Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annie Te One, Lecturer in Māori Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The 2023 election saw a changing of the guard in Māori political representation.

Several parliamentary stalwarts lost their seats to members of the “kōhanga reo generation” – Māori under the age of 45 whose school years coincided with the revitalisation of the te reo Māori through full immersion education.

In the Te Tai Tonga electorate, te Pāti Māori’s Takuta Ferris (44) beat Labour’s Rino Tirikātene, who had held the seat since 2011 and was part of a political dynasty. Labour’s Cushla Tangaere-Manuel (44) won the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate – gaining almost 3,000 more votes than te Pāti Māori’s Meka Whaitiri.

Whaitiri had held the seat for Labour since 2013 before switching to te Pāti Māori in early 2023. The Green Party’s Tamatha Paul (26) won the Labour Party’s stronghold in Wellington Central.

Most notably, te Pāti Māori’s Hana Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke beat Labour’s Nanaia Mahuta for the Hauraki-Waikato electorate. Mahuta was first elected in 1996, before 21-year-old Maipi-Clarke was born, and is one of New Zealand’s longest serving wāhine Māori MPs.

This incoming cohort of Māori politicians was raised in a different cultural environment than their elders.

Over the past four decades, the role of Māori language and culture in New Zealand has changed. Māori language is more visible, and issues affecting Māori – such as self-determination – have become part of the mainstream political discourse.

So what makes these incoming Māori leaders different from those who came before them?

Children of the revolution

Both Maipi-Clarke and Paul have been vocal on issues faced by rangatahi Māori and young people in general. Both have openly supported takatāpui (LGBTQ+) communities and climate justice movements. They have also advocated for better housing options across Aotearoa, particularly for Māori and rangatahi.

While supporting similar goals, the two have different backgrounds and experiences with their whakapapa Māori (Māori ancestory).

Maipi-Clarke is proudly part of the kōhanga reo generation – something she talked about during the election campaign:

Don’t be scared, because the kōhanga reo generation are here, and we have a huge movement and a huge wave of us coming through.

The kōhanga reo movement was established in the 1982 to stem the rapid loss of te reo Māori. In 1900, 95% of Māori children entering the school system were fluent. By 1960, this had dropped to 25%. And by 1979, there was a real concern te reo Māori would become an extinct language.

But while te reo Māori revitalisation has started to bring the language back from the brink, fears for its future remain. As of 2021, 7.1% of the general public spoke te reo Māori “fairly well”. And 23% of Māori said they spoke te reo Māori as one of their first languages.

Read more:
From ‘pebble in the shoe’ to future power broker – the rise and rise of te Pāti Māori

The identity, worldview and political aspirations of Māori who have grown up in the kōhanga reo movement have been influenced by the language – and by extension cultural – revitalisation efforts.

According to the Ministry of Education, students from households that reported emphasising aspects of Māori identity, language and culture reported higher levels of whānau (family) wellbeing than Māori students in families where those elements were absent.

While Paul didn’t grow up enmeshed in her whakapapa Māori, she shares Maipi-Clarke’s commitment to decolonisation and tino rangatiratanga (Māori self-determination) – albeit from a different political party platform.

Paul and Maipi-Clarke (along with Ferris and Tangaere-Manuel) are not the first Māori politicians to commit to these ideas. But they are part of a generation where being Māori, and expressing the overarching goals of the Māori community, have become increasingly normalised.

One example of this shift is the way New Zealanders now view the Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. In a 2014 survey of voters, 15% believed the Treaty should play a larger role in New Zealand law. This rose to 18% in 2017 and 27% in 2020.

Backlash and abuse

Despite a wider embrace of Māori language and culture in New Zealand, both Paul and Maipi-Clarke have spoken about the abuse and racism they faced on the campaign trail – and, in Paul’s case, as a Wellington City councillor.

Ahead of the election, the home of Maipi-Clarke was broken into and a threatening letter left behind. Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer described the threats as “political” and “anti-Māori”.

Read more:
How children’s picturebooks can disrupt existing language hierarchies

In 2022, a group of Māori councillors, including Paul, spoke out about the abuse they received when speaking te reo Māori or advocating for Māori interests.

Paul said she faced this abuse while campaigning for her seat on the city council:

There was definitely a really small but very hateful minority group of people who would follow candidates around and livestream them, and whenever the candidates would speak Māori they would yell at them […] while they were livestreaming and tell them to speak English.

Challenges ahead

So, while the rise of the kōhanga reo generation points to a shift in how Māori are viewed in New Zealand, there are still pockets resistant to change. Nothing can be taken for granted.

The possibility of a referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi, among other issues, means this new generation of Māori political leaders will have to keep fighting to hold on to the social and political gains made over the past four decades.

At the same time, this kōhanga reo generation will need to keep pushing for progress in health, justice and social equity – areas where Māori still fall behind other groups in New Zealand.

With at least the next three years in opposition, it remains to be seen how the kōhanga reo generation handles those challenges – and whether the parliamentary mainstream is ready for a different style of Māori leadership.

Annie Te One 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. Who are the ‘kōhanga reo generation’ and how could they change Māori and mainstream politics? – https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-kohanga-reo-generation-and-how-could-they-change-maori-and-mainstream-politics-215694

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Lewis, Research Fellow in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), and the Emerging Technologies Lab at Monash University, Monash University

As armed conflict continues to play out in the Israel–Gaza war, a separate battle is raging to control the narrative being presented to the world.

Eyewitness accounts, verified facts and culturally sensitive reporting are competing with misinformation, political propaganda and irresponsible journalism.

This information warfare has real-world consequences. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests organised through social media have drawn tens of thousands of people onto the streets, despite anti-protest measures adopted in some countries.

The horrific events of the war, along with responses from across the world, underscore the dangers of diplomatic inaction. It also raises questions about the role digital activism plays in shaping the power dynamics that govern war and politics.

Irresponsible messaging fans the flames

In the Israel-Gaza war, Hamas is spreading propaganda on platforms including Telegram and X, while Israel’s broad propaganda efforts include paid ads showing images of brutal violence on X and YouTube.

Nor can traditional media be blindly considered a reliable source of facts. Conflict reporting often focuses on specific violent events while ignoring their context, and news outlets have also made misleading and unsubstantiated claims in their reporting.

At the same time, access for journalists and investigators is extremely limited and responsibility for events such as the deadly al-Ahli hospital blast is highly contested and requires more impartial verified evidence.

The real-world consequences

Violence has spread well beyond Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, many Palestinians have been killed in attacks by Israeli settlers and forces.

In the United States, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was stabbed to death and his mother wounded in an Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian attack.

In France, a teacher was killed and three students wounded in an Islamist attack at a school, and the Louvre was evacuated after bomb threats. The country has enacted its highest state of security alert.

In the United Kingdom, Jewish schools have been closed in London and Jewish institutions across the country have reported a 400% spike in antisemitic incidents since the war began. In Berlin, violence broke out as petrol bombs were thrown at a synagogue in an antisemitic attack.

What is ‘digital activism’?

“Digital activism” can be thought of as any digitally enabled form of activism and political participation. For scholars, however, digital activism is a conceptual troublemaker that is considered broad, ambiguous and contested. But its function is especially significant in times of conflict and war.

So, does digital activism actually lead to change? What are its implications, and limitations?

Digital activism as a productive force

The impacts of digital activism can be varied. In the Black Lives Matter movement, it was used to articulate counternarratives and reframe major controversies in ways that engendered social and political action.

In the Syrian refugee crisis, digital activism helped galvanise the public into rapid action. It was also used to coordinate disaster response and financial assistance in the wake of the 2020 Beirut explosion.

Digital activism also helped build collective networks of solidarity and resistance in social movements such as the 2011 Egyptian uprising and Occupy Wall Street. In the Russia–Ukraine war, digital activism helped shape participation in conflict-related mobilisation.

And in the context of Israel and Palestine, research has shown digital activism can influence the opinions of both international and domestic audiences, which in turn directly affects events on the ground and the dynamics of conflict.

Citizens and public figures have taken to social media platforms to express outrage and solidarity, perform fact-checking, coordinate aid efforts and inject cultural and historical nuance into discussions.

Online accounts of events allow war to be studied using digital forensics. They may also become evidence in open-source investigations into human rights violations, such as those conducted by Bellingcat and Forensic Architecture.

Activists have also used platforms to counter state repression of information, helping them maintain political autonomy and control how they are represented. However, these platforms often also become sites of control and censorship.

Digital activism as a weapon

While digital activism can serve productive purposes, it can also have unintended and disastrous consequences. Digital activists on mainstream social media platforms must navigate a highly complex online landscape.

The battle to control the narrative of war in these spaces has become almost as intense as the physical acts that define war.

Digital rights groups monitoring regional social media activity say the censorship of pro-Palestinian voices is at a level not seen since the May 2021 Israel-Palestine conflict. Researchers say the level of hate speech, mis- and disinformation on social media is at unprecedented levels. However, it can’t be studied systematically because tools to assess the impact are not available for independent verification.

Read more:
Social media platforms are complicit in censoring Palestinian voices

There’s no shortage of posts using dehumanising language and disinformation to delegitimise the suffering of Palestinians. And people who rush to publish content without verifying it can also end up doing harm.

How to engage responsibly

For those of us bearing witness to the events unfolding, there are ways we can act responsibly and humanely to maximise benefit and minimise harm.

1. Develop critical media literacy skills

Before you share something online, verify whether the information is substantiated. Seek out sources such as Reuters Fact Check, Fake Reporter or disinformation experts, and develop fact-checking skills through tools and resources.

2. Build your cultural literacy

The history of the Israel–Palestine conflict is complex and storied. Digital activism based on ahistorical and culturally illiterate perspectives is unhelpful.

Before you share a post, take responsibility to educate yourself and reflect on your biases and knowledge limitations. The roots of this conflict have to be understood within a specific cultural, colonial and imperial historic context which dates back to the signing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

3. Foster tolerance

Pluralism and healthy debate are essential for democracy. We should find ways to have difficult but respectful conversations with people who have different views to us. It is important to have a media diet that exposes you to different perspectives. Without tolerance, we can’t recognise and reinforce our collective humanity.

Kelly Lewis 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. In times of war, digital activism has power. Here’s how to engage responsibly – https://theconversation.com/in-times-of-war-digital-activism-has-power-heres-how-to-engage-responsibly-215882

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, The University of Melbourne

On Valentine’s Day next year, Indonesia will go to the polls for its most important election in ten years.

The incumbent president, Joko Widodo (known as “Jokowi”), has built a broad supporting coalition of political parties and oligarchs, which has delivered stability but also power and wealth for a small elite. He has also presided over a period of increasing democratic regression, marked by an erosion of the independence of institutions like the anti-corruption commission, inaction on claims of human rights violations, and litigation to silence critics of the government.

Despite this, Jokowi remains immensely popular, with some opinion polls indicating that 80% of citizens support him. He would likely win again if he ran. However, after two five-year terms, he is constitutionally barred from a third, and proposals to change the rules to keep him in the palace have failed.

This is of deep concern to his political allies, who are reluctant to lose their privileged positions. So, for many months, politicians and oligarchs have been manoeuvring to find a way to keep their grip on power.

Read more:
Will Indonesia’s presidential election be delayed? And could Jokowi stay in power longer?

A former rival turned ally

Their solution now seems to be aligning behind the minister for defence, Prabowo Subianto.

At first glance, he is an unlikely choice: a cashiered general and former son-in-law of the authoritarian Soeharto, who ruled Indonesia for more than three decades. Prabowo has been accused of human rights abuses, including in Timor and Papua, and alleged involvement in the abduction and murders of activists around the time of the collapse of Soeharto’s New Order regime in 1998.

Prabowo never faced trial, although several of his men were tried and convicted. The allegations against him meant he was, for years, denied a visa to enter the US. He has denied the allegations against him.

More recently, Prabowo ran against Jokowi in two bitterly fought election campaigns (2014 and 2019), which polarised Indonesia.

However, Prabowo is a member of an elite family, and, despite his previous election losses, can be expected to poll well. After he lost in 2019, Jokowi effectively co-opted him by offering him a seat in cabinet. He has been a compliant member of the administration ever since. Now he is Jokowi’s preferred candidate.

After months of uncertainty, Jokowi and his circle have come out strongly in support for Prabowo, with Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, announced as his vice presidential running mate in recent days.

Read more:
Soeharto: the giant of modern Indonesia who left a legacy of violence and corruption

A controversial court decision

This has sparked enormous controversy, for two reasons.

First, Jokowi is a member of former President Megawati Soekarnoputri’s PDI-P party, which backs another candidate, Ganjar Pranowo. Prabowo and Ganjar are running almost neck and neck, with Ganjar sometimes slightly ahead. If Jokowi’s supporters now give their votes to Prabowo, this might be enough to beat Ganjar.

Megawati is sure to see this as a massive betrayal by Jokowi, and she and her party will do whatever they can to stop Prabowo and Gibran.

Second, the 2017 Election Law says candidates for presidential or vice presidential office must be at least 40 years old. Gibran is only 36. Last week, this obstacle was conveniently overcome when the Constitutional Court ruled there was an exception to this age limit if the candidate had previously held elected office as a regional head. Gibran happens to be the mayor of Solo and so is now eligible.

Knocking out a statutory age limit for candidates might not seem a big issue, but this case has caused a huge scandal in Indonesia.

The problem is the court’s chief justice, Anwar Usman, also happens to be Jokowi’s brother-in-law and Gibran’s uncle. The conflict of interest is obvious. But Anwar refused to recuse himself.

This was significant because the case was decided by five judges to four. Anwar had cast the deciding vote.

Reversal of three similar cases

Legally, the most controversial part of the decision is its reversal of three decisions the court read out earlier on the same day about precisely the same minimum age requirement. In those cases, the court had maintained the minimum age limit for presidential and vice presidential candidates.

As one of the dissenting judges in Gibran’s case pointed out, Anwar did not attend a meeting of judges last month to decide the three other cases. In that meeting, the judges voted by a majority of six to two to maintain the minimum age limit.

However, two days later, Anwar did attend a meeting to decide the Gibran case, during which the judges voted to remove the requirement. As dissenting judge Arief Hidayat wrote in his judgment, Anwar claimed he had not attended the first meeting to discuss the three other cases because of “health reasons”, not out of a conflict of interest.

The court’s decisions in all four cases were read out the same day, and, to the surprise of many, the final decision overruled the others.

The implication here is clear. When the chief justice did not attend the judges’ meeting on the initial three cases, the court was clearly in favour of maintaining the minimum age (and thus blocking Gibran). But when he did attend the final meeting, a number of judges switched sides and changed their decisions.

This reeks of political manipulation and interference. Professor Saldi Isra, perhaps the most-respected judge on the Constitutional Court for his expertise and integrity, expressed it this way in his dissenting judgment:

I am confused, I am really confused how to start my dissenting opinion. Because since setting foot in the Constitutional Court building as a Constitutional Court judge on 11 April 2017 […] this is the first time I have experienced an event so ‘extraordinarily strange’ and which can be said to defy reasonable expectation: The court changing its position and attitude in a flash.

The court has now paved the way for Gibran to run in the election. Critics joke the court’s name should be changed to “Mahkamah Keluarga” (the “Family Court”).

Undermining the court’s independence

The Constitutional Court is Indonesia’s first and only court with the power to review statutes. It was a key institution that emerged from the reforms after Soeharto’s fall. But many now see this decision as marking the end of the court’s independence. This is because it comes against a background of other obvious attempts to undermine its independence.

Earlier this year, the court’s serving deputy chief justice, Aswanto, was removed by the national legislature for perceived disloyalty. In fact, all he did – along with other judges – was raise questions about the constitutionality of a law that was enacted without adequate public participation. This just happened to be Jokowi’s signature Job Creation “Omnibus” Law.

Aswanto’s removal put the court’s other judges on notice that they could share his fate if they went against the government, particularly in big cases. Many suspect Aswanto’s removal was front of mind for the judges in Gibran’s minimum age case.

While there have yet to be any polls conducted since Gibran’s entry into the race, many expect the court’s decision means Prabowo will emerge as the favourite. And if he and Gibran win, Jokowi and the elite group around him may well expect to extend their influence and privilege for years to come.

However, the decision may also spell the end of Constitutional Court as an independent check and balance on Indonesia’s increasingly powerful rulers. That does not bode well for the country’s fragile democracy.

Tim Lindsey receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Simon Butt receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. A twist in Indonesia’s presidential election does not bode well for the country’s fragile democracy – https://theconversation.com/a-twist-in-indonesias-presidential-election-does-not-bode-well-for-the-countrys-fragile-democracy-216007

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavia Cicuttini, Head, Musculoskeletal Unit DEPM, and Head Rheumatology Unit, Alfred Hospital, Monash University

Osteoarthritis is the most common disease of the joints, and often affects the hands. One in two women and one in four men will have symptoms of hand osteoarthritis by the time they turn 85.

Hand osteoarthritis causes pain and stiffness that can significantly impede a person’s ability to carry out activities of daily living such as dressing and eating, and to enjoy leisure activities.

Despite the significant effects hand osteoarthritis has on people’s lives, treatments are limited and often don’t work.

But relief could be on the way after our recent study found that an existing, affordable medication improves pain in patients with hand osteoarthritis.

Treatment is tricky

Finding treatments that work for hand osteoarthritis has been difficult because until recently we didn’t understand the causes of the condition. Many doctors are still taught that osteoarthritis is caused by “wear and tear” due to ageing and that inflammation is not an important factor in hand osteoarthritis.

However, research over recent years has shown this is not correct. Inflammation appears common in people with painful hand osteoarthritis and often leads to damage to joints.

Pharmaceutical companies have performed studies to see if their new medications that work very well in other inflammatory joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis will also work for patients with hand osteoarthritis.

But these medications, called biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, don’t work in hand osteoarthritis.

Read more:
Arthritis isn’t just a condition affecting older people, it likely starts much earlier

We wanted to understand why. These medications each target one single chemical in the body that causes inflammation, so we wondered if a medicine with a wider mechanism of action, which interrupts the processes causing inflammation in a number of different ways, might work in hand osteoarthritis.

This led us to consider whether methotrexate, a medication used for rheumatoid arthritis since the 1980s, might work for hand osteoarthritis. Methotrexate is an attractive option because doctors are familiar with how to use it, and it has been used in many patients over many years, so we know it’s safe.

It’s also relatively cheap (about $100 per year) so has the potential to be available to many patients compared with more expensive treatments that have been trialled. The biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, for example, can cost more than $10,000 per year.

In a survey we did before starting our study, we actually found that many rheumatologists were already prescribing methotrexate “off label” to treat patients with hand osteoarthritis because there was little else to offer them.

Now we have evidence methotrexate works

In our trial, we compared a standard dose of methotrexate (20mg taken orally once a week) to a placebo among patients with hand osteoarthritis and inflammation.

We selected people with hand osteoarthritis who had pain on most days in the last three months and moderate pain in the last seven days. We did hand X-rays to show they had osteoarthritis and not some other condition. We also did a magnetic resonance image (MRI) to make sure there was inflammation present.

We studied 97 people – 50 on methotrexate and 47 on the control medication – and followed them for six months.

As with most studies of osteoarthritis, we found that pain improved over the first month in both the control and methotrexate groups. This may be because people often enter a study when their pain is at its worst, so there is some improvement back to their baseline.

However, we found that the pain level did not improve any further in the control group but continued to improve in the methotrexate group. In the methotrexate group there was improvement at three months and even more so at six months. Across the full six months, the improvement in pain in the methotrexate group was twice as much as in the control group.

Read more:
Opioids ease osteoarthritis pain only slightly. Their deadly risks need to be weighed against any benefit

There are a number of limitations to our study. As it lasted six months, further work is needed to see if the pain continues to improve if people are treated for longer.

We also need to see whether methotrexate can reduce joint damage. This can be done by following people over one to two years and taking an X-ray to assess the condition of their joints after treatment.

What now?

Based on the results of our study, doctors may consider discussing the option of prescribing methotrexate with their patients who have significant symptoms of hand osteoarthritis.

The most common side effects of methotrexate are nausea and loss of appetite which are easily managed in most patients. Less common side effects include inflammation of the liver and a drop in the number of white blood cells. But a patient taking methotrexate will have regular blood tests to pick these problems up early if they occur.

A number of unanswered questions remain. We need to work out how long to use methotrexate for, whether it stops joint damage and which patients are most likely to benefit from methotrexate. We are especially keen to see if it helps women who can be highly affected by hand osteoarthritis that develops around menopause.

Flavia Cicuttini receives funding from NHMRC

– ref. New research has found an existing drug could help many people with painful hand osteoarthritis – https://theconversation.com/new-research-has-found-an-existing-drug-could-help-many-people-with-painful-hand-osteoarthritis-215816

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University

Last night ABC’s Four Corners investigated the problem-plagued Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro power station, focusing on a bogged tunnelling machine, toxic gas and an unexpected volume of sludge.

While these specific problems are new, we have criticised this project since 2019 and outlined six key problems even earlier elsewhere.

