Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xinyu (Andy) Zhao, Research Fellow, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Deakin University

Screen time was a battle for parents before COVID and it continues to be a battle, long after lockdowns have ended.

The Royal Children’s Hospital March 2021 child health poll found too much screen time was parents’ number-one health concern about their kids, with more than 90% of surveyed parents saying it’s a problem.

We are researchers in digital childhoods. Our new research identified four main ways parents try to deal with their children’s use of screens. And all have their benefits and drawbacks.

Our research

For our latest study, we interviewed 140 parents in seven different countries – Australia, China, United Kingdom, United States, South Korea, Canada and Colombia – with children ranging from ages four to 11. Twenty interviewees were from Australia.

We wanted to find out how children’s screen media routines changed during COVID and how parents dealt with this. Unsurprisingly, “screen time” came up a lot in our conversations with parents.

Underpinning this was parents’ desire for more control of their children’s everyday use of screen media and devices.

How do parents control their children’s screen time?

1. Denying access

Many parents tried denying access to certain screen-related activities with varying degrees of success. They limited children’s access to tablets, computers and phones, TVs and gaming consoles, disconnected them from WiFi when not required for school, or deleted certain apps.

This reduced children’s time on screens, yet often at the expense of family relationships as screen time became a battleground.

Dana* used to block WiFi to the PlayStation at home until 2.30pm every day during the pandemic. It did help her son complete all his school work, but

[…] he was really disgruntled and you know, saying to his friend, ‘it’s not fair’ or whatever.

Children also miss out on opportunities to learn critical digital literacy when simply denied access to certain types of screen activities. Not only do they miss out on learning how to identify credible online sources of information and services but they also miss out on parental support when faced with unknown situations.

2. Real-time monitoring

Other parents allowed access to screen media under supervision.

This took various forms, including requiring children to use screen media only in “public” home spaces, setting up password-controlled accounts for children using parents’ contact information, and using parental control apps or settings.

All these measures helped calm parental worries over children’s safety online and gave some sense of control about their use of screens during the pandemic. However, this required a lot more time and energy. As Joanne* said:

I couldn’t possibly just police it, it was too much […] I just couldn’t be sitting there watching her do work. It would send me around the bend.

And while parents felt calmer, it didn’t mean they were successful. Children have a knack, believe it or not, of working around parental controls. So it may create a false sense of security.

3. Contract making

Parents in our study found making contracts with young children remarkably successful in the short-term. They set up verbal or written rules with their children about who, how, when and why different devices could be used.

Some families agreed on a “one for one rule” (for example, an hour of non-screen activity for every hour “on screens”), others allocated certain devices for certain activities at certain times of day (for example, gaming on a computer after school until dinner then only TV until the bedtime routine).

While effective in the beginning, parents experienced a slow creep away from the terms of agreement – as long-term habits were not being set up. The creep started with small “negotiations” and sometimes escalated to arguments. Kathy (a mother of two in Melbourne) told us her son “pushed the boundaries so much”.

And sometimes you were busy. And you didn’t notice that he pushed that boundary. So then it became quite a battle.

The solution? A screen-free day (or days) to reset the contract.

4. Teaching self-regulation and digital literacy

Self-regulation, as we saw in the study, involves children learning strategies to moderate how and how much they use screens.

While many parents did not start out with this approach, as lockdowns and the pandemic drew on, the demands of work and family life meant they ended up here – almost out of necessity. As Dana told us:

I kind of feel like the bar shifted massively in lockdown.

Teaching a child self-regulation and digital literacy is a long game, and requires patience and trust on the part of parents. With parental support, children learn to connect how they feel and behave with the type and duration of technology they just used. They also learn how to regulate feelings and behaviours by modifying their technology use.

Parents can offer simple strategies to help children self-regulate. These may be similar to the ones used when making a contract but here, the child is in control. For example, the child chooses to set a timer to remind them it’s time to change activities. Or the child pre-plans their digital technology use, in conversation with a parent. The child’s plans should include what they intend to do afterwards too – mealtimes can be used to support a calm transition from one activity to another.

If children come across something online they don’t understand or don’t like, they know they can ask their parents.

In the meantime, parents can teach children how to be safe online, largely by letting their kids see how they navigate the online world. One Melbourne mother Maree, involved her eight-year-old in everyday online tasks, such as shopping. This allowed her to talk about spotting scams, verifying seller information and comparing products.

What next?

No matter which approach you choose, it won’t be a perfect one. It is likely you will find a combination of strategies most effective.

Perhaps the most useful question is not about how to stop “screen time”, but how to find ways to talk with your children about using screens safely and in a way that is good for them – that helps their learning and leisure. In a world where screens are all around us, this is going to be an ongoing and constantly changing conversation.

*names have been changed.

Xinyu (Andy) Zhao works for the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (https://www.digitalchild.org.au/). This article is based on a research project which received funding from the Centre.

Sarah Healy works for The University of Melbourne and is an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University’s Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. This article is based on a research project which received funding from the Centre.

– ref. Parents and screen time: are you a ‘contract maker’ or an ‘access denier’ with your child? – https://theconversation.com/parents-and-screen-time-are-you-a-contract-maker-or-an-access-denier-with-your-child-188977

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc C-Scott, Senior lecturer in Screen Media, Victoria University

Beloved children’s program Bluey has received some backlash.

Not due to the program, but to Disney’s decision to make edits to various episodes for the US market.

Dubbed “censorship” by some publications, the changes to the third season, released in America on Disney+ this month, include Bandit not being hit in a sensitive area, a conversation about getting a vasectomy replaced with “getting dog teeth removed”, the horse Buttermilk no longer stands next to poo on screen and Aunt Trix is no longer seen on the toilet during a video call.

One episode, Family Meeting, where Bluey accuses dad Bandit of farting in her face, was removed entirely – although due to the backlash it appears this decision has been rescinded.

Episodes in previous seasons have also been edited or unavailable to stream on Disney+.

This decision by Disney comes at a time when there has been a fundamental shift, both in the way audiences consume content and how content is distributed. Through global streaming services, content previously produced for a local market now has a greater opportunity to reach a global audience.

The New York Times has said Bluey “could rival The Wiggles as Australia’s most popular children’s cultural export”.

But can screen content truly be considered a cultural export if it is re-edited to reflect cultural aspects of the market it is being distributed in?

Read more:
‘An idealised Australian ethos’: why Bluey is an audience favourite, even for adults without kids

Content for global audience

Australian media content being changed for the US market is not a new phenomena.

More than 40 years ago, Mad Max was dubbed with American accents for the US market.

More recently, Australian television shows like Wilfred (2011), Kath & Kim (2009) and The Slap (2015) have been reproduced for a US market.

Since these Americanised series premiered, there has been a shift in the commissioning of media. Content distributors no longer solely rely on local broadcasters: they now are able to go direct to a global audience through streaming services.

Since the start of 2022, Netflix has commissioned content from 44 territories, Warner Bros commissioned work across 27 territories for HBO Max and Discovery+, Disney 23 and Amazon 21.

These streaming platforms aren’t looking for local hits: they’re looking for global hits, from anywhere. It’s not just about making the next Stranger Things, it’s about making the next Money Heist – the Netflix hit from Spain – or the next South Korean juggernaut Squid Game.

A question of quotas

In 2021, the federal government removed the quota requiring local children’s programming on Australian commercial television. This has resulted in a significant decline in the broadcast of children’s content.

We have seen increased investment of Australian content by streaming services. Together, Amazon Prime, Disney, Netflix and Stan spent A$178.9 million in the 2020–21 financial year, including children’s television. This is up more than $25 million in the previous year.

Earlier this year, Netflix launched a partnership with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation to fund the development of original Australian children’s series. Disney has also announced its planned investment in local Australian children’s content.

This increase by streaming service is yet to fill the shortfall by commercial television.

Read more:
Cheese ‘n’ crackers! Concerns deepen for the future of Australian children’s television

But is it Australian?

In June, the Make It Australian campaign was launched at the Sydney Film Festival. The campaign calls for Australian stories to be “told on Australian screens by us, to us, about us”.

At the campaign launch, arts minister Tony Burke said international and commercial success for Australian films is “wonderful, but that is a bonus.”

The “first objective” for Australian films, he said:

is to make sure our stories are told so that we know better ourselves; we know better each other and the world has a better way of knowing us.

It is the last point that Tony Burke makes, about the world “knowing us”, that is less considered in the ongoing local screen content debate. Indeed, Australian content is being shown to a global audience.

But what happens when Australian content is edited with these international audiences in mind? Edits like those Disney made to Bluey not only impact the humour and the narrative, but also impact the cultural representation within the program.

Increased investment by streaming services will provide opportunities for Australian local content to be successful locally and globally. But for Australian television and films to be true cultural exports, the world should be seeing the version of ourselves we are seeing, too.

The success of this relies on not only focusing on content production and local distribution, but including strategies that allow Australian content to remain free from localised edits, so it can truly reflect an Australian cultural export.

Read more:
TV has changed, so must the way we support local content

Marc C-Scott 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. Bluey was edited for American viewers – but global audiences deserve to see all of us – https://theconversation.com/bluey-was-edited-for-american-viewers-but-global-audiences-deserve-to-see-all-of-us-188982

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Williamson, Senior Lecturer in the School of Hospitality and Tourism at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland University of Technology

Almost three years after COVID-19 hit New Zealand, the hospitality sector is slowly rebuilding. Widespread business closures, limited opening hours and an inability to attract workers have drawn widespread media attention and renewed calls for increasing the number of migrant workers allowed into New Zealand to fill vacant jobs.

The government has also set out its goals for regenerative tourism (encouraging visitors to leave a destination better than when they arrived) and hospitality (fostering a sustainable and attractive industry that raises the reputation of the sector). It has also opened debates about a “reset” of immigration policy.

However, our survey of 400 hospitality workers, taken immediately before the pandemic struck and now published in full, showed concerning levels of non-compliance with basic employment rights within the industry. The survey results point to long-standing issues in the sector.

By correctly understanding the true origins and nature of the problems in hospitality, we can identify better solutions.

Reputational damage

Key findings from the survey include:

• 16% of respondents have not signed an employment agreement before starting work

• 13% of respondents are not receiving the correct payslips

• 18% of respondents are not receiving the minimum wage

• 22% of respondents did not get the correct holiday pay

• 22% of respondents are not getting time off or correct pay for working statutory holidays

• 22% of respondents are not receiving the correct rest breaks

• 81% of respondents state they received no training in their jobs

• 49% of respondents experienced or witnessed harassment in the workplace

• 69% of respondents were aware of health and safety risks in their workplace.

These findings describe a sector with a significant number of employers who are not meeting common expectations for decent work. This minority is dragging down the overall image of the industry and undermining the many good hospitality employers.

One hospitality worker said:

I haven’t had a pay rise in the four years I have been with my current employer.

According to another:

I didn’t get my minimum wage. I didn’t get my holiday pay, and because of my migrant status I was too afraid to protect myself legally.

A third said:

The longer you work in the industry the more you see and are subjected to all forms of abuse. Some people (customers and employers) see hospitality staff not much more then a slave to service their needs”.

Failures are not new

The first message from the survey is that while current issues in the sector are acute, they are not new. COVID has simply amplified long-standing problems.

Crucially, it is important to draw a distinction between issues around migrant labour and the low pay and poor conditions that the survey highlights.

Read more:
Shocking yet not surprising: wage theft has become a culturally accepted part of business

The New Zealand hospitality sector has always struggled to find local workers. As a result it has been highly dependent on migrant labour. But the poor pay and conditions so clearly exposed by the survey were not common before the 1980s.

This raises the question – what changed?

Prior to the 1980s, hospitality pay and conditions were contained within industry-wide collective agreements, enforced by a powerful union that benefited from strong relationships with the state and employers.

While one couldn’t argue that exploitation never occurred during this period, the system provided both migrant and local hospitality workers with concrete minimum pay rates, extensive penalty rates and protected conditions.

Read more:
We’ve let wage exploitation become the default experience of migrant workers

However, the free market revolution of the 1980s and 1990s strongly encouraged individual contracting and removed compulsory unionism. Hospitality workers were now exposed to downward pressure on wages and conditions, without the protection of a powerful union or collective agreements.

From this point on, increasing casualisation (part-time or on-call work, rather than full-time employment), falling wages and increasing numbers of exploitation cases have come to define the sector.

A map for change

So what needs to change to improve the sector?

Firstly, the government needs to increase pressure on poor employers and reward the good employers. By increasing the resources of the Labour Inspectorate, a more rigorous enforcement of labour laws can be brought to bear on employers who are not meeting the standards of decent work.

At the same time, customers can be engaged though initiatives like the New Zealand Restaurant Association’s Hosopocred scheme. This scheme, which will require an employer to apply and provide evidence for accreditation, will help identify good employers and allow customers to make a choice to support them. Consumer behaviour can be a powerful incentive for improving employment practices.

Read more:
No, a ‘complex’ system is not to blame for corporate wage theft

Secondly, there needs to be widespread support for the government’s proposed fair pay agreements. These could be the basis for industry-wide commitment to decent work, including better pay and conditions, improved training and better representation of employees voices.

Fair pay agreements could result in significant changes in the workplace, including lifting service quality and employment standards.

Finally, those involved in the hospitality sector must continue and strengthen the tripartite approach between unions, employer groups and the government that is driving the proposed industry transformation plan set out by the government. Only when all elements of the industry work together can the image and reality of hospitality work be fundamentally changed.

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

– ref. Hostile hospitality? Survey finds decent work conditions still missing from too many menus – https://theconversation.com/hostile-hospitality-survey-finds-decent-work-conditions-still-missing-from-too-many-menus-188286

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

Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue has neatly summarised Scott Morrison’s political misdemeanour in having himself secretly appointed to all those ministries.

Morrison, by his failure to disclose what he had done, undermined the Westminster system of “responsible government” at the most basic level.

Ministers are responsible to parliament and, through parliament, to the voters. But how can there be that accountability if parliament and the public don’t know a (prime) minister has been appointed to administer a particular department?

As Anthony Albanese says, there remain outstanding questions in this affair. Despite his news conference last week, and more comments on Tuesday after the solicitor-general’s opinion was released, Morrison has not convincingly explained why he behaved in this strange way, with such discourtesy to colleagues, let along disdain for the public.

But whether we need a full legal inquiry is another matter. That smacks of current politics as well as past payback – for the investigations the Coalition government launched after it took office, into the “pink batts” scheme and into the trade unions.

Together, those royal commissions saw two former Labor prime ministers (Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard) and a Labor opposition leader (Bill Shorten) giving evidence.

Labor would relish similar public pressure put on Morrison.

There’s no doubt what Morrison did was reprehensible. He was able to do it because of a gap in the political system’s safeguards, allowing for ministerial appointments to go unannounced.

But that gap is one which can be easily fixed, either by changes to rules or by legislation to ensure all such appointments have to be immediately disclosed.

Legislation would be best because once in place, it effectively couldn’t be undone. What government would try to repeal it, to allow secrecy again?

Going to an inquiry raises some tricky questions for the government, as it works out the detail of its terms of reference.

Prime among these is the matter of the Governor-General, David Hurley.

Hurley acted, properly, on government advice in ticking off on the Morrison appointments. But he also had the capacity to ask questions about what he was signing and, as far as we know, he didn’t do that. Hence there has been sharp criticism of him from some quarters.

From what we can judge, Albanese doesn’t want to embroil Hurley.

Asked whether the inquiry would examine Hurley’s role or exempt him, Albanese said: “Well, the governor-general’s role has been examined here [in the opinion]”.

Hurley had made “a very clear statement”, from his perspective, on how he operated, taking the advice of the government of the day, “which is consistent with the responsibility of the governor-general”, Albanese said.

The idea of the governor-general being asked to give evidence goes into awkward territory, even if it just exposed that Hurley wasn’t sharp enough to notice anything unusual.

But it is hard to figure how the governor-general can be carved out of an inquiry, if that inquiry is to get to the full story. This is especially so given the inquiry will look at the role of the prime minister’s department in preparing the request that was dispatched to Hurley. Clearly some bureaucrats will be in the frame.

Constitutional expert George Williams, from the University of NSW, is one who thinks Hurley’s role should not to be excluded. Not because Hurley did anything wrong, but because “the governor-general was at the centre of the ratification”.

Williams would prefer a parliamentary inquiry, rather than one by a legal figure. “Parliamentarians should assert themselves in solving this problem”, he says.

The revelations about Morrison’s conduct have yielded a political bonanza for Albanese, and he will be hoping for more. Whether the inquiry will be seen in retrospect as justified, or political overkill, will depend on what it uncovers.

The solicitor-general’s opinion is another blow for Morrison’s record (and his quest for future employment), and for the Coalition as it tries to regroup.

Morrison, writing on Facebook on Tuesday, summarised his defence in these seven points.

the authorities established were valid

there was no consistent process for publication of such authorities

no powers were exercised under these authorities, except in the
case of the PEP11 [gas exploration] decision, or misused

Ministers exercised their portfolio authorities fully, with my utmost confidence and trust, without intervention

as Prime Minister I did not ‘Act’ as Minister or engage in any
‘Co-Minister’ arrangements, except in the case of the PEP11 decision

on the PEP11 matter, this was done lawfully from first principles
and my intent to do so was advised to the relevant Minister before
doing so

Australia’s performance through the pandemic was one of the
strongest in the developed world

He also said: “I will appropriately assist any genuine process to learn the lessons
from the pandemic. I would expect that any credible processes would
also extend to the actions of the States and Territories”.

But this inquiry is not one broadly into the handling of the pandemic. Albanese indicated a wider inquiry is still some time away.

Morrison can protest all he likes, but now that the appropriateness of his bizarre power grab has become an argument between him and the solicitor-general, he is on a hiding to nothing.

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: How does Albanese frame Morrison inquiry without embroiling the governor-general? – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-how-does-albanese-frame-morrison-inquiry-without-embroiling-the-governor-general-189238

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this podcast, politics editor Amanda Dunn and Michelle discuss the solicitor-general’s advice on Scott Morrison’s secret appointment to multiple ministries, which flouted “responsible government”. Morrison’s action will now be scrutinised by an inquiry.

They also canvass next week’s jobs and skills summit, where the government will be seeking agreement on immigration and improving industrial relations.

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. Word From The Hill: More heat piled on Morrison over those multiple ministries – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-more-heat-piled-on-morrison-over-those-multiple-ministries-189244

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this podcast, politics editor Amanda Dunn and Michelle discuss the solicitor-general’s advice on Scott Morrison’s secret appointment to multiple ministries, which flouted “responsible government”. Morrison’s action will now be scrutinised by an inquiry.

They also canvass next week’s jobs and skills summit, where the government will be seeking agreement on immigration and improving industrial relations.

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. Word From The Hill: Morrison faces inquiry into how he flouted responsible government – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-morrison-faces-inquiry-into-how-he-flouted-responsible-government-189244

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samina Yasmeen, Director of Centre for Muslim States and Societies, The University of Western Australia

Tensions between former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and the current coalition government are coming to a head.

