck in adult wars

There are claims from both sides of breaches of international humanitarian law and violations of the Laws of War.

Regardless of these allegations, there has been a fundamental breach of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child by all parties.

The convention is made up of 54 articles that aim to protect and secure children’s wellbeing, including during armed conflict.

There are specific requirements of states to protect the lives of children from violence, abuse and neglect at both civil and political levels.

Other laws also exist to protect children.

International humanitarian law is unequivocal in combatants’ legal responsibility to protect children in all situations of armed conflict.

The Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols cover children in the same way they cover civilians during war.

But there is extra protection for those under 18, with children considered an “object of special respect”.

This extends to children who are actively participating in the conflict.

Israel and Palestine are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Geneva Convention.

That said, an International Criminal Court investigation into ongoing conflict in the region was reopened in 2021.

The UN is also investigating allegations of war crimes on all sides from October 7 2023.

It’s part of a years-long probe that was originally opened in 2021 to investigate “all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law” in Palestine, the West Bank and Israel.

Dimmed hopes for the future

Despite all the legal protections, it’s clear children are suffering.

The legal provision for special respect of children in war isn’t being adequately considered. It requires all sides to consider carefully the world they will leave behind.

But if we look to the future of the region, the outlook appears bleak.

Children have great potential to build peace.

Evidence of Palestinian children developing safety, hope and resilience is promising.

Peace work by Israeli and Palestinian children provides insight for what is referred to as Neve Shalom/Wahat Al-Salam (the Hebrew and Arabic words for Oasis of Peace).

But the surviving children of this conflict will likely emerge traumatised. They will have spent their childhoods surrounded by the extreme rhetoric of war, hate and retribution.

It’s hard to see, then, how our future leaders could overcome the odds to fight for peace and unity in the region.

Generations of adults on all sides have let these children down. They need protecting for their own sake, and for the futures of the places they call home.

Patrick O’Leary ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. The UN is calling the Israel-Hamas war a ‘graveyard of children’. In an adult conflict, the young are suffering most – https://theconversation.com/the-un-is-calling-the-israel-hamas-war-a-graveyard-of-children-in-an-adult-conflict-the-young-are-suffering-most-216633

Keith Rankin on Predicting the Final Outcome of the Election

By Keith Rankin -

November 3, 2023

New-Zealand-Parliament — New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.

Analysis by Keith Rankin.

There may be some surprises when the final election count comes out today.

Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

One particular point to note refers back to the United States presidential election of 2020, when the late votes in most states – those votes not counted on election night – very heavily favoured Biden over Trump. The context was that Trump had the election night ‘victory’.

It is possible that something similar could happen here. This election has some characteristics which means the ‘late votes’ – for want of a better name – could strongly reflect the frustrated voters who only decided to vote at all towards the end of the campaign; many being first-time voters or voters whose registration had elapsed on account of them being renters who have insecure housing, or young people living ‘at home’, or recent immigrants.

So, I am suggesting that there is a 10% chance that ‘The Left’ will have 60 or more seats this afternoon. And I think there is another 25% chance that ‘The Left’ will have more seats than ‘The Right’, where ‘Left’ means Labour/Green/TPM and ‘Right’ means National/Act. If this happens, National/Act will require NZ First to vote with them in Parliament, whereas, under the more likely scenario, National/Act will be able to get legislation through if NZ First abstains.

What I think is most likely to happen is that the Specials, mainly later votes rather than advance votes, will reflect the already known differences between election day voting and advance voting. This means that Labour, Green and New Zealand First should gain with the specials, with National being the biggest loser from these ‘late’ votes. We also should note that Green and Te Pati Māori traditionally improve with the specials, and are likely to do so again. This should mean that TPM is entitled to an extra party-list seat, eliminating the present overhang.

We should also note that preliminary vote tallies for Auckland (except the very outer electorates) are low. This reflects a significant diaspora of population from Auckland since around 2015; although we also note that Auckland has also received many immigrants in that time, and that Auckland’s population is probably on (or just past) the cusp of an accelerated replacement. (Such a replacement magnifies what is happening in New Zealand more generally, with the process amplified in Auckland.)

The low Auckland count on election night also probably means that the special votes will be weighted towards Auckland. There may be an effect from the specials this time that is similar to the late election-night wave in 2005, which swung the election to Labour when it first looked that National would prevail.

My best estimate is that this afternoon’s result will be:

National 47 seats (up to 48 after Port Waikato)
Labour 35 seats
Green 15 seats
Act 11 seats
New Zealand First 8 seats
Te Pati Māori 4 seats

Re the electorates, which the media overemphasise, I am picking that Labour will regain four seats which went to National on election night: Te Atatu, New Lynn, Nelson, Banks Peninsula. (So National should pick up one more list seat; though Green may get to 16 seats, meaning that National/Act may be four down from election night.) And I think that Carlos Cheung, looking safe in Mt Roskill on election night, will win that seat by less than 500.

My best guess is that Kelvin Davis and Pene Henare will hold on in their Māori seats. But, if not, these could flip, generating a TPM overhang, and thereby freeing up one or two list seats.

Re the process of counting, I think that the Electoral Commission could give running counts of late votes, and then do the final audit. This would make the counting process much faster. Perhaps more importantly, they could give much more precise information about where the special votes are from, and about the breakdown of their categories (eg overseas, absent from the electorate, first time registrations, and re-registrations). Each of these sub-categories, considered regionally, could make it much easier for statisticians to make reliable projections of the final count. (We note that well-conducted polls certainly mean we get quite reliable projections of our election outcome before election day. Major problems with pre-election polling mainly happen in jurisdictions with First-Past-the-Post voting, and their vagaries of marginal electorates and swing states.)

The mainstream media, and many officials and pundits, continue to overemphasise the role of ‘marginal electorates’; a role which is close to zero in determining the balance of party representation. An example of this is the presentation in Wikipedia of the electorate votes (by party) ahead of the actual party votes.