How did we get here?

In March 2017, then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the project, lauding it as a game changer for our clean-energy revolution.

In his memoir, Turnbull dubbed Snowy 2.0 “the single most important and enduring decision of the many I made on energy”.

Alas, Snowy 2.0 has not gone well. The warning signs were there from the start. Both the government-appointed Snowy Hydro Board and federal government were warned they had greatly under-costed it, underestimated the construction time and failed to recognise the damage it would do to the Kosciuszko National Park.

In August this year, the government bumped up funding for Snowy 2.0 to A$12 billion – triple the October 2018 figure, when the final decision was made to go ahead, and six times what Turnbull first claimed it would cost in March 2017. That’s before counting the new transmission lines through the controversial HumeLink and VNI West transmission projects. When complete, Snowy 2.0 plus transmission could cost upwards of $20 billion – over ten times the figure Turnbull claimed.

Energy minister Chris Bowen put the Snowy failures and blowouts down to poor execution. Was it still worthwhile? Yes, he said. But Bowen also admits to being swayed by the sunk cost – the government has already spent over $4 billion on it.

Snowy Hydro’s new CEO Dennis Barnes has claimed that while costs have blown out, the public benefits have increased as well.

To date, nothing has been released to substantiate claims of extra benefit despite requests by journalists and by the Senate. All that has been released is a one-page press release and a highly redacted report.

What are the lessons here?

Pumped hydro is essentially a hydroelectricity plant with the ability to pump water back up to the top reservoir. You use cheap power to pump it uphill, and run water back down through turbines to generate power as needed.

The technology isn’t new. It had a previous burst of popularity in developed nations in the 1970s. But since then, there’s been very little pumped hydro built except in China.

Since the 1970s, Australia has had three pumped-hydro generators supplying the National Electricity Market, two in New South Wales and one in Queensland. Data on their generation shows they have only a minor role in energy storage.

None of these are comparable to Snowy 2.0, which would be vastly bigger than any we’ve built before. Snowy 2.0 has by far the longest tunnels – 27 kilometres – of any pumped-hydro station ever built.

Read more:
NSW has approved Snowy 2.0. Here are six reasons why that’s a bad move

Even our smaller pumped-hydro projects are proving harder to complete than expected. The depleted Kidston gold mine in Queensland is being converted to a 250 megawatt pumped-hydro station. The project is much simpler and smaller than Snowy 2.0 and has had extensive policy and financial support by federal and state governments. But it too is running over budget and late, although not remotely close to the same extent as Snowy 2.0.

These projects present hard and expensive engineering problems. They do not deliver economies from learning because each is different from the other.

By contrast, chemical batteries are increasingly standardised. They’re attracting huge investment in research and production. They improve the capacity of existing transmission. They’re made in factories so become cheaper as the industry scales, they have much lower capital outlays per unit of storage, so you get a much quicker payback. And you can resell them easily.

How did we make such an expensive mistake?

One simple explanation is that it was a political decision. The original Snowy Hydro scheme is famed as a nation-building project in post-war Australia. Snowy 2.0 was framed in the same way. Then there’s the need to be seen to “do something”, with economic and technical merit a distant third place.

But there’s another factor – a failure to acknowledge the pace of technology change in ever-better solar panels and wind turbines as well as in battery storage. Apparently insurmountable problems are being solved quickly, such as rapid manufacturing and installation of solar panels, the ability to harness low quality winds, and producing batteries able to service different markets at different points in the grid.

Given the pace of change, it would seem sensible to make the most of cheaper solutions which can be built quickly and don’t lock us in or out to technologies for the long term.

In practice, that means we should focus first on Australia’s huge potential for solar on warehouse and factory rooftops close to our cities. It’s easy to store rooftop solar surpluses for local use. We should make the most of the enormous local potential before reaching for complex, risky, expensive and distant alternatives.

By analogy, don’t try to summit the mountain before climbing its foothills. From base camp, we are bound to find the mountain looks quite different to how we imagined it from a great distance.

Read more:
How to ensure the world’s largest pumped-hydro dam isn’t a disaster for Queensland’s environment

Energy expert Ted Woodley contributed to this article.

Bruce Mountain 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. Pushing water uphill: Snowy 2.0 was a bad idea from the start. Let’s not make the same mistake again – https://theconversation.com/pushing-water-uphill-snowy-2-0-was-a-bad-idea-from-the-start-lets-not-make-the-same-mistake-again-216170

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

Want to keep working after you’ve reached pension age?

The Australian government has just made it a little bit easier, increasing the amount you can earn per year from work before losing some of your pension by A$4,000 on an ongoing basis.

Late last year, it temporarily upped the so-called work bonus from $7,800 per year to $11,800 to “incentivise pensioners into the workforce”. It was part of the government’s response to its September jobs and skills summit.

It meant pensioners could earn an underwhelming $227 per week from work without harming their pension, up from the previous $150.

The rules for older workers are very different in New Zealand. In fact, if Australia adopted New Zealand’s approach, we could have an extra 500,000 willing workers – a fair chunk of them paying tax.

What’s NZ doing differently for older workers?

Last month, as part of his employment white paper, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers made the increase to $227 per week permanent.

Chalmers headlined the announcement: Getting more Australians back into work.

But it’s doing an underwhelming job. In Australia, 15.1% of the population aged 65 and older are in some kind of paid work, up from 14.7% a year earlier.

In contrast, in New Zealand the proportion has just hit 26%. That’s right: more than one-quarter of New Zealanders aged 65 and older are employed.

It’s a similar story if we look at how Australia and New Zealand compared to others internationally on labour force participation (which covers those in paid work plus people actively looking for it).

New Zealand wants to see that number rise further. It has been talking about 33.1% of its population aged 65 or more in paid work, which is what Iceland has.

What is New Zealand doing for over-65s that Australia is not?

You won’t find it mentioned in either treasury’s employment white paper (released in September) or intergenerational report (released in August) – even though National Seniors Australia pointed it out in submissions.

One crucial thing New Zealand is not doing is annoying pensioners who work.

Australian pensioners in paid work get called in for discussions with Centrelink, if it looks as if they are at risk of doing too many hours and going over the $227 per week limit.

The more you work, the more your pension is cut

Pensioners who do go over the $227 per week limit lose half of every extra dollar they earn in a cut to their pension.

Plus tax, this means they lose a total of 69% of what they earn over the limit where their tax rate is 19%, and 82.5% on the portion of earnings taxed at 32.5%.

And this is after the boost designed to “incentivise pensioners into the workforce”.

Last year’s jobs summit also set up a Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce. It reported this week, drawing attention to the “disincentive rates” facing second earners (usually women) who return to work after caring for children.

It said that taking the loss of benefits, tax and childcare costs together, the penalty for returning to work was more than half of what was earned on the first three days of the week, and up to 110% of what was earned on the fourth and fifth days.

My point here is that the losses facing age pensioners who attempt to work are of a similar order – in Australia but not in New Zealand.

Australia’s rules aren’t just stopping pensioners from taking on extra hours. They seem to stop them taking up paid work at all.

There were 2.6 million Australians on the age pension in June this year. Only 83,925 reported income from working. That’s just 3.2%.

NZ pensioners keep their pensions

What’s different about New Zealand is that New Zealand’s pensioners don’t face a penalty if they work. They simply face income tax.

In New Zealand, the age pension (which is called superannuation, making it confusing for Australians) is paid to everyone of pension age. There’s no income test or assets test. You get it because you are a citizen or permanent resident.

Australia wouldn’t need to go as far as New Zealand to get the same benefit. We would simply need to ditch the pension income test in cases where that income came from paid work, leaving the assets test in place.

Then there would be no concern about working.

Read more:
Here’s a radical reform that could pay every retiree the full pension

Half a million reasons for change

If we made that change – and if the same proportion of older Australians chose to work as New Zealanders – we would soon have an extra half a million older Australians able to step into fields such as teaching, where there are 15,500 vacancies, and health care and social assistance, where there are 68,100 vacancies.

It would cost the federal government money because it’d put more Australians of pension age on the pension.

But it’d cost less if we abolished the special tax concession for seniors and pensioners, known as the seniors and pensioners tax offset. In New Zealand, senior citizens face the same tax rates as everyone else.

And it would cost less as more pensioners earned wages and paid income tax.

Calculations prepared for National Seniors Australia by Deloitte suggest that beyond a certain point, the change would become revenue-positive – actually boosting federal coffers – as the extra income tax revenue outweighed the cost of the extra pensions.

National Seniors is calling its campaign “let pensioners work”.

Tapping into the cash economy

Importantly – and here’s where we get to a fact National Seniors might not like me mentioning – that would happen not only because more senior Australians were employed, but also because more senior Australians were employed legitimately.

It’s hard to get a handle on how many senior Australians are working and being paid in cash, which they store rather than bank to avoid tripping the income test. But we do know this.

At the end of March, there were 18 Australian $100 notes in circulation for each Australian resident, an astonishingly high proportion given the use of cash for transactions is collapsing.

In New Zealand at the end of March, there were just five New Zealand $100 notes in circulation for each New Zealand resident.

That may be just a coincidence.

But New Zealand is certainly making it easier for retirees to work legitimately, rather than stay at home or accept cash in hand.

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. If you’re 65 or over and want to work, you’re far better off in New Zealand than Australia – https://theconversation.com/if-youre-65-or-over-and-want-to-work-youre-far-better-off-in-new-zealand-than-australia-216260

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Gothard, Adjunct Associate Professor, Murdoch University

The government and the Greens have agreed to a review of the significant cost threshold. It is the backbone of Australia’s migration health requirement, which all applicants for Australian visas are required to meet.

The threshold is used to refuse visas if an applicant or their child has a health condition or disability likely to incur “a significant cost to the Australian community” to treat or support.

Those who recall the many recommendations of the 2010 Inquiry into the Migration Treatment of Disability,
which were never implemented, will question whether yet another review will bring change. An open letter signed by more than 100 disability and human rights advocates earlier this year called for immediate reform rather than further review.

But Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles both acknowledge the current migration health framework is broken. Community consultation with disability advocates is underway – so there is reason to hope this review might be different.

Read more:
Australia once rejected ‘feeble-minded’ immigrants. While the language has changed, discrimination remains

How much is too much?

The significant cost threshold is set at $51,000 over a maximum period of ten years. Visa applicants whose costs are predicted to exceed that limit will fail the migration health requirement and may be told to leave Australia.

Other countries are more generous.

The Canadian significant cost threshold is set at three times the Canadian average cost for health and social services. In 2022, the amount was C$120,285 (A$138,692) over five years, or C$24,057 (A$27,738) per year.

New Zealand’s significant cost threshold is now NZ$81,000 (A$74,792) over five years.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s most recent report into our national health expenditure (made up of medical and hospital costs) suggests it is currently about A$7,900 per person per year.

That figure does not include disability services or other community services such as education support, which are all included in assessment of the significant cost threshold.

On that basis, $51,000, or just 64.5% of the average community cost of health care for Australians over a ten-year period, seems extraordinarily meagre and certainly not “significant”.

Education support is where many applicants with a child with disability hit a brick wall. Whereas the cost of both “regular” education and English as a second language is deemed a community investment, “special” education support is considered a cost. Any child assessed as requiring such support for more than two years will fail the migration health requirement. The fresh review will address this inequity.

The review will also look at the situation of families living in Australia on temporary visas who then have a child born with a disability or health issue. They are subsequently refused a permanent visa for which they would otherwise be eligible.

Read more:
The disability royal commission heard horrific stories of harm – now we must move towards repair

Arguing for waivers

Some visas enable an applicant to argue for a “waiver” or to set aside the migration health requirement, on the grounds that the social and economic benefits they bring to Australia outweigh the costs. The process is protracted and painful. One applicant wrote:

This process was incredibly invasive, for me, my immediate family and my broader family. I was forced to ask my wider family for very intimate financial information, and then supply that information to the government […] The very fact that my family and I had to go through this process was quite demeaning.

Another applicant, whose child was born here, noted:

The whole process is emotionally draining and is constantly at the back of our minds […] Having our child being seen as burden in the very community that we are actively contributing in is very unfortunate.

Waivers are available for a select range of visas and to about half of all visa applicants. For the other 50% of applicants – including people applying for general skilled migration visas and even those invited by state governments to fill jobs in high demand – there is no opportunity to argue for a waiver; the visa is simply refused.

Aneesh Kollikkara and Krishna Aneesh, both working in Western Australia in critical industries, were refused permanent visas because their son has Down syndrome. They were finally granted visas after the federal immigration minister intervened in 2023.

Similarly, Qasim Butt was on track for a permanent skilled visa until his son was born with a life-threatening health condition. The family’s visa was refused in 2017. Their son was unable to depart Australia because of his condition and the family requested ministerial intervention, which was granted more than five years later.

Read more:
Here’s why we need a disability rights act – not just a disability discrimination one

Too late for some

The 2010 inquiry argued all visa applicants should have the opportunity to demonstrate that the benefits they bring to Australia outweigh their notional community costs. The government committed to this
“in principle” but failed to see it through.

Minister Giles has said “any child born in Australia and adversely affected by the migration health rules can apply for ministerial intervention after merits review”. He has promised to prioritise such cases. But under current guidelines, ministerial intervention cannot take place until an obligatory, tedious and expensive journey through refusal at the department level and then an appeal. Long Administrative Appeals Tribunal delays might mean families spend years in limbo, waiting for a decision.

This review has great potential to improve the circumstances of future applicants for visas. For that reason alone is to be welcomed. However, it does not help those applicants still waiting for a decision or whose visas have already been refused.

While we do not yet know the full terms of reference, a review which fails to address the fact that the Migration Act is exempt from the Disability Discrimination Act and is at odds with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability still leaves gaping loopholes.

Jan Gothard is affiliated with the Welcoming Disability Campaign and Down Syndrome Australia. She is an adjunct Associate Professor at Murdoch University and a Registerd Migration Agent (MARN 1569102) specialising in health and disabilty with Estrin Saul Lawyers.

– ref. A migration review could close some disability discrimination loopholes – but not for people already waiting or refused visas – https://theconversation.com/a-migration-review-could-close-some-disability-discrimination-loopholes-but-not-for-people-already-waiting-or-refused-visas-215894

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yancey Orr, Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, Smith College

It was always going to be a big ask for Australians to vote in favour of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

There’s been much said about the challenges posed by the double majority requirement.

In the wash-up, many are asking what the path to reconciliation is now.

Some answers may lay in other settler societies.

North American Indians provide an example of how representation can occur, without having to amend the constitution.

Change in the face of harsh laws

After 350 years of losing wars, land, and sovereignty, American Indians altered their approach to engaging with the federal government in the mid-20th century.

The National Congress of the American Indians (NCAI), a consulting organisation to the government, was central to this change.

Although American Indians could not alter their history, they did reverse its trajectory.

By the 1940s, they were about to face an era of government policies so harsh it is referred to as the Termination Period.

Read more:
Native Americans have experienced a dramatic decline in life expectancy during the COVID-19 pandemic – but the drop has been in the making for generations

Federal laws took away tribal rights once promised by treaties. Government programs tried to end American Indian communities through assimilation.

In 1944, American Indians created the National Congress of the American Indians. Many of those involved had worked as government officials and had a good understanding of the system.

Despite its name, it can’t make laws, like the US Congress.

Rather, it is an organisation that lobbies and educates the government, like other industry and special interest groups.

Changing the trajectory

Remarkably, by the late 1960s, through the National Congress of American Indians’ efforts, American Indians had not only survived, but the Termination Period had given way to tribal self-determination.

The National Congress of American Indians advocated for legislation such as:

• President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” programs that sought to ease poverty

• the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act which allowed tribes to manage their own services and contracts with the federal government

• the Indian Child Welfare Act which aimed to protect children while also keeping them within their tribal communities.

School enrolments expanded, services increased, and education and health programs brought the highest quality of life many communities had known.

In improved tribal schools, children can now learn both English and their Indigenous language.

Read more:
If there is to be any healing after the Voice referendum, it will be a long journey

Healthy foods, grown by tribes, are making a comeback on reservations that were once rural food deserts.

Of course, there’s a lot more progress still to be made. American Indian men have the lowest average life expectancy of any ethnic group in the US. Issues with addiction, unemployment and trauma still loom large.

And American Indians remain displaced, having lost 99% of their ancestral lands over time.

But compared to the situation 80 years ago, we’ve come a long way.

Progress in real time

My tribe describes the transformation of this period in a short story.

In the 1970s, our tribe had the following items in our posession: a trailer, a desk, and the phonebook sitting on top of it.

Our numerous ventures now contribute one billion Australian dollars to the regional economy.

We run clinics, house elders, provide daycare, and our youth thrive in schools and careers.

We were able to build on the momentum created by the National Congress of American Indians and take control of our future.

The Congress focuses on policy. It mainly employs experts who research proposals, suggest changes to legislation, meet with government representatives, and provide reports to the public.

Because of their work, American Indians are served better by hundreds of programs and millions of dollars in funding.

The National Congress of American Indians does this without being enshrined in the constitution.

In their nearly 80 years, the organisation has built social capital and credibility.

Because it’s so trusted, it secures funding from tribes, corporations, and government agencies. With yearly financial surpluses, it has set aside millions of dollars in assets to safeguard its future.

A voice in a different form

There has been a long history of trying to establish Indigenous representation at the federal level in Australia.

Most recently in 2009, Aboriginal communities established the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.

It was disbanded in 2019 after years of under-funding.

It’s hardly surprising a key lesson its leaders learnt was the need for stable funding. Being written into the constitution was seen as the way to get this.

The rationale is understandable, but amending a country’s constitution is a strong measure.

Read more:
‘Lies fuel racism’: how the global media covered Australia’s Voice to Parliament referendum

Perhaps constitutional change was too big a logistical and psychological issue for the public to accept. A body like the National Congress of American Indians could be the alternative.

It would require long-term, bipartisan funding. The political appetite for such a plan is unclear.

But financial certainty could enable Aboriginal people to provide essential consultation and help train future leaders.

It may also prove more palatable for voters across the political spectrum.

In North America, such a lobbying and policy organisation has helped ensure much better outcomes for its Indigenous people.

With the right support, the same could be achieved in Australia.

Yancey Orr 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. Indigenous voices can be heard without being constitutionally enshrined, just look at the US – https://theconversation.com/indigenous-voices-can-be-heard-without-being-constitutionally-enshrined-just-look-at-the-us-215810

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Old, Associate Professor, Biology, Zoology, Animal Science, Western Sydney University

Launched in 2015, WomSAT (Wombat Survey and Analysis Tool) is a citizen science project and website that allows “wombat warriors” to report sightings of wombats, their burrows, and even their cube-shaped poops.

The project initially aimed to uncover information on all things wombat from across Australia, particularly threats. Its ultimate aim is to support conservation, informed by an enhanced understanding of wombat biology.

WomSAT also aims to educate the wider community by using the hashtag #WombatWednesday to spread the word. The project has resulted in raising the profile of wombats in the broader community.

People have jumped onboard to support the charismatic species, and thousands of posts have been shared via social media.

To date, citizen scientists across Australia have reported more than 23,000 wombat sightings to WomSAT. These sightings have recently been analysed and the findings published in Australian Mammalogy and Integrative Zoology.

Importantly, the data have given us new insights into where to find two of the biggest threats: Australia’s wombat roadkill hotspots, and the worst areas for sarcoptic mange (a disease related to scabies).

Read more:
Mangy marsupials: wombats are catching a deadly disease, and we urgently need a plan to help them

Making our roads safer for wombats

Wombats are large, mostly grass-eating native Australian marsupials. They play an essential role in maintaining biodiversity as ecological engineers. Through their burrowing, they maintain soil health and create habitat to support other plants and animals.

There are three species of wombats: the critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii), the threatened southern hairy-nosed wombat (L. latifrons), and the bare-nosed or common wombat (Vombatus ursinus).

Like most Australian native animals, wombats are under threat on many different fronts – habitat destruction, changed fire regimes, competition from introduced species, and even direct persecution by humans, as they are deemed pests by some. The bare-nosed wombat is particularly impacted by roadkill and sarcoptic mange.

The new data reported to WomSAT have identified roadkill hotspots and factors affecting wombat vehicle collisions.
Several areas were identified as roadkill hotspots, including Old Bega Road and Steeple Flat Road in southern New South Wales. Most wombat roadkill deaths occurred in winter, and sadly most appeared otherwise healthy.

Having better data and identifying these roadkill hotspots will ultimately reduce road risks for people and wombats. We can target these hotspots using mitigation strategies such as reduced speeds, signage and barriers to prevent wombat crossing and avoid collisions.

Mangy marsupials

WomSAT data have also revealed that wombat populations in closer proximity to urban areas have more wombats with sarcoptic mange. Mange is a disease caused by the Sarcoptes scabiei mite.

In people this mite causes scabies. But in wombats, the disease is fatal if left untreated. The mites cause disease by burrowing into the skin of wombats, causing extreme itchiness and discomfort. Eventually it leads to large open wounds, and the wombat dies from secondary infections.