Khan made a speech in the northern city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad on Sunday, August 21, seeking a return to office after losing a no-confidence vote in April and being ousted as prime minister. Just hours beforehand, Pakistan’s electronic media regulator prohibited Khan’s rallies from being broadcast live on all satellite TV channels.

As he started his address, which was being broadcast on social media, YouTube experienced “disruptions”. This prompted Khan to accuse the government of attempting to silence him.

Following this, Pakistani police laid charges of terrorism against Khan for comments he had made in a speech about the judiciary a day earlier in Islamabad.

Previously, the government had been quite permissive of Khan’s rallies, but this approach appears to have changed.

So how did we get here?

Khan’s narrative

Since March this year, even before he was ousted, Khan has held numerous rallies, gatherings and social media activities to present his narrative to the Pakistani people locally and overseas.

He has accused, without evidence, the coalition government of working at the behest of the United States. He has labelled the government an “imported government” and popularised the hashtag “imported government na Manzoor” (the imported government is unacceptable).

Khan has also levelled varying degrees of criticism against the judiciary, bureaucracy and media for enabling the coalition government’s return to power in April.

In contrast, he portrays himself as a good Muslim, someone who is following in the footsteps of the founder of the country, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and as being knowledgeable about the West, honest and incorruptible.

He believes he’s different from the government, which he denounces as corrupt “thieves”, and that he can lead the people of Pakistan in their struggle for true independence. He has urged young people and others to wage the struggle for “haqiqi azadi” (real independence).

The often well-choreographed rallies feature music by renowned musicians and singers, and appearances by popular actors. The appeal of this narrative is obvious in the thousands of Pakistanis of all ages and backgrounds attending these rallies.

Khan’s speeches are broadcast on social media, including YouTube and Twitter, with the Pakistani diaspora following these developments.

Read more:
What’s next for Pakistan after Imran Khan’s ouster?

The government’s changing stance

Since coming to power in April, the coalition government has allowed almost all of these rallies to take place.

One exception was Khan’s May 25 “independence march”, when his supporters marched to Islamabad to call for new elections. The government had attempted to shut down the march, but the Supreme Court overturned the ban. Media reported some clashes between police and Khan’s supporters, with police firing teargas and detaining some protesters.

There are two possible explanations for the government’s mostly permissive approach to Khan’s rallies. The first is that it’s keen to demonstrate its democratic credentials.

The second is that the military – which was instrumental in removing Khan from power – thought Khan’s popularity would run its course and decline over time, so there was no need to intervene especially given the support for Khan’s party apparent among some retired military officials. But that didn’t happen.

Khan’s criticism of the regime became more strident. His references to the “neutrals”, a euphemism for the military establishment, became increasingly pronounced. Calling upon the “neutrals” to see the light and return power to the rightful representatives, Khan implied the military had supported his ouster and needed to mend its ways. Coupled with his increasing popularity despite his own government’s poor performance, such references fuelled anti-military sentiment that has swept across social media.

A Pakistan Army helicopter crash on August 1 in the province of Balochistan killed six military officials. This unfortunately led to anti-military groups stoking speculation online that the military itself had orchestrated the crash, and that military hardware was more precious than the military officials lost.

The leadership of Khan’s party denied any connection to the widely circulating anti-military tweets. But within days of this denial, Khan’s chief of staff read a controversial statement on the ARY television network that authorities claim was seditious and amounted to an incitement of mutiny within the armed forces.

The terrorism charges, along with Pakistan’s electronic media regulator banning live broadcast of his rallies, show Pakistani authorities are coming down firmly on Khan. They are now attempting to deny Khan the ability to mobilise masses against the judiciary, law enforcement agencies and the military. Time will tell whether this will be successful. But there are ominous signs of impending instability.

Samina Yasmeen 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. What’s the dispute between Imran Khan and the Pakistan government about? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-dispute-between-imran-khan-and-the-pakistan-government-about-189128

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Glavovic, Professor in Natural Hazards Planning and Resilience, Massey University

The New Zealand town of Nelson remains in a state of emergency, with nearly 500 homes evacuated, after the region received more than three times its average August rainfall in less than five days last week.

The prospect of yet more flooding is devastating, but thankfully there has been no loss of life.

Extreme weather is making life increasingly precarious in many other parts of the world, often with a terrible death toll.

As we prepare for a more turbulent future, fuelled by a changing climate, we can learn from the experiences of another New Zealand city, Ōtautahi Christchurch.

People there have lived through a decade of extreme events. They have experienced devastating earthquakes, floods, a terrorist attack, the COVID-19 pandemic, air pollution, growing social inequality and more.

In a new book, A Decade of Disaster Experiences in Ōtautahi Christchurch: Critical Disaster Studies Perspectives, we argue that our traditional response to disasters is no longer sufficient and we must begin to address the underlying causes that make some communities more vulnerable than others.

The failures of ‘traditional’ disaster studies

Traditionally, disaster studies and practices have centred on putting in place measures to contain natural hazards. For example, stop banks are erected to contain flooding.

Risk analysis and treatment options enable specialists to determine the probability and consequences of extreme events and prescribe optimal solutions. In Aotearoa New Zealand, robust legislation and policy such as the coastal policy statement are in place to improve natural hazard management and build community resilience.

These measures have unquestionably helped to reduce the impacts of extreme events. They have minimised loss of life. However, traditional approaches have not prepared our communities for the disruptive events we face now and in the future.

Read more:
Climate change is making flooding worse: 3 reasons the world is seeing more record-breaking deluges and flash floods

Climate change is a game changer. Sea-level rise is unstoppable. Flooding is commonplace.

We describe a new approach to research, policy and operational practice, based on a critical disaster studies perspective.

Focusing on underlying causes of vulnerability

The book provides an account of what people in and around the city of Christchurch have lived through in the face of disaster upon disaster upon disaster.

It reveals important lessons from real-world experiences and shares vital insights from Māori and migrant communities on response and recovery efforts as well as by individuals, civil society, the private sector and government.

A critical disaster studies perspective is distinguished from traditional approaches through its focus on the underlying drivers and root causes of vulnerability and risk that predispose people to harm.

It leverages the social sciences and humanities. It works in cross-disciplinary ways to better understand and address the influence of power, inequity and injustice in constructing vulnerability. It uncovers the everyday reality of disasters for those most susceptible to harm.

Disasters hit some people harder than others

Traditionally, a disaster is framed as an abnormal situation in which people, cities and regions are overwhelmed by extreme natural hazard events that exceed coping capacity.

A critical disaster studies perspective recognises that disasters are much more than naturally occurring ruptures. It views disasters as socially constructed and mediated.

In other words, historical and contemporary conditions, like social marginalisation and oppression, impoverishment, racism, sexism, inequity and injustice, predispose some people to much more harm than others in the face of shock and disruptive changes.

Read more:
New flood maps show US damage rising 26% in next 30 years due to climate change alone, and the inequity is stark

Vulnerability is not merely periodically revealed by occasional extreme events. It can be an “everyday reality” for some people – made much worse during extreme events.

Inevitably, the root causes of disasters are manifold and interconnected. This was laid bare in the decade of disaster experiences in Ōtautahi Christchurch from 2010. The lessons from these experiences should inform future responses to unfolding climate-compounded disasters and help us navigate the challenging times ahead.

Lessons from past disasters

Ōtautahi has become a laboratory for the world – a prelude to a turbulent future. Our book reveals several lessons.

First, vulnerability has a history. Building a city in a drained swamp, at sea level and by a capricious river, made it a disaster waiting to happen. Many of the problems the city’s rebuild has had to reckon with predate the earthquakes. They include colonisation, the declining central city, car dependency and the wellbeing of communities in poorer parts.

Second, rebuilding the city is much more than physical reconstruction. Recovery is chiefly the reconstruction of the city’s soul, its culture and social fabric. It involves ongoing restoration and rebuilding of the lives of individuals, whānau, communities and more.

Restoring and building trust to enable innovation and collaboration turns out to be even more important than marshalling bricks and mortar. And crucially, who is the city for?

Third, disaster recovery cannot be dictated from on high. A critical disaster studies perspective recognises the limits of central government. It underscores the importance of mana whenua and local communities to be supported by both local and central government. When it comes to recovery, it is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but both.

Fourth, authentic public engagement and a common vision and purpose are foundational to revealing and addressing the drivers of vulnerability.

From these lessons, we can draw conclusions and advice for future planning and disaster response and recovery:

• do not allow new development in hazardous locations and avoid putting people in harm’s way

• take action now to contain the compounding impacts of climate change, which is driving more intense and frequent extreme events, such as storms, floods and unavoidable sea-level rise

• create space for young people to be part of planning and preparedness – it is their future

• leadership by women enables empathy and emancipation

• reinvigorate local democracy

• avoid privatisation of disaster risk, because civil society holds collective responsibility for past, present and future choices about human development – it is best supported by the private sector and government

• resilience (within limits) is founded upon diversity of people and the ecosystems on which we depend

• put vulnerable people first. This is the cardinal rule of a critical disaster studies perspective.

Bruce Glavovic currently receives funding from various funding bodies including the National Science Challenge: Deep South (MBIE) and from Horizons Regional Council for work on adaptation planning in the face of climate change.

Steve Matthewman receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund.

Shinya Uekusa 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. One disaster after another: why we must act on the reasons some communities are facing higher risks – https://theconversation.com/one-disaster-after-another-why-we-must-act-on-the-reasons-some-communities-are-facing-higher-risks-189217

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

If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese really wants to boost wage growth, there’s a simple way to do it.

And if he did that one simple thing, analysis prepared for The Conversation shows some of our most trusted but least well-paid workers – teachers and nurses – could be among the wage winners.

During the election campaign, the Labor leader made a public push for wages growth. He held aloft a $1 coin and said that’s what his government would be asking for: a boost in the minimum wage from $20.33 an hour to $21.36, which would lift it 5.1%, which was the inflation rate at the time.

After the election that’s what the government asked for. The Fair Work Commission delivered slightly more for Australia’s lowest-paid – an increase of 5.2% – and somewhat less for higher earners: an increase of 4.6%.

Then the inflation rate climbed to 6.1%. That figure, for the year to June, far eclipsed total wage growth of 2.6% over the same period and rendered even what the commission had delivered out of date, sending real (inflation adjusted) wages backwards by the most in 25 years.

Next week’s Jobs Summit is, in part, an attempt to do something about wages. But the issues paper released ahead of the summit is curiously bereft of ideas about how.

The paper says wages have traditionally climbed with labour productivity (which is output per hour worked) and that productivity growth has fallen to its lowest in 50 years.

It says if businesses invested more in labour-saving technology and workers got a better mix of skills, productivity growth would climb, but (and it’s a big but) that growth would only flow through to wages “over the medium term”.

Which leaves… not much happening for wages in the meantime.

Silent on what the states should do

The other things the paper notes are that fewer workers are covered by enterprise agreements and more by Fair Work Commission awards (presumably because enterprise agreements have expired, or aren’t high enough) and that 23% of workers are casuals (a figure that hasn’t changed much in 20 years).

What the summit paper doesn’t mention, but ought to, is that governments set wages – the wages of their own employees.

The lowest-paid quarter of the workforce has its wages set by the Fair Work Commission, either via the minimum wage or awards.

The Fair Work Commission looks after these people by usually increasing their wages in line with the consumer price index, and often by more.

Private employers are offering more, where they can

Most of the rest of the workforce gets only what their employers agree to, and the good news here is that, increasingly, employers are offering more.

Two years ago, as COVID took hold, the private employers who did lift wages offered an average of 0.8%. One year later, in the year to June 2021, they offered 2.7%. In the year to June this year they offered 3.8%.

Of course many private employers can’t offer much. They are small, and are being squeezed by soaring costs.

Read more:
Are real wages falling? Here’s the evidence

But governments budget in billions, and can afford to offer whatever they think they should, covering it with tax or borrowing.

The Commonwealth government, under Albanese, employs one quarter of a million Australians. The states, with whom Albanese could have a word, employ 1.6 million – many of them teachers and nurses.

Yet far from increasing their wages in line with inflation, or even in line with private sector increases, Australia’s states have been extraordinarily stingy.

Governments are offering as little as 1.5%

Victoria’s wages policy, announced in January, is for a cap on annual increases of 1.5%. Western Australia, despite its large budget surplus, is limiting increases to 2.5%.

NSW has a ceiling of 3%, which falls back to 2.5% after two years. (And the NSW ceiling is lower than it seems. It includes employers’ super contributions, which are to climb by 0.5 percentage points a year for the next few years, making the quoted ceiling of 3% a ceiling of 2.5% for take-home pay.)

Using Bureau of Statistics figures to examine the increases actually paid (as opposed to offered) shows Western Australian public sector wages climbed just 1.1% in the year to June. South Australian public sector wages climbed 1.7%.

In Victoria and NSW, the increases were 2% and 2.1%. Only Queensland, which shelled out 4%, paid anything approaching the rate of inflation.

Nurses and teachers hit hard

This stinginess hits most the two biggest groups of state government employees: teachers and nurses.

Whereas public wages as a whole climbed 2.4% over the past year, the wages of public education and training workers climbed 2.2%.

A Bureau of Statistics breakdown prepared for The Conversation shows that in NSW and Victoria those workers (mainly teachers) got just 2%. In Victoria, health care and social assistance workers (largely nurses) got 1.7%.

Economic research suggests the states are stingy, in part because they can be. They are the only big employer of nurses, teachers, police and public servants.

The PM could have a word

If Albanese means what he says about wages keeping pace with inflation, his next step should be to ask his mates in the states to do more. Most of the premiers are from his side of politics. All of them will be at the Jobs Summit.

There are signs he is putting his own house in order. His departments have been told not to enter into new agreements while the previous penny-pinching wages policy is under review, and he has backed a big rise for aged care workers (whose wages the Commonwealth funds) in a submission to the Fair Work Commission.

But going easy on the states, as he has so far, while telling private sector employers with far smaller financial resources) to lift wages, makes it look as if he is not serious.

If he genuinely believes wages ought to keep pace with inflation, he ought to name and shame his Labor mates.

Read more:
The Chalmers graphs: 7.75% inflation, plunging real wages, weak growth

Peter Martin 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. If the PM wants wage rises, he should start with the 1.6 million people on state payrolls – https://theconversation.com/if-the-pm-wants-wage-rises-he-should-start-with-the-1-6-million-people-on-state-payrolls-188904

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

Scott Morrison’s action in having himself appointed secretly to multiple ministries was legal but breached “the principle of responsible government”, according to advice from the Solicitor-General, Stephen Donaghue.

Releasing the advice, Anthony Albanese announced the government would set up an inquiry, under an “eminent person with a legal background”, into the former prime minister’s actions.

Albanese said questions that needed examining included: “Why this occurred? How this occurred? Who knew about it occurring? What the implications are for our parliamentary system? Are there any legal implications behind decisions that were made? How can we avoid this happening again?”

Over 2020-21 Morrison had himself appointed to the ministries of health; finance; industry, science, energy and resources; home affairs and treasury. The appointments were not announced, Morrison did not tell cabinet and some of the ministers directly affected did not know.

The advice particularly considered the resources department, where Morrison overrode the decision of the minister on a gas exploration project, but the findings applied to the departments generally.

The solicitor-general said the constitution’s section 64 empowered the governor-general to appoint multiple ministers to administer a single department.

But under responsible government, outlined in chapter II of the constitution, the executive was responsible to parliament and, through it, to the electorate.

“It is impossible for the Parliament and the public to hold ministers accountable for the proper administration of particular departments if the identity of the Ministers who have been appointed to administer those departments is not publicised.”

Morrison’s multiple appointments were not announced and “there was no way the public could discern [them] from the Ministry list, or anywhere else.”

“The capacity of the public and the Parliament to ascertain which Ministers have been appointed to administer which departments is critical to the proper functioning of responsible government, because it is those appointments, when read together with the [administrative arrangements order], that determine the matters for which a Minister is legally and politically responsible.”

“To the extent that the public and the Parliament are not
informed of appointments that have been made under s 64 of the Constitution, the principles of responsible government are fundamentally undermined.”

“Neither the people nor the Parliament can hold a Minister accountable for the exercise (or, just as importantly, for the non-exercise) of particular statutory powers if they are not aware that the Minister has those powers.”

“Nor can they hold the correct Ministers accountable for any other actions, or inactions, of departments.”

Morrison’s name did not appear in the ministry list in October 2021 in relation to any of the five departments he had been appointed to administer, the advice noted.

The solicitor-general said the undermining of responsible government did not depend on the extent to which Morrison exercised power.

Canvassing a number of ways the government could remedy the situation, including having all details put in ministry lists, the solicitor-general observed such measures would not bind future governments.

“For that reason, the Government might choose to entrench a requirement for the publication of appointments under s 64 of the Constitution by creating a statutory requirement for the publication of appointments”.

Albanese said he had told his department to work with the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General to adopt a practice of publishing in the Commonwealth Gazette future appointments of ministers to administer departments. The government will also consider legislation to ensure such appointments are made public.

Governor-General David Hurley has come under public criticism for apparently not questioning the strange arrangement Morrison was making.

The solicitor-general noted, “The governor-general has no discretion to refuse to accept the prime minister’s advice in relation to such an appointment.”

Hurley himself has said he had no reason not to think the government would make the appointments public.

Albanese made it clear he would not criticise Hurley.

Asked whether Morrison should resign from parliament, Albanese said that is “a matter for Mr Morrison and his colleagues”.

“Quite clearly, I think Mr Morrison’s behaviour was extraordinary. It undermined our parliamentary democracy and he does need to be held accountable for it.”

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. Morrison’s multiple ministries legal but flouted principle of ‘responsible government’: solicitor-general – https://theconversation.com/morrisons-multiple-ministries-legal-but-flouted-principle-of-responsible-government-solicitor-general-189227

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robin Smit, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Last week, federal Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen officially put fuel efficiency standards on the national agenda, saying the measure would reduce transport emissions and encourage electric vehicle uptake.

Fuel efficiency standards are applied to car manufacturers and indirectly set limits on how much CO₂ can on average be emitted from a new vehicle. Such standards lead to lower fuel costs for motorists and could help Australia meet its targets under the Paris climate agreement.

Importantly, Bowen noted any new rules must be ambitious and designed specifically for Australia. But implementing effective standards is easier said than done – and there are many potholes to avoid.

Without a robust set of mandatory transport emissions standards, Australia’s dependence on fossil fuels will deepen, and reaching our emissions reduction goals will become harder.

Standards must be mandatory

Road vehicles vary in the efficiency with which they use fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel. For example, large SUVs are usually less fuel efficient than smaller, lighter cars. And of course, electric vehicles operate without any fossil fuels at all (although the energy source used to charge their batteries determines how “green” they are).

Stringent fuel efficiency standards will encourage the auto industry to bring more electric vehicles to Australia, and reduce how many polluting vehicles it imports.

Australia is the only country in the OECD without mandatory fuel efficiency standards for road transport vehicles. Voluntary fuel economy targets were adopted for new petrol cars in 1978, but were not achieved in 2010. In 2020, Australia’s automotive industry announced a new voluntary reporting system for CO₂ emissions reduction of 3-4% per year this decade.

These rules are not mandatory, and the target probably falls short of what’s needed. Yet, the industry is promoting these standards as a template for Australia’s new fuel efficiency rules.