Another example of this is the obsession with electorate boundaries. I live in New Lynn which now has quite a strange ox-bow shape, giving parts of Titirangi to Kelston while including much of Avondale. The reality is that electorate size makes not a jot of difference to the final result. I think it would be far better to maintain stable electorate boundaries, drawn with reference to existing local authority boundaries. And it would be better for cities to have more populous electorates than rural areas. This ensures better rural representation through smaller rural electorates, while also noting that most of the list MPs have offices in the cities. Certainly, Auckland has had too many electorates in recent years, while many of the places with the highest vote counts have been hinterland electorates. (And I note that Dunedin could be a single urban seat, with Taieri a hinterland seat.)

Finally, I would like to congratulate the Electoral Commission for its information pamphlet for voters. They make it clear that the electorate votes are for people, not for parties. (Like mayoral votes, if you will.) I only wish that the commentariat would take note.

Wishing the new government the best, and noting that it needs to govern according to the actual concerns of the people, focussing on issues such as infrastructure, education, health, housing, inequality, sustainability and world peace. New Zealand’s most popular governments preserved and extended our traditions of universality; a tradition which promotes cohesion rather than division. Non-elite New Zealanders don’t like the targeting of morsels of welfare, and all the moral hazard problems that come with that approach.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

In the 1800s, colonial settlers moved Ballarat’s Yarrowee River. The impacts are still felt today

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Waldron, Senior Lecturer in History, Federation University Australia

The discovery of gold in Ballarat in 1851 transformed its landscape to a staggering degree. Within days, and despite the news being initially suppressed, hundreds of men had gathered along the Yarrowee River.

They sluiced the clay and soil, turning the once pristine waters into what writer William Bramwell Withers described as

liquid, yellow as the yellowest Tiber flood, and its banks grew to be long shoals of tailings.

Over the next few weeks, the waterways of the Yarrowee River and of Gnarr Creek were diverted into water courses to support the search for gold.

The river was moved to make way for the town population boom, which was driven by a lust for gold. The end result was that the original, serpentine path of the river – originally across floodplains equipped to handle the natural ebb and flow of water and seasonal flooding – eventually came to be a much straighter line. Part of the river now runs underground through a tunnel.

Our new interactive map, Yarrowee River History: Peel to Prest (which takes its name from the two streets that serve as borders for the mapping), interrogates the long-term effects of this water diversion on community and Country.

A collaboration between Federation University, the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation and the city of Ballarat, our project overlays historical maps with Google Maps to illustrate how the area changed.

‘We inherit the scars of this trauma’

In Ballarat, water is deeply significant to the culture of the area’s First Nations inhabitants, the Wadawurrung people, who stewarded these lands and waterways for millennia.

So we wanted people using our interactive map to ponder the cultural significance of these gold rush impacts to the Wadawurrung people and the environment.

For the Wadawurrung people, the watercourse now known as the Yarrowee River carries profound historical meaning.

This river bore the names Yaramlok and Narmbool, and these names were used interchangeably to reference different segments of the Yarrowee.

The river wasn’t merely a physical entity – it was a symbol of spiritual and cultural significance, the life force which flows through Country.

It supported fishing, agriculture and food gathering. It symbolised the deep and harmonious connection with dja (Country) and the precious resource of ngubitj (water).

The river diversion affected the Wadawurrung profoundly. As two of us (Shannen Mennen and Kelly Ann Blake) write on the Yarrowee River History: Peel to Prest site:

Colonisation and mining in Ballarat led to devastation and destruction of Wadawurrung dja, including the Yarrowee River. Settlement was built upon our living spaces and as a result Wadawurrung people were displaced.

The withholding of cultural rights and obligations further increased the dispossession of our people, who were unforgivingly forced to adapt to change. Still today we inherit the scars of this trauma.

Colonial settlers altered the river

in a way which excluded the knowledge Wadawurrung people had built upon for many thousands of years […] The habitat surrounding the Yarrowee was removed or altered, damaging animal, fish and insect populations.

The destruction of the waterway continues to impact our people today. However, the spirit of this land remains within us and we continue as Wadawurrung people to live alongside the Yarrowee whilst working to restore its health and vitality.

The Wadawurrung people involved in this project hope it fosters interconnectedness between the waterway, our human ancestors, creator beings and all living things.

It is also crucial in working towards reconciliation by helping people understand the devastating environmental destruction wrought by the gold rush for the First Nations people of the region and the deep connection between culture, heritage and the landscape.

Effluent, flooding and typhoid

When one looks at the sheer scale of the transformation of Ballarat and district wrought by the gold rush, the level of environmental destruction is almost beyond comprehension.

Vast forested tracts of land were felled of trees, the topsoil dug up and blown away, the earth ripped open by deep tunnelling. Imported sheep began to harden the soil (disrupting native plants) and consuming the Murrnong plants, whose roots were a staple of the Wadawurrung people.

Moving the river made the area prone to disastrous flooding as water was diverted away from floodplains. Land was polluted by effluent and chemical residue from mining. This led to multiple outbreaks of disease. As one contributor to the Ballarat Star wrote at the time:

The smell from this creek for a quarter of a mile on each side is most frightful — the bed of the creek looking and smelling like the refuse pigs’ droppings mixing with their liquid manure. Nearly one-half of the children, and even adults, have been swept off between the Gnarr Creek and the Cemetery, from typhoid fever.

This project aims to draw attention to the absolute centrality of the waterways to Australia’s history and continual sustainable environmental management.

Mapping the transformation of Australia’s waterways since colonisation is crucial to understanding the long term effects of changes we make to our environment.

Kelly Ann Blake works for Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation as a Biodiversity Project Officer.

Shannen Mennen works for Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation as a Project Officer.

David Waldron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. In the 1800s, colonial settlers moved Ballarat’s Yarrowee River. The impacts are still felt today – https://theconversation.com/in-the-1800s-colonial-settlers-moved-ballarats-yarrowee-river-the-impacts-are-still-felt-today-214949

Whose job will AI replace? Here’s why a clerk in Ethiopia has more to fear than one in California

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niusha Shafiabady, Associate Professor in Computational Intelligence, Charles Darwin University

Artificial intelligence is changing the world – and one of the main areas it will affect in the short-to-medium term is the workforce.