For sarcoptic mange reports, the season was not statistically significant, but rainfall was. This could potentially be because scabies mites thrive in more humid environments, but more research is needed.

Interestingly, our field research has also indicated that rainfall contributes to higher occurrence of sarcoptic mange in specific populations we have monitored over several years.

Overall, roadkill events and sarcoptic mange are two of the biggest threats to bare-nosed wombats. As we continue to track both over time, it will help us to better understand and mitigate these threats.

You can become a wombat warrior too

Recent upgrades to WomSAT will now allow GPS location data embedded in photos taken using smartphones. Importantly, this means users can upload wombat sightings when they come back into phone signal or internet range.

Users can also now upload information where wombats are not found, which provides important information on wombat distribution and abundance.

Another new feature on WomSAT will assist wildlife carers to directly monitor and record treatment of wombats with sarcoptic mange in the field. In the past, treatment regimes have rarely been recorded. This will benefit the wider wildlife care network by highlighting areas where wombats are currently being treated, as well as new areas where wombats require treatment.

In the longer term, the resource will also help to support the development of better treatment regimes by recording treatment methods and tracking wombats (through photographs) to help monitor their recovery.

Regardless of the level of experience with wombats, everyone can get involved and become a wombat warrior. You can do so by reporting sightings of wombats and their burrows to the WomSAT website via a mobile phone or computer.

Ongoing reporting to WomSAT will provide more insights into these amazing marsupials. It can be used to assist with determining wombat distribution and abundance patterns, as well as help manage the threats they face.

Julie Old received funding from Emirates Airlines, Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa and NSW NPWS Curb Mange Grant to establish and upgrade the WomSAT website.

Hayley Stannard 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. 2 biggest threats to wombats revealed in new data gathered by citizen scientists – https://theconversation.com/2-biggest-threats-to-wombats-revealed-in-new-data-gathered-by-citizen-scientists-215713

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Griffin, Associate Professor, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, The University of Queensland

Many tiny organisms including bacteria, fungi and viruses normally live on our bodies, and even inside us. These are called the microbiome. The large number of these organisms living in the gastrointestinal tract are collectively known as the gut microbiome.

Increasingly the gut microbiome is recognised as playing a large part in health and disease, particularly relating to human physiology, metabolism and immune function.

There are now more than 700 published papers looking at the interaction between COVID and the gut microbiome. Many of these studies demonstrate the possible contribution of gut bacteria to COVID infection and severity, as well as the effect COVID (and its treatment) potentially has on our gut bacteria.

Now, a new study has found severe COVID may be related to fungal bugs in our gut microbiome. This could be through a variety of changes to the immune system in response to specific fungal species.

What the study did

Fungal organisms in the microbiome are referred to as the fungal microbiota, or mycobiota. While it’s normal to have a range of fungal organisms in the gut, changes in the types or amount can be linked to disease, just like with variations in gut bacteria.

In the study published in Nature Immunology, the researchers investigated the possible relationship between mycobiota and COVID in a few different ways.

First, they compared patients with and without COVID, looking at the levels of certain fungal organisms in samples from their gastrointestinal tracts. This included 66 people with severe COVID, 25 with moderate COVID and 36 without COVID.

The researchers also measured antibodies in the participants’ blood against these same organisms, which lets us know that they triggered an immune response.

Read more:
COVID and your gut: how a healthy microbiome can reduce the severity of infection – and vice versa

To investigate further, the researchers conducted experiments in mice. They gave the mice some of the fungal organisms taken from COVID patients and measured some of the same outcomes, including antibodies in the blood. They also looked to see if certain treatments, such as antifungals, would make a difference.

While this isn’t the first study looking at gut mycobiota and COVID, it’s very comprehensive and reports some interesting findings.

What the study found

The researchers detected a greater amount of fungal organisms in patients who had COVID compared with controls who did not.

Antibodies to certain fungi were also heightened in the blood of COVID patients. In other words, the presence of these fungal organisms and an associated immune response seems to be linked to a more severe COVID infection. In particular, two Candida species and S. cerevisiae were linked to disease severity.

When the researchers isolated live fungi from fecal samples of COVID patients, Candida albicans was common in the gut of patients with COVID, and its growth correlated with more severe disease.

To look at the impact of these fungal species on immune responses, mice were colonised with Candida strains isolated from the COVID patients.

The researchers found older mice who were colonised with C. albicans and then infected with COVID showed a very different immune response compared to mice that weren’t given the Candida fungus. This included having more immune cells called neutrophils in the blood and increases in other markers of inflammation including in the lungs.

Some of these changes were partially resolved with anti-fungal treatment or other specific anti-inflammatory medications that have shown benefit in COVID patients.

Read more:
COVID is a ‘smart virus’ that can affect DNA – but that doesn’t mean you can pass it on to your kids

Some limitations

All of this suggests variations in the mycobiota may contribute to the excessive inflammatory immune response seen in severe cases of COVID. A link between the fungal microbiome and inflammation isn’t completely new – other studies have shown an impact on inflammatory conditions linked to similar changes in the mycobiota.

As with all studies, there are some limitations to consider here. First, the number of human participants was relatively low, with only 91 patients with COVID included, and 36 in the control group. Many parts of the study analysed even smaller groups of patients or patient samples.

Second, the study was conducted in 2020 during the first wave of COVID infections. A lot has changed since then including the virus itself. And most people have now not only been vaccinated but also previously exposed to the virus.

Nonetheless, this study raises many possibilities including perhaps being able to look at who might be a greater risk of more severe COVID based on their mycobiota. There may even be a possibility of trying to change the mycobiota to reduce the risks from COVID infection. But to get to these points we need a lot more research.

There are multiple factors that determine the make-up of our microbiome, including mycobiota. These are likely to include diet and lifestyle factors alongside other factors like medical conditions and treatments, such as antibiotics.

At this stage there are fewer proposed interventions for influencing mycobiota than for gut bacteria. But studies such as this one demonstrating the importance of the fungal bugs in our gut will hopefully lead to more research in the area.

Paul Griffin 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. Could gut fungi be linked to severe COVID? What to make of new research findings – https://theconversation.com/could-gut-fungi-be-linked-to-severe-covid-what-to-make-of-new-research-findings-216084

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

You probably saw a multi-coloured climate map at least once in school. You might have pored over it, fascinated. Was Antarctica really a cold desert? And why was so much of Russia listed as tundra?

Almost always, those maps were based on the climate classification system proposed by Wladimir Köppen. The colours are chosen to suit our imagination: Australia with its red desert centre, surrounded by a yellow or orange semi-arid fringe and more lush green climates along many coastlines and hinterland.

But these maps were made for a climate that doesn’t exist any more. Our new research shows just how fast climate change has altered these maps – and how they will continue to change.

Our web app lets you see for yourself for any country in the world and for different emission scenarios. For Australia, you can watch the hot desert area expand and the temperate areas shrink.

The climate map of the future below assumes nations meet their climate goals. It could be far worse. Or it could be better, if we finally treat climate change with the urgency it needs.

How do you classify a climate?

Köppen was a 19th century Russian botanist who later retrained in meteorology. Over his career, he combined both interests, becoming fascinated by the relationship between climate and types of vegetation.

Around 1900, he proposed the influential climate classification system which now bears his name alongside his collaborator, Rudolf Geiger. It remains by far the most used classification system, as it combines different aspects of climate data into types of landscapes and vegetation types we can actually picture, from rainforests, savannahs and deserts to temperate and boreal forests, tundras, glaciers and ice sheets.

The Köppen-Geiger classification has five major climate classes: tropical, dry, temperate, cold and polar. These are divided into 30 subclasses based on the amount of rain and temperatures in summer and winter.

You might think it would be relatively straightforward to figure out if climate change has pushed a region into a new classification. Add the recorded global warming of 1.2°C so far and see if that changes anything.

Alas, it’s not that simple. This is because climate change can have weird regional effects. We’re getting much more rain in some areas, and much less in others. Some regions are warming faster than the global average and others are warming slower.

Climate models predict there will continue to be such differences. Plus, a degree of warming will have a greater impact at the edge of a glacier than in the Sahara.

To find out what will happen, we analysed vast databases of past weather observations and future climate projections under different socio-economic and emission pathways to redraw the Köppen map. We did so at a very fine scale, dividing the world up into square kilometres so we could observe localised changes in mountainous regions and on small islands.

Change has already happened – and there’s much more to come

The results were surprising. In some parts of the world, climate zones have already shifted considerably since Köppen drew his first climate map more than a century ago. The fastest change has been in the last few decades. The largest changes have been in cold and polar climates, which have become less cold and sometimes drier.

Eastern Europe has been a climate change hotspot over the last century. Its continental climate of cold winters and warm summers has given way to a temperate climate with hot summers.

Several countries have already changed climate zones across more than half of their area. Hungary, for instance, has changed the most of any nation. A whopping 81% of the country has already moved into a different, more temperate climate zone. Other global hot spots include central Europe, the Middle East and South Korea.

Read more:
Will three billion people really live in temperatures as hot as the Sahara by 2070?

Our projections show these regions are among those to undergo the biggest climatic shifts through to 2100. Some areas will shift climate zones more than once.

Countries at higher latitudes will see some of the largest changes. Almost a quarter (24%) of both Canada and Russia have already moved into another climate zone since Köppen’s first map. Another 39-40% of their immense landmasses will follow suit before the end of the century.

A similar story applies to Europe, where climate zones will change in between one-third and two-thirds of the area in most countries.

South Africa and neighbouring countries Swaziland and Lesotho are the fastest changing countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Their climate zones have shifted across 28% of their combined area. By 2100, an additional 44% will change.

In Australia, climate zones have already shifted across 14% of the country, with another 13% predicted during the remainder of this century.

You might wonder how it can be that climate zones don’t move in some areas. That is because each Köppen climate zone represents a specific range of temperature and rainfall conditions, and a region can move within that range.

But Köppen didn’t foresee what’s happening now. In his classification, deserts and tropical climates are at the high end of the temperature scale and cannot change – they just get hotter.

What will this mean on the ground?

Changes as dramatic and rapid as this are already upending natural ecosystems. As climate change progresses, it will force significant change to our farms and infrastructure. Humanity gets half its calories from just three plants – rice, maize and wheat – and each of these has a preferred climate.

Warmer and drier climates bring more drought as well as crop loss, water shortages, ecosystem degradation, bushfires and desertification. Warmer winters, extreme heat, drought and fire have been pummelling forests the world over – from the cold high latitudes in Canada and Russia to the dry forests in the Mediterranean region, California and Australia. Even the Amazon rainforest is affected.

Of course, some changes may be beneficial for people, such as better agricultural conditions or lower heating costs in cold regions. But the overall picture is one of calamitous change.

Over the next decades, it will take all of humanity’s commitment and ingenuity to avoid a major climate catastrophe.

Read more:
The world’s tropical zone is expanding, and Australia should be worried

Albert Van Dijk receives or has previously received funding from several government-funded agencies, grant schemes and programmes and undertakes occasional consultancies.

Hylke Beck and Pablo Rozas Larraondo do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Remember the climate map from your school atlas? Here’s what climate change is doing to it – https://theconversation.com/remember-the-climate-map-from-your-school-atlas-heres-what-climate-change-is-doing-to-it-216171

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gwilym Croucher, Associate Professor, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne

A major higher education review is considering putting a levy on international student fees in Australia.

The idea is universities would pay some of the fees they receive from international students into a central fund managed by the government.

This would effectively impose an export tax on international students to address calls for increased funds for research and infrastructure.

Despite the radical nature of this proposal from the Universities Accord review team, there has been very little debate about an international student levy so far.

In a new report we examine how a levy might work and its likely impact on students and universities.

Read more:
The Universities Accord draft contains ‘spiky’ ideas, but puts a question mark over the spikiest one of all

What is being proposed?

The Australian Universities Accord review team, led by former vice-chancellor Mary O’Kane, is at the business end of its work. An interim report was released in July and a final report is due back to the federal government in December.

The interim report contained more than 70 policy ideas for further consideration. One of these is a levy on international student fee income to:

provide insurance against future economic, policy or other shocks, or fund national and sector priorities such as infrastructure and research.

When releasing the report in July, Education Minister Jason Clare added the levy could could create a fund “a bit like a sovereign wealth fund”.

A big discrepancy

International student fees are a vital part of funding for Australia’s universities. In 2019, pre-COVID, international student revenue was A$10 billion.

But there is a big discrepancy between how much income Australian universities receive from international student fees. The levy would be a way to channel funds from institutions that receive a lot of international student fee income to those that do not.

Income from international fees tends to be concentrated in metropolitan universities, who can more easily attract students with their location and rankings.

In 2021, for example, The University of Sydney collected the most international student fee income at A$1.3 billion, which was roughly 38% of the university’s total budget that year. In contrast, The University of Notre Dame collected about $5 million or roughly 2% of their budget that year.

But if the levy is going to provide “insurance”, this implies a reserve would need to be built up. So hundreds of millions of dollars of fee revenue would be withdrawn from the sector for several years until a target was reached.

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Why tax international students?

A core question confronting a new levy is “who should it apply to and why?” The current proposal involves taxing fees paid by international students but not those paid by domestic full-fee paying students. The vast majority of these are enrolled in postgraduate courses and like international students are unevenly distributed across the sector.

A levy risks exacerbating the already problematic perception international students are “cash cows” – a concern expressed by the Business Council of Australia and Bond University among others.

Most international students already pay tuition fees significantly higher than the amount universities receive for domestic students. But at least at the moment, international students can choose between a wide range of providers and courses at varying fee levels.

If there was a levy, their fees may end up funding activities that have little relationship to their studies or experience in Australia.

Without transparency and accountability over the different purposes for which the funds are used, students might rightly ask whether they are receiving value for money and why domestic full-fee students are not contributing.

International students already contribute significantly to the public purse beyond their course fees.

We estimate the Australian government currently collects more than A$2.6 billion per year directly from international students’ charges and taxes. This includes visa fees, income tax if they are working in Australia and GST.

Redistribution will be tricky

Another issue is around the public redistribution of private fee income.

As our report notes, Australia’s five largest universities – The University of Sydney, Monash University, The University of Melbourne, The University of New South Wales and The University of Queensland – have had significantly higher international revenue than other institutions in recent years. Depending on the design, they may provide the lion’s share of the contributions.

For example, a straight 5% levy on international student fees for each university in 2021 would have collected more than $430 million, half of which would come from the five universities with the highest fee income.

It might be considered unreasonable for fee income to be redistributed from high-income to low-income universities without a strong rationale, if this affects teaching and research at the former.

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A radical step

If Australia imposes a levy on international student fees, it is likely some students will choose to study elsewhere.

Tuition fees will be increased by some universities in an effort to pass the cost of the levy on to students, rather than cutting expenditure.

If the levy forced universities to give up some funds for other universities, this would be a radical step, going far beyond current policy settings. The consequences of this – in terms of funds potentially lost from some universities – would need to be very carefully considered.

And if the levy also caused a major drop in Australia’s share of the international education market, it would be a self-defeating policy.

Gwilym Croucher is Associate Professor in Higher Education at the University of Melbourne.

Christopher Ziguras is Professor in Higher Education at the University of Melbourne and past President of the International Education Association of Australia.

– ref. What would a levy on international student fees mean for Australian universities? – https://theconversation.com/what-would-a-levy-on-international-student-fees-mean-for-australian-universities-215794

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Spiropoulos, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

What’s the easiest way to improve a company’s social and environmental performance? The unfortunate answer, from our analysis of Australian public companies, is to change the way you measure it. In particular, by changing what you said last year to make this year’s performance look better.

Reporting on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance is increasingly important to the fortunes of listed companies – under pressure from investors, regulators and other stakeholders.

In some cases, executive pay is tied to these metrics.

Our study, which examined reports from the top 500 companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) over the past 15 years, suggests progress can be little more than sleight of hand, facilitated by the lack of clarity around how ESG performance is measured and reported.

Our final data set includes those companies that report on both their ESG performance and their executive remuneration practices. This numbered about 215 individual companies.

Of these, roughly one in six made adjustments to past reported ESG performance, particularly around social measures such as gender diversity or workplace safety. The average size of the adjustments was also significant, at 28% of the original value reported.

About 55% of companies tied a proportion of their chief executive’s bonus to ESG metrics. These companies were twice as likely to make one or more adjustments to past reported ESG numbers. In fact, 33.5% of all adjustments were of an ESG measure that was included in the chief executive’s bonus. The average size of these adjustments was also larger, at 36% of the original value.

This occurred across all industries but was most common in two areas: the financial sector and the materials sector, which covers mining and chemical, construction and forest products.

Linking executive pay to improvements

If retrospective changes were the result of previous mistakes or improvements in measurement systems, there should be no bias in the direction of changes to past performance (that is, it could go up or down). But we found a significant bias towards making past performance look worse, thereby making the current year’s look better.

Fuelling this seems to be the practice of tying executive bonuses to a simple improvement, rather than to a stipulated target. For example, executives might be rewarded for increasing the proportion of female or Indigenous employees or cutting injury rates, rather than hitting specific targets for these metrics.

We found about 17% of bonus pay is typically attributed to ESG targets. For the average chief executive in our study, this translates to around $200,000 in extra income. It’s not surprising that retrospective changes making current-year performance seem better were more likely to occur when greater weighting was given to these targets in the chief executive’s contract.

The case of Commonwealth Bank

The restatement of ESG measures is illustrated by the case of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which has been criticised for vague performance targets.

Over the past few years it has tied about 10-15% of the chief executive’s bonus to relatively intangible metrics. In its 2020 report, for example, “people measures” covering “culture, wellbeing, talent and capability” comprised 9% of the chief executive’s bonus.

Thees metrics have persistently changed retrospectively, as shown by employees’ “safety and wellbeing” results.

For example, the bank’s 2017 annual report showed 1.1 injuries per million hours worked (this is a standard measure, known as the “lost time injury frequency rate”).

However, in its 2018 annual report, the bank revised the 2017 figure from 1.1 to 1.6, which meant the 2018 report showed injury rates as having decreased relative to the previous year.

The stated reason for the change was that the updated 2017 figure includes injury claims received after the year-end reporting date, as well as expanding the scope to include New Zealand employees when calculating this metric.

In its 2019 annual report, the 2018 figure was then revised up from 1.1 to 1.4. This meant the report showed no increase in injury rates for 2019.

In its 2020 report, the 2019 figure was revised upward to 1.6. If we compare the final adjusted figures for 2019 and 2018, there was actually an increase in rates between the two years.

This practice is persistent up to the 2023 reporting period, and it’s likely legitimate that some injury claims are indeed filed after the year-end reporting date. However, if this is the case, we might wonder why an incomplete number from a current report is being compared with a complete one from a previous report.

In response to queries from The Conversation, a spokesperson for Commonwealth Bank confirmed this is indeed how these figures are collated, but denied that there is pressure to compile the data in a way that gives the impression of constant improvement.

Of course, safety and wellbeing are important issues, but the discretionary nature of these metrics means retrospective changes can make it look like improvements have occurred. Therefore, we advise users of this information to exercise caution when comparing performance to adjusted numbers, particularly as little information is typically given to explain why the adjustment was made.

For example, Commonwealth Bank’s 2023 annual report features a change to the way full-time equivalents are calculated, but without explaining how or why the previous years’ figures were adjusted.

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A new approach to environmental, social and governance policies is needed before it’s too late

Manipulating vs managing

As per the adage “what gets measured gets managed”, governments and investors have pushed sustainability reporting on the basis it will encourage companies to be socially and environmentally responsible.

This is partly due to a shift away from the view that companies exist purely to maximise shareholders’ wealth, and towards the idea they should be good corporate citizens with minimal negative impact on the environment and society. Some investors prefer to invest only in stocks that meet ESG performance criteria.

This creates incentives to exaggerate claims – made easier by the lack of uniformity in measuring and reporting such results.

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Who sets the standard?

An international body to set global standards, the International Sustainability Standards Board, was established in 2021. It published its first set of ESG standards in June.

Australia is set to follow these standards, under a proposal by Treasury, with one catch: the regulations will focus only on climate-related disclosures, which will apply to Australian companies from 2024, overseen by the Australian Accounting Standards Board.

While these standards will create greater consistency in ESG disclosures, there will remain significant discretion in how ESG performance is measured – including the ability to change how ESG items are measured from year to year and to adjust previous years’ apparent performance.

Currently, ESG performance isn’t required to be audited, and just 22% of the companies we looked at had their ESG performance audited. Last month, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board issued a draft sustainability assurance standard that will require auditors to provide assurance of reported ESG figures.

Treasury has also said Australia will follow this standard, and expects auditors to provide reasonable assurance on all climate disclosures by 2027. Hopefully, these audits will also consider the legitimacy of revisions or changes in measurement. But regardless of this improvement in accountability regarding environmental performance, companies’ reporting on social metrics will still be unregulated.

The irony is striking. What was conceived as a mechanism to drive positive environmental and social change may instead act as an incentive to manipulate sustainability performance.