Mandatory fuel efficiency standards are at the core of energy and transport policies around the world. So this should be the first guiding principle of any new system pursued by the federal government.

Read more:
As the world surges ahead on electric vehicle policy, the Morrison government’s new strategy leaves Australia idling in the garage

Real-world driving patterns

Second, the standards must be based on real-world fuel consumption.

Setting fuel efficiency standards first requires selecting a specific “driving pattern” that includes vehicle speed, acceleration, deceleration and power usage, and are used to determine a vehicle’s fuel use and emissions.

The patterns also take into account local road type (such as residential, arterial or motorway) and driving conditions (such as free-flow or morning peak).

The voluntary industry standards now in place in Australia are based on a driving pattern called the “New European Drive Cycle” or NEDC. Among its shortcomings, the cycle assumes mild accelerations and constant speeds that don’t reflect modern-day driving.

This has led to substantial deviations between the NEDC assumptions about fuel use and real-world consumption.

Our recent research measured emissions from five SUVs driving around Sydney. After comparing our measurements with the Green Vehicle Guide, we found fuel use was 16% to 65% higher than NEDC values, depending on the vehicle and driving conditions.

And research in 2019 suggested that, contrary to official figures using the NEDC, the rate of CO₂ emissions for new Australian passenger vehicles was not falling – and may actually have increased since 2015.

Why? It’s likely due to an increase in sales of bigger, heavier vehicles in Australia, such as SUVs, as well as a shift towards more 4WD and diesel cars.

So it’s crucial that we drop the NEDC – and base the new Australian standards on a drive pattern that represents real-world conditions. This could be similar to the pattern adopted by the European Union, or a real-world Australian drive cycle.

Read more:
We thought Australian cars were using less fuel. New research shows we were wrong

Other things to consider

The federal government should implement a single standard for all passenger vehicles – including all SUVs, without exception.

Australia’s voluntary system allows large road-based SUVs to fall into the same category as light commercial vehicles. This means they’re subject to less stringent fuel efficiency standards than cars.

This may inadvertently promote sales of heavy SUVs and, as a result, significantly increase real-world fuel consumption and associated emissions.

And Australia’s standards must also eliminate loopholes that could allow companies to comply with regulations but not actually improve fuel efficiency to the extent intended.

The considerations listed above are by no means exhaustive. And new fuel efficiency standards must be supported by other policy measures, such as reducing our reliance on private cars, and promoting public transport, walking and cycling.

Transport is Australia’s third-biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and federal government moves to tackle this problem are welcome. But if fuel efficiency standards are not carefully designed, the sector will continue to let down motorists, and the planet.

Robin Smit is the founder and director at Transport Energy/Emission Research Pty Ltd (TER) and an Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Technology Sydney.

Hussein Dia receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre, Level Crossing Removal Authority, City of Boroondara, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Transport for New South Wales, EmissionsIQ Pty Ltd, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications, and Beam Mobility Holdings

Nic Surawski has worked on projects funded by city councils, alternative engine design companies, the Australian Coal Association Research Program, the federal Department of Environment and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Nic is a member of the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand.

– ref. The road to new fuel efficiency rules is filled with potholes. Here’s how Australia can avoid them – https://theconversation.com/the-road-to-new-fuel-efficiency-rules-is-filled-with-potholes-heres-how-australia-can-avoid-them-188814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giuseppe Carabetta, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney

While legal challenges against federal and state vaccine mandates have come to nothing, in recent months two Australian workers have won unfair dismissal cases after being sacked for not complying with their employer’s vaccination orders.

These wins in the federal industrial relations tribunal, the Fair Work Commission, confirm employers do not have carte blanche to insist employees be vaccinated.

The victories do not signal a “change in the narrative” – or that future legal claims against government mandates in other courts may succeed. But they do affirm and refine principles previously applied in vaccination-related cases heard by the commission.

The cases have turned on matters of procedure.

The commission’s rulings have confirmed the general validity of employer-imposed vaccination policies but highlighted the need for fair processes when applying such policies.

Key to these two unfair dismissal rulings were that the employers went about things the wrong way and failed to consider individual circumstances.

Robyn Pskiet vs Nocelle Foods

One case involved Adelaide woman Robyn Pskiet, sacked on 12 January 2022 by Nocelle Foods, a food wholesaler and distributor.

Pskiet was working as a quality assurance manager alongside about 60 office and factory workers at Nocelle’s Adelaide factory. She had been with the company since 2005.

The company told staff in late November 2021 it was considering implementing a COVID vaccination policy, due to workplace health and safety concerns and increasing levels of community transmission after South Australia opened its borders on November 22.

It implemented its vaccination policy on December 29. Staff were required to show evidence of their first vaccination by January 10 2022. Pskiet was dismissed for failing to provide a vaccination certificate or medical exemption.

Pskiet’s case to the Fair Work Commission was that she was concerned about the safety of then available COVID vaccines but willing to take a “safer vaccine”, such as Novavax, which the Therapeutic Goods Administration did not provisionally approve until January 20 2022.

Read more:
Haven’t yet been vaccinated for COVID? Novavax might change your mind

She argued Nocelle’s vaccination policy was not reasonable or lawful because it did not give her the option to work from home or grant her leave until Novavax was approved.

Commissioner Peter Hampton agreed.

He ruled Nocelle Foods’ vaccination policy was a lawful and reasonable direction, and refusing to comply was a valid basis for termination. But Pskiet’s dismissal was still unfair, because of her position and long-standing service, and the timing and manner of applying the policy to her.

He said “proper consideration of her circumstances” could have avoided, or at least delayed, the need to sack Pskiet.

He ordered the company to compensate her $3,462 plus superannuation. He did not, however, order the company to reinstate Pskiet – the first option when workers win unfair dismissal cases.

Bradley Dean vs Rex Airlines

The second unfair dismissal case involved pilot Bradley Dean, sacked by regional airline Rex, on December 1 2021, after 27 years of service, for breaching a policy requiring staff members to be fully vaccinated by November 1.

Dean’s position was similar to Pskiet’s. He wanted to wait for the Novavax vaccine. He asked to be given alternative duties – for example, working as a flight simulator – and requested more time to get vaccinated.

In finding for Dean, Commissioner Donna McKenna ruled the airline could validly dismiss an employee for failing to be vaccinated, but the way it had treated Dean had been unfair.

Rex’s failure to comply with procedural considerations included not discussing options to dismissal, despite assuring Dean it would.

Dean received his two Novavax vaccinations once they became available, after he was sacked. Commissioner McKenna ordered his reinstatement, with no loss in continuity of service.

Read more:
Qantas has grounds to mandate vaccination, but most blanket policies won’t fly

Individual circumstances matter

A key message from these rulings is that employers making COVID vaccination a condition of employment is generally lawful and reasonable – at least where COVID remains a significant hazard and workers are in roles requiring proximity to others.

These principles were affirmed in a December 2021 decision of the
Fair Work Commission’s full bench.

In that case, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union successfully challenged a vaccine policy introduced by the BHP subsidiary operator of the Mt Arthur coal mine in NSW’s Hunter Valley.

The full bench agreed the vaccination mandate was unreasonable because the employer had failed to properly consult with employees in introducing the policy – but confirmed the general validity of vaccination policies.

Read more:
BHP’s vaccine policy ‘not lawful and reasonable’ – but this is no win for mandate opponents

Procedure also counts when it comes to dismissing an employee for failing to comply with a vaccination requirement. The same general principles have also been upheld in unfair dismissal cases concerning mandatory influenza vaccination policies.

Employers can have a general vaccination policy but must treat every individual case on its own merits and circumstances – including the timing and manner of applying the vaccination policy to the particular employee.

Extra latitude must be given to longer serving, senior employees or those with good performance records.

Giuseppe Carabetta 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. Unfair dismissal rulings show personal circumstances matter in vaccine refusals – https://theconversation.com/unfair-dismissal-rulings-show-personal-circumstances-matter-in-vaccine-refusals-188987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Ober, IRC Fellow, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

It’s essential for non-Aboriginal researchers to establish relationships with First Nations people when conducting research in their communities.

Past research practices have left a legacy of mistrust towards non-Indigenous researchers among many First Nations people. This is because research has been steeped in colonial practices, including viewing research as something done to Indigenous peoples without them having a say in how they are represented.

First Nations people and communities have had data about them collected with little or no input into the processes or questions asked. Even now, standard questions used for data collection do not always acknowledge that First Nations ways of living may be different from the rest of the population.

This includes things like the effects of intergenerational trauma, the fact First Nations family systems often involve more people than are blood related, and different cultural needs within health services.

This is where research practices such as “yarning” can offer an opportunity to establish relationships with these communities.

Once researchers establish a connection with people from the place they’re wishing to conduct their research, a mutual and inclusive relationship can be forged. This is essential to ensuring First Nations research participants are included in research, and not seen as research subjects.

Being able to build a relationship is vital to ensuring the lives of First Nations people are accurately portrayed and recorded, participants are not taken advantage of, and communities can benefit from the research.

Read more:
Establishing a Voice to Parliament could be an opportunity for Indigenous Nation Building. Here’s what that means

A history of research ‘on’ instead of research ‘with’

Since colonisation, Indigenous people have had negative experiences of Western research. Through fields such as anthropology, First Nations peoples were observed without permission, and had remains stolen.

Because non-Aboriginal researchers lack significant knowledge about First Nations people, their cultures and societies have often been judged by the degree they conform to Western customs and norms. As a result, misconceptions have followed, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have received very little benefit from the research conducted about them.

However in the past two decades, research has been undergoing a significant transformation. This is through incorporating First Nations practices such as yarning into the way research is conducted, providing additional insight into First Nations ways of being, doing and knowing.

Not only does yarning have the power to decolonise Eurocentric research practice, but it can also contribute to non-Indigenous researchers gaining a better understanding of Indigenous peoples and their communities.

Read more:
Shifting seasons: using Indigenous knowledge and western science to help address climate change impacts

What is yarning?

Yarning is a tradition practised for thousands of years by many First Nations people in Australia. It is an integral part of Indigenous ways of learning and sharing.

It is usually undertaken by Aboriginal people coming together informally to unwind or in more formal ways such as discussing community or cultural matters. Storytelling is an important part of yarning that allows for reflection on recent or past histories and lived experiences and sharing knowledge.

Researchers can take part in “yarning” by talking to First Nations people about where each of them is from, people they know in common, and their connection to the place on which they meet, just to give a few examples.

Relationships are important in research

We have explored relationships between researchers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants, and have found building trust is essential, but can be difficult.

For example, we found when a young non-Indigenous teacher started work in an Aboriginal community it took her roughly a year before the Aboriginal community decided she was ready to know about their land and culture. According to the teacher, the time proved she was “serious” about being the children’s teacher.

Researchers in First Nations communities need to make connections through sharing dialogues and lived experiences, mutual investment and building trust and credibility. This can be done by taking trips out to the bush and demonstrating commitment to the communities they wish to learn about.

Establishing relationships with the community like this also allows researchers to become acquainted with non-verbal communication such as body language and gestures fundamental to how some Aboriginal people interact.

Ideally these relationships should extend beyond local Aboriginal communities to relevant Aboriginal service providers, educators, practitioners, policymakers, academics and even park rangers. This will ensure additional background information, cultural contexts, and by extension, more robust research.

Researchers need to ask themselves how the research they are undertaking could have useful outcomes for communities, not just academia. This reciprocity can potentially address mistrust with some First Nations people.

It’s important researchers undertake culturally appropriate research that gives back to communities. Through establishing relationships and taking the time to listen to these communities, this will better ensure research undertaken is safe, ethical and useful for them too.

Robyn Ober receives funding from Australian Research Council

Rhonda Oliver receives funding from Australian Research Council.

Sender Dovchin receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘You can’t just show up and start asking questions’: why researchers need to understand the importance of yarning for First Nations – https://theconversation.com/you-cant-just-show-up-and-start-asking-questions-why-researchers-need-to-understand-the-importance-of-yarning-for-first-nations-187920

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodie McVernon, Professor and Director of Doherty Epidemiology, The University of Melbourne

Way before COVID, in 2005 the World of Warcraft game developers accidentally introduced an extremely virulent highly contagious disease into this game which then spread to infect the whole fantasy world and caused a virtual pandemic.

As far removed as this may seem from the goings on in the real world, the spread of this virtual disease appeared to have potential relevance to understanding real world epidemics.

Disease modelling has played a crucial role during the COVID pandemic to help anticipate the spread of an entirely new infectious disease through the population.

Infectious disease models use mathematical equations to describe how infectious diseases, humans and the environment interact. Then we can scope out what’s likely to happen if we let an epidemic run its course or try out various public health intervention options to see their effect on transmission.

This approach lets us take a peek into an uncertain future to assess the likely impact of control strategies on disease outcomes.

Read more:
Doherty modelling update provides the goalposts, but local insights will determine play

World of Warcraft and the corrupted blood plague

In the World of Warcraft online game, the disease that was introduced and spread widely throughout the virtual world was called Corrupted Blood.

This introduced disease was intended to be confined to a particular area of the virtual world, as a “debuff” spell used by the dungeon “boss” Hakkar the Soulflayer, to pose an additional challenge to players. Upon engaging the boss, players were stricken by the spell which would periodically sap their life.

However, to the surprise of the game developers, features of this virtual world, the nature of the introduced disease and the unanticipated behaviour of players led to rapid spread of this infection into the wider game. Players unknowingly transmitted infection to their animal companions, who were able to then infect other players in the wider game.

Developers didn’t predict panicked players would subsequently travel great distances to densely populated areas and spread illness there. Some players displayed altruistic behaviours, rushing to the aid of their friends and becoming infected. The disease spread widely and quickly.

There were also a number of individuals who intentionally spread disease for no obvious reason. A full-scale game wide pandemic ensued, with high rates of infection and death.

Given the extent to which players inhabited their virtual personas, this phenomenon led some researchers to speculate that gamifying infectious disease epidemics might be a way to gain insights into human behaviour during a pandemic.

Data derived from observing the actions of players in the virtual realm in response to an introduced virtual disease threat could be fed into real world disease models, they suggested, to better account for the unpredictability of human behaviour.

Indeed, many of the behavioural drivers of infectious spread identified in the game outbreak have also played an important role in the spread of COVID.

The key issue is that, despite the sophistication of disease modelling, the biggest source of uncertainty in these models comes from trying to factor in human behaviour.

Disease modelling and COVID

The COVID pandemic has highlighted just how complex and varied our responses to infectious disease threats are. Differences in social cohesion, trust in governments and political priorities can drive these responses.

Some high-income countries, like the United States and the United Kingdom, that were expected to be well placed to respond to the pandemic performed poorly. Other lower income countries, like Vietnam and Thailand, performed exceptionally well despite having fewer resources. To make things even more complex, as the pandemic has continued to unfold, public perceptions have been changing too.

So, how do we gather the data needed to model human behaviour better?

Since early 2020, many countries have implemented behavioural surveys in real time as a way of understanding attitudes and behavioural response to the pandemic, including cooperation with social measures mandated or recommended by authorities.

Read more:
Herd immunity was sold as the path out of the pandemic. Here’s why we’re not talking about it any more

What have we learned about COVID from World of Warcraft?

Have virtual epidemics been used to inform infectious disease models and make them more “realistic”?

Despite some initial excitement about using observed player behaviour in virtual fantasy worlds to enhance epidemic models, we have not seen such data being used in any meaningful way.

Despite the parallels between player interactions in virtual worlds and the real world, online behaviour varies in significant ways and may still be too far removed from reality to be of any practical use. Most notably, the potential for limitless experiences in online games is very different to the real world. Despite theoretical interest, the idea really hasn’t taken off.

Read more:
Why are people stockpiling toilet paper? We asked four experts

While behavioural data from virtual worlds may not be of sufficient relevance to inform real world disease models, the need to predict human behaviour better remains very important. The pandemic showed us how unpredictable our responses are.

A prime example of this was the rush to hoard toilet paper . No one would have anticipated this phenomenon before the pandemic, and it was totally irrational, but it was replicated throughout the world. While this is a somewhat obscure example, what it highlights is the unpredictability of human behaviour. There is no doubt that if we can better understand human behaviour and feed this into our disease models we will be better placed to predict disease outcomes and the impacts of public health interventions.

Unfortunately, in the real world we don’t have the luxury the game developers of World of Warcraft had. When they couldn’t stop the spread of the corrupted blood disease, they just performed a game reset to end the pandemic and get back to life as normal. If only!

Jodie McVernon receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government Departments of Health and Ageing and Foreign Affairs and Trade and the World Health Organisation. She has been an invited expert member of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, the Communicable Disease Network of Australia COVID-19 working group, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation’s COVID-19 Technical Group, and the COVID Multi-Model Comparison Collaboration’s Technical Group.

Hassan Vally 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. Did an accidental ‘blood plague’ in World of Warcraft help scientists model COVID better? The results are in – https://theconversation.com/did-an-accidental-blood-plague-in-world-of-warcraft-help-scientists-model-covid-better-the-results-are-in-188219

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Rosamilia, Adjunct associate professor and urogynaecology & pelvic reconstructive surgery, Head Pelvic Floor Unit at Monash Health, Monash University

A vaginal pessary is a removable device inserted in the vagina to support its walls or uterus (support pessary) or for bladder leakage (continence pessary).

Pessaries have been around for a very long time, the oldest known pessary – as described by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates – was a pomegranate soaked in vinegar!

Nowadays, pessaries are made from silicone which is non allergenic, long lasting, pliable and can be sterilised. Some are worn continuously for weeks, months or years with appropriate maintenance, while others are inserted as needed.

Read more:
Vaginal birth after caesarean increases the risk of serious perineal tear by 20%, our large-scale review shows

What they are good for

There are many types of vaginal support pessaries with (mostly) descriptive names: ring, Gellhorn, donut, cube, C-POP and more. At least two models of continence pessaries – branded Contiform and Coo-Wee – are relatively new on the market as well as the continence ring and dish.

Continence pessaries are used for stress urinary incontinence or “light bladder leakage” that occurs with coughing, sneezing or exercise. These act to support the urethra, as can a vaginal tampon, and can prevent leakage in up to 60% of women. They are especially useful if leakage is predictable, such as when a woman goes to the gym or out for a jog.

Vaginal support pessaries can be effective for prolapse (a type of hernia or weakness of the vaginal walls and ligaments that allow the uterus, bladder, or bowel to descend to or beyond the vaginal opening). If successfully fitted, pessaries can help 60% to 70% of women with these problems. There is improvement in the feeling of a vaginal bulge or tissue protrusion, improvement in bladder emptying and bladder leakage and urgency, sexual frequency and satisfaction. About 50% of women who have a vaginal birth will have some prolapse and up to 20% will go on to have surgery during their lifetime.

Pelvic floor muscle training in the early stages can improve symptoms as can vaginal estrogen in women after menopause. A pessary can be an alternative to surgery or used while women are delaying (such as in between pregnancies) or waiting to have surgery.