AI algorithms imitate real-world systems. The more repetitive a system is, the easier it is for AI to replace it. That’s why jobs in customer service, retail and clerical roles are regularly named as being the most at risk.

That doesn’t mean other jobs won’t be affected. The latest advances in AI have shown all kinds of creative work and white–collar professions stand to be impacted to various degrees.

However, there’s one important point that’s usually not addressed in discussions about AI’s impact on jobs. That is: where you work may be as important as what you do.

Current trends and projections suggest people in developing countries, where a higher proportion of jobs involve repetitive or manual tasks, will be the first and most affected.

Privileged by geography

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, emerging technologies and digitalisation are among the biggest driving factors for job displacement. The report states:

The majority of fastest declining roles are clerical or secretarial roles, with bank tellers and related clerks, postal service clerks, cashiers and ticket clerks, and data entry clerks expected to decline fastest.

Let’s take an office clerk as an example, whose responsibilities include answering phones, taking messages and scheduling appointments. We now have access to AI tools that can perform all these tasks.

They can also work non-stop, for free (or a fraction of the price), without being affected by personal problems, and without having to mentally strain to optimise their workflow. Of course they’re going to be attractive to employers!

At first glance, you might assume an office clerk living in a developed country is more likely to lose their job than their counterpart in a developing country, since the former seems more likely to implement new AI tools.

In reality, however, it’s expected more people in developing countries will lose their jobs. The success of each nation will depend on how well it can adapt to the displacement of its workforce.

In 2009, the United Nations International Telecommunication Union created the information and communication technologies (ICT) development index to benchmark and compare ICT performance within and across countries.

This index measures, among other things:

the level and evolution over time of information and communication technologies in different countries
how each country’s experience compares to others’
the extent to which a country can develop and use these technologies to boost its own growth and development in the context of the capabilities and skills available.

In other words, a country’s score on this index can be correlated with how well it adapts to emerging technologies such as AI.

Unsurprisingly, developed countries rank higher than the rest of the world. In 2012, the top five ranking countries were the Republic of Korea, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Finland. The bottom five were Eritrea, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Central African Republic and Niger.

Wealth and opportunity makes a difference

The World Bank has divided the world by income and region, showing developing countries are among the lowest earners.

Generally speaking, employing people is much easier in developing countries, due to lower wages, tighter competition and less regulation to support employees.

The World Bank estimates about 84% of the world’s working-age population lives in developing countries. Similarly, a 2008 report from the International Labour Organisation estimated 73% of all the world’s workers lived in developing countries, while only 14% lived in advanced industrial countries.

That means whatever clerical jobs aren’t taken by AI in developing countries will become more competitive than most people can handle. As World Bank senior economist Indhira Santos wrote in 2016, in reference to the digital revolution:

[…] the jobs where workers are likely to lose out are disproportionally held by the least educated and the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution. As a result, the biggest risk from the digital revolution is not massive unemployment, but widening income inequality.

These factors will result in an employer-ruled ecosystem in developing countries. These countries have both a higher occurrence of jobs that can be replaced or displaced (such as call centre jobs), and less of the money and skills needed to implement AI tools effectively.

The cost and affordability of AI programs and algorithms will also speed up this process in certain regions.

Critical thinking remains important

Experts note AI will create many employment opportunities, including jobs that don’t yet exist. It’s just that not all countries will be well-equipped to make the transition when the time comes.

The Future of Jobs report says “analytical thinking and creative thinking remain the most important skills for workers”. So if you’re worried about keeping your job in the future, it’s worth acquiring more of these skills.

Beyond that, you might stop and consider how the place you live could play a role in whether you’ll have work in the future – and if you happen to live in a wealthy, developed country, consider yourself lucky.

Niusha Shafiabady ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Whose job will AI replace? Here’s why a clerk in Ethiopia has more to fear than one in California – https://theconversation.com/whose-job-will-ai-replace-heres-why-a-clerk-in-ethiopia-has-more-to-fear-than-one-in-california-216735

The ‘drums of war’ are receding, but Anthony Albanese still faces many uncertainties on his trip to China

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David S G Goodman, Director, China Studies Centre, Professor of Chinese Politics, University of Sydney

Fifty years ago this week, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam visited the People’s Republic of China, establishing a relationship that has become mutually beneficial in terms of economic growth and development to both China and Australia.

It was in many ways a bold step into the unknown. While the two economies are clearly complementary, their political systems are very different, as today’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, repeatedly points out.

Prior to Labor’s election victory in 2022, the Coalition government struggled to manage the necessary ambiguity in Australia-China relations, determining that politics (and in some cases ideology) had to be more important than economics.

Albanese’s visit to Beijing, starting this weekend, should be welcomed as it signals an alternative approach to the outright hostility that characterised much of Australia-China relations after 2017.

From ‘drums of war’ to ‘stable relations’

In an Anzac Day 2021 message to his staff, later published to some fanfare in The Australian, the then-Home Affairs secretary, Mike Pezzullo, warned the “drums of war” were beating. It was a clear reference to Australia’s tensions with China.

Peter Dutton, the minister of defence, agreed that war with China over Taiwan “should not be discounted”. In an interview days later, he said the Australian Defence Force was “prepared for action”:

[…] protection for our borders and our waters to the north and west remains a clear priority.

Echoing the spirit of Winston Churchill’s 1954 comments at the White House that “jaw-jaw is always better than war-war”, the Albanese government has rejected this perspective of the Morrison government.

The new government’s formula is to “work towards productive and stable relations with China based on mutual benefit and respect”. Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have both emphasised that Australia will cooperate where it can and differ where it must.

Given the government’s commitment to the US alliance, this difference with its predecessor may seem little more than rhetorical. But rhetoric in international political relations can carry substantial weight. This is especially true during periods of geopolitical instability, such as the world is experiencing now.

Room for cooperation

This wider context puts necessary limits around what the government might hope to achieve – and what Australia should expect – from Albanese’s trip to Beijing.

The emergence of an explicit “strategic competition” between the US and China, and the role of Australia in that competition through AUKUS, means the days of a more open and easy-going relationship are unlikely to return soon.

But the Australia-US alliance is only one part of the Australia-China relationship, even if it has dominated headlines of late.