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

– ref. How Australian companies can fudge their numbers to show social and environmental progress – https://theconversation.com/how-australian-companies-can-fudge-their-numbers-to-show-social-and-environmental-progress-212442

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jago Dodson, Professor of Urban Policy and Director, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

The High Court of Australia’s decision to invalidate Victoria’s electric vehicle tax has been widely noted as a major judgement in the history of federal-state taxation powers.

In 2021, Victoria introduced a 2.5 cents per kilometre charge for electric vehicles using public roads. Ostensibly this was to compensate for the likely loss of Commonwealth fuel excise revenue from the shift to electric vehicles.

The court’s decision, released last week, effectively expanded the definition of an excise to include any tax that has “a reasonably anticipated economic effect on the pattern of demand”. By imposing a cost on the use of vehicles, and thereby potentially reducing demand for them, the road user charge is an excise.

At the time of federation in 1901, automobile technology had advanced to the level of a “motorised dog cart powered by kerosene”. There is no constitutional right to operate a motor vehicle on public roads, yet the High Court has given the Commonwealth the right to charge for motor vehicle use on roads.

In making this decision, the court has gravely weakened the capability of the states to set, regulate and fund metropolitan transport planning objectives.

Australians rely heavily on private vehicles

Between 68 per cent (Sydney) and 75 per cent (Brisbane) of travel in Australia’s major cities is by private motor vehicle, making them the most unsustainable national grouping within a developed country outside the United States. Car dependence causes various problems that are not adequately accounted for in current pricing regimes.

These include carbon emissions, productivity costs of congestion, traffic deaths and injuries to people and animals, respiratory and systemic diseases from exhaust and tyre particles, and cardiovascular disease from sedentary behaviour.

Because they generate many of the negative impacts of conventional vehicles, electric vehicles are not a sustainable mode of urban transport. And there is increasing recognition that moving from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles won’t reduce the impact of climate change within emergency timeframes.

The best way to reduce damage from car use in cities is to reduce usage overall. Along with regulatory measures that impede, exclude, ban or ration use of cars, taxes, levies, charges and prices are important mechanisms.

Since the 1980s, various agencies have argued the societal costs of motor vehicle use are under-estimated. The Henry Tax Review (2010), the last major comprehensive review of national taxation argued a combination of road specific congestion charges, network access charges and a variable charge such as fuel tax, should be applied to vehicle use costs.

This approach has been echoed in further advice from the Productivity Commission, Infrastructure Australia and Infrastructure Victoria, as well as by motorist groups such as the RACV.

The states are losing control of managing their roads

The High Court decision to reserve congestion and generalised road use charging to the Commonwealth severely limits states capacity to manage the costs of urban car use by way of taxes, charges, levies or fees, such as under section 1(d) of the Victorian Road Safety Act 1986. The section seeks to ensure “the equitable distribution within the community of the costs of road use”.

But, if Victorians now voted for road user charging to shift the 71% of travel currently undertaken by car in Melbourne to sustainable modes, they would be refused by the Constitution.

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Any future desire to achieve more sustainable levels of car use of 30-40% of travel, as found in cities like Seoul, London or Paris – or 12% in Tokyo – would be impossible to achieve using road pricing, without Commonwealth involvement.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth lacks a mechanism to collect road user charges. It would need to duplicate the states motor vehicle registration systems, roll out an equivalent system via the ATO, or rely on state cooperation.

A new tussle between the Commonwealth and states is foreseeable over the level of charge, the costs of collection and distribution formula, as well as any differential calibrations. It could be the Commonwealth sets a uniform national road users charge but allows states to add their own loadings to meet their transport objectives.

There may however be workarounds for states to impose per kilometre road user charges on electric vehicles. Victoria could impose an extra levy per kilowatt hour of electricity charged to an EV, for example, given there the close relationship between distance driven and kilowatt-hours consumed. It would be an adventurous High Court that decided the Commonwealth was responsible for setting electricity tariffs.

Read more:
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Another workaround could be to vest Victoria’s roads within a commercially mandated state-owned corporation responsible for full cost recovery for road use. Road user charges would not comprise excise but rather a commercial transaction between the corporation providing the road service and the motorist paying to use the service.

Australian cities need to move quickly and decisively away from the car as a means of urban transport. Given its opposition to the Victorian road user charge and its newly confirmed powers over urban transport pricing, it is incumbent on the Commonwealth to present a coherent plan to reduce car use in cities.

Although the Commonwealth is currently developing a net zero transport and infrastructure roadmap, this needs to be urgently broadened to a national strategy for sustainable urban transport, coordinated with the states, and including clear, effective and accelerated ways of reducing car use in cities.

RMIT University receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute to support Jago Dodson’s research.

– ref. The High Court decision on electric vehicles will make charging for road use very difficult – https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-decision-on-electric-vehicles-will-make-charging-for-road-use-very-difficult-216107

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Featherstone, Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University

There are more than 1,500 remote First Nations communities and homelands around Australia, and about 670 of them have no mobile phone coverage. In research with 495 people from ten remote communities, we found 45.9% were “highly excluded” from increasingly important digital services and tools.

Digital inclusion for First Nations people is part of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. The agreement calls for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have “access to information and services enabling participation in informed decision-making regarding their own lives”, and “equal levels of digital inclusion as other Australians by 2026”.

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There is still some way to go, as our research shows. As one person in a remote community described their situation, “the internet here in Galiwin’ku past 10am is hopeless. [It] further marginalises people already living in an isolated community.”

A new report by the First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Group, released today, proposes a series of practical strategies to the Australian government to reduce the digital divide for First Nations Australians, particularly those living in remote communities and homelands.

Digital inclusion and the digital gap

We are part of a team that studies digital inclusion – the ability to access, afford, and effectively use digital technologies – across Australia. Each year, we publish the Australian Digital Inclusion Index which gives scores out of 100 for inclusion in different regions and groups of people around the country.

In our Mapping the Digital Gap project, we are researching digital inclusion among First Nations people in remote communities.

There is a significant gap in digital inclusion for First Nations people compared with other Australians, which widens substantially with remoteness.

Nationally, we found a “digital gap” of 7.5 points between First Nations people and others in Australia. In remote Australia the gap is 24.4 points, and in very remote communities and homelands it is 25.3 points.

The biggest contribution to this gap comes from access to communications services. There are some 1,545 remote First Nations communities and homelands across Australia, and 670 have no mobile coverage. Many of the others need much better access to affordable and reliable connections.

First Nations people primarily use prepaid mobile services for voice and data, so expanded access to mobile and wifi services are a critical first step.

Of the 495 remote First Nations people who participated in our study, 45.9% were rated as “highly excluded” based on their inclusion index scores, compared with 9.4% of people across Australia.

First Nations leadership on closing the digital gap

The First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Group was established by Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland in January 2023 to provide First Nations leadership on policy and programs to address closing the digital gap.

The advisory group consists of five highly experienced First Nations people, supported by a seven-person expert panel and a secretariat within the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure. The group is chaired by veteran media professional and Noongar woman Dot West, with researcher Lyndon Ormond-Parker, an Alyawarr man and coauthor of this article, as deputy chair.

The advisory group’s initial report was released by West, Rowland, and Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney. This report follows the release of the federal government’s First Nations Digital Inclusion Plan in July.

In the introduction to the report, West outlines the importance of Closing the Gap Target 17:

Digital inclusion is a critical enabler for a vast array of other benefits, including health, education and social connectedness, as well as making sure First Nations people have access to the information they need to make decisions for themselves and their families.

She describes the need for a collaborative approach to achieve this ambitious target.

To meet Target 17 will require significant and new investment by governments in partnership with industry and those communities where the digital gap is most pronounced. The most effective approaches will be ones that reflect local priorities and are based on direct engagement with communities.

In the report, the advisory group outlines a number of practical recommendations to help close the digital gap. These include:

• providing affordable pre-paid mobile plans

• improved access to government communications programs

• fit-for-purpose connectivity options such as community wifi connections, prepaid NBN services, new satellite internet projects, and upgrades to improve TV access.

Read more:
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Other recommendations are supporting the development of digital skills needed to safely and confidently use online services, and access to relevant news and media, including local First Nations services.

Improving national data collection for the 70% of First Nations people who live in urban and regional Australia, to measure progress, is another key recommendation. This builds on an earlier outcome of the advisory group’s advocacy, an interactive map of connectivity in First Nations communities.

Shared decision-making

The National Agreement on Closing the Gap is built on a partnership approach between governments and First Nations people, which includes co-design and co-delivery of programs.

The first of the reforms at the centre of the agreement is to “strengthen and establish formal partnerships and shared decision-making”. If this reform is enacted by governments nationally, it is likely to lead to meaningful progress on Closing the Gap.

This advisory group provides an example of how First Nations leadership can provide practical, appropriate and evidence-based input on key policy areas that affect First Nations people and communities.

Daniel Featherstone is employed within the RMIT University node of the ARC funded Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (CE200100005). He leads the ‘Mapping the Digital Gap’ research project within the Australian Digital Inclusion Index team, both of which are primarily funded by Telstra. Daniel is also a member of the Expert Panel which support the First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Group.

Lyndon Ormond-Parker is an Aboriginal man of Alyawarr descent from the Barkly Tablelands region of the Northern Territory. He currently holds a part-time ARC Discovery Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award (IN220100008) with the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, Australian National University, and a part-time position as a Principal Research Fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (CE200100005), RMIT on the Telstra funded project Mapping the Digital Gap. He is also deputy chair of the First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Group.

– ref. ‘Digital inclusion’ and closing the gap: how First Nations leadership is key to getting remote communities online – https://theconversation.com/digital-inclusion-and-closing-the-gap-how-first-nations-leadership-is-key-to-getting-remote-communities-online-216085

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University

Not counting periodic cross-border skirmishes, Israel has fought three major wars against Hamas since withdrawing its forces from Gaza in 2005 – in 2008, 2014 and 2021. Each involved limited ground incursions, with Israeli soldiers in Gaza for about a fortnight.

In the past couple weeks, Israel has put together a huge force to mount another ground invasion in retaliation for the Hamas cross-border attacks that killed around 1,400 Israelis on October 7. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have called up their entire armoured corps – more than 1,000 tanks. Around 360,000 reservists will also join the force’s full-time personnel of about 170,000.

The operation is shaping up to be Israel’s biggest since its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was aimed at driving the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from its base there. The Israelis succeeded in that objective. But an unforeseen consequence of that war was the development of the Shia militant organisation Hezbollah. With Iran’s support and tutelage, Hezbollah has become a far stronger enemy for Israel than the PLO had ever been.

It’s a truism that wars have unintended consequences. And in the current conflict with Hamas, it’s not clear what the end game might be for Israel.

Read more:
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Why a ground invasion is so risky

The difficulties of a Gaza ground assault are clear enough. Fighting street to street in a confined, highly urbanised environment will be hideously difficult for Israel’s forces. Hamas also has the advantage of an extensive tunnel network estimated at up to 500 kilometres in length, enabling its militants to attack and then disappear.

Israel can counter these challenges to some extent with the use of robots and drones. But night vision technology will be ineffective in the total darkness of tunnels, as these devices require faint ambient light to work.

Israel has also warned the roughly 1.1 million civilians in the northern half of Gaza to move to the southern half. Altogether, the United Nations says some 1.4 million people in Gaza have been displaced so far in the conflict, with nearly 580,000 sheltering in UN shelters.

It’s unclear how many people are still in the north. Israel has warned that those who remain could be classed as sympathisers with “a terrorist organisation”.

Inevitably, there will be appalling civilian casualties. Not all will necessarily be the IDF’s fault, but the default position of the region and those in the global community opposed to Israel’s action will be to blame Israel.

Another challenge is the estimated 200 hostages taken by Hamas during its raid into Israel. Hamas says it has spread them around Gaza. Almost certainly, some will be in the northern war zone. Hamas claims 22 have already been killed by Israeli bombs. Some relatives of the hostages are criticising the Netanyahu government for not giving sufficient priority to freeing their loved ones.

When the fighting stops: no good options

What Israel intends to do if and when it has secured the northern half of Gaza is not clear. The coastal strip is already facing a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation, according to the UN. And in terms of administering the territory, there are few good options.

1) A military reoccupation of Gaza, as Israel did from 1967 to 2005.

This would constitute a huge military burden and expose IDF personnel to violence and kidnapping. US President Joe Biden has warned reoccupation would be a big mistake.

2) Eliminate Hamas’ senior leadership, declare victory, then leave.

Such a victory would almost certainly be short-term. Other low-level members of Hamas would take pride in coming forward to reconstitute the group. Or another group, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, might fill the vacuum. Israel would not be able to control who or what that entity might be.

3) Call on the secular Fatah party that now controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to take control in Gaza.

That is scarcely viable. Fatah lost a civil war to Hamas in 2007 and there’s no indication the Palestinian Authority’s return would be acceptable to Palestinians there. Moreover, the authority’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, was elected to a four-year term in 2005 – and is still in charge. As such, he lacks legitimacy, even in the West Bank.

4) Administration of Gaza by non-aligned local leaders.

This is a pipe dream. Even if such figures could be found, Gazans would almost certainly see them as collaborators with the Israelis, given their role would be to keep the strip’s hardliners under control.

5) Administration of Gaza by a non-Palestinian Arab force.

Again, this is not feasible. The leaders of potential Arab contributors to such a force, such as Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, would not want to be seen as policing Palestinians on behalf of Israel.

6) Administration of Gaza by a non-Arab or United Nations force.

Given the enormous risks, it’s very hard to see any non-Arab countries embracing this idea. A UN peacekeeping force would require not only Israeli approval, but a UN Security Council resolution at a time when Russia and China rarely agree with the three Western permanent members.

Israel also contends Hezbollah has impeded the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon from carrying out its mandate, preventing it from stopping militant attacks. After the Hamas attacks, Israel would be unlikely to entrust its security to peacekeepers with little incentive to put their lives on the line for its sake.

‘Mowing the grass’

For too long, Israel has believed the Gaza imbroglio could be contained. However, the population has grown so large, this is no longer the case.

With a growth rate of just over 2% per year, its population is expected to be three million by 2030.

Gaza is also incredibly young, with a median age of 19.6, compared with the global average of 30.5. Almost half the adult population is unemployed, and Palestinians in Gaza are four times more likely to be living in poverty than those in the West Bank. This is a recipe for social upheaval and radicalisation.

As two Israeli journalists, Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir, noted in a perceptive analysis of Israel’s 2014 Gaza war, the Israeli military describes its assaults on Gaza as “mowing the grass” – acting to punish Hamas severely for its aggressive behaviour and degrading its military capabilities.

The aim was to achieve realistic and, therefore, limited political and military goals. It was part of a long-term strategy of attrition, which would have a temporary deterrent effect in order to create periods of quiet along the border.

Eliminating Hamas altogether, the authors said, was not an “attainable military objective”.

Even if Hamas rule can be terminated, the alternatives are Israeli rule, the rule of more radical groups, or chaos.

Against an implacable, well-entrenched, non-state enemy like the Hamas, Israel simply needs to ‘mow the grass’ once in a while to degrade the enemy’s capabilities.

From a humanitarian perspective, this phrase is objectionable. The question, now, is whether Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu will attempt a different strategy this time. We’ll find out in the coming weeks.

Ian Parmeter 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. Even if Israel can completely eliminate Hamas, does it have a long-term plan for Gaza? – https://theconversation.com/even-if-israel-can-completely-eliminate-hamas-does-it-have-a-long-term-plan-for-gaza-216161

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eamonn Wooster, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Gulbali Institute, Charles Sturt University

In the 1980s a single humpback whale in the Gulf of Maine developed the “lobtail feeding method”. This unique hunting method of slapping the water’s surface appears to drive fish into dense schools, making it easier to consume them. Lobtail feeding caught on. Now many humpback whales are doing it.

Ecologists have long thought animals acted on instinct alone. But a growing body of evidence shows many animals, much like us, have complex brains and social lives.

In our new research, we argue the science of ecology can learn a great deal from the study of animal cognition and culture. Cognition is what goes on in the mind, which determines how animals perceive and respond to the world around them. Culture is the development and spread of socially learned behaviours. These are important – but generally overlooked – mechanisms influencing ecosystems.

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More than cogs in the eco-machine

Research shows prey are adept at learning from previous encounters with predators. They remember what predators look like, what they smell like and the locations and times they are active.

This means every time an animal encounters a predator they can gather knowledge about how to improve their chances of survival.

Predators learn as well. Meerkat pups go to meerkat “school”. Eating dangerous prey such as scorpions is challenging because scorpion toxin can be fatal. To overcome this, meerkat teach their young how to remove scorpion stingers, allowing them to safely eat them.

Animal cognition and social learning allow problems solved and lessons learned during predatory encounters to be shared with friends and family. The development of these cultural behaviours can spread across entire populations.

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Shaping how ecosystems function

Past experience and lessons learned from friends and family inform an animal’s capacity to make complex decisions.

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, elk and deer had to learn how to avoid being eaten. While initially naive, elk and deer shifted to new locations and changed the times they were active. As a result, these herbivores concentrated their foraging in specific areas, altering the variety of plants and even the physical environment.

Predator hunting cultures can also shape ecosystems. In Thailand’s Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, long-tailed macaques use heavy rocks as stone tools to smash the shells of oysters and other shellfish open and access the food inside. Macaques can become so proficient at shellfish hunting they have driven island-wide declines.

Humans can erode animal culture

Rapid environmental changes such as urbanisation, climate change and hunting or poisoning can influence animal cognition and animal culture.

Just as trauma, such as from war, influences human cognition and culture, the targeted killing of animals can disrupt their cognition and culture. This has consequences for ecosystems.

Killing dingoes, Australia’s only mainland mammalian apex predator, disrupts their family groups. This can result in the loss of important behaviours, including pack hunting. This can then prevent dingoes from hunting prey larger than themselves, such as water buffalo and foxes and cats. In this way, the loss of pack hunting can drive changes in how ecosystems operate and highlights the importance of animal culture as a unit of nature worth conserving.

Changing our perceptions of ecology

Longstanding notions in ecology and conservation biology claim ecosystems function due to evolutionary history alone. In this view, organisms evolve traits to allow them to coexist with each other, so newly arrived species can be fundamentally disruptive. The inner lives of animals complicate this worldview.

Recognising many animals possess and act upon their awareness of time, self and others, and may even have language, invites us to reconsider ecological relationships might not be so static. Acknowledging animal cognition and culture in ecology means understanding ecological relationships are always changing and shifting.

By studying how the cognition and cultures of animals shape their ecology, we may shed light on the origins of animal intelligence and culture, their importance to life on Earth and how best to preserve non-human culture in an ever-changing world.

Read more:
Organisms without brains can learn, too – so what does it mean to be a thinking creature?

The research behind this article was co-authored with Dr Kaitlyn Gaynor, Dr Alexandra Carthey, Dr Arian Wallach, Dr Lauren Stanton and Dr Daniel Ramp who all substantially contributed to the ideas presented throughout.

Eamonn Wooster is supported by a Gulbali Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Erick Lundgren receives funding from the Villum Foundation (Villum Fonden, Denmark) and the Australian Research Council

– ref. From meerkat school to whale-tail slapping and oyster smashing, how clever predators shape their world – https://theconversation.com/from-meerkat-school-to-whale-tail-slapping-and-oyster-smashing-how-clever-predators-shape-their-world-214213

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

Former Labor leader and governor-general Bill Hayden, whose death was announced on Saturday, is rightly being remembered for introducing Australia’s first universal healthcare scheme Medibank, which lives on today as Medicare.

Less well known is his brief but important role as Australia’s treasurer in 1975. It was five months in which he set Labor, and ultimately Australia, on the path to what became known as economic rationalism.

‘Why is he so interested in economics?’

Unexpectedly winning the Queensland seat of Oxley for Labor from the Menzies Coalition government at the young age of 28 in 1961, the former policeman thought about studying law at the University of Queensland but chose economics instead because he believed it was more likely to transform society.

His 1968 booklet, The Implications of Democratic Socialism, was ahead of its time in advocating both a national health scheme “with free hospitalisation” and a national superannuation scheme. It sold 5,000 copies.

But his interest in economics was not always appreciated within his own party.

Labor leader from 1960 to 1967 Arthur Calwell once asked

why does young Hayden keep raising the problem of the balance of payments? Why doesn’t he just be like a normal politician and worry about his electorate?

Understudy, then Treasurer

Calwell’s replacement, Gough Whitlam, considered appointing Hayden treasurer when he won the 1972 election. Instead he appointed Frank Crean in recognition of Crean’s long service as shadow treasurer, and added Hayden to Cabinet’s economic committee, where he was referred to as “Crean’s understudy”.

Hayden served as acting treasurer nine times. In this role he became an irritant to Whitlam, warning of the risks of expanding government spending too quickly and arguing for tax increases in contravention of Whitlam’s policy speech.

Hayden also investigated floating the dollar (a decade before the Hawke government did it) but found the treasury and the Reserve Bank unenthusiastic.

In June 1975, with Medibank bedded down, Whitlam finally made Hayden treasurer.