Read more:
Why you shouldn’t make a habit of doing a ‘just in case’ wee — and don’t tell your kids to either

The downside

Pessary use can have a downside too. Side effects may include vaginal discharge or odour or vaginal bleeding. These side effects generally occur after many months or years of continuous use and contribute to discontinuation.

An Australian study reported only 14% women continued long term use of pessaries mainly due to these side effects and the need for long term maintenance.

But a pessary can “buy time”. Theoretically, pessary use can help prevent worsening of prolapse.

A pessary for longer wear is usually fitted in clinic. Generally, all gynaecologists are trained to fit a pessary as are specialised pelvic floor physiotherapists and continence nurse specialists. Women often require a trial of more than one size or type to find the “best fit”. Sometimes a pessary can’t be fitted, is uncomfortable or falls out. This can occur when the vaginal length is short after previous prolapse surgery or hysterectomy, the vagina has a wide opening or the muscles are very weak.

Support pessaries can be self-managed by women who are willing to do this regularly in the same way they might manage a tampon, menstrual cup, or diaphragm contraceptive device. Sexually active women may choose to remove the pessary prior to intercourse; however, this is not essential for all types.

If not self-managed, pessary follow up is needed every six to 12 months, when the device is removed, cleaned, and reinserted or a new one inserted.

There are rare but serious complications like fistula (an opening between vagina and bowel or bladder) and impaction where an anaesthetic or surgery is required to remove the pessary.

Read more:
Playing games with your pelvic floor could be a useful exercise for urinary incontinence

Some future models

Recently, there is some research and development occurring in adding personalised or “smart” capabilities to the vaginal support pessary such as electrical stimulation therapy or pressure biofeedback such as already exists for pelvic floor training devices.

Acceptance of pessaries is variable and often related to prior knowledge and appropriate counselling.

There is a lack of knowledge and awareness regarding how common pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence are. We often hear women express embarrassment, shame or fear but many suffer in silence. The main barrier to seeking treatment is the perception that prolapse or incontinence are inevitable parts of childbirth and ageing.

Prolapse and urinary incontinence can have a negative impact on a woman’s physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Women experiencing any pelvic floor dysfunction can speak to their GPs, gynaecologists, or urogynaecologists (gynaecologists specialised in management of prolapse and incontinence).

Read more:
Explainer: what is pelvic organ prolapse?

Anna Rosamilia is Clinical Associate Investigator for studies receiving funding from NHMRC, Past research grants from Boston Scientific, American Medical Systems. Astellas. She has had an expert witness role. None of this funding is related to pessaries.

She is affiliated with and member of International Urogynecological Association, Urogynaecological Association of Australia, Continence Foundation of Australia and International Continence Society.

Mugdha Kulkarni is a member of International Urogynecological Association & Urogynaecological Association of Australia.

– ref. Pessaries are still a taboo topic – but these ancient devices help many women – https://theconversation.com/pessaries-are-still-a-taboo-topic-but-these-ancient-devices-help-many-women-187083

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eva Francesca Martellotta, PhD candidate in Archaeology and Human Evolution, Griffith University

Alongside kangaroos and Akubra hats, boomerangs are one of the most iconic symbols of the Australian continent. They are also widely misrepresented.

Apart from hunting and fighting, boomerangs have many functions in the daily activities of Aboriginal communities, including digging, cutting, and making music.

These multiple functions are something Aboriginal people have always known, but the rest of the world has been none the wiser – until now.

In a recently published study in the journal PLOS One, we have “rediscovered” a function of boomerangs in Australian Aboriginal culture – shaping stone tools.

A child’s toy for a tourist

Made from hardwoods, boomerangs are usually shown to return to your hand when thrown into the distance. This common depiction of the boomerang isn’t always true, however.

There is actually a variety of boomerang types, with the returning ones typically being children’s toys used for games and learning. (And, after European incursion, for selling to tourists.)

Read more:
Indigenous cultural appropriation: what not to do

Most boomerangs are significantly larger than a child’s symmetrical, returning item – this increased size is required for their function as hunting and fighting weapons. But there’s an array of other functions, not all of them widely described in the literature.

We meshed Indigenous knowledge and experimental archaeology to produce scientific proof of a previously unrecognised (to science) use of these iconic objects: the manufacture of stone tools.

Nothing ‘primitive’ about working stone

When we think about stone tools, we associate them with “primitive” technology. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Manufacturing stone tools requires an advanced understanding of fracture mechanics, extensive planning, and years of hands-on practice to produce even the most basic of tools.

Not unlike the contents of today’s kitchen drawers and garden sheds, human groups living in the deep past had access to an assortment of tools for all sorts of everyday activities.

The ability to carefully modify the edge of stone tools was crucial not only to produce the variety of utensils designed, but to resharpen them when they blunted. In modern terms, we can think about butcher knives and bread knives: their blades have different shapes – one straight, the other serrated – each used to effectively cut different materials.

Archaeologists call the careful shaping of a tool edge “retouching” – repeatedly touching (or working) the stone edge until it reaches the shape we want.

Wood shapes stone

For Australia, there is very little published evidence surrounding the retouching techniques used by various peoples across the continent. A deep dive into early European accounts of Aboriginal technologies suggested wooden tools – especially boomerangs – were used to shape their stone technology.

If true, this would be a retouching approach thus far unknown elsewhere in the world.

To investigate this idea, we designed an experiment to discover if boomerangs really could shape stone tools. Most archaeologists would have thought wooden items would not be suitable for such a tough task.

Expert hands infused with Aboriginal knowledge manufactured four hardwood boomerangs to be used in the experiment. These weapons were then put to repeatedly striking stone tool edges. During this process, small, thin pieces of stone detached from the edge – perfectly shaping the stone tool.

The impact of the sharp stone edge against the boomerang’s wooden surface left microscopic marks on the latter. Such marks are not new in archaeology. They have previously been found on bone fragments recovered from prehistoric archaeological sites in Europe dating back as far as roughly 500,000 years ago.

To document these marks, we used a powerful high-definition microscope to get a closer look. A great number of micro-flakes were found to have got stuck within the retouching marks – another trait in common with the bone tools from Europe.

These experimental results allowed us to identify distinctive marks on boomerangs curated by The Australian Museum in Sydney, some of them collected as far back as 1890.

Read more:
We identified 39,000 Indigenous Australian objects in UK museums. Repatriation is one option, but takes time to get right

Preserving a diverse and rich past

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples across the country made and used hundreds of multifunctional utensils. Among these, the throwing stick known as “boomerang” sits high on the list.

Our work aims to join Indigenous knowledge and Western-based scientific investigation to explore Australia’s diverse and rich past. Sadly, with the passing of Elders, oral histories and ancient knowledge bases are being threatened.

As communities join with archaeologists in examining artefacts, art, stories, songs, dances, languages, we can learn more about the past and the present. This process is empowering – discovering more about our past and our origins can only strengthen identity.

We are grateful to the Milan Dhiiyaan mob for sharing their Traditional knowledge and supplying bubarra/garrbaa/biyarr (boomerangs) representative of the cultural and spiritual beliefs of the Wailwaan and Yuin people.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of study co-authors Dr Jayne Wilkins and Yinika L. Perston – who is also seen in the video using the boomerang to retouch the stone tools.

Read more:
Food, tools and medicine: 5 native plants that illuminate deep Aboriginal knowledge

Eva Francesca Martellotta received funding from the 2021 EXARC Experimental Archaeology Award.

Michelle Langley is a Senior Research Fellow in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University.

Paul Craft 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. Mysterious marks on boomerangs reveal a ‘forgotten’ use of this iconic Aboriginal multi-tool – https://theconversation.com/mysterious-marks-on-boomerangs-reveal-a-forgotten-use-of-this-iconic-aboriginal-multi-tool-188835

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Woodward, Professor, School of Population Health, University of Auckland

Introducing the New Zealand government’s first Emissions Reduction Plan in June, climate change minister James Shaw observed:

The climate crisis is no longer something happening elsewhere, to someone else, in the future – it is happening here, to us, now.

The plan, which sets the direction for climate action for the next 15 years, requires the transport sector to reduce emissions by more than 40% by 2035 compared with 2019.

Meanwhile, in the same month, Ford launched the “New Zealand Drives A Ranger” campaign for its mainly diesel-powered, high-emission double cab ute. The Ranger remains the country’s top-selling new vehicle, and average CO₂ emissions of the new line are higher than before through the inclusion of a V6 model.

We have a problem. On the one hand, climate action requires rapid, deep reductions in greenhouse pollution. At the same time, businesses lean in the other direction if they sense rapid decarbonisation threatens their commercial success.

Business as usual

This conflict between urgency and business as usual will be difficult to resolve.

As temperatures rise, living conditions for many people may become intolerable. Sharp emissions reductions must be made this decade to give the world a reasonable chance of staying within 1.5 to 2 degrees of warming.

But fossil fuels are embedded in most aspects of everyday life. This includes construction, food production, transport and the IT sector (Google emits about 10 million tons of CO₂ equivalent a year).

À lire aussi :
Business can no longer ignore extreme heat events – it’s becoming a danger to the bottom line

Failure to act on the tensions between public policy and commercial interests may well obstruct effective climate action.

Some business groups are powerful advocates for sustainability, and some are effective leaders in the community on climate change. But there are plenty of examples of industries deliberately undermining policies aimed at reducing pollution.

The coordinated efforts of oil companies over many decades to interfere with climate science are well documented. Greenwashing, a milder version of the same delaying tactics, is widespread.

Media ‘camouflage’

There are subtler ways of stalling progress on the climate, too: working to establish a dominant narrative – “New Zealanders love cars”, for instance – or media sponsorship that creates a dependence on corporate income.

Political lobbying isn’t always publicly visible, either. As investigative journalist Nicky Hagar’s 2014 book Dirty Politics described, certain business groups paid third party agitators to attack public health professionals working on food, alcohol and tobacco harm.

Even companies leading on emissions reduction have been accused of exaggerating their actions rather than having to “pivot without precedent” on climate change.

À lire aussi :
New Zealand has launched a plan to prepare for inevitable climate change impacts: 5 areas where the hard work starts now

Asked why national greenhouse emissions have not fallen in 30 years, despite vastly increased knowledge about the causes and consequences of climate change,
veteran environmentalist Guy Salmon said in 2021:

We have built into our culture an unwillingness to take responsibility for these things and have a very strong deference to vested interests.

This deference includes a kind of media “camouflage”. A 2017 survey found business groups such as Federated Farmers, the Chamber of Commerce and the Food and Grocery Council were seldom, if ever, identified as lobbyists in news stories.

More common were neutral descriptions such as “farmer body”, “voice of business” and “stakeholder”. If lobby groups are given publicity but not identified for what they are, it is difficult for the public to understand what’s at stake and why opinions on controversial issues differ.

A continuum of risk

How to respond? The work of Peter Adams, a professor of social and community health at the University of Auckland, can be helpful here. He has studied how to manage conflicts of interest that arise when accepting funds from industries that trade, in his words, in “dangerous consumption”.

Adams argues that the first step is a simple one: to acknowledge the potential for conflicts of interest. When there are differences between business interests and the public good we should say so, whether this occurs in universities, the media, community organisations, advertising or elsewhere.

À lire aussi :
NZ’s first climate adaptation plan is a good start, but crucial questions about cost and timing must be answered

Second, Adams argues against binary thinking that separates the world into “safe” and “unsafe” options. While it may be tempting to simplify like this, the black and white approach is not helpful because it is seldom true.

Mostly there is a continuum of risk, and decisions about what is acceptable or not depend on a host of factors such as context, timing and trade-offs.

Adams offers a framework to help wrestle with these difficult choices. It includes three considerations I think are particularly relevant to climate change: the degree to which interests diverge, the severity of environmental harm that results, and the risk of commercial or political interests compromising organisations’ decision making.

Asking hard questions

As the climate crisis intensifies, New Zealand faces some serious questions:

• Should lobbying be controlled?
• Should the advertising of carbon-intensive products be banned?
• When should business be excluded from government committees?
• How should the public be better informed about the environmental performance of industry?
• What sanctions should apply to scientific disinfomation?
• When is it not acceptable to take funding from carbon-polluting companies?

There are no clear cut answers, meaning solutions will be necessarily political and contestable. What’s important is to recognise conflicting interests exist and that they may have harmful consequences, especially in a time of climate urgency.

To reduce the risk from a worsening climate, we must be frank about the interests and imperatives of business, and be ready to apply regulation and legislation to protect the public good.

Alistair Woodward has received funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, the Ministry for the Environment, Waka Kotahi, Auckland Transport and the World Health Organisation. He is a member of Bike Auckland.

– ref. In a climate crisis, how do we treat businesses that profit from carbon pollution? – https://theconversation.com/in-a-climate-crisis-how-do-we-treat-businesses-that-profit-from-carbon-pollution-188810

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist), The Conversation

A federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted August 17-21 from a sample of 2,011, gave Labor 42% of the primary vote (32.6% at the May federal election), the Coalition 28% (35.7%), the Greens 12% (12.2%), One Nation 5% (5.0%), UAP 2% (4.1%), independents 8% (5.3%) and others 3% (5.2%).

Apart from near elections, Resolve does not give a two party estimate. My calculations using 2022 election preference flows say Labor would lead by 61-39 on this poll (52.1-47.9 at the election).

61% thought Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was doing a good job and 22% a poor job; his +39 net approval is up massively from -8 in the final pre-election Resolve poll. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had a net approval of -8 (38% bad job, 30% good), and Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 55-17.

The huge swing to Labor since the election has carried into issues polling. The Coalition held a ten-point lead over Labor on economic management in the final pre-election poll, but Labor now leads by nine points.

This poll reflects “honeymoon” polling for Labor since the election. At some stage, the government is likely to lose this big boost. Kevin Rudd had a long honeymoon, but did not even make it to the 2010 election as Labor leader after winning the 2007 election. The next election cannot be predicted from this polling.

Last week, it was revealed that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison had several secret ministries. Had this occurred in a science-fiction world with cloning, Morrison could have cloned himself multiple times to take on these ministries.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence

Essential: 65-35 support for Indigenous Voice

In an Essential poll, conducted in the days before August 9 from a sample of 1,075, 5% said they had heard a lot about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, 29% a fair amount, 32% hardly anything and 33% nothing.

When the Voice was explained, voters were in favour by 65-35. Support was strongest with Greens (81%) and Labor (77%), and weakest with Coalition (53%) federal election voters.

In this poll, Albanese’s ratings continued to slide from a high base since becoming PM. His approval was 55% (down one since July) and his disapproval 28% (up four), for a net approval of +27, down five points.

44% were very concerned about inflation, 40% somewhat concerned and 13% not that concerned. By 60-12, voters would support extending the fuel excise cut beyond September. They would support increasing the JobSeeker Payment for unemployed people by 44-27 and delaying stage three tax cuts by 42-25.

75% thought elected MPs should be required to make the pledge of allegiance to Australia and the Australian people, and just 15% thought this pledge should be made to Queen Elizabeth II.

Morgan poll: 53-47 to Labor

Morgan has been releasing its federal voting intentions in weekly video updates that also include findings on consumer confidence. Labor led by 53-47 in the poll taken August 8-14, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since the previous week. This poll was taken before the revelations of secret ministries.

In August, there have been two voting intentions polls from sources other than Morgan, with Newspoll at 56-44 to Labor and now Resolve. So Morgan currently has the Coalition doing much better than other polls, when their previous form usually had Labor doing better.

Victorian Morgan poll: 60.5-39.5 to Labor

The Victorian election will be held in three months, on November 26. A Morgan SMS poll, conducted August 11-13 from a sample of 1,097, gave Labor a 60.5-39.5 lead, a one point gain for Labor since early July. Primary votes were 40.5% Labor (down three), 27.5% Coalition (down two), 14% Greens (up two), 2% UAP (steady), 5% “teal” independent (up two) and 11% others (up one).

62.5% approved of Labor Premier Daniel Andrews (down one), while 37.5% (up one) disapproved, a net approval of +25, down one point. Andrews led Liberal leader Matthew Guy as better premier by 66-34 (64.5-35.5 in July).

Morgan polls in the past have skewed to Labor, and I wish there had been other recent polls by reputable pollsters for comparison. But Morgan shows a huge lead for Labor, and suggests they will easily be re-elected.

NT Labor holds Fannie Bay at byelection

At Saturday’s byelection for the NT Labor-held seat of Fannie Bay, Labor won by 52.2-47.8, a 7.4% swing to the Country Liberals (CLP) since the 2020 NT election. Primary votes were 41.7% CLP (up 7.0%), 32.6% Labor (down 15.6%), 19.4% Greens (up 9.2%) and 6.3% combined for three independents. The byelection was caused by the resignation of former Labor Chief Minister Michael Gunner.

Far-right likely to win September 25 Italian election

I wrote for The Poll Bludger on August 13 that the right-wing coalition is likely to win a majority of seats at the September 25 Italian election. As the two biggest parties within that coalition are far-right, the female leader of the Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Melloni, is likely to be Italy’s next PM.

Liz Truss is set to be Britain’s next PM when the result of the Conservatives’ postal membership vote is announced on September 5. She leads Rishi Sunak by 69-31 and 61-39 in two recent Conservative membership polls. Boris Johnson, who was ousted by Conservative MPs in July, would trounce either candidate head to head.

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

– ref. First Resolve poll since election has huge Labor lead, and Labor also has massive lead in Victoria – https://theconversation.com/first-resolve-poll-since-election-has-huge-labor-lead-and-labor-also-has-massive-lead-in-victoria-188587

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya M. Smith, Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution & Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University

The timing and intensity of the seasons shapes life all around us, including tool use by birds, the evolutionary diversification of giraffes, and the behaviour of our close primate relatives.

Some scientists suggest early humans and their ancestors also evolved due to rapid changes in their environment, but the physical evidence to test this idea has been elusive – until now.

After more than a decade of work, we’ve developed an approach that leverages tooth chemistry and growth to extract information about seasonal rainfall patterns from the jaws of living and fossil primates.

We share our findings in a collaborative study just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Teeth are environmental time machines

During childhood our teeth grow in microscopic layers similar to the growth rings found in trees. Seasonal changes in the world around us, such as droughts and monsoons, influence our body chemistry. The evidence of such changes is recorded in our teeth.

That’s because the oxygen isotope composition of drinking water naturally varies with temperature and precipitation cycles. During warm or dry weather, surface waters accumulate more heavy isotopes of oxygen. During cool or wet periods, lighter isotopes become more common.

These temporal and climatic records remain locked inside fossilised tooth enamel, which can maintain chemical stability for millions of years. But the growth layers are generally so small that most chemical techniques can’t measure them.

To get around this problem, we teamed up with geochemist Ian Williams at the Australian National University, who runs the world-leading Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) facilities.

In our study, we collected detailed records of tooth formation and enamel chemistry from slices of more than two dozen wild primate teeth from equatorial Africa.

We also analysed two fossil molars from an unusual large-bodied ape called Afropithecus turkanensis that lived in Kenya 17 million years ago. Diverse groups of apes inhabited Africa during this period, roughly 10 million years before the evolution of our early ancestors, the hominins.

Diving into an ancient African landscape

Several aspects of our research are helpful for understanding the link between environmental patterns and primate evolution.