Australia and China also have differing priorities and ambitions in the Pacific. And both countries continue to have very complementary economies. These links require a more nuanced management of the relationship, and could certainly be the subject of discussion during Albanese’s visit.

Australian governments have long regarded the Pacific islands as holding great geopolitical and economic importance. Until recently, however, this has not been matched by attention to the concerns and development priorities of these nations, namely the consequences of climate change and the need for basic infrastructure.

This gap has been filled by China through its Belt and Road Initiative. When the Chinese government attempted to reach security agreements with some of the Pacific islands, the Australian government reacted with a series of official visits, additional economic assistance and the promise of initiatives to develop economic and cultural relationships.

There is certainly room for cooperation between China and Australia in this area. Despite its continued use of fossil fuels, China has developed a sizeable renewable energy industry, far greater than Australia as a proportion of energy production.

The two countries could also cooperate in the provision of development assistance to the Pacific.

Why the trade relationship matters to both sides

The bilateral trade relationship will definitely be on the table for discussion in Beijing. China is Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 34% of all exports and 28% of imports.

More importantly, Australia is one of few countries that has a major trade surplus with China. In 2022-23, Australia’s surplus on the trade of goods with China was around A$87 billion.

Despite the rhetoric of the Morrison government portraying China as a threat to Australia, the disappearance of this economic relationship would pose an equally significant challenge. This has only been reinforced by the collapse of talks to establish a free-trade agreement between Australia and the European Union in recent days.

For the moment, trade is one aspect of the relationship that is equally important for the Chinese leadership, despite the imbalance in the size of the two economies. While the import of Australian resources is clearly significant – and there is some evidence the tariffs China imposed proved harmful to its own economy – the reason for China’s attention on trade lies elsewhere.

The Chinese government is currently seeking to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. This is the successor free trade association to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which then-US President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2017. To that end, China needs the support of member states, including Australia.

In a series of meetings between Australian and Chinese officials this year, which led to the first high-level dialogue between the countries since 2020, there’s been hope that a bilateral basis for renewed stability is now emerging.

Without these indications, Albanese would presumably not be visiting Beijing now. It may not be as dramatic a move as Whitlam’s visit in 1973, but inevitably there is an element of a step into the unknown.

David S G Goodman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The ‘drums of war’ are receding, but Anthony Albanese still faces many uncertainties on his trip to China – https://theconversation.com/the-drums-of-war-are-receding-but-anthony-albanese-still-faces-many-uncertainties-on-his-trip-to-china-216727

I was a geriatrician on Old People’s Home for Teenagers. Here’s why I joined this TV experiment

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Ward, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), UNSW Sydney

Many people will have heard about “intergenerational practice” via the TV.

This is the purposeful bringing together of different generations, aiming to benefit all involved. It’s the idea central to ABC TV’s Old People’s Home for Teenagers, and its predecessor Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds. Both show the positive aspects of mixing age groups, for the older people featured, as well as the teenagers or preschoolers.

I’m a geriatrician, a doctor who specialises in the medical care of older people, one of two geriatricians who took part in this TV experiment. Here’s why I got involved.

The benefits of mixing it up

The positive aspects of mixing age groups may seem intuitive. Just think of how special it can be when grandparents spend time with their grandchildren. When older and younger people are together, each can share their experiences and perspectives. Meaningful connections can develop.

Addison talking with Annalise during filming — Meaningful connections can develop, such as between teenager Addison and Annalise.
EndemolShine Australia, CC BY-ND

But in Australia today, many older people have no such opportunities. Multi-generational households are the exception, not the norm.

One quarter of people aged 65 and over living in private homes live alone. Nearly 200,000 live in retirement villages and around the same number live in residential aged care. Both of the latter, by definition, accommodate only a single generation.

Intergenerational programs overcome these barriers by creating a structured and supported forum in which two age groups can regularly connect.

These programs can involve different populations: from toddlers through to university students, from independent, active retirees through to aged care residents and hospital patients.

Programs can take several forms, for example:

playgroups are conducted in aged care facilities
childcare and aged care facilities are in the same location
older volunteers in the community take part in formal mentorship programs for young adults.

The common aim is to improve wellbeing, restore purpose, and bring joy to older participants, while helping to develop social skills, confidence and empathy in young people. These programs can potentially also address ageism, by creating understanding and empathy for each generation and by challenging negative stereotypes.

There are challenges ahead

There are wide-ranging challenges ageing may throw at us – an increased burden of chronic disease and frailty, a decline in physical and cognitive abilities, or changes in hearing, vision and balance.

Maz with walker, taking a puppy for a walk, Ayden holds out hand to puppy — The program encouraged both young people, such as Ayden, and older people, such as Maz, to be more active.
EndemolShine Australia, CC BY-ND

Changes in occupational and social roles often also occur as we get older, for instance, as older people retire from paid work or care for a sick partner. Conversely, older people may lose their role as caregivers, after grandchildren grow up, or after the loss of a loved one.

All these ageing-related changes can lead to a loss of social connection and loneliness. Loneliness itself is bad for health. Loneliness increases risks for depression, cardiovascular disease, dementia and may even lead to a shorter life span. Reducing loneliness in older adults remains a challenge.

How I got involved

So when a chance to become involved in Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds, I eagerly jumped on board. This featured an experimental intergenerational preschool. Young and old took part in a series of structured and supported activities such as playing dress-ups, going on walks and having a sports carnival.

At the time, intergenerational programs were far from mainstream, especially in Australia.

Annelise and Alix walking outside on grass, trees in background — Annelise said she was lonely at the start of the series, but formed a bond with teenager Amelie.
EndemolShine Australia, CC BY-ND

I joined the TV program with a panel of experts including a physiotherapist and psychologist.

We screened the older adults at the start of the experiment for issues such as depression, and assessed signs of physical frailty including speed of walking, muscle strength and activity levels. We then assessed them again after six weeks.

While we were cautiously hopeful, the overall improvements were better than anticipated, and some of the individual transformations were extraordinary.

For instance, three of four participants who originally screened positive for depression had scores in the normal range by the end of the program. For one woman in her 80s her score improved by eight points on a 15-point scale. Improvements in fitness levels across the group were impressive too.