Hayden set about repairing relations with the treasury which had become very strained under Crean’s first replacement Jim Cairns.

Perhaps more than any treasurer since Ted Theodore, Hayden had his own views on economics and was keen to engage with treasury officials and then present the resulting position forcefully in Cabinet.

Hayden was pessimistic about Labor being re-elected, but he believed he could limit its time in opposition to one or two terms.

His August 1975 budget was constructed at a time when inflation was almost 18%, which he described as Australia’s “most menacing enemy”

Fighting inflation, carefully

“We are no longer operating in that simple Keynesian world in which some reduction in unemployment could, apparently, always be purchased at the cost of some more inflation”, Hayden declared, breaking with decades of orthodoxy.

Today, it is inflation itself which is the central policy problem – more inflation simply leads to more unemployment.

His first and only budget slashed the rate of growth in government spending, called for restraint in wages growth, cut the rate of company tax and simplified the personal income tax scale.

But Hayden also made it clear he wasn’t going to tighten government spending in ways that would hurt people, saying he rejected

a policy of deliberately creating massive unemployment and widespread business failures in order to stop inflation abruptly.

Coalition staffers later said they had been concerned that Hayden’s appointment as treasurer would “make it possible for Labor to get control of economic policy”.

It might have accelerated their decision to take measures that led to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975.

After refusing to pass Hayden’s budget between August and November 1975, the Coalition adopted its measures unaltered on taking office.

Labor’s first economic rationalist

In subsequent years, parliamentary journalists Michelle Grattan, Robert Haupt and Greg Hywood described Hayden as perhaps the father of economic rationalism in the Australian Labor Party.

By that they meant recognising that competitive markets and a stable and growing economy could deliver outcomes as useful to Labor as government intervention.

In one of his last acts as Labor leader before being toppled by Bob Hawke in February 1983 Hayden appointed Paul Keating as shadow treasurer.

Read more:
Bill Hayden’s remarkable contribution to public life

“The policy coherence that has given Australia its quarter century of uninterrupted growth, began its long coalescence the day Bill Hayden convened his first shadow cabinet meeting,” Keating said of Hayden’s time as Labor leader four decades later.

On Sunday, in remarks in remarks echoed by the current treasurer Jim Chalmers, Keating again paid tribute to Hayden’s contribution.

He said the economic personnel Hayden put in place were “the building blocks the Hawke Government relied upon to shift the country’s policy to the economic rationalism which has since made Australia so flexible and so wealthy”.

John Hawkins formerly worked in the Australian Treasury where he wrote a series of biographical essays on Australian treasurers.

– ref. As treasurer, Bill Hayden set Labor on the path to economic rationalism – https://theconversation.com/as-treasurer-bill-hayden-set-labor-on-the-path-to-economic-rationalism-216150

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carmel Hobbs, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Tasmania

Warning: this article includes graphic descriptions of violence.

Nearly 13,000 Australian children aged 10 to 17 sought help alone from specialist homeless services last year. Many of these young people will have escaped family violence and then been endangered by abusive partners.

Our respective research tackles this emotionally tough terrain head on, speaking with teens experiencing intimate partner violence and children under 18 who experience homelessness and are not accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Children and young people have told us about having nowhere safe to live, feeling invisible to government and being harmed. Their stories show Australia’s adolescent service system is frighteningly out of step with their needs.

Read more:
Our child protection system is clearly broken. Is it time to abolish it for a better model?

The reality of vulnerable teens’ lives

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study reported it findings this year from surveying 8,500 Australians aged 16 and over. It found 28.5% had experienced sexual abuse, 30.9% emotional abuse, 32.0% physical abuse and 39.6% exposure to domestic violence.

For unaccompanied homeless children and young people exposure to domestic violence is even greater. Australian research shows 90% of homeless children and young people witness family violence at home, more than half leave home to escape parental or guardian domestic violence. Some 15% leave home more than 10 times due to violence.

Escaping family violence is a frequent precursor to unaccompanied child homelessness.

As part of research into unaccompanied child homelessness and mental ill-health in Tasmania, Viviana, aged 17, told a common story. She escaped family violence only to experience violent and abusive relationships and cycles of homelessness:

Mum kicked me out of home over a pair of school shoes […] she was being very violent, very aggressive […] her partner […] he ended up being quite aggressive and violent […] So I moved in with [my boyfriend’s] family and then things happened with me and that bloke a year later […] And so that’s when I ended up being homeless for a bit.

Homeless children and young people who do not have a reliable parent or guardian are highly vulnerable. The severity of violence in subsequent relationships they may come to rely on is extreme. Elise was 13 when she met David, who was three years older. During their nine-year relationship, her life was endangered repeatedly:

He rammed me into the wall, grabbed me by the throat, choked me […] I remember he picked up the couch and smashed it up through the wall […] Smashed up the whole place, carried on, told me, ‘You want to fucking leave because I’m going to come back, I’m going to fucking shoot you.

Lilly was 14 when she met Jase, who was three years older. Being homeless and sleeping rough meant she couldn’t escape his violence and abuse:

I can’t even remember how many black eyes I had from him […] I’ve got a scar there […] where he’s cut my arm open with a knife, trying to kill me. And there was nothing I could do. I was homeless, so I couldn’t get away from him, because he just knew where I’d be.

Children and young people who experience homelessness and repeated cyles of violence talk about persistent suicidality, mental illness, abortion, miscarriage and substance use as common features of their lives.

Read more:
Major study reveals two-thirds of people who suffer childhood maltreatment suffer more than one kind

Mismatched responses

A lack of supported accommodation options for teens places girls in particular in highly vulnerable positions. Unable to access safe spaces, they become trapped in violent and abusive relationships.

They are being failed by systems that do not adequately recognise and engage with child and youth specific domestic violence and homelessness. Children and young people describe accessing support services that dangerously misread the risks they encounter.

Katie described systemic failure she faced at age 15.

I tried to get Centrelink [benefits] and they refused me and I told them my situation. I said, ‘Well, like, I have no family, I have no money. I’m at risk of homelessness’ and all they gave me was a Kids’ Helpline number […] The system failed me, actually, and the only thing that they could do for me to get money is get Tom [her abusive partner] to claim Family Tax Benefits.

Viviana – who had escaped sexual abuse at home – described how she felt her ongoing risks were missed in counselling and therapy targeted to children in both school and state child and adolescent mental health services.

They weren’t actually giving us like, I guess, adult solutions for the adult problems we did actually have, even though we shouldn’t have had them, we were only kids. And we sat down watching Lego videos on how to deal with depression and stuff like that. And I was like, this ain’t going to do shit for me.

Meeting them where they are

The mismatch between the reality of children’s lives and the availability of systems and services to support them is stark. Children’s efforts to remove themselves from harm may be characterised by overstretched systems as proof of their “independence”.

What they need are standalone responses that address the extremities of their need. Yet neither national homelessness or domestic violence policies are yet to acknowledge the relationship of domestic violence and homelessness in the lives of children and young people.

Read more:
Yes, we see you. Why a national plan for homelessness must make thousands of children on their own a priority

State and federal governments can begin to fix the cracks in the system by ensuring all agencies are held accountable for upholding the rights of children outlined by the United Nations convention – especially of those without family they can rely on.

There are positive advances underway in Victoria and Tasmania to break the silo of child protection and re-build child and adolescent service systems with prevention and early intervention at their core.

A collaborative, integrated response that recognises the complexity and reality of children and young people’s lives including their independent housing, health, and safety needs is critical. This will only happen when we grow up and acknowledge children have adult problems too.

For information and advice about family and intimate partner violence contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, contact 000.

Carmel Hobbs is affiliated with the Youth Network of Tasmania (YNOT) as Secretary of the Board.
This article includes reference to research funded by Anglicare Tasmania and conducted by Carmel in her role as a social researcher for Anglicare Tasmania’s Social Action and Research Centre.

Catherine Robinson receives funding from Australian Research Council and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. Catherine is a non-executive board director of Homelessness Australia and the Youth Network of Tasmania. This article includes reference to research funded by Anglicare Tasmania and conducted by Catherine in her role as a social researcher for Anglicare Tasmania’s Social Action and Research Centre.

– ref. Kids escaping family violence can be vulnerable to intimate partner abuse. We must break the vicious cycle – https://theconversation.com/kids-escaping-family-violence-can-be-vulnerable-to-intimate-partner-abuse-we-must-break-the-vicious-cycle-212537

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monica Barratt, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Social Equity Research Centre and Digital Ethnography Research Centre, RMIT University

Many of the harms people experience from using illegal drugs are a result of unregulated supply. Drugs may be contaminated, or completely substituted with something unexpected. They may also be of variable and unknown dosage or strength.

Any of these factors can and do lead to overdoses. That’s why 77 health and community organisations are urging the Victorian government to implement drug checking services. These could reduce overdose deaths, and provide an early warning system to flag any unusually dangerous substances in circulation.

The Victorian statement adds to similar calls in other Australian jurisdictions. Notably, in New South Wales, a Labor MP last week broke rank with his party to voice his support for the implementation of drug checking services.

Read more:
Drug checking and an early warning network in Victoria could save lives: new coroner’s report

What’s the problem?

In the past 15 years, the number of new psychoactive substances detected in drug markets has increased dramatically around the world. It’s easier for suppliers to circumvent laws that prohibit more traditional drugs (such as cocaine, heroin, MDMA or methamphetamine) by producing newer synthetic drugs. These drugs are also often cheaper to produce.

They then get added to or sold as other more established drugs. This means people don’t always know what they’re taking, or how strong it is.

According to the Coroners Court of Victoria, novel substances were detected in three deaths in 2017-18. This figure has risen significantly over the past five years, to 47 deaths in 2021-22.

Escalating deaths involving novel substances are being identified nationally. For example, there have been 40 deaths involving novel benzodiazepines in Australia since 2015.

While harder to track, unexpectedly strong substances have been implicated in further deaths. In 2019, the NSW Coroner’s Court investigated six deaths at music festivals resulting from consumption of unusually high-dose MDMA capsules. Last month, Victoria’s coroner investigated a death that similarly followed consumption of an unexpectedly high-dose MDMA tablet.

Meanwhile, synthetic opioid drugs are causing an epidemic of drug fatalities in North America. Some of these novel opioids have recently been detected in Australia, including a new class called nitazenes, which have been identified in the ACT, NSW, Victoria, and South Australia.

Read more:
Nitazenes: synthetic opioids more deadly than fentanyl are starting to turn up in overdose cases

What is drug checking?

Often called “pill testing” in Australia, the term drug checking reflects that these services are inclusive of multiple drug forms (for example, powders and liquids in addition to pills) as well as multiple drug types (for example, cocaine, ketamine, heroin, methamphetamine and MDMA).

Drug checking services can be at a permanent location or mobile (for example, on-site at venues and festivals). People visit these facilities to find out the content and strength of drugs they plan to use, including whether they contain unexpected substances or higher-than-usual doses.

Service users also have the opportunity to discuss the test results in a meeting with a health-care worker, in a conversation about their broader drug use and health.

Read more:
What is ‘drug checking’ and why do we need it in Australia?

How does it help?

A recent systematic review analysing 90 studies found that drug checking services positively influenced the behaviour of people who use drugs.

In two recent studies conducted in the UK and Portugal, most service users (86% in Portugal, 69% in the UK) who received test results indicating that the drug was different than expected didn’t consume the substance. About half of service users (50% in Portugal, 59% in the UK) whose test results indicated that their drugs were stronger than expected took a smaller dose.

Drug checking service data also provides real-time information about the status of local drug markets. Alerts can be published to rapidly warn people if an unusually dangerous substance is circulating. For example, the ACT drug checking service CanTEST has so far published six community alerts alongside monthly drug market snapshot reports.

Responding to critiques

One argument levelled against drug checking is that such services provide a “shine of safety” to drug use. But, as noted by an established drug checking service in The Netherlands, services never provide an endorsement of quality. Instead, they warn people how unpredictable drug markets can be by providing credible and relevant information.

Similarly, evidence doesn’t support claims that the availability of drug checking services leads to increased drug use. A recent Australian study that surveyed festival-goers about drug checking scenarios found the existence of a drug checking service wouldn’t increase intention to use ecstasy.

What’s happening elsewhere?

Drug checking services are now operating in at least 28 countries, having expanded significantly around the world in recent years.

In 2021, New Zealand passed legislation to make drug checking services fully legal.

Australia’s experience so far with government-sanctioned drug checking has included fixed-site and mobile drug checking trials in Canberra, and recently-announced approval for drug checking services to commence in Queensland. An interim report on a pilot in Canberra’s city centre supports the continuation and development of the service.

Support is growing

In Australia, the implementation of drug checking services has been recommended by numerous government inquiries and coronial inquests, including the 2018 Parliament of Victoria Inquiry into Drug Law Reform and the 2019 inquest into the death of six patrons at NSW music festivals.

In terms of public support, a nationally representative survey found that in 2019, 63% of Australians supported drug checking. Some 22% were opposed while 15% were unsure or didn’t answer.

The Victorian statement released today demonstrates support from a wide range of social and community organisations. These include professional societies representing medical and pharmaceutical sectors, such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.

Implementing drug checking will help prevent further overdose deaths that result from unregulated drug supplies.

In the last 5 years, Monica Barratt has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Centre for Clinical Research into Emerging Drugs, the Criminology Research Council, New Zealand’s Marsden Fund and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. In addition to her academic role, she also serves as the Executive Director of Bluelight.org, a global drug harm reduction community, and leads research activities for The Loop Australia, a charity aiming to conduct drug checking interventions both at festivals and in the community.

Isabelle Volpe receives PhD stipends from the Australian Government Research Training Program and UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture, and has previously received funding from the National Centre for Clinical Research into Emerging Drugs. She volunteers with The Loop Australia (overseeing the communication of information about drug checking and drug alerts) and DanceWize NSW (providing care and education to music event attendees).

– ref. Novel drugs are leading to rising overdose deaths in Victoria – drug checking services could help – https://theconversation.com/novel-drugs-are-leading-to-rising-overdose-deaths-in-victoria-drug-checking-services-could-help-215791

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Woessner, Lecturer in Clinical Exercise and Research Fellow, Institute for Health and Sport (iHeS), Victoria University, Victoria University

Sport is supposed to be a safe place for kids to learn and play.

Too often, however, sporting clubs can be places where children are abused psychologically, physically or sexually.

Imagine, then, a child in your life had been abused, but never told an adult about it.

Our new research shows that’s the case for many children who’ve experienced abuse in a community sport club.

Here’s what we found about how children talk about – or don’t talk about – their experiences of abuse in sport.

Survey shows abuse goes undisclosed

Our research is the first to explore how often children tell adults about abuse in community sport.

Before this, we knew very little about how children spoke about their experiences of abuse.

Read more:
What the David Beckham documentary tells us – and what it doesn’t – about controlling parents in sport

Pls check the following two pars

This data builds on our previous study, focusing on the responses of the 800 adults who had all experienced abuse in community sport as children.

In our new study, our survey tool asked about childhood experiences of abuse in sport. These ranged from psychological violence (excessive criticism and humiliation), physical abuse (throwing equipment, striking someone), sexual violence (sexualised comments or acts) and neglect (ignoring a child after a poor performance).

We found more than half said they never spoke to an adult about it.

Three in four children never spoke to an adult about abuse from a coach.

Rates of disclosure were even lower when the abuse was from a parent, with eight in nine children not speaking to another adult about their experiences.

We also found boys disclose peer abuse in sport less frequently than girls, while girls had lower rates of disclosing to an adult within the sport club (coach/club manager) than boys.

The evidence shows delayed disclosures of abuse (or never disclosing) can have severe and long-lasting impacts on a child’s mental health.

This makes these findings highly concerning.

Having a policy is important, but not enough

Clubs often try to stamp out abuse by having policies aimed at protecting children.

But we found while policies can provide guidance on who to report abuse to, even getting that far can be difficult.

First, a child victim/survivor (and adults around them) needs to recognise their experience as abuse. In community sporting clubs, a child would then need to talk to an adult (a club member protection officer, for example). Finally, the adult/child would need to formally report the abuse for the policy to be enacted.

In an environment where abuse has become so normalised, children may not even realise they’re experiencing it.

The response system relies on reports of abuse, but participants are often afraid to come forward, or aren’t believed when they do.

Even when children are aware and able to say something is wrong, we found they think twice before speaking to an adult.

The children often questioned whether their experiences were bad enough, especially when they saw other kids going through the same things.

One participant shared bullying was so widespread that:

[…] it’s [violence] a cultural thing in the sport. And so you just learn to live with it, ignore it.

Read more:
Why taking a trauma- and violence-informed approach can make sport safer and more equitable

How we respond to children matters

Often children will not have the words to say “I am experiencing abuse”.

In our study children would simply tell their parents they weren’t enjoying sport.

They often didn’t even think they were talking about abuse. One of the people we spoke to said:

I didn’t know I was disclosing […] I just thought I was reiterating what happened during the day.

In most instances, the responses from adults normalised or rationalised the child’s experience of abuse.

A participant shared her parents’ response was:

Sorry you’re experiencing this, but time to just be resilient. Like, just don’t think about it.

Sometimes, the adult offered a supportive and empathetic response, but this was rarely followed up with long-term support or lodging an official report of abuse.

This leaves the experiences of abuse undocumented and unaddressed.

Taking action against abuse in sport

We need to talk more about abuse in sport.

The issue is gaining some traction, with the launch of international and national campaigns.

Start To Talk encourages people to have conversations about poor behaviours and improving safety in sport.

Our team in Australia is running workshops on abuse with community sporting organisations.

Read more:
In sport, abuse is often dismissed as ‘good coaching’

We have passionate volunteers who want to change the culture, but need support to do so.

Abuse thrives in the shadows, and it is time for more significant action to realise real change. Here is what you can do to help:

• listen to children, really listen to what they say

• believe them when they say they are uncomfortable, not enjoying sport or feel unsafe, and ask them how you can help

• seek support for them and yourself

• when it’s safe to do so, call out poor behaviours.

Sport has so much power for good, but we all must play our part in ensuring it is first and foremost, a safe environment.

If this article has raised issues for you or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

Alexandra Parker receives funding from the Australian government’s Emerging Priorities Program.

Aurélie Pankowiak receives funding from VicHealth

Emma Kavanagh and Mary Woessner 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. Many Australian kids abused in sport won’t ever speak up. It’s time we break the silence – https://theconversation.com/many-australian-kids-abused-in-sport-wont-ever-speak-up-its-time-we-break-the-silence-215884

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zhen Zheng, Associate Professor, STEM | Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

Around 5-10% of people in Australia experience symptoms for more than three months after a COVID infection, termed long COVID.

So far, more than 200 different symptoms have been recorded, ranging from shortness of breath to fatigue and brain fog. The effects are far-reaching for those with the condition, often affecting their capacity to work and their quality of life for many months or even years.

With this in mind, we set out to examine Australia’s long COVID guidelines, services and public health information.

Our research found that compared to international standards, Australia is generally slow to recognise and investigate possible cases of long COVID. We also found the availability of multidisciplinary long COVID services was lacking in Australia, as was accessibility of trustworthy public health information.

From COVID to long COVID

Even with all the advancements in medical science, there’s not yet any simple blood test or scan that can definitively tell you if you have long COVID. A diagnosis is based on how long you’ve been dealing with symptoms. But the point at which you’ll receive that diagnosis can vary depending on where you live.

In our review, we examined international guidelines from the World Health Organization as well as national guidelines in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

Most countries, including Australia, wait 12 weeks after the initial infection to officially diagnose long COVID. The US, however, determines a person has long COVID after just four weeks of continued symptoms. This discrepancy can have significant implications for how much support the person will get from the health system.

Read more:
What do we know about long COVID in kids? And what do I do if I think my child has it?

Guidelines in Australia, the UK and the US do advocate for further investigation if symptoms persist for four weeks after contracting COVID. But we discovered this approach of early investigation is not consistently implemented in Australia.

On reviewing the eligibility criteria for long COVID services in Australia, we found that most of these services require a person to have had symptoms for 12 weeks or more to qualify for care.

Get help early

If your symptoms continue for four weeks or more after catching COVID, it’s important to act early by contacting your GP. They can investigate further and help you manage your symptoms.

Unfortunately not all GPs and health-care professionals are up to speed on long COVID. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has called for better education for GPs.

All health-care professionals, especially those working in the community, should be educated about how to spot long COVID early. This will enable them to refer patients for specialised care when required.

Australian long COVID services cannot meet demand

Long COVID is a complicated health issue that can affect multiple parts of the body, and right now there are no specific treatments for the condition as a whole.

However, a mix of supports and services can help. This might include care from a cardiologist, neurologist and physiotherapist for different symptoms. Research has shown that a personalised, multidisciplinary rehabilitation program can have long-term benefits for people with long COVID. Long COVID clinics offer these sorts of programs.

When we conducted our research, we identified just 16 specialised long COVID clinics in Australia.