First, we observe a direct relationship between historic African rainfall patterns and primate tooth chemistry. This is the first test of a highly influential idea in archaeological and earth sciences applied to wild primates: that teeth can record fine details of seasonal environmental change.

We are able to document annual west African rainy seasons and identify the end of east African droughts. In other words, we can “see” the storms and seasons that occur during an individual’s early life.

And this leads into another important aspect. We provide the largest record of primate oxygen isotope measurements collected so far, from diverse environments in Africa that may have resembled those of ancestral hominins.

Lastly, we’ve been able to reconstruct annual and semi-annual climate cycles, and marked environmental variation, from information held within the teeth of the two fossil apes.

Our observations support the hypothesis that Afropithecus developed certain features to adapt to a seasonal climate and challenging landscape. For example, it had specialised dental traits for hard object feeding, as well as a longer period of molar growth compared with earlier apes and monkeys – consistent with the idea that it consumed more seasonally varied foods.

We conclude our work by comparing data from Afropithecus to earlier studies of fossil hominins and monkeys from the same region in Kenya. Our detailed microsampling shows just how sensitive tooth chemistry is to fine-scale climate variation.

Previous studies of more than 100 fossil teeth have missed the most interesting part of oxygen isotope compositions in teeth: the huge seasonal variation on the landscape.

Read more:
What teeth can tell about the lives and environments of ancient humans and Neanderthals

Research potential closer to home

This novel research approach, coupled with our fossil ape findings and modern primate data, will be crucial for future studies of hominin evolution – especially in Kenya’s famous Turkana Basin.

For example, some researchers have suggested that seasonal differences in foraging and stone tool use helped hominins evolve and coexist in Africa. This idea has been hard to prove or disprove, in part because seasonal climatic processes have been hard to tease out of the fossil record.

Our approach could also be extended to animal remains from rural Australia to gain further insight into historic climate conditions, as well as the prehistoric environmental changes that shaped Australia’s unique modern landscapes.

Read more:
Archaeology can help us prepare for climates ahead – not just look back

Tanya M. Smith receives funding from the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Research Council.

Daniel Green receives funding from Columbia University, the Leakey Foundation, the American National Science Foundation, and the Kenyan Turkana Basin Institute.

– ref. Revelations from 17-million-year-old ape teeth could lead to new insights on early human evolution – https://theconversation.com/revelations-from-17-million-year-old-ape-teeth-could-lead-to-new-insights-on-early-human-evolution-187996

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Hill, Professor of Politics, University of Adelaide

Our voting choices are only authentic if our decisions are informed by truthful information. That condition is now increasingly elusive.

In Australia, over two-thirds of adult news consumers report having seen media items they considered to be deceptive. This includes misleading commentary, doctored photographs and serious factual errors.

Political disinformation damages democracies. First, it manipulates voter preferences and distorts election results. This could be seen, for example, in the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum that same year.

It also polarises the electorate, damages trust in government and democratic institutions, and triggers civic withdrawal.

A further harm is that it raises the costs of voting. Electoral legitimacy requires that the costs of participation are not too high; false claims cause information costs to escalate because much more work is required to sift the facts from the false information.

A new and corrosive form of disinformation is political conspiracies of the “stolen elections” variety. This type delegitimises election processes, generates doubt about the authenticity of the declared result and undermines the authority of the electoral victor, who may subsequently experience problems in governing.

It can even lead to serious social conflict such as the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021.

Read more:
Three reasons why disinformation is so pervasive and what we can do about it

A global problem

Election conspiracies also happen in Australia. During the 2022 federal election, the Australian Electoral Commission sought to counter a “dangerous” disinformation campaign waged by minor party candidates baselessly predicting a high degree of electoral fraud and interference with the results.

Examples of such baseless claims included:

• the AEC is “aligned to the Liberal Party”

• Australians who are not vaccinated will not be able to vote

• blank ballots and “donkey votes” are counted for the incumbent.

The media landscape and its political economy have eroded both the media’s willingness to supply “truth” in political discourse, and the consumer’s demand for it.

Social media have decreased barriers to entry into the information marketplace. Meanwhile, many consumers seek out information that confirms their existing prejudices. In some countries there is now a lucrative market in the production of “fake news” solely to meet consumer demand.

To make matters worse, the ability of consumers to distinguish between authentic and fake news is much lower than they realise.

So, there are perverse – and arguably ineradicable – incentives within the information market to produce disinformation. The market is not just failing; it is the source of the problem.

This means disinformation has become what is known as a “collective action problem”. This happens when the actions of market actors create social costs that require state action to clean up or prevent.

Notably, 84% of Australians agree on this need and would like to see truth in political advertising laws in place.

But this is easier said than done. What if, for example, votes and entire elections really are being stolen? We must ensure solutions do not do more harm than good, inadvertently obstructing the free flow of reliable information that is the lifeblood of any democracy.

In our recent book, Max Douglass, Ravi Baltutis and I explore how this might be achieved federally. We propose a cautious approach that draws lessons from laws that have operated successfully in South Australia since 1985.

Read more:
Here’s how disinformation could disrupt the Australian election

7 ideas for reform

1. To avoid chilling political speech – and thereby violating the implied freedom of political communication under the Australian Constitution – truth in political advertising laws will only target identifiable political actors who are authors or authorisers of the material in question. Publishers are therefore exempt, for now at least.

2. Only false statements of fact (rather than opinion) will be subject to the law, as per the provisions under section 113 in SA.

3. To deter vexatious and trivial complaints, the legislation should be limited to false statements that could affect an election outcome to a “material extent”.

4. Laws should cover the entire period between elections, to take in preference allocations.

5. Penalties – which apply only to those who refuse to take down offending material – should be high enough to deter wrongdoing. However, because some political actors will cynically treat the penalty as a routine expense to gain a political advantage, we propose an additional penalty that bars the candidate from standing for one election cycle, as is the case under UK law. This is hardly controversial since section 386 of Australia’s Electoral Act 1918 already disqualifies those who have committed electoral offences such as bribery, undue influence, and interference with political liberty.

6. Regulators should be properly resourced.

7. Electoral candidates could be asked to sign a declaration that they have read and understood what the legislation requires of them.

All of this is feasible, as the South Australian example has shown.

Lisa Hill receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the Centre for Public Integrity, an anti-corruption watchdog, and the Electoral Regulation Research Network.

– ref. Australians are tired of lies in political advertising. Here’s how it can be fixed – https://theconversation.com/australians-are-tired-of-lies-in-political-advertising-heres-how-it-can-be-fixed-189043

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Breadon, Program Director, Health and Aged Care, Grattan Institute

New federal Health Minister Mark Butler says primary care is “in worse shape than it’s been in the entire Medicare era” and has made it his top health priority.

Primary care is any first point of contact with the health system, such as a GP clinic, dentist, or community pharmacy, but the government is likely to focus on GP clinics.

A new taskforce will advise the minister on how to spend A$750 million to improve access, chronic disease management, and affordability. The taskforce has until Christmas to come up with a plan, which is a big ask given where the system is now.

Taking lessons from what’s worked overseas, we’ve identified five key lessons about how Australia should reform general practice funding.

But first, let’s consider what’s gone wrong.

Primary care isn’t set up for the problems of today

Almost half of Australians have a chronic disease, such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma or depression. More than half of Australians over 65 have two or more. Those proportions have been rising fast in recent decades.

To help patients manage these conditions, GPs need ongoing relationships with patients (known as continuity of care), and a team working with them by providing routine care, outreach, coaching, and advice. That lets GPs spend more of their time working with the most complex patients, resulting in better care and outcomes.

But the way GPs are funded – and the way the primary care system is managed – makes this nearly impossible. GPs tell us they aren’t respected, are stressed out, and are set up to fail by a system that is fragmented, rigid, and unsupportive.

After decades of neglect, there are many problems to fix. Clinics often don’t have the right mix of staff, collaborating with specialists and hospitals is difficult, data systems are fragmented, and there are parts of Australia with poor access to care.

Read more:
Labor’s health package won’t ‘strengthen’ Medicare unless it includes these 3 things

One issue the taskforce must consider is how GP clinics are funded. While a simple boost to fees might be welcomed by practices, it can’t deliver the better access, quality, and affordability that Labor has promised. Australia’s approach has outlived it’s used-by date.

Here’s what Australia can learn from other countries that have transformed primary care funding:

1: Blend payments to strike the right balance

Australia is one of a small and shrinking list of countries that still mostly uses fee-for-service funding. There are payments to make care plans, and for working to improve quality measures (such as measuring risk factors or increasing immunisation rates), but the vast bulk still goes on individual GP consultations.

Shorter visits pay more, promoting a focus on speed not need – a poor fit for helping patients with complex needs.

Since the 1990s, many other countries have moved towards a “blended” funding model. After a patient enrols with with a particular doctor or clinic, GPs have ongoing responsibility for their patients and get flexible annual budgets for their care, along with a small fee for each visit.

This supports continuity of care and gives flexibility to provide different types of services, while keeping an incentive for GP consultations. It strikes a good balance between GP visits and other kinds of care, such as check-ins with a practice nurse, medication reviews from a practice pharmacist, or even support that goes beyond health care, such as help with housing or community services.

2: Adjust funding for health and social needs

Australia’s core primary care funding system, the Medicare Benefits Schedule, does little to match funding with a patient’s needs. As shown above, it promotes short consultations, no matter how complex the patient’s health needs. It largely ignores disadvantage, even though people who are poor are likely to be sicker.

Read more:
Poor and elderly Australians let down by ailing primary health system

New Zealand and Ontario (a province in Canada) introduced blended payments in the 1990s. However, they didn’t adjust annual patient budgets for clinical complexity or social need. Clinics received the same funding for treating someone who was healthy and wealthy as someone who was sick and poor.

It worked for practices in well-off areas, but not for those serving poorer communities, resulting in reduced services.

The mismatch of care and need is a big problem in all health systems. Blended funding must be adjusted to level the playing field, otherwise it could make that mismatch even worse.

3. Fund a multi-disciplinary team

The patient budget described above gives clinics flexibility to fund different types of workers, such as mental health nurses, community health workers, or pharmacists. But experience overseas shows this isn’t enough to bring about best-practice multidisciplinary teams.

The United Kingdom and New Zealand also provide direct funding for different kinds of workers. In the UK, the full cost is covered for 13 types of workers, ranging from paramedics and podiatrists to “link workers”, a new role that coaches patients to achieve their health goals, and connects them to social support and community activities.

4: Step in when the market fails

In parts of rural Australia, even the best blended funding model won’t attract GPs. In some cases, the demand from patients is too low or unpredictable to make it worthwhile running a stand-alone clinic.

In these cases of market failure, a different model is needed. Federal and state governments should work together to jointly employ salaried GPs and other primary care staff, giving them roles that might span the primary care clinic and a local hospital.

As the National Rural Health Alliance proposed, this could take the form of non-profit, community-controlled organisations, with similarities to Aboriginal-controlled clinics and community health providers.

5: Recognise that change is hard and will take time

A new funding model will require different workforce roles, reporting and data. Experience shows clinics must have strong support to help them change.

An evaluation of the last major national attempt at primary care reform, Health Care Homes, recommended a change-management team within each practice with adequate training and protected time, as well as skilled external facilitators. In line with assessments in the UK, the evaluation also found that developing trust and peer support was crucial.

All this points to a staged roll-out over several years, with strong support within clinics, between clinics, and from Primary Health Networks, the regional bodies responsible for improving the primary care system.

A long-term plan for change is more complex than a tweak to the Medicare Benefits Schedule. But it will be vital to give a sector under strain enough support to adapt to a funding system that’s better for workers and patients alike.

Read more:
More visits to the doctor doesn’t mean better care – it’s time for a Medicare shake-up

Peter Breadon 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. General practices are struggling. Here are 5 lessons from overseas to reform the funding system – https://theconversation.com/general-practices-are-struggling-here-are-5-lessons-from-overseas-to-reform-the-funding-system-188902

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Grant, Senior Lecturer in Finance, University of Sydney

With rising costs of living, including interest rate rises, many people are really worried about their mortgage.

So, what actually happens if you can’t pay your mortgage – and what are your options?

Here’s what you need to know.

Read more:
Vital signs: to fix Australia’s housing affordability crisis, negative gearing must go

Payment deferrals, payment plans or getting fees waived

It’s not particularly rare for a borrower to face a period of temporary financial hardship, often due to circumstances beyond their control.

Job loss, relationship breakdowns, natural disasters, injuries and illnesses all affect the capacity of householders to repay their loan, especially given mortgages tend to run over many years, if not decades.

Banks have “hardship” processes to deal with borrowers who are temporarily unable to repay their loan.

The Banking Code of Practice, to which most banks subscribe, provides guidelines for lenders to help consumers through financial difficulties.

One form of relief is a payment deferral or “holiday”. That’s where a customer is able to postpone repayments until the issue causing hardship is resolved. Many people used this option during COVID lockdowns.

However, a payment holiday sometimes simply “kicks the can down the road” and the customer is still in financial trouble when their temporary payment holiday ends.

Other options include payment plans. This is where you pay back less per month but the mortgage lasts longer overall.

Or, the bank may simply offer advice on how to handle finances until you’re back on your feet.

It is also possible for banks to waive discretionary fees (such as those related to overdue payments).

Banks don’t really want you to default

Banks typically do not want their customers to default on property.

They’re usually protected against losses themselves through lender’s mortgage insurance, but banks see mortgage holders as particularly valuable customers. They have shown they can obtain finance and repay loans.

Usually, it’s easier for the bank to make hardship arrangements with a customer – and build trust along the way – than it is to wind up a mortgage, seize the property and then have to deal with trying to sell it in a flagging market.

What about my credit score?

Recent changes to the credit legislation make it easier to apply for a payment plan without affecting your credit score.

From July 1, 2022, under the terms of a financial hardship arrangement, a customer’s credit report will show they have made on time repayments for the period of the arrangement – providing they have followed the terms of the hardship agreement.

Credit reports will also indicate whether (but not why) a customer is in a financial hardship arrangement.

This information stays on a credit report for one year, then disappears.

Importantly, though, hardship information will be visible to other credit providers, and may affect a customer’s ability to get other loans during the period.

I’m struggling. So what should I do?

Contact your financial institution as early as you can. Your bank may be able to offer payment relief in the form of reduced payments or a holiday from repayments – or a combination of both.

You usually need to provide evidence for the reason for financial hardship, and there’s an expectation you’ll be able to resume repayments when the temporary issue is resolved.

Not every application for hardship will be successful, particularly if you have made promises to repay in the past and not followed through.

Income protection insurance (for those who plan for uncertainties) may help prevent the need for hardship arrangements in the first place.

If you see the issue as ongoing, rather than temporary, consider a different approach.

If you’re ahead on your mortgage (as many Australians were during the pandemic), or you have significant equity in your house, consider refinancing. That’s where you take out a new mortgage to repay an existing loan.

You may be able to get a lower monthly repayment, especially if you have built an equity stake greater than 30%.

It won’t always be an option, especially if you are a recent borrower facing rising interest rates, stagnant or falling house prices, and have limited equity.

In dire circumstances, you may be able to access your superannuation early (which means you may have a lot less to retire on).

If you really do need to sell, it is better to sell the property of your own volition, rather than having a forced sale.

Mortgagee-in-possession (which is where the bank sells the house) can often lead to a lower sales price than a vendor-led campaign, and the time frame may not suit you.

Free help is available. The Australian Retail Credit Association provides information on how hardship processes are reported, while the Financial Rights Legal Centre helps advocate for consumers through the mortgage stress process.

The government’s Moneysmart site also provides information on how to navigate the hardship process.

Read more:
The housing game has changed – interest rate hikes hurt more than before

Andrew Grant is affiliated with the Australian Institute of Credit Management, and has conducted research in the past for Commonwealth Bank and the credit bureau Illion.

– ref. What happens if I can’t pay my mortgage and what are my options? – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-if-i-cant-pay-my-mortgage-and-what-are-my-options-188891

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland

The return this month of the first cruise liner to Auckland’s Waitematā Harbour was accompanied by the sort of fanfare normally reserved for visiting foreign dignitaries: a tug boat decked out in bunting, a circling helicopter, even the mayor on hand to welcome the ship.

Coming after a two year hiatus due to the pandemic and border closures, it was undoubtedly a momentous occasion. But it’s also an opportunity to examine the environmental and economic impacts of these massive ships, and to ask how welcome they really are.

Criticism of the cruise industry is not new, and there have been calls for global monitoring and effective legislation because of its impact on environmental and human health. Climate change has only amplified this.

Individual cruise liners emit more CO₂ than any other kind of ship. Per passenger mile, they produce at least twice the CO₂ emissions of a long-haul flight.

A single ship can use up to 150 tonnes of low-grade heavy fuel oil (HFO) every day of its voyage. Combusted in a ship’s huge engines, this produces particulate matter (PM) – microscopic particles that can be inhaled and lodge in lung tissue or be carried in a bloodstream.

PM is linked to various environmental harms and health problems, including reduced lung function and worsening asthma and heart disease. A single cruise ship can produce the same daily PM emissions as a million cars, with the global cruise fleet producing the emission equivalent of 323 million cars (but with passenger capacity of only about 581,200 single-occupancy cars).

Environmental impact

And it’s not just the oceans the ships cross or the ports where the vessels dock that are affected. A recent study found that standing on the deck of a cruise ship exposed passengers to air quality equivalent to a city like Beijing.

Cruise ship fuel also contains sulphur. When combusted it creates sulphur oxide, a direct contributor to smog at ground level, acid rain at the atmospheric level, and a host of health impacts for those who breathe in the pollutant.

Read more:
Without stricter conditions, NZ should be in no hurry to reopen its border to cruise ships

Pressure from environmentalists and modern technology eventually led to the installation of “scrubbers” on cruise liner smokestacks which remove most sulphur from the ship’s exhaust.

However, some or all of the collected sulphur is often later disposed of into the ocean, potentially harming reefs and marine life, and contributing to ocean acidification.

Cruise ships are also allowed to dump untreated sewage and heavily contaminated grey water. Billions of litres of this wastewater is discharged into the oceans each year.

Industry under scrutiny

There will always be the argument that fuel can be made cleaner, engines more efficient, or older ships replaced with battery and solar-powered vessels. However, even moderate attempts at curbing ship emissions have reportedly been opposed by industry lobbyists.

Meanwhile, the ability to re-flag a vessel to countries with lower environmental standards, access to an abundance of cheap fuel, and the cost of replacing a single ship (upwards of NZ$2.6 billion), all mean the current fleet is probably around for some time.

Read more:
Can the cruise industry really recover from coronavirus?

Environmental impact isn’t the only reason the cruise industry has come under scrutiny in the past. It has been cited for poor labour practices, including low wages and bad conditions, and contributing to over-tourism.

But despite having been responsible for higher rates of disease transmission at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry appears to be bouncing back after reducing vaccination requirements for passengers.

Read more:
Cruise lines promise big payouts, but the tourist money stays at sea

Economic doubts

The common argument, particularly in the case of a port city like Auckland, is that cruise ships bring valuable tourist dollars to a struggling CBD. But past studies of tourist spending behaviour show cruise tourists contribute little to local economies.