Dale and Abi outside, standing on grass, trees in background — Dale was concerned about how her visual impairment affected her day-to-day life, but soon connected with Abi.
EndemolShine Australia, CC BY-ND

Since then, the series has evolved to involve differing populations: from residents of aged care facilities and retirement villages, to older adults living in the community, and from preschoolers to teenagers.

Each program has been adapted to the needs of each group involved. At times, we have focused on a particular issue, such as loneliness, depression, concerns about memory, physical frailty and falls.

But in each we have continued to see benefits for both age groups, in line with what a growing evidence base is telling us about the potential benefits of such programs.

This is perhaps even more so in the Old People’s Home for Teenagers series, with the second season currently on air. The teenage participants are articulate in describing how truly valuable it is for younger people to spend enriched time with older mentors. Their confidence increases, they take on new challenges, and new meaningful connections develop, many of which continue to enrich lives long after the cameras stop rolling.

No-one is pretending such intergenerational programs are going to end loneliness for all older people, or can remove all the challenges they may face later in life. And equally, people do not need to be lonely, frail or isolated to participate.

Alongside the TV programs, there has been an upswing in community interest in intergenerational practice, from researchers to educators to aged care providers, to hospitals/health services and schools.

We need continued investment into workforce training, support for such programs to develop, and robust evaluation of each program to ensure they meet the goals of all the stakeholders involved – especially those of the participants themselves.

The “Old People’s Home” model did not invent the concept of intergenerational programs. Nor are the models of practice used in each series the only way intergenerational programs must run. But they do demonstrate what intergenerational programs could achieve.

Learn more about intergenerational programs in Australia and find one near you. If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Stephanie Ward has received some financial compensation for her time spent involved in the Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds/ Teenagers series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission and EndemolShine Australia. She has previously been a recipient of a research training stipend for a PhD on sleep apnoea and dementia risk. She is a chief investigator on several studies that have received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund. Stephanie Ward is also a geriatrician at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney.

– ref. I was a geriatrician on Old People’s Home for Teenagers. Here’s why I joined this TV experiment – https://theconversation.com/i-was-a-geriatrician-on-old-peoples-home-for-teenagers-heres-why-i-joined-this-tv-experiment-215074

Is nuclear the answer to Australia’s climate crisis?

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Reuben Finighan, PhD candidate at the LSE and Research Fellow at the Superpower Institute, The University of Melbourne

This article is part of a series by The Conversation, Getting to Zero, examining Australia’s energy transition.

In Australia’s race to net zero emissions, nuclear power has surged back into the news. Opposition leader Peter Dutton argues nuclear is “the only feasible and proven technology” for cutting emissions. Energy Minister Chris Bowen insists Mr Dutton is promoting “the most expensive form of energy”.

Is nuclear a pragmatic and wise choice blocked by ideologues? Or is Mr Bowen right that promoting nuclear power is about as sensible as chasing “unicorns”?

For someone who has not kept up with developments in nuclear energy, its prospects may seem to hinge on safety. Yet by any hard-nosed accounting, the risks from modern nuclear plants are orders of magnitude lower than those of fossil fuels.

Leer más:
Australia’s new dawn: becoming a green superpower with a big role in cutting global emissions

Deep failures in design and operational incompetence caused the Chernobyl disaster. Nobody died at Three Mile Island or from Fukushima. Meanwhile, a Harvard-led study found more than one in six deaths globally – around 9 million a year – are attributable to polluted air from fossil combustion.

Two more mundane factors help to explain why nuclear power has halved as a share of global electricity production since the 1990s. They are time and money.

The might of Wright’s law

There are four arguments against investment in nuclear power: Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, and Vogtle. These are the four major latest-generation plants completed or near completion in Finland, the United States, the United Kingdom and France respectively.

Cost overruns at these recent plants average over 300%, with more increases to come. The cost of Vogtle, for example, soared from US$14 billion to $34 billion (A$22-53 billion), Flamanville from €3.3 billion to €19 billion (A$5-31 billion), and Hinkley Point C from £16 billion to as much as £70 billion (A$30-132 billion), including subsidies. Completion of Vogtle has been delayed by seven years, Olkiluoto by 14 years, and Flamanville by at least 12 years.

Leer más:
How to beat ‘rollout rage’: the environment-versus-climate battle dividing regional Australia

A fifth case is Virgil C, also in the US, for which US$9 billion (A$14 billion) was spent before cost overruns led the project to be abandoned. All three firms building these five plants – Westinghouse, EDF, and AREVA – went bankrupt or were nationalised. Consumers, companies and taxpayers will bear the costs for decades.

By contrast, average cost overruns for wind and solar are around zero, the lowest of all energy infrastructure.

Wright’s law states the more a technology is produced, the more its costs decline. Wind and especially solar power and lithium-ion batteries have all experienced astonishing cost declines over the last two decades.

Leer más:
Why Australia urgently needs a climate plan and a Net Zero National Cabinet Committee to implement it

For nuclear power, though, Wright’s law has been inverted. The more capacity installed, the more costs have increased. Why? This 2020 MIT study found that safety improvements accounted for around 30% of nuclear cost increases, but the lion’s share was due to persistent flaws in management, design, and supply chains.

In Australia, such costs and delays would ensure that we miss our emissions reduction targets. They would also mean spiralling electricity costs, as the grid waited for generation capacity that did not come. For fossil fuel firms and their political friends, this is the real attraction of nuclear – another decade or two of sales at inflated prices.

Comparing the cost of nuclear and renewables

Nevertheless, nuclear advocates tell us we have no choice: wind and solar power are intermittent power sources, and the cost of making them reliable is too high.

But let’s compare the cost of reliably delivering a megawatt hour of electricity to the grid from nuclear versus wind and solar. According to both the CSIRO and respected energy market analyst Lazard Ltd, nuclear power has a cost of A$220 to $350 per megawatt hour produced.

Leer más:
Beyond Juukan Gorge: how First Nations people are taking charge of clean energy projects on their land

Without subsidies or state finance, the four plants cited above generally hit or exceed the high end of this range. By contrast, Australia is already building wind and solar plants at under $45 and $35 per megawatt hour respectively. That’s a tenth of the cost of nuclear.