The vast majority of the Australian population has had COVID at least once. The current best estimate is 80-85%. If we do a conservative calculation and say out of 80% of Australians who have had COVID, 5% ended up with long COVID, that’s at least one million people.

Each long COVID clinic is then essentially tasked with serving more than 60,000 people. Even if we assume many have recovered and don’t need these services, it’s still an impossible task.

So it’s not surprising reports suggest people have had to wait several months to access these services.

Further, all of the 16 clinics were in big cities, and none in rural areas. There were also no long COVID clinics catering specifically to the unique needs of children, elderly people in aged care, or those with a disability.

Read more:
How physios and occupational therapists are helping long COVID sufferers

Another gap we identified is that trustworthy public health information on long COVID, such as online resources, is either not readily available or not advertised. Where these resources exist, they are primarily in English, disadvantaging people with low health literacy or from non-English-speaking backgrounds.

Integrating advice in multiple languages on diet, movement, energy conservation and mental health with clinical support will be of great value to many people who are on the wait list for long COVID clinics.

If your COVID symptoms last more than four weeks, or if new symptoms appear during that first month, affecting your life or work, you might be in for the long haul. Our key message is act early. Book yourself in with your GP or a GP-led specialist clinic.

With COVID cases continuing to accumulate, more and more people will find themselves with long COVID. As a society, we need to fast-track better services and work towards a deeper understanding of the condition.

Zhen Zheng is a member of Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association

Zhen Zheng co-leads a research program “Eat, Move, Heal for Long COVID” at RMIT University, aiming to improve education of the public and healthcare professionals about long COVID.

Catherine Itsiopoulos has received funding from NHMRC for other research. She is a member of professional bodies including Dietitians Australia and The Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

Member of RMIT University ‘Eat, Move Heal Network’ researching to develop tools to support patients with long COVID19 at home. Director of Biomedical and Health Innovation Enabling Impact Platform supporting multidisciplinary research within RMIT University. Unrelated research into ovarian cancer, one of our cancer human clinical trials receives partly support from Astrazeneca and ANZGOG.

Rose (Shiqi) Luo 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. From diagnosis to services and support: how Australia’s long COVID response is falling short – https://theconversation.com/from-diagnosis-to-services-and-support-how-australias-long-covid-response-is-falling-short-215056

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University

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

In August, Victoria’s Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny made a decision that could set a difficult precedent for Australia’s effort to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

In considering the environmental effects of the proposed $1 billion Willatook wind farm 20km north of Port Fairy in southwest Victoria, the minister ruled that the developers, Wind Prospect, had to build wider buffers around the wind turbines and observe a five-month ban on work at the site over each of the two years of construction.

Her reason? To protect the wetlands and breeding season of the brolga, a native crane and a threatened species, and the habitat of the critically endangered southern bent-wing bat.

Read more:
The original and still the best: why it’s time to renew Australia’s renewable energy policy

The decision shocked many clean energy developers. Wind Prospect’s managing director Ben Purcell said the conditions imposed by the minister would reduce the planned number of 59 turbines by two-thirds and make the project “totally unworkable”.

Kilkenny acknowledged that her assessment might reduce the project’s energy output. However, she said “while the transition to renewable energy generation is an important policy and legislative priority for Victoria”, so was “protection of declining biodiversity values”.

The military uses the term “blue on blue” for casualties from friendly fire. In the environmental arena we now risk “green on green” losses, and agonising dilemmas as governments try to reconcile their responses to the world’s two biggest environmental problems: climate change and biodiversity loss.

Read more:
The human factor: why Australia’s net zero transition risks failing unless it is fair

The green vs green dilemma

The goal of achieving net zero by 2050 requires nothing less than an economic and social transformation. That includes extensive construction of wind and solar farms, transmission lines, pumped hydro, critical mineral mines and more.

Australia needs to move fast – the Australian Energy Market Operator says 10,000km of high-voltage transmission lines need to be built to support the clean energy transition – but we are already lagging badly.

The problem is that moving fast inflames what is often fierce opposition from local communities. They are especially concerned with the environmental impacts of vast electricity towers and lines running across land they love.

In southern New South Wales, organised groups are fighting to stop the construction of a huge infrastructure project, HumeLink, that seeks to build 360km of transmission lines to connect Snowy Hydro 2.0 and other renewable energy projects to the electricity grid.

Locals say the cities will get the power, while they pay the price. “No one should minimise the consequences of ‘industrialising’ Australia’s iconic locations – would we build power lines above Bondi Beach?” the Snowy Valleys Council asked in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry.

Read more:
Why Australia urgently needs a climate plan and a Net Zero National Cabinet Committee to implement it

Clean energy developers are caught in a perfect storm, at loggerheads with environmentalists and landholders alike over environmental conditions, proper consultation and compensation, while grappling with long regulatory delays and supply chain blockages for their materials.

They see a system that provides environmental approval on paper but seemingly unworkable conditions and intolerable delays in practice. Does the bureaucracy’s left hand, they wonder, know what its right hand is doing?

Net zero, nature protection and “rollout rage” feel like a toxic mix. Yet we have to find a quick way to deliver the clean energy projects we urgently need.

What is to be done?

The major solution to climate change is to electrify everything, using 100% renewable energy. That means lots of climate-friendly infrastructure.

The major regulatory solution to ongoing biodiversity loss is to stop running down species and ecosystems so deeply that they cannot recover. Among other things, that means protecting sensitive areas, which are sometimes the same areas that need to be cleared, or at least impinged upon, to build new infrastructure.

Read more:
Made in America: how Biden’s climate package is fuelling the global drive to net zero

To get agreement, we need a better way than the standard project-based approval processes and private negotiations between developers and landowners. The underlying principle must be that all citizens, not just directly affected groups, bear the burden of advancing the common good.

As tough as these problems look, elements of a potential solution, at least in outline, are on the table.

These elements are: good environmental information, regional environmental planning and meaningful public participation. The government’s Nature Positive Plan for stronger environmental laws promises all three.

The Albanese government’s plan

Australia lags badly in gathering and assembling essential environmental information. Without it, we are flying blind. The government has established Environment Information Australia “to provide an authoritative source of high-quality environmental information.” Although extremely belated, it’s a start.

The Nature Positive Plan may also improve the second element – regional planning – by helping it deal with “green on green” disputes through its proposed “traffic light” system of environmental values.

Places with the highest environmental values (or significant Indigenous and other heritage values) would be placed in “red zones” and be protected from development, climate-friendly or not.

Development would be planned in orange and green zones, but require biodiversity offsets in orange zones.

Read more:
Too hard basket: why climate change is defeating our political system

The catch is that most current biodiversity offsets, which commonly involve putting land into reserve to compensate for land cleared, are environmental failures.

The government has promised to tighten these rules, but advocates ranging from former senior public servant Ken Henry to the Australian Conservation Foundation are pushing for more. A strict approach would make offsets expensive and sometimes impossible to find, but that is the price of becoming nature-positive.

The need for regional planning

Good regional planning – based, say, on Australia’s 54 natural resource management regions – would deal with a bundle of issues upfront. That approach would avoid the environmental “deaths of a thousand cuts” that occur when developments are approved one by one.

But regional planning will only succeed if federal and state governments allocate significant resources and work together. Australia’s record on such cooperation is a sorry one. Again, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is attempting a belated fresh start, but this will be a particularly rocky road.

The third element – meaningful public participation – involves restoring trust in the system. This requires transparency, proper consultation, and the public’s right to challenge decisions in the courts.

Meaningful consultation requires time, expertise, and properly funded expert bodies that can build a culture of continuous improvement. Again, Australia’s record to date has been piecemeal and poor.

Read more:
The road is long and time is short, but Australia’s pace towards net zero is quickening

These reforms – better information, planning and public participation – will take time. In the meantime, the precautionary principle suggests a three-pronged approach to keeping us on track for net zero.

One, work proactively with developers to find infrastructure sites that avoid environmentally sensitive areas.

Two, speed up regulatory approvals. Fund well-resourced taskforces for both, as the gains will vastly outweigh the costs.

Three, be generous in compensating landowners where development is approved. Fairness comes at a cost, but unfairness will create an even higher one.

All this makes for a political sandwich of a certain kind. Why would government even consider it?

The answer lays bare the hard choice underlying modern environmental policy. We can accept some pain now, or a lot more later. The prize, though, is priceless: a clean energy system for a stable climate, and a natural environment worth passing on to future generations.

Peter Burnett is a member of the Biodiversity Council, which has the object of communicating accurate information on all aspects of biodiversity to secure and restore the future of Australia’s biodiversity.

– ref. How to beat ‘rollout rage’: the environment-versus-climate battle dividing regional Australia – https://theconversation.com/how-to-beat-rollout-rage-the-environment-versus-climate-battle-dividing-regional-australia-213863

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mohan Yellishetty, Co-Founder, Critical Minerals Consortium, and Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University

Newly announced closures of Glencore’s copper and zinc mines in Mt Isa will add to a huge number of former mines in Australia. A 2020 study by Monash University’s Resources Trinity Group found more than 80,000 inactive mine sites across the country.

Globally, a 2023 study estimates the mining footprint at around 66,000 square kilometres. Abandoned mines account for much of this area.

It’s estimated the US has about 500,000 abandoned mines and Canada at least 10,000. The UK and China have at least 1,500 and 12,000 old coalmines, respectively.

Abandoned mines can pose extreme environmental, health and safety risks. Unreclaimed coalmines, for example, continue to emit greenhouse gases.

Land is a scarce resource. Restoration enables sustainable and dynamic use of former mining land. It opens up golden opportunities – environmental, social and economic.

Read more:
Afterlife of the mine: lessons in how towns remake challenging sites

Environmental benefits

Carbon farming

Mine leases generally lock up vast land areas. This land presents a commercially viable, yet neglected, opportunity for carbon farming.

For example, replanting abandoned leases could earn carbon credits under the Australian government’s Carbon Farming Initiative. It can help “hard to abate” industries such as mining move towards net zero emissions.

Sustainable and renewable energy

Abandoned mines can also be used to produce and store renewable energy. Examples range from providing sites for solar farms to Green Gravity’s energy storage technology.

Green Gravity uses a system of weights in a mine shaft to store energy from renewable sources. This energy is used to raise the weights. The energy can later be released when the weights are lowered under the pull of gravity.

Another example is the former Kidston gold mine’s pumped storage hydro project. This system uses two water reservoirs in former open pits. Renewable energy is used to pump water into the higher reservoir. Releasing this water into the lower reservoir generates hydropower energy as needed.

For abandoned deeper mines, tapping into geothermal energy could even make it viable to resume mining.

Read more:
Batteries of gravity and water: we found 1,500 new pumped hydro sites next to existing reservoirs

Water security

Abandoned mines or quarry pits can store large amounts of drinking, harvested and recycled water. This will help increase water security, especially when located near urban areas or industry corridors.

Disaster prevention

Another option is renaturalisation. This depends heavily, though, on location and mine type.

For example, Indonesia has plans to restore forest on former mine sites to help reduce floods. These reforested areas will help retain floodwaters.

Biodiversity restoration

Nature-based approaches to mine rehabilitation include reforestation and phytoremediation, which uses plants to clean up contaminated environments. These approaches tackle mines’ legacy of pollution and add ecological value.

Restored land allows for native species to be reintroduced. It can also provide bridges between patches of habitat to enhance biodiversity. In Victoria, this has been done with a former quarry at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne.

Social benefits

Improving urban liveability

Renaturalised mines can be valuable communal and green spaces. Particularly when done in urban areas, it can provide residents with better air quality, microclimates and quality of life as these sites support recreational and cultural activities. All Nations Park is another example of a quarry restoration just seven kilometres from the Melbourne CBD.

Education and tourism opportunities

Restored mining land opens up educational, architectural and tourism opportunities. These range from hotels such as the InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland – most of it is underground – to eco-tourism and education centres, such as the Eden Project in the UK.

Economic benefits

Critical minerals

Critical minerals are vital for batteries, electric vehicles and electrification needs. These minerals can be extracted from inactive mines and tailings storages.

Mine waste processing could contribute billions of dollars a year to the economy and support regional jobs.

Read more:
Australia has rich deposits of critical minerals for green technology. But we are not making the most of them … yet

Job creation

Several large regions in Australia, including the Pilbara and Bowen Basins, face similar rehabilitation challenges. But each company is responsible for its own mine closure and rehabilitation. Current mining business models are not well suited for rehabilitation.

However, the scale of the rehabilitation work required in a major mining region would support an entire regional industry. It could provide many local jobs after mines close.

There are synergies between the many uses of restored mine sites. For example, Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne not only restores biodiversity, but has also created an attractive space for people to gather, along with jobs and education opportunities.

Read more:
‘We need to restore the land’: as coal mines close, here’s a community blueprint to sustain the Hunter Valley

So what are the obstacles?

A mine’s rehabilitation costs may total hundreds of millions of dollars. These costs are often many times greater than what governments hold in rehabilitation bonds, which operators must provide as financial security before mining begins. Nevertheless, the financial and environmental consequences of inaction dwarf such costs.

Globally, the costs of mine rehabilitation and closure liabilities run into billions of dollars. However, investments in green infrastructure have reached trillions of dollars. Some of these funds could be directed into rehabilitation and clean-up efforts, with the benefits of:

• providing capital to “kick off” and refine the collaborative work needed to deliver multiple benefits – as well as mining companies, this work involves many other organisations and individuals
• creating clear financial accountability for rehabilitation
• generating business opportunities and sites for testing new sustainability practices and developing “gold standards” for restoring and repurposing mine sites.

A co-operative investment approach enables all partners to understand their shared responsibilities before any long-term expenses affect them individually.

Strong governance, initial funding and collaborative development are needed to achieve environmental, social and economic outcomes that add value to mine rehabilitation.

Acknowledgements: David Whittle, Alec Miller, Tim T. Werner and a number of Monash University staff and students over the years who have contributed to the research base.

Mohan Yellishetty receives funding from the Australian Research Council, AGL Loy Yang, Boral Limited, CSIRO, KIGAM, Geoscience Australia, and the Defence Science Institute. He is Co-Convener of the National Industry Working Group (Critical Minerals), Australia-India Chamber of Commerce.

Peter Marcus Bach 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. Cleaning up Australia’s 80,000 disused mines is a huge job – but the payoffs can outweigh the costs – https://theconversation.com/cleaning-up-australias-80-000-disused-mines-is-a-huge-job-but-the-payoffs-can-outweigh-the-costs-215447

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya Notley, Associate Professor in Digital Media, Western Sydney University

Adults might assume young people are not engaged in current affairs.

But our survey reveals most Australian children and teenagers have a significant interest in the news. There has, however, been a drop in interest from our 2020 survey, done at the start of COVID.

Our research also shows children and teenagers increasingly get news from social media but many do not understand how algorithms select the news they see.

This suggests there needs to be more focus on teaching media literacy in schools.

Read more:
Less than half of Australian adults know how to identify misinformation online

Our study

In June, we asked 1,064 children and teens (aged eight to 16) from around Australia how they access and consume news media. This repeats earlier surveys we did in 2017 and 2020.

When asked about the news they accessed yesterday, most young people (83%) said they had received it from at least one source. One third (33%) used three or more sources.

There has been a drop in young people’s news engagement since the 2020 survey, which was conducted at the end of the Black Summer bushfires and the start of COVID. In 2020, 88% of young people had consumed news from at least one source and they were getting news more frequently from family, friends, teachers and television.

This decline mirrors a 2023 survey on Australian adults, which suggests people increase their news consumption during major national events.

Where do children and teens get their news from?

Family and friends were the top sources of news for young people, with survey respondents also reporting high levels of trust in these sources.

But social media is an increasingly important source of news, moving ahead of television for the first time for teenagers. Almost four in ten children (37%) and more than six in ten teens (63%) say they often or sometimes get news from social media. This compares to 39% of children and 41% of teens who often or sometimes get news from live TV.

Interestingly, when young people were asked about getting news on social media, only a small proportion (4-20% depending on the platform used) said they intentionally use social media to find or get news. Instead, they mostly report encountering news while they are using social media for other purposes.

When using social media to get news, half the children in our survey said they preferred YouTube, followed by TikTok (21%) and Facebook (13%). Teenagers preferred YouTube (31%), TikTok (24%) and Instagram (19%).

Knowledge of algorithms

Given so many young people regularly get news on social media – and this increases sharply as they enter their teen years — it is surprising only 40% of young people aged 12-16 years are familiar with the term “algorithm” in relation to news.

Technology companies – such as Google and TikTok – use algorithms to select news based on what they think users will like. This can skew the news people consume.

Just over half (56%) of the group who had heard of the term algorithm in relation to news viewed algorithms as a helpful tool that enhances the relevance of news to them. However, only 27% of this group trusted algorithms to curate balanced and accurate news.

This suggests there is an important opportunity for parents, educators and news organisations to increase young people’s understanding of how algorithms are used to deliver news online.

What about school?

The lack of awareness about the role algorithms play in delivering online news suggests children are not getting sufficient media literacy education in school.

Only one in four young people (24%) said they’d had a lesson at school in the past year to help them work out if news stories are true and can be trusted – and this is the same for children and teenagers.

Less than one third (29%) of respondents reported they had been taught how to create their own news story in the past year

What happens when young people are engaged?

We divided our respondents into five groups based on their level of engagement with news.

Young people with the highest level of engagement with news were four times more likely to report they often or sometimes ask critical questions about the news they consume than those with the lowest level of interest in news (76% versus 18%).

These critical questions include “how are different groups of people likely to respond to this news story?”, “how are people, places or ideas being presented in this news story?” and “what technologies were used to produce and share this news?”

Young people with a high level of engagement with news are also more likely to take actions that will help them to avoid misinformation. For example, they are six times more likely to report checking multiple sources to verify news when compared with young people with a low level of interest in news (63% versus 10%).

This suggests news engagement is linked to many positive outcomes that may help young people to avoid misinformation.

Read more:
Most young Australians can’t identify fake news online

What now?

The shift in young people’s news engagement toward social media highlights the need for consistent media literacy education across Australia.

This can help young people learn more about social media business models, visual modes of communication (particularly video), methods for identifying misinformation, privacy settings and how algorithms work.

This kind of education will help young people to grow up being engaged but critical news consumers and citizens.

Read more:
Instagram is the home of pretty pictures. Why are people flocking to it for news?

This research was supported by two grants: one from the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) and another
from Meta Australia. Meta did not have any input into the research design, methodology, analysis or findings. MoAD
provided some initial feedback on the survey design.

Tanya Notley is Deputy Chair of the Australian Media Literacy Alliance. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Michael Dezuanni receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sora Park receives funding from Australian Research Council and Creative Australia.

– ref. Young Australians increasingly get news from social media, but many don’t understand algorithms – https://theconversation.com/young-australians-increasingly-get-news-from-social-media-but-many-dont-understand-algorithms-215427

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Andrews, Visiting Fellow and Director – Micro heterogeneity and Macroeconomic Performance program, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

When Australia’s dirtiest coal-fired power plant, Hazelwood in Victoria, closed in 2017, Australian authorities were blind to the collateral damage.

Closing a plant that accounted for a fair chunk of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions would help bring emissions down, but the costs to the displaced workers were unknowable.

How many of them would lose income, and for how long? How many of them would earn mere fractions of what they used to earn years into the future?

Twelve coal-fired plants closed between 2010 and 2020, and now a deep dive into the tax records of workers in that industry provides us with the first systematic insight into what happened.

The study we carried out for the e61 Institute along with colleague Lachlan Vass examined taxation microdata to track the earnings trajectories of Australians who received redundancy payments between 2010 and 2020 by industry.

Our study, published this morning, finds that on average across all industries the workers made redundant earned around 43% less in the following year.

Incomes plummet by two-thirds

But workers made redundant in coal-fired power plants did much worse than the overall average. They earned 69% less in the year after they lost their jobs, earning a mere third of what they had.

Some of the loss would have been due to earning less in new jobs, and some of it would have been due to working fewer hours in new jobs. The tax data doesn’t enable us to tell which is which. Both would be important.

And for workers who lost jobs in coal-fired power plants, the effects lingered.

Four years after being made redundant, the workers in coal-fired power plants earned 50% less. On average across all industries, the workers made redundant earned only 29% less.

Why power stations workers do badly

There are at least four reasons why the incomes of displaced coal-fired power station workers are likely to be lower than the incomes of other displaced workers.

One is that many coal-fired power plant workers possess highly job-specific skills (related to operating specialist equipment) that aren’t readily transferable to other jobs, or at least not to other jobs in that location.

Another is that many coal-fired power plant workers derive high wages from strong union representation, meaning they are likely to earn less if they switch to less-unionised sectors.

Read more:
Bad news. Closing coal-fired power stations costs jobs. We need to prepare

Yet another is that coal-fired power plants are often a major source of local employment and provide support to other employers, meaning that when they close the overall unemployment rate in their region increases, making it hard for the workers they displace to get good jobs unless they move.

And another is that they are usually older. Bureau of Statistics data suggests that in 2010 55% of workers in coal-fired power plants were aged 45 or older compared to 35% in the economy at large.