Cruise ships typically spend between five and nine hours in a port, giving tourists little time to shop or dine. Rather, they are often whisked away by bus to major tourist destinations. They don’t hire hotel rooms or eat at restaurants.

According to the NZ Cruise Association, 321,590 tourists spent around $368 million nationwide (about $1,144 each) during the last pre-pandemic season from 2018 to 2019. Overall, cruise passengers contributed about 2% of the total $17.5 billion spent that season by international tourists.

Beginning in October, the cruise season will kick into high gear, with ships arriving in Auckland every few days. Given the significant questions around their
environmental and health impacts, and their relatively small contribution to the economy, are lavish welcomes like what we saw earlier this month really justified?

Timothy Welch 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. Cruise ships are coming back to NZ waters – should we really be welcoming them? – https://theconversation.com/cruise-ships-are-coming-back-to-nz-waters-should-we-really-be-welcoming-them-188974

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amelie Katczynski, Research Assistant, Deakin University

Every year in lutruwita/Tasmania, tens of thousands of people journey to and meander through the island state and take in festivals such as Dark Mofo, Cygnet Folk Festival or Nayri Niara Good Spirit Festival.

Part of the pull of this place and its cultural offerings are the landscapes in which such events are placed: picturesque mountain ranges and deep valleys; vast open paddocks and pristine bushlands; glistening coastlines; quirky city spaces.

As human geographers, we understand that festival landscapes are more than a party backdrop. They are not waiting, ready to greet us like some sort of environmental festival host. They have Deep Time and layers of meaning.

But when they become spaces for creative adventures, these landscapes also have profound effects on how people experience festivals, affecting our sense of place, of ourselves and others.

Festivals come with specific boundaries – dates, gates or fences – and mark a period and place in which we experience some shifting of social norms.

In our research, we wanted to explore how festivals affect people’s sense of place, self and other.

As Grace, an avid festival-goer, told us “social expectations that come with adulthood get removed at a festival.”

I don’t know what happens when you walk through the gate of a festival [..] you leave all that behind and you step into what feels like […] a more authentic version of yourself. Or at least a freer one.

Creating spaces

A lot happens to make a festival landscape.

Teams of staff and volunteers establish campsites, install rows of toilets that often are also composting works of art, build stages, lay kilometres of pipes and power chords and design paths, sculptures and dance floors.

These collective labours create a special atmosphere; serve basic needs for sleep, food, hydration, warmth and sanitation; invite journeying to and from; and foster relationships to places and sites via immersive experiences and hands-on engagements with the landscape itself, for itself.

Travis, a stage-builder and DJ, told us:

if you use what’s already there, then [the stage] blends in with that whole environment and ties in to how people see it and how people feel in it.

Marion, a festival artist, spoke of her desire to show care and respect by creating work that “doesn’t impose and can […] naturally be reabsorbed” into the landscape.

She described how all of the rocks for a labyrinth at one event came from the festival site. Once, the sheep who lived there walked through on their usual path – destroying her installation.

Read more:
The environmental cost of abandoning your tent at a music festival

Transformative experiences

When people attend festivals, they often attach themselves to the landscape and detach from their daily lives: they are looking for transformative experiences.

In lutruwita/Tasmania, festivals such as Fractangular near Buckland and PANAMA in the Lone Star Valley take place in more remote parts of the state.

Grace, from Hobart, told us that being in those landscapes taps into

something that humans have done forever […] gather around sound and nature and just experience that and feel freedom.

Even when festivals are based in urban landscapes, the transformation of these spaces can evoke a sense of freedom.

For Ana, a festival organiser, creating thematic costumes is part of her own transformation.

At festivals she feels freedom to “wear ‘more out there’ things”.

If I was on the street just on a Wednesday I’d have to [explain my outfit] […] Whereas at a [street] festival[it] flies under the radar.

Body memories

Festival landscapes have features conducive for meeting in place (think open spaces, play spaces, food and drink venues) and for separating out (think fences and signs).

Commingling at festivals can literally lead people to bump into each other, reaffirm old bonds and create new connections through shared experiences.

One artist, Marion, told us:

When you go and you camp, you get burnt together, you get wet together, you dance together. [It creates] an embrace for me.

Festivals often linger in people’s memories, entwined with bodily experiences. People we spoke with talked about hearing birdsong and music, seeing the sun rise and fall over the hills and feeling grass under their dancing feet.

While one-off events can be meaningful, revisiting festivals may have an especially powerful effect.

Annual festival pilgrimages become cycles of anticipation, immersion and memory-making. This continuing relationship with a landscape also allows festival goers to observe how the environment is changing.

As festival organiser Lisa said:

since 2013 […] every summer our site just got drier and drier. 2020 was the driest year of all. There was no creek. There was just a stagnant puddle.

Writing new stories

The COVID-19 pandemic led organisers and attendees to rethink engagements with live events. Many were cancelled; some were trialled online.

But after seasons of cancellations, downscaling and online events, some festivals in lutruwita/Tasmania are back, attracting thousands of domestic and interstate visitors.

For those festivals that have disappeared, their traces remain in our countless individual and collective stories of the magic of festival landscapes.

Read more:
Without visiting headliners, can local artists save our festivals?

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

– ref. ‘You get burnt together, you get wet together, you dance together’: how festivals transform lives – and landscapes – https://theconversation.com/you-get-burnt-together-you-get-wet-together-you-dance-together-how-festivals-transform-lives-and-landscapes-186558

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Scott-Stevenson, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

Earlier this month, posters started going up around Sydney advertising an event called “In the Ops Room, with Palmer Luckey”. Rather than an album launch or standup gig, this turned out to be a free talk given last week by the chief executive of a high-tech US defence company called Anduril.

The company has set up an Australian arm, and Luckey is in town to entice “brilliant technologists in military engineering” to sign on.

Anduril makes a software system called Lattice, an “autonomous sensemaking and command & control platform” with a strong surveillance focus which is used on the US–Mexico border. The company also produces flying drones and has a deal to produce three robotic submarines for Australia, with capabilities for surveillance, reconnaissance, and warfare.

The PR splash is unusual from the normally secretive world of military technology. But Luckey’s talk opened a window onto the future as seen by a company “transforming US & allied military capabilities with advanced technology”.

From Oculus to Anduril

Unlike most defence tech moguls, Luckey got his start in the world of immersive tech and gaming.

While at college, the Anduril founder had a brief stint at a military-affiliated mixed reality research lab at the University of Southern California, then set up his own virtual reality headset company called Oculus VR. In 2014, at the age of 21, Luckey sold Oculus to Facebook for US$2 billion.

In 2017 Luckey was fired by Facebook for reasons that were never made public. According to some reports, the issue was Luckey’s support for the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Luckey’s next move, with backing from right-wing venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s Founder’s Fund, was to set up Anduril.

Finding new markets

Since Luckey’s departure, Facebook (now known as Meta) has broadened its efforts beyond the virtual and augmented reality market. A forthcoming “mixed reality” headset plays a key role in its plans for a metaverse being pitched to business and industry as well as consumers.

We can see similar pivots from consumers to enterprise across the immersive tech industry. Magic Leap, makers of a much hyped mixed-reality headset, later imploded and re-emerged focusing on healthcare.

Read more:
‘Potential for harm’: Microsoft to make US$22 billion worth of augmented reality headsets for US Army

Microsoft’s mixed-reality headset, the HoloLens, was initially seen at international film festivals. However, the HoloLens 2, released in 2019, was marketed solely to businesses.

Then, in 2021, Microsoft won a ten-year, US$22 billion contract to provide the US Army with 120,000 head-mounted displays. Known as “Integrated Visual Augmentation Systems”, these headsets include a range of technologies such as thermal sensors, a heads-up display and machine learning for training situations.

Fulfilling work?

Speaking to the Sydney audience on Thursday, Luckey framed his own shift to defence not as one of economic necessity, but of personal fulfilment. He described saying “your job is worthless” to new recruits in social media companies making games or augmented reality filters.

That kind of work is fun but ultimately meaningless, he says, whereas working for Anduril would be “professionally fulfilling, spiritually fulfilling, fiscally fulfilling”.

Not all technology workers would agree that defence contracts are spiritually fulfilling. In 2018, Google employees revolted against Project Maven, an AI effort for the Pentagon. Staff at Microsoft and Unity have also expressed consternation over military involvement.

‘Billions of robots’

The first audience question on Thursday asked Luckey about the risks of autonomous AI – weapons run by software that can make its own decisions.

Luckey said he was worried about the potential of autonomy to do “really spooky things”, but much more concerned about “very evil people using very basic AI”. He suggested there was no moral high ground in refusing to work on autonomous weapons, as the alternative was “less principled people” working on them.

Luckey did say Anduril will always have a “human in the loop”: “[The software] is not making any life or death decisions without a person who’s directly responsible for that happening.”

This may be current policy, but it seems at odds with Luckey’s vision of the future of war. Earlier in the evening, he painted a picture:

You’re going to see much larger numbers of systems [in conflicts] … you can’t have, let’s say, billions of robots that are all acting together, if they all have to be individually piloted directly by a person, it’s just not going to work, so autonomy is going to be critical for that.

Read more:
UN fails to agree on ‘killer robot’ ban as nations pour billions into autonomous weapons research

Not everyone is as sanguine about the autonomous weapons arms race as Luckey. Thousands of scientists have pledged not to develop lethal autonomous weapons.

Australian AI expert Toby Walsh, among others, has made the case that “the best time to ban such weapons is before they’re available”.

Choose your future

My own research has explored the potential of immersive media technologies to help us imagine pathways to a future we want to live in.

Luckey seems to argue he wants the same: a use for these incredible technologies beyond augmented reality cat filters and “worthless” games. Unfortunately his vision of that future is in the zero-sum framing of an arms race, with surveillance and AI weapons at the core (and perhaps even “billions of robots acting together”).

During Luckey’s talk, he mentioned that Anduril Australia is working on other projects beyond the robotic subs, but he couldn’t share what these were.

Read more:
Australia’s pursuit of ‘killer robots’ could put the trans-Tasman alliance with New Zealand on shaky ground

Julia Scott-Stevenson 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. Virtual reality, autonomous weapons and the future of war: military tech startup Anduril comes to Australia – https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-autonomous-weapons-and-the-future-of-war-military-tech-startup-anduril-comes-to-australia-188983

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Lesh, Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, Deakin University

It was hard to keep up with all the bad news coming out of the recent Australia State of the Environment report. The dire state of natural places and First Nations heritage rightly attracted attention. However, one important finding was overlooked: the poor state of Australia’s so-called historic heritage

The report found this heritage is at risk on many fronts. It’s under pressure from land development, resource extraction, poorly managed tourism, climate change and inadequate management and protections.

In a familiar framing, the report points the finger at urban development and other changes. However, this mindset itself is actually an obstacle to protecting our urban heritage.

Change in our cities, and to our heritage, is both inevitable and necessary. Our relationships to neighbourhoods and places constantly evolve, as we learnt during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Policy ideas framed by sustainability, such as adaptive management that encourages heritage places to change and evolve, are more sensible. Flexible and creative responses to heritage places should be allowed.

An example of embracing change is the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct in Sydney. The project has reimagined maritime heritage for culture and the arts.

Adopting new perspectives won’t only preserve our historic buildings and places by enabling us to shape them for today’s needs. It will also mean urban heritage can contribute to cities becoming more socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.

Read more:
Sustainable re-use and recycling work for heritage buildings and places too

A problem of definitions

The historic heritage that the report finds is deteriorating refers to places, buildings and structures dating from 1788 onwards. But the very idea of “historic heritage” is out-of-date.

The term originally contrasted colonial built heritage with so-called “pre-history”. Indigenous heritage was generally seen as being in the past rather than continuing into the present or having a future.

A more precise term, “cultural heritage”, embraces the diverse historical and societal values that shape cities and historic environments. It better recognises that our urban cultural heritage is a product of colonisation and dispossession and located on Indigenous Country.

On the ground, we see a few examples of more progressive activities. The deeply researched City of Melbourne Hoddle Grid Review embraced Indigenous perspectives, social values and modern buildings. But this is an unusual case of innovation.

Read more:
Why heritage protection is about how people use places, not just their architecture and history

A problem of knowledge

For heritage to contribute more to social sustainability, by ensuring places reflect and strengthen diverse communities, we need more robust knowledge about existing protections.

We simply lack that data. Australia has no heritage reporting mechanisms across national, state and local heritage jurisdictions.

As a result, the State of the Environment report was unable to provide a fuller picture of the state of urban heritage: what is protected, why and how it is protected, nor its values and condition. The report was not funded for this kind of comprehensive data collection, nor for widespread site visits.

We cannot identify which Australian communities and histories – whether First Nations, colonial or multicultural stories – are represented within heritage lists. The five-year report identifies only six targeted projects exploring gaps in state heritage registers. Only one of these studies foregrounds social value.

Centralising community perspectives in heritage remains a challenge. For example, when the City of Ballarat collaborated with residents to identify places of importance, the insights could not be translated into protections because planning laws don’t adequately recognise community heritage expertise. Work needs to be done to integrate heritage management and social sustainability.

Read more:
How can we meaningfully recognise cities as Indigenous places?

A problem of adaptation

Expanding the scope of urban heritage enables new perspectives on how it can contribute to economic and environmental sustainability. Economic development can threaten heritage, but also rescue it from decay. Leading heritage projects treat existing physical and social spaces as significant but underutilised resources.

The regeneration of Sydney’s Kings Cross, for example, seeks to return glitz and glamour to the area, albeit minus its gritty and subversive character. Heritage and communities are both enhanced and diminished through development and investment.

The report rightly identifies climate change as a threat to heritage places. Yet, across jurisdictions, inadequate emphasis is placed on heritage as a driver of climate adaptation. Reworking existing environments, buildings and structures, whether or not they are heritage-listed, is a sustainability trend.

Indeed, the report encourages the retention of existing buildings for their embodied energy due to the resources that have gone into constructing and maintaining them. But it maintains the premise that development tends to undermines conservation.

This longstanding mindset stands in the way of widespread adaptive reuse.
Adopting broader perspectives and new approaches empowers heritage for sustainability agendas.

Although not heritage-listed, Broadmeadows Town Hall (1964) in Melbourne has been conserved and transformed in a sophisticated and functional way.
At Melbourne’s Southbank, the listed Robur Tea House may soon finally be revitalised. Reworking the 1880s industrial building with a skyscraper above may well be the best way forward.

Read more:
We can’t afford to just build greener. We must build less

What’s stopping us from doing better?

With clear parallels to today, the Inquiry into the National Estate reported in 1974 that Australia’s heritage had been “downgraded, disregarded, and neglected”. The Commonwealth government took dramatic action by establishing the independent and innovative Australian Heritage Commission (1975–2004).

In recent times, however, the Commonwealth has greatly reduced its involvement in conserving urban heritage. Every state and local government now has its own approaches, resulting in fragmented governance arrangements. The lack of national leadership, co-ordination and innovation has led to us falling behind international approaches.

Urban heritage can strengthen communities and help foster an inclusive and democratic society only by engaging with a diversity of places and stories. Widespread adaptation and reuse of both listed and non-listed heritage places can support economic and environmental sustainability.

New and radical perspectives are needed to keep heritage relevant and thriving in cities.

James Lesh’s book Values in Cities: Urban Heritage in Twentieth-Century Australia will be launched at the Robin Boyd Foundation in Melbourne on August 24 2022.

James Lesh has received external research funding from government. He is a member of the Victorian National Trust’s Heritage Advocacy Committee.

– ref. Frozen in time, we’ve become blind to ways to build sustainability into our urban heritage – https://theconversation.com/frozen-in-time-weve-become-blind-to-ways-to-build-sustainability-into-our-urban-heritage-187284

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Waling, ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow in Sex & Sexuality, La Trobe University

How to Build a Sex Room on Netflix follows interior designer Melanie Rose as she uncovers her clients’ sex lives and designs personalised sex rooms based on their desires and needs.

The show focuses on regular people from the suburbs looking to explore their sex lives and the clients include single people, queer and straight couples, and a polyamorous family of seven. It combines the popular reality television genre of home improvement with an exploration of kink culture and a splash of sex education. Think The Block meets Secretary.

In each episode, host Melanie Rose will meet a couple, find out about their sex-lives, introduce them to various aspects of kink and sex education depending on their needs, and then design them a sex room. This ranges from couples already experienced in kink culture who are looking to broaden and deepen their experimentation, to couples who need to revitalise their sex lives or reconnect physically, and are looking for a space to do so. While there is frank discussion and even demonstration of tools and techniques, the show remains relatively inoffensive in terms of what they depict on the screen.

While the show has been praised for bringing kink practices into mainstream TV, kink has a long history across cultures. Historical interpretations vary, but elements of kink can be identified in the worshipping of the goddess Inanna all the way back in ancient Mesopotamia.

Kink is connected to and different from BDSM (bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and/or sadism/masochism). Many will be familiar with the writings of the Marquis de Sade in the 18th century, who inspired the coining of the word sadism. Modern kink and BDSM have origins in LGBTQ+ communities including 1960s-1970s leather cultures. Leather cultures were a way in which queer people could push back against social norms and build safe, underground communities to explore sexuality.

In general terms, kink refers to sexual practices that are different from current sociocultural norms. This may involve consensual negotiations of power that characterise BDSM and other activities, such as threesomes, orgies, fetish play and Shibari rope play.

Kink in pop culture

Kink, BDSM and sex positivity have infiltrated mainstream pop and social media cultures. Films such as 9½ Weeks (1986) and Basic Instinct (1992) feature bondage, impact play, and dominance and submission dynamics, while television series such as Sex and the City and Bonding have dealt with the complexity of sex, kink and relationships.

Kinksters and BDSM practitioners can connect on social media platforms like Fetlife (the Fetish version of Facebook), and there are plenty of sex-specific meet-up apps such as Feeld among others.

The book and later film series 50 Shades of Grey featuring sado-masochism were global top-sellers. Pop music icons like Rihanna and Justin Timberlake have had best-selling hits featuring lyrics about kink. BDSM gear like leather harnesses are now high fashion, and sex toys such as floggers and paddles have their own section at most online and bricks and mortar sex shops.

Destigmatising sex and desire

The incorporation of kink and sex positivity into shows like How to Build a Sex Room is important for destigmatising diverse sexual practices and desires. It reminds us that sex does not have to be about reproduction and heterosexual marriage. It can and does occur in a variety of romantic and sexual relationships, including queer and polyamorous relationships.

The show tells important stories about sex as forms of play, fun, exploration and intimate connection. It is not surprising that the series has attracted significant social media attention and positive responses from viewers, particularly for its diverse cast across age, gender, race, and sexuality.

Reality TV gets an erotic makeover

However, this diversity does not extend to economic circumstances: all clients in How to Build a Sex Room appear to be working professionals and homeowners. One episode features a camper van renovation for a same-sex couple, but most episodes involve renovating a room in a spacious suburban home, raising questions about who can afford to create a dedicated sex space.

The show sidesteps questions of class and home ownership. Instead, it implies that all you need to spice up your sex life is a luxurious, custom-built play space complete with expensive soft furnishings, an array of (often expensive) sex toys, a tantric chair or sex swing, and a St Andrews cross.