The CSIRO has modelled the cost of renewable energy that is firmed – meaning made reliable, mainly via batteries and other storage technologies. It found the necessary transmission lines and storage would add only $25 to $34 per megawatt hour.

In short, a reliable megawatt hour from renewables costs around a fifth of one from a nuclear plant. We could build a renewables grid large enough to meet demand twice over, and still pay less than half the cost of nuclear.

The future of nuclear: small modular reactors?

Proponents of nuclear power pin their hopes on small modular reactors (SMRs), which replace huge gigawatt-scale units with small units that offer the possibility of being produced at scale. This might allow nuclear to finally harness Wright’s law.

Yet commercial SMRs are years from deployment. The US firm NuScale, scheduled to build two plants in Idaho by 2030, has not yet broken ground, and on-paper costs have already ballooned to around A$189 per megawatt hour.

Leer más:
The original and still the best: why it’s time to renew Australia’s renewable energy policy

And SMRs are decades away from broad deployment. If early examples work well, in the 2030s there will be a round of early SMRs in the US and European countries that have existing nuclear skills and supply chains. If that goes well, we may see a serious rollout from the 2040s onwards.

In these same decades, solar, wind, and storage will still be descending the Wright’s law cost curve. Last year the Morrison government was spruiking the goal of getting solar below $15 per megawatt hour by 2030. SMRs must achieve improbable cost reductions to compete.

Finally, SMRs may be necessary and competitive in countries with poor renewable energy resources. But Australia has the richest combined solar and wind resources in the world.

Leer más:
Too hard basket: why climate change is defeating our political system

Should we lift the ban?

Given these realities, should Australia lift its ban on nuclear power? A repeal would have no practical effect on what happens in electricity markets, but it might have political effects.

A future leader might seek short-term advantage by offering enormous subsidies for nuclear plants. The true costs would arrive years after such a leader had left office. That would be tragic for Australia. With our unmatched solar and wind resources, we have the chance to deliver among the cheapest electricity in the developed world.

Mr Dutton may be right that the ban on nuclear is unnecessary. But in terms of getting to net zero as quickly and cheaply as possible, Mr Bowen has the relevant argument. To echo one assessment from the UK, nuclear for Australia would be “economically insane”.

Reuben Finighan is a research fellow at the Superpower Institute.

– ref. Is nuclear the answer to Australia’s climate crisis? – https://theconversation.com/is-nuclear-the-answer-to-australias-climate-crisis-216891

Taming wild northern rivers could harm marine fisheries and threaten endangered sawfish

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Éva Plagányi, Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO

Google Earth Image Landsat/Copernicus, CC BY-ND

Australia’s tropical northern rivers still run wild and free. These relatively pristine areas have so far avoided extensive development. But this might not last. There are ongoing scoping studies exploring irrigating agricultural land using water from these rivers.

Our new research in the journal Nature Sustainability shows disturbing the delicate water balance upstream can have major consequences downstream, even hundreds of kilometres away.

Using our latest computer modelling, we found northern water resource development would have substantial effects on prawn, mud crab and barramundi fisheries in the Gulf of Carpentaria. These are valuable Australian marine fisheries which depend on healthy estuaries. Reducing river flows would also disturb mangrove and seagrass habitats and threaten the iconic endangered largetooth sawfish.

Freshwater flows to the sea play a crucial role, boosting the productivity of marine, estuarine and freshwater systems. These complex interactions must be carefully considered in the assessment of future development plans.

Graphic illustrating how altering river flow influences downstream estuarine and marine species and habitats — Changing the natural river flow regime has consequences for estuarine and marine species and fisheries.
James Chen in Plaganyi et al (2023) Nature Sustainability, CC BY-ND

Rivers are our lifeblood

Worldwide, few wild running rivers remain. Their future is uncertain given growing demand for water.

Climate change is putting extra pressure on rivers as temperatures rise, rainfall patterns shift and extreme events become more frequent.

Rivers are the lifeblood of ecosystems and communities. They connect land, estuaries and the sea. But assessments of river developments often focus narrowly on local effects. They ignore the fact downstream estuaries and marine systems depend on freshwater flows. Few studies have calculated the costs of upstream catchment developments to downstream estuarine and marine ecosystems and fisheries.

We must avoid the mistakes made in southern Australia where too much water has been taken out of the system for growing crops. That means carefully evaluating the design of dams or irrigation schemes, considering when, where and how much water should be taken – and the likely trade-offs.

Photo showing many common banana prawns on a trawler. This is one of several species caught by the Northern Prawn Fishery — Yields of common banana prawn vary depending on river flows from multiple catchments.
NPF Industry Pty Ltd, Australian Council of Prawn Fisheries Ltd, Austral Fisheries and Raptis Seafoods

Why should we care about northern rivers?

Australia’s remote northern rivers are one of the last strongholds for endangered species such as the largetooth sawfish. These iconic species are born in estuaries before spending their first few years of life upstream in freshwater rivers.

Flows from these rivers also sustain extensive mangrove forests and seagrass beds. Periodic floods boost the food supply for many prized marine fisheries such as prawns, barramundi and mud crabs.

The rivers also have cultural significance for Aboriginal people and represent a valuable resource, providing food and supporting livelihoods.

A photo of an endangered largetooth sawfish in shallow water — Endangered largetooth sawfish are sensitive to changes in river flows.
Rich Pillans/CSIRO

Using modelling to connect rivers, estuaries and oceans

We coupled CSIRO’s sophisticated river models with our specially tailored ecosystem models to represent how altering river flows may influence the downstream ecology and fishery yields.

We used catch data from fisheries to analyse how past natural changes in flow influenced catch rates. This was combined with extensive previous research on the biology and ecology of each species to model the dynamics of catchment-to-coast systems. We were particularly interested in the natural life cycles of fish and crustaceans in our unique northern wet-dry tropical rivers and estuaries. We then simulated multiple water resource development scenarios to assess and compare various impacts and ways to reduce them.