Workers aged 40 and over do much worse after redundancies than younger workers, and workers in coal-fired power plants even more so.

The case for special support

Another 18 coal-fired power plants are set to close in coming decades. Our study suggests that while these closures will benefit the nation as a whole, helping fight the existential threat of global warming, they may impose foreseeable and long-lasting costs on an identifiable group of workers.

Half a century ago when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam slashed tariffs on imports by 25% in an effort to fight the lesser threat of double-digit inflation, he extended special support to those the decision would put out of work.

Read more:
How a secret plan 50 years ago changed Australia’s economy forever, in just one night

Whitlam offered every displaced worker retraining and “a weekly amount equal to his [sic] average wage in the previous six months until he obtains or is found suitable alternative employment”.

Opponents of this sort of targeted support point out that the number of workers set to lose jobs from coal-fired plant closures is minuscule compared to the millions of workers who leave jobs for other reasons every year.

But there is something different about losing a job when it is the result of a government decision, especially one that targets a particular geographic region.

We now need a national conversation on whether special support is warranted for those we know the move to net zero will hurt.

Dan Andrews receives funding from the Susan McKinnon Foundation via the e61 Institute.

Elyse Dwyer is affiliated with the e61 Institute.

– ref. Here’s what happens to workers when coal-fired power plants close. It isn’t good – https://theconversation.com/heres-what-happens-to-workers-when-coal-fired-power-plants-close-it-isnt-good-215434

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

The defrost in China-Australia relations started cautiously after the change of federal government last year. It then sped up, with developments culminating in the formal announcement at the weekend of the date for the much-anticipated visit by Anthony Albanese.

The bilateral relationship is fast heading back to room temperature.

The PM will visit from November 4 to 7. He’ll have talks with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, and he’ll also attend the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.

The last days of preparation have seen major steps. First came the release of Australian journalist Cheng Lei, detained in China for three years (but writer Yang Hengjun is still there). This was followed at the weekend by the expected breakthrough on China’s restrictions on Australian wine, which prompted Australia to commence action at the WTO in 2021.

China will review, over five months, its duties on the wine; Australia will suspend its WTO action. A statement from Albanese said that “if the duties are not removed at the end of the review, Australia will resume the dispute in the WTO. We are confident of a successful outcome.”

Breaking the impasse on wine is a big deal for producers. Before the duties, China was Australia’s largest wine export market.

The lack of access to China has been devastating for many in the industry, with exports to that country falling from $1.1 billion in 2019 to $16 million in 2022. Unlike some commodities that China hit, for which alternative markets were found, wine producers have had trouble selling elsewhere.

Overall, China is our largest trading partner, representing nearly a third of our total trade. At their height China’s trade restrictions on Australia amounted to some $20 billion. They are down to about $2 billion.

Albanese’s trip will come 50 years after then PM Gough’
Whitlam’s historic visit, which was the first by an Australian prime minister.

Whitlam told a banquet in Peking on October 31, 1973: “In China today we see a great modernising force, capable of exerting profound influence in the world. Close co-operation and association between our two peoples is both natural and beneficial.”

The Whitlam trip “laid the ground work for the diplomatic, economic and cultural ties that continue to benefit our countries today,” Albanese said on Sunday.

Over the decades the relationship has, for Australia, been enormously important economically, but at times very rocky. Albanese’s visit will be the first by an Australian prime minister since Malcolm Turnbull’s in 2016.

An already downward spiral in relations, driven by various issues, worsened dramatically when Australia led international pressure for an inquiry into the origins and early handling of COVID, which began in Wuhan.

The bilateral thaw has been considerably driven by China’s perception of its wider foreign policy interests, with last year’s change of government greatly facilitating the recalibration.

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Asia expert Richard McGregor on Anthony Albanese’s coming visit to China

But Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have remained cautious, against the background of China-United States tensions, the Taiwan issue, China’s courting of small Pacific countries, and the speed with things can change. They are keen to say the government will disagree with China where it must and always act in Australia’s national interest.

Meanwhile Mike Burgess, head of ASIO, has called fresh attention to China’s unrelenting spying activities, last week revealing an attempt to “infiltrate a prestigious Australian research institution”.

Among the topics for discussion during Albanese’s visit will be co-operation in economic areas, climate change and people-to-people links.

Albanese will be accompanied by Trade Minister Don Farrell, who has done much of the detailed trade negotiations to unlock the restrictions.

Speaking to journalists before leaving on Sunday for his visit to the United States, Albanese said, “It is important that we stabilise our relationship with China. That is in the interests of Australia and China, and it is indeed in the interests of the world, that we have stable relations, and that is what this visit will represent.”

Asked whether he would hope Xi would visit Australia, Albanese said, “we’ll have discussions about that”, noting Xi has been here a number of times.

Albanese said that in Washington this week he would be having discussions about progressing the legislation needed under the AUKUS agreement.

He’ll also be canvassing the potential benefits for Australia from the US Inflation Reduction Act. Among its objectives, this act seeks to drive clean energy. “As we move to a clean energy global economy, Australia is in a strong position to benefit because of the critical minerals that we have,” Albanese said.

The Prime Minister will be given a state dinner. This is the ninth time he has met President Biden, formally or informally, since becoming PM.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: China-Australia relations head back to room temperature, with Albanese’s November visit – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-china-australia-relations-head-back-to-room-temperature-with-albaneses-november-visit-216151

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Emeritus professor of politics, Monash University

Who have been Australia’s most accomplished federal opposition leaders? The conventional answer to this question is Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam, both renowned for rejuvenating their respective sides of politics and galvanising new constituencies of support.

But what of the opposition leaders who never made it to prime minister: which among them boasts the most outstanding record? In modern times, Bill Hayden, who died this week aged 85, has powerful claim to that title.

Hayden’s public career began in December 1961, with his election to the House of Representatives as the Labor member for the Queensland electorate of Oxley. It came to a close in February 1996, at the end of a seven-year tenure as governor-general.

During this time, Hayden established a significant legacy.

In the Whitlam government, he was the minister responsible for enacting the pioneering universal health insurance scheme, Medibank, which was revived and rebadged as Medicare in the 1980s and now enjoys sacred status among Australia’s public policy institutions.

He was Labor leader from December 1977 to February 1983, restoring the party as a credible electoral force following the trauma of the 1975 dismissal.

Hayden assembled a formidably talented ministerial team that would later become the engine room of the Hawke Labor government.

Relinquishing the leadership to Hawke in wrenching circumstances on the eve of the 1983 election campaign, he was a long-serving minister for foreign affairs (and trade) from 1983 to 1988 before assuming his vice-regal appointment in 1989.

‘Growing up, getting angry’

Born in 1933, Hayden was a child of the Great Depression. In his 1996 autobiography, the section on his early life is titled, “Growing Up, Getting Angry”. Hayden’s father, a piano tuner of radical political bent, struggled to provide for his family. He had a weakness for alcohol and a volatile temper.

Hayden described his parents as “busted by the Depression” and wrote that they:

hated a system which had treated them, and legions more, so villainously. Their hate and disgust were my legacy.

Educated at a series of schools in working-class Brisbane, Hayden became a junior clerk in the Queensland public service before entering the police force at age 20. Though initially diverted by the human drama of his police duties, he gradually grew frustrated both professionally and intellectually.

According to a biographer, he also “increasingly believed there needed to be political rather than policing solutions” to the social problems he encountered on the beat. As way of compensation, he studied part-time for his matriculation and joined the Labor Party, which was convulsed by its 1957 split in Queensland.

Reforming spirit

When Hayden secured preselection for the seat of Oxley in 1961, local party wisdom was that the seat was unwinnable for Labor. Supported on the campaign trail by his wife, Dallas, who was pregnant with their second child, Hayden’s surprise victory was also aided by Whitlam, who “dazzled” Queenslanders with a platform of “northern development”.

Joining a caucus ranging from gnarled veterans like Arthur Calwell and Eddie Ward to the rising generation of leaders, Whitlam and Jim Cairns, Hayden gravitated towards the left. He fell under Cairns’ spell, an enchantment he later regretted:

It was his feet. We should have looked at them from the start. Clay!

In an era when advancement through the party ranks was painstakingly slow, Hayden had to wait until 1969 to enter Labor’s shadow cabinet, now led by Whitlam. Having undertaken part-time university studies in economics, he hankered after a portfolio in that area.

Whitlam instead assigned him health and welfare, promising: “Comrade, we’re going to do great things in this field”. Once in government, Hayden did just that as minister for social security. He introduced a host of new measures, including the single mothers’ benefit.

The battle for Medibank was ferocious. The Australian Medical Association, private hospitals, private health insurance funds, the non-Labor states and the Coalition-controlled Senate were all virulently opposed. Hayden bore the brunt of the fight – most cruelly, rumours were peddled that he was mentally unstable, a legacy of the tragic death of his eldest daughter in a road accident a decade earlier.

Though one of its reforming spirits, Hayden was also an internal critic of the Whitlam government. He was dismayed by the freewheeling spending of his colleagues.

When Cairns stumbled in mid-1975, a victim of Labor’s ill-fated loan-raising activities, Hayden replaced him as treasurer. He produced a budget that steered Labor towards a path of fiscal rectitude, foreshadowing his efforts as opposition leader.

Hayden was a Labor heretic too, at least in retrospect, about the circumstances of the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975. After a meeting with Governor-General Sir John Kerr five days before the dismissal, Hayden warned Whitlam that his “old copper’s instincts tell me he’s going to sack us”. Whitlam brushed off his advice.

Coloured by his own vice-regal experience, Hayden treated Kerr sympathetically in his memoir, writing that “[he] sought to do what he believed was right and proper” and was “not an arch villain but rather, at its worst, perhaps someone miscast by history”.

Leading Labor’s recovery

Hayden’s time as opposition leader was the pinnacle of his public career. Whitlam first offered him the role amid the carnage of Labor’s 1975 election defeat. When Hayden was eventually elected to the position two years later, there was still a huge recovery task to perform.

His chief priority was “to re-establish public trust in our ability to manage the economy soberly”. This was achieved through rigorous costings of expenditure proposals and the development of credible revenue measures. He also pursued party reform, with the 1981 special national conference adopting sweeping changes that included an historic affirmative action plan.

As Paul Keating remembered, Hayden brought “order, focus and policy consistency” to shadow cabinet meetings and constructed a front bench “prepared to conduct themselves around the principles of rationality and accountability to which Bill was committed”.

The names of those in this camp read like a “Who’s Who” of the Hawke era: John Dawkins, Ralph Willis, Peter Walsh, Susan Ryan, Lionel Bowen, John Button, Neal Blewett, Don Grimes, Gareth Evans, John Kerin, Chris Hurford and, of course, Keating himself.

Following gargantuan losses under Whitlam to Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal National Party Coalition in 1975 and 1977, Hayden led Labor to a dramatically improved result at the October 1980 election. The party’s primary vote increased by over 5% and fell only narrowly short of winning the two-party preferred vote.

But the election also presaged trouble for Hayden, with the arrival in caucus of the irresistible force of Bob Hawke. Virtually from that moment, Hayden’s leadership was stalked by Hawke and his supporters. Increasingly embattled, his weaknesses festered.

Reserved and suspicious by nature and prone to self-doubt – in his autobiography, Hayden acknowledged he was subject to periodic bouts of depression – he became isolated and, according to some detractors, paranoid. Compared to the swaggering Hawke, Hayden was also a grudging media performer: his voice and dress sense were butts of criticism.

Hayden prevailed against Hawke in a leadership ballot in July 1982, but the narrow margin ensured that Hawke’s backers continued to circle, brandishing opinion polls as evidence of their champion’s electoral Midas touch.

Standing aside

In February 1983, Hayden bravely bowed to the inevitable following a decisive intervention by his confidant, John Button, who bluntly informed him that he did not think he could win the next election. Announcing his resignation (on the same day Fraser called a snap election), Hayden begged to differ. He uttered a phrase immortalised in Australian political folklore:

I am not convinced the Labor Party would not win under my leadership. I believe a drover’s dog could lead the Labor Party to victory the way the country is and the way the opinion polls are.

One of Hayden’s conditions for standing aside as leader was being made foreign affairs minister in a Hawke government. In office, he established a respectable record in the portfolio, including leading a politically charged review of the ANZUS treaty and promoting a Cambodian peace plan (concluded under his successor, Gareth Evans).

Yet there was a sense of anti-climax to those years. His chosen means of exit from parliament – the governor-general’s residence at Yarralumla – perplexed those who had regarded him as a republican. Subsequently, disavowing that position, when Hayden was chosen by the Howard government as a delegate to the 1998 Constitutional Convention, he went as a defender of the constitutional status quo.

He surprised at the Convention, however, by embracing the idea of a directly elected president, before campaigning against the republic at the referendum the next year. These twists were symptomatic of a capriciousness to his public interventions in later years, accompanied by occasional unbecoming acerbity towards former Labor colleagues. This led to suspicions that the wound of 1983 had never quite healed.

In his memoir, Hayden insisted on the consistency of his belief system. His guiding stars had been the values of a “secular, liberal humanist”. However, in his final years the formerly avowed atheist caused further surprise by converting to Catholicism.

He perhaps had given hint to this direction in his memoir in his description of a philosophical self-awakening. Whereas he had once trusted in the transformative power of government for advancing “freedom, justice and security”, experience had taught him:

not to expect too much from the crooked timber of humanity and to be cautious about the natural tendencies of political government, which are to aggregate more power to itself … to become remote and often unresponsive to public expectations.

Hayden, of course, shared in the human lot of being carved from “crooked timber”. His flaws, though, paled against his substantial contribution to Australia’s national life.

Paul Strangio 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. Bill Hayden’s remarkable contribution to public life – https://theconversation.com/bill-haydens-remarkable-contribution-to-public-life-95853

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Loukas Koungoulos, Postdoctoral research fellow, Australian National University

Dingoes are an iconic Australian wild animal, with close links to Australia’s First Peoples throughout the mainland. Yet the origins and history of these animals are shrouded in obscurity.

The question of whether dingoes are a truly wild or formerly domestic animal that has become feral has eluded a clear answer or consensus amongst scientists for well over a century.

Published in PLOS One today, our new study of dingoes buried alongside First Nations people in ancient times has provided crucial clues to this mystery. Our findings may help change the way we think about the connections between dingoes and people.

Living alongside people

When outsiders observed traditional First Peoples’ societies in the 19th and 20th centuries throughout mainland Australia, they noticed many took dingo pups from wild dens and raised them to keep as companions and for a variety of other purposes including as guards, hunting aids and living “blankets”.

However, these dingoes always returned to the bush to find a mate after reaching about a year of age, seemingly never to return. This is quite unlike our domestic dogs – they may wander, but ultimately tend to stay with their human families in the long term.

The fact most dingoes live without any reliance on people is one of the main reasons scientific opinion differs over whether dingoes should be thought of as domestic animals or not.

Read more:
New DNA testing shatters ‘wild dog’ myth: most dingoes are pure

But is it possible different arrangements between dingoes and Australia’s First Peoples existed before traditional ways of life were disrupted by colonial violence, displacement and disease? Answers might be found in the bones of dingoes that lived with people and were buried after death.

There are historical accounts of funerary and burial rituals of deceased tamed dingoes. Skeletons of dingoes or dogs have been found alongside First Peoples’ burials in many areas of Australia from Arnhem Land to the Murray-Darling basin, but to date there’s been no comprehensive study of this important cultural practice.

In a search of historical records and findings of dingo burials, we found they were concentrated in the Murray-Darling Basin and on the southern coastlines of New South Wales and Victoria. A secondary, more recent cluster was located in north-western Australia.

Buried alongside people

Historical records and archaeological evidence both show that when dingoes were buried, it was invariably in the manner in which people were buried in the same region. Often, dingoes were buried alongside people.

The act of burial implies a degree of care and belonging to a community. Some archaeologists argue animal burial is a fundamental sign of domestication. But by examining the skeletons of buried dingoes we can further investigate the life histories of these important animals.

The archaeological site of Curracurrang, a rock shelter in the Royal National Park just south of Sydney, was excavated in the 1960s. The excavations found First People were buried there over many centuries.

But our new primary investigations of previously unstudied animal bones reveal the site also contained the skeletons of several dingoes. Radiocarbon dates taken from their bones found the earliest of these were buried around 2,300–2,000 years ago. Dingo burials continued here until the colonial era.

Some of the dingoes were adults, at least six to eight years old – well past the age at which they’d be expected to return to the wild to breed. They had severely worn teeth, indicating a diet heavy in large bones, likely from the scraps of human meals.

In addition, one dingo showed signs of suffering from an aggressive, mobility-restricting form of cancer in the last weeks of its life. It was likely looked after by people during its decline.

Several other burials were pups, less than a month or two in age. Since dingoes of breeding age were also found at Curracurrang, it is entirely probable some of these pups were born there but did not survive long, and were buried soon after. These individuals are the first known evidence of dingo pup burial in Australia.

Read more:
Barkindji custodians near Broken Hill continue to care for ancestral dingo remains with help from archaeologists

A previously obscured relationship

Dingo burials reveal aspects of the relationship between Australia’s First Peoples and their dingo companions which had been, until now, obscured.

At Curracurrang, tame dingoes lived to advanced ages alongside people. They ate the same foods and possibly even bore litters of pups within human camps. While traditional views of domestication involve dramatic transformations in appearance and human control over animal reproduction, newer perspectives focus on long-lasting relationships between people and animals.

The evidence from Curracurrang suggests some dingoes, at least in certain settings, were domesticated in ancient times. This doesn’t mean all dingoes were domesticated, nor does it conclusively indicate they originate from domestic dogs.

Most dingoes were, and still are, wild animals with various adaptations to life independent of people in Australian environments.

However, the new findings do mark an important development in our understanding of the deep antiquity and closeness of the connection between Australia’s First Peoples and their native dogs. It attests to long-lasting relationships beyond the transient, temporary associations recorded during the colonial era.

Acknowledgments: we are grateful to the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and community for their permission to undertake research on the Curracurrang dingo remains. We also give thanks to the Australian Museum for facilitating access to these materials.

Loukas Koungoulos receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Jane Balme receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Shane Ingrey is a member of the La Perouse Aboriginal community and the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Sue O’Connor receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

– ref. Did Australia’s First Peoples domesticate dingoes? They certainly buried them with great care – https://theconversation.com/did-australias-first-peoples-domesticate-dingoes-they-certainly-buried-them-with-great-care-205994

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology

Reports this week suggest a near-collision between an Australian satellite and a suspected Chinese military satellite.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the US government issued the first ever space junk fine. The Federal Communications Commission handed a US$150,000 penalty to the DISH Network, a publicly traded company providing satellite TV services.

It came as a surprise to many in the space industry, as the fine didn’t relate to any recent debris – it was issued for a communications satellite that has been in space for more than 21 years. It was EchoStar-7, which failed to meet the orbit requirements outlined in a previously agreed debris mitigation plan.

The EchoStar-7 fine might be a US first, but it probably won’t be the last. We are entering an unprecedented era of space use and can expect the number of active satellites in space to increase by 700% by the end of the decade.

As our local space gets more crowded, keeping an eye on tens of thousands of satellites and bits of space junk will only become more important. So researchers have a new field for this: space domain awareness.

Three types of orbit, plus junk

Humans have been launching satellites into space since 1957 and in the past 66 years have become rather good at it. There are currently more than 8,700 active satellites in various orbits around Earth.

Satellites tend to be in three main orbits, and understanding these is key to understanding the complex nature of space debris.

The most common orbit for satellites is low Earth orbit, with at least 5,900 active satellites. Objects in low Earth orbit tend to reside up to 1,000km above Earth’s surface and are constantly on the move. The International Space Station is an example of a low Earth orbit object, travelling around Earth 16 times every day.

Higher up is the medium Earth orbit, where satellites sit between 10,000 and 20,000km above Earth. It’s not a particularly busy place, but is home to some of the most important satellites ever launched – they provide us with the global positioning system or GPS.

Finally, we have very high altitude satellites in geosynchronous orbit. In this orbit, satellites are upwards of 35,000km above Earth, in orbits that match the rate of Earth’s rotation. One special type of this orbit is a geostationary Earth orbit. It lies on the same plane as Earth’s equator, making the satellites appear stationary from the ground.

As you can tell, Earth’s surrounds are buzzing with satellite activity. It only gets more chaotic when we factor in space junk, defined as disused artificial debris in orbit around Earth.

Space junk can range from entire satellites that are no longer in use or working, down to millimetre-wide bits of spacecraft and launch vehicles left in orbit. Latest estimates suggest there are more than 130 million pieces of space debris, with only 35,000 of those large enough (greater than 10cm) to be routinely tracked from the ground.

Read more:
Space junk in Earth orbit and on the Moon will increase with future missions − but nobody’s in charge of cleaning it up

How do we track them all?

This is where space domain awareness comes in. It is the field of detecting, tracking and monitoring objects in Earth’s orbit, including active satellites and space debris.