At play here (pun intended) is a consumerist model of relationship transformation that relies on access to financial resources and social capital. As a spin on the home renovation-makeover genre, the show stages a rapid intervention designed to improve people’s sex lives, and enhance their intimate relationships, but these interventions are carefully staged and limited in scope.

Read more:
Friday essay: how the moral panic over ‘sexual sadists’ silenced their victims

Vanilla kink

While How to Build a Sex Room has been credited with demystifying kink and normalising diverse sexual desires, the show produces kink through a specific lens that does not reflect the wider range of kink practices, desires and settings. The mainstreaming of kink runs the risk of normalising some kink practices while re-stigmatising or simply overlooking others.

For example, the show’s emphasis on creating private play-spaces overlooks the importance of kink community and public play. Many kink communities run public play events to share important skills and educate on safe kink practices. Private play-spaces also confine intimacy to affluent, private homes.

Despite featuring diverse sexual practices, How to Build a Sex Room paints a fairly vanilla picture of sex as a private act between people in long-term relationships, living in wealthy homes with a glamorous space decked out exclusively for sex – a far cry from the everyday realities of sex.

Nevertheless, shows like this are good ways to introduce mainstream audiences to the world of kink. A world that can be exciting, pleasurable and sexy.

Andrea Waling receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Commonwealth Department of Health

Jacinthe Flore receives funding from the Australian Research Council and RMIT University.

Kiran Pienaar receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Deakin University.

– ref. Like Grand Designs but naughty: Netflix’s How To Build A Sex Room brings kink and sex positivity into the mainstream – https://theconversation.com/like-grand-designs-but-naughty-netflixs-how-to-build-a-sex-room-brings-kink-and-sex-positivity-into-the-mainstream-188578

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

Around 4.5 million Australians live with disability but less than 13% of them are covered by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Getting into the scheme is one thing. But many NDIS participants find using their funding is yet another.

Our research indicates a major issue in terms of the fairness of the scheme is less in the allocation of funding but more about whether people are able to spend their funding.

Some groups – particularly people living in regional or remote areas or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – are less able to use their budgets. But there are ways to make the NDIS more equitable.

Read more:
NDIS fraud reports reveal the scheme’s weakest points

Using an NDIS plan

When accepted onto the NDIS, participants develop a plan that sets out the goals they want to work towards, and the supports needed to achieve them. This comes with an associated budget to spend on different supports.

Most plans last around 12 months before they are reviewed, but they can last as long as three years in some cases.

If the funding associated with a plan is not all spent, the funds don’t roll over into the next plan and are returned to the scheme.

At a subsequent review there will be discussion about why the funds weren’t used. If a person consistently doesn’t use all their funds, they might find future budgets are reduced.

Given the widely reported cuts to NDIS plans, some participants are concerned under-spending might lead to future plan cuts.

Why people don’t spend their allocation

There are a range of reasons why people don’t manage to use all their budget allocation.

The NDIS is complex to navigate, and people may not fully understand their plan or the system. There might not be the providers available to meet a person’s needs or it might be difficult to find and secure appropriate providers. Similar schemes overseas show people are unlikely to use their entire budgets – they might hold some portion back “for a rainy day” or their needs might change or not eventuate as anticipated.

The previous federal government argued the NDIS was inequitable, suggesting those in richer areas were receiving larger budgets than those in poorer areas.

It proposed to reform the scheme by introducing Independent Assessments, which it argued would produce fairer plan amounts by assessing each participant using the same suite of functional assessment tools. But this proposed reform was dropped after backlash from the disability community who believed the tools would not produce the intended effects and that this might be an attempt to cut scheme costs.

Read more:
What the NDIS needs to do to rebuild trust, in the words of the people who use it

Tracking under-use

One way to measure the under-use of NDIS funding is to explore the utilisation rate. This refers to a comparison of the dollar value of individual budgets against the overall amount expended on supports.

Latest NDIS data shows the national average utilisation rate is 75%.

This measure is only an average, and there are many participants with very low utilisation – 32% of participants spend less than 50% of their budgets. People in some areas spend less than others. For example, East Arnhem in the Northern Territory has an average utilisation rate of 47%.

We also see variation in utilisation within budgets. NDIS plans contain three different categories of funding: core supports for everyday activities, capacity building supports to help build independence and skills, and capital supports to purchase equipment and home or vehicle modifications.

While the national average utilisation rate for core supports is 81%, capacity building stands at 59% and capital at 56%. Many people have reported challenges in getting home modifications and high-cost equipment approved even when these are in their plans.

Read more:
People with intellectual disability can be parents and caregivers too – but the NDIS doesn’t support them

Some groups use more than others

As part of ongoing research, we compared groups of NDIS participants to better understand differences in plan allocation and spending. We focused on groups more likely to face inequity in utilisation and where wider social inequities are present.

We looked at plan size and spending separately. We did this because an increase in utilisation could occur if plans are reduced but spending remains the same.

We compared plan size and spending for participants from culturally and linguistic diverse backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and according to where people live. We considered factors such as age to ensure comparisons were “like with like”.

We found participants from culturally and linguistic diverse backgrounds backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people received larger plans than other NDIS participants. But they spent a similar amount, despite having bigger budgets. This resulted in lower levels of utilisation.

Inequities also vary by disability group. We found spending and utilisation was low across the board for people with psychosocial disability (such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and social anxiety disorders).

In a study of Victorian NDIS data, we found participants living in regional and remote areas receive less funding. They also spend less of their allocated funding compared to people who live in large urban centres. Some of this may be due to challenges of “thin markets”, where insufficient providers are available in an area.

Read more:
Indigenous people with disabilities face racism and ableism. What’s needed is action not another report

What can be done?

One of the election commitments of the Labor government was to increase the number of providers in regional areas. This would address “thin markets” – where there is a gap between participant needs and their use of funded supports. But it should be done in a meaningful way so providers and services are appropriate to their local communities.

Another way to help participants access services is to increase use of NDIS support coordinators. These workers who are funded via the person’s plan can help participants connect with NDIS providers and understand the scheme. This can act as an additional source of help to be able to find suitable providers and to be able to use their plans in buying services.

Our modelling shows increasing the use of support coordinators could increase plan utilisation and reduce inequities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, culturally and linguistically diverse participants, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds and those with psychosocial disabilities.

Helen Dickinson receives funding from Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, Commonwealth government, CYDA and WISE.

George Disney has received funding for commissioned research from the Department of Social Services and the Victorian Department of Families Fairness and Housing.

– ref. ‘Use it or lose it’ – getting NDIS funding is only half the battle for participants – https://theconversation.com/use-it-or-lose-it-getting-ndis-funding-is-only-half-the-battle-for-participants-188530

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernard Walker, Associate Professor in Organisations and Leadership, University of Canterbury

Last week saw an historic moment as New Zealand’s professional firefighters went on strike, calling for better pay, more staff and increased investment in the fire service. But will industrial action spur the deeper systemic change in New Zealand’s fire service critics call for?

The strike is part of an employment dispute. Strikes can only usually happen within a short time frame, when the collective employment agreement is expiring and the two sides are negotiating a new agreement. The firefighters and Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) reached an impasse in their negotiations, leading to this action.

Traditionally, employment disputes are often called “pay negotiations”, focusing narrowly around remuneration and benefits. But a defining aspect in this current case is the breadth of issues involved, and the far-reaching consequences. The firefighters have described shortfalls across a wide range of areas in their working environment.

Crucially, they have raised questions about whether the country’s fire service can adequately protect the lives and property of everyday New Zealanders. The scope of these issues makes this industrial action relatively unique – and raises the question of whether employment negotiations are the best place to address significant concerns about how a core emergency service functions.

More than pay

For months, firefighters have been highlighting how their vehicles and equipment are often well past their replacement date. Official reports confirm these issues, and firefighters say equipment breakdowns are affecting their ability to deal with emergencies.

The striking workers have also described dangerous over-work situations and burnout, with excessive hours and serious staff shortages. The union representing firefighters has said that at times there are not sufficient staff to operate trucks, leaving some neighbourhoods without a fire crew.

Read more:
The aching red: Firefighters often silently suffer from trauma and job-related stress

Firefighters’ jobs have also changed radically, seeing them often become medical first responders. This expanded and intensified role involves new skill levels and heightened job demands. And working with trauma brings mental health risks that require high levels of wellbeing support for staff.

Firefighters believe those aspects have not been adequately addressed by FENZ, leaving the service lagging behind other comparable agencies such as the police – so much so that their mental and physical health is compromised.

Firefighters are a strongly unionised group. But unlike other organisations, they have not tested cases in the Employment Relations Authority or Employment Court to spell out exactly what makes a safe workplace and safe work practices.

Strikers or whistle blowers?

The strike action therefore draws attention to major concerns about the capability and reliability of a core emergency service.

It could be argued that the firefighters are, in fact, whistle blowers, alerting the public to serious issues affecting the safety and wellbeing of the wider community.

That raises the question of how these matters should be addressed and resolved. Given the issues are so significant and wide ranging, can collective bargaining legally or practically extend to cover this situation?

Normally, serious whistle-blowing claims would shift the focus away from the worker-management relationship and put the spotlight on the organisation’s overall governance.

Read more:
A high-adrenaline job: 5 questions answered about fighting wildfires

Raising governance issues in the context of collective bargaining creates an intriguing precedent. It is part of a wider pattern, with nurses also raising national safety issues in their negotiations.

But the firefighters’ strike introduces an additional complexity. While health funding is directly controlled by government, FENZ is mostly funded from insurance levies. This limits the government’s ability to get involved.

Within the boundaries of NZ law

In terms of what the law permits, the collective bargaining provisions of the Employment Relations Act could be widely interpreted. According to the act, “a collective agreement may contain such provisions as the parties to the agreement mutually agree on”.

Arguably, collective agreements could extend to cover a very broad range of aspects of a working environment, perhaps even the concerns raised in the current firefighters’ negotiations with FENZ.

That, however, is dependent on both parties achieving consensus about the issues. That has not featured in the firefighters’ negotiations, which have already extended over 14 months. And despite mediation assistance, it seems the parties are still miles apart.

A more likely scenario is that the authority will agree to intervene, based on the protracted nature of negotiations or the the danger to “the life, safety, or health of persons”, as outlined by the Act.

The Authority could provide facilitation assistance similar to mediation, but with the option of making recommendations about the process for reaching agreement and/or outlining the actual terms of the employment agreement.

In that scenario, the main question would be whether the Authority will accept the set of issues as part of an employment agreement, or whether it will recommend an independent investigation of the wider assertions.

Ultimately, this will become a test of how a major challenge regarding the adequacy of fire and emergency services is handled.

Those issues have been raised in an employment forum, but a key question will be whether employment negotiations can or should be able to deal with such wide ranging issues – especially when they are so vital to the safety of the community.

Bernard Walker 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. Striking firefighters are calling for systemic change, but are their demands too hot to handle for NZ employment law? – https://theconversation.com/striking-firefighters-are-calling-for-systemic-change-but-are-their-demands-too-hot-to-handle-for-nz-employment-law-189040

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Toole, Associate Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute

Until recently, polio had only been detected in a handful of countries, thanks to global eradication efforts.

But this year’s polio alerts in the United States, United Kingdom and Israel are a reminder that as long as poliovirus is found anywhere, it is a potential problem everywhere.

That could include Australia.

Here’s what the latest polio cases mean for Australia – including under-vaccinated communities and people travelling internationally.

The US case

In July this year, a young man in Rockland County, New York, developed paralysis and was diagnosed with polio, the first US case since 2013.

He had never been vaccinated against polio, which is not uncommon among Orthodox Jewish people in some countries. Rockland County has the highest percentage of Orthodox Jewish people in the US. Currently, only about 60% of children in the county are vaccinated against polio, compared with more than 90% nationally.

As of August 12, poliovirus was still being detected in sewage in New York City and other counties in New York State, indicating the virus is still circulating in the community.

The reason there have been no further cases of paralysis reflects the fact that only around one in 200 people infected by the virus develops paralysis.

Read more:
Polio in New York – an infectious disease doctor explains this exceedingly rare occurrence

A child in Israel

One indirect link to the New York man may be in Jerusalem where, in March 2022, poliovirus was found in sewage and one case of paralysis occurred in an unvaccinated child.

Vaccination rates among Ultra-Orthodox Jewish people in Israel have been historically low, including low uptake of COVID vaccines.

UK ramps up vaccination

In June this year, the UK government reported wastewater surveillance in north and east London between February and May had identified poliovirus on consecutive occasions.

This indicated a provisional “silent” outbreak and prompted health officials to instigate catch-up vaccination campaigns. No cases of paralysis have been reported.

This is reminiscent of an earlier “silent” outbreak of polio in 2013-2014 when, after decades without a case, Israel detected poliovirus in wastewater samples in many areas, mainly in southern regions.

Stool surveys indicated the outbreak was restricted mainly to children under the age of ten in the Bedouin population of southern Israel. The virus originated in Pakistan and arrived in Israel via Cairo and then, probably, through Bedouin communities in Egypt and Israel.

Read more:
Polio vaccine boosters offered to London children – an expert explains what’s going on

Hang on, hasn’t polio been eradicated?

It’s tempting to think polio has been eradicated.

The last case of locally acquired polio in Australia was in 1972. Australia was declared polio-free on October 29, 2000, along with the other 36 countries in the Western Pacific Region of the World Health Organization. The last case reported in Australia was in 2007, when a student contracted the infection in Pakistan.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988, successfully eliminated wild poliovirus from all but two countries – Pakistan and Afghanistan – where in recent years there have been very few cases.

In Afghanistan, there were four cases last year and one so far this year. In Pakistan, there was one case in 2021 and 14 so far this year.

Read more:
Polio: we’re developing a safer vaccine that uses no genetic material from the virus

The recent cases and wastewater detected polioviruses in the UK, US and Israel are not the wild variety. Instead, they are derived from the oral polio vaccine.

When a child receives a dose of the oral vaccine, they excrete the virus in the stool for several weeks. In very rare cases, the vaccine-derived virus mutates to a form that causes paralysis. This form is called a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV). This occurs only in populations where polio vaccine coverage is low.

Just recently, cVDPV was reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique and Yemen, as well as in wastewater in five other countries.

Australia, like all high-income countries, does not use the oral polio vaccine. Instead, children receive injectable inactivated polio vaccine, which prevents paralysis but does not prevent transmission of the virus.

This is why so-called silent outbreaks can occur in countries that use the injectable vaccine. This is when the virus spreads from child to child but does not cause paralysis.

What are the implications for Australia?

Given Australia’s open international borders, there is no reason why someone who has recently received the oral polio vaccine wouldn’t enter the country and excrete the virus.

In Australia, at the age of five, about 95% of children are fully vaccinated against polio.

However, there are places with lower vaccine coverage, such as Byron Shire in northern New South Wales, with lower rates of childhood vaccination, including against polio.

This vaccine-hesitant community is vulnerable to the introduction of polio and has had cases of diphtheria, whooping cough, measles and tetanus in recent years.

Unlike some other Orthodox Jewish communities overseas, there is no evidence this community in Australia is more vaccine hesitant than other Australians.

How do we look out for cases?

For years, wastewater monitoring has been routinely implemented in many countries. This acts as an early warning system to identify and rapidly mitigate the spread of many pathogens, including poliovirus, hepatitis viruses and, recently, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID).

At wastewater treatment facilities, sewage from an entire region is combined. This allows scientists to detect pathogens at the population level and before anyone presents with symptoms.

In December 2017, Victoria’s environmental testing program detected a rare type of poliovirus in pre-treated sewage from the Western Treatment Plant in Melbourne.

No cases of paralytic polio were detected but all Victorians up to the age of 19 were offered three doses of vaccine, free of charge, as part of catch-up arrangements.

Australia’s poliovirus infection outbreak response plan focuses on clinical surveillance (where health workers report suspected cases to health authorities) and laboratory investigations of people who present with acute paralysis.

While the plan refers to examples of wastewater surveillance overseas, it does not propose a specific strategy in Australia.

Other than Victoria, it is not clear where wastewater polio surveillance is being conducted in Australia.

Read more:
Sewage surveillance is the next frontier in the fight against polio

What happens next?

Australia is just as vulnerable to importations of poliovirus – both wild and vaccine-derived – as any other country.

Australia should ensure routine wastewater surveillance for poliovirus is conducted, at least in metropolitan areas.

Community-based vaccination campaigns should be sensitively conducted in vaccine-hesitant communities, such as in Byron Shire, to achieve high coverage.

Education should also be provided through GPs to parents planning to travel to Jerusalem, New York City and Rockland County. They should ensure all travelling family members are fully vaccinated against polio. Visitors to Israel may be able to access a dose of oral polio vaccine in that country for their children (which will prevent them being infected) but this is not available in the US.

Poliovirus enters the body through the mouth, usually from hands contaminated with the stool of an infected person. So parents should also pay special attention to their children’s hand hygiene, particularly if travelling overseas to any of the locations mentioned.

Michael Toole receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research council.

– ref. The latest polio cases have put the world on alert. Here’s what this means for Australia and people travelling overseas – https://theconversation.com/the-latest-polio-cases-have-put-the-world-on-alert-heres-what-this-means-for-australia-and-people-travelling-overseas-188989

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Oloruntoba, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management, Curtin University

China’s sabre-rattling around Taiwan underlines the need for Australia to be prepared for conflict in the South China Sea.

With its growing navy and air force, and the bases it has built throughout the area, China is increasingly capable of disrupting shipping lanes crucial to Australia’s exports and imports.

Of particular concern is our reliance on liquid fuels imported via South China Sea shipping routes. This reliance has become more pronounced over the past few decades as all but two local refineries have closed. So even while we export crude oil, we import about 90% of refined fuels.

Our research team was commissioned by the Department of Defence to analyse threats to Australia’s maritime supply chains throughout the Indo-Pacific region (the South China Sea and East China Sea).

We calculate a major conflict would threaten routes supplying 90% of refined fuel imports, coming from South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei and Vietnam.

Even if the routes between these countries and Australia do not pass through the South China Sea, most of the crude oil these countries import to produce that refined fuel does.

Read more:
Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?

Previous analyses of vulnerability

Our analysis is the first commissioned by the Department of Defence on the specific threat of prolonged maritime supply chain disruptions due to conflict in the South China and East China seas.

It builds on broader analyses of supply-chain vulnerabilities, such as the Department of Energy and the Environment’s 2019 interim Liquid Fuel Security Review and the Productivity Commission’s 2021 report spurred by import shortages arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2019 liquid fuel security review determined Australia imports the equivalent of 90% of its refined fuel needs.

In 2018 just five Asian nations supplied 87% of fuel imports: South Korea (27%), Singapore (26%), Japan (15%) and Malaysia (10%) and Taiwan (9%). The balance came from India (6%), the Middle East (1%) and the rest of the world including Vietnam and Philippines (6%).

Shipping route vulnerabilities

Our analysis involved examining GPS traffic data for tanker and cargo ships throughout the South China Sea and East China Sea region.