Two column charts showing risk to key populations and fisheries in the Gulf of Carpentaria from changes in freshwater flows. — We quantified risk to key populations and fisheries in the Gulf of Carpentaria from changes in freshwater flows due to various hypothetical water resource developments (WRD).
Plagányi et al. (2023) Nature Sustainability, CC BY-ND

For mud crabs, we linked river flow and other climate drivers to their life cycle and were able to show how past changes in flow could explain the past variation in crab catch, particularly for rivers in which flow was seasonally variable. We could then use this model to predict how crab catch and abundance might change in the future, depending on how much water is removed from rivers and the method of removal.

Aerial image of an estuary feeding into the Gulf of Carpentaria — Rivers connect land, estuaries and the sea. Large estuaries feed into the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries

Integrated management from catchment to coast

Our research shows freshwater flows to the sea are crucial for environmentally and economically important species. Any plan to dam or extract freshwater from Australia’s last wild rivers should account for these effects.

Coupling scientific knowledge about marine and freshwater ecosystems with catchment development will improve infrastructure planning and flow management.

This is vital on a dry continent already challenged by climate change. Every drop counts.

The authors wish to acknowledge Annie Jarrett, Chief Executive Officer of NPF Industry Pty Ltd, which represents Northern Prawn Fishery operators, for her contribution to the research.

Éva Plagányi acknowledges Annie Jarrett, Chief Executive Officer of NPF Industry Pty Ltd, which represents Northern Prawn Fishery operators, for her contribution to the research.
Éva works for CSIRO and receives research funding from several sources, including the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA).
2018-079 Ecological modelling of the impacts of water development in the Gulf of Carpentaria with particular reference to impacts on the NPF was supported by funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation on behalf of the Australian Government

Laura Blamey works for CSIRO, which receives research funding from several source, including the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA).

Michele Burford works for the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University and receives funding from several sources, including the National Environmental Science Program (NESP).

Robert Kenyon works CSIRO, an organisation that receives research funding from several sources, including the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA).

– ref. Taming wild northern rivers could harm marine fisheries and threaten endangered sawfish – https://theconversation.com/taming-wild-northern-rivers-could-harm-marine-fisheries-and-threaten-endangered-sawfish-212690

AI chatbots are coming to your workplace but are not necessarily coming for your job

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kai Riemer, Professor of Information Technology and Organisation, University of Sydney

Artificial Intelligence chatbots are everywhere. They have captured the public imagination and that of countless Silicon Valley inventors and investors since the arrival of ChatGPT about a year ago.

The stunning human-like abilities of conversational AI – a form of artificial intelligence that enables computers to process and generate human language – have sparked widespread optimism about their potential to transform workplaces and increase productivity.

In what may be a world first, a UK school has appointed an AI chatbot as a “principal headteacher” to support its headmaster. While little is known about the nature of the AI behind it, the chatbot is meant to advise staff on issues such as helping pupils with ADHD and writing school policies.

But, before deploying chatbots in the workplace, it is crucial to understand what they are, how they work and how to use them responsibly.

How chatbots work

Much has been written about the astounding abilities of generative AI, and its sometimes surprising ability to get things wrong.

Unidentified hand tapping into a live chat on an iPhone — Chatbots can be extremely useful but they can also get things wrong.
Shutterstock

For example, an AI chatbot can craft a persuasive scholarly argument but, to use chatbot terminology, can “hallucinate” the list of references or get simple facts wrong. To understand why hallucinations occur it is important to understand how these chatbots work.

At their core, AI chatbots are powered by large language models (LLMs), large neural networks trained on massive datasets of text (what we lovingly call “the Internet”).

Importantly, LLMs do not store any data or knowledge in any traditional sense. Rather, when they are built (or “trained”) they encode, in large statistical structures, sophisticated content or language patterns contained in the training data.

Simply speaking, text is turned into numbers, or probabilities.

When in use, LLMs no longer have access to this training data. So when we ask it a question, the response is generated from scratch, every time. Technically, everything is “hallucinated”. When AI chatbots get things right, it is because much of human knowledge is patterned and embedded in language, not because “it knows”.

By design, AI chatbots cannot produce definitive factual answers. They are probabilistic, not deterministic systems, and therefore cannot be relied on as authoritative sources of knowledge. But their ability to recognise linguistic patterns makes them excel at helping humans with tasks that involve text generation or enhancement.

Writing persuasive arguments follows certain patterned regularities, whereas factual answers cannot reliably be generated from probabilistic patterns.

The new workplace assistant

Don’t think of your AI chatbot as an omniscient artificial brain, but as a gifted graduate student assigned to be your personal work assistant.

Like an eager grad student, they work tirelessly and mostly competently on assigned tasks. However, they are also a little bit cocky. Always overconfident, they might take risky shortcuts and provide answers that sound good but lack any factual grounding.

It is wise always to verify chatbot outputs, much as you would double-check a grad student’s work.

Because of their probabilistic foundation they don’t comprehend your question with any human understanding. But in the right roles, when used appropriately, chatbots greatly augment productivity on language-related tasks.

Working with AI chatbots

The three levels of chatbot capability can be summed up using the acronym ACE – assisting, creating, exploring.

assisting – chatbots can assist with many writing tasks, such as summarising, analysing and refining text, or extracting key points and themes. They can express arguments in academic text in more accessible ways.
creating – chatbots can generate original text, turning dot points into business reports or ideas. They can mimic different genres and write in different styles. As they encode countless bodies of text from different domains, they can be told to take a perspective, impersonating business strategists, scholars, marketers or journalists, to create content useful across many professions.
exploring – chatbots make intriguing “discussion partners” about hypothetical ideas (“what would happen if…”). When exploring new issues, let the chatbot set you questions then get it to answer them. If you want to explore what makes a good project report, or social media post, ask the chatbot to write one and then reflect on why it wrote what it did.

The business of chatbots

What do we know about the use of AI chatbots in the workplace so far? Some initial studies point to significant productivity gains.

A pilot project at Westpac found a 46% productivity gain in software coding tasks, with no drop in quality. The experiment compared groups of developers using AI chatbots for a range of programming tasks with a control group that did not.