We do much of this with ground-based tracking, either through radar or optical systems like telescopes. While radar can easily track objects in low Earth orbit, higher up we need optical sensors. Objects in medium Earth orbit and geostationary orbit can be tracked using sunlight reflected towards Earth.

For reliable and continuous space domain awareness, we need multiple sensors contributing to this around the globe.

Below you can see what high-altitude satellites can look like to telescopes on Earth, appearing to stay still as the stars move by.

Australia’s role in space awareness

Thanks to our position on Earth, Australia has a unique opportunity to contribute to space domain awareness. The US already houses several facilities on the west coast of Australia as part of the Space Surveillance Network. That’s because on the west coast, telescopes can work in dark night skies with minimal light pollution from large cities.

Furthermore, we are currently working on a space domain awareness technology demonstrator (a proof of concept), funded by SmartSat CRC. This is a government-funded consortium of universities and other research organisations, along with industry partners such as the IT firm CGI.

We are combining our expertise in observational astrophysics, advanced data visualisation, artificial intelligence and space weather. Our goal is to have technology that understands what is happening in space minute-by-minute. Then, we can line up follow-up observations and monitor the objects in orbit. Our team is currently working on geosynchronous orbit objects, which includes active and inactive satellites.

EchoStar-7 was just one example of the fate of a retired spacecraft – the FCC is sending a strong warning to all other companies to ensure their debris mitigation plans are met.

Inactive objects in orbit could pose a collision risk to each other, leading to a rapid increase in space debris. If we want to use Earth’s space domain for as long as possible, we need to keep it safe for all.

Read more:
Harpoons, robots and lasers: how to capture defunct satellites and other space junk and bring it back to Earth

Acknowledgment: The authors would like to thank Sholto Forbes-Spyratos, military space lead at CGI Space, Defence and Intelligence Australia, for his contribution to this article.

Sara Webb receives funding through a research project co-funded by CGI technologies and SmartSat CRC, on work related to space domain awareness. She is a member of the Astronomical Society of Australia and American Society for Gravitational and Space Research.

Brett Carter is an Editor of the American Geophysical Union journal Space Weather. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council, SmartSat CRC and FrontierSI. He is also a member of the Australian Institute of Physics and the American Geophysical Union.

Christopher Fluke works for Swinburne University of Technology. He receives funding from the SmartSat CRC, including funding to support a research collaboration with CGI and RMIT. He is a member of the Astronomical Society of Australia and the International Astronomical Union.

– ref. Space is getting crowded with satellites and space junk. How do we avoid collisions? – https://theconversation.com/space-is-getting-crowded-with-satellites-and-space-junk-how-do-we-avoid-collisions-215545

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Victoria Cooper, Research Editor, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due in Washington next week. He will be the fourth of US President Joe Biden’s international guests treated to the pomp and ceremony of an official state visit to the United States.

US state visits feature mostly ceremonial activities such as an exchange of symbolic gifts, a star-studded state dinner and a 21-gun salute. These are designed to honour the heads of state and the strength of friendship between the United States and its guest country.

First announced in August, the timing of the trip might put something of a dampener on the occasion given the rapidly evolving conflict in Gaza. In addition, both Australia and the United States have domestic political troubles.

So, given this context and the perpetual issue of getting the substance of the alliance front and centre with the press corps, what can Albanese hope to gain from this state visit?

Focusing on the now: a glitzy distraction from troubles at home?

Next week’s affair may indeed be glitzy, but no amount of ceremony is likely to distract attention from the immense challenges both Albanese and Biden face at home.

The “no” result from Australia’s referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament is a significant blow for the prime minister. He must now seek a new approach to Indigenous reconciliation efforts in the face of public fatigue and division.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Anthony Albanese had good motives but his referendum has done much harm

Indeed, opinion polls before the October 14 referendum showed the public’s frustration with the referendum’s pre-eminence ahead of other national issues, especially the cost of living.

An extravagant official visit to Washington, where the public has long expressed confidence in the stability of the relationship, is unlikely to boost Albanese’s declining approval rating.

Albanese is not alone in these domestic challenges. The brinkmanship in the US Congress over limits to government spending, which prevented Biden from coming to Australia and prompted the invitation for this coming visit, has hardly resolved itself since May. If anything, it has only become more worrisome.

In the past three weeks alone, the US government narrowly avoided a shutdown following intense disagreements over how to fund its federal agencies. In addition, the US House of Representatives voted to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy, then proved unable to elect a new leader, paralysing the legislative abilities of the chamber.

The appropriations bills needed to again avoid a government shutdown on November 17 are languishing, no closer to being resolved.

Focusing on the future: an important opportunity to push on?

Considering the competing priorities confronting both leaders, attending to the alliance relationship – one that will no doubt be lauded for its constancy and unbreakable nature – may seem an ill-fitting message at this moment.

However, it is exactly these “iron-clad bonds” between Australia and the US that make this visit so important for both countries. It’s not so much a distraction from domestic troubles as an opportunity to push on with addressing shared priorities.

The feeling of insecurity stirred by the potential for a widening regional conflict in the Middle East, exacerbated by Chinese President Xi Jinping hosting a state visit for Russian President Vladimir Putin, should put a higher premium on the need for strong alliances.

Indeed, polling by the United States Studies Centre suggests this is a good way to go, with 63% of Australians and 58% of Americans saying their alliance makes their country more secure.

Both the Australian and US governments have emphasised sharpening their Indo-Pacific strategies and deepening defence co-operation to enhance their national security. AUKUS is key to these efforts.

The state visit is a golden opportunity to make the case for the agreement’s importance with the Australian public and some US senators who still need convincing. Their support is essential for the agreement’s success.

One important possible win is the smoothed passage of measures to streamline collaboration on the technological and industrial base. This includes locking in US export control reforms and Australia’s incorporation into the Defense Production Act. Making progress on this is essential for the timely implementation of AUKUS, as well as US investments in Australian critical minerals.

On another matter, both leaders can use the visit to advance co-operation on the “third pillar” of the alliance – climate and clean energy. The state visit offers the first real chance to turn the intentions of the Climate Compact into tangible actions.

One such action may be further detail on how Australia’s delivery of critical minerals might benefit both countries. Of particular importance is the minerals needed for electric vehicles and other climate-ambitious US technologies set out in the Inflation Reduction Act. This is especially important as the US looks to “de-risk” its economic relationship with China.

Read more:
The AUKUS deal will be hotly debated at the ALP national conference, but its real vulnerabilities lie in America

A story to take home

For both Albanese and Biden, the challenge of selling the state visit will be to balance the ceremony with substance.

Pressing ahead with the policy priorities that will ensure Americans and Australians a more secure and prosperous future will bring home much more than the stories of a spectacular state dinner and the gifts exchanged in the Red Room ever could.

Victoria Cooper 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. As Albanese heads to Washington, what can he hope to bring home? – https://theconversation.com/as-albanese-heads-to-washington-what-can-he-hope-to-bring-home-214834

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sant-Rayn Pasricha, Division Head, Population Health and Immunity, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

After a bump, we can expect a bruise. But what if we find ourselves bruising without any noticeable cause? What might be behind it? Should we worry?

Around 18% of adults report easy bruising. As haematologists (blood doctors), we are often asked for advice when people are worried they might bruise too easily.

Here is how we think about the problem.

What the blood does

Firstly, it helps to understand the complex, carefully balanced systems in our body that protect us from bleeding.

Blood flows as a liquid through our blood vessels, carrying red cells with their cargo of oxygen and immune cells to defend us from infections, to our brain, muscles and internal organs. Blood contains ingredients that are carefully balanced to protect us from bleeding if we are injured, while simultaneously minimising the risk of dangerous blood clot formation.

If a “puncture” occurs in a blood vessel, blood can rapidly thicken to form a jellylike clot, to minimise blood loss until the vessel repairs itself. To achieve this, tiny cell fragments called platelets that circulate in the blood bind to the damaged blood vessel wall.

A host of proteins (clotting factors), attracted by the platelets and damaged vessel wall, then combine to thicken the blood at the site and form a blood clot. Like all blood cells, platelets are made in the bone marrow, while clotting factors are mostly made in the liver.

So what can go wrong? If we have a problem affecting either our clotting factors, our platelets, or our blood vessel walls, we can find ourselves developing easy bruising or even problematic bleeding.

Read more:
Hot pack or cold pack: which one to reach for when you’re injured or in pain

Could it be a problem?

In many patients who report easy bruising, haematologists can’t find any particular cause.

Blood doctors are usually more cautious when a person has a constellation of problems related to bleeding. For example, a disorder is more likely if the bruising is widespread with large bruises, is accompanied by frequent nosebleeds, heavy periods, problems with bleeding after major dental work, surgery or childbirth – or even spontaneous serious bleeding into joints or into the brain.

A few simple tests can help us figure out if there is likely to be a serious problem.

The first we would perform for any person reporting easy bruising is a full blood count. This will include a measurement of the platelet count and reliably show if the platelet numbers are normal.

Our platelets can be reduced for a number of reasons – either because they are not being produced in the bone marrow appropriately or in sufficient quantity, or because they are being removed from the circulation too quickly.

The latter scenario happens in a common condition called immune thrombocytopenic purpura. This condition can affect children or adults out of the blue or following a viral infection. Patients can develop severe reductions in their platelet count and come out in a fine rash, which is actually small bruises.

In children, it is usually a short-term condition that recovers by itself. In adults, severe cases may need treatment with medicines that suppress the immune system or boost platelet production. Sometimes adults need surgery to remove the spleen.

Problems with clotting proteins and diseases

Clotting factors – the proteins mentioned earlier – can be affected by a range of inherited or acquired causes.

Some people are born with low levels of important factors that help the blood clot when it needs to control bleeding.

Haemophilia A is seen almost exclusively in men and is caused by a genetic reduction in Factor VIII (a key clotting factor). Both men and women can have von Willebrand Disease, which involves reduced production or function of another key clotting factor.

Liver disease can also cause clotting problems. That’s why the second test we perform in any person reporting easy bruising is to measure clotting function. If we find an abnormality, we’ll follow up by testing the levels of key clotting factors.

Problems with blood vessels

Though rare today, severe vitamin C deficiency used to more commonly cause easy bruising and gum bleeding (“scurvy”) and deficiencies can still cause bruising.

Several diseases can cause blood vessel thinning or inflammation, including Henoch-Schonlein purpura – an autoimmune condition that results in leg and thigh bruising.

Older people can have fragile skin and blood vessels, making bruising more likely.

Read more:
Why do we bleed? A hematologist explains how the body prevents blood loss after injury

Medicines and supplements

We always ask patients about their medication and alternative medicine use.

Aspirin – often prescribed to prevent platelets from worsening the risk of cardiac disease or stroke – can also reduce platelet function.

Medications like clopidogrel (to stop problem clotting) and non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (like ibuprofen or others taken for pain and inflammation) can reduce platelet function. Blood thinners such as warfarin, apixaban and rivaroxaban, prescribed to people with a higher risk of clots leading to stroke, can affect bruising.

People using oral or inhaled corticosteroids for a prolonged period (such as for chronic illnesses) may notice increased bruising because of thinning of the skin and weakened blood vessel walls.

Over-the-counter supplements including gingko and vitamin E can also promote easy bruising, as can some antidepressant medications.

Read more:
A history of blood clots is not usually any reason to avoid the AstraZeneca vaccine

Questions of abuse and trauma

Finally, blood vessels can be damaged by trauma. Clinicians should carefully ask if the person has experienced any injuries, including a sensitive consideration of child abuse or intimate partner violence.

While there are many medical conditions that can cause easy bruising, if you don’t have a strong history of other forms of excessive bleeding, and your blood counts and clotting function tests are normal, it shouldn’t be a cause for concern.

Sant-Rayn Pasricha receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He consults for CSL-Vifor and has consulted pro bono for the World Health Organization.

– ref. Why do I bruise so easily? Could it be something serious? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-i-bruise-so-easily-could-it-be-something-serious-207736

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wellett Potter, Lecturer in Law, University of New England

Love it or loathe it, it’s almost Halloween.

While it’s traditionally seen as an American holiday, more Australians are preparing to celebrate it this year.

Many jump at the chance to dress up as their favourite fictional character, but have you ever stopped to wonder whether you could be breaking copyright law?

Here’s what we know about costumes, cosplay and copyright.

Read more:
Books 3 has revealed thousands of pirated Australian books. In the age of AI, is copyright law still fit for purpose?

What is copyright?

Copyright is a legal right that grants the creator of an original creative work exclusive rights over the way their work is used or distributed.

The idea of the author holding exclusive rights is to encourage the creation of new works.

Importantly, copyright does not exist in the idea of a character, but in its expression in tangible form.

For example, copyright cannot exist in the general idea of a young wizard who attends a magical school and embarks on adventures.

However, copyright can exist in the expression of the specific details, characters and descriptions J.K. Rowling used to bring Harry Potter to life in her books.

Whether copyright exists depends on two things: the expression of the character, and the type of work that has been created.

Under the Copyright Act 1968, copyright applies to various categories of original authored works, provided they meet specific criteria. These works include:

• a literary, artistic, or dramatic work

• a sound recording

• a film.

Taking Harry Potter films as an example, Warner Bros. could assert copyright in several aspects of their films as separate works.

These could be the original written screenplay as a literary work, the musical score as a musical work, the recorded music as sound recordings and the films as cinematographic works.

The initial design sketches and photographs of costumes in the Harry Potter films could qualify as artistic works.

In 2011, a UK court case considered whether a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet was a sculpture (artistic work) for the purposes of copyright protection.

The case involved one of the craftsmen who helped design the stormtrooper costume. He used his original tools to make stormtrooper helmets and sold them to the general public. Lucasfilm alleged infringement on the basis the helmets were copyrightable sculptures.

However, the UK court rejected this argument. It found that while the helmets had practical functionality, they didn’t have an artistic purpose and therefore were not covered by copyright.

While this issue has not been tested under Australian law, the ruling might be similar.

Read more:
How was Halloween invented? Once a Celtic pagan tradition, the holiday has evolved to let kids and adults try on new identities

How can copyright be infringed?

Infringement is found when a person uses either the entire or a “substantial part” of an original copyrighted work.

The Australian courts have found the idea of a “substantial part” to be a significant, important or distinctive part of the copyrighted material.

That part doesn’t have to be big. Even a tiny part can infringe copyright if it’s distinctive enough.

How does this all apply to costumes?

Along with Halloween dress-ups, cosplay – the hobby of replicating and embodying a wide range of characters through detailed costumes – is another increasingly popular activity.

For cosplayers if the expression of the character is distinctly reproduced, then this might be deemed a “substantial part” of an original work and could therefore be a breach of copyright.

Whether a cosplay costume infringes copyright will require examination in the courts, something that hasn’t happened in Australia yet.

However, the greater the differences between the costume and the original work, the less likely a finding of infringement.

This means relatively small differences in costume elements and features could make a big difference to the outcome.

Costumes as promotional material

But even if a costume is technically infringing copyright, are you really going to get sued? Is J.K. Rowling really going to sue a fan for making a Harry Potter costume at Halloween?

This is highly unlikely, particularly when there is no commercial activity involved.

Many authors and artists are proud of the fact their characters are so celebrated through costumes, cosplay and fandom. Homage to creative works plays a vital part of modern pop culture.

For example, as seen with the Game of Thrones, fandom can have a significant influence on the success and longevity of the work.

Read more:
Dolls and dollars: why small businesses should be wary of cashing in on Barbiemania with their branding

And ultimately, this can help to promote sales of the original work.

If, however, a person engages in commercial activity, they are more likely to be sued for infringement.

In 2016, an Australian Federal Court case addressed copyright infringement of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “one ring” inscription from Lord of the Rings. Over eight years, the respondent’s jewellery websites sold about 1,300 rings with this inscription.

The court ruled the inscription was an artistic work and was therefore protected by copyright. Through the respondent’s commercial activity, they had reproduced and sold a substantial part of the inscription, without licence or consent and were found liable.

So if you create your favourite character’s costume this Halloween, even if you are technically infringing copyright, the chances of you being sued are low.

If, however, you engage in commercial activities, your chances of being sued are much higher.

Wellett Potter 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. Dressing up for Halloween? You could be in breach of copyright law, but it’s unlikely you’ll be sued – https://theconversation.com/dressing-up-for-halloween-you-could-be-in-breach-of-copyright-law-but-its-unlikely-youll-be-sued-215538

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karin Kvale, Senior Scientist, Carbon Cycle Modeller, GNS Science

The dual pressures of climate change and plastic pollution are frequently conflated in the media, in peer-reviewed research and other environmental reporting.

This is understandable. Plastics are largely derived from fossil fuels and the burning of fossil fuels is the major driver of human-caused climate change.

The window for cutting emissions to keep warming at internationally agreed levels is closing rapidly and it seems logical to conclude that any “extra” fossil carbon from plastic contamination will be a problem for the climate.

Our research examines this question using an Earth system model. We found carbon leaching out of existing plastic pollution has a negligible impact. The bigger concern is the production of new plastics, which already accounts for 4.5% of total global emissions and is expected to rise.

Organic carbon leaching from plastic pollution

In nature, plants make organic carbon (carbon-hydrogen compounds) from inorganic carbon (carbon compounds not bonded with hydrogen) through photosynthesis. Most plastics are made from fossil fuels, which are organic carbon compounds. This organic carbon leaches into the environment from plastics as they degrade.

Concerns have been raised that this could disrupt global carbon cycling by acting as an alternative carbon source for bacteria, which consume organic carbon.

A key assumption in these concerns is that organic carbon fluxes and reservoirs are a major influence on global carbon cycling (and atmospheric carbon dioxide) over human timescales.

It is true that dissolved organic carbon is a major carbon reservoir. In the ocean, it is about the same amount as the carbon dioxide (CO₂) held in the pre-industrial atmosphere. But there are key differences between atmospheric CO₂ and ocean organic carbon storage. One is the climate impact.

Atmospheric CO₂ warms the climate directly, whereas dissolved organic carbon stored in the ocean is mostly inert. This dissolved organic carbon reservoir built up over many thousands of years.

When phytoplankton make organic carbon (or when plastics leach organic carbon), most of it is rapidly used within hours to days by bacteria and converted into dissolved inorganic carbon. The tiny fraction of organic carbon left behind after bacterial processing is the inert portion that slowly builds up into a natural reservoir.

Once we recognise that plastics carbon is better considered as a source of dissolved inorganic carbon, we can appreciate its minor potential for influence. The inorganic carbon reservoir of the ocean is 63 times bigger than its organic carbon store.

Plastics carbon has little impact on atmospheric CO₂

We used an Earth system model to simulate what would happen if we added dissolved inorganic carbon to the surface ocean for 100 years. We applied it at a rate equivalent to the amount of carbon projected to leach into the ocean by the year 2040 (29 million metric tonnes per year).

This scenario likely overestimates the amount of plastics pollution. Current pollution rates are well below this level and an international treaty to limit plastic pollution is under negotiation.

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We repeated the model simulation of adding plastics carbon both with strong climate warming (to see if plastics carbon might produce unexpected climate feedbacks that increase warming) and without (to see if it could alter the climate by itself). In both cases, plastics carbon only increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations by 1 parts per million (ppm) over a century.

This is a very small increase, considering that current burning of fossil fuels is raising atmospheric CO₂ by more than 2ppm each year.

Direct emissions from burning plastic

We also examined the impact of plastics incineration. We used a scenario in which all plastic projected to be produced in the year 2050 (1.1 billion metric tonnes) would be burned and directly converted into atmospheric CO₂ for 100 years.

In this scenario, we found atmospheric CO₂ increased a little over 21ppm by the year 2100. This increase is equivalent to the impact of fewer than nine years of current fossil fuel emissions.

Relative to the current continued widespread burning of fossil fuels for energy, carbon emitted from plastic waste will not have significant direct impacts on atmospheric CO₂ levels, no matter what form it takes in the environment.

However, plastics production, as opposed to leaching or incineration, currently represents about 4.5% of total global emissions. As fossil fuel consumption is reduced in other sectors, emissions from plastics production are expected to increase in proportional footprint and absolute amount.

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A legally binding plastics pollution treaty, currently under development as part of the UN’s environment programme, is an excellent opportunity to recognise the growing contribution of plastics production to climate change and to seek regulatory measures to address these emissions.

Limiting the use of incineration is another climate-friendly measure that would make a small but positive contribution to the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Of course, environmental plastics pollution has many negative impacts beyond climate effects. Our work does not diminish the importance of cleaning up plastic pollution and implementing stringent measures to prevent it. But the justification for doing so is not primarily grounded in an effort to cut emissions.

Karin Kvale is affiliated with the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty. She received a research grant from the Marsden Fund.

Andrew Weaver received a research grant from Canada’s Climate Action and Awareness Fund.

Natalia Gurgacz 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. The climate impact of plastic pollution is negligible – the production of new plastics is the real problem – https://theconversation.com/the-climate-impact-of-plastic-pollution-is-negligible-the-production-of-new-plastics-is-the-real-problem-207813