It’s not just shipping routes between source countries and Australia that matter. It is where these countries import the crude oil they refine into petrol, diesel, jet fuel, marine fuel and kerosene.

More than 80% of crude oil imports for Singapore, South Korea and Japan come from the Middle East – passing through the narrow Malacca Strait that separates the Malay Peninsula from the Indonesian island of Borneo.

So while export routes from Japan and Korea to Australia can avoid the South China Sea, their import routes can’t.

Any prolonged closure of the South China Sea will force tankers to take alternative routes. With longer routes will come higher freight costs and tanker shortages. Flow-on effects to Australia are inevitable.

Planning and preparedness

As the 2019 liquid fuel security review noted, Australia is a global outlier in its approach to liquid fuel security. Comparable economies manage fuel security as part of their strategic capability.

Australia, by comparison, has chosen to apply minimal regulation or government intervention in pursuit of an efficient market that delivers fuel to Australians as cheaply as possible.

Until now, Australia’s strategic planning for conflict in the South China Sea has largely focused on military requirements. .

With China’s increasing military capability and belligerence, there is no longer room to be complacent about Australia’s lack of energy security.

A 2019 workshop of engineering experts convened for the Department of Defence determined Australia would run out of liquid fuels within two months of a major prolonged import disruption.

This would have cascading effect on all sectors of the economy – crippling transport, harming food security and emergency services. Among other things, the experts warned a lack of diesel for back-up generators in hospitals and other buildings could be catastrophic in the event of a large-scale electricity outage.

Read more:
Why China’s challenges to Australian ships in the South and East China Seas are likely to continue

There are five main options to reduce our vulnerability: diversify import sources; increase local refining capability; reduce dependence on fossil fuels; increase strategic reserves; and educate and prepare the population for possible shortages.

All will require government departments planning together with various industry sectors, including fuel retailers, refineries and import terminals, manufacturing, freight transport, maritime, defence, communities and other relevant stakeholders.

This article is based on the findings from Project Grant 202021-0239, Strategic Policy Grants Program 2021, Australian Department of Defence, Canberra.

Booi Kam together with research collaborators received a 2021 Strategic Policy Defence Grant from the Department of Defence.

This article is based on the findings from Project Grant 202021-0239, Strategic Policy Grants Program 2021, Australian Department of Defence.

This article is based on the findings from Project Grant 202021-0239, Strategic Policy Grants Program 2021, Australian Department of Defence.

Prem Chhetri receives funding from Department of Defence.

Vinh Thai together with research collaborators received a 2021 Strategic Policy Defence Grant from the Defence.

– ref. Conflict in the South China Sea threatens 90% of Australia’s fuel imports: study – https://theconversation.com/conflict-in-the-south-china-sea-threatens-90-of-australias-fuel-imports-study-188148

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sian Troath, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Canterbury

Australia’s recently announced defence review, intended to be the most thorough in almost four decades, will give us a good idea of how Australia sees its role in an increasingly tense strategic environment.

As New Zealand’s only formal military ally, Australia’s defence choices will have significant implications, both for New Zealand and regional geopolitics.

There are several areas of contention in the trans-Tasman relationship. One is Australia’s pursuit of nuclear-powered submarines, which clashes with New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance. Another lies in the two countries’ diverging approaches to autonomous weapons systems (AWS), colloquially known as “killer robots”.

In general, AWS are considered to be “weapons systems that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further human intervention”. There is, however, no internationally agreed definition.

New Zealand is involved with international attempts to ban and regulate AWS. It seeks a ban on systems that “are not sufficiently predictable or controllable to meet legal or ethical requirements” and advocates for “rules or limits to govern the development and use of AWS”.

If this seems vague to you, it should. This ambiguity in definition makes it difficult to determine which systems New Zealand seeks to ban or regulate.

Australia’s prioritisation of AWS

Australia, meanwhile, has been developing what it more commonly refers to as robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) with gusto. Since 2016, Australia has identified RAS as a priority area of development and substantially increased funding.

Read more:
New Zealand could take a global lead in controlling the development of ‘killer robots’ — so why isn’t it?

The Australian navy, army and defence force (ADF) have each released concept documents since 2018, discussing RAS and their associated benefits, risks, challenges and opportunities.

Key systems Australia is pursuing include the autonomous aircraft Ghost Bat, three different kinds of extra-large underwater autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks.

Why is Australia seeking to develop these technologies?

The short answer is three-fold: seeking military advantage, saving lives and economics.

Australia and its allies and partners, particularly the US, are fearful of losing the technological superiority they have long held over rivals such as China.

Large military capabilities, like nuclear-powered submarines, take both time and money to acquire. Australia is further limited in what it can do by the size of its defence force. RAS are seen as a way to potentially maintain advantage, and to do more with less.

RAS are also seen as a way to save lives. A survey of Australian military personnel found they considered reduction of harm and injury to defence personnel, allied personnel and civilians among the most important potential benefits of RAS.

Read more:
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The Australian Defence Force also believes RAS will be cheaper than large platforms. Inflation means money already committed to defence has less purchasing power. RAS present an opportunity to achieve the same outcomes at a lower cost.

Meanwhile, in 2018, the Australian government outlined its intention to become a top-ten defence exporter. There are keen hopes the Ghost Bat will become a successful defence export.

At the same time, the government is keen to build closer ties between defence, industry and academia. Industry and academia both vie for defence funding, and this drives development of RAS.

Of course, the technology is new. It’s not guaranteed RAS will save lives, save money or achieve military advantage. The extent to which RAS will be used, and what they will be used for, is not foreseeable. It is in this uncertainty that New Zealand must make judgments about AWS and alliance management.

What this means for the trans-Tasman relationship

The nuclear-powered submarines captured attention when Australia’s new AUKUS partnership with the US and UK was announced, but its primary purpose is a much broader partnership that shares defence technology, including RAS.

The most recent statement from the AUKUS working groups says they “will seek opportunities to engage allies and close partners”. Last week, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman made it clear New Zealand was one such partner.

Australia’s focus on RAS, particularly in the context of AUKUS, may soon bring alliance questions to the fore. Strategic studies expert Robert Ayson has argued AUKUS, combined with increased strategic tension, means that “year by year New Zealand’s alliance commitment to the defence of Australia will carry bigger implications”. AWS will play a role in these implications.

Read more:
Nukes, allies, weapons and cost: 4 big questions NZ’s defence review must address

AWS may seem an insignificant trans-Tasman difference compared to the use of nuclear technologies. But AWS come with a lot more uncertainty and fuzziness than, say, banning nuclear-powered submarines in New Zealand waters. This fuzziness creates ample room for misperceptions and poor communication.

Trust in alliance relationships is easily damaged, and difficult to manage. Clear communication and ensuring a good understanding of each other’s positions is essential. The ambiguity of AWS makes these things difficult.

New Zealand and Australia may need to clarify their respective positions before Australia’s defence review is released next March. Otherwise, they run the risk of fuelling misunderstandings at a delicate moment for trans-Tasman relations.

Sian Troath receives funding from The Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.

– ref. Australia’s pursuit of ‘killer robots’ could put the trans-Tasman alliance with New Zealand on shaky ground – https://theconversation.com/australias-pursuit-of-killer-robots-could-put-the-trans-tasman-alliance-with-new-zealand-on-shaky-ground-188520

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Grattan Institute

From sports rorts to regional slush funds and commuter carparks, it’s been one scandal after another in Australian politics in recent years. But what can we actually do to stop politicians pork-barrelling?

A new Grattan Institute report, released today, shows the problem isn’t confined to one side of politics: both Coalition and Labor governments, at federal and state levels, use government grants for political purposes. But there is a way to stop them from doing it again.

Pork-barrelling is common

Pork-barrelling is the use of public resources to target certain voters for partisan purposes – for example, by spending public money in particular electorates to try to win more votes rather than spending those funds where they are most needed.

Using grants to buy votes is one of the most visible forms of pork-barrelling. Grants processes often allow substantial ministerial discretion with little transparency, making them what one researcher described as “an ideal vehicle for delivering pork”.

The figures show that pork-barrelling has been blatant in many federal and state government grant programs. More grant money is received by seats held by the government of the day and marginal seats receive disproportionately more funding.

Pork-barrelling has been especially shameless in certain grant programs. For example, the federal Community Development Grants program allocated government-held seats more than four times more per seat, on average, than opposition seats. For the NSW Stronger Communities Fund, the figure was almost six times as much.

Yet some politicians defend pork-barrelling

While pork-barrelling isn’t new, there’s been a worrying trend in recent years towards normalising it. Instead of offering apologies and resignations, some politicians have ramped up their excuses and are now openly defending this misuse of public money. Justifications include: “It’s not unique to our government”; “It’s what the elections are for”; and even that pork-barrelling accompanied by giant cheques featuring government MPs’ faces is “a feature of Australian democracy”.

Revelations of large-scale pork-barrelling should prompt ministerial resignations and government reforms to make it harder to do it again. But state and federal ministers don’t often fall on their swords over pork-barrelling these days, despite evidence that 77% of Australians believe they should.

The decision to brazen it out might be driven by short-term political interests, or it might show our politicians don’t understand or respect the rules and norms on spending public money.

Either way, politicians’ behaviour has drawn attention to the ineffectiveness of Australia’s current rules on pork-barrelling.

How to prevent pork-barrelling

Pork-barrelling, by definition, is not in the public interest. It has real costs.

Channelling taxpayer’s money into projects to benefit friends and supporters, or to win votes, means less money for more valuable projects, and less core spending on health, education and other programs that can improve the lives of all Australians and lift the productive capacity of the economy.

Pork-barrelling also undermines trust in governments, promotes a corrupt culture, and risks entrenching power and skewing elections.

So how can we put a stop to the seemingly irresistible temptation to roll out ever more grants? Let’s start with an open, competitive, merit-based process for allocating government grants that establishes clear guardrails around ministerial discretion.

Ministers should be able to establish grant programs and define the selection criteria, but they should not be involved in choosing grant recipients. Shortlisting and selecting grant recipients is an administrative function for the relevant department or agency. Ministers should have bigger fish to fry.

A multi-party standing parliamentary committee should oversee compliance and interrogate any minister or public official who deviates from the rules. And funding for federal and state auditors-general should be increased to enable wider and more frequent auditing of grant programs.

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A strong and well-resourced integrity commission is the last line of defence against pork-barrelling. Better processes and oversight should significantly reduce the opportunities and incentives for governments to engage in pork-barrelling in the first place.

If pork-barrelling continues, an integrity commission may choose to investigate. A recent report from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption concluded that pork-barrelling “can under certain circumstances involve serious breaches of public trust and conduct that amounts to corrupt conduct”.

It’s time to take the pork off the table. Better processes and oversight of grant funding, alongside the other recommendations in our New Politics series of reports, would lay the foundations for a new way of doing politics in Australia – one that safeguards the public interest from political interests.

The Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

Anika Stobart and Danielle Wood 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. Pork-barrelling is unfair and wasteful. Here’s a plan to end it – https://theconversation.com/pork-barrelling-is-unfair-and-wasteful-heres-a-plan-to-end-it-188898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mittul Vahanvati, Lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

When floods swept the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales earlier this year, scores of people ignored official advice and rescued neighbours and friends from floodwaters using their boats, kayaks and jet skis, while risking their own lives. Now an independent inquiry has recommended communities in high-risk areas receive training and resources to become first responders to a disaster.

The NSW inquiry into the spate of floods in 2022 was released last week. A “community-based first responder training program”, which incorporates Indigenous knowledge, is one of 28 recommendations.

The inquiry recognised that in areas such as Lismore many people – dubbed the “tinnie army” – rescued others when emergency services were overwhelmed by the scale of the floods. In accepting the recommendation, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said while people might not have time to be full-time volunteers, many would want to be trained and contribute though programs like this.

But exactly what’s involved in training community members and relying on them to be first responders when disaster strikes? Will this program help prepare communities and build resilience? Or will it cause more confusion and increase risks?

Communities must already negotiate a complicated landscape of response to and recovery from floods – or fires. While well-meaning, it is unclear whether the benefits of formalising community skills through emergency training program outweigh the risks.

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How would such training benefit communities?

This article draws on our work with regional Australian and urban Pacific communities to reduce disaster risks and build resilience. We have also studied people’s behaviours and communications during emergencies.

Certainly, there are positives associated with this community training program. Research has shown people affected by disaster often become first responders, so the recommendation recognises that reality. People are much more likely to be altruistic in times of crisis (rather than panic and behave in self-serving ways).

Increasing the knowledge and skills of these individuals could help ensure their safety along with the safety of those they assist. There also is a trend in communities that have experienced a number of disasters to self-organise in the face of future disasters. Communities across Australia have come together to develop response plans and procedures, communication strategies and the like.

These communities want to be prepared, especially in case government agencies are unable to respond in time. This desire is a result of having endured experiences where things didn’t go so well.

Other obvious benefits of the program include the ability to draw on community members’ knowledge of local places and people. And when communities can contribute to helping disaster-affected people – whether by assisting with evacuation, managing shelters or providing comfort – that benefits community and individual wellbeing too.

Read more:
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What might the downsides be?

Such a program also has inevitable downsides. Disaster risk reduction and recovery is a joint responsibility of governments and communities. Yet this recommendation seems to place a great deal of responsibility on community alone.

In Australia, national, state and territory governments develop policies on disaster risk management. These are then implemented by local government authorities, state agencies such as Recovery NSW and NSW Reconstruction Authority, voluntary organisations such as Red Cross, specialist organisations, as well as community-based working groups such as the communities of North-East and North-West Queensland. Communities would have to respond to disasters within this structure, with support from such agencies and organisations.

Training community members would strengthen disaster response and recovery efforts only if affected communities are adequately supported. Trouble can arise, however, when these efforts rely too heavily on community members to fill the gaps in lieu of their official counterparts.

Another troubling issue is the failure to act on previous disaster inquiry recommendations, which points to the challenges of implementing the current recommendations. A 2021 NSW Audit Office report said:

“Two-thirds of proposed recommendations in past inquiries could not be verified as being implemented as intended, and in line with the outcomes sought. The audit also found that agencies did not always nominate milestone dates or priority rankings for accepted recommendations, and so could not demonstrate if they were managing or monitoring them effectively.”

These findings are probably the result of a few challenges, including short political cycles, the heavy burden already placed on emergency officials and the struggle to build on their past learnings when implementing previous inquiry recommendations.

Also telling is the frequent restructuring of agencies evident in the changes from the Office of Emergency Management to Resilience NSW to Recovery NSW, with a new NSW Reconstruction Authority to become the lead agency.

The inquiry was critical of the responses by Resilience NSW and the NSW SES to the floods. Its report identified confusion about roles, poor communication and a lack of co-ordination and resources as contributing factors.

This raises questions about whether they have the capacity to properly train communities. Training programs would require agencies to take on extra responsibilities during and after disaster events.

Read more:
Governments love to talk about ‘shared responsibility’ in a disaster – but does anyone know what it means?

Many questions remain

Many questions of responsibility and liability remain to be answered. Issues include:

• How will the responsibilities of the formal and informal volunteers be distinguished?

• Who will be liable if a community responder is injured while assisting others?

• Who will be responsible for ensuring any equipment provided via community-based grant programs is maintained?

• In what capacity may these programs indirectly encourage community members to stay behind in a disaster-affected area, which could put them in harm’s way?

To increase the prospects of success, training programs should build upon any existing community-organised strategies and approaches. And they should be co-designed with those community members, including Indigenous communities, who are most knowledgeable and active in disaster risk management.

Mittul Vahanvati is working with Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal.

Erica Kuligowski 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. ‘Tinnie army’ leads to NSW flood inquiry call to train community members as first responders. How will that work? – https://theconversation.com/tinnie-army-leads-to-nsw-flood-inquiry-call-to-train-community-members-as-first-responders-how-will-that-work-188900

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne O’Mara, Associate Professor in Education, Deakin University

My phone pings and it’s a message from my brother. Do we have an old white dress my niece could borrow for a Book Week costume for school?

Book Week is upon us once again and all around Australia, family WhatsApp groups are lighting up with similar requests from parents and carers of primary school aged children.

Mothers are staring at cardboard boxes wondering how they can help their child transform into a rainbow fish. Fathers are corralling children down the aisles of Spotlight trying to find the costume section. Carers are asking children about how they want to dress for the Book Week parade, and what’s needed to complete the look.

In the scramble for costumes, which can add to the work of already stressed parents and carers, the point of Book Week – for kids to fall in love with reading – can get lost.

In fact, a vast body of research evidence shows what’s crucial to building a love of reading is allowing children the time and freedom to read what interests them.

Dressing up as a fictional character does have benefits

I’m not saying the Book Week costume is pointless; dressing up as your favourite book character is a great way to celebrate reading, particularly when all students and teachers take part.

In Australia – where most school students wear uniforms – every school day out of uniform has a sense of celebration.

Some children will use their Book Week costume to play around with the fictional character and interact in role.

A child I know revelled in dressing up as Professor Snape from Harry Potter and playfully patrolled the playground in character. He was pursued by a gang of younger Potter fans with their house colours on, yelling out to him in role and giggling when he responded gruffly as Snape.

These children were playing but they were also learning; it was an opportunity to improvise scenes based on a novel they loved to read, and to celebrate this reading across the school.

“Snape” himself had read the novels when he was younger; his love of the text and pleasures of the fictional world spurred him on to read a much more difficult text than he normally would at that age.

What really matters is not the costume, but falling in love with reading

Extensive research shows reading for pleasure improves young people’s overall reading skills, as well as test outcomes.

Creating a culture of reading in school can help children fall in love with reading, where children read books they choose themselves for their own pleasure.

Some schools provide a time and place for silent reading as part of the school day, but sadly this is not always the case.

Providing time for sustained, self-selected reading is important, as many children do not read for pleasure outside school time.

Finding a book they love, with help from another child, a teacher, or librarian, can help a child to develop the habit of reading.

So what would work to help my child fall in love with reading?

Encourage your child’s reading of fiction and let them choose books for themselves.

Facilitate trips to the library if you can, and spend time with them selecting what interests them.

Don’t judge your kids on what they love, and don’t force your kids to read what you deem a “worthy” book.

Too often kids experience what author and teacher Kelly Gallagher calls “readicide”: the “systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices of schools”.

It’s possible to commit readicide in the home if it becomes a forced, systematic chore where your child has no choice over what they are reading.

So, rather than judging, enjoy their pleasures and invite them to share their books with you.

Share your own reading with them, and make it visible to them.

I read novels on my phone, which I love, as I can read in bed with the light off. But it’s not as obvious when I am reading fiction as it would be if I was reading a printed book – so I try to bring up my reading in my conversations with my children.

It’s a small action, but anything you can to do help establish a culture of reading in the family helps establish reading for pleasure as a normalised behaviour.

So this Book Week, don’t stress about the costume, and don’t worry about what the other mums or dads are sewing or buying.

Just let your kid read what they want and enjoy it together.

Joanne O’Mara receives funding from The Australian Research Council and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is a member of the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English Council.

– ref. Book Week: it’s not the costume that matters, but falling in love with reading – https://theconversation.com/book-week-its-not-the-costume-that-matters-but-falling-in-love-with-reading-188748