A study by global management company Boston Consulting Group also reported significant improvements.

In a controlled experiment, consultants used AI chatbots to problem-solve and develop new product ideas, which involved both analytical work and persuasive writing. Those who worked with the chatbot finished 12.2% more tasks, 25.1% more quickly, and at 40% higher quality, than those who didn’t.

In yet another case, an AI chatbot is reportedly being used by a US software company to help write proposals for clients. It scours thousands of internal files for relevant information to generate a suitable response, saving the company time.

These cases give glimpses into the future of AI chatbots, where companies fine-tune generative AI models with their own data or documents, using them for specialist roles such as coders, consultants or call-centre workers.

Many workers are worried AI will be used to automate their work. But given the probabilistic nature of the technology, and its inherent lack of reliability, we do not see automation as the most likely area of application.

AI chatbots might not be coming for your job after all, but they are certainly coming for your job description. AI fluency, the skill to understand and work with AI will soon become essential, similar to working with PCs.

Finally, you might ask, did we let a chatbot write this article? Of course we didn’t. Did we use one in writing it? Of course we did, much like we used a computer, and not a typewriter.

_The Conversation requires authors to disclose if they have used AI in the preparation of an article. Articles that use AI for fact-finding or idea generation will generally not be accepted.“

– ref. AI chatbots are coming to your workplace but are not necessarily coming for your job – https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-coming-to-your-workplace-but-are-not-necessarily-coming-for-your-job-216433

I was a ward of the state. The horrors of the Parramatta Girls’ Home were legendary

By The Conversation -

November 3, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Z. Wilson, Adjunct Associate Professor in History, Australian Catholic University

Readers are advised this article discusses sexual abuse.

In the Sydney suburb of North Parramatta sits a cluster of very old buildings known as the “Parramatta Female Factory Precinct”.

Built in 1821 to house and provide productive employment for the New South Wales colony’s growing population of female convicts, it was also the site of countless horrors – many of which occurred much more recently than you might think.

The Australian government recently announced it will nominate the Parramatta Female Factory in Sydney for World Heritage listing. It is a worthy nomination; the site is deeply significant for the many wards of the state who survived institutionalisation here or in other parts of Australia.

This precinct is by no means merely a relic of the convict era. Only 15 years ago, part of the site was a women’s prison. And from 1887 to 1974, it housed the notorious Parramatta Girls’ Home.

The Parramatta Girls’ Home

The Girls’ Home was also known as Parramatta Girls’ Industrial School, Girls’ Training School, and Girls’ Training Home. Each name was very much a euphemism. Whatever you call it, it was a high-security institution. That is, a jail.

It was a place where adolescent girls who had been removed from abusive or unfit parents, found homeless, orphaned, or mandated by the courts as wards of the state could be indefinitely detained.

It was among the most infamous examples of what criminologists today call “penal welfare” – the practice of locking up children and adolescents who have committed no offence other than being poor, homeless, or simply unloved.

It was official policy to treat welfare inmates — already highly vulnerable and having committed no offence at all — like hardened criminals.

They suffered a cruel and humiliating regime of physical, psychological and sexual violence.

The most trivial infraction of the rules — or no infraction at all — attracted punishments such as forced silence, scrubbing floors (with a toothbrush), beatings, and solitary confinement in dark underground cells.

And aside from the trauma of being locked in a pitch-black dungeon, girls in solitary were routinely raped by male staff members.

So horrific was its record of abuses that the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse treated it as a special case study.

The Commission heard testimony from former inmates who named former staff members as serial sex offenders. Many had since died, but others have been charged and received heavy prison sentences.

And it should be kept in mind that the Royal Commission’s terms of reference focused narrowly on sexual abuse. No prosecutions ensued for the myriad incidents of appalling, but non-sexual, emotional and physical maltreatment.

The stakeholders who so passionately advocated for the preservation and commemoration of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct were survivors of the Girls’ Home.

In 2006 they formed a lobby group called “Parragirls”, and began campaigning for official acknowledgement of their experiences.

They called for the entire site — not just the convict-era building — to be recognised as historically significant and worthy of preservation.

It wasn’t the only institution

The Parragirls number a few hundred. They form a small subsection of the roughly half a million survivors of out-of-home “care” in the latter half of the 20th century, whom a 2003 Senate inquiry dubbed the “Forgotten Australians”.

I was a ward of the state as a teenager and spent time in various institutions as a child. As a Victorian, I was never in danger of being locked away in Parramatta, but its horrors were legendary among state wards everywhere.

We had our own institutions, many as brutal as Parramatta, to contend with and try to avoid.

Australia has not come to terms with what happened to wards of the state in the 20th century.

Many are still alive, but many lives have been ruined.

Institutions like Parramatta Girls and others investigated by various inquiries and by the Royal Commission remain relatively unknown to the general public.

For Forgotten Australians whose lives were not touched directly by Parramatta, the site nevertheless stands as an emblem of all the institutions that served Australia’s horrific “penal welfare” system.

Many of us endorse the campaign to have the entire site, not just the convict-era Female Factory, preserved and nominated for World Heritage recognition.

It has taken too long to recognise this history

World Heritage Listing defines the site as being “of outstanding universal value to humanity” and ensures it will be preserved.

If the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct makes it onto the World Heritage List, it will be only the second female convict factory site in Australia to do so, after the Cascades Female Factory in Tasmania.

Parramatta’s nomination, however, raises questions.

Older and larger than Cascades, it was the prototype of all female factories around Australia, and significantly more of it survives today than any other site. Yet it took years of campaigning to draw the government’s attention to it.

Sydney’s Hyde Park Barracks, a major convict prison for men, has been a tourist attraction for decades and has had World Heritage listing since 2010.

To overlook an even larger and equally significant site devoted to women of the same historical era is a rather glaring omission.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

Jacqueline Z. Wilson receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Projects: DP210101275. “Activism & Advocacy: From Deficit Models To Survivor Narratives”

– ref. I was a ward of the state. The horrors of the Parramatta Girls’ Home were legendary – https://theconversation.com/i-was-a-ward-of-the-state-the-horrors-of-the-parramatta-girls-home-were-legendary-